Jarl Coolgruuf — Roleplayer Guild

@Xanadu fingers crossed this makes the cut

Isabel “Bluegrass Bel” Barton
⟁ 29 ⟁ F ⟁ Human ⟁ Sentinel 

Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, Track 4, Track 5

Art by Auraelauste on DeviantArt

A P P E A R A N C EIsabel stands at 5’8 with a slightly thicker build than most women. Her grayish blue eyes are bright and ever alert and pair nicely with her somewhat pale complexion. Her forearms are noticeably large and carry the name “Jacobson” on the underside her right wrist. Her palms and fingers are heavily calloused from a lifetime working with her hands and banjo picking while her knuckles carry some nasty scars that never quite healed. A strong jaw contrasts soft lips more often set in a gentle smile than anything else. She keeps her dark hair in a sort of messy Dutch braid most of the time but some days she doesn’t feel like putting in the effort so she simply ties it up in a ponytail.

She lives in loose jeans and looser shirts that show just a bit of the black sports bras she wears each and every day without exception or variation. Her work boots don’t appear to have been cleaned since the First Contact War and that assessment is likely correct on some level. She often leaves a pair of pliers or a wrench hanging from her belt purely by accident, having forgotten them there while she was working.

B A C K G R O U N DIsabel Barton was born the youngest of three in 2148 at around 3:30AM in the back seat of her parent’s car right in the hospital parking lot. Her maternal grandfather jokes that she's great at being in the worst places at the worst times. Shortly after her birth, her father lost his BAR license when a shady legal deal fell through and the family of five was forced to move out to the country where said grandfather set him up with a steady, but much less lucrative job at a manufacturing plant.

Speaking of her grandfather, she and her two older brothers were essentially raised by him (but mostly her). He’s a sweet tea in a mason jar drinking, American flag waving, ATF hating, tobacco chewing, moonshine sipping, farmer tan having, overall wearing, pick up truck owning, DIY fixing, fly fishing, shooting squirrels with a .22 from a rocking chair on his back porch sort of rural Georgia-born good ol’ boy. He already picked Bel (he only called her Isabel when she was in deep, deep trouble) out as his favorite grandchild before her 4th birthday, much to the secret resentment of her mother. Her mother’s childhood came and went mostly without her father since he was off in all corners of the world for nearly two decades as a soldier of fortune. She hardly ever saw him growing up so the fact he was now around to play the cool relative always left her a mite bitter.

Her brothers often left to play with their friends from around the town but Bel and her pappy were the best of friends. She spent countless hours with him hunting, fishing, target shooting, and learning to play her great, great grandpappy’s banjo which she inherited and carries to this day. It wasn’t uncommon for her to spend a full week at a time “sleeping over” at his house no matter what her mother did to try and keep her away from him. He taught her most everything she knows from tying her shoes to Ohm’s Law and some of the finer points of calculus. He taught her important life lessons he picked up as an electrical engineer and later as a mercenary such as, “Y’see, Bel there’s two kinds of old electricians: slow ones and dead ones.” and “Never share a fightin’ hole with someone braver than you.” From a young age, Bel grew up listening to her grandpappy regal her with tales of sneaking through the African jungle or trekking across the deserts of Arabia. The way he talked made it sound like every other day was a new adventure and that was likely by design. 

His tales of grandeur infused her with a restlessness only exploring the galaxy could hope to satiate. Unfortunately, the funds simply weren’t there and for awhile her dreams seemed beyond her reach. She was ready to give up on ever leaving Earth when her biotic talent was discovered around the time she was 16. She practically threw herself at the BAaT program only a few short months afterward and they accepted her without hesitation. To say she regretted this decision would be an overstatement, but she missed her pappy something fierce in the following years.

The training was gruelling in the extreme, but she made friends easily which helped ease the burden. All in all she was glad she went through Brain Camp since she came out a decently powerful biotic and ripe for recruitment by the Alliance military who’d definitely ship her across the stars. There was the small issue of her L2 implant causing occasional bouts of crippling pain and schizophrenic symptoms, but there’s no problem a bit of dangerous and radically invasive brain surgery can’t fix. Her biotic power was noticeably diminished by the switch to the nextgen implant, but at least now she didn’t want to curl up in a ball and die from the pain of sledgehammer force migraines. Equipped with her fancy new L3R implant, she signed on for a three year tour of duty and went home to pack and spend time with her family. Her pappy was over the moon at her return and her recruitment, her brothers were happy for her, but her parents were less than pleased at the idea of their daughter getting shipped off to fight pirates in some far flung corner of space. They were outright livid when she handed half her sign on bonus in cash to her pappy. A fierce argument broke out between her and her mother that ended up with no one’s minds changed, the full bonus in her pappy’s hands, and a total lack of communication between her and her parents for the next five years.

The Alliance scooped her up the next week and, seeing she possessed a degree of technical knowledge, funneled her into the Sentinel Corps. Bel served with distinction throughout her tour and garnered a reputation for always staying cool under pressure and helping to keep spirits high even during an uphill march in sleet. Her pappy’s old banjo, almost 15 years experience playing, and a crisp singing voice infused a whole platoon of marines from all different backgrounds with a love of bluegrass. 

Everything was going well for the first 20 months until a wayward piece of shrapnel put her old platoon leader out of commission. He was a good man and everyone was sad to see him go, but happy that he was alive and not more seriously hurt. That bittersweet feeling quickly soured when the troops met their new platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Nathan Webster. He was the sort of prissy, condescending, know-it-all jackass that everyone dreads to work under. Things got even worse when the platoon realized he was a glory hungry warhawk. Months crawled passed as Webster used his position to try and build a stairway up the ranks with the blood and bones of those under his command. The platoon experienced a small, but entirely preventable rise in casualties and Bel had a sinking feeling that something terrible would happen if this kept up. Her fears would become reality six months later.

The lieutenant ordered a surprise attack on a large, planetside pirate base on the edge of the Attican Traverse. Mary and the platoon’s engineers compared notes on scans of the base’s defenses made by scouts and some things didn’t add up. For starters, there were far, far too few guards on the exterior for such a large base, even for a band of overly cocky pirates. Secondly, the base had started to give off strange interference that ceased the moment scouts got within about two klicks of it. The whole situation felt very wrong to Bel and she urged Webster to just sit tight for a few days and wait for reinforcements. Much to her dismay, he brushed off her concerns and reaffirmed the order anyway. This would prove to be a grave mistake.

The platoon landed planetside just three klicks from the base and proceeded to trek through dense forest to reach the pirates. No sooner had they confirmed a visual of the building did all communications equipment die. No signals were going out or coming in from anyone in the entire platoon. The next ten minutes were utter chaos. They were surrounded on three sides by a force of pirates more than twice as large. The marines had no choice but to retreat toward the pirate base where they met even more pirates who’d been hiding beneath the base. Bel and her fellow marines were now outnumbered 3-1 and suffered grievous casualties in just a few short minutes and there seemed to be no way out. Then, a squad leader by the name of Jacobson rallied the survivors and lead a suicide charge through the enemy lines. They only just made it and didn’t bother returning fire as they fled, only ran through the trees like bats out of hell.

Bel watched her friends fall screaming as rounds slammed into their backs but she could do nothing to help them, only keep running. She ran and ran until her omnitool blinked to life with a communications signal and almost cried when she realized she’d made it out of the range of the pirates’ jammers. Her voice was ragged and hoarse as she screamed into the microphone for evac but the message got through. Shuttles were dispatched and arrived after the longest four minutes of her life.

Out of the 40 men and women that walked into that forest, only 7 came back alive. Despite his heroism, Jacobson was found to be among the dead when everyone was counted up. The other survivors described the look on Bel’s face as they rode the evac shuttle back to HQ as nothing short of murderous. She drew her pistol the moment the shuttle touched down, dropped it on her seat, and marched into the base, directly to the war room. The lieutenant already had disgustingly fake melancholy plastered over his weasel face when she arrived. He started on his “what a terrible loss” speech but he didn’t get through the first sentence before she drove her fist into his liver. That one punch fractured three ribs and brought him to his knees. She proceeded to break his nose, both orbitals, his jaw and knock out six teeth before other marines in the room finally managed to pull her off. There were some nasty lacerations on her knuckles from where she repeatedly punched him in the mouth, but those were the least of her problems.

She was subsequently court martialed and dishonorably discharged along with being given a three year jail sentence for assault and battery. Given the nature of the crime and the context surrounding it, she likely would’ve gotten off with a lighter jail sentence had she not mentioned her reasoning for leaving her pistol on the shuttle. 
“Why? ‘Cause I was fixin’ to kill the sumbitch and I knew I woulda succeeded had I taken it with me. I was counting on someone to pull me off him before that beating turned into a murder.”
It also didn’t help that she was so blatantly unapologetic about savagely beating a superior officer.

Second thing Bel did once she was released was gather up her savings and buy a ticket to the Terminus system. The first, of course, was head home and give her pappy a hug. The rest of her family didn’t really talk to her after that except for her brothers. She was shunned from a family that she barely saw anyway so it wasn’t a big change, but it was the principle of being disowned in all but word that hurt. Her pappy was still there for her, just like always and when she left to rebuild her life somewhere else, he was there to see her off. He gave her a small analog camera so she could send him pictures of her adventures and the only memory she has of seeing him cry. It wasn’t a particularly sad day, however. She was realizing her dream after all and he was overjoyed for her, though he’d still miss her.

From there, she went on to work for a laundry list of mercenary groups from big names like the Blue Suns to small, relatively unknown ragtag groups. In truth, the ragtags were her favorite. They tended to travel the most and she got to see things she never dreamed of out in the cosmos. She switched contractors often and always, always ALWAYS listened to her gut about when it was time to leave. The range of her exploits over the next ten years earned her a reputation for dependability, friendliness, and excellent banjo playing. The name Bluegrass Bel is passed around now and then in mercenary circles and while she didn’t exactly get every first pick, she usually had a few options at any given time. Her time on the Achilles will be another chapter in her hopefully long and illustrious career as a soldier of fortune. The only question is, will it be one she likes to revisit?

S K I L L S> Combat Biotics
Her careers as a soldier and as a mercenary have earned her a great deal of experience in this field. She’s no adept, but she can still throw some biotic weight around the battlefield.

> Combat Engineering
Her pappy and the Alliance military taught her well but the latter taught her to work under sometimes literal fire. Bel knows a moderate amount about software but hardware is where she truly shines. She can pick and poke her way around most bundles of wires and metal without too much difficulty all while rounds zip by her head. Don’t expect her to retrofit a dreadnought on the fly, but that locked door? Give her a minute or two and she’ll crack it open. That busted transport? Just lay down some covering fire and she’ll get it rolling again.

On the other side of the coin she also has extensive sapping expertise. Everything from blast doors and solid walls to entire collapsed buildings, obstacles quake in their metaphorical boots when she’s around. She even refers to her plasma cutter as a “key”. 

> Pistol Marksmanship
She was already a decent shot with a pistol before the Alliance ever got their hands on her and gave her a bout of military grade training. Never mind another ten years of mercenary work. Her aim is barely changed even by heavy incoming fire and her shots land on target far more often than not.

> Long Rifle Marksmanship
Though she’s rather out of practice, her years of target shooting and hunting back home allow her to pick up a scoped long rifle in a pinch should the need arise. Just don’t expect her to make nothing but a few shots or lead anything; windy or not.

E Q U I P M E N T
> Jormungandr Technologies Light Armor
A good balance between physical protection and shielding with excellent tech and biotic protection. All around these suits are excellent quality.

> Pinnacle Series Pistol
Another top quality piece from the fine folks down at Jormungandr Technologies. It packs one hell of a punch with accuracy to spare and like most everything the company produces, Bel has nothing but good things to say about this handy little hand cannon.

> Demolition Charges
The amount varies depending on the mission, but she always carries enough of these to at least breach a sturdy wall or two.

> Hand-held Plasma Cutter
This little number is surprisingly powerful, but still rather shrimpy compared to its industrial cousins. The design team was far more concerned with portability and durability than how clean the resulting cuts were or how many it could make. It might take a bit of time to cut through a decently thick set of blast doors but it’ll get through quick enough for any decent team to lay down covering fire while the user goes to work. She makes sure to keep a spare battery on her in the field just in case.

> Analog Camera
Given to her by Pappy about 10 years ago. Bel doesn’t take any pictures with it since her omnitool does the job better than it ever could and can save the pictures for later on the Extranet as well as being able to send those pictures back home. She keeps it with her any time she leaves the ship for any reason, even just to buy supplies.

> Vintage 5 String Banjo
The rise in omnitool-based instruments passed right over Bel and this relic. Tender care has seen this instrument through the Vietnam jungle and the deserts of Iraq and even through the 2nd American Civil War and now it travels the stars with her wherever she goes. 

A B I L I T I E S Sentry Turret
Lift
Warp
Energy Drain -”Y’all mind if I borrow your shields?”

PSYCH PROFILE

T R A I T S Honest
Jovial
Gregarious

Rowdy 
Blunt
Disorganized

V I C E S> Drinking
Bel’s no alcoholic but she almost never turns down a sip of good liquor save vodka as she can’t stand the taste nor the smell. She especially loves a bottle of smooth sipping whiskey.

> Casual Sex
A guaranteed stress reliever and an overall good way for her to blow off extra steam during shore leave.

H A U N TCrew Deck
She can often be found there tinkering with her equipment or picking her banjo to old and obscure bluegrass instrumental she plays on her omnitool. She also just like talking to people in general.

D R I V EAdventure, as cliche as it may sound. Her one dream since she was a little girl listening to her pappy’s mercenary stories was to explore the cosmos and touch the heavens with her own two hands.
Jarl Coolgruuf Member

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