[OOC] Mass Effect: Underworld

[Sundered Echo]

Mass Effect: Underworld

“In other news, the Council has recently denied reports of a Prothean artifact being discovered in the Terminus systems, calling them ‘rumours spread by attention seeking treasure hunters.’ Recent actions by major organisations in the Terminus suggest otherwise - this reporter thinks the Artifact is very real, and the council doesn’t want us to have it. To all the organisations out there hunting the artifact, good for you. Its about time the council shared their toys with the rest of us.
I’m Toruk, and this is Omega News.”

Where there is free civilisation there is crime, and where there is crime, someone will step above the rank and file to organise it. The year 2178CE is no different to any other in this regard, and despite recent setbacks for many of the less organised, for the more powerful groups its business as usual. The galaxy seems to be at peace for now, with no major conflicts brewing, and that is good for business, whatever the business may be.

Only one unusual event is causing ripples among these circles right now. There are rumours circulating across the galaxy that a Prothean artifact of unprecedented power has been located on a remote world in the Terminus systems by a tiny mining corporation no-one had heard of until now. Any Prothean artifact has the potential to advance civilisation by hundreds of years, and that places these artifacts among the most valuable items known to any race, if not the most valuable. Normally they are snapped up by the Council as soon as they are found, but in this case a rare opportunity has arisen - the Artifact’s precise location is unknown and it is deep within the lawless Terminus systems. The Council has been unable to retrieve it so far, and whoever does manage this feat stands to make a fortune large enough to buy a small planet with, as well as earn instant fame across the galaxy.

Needless to say, few are in as good a position to embark on such a risky endeavour as the lawless princes of the underworld that already call space such as the Terminus and Attican Traverse their home, and have hordes of loyal minions to do their bidding. Of course, the original finder of the artifact is still around, and probably already planning out his retirement as he prepares to transport the artifact to the Council. Action will need to be swift and decisive for any crime lord-turned artifact hunter to have a chance at the biggest score in recent history. Not only this, but every other organisation out there is also gunning for the artifact and the Council isn’t going to just stand back and wait for less-than-trustworthy organisations to bring it to them. The only good thing in the whole mess is that the truly mighty power blocs like Aria and the Shadow Broker have decided not to get involved with such a risky and volatile situation. They already have power, influence and a fortune and risking it all to get more just isn’t their style, especially not with the many other concerns that plague them.

Even those organisations that aren’t planning to get involved with the artifact hunt stand to gain from the whole situation. While others scramble for the artifact, they can consolidate and expand their power and influence.

Across the galaxy, boardrooms, bars, HQs and hideouts are ringing with the sound of the some of the more brilliant and power hungry beings plotting how best to profit from the situation. One thing is certain. There will be profit.



Everyone has heard of Aria, Cerberus, The Shadow Broker, Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack, but the galaxy is a big place, and not even these giants can hope to be everywhere at once. A great many other groups of people band together and form organisations and networks to make their lives on the wrong side of the law easier. Most of these organisations don’t last the year before being torn down, either by outside influence or from within, but a few make it and become real players on the wide and varied field of organised crime. This RP is about those organisations. They can range from highly illegal drug cartels, to organised smuggling rings, to research firms that leave ethics at the door, to information brokers, or even a simple and mostly legal mercenary organisation. This RP presents a playground for the criminal masterminds of every stripe, and while the law is around I encourage you the player to be imaginative and go mad with power. If controlling shadow empires beyond the law and competing with your fellows for petty reasons is your thing, this is the RP for you.

This RP takes place five years before the events of Mass Effect 1, in the same continuity as its spiritual predecessor Mass Effect: Nova. Events that happened in Nova happened in the history of Underworld, and though they have very little bearing on the RP, they may occasionally be referenced. Please take into account the time the RP is set in, the Geth, Collectors and Reapers aren’t around right now, Thermal Clips haven’t been invented and a variety of other things are yet to occur.

The game is run by me, the GM (Sundered Echo). Players control their organisations in the entirety, but control ends there. A main plot will exist that I will control, though it is usually up to you how much your organisation gets involved in it. Ally or fight with each other, plot and scheme and generally indulge in intrigue. The world is a living one and will react to your actions, so don’t be afraid to be imaginative and varied in your interactions. The game is as much about exploration of the Mass Effect setting as it is about my plot, and people are encouraged to interact with no regard to the plot whatsoever.

The rules and standards.
1. While a considerable amount of pettiness is to be expected from the kind of characters in this game, it is to remain in character. We’re all friends in the OOC, and I will not tolerate petty disagreements and fighting for any reason. I am the final arbiter in disputes, and anyone that disagrees will get a visit by a Spectre whose sole purpose will be to ruin your leaders (final) day.

2. I will not tolerate Mary Sue Cerberus agents, Spectres, organisations that make no sense or act incredibly out of character for the sake of power. Organisations that magically acquire far more assets than they realistically could are also not tolerated, and those whose characters are ‘secretly’ working for some other force (like Cerberus or the Council) without informing me well beforehand are also not tolerated. Such characters or organisations will be promptly introduced to Saren.

3. This is an RP, not a strategy simulator. The purpose is not to ‘win the game.’ Organisations made for the sole purpose of wiping out every other organisation will not be accepted. While a certain degree of conflict is expected, remember that we are all here to have fun, and being stomped into the ground is very rarely a person's definition of fun. If I feel it necessary, I will demonstrate the old saying ‘There is always a bigger robotic space cuttlefish’ to you.

4. Technology is currently at pre-Mass Effect 1 levels. While this has little bearing on the larger scale, references to Thermal Clips or guns that are as yet not invented are highly frowned upon and while not quite a Spectre worthy offense, still should not be done. If you don’t know whether something is acceptable, ask. I and the other players can probably tell you.

5. It is very possible that organisations will be destroyed and leaders killed in the course of the game. While I will not likely carry out such destructions myself, the other players organisations are quite capable of such, especially when allied together.

6. I expect posts to be two good paragraphs at least. While I don’t require huge posts every time, single paragraph speedposts are frowned upon heavily. Don’t do them.

7. Real Life comes first. I understand this, and if you feel the need to take a leave of absence that is totally alright. However, and I cannot emphasise this enough, please tell me that you are doing so. It only takes logging on for 60 seconds and writing a very short post saying you won’t be around for a while because of real life to tell me this. That minute of your time will save me and fellow players hours of worrying should you disappear. That being said, anyone who disappears without a trace for two weeks straight will have their organisation torn apart by Spectres, as I will assume you are gone for good.

8. If someone hasn’t posted for a while and they’re holding everything up after a few days, don’t worry about posting order. It’s going to be a loose order as it is; just give everyone a chance to reply before you go ahead. An exception to this rule is if your characters are in a conversation that doesn’t affect anyone else, which I do ask you refrain from speed posting and consider a collab.

So how will it all work?

Some nation RPs require you to keep a massive spreadsheets worth of notes and numbers to keep your empire in line. While you are welcome to make a spreadsheet for this, I have tried to keep things simple to avoid that being a necessity. That being said, there are a number of considerations to take into account.

Combat:
The all important act of murdering your rivals will be carried out as normal PVP. That is to say, there will not be a numerical system to determine the winner, rather it is based on the collaboration of two players. This is to encourage combat in a less coldly logical and more random and personal way. On the other hand, if I find out that players are not respecting each other in battle situations, I will step in and determine the outcome myself. The rules are much like those of the arena. No auto-hitting, you describe your attack, the opponent describes how they react to it.

Some players may prefer it if I judge the outcome of a fight regardless. This is fine, simply say so and I shall step in to determine the outcome of a battle, though my judgement will always be final.

Resources:
That is to say, Credits. No precise number of credits will exist, due in no small part to my not wanting to play Galactic economy simulator. Each player should keep a general idea of their income at any given time and act accordingly, acquiring assets that could believably be acquired. From time to time, I may post results of events that will change the income of some or all organisations. It is important these are taken into consideration. If you feel your organisation hasn’t been doing well, you are welcome to lower your income, but it can only be raised by me. If you believe you’ve been doing well financially and I haven’t acknowledged it, ask me to give you a raise. I might not go along with it, but if the reasons are sound I probably will.

Material assets such as starships and facilities do have precise numbers attached, and it is up to you to keep track of losses and gains. If I notice numbers are not being kept up to date, I will be unhappy.

There is no rigid turn structure, so it is possible to buy up quite a lot of assets very quickly, but before you start making plans to buy an armada, keep in mind that if I think you’re spending more than your organisation can manage there will be effects, most likely reduction in finance but potentially other interesting things too.

Mercenaries and You:
While some Organisations have adequate fighting forces of their own or are indeed based around a fighting force, many less combative Organisations may have only a token fighting force of their own. In such cases these Organisations will often turn to the major Merc Groups of the Terminus Systems for aid: Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse. While expensive, this option provides an Organisation with an instant and powerful fighting force. However, there are a number of drawbacks to this.

If your Organisation uses mercenary forces, you are limited to giving them their mission objectives, they will choose how to accomplish the task. Mercenary groups will not fight enemy forces containing their own personnel e.g. - Eclipse will not battle against an enemy with other Eclipse under their command. Eclipse would gladly fight Blue Suns or Blood Pack though.

If a mission you assign Mercenary forces to fails and the Merc forces are destroyed, you will be at risk of losing the contract with the Mercenaries. They may forgive one loss, but repeated losses will certainly drive them away.

If one of these groups decides they can gain more from the mission by cutting you out of it, they probably will. Sending them to directly take the Artifact is asking for trouble!

Information Broker:
Organisations with this specialty will, from time to time, receive intel about rival player controlled Organisations, among other things. The nature and extent of the intel will vary, and will always be determined by me, the GM. Information Brokers that use their Organisation in a particularly overt manner will likely receive less intel drops as contacts are spooked by the breaking of the Status Quo.

On Nation Sheets:
The Organisation sheet presented here has been written to attempt to fit as wide a range of possible Organisations and structures as possible, but I am aware of the fact that it may not fit all possibilities. If you have an idea for an Organisation that does not fit this sheet, feel free to disregard part or all of it. Do let me know beforehand if you take this route though.

Organisation CS:

Organisation Name: All organisations have names or at least designations of some sort.

Organisation Leader: The leader of your organisation. The man or woman at the top, the head honcho, the boss, the one who calls the shots, etc.

Important Figures: Aside from the leader, who are the important people in your Organisation?

Organisation Specialisation: Your organisation, even if they dabble in many activities, will have one or two things they focus on. These are generally either the things most important to the leader or the things that generate the most power/influence for your Organisation.

Organisation Type: This does not apply to all organisations, however for some it can be easier to state the type rather than going into depth about specialisation. Examples include but are not limited too: Mercenary Company, Information Brokerage Agency, Smugglers Coalition, Illegal Research Group, Terrorist Group and Drug Cartel.

Organisation Income Source: The Galaxy runs on Credits, you’re no exception. Where does the Organisations money come from?

Legality: If the council were to appraise your organisation, would they consider you to operate an extremely illegal operation breaking numerous laws or would they consider you to be barely skirting the laws and otherwise fairly good citizens? Most will likely be somewhere between these extremes.

Organisation Base: The location your Organisation uses as its primary headquarters. Give a brief description of the location and structures the Organisation uses as its base of operations. If your Headquarters is mobile or decentralised, please state this here and give a brief description of how this is accomplished.

Organisation Assets: List all major assets your organisation possesses. This includes Starships facilities, territory and major contacts

Organisation Relations: What are your relations with the other player Organisations? This should be discussed with the player who the Organisation belongs to, and can be anything from working partnership to worst enemies or somewhere in between. Perhaps you don’t even know their name.

Organisation History: A brief history of your organisation.

Character Sheet for important members of the Organisation:

Name: This should be obvious. If you are Hanar, please list both face and soul names.

Race: All Mass Effect races are allowed excluding Geth, Raloi and Yahg. Elcor, Volus and Hanar characters will be subject to extra GM scrutiny. These are not joke races and your character is not a joke.

Gender: This should also be obvious. Asari are mono-gendered.

Age: In Earth years, because Earth years are easy to use as the standard. Please make this race appropriate. If you wish, you may also list your characters age in Council standard years and/or the years of their homeworld.

Position: What position do they hold in the organisation?

Appearance: What your character looks like. Images or a written description are both acceptable, but please no anime pictures. I cannot take a crimelord seriously if he has gigantic eyes and stick arms.

Background: A brief background for your character. This should include how they attained their position in the organisation. Leaders must have a bio, but other characters may skip this part of the bio if they choose to.

Positive Traits: The skills and good attributes of your character, and any combat abilities the character possesses should also be listed here.

Negative Traits: What flaws does your character have? Everyone has flaws, and criminal leaders are no exception, in fact they are likely to be extreme examples.

[Sundered Echo]

Accepted Organisations:

Halios Consortium - Dervish
Riptide - Mosis Tosis
Zhar & Sen Shipping - Sundered Echo
The Red Phoenix - Rare
The Legion - Rtron

The Lost:
Pepperm1nts Organisation
Bretin's Raiders - data549
Golden City Particulars - Gowia
Helix Trading Co. - MrFoxNews
The Lonely Spacer - Sep

[Sep]

First.

[GreivousKhan]

Sep said
First.

Nope...

[Rare]

Organisation Name
The Red Phoenix, based on the human's mythology understanding of the Phoenix.

Organisation Leader and Co-Leaders
The leader of the Red Phoenix is Druslius Sulidonis, a Turian.

Important Figure
The important figure, that make up The Red Phoenix are: Khunar Strurm, a Krogan.

Organisation Specialisation
Druslius likes to focus on the mercenary contacts, because they can make some serious money and they can help gain power and influence from The Red Phoenix. Strurm, controls the drug cartel, and will take control of the Red Phoenix when Druslius dies.

Organisation Type
The Red Phoenix is a mercenary company and a drug cartel. It is mostly a mercenary company, accepting contacts that has the highest bid, assassinating important people, protecting important people, and many other things that a mercenary company does. Yet, there is some drugs to be sell as well, selling red sand, eximo, hallex, and many other popular drugs.

Organisation Income Source
Most of the Red Phoenix's income comes for the mercenary company and drug cartel part of the organisation. Yet some come from the following things: bars, businesses, districts, nightclubs, and their bases. Most of their income comes for Omega, due to their main base being so close to it and that they can keep in check their sources of income within Omega. In Omega alone, there is six bars, three nightclubs, five districts, twenty businesses, and seven drug labs (which is all of their drug labs); while in the Citadel, there is two bars, one nightclub, and eight businesses. And in Nos Astra, The Red Phoenix controls four bars, two nightclubs, three districts, and ten businesses.

Legality
The council would consider The Red Phoenix to be both a legal and illegal operation, because of the drug cartel. But they aren't ban for Citadel Space, because of the mercenary company (which is legal to run).

Organisation Base
The Red Phoenix's primary headquarters is located at one of the busiest districts in Omega. The base is just mainly a couple of houses, mash-up together and given the feel of a gang base. There is communication between individual ships and crew members within the gang's main base, where they keep tabs with each member of The Red Phoenix. And next to the base, is a space hangar, where only small ships (transports, fighters, etc.) can enter and get repair, that's if they're in The Red Phoenix. The base can be use as a pit stop or a safe house, if they're trouble with the law.

Organisation Assets
In Omega, there is six bars, three nightclubs, five districts, twenty businesses, and seven drug labs (which is all of their drug labs); while in the Citadel, there is two bars, one nightclub, one district, and eight businesses. And in Nos Astra, The Red Phoenix controls four bars, two nightclubs, three districts, and ten businesses. The Red Phoenix has a total of seventy-one starships: twenty fighters for various manufacturing origins (Humans), eighteen shuttles (Humans), two large freighters (Turians), five small freighters (Asari), three middle freighters (Asari), twenty interceptors (Turian, Asari, and, Salarian) and three frigates (Turian).

They own three independent fueling stations (in the Omega Nebula, the Eagle Nebula, and the Maroon Sea). The current numbers of members within the are mercenary company are in the eighteen hundreds. Most are soldiers, but some are snipers and biotics, and to make such that boitics are useful during a firefight, they're given red sand (that's if they need it). The Red Phoenix has insider contacts with several larger corporations, including several weapons manufacturers, amour manufacturers, and defense contracters. They also have a relatively robust client base that continues to grow each day with each contact completed and finished. They also own a safehouse within Nos Astra, as in case of any gang members, that capture the main base. But for now, it's used as a hideout for the law in Nos Astra and pit stop for any gang members that just done a mission or are doing one.

The safehouse is just a penthouse on the top floor of a luxurious hotel with a land pad for shuttles.

Organisation Relations
What are your relations with the other player Organisations? This should be discussed with the player who the Organisation belongs to, and can be anything from working partnership to worst enemies or somewhere in between. Perhaps you don’t even know their name.

Organisation History
The Red Phoenix was founded and is currently lead by Druslius Sulidonis, a retired Turian NCO of the Turian Military. He founded The Red Phoenix after he was retired for the Military and moved to Omega with his newly organization. He set up his organization within a district on a house, which would still be his base to this day, and started out as a mercenary company. He accepted contacts, which were in the best interest for his organization, and at first did it his self until he met Khunar Strurm, a korgan that was in the Blood Pack until he left them for something more excitedly for him. When Strurm found out about The Red Phoenix, he decided to join and wanted to meet with the leader.

He walked into the base and saw the Turian, at first he wanted to leave, but something held him. It‘s unknown why he stayed, but he did; even Druslius doesn't know why he stayed to this day. He and Strurm went all over Omega in hopes of people, joining their organization. But, only a hand full of Korgans and Turians joined the organization, due to Strurm's shotgun at their faces; most were found dead, some joined the organization. Yet, Druslius wouldn’t give up and gave the contacts to his new members to do in hopes of generate credits. It was a some what succeeds, it was not enough credits, but it did help buy their first bar on Omega.

Then during one of Druslius' contacts, he was going to have to kill a member of The Blood Pack. It was a big risk, but he took it, because of the credits. He had his sniper with his as he saw the Turian and aimed it at his head and pull the trigger as he saw the guy's head, being hit by the bullet, with a big hole on its side. He was dead and Druslius got the credits for the kill, he through that it was just a job, but it went in a different direction.

The following next day, he got a message for an unknown source that said The Blood Pack declared war on The Red Phoenix. They must of find out that he fired the gun as there were people that saw him, firing his sniper. It was him, Strurm, and the other members verse the Blood Pack; even Druslius through that it was a such death sentence for him organization. But, they won the war between the Blood Pack, somehow. Some could say that the Red Phoenix won due to the fact, that the Blood Pack attacked their main stronghold, or others could say it was due to Druslius and Strurm, working as a team.

But, they beat the Blood Pack back, yet they could attack the Red Phoenix again soon. After the war was over, people began to join the Red Phoenix; due to the fact, that have beaten the Blood Pack. Even Aria was impressed by the Red Phoenix’s actions, but forgot about them (after all she is Aria). Floors of members meant that they were making more credits than they ever did before. It was enough credits to buy him his first bar, and it caused Druslius to buy nightclubs, businesses, more bars, and even some starships.

But, everything costs credits, and they were running low on it; due to, other organizations grabbing the good ones. Then Strurm got a good idea, join the drug business and make tons of credits. At first, Druslius decline the idea; after all he was in the Turian Military. But, once more contacts were taken, he agreed and allowed Strurm to make some drugs. After the first drugs were sold and Druslius saw the results of it, he let Strurm control it (after all Druslius still owned him for the war with the Blood Pack).

---

Druslius Sulidonis' Data



Name
Druslius Sulidonis.

Race
Turian.

Gender
Male.

Age
Forty-five years old.

Position
Leader of the Red Phoenix.

Background
Being born to a military family is always hard, because the father is out in the military while the mother takes cares of her children. That’s what Druslius learned when he was born into one; his father was focused on getting his boys onto the military, while his mother cared for them when they needed something. In his childhood, he was learned about the Turian military and their actions during the Krogan Rebellion and how it was ‘the best thing that happened to the Turian military’. Either known it stabled the Krogans forever, Druslius hated most things about the Turian military’s history.

Yet, he still had to joined when he reached eighteen (it was a requirement for any Turian to join the military no matter what). He began training as a sniper, which impressed most Turians that were already in the military. He trained for six years, learning everything from aiming a gun to finding the best cover to go to. Druslius also studied the Turian, Asari, and Krogan military as he wanted to reach the rank of NCO. He through that he would of just study and training most of his life until the Relay 314 Incident happened. At first, Druslius didn’t know what was going, other than that the Turian Military attacked someone for trying to reactivate an inactive mass relay, called Relay 314. He was ready to put his sniping skills and training to the test, but then a month later, peace happened between the both sides by the Council. He then learned what really happened and who the others were, which they were called Humans.

Druslius did some digging into their history, and he fell in love with their history. From the Ancient Times to the Modern Era, he realized that humanity had something similar to the Turians: they never give up. A great example would be, the Human’s Second World War, when a powerful focus would destroy their world, they never gave up and they soon won. He kept studying human history and the other race’s histories until he was a NCO. At the age of forty-two, he retired for the Turian Military as a NCO, after his mother and father had died. He wasn't using his skills anymore and couldn't stand living in his homeworld anymore. He got on the next shutter to Omega and declared that this was going to be his new home.

He didn't have any credits on him and needed food and a place to stay, so he looked around for anyone that needs help. Druslius got his first contact for an other Turian and got forty credits out of contact. It was just a similar assassination contact, where he used a pistol provided by the Turian and shot the back of his head. It messy and poorly done, but he didn't got caught nor died and got credits out of it. It was enough for a place to stay for a week and food to last him a few days. He then came up with the idea, that if he was going to survive in Omega, he even join a merc group or make his own. Druslius decided that he must make his own, set his own rules and not follow the other merc groups; It was the dawn of the Red Phoenix.

Positive Traits
He pros are: Charismatic, experience in strategy, like things calm, clever, natural leader, good at using a sniper rifle, and friendly.

Negative Traits
His flaws are: Shuts down when things are in chaos, rude, arrogant, questions about loyalty in his men, sucks at using anything else but a sniper rifle, and greedy.

---

Khunar Strurm's Data



Name
Khunar Strurm.

Race
Krogan.

Gender
Male.

Age
Four hundred fifty.

Position
Co-Leader of the Red Phoenix.

Background
His background is unknown to everyone and he would like to keep it like that.

Positive Traits
His pros are: Strong, great at using his shotgun, ruthless, can use his fists to get people talking, can make drugs (that are good), and headbutts hard enough to kill someone.

Negative Traits
His flaws are: Rude, cocky, questions things later or forgets about the questions, naive, gets mad easily, and lazy.

[Sundered Echo]

That was quick responding.

Feel free to have at it folks, I'll be around for the rest of the day to critique and answer questions before I must inevitably sleep...

[DELETED324324]

Goliath Industries

Organisation Name: Goliath Industries (The name of false and front company.)
Organisation Leader: John Brewer

Important Figures: Consevia Acadonis (Turian, Leader of the Mercenary/fake army,former Blackwatch operative)
Miisley D'laor (Asari, Leader in charge of the covert operations force codenamed Graveyard Chill, also an agent in said force.

Organisation Specialisation: To the public they are a private military force that are experts at getting HVT's out of high stress zones as well as just an effective fighting force, on the down low and the illegal scale of the spectrum their covert force Graveyard Chill are masters at assassinations,kidnapping,torture,smuggling and getting information illegally through hacking and other means.
Organisation Type:Private military corporation known to the public but in the underworld they are able to do many, many things.

Organisation Income Source:they mostly profit off of their contracts, but they also make a lot of money in assassinations, and smuggling
Legality: On the surface they are barely even legal, but under the surface if the council found out there would be raids.

Organisation Base: Almarcrux, is the home world of the private military front as well as an training ground for them, But for the illegal arm they operate on Proteus in it's human colony of Ithaka under the Goliath industries logo.

Organisation Assets: 2 frigates and 10 cargo ships that usually travel together as a group the Cargo ships and frigates carry soldiers around but agents of the illegal section of Goliath usually secure their own root by paying off ship captains or hitching a ride or stowing away.

Organisation Relations: N/a

Organisation History: Goliath industries was the brainchild of a Turian by the name of Paetoria Agdas, an former biotic in one of the Turian cabals, when his time came up he couldn't get enough of combat but didn't want to go through military service anymore so he started a private military corporation with two business partners one John Brewer former alliance marine, and one Consevia Acadonis. Both were put in charge of two different groups in the corporation John was in charge of gathering intelligence and getting HVT's out of hot zones Consevia was in charge of ground forces for field battles, but Paetoria's control of the company didn't last long.

Paetoria was doing a good job, but a lot of people weren't happy about him muscling in on their business, other private military corporations were out for blood, there were many assassination attempts but the biotic and his commanders were able to stop all of the attempts. Until Paetoria bought it from a car bomb some said it was an inside job, others said that another company put the hit out and killed him, but what did happen after was a small schism with John Brewer coming out on top and Consevia as his second.

It wasn't long until John changed the way the company was run, hiring an Asari by the name of Miisley D'laor as an assassin and taking a few of the exceptional recruits from the contractors he owned. John had Miisley train them to be the perfect covert operations soldiers he named the group from that day Graveyard Chill and used them for his own gain, eventually he saw more uses for the covert operations group and assigned them more roles and recruited more people to the group establishing what it is today.

John in a few short months had established a new location Proteus hiding among the civilian population of Ithicka and had established Goliath as a power house in both the legal and illegal world.

John Brewer

Name: John Brewer

Race: Human
Gender: Male

Age: 34
Position: CEO of Goliath industries

Appearance: John stands at 6'3 and 170 lbs, he has midnight black hair and blue eyes, he has a long scar on his face from a previous battle

Background: John was born to two alliance military spacers going from station to station since his birth never staying in one place was rough on John but it gave him a chance to learn about the military at a young age and be exposed to it eventually joining the marines when he turned eighteen.

After joining up in 2160 he served for eleven years eventually deciding to leave after Mindoir was attacked by Batarian slavers he barely made it off the planet alive being one of two in his squad who made off the planet alive, John entered a slump for a year until in 2071 he was hired by Paetoria Agdas, a turian who started a private military corporation and hired him on to lead a specialist arm of the group.

John was unhappy with where the company was going, feeling it wasn't getting it's job done he conspired with a few of the other leaders of the company they all agreed that getting rid of Paetoria would benefit the company, and they would all stage a schism with John on top. So John killed Paetoria by setting him up with a car bomb and blowing him sky high, the other leaders staged their schism but instead of keeping them alive, John had Consevia who knew nothing of the plot kill every last one of them so with no voices to speak out against him and no one to stand in his way John switched his focus to growing the company.

John's first goal was to start a specialist group for the underground, after going through his contacts he found an Assassin Miisley D'Laor, using her to train the new covert operatives group code named Graveyard Chill, with that out of the way and his new headquarters being built John was just happy to sit back and wait for people to come to him.
Positive Traits: John is...

• Intelligent


• A leader


• Leads from the front


• A combat specialist (Prefers to use pistols)

Negative Traits: John is...

• A narcissist


• Ruthless


• Manipulative


• And Remorseless

Consevia Acadonis

Name: Consevia Acadonist
Race: Turian

Gender: Male

Age: 43

Position: Second in command of Goliath Industries Private Military

Appearance: stands at 6'8 with Palaven face markings

Background: N/a

Positive Traits: Consevia is...

• Ambitious


• Calculating


• A leader


• Combat assault specialist (Prefers assault rifles)

Negative Traits: Consevia is...

• Emotionless


• Remorseless


• Grandiose

Miisley D

Name: MiIsley D'laor
Race: Asari
Gender:mono-gendered.

Age: 37

Position: Assassin, Leader of covert operations group Graveyard Chill

Appearance: Miisley stands in at 5'8 with light purple skin her ridges look almost like they have been slicked back

Background: N/a
Positive Traits: MiIsley is...

• A seductress


• Intelligent


• Ambitious


• Eager to please


• Infiltration Specialist (Prefers to use sniper rifles.)

Negative Traits: Miisley is/has

• Poor impulsion control


• Cruel


• Lack of empathy


• uninhibited

[Sep]

I plan to go information broker if no-one else does. If not I have alternate ideas.

[Rare]

Avoid this :L

[Sundered Echo]

There are no dibs, in fact I encourage people to take the same types of groups as others if thats what they want to play.

Having two merc groups for example, means direct competiton - no easy clients and prices would have to be kept competitive.

The RP neither requires any particular organisation types nor suffers from having many of the same type, especially as you're not exactly going to be working together....

[Dervish]

Organisation Name: Halios Consortium

Inspiration Illuminates Progress

Organisation Leader: Vartarus Halios, CEO

Important Figures:

Shilo Than, Head Researcher of the ‘Blackout’ Division, volus

Hakim Kalif, Head of Security, human

Forsan Rykarn, Man Hunter, krogan

Organisation Specialisation: Genetic Research and Therapy, Pharmaceuticals, Biological Augmentation and Experimentation.

Organisation Type: Legal Research Firm with undisclosed and classified illegal research and materials acquisitions division.

Organisation Income Source: Sales of illegal technology supplemented by a legitimate front.

Legality: Halios Consortium operates outside of the confines of Citadel Law as it is not a part of Citadel Space, operating a legal front while taking great pains to hide its Blackout division, where Citadel Law is thoroughly discarded in pursuit of cold, often unethical research. While Citadel investigators suspect there is something shady about the Consortium, they have nothing concrete to base their suspicions off of yet, especially since they have no authority on the frigid, remote planet. Generous “Donations” to the Executive Board all but ensure that Halios Consortium is kept free from outside interference.

Organisation Base: Noveria, Peak 37 Research Facility. Head office is maintained in Port Hanshan.

This mountain-based facility has a pair of docks capable of housing two medium-sized cargo freighters each, as well as large garage to house land vehicles making the often treacherous journey across the winding mountain paths. A pair of anti-aircraft batteries are nestled in the cliff-face, and a small battery of anti-vehicle cannons and pillboxes guard the overland approach.

Each of the hangers and the overland garage are each manned by a secure checkpoint, and while it is very seldom for visitors to be received in the facility, those that are permitted access are under the watchful eye of armed guards and state of the art security systems including remotely accessed and magnetically locked doors, biometric scanners, and Smart cameras with access to public databases to verify visitor identification. Additional security is provided by a contingent of 75 light and 8 heavy security mechs, rotating shifts of 120 guards, and many of the scientists and researchers who have achieved “Trusted” status are permitted to carry personal arms in the facility, although few chose to do so.

A total of four research labs make up Halios Consortium’s presence on Peak 37, including the rumoured “Blackout” lab. The three “Front” labs share what amounts to a small town’s worth of amenities, including a housing complex, a movie theater, two restaurants, sports complex, and other amenities which are all often staffed by the researchers’ or guards’ families. What makes the facility unique amongst many others on Noveria is Halios Consortium’s efforts to create the illusion of living on the surface of a much more temperate world. Ceiling-spanning vid screens, much like on the Presidium, show blue skies with changing weather patterns, advanced ventilation systems to simulate fresh air, and a wide assortment of vegetation is brought in and maintained to help combat against the psychological stress of living in a subterranean environment.

Organisation Assets:

6 Medium Freighters, 3 VIP Transports, 2 Business Shuttles, 1 Heavy Freighter with a small, 3 Fighter detachments assigned to Noveria facility.

18 Small Freighters, 14 Medium Freighters, 2 Heavy Freighters with 2 fighter detachments, 4 rented docks on fuel stations in each distribution center system with emergency refueling ships, fully stocked distribution centers with warehouses, on-site labs, customer service departments, and other essentials of a cross-galactic service with armed guards, mechs, and drones for each ship and facility.

Rented docks and distribution centers on Omega, Elysium, Illium, and Khar’shan.

Long-standing relationship with the Eclipse Private Military Contractors, Eclipse is often used as ship escort and personnel protection detail, as well as several off the books “wetwork” assignments.

Contacts in the black market on several worlds.

Note: Each fighter detachment is six fighters.

NOTE: Eclipse can be substituted with a player-based PMC company upon sheet acceptance.

Organisation Relations:

Bretin's Raiders: While strictly off the books, Halios Consortium never-the-less conducts business with the pirate outfit for test specimens in exchange for a "finder's fee" and the occasional sample of Halios Consortium's wares.

Organisation History: A third-generation company founded 83 years ago by Elarius Halios, a turian medical doctor with a strong background in chemistry and shares in promising pharmaceutical companies, Halios Consortium had its humble beginnings in the Palaven capital Cipritine and shortly after on the Citadel in the Wards. Specializing in new medicine, vaccines, and vitamins tailored to the unique biological needs of each species, Elarius Halios’ upstart company grew exponentially thanks to the quiet but very successful presence across several of the galaxy’s medicinal markets. While breakthroughs such as Medigel captured the galaxy’s collective attention, Halios Consortium focused on more specific markets with more stringent treatment requirements.

When it was time to pass the reigns of the company to Tiberian Halios, Elarius’ son, change was already in the air. Tiberian, a reputable geneticist that had published papers in several medical journals going as far back as his time as a field doctor in the Hierarchy’s armed forces, and perhaps inspired by or in spite of his experience with the often risky procedures involved in military medicine, decided to expand Halios Consortium’s scope of interest. Tiberian was not afraid to push the envelope, expanding the company’s scope of research and beginning to hire outside of turian worlds for the best and brightest minds he could attract and a considerable amount of resources were spent in researching the unique biology and genetic sequences in each individual species in the galaxy with the aim of creating specialized treatments and surgeries that were aimed at mending specific ailments at affordable rates. Like a hole in a dam, the funds came in first as a trickle before becoming an unstoppable torrent. Effective, affordable treatments that addressed underfunded and often ignored issues by the galaxy at large were now beginning to fill a niche that had been horrendously under represented. Halios Consortium was fast becoming one of the most recognized brand names in the galactic medical community. It never quite achieved the recognition of the largest corporations like Sirta Foundation, but the company had a very secure foothold and for the first time in the company’s history, Halious Consortium was turning a profit and needed to expand.

When Tiberian’s son Vartarus finished his medical education and training and joined the company, his father soon set him onto what would ultimately prove to be an impossible challenge to develop something that would replace Medigel as the new primary galactic standard for all encompassing cross-species first aid medicine. What followed was and aggressive expansion and branching into biotic amps, prosthesis, and physical augmentation technologies and surgeries. Vartarus’ department soon became the most daring and profitable for Halios Consortium, following a very high risk- high reward model that was successful thanks to the large amount of funding Halios Consortium was capable of providing from the profits of the tried and true ventures.

When it was time for Tiberian to retire, Halios Consortium was signed over to his son and Vartarus became the new chairman and CEO of the company, quickly restructuring the family business into a model that emphasized the established departments while quietly signing his risk-taking department off the books and channeling far more resources into it, effectively making it classified and seldom spoken of within the company. The very same traits that gave Tiberian reason to entrust a new division to Vartarus was exactly what lead the youngest Halios to lift the restrictions of his corporation, relocate the primary center of operations on Noveria, and begin attracting the most brilliant and ruthless minds he could afford, including the brilliant volus biological engineer and geneticist Shiloh Than, the newly appointed head of the “Blackout Division.”

As Halios Consortium grew and began to take on progressively more illegal methods in its aggressive pursuit of research and development, Vartarus Halios took inspiration from an unlikely and very unsettling source; the Collectors. While the enigmatic and fabled race of body traffickers was hardly confirmed to be real, Halios has none-the-less sought them out in interest of trade and has ordered members of his security team to obtain test subjects, ultimately expendable people no one would miss (at least, that’s what Halios tells himself) that are run through a cruel and ruthless line of experimentation and testing for the newest augmentations, therapies, and drugs in Halios Consortium’s lineups. Many do not realize that the last light from Noveria’s star is often the last they’ll see as they disappear under the heavy confines of Peak 37, at the mercy of scientists who see them as little more than lab rats. While the corporation expands, so does their net for victims and trade profits. While galactic authorities are unable to prove Halios Consortium’s illicit activities, or are powerless to legally respond to them, there is a net of suspicion about the corporation, although the rumours have the added side effect of preventing many from inquiring too closely; after all, the galaxy is a very large place where someone could disappear without warning.
And Halios is very good at covering his tracks.

- - -

Leader CS:

Name: Vartarus Halios
Race: Turian

Gender: Male

Age: 57 Earth years, 42 Palaven Years.

Appearance: A distinguished middle-aged man with a pale-grey carapace with a violet facial tattoo, two stripes down the mandibles on either side and three strips vertically down the chin. He sports a pair of sharp orange eyes, a slightly more slender frame than your average turian, and slightly taller than average height, allowing him to tower over most of his contacts. He typically wears expensive white suits with black accents with a gold pin with the Halios Consortium symbol on his right lapel.

Tattoo and carapace tone reference[/hider

Background: A brilliant geneticist born to an influential and rich family of famed scientific background, Vartarus followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and inherited the family corporation after his father retired. While his early family life was unremarkable, his military service saw Vartarus assigned to the medical corps where he became very decorated for his unconventional but effective practices that had saved the life of several casualties of the various turian colony uprisings. After his 15 year conscription term had expired, Vartarus immediately went to work for his father and soon met Myrea Dolarius, his soon to be future wife, at a scientific conference on Palaven. Within five years, the youngest Halios was the proud father of two sons, Marius and Thanos.

While he was always a caring and supportive father, Vartarus’ first love was always to his research, and his loyalty to his family legacy was unyielding. Despite his great advances in the medical sciences, the elusive replacement for Omni-gel his father had charged him with when he began at Halios Consortium had yet to be achieved. It did not take much for Vartarus to begin to authorize much more illicit activities, quickly replacing anyone who did not share his vision with more malleable personalities and ruthless geniuses who were often released from their own companies for differences in ideology, namely the unpopular concept that the Hippocratic Oath and its galactic equivalent were simply holding progress back. Halios Consortium certainly had begun to subscribe to the philosophy of “it is easier to beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission”, and soon begging for forgiveness was no longer a concern. There simply were not enough people aware of what the corporation was really up to that posed a threat.

While his research in the Blackout Division became much more ruthless and cruel, Halios maintained his other departments much as his father had, and he made sure to keep himself visible and accessible to his employees. He strived to be what the ideal employer should be; shrewd, decisive, and respectful. His employees and the researchers under his wing were what drove the company, and as such he made sure that they were well taken care of to not only ensure happiness and productivity, but to also instil a sense of loyalty that let many turn a blind eye to the rumours they heard about in their own company. After all, could a man who lets you take a month off to visit distant family and give you a yearly bonus the same year be the same man who abducted people out of the slums and tortured them to death?

This willful ignorance and excellent work culture in Halios Consortium had played well into ensuring the turian’s family stayed together. He was a devoted husband and father, often taking time away from work to spend what time he could with his family, especially when he knew he was too involved with his work. The substantial profits from the company allowed the Halios family to enjoy an opulent lifestyle, and none in his family wanted for anything. The finest clothing, food, and décor filled their lives, as well as vacations to worlds that most could never dream of affording. His family is largely what drives the turian, although it still pales in comparison to his strive to discover and expand the influence and power of his corporation. When reports came to him about a potential Prothean relic, Halios wasted no time in springing into action. After all, there was no telling what advancements such a relic could promise; it would be the key to realizing his father’s wish, providing the lifestyle his family deserved, and would ensure Halios Consortium would become among the most powerful entities in the galaxy. Knowledge is power, and Vartarus is terribly hungry for both.

Positive Traits:

-Charismatic.

-Intelligent.

-Patient, a plotter.

-Takes great effort to look after the welfare of his employees and their families.

-Judges people based on merit over species, race, or creed.

-Pays heed to his advisors.

-A family man.

-A crack shot with a pistol.

Negative Traits:
-Narcissistic.

-Arrogant.

-Ruthless.

-Has little value for life.

-Prone to mood swings.

-Has been known to approve expensive ideas that have a high failure rate.

-Approves and encourages unethical research practices.

-Excessively opulent lifestyle; materialistic to a fault.

- - -

Important Figures

Name: Doctor Shilo Than

Race: Volus

Gender: Male

Age: 43, 28.6 Irune years

Position: Head Researcher of the Blackout division.

Appearance: While most aliens would be unlikely to notice due to the universal bulkiness of a volus’ protective pressurized suit, Shilo Than is slightly more slender than his counterparts, owing to a lean diet and a slightly longer set of limbs that tend to be hereditary. Like most of the medical and research staff at Peak 37, Dr. Than’s suit is a white on grey colour with red stripes and accents to denote his status as a medical professional.

[/B]Background:[/B] A long-term associate of Mr. Halios, Dr. Than was a travelling professional with the uncanny ability to disappear from public when his medical practices started drawing unwanted attention from the authorities. Always having been fixated on anatomy and of the opinion that a few live subjects can go a long way in creating effective treatments for the rest of his patients’ (and oftentimes victims) species. Having been well connected with the black market for most of his professional life, Dr. Than’s original identity has been long lost to time and he has a history of changing his identity every time he was forced to start a new practice. Vartarus Halios first became aware of Dr. Than on Omega where a reliable source made the volus doctor known. He was an ideal candidate for Halios Consortium’s newly formed Blackout division.

Meticulous and oftentimes impartial, Dr. Than is often thought to be lacking in empathy, but he has been a good friend to Halios and the turian CEO’s family since they met nearly two decades ago. He has something of a dry sense of humour and it often can go unobserved by those who are unfamiliar with the volus. He is a man who is familiar with danger, death, and working on the wrong side of the law, and he is very much accustomed to what the inside of bodies looks like. He is a brilliant scientist and medical practitioner, and despite his isolate and relative safety on Noveria, Dr. Than is known to publish renown medical journals under a pen name and the research grants associated to his alter-ego has helped fund some of his more risky procedures and developments and made the volus fairly wealthy, even if one were to exclude his salary from Halios Consortium and the bonuses that come with his lofty position with the company.

Positive Traits:

-Extremely intelligent, well versed in the fields of biology, chemistry, genetics and physics.

-Street smart.

-Ambitious.

-Meticulous, documents everything.

-Loyal to his friends and company.

-Well-liked in his division.

Negative Traits:

-Ruthless malpractice of medicine.

-Little regard for individual lives.

-While not suffering from OCD, he is very particular with how his laboratories and equipment are laid out to the point of vain irrationality.

-Is technically a wanted man in Council Space.

-Can be so absorbed in his work he neglects his health.

-Can be particular vindictive if he feels he has been slighted.

-Unintentionally omits information when speaking to others, a habit formed over years of having to watch over his shoulder.

- - -

Name: Hakim Kalif

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 31

Position: Chief of Security on Peak 37

Appearance: A ruggedly handsome man of Moroccan descent, Hakim is a physically fit former mercenary who keeps a neatly shaved beard, brushed back black hair, and thoughtful brown eyes. He stands at an imposing 6’04” and thanks to his career as a mercenary and a dedication to dieting and exercise; he is in excellent physical and mental condition. His uniform and armour are always kept in a pristine and presentable state.

Background: An Earthborn man hailing from North Africa, Hakim grew up accustomed to a balmy coastal climate to a fairly opulent family and his life up until his 18th birthday was largely unremarkable. A sense of wanderlust overcame the young man and much to his family’s surprise, he announced that he was going to move to the Citadel to take part in the new exciting frontiers in galactic civilization.

It wasn’t long until Hakim found himself over his head in gambling debt in an attempt to alleviate the costs of living in the upper wards to a lieutenant in an Attican Traverse mercenary company who offered him the chance to repay his debts by signing on for a five year contract in the company. Hakim, seeing no other option and wishing not to get stabbed leaving his apartment in the upcoming weeks, reluctantly agreed and was pleasantly surprised to find the life of a soldier of fortune was much to his liking. While his family wasn’t thrilled with the news, they couldn’t argue he was better off than he would have been on Earth. Hakim soon became a reliable and resourceful mercenary, moving up the ranks and pay grades steadily and taking on a range of skills including VIP protection, colonial security, as well as the typical soldier-type training including offensive and defensive operations.

Over the course of nine years, Hakim had find himself deployed over a dozen times to various hotspots around the Traverse, earning himself a solid reputation for quick and decisive action in the face of danger. His keen insights towards colonial defense were what first drew Vartarus Halios’ attention to Hakim, and when he was a month shy of his 28th birthday, he took a position with Halios Consortium’s Peak 37 security detachment and within 3 years had found himself promoted to Chief of Security after a drug scandal resulted in the termination of the last Chief. While he’s still learning the ropes of running an entire division that also overseas Halios Consortium’s off world warehouses and docks, he is a keen man who has yet to slip up over his career. Despite his relatively young age, he has largely earned the respect of his security teams.

Positive Traits:

-Trained mercenary, is comparable to a first-rate soldier in training and experience.

-Friendly disposition, he is both approachable and capable of defusing tension with relative ease.

-Orderly, he runs a tight department and does not overlook small details.

-Well known among Halios Consortium’s employees, he knows everyone’s names and remembers details of their personal lives.

-Dedicated to his job, he follows the regulations to a T.

-Well-mannered, maintains a professional respect when dealing with both coworkers and contacts related to his job.

-First-aid trained, he keeps his first aid and CPR training up to date and is able to treat any of the aliens on Peak 37.

-Animal lover, owns both a pet parrot and a pyjak and has been known to animal-sit for coworkers.

-Fitness buff, works out at least one hour every day.

Negative Traits:

-Uncompromising, does not bend or break the rules or regulations for anyone even for minor infractions.

-Has been known to engage in extra-marital affairs, uses his potion to protect himself and his various mistresses.

-Frequently uses work-related trips to various Halios Consortium stations as pseudo vacations and is rumoured to indulge in drugs, drink, and gambling, being careful to only partake in things that can clear his system within two days.

-Violent temper, while it’s hard for Hakim to lose his cool, the rare time he does usually ends up with somebody in the medical wards.

-Keeps in close contact with his mercenary buddies, whether or not this is an issue to Halios remains to be seen.

_ _ _

Name: Forsan Rykarn

Race: Krogan

Gender: Male

Age: 287, 17.2 Tuchanka years

Position: Man Hunter

Appearance: Unremarkable as far as krogan go, Rykarn stands at a commanding 6’08” at the hump. His flesh is as tough as rhino’s hide given his age, and is a dark tan in colour. His crest is a gradient of barely discernable shades of brown. What makes him stick out are the bright red eyes that peer out from his otherwise dark appearance, giving Rykarn something of a sinister look, which coupled with his impressive physique, make him quite an intimidating sight.

Background: Being born in a particularly tough year for Clan Forsan, Rykarn was the only krogan born to the clan in a month on account of the genophage. His father grew fiercely protective of his only son, ensuring Rykarn had all the best opportunities that the clan could provide on account of Forsan Durn’s position as a warlord. Rykarn grew up comfortably untouchable on account of his father’s considerable power and resources.

This, of course, engendered no small amount of resentment among other youth and Warlord Durn’s three main rivals sent their sons, who had yet to take the Rite of Passage, to prove their worth by killing Rykarn. Confronted alone and away from help, Rykarn enthusiastically met his assailants in a melee that resulted in their deaths and one broken serrated blade. Instead of being furious, Durn gloated about his son’s victory, claiming it was a sign that his bloodline was superior. The clan leader decreed that it was an act of self-defence, and if three aggressors couldn’t kill one boy, than they were weak and weren’t worthy of the clan. Durn’s rivals were furious, but there was little they could do but plot their revenge.

Despite his father’s insistence he remain on Tuchanka to work his way up to becoming Clan chief one day, Forsan Rykarn had left Tuchanka after meeting with a Blood Pack recruiter, who was impressed with the young krogan’s Rite of Passage, in which he had to kill a varren unclothed and unarmed to demonstrate his mastery of his bloodlust and his ability to channel the ancient struggle of his ancestors, who struggled against the native life of Tuchanka without more than primitive weapons and their own strength. Rykarn found himself sent to the Skyllian Verge to the batarian colony of Camala, where he was to be a private security enforcer for the Blood Pack. He found himself liking the batarians and finding that the skills and training that had come naturally to him were in high demand amongst Camala’s various clients of the Blood Pack, which increased his own standing amongst the Blood Pack leadership. It wasn’t long before Rykarn found himself stationed throughout the Verge and the Terminus Systems, including one particularly eventful tour of duty on Flett, the vorcha training world where vorcha were bred and beat into the common foot soldiers of the Blood Pack.

After a particularly bloody and violent falling out amongst top officers in the Blood Pack over a quarrel over line of succession after the leader, Ganar Wrang, died of mysterious circumstances, Forsan Rykarn quietly quit the company after deciding his life was more important than being caught up in a power struggle and a man of his talents could find work elsewhere. After several years as hired gun and bounty hunter, Rykarn came into contact with Halios when the krogan had inadvertently stopped a gang from striking against a Halios Consortium warehouse on account of him being paid to kill their leader by another client. After a few interviews, Rykarn was recruited into Halios Industries in a unique position for the newly formed Blackout division, run by Doctor Shiloh Than. It would be his job to make sure that key enemies of Vartarus Halios would find themselves in “accidents”, as well as to obtain test subjects for Dr. Than that wouldn’t be missed. A partnership emerged, and Rykarn began his work for Halios Consortium, remaining in Vartarus’ employment long after the younger turian eventually took over the entire company. While Rykarn largely operates alone, he does have a small field team he has available to assist with asset obtainment, and as an accredited bounty hunter, Rykarn has been able to stay out of the law’s lingering gaze for the most part.

Positive Traits:

-Extremely resourceful, able to locate and reach targets using locally available equipment and materials. For him, it’s not a matter of if, but when.

-Weapon’s expert, prefers cheap disposable weapons and is an excellent marksman with a rifle.

-Patient, always thinks before acting. The pay-off is always worth it in the end.

-Basic living standards, does not need much to be comfortable.

-Well-connected, a long life has yielded several reliable contacts across the galaxy.

-Physically dominating, even by krogan standards, Rykarn is remarkably strong and very swift.

Negative Traits:

-Not a people person, it is unknown if Rykarn has any acquaintances or friends. He does not offer insights easily.

-Bloodthirsty, while able to ignore his desire to kill to complete a job, he has been known to pick weapons or methods that are painful and very, very visceral when taking a life. It’s not unheard of for unaccounted murders to occur in locations he is sent to. Many victims are by chance and are not a part of his mandate.

-Uncertain motives, while he has served Halios dutifully for many years, it’s thought his loyalty lies mainly with the pay. No one is certain as to what would make him change loyalties.

-Racist, while not as blind with hate as other krogan, Rykarn still harbours a resentment for alien races. On an individual level, he’s able to overlook this, but without a personal connection he’s just as quick to assume the worst about aliens and deal with them accordingly.

-Secretive, little is known of Rykarn’s personal habits and he offers little information about what he’s doing, volunteering the very minimum of information his employer requires. Regardless, the work is almost always accomplished as requested.

[Sundered Echo]

Enalais, while I hate to be imposing restriction on budding sheets so early, I have to mention this particular one before you get too much further.
Spectres are a no go area. Not even the most silver tongued reasoning will convince me otherwise.

There will only be one Spectre in this RP, and he is controlled by me, used for the express purpose of enforcing the rules outlaid in the OP, as well as other hand-of-god GM actions (of which I hope there will be few). Being an ex-spectre does not excuse the character from this rule. Such is virtually unheard of.

If you're looking for an ex-military spec-ops background, I suggest one of the Turian elite or covert ops forces like the Armiger Legion or the Blackwatch, though if you find another you prefer that'd be fine too. Just no Spectres.

I feel I should add though that this is by no means me saying no to the sheet. Aside from the Spectre thing, I think the sheet shows promise and look forward to seeing it expanded on.

[data549]

Now to scour the ME wiki for information. I have to find a good name for my Batarian Ninjas after all.

Thankfully; the Batarian Special Intervention Unit does give me a possible origin for my commander.

[Mosis Tosis]

Organization CS

The bar was mostly empty when Nadene walked in. A Krogan at a nearby table turned one hazy eye her way before sinking back into his ryncol, his head hitting the tabletop with a solid thump that could barely be heard over the blaring music from the nightclub just one floor below. At the bar, the bartender glanced at her over the head of the bar's only other patron and appraised her with a shrewd glare for several seconds before returning to his duties, apparently satisfied that she wasn't here to cause trouble. No trouble, Nadene conceded quietly as she moved to take a seat at a table in the farthest, darkest corner of the seedy little bar, or at least not yet. I haven't started drinking.

The barstool creaked dangerously as the Asari settled into it, and she swore she saw some sort of large, hairy insect scuttle away from beneath the table as she sat down. Of all the places we've met, this one is probably the worst. Nadene thought, glancing inconspicuously around the dingy room. ...Which means it's also probably one of the best, considering our business. Not likely to be many prying eyes or eager ears in this dump. The Krogan near the door slumped farther out of his seat as she watched, finally collapsing into a snoring, drooling mess on the floor, his spilled drink dripping off of the table above onto his back. The corner of Nadene's mouth curled in disgust. Just pitiful. I wasn't expecting this place to be as fancy as fucking UltraCred, but this is...pathetic. I hope their booze is better than their atmosphere.

If there was a server in this dismal place, Nadene never saw them. It was the bartender that finally deigned to wander over and ask her what she wanted to drink. "Three riptides, and make one a dextro." The bartender just looked at her blankly, dark Salarian eyes unyielding. Nadene sighed, already exasperated. "Do you not know the mix? It's fairly simple: two parts-"

He cut her off with a sharp hand gesture. "No, I know it. Just...don't think I've ever had somebody actually order one. Let alone three." He continued staring at her, as if expecting her to change her mind. She just stared back, a scowl fixed upon her face, until the bartender shrugged and moved back to his post. He returned with three shot glasses filled with a brackish, amber liquid that caught the dirty neon of the surrounding dive bar and cast it across the tabletop in diffracted bands of speckled light. "Three riptides," the Salarian affirmed with an incredulous shake of his head, "Just don't go puking it all up here in the bar. I'm on cleanup duty tonight."

As the bartender beat a hasty retreat out of vomiting-range, Nadene picked up one of the shots and inspected it. The liquor sloshed around inside in a way that didn't seem quite right, as if the liquid was denser (or was it less dense?) than it had any right to be. She caught a slight whiff, managing not to wince as the fumes burned the inside of her nose. Yep, that's riptide. Smells like memories and ammonia. Satisfied, she put the shot down and leaned back against a nearby wall, arms crossed as she waited.

She didn't have to wait long. It was only a few minutes before a Batarian entered the bar, stepping gingerly over the unconscious Krogan as he made his way to her table. "Nadene." He greeted her simply as he took a seat opposite her, gruff as ever.

"Tonner." She answered back, just as curt. She pushed one of the shots in his direction. He hardly glanced at it: all four of his eyes were scanning the surrounding room, always on the alert. She considered telling him to loosen up; if he expected trouble in this dead-end shithole, then there really was no hope for him. She didn't tell him though. Considering their history, he might take it the wrong way, and besides, they'd be drinking soon enough anyway. If there was anything that could loosen up Tonner, it was booze.

"You hear about that business on Kahje? They're saying Luek's dead." Tonner finally turned his eyes back to his partner in crime. "Went down on his own goddamned inflatable raft. Idiot."

Nadene snorted derisively, arms still crossed. "Maybe, but he was an idiot I could profit off of. Kahje's been like a personal goldmine for the last year, and now it's all torn apart."

Tonner shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Apparently all of the old Hanar's trade info is still floating around out there somehow; I've managed to snag several contracts already, and I'm expecting more in the next few weeks. Everyone wants a piece of that Kahjean pie, and now that Luek isn't there to monopolize the whole venture, I'm actually getting a few reasonable deals."

"Oh, is that so?" Nadene's face transformed almost immediately, scowl changing into a coy smile. "I don't suppose you'd help hook me up...?"

Tonner smiled back as he fiddled with his shot glass. "Maybe..but you're going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than that."

Their conversation was interrupted as a young Turian slid into the table's third seat. As always, Vik was the last one to arrive, and as always, he seemed oblivious to any inconvenience he'd caused his partners. "I'm surprised to find the two of you smiling," he said, turning on a charming smile of his own. "Don't tell me you've already started boozing up."

"And break tradition? I wouldn't think of it." Tonner responded, in a voice that made it clear he'd thought about it often.

"So glad you could finally join us, Vik. Did you have some other, more pressing matters to attend to?" Nadene's response was excruciatingly overly-saccharine, but honesty she was glad to see the foolhardy Turian. There was something about that goofy smile of his that always helped put her at ease.

Vik just shrugged. "I woke up like half an hour ago, give me a break. I spent all night at this really shitty bar, got completely hammered..." He trailed off as he looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. "...actually, this place seems kind of familiar..." His eyes caught on the sleeping Krogan near the doorway. "Oh, yep, that's my buddy Brishnar over there. Real hoot to have around, but man, he really cannot handle his Ryncol."

Tonner's head was in his hands, but Nadene had to work to suppress a laugh. "Either way, now that you're here we can finally get down to important matters. We have a lot to discuss-"

"Hey, hey, wait!" Vik cut her off, looking genuinely hurt. He raised his shot-glass to the center of the table. "Don't tell me you've forgotten our number one rule, Nadi."

Nadene sighed tiredly, playing at boredom. "Well, rules are rules." She raised her shot-glass as well, and was quickly followed by Tonner. The three glasses bounced off one another with a short clink, and then all of them threw back their heads and downed the contents.

Vik grimaced as he slammed his glass back down onto the table. "God, I swear that stuff tastes worse every single time." Already though, he was gesturing at the bartender to bring them three more.

Tonner wiped at one corner of his mouth, apparently unfazed. "You didn't seem to mind it the first time we drank together."

"Well yeah, but back then I wasn't sure if I was ever going to taste good booze again. Prison does all sorts of weird things to a man's senses."

Nadene felt her eyes watering as she turned over her glass. Riptide: so called because it feels like it goes clawing down your throat, tearing and ripping. Still, traditions are traditions. She turned to her two partners. "Well then, let's get down to business, shall we?"

---

Organization Name: Riptide

Organization Leaders:
Co-Owner – Nadene Rilana
Co-Owner – Tonner Krineah
Co-Owner – Viktarion Arctus

Organization Specialization: Smuggling of both highly illegal substances (drugs, weapons, tech) and of semi-legal products (food, booze, and medicine) which are typically restricted by trade or market sanctions.

Organisation Type: Smuggling Coalition

Organization Income Source: A portion of income for the individual members of the three bosses is freelance work, but a large majority comes from specific jobs given by a healthy client base. Each member has projects and jobs on the side, but any job, operation, or market that requires more than one ship has all funds split between the members of Riptide.

Legality: Riptide does occasionally turn its attention to perfectly legal shipping contracts, as long as the pay is good. These jobs are never done under the Riptide name, however, and the majority of work done by Riptide as a whole is highly illegal.

Organization Base: Because of the very “loose” nature of Riptide, there is little to no communication between individual ships and crews. The three bosses are the only ones privy to the actual scope of Riptide, and much of their communication is done via standard galactic comms. When the three bosses do meet in person every few weeks to discuss how to manage their assets, they traditionally do so in a randomly chosen bar, in a randomly chosen city, on a randomly chosen planet.

Riptide does have one safehouse on Omega, hidden within one of the station’s many slums. The “base” is actually several repurposed tenement housing complexes, along with a few attached space hangars. The entire bulk of ships and crews involved with Riptide cannot be housed here, but it is often used as a safehouse or pit stop by individual ships for brief periods of time, and sees regular activity.

Between the three bosses, Riptide also has ownership of several refueling stations and maintenance waypoints within the Terminus systems, the most significant of which is Madeira, an old extra-planetary research station in the Attican Beta cluster. Madeira contains several dozen docking ports, as well as ample stores of food and fuel to fulfill the needs of any passing member of Riptide. It also has an interior (one that is slightly cramped, as much of the station is damaged and inaccessible) which can be used by crews as a resting area in the event that a ship has been damaged. Madeira does not show up on any galactic maps, and therefore is also a fairly useful hideout for any Riptide smugglers that need to lose heat.

Each of the three bosses also has personal housing on various planets. Nadene has apartments on both Illium and the Citadel, Tonner has an apartment on Omega, and Vik has “apartments” (usually just friends willing to put him up for a night) on Omega, the Citadel, Illium, Palaven, and Bekenstein, among others.

Organisation Assets: Riptide owns the aforementioned Safehouse within the Omega slums, 3 different “independently-owned” refueling stations (in the Hourglass Nebula, the Eagle Nebula, and the Shadow Sea), and the “Madeira” station in the Attican Beta cluster as well as a total of 86 functional starships: 5 repurposed and highly modified frigates (2 Salarian, 2 Turian, 1 Asari), 22 Small freighters, 13 Medium freighters, 5 Large freighters, 17 repurposed Interceptors and 24 repurposed fighters of various manufacturing origin, and 18 shuttles. Riptide informally helps fund a score of minor drug labs on Omega, and has controlling share in several bars on Omega and the Citadel. Informants within these bars contribute some of Riptide’s information stream, but most info is gleaned from contacts within Eclipse, Blood Pack, the Blue Suns, C-sec, Citadel political spheres and more localized law enforcement agencies. The coalition also has insider contacts with several larger corporations, including several weapons manufacturers and defense contracters. Riptide has a relatively robust client base that continues to grow, as does its network of contacts within the underground world of galactic criminal trading through both Nadene and Vik.

Organisation Relations:
-The Lonely Spacer- Riptide does regular business with those that manage The Lonely Spacer, providing drugs along with rare booze and food, typically in exchange for juicy bits of information. Nadene occasionally meets clients here, and Vik is a regular customer.

Organization History:

A large and fairly amorphous coalition dedicated to profit through organized smuggling, Riptide was first dreamed up when all of its creators met for the first time in 2168 in a high-security prison on Illium. One such creator, Viktarion Arctus, was there on minor charges of smuggling, and though he was a relatively new arrival to the prison system, he was putting his skills to good use. After only a few months, he’d established a respectable trade of smuggled contraband through the prison, typically cigarettes and other light drugs. His actions were fairly low-key, but they attracted the attention of another convict, Nadene Rilana.

Nadene had been convicted of several financial and political manipulations, and had already served several years of her lengthy sentence. She convinced Viktarion (or “Vik,” as he preferred) that with her skills in subterfuge, her knowledge of the prison and her access to contacts on the outside, she would be a valuable partner. Vik agreed, and after roping in a third accomplice in the form of Tonner Krineah, the small group soon established an extensive smuggling network within the prison, of which they were lords. It wasn’t easy, but it eventually paid off: on the first night they finally managed to bring a steady stream of booze into the prison, they celebrated over shots of “riptide,” an infamous alcoholic mixture that traced its origins to the backroom stills of the galactic prison system.

The three of them lived like kings for a while, but neither Nadene nor Vik were satisfied. Nadene had big plans that could never come to fruition while she languished in prison, and Vik, still young and in his prime, had quickly become frustrated with his (relatively much shorter) sentence. Though they talked of what they would do once they got out, it eventually came to be that they decided they just couldn’t wait.

Breaking out of prison is not an easy thing, but if anyone could pull it off, it was them. Nadene had several contacts still remaining on the outside from her previous attempts at a political career: once out, she promised, she’d be able to erase their records from the system. It’d be like they were never there, and they’d be free and clear.

The actual breakout was a matter of deception: after Tonner instigated a riot among inmates through strategic withholding of contraband items that most of their fellow prisoners had come to take for granted, Vik was able to make a break for the exit. He didn’t make it ten feet from his planned escape route before being tackled to the ground. As he was escorted to a maximum-security isolation cell, however, no one noticed as Nadene slipped to freedom through an unsecured exhaust vent.

Once out, Nadene kept her promise: by pulling several hundred strings and laying down as many credits, she was able to get Vik out and erase both of their profiles from the system, ensuring that there would be no follow-up investigations done. Tonner, of course, was free to leave anytime; he was one of the prison’s guards, not a convict.

After all was said and done, the three didn’t see each other again for over a year. Despite all the fanciful plans they’d discussed within the stifling confines of the prison, one exposed to the great vast expanse of the galaxy again they scattered like seeds on the wind, falling back into all of their old patterns again without a second thought. It was Tonner that finally called them back together by offering to buy the two of them drinks at a rundown bar on a lower Citadel Ward. When Vik and Nadene arrived, they were surprised to find Tonner offering them riptide, in memory of their former days as royalty among the convicted.

Because riptide is unequivocally known for imparting wisdom, and because they drank a lot of riptide, they eventually rekindled their old friendship, and became determined to use their skills to once again become lords of the underground; only this time, their sights were upon the galaxy itself rather than a measly little prison.

Five years have passed, and after liberal use of networking (courtesy of Nadene), discipline (courtesy of Tonner), flat-out skill (Vik), and a whole lot of luck, their operation has expanded into a wide and sprawling “organization” that spans the galaxy. Named after the drink that inspired its creation, Riptide is a loose coalition of smugglers and criminals, typically independent but occasionally directed towards one goal by the three bosses, the only ones that truly know the full scope of Riptide’s operations. The bosses themselves still meet every few weeks, always in some shitty bar, to discuss their plans…and, of course, have a few shots of riptide.

Leader Character Sheets

Name: Nadene Rilana.

Race: Asari

Age: 386

Position: Co-owner

Appearance: Though usually appearing a bit stern, Nadene is just as beautiful as any other member of her species. With a deep blue skin tone, vibrant and extensive violet face markings, and a lithe body (always held with perfect posture), she cuts quite the striking figure. Choice in clothes varies greatly depending on the situation, and is always chosen with meticulous care. Typically wears fashionably cut semi-formal suits, though she prefers more practical gear when not on “official” business.

Specific Assets/Company Role: Like her partners, Nadene is ostensibly an independent agent involved in intragalactic smuggling, though in reality she is a leader of Riptide and therefore helps direct the actions of an operation far larger than her own. Compared to her partners, Nadene is the most experienced with finance and the world of corporate business: she is often the one that meets clients, uncovers and plans contracts, and generally navigates the murky realm of galactic politics to perpetually move Riptide into a more favorable position. She is also a fairly competent leader, and commands much of the smaller actions of the organizations freighters and shipments personally.

She personally controls two frigates: The Abbadon, and the Sublime. The Abbadon is an Asari frigate, and is used as a Nadene’s personal craft. Relatively unmodified, it maintains a balance between stealth, agility and firepower, and houses a very lavish and comfortable interior. The Abbadon has a standing crew, as well as several personal bodyguards and a revolving contingent of various smugglers, mercenaries and clients. Though occasionally used for actual smuggling purposes, the Abbadon is primarily used as a home, office and transport, useful for secret meetings and less than legal transactions. The Sublime, a Salarian craft, is also personally directed by Nadene (though often from afar), and is used more as an advanced smuggling vehicle for that jobs that a normal freighter can’t do.

Background: Born on the idyllic world of Nevos, Nadene was never a stranger to money. From an early age, her mother (and to some extent her father, a Salarian) groomed her for the inheritance of the huge chain of resorts and associated tourist traps they developed and ran on the tropical garden planet. Raised in the lap of luxury, among one of the shadiest corporate environments in the galaxy outside of Noveria, Nadene showed great promise, much like her sisters. She was quick-witted, clever, infinitely charming when needed, and she had an innate understanding for the ebb and flow credits through semi-legal business practices and backroom deals.

That being said, she also proved to be quite a wild child. Things began going downhill when her mother put her in charge, at the relatively young age of 98, of one of the family’s resorts. Though business tended to run smoothly, and Nadene was charming and open-handed as always, it was hard to ignore her constant use of the resort to host gigantic, destructive parties. Coupled with the persistent rumors that the young heiress had developed an insatiable thirst for anything alcoholic, and those that claimed she was deliberately advertising to crime lords and drug dealers as a way to drum up business, it was all too clear to Nadene’s mother that something had to be done.

The answer seemed fairly obvious at the time: send her away. It is traditional for young Maidens to wander the galaxy, to observe and learn with open minds, and Nadene had waited around on her homeplanet for long enough. Her mother assumed that once she had been truly introduced to real freedom among the entire scope of the galaxy, her wistful spirit would be quelled somewhat. Unfortunately, the opposite seemed to occur.

Nadene traveled long and far, first through Citadel space, than onwards into the Terminus systems. The small sum of money she’d taken from home dwindled quickly…and then it started to grow…and grow…until she had more than she’d left with. Nadene was quite pleased to find that a woman with a sharp business sense and the willingness to get her hands dirty was never short of work among the lawless reaches of the galaxy.

To list all of her escapades here would be impossible: she worked as a consort, she worked as a bouncer, rumors say she tried her hand at piracy, then at mercenary work, then at drug dealing. No task was beyond her, and she sampled everything the Terminus systems had to offer, collecting valuable experience and contacts as she went. When her mother died in a tragic “accident” and her eldest sister took control of the family business, Nadene didn’t even consider returning to Nevos. She simply took the small portion of the inheritance she’d been allotted and put it towards her latest endeavor.

Politics are a tricky business, but Nadene figured she had all the right skills and all the right friends to go far. Arriving on Illium with determined eyes and a pocket full of marketable skills (and a bunch of credits), she had a comfy position as a shipping manager for one of the larger docking stations within a few years. That position developed further, and after a few more years she was privy to all the comings and goings of Nos Astra. Lax as legal measures are on Illium, there is a basic government in place there; one that just so happens to be unofficially at the whims of the Illium Financial Board. Nadene had designs on a spot on that board, and she was willing to cut all the deals she needed to get there.

Her mistake, unsurprisingly, was one of ambition. Her overreaching business practices caught the attention of Citadel authorities. Though many of her more “unsavory” tactics were strictly Lassiez –Faire on Illium, most of her operations were heavily involved with businesses and persons residing within the laws of traditional Council Space. Nadene could only watch as all of her plans unraveled within the space of a few months, all because of her own mistakes.

She heard the verdict and went willingly to her fate, eager to save what she could of her crumbling empire, and ironically wound up imprisoned within a high-security facility on the same planet she’d one day dreamed of running. Her verdict was long, well over a hundred years, but a majority of her assets were well hidden enough that she was sure she could rebuild…if only she could get out. However, it was 15 long years before that opportunity presented itself, in the form of a fellow inmate and one of the more “corruptible” guards.

Positive Traits:

-Ambitious
-Clever, quick to access a situation and determine the best course of action
-Abundance of experience in finance and trading
-Charismatic
-Unafraid to do things personally (“get her hands dirty”)
-Snappy dresser

Negative Traits:

-Arrogant
-Ruthless
-Often manipulative
-Problems with restraint (“overly ambitious”)
-Hates puppies

---

Name: Tonner Krineah

Race: Batarian

Gender: Male

Age: 49

Position: Co-owner

Appearance: Standing well over 6 and a half feet tall, Tonner is a large and imposing figure in any setting, a feature that has served him well both in delicate business transactions and on the battlefield. His skin is pale, with rust-red accents that help add to his already intimidating appearance. Is rarely seen without his favorite suit of heavy body armor, though when he needs to be less conspicuous he slims down to a simple set of light armor.

Specific Assets/Company Role: Like his partners, Tonner is an independent smuggler when not working on Riptide business. Unlike his partners, smuggling does not come naturally to him: he has neither the business and personal skills of Nadene nor the raw talent and intuition of Vik. In fact, most of his smuggling operations were initially set up by Nadene, and are typically handled on a personal level by a few of Tonner’s most trusted subordinates. Tonner is more concerned with military matters: He has personally trained and organized 5 separate mercenary squadrons, each compact but highly skilled. His squadrons respect him, and follow him loyally, carrying out all the operations that are deemed to be too “bloody” or “obtuse” by the other more subtle members of Riptide.

Tonner has personal command of two frigates: Turian vessels Domitius and Regula. Both are highly remodeled, with advanced weapon and armor systems installed. A combat-ready crew is active on each ship at all times, typically on a rotating schedule shared by the 5 combat squads under Tonner’s leadership. Both vessels are used for leverage in operations where upfront space-combat seems inevitable, and as dropships for personnel insertion into tense situations. Tonner himself does not reside long-time on either vessel, as spaceflight often makes him uneasy. When other matters require his attention, trusted lieutenants and pilots carry out his orders from afar. Tonner is a natural leader, and as such a majority of Riptide personnel (and absolutely all of their standing combat force) reside under his jurisdiction. He also typically controls the goings-on at the Omega Safehouse, and can usually be found there.

Background:

Born a slave on the hellish Batarian colony world of Adek, Tonner Krineah spent the majority of his childhood just trying to survive. As one of more than a thousand slave workers on a single, sprawling lichen plantation, Tonner knew his days were likely numbered. Those unlucky enough to draw cultivation or harvest duty often found their deaths among the fields of moss and lichen, tormented by a wide variety of horrific diseases. Some of them were caused by untreated wounds, others were carried by huge blood-sucking insects, and still others were simply a brutal yet inevitable aspect of the planet’s humid air.

Regardless, the results were nearly always the same: infection, suffering, death. Disease prevention was scarce, medical aid was practically non-existent. Once a worker progressed to the point where they vomited blood, or lost feeling in their fingers, or woke to find themselves blind to the world around, they would know they were doomed. Shunned by their fellow workers, the damned would typically crawl away into some hidden place and die alone. Each body was treated and fed back to the lichens before another able-bodied Batarian would be selected or bought to take the place of the dead.

Like all the others, Tonner was determined to avoid this fate. As a child, he had some time before being selected for a field crew, time in which he could prove himself to be useful to his owners in some other capacity. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he soon found he had neither the disposition for personal attendance nor the raw intuition for mechanical work. Genetic analysis made it clear to his owners that they’d maximize their potential profit off of him if they sent him straight to work rather than keeping him in reserve for breeding stock. When he came of age, he was placed on work detail and sent into the fields.

He didn’t stay there for long, however. After only a few hellish months (which rightfully felt like years), Tonner caught the attention of a few of his overseers when he murdered one of his fellow workers. Little investigation was done on the incident: other slaves claimed Tonner’s “victim” was half-mad with fever and had instigated the attack, and the overseers were much too busy with other matters to involve themselves with the death of what was already considered to be a disposable asset. It was when Tonner killed a second man just a few days later that they finally started to look his way.

Apparently the brother of the sick man Tonner had killed wanted revenge, and was prepared to exact it himself. After a brief and intense struggle, Tonner, still young and untrained, overpowered his attacker and killed him with his bare hands, strangling him and leaving his body to rot beneath the hot Adekian sun. When Tonner returned to the plantation grounds, clothes torn and covered in blood, he was immediately put on a list. The next day when he rose from his filthy cot to start the work day, he was instead chained hand and foot and quickly escorted into a spaceship and off of the planet.

Shackled in a cramped and dirty cargo bay, Tonner had time to worry about his fate. This wasn’t typical of the overseers: punishment from them tended to come quickly and without any fanfare. He’d never even been off of Adek, and could only assume that some pain awaited him that was so strange and unfamiliar that he could not grasp its nature. When the ship finally landed, however, he was escorted again by armed guards down a series of dark and twisting corridors until finally being thrown without ceremony into the center of a vaulted, circular room filled with dozens of curious onlookers, each appraising him with cold, professional eyes.

Tonner had just enough time to realize that he was separated from the crowd by a transparent wall before another Batarian was thrown into the room besides him, and Tonner was ordered casually by one of the overseers to kill him. Knowing what would happen if he disobeyed, Tonner obliged. The other man put up a good fight, but for the third time in so many days Tonner won out. When the deed was done, the bidding began.

Tonner hadn’t displayed many marketable skills as a child, but now he was a hot commodity among a certain circle of slave-owners for a different reason: he was deadly. He’d escaped the hell fields of Adek for a new trade as a pit slave, fighting others of his kind for the amusement of those slave-owners with affections for bloody entertainment. Sometimes the fights were to the death; sometimes they were only glorified wrestling matches. It didn’t matter to Tonner, who won the vast majority of them.

He fought often, and was traded, bought and sold just as often. Life was a series of brutal fights, punctuated by long periods of travel and listless waiting. When he wasn’t in one of the galaxy’s many underground fighting pits, he was shelved away in premium apartments where all his needs were catered to: he was a valuable asset now, and his owners intended to keep him in prime fighting shape. His attendants, always fellow slaves, resented him as a traitor and a “pet.” Tonner didn’t mind. These were the best living conditions he’d ever had, and he was smart enough to realize he’d better maintain the status quo lest he risk being sent back to Adek.

He lasted three years, which was two years longer than any of his owners expected. The life of a pit slave, while better than the “career” he’d been plucked from, was by nature short and cruel. Tonner was a good fighter, but even so, he knew his days were numbered, and as time went on each fight was more and more likely to be his last. Luckily, it seemed he still had some luck left.

While being transported to a new owner within the Omega system, the cargo ship he had been discretely shackled within was overtaken and boarded by a Blue Suns raiding party, under contract to secure some of the ships valuable goods. In the ensuing chaos, Tonner managed to wrestle a gun away from one of his handlers. He’d never fired a gun before, but apparently knowledge of the basics was enough: by the time the Blue Suns breached the cargo bay, Tonner stood to meet them as a free man, his handlers dead and his chains shot to pieces.

After a brief standoff, the Blue Suns decided he wasn’t a threat, and, admiring his lack of hesitation when the shit hit the fan, brought him back to Omega to be inducted into their organization. As a mercenary for the Blue Suns, Tonner was a happy man. The work was rough, but easier by far than anything he’d done previously. He was called on often to fight, raid and kill, but he was very skilled at all three and quickly rose through the ranks. Above all else, however, he was free, and among companions that he felt he could honestly view as friends.

He spent nearly 20 years in service to the Blue Suns, until a bit of shrapnel caught his arm during a mission on Illium that left him nearly crippled. Without use of his right arm, he couldn’t fight, and was no longer any use to the Blue Suns. It only took the higher-ups a few days to dismiss him, callously and without regret.

Unemployed and bereft of any support, Tonner was forced to take the only job that he could find that might still utilize him: he began serving as a lowly prison guard for a secure facility on Illium. He used the last of his savings to hire the best doctors he could find, and over time he regained use of his arm, though it would never be quite as nimble or strong as before. Feeling old and useless, it seemed to Tonner that he would spend the last of his days in that prison, forgotten and alone. Of course, he was wrong.

Positive Traits:
-A skilled combatant, proficient in both close-quarters and ranged engagements
-Unquestionably loyal to those that earn his trust
-A natural leader that inspires courage and loyalty in his own “troops”
-Surprisingly compassionate
-Is a romantic at heart

Negative Traits:
-Cares little for those he doesn’t know
-Can be overly cautious, paranoid
-Unequivocally vicious when dealing with those that have wronged him or his friends
-Grumpy in the morning

---

Name: Viktarion Arctus

Race: Turian

Gender: Male

Age: 27

Position: Co-owner

Appearance: With a lean body, a tanned carapace and striking features, Vik is considered to be quite a looker by Turian standards (and many other standards besides). While those good lucks have helped him climb into the beds of countless strangers, it’s his easy smiles and charismatic attitude that often helps him win the hearts of his peers. Though he was not raised within typical Turian society, he still bears facial tattoos. Most of his lower jaw and mandibles are emblazoned in white, with accompanying white stripes along his nose and around his eyes. Because these particular markings do not denote any actual colonial origin, they often confuse and embarrass other Turians who struggle to identify them. Vik, of course, got them because he thought they’d be funny.

Specific Assets/Company Role: Like his partners, Vik is ostensibly an independent smuggler. Unlike his partners, however, Vik prefers to do all of his smuggling personally: to him, there’s no greater thrill than carting a few tons of illegal eezo right past an oblivious security force. As such, Vik is largely unconcerned with the company management, a task he leaves almost entirely to his partners, with the exception of the group’s regular “drink riptide and plan shit out” meetings. That being said, both of his partners understand that Vik is undoubtedly the most skilled pilot/smuggler in their organization, and his checkered past means he’s got nearly as many contacts in the business as Nadene. He’s also got an uncanny intuition for smuggling operations: Nadene and Tonner turn to him whenever they need personal advice on the subject.

Vik personally commands only one frigate: the Salarian vessel Wily Varren, a lean and fast ship that Vik uses for all of his personal smuggling. Rescued long ago from a scrap heap, the ship’s interior (and much of its exterior) is a mess. Vik is constantly working to upgrade, modify and enhance the ship’s capabilities to create a perfect smuggling vehicle, which means that the Wily Varren can change drastically over the course of a few weeks or even days. The majority of ship space is dedicated either to cargo or engine functions, leaving little enough room for Vik who spends a majority of his time aboard the vessel. Though the ship often carries a few friends or acquaintances, no one knows the ship like Vik, who is perfectly capable of “crewing” the vessel himself and is no stranger to solo missions.

Background: Born in the cargo bay of a small trade vessel somewhere halfway between the Horsehead Nebula and Hawking Eta, Vik has always felt more at home on a moving ship than he ever has on solid ground. His mother’s history was as mysterious as the identity of his father: all Vik knows is that he was born to a vagabond, an engineer who traded passage on various ships for technical expertise. As a child, Vik would often hear rumors that she was a fugitive, an exile disgraced and on the run, but with no way to verify the truth (and no real desire to), his mother’s story remains a mystery to this day.

All that Vik does know is that, for whatever reason, the vast majority of his childhood was spent traveling the stars, roaming from place to place in whatever ship would give them a ride. Honestly, he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Vik was a rambunctious child: as soon as he took his first step he became a wanderer at heart, always exploring. When the hallways and cabins of each ship he traveled on became boring, he took to crawling into vents. When that lost its exploratory appeal, he wandered even farther. No matter what model of ship he was on, he was always determined to explore every inch of the interior. Drive cores, communication arrays, propulsion systems…he saw them all. He’d often fall asleep nestled among wires and tubing, with the steady hum of an engine to sing him lullabies.

More than once, his mother was forced to go rooting after him, dragging him away from some dark and forbidden place while he kicked and screamed. More than once, his incessant curiosity got the two of them kicked off of whatever ship they were on, leaving them to live on the streets of some foreign slum until they could find another ride. If anything, Vik was a burden to his mother, but she only complained when she was drunk, and that only happened on the rare occasions she had enough leftover money at the end of the week to buy a little bit of cheap booze. Even as a kid, Vik knew there was some great sadness in her, something well beyond his comprehension, but he never found out the whole truth. She passed away from a sudden sickness when he was just seven years old.

They’d been traveling on a rundown trading vessel when she died; left with a motherless child (and an annoying, potentially destructive one at that), the ship’s captain unceremoniously dumped Vik off with a C-sec officer on their next stop at the Citadel. The young Turian was promptly thrown into an orphanage, where he stayed for all of a week before he slipped away from his new caretakers, found his way to a docking bay, and stowed away on the first ship he could find. When the crew inevitably discovered him after departing, they dumped him out at their next stop, Thessia, where again he was placed into an orphanage.

So began the next phase of Vik’s life: Get thrown onto a new and exciting planet (usually into the uneager hands of public workers), escape from whatever establishment was housing him, stow away on ship, get discovered, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. He traveled on countless ships, saw countless planets, and lived in more orphanages and public shelters than he cares to remember. Always, though, he found himself moving on, striving to once again fly among the stars.

When he was nine, the cycle was finally broken. Stowed away among the auxiliary propulsion primers of a fairly small ship, he wasn’t surprised when the ship’s crew found him. More surprising was the fact that didn’t immediately boot him off at the next dock. Most of them seemed to find him amusing, calling him “ship rat” and “little stowaway.” The captain of the ship was the most amused out of all of them, laughing as he handed Vik a bucket of water and a squeegee and announcing that he would be the crew’s new cabin boy.

Vik took to the job eagerly enough. Washing floors and fetching drinks was more than a fair price if it meant he got to travel aboard the ship as an “acting” member of the crew. His excitement only grew when he eventually learned that the crew that had taken him in was a band of pirates, raiding the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems in search of good fortune. The captain was quick enough to admit that he’d only allowed Vik to stay aboard because he figured the boy might be useful as leverage: if the authorities ever surrounded their small and nimble raider, a gun placed against the head of an innocent child would make for an incredibly useful bargaining chip. Again, Vik thought this was more than fair. He knew, in the way that children just know things to be true, that he was now a part of a the galaxy’s roughest, toughest, most ruthless band of pirates, and they’d never get caught.

In actuality, that particular group of pirates was fairly shitty. It was a small operation, less than 10 people on a beat-up old ship that had more scars than functional weapons. They’d been raiding the wilder sections of the galaxy for years with little luck, usually snatching just enough to get by. When the novelty of using Vik as a janitor and an errand boy wore out, they were more than happy to throw him into a more useful job, staggeringly understaffed as they were.

Since he already had proven himself capable of squirreling away through the ship’s various nooks and crannies, Vik was given over to the crew’s engineer to be trained as an apprentice of sorts. Mostly he was tasked with patching up old pipes and running cables though areas too cramped for the surly old Batarian engineer. Over time however, he learned more and more about the ship he “served” on. Vik was a sharp kid, and though no one expected much from him, after a few years he knew more about that ship than almost anyone else.

As much as he liked working with the aging spacecraft, Vik could never quell his yearning for excitement and danger, even as he grew into adolescence. Eventually he began to travel and fight alongside his crewmates during their (increasingly rarer) raids and lootings. That quelled his eagerness for a while, but soon he only wanted to go bigger and better. He got his chance when one raid on a scrap ship yielded an unexpected prize: an old decommissioned Turian fighter craft, long ago abandoned and left to rust. Although the pirates originally believed the fighter could be a useful tool, they soon found that it was in desperate need of repairs, and would be worth more as scrap.

It was Vik and his old Batarian mentor that convinced the rest of the crew to keep the old vehicle. It took them nearly two years, hundreds of bargain ship parts and countless sleepless nights, but finally they got the fighter into decent flying shape. With no one else on the crew willing to risk their lives in a spacecraft hobbled together primarily out of duct tape and knowledge gleaned off of the extranet, it fell to Vik to become the craft’s pilot.

He took to it like a fish to water. All his life he’d felt most at home while traveling aboard starships; in the cockpit of one, he felt like he was in heaven. What’s more, he quickly proved himself to be an exceptional pilot. There was something about him, some intuition that made the fighter an extension of his own body. He could out-maneuver or outrun anyone, and the pirates soon found their prey easier to catch with Vik hunting alongside the main ship.

It couldn’t last, of course. Vik had been flying the fighter for all of a month when a raid in Salarian territory went bad and the crew found themselves surrounded and outgunned. Separate from the main ship in his fighter, Vik saw the incoming heat and made a run for it, barely evading the authorities and leaving his crewmates to be captured. He felt surprisingly little remorse after the fact; he’d become just as much a pirate as any of them during his time aboard their ship, and he knew any of the men and women he’d considered friends would have done the same if they were in his shoes.

Only 15 years old and alone in the galaxy, Vik had only the clothes on his back and an old jerry-rigged fighter craft. He disappeared into the lawless reaches of the galaxy for a while, laying low and just looking for a way to survive. It would be impossible to describe his adventures from then on in any detail. Even at so young an age, Vik had combat experience, a sharp mind, and a ship that he could pilot as well as any grown man. More than anything though, he knew an opportunity when he saw it. The next few years were a blur, constant travels between every corner of the galaxy in his one-man craft, taking up odd jobs of questionable legality. More often than not, he lived off scraps and slept in his cockpit, or out beneath the stars if the weather was temperate enough. He argued with docking officials, he ran with pirates, he defended sensitive shipments and raced against gangs out in the far reaches of the Terminus Systems. He soon found his talents were best utilized in smuggling. Though his cargo was always small (due to his tiny ship), he flew like a demon and never failed a job. Those that sought his help would tell their friends that he was magic, able to conjure up any illicit substance, bringing it at any distance under the noses of countless authorities.

It was the perfect life for Vik, one that he’d always wanted without really realizing. He had perfect freedom, an entire galaxy to explore, a ship of his own and to top it all off, he got paid doing what he loved.

His luck finally ran out when he was 20 years old. Caught by Asari authorities after being fooled by some bad info, Vik was quickly trialed and thrown into prison on Illium. What should have been a real downer didn’t actually phase him all that much: he’d never let anything get in his way before, and this prison would be no different. Soon enough, he knew he’d be back in the cockpit where he belonged. And of course, he was right. He was in prison for 2 days before he met a certain guard named Tonner; 8 days before he met another inmate named Nadene. He left the prison behind on his 100th day, and never looked back.

Positive Traits:
-Friendly and charismatic, tends to put others at ease
-A naturally talented pilot
-Filled with childlike wonder and curiosity
-Makes, like, the best fucking dextro grilled cheese. Like holy damn.

Negative Traits:
-Cocky
-Has absolutely no business sense
-Forgetful, lazy
-Outwardly friendly but with little experience in actual intimate emotion
-Thinks Blasto 3 is overrated

Minor Character Sheets

Logging on...
[Welcome, Ms. Rilana]
Accessing files...

Opening File "Riptide Dossiers."
Important Employees, Assets and Miscellaneous Allies

Name: Sayth Balan
Race: Salarian
Gender: Female
Company Role: Pilot of the frigate Abbadon
Known History: Recommended acquisition from a very powerful and influential trading company based on Sur'Kesh. Hiring was initially done as part of a business deal, with Sayth acting as a brokering piece for her paranoid employer, who refused to work with Riptide unless he had a personal eye on the inside of our operations. After that company went bankrupt several years back (due in no small part to our increased focus on the Sur'Kesh market), Sayth asked to keep her position as one of our employees.
Nadene's Notes: Sayth is...difficult. By all accounts lazy, unreliable and rude, she often seems to be more hassle than she's worth. However, she has displayed a skill that far surpasses the standard, and due to the absence of her former employer I have little fear about where her loyalty lies. I have, and will continue to, keep my eye on her, to ensure she does not become a liability in the future.

Name: Athican Mykalos
Gender: Male
Race: Hanar
Company Role: Personal Secretary and Assistant to Nadene Rilana
Known History: Athican's history is relatively quiet and unexciting. Has experience with both financial trading and information brokering on Illium. Work with Riptide appears to be first foray into actual illegal activities, for which he has shown a natural propensity. Recruited personally by Nadene Rilana after the formation of Riptide to serve as an assistant, and has slowly gained rank in the organization since then.
Nadene's Notes: Athican is easily my most valuable asset. He's smart, with a natural skill for trades of any kind. I’ll admit I was skeptical of his abilities when he first came into my employ, seeing as he was apparently as straight-laced and law-abiding as any typical Hanar, but his assurances that ambiguous legality will never interfere with the quality of his work have so far been upheld.

Name: Jonus Linar
Race: Volus
Gender: Male
Company Role: Pilot of the frigate Domitus
Known History: Employee's history is surprisingly well protected, and is largely unknown. Information indicates very strong connections with several pirate alliances operating out of the Terminus Systems. Jonus is strange in that he sought out Riptide seeking employment, rather than the other way around.
Nadene's Notes: As much an enigma as he is a rude, vulgar little man, Jonus is still an exemplary pilot, and easily one of the best in our "fleet." I would normally find his secretive history and his initiative to join our group suspicious, but what little I can turn up about his dealings in the years before Riptide give me little cause for fear that he may be working on someone else's payroll. His claim to a pirate background is most likely true, as he is obviously experienced in spaceflight combat. Tonner assures me that Jonus is loyal (or at least as loyal as anyone else) and is an invaluable asset, and I am inclined to trust him.

Name: Drau Uvar
Race: Krogan
Gender: Male
Company Role: Second-in-Command to Tonner Krineah, Recruitment, Training and Supervision Duties
Known History: Uvar is quite old, with a long and surprisingly available history. Involved in illegal activities across the Terminus Systems for several hundred years, he is a veritable expert on all manner of mercenary operations. Worked as a bodyguard, thug, mercenary, hitman, shake-down artist, and pirate, if not in that particular order. Most recent ties are with a formerly existing mercenary company known as "The Raw Threshers." The company, almost entirely composed of Krogan, was small but successful until a mission on Camala went bad and left Uvar as the only survivor. Tonner first met (and recruited) Uvar in a bar on Omega.
Nadene's Notes: Uvar's a drunkard, obviously exhibiting symptoms of survivor's guilt. Combine this with his surly attitude, and I can only assume he's going to become more trouble than he's worth at some point. Tonner claims he's invaluable though, and if there's anyone keep Uvar in line, it's him. At least I don't have any doubts about his loyalty: Tonner seems to be the only person in the galaxy he actually respects.

Name: Andrea Zhang
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Company Role: (Former) Personal Assistant to Nadene Rilana, currently posted on the frigate Wily Varren to serve as an Assistant to Viktarion Arctus.
Known History: Long and detailed history available, with several service records and personal recommendations. Former ties with Alliance provided Andrea with advanced combat and communications technology training, while a short (but very successful) series of solo mercenary jobs around the Terminus Systems in years before joining Riptide prove her aptitude in the field. Sought out employment personally and was hired after a very lengthy and selective interview process.
Nadene's Notes: Andrea is the solution to nearly all of my problems. Skilled, loyal, intelligent and efficient, it truly seems like there isn't anything she can't do. Her service as my assistant and second-in-command for the last five years has been exemplary. I was loathe to give her up...but after several "mishaps" and "preventable mistakes" on the part of one of my co-workers (Vik, of course), I felt she may be more useful elsewhere. She is currently serving a sort of trial period on the Wily Varren, trying to keep Vik in line. I know she thinks I've demoted her (and honestly she's really just acting as a glorified babysitter right now), but I need someone I trust with Vik to make sure he doesn't do something stupid (or at least stupider than usual) and get himself killed. She's never failed me before, let's hope she doesn't start now.

Name: Daron
Race: Quarian
Gender: Male
Known History: Unavailable.
Nadene's Notes: Daron (vas? nar? I don't know) is a complete mystery. I'm not actually sure he even really works for us, per se. Rather, he just sort of shows up at our safehouse from time to time, typically unannounced and uninvited. Tonner would have thrown him out long ago if Vik didn't vouch for the guy. He's useful, I won't deny that: when he can be assed to help out, his skill in ship repair and tech have done wonders for the various vessels of our fleet. His history is completely unknown, however. I don't know why he's not with the Migrant Fleet, why he's bothering to stick around with us, or even what his goals are. Vik is the only one who seems to actually know the guy, and he's been tight-lipped on the matter. I sense they've got some kind of history, but I can't tell if it's good or bad. I'll have to get him drunk one of these days and see if I can get him talking.

[Sovi3t]

Echo, can my group somewhat have a large share in smuggling ships and weapons?

[Sundered Echo]

Thats hard to answer with certainty given how little I know of your organisation at this early stage, although smuggling weapons and ships (ships especially) is a fairly big endeavour. Definitely manageable if you're going for a group based around smuggling, but if not then that might be a bit much for just one group to manage.

[Sovi3t]

Ah , I see

I'll expand on it in my NS, and hopefully we could iron out a few details

[Sundered Echo]

Indeed. Should be interesting.

[Mosis Tosis]

Alright, all of my CS stuff is up in that former post of mine. I know you've already had a chance to look at most of it Sunny, but there's a lot there and I'm sure I probably made a few mistakes. I know I didn't follow the CS guidelines exactly, hope that's ok. For the minor characters, I wanted to give them a bit of a more personal touch so I did a little shadow broker-esque thing for those, let me know if that needs changing.

[Sundered Echo]

I'll take another look then Mosis, though given how tired I am right now it'll have to wait until tomorrow before I can properly review it.