“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
Marcus Aurelius
From the cold Ice Wastes of the polar north, beneath the blistering heat of the Great Inland Desert, and the monster haunted jungles and ice-capped mountains of the far south, the world of Takanis is covered with the bleached bones of dead empires. Some perish through civil war, others through decadence and infighting, and some still through the exploitation of magic, their own hubris and the horrors of the Outer Realms. Some indeed linger still, disunited fragments of once great empires holding on still to their tattered glory, broken but not forgotten…
Thus it has ever been. Thus it ever will.
The wheel of time spins ever onward, and within its hub the spokes of rising empires form, shatter and are replaced by newer and stranger civilisations. Technology and sophistication is clung to with desperate hands, the secrets of ancient nations unearthed, lost, and rediscovered in the cyclical ages of Takanis. Magic is tamed, studied and deprived of its secrets, providing innovation to peerless cultures and its shimmering ores raising monuments of artistry and might, but always with it the eldritch terrors of hubris and pride for those who deem themselves its masters.
The world continues on as it ever has, the rise and fall of empires colouring it in many hues as knowledge of the long dead give voice to its new epochs, enriching a stilted planet with the fragmented lore of great technology and science. Societies regress and advance in tides as endless as the ocean, some achievements more lasting than others, but all too often swept aside by their decline as the years mount.
But now the winds of change blow across land, beneath the twin-mooned skies of Takanis…
The once great Empire of Humanity of the east and the Vehndathayan Empire of the south have been shattered for two millennia, and the dominion of the Serpent Folk of Ashammai has been gone for thrice that. Now their inheritors squabble over their crumbling carcasses, each seeking to restore the glories once lost and avoid breaking themselves upon the cliff-face of their own ambitions. Other races rise from barbarity as the degraded legacies of extinct nations, or the creators of new ones, their drive and will to conquer anew making citizens of savages, and heroes of blood-drenched warlords. Other realms pull back from the brink of decadence, excesses curbed, the source put to sword with fire and blood as their restorers seek to reclaim the glory of their lost golden ages. Others reign in their unsullied prime, unsurpassed by latter ages and wise enough to fight the wheel of time and the decline of civilisations…
The world stirs. A new age beckons. To endure you must carve out your empire through innovation, discovery, warfare, diplomacy and conquest. You must fight to rise above a world antithetical to civilisation, fight to rise above the follies of dead nations, fight to endure where vanity and decadence have destroyed the mightiest empires.
You must fight to survive.
Can you halt the wheel of time, Or will you be crushed beneath it?
In this NRP, you play as a nation of your own creation. This is a setting with heavy historical inspiration, but no direct parallels. The best term for the setting is schizotech - this is a world wherein a mail armored cataphract charge coexists with nitrating crop rotation, the sextant, potatoes and tomatoes available without the need for any great dyings. We have technologies and ideas that would not exist until the 18th century coexisting with the 6th century. The setting is based on the concept of highly developed, intricate societies with a deep, complex web of trade, alliances, and diplomacy, societies that can build monuments to humble the Pyramids of Egypt or dwarf the Roman Colosseum. Vast empires with vast populations, deep history, and so on. That said, this is not a map painting simulator, and if you want to conquer the world, I fully understand, but this is not a Total War or EU4 game and such should not be your driving goal.
Individual nations are player created, with randomly rolled stats serving as a guideline upon which you should build your nation.
This is a world with by now some well established lore, and I encourage you to speak to me and the other players about how your own nation fits into it!
I invite those interested to join our Discord server and get to know the players already in. Slots are somewhat limited, unfortunately, so we do not have indefinite room for new players.
A P P E A R A N C E ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh stands at about 176cm with a muscular but at first seemingly softer frame that, while not exactly that of a seasoned soldier, shows she is no stranger to exertion. She has relatively smooth olive skin, occasionally marred by scarring and other damage - bullet wounds, miscellaneous damage from an eventful life. If one were to closely examine where skin meets synthetic material on her right shoulder it would become plainly apparent that the arm was not replaced with aesthetics in mind - with heavy duty connections visible protruding from her skin and connecting to the arm, much of the skin around the prosthetic having died off, leaving all latter improvements and additions exposed.
Her right arm has been replaced in its entirety, including the shoulder, with a high quality cybernetic, carbon nanotube muscle fibers plainly apparent where laminated graphene plates do not cover. Rather than hide the appearance of the bionic limb, she flaunts it proudly, even going so far as to have laser etched one of the plates covering the area that would be the bicep with her initials and various other designs. The cybernetics are present elsewhere in her body, but are subcutaneous and far less overt in their effects, primarily skeletal reinforcement to prevent her from breaking her own ribs with the power of the arm.
Firuzeh keeps her hair in a tight braid tucked away while on the job, but in her free time she leaves it loose and flowing. Her hair is dark, wavy, and thick - reaching well past shoulder length. Her left eye is of a minty green hue, warm and friendly for the most part, but years of misfortune have taken their toll, and the effects of her time during and after the Skyllian Blitz are clearly visible. Her right eye is prosthetic and plainly so at close distance. A small scar runs the distance from her lower lip to her chin, a greater scar - evidently a burn - mars the left side of her neck, and her nose is bent at a permanent angle.
B A C K G R O U N D ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh was born in Isfahan, Iran, to a family with a long and illustrious history of working in the medical profession, with accomplishments ranging back centuries, and a few relatives even popping up in medical history books. In fact, joining the medical profession had become such a universal career in her family, with a few black sheep now and then choosing to become generals, inventors, or kebab merchants in Tehran, that the usual response to a baby on the way was to speculate on what discipline the child would enter, rather than the sex or personality of the baby.
From day one, Firuzeh was gently pushed towards medicine, and while she took to the subject fairly well, most children would have had they been steeped in the medical world since the day they could walk. Every family reunion was marked by questions into prospective fields she wanted to enter, if she wanted to visit her aunt’s workplace for a day, or the occasional excessively detailed retelling of a particularly grueling surgery.
But moreso than medicine, she took to history in her early life, from a young age rushing to explore the ancient ruins of past civilizations that dotted the landscape of Iran, near obsessively engrossing herself in books about the civilizations that used to dominate the land, ancient battles that dictated the fates of empires, and more. Far more than any of the numerous attempts to pull her deeper into the medical profession, this love for history engendered a love of learning - about anything - in her, alongside a fierce thirst for adventure and exploration. Exploring the insides of someone’s diseased heart was interesting, but she felt the lure of the unexplored galaxy. When news reached her of the First Contact War - what little she could understand of it at her young age, at any rate - it drove this lust for exploration into overdrive and for a time she completely abandoned any pretense of wanting to be a doctor, instead boldy proclaiming she would be the galaxy’s best explorer - in a couple decades at any rate. Throughout all of the exitement, she lead a mostly normal life like most any other well off child, reading, learning to cook, making friends, and playing games of all sorts.
As she grew older, she was faced with a decision. Deep inside she still longed to explore, but the reality of the world had settled on her shoulders, and she no longer thought exploring the galaxy would be something she could do. She was a city girl with a rich family who’d been groomed for medical work her entire life, not fit to fight in a galaxy chock full of danger and machine guns pointed her direction. Eventually, she followed her family’s lead and was admitted to university early at the age of 16, a classic overachiever, having decided with some mournful resignation that she would become a scientist.
Her life in university was a lonely one, she had no friends to call her own, no social life with which to engage, and the immense pressure of a family that saw the topics she studied as ‘lesser’ in some way. To cope, she buried herself in coursework, taking on mind numbing class schedules and committing almost her entire being to studies. Despite her misgivings, she handled university well, exceeding any and all expectations - earning a PhD in cybernetic neuroscience, a master’s in bionic technology, and her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering within the span of five years. Upon her departure from university, she had at least three job offers in prestigious earth based medical firms. However, she was not content to stay put, and when an opportunity presented itself - a field research opportunity on the colony of Elysium, she jumped at the chance.
She made her way for the colony, eager to begin work that seemed right up her alley. They were there to test out a new generation of cybernetic enhancements on any willing colonists - ordinarily there would have been a push to find colonists willing to undergo augmentation, but the colonies held few transhumanist trendsetters, and primarily they studied a group of colonists already sporting cybernetics. It was an assignment she was greatly excited over, and coupled with the beautiful scenery of Elysium, and it was nearly perfect. She even submitted herself - her right arm being replaced with a bleeding edge, top of the line military grade cybernetic limb. The abilities of the replacement enthralled her, and she found herself doubly committed to the mission of the research team.
She even met nonhumans there, with the occasional turian or Asari popping up, and she forged a friendship with a turian present on the research team, driving her nearly mad with incessant questioning about life on Palaven and Turian cybernetic advances. With said turian as a mostly voluntary guinea pig, she even figured out how to adapt dextro food paste, and actual dextro foods, to Persian recipes she’d learned from her kabab merchant uncle. It wasn’t an exact copy, or anything close to it, but the fact that she could cook with dextro ingredients excited her to no end, like most every other new thing she encountered.
Then the Skyllian Blitz began.
Firuzeh always envisioned herself in the rear in such a scenario, designing bionics for soldiers who were wounded in such action - not seizing a Carnifex off a dead pirate who had made it a little farther than most and rushing to the fight to join in with the fighting. Whenever the pistol overheated she would compensate with biotics. Her family, influential as it was, had ensured she was not packed away to distant training facilities, and as such she had never recieved more than rudimentary training - she had precious little fine control, but plenty of power - at times her target would barely notice, at others her biotics would render a pirate into a fine paste. The bloodshed shocked her at first, but as the fighting wore on she began to take a liking to it, near the end of the blitz taking an almost disturbing joy in killing her fellow living beings. By the end she had aquired a shotgun and developed a fondness for applying the butt of the weapon to the face of any pirate unfortunate enough to close to melee range with her.
However, her luck ran out near the end. A particularly well hidden batarian sniper landed a hit squarely on her, thankfully missing her vital organs, but tearing apart the surface of her leg. She still doesn’t remember much of the incident, beyond a dull impact on her thigh, and waking up on the floor of the lab, her thigh slathered in medi-gel. Her colleagues had saved her life, at great personal risk, with her turian friend risking heavy machine gun fire to bring her bleeding body into the lab, where they provided what medical aid they could for what ultimately amounted to a particularly grisly flesh wound. Despite their objections, she had dragged herself from the lab upon waking to continue the fight, something within her driving her on.
In an ironic twist, her foolhardy decision to continue fighting rather than resting saved her life. Something, she didn’t know what, hit the lab, leaving her home away from home a smoldering ruin strewn with body parts and priceless equipment. She thought the deaths of countless soldiers and pirates had hardened her, but the loss of everybody she had come to love and care for over the months on Elysium hit her like a sledgehammer, and she collapsed next to the burning wreckage, what little energy she had left evaporating in an instant.
She didn’t move from the area for what seemed an eternity before an armored gauntlet grabbed her by the shoulder. Expecting a Batarian, she accepted her fate, dropping the weapon she had been clutching, only to be faced with a tired looking Alliance marine.
Miraculously, she had survived, despite everything. But she had nothing left. No job, no friends - only dull ache and the same thirst for adventure - tinged with a thirst for vengeance now. She had spent a few days recuperating, trying to come to terms with the loss of everyone she had come to know - but it never came. Burying her grief, she staggered out of the blasted battlezone. Something had awakened on the planet, a more bloodthirsty side of her. She enjoyed burying a bayonet into the jugular of a slaver, revelled in the violence. But also a sense of fear over returning home. Her work was destroyed, she had nothing to show for it.
And so she put out feelers for any work, be it legal or otherwise. She had nothing to call home beyond a planet now light years away, a planet that offered nothing but safety and comfort - and dull mundanity. She did not want to hear the murmurs of sympathy, the chastisement that she should have stayed on earth, the empty words from people who had not experienced what she had.
So, on Elysium she stayed - after a brief foray into orbit, helping with the rebuilding and taking whatever odd jobs came her way. She felt a reluctance to return to larger galactic society, and a malaise grew in her soul. She fell through the cracks, falling in with gangs running arms, bodies - and cybernetic technology. They had always been a presence, she knew - but they had not been part of her world. In the aftermath of the Blitz, however, their influence grew, as in the aftermath of any disaster. Her expertise lead to her cementing a steady position in the lower hierarchy, someone who could patch minor wounds - and more importantly, reverse engineer any piece of cybernetic tech she got her hands on. Time passed in a blur, and she lived for months in a cycle of sex, violence, drugs, and exploitation. Things came to a head when, under circumstances that she cannot remember even now, she found herself in an alley, bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds to the torso, and with multiple broken bones. For some reason, she had fallen out with the gang, and their punishment had been severe. Firuzeh counted it a small miracle she hadn’t been shot. As it was, she was left in critical condition, and was rushed into emergency surgery - and into the operating room of a distant cousin. She had saved her life - and the moment Firuzeh awoke, she had lambasted the family member she assumed to be dead, eventually being pulled away by a nurse. But it was obvious what would happen next - her family knew she was alive after all, and she would be returning home as soon as she was fit to walk.
And so Firuzeh returned to earth for a time, at a loss for what to do. She couldn’t fit back in with her family, many of whom thought she had died in the Skyllian Blitz, and her purposeful lack of contact left a rift between them that would never truly heal. She missed the daily thrill of a new challenge every day she had experienced in the research lab, alien sights unseen before… and the rush of combat, the visceral satisfaction of fighting and killing. She sought therapy for a time, trying to reintegrate herself, to suppress the bloodlust that had awoken on Elysium - nothing worked, and she drifted listlessly, contributing nothing to society. For another year, she spiraled into a mire of depression, unemployed and living with family. She was healed within a few months, but her mind was not. She even fell into homelessness in the end - unwilling to dip into her savings, unwilling to divulge to the rest of her family her situation, and unwilling to better herself.
It was then that she received an offer. One through back channels, illicit means, and a stranger accosting her on the street. An… organization on the planet of Chalkhos, in the Terminus systems, claimed to have purchased surviving data from her research team’s work on Elysium over the dark side of the extranet, and sought the expertise of the only known survivor in reconstructing that work. It seemed almost too good to be true after the downhill spiral she had found herself in. With little trepidation, she left earth behind for the second time, and made her way to the lawless expanse of the Terminus Systems.
Almost immediately, Firuzeh began to feel herself at home on Chalkhos. The experiments and research conducted on the planet, while far cry from the pristine and near impeccable scientific and ethical standards of the lab on Elysium, filled her with a purpose she had lacked for so long. And despite the lack of adrenaline surges, the dearth of death defying dashes from munitions depots and flaming wreckage, the old thrill of learning and pushing the boundaries of her own knowledge and skill filled her with enthusiasm for the challenges of each day. Over the two years she worked with the lab, she ended up personally implanting of many of the devices they themselves were prototyping or had developed. Some she applied experimentally, confident in their safety but distrustful of the ability of comparatively uneducated subjects to provide feedback, whilst some were all but finished products. Some were intended to boost performance in stressful situations, moderating heartrate and nervous responses to optimize performance in combat - but the ones that drew her interest were those intending to prolong human life even further. Injections to strengthen the myelin sheaths over nerve cells, implants to optimize the heart and keep it pumping strongly for longer, some implants attempted to store copies of relatively undamaged DNA and counteract accumulated damage over time, and some were purely for vanity - keeping skin softer, wrinkle free. Any implant that showed promise and no side effects she eagerly applied to herself - whether or not they would give her any benefit she didn’t know, but she went with them anyway. She buried away the ethical quandaries their experiments raised - focused solely on the outcome. The ends would justify any means, and she a people lifted from the constraints of biological limitation.
But the good times could not last forever. The lab was an illicit operation funded by a legitimate megacorporation in Council space - genetic engineering, cybernetics research, weapons technology, and even AI. Such things could have landed any of them in prison for several consecutive life sentences, and when Council investigation into their activities had begun, the lab on Chalkhos found itself unceremoniously purged from all records, and all funding ceased to exist.
Unable to continue their work, the research team scattered to the winds, and Firuzeh found herself drifting aimlessly once more. She had money to support herself almost indefinitely - but she needed purpose, or at the very least, something to shoot at.
S K I L L S ____________________________________________________________________________
L-2 Biotic: Initially seeming to have been an utter failure, Firuzeh’s L-2 Implant biotics were, for a time, seemingly all but nonexistant. However, acute stress, and years of practice on her own have yielded powerful biotics - but with precious little controllability. Firuzeh’s biotic abilities are strictly limited to those needing little precision and benefitting most from raw power, and thus complement her aggressive, close quarters fighting style. The Implant may also be responsible for the bloodthirst she suffers from in combat situations. The surgery to replace the implant with an L-3 is immensely risky - and even were it not, she would be unable to relinquish it. Her violent side - if it truly was the manifestation of L-2 ailments, had integrated too deeply with her psyche. Firuzeh doesn’t know if she would be physically able to go through with such a procedure.
Excellent Cook: Unexpected for someone bearing her resume, Firuzeh is an experienced cook and has had over a decade of practice. Primarilly knowing how to make various Persian dishes, she nevertheless knows the basics of most other major culinary traditions - and more importantly, is adept at following extranet cooking instructions and adapting their tastes to many different palates. She is even able to cook using dextro ingredients, long hours spent practicing with various Turian foods giving her some knowledge of their use, and building a resistance, giving her the ability to - if nothing else, taste the food for seasoning before serving without suffering adverse effects.
Cybernetic Science: While her ability to apply her skills in this field is limited without access to a full R&D lab and the right tools, Firuzeh’s extensive knowledge of cybernetics, the (human) nervous system, and how the two interface allow her to perform maintenance and repairs on allies with such hardware.
Close Quarters Fighting: Despite receiving little formal training in the area, Firuzeh has become adept at fighting in hectic close quarters. Favoring a shotgun, a pistol, and the strength of her cybernetic limb, she becomes a bloodthirsty avatar of carnage.
E Q U I P M E N T ____________________________________________________________________________
M-6 Carnifex: It’s a Carnifex.
AT-12 Raider: A short ranged, brutally powerful Batarian shotgun, Firuzeh refuses to divulge the means by which she obtained the item. She nevertheless takes a grim pleasure in using a weapon of Batarian make on Batarian pirates.
HyperGuardian Armor set: Heavy, durable, much easier to obtain that proper military grade heavy armor. Perfect for a bloodthirsty CQC fighter.
Savant Bio-Amp: How she acquired such a rare amp is unknown, though family connections likely had something to do with it.
Logic Arrest Omni-Tool: Only a premium Omni-Tool would suffice for the daughter of a wealthy family.
A B I L I T I E S ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh presents a conundrum. She is quite clearly an inquisitive and formidably intelligent woman, though often withdrawn and introverted. Over multiple sessions, trust was established, and she opened up, showing an animated and very opinionated nature. She harbors a free-spirited rebellious streak, and has gone on many lengthy rants about the nature of various political and economic figures. When asked about events during and after the Skyllian Blitz, however, she refuses to speak.
Further analysis pending.
T R A I T S ____________________________________________________________________________
Positive: Intelligent Analytical
Mixed: Stubborn Bloodthirsty
Negative: Outspoken Emotionally Withdrawn
V I C E S ____________________________________________________________________________
Sex: Like many, Firuzeh turns to the pleasures of the flesh to ease her soul. A habit that began after the Skyllian Blitz during her time in the criminal underworld, she has forsaken the hard drugs that once accompanied it - but not the act itself. Preferring unconnected flings than time with those she knows, seeking not to allow others past her emotional defenses once more.
Gaming: A fan of video games since childhood, Firuzeh can spend hours at a time lost in another world, clearing her mind of the mundanities and troubles of her life. While never an addict, she is vulnerable to brief bouts of obsession, and entire days can pass by almost unnoticed by her.
Chocolate: A far milder vice than some others, ever since her youth she has had a profound weakness for chocolate, and does her best to ensure an ample supply follows her wherever she goes. Fiercely defended like the hoard of an ancient dragon of myth.
H A U N T ____________________________________________________________________________
The Kitchen, Personal Quarters
Firuzeh likes to cook. It calms her, allows her to focus on something that brings her joy, and has something to show for it afterwards. Largely, she will be preparing meals for the crew, putting some effort into tailoring individual dishes to individual tastes while ensuring each crew member receives at least the necessary nutrition. At other times she allows her imagination to run wild, and experiments with spare or exotic ingredients picked up in strange ports - sometimes these experiments bear fruit, and a new staple dish is added to her lineup - at other times it results in almost inedible failures that only a Varren or someone in the grip of starvation would find appealing. Initially sparse, the small but overall perfectly adequate kitchen of the ship has been furnished with high quality tools of the trade - even a set of genuine cast iron skillets - and a generous array of spices, seasonings, and herbs both terrestrial and alien in origin.
Otherwise, she can largely be found in her personal quarters, likely gaming or conducting what little research and development she is capable of with the limited resources availabe.
D R I V E ____________________________________________________________________________
A part of her life from her early teens, Firuzeh has been an ardent transhumanist. Believing that the biological limitations imposed on them could - and should - be transcended by augmenting and replacing parts of their bodies with cybernetics or heavily engineered replacement tissues. It was the driving force behind her choice of education, her employment, and more. Her commitment to this ideal has only increased in the aftermath of the Skyllian Blitz - she wishes to shed herself of the burdens on her psyche, to free her mind and body from everything she has endured during and since that transformative event in her life. She almost seeks to rid herself of her humanity, to flee from the trauma and depression she has struggled with - and to rid herself of the dark side of her being that was awakened on Elysium. Perhaps the side affects of her L-2 implant manifesting at long last, or perhaps some latent part of her own being that simply required a trigger to emerge, Firuzeh battles with a love of violence and bloodshed that terrifies her. And yet, she finds herself propelled along by that same bloodlust - seeking conflict and battles for the sheer joy of killing and maiming. She seeks a way to not only defeat the limitations of biology, but the impositions of her mind.
C Y B E R N E T I C S ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh has a profound weakness to EMP and electrical weaponry, while such weapons will not permanently injure her beyond that of a normal person if she is not subjected to them for long, such an attack will leave her cybernetics temporarily disabled, and she will become all but useless for a minute or two as her systems reboot. Additionally, the plethora of hardware she has installed into herself gives her a metabolism to be feared, and she must consume a prodigious amount daily to keep herself running. She has skeletal reinforcement, primarily in her upper body, enabling her to use the full power of her cybernetic limb, as well as greatly increasing the resistance of her upper body to skeletal damage. In addition to the obvious benefit of her arm, capable of superhuman feats of strength though lacking in miscellaneous features - designed purely for dynamic strength and durability as a combat cybernetic - Firuzeh has implants that modulate her heart, lungs, adrenal glands, and nervous systems, enabling her to respond to combat and general stress more fluidly than normal. Her eye is capable of viewing the world in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, and possesses telescopic capabilities, enabling her to focus on targets further away than normal, albeit at the cost of needing to keep the second eye closed. Additionally, her arm has had eezo nodes installed at key points, mirroring those of her own nervous system, enabling her to utilize the prosthetic for biotics as she would her natural arm.
Only time will tell if her implants to slow the process of aging will have any effect, however.
Final (small) changes have been made and I thiiiink my girl is done. Fixed her age since I made her older than I intended, changed the image used for her cyber arm (I found a cooler looking one!) and added a smidge about the kitchen.
Also art is hard but I'll get her pic done if it's the death of me.
Ooooooookay, edits have been made! Primarily to backstory, changes to L-2 section in skills, as well as a change to appearance to account for changes in backstory. Please let me know if it passes muster!
(She'll hopefully have artwork sooooonish, I'm still learning to draw but want to take a crack at her.)
⟁ 24 ⟁ Female ⟁ Human ⟁ Vanguard
A P P E A R A N C E ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh stands at about 176cm with a muscular but at first seemingly softer frame that, while not exactly that of a seasoned soldier, shows she is no stranger to exertion. She has relatively smooth olive skin, occasionally marred by scarring and other damage - bullet wounds, miscellaneous damage from an eventful life. If one were to closely examine where skin meets synthetic material on her right shoulder it would become plainly apparent that the arm was not replaced with aesthetics in mind - with heavy duty connections visible protruding from her skin and connecting to the arm, much of the skin around the prosthetic having died off, leaving all latter improvements and additions exposed.
Her right arm has been replaced in its entirety, including the shoulder, with a high quality cybernetic, carbon nanotube muscle fibers plainly apparent where laminated graphene plates do not cover. Rather than hide the appearance of the bionic limb, she flaunts it proudly, even going so far as to have laser etched one of the plates covering the area that would be the bicep with her initials and various other designs. The cybernetics are present elsewhere in her body, but are subcutaneous and far less overt in their effects, primarily skeletal reinforcement to prevent her from breaking her own ribs with the power of the arm.
Firuzeh keeps her hair in a tight braid tucked away while on the job, but in her free time she leaves it loose and flowing. Her hair is dark, wavy, and thick - reaching well past shoulder length. Her left eye is of a minty green hue, warm and friendly for the most part, but years of misfortune have taken their toll, and the effects of her time during and after the Skyllian Blitz are clearly visible. Her right eye is prosthetic and plainly so at close distance. A small scar runs the distance from her lower lip to her chin, a greater scar - evidently a burn - mars the left side of her neck, and her nose is bent at a permanent angle.
B A C K G R O U N D ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh was born in Isfahan, Iran, to a family with a long and illustrious history of working in the medical profession, with accomplishments ranging back centuries, and a few relatives even popping up in medical history books. In fact, joining the medical profession had become such a universal career in her family, with a few black sheep now and then choosing to become generals, inventors, or kebab merchants in Tehran, that the usual response to a baby on the way was to speculate on what discipline the child would enter, rather than the sex or personality of the baby.
From day one, Firuzeh was gently pushed towards medicine, and while she took to the subject fairly well, most children would have had they been steeped in the medical world since the day they could walk. Every family reunion was marked by questions into prospective fields she wanted to enter, if she wanted to visit her aunt’s workplace for a day, or the occasional excessively detailed retelling of a particularly grueling surgery.
But moreso than medicine, she took to history in her early life, from a young age rushing to explore the ancient ruins of past civilizations that dotted the landscape of Iran, near obsessively engrossing herself in books about the civilizations that used to dominate the land, ancient battles that dictated the fates of empires, and more. Far more than any of the numerous attempts to pull her deeper into the medical profession, this love for history engendered a love of learning - about anything - in her, alongside a fierce thirst for adventure and exploration. Exploring the insides of someone’s diseased heart was interesting, but she felt the lure of the unexplored galaxy. When news reached her of the First Contact War - what little she could understand of it at her young age, at any rate - it drove this lust for exploration into overdrive and for a time she completely abandoned any pretense of wanting to be a doctor, instead boldy proclaiming she would be the galaxy’s best explorer - in a couple decades at any rate. Throughout all of the exitement, she lead a mostly normal life like most any other well off child, reading, learning to cook, making friends, and playing games of all sorts.
As she grew older, she was faced with a decision. Deep inside she still longed to explore, but the reality of the world had settled on her shoulders, and she no longer thought exploring the galaxy would be something she could do. She was a city girl with a rich family who’d been groomed for medical work her entire life, not fit to fight in a galaxy chock full of danger and machine guns pointed her direction. Eventually, she followed her family’s lead and was admitted to university early at the age of 16, a classic overachiever, having decided with some mournful resignation that she would become a scientist.
Her life in university was a lonely one, she had no friends to call her own, no social life with which to engage, and the immense pressure of a family that saw the topics she studied as ‘lesser’ in some way. To cope, she buried herself in coursework, taking on mind numbing class schedules and committing almost her entire being to studies. Despite her misgivings, she handled university well, exceeding any and all expectations - earning a PhD in cybernetic neuroscience, a master’s in bionic technology, and her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering within the span of five years. Upon her departure from university, she had at least three job offers in prestigious earth based medical firms. However, she was not content to stay put, and when an opportunity presented itself - a field research opportunity on the colony of Elysium, she jumped at the chance.
She made her way for the colony, eager to begin work that seemed right up her alley. They were there to test out a new generation of cybernetic enhancements on any willing colonists - ordinarily there would have been a push to find colonists willing to undergo augmentation, but the colonies held few transhumanist trendsetters, and primarily they studied a group of colonists already sporting cybernetics. It was an assignment she was greatly excited over, and coupled with the beautiful scenery of Elysium, and it was nearly perfect. She even submitted herself - her right arm being replaced with a bleeding edge, top of the line military grade cybernetic limb. The abilities of the replacement enthralled her, and she found herself doubly committed to the mission of the research team.
She even met nonhumans there, with the occasional turian or Asari popping up, and she forged a friendship with a turian present on the research team, driving her nearly mad with incessant questioning about life on Palaven and Turian cybernetic advances. With said turian as a mostly voluntary guinea pig, she even figured out how to adapt dextro food paste, and actual dextro foods, to Persian recipes she’d learned from her kabab merchant uncle. It wasn’t an exact copy, or anything close to it, but the fact that she could cook with dextro ingredients excited her to no end, like most every other new thing she encountered.
Then the Skyllian Blitz began.
Firuzeh always envisioned herself in the rear in such a scenario, designing bionics for soldiers who were wounded in such action - not seizing a Carnifex off a dead pirate who had made it a little farther than most and rushing to the fight to join in with the fighting. Whenever the pistol overheated she would compensate with biotics. Her family, influential as it was, had ensured she was not packed away to distant training facilities, and as such she had never recieved more than rudimentary training - she had precious little fine control, but plenty of power - at times her target would barely notice, at others her biotics would render a pirate into a fine paste. The bloodshed shocked her at first, but as the fighting wore on she began to take a liking to it, near the end of the blitz taking an almost disturbing joy in killing her fellow living beings. By the end she had aquired a shotgun and developed a fondness for applying the butt of the weapon to the face of any pirate unfortunate enough to close to melee range with her.
However, her luck ran out near the end. A particularly well hidden batarian sniper landed a hit squarely on her, thankfully missing her vital organs, but tearing apart the surface of her leg. She still doesn’t remember much of the incident, beyond a dull impact on her thigh, and waking up on the floor of the lab, her thigh slathered in medi-gel. Her colleagues had saved her life, at great personal risk, with her turian friend risking heavy machine gun fire to bring her bleeding body into the lab, where they provided what medical aid they could for what ultimately amounted to a particularly grisly flesh wound. Despite their objections, she had dragged herself from the lab upon waking to continue the fight, something within her driving her on.
In an ironic twist, her foolhardy decision to continue fighting rather than resting saved her life. Something, she didn’t know what, hit the lab, leaving her home away from home a smoldering ruin strewn with body parts and priceless equipment. She thought the deaths of countless soldiers and pirates had hardened her, but the loss of everybody she had come to love and care for over the months on Elysium hit her like a sledgehammer, and she collapsed next to the burning wreckage, what little energy she had left evaporating in an instant.
She didn’t move from the area for what seemed an eternity before an armored gauntlet grabbed her by the shoulder. Expecting a Batarian, she accepted her fate, dropping the weapon she had been clutching, only to be faced with a tired looking Alliance marine.
Miraculously, she had survived, despite everything. But she had nothing left. No job, no friends - only dull ache and the same thirst for adventure - tinged with a thirst for vengeance now. She had spent a few days recuperating, trying to come to terms with the loss of everyone she had come to know - but it never came. Burying her grief, she staggered out of the blasted battlezone. Something had awakened on the planet, a more bloodthirsty side of her. She enjoyed burying a bayonet into the jugular of a slaver, revelled in the violence. But also a sense of fear over returning home. Her work was destroyed, she had nothing to show for it.
And so she put out feelers for any work, be it legal or otherwise. She had nothing to call home beyond a planet now light years away, a planet that offered nothing but safety and comfort - and dull mundanity. She did not want to hear the murmurs of sympathy, the chastisement that she should have stayed on earth, the empty words from people who had not experienced what she had.
So, on Elysium she stayed - after a brief foray into orbit, helping with the rebuilding and taking whatever odd jobs came her way. She felt a reluctance to return to larger galactic society, and a malaise grew in her soul. She fell through the cracks, falling in with gangs running arms, bodies - and cybernetic technology. They had always been a presence, she knew - but they had not been part of her world. In the aftermath of the Blitz, however, their influence grew, as in the aftermath of any disaster. Her expertise lead to her cementing a steady position in the lower hierarchy, someone who could patch minor wounds - and more importantly, reverse engineer any piece of cybernetic tech she got her hands on. Time passed in a blur, and she lived for months in a cycle of sex, violence, drugs, and exploitation. Things came to a head when, under circumstances that she cannot remember even now, she found herself in an alley, bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds to the torso, and with multiple broken bones. For some reason, she had fallen out with the gang, and their punishment had been severe. Firuzeh counted it a small miracle she hadn’t been shot. As it was, she was left in critical condition, and was rushed into emergency surgery - and into the operating room of a distant cousin. She had saved her life - and the moment Firuzeh awoke, she had lambasted the family member she assumed to be dead, eventually being pulled away by a nurse. But it was obvious what would happen next - her family knew she was alive after all, and she would be returning home as soon as she was fit to walk.
And so Firuzeh returned to earth for a time, at a loss for what to do. She couldn’t fit back in with her family, many of whom thought she had died in the Skyllian Blitz, and her purposeful lack of contact left a rift between them that would never truly heal. She missed the daily thrill of a new challenge every day she had experienced in the research lab, alien sights unseen before… and the rush of combat, the visceral satisfaction of fighting and killing. She sought therapy for a time, trying to reintegrate herself, to suppress the bloodlust that had awoken on Elysium - nothing worked, and she drifted listlessly, contributing nothing to society. For another year, she spiraled into a mire of depression, unemployed and living with family. She was healed within a few months, but her mind was not. She even fell into homelessness in the end - unwilling to dip into her savings, unwilling to divulge to the rest of her family her situation, and unwilling to better herself.
It was then that she received an offer. One through back channels, illicit means, and a stranger accosting her on the street. An… organization on the planet of Chalkhos, in the Terminus systems, claimed to have purchased surviving data from her research team’s work on Elysium over the dark side of the extranet, and sought the expertise of the only known survivor in reconstructing that work. It seemed almost too good to be true after the downhill spiral she had found herself in. With little trepidation, she left earth behind for the second time, and made her way to the lawless expanse of the Terminus Systems.
Almost immediately, Firuzeh began to feel herself at home on Chalkhos. The experiments and research conducted on the planet, while far cry from the pristine and near impeccable scientific and ethical standards of the lab on Elysium, filled her with a purpose she had lacked for so long. And despite the lack of adrenaline surges, the dearth of death defying dashes from munitions depots and flaming wreckage, the old thrill of learning and pushing the boundaries of her own knowledge and skill filled her with enthusiasm for the challenges of each day. Over the two years she worked with the lab, she ended up personally implanting of many of the devices they themselves were prototyping or had developed. Some she applied experimentally, confident in their safety but distrustful of the ability of comparatively uneducated subjects to provide feedback, whilst some were all but finished products. Some were intended to boost performance in stressful situations, moderating heartrate and nervous responses to optimize performance in combat - but the ones that drew her interest were those intending to prolong human life even further. Injections to strengthen the myelin sheaths over nerve cells, implants to optimize the heart and keep it pumping strongly for longer, some implants attempted to store copies of relatively undamaged DNA and counteract accumulated damage over time, and some were purely for vanity - keeping skin softer, wrinkle free. Any implant that showed promise and no side effects she eagerly applied to herself - whether or not they would give her any benefit she didn’t know, but she went with them anyway. She buried away the ethical quandaries their experiments raised - focused solely on the outcome. The ends would justify any means, and she a people lifted from the constraints of biological limitation.
But the good times could not last forever. The lab was an illicit operation funded by a legitimate megacorporation in Council space - genetic engineering, cybernetics research, weapons technology, and even AI. Such things could have landed any of them in prison for several consecutive life sentences, and when Council investigation into their activities had begun, the lab on Chalkhos found itself unceremoniously purged from all records, and all funding ceased to exist.
Unable to continue their work, the research team scattered to the winds, and Firuzeh found herself drifting aimlessly once more. She had money to support herself almost indefinitely - but she needed purpose, or at the very least, something to shoot at.
S K I L L S ____________________________________________________________________________
L-2 Biotic: Initially seeming to have been an utter failure, Firuzeh’s L-2 Implant biotics were, for a time, seemingly all but nonexistant. However, acute stress, and years of practice on her own have yielded powerful biotics - but with precious little controllability. Firuzeh’s biotic abilities are strictly limited to those needing little precision and benefitting most from raw power, and thus complement her aggressive, close quarters fighting style. The Implant may also be responsible for the bloodthirst she suffers from in combat situations. The surgery to replace the implant with an L-3 is immensely risky - and even were it not, she would be unable to relinquish it. Her violent side - if it truly was the manifestation of L-2 ailments, had integrated too deeply with her psyche. Firuzeh doesn’t know if she would be physically able to go through with such a procedure.
Excellent Cook: Unexpected for someone bearing her resume, Firuzeh is an experienced cook and has had over a decade of practice. Primarilly knowing how to make various Persian dishes, she nevertheless knows the basics of most other major culinary traditions - and more importantly, is adept at following extranet cooking instructions and adapting their tastes to many different palates. She is even able to cook using dextro ingredients, long hours spent practicing with various Turian foods giving her some knowledge of their use, and building a resistance, giving her the ability to - if nothing else, taste the food for seasoning before serving without suffering adverse effects.
Cybernetic Science: While her ability to apply her skills in this field is limited without access to a full R&D lab and the right tools, Firuzeh’s extensive knowledge of cybernetics, the (human) nervous system, and how the two interface allow her to perform maintenance and repairs on allies with such hardware.
Close Quarters Fighting: Despite receiving little formal training in the area, Firuzeh has become adept at fighting in hectic close quarters. Favoring a shotgun, a pistol, and the strength of her cybernetic limb, she becomes a bloodthirsty avatar of carnage.
E Q U I P M E N T ____________________________________________________________________________
M-6 Carnifex: It’s a Carnifex.
AT-12 Raider: A short ranged, brutally powerful Batarian shotgun, Firuzeh refuses to divulge the means by which she obtained the item. She nevertheless takes a grim pleasure in using a weapon of Batarian make on Batarian pirates.
HyperGuardian Armor set: Heavy, durable, much easier to obtain that proper military grade heavy armor. Perfect for a bloodthirsty CQC fighter.
Savant Bio-Amp: How she acquired such a rare amp is unknown, though family connections likely had something to do with it.
Logic Arrest Omni-Tool: Only a premium Omni-Tool would suffice for the daughter of a wealthy family.
A B I L I T I E S ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh presents a conundrum. She is quite clearly an inquisitive and formidably intelligent woman, though often withdrawn and introverted. Over multiple sessions, trust was established, and she opened up, showing an animated and very opinionated nature. She harbors a free-spirited rebellious streak, and has gone on many lengthy rants about the nature of various political and economic figures. When asked about events during and after the Skyllian Blitz, however, she refuses to speak.
Further analysis pending.
T R A I T S ____________________________________________________________________________
Positive: Intelligent Analytical
Mixed: Stubborn Bloodthirsty
Negative: Outspoken Emotionally Withdrawn
V I C E S ____________________________________________________________________________
Sex: Like many, Firuzeh turns to the pleasures of the flesh to ease her soul. A habit that began after the Skyllian Blitz during her time in the criminal underworld, she has forsaken the hard drugs that once accompanied it - but not the act itself. Preferring unconnected flings than time with those she knows, seeking not to allow others past her emotional defenses once more.
Gaming: A fan of video games since childhood, Firuzeh can spend hours at a time lost in another world, clearing her mind of the mundanities and troubles of her life. While never an addict, she is vulnerable to brief bouts of obsession, and entire days can pass by almost unnoticed by her.
Chocolate: A far milder vice than some others, ever since her youth she has had a profound weakness for chocolate, and does her best to ensure an ample supply follows her wherever she goes. Fiercely defended like the hoard of an ancient dragon of myth.
H A U N T ____________________________________________________________________________
The Kitchen, Personal Quarters
Firuzeh likes to cook. It calms her, allows her to focus on something that brings her joy, and has something to show for it afterwards. Largely, she will be preparing meals for the crew, putting some effort into tailoring individual dishes to individual tastes while ensuring each crew member receives at least the necessary nutrition. At other times she allows her imagination to run wild, and experiments with spare or exotic ingredients picked up in strange ports - sometimes these experiments bear fruit, and a new staple dish is added to her lineup - at other times it results in almost inedible failures that only a Varren or someone in the grip of starvation would find appealing. Initially sparse, the small but overall perfectly adequate kitchen of the ship has been furnished with high quality tools of the trade - even a set of genuine cast iron skillets - and a generous array of spices, seasonings, and herbs both terrestrial and alien in origin.
Otherwise, she can largely be found in her personal quarters, likely gaming or conducting what little research and development she is capable of with the limited resources availabe.
D R I V E ____________________________________________________________________________
A part of her life from her early teens, Firuzeh has been an ardent transhumanist. Believing that the biological limitations imposed on them could - and should - be transcended by augmenting and replacing parts of their bodies with cybernetics or heavily engineered replacement tissues. It was the driving force behind her choice of education, her employment, and more. Her commitment to this ideal has only increased in the aftermath of the Skyllian Blitz - she wishes to shed herself of the burdens on her psyche, to free her mind and body from everything she has endured during and since that transformative event in her life. She almost seeks to rid herself of her humanity, to flee from the trauma and depression she has struggled with - and to rid herself of the dark side of her being that was awakened on Elysium. Perhaps the side affects of her L-2 implant manifesting at long last, or perhaps some latent part of her own being that simply required a trigger to emerge, Firuzeh battles with a love of violence and bloodshed that terrifies her. And yet, she finds herself propelled along by that same bloodlust - seeking conflict and battles for the sheer joy of killing and maiming. She seeks a way to not only defeat the limitations of biology, but the impositions of her mind.
C Y B E R N E T I C S ____________________________________________________________________________
Firuzeh has a profound weakness to EMP and electrical weaponry, while such weapons will not permanently injure her beyond that of a normal person if she is not subjected to them for long, such an attack will leave her cybernetics temporarily disabled, and she will become all but useless for a minute or two as her systems reboot. Additionally, the plethora of hardware she has installed into herself gives her a metabolism to be feared, and she must consume a prodigious amount daily to keep herself running. She has skeletal reinforcement, primarily in her upper body, enabling her to use the full power of her cybernetic limb, as well as greatly increasing the resistance of her upper body to skeletal damage. In addition to the obvious benefit of her arm, capable of superhuman feats of strength though lacking in miscellaneous features - designed purely for dynamic strength and durability as a combat cybernetic - Firuzeh has implants that modulate her heart, lungs, adrenal glands, and nervous systems, enabling her to respond to combat and general stress more fluidly than normal. Her eye is capable of viewing the world in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, and possesses telescopic capabilities, enabling her to focus on targets further away than normal, albeit at the cost of needing to keep the second eye closed. Additionally, her arm has had eezo nodes installed at key points, mirroring those of her own nervous system, enabling her to utilize the prosthetic for biotics as she would her natural arm.
Only time will tell if her implants to slow the process of aging will have any effect, however.
Some random internet fuck with a keyboard and too much free time.
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<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Some random internet fuck with a keyboard and too much free time.<br><br> <br><br> <br> <br><br><div class="bb-center"><img src="http://orig01.deviantart.net/e4bd/f/2012/174/9/8/i_have_done_nothing_productive_today_by_hewhoerasesmost-d54iygf.gif" /></div></div>
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