Name:Kase Turkel

Age: 30

Societal Role: Scrapper

Skills:
Kase has been in the lowest sector of -insert name of city here- for all her days, surviving the street urchin stage of life and picking up the typical trade skills that come with it. A little pick-pocketing here, a little scuffling there, and fast-talking - or running - when the moment called for it. When she wasn't running the slums with a wild pack of kids, she spent time tinkering around in her absent uncle's abandoned and nearly derelict shop. That led her to join the scrappers, venturing outside the city in hopes of finding treasures of the lost civilization that was in the ruins all around. Smuggler isn't necessarily the word she'd use since technically the parts she sneaks in are for her own endeavors...

Connections

• Kren - younger brother, alive
• Ajax - mentor, deceased
• Marnie - aunt, alive
• Klem - uncle, missing
• Marcie - mother, unknown
• Dran - father, alive (?) - imprisoned

Bio:
Kace comes from a broken home in more ways than one. Her father was an abusive drunk, and her mother was complicit to their fearful life. Kace found herself covering for both her mother and younger brother the older and braver she got. She made friends with one of their neighbors in an adjoining unit in their slum complex, an older man named Ajax that had taken a liking to her spunk. He kept Kace and Kren when things had gotten bad, taught them some basic life skills like cooking and tinkering, and fighting in Kace's case. Kren was too young at the time.

The first time Kace retaliated physically against her father's blows, Dran beat her black and blue. Ajax went to confront him, and the wound he was left with festered due to lack of medical advancement in their sector. When he died, Kace let her rage spike. Her father landed in prison for the explosion that took out a decent chunk of their complex, and with their mother missing the kids were packed off to live with the closest living relative in another sector - their mother's twin, Aunt Marnie.

Her husband, Uncle Klem, went out for a game of cards with the boys and never came home one night shortly after they moved in. He hadn't been so great and wasn't happy about having them there, so Kace was glad he was gone. Plus, she could hang around his shop all she wanted now.

The glamorous life of street running and grease-monkeying was cut shorter than planned though. Once school was over, she needed to find a way to help out with their living situation. Without their uncle, things were tight and school had provided two meals for her. Pandering or selling herself wasn't her style, so she used the skills Ajax had instilled and stuck with the gears and parts by way of joining up with the scrappers. They made plenty of credits - at least, more than most respectable jobs she could pull. Likely because it was dangerous as hell, leaving the protection of the Artifact.

The Outside was shocking - to say the least. She thought the slums were run down, if that's saying anything. Desert and skeletons of the city of the ancestors was ripe for the picking though. And her rag-tag squadmates and her weren't the only thing out there, she learned. The piece they were each given wasn't for show, but she kept those horrors quiet or it was her life. Hope and fear wasn't something slummies were allowed to have a hand in dictating.

Things were okay enough until her aunt came down with a bone disease that left her unable to work. At the same time, her brother was showing such academic progress that the two decided Kren was to stay in school no matter what. So, Kace put in for the extra ration raffles. And, that was how her name was selected.

Name: Bayar "Birch" Burcak

Age: Bayar thinks he is 36 years old. He is not completely sure.

Societal Role: Until recently, none (Convict.) However, in light of the recent 'troubles,' he has suddenly become somewhat useful. He has - thus far - made five successful runs into the Outerdark, the longest being a little longer than three months.

Skills: What made Burcak different from most of the other repeat offender, lifelong convicts was his initiative inside. Over the course of seventeen years' incarceration spread over five convictions, he has taken full advantage of any of the (infrequent, meagre) programs offered to better himself. Thus far, he has been taught readin' and writin', metal fabrication, welding, small engine repair, 'lectronics, water treatment, sewin' and weaving, a little bit of history, woodworkin'... not to mention pouring over any book he could get his hands on, 'specially anything to do with the before. Prison provides for a lot of time. Time to reflect, time to make trouble, time to do a bunch of pull-ups. Time to make friends, or enemies. Birch made time for all of the above.

Bio: They don't really have a word for what Burcak is. He once heard someone call him an 'illegal.' Way he figures, that's about as close as anyone ever said. Burcak was born in the Outerdark. But every person who ever mattered in the Artifact, denies this as a possibility. Thing is, they've never been able to determine how he doesn't wear the Mark. Everyone has the Mark. Not Burcak. It doesn't help that he can't remember much from Outside, from home. He knows he was small when he came in, from out of the Dark. But whatever he is -- it has been a problem to anyone of authority ever since he could remember. School, work, lodging... all was ultimately barred to him for some reason or another. There had been others like him that he'd heard of, over the years. But none of them lasted. If they had, it would be an affront to the Elders, who maintain there is no way in, or out of the Artifact. Most disappeared. But Burcak had remained. Usually just long enough to get into some sort of trouble, by his own hand or via circumstance and his priors. For a time, he tried to convince himself that his past didn't exist. That he had been wrong. But with the recent 'troubles,' They came to Him. First time ever.