Character SheetCharacter Name: Shona Bell
Age: 22
Species: Bat
Appearance: As is typical for Arvarans of her species, Shona is short in stature and light in build, standing at 5’ 1’’. Her fur is dark gray, with darker hair kept at a tidy chin-length. Her eyes are amber in color, and a pair of large, sensitive ears tops her head. Small skin flaps run between her fingers and down her arms and sides – vestigial wing membranes, entirely useless for flight. Her eyes are quite sensitive to light, which tends to be a double-edged sword. While she has excellent low-light vision, bright light leaves her with headaches, forcing her to wear sunglasses when venturing out during the middle of the day.
Personality: Dedicated and patriotic, Shona is generally friendly and cheerful, almost bubbly in demeanor. She has a knack for multi-tasking, quick thinking and an analytical, inquisitive mind. However, she has a tendency to occasionally lock up and over-think in stressful situations, running possible scenarios through her head when she should be reacting.
This is largely an issue of experience, or lack of it - due to the circumstances of her deployment, she has logged many hours in a GEAR, but has spent little of them in direct combat. Painfully aware of this shortcoming, and driven by a substantial stubborn streak, she takes her job very seriously. She often studies tactical breakdowns in her down time, and spends far more than her mandated time in the GEAR simulators, trying to hone her instincts and skills.
Personal History: Shona was born into a well-of military family in central Landren. Her father is was GEAR pilot, and she grew to idolize him despite his frequent absences. When she was 19, she enrolled in the Landren military, opting to go straight into the GEAR corps. During training she took extra courses in mechanical engineering and GEAR design – if she was going to drive a GEAR, she thought, she may as well know how it works. She soon found she had a natural aptitude for the subject, and qualified with flying colours.
After her graduation, her first tour was mostly uneventful, patrolling a quiet stretch of the border with the Southern Block. Unfortunately, towards the end of the deployment her unit was called in to investigate the discovery of an old minefield, dating back to Landren’s civil war. The field extended slightly farther than the record supplied by HQ, and the mech on point triggered one of the devices – Shona’s GEAR. The bat survived the blast and ejected from her crippled machine with only light wounds and landed clear of the minefield. However, the mine had done more than just cripple her GEAR, and a secondary explosion destroyed the entire machine in a freak chain reaction.
Reassigned to a central military base for medical treatment and debriefing, Shona found herself without a GEAR to pilot. A replacement machine had been promised, but was apparently tied up in enough red tape to sink a landcruiser. Pushing the issue with the requisition officer did nothing to speed things up, to the point where she suspected that she had ended up in someone’s bad books by destroying her first unit so spectacularly.
Restless, embarrassed, and desperate to do something meaningful with her time, Shona offered the base’s resident technicians a hand with their work. This brought her to the attention of Dr Ethan Feldridge, head of the base’s resident R&D team. Realizing her qualifications in mechanical engineering, analytical nature and above-average piloting grades, Dr Feldridge offered Shona a place as a test pilot for the project’s experimental GEAR designs. The grateful bat eagerly accepted. After a few weeks, the professor requested her be officially assigned to the project full-time.
Shona worked for Dr Feldridge for 7 months, during which time she helped test a variety of new GEAR systems and weapons. This came to an end, however, when she finally received the order she had been waiting for. A new GEAR, fresh off the production line, and a new unit – the 101st Roughriders. While both she and Dr Feldridge suspected she was only being transferred to cover the ass of someone up the command chain, the bat didn’t care – she was finally going to get the chance serve her country on the front lines.
Personal Weapons and Equipment: Standard-issue sidearm pistol
Emergency PDW
Standard field survival kit
Anti-glare sunglasses
Compact digital camera (She is an amateur photographer)
Favourite Colour: Orange
Mecha SheetGear Name & Serial Number: MR-M-7 Rapier
Appearance: 
Role: Multi-role (Reconnaissance speciality)
Normal Loadout: Hand-held long-barrelled autocannon – essentially a designated marksman’s rifle based on the standard GEAR assault rifle design. Includes an advanced optics package, integrated into the top of the barrel and the right shoulder.
Left-shoulder mounted missile pod.
High-calibre defensive pistol, stored on left thigh
Head-mounted Anti-infantry machineguns
Melee weapon – GEAR-scale hatchet, stored in the small of the GEAR’s back
Other Systems & Equipment:Cutting-edge L/OS and targeting sensors, allowing for faster firing solutions.
Other notes: Based on a heavily modified Harlock chassis, the Rapier is one of the contenders to replace the aging GEAR as the LDF’s primary front-line machine. While not advanced enough to be a true next-generation GEAR, it incorporates a wide range of technological advances into one package, enough to be considered a separate model. It is capable of performing a variety of battlefield roles – fast and light enough to make for an excellent recon GEAR and capable of mounting heavier weapons and armour to fit a fire-support or front-line role. However, it’s not durable enough to duke it out with the real heavy front-line GEARS.
Shona’s Rapier is fresh off the production line, with no custom markings or battle-scars.
