Cait O'Dwyer | 64 | Elf
"If you are gonna shoot at me idiot, make sure you don't miss."Alias:
Appearance:
An amalgamation of flesh and steel it is hard to say what Cait O'Dwyer even looked like before she was reborn as Echtra. A reproduce brutal symmetry that while shaped like something organic, holds a cold and distinctive distance to it, The cyberware itself is mostly uniform in its coloring dark shades of gray and blacks that seamlessly seem to mold and fit together. Most flesh that is exposed when touched is revealed to be a facsimile, an artificial skin graft placed atop of metal. The most distinctively organic piece s that remain are her hair black as the night and kept short to not get in the way, and the eyes which even then flicker and spark with underlying circuitry. But the grey irises speak multitudes in their calm and collective gazes. Clothing that is worn typically matches the already present coloring scheme of greys and blacks, yet during missions all such articles are discarded serving only as a guise upon which the normal world can look without fear, when that world disappears body armor itself becomes clothing.
Background:
Cait was born in the town of Kilkeel, Ireland, to John and Mary O'Dwyer on a rain-drenched spring day in 2011. The youngest of three children brothers Cillian and Emmet, ten years and four years her senior respectively. Like many of the children of Ireland following the Awakening, Cait was one of the many children born with what was rapidly being called Unexplained Genetic Expression. Yet in other places where these UGE babies were met with hate, in Ireland there was still fear but also came a level of moderate acceptance and even pride. That and of course they had more pressing matters to deal with such as continued tensions between the IRA and Ulster Loyalists.
To their credit, John and Mary tried their best to keep their children removed from the conflict. Both Catholic by birth, John - a fisherman, and Mary - a correspondent for the Independent. Both at least feeling no patriotic pride towards what they saw as mostly senseless violence on either side of the damn conflict. Violence which had persisted even after the forming of the United Republic of Ireland in June of 2014. But despite their best efforts when Cillian turned 16, he joined up with the Provisional IRA lead by Liam O’Conner, ‘spike-baby’, an Elf that had been born years before the UGE outbreak having concealed his appearance with a glamor. When Cillian came home, he would enarmor his younger siblings with the stories that he would tell, daring deeds of danger and fought for.’r and adventure against loyalist forces that wanted only to ‘destroy the country which we lov
Tragedy would strike in 2028. Cillian O’Dwyer would be killed in a firefight not by protestants, but by members of the Official IRA, a splinter group that had formed off of the Provisional IRA after discovering Liam O’Conner’s elf heritage, who unlike their brethren held no ties with the United Republic. What was believed to be a peace talk, ended up becoming an ambush and Cillian was killed in the resulting firefight when a bullet ruptured his heart. This tragedy hit none harder in the O'Dwyer family than Cait herself, who inspired by her brother and wanting to follow in his footsteps enlisted with Liam O’Conner’s group soon after at the age of 17.
Here, Cait would prove herself a competent soldier against the Ulster Paramilitaries as Liam O’Conner and his close ally Seamus O'Kennedy were slowly making moves to take control of the Republic. The scandals which came out during this time against both the Catholic church, and the current ruling government only seemed to further instill Cait’s resolve that the decision that she made was the correct one. And on Christmas day of 2034 it seemed that everything that Cillian had sacrificed, and everything that Cait had fought for finally had reached its conclusion as Cait listened on the radio with many of her comrades O’Kennedy’s Christmas speech and the birth of Tír na nÓg.
Like many members of the Provisional IRA, following the establishment of the new government Cait easily found work joining up with the Tir Republican Corps, the so called ‘secret police’ of the new government. Cait would serve with the TRC for roughly a decade and in this time she would see things that would make her question her beliefs. This was not the dream that her brother had died for, a unified and peaceful Ireland where children could live without the fear of oppression or getting killed by an IED. Instead their targets had become the civilians that they once fought for, those that dared to speak out against the rather authoritarian policies of the Tír na nÓg.
In the end it was when issue arose at home that finally caused her to break away. Emmet who unlike Cillian or Cait, stayed at home helping John on his fishing boat and eventually taking it over when he was too old himself to continue, followed the words of his parents and cared very little about politics. This was up until new permit laws enforced by the Tír na nÓg, constricted the rights and livelihoods of local fishing communities including Kilkeel. Emmet ended up organising strikes and protests within the community to secure their rights once more. The TRC was sent in to break these strikes. Cait rather than fighting against her brother and her community, refused to follow a superior's orders. Emmet managed to escape and following the operation Cait was summarily discharged for ‘conduct unbecoming of an officer’.
It would be Emmet himself then that would put Cait in contact with some friends in London, who were able to arrange her for transport to mainland Europe. And so in December of 2044, Cait would leave the country of her birth aboard a cargo freighter, never to return. Cait would find that her skills were in high demand in the vast and deadly world of shadows. A small lifetime of urban warfare being channeled into her new life as a street sam. Typically these were enforcement jobs, times where subtlety wasn’t exactly as valued as no survivors. To keep up with the competition, and in a world where many had distinctive magical edges flesh would be turned to steel and overtime it would be hard to tell where the machine began and Cait ended. Over the next 33 years life would continue, and the jobs would take her all over the world, smattered between small periods of retirement which evidently ended when she got too bored of sitting on her laurels. Throughout it all the name Echtra slowly gaining a legend that expanded way beyond her own control.
An old contact from the Republic of Québec, expanding their business into the greater arctic got word of the Brockengespenst heist, and knew a certain elf that may of be interested. And the rest they say is history.
Skills:
A street samurai and a good one at that Echtra, is a walking avatar of death with enough guns on her person to take down a small army. Good at killing things, protecting people and intimidating folks and not much else. Can't cast a spell, doesn't know much about the Matrix beyond the basics, and your probably better off getting somebody that doesn't look like a death cyborg to seduce your mark. Like many Street Samurai, Echtra plays the line close and hot between having enough Cyberware to beat the other guy, and having her soul be destroyed. Though even from a first glance, it is rather safe to say that what fleshly bits Echtra does still have are for the majority located on the inside. From increased speed, precision, strength, durability and more, the elf seems to have a piece of cyberware for every occasion. The quality of the gear she’s packing is not of inconsequential value either, years of working in the Shadows having providing a diverse and well stocked span of contacts.
Besides basically being the Shadowrun equivalent of a Terminator, Cait history in Tír na nÓg and the skills she learned there often come into play. Feeling much more in home in busy streets and cramped corridors that come from a small lifetime spent learning the ways of urban combat. The tools of the trade of the Provisional IRA are still easily called upon from jury rigging bombs, to integration and intimidation tactics. Time spent, constantly being outgunned and outmanned where your best mate’s mum could just as easily point a gun at you serves well in establishing the high-keyed sense of paranoia needed to live as long as she has as a runner.
Having worked for some time at this point Echtra’s range of associates and circles is rather wide in their berth especially in the Runner world. Out of choice, she doesn't make a habit of relying too heavily on these associations or the weight of a name, - in fact she seems to detest being recognized half the time-, but when push comes to shove and doors need to be opened she is more than willing to squeeze them for what they are worth. Also in her social playbook she can speak fluent English, Sperethiel, and Gaeilge, and for everything else she has a translator built into her cyberware suite.
In summary if you need somebody killed, no matter the why, no matter the reason, Echtra might just be your girl.
Equipment:
- A metric drek-load of Cyberware
- Ares "One" Monosword
- Shiawase Arms Incinerator
- Onotari Arms Equalizer
- Remington 990
- HK XM30
- Credsticks
- Form Fitting Body Armor
- Fake SIN for one Julie McDonald, a private contractor from the United Kingdom.
General Nonsense:
Echtra isn't a stranger to New Reykjavik, but she hasn't visited the city itself in what would be about ten years, the last time she was there having taken a job from S-K to deal with a White Vory smuggling operation that was threatening to destabilize their own business there.
She isn't that hush hush about her past and if you ask nice enough she will tell you about her time in the TRC or the many jobs she's taken on in the years since. Though she tends to have a policy of living in the moment rather than being stuck up on things in the past.
May have a little bit of a death wish. Just a little one.
