Name: Currently going by “Lyra Ingolstadt” (other aliases include: “Alex Maddox,” “Athena Maddox,” “Captain Maddox,” and “that crazy bitch who runs the shelter in the Gutter.” That last one is her favorite by far, for the record.)
Age: 28
Height/Weight: 5’8” 160 lbs
Appearance:
Geneform: Thermal vision.
Cybernetic Mods: None.
District of Origin: The always-beautiful Gutter District
Equipment: Bianca (an extensively modified sniper rifle with a number of tally marks carved into it), a handheld data port, a combat knife, a set of jury-rigged ThysenKrüpp armor (all identification scratched, burned, or blotched out) with a hooded jacket.
Skills:
-Proficiency: Gun Use, Stealth
-General Aptitude: Hacking, Acrobatics/Athletics, Awareness, Small Melee Weapon Use
Age: 28
Height/Weight: 5’8” 160 lbs
Appearance:
Geneform: Thermal vision.
Cybernetic Mods: None.
District of Origin: The always-beautiful Gutter District
Equipment: Bianca (an extensively modified sniper rifle with a number of tally marks carved into it), a handheld data port, a combat knife, a set of jury-rigged ThysenKrüpp armor (all identification scratched, burned, or blotched out) with a hooded jacket.
Skills:
-Proficiency: Gun Use, Stealth
-General Aptitude: Hacking, Acrobatics/Athletics, Awareness, Small Melee Weapon Use
Backstory : Lyra Ingolstadt is, in her own words, a “recovering asshole.” She was born Alex Maddox, only child of a middle-class family in the Industrial district about 3 years before ThysenKrüpp moved in. When they did their first wave of razings, her family home was included. She and her parents managed to escape to the Gutter District relatively intact, but without a source of income or shelter, they could only last so long. By the time Alex was 7, she was orphaned. Ever since then, Alex, against all odds, has survived largely on her own. At first, she begged for any aid strangers could offer, but eventually she realized that this could only get her so far--around age 9, she got tired of having to choose between food, medicine, and clean clothing. So, she turned to theft, sneaking, tumbling, and eventually even hacking her way into homes and storefronts and taking what she could. Even then, she grew weary of having to constantly search for new shelter to keep her dry and her possessions safe… and she grew jealous of those who didn’t have these worries. So, she saved up, and by her 13th birthday she had a pistol. The next day, her first mugging. The next month, she took her first life. She also changed her name to Athena--she thought it sounded cooler than Alex. Kids, right?
Eventually, her aptitude for skulking and marksmanship got her noticed by the Rats, back when they were in their prime, and she joined on with them. She eventually earned enough to buy a fairly impressive sniper rifle (given its price on the black market, at least), as well as several tattoos and piercings (to look the part of the big bad gang enforcer). She spent much of her time as a Rat either smuggling goods quickly and quietly, or skulking behind their other smugglers and removing any threats (generally of the Die Glücklich variety) from a very, very safe distance. She grew in infamy over the years and, remarkably, by her early 20s, she somehow managed to catch the attention of ThysenKrüpp… and then one day, Athena Maddox disappeared, as tends to happen to gang members who catch the megaconglomerate’s attention. She woke up in a dark room, and was presented with a “choice” to join ThysenKrüpp--you can probably imagine what the alternative to that choice was. And so Athena, at least partially of her own volition, became an infiltrator in the service of the company that ruined her life, assisting them with their more… hostile takeovers. After all, ThysenKrüpp isn’t the only up-and-coming megaconglomerate in the world, and they really like keeping their edge… if a competitor’s executive has to be shot from a rooftop for them to keep that edge, well, so be it. As far as her feelings went concerning the fact that she was working for some shitstains she’d have liked to see dead, she was startlingly okay with all of it--the pay was damn good, and the bastards she killed were no better (and sometimes even worse) than the bastards she worked for. Plus, the bastards she killed didn’t pay her. Over the course of 5 years, Athena rose to the rank of captain. Her performance (and a bit of her paycheck) even managed to get her a genetic mod that allowed her (selective) thermal vision, which in turn caused her efficiency (and paychecks) to increase.
But yes, she didn’t really mind working for ThysenKrüpp. Well, until 2 years ago. That’s when she was put in charge of a small squad to that was to assist with further expansion into Petrova, a job that she did not particularly relish. Still, it beat ThysenKrüpp’s severance package (emphasis on sever), so she went along with it. And then she saw her. A child, no more than 3, staring down Athena’s scope. Terrified. Suddenly, memories surged back to her--chaos, gunfire, death, her home razed to the ground. Athena had become what she hated.
She didn’t take the shot.
In fact, for the second time in her life, Captain Athena Maddox simply up and disappeared. A startling amount of records on her followed suit, perhaps as a result of a favor or two she had gathered, but who can really say?
As a part of her disappearing act, she used some of her saved funds from years of working for the devil to become a new person. She got new tattoos, paid for some of her more distinctive scars to be covered up, had gene therapy to alter her hair color from its natural black to a vibrant blue, and she dyed streaks of that purple. She took the name Lyra Ingolstadt. She spent much of the remainder of her savings on a fairly sizable ramshackle dwelling in the Gutter District, right between the territories of the Rats and the Bubble Gang--the place itself was in the territory of a smaller gang that just barely managed to hold its own. She took one room, and lent the others to any poor bastards who needed them, determined to try and be a positive influence for once in her damn life. She even found a doctor, Dr. Quackshot, strange guy, but a good enough fellow (with impeccable taste in masks), and reasonable enough with his rates for her clientele, who could often not afford medical care any other way. Over the past 2 years, her shelter has won her a slight reputation in her neck of the Gutter as a humanitarian… well, depending on who you ask. If you’re asking members of that small gang in her area, well, they’d say that anyone whose response to “requests” for protection money is to display the corpses of the collection agents outside of the shelter’s door cannot be called a “humanitarian” as readily as she could be called a “crazy bitch.” Still, it kept them away, so she figures she did something right.
Of course, while her savings from ThysenKrüpp’s ample payments were considerable (for a Gutter rat), they were not enough on their own to pay for her shelter--protection money or no. She needed a job, and her skillset rather limited her options. So, she found herself on one end of a rifle once again, but this time as a free agent, operating anonymously and taking bounties from a makeshift list in the back of a rather “charming” dive bar known as the Rotten Plug.
Eventually, her aptitude for skulking and marksmanship got her noticed by the Rats, back when they were in their prime, and she joined on with them. She eventually earned enough to buy a fairly impressive sniper rifle (given its price on the black market, at least), as well as several tattoos and piercings (to look the part of the big bad gang enforcer). She spent much of her time as a Rat either smuggling goods quickly and quietly, or skulking behind their other smugglers and removing any threats (generally of the Die Glücklich variety) from a very, very safe distance. She grew in infamy over the years and, remarkably, by her early 20s, she somehow managed to catch the attention of ThysenKrüpp… and then one day, Athena Maddox disappeared, as tends to happen to gang members who catch the megaconglomerate’s attention. She woke up in a dark room, and was presented with a “choice” to join ThysenKrüpp--you can probably imagine what the alternative to that choice was. And so Athena, at least partially of her own volition, became an infiltrator in the service of the company that ruined her life, assisting them with their more… hostile takeovers. After all, ThysenKrüpp isn’t the only up-and-coming megaconglomerate in the world, and they really like keeping their edge… if a competitor’s executive has to be shot from a rooftop for them to keep that edge, well, so be it. As far as her feelings went concerning the fact that she was working for some shitstains she’d have liked to see dead, she was startlingly okay with all of it--the pay was damn good, and the bastards she killed were no better (and sometimes even worse) than the bastards she worked for. Plus, the bastards she killed didn’t pay her. Over the course of 5 years, Athena rose to the rank of captain. Her performance (and a bit of her paycheck) even managed to get her a genetic mod that allowed her (selective) thermal vision, which in turn caused her efficiency (and paychecks) to increase.
But yes, she didn’t really mind working for ThysenKrüpp. Well, until 2 years ago. That’s when she was put in charge of a small squad to that was to assist with further expansion into Petrova, a job that she did not particularly relish. Still, it beat ThysenKrüpp’s severance package (emphasis on sever), so she went along with it. And then she saw her. A child, no more than 3, staring down Athena’s scope. Terrified. Suddenly, memories surged back to her--chaos, gunfire, death, her home razed to the ground. Athena had become what she hated.
She didn’t take the shot.
In fact, for the second time in her life, Captain Athena Maddox simply up and disappeared. A startling amount of records on her followed suit, perhaps as a result of a favor or two she had gathered, but who can really say?
As a part of her disappearing act, she used some of her saved funds from years of working for the devil to become a new person. She got new tattoos, paid for some of her more distinctive scars to be covered up, had gene therapy to alter her hair color from its natural black to a vibrant blue, and she dyed streaks of that purple. She took the name Lyra Ingolstadt. She spent much of the remainder of her savings on a fairly sizable ramshackle dwelling in the Gutter District, right between the territories of the Rats and the Bubble Gang--the place itself was in the territory of a smaller gang that just barely managed to hold its own. She took one room, and lent the others to any poor bastards who needed them, determined to try and be a positive influence for once in her damn life. She even found a doctor, Dr. Quackshot, strange guy, but a good enough fellow (with impeccable taste in masks), and reasonable enough with his rates for her clientele, who could often not afford medical care any other way. Over the past 2 years, her shelter has won her a slight reputation in her neck of the Gutter as a humanitarian… well, depending on who you ask. If you’re asking members of that small gang in her area, well, they’d say that anyone whose response to “requests” for protection money is to display the corpses of the collection agents outside of the shelter’s door cannot be called a “humanitarian” as readily as she could be called a “crazy bitch.” Still, it kept them away, so she figures she did something right.
Of course, while her savings from ThysenKrüpp’s ample payments were considerable (for a Gutter rat), they were not enough on their own to pay for her shelter--protection money or no. She needed a job, and her skillset rather limited her options. So, she found herself on one end of a rifle once again, but this time as a free agent, operating anonymously and taking bounties from a makeshift list in the back of a rather “charming” dive bar known as the Rotten Plug.