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2 yrs ago
Forum: Casual Roleplay
Name | Eli Ford
Alias | Breakneck
Age | 40
Gender | Female
Appearance | Breakneck is noticeably taller than the average woman at 5'9", and has a toned build. She's lean as befitting a runner, wiry in a way that conceals her immense strength.
Notoriety | Noble
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 4 Agile-Brute-Architect
Abilities |
Speed: Breakneck's most powerful ability and the one she's most famous for. Capable of breaking Mach 3, although doing so is nearly always overkill. Even moving at a "mere" thousand miles an hour she's more than fast enough to suit her purposes.
Strength: Unsurprisingly for someone who regularly contends with ten-plus Gs Breakneck is incredibly strong. While the ability to throw cars and kick people through buildings comes in handy during a fight the real benefit is far more mundane. Without her enhanced strength, Breakneck simply wouldn't be able to turn while running full speed, leaving her as little more than a human-shaped unguided missile.
Endurance: Breakneck is far more durable than a normal person, able to walk through gunfire and let perps ram cars into her. To contend with the stresses supersonic speed puts on an object her body is functionally insulated against extremes in in temperature and surges in electricity. She uses this ability to breach, sprinting through walls to catch suspects off-guard. In addition, poisons, diseases, and irritants such as tear gas or pepper spray are generally unable to affect her, while the natural aging process is greatly reduced.
Perception: Moving as fast as she does means that Breakneck perceives times differently than normal people. When unfocused she'll generally experience the passage of time at close to the same rate as non-Variants but when she's tuned in it seems to slow to a near-crawl.
Protective Aura: The most exotic of Breakneck's abilities, and to her the most important. The ability to pull someone out of harm's way is all well and good but if a normal person were to suddenly accelerate to supersonic speeds the resulting whiplash would be...unpleasant.
This is mitigated by her ability to essentially share her part immunity to the effects of extreme speed with people and objects she touches. While a normal person likely wouldn't enjoy being moved at top speed they will survive it mostly intact.
On a day to day level this ability is what allows her to travel without worrying about destroying the roadwork or disintegrating her clothes.
Strength: Unsurprisingly for someone who regularly contends with ten-plus Gs Breakneck is incredibly strong. While the ability to throw cars and kick people through buildings comes in handy during a fight the real benefit is far more mundane. Without her enhanced strength, Breakneck simply wouldn't be able to turn while running full speed, leaving her as little more than a human-shaped unguided missile.
Endurance: Breakneck is far more durable than a normal person, able to walk through gunfire and let perps ram cars into her. To contend with the stresses supersonic speed puts on an object her body is functionally insulated against extremes in in temperature and surges in electricity. She uses this ability to breach, sprinting through walls to catch suspects off-guard. In addition, poisons, diseases, and irritants such as tear gas or pepper spray are generally unable to affect her, while the natural aging process is greatly reduced.
Perception: Moving as fast as she does means that Breakneck perceives times differently than normal people. When unfocused she'll generally experience the passage of time at close to the same rate as non-Variants but when she's tuned in it seems to slow to a near-crawl.
Protective Aura: The most exotic of Breakneck's abilities, and to her the most important. The ability to pull someone out of harm's way is all well and good but if a normal person were to suddenly accelerate to supersonic speeds the resulting whiplash would be...unpleasant.
This is mitigated by her ability to essentially share her part immunity to the effects of extreme speed with people and objects she touches. While a normal person likely wouldn't enjoy being moved at top speed they will survive it mostly intact.
On a day to day level this ability is what allows her to travel without worrying about destroying the roadwork or disintegrating her clothes.
[Gear]
Attire | Breakneck's costume consists of her old flight suit and helmet. While she doesn't always wear it the tough material is harder to damage in a fight and the helmet has a several communications channels built in, allowing her to listen in on and communicate with local law enforcement.
Armament/Equipment | Her preferred weapon is a set of short, thick steel stakes similar to bo-shuriken. Such esoteric weapons are highly effective in the hands of a super-strong, super-fast Variant. She also carries CS spray and a stun baton. Any other weapons are picked up in the field as opportunity allows them to be.
[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | As a Noble Breakneck is affiliated with N.O.V.A, and the Glorious Alliance to a lesser extent. While not connected to the organization she has expressed sympathy for Pariah Underground in the past.
Personality/Habits | Breakneck hasn't spent her career trying to become a superhero, she's worked to become the definition of a superhero. The past ten-odd years have been spent building her reputation, tackling every challenge ranging from simple street crime to natural disasters. While most of her activities have taken place in her adopted home of New Haven she's been known to sprint over to crisis points across the country, occasionally straying beyond America's borders. She's been quoted as saying "It's impossible to help everyone, but that doesn't mean I can't help anyone."
She projects confidence when seen in public, always happy to spare a moment for an autograph or a message to a fan. When dealing with lesser opponents like unpowered gangsters or low-tier Variants she's cocky bordering on arrogant but serious threats bring out a serious side of her.
People close to her know that despite the brave face she puts on in public the loss of her father and her being kicked out of the military still affect her to this day. When not wearing her "game face" so to speak she can seem callous, almost cold, traits that ended up causing her marriage to dissolve. She is very particular about her personal space, careful to keep people from entering it.
Occupation/Trade | Formerly an Out of Atmosphere Fighter Pilot and military contractor, currently a full-time celebrity Noble.
Skills/Talents |Breakneck is a trained pilot and a veteran of low-intensity conflicts around the world. Her military experience has given her a mind for tactics, a key advantage over her generally untrained opponents.
Already quite intelligent before awakening her Variance her ability to perceive time at a slower rate lets her reason through problems faster than one would expect.
Family | -Roman Ford, Father: Died when Eli was a teen
-Sofía Ford, Mother: Sofia is retired now and living in the Hamptons, enjoying her post-service life thanks to her daughter's success.
-Evan Nielsen, Ex-husband: Met Eli in college and married her soon after she left the Space Force, only for their relationship to break down after she left Manticore. They're on fairly amicable terms for the sake of...
-Jamie Nielsen, Stepson: Evan's son from a previous marriage, met Eli when he was only four years old. Jamie's mother had died when he was a toddler and Eli felt a kinship with him through this loss. She visits regularly.
Background | Breakneck's life story is a matter of public record. In fact she's published a (ghostwritten) autobiography detailing. Eli, as a few close friends call her, isn't a native of New Haven. She's a military brat, born to a pair of officers stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. By her own account she had a lonely childhood, bouncing from school to school every couple of years as her parents were reassigned according to the mysterious whims of Uncle Sam. It was a decent enough childhood, in the material sense. While the family could never be called rich Eli had food to eat, a warm bed to sleep in and no shortage of entertainment when requested.
But socially it was quite lacking. Making friends was tricky for her to do when she knew she'd be leaving them in a year so she mostly kept to herself. Even after the family finally settled in New Haven when she was thirteen she chose studies over companionship, shutting herself away from others in order to focus on her schoolwork. The exception was drama, Eli picking up a love of acting that pushed her to try out for roles at each school she attended.
As she entered high school Eli planned to study aerospace engineering, a career path influenced by her parents. But when she was 15 her father was killed in a crash landing, a freak accident snuffing out a veteran with a decades-long career. Having crashed on reentry into Earth's orbit, nothing was left of him to bury.
Her father's death, caused by a faulty braking system that had been missed during the pre-flight check, changed Eli's plans drastically. While she still went to college (Cornell, Summa Cum Laude) instead of chasing a job in the defense industry she applied for Officer Training School, with plans to enter attend Weapons School right after.
Eli found herself flourishing in OCS, driven by the need to serve her country and make her parents proud. After being commissioned into the Space Force as a second lieutenant she immediately joined flight school, learning to pilot the same model of spaceplane as her father. She took well to operating in low gravity, learning how to dogfight in open space and attack ground targets from the upper atmosphere.
Her career as a fighter pilot, while promising, would take a strange turn three years into her service. During what should have been a routine patrol flight an errant bit of space debris fractured her cockpit window, forcing Eli into an emergency landing. While she had trained for such an event she had never before experienced it, the reality of the situation brought to mind her father's death. Eli panicked, failing to control her descent.
When she breached Earth's exosphere she was frozen in her seat, watching helplessly as the craft plummeted at more than twenty thousand miles an hour. Paralyzed by fear she failed to perform the required retroburn, essentially trapped in her own head unable to free herself. It felt as if time was slowing as she sank through layer after atmospheric layer...
and in a way, it was. Eli's Variance had awakened, and as she got faster her reflexes grew to match. The change in perception allowed her to gather herself, pulling up so that she might have a chance of surviving. The landing was badly botched, her ship skidding to a stop in a trench far outside the base, but she came out alive.
Being unused to her powers meant that wasn't able to regulate her speed, clearing the ten miles back to base in under five seconds. This made it painfully obvious that she was a Variant and thus useless to the brass. Eli accepted her honorable discharge with grace, leaving behind her dreams of flying.
As much as she would have liked to keep flying life moved on. She reconnected with an old college flame and would end up marrying him, and while she would never be a combat pilot again she quickly found herself in training once more.
The United States might have been unwilling to work with Variants but there were plenty of private companies more than happy to hire them. A small but aggressive PMC based out of South Africa sought her out and offered her a job. While Variants were simply too small a portion of the population to staff a private army with, Manticore did specialize in them to point that a notable percentage of their agents were empowered. They would approach civilians with noteworthy powers, offering to take the financial risk of putting them through training in exchange for a five year contract.
While they lacked the multibillion dollar spacecraft she wanted to fly Eli was too far removed from her university days to seek employment as an engineer and didn't consider herself as being capable of much else. She signed up on a whim and whisked off into the exciting world of fighting for money.
It was at Manticore that Eli learned to harness her powers, measuring her speed so as to avoid burning out while working to generate the passive field that would allow her to interact with the world without destroying it. In addition to honing her Variant abilities, Manticore had her go through boot camp once more, having her hone the basics of fighting on foot.
By her mid-twenties she was a fully-fledged military contractor, Manticore deploying her to various hotspots around the globe. Eli, or "Breakneck" as she was now called, naturally specialized in the rapid extraction of VIPs but would be given additional training so in infiltration and demolitions.
Breakneck found comradery among her fellow contractors, many of the Variants within Manticore also having been discharged upon the discovery of their powers. She served with Manticore for nearly a decade, making good money and living a life of adventure. But as much as she enjoyed it the soullessness of the work needled at her. The military had given her a purpose before rejecting her, promising the chance to live up to her parent's legacies. Manticore was just a job, and an unpleasant one at that. Her mood soured and she began to drift away from her husband, Evan unable to understand even if she cared to explain.
She would be forced out of the mercenary life when Manticore suddenly dissolved. A number of incidents with local law enforcement brought international attention down on the company while many of the higher-ups and investors suddenly found Interpol agents digging through their more illicit files. As the moneymen were arrested for fraud the company simply disappeared, its files burned and hard drives disposed of in discrete rivers and lakes around the world.
Breakneck took this as a sign that it was time for her to do something good with her life. Now in her mid-thirties and recently single (she and Evan agreed to a divorce the day before she found out she was jobless), Breakneck went back to New Haven and sought to put her experience to work as a Noble. She signed up with N.O.V.A and got to work immediately.
Early in her career, she struggled to make a living off of her good deeds, not comfortable seeking payment from those she helped, but as she become more of a known figure she was contacted by an ambitious talent agent. He'd sell her image, get her interviews and book deals and make her a star, ensure she'd have more than enough money to care for her mother all while saving lives.
In return he'd get fifteen percent of all her earnings, a steep charge but one well worth paying he promised. Once again devoid of any other options Breakneck agreed.
In the thirteen years since starting her agent has done what he promised. Breakneck is something of a celebrity, attending fan signings and auctioning off old bits of gear for charity in between missions. While those close to her know that she finds fame somewhat stifling she'll always prefer it to what she was doing before. There's been ups and downs, painful injuries and tragic failures, but she's making a difference in the world.
That's good enough for her.
Name | Unknown
Alias | Ignoble
Age | Unknown
Gender | Unknown
Appearance | It's hard to determine features underneath the armor and mask but Ignoble is well-built and broad shoulder, their size fairly deceptive when compared to their quick reflexes. Specific features are still unknown.
Notoriety | Wanted
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 2 Brute-Agile
Abilities | Enhanced Phsyiology- Ignoble is tougher, stronger and faster than any non-Variant. They've kept pace with a speeding car and can easily manhandle full-grown men as if they were children. While they try to dodge bullets whenever they've been hit a number of times over the years and have yet to be truly injured, suggesting they can sustain some amount of damage before needing to retreat.
Enhanced Reflexes- While hardly precognizant Ignoble has demonstrated a level of awareness that suggests Variance in that aspect. They are capable of dodging gunfire and quite dangerous in close combat.
[Gear]
Attire | Ignoble's outfit is heavily armored, consisting of bulletproof canvas weave covered by ceramic plating. There are multiple pockets for ammo and other cargo, and beneath is an aramid bodysuit, likely Nomex or a similar product. The skull-like helmet they wear likely has some sort of HUD, although if that's the case it's running on a closed loop outside of the Nexus as attempts to hack in have gone poorly (see the files on the killing of registered Noble White Hat).
The ensemble is clearly designed to evoke fear, and has been described by Agent Vasquez as "pretty edgy honestly." While that may be the case it is certainly functional.
Armament/Equipment | Ignoble uses a variety of equipment, what they carry with them on a given day is tailored to whatever their current objective is. They've been known to use grappling hook launchers, lockpick guns, dissemblers, and prebuilt hacking modules to defeat electronic security measures.
Every time they've been spotted they've carried a primary firearm, a secondary or two and a fighting knife. Other notable weapons include a variety of explosives (improvised or not), stingers loaded with sedatives or overdose quantities of mundane narcotics, and less-than-lethal options for dealing with non-targets.
[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | There's a good chance that Ignoble is affiliated with the Syndicate, or at least has contacts within the organization. Ignoble's Variant-supremacy leanings match up with the gang, and they would have needed help sourcing the variety of equipment they've picked up over the years. Them being a full member is extremely considering the clash between their modus operandi and the Syndicate's.
Personality/Habits | Ignoble is professional, driven and extremely dangerous. They hold great disdain for those who would attempt to harness the Variance and are openly hostile to N.O.V.A, but tries to avoid involving mundane civilians in their conflict. Being a Variant is no guarantee of safety either, Ignoble has fought a number of them, Noble or otherwise.
Ignoble believes that attempts to regulate Variants are inherently unjust, and any attempt to even the playing field for non-Variants is to be seen as an act of war. Those would try to give the Variance those without, or working on ways to neutralize Variation, are at risk.
Interestingly they appear to be fairly ambivalent on cybernetic and organic augmentation. Analysts suggest that because those types of enhancements come from an outside source they don't tread on Ignoble's need to be special, at least not overmuch. However, suitably drastic changes might draw their ire.
Occupation/Trade | Vigilante and pro-Variant terrorist.
Skills/Talents | Outside of their powers Ignoble is a skilled gunman and infiltrator. They're capable of making and using quite complex IEDs and are a competent, if not outstanding hacker. These traits made them a very good bank robber in the past and a very good assassin in the present. They're extremely dangerous and not it's recommended that N.O.V.A. agents refrain from engaging without backup when possible.
Family | Unknown.
Background | As far as N.O.V.A is concerned Ignoble came into existence eleven years ago in Las Vegas, Nevada. When they first popped up on law enforcement radar they appeared to be a fairly standard Variant crook, faster and stronger than a normal person but not to the degree seen in Class 3s or above. They used their powers to rob armored trucks and casino vaults, hitting a few in Vegas before branching out to Phoenix and Portland.
While a Variant robber running around certainly wasn't ideal Ignoble wasn't a big enough problem to be a priority for N.O.V.A. But then after a year of activity, the street criminal suddenly dipped a toe into terrorism. A renowned molecular biologist by the name of Franklin Payne was shot dead outside his home in Norfolk, Virginia with Ignoble leaving a note taking credit.
Dr. Payne had recently spoken about his theory of the Variant gene and expressed an interest in transplanting it in non-Variants. Ignoble declared their opposition and promised to do the same to anyone else with the same idea. In addition, they declared open war on N.O.V.A, decrying it as openly corrupt and causing people to suffer under heavy-handed attempts to meddle with forces it didn't understand. As far as Ignoble was concerned it fell on Variants to police themselves, and they would just that.
The note ended with a promise: Ignoble would do their best to avoid killing any mundane while they pursued their hunt, save for N.O.V.A agents and those attempting to harness the Variance.
And thus began a cycle of violence. Ignoble would appear as if out of thin and target some young researcher or attack a laboratory, using guns, explosives, and poisons in to achieve their goal. After destroying as much research as they could they'd simply disappear for weeks or months, reappearing elsewhere to do it all over again.
They got into fights with other Variants as well, both those attempting to stop them and ones who Ignoble considered to be careless with their powers. In keeping with their policy of self-policing, they eliminated Variants that caused excessive suffering to the unpowered.
They've kept up their crusade ever since.
[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Personality/Habits | Breakneck and Ignoble are one and the same, alter egos of Eli Ford. The balancing act required to keep the lie going is crucial to get right but far easier for her than it would be for someone else.
Breakneck is known to value her privacy when not in public, often sprinting to some vacation hotspot or another when not working. Ignoble is only ever in the public eye for a few minutes or hours at a time, disappearing off to God knows where after each attack. Breakneck, while quick to react, is not omniscient so she can't respond to calls she doesn't hear about will not be able to help since Ignoble is generally gone before anyone knows what's happened.
It's a tiring way to live, but it's what needs to happen.
Occupation/Trade | Part-time Noble terrorist, full-time liar
Skills/Talents | Outside of the previously mentioned, acting. Eli's always had a knack for the craft so slipping into a costume to play a role comes naturally to her. The voice changer in her helmet and padding to the armor are necessary parts of the costume but she's the real star. Ignoble looks, acts and sounds entirely different than Breakneck.
Background | As far as the public knows Eli accepted her discharge with grace and understanding, disappointed that her career had ended so soon but accepting the military's reasoning. In actuality she was embarrassed and enraged, the sense of failure she felt at being unable to live up to her parent's expectations mixing her feeling of abandonment by her country to poison her perception of Variant-Mundane relations.
While she considered getting a job as a commercial pilot she felt that her resume would be weak. As a fighter she didn't actually that many flight hours logged compared to the transport guys she'd be competing with. Moreover, it wasn't fair that she even had to consider civilian work! She joined Manticore because it offered her a chance to be exceptional, not because she liked the idea of being a mercenary.
Plenty of her comrades felt the same. Throughout her service she grew close to a fellow contractor by the name of Jake, a man with a sketchy past and an eye for valuables that he could snatch up from the battlefield and sell at a profit. Originally Breakneck was cool towards him, unimpressed by his vulturish tendencies. But after she saved his life in an ambush in Northern Yemen he latched onto her, and she found herself growing to like him.
After that they constantly buddied up often for operations, getting to know each other over the course of a decade of service. By the end of it she had managed to piece together that he was a low-level affiliate of the Syndicate, one of many criminals using Manticore as a means to make connections. Earlier in her life Eli might have been disgusted with him but post-discharge she couldn't muster up much more than vague disapproval. While it might have been wrong Variants using their powers to better their lives was something she could sympathize with.
When the company suddenly shuttered its doors in the face of an international crackdown Eli managed to get out clean, having done nothing illegal save for violating a few laws on the importation of alcohol in various countries. Jake however went down for smuggling and wire fraud, whisked off to French Guiana for trial. Before he turned himself he promised to hook her up with a couple of opportunities from his friends in the Syndicate.
She was fairly certain that she'd never see him again but thanked him anyway, wishing him well. As much as she hated to see her friend go she had her own problems to worry about. Settling back into New Haven she found that the forms and fees to register as a Noble were unreasonably high, the money of course flowing into non-Variant pockets. Once again her wish to serve was hindered by her very nature.
But Breakneck managed to scrape together the money and lived off her savings, working hard to build up goodwill with the community. She had just about managed to find her footing as a hero when she was connected by an unknown agent with some very interesting information.
To her sadness but not surprise Jake was dead, having escaped from prison a year earlier only to get killed in a drunken brawl. But before he got himself murdered he had passed her name on, as promised. The person on the other side of the screen wouldn't explain more without a more secure form of communication, giving Breakneck precise instructions to follow if she were interested.
Curiosity would get the better of her after only a week, and after establishing a secure room deep within WildFyre she was directed towards Las Vegas. While the Syndicate wasn't going to dirty their hands with simple robbery they did have the inside scoop on plenty of potential takes, and they'd pass along the information in exchange for a cut.
Ignoble came into existence as a childish way to get revenge, Eli masking up and lashing out at the world that had been so quick to keep from doing what she wanted with her life. It was a sort of stress relief in that she could spend most of her time sprinting around saving lives and then take a break to release all her anger by comitting grand larceny.
Her robberies were bloodless, military training and insider information allowing her to beat the police response time with rarely a shot fired. As her legitimate career became more successful the dirty cash piled up. It was when she was trying to figure out what to spend her ill-gotten, hard to explain gains on when the idea occurred to her.
The ease with which her still-unnamed Syndicate contacts could get her what she wanted distracted her from just how quickly she was willing to turn to murder. The fairly ratty mask and second-hand plate carrier she had been wearing were replaced by proper gear, an old moonshiner's tucked away in the depths of the New Haven Bayou converted into a safehouse. Ignoble turned from profit-based crime to violence in the name of ideals, lashing out at those who would leash her.
Both careers continued on with little impact on the other, save for one event. As much as Eli enjoyed helping those who couldn't help themselves the stress of working as a celebrity Noble was beginning to get to her. Compared to Ignoble Breakneck was an inescapable part of her life, recognized on street corners and in theatres. Someone who valued privacy as much as Eli did couldn't keep up appearances for as long as she had without a long vacation, and she had a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Breakneck was accompanying a squad of MADmen in an attempt to rescue a hostage Ignoble had ferried all the way over from Houston. Intel suggested that the vigilante and their victim were holed up in the Shanty, but that was nothing but a ruse. The building was rigged to blow, and the resulting explosion wiped out half the team. Breakneck took the brunt of the blast, her durability allowing her to walk away alive but injured.
It was a drastic way to buy time but it worked. The doctors told her that she'd be moving at less than half-speed for at least a year and her PR team informed the world. Meanwhile Ignoble, far slower and weaker than Breakneck's normal condition, escaped to continue their activities. Eli had winged herself, but she already had to hold back when playing as her criminal alter-ego.
Ignoble kept doing what they did best, Breakneck was back in action in ten months, and since then Eli's found some semblance of balance. By day she helps people that need it, by night she hunts those would put her down again.
Personality/Habits | Breakneck and Ignoble are one and the same, alter egos of Eli Ford. The balancing act required to keep the lie going is crucial to get right but far easier for her than it would be for someone else.
Breakneck is known to value her privacy when not in public, often sprinting to some vacation hotspot or another when not working. Ignoble is only ever in the public eye for a few minutes or hours at a time, disappearing off to God knows where after each attack. Breakneck, while quick to react, is not omniscient so she can't respond to calls she doesn't hear about will not be able to help since Ignoble is generally gone before anyone knows what's happened.
It's a tiring way to live, but it's what needs to happen.
Occupation/Trade | Part-time Noble terrorist, full-time liar
Skills/Talents | Outside of the previously mentioned, acting. Eli's always had a knack for the craft so slipping into a costume to play a role comes naturally to her. The voice changer in her helmet and padding to the armor are necessary parts of the costume but she's the real star. Ignoble looks, acts and sounds entirely different than Breakneck.
Background | As far as the public knows Eli accepted her discharge with grace and understanding, disappointed that her career had ended so soon but accepting the military's reasoning. In actuality she was embarrassed and enraged, the sense of failure she felt at being unable to live up to her parent's expectations mixing her feeling of abandonment by her country to poison her perception of Variant-Mundane relations.
While she considered getting a job as a commercial pilot she felt that her resume would be weak. As a fighter she didn't actually that many flight hours logged compared to the transport guys she'd be competing with. Moreover, it wasn't fair that she even had to consider civilian work! She joined Manticore because it offered her a chance to be exceptional, not because she liked the idea of being a mercenary.
Plenty of her comrades felt the same. Throughout her service she grew close to a fellow contractor by the name of Jake, a man with a sketchy past and an eye for valuables that he could snatch up from the battlefield and sell at a profit. Originally Breakneck was cool towards him, unimpressed by his vulturish tendencies. But after she saved his life in an ambush in Northern Yemen he latched onto her, and she found herself growing to like him.
After that they constantly buddied up often for operations, getting to know each other over the course of a decade of service. By the end of it she had managed to piece together that he was a low-level affiliate of the Syndicate, one of many criminals using Manticore as a means to make connections. Earlier in her life Eli might have been disgusted with him but post-discharge she couldn't muster up much more than vague disapproval. While it might have been wrong Variants using their powers to better their lives was something she could sympathize with.
When the company suddenly shuttered its doors in the face of an international crackdown Eli managed to get out clean, having done nothing illegal save for violating a few laws on the importation of alcohol in various countries. Jake however went down for smuggling and wire fraud, whisked off to French Guiana for trial. Before he turned himself he promised to hook her up with a couple of opportunities from his friends in the Syndicate.
She was fairly certain that she'd never see him again but thanked him anyway, wishing him well. As much as she hated to see her friend go she had her own problems to worry about. Settling back into New Haven she found that the forms and fees to register as a Noble were unreasonably high, the money of course flowing into non-Variant pockets. Once again her wish to serve was hindered by her very nature.
But Breakneck managed to scrape together the money and lived off her savings, working hard to build up goodwill with the community. She had just about managed to find her footing as a hero when she was connected by an unknown agent with some very interesting information.
To her sadness but not surprise Jake was dead, having escaped from prison a year earlier only to get killed in a drunken brawl. But before he got himself murdered he had passed her name on, as promised. The person on the other side of the screen wouldn't explain more without a more secure form of communication, giving Breakneck precise instructions to follow if she were interested.
Curiosity would get the better of her after only a week, and after establishing a secure room deep within WildFyre she was directed towards Las Vegas. While the Syndicate wasn't going to dirty their hands with simple robbery they did have the inside scoop on plenty of potential takes, and they'd pass along the information in exchange for a cut.
Ignoble came into existence as a childish way to get revenge, Eli masking up and lashing out at the world that had been so quick to keep from doing what she wanted with her life. It was a sort of stress relief in that she could spend most of her time sprinting around saving lives and then take a break to release all her anger by comitting grand larceny.
Her robberies were bloodless, military training and insider information allowing her to beat the police response time with rarely a shot fired. As her legitimate career became more successful the dirty cash piled up. It was when she was trying to figure out what to spend her ill-gotten, hard to explain gains on when the idea occurred to her.
The ease with which her still-unnamed Syndicate contacts could get her what she wanted distracted her from just how quickly she was willing to turn to murder. The fairly ratty mask and second-hand plate carrier she had been wearing were replaced by proper gear, an old moonshiner's tucked away in the depths of the New Haven Bayou converted into a safehouse. Ignoble turned from profit-based crime to violence in the name of ideals, lashing out at those who would leash her.
Both careers continued on with little impact on the other, save for one event. As much as Eli enjoyed helping those who couldn't help themselves the stress of working as a celebrity Noble was beginning to get to her. Compared to Ignoble Breakneck was an inescapable part of her life, recognized on street corners and in theatres. Someone who valued privacy as much as Eli did couldn't keep up appearances for as long as she had without a long vacation, and she had a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Breakneck was accompanying a squad of MADmen in an attempt to rescue a hostage Ignoble had ferried all the way over from Houston. Intel suggested that the vigilante and their victim were holed up in the Shanty, but that was nothing but a ruse. The building was rigged to blow, and the resulting explosion wiped out half the team. Breakneck took the brunt of the blast, her durability allowing her to walk away alive but injured.
It was a drastic way to buy time but it worked. The doctors told her that she'd be moving at less than half-speed for at least a year and her PR team informed the world. Meanwhile Ignoble, far slower and weaker than Breakneck's normal condition, escaped to continue their activities. Eli had winged herself, but she already had to hold back when playing as her criminal alter-ego.
Ignoble kept doing what they did best, Breakneck was back in action in ten months, and since then Eli's found some semblance of balance. By day she helps people that need it, by night she hunts those would put her down again.
@Eclektik could you give us an explanation of what qualifies as a Class 4 variant? It says communal threat but Im wondering if that means a city block, the whole city, a state...?
yeah I think I'm gonna go with a speedster type, just something very fun about going fast. Probably strength, speed durability, basically all the stuff required to not turn into paste when they run. hopefully have part the sheet done over the weekend
@Eclektik, What power levels are you willing to permit for a Variant?
I have an idea for an OC but he might be too powerful for the RP.
“Class 5 Variants are not allowed”
So nothing that’s a National threat
Im thinking I'm gonna make an ex-Syndicate-turned-vigilante, maybe a speedster? I do like my quick characters
it's a lil vague but Ill ask more questions as they come up!
When you say “alternate version of America”, do you mean because it’s in the future? Or are there major historical differences in the timeline?
This seems interesting, tentative tag
In
Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)
→
2 yrs ago
Forum: Casual Roleplay
Whew! Save for a grammar once over my characters should be done, lemme know if something needs to change @Tortoise
Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:
Thozna is a Gnoll, one of the hyenafolk that live in the plains, swamps, savannahs and deserts. While specific cultural practices vary from clan to clan they're a generally nomadic people, living a lifestyle of hunting, herding and raiding. Gnolls can be found in a variety of environments, their thick pelts and hardy constitutions making them well-suited for mercenary work. Indeed it's not uncommon for a petty lord to hire on a band of them for use as shock troops or terror squads.
While they can reach the age of 120 or even past that in rare cases they generally die far earlier to illness or violence. Scrapblast is fairly old for one still fighting, estimating herself to be somewhere past eighty years old. She had an earlier stint with the caravan of about four months, and her second tour has just passed the two-year mark.
Appearance:
Gnolls are much taller and much broader than humans are, and Scrapblast is no exception. She weighs in at a stocky three hundred and eighty pounds, standing seven feet and eight inches tall while hunched over in the trademark Gnoll slouch. Her thick pelt is colored in a range of browns, the fur on her back having a reddish tint while that of her front lightens into a creamier shade.
While she has a range of scars across her body the vast majority of them are hidden by the tunics and capes she's taken a liking to, save for the wound running down her muzzle. The nasty gash left by a falchion strike tends to dry out and irritate her, so it's not uncommon to catch her running her long tongue up the channel.
Thozna tries to dress presentably by "civilized" standards on a day-to-day basis but feels she is under no compulsion to do so when she puts on her armor for whatever reason. Her war gear was designed to induce fear as much as it was to provide protection, almost deceptively crude. Harsh, rugged steel plates are layered over thick mail, her helmet hugging close to her skull while leaving her jaw free to bite people with.
History:
Thozna was born into the Norplain pack, a Gnollish tribe occupying, unsurprisingly, the Norplain region of the Asvenkal Savanah. At that time the Norplainer gnolls had two main industries: the herding of livestock, mainly cattle and sheep, and raiding. Of course there were other professions such as healers to care for the sick or blacksmiths to produce tools but by and large, they slaughtered animals and enemies. Thozna's mother was a noted warband leader while her father was somewhat infamous in the nearby human settlements for his skill with a javelin, and thus her fate was decided.
Gnolls mature quickly compared to humans, becoming adults at around ten years of age. Even before then Thozna accompanied her parents in the field, scoring her first kill in a fight against a party of dog-like Ainok. Thozna likely would have gone on to an impressive but ultimately ordinary career as a warrior, save for one thing.
Gnolls believe that magic is the realm of Mus the Weaver, the mysterious many-eyed patron of seers, tacticians, and clothmakers. Those marked by her lead auspicious lives and it's considered bad luck to not nurture her gift. Thozna first began to unconsciously levitate objects as a cub. starting with nails before moving knives and pots.
As she got older and gained more control over her magic she chose a personal name in the Gnollish tradition, Scrapblast. It reflected her preferred method of fighting: spraying the enemy with shards of jagged metal. With this power she set out to make a name for herself, battling against rival warbands and raiding the nearby Human and Ainok settlements.
As she got older Scrapblast got bigger, faster and more magically empowered. The months of experience turned into years and the years into decades, Thozna outliving her parents and many of her peers. While Gnolls are naturally long-lived the lifestyle tends to cull the pack, especially those who find themselves on the front. Scrapblast's band, formed when she was fifteen, had seen a complete turnover of members two times over by the time she was thirty.
She was an extremely talented soldier, one with enough stolen wealth to happily retire. But Scrapblast found herself growing bored. The Norplainers had gone through a series of small disasters during her third decade, droughts and outbreaks of disease and pyrrhic victories all adding up. As quickly as they reproduced the pack was still hemorrhaging manpower and those that survived were more cautious. Why throw their lives away when people needed them at home? Scrapblast couldn't blame them for this subtle shift in sensibilities but she couldn't stand by either.
As an accomplished raid leader she had the right to gather a small band of friends, family and various connected men-at-arms, Scrapblast sewing together her banner and leading them to seek their fortunes in service of others. The various headmen and warlords of the Asvenkal always had a need for hired blades and were none too picky about where they came from. Even those whose territory Scrapblast had pillaged in the past were happy to have her on their side.
But by that point in her career, she found those battles boring. Most of the time the band was deployed against disobedient peasants and bandit gangs, only occasionally called to fight against the armies of a rival lord or an outside force that dared to intrude on the Dragon-Sultan's lands. The pay was solid enough to keep her crew interested but Scrapblast was too old to be bought by baubles alone.
So she walked out of the Asvenkal and into wider Alwyne. Scrapblast haggled with merchants in the bustling temple-cities of Velkinir, and searched for abandoned treasures in the ghost towns of the old Costal Elf homelands. One day she was part of a hunting party high in the Ironpeaks hunting for roc eggs, the next she was a guest of a giant who dwelled in a cavern of quartz.
It was freeing in a way, but still the passage of time needled at Scrapblast. She was about fifty when she decided to return to the Norplain, having spent so long away from home that she had almost forgotten what it looked like. Her homecoming was awkward, most of those she met having been born too late to know of her save for stories from their elders.
Moreover, in her absence the pack had elected to settle down entirely. The series of setbacks that they had suffered decades before had put them in a precarious position, forcing them to cooperate more with the nearby settlements. At some point the group stopped traveling their circuit of hunting grounds to move into the outskirts of a trade post, given a place to raise their flocks in exchange for serving as an auxiliary defense.
Once more Scrapblast found herself alienated from her people with no one to blame but poor circumstances. Her half-hearted attempts to form a new warband failed, and she said her final goodbyes.
She planned to make her way to one of the other, more traditional Gnoll tribes and seek entrance on the strength of her storied career but each time she encountered one she couldn't bring herself to pop the question. She had left her pack, yes, but she was still too fond of it to renounce her allegiance. So Scrapblast went back to wandering, working as a mercenary at some times and a simple brigand at others.
She never once considered putting her weapons down. In her eyes it would have been a disservice to her legacy to die quietly in a bed somewhere, someone as experienced as she was deserved to die with axe in hand. Her quest for a noble death continued through her sixties and into her seventies, coming to a pause in a twist of fate.
A cunning, underhanded merchant had passed a tip onto her as part of her payment for services rendered: a competitor of his would be traveling through a relatively empty part of the Sheepshead Isles, and with him he'd have a good stash of gold and some valuables. If Scrapblast were to hit said competitor she'd get his loot and the merchant would have one less problem to deal with.
So hit him she did. It was a simple matter to lay an ambush, his guards merely local toughs he had equipped for that leg of the journey. What complicated matters was the fact that the trader had been accompanied by his family. He and his wife were killed in the initial charge while his eldest child was cut down when she attempted to slash Scrapblast with a razor.
That left the youngest, a boy of not more than two or three years. While Gnolls don't take much issue with the killing of outsiders they're not actively genocidal. Thozna's raids were nearly always smash-and-grab affairs, fatalities would occur but not enough to doom a bloodline or a village to extinction. Leaving the boy to the elements wasn't an option and there was no orphanage around that would take kindly to a bloody Gnoll dropping off the survivor of its raid.
She named him Ryt-kiltu-Sheepshead (roughly translating to "Ryt, found in Sheepshead") and raised him as her own. Scrapblast never hid Ryt's origins from him and he didn't outwardly question her actions, although as he grew up she detected some unspoken angst. Raising a boy meant settling down again, the pair moving into a small farming community named Alstow.
Scrapblast found work as a rancher, having grown up with animals as a cub in the Norplain. The humans she lived among were understandably cautious of her but she proved her good nature the first time a bear strayed too close to the village. After that she was treated with some amount of respect and allowed to raise Ryt in peace. As soon as he was old enough she placed him under the tutelage of the old 'witch' who lived just outside of Alstow.
Another decade passed, Scrapblast finding herself on the wrong side of eighty and once again plagued by restlessness. In her eyes Ryt was an adult, a young man capable of surviving life on the road. There was no need for them to stay huddled up with pigs, not anymore. So they gathered their things and set out in search of his future and her glorious death, whatever forms they would take.
The Pilgrim's Caravan was a natural fit for them, Scrapblast had in fact traveled with it in the past. Rejoining was as simple as falling into line.
Personality:
Scrapblast is old in a profession and species that generally die young, so she likes to think that she has a handle on things. Age has tempered her aggression into something more akin to a dry, morbid sense of humor. While she isn't interested in bloodshed for its own sake she is hardly opposed to it either. She prefers practicality to honor, because what good is being righteous if you're dead?
Thozna misses the vivid storytelling of her people and thus is drawn to bards, griots, and poets of all types. This love of story extends to art in all its forms, a good painting or interesting sculpture being quick ways to grab her attention.
She has no time for cowards and, despite her being one herself, doesn't care much for mercenaries. In her eyes most sellswords are people who lack purpose, else they would be fighting for a lord or cause they believed in.
Also, she eats corpses. Gnolls are scavengers to the extreme, as far as Thozna is concerned a dead human is basically the same as a dead pig. She isn't dumb enough to hunt two-legged game for the sake of it but if someone happens to cross her and she's left with a body? Snack time.
While she has the good grace to keep from just ripping into a freshly slain stranger while others are watching sometimes it's best not to question what sort of meat she's eating.
Motivation:
Boredom. Scrapblast has lived long enough to watch the rest of the Norplain Gnolls die or become sedentary, giving up pillaging for farming and laboring in the burgeoning human settlements nearby. While she can hardly blame her people for choosing a safer path she does find it dreadfully uninteresting. The Caravan represents an opportunity to keep moving until she finds her final battle. Until she's slain in glorious combat she can make a little money trading odds and ends.
Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:
Gnolls are as intelligent as any other sapient species, capable of building tools and making art. But physically and culturally they are still very much wild animals. Thozna is far larger than any man and stronger than all but a rare few, capable of running down animals and stripping their hide from their flesh with her claws alone. She's built to survive harsh environments and is quite content to trudge through blazing deserts or frozen tundras.
Her relatively long life has also given her plenty of time to develop skills suiting a professional ravager. Like pretty much every "wild" Gnoll out there she was trained to fight since birth, mastering the use of simple one-handed weapons like hammers, axes and knives. Where she differs from her spear-chucking peers is her training with heavy armor and shields. She can track game and navigate by the stars, has enough first aid knowledge to keep herself from bleeding to death after a fight and has a keen eye for the value of items she comes across in her travels.
But while Scrapblast has a lifetime of experience in the field she's never spent a day in any classroom. She is, by the standards of the civilized world, entirely uneducated. While she can read the common tongue if given time and is capable of the basic arithmetic required for cash transactions don't expect her to chew through epic poems or perform complex calculations. While this wasn't a problem when she's roaming through arid plains and rundown city slums she does suffer a great deal when she has to admit her lack of schooling.
Scrapblast has yet to really understand the civilized world, and she doesn't really care to. She grew up robbing trespassers and forming raiding parties, spent her adult life seeking bigger and bigger bounties and is now looking for a bloody death so that her corpse can feed the carrion birds and other scavengers. This unrepentant might makes right mentality is reigned in for the most part when entering occupied territory but it can lead her to conflict with those who take offense.
Thozna is nearly entirely incapable of handling accusations of dishonesty, disloyalty or cowardice. If someone were to call her any of the above she'd handle it the Gnoll way: knocking them over and stomping their face in.
Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:
Ryt's actual age is unknown, his best guess is somewhere between 12 and 14. He's a half-Orc, a somewhat rare and not always liked crossbreed. He's been traveling with the caravan with his 'mother' for the last two years.
Appearance:
Ryt's mother was an Orc but his father was a Halfing, and it shows. He's only four feet tall, barely weighing above sixty pounds soaking wet. He looks young for his age, much to his chagrin as he tries to grow up into a proper man.
History:
Ryt doesn't know his parents' names. He doesn't know where they lived, how they met one another, if they had any family or close friends nearby. He couldn't even tell you if has any surviving relatives. All the information he has is what Thozna gave him: they were merchants who threatened the local monopoly of some rich trader, and the trader had her take them out. His mother, father, and older sister all died within minutes of each other, and she adopted him. The sole survivor.
Wherever he was from originally, his home was Alstow. A quaint farming town, the vast majority of which was human. While there were some Halflings and the odd Dwarf here and there a Gnoll and her Orcish charge stood out. Ryt's earliest memories are of being the Other, not shunned by his peers but regarded with curiosity.
Despite his odd circumstances, Ryt did have a relatively normal childhood. His adoptive caretaker was employed as a ranch hand on one of the larger farmsteads and he helped her with her chores, namely feeding the chickens and mucking out the stalls. When Thozna allowed him to knock off from work early (which was often) he played with his peers, his strangeness not enough to exclude him from circles.
The interesting part of his upbringing was his education. Thozna, embarrassed by her lack of book smarts and wanting better for her charge, arranged for him to be educated by the white witch who lived on the outskirts of Alstow. Old Lady Moira, or Miss Moi as she preferred, was a druid and alchemist. She was the town's healer in addition to providing blessings for the crops, a well-liked if not quite understood figure.
Ryt learned mundane skills like reading and herbalism but was also given instruction in Miss Moi's brand of magic, a subtler, kinder art than that which Thozna practiced. Most of Ryt's lessons were based on working with the flow of magic as opposed to muscling it into doing what he wanted, gently coaxing it into closing small wounds or invigorating sickly animals.
He was a quick study, almost too quick. He was only eleven or twelve when he had learned all that Moi could teach him, the rest would he would have to pick up from more experienced teachers and practice in the field. Thozna, already anxious to be on the move, packed up their things without a second thought.
Since joining the caravan Ryt has continued to work on nurturing his gift, supported by an approving Thozna. But as he gets older he chafes under her guardianship. Now a man by the old Gnoll's standards he can't help but feel bitter over his circumstances. Time will tell what, if anything he does about it.
Personality:
For a boy raised by a crusty old mercenary with few qualms or compunctions, Ryt turned out remarkably well. He's soft-spoken and polite as can be, greeting most people with a smile. He's mature for his age, level-headed and very careful to avoid confrontation.
He's actually too careful for Thozna's liking which is a point of contention simmering between them. She's never once apologized or even acknowledged wrongdoing in slaying Ryt's family, and he's grown to quietly resent her for it. Thozna knows he does, he knows she knows he does, but she refuses to give him what he wants without him demanding it of her. This attempt to make him man up has failed thus far, only serving to slowly poison their still-loving relationship.
All this to say, he clings to friends. Whether or not he can say it aloud Ryt desperately wants a family of his choosing, not one that's forced on him. Being snatched away from his peers in Alstow had a profound effect on him so any new friends he makes can expect to be doted on.
Motivation:
Purpose. He's still hanging around Scrapblast because, as much as he wishes he never met her, she's the only constant in his life. Until he finds something else to devote himself to he'll just keep tagging along.
Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:
He's a pretty good herbalist and a remarkably talented druid, for his age. While he can't get detailed information out of them he's able to communicate basic thoughts and feelings with animals, a useful trick since he's small enough to look like a snack to a wolf.
He's also extremely tricky to find when he doesn't want to be. His halfling blood has given him near-silent steps and an eye for hidey-holes while his orcish endurance means that he can probably outrun whoever's chasing him if stealth fails.
But being nimble and sneaky means little when you can be hoisted with little trouble. Ryt has all the strength of a particularly ornery kitten, just about capable of carrying small creatures that aren't struggling too much. He'd lose a wrestling match against any reasonably healthy child his age, and if it's an adult grabbing him he's done. Being in his early teens at the oldest also means that he lacks life experience, his worldview still fairly naïve.
Sometimes in situations of extreme stress, he can regress into the primal fury used by Orc berserkers, lashing out like a cornered animal. This can be a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances. Best case scenario the mugger or whoever is warded off by a flurry of scratches and bites. Worst case, they get angry and smash his head against the nearest wall.
Thozna Scrapblast-of-Norplain
Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:
Thozna is a Gnoll, one of the hyenafolk that live in the plains, swamps, savannahs and deserts. While specific cultural practices vary from clan to clan they're a generally nomadic people, living a lifestyle of hunting, herding and raiding. Gnolls can be found in a variety of environments, their thick pelts and hardy constitutions making them well-suited for mercenary work. Indeed it's not uncommon for a petty lord to hire on a band of them for use as shock troops or terror squads.
While they can reach the age of 120 or even past that in rare cases they generally die far earlier to illness or violence. Scrapblast is fairly old for one still fighting, estimating herself to be somewhere past eighty years old. She had an earlier stint with the caravan of about four months, and her second tour has just passed the two-year mark.
Appearance:
Gnolls are much taller and much broader than humans are, and Scrapblast is no exception. She weighs in at a stocky three hundred and eighty pounds, standing seven feet and eight inches tall while hunched over in the trademark Gnoll slouch. Her thick pelt is colored in a range of browns, the fur on her back having a reddish tint while that of her front lightens into a creamier shade.
While she has a range of scars across her body the vast majority of them are hidden by the tunics and capes she's taken a liking to, save for the wound running down her muzzle. The nasty gash left by a falchion strike tends to dry out and irritate her, so it's not uncommon to catch her running her long tongue up the channel.
Thozna tries to dress presentably by "civilized" standards on a day-to-day basis but feels she is under no compulsion to do so when she puts on her armor for whatever reason. Her war gear was designed to induce fear as much as it was to provide protection, almost deceptively crude. Harsh, rugged steel plates are layered over thick mail, her helmet hugging close to her skull while leaving her jaw free to bite people with.
History:
Thozna was born into the Norplain pack, a Gnollish tribe occupying, unsurprisingly, the Norplain region of the Asvenkal Savanah. At that time the Norplainer gnolls had two main industries: the herding of livestock, mainly cattle and sheep, and raiding. Of course there were other professions such as healers to care for the sick or blacksmiths to produce tools but by and large, they slaughtered animals and enemies. Thozna's mother was a noted warband leader while her father was somewhat infamous in the nearby human settlements for his skill with a javelin, and thus her fate was decided.
Gnolls mature quickly compared to humans, becoming adults at around ten years of age. Even before then Thozna accompanied her parents in the field, scoring her first kill in a fight against a party of dog-like Ainok. Thozna likely would have gone on to an impressive but ultimately ordinary career as a warrior, save for one thing.
Gnolls believe that magic is the realm of Mus the Weaver, the mysterious many-eyed patron of seers, tacticians, and clothmakers. Those marked by her lead auspicious lives and it's considered bad luck to not nurture her gift. Thozna first began to unconsciously levitate objects as a cub. starting with nails before moving knives and pots.
As she got older and gained more control over her magic she chose a personal name in the Gnollish tradition, Scrapblast. It reflected her preferred method of fighting: spraying the enemy with shards of jagged metal. With this power she set out to make a name for herself, battling against rival warbands and raiding the nearby Human and Ainok settlements.
As she got older Scrapblast got bigger, faster and more magically empowered. The months of experience turned into years and the years into decades, Thozna outliving her parents and many of her peers. While Gnolls are naturally long-lived the lifestyle tends to cull the pack, especially those who find themselves on the front. Scrapblast's band, formed when she was fifteen, had seen a complete turnover of members two times over by the time she was thirty.
She was an extremely talented soldier, one with enough stolen wealth to happily retire. But Scrapblast found herself growing bored. The Norplainers had gone through a series of small disasters during her third decade, droughts and outbreaks of disease and pyrrhic victories all adding up. As quickly as they reproduced the pack was still hemorrhaging manpower and those that survived were more cautious. Why throw their lives away when people needed them at home? Scrapblast couldn't blame them for this subtle shift in sensibilities but she couldn't stand by either.
As an accomplished raid leader she had the right to gather a small band of friends, family and various connected men-at-arms, Scrapblast sewing together her banner and leading them to seek their fortunes in service of others. The various headmen and warlords of the Asvenkal always had a need for hired blades and were none too picky about where they came from. Even those whose territory Scrapblast had pillaged in the past were happy to have her on their side.
But by that point in her career, she found those battles boring. Most of the time the band was deployed against disobedient peasants and bandit gangs, only occasionally called to fight against the armies of a rival lord or an outside force that dared to intrude on the Dragon-Sultan's lands. The pay was solid enough to keep her crew interested but Scrapblast was too old to be bought by baubles alone.
So she walked out of the Asvenkal and into wider Alwyne. Scrapblast haggled with merchants in the bustling temple-cities of Velkinir, and searched for abandoned treasures in the ghost towns of the old Costal Elf homelands. One day she was part of a hunting party high in the Ironpeaks hunting for roc eggs, the next she was a guest of a giant who dwelled in a cavern of quartz.
It was freeing in a way, but still the passage of time needled at Scrapblast. She was about fifty when she decided to return to the Norplain, having spent so long away from home that she had almost forgotten what it looked like. Her homecoming was awkward, most of those she met having been born too late to know of her save for stories from their elders.
Moreover, in her absence the pack had elected to settle down entirely. The series of setbacks that they had suffered decades before had put them in a precarious position, forcing them to cooperate more with the nearby settlements. At some point the group stopped traveling their circuit of hunting grounds to move into the outskirts of a trade post, given a place to raise their flocks in exchange for serving as an auxiliary defense.
Once more Scrapblast found herself alienated from her people with no one to blame but poor circumstances. Her half-hearted attempts to form a new warband failed, and she said her final goodbyes.
She planned to make her way to one of the other, more traditional Gnoll tribes and seek entrance on the strength of her storied career but each time she encountered one she couldn't bring herself to pop the question. She had left her pack, yes, but she was still too fond of it to renounce her allegiance. So Scrapblast went back to wandering, working as a mercenary at some times and a simple brigand at others.
She never once considered putting her weapons down. In her eyes it would have been a disservice to her legacy to die quietly in a bed somewhere, someone as experienced as she was deserved to die with axe in hand. Her quest for a noble death continued through her sixties and into her seventies, coming to a pause in a twist of fate.
A cunning, underhanded merchant had passed a tip onto her as part of her payment for services rendered: a competitor of his would be traveling through a relatively empty part of the Sheepshead Isles, and with him he'd have a good stash of gold and some valuables. If Scrapblast were to hit said competitor she'd get his loot and the merchant would have one less problem to deal with.
So hit him she did. It was a simple matter to lay an ambush, his guards merely local toughs he had equipped for that leg of the journey. What complicated matters was the fact that the trader had been accompanied by his family. He and his wife were killed in the initial charge while his eldest child was cut down when she attempted to slash Scrapblast with a razor.
That left the youngest, a boy of not more than two or three years. While Gnolls don't take much issue with the killing of outsiders they're not actively genocidal. Thozna's raids were nearly always smash-and-grab affairs, fatalities would occur but not enough to doom a bloodline or a village to extinction. Leaving the boy to the elements wasn't an option and there was no orphanage around that would take kindly to a bloody Gnoll dropping off the survivor of its raid.
She named him Ryt-kiltu-Sheepshead (roughly translating to "Ryt, found in Sheepshead") and raised him as her own. Scrapblast never hid Ryt's origins from him and he didn't outwardly question her actions, although as he grew up she detected some unspoken angst. Raising a boy meant settling down again, the pair moving into a small farming community named Alstow.
Scrapblast found work as a rancher, having grown up with animals as a cub in the Norplain. The humans she lived among were understandably cautious of her but she proved her good nature the first time a bear strayed too close to the village. After that she was treated with some amount of respect and allowed to raise Ryt in peace. As soon as he was old enough she placed him under the tutelage of the old 'witch' who lived just outside of Alstow.
Another decade passed, Scrapblast finding herself on the wrong side of eighty and once again plagued by restlessness. In her eyes Ryt was an adult, a young man capable of surviving life on the road. There was no need for them to stay huddled up with pigs, not anymore. So they gathered their things and set out in search of his future and her glorious death, whatever forms they would take.
The Pilgrim's Caravan was a natural fit for them, Scrapblast had in fact traveled with it in the past. Rejoining was as simple as falling into line.
Personality:
Scrapblast is old in a profession and species that generally die young, so she likes to think that she has a handle on things. Age has tempered her aggression into something more akin to a dry, morbid sense of humor. While she isn't interested in bloodshed for its own sake she is hardly opposed to it either. She prefers practicality to honor, because what good is being righteous if you're dead?
Thozna misses the vivid storytelling of her people and thus is drawn to bards, griots, and poets of all types. This love of story extends to art in all its forms, a good painting or interesting sculpture being quick ways to grab her attention.
She has no time for cowards and, despite her being one herself, doesn't care much for mercenaries. In her eyes most sellswords are people who lack purpose, else they would be fighting for a lord or cause they believed in.
Also, she eats corpses. Gnolls are scavengers to the extreme, as far as Thozna is concerned a dead human is basically the same as a dead pig. She isn't dumb enough to hunt two-legged game for the sake of it but if someone happens to cross her and she's left with a body? Snack time.
While she has the good grace to keep from just ripping into a freshly slain stranger while others are watching sometimes it's best not to question what sort of meat she's eating.
Motivation:
Boredom. Scrapblast has lived long enough to watch the rest of the Norplain Gnolls die or become sedentary, giving up pillaging for farming and laboring in the burgeoning human settlements nearby. While she can hardly blame her people for choosing a safer path she does find it dreadfully uninteresting. The Caravan represents an opportunity to keep moving until she finds her final battle. Until she's slain in glorious combat she can make a little money trading odds and ends.
Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:
Gnolls are as intelligent as any other sapient species, capable of building tools and making art. But physically and culturally they are still very much wild animals. Thozna is far larger than any man and stronger than all but a rare few, capable of running down animals and stripping their hide from their flesh with her claws alone. She's built to survive harsh environments and is quite content to trudge through blazing deserts or frozen tundras.
Her relatively long life has also given her plenty of time to develop skills suiting a professional ravager. Like pretty much every "wild" Gnoll out there she was trained to fight since birth, mastering the use of simple one-handed weapons like hammers, axes and knives. Where she differs from her spear-chucking peers is her training with heavy armor and shields. She can track game and navigate by the stars, has enough first aid knowledge to keep herself from bleeding to death after a fight and has a keen eye for the value of items she comes across in her travels.
But while Scrapblast has a lifetime of experience in the field she's never spent a day in any classroom. She is, by the standards of the civilized world, entirely uneducated. While she can read the common tongue if given time and is capable of the basic arithmetic required for cash transactions don't expect her to chew through epic poems or perform complex calculations. While this wasn't a problem when she's roaming through arid plains and rundown city slums she does suffer a great deal when she has to admit her lack of schooling.
Scrapblast has yet to really understand the civilized world, and she doesn't really care to. She grew up robbing trespassers and forming raiding parties, spent her adult life seeking bigger and bigger bounties and is now looking for a bloody death so that her corpse can feed the carrion birds and other scavengers. This unrepentant might makes right mentality is reigned in for the most part when entering occupied territory but it can lead her to conflict with those who take offense.
Thozna is nearly entirely incapable of handling accusations of dishonesty, disloyalty or cowardice. If someone were to call her any of the above she'd handle it the Gnoll way: knocking them over and stomping their face in.
Her real talent is the magical gift she's worked to nurture throughout her career. Her chosen name of "Scrapblast" reflects her chosen arcane art: the manipulation of magnetic fields. She naturally manipulate objects to her will, pulling them closer to her or launching them away. In combat she makes use of this by disarming opponents and using their own weapons against them, ripping swords out of the enemy's hands before plunging them into their necks.
While such magic isn't strictly limited to ferrous metals that sort of material is much easier to work with. She can lift a few hundred pounds of steel or pig iron without much difficulty and could conceivably lift up a couple tons of the same (provided it was all one solid object, and with great strain) but her capacity is limited with non-metallic objects.
While such magic isn't strictly limited to ferrous metals that sort of material is much easier to work with. She can lift a few hundred pounds of steel or pig iron without much difficulty and could conceivably lift up a couple tons of the same (provided it was all one solid object, and with great strain) but her capacity is limited with non-metallic objects.
-Armor and Shield: She doesn't actually adorn herself with grisly trophies...usually.
-Weapons: Has her axe and a variety of knives for skinning people and animals alike. In addition to proper blades, she likes to carry a grab bag of metal shards and a pair of solid iron ingots to pelt the enemy with.
-Net: A blanket of steel rings that she can launch at someone to disable them, now more commonly used for mundane fishing.
-Bedding
-Mess Kit
-Money: A variety of coins, most of them looted or stolen.
-Moron: An Elkitir, a magically-bred cross between horse and elk originating with the druids of the Tildretti forest. At twenty hands tall he's pretty much the only equine big enough for Scrapblast to ride and he's as smart as any donkey. The problem is that he's just as stubborn to boot, thus the name.
-Weapons: Has her axe and a variety of knives for skinning people and animals alike. In addition to proper blades, she likes to carry a grab bag of metal shards and a pair of solid iron ingots to pelt the enemy with.
-Net: A blanket of steel rings that she can launch at someone to disable them, now more commonly used for mundane fishing.
-Bedding
-Mess Kit
-Money: A variety of coins, most of them looted or stolen.
-Moron: An Elkitir, a magically-bred cross between horse and elk originating with the druids of the Tildretti forest. At twenty hands tall he's pretty much the only equine big enough for Scrapblast to ride and he's as smart as any donkey. The problem is that he's just as stubborn to boot, thus the name.
What They Most Want: For Ryt to find purpose before she finds a proper death.
If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: Chaotic Neutral
Three Likes: Stories, strong drink, those who are bold
Three Dislikes: Being bored, coffee, cowards
Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: Her heart
Worst Fear: Dying peacefully
Favorite Color: Brown
Most Like The Animal: Unsurprisingly, hyenas
That is, which animal they are most like- not which one they like the most.
Favorite Time of Day: Dawn and dusk, Gnolls are naturally crepuscular.
How They Dress: Practically.
Favorite Season: Summer
What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any): Primarily Mus the Weaver and Tel the Hunter
No, M., Jesus isn't an option
If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: Chaotic Neutral
Three Likes: Stories, strong drink, those who are bold
Three Dislikes: Being bored, coffee, cowards
Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: Her heart
Worst Fear: Dying peacefully
Favorite Color: Brown
Most Like The Animal: Unsurprisingly, hyenas
That is, which animal they are most like- not which one they like the most.
Favorite Time of Day: Dawn and dusk, Gnolls are naturally crepuscular.
How They Dress: Practically.
Favorite Season: Summer
What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any): Primarily Mus the Weaver and Tel the Hunter
No, M., Jesus isn't an option
Ryt-kiltu-Sheepshead
Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:
Ryt's actual age is unknown, his best guess is somewhere between 12 and 14. He's a half-Orc, a somewhat rare and not always liked crossbreed. He's been traveling with the caravan with his 'mother' for the last two years.
Appearance:
Ryt's mother was an Orc but his father was a Halfing, and it shows. He's only four feet tall, barely weighing above sixty pounds soaking wet. He looks young for his age, much to his chagrin as he tries to grow up into a proper man.
History:
Ryt doesn't know his parents' names. He doesn't know where they lived, how they met one another, if they had any family or close friends nearby. He couldn't even tell you if has any surviving relatives. All the information he has is what Thozna gave him: they were merchants who threatened the local monopoly of some rich trader, and the trader had her take them out. His mother, father, and older sister all died within minutes of each other, and she adopted him. The sole survivor.
Wherever he was from originally, his home was Alstow. A quaint farming town, the vast majority of which was human. While there were some Halflings and the odd Dwarf here and there a Gnoll and her Orcish charge stood out. Ryt's earliest memories are of being the Other, not shunned by his peers but regarded with curiosity.
Despite his odd circumstances, Ryt did have a relatively normal childhood. His adoptive caretaker was employed as a ranch hand on one of the larger farmsteads and he helped her with her chores, namely feeding the chickens and mucking out the stalls. When Thozna allowed him to knock off from work early (which was often) he played with his peers, his strangeness not enough to exclude him from circles.
The interesting part of his upbringing was his education. Thozna, embarrassed by her lack of book smarts and wanting better for her charge, arranged for him to be educated by the white witch who lived on the outskirts of Alstow. Old Lady Moira, or Miss Moi as she preferred, was a druid and alchemist. She was the town's healer in addition to providing blessings for the crops, a well-liked if not quite understood figure.
Ryt learned mundane skills like reading and herbalism but was also given instruction in Miss Moi's brand of magic, a subtler, kinder art than that which Thozna practiced. Most of Ryt's lessons were based on working with the flow of magic as opposed to muscling it into doing what he wanted, gently coaxing it into closing small wounds or invigorating sickly animals.
He was a quick study, almost too quick. He was only eleven or twelve when he had learned all that Moi could teach him, the rest would he would have to pick up from more experienced teachers and practice in the field. Thozna, already anxious to be on the move, packed up their things without a second thought.
Since joining the caravan Ryt has continued to work on nurturing his gift, supported by an approving Thozna. But as he gets older he chafes under her guardianship. Now a man by the old Gnoll's standards he can't help but feel bitter over his circumstances. Time will tell what, if anything he does about it.
Personality:
For a boy raised by a crusty old mercenary with few qualms or compunctions, Ryt turned out remarkably well. He's soft-spoken and polite as can be, greeting most people with a smile. He's mature for his age, level-headed and very careful to avoid confrontation.
He's actually too careful for Thozna's liking which is a point of contention simmering between them. She's never once apologized or even acknowledged wrongdoing in slaying Ryt's family, and he's grown to quietly resent her for it. Thozna knows he does, he knows she knows he does, but she refuses to give him what he wants without him demanding it of her. This attempt to make him man up has failed thus far, only serving to slowly poison their still-loving relationship.
All this to say, he clings to friends. Whether or not he can say it aloud Ryt desperately wants a family of his choosing, not one that's forced on him. Being snatched away from his peers in Alstow had a profound effect on him so any new friends he makes can expect to be doted on.
Motivation:
Purpose. He's still hanging around Scrapblast because, as much as he wishes he never met her, she's the only constant in his life. Until he finds something else to devote himself to he'll just keep tagging along.
Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:
He's a pretty good herbalist and a remarkably talented druid, for his age. While he can't get detailed information out of them he's able to communicate basic thoughts and feelings with animals, a useful trick since he's small enough to look like a snack to a wolf.
He's also extremely tricky to find when he doesn't want to be. His halfling blood has given him near-silent steps and an eye for hidey-holes while his orcish endurance means that he can probably outrun whoever's chasing him if stealth fails.
But being nimble and sneaky means little when you can be hoisted with little trouble. Ryt has all the strength of a particularly ornery kitten, just about capable of carrying small creatures that aren't struggling too much. He'd lose a wrestling match against any reasonably healthy child his age, and if it's an adult grabbing him he's done. Being in his early teens at the oldest also means that he lacks life experience, his worldview still fairly naïve.
Sometimes in situations of extreme stress, he can regress into the primal fury used by Orc berserkers, lashing out like a cornered animal. This can be a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances. Best case scenario the mugger or whoever is warded off by a flurry of scratches and bites. Worst case, they get angry and smash his head against the nearest wall.
The druid-in-training can't perform much in the way of big, showy spells yet, instead relying on more mundane but still useful magic tricks. With a little bit of focus he can restore life to failing crops or sick creatures, giving them some extra strength with which to fight on. Small cuts and gashes can be healed with a quiet song, and he knows how to produce a number of useful tinctures and tonics.
In dangerous situations he can instinctively call upon nature to defend him, although he has little control over the shape it takes. A cloud of flies might suddenly buzz out of nowhere to blind an attack, a shower of sparks might singe their hair or they might find the solid ground they walk on is now a quagmire.
And while he's not hurling around armored knights like Ol' Scrapblast he is really good at skipping rocks. Like, magically good. Sometimes he can bounce one ten times in a row. That counts for something, right?
In dangerous situations he can instinctively call upon nature to defend him, although he has little control over the shape it takes. A cloud of flies might suddenly buzz out of nowhere to blind an attack, a shower of sparks might singe their hair or they might find the solid ground they walk on is now a quagmire.
And while he's not hurling around armored knights like Ol' Scrapblast he is really good at skipping rocks. Like, magically good. Sometimes he can bounce one ten times in a row. That counts for something, right?
-Buford: Ryt's pet and almost-familiar. Buford is still a bit too obstinate to be an assistant but his connection with Ryt does make the boy's magic a little more potent when he's around.
-Knife: Designed for pruning plants and sawing through small branches as opposed to fighting but Thozna makes him wear it on his belt anyway.
-Druid's Kit: Put together by Miss Moi as a parting gift. Contains a mortar, pestle, measuring spoons, vials for samples, seeds and various other bits and pieces.
-Money: Thozna gives him a little pocket change here and there.
-Trelawney: Thozna's giant horse-deer thing is too smart and stubborn to pull the cart so it falls on the smaller, stupider mule to do so. Sometimes carries Ryt in addition to a million other bits and pieces.
-Knife: Designed for pruning plants and sawing through small branches as opposed to fighting but Thozna makes him wear it on his belt anyway.
-Druid's Kit: Put together by Miss Moi as a parting gift. Contains a mortar, pestle, measuring spoons, vials for samples, seeds and various other bits and pieces.
-Money: Thozna gives him a little pocket change here and there.
-Trelawney: Thozna's giant horse-deer thing is too smart and stubborn to pull the cart so it falls on the smaller, stupider mule to do so. Sometimes carries Ryt in addition to a million other bits and pieces.
What They Most Want: A family of some kind.
If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: Chaotic Good
Three Likes: Animals, fresh air, Thozna
Three Dislikes: Cruelty, bullies, Thozna (it's complicated)
Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: Mind
Worst Fear: Depending on the day, Thozna being disappointed or proud of what direction he takes.
Favorite Color: Purple
Most Like The Animal: Badger
That is, which animal they are most like- not which one they like the most.
Favorite Time of Day: Twilight
How They Dress: In simple, loose peasant's clothes
Favorite Season: Spring
What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any): A variety of nature spirits and Mus the Weaver
No, M., Jesus isn't an option
If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: Chaotic Good
Three Likes: Animals, fresh air, Thozna
Three Dislikes: Cruelty, bullies, Thozna (it's complicated)
Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: Mind
Worst Fear: Depending on the day, Thozna being disappointed or proud of what direction he takes.
Favorite Color: Purple
Most Like The Animal: Badger
That is, which animal they are most like- not which one they like the most.
Favorite Time of Day: Twilight
How They Dress: In simple, loose peasant's clothes
Favorite Season: Spring
What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any): A variety of nature spirits and Mus the Weaver
No, M., Jesus isn't an option
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