Character Writeup: Adramelek, ex Merc/Gang Lieutenant

Tarin Frost, ‘Adramelek’

Elven Ex-Merc, Gang Lieutenant

Details:

Exceptional Attribute allows a stat to raise beyond the racial modified limit.

Bonus Attribute Point grants one more point to be able to raise a stat higher.

Combat Monster makes him fight for 3 rounds unstoppable or until all enemies are incapacitated or dead; Willpower(6) test to break away.

Distinctive Style gives people a -1 TN to track him

Good looking and Knows It gives him a -2 to TNs with first meetings with sexually compatible types, a -1 vs. any others.

Sensitive Neutral Structure gives him -1 Willpower for dmg resistance tests vs. BTLs and other harmful form of simsense, etc.

Compulsion gives him a habit he has little control over; this is fiddling constantly with his knives, either twirling them, sharpening them, or whatnot. While he is licensed to carry them, it is not particularly a good habit in certain situations. (He sometimes makes up for it with a pair of metal dice, though it's not the same. The GM is free to apply a social TN modifier if he's settling for them due to his distraction, but this might be better than dealing with knives in certain meeting situations.)

He has the local branch of the Humanis Policlub as an enemy; they're sorta small so it's not a terribly big flaw.

Appearance and Personality: 

Adramelek, often just Melek, is a 29 year old unusually large elf-standing seven feet tall without his boots on-and is built lean, muscular and hard; his incredibly dense muscles, coupled with his various cyber and bioware, put him well beyond even the normal human or elven maximum for strength, bringing him to and even beyond the range of strong trolls. His titanium bone lacing and other 'ware coupled with everything else puts him at nearly four hundred pounds. 

He is both incredibly attractive and eerie looking; while his looks-despite slight dark rings under his eyes from sometimes sparse sleep and scattered scars from a life of fighting-are those that even elven faces would be jealous of and consider getting work done to match(and he does quite know this). His stark white skin, straight, dark red hair worn long and red-and-black cybereyes give him an intimidating and sometimes frightening appearance. He has very little body hair and he keeps the little that grows out of the way. 

There is a definite confidence the way he carries himself; however it's not quite arrogance so much in that he sort of just knows what he has. When in combat, giving orders to some of his underlings or intimidating people, he cuts a very scary presence, standing tall and almost bearing down on those smaller than him and standing up to trolls in a way that lets them know he can probably snap their arms. 

Otherwise he tends to simply hang back with his hands in his pockets, in a bit of a comfortable slouch, simply observing the situation at hand. Eventually he grows seemingly restless and starts fiddling with his knives; at a gang meet that coupled with the scraping of his titanium boot-spikes on the ground can be extremely unsettling. Especially when he starts to smile. 

Melek tends to prefer rough, utilitarian clothing; he prefers a sleeveless black armored trenchcoat, heavy military cargo pants often in an urban camo pattern, forearm guards with fingerless gloves(the gloves have metal-studded knuckles, of course), form-fitting armor on his legs(treat as the shirt in the SSC IRT armor) and his trademark heavy, terrifying customized combat boots. These are his signature; they usually at a glance look like typical large, tall combat boots(steel-reinforced), but the soles hold a lot of jagged and barbed titanium spikes, covered in Dikote. These leave terrible wounds on opponents when they don't outright just mangle them beyond recognition. Small, red puncture holes left on the floor of places where he hunts down his criminals are common, and, well, the less said about the shape of their bodies, the better. Melek is not terribly subtle when it comes to dealing with his criminal targets(not that he's trying to hide it. Lone Star doesn't care about the criminals themselves to even care about the person offing the criminals. Less they have to pretend to care about the SINless.) 

In harder combat he wears a modified ballistic mask for extra protection; this covers most of the lower half of his face, going over his nose(it has air filters) and coming up just under his eyes(treat as a Security Helmet armor wise.) His bandanna in gang colors is often tied either around his upper arm, or sometimes his lower face if he's not wearing the mask. If the weather is cold, or if he needs more armor, he opts for an armored leather jacket, with bits of chain and other things worked into it; on the back is a sort of demonic design(he had designed it himself, and got it applied by someone who deals in airbrushing. He's more of a pencils guy.) 

On the very rare event he needs to dress better, he'll swap to a set of nice black cargos, boots without sharp killing bits(not that he needs them, he just likes them), a tight tank top, and a nicer armored leather longcoat, and he'll even wear eyeshades to cover his strange-looking cybereyes. (given their more gang-like life this is rare, but since they actually get 'real work' sometimes due to being actually skilled, sometimes they need to meet with actual 'better' types.) 

His cyberware is mostly for combat; muscle enhancement, bone lacing, smartlink, reflexes and the like; though he does have a few utility pieces like his datajack and knowsoft link(useful in the field), his trademark eerie cybereyes, and a rather powerful olfactory booster; this was used to better help him sniff out explosives and the like on his team, but besides using it to make sure nothing bad is hiding around their hideout or turf, now he uses it to sniff out enemies, which can be frightening for people trying to escape him. His dermal sheath is fine and barely noticeable, as it's a low level and is meshed in with his arms, legs and torso skin very nicely. 

When it comes to weapons, besides his custom-made monstrosities, he comes usually equipped with a shotgun, some sort of heavy pistol, and a knife(a long Cougar Fineblade) on his leg. (He often has a shortblade Cougar in his pocket, but it's used more for utility.) The Dikote on his boots enables them to even damage more hardened material. He is often seen fiddling with a knife-he has a compulsion for this, mostly due to the fact that sometimes it's hard for him to 'rest' due to some of his mental damage.

Melek can be exceptionally violent and even a bit unhinged; his past was a pretty harsh one, though he came out of it surprisingly intact, and turns his violence to the worst dregs of humanity; murders, serial killers, bunraku parlor runners, human traffickers, and the like. He does this to atone(as all members of Nocturnal Sin are trying to do, though each in their own ways. Since his sin is 'violence and wrath', he goes after the violent and most twisted people.) He suffers such people very poorly, and is unlikely to leave them alive. He usually wades in and lets his martial arts do the talking. He is trained rather extensively in Savate and is fairly skilled in other types-having studied Carromeleg and some other styles. His Franchi-SPAS 22 is his favorite ranged weapon to fight with. (He has a few guns scattered around his loft, including two older ones he had gotten as a teenager. His Defiance T-250 has some sentimental value to him and he doesn't often take it on the field.)

Melek's role-besides general scary guy, enemy basher and dude who tries to atone by slaughtering the worst of the worst in Seattle's underbelly-is that due to his time in military operations, he is rather decent at coming up with various combat tactics, so the times Nocturnal Sin has to throw down with others, he can usually come up with some sort of 'mission plan' to tip the balance in their favor. He's surprisingly stealthy for a guy his size, and can usually lead small groups in guerrilla style warfare. While his 'leadership' is mostly him just scaring people(generally Judas gives the orders, and tells them to follow what he says), he's used to fighting in small units, and can handle urban environments well.

Thanks to one of his contacts-an arms dealer he's still in contact with-the gang can stay relatively well equipped(Spanky likewise helps with this), especially compared to many others. (The Ancients outstrip them in SotA gear, but they're funded by a nation and not some high-quality fixers, who do have some limits.) Running into a Sinner(the nickname for their members, they enjoy the confusion it causes since people can mistake it for a 'SINner'), and there's a chance one might be packing APDS ammo, and the lieutenants certainly have it.

All of that said, Melek doesn't look like much of a 'military' type at a glance, with the exception of his fatigue trousers and old dogtags, and the boots are technically combat style, even if they're a little overloaded with death. He looks like more of a rough, heavy metal gang member(albeit a very tough one), and quickly can cause people to underestimate his combat training. Being an elf, most people do not expect him to have the strength of a cybered troll(while still being able to move shockingly fast.)

On the times Melek relaxes, it's usually with some of his music-various forms of extreme metal are his favorites, be it black, thrash, death, or anything of that nature-some form of alcohol, and cigarettes; he does try to catch a live gig sometimes(usually fairly underground), and has a cheap electric guitar he plays once in awhile. He's not much for drugs-he never even really developed habits, luckily; but during his time in the past when he was suffering from a set of low-grade, poorly installed wires, he had taken to hitting Bliss every so often to settle down when he didn't have access to MAO. Combat drugs are generally out; he doesn't want to risk murdering everyone in his line of sight again, though he supposes if he were in a situation where that couldn't happen and it was a necessity he would so long as he knew what it was.

He'll down soykaf or coffee happily though and in large amounts, and he can put away quite a bit of alcohol. He's not picky with food; while he likes to save up to get himself a bit of bi-weekly real meat and fruit, he mostly is happy living on stuffers and BucketBurgers. He also enjoys reading from time to time-something picked up from him from his father, and he has a small collection of battered actual paper books; he likes older horror, as well as books on warfare. 

One of his notable non killing related talents is his impressive skill drawing in pencil; as something he started as a child, and went back to when he was trying to focus again after getting his bad 'ware removed, he can actually do incredible pencil renderings, be it portraits or cityscapes, or just strange and demonic looking pictures. It's one of the other few ways he relaxes; this gives him something to focus on and use his hands with(instead of fiddling with knives.)

Despite his violent tendencies, somewhat harsh personality, occasionally unhinged actions and quips with a strong leaning toward black humor-he is the sole lieutenant who has a rather nice relationship with someone; the young mage Astarte. Despite being ten years older than her(she's nineteen, so fully adult), they grew closer after she had treated him-secretly-with a Dream spell when she noticed he had trouble sleeping. When he caught her, he was actually rather touched(given she had the reputation for being so apathetic she let a fire go out of control two years before she joined.) While he cannot ever be considered sensitive or 'sweet', he naturally spends some free time with her, lounging around with music or drinking some actual better quality stuff(from a bottle, of course), on the top of their gang compound. (Some like to joke she's so apathetic she doesn't care about the condition that he leaves his enemies.) Retirement is a long way off for him; given elves' unknown lifespans, and the fact he doesn't particularly plan on dying anytime soon(having lived through things that probably should have killed him a few times over), he doesn't look too far to the future. He has the sense to keep cred on hand if he needs it, but for him, he's simply looking to continue his work, doing the things other people don't want to or can't. 

He has a friendly rivalry with both Downfall and Talon of the main running team. They like to pit their fighting skills against each other in sparring matches, given the three of them may be some of the physically strongest elves in the sprawl. (He and Downfall particularly have a nice rivalry, given that they're both very large elves who fight with primarily leg-based styles, Downfall with Tae Kwon Do, Melek with Savate, and for a bonus both are trained in Carromeleg as well.) 

Nocturnal Sin's hideout:

Their main hideout is in a corner of Tacoma, in a fairly run-down, but decently protected area. It seemed to be an old dorm of sorts at a point, attached to a warehouse. Regardless, the lieutenants mostly have places around there(even if half of them use it as a second lifestyle). Melek is one of the four that live there most of the time; the other three being Judas, Astarte, and Bel. (Eris actually lives in a nicer middle-lifestyle place downtown-you can't take the trendy all out of her, Lilin over in a sort of hacker's den, and Charon in a warehouse/loft combination.)

A few other members sort of crash there, though only about 5-6 of them; they sort of act like security, and are of better rank than the usual rank and file(Archetype Gang Members in SR2 with SR3 skill rules, only with Colt Americans.) 1d6 of them can be found around at any given time, and crash in various nooks. Bel has a furnished place in the basement(being a Gator shaman, he's fairly at home there), Astarte in a converted room over at the side where she can look over the city, and Judas in the 'nice room' on the top floor. 

Melek himself lives in an area a few stories up that has basic amenities on the lower floor, and an attic for the main living area. It's fairly sparsely furnished-a huge mattress on the floor, some actual carpeting(though he got rid of some of it as it got tore up from his boots and the blood never does come out when he tracks it in), his trid, music player, tons of music chips, a basic working desk, another desk where he keeps his firearms, and other odds and ends scattered about. He also has a cabinet he keeps his 'top shelf' alcohol in(read: low to middle priced real alcohol), that he and Astarte often like to share on top of the compound when they can get together; he rarely lets anyone else have it. There is a window with a nice view of the sprawl, and he has an air unit for summers.

Quotes:

*coming out of a place where one of his 'targets' was located* “Wouldn't go in there if I were you.”

“Heh, heh, heh...”

“Lone Star won't do nothin' about these drekheads who mess with the underbelly. They don't matter to them. I'm just pickin' up the slack. Keeps me out of the gutter and alive.”

*shrugs* “I guess it's sorta like charity work? Only messier.”

History:

Born in October 2026 in what would be Tir Tairngire in a few years yet-the boy that his father dubbed Tarin Frost was raised in a single-parent household, as his mother was not interested in the child from a one-night stand, but his father was, despite being barely twenty(his mother was simply not ready and the two agreed this was for the best.) His father worked odd jobs around the area and spent a lot of time with the various elves of the community; later on in the '30s the young Tarin would notice his father with a more punkish hairstyle, and a lot of black and green(which he wouldn't understand until later on), he recalled his dad 'going out riding' a lot. Tir was formed in 2035, but around that time his father had relocated them to Seattle, ostensibly to spend more time with his 'friends'(the Ancients were based in Seattle, and it was easier for him. They were formed originally from the political outcasts of Tir, after all.)

He went to school and such, and was a slightly above-average student. His interests varied in various things-his father had started to train him in various fighting techniques early, though-as well as started to teach him how to shoot, because at this point anti-metahuman sentiment was growing quite badly. Young Tarin saw a bit of this at his school, though he was lucky-some of the humans he was pals with were cool(as children tended to be more innocent in such things.)

The Night of Rage was something that would affect him; in fact, he and his father were tipped off by some of their meta-supporting human friends that something bad was going to go down, and they ought to get out of the downtown. They lived in a fairly low-to-mid class apartment but ended up, after their friends helped relocate them to Puyallup during the worst of stuff-in what would end up as Tarislar, the elven slum. 

That night-thankfully-could have been worse. Given his already impressive strength and stature, and having had some training from his father, he was told to get his shotgun and knife and guard one particular building with a group of elves for the night. He doesn't remember everything about his past, given the experience with the bad cyber later(he's not amnesiac, but he has some parts of his early life that are just fuzzy), but he faintly recalls being told to shoot or fight anything that posed a threat.

There were old buddies he hadn't heard from again; he didn't know what happened. At the time, he was rather angry and confused, but he would not remember all of it.

Over the following weeks, he had a few potentially hairy run-ins, and his father had been gone with the Ancients for quite a bit of time, but after that passed, things had finally started to shift...somewhat, anyway. Tarislar was fairly elf-centric, though he went to a fairly average public school that had mixed metas. Some got along, some didn't. He started to take an interest in drawing, and was pretty good at it, and mostly listened to rather extreme heavy metal bands he discovered, growing out his hair and cutting a rather impressive figure-he was already over six feet tall.

At fifteen, his father left; he wasn't sure where and still doesn't to this day, but he wondered if he ended up on some sort of long trip to another chapter of the Ancients somewhere else in the world. He didn't leave the teen with nothing, though; he left him with a fairly decent sum of nuyen to live on via certified cred, their low-class apartment, a cellphone, a bunch of ammo for his shotgun, a Ruger Super Warhawk with ammo, and the name 'Bloodgrave', who turned out to be an elven martial arts master he knew, who ended up training and refining him further in his rather intense, but strong teaching method. His father had recognized his potential. Bloodgrave knew several-he focused heavily on Savate but he also knew the highly-guarded art of Carromeleg, which he also trained a bit in, along with some other bits. 

Tarin was confused, and Bloodgrave wasn't talking(he really didn't know anything more than Tarin did, though he did assure Tarin that he did nothing wrong), but he decided to move on with his life and perhaps thought he'd see him again, and that there was a good reason for what he did. His father was never 'close' with him, per say, they had a good, though distant, relationship, his father having him so young and during a volatile time likely just caused him to not really form a close relationship. Tarin wasn't particularly bothered by this, at least.

Managing to stick out school-he did pretty well, even, at 17 he met a UCAS recruiter whom had come to the place near graduation time. Not seeing too much else in the way of prospects in a slum, and seeing the officer's excitement at someone of Tarin's size, strength, demeanor and training, he decided to sign up with a few other folks; mostly metahumans trying to find their way.

Boot camp came and went, and while he was a little rough discipline wise he did alright, doing a short stint on the Sioux border; he was only in for a 2 year duty, in this time he had started getting implants-a smartlink, cybereyes, a datajack, and some bioware as well, which set to increase his already impressive strength; he was easily his unit's heavy hitter. He did get reprisal fairly often though for his use of excessive force; he did, indeed, have a temper, though it wasn't quite enough to get him discharged.

It was there he got wind of the 790s, a newly formed merc group that he and a few others were interested in joining after their duty was up. It seemed decent, but the leader was actually KIA before they could get situated, and it was taken over by a more sinister man by the name of Riggs, who was actually secretly a Humanis member. When it was time to get more 'ware, he had the cheap, used, and poorly made stuff pawned off on the metas; he had ended up with a set of bad wired reflexes and skillwires, which did not do too many good things for him. Unable to sleep half the time, always on edge, and often with a splitting headache, he ended up opting for MAO injections from time to time or even the occasional hit of Bliss or Zen to take the edge off. His temper grew more and more foul during this time, and it actually made some of his unit wary of him. He would lay into enemies with a bloody fury that actually scared some of them. 

After one of the metahumans died, an investigation was finally given, and Riggs was removed from his spot and ostracized for his actions(he later ended up rather messily dead, though Tarin only grins evilly or chuckles when asked.) The damage was done to many; Tarin was one of the lucky ones. He still retained some messed up bits from the wires and to a lesser extent the knowsoft link.

During his recovery in the hospital, he picked up a pencil and some paper and started sketching; he discovered he still had a knack. He used this to sort of try to focus his mind after it had been somewhat damaged by the shoddy 'ware. When he was healed enough, he was told that he was getting nuyen; he figured this was some sort of hush money(While they were not human supremacists and indeed even tried Riggs to the fullest extent of the law-they didn't want the knowledge they let someone like that slip through the cracks; they were tied to the UCAS military still, after all.) Not being dense, and being rather impressed with the sum, he accepted it, and asked the doctors what his options were for 'ware, as he was still planning on continuing his mercenary work(a couple of the others in the hospital were interested as well.) 

Not wanting to go with wires, he went with the chemical treatment(boosted reflexes) instead; he was told they worked much more mildly, and while they weren't as effective, they did their job, and he was pleased that they felt so much more 'natural' than the wires(he had talked to others who had gotten the treatment too and had confirmed it.) He ditched the skillwires and opted for a simpler knowsoft link, not wanting to risk more brain addling. He also got his bones laced with titanium and more treatments and augments to bring his already insane strength to legendary levels. He had little care of how much 'ware he shoved into his body, as long as he didn't turn into a cyberzombie. 

After he got out, he joined up with a few other members who had formed another group, Red Fenrir, and in a way became their de facto leader when people realized how scary he could be; after some consideration, he decided not to ban humans humans from it. While he had, more than once in his life, ended up on the bad end of anti-meta sentiments, he also remembered how he and his father's life was probably saved, and that the ones in his unit had been supportive of the metas, even testifying if necessary, so he knew there were ones willing to stick their necks out. (And on the converse, it's not like all the metas always got along swimmingly, either.) 

He lead more through just being fragging scary; he didn't look like a typical merc, with his long, blood red hair and penchant for armored leather jackets along with his fatigues; they did a lot of urban work. They weren't as clean cut and 'pro' as some other units, but they worked for reasonable prices, had some values(they were actually light on things like co lateral damage and though they'd take on wetwork, they didn't actually kill needlessly) and were good for loud and nastier jobs.

It all came to a final head in he early 2050s. Pinned down in an urban warzone somewhere around Chicago, several of their number was dead, and they had been without sleep for awhile. In a neighborhood with civilians and facing down some extremely scary shamans who for some reason were dealing with fragging bugs, he decided to use a trump card; an experimental combat drug, derived from Kamikaze. He had no idea what it would do.

What it did was drive him into such a berserk fury that he murdered all of the enemy; after unloading his automatic shotgun, he opted for practically tearing them limb from limb with his bare hands; the drug enhanced his abilities to monstrous levels.

But it didn't end there; reading the rest of his unit as enemies in the red haze(he remembers nothing), he killed them, as well...before starting to turn on the civilians. Eventually, he was shot by an unknown gunman.

He didn't remember anything after he woke up, except that he somehow managed to survive, he was covered in blood, and in some sort of cheap street doc's clinic. The doc himself was surprised to see him alive; he had come across the nearly-dead Tarin and decided to at least try to do his doctor's duty to save him. (Tarin figured if he didn't make it, he'd have made excellent parts.) He had a rather nasty wound across his chest; he realized his bone lacing had saved him, though the doc had removed the bullet(he still has it on his keychain.) 

After a recovery, he managed to make his way back to Tarislar; he still had his old, low-class apartment since he did still technically live there(the money he made as a merc was enough to pay for it and set himself up with other odds and ends.) Not knowing what to do next, he felt great guilt about what happened. Killing bad guys, no problem. Killing his unit and bystanders he wasn't particularly keen on, even if he was out of his mind at the moment and driven there on a moment of desperation(they'd have likely died anyway if he didn't take the drug.)

Not suitably equipped for much else but scaring or hurting hostile individuals, and too mentally messed up to actually hold down a proper security job(while the worst of it was repaired thanks to therapy in the hospital as well as actual cell rejuvenation, he still had habits like compulsively fiddling with his knives if he wasn't drawing or focused on something else, he was still on edge sometimes and sleep never came easy, when tended to make him grumpy), and he was left pretty violent-he took some low-end underworld jobs here and there to keep himself afloat; jobs like this were fairly common in the slums of Puyallup(Tarislar was notably anti-human, though he didn't really argue with them, he took jobs from whoever would give them and wasn't there all the time.)

He started to make a small name for himself; he was exceptionally violent and was known as a guy who you didn't want after you; he had also, in one of his drawings, ended up designing a set of signature weapons for himself-the jagged, spiked combat boots-to befit his strength, fighting style, and ferocity, and he got them made through an old arms dealer friend he had. The remains they tended to leave made a lot of people who had thoughts about screwing over certain individuals rethink their life choices very quickly. (He had picked up bits of other languages on a base level; speaking Sperethiel fluently, working with organized crime gave him smatterings of Korean.)

One day he was tipped off on potential work from a bartender friend of his(the bartender knew Spanky, a regular fixer); he was to meet them at The Retirement in Puyallup. They needed a second batch of muscle. Waiting for him was one of the oddest looking trolls he had ever seen; odd as in actually downright handsome; he looked basically like a large human with well-polished and small tusks, and cared-for horns; his long, black hair and smile gave him quite the charisma. Along with him were a gruff looking dwarf who looked more like a redneck and a slim, attractive human woman who had a bit of a higher-class punk/chic look about her; save for the dwarf, the other two looked fairly well groomed and more upper class than you might have seen in this place. They went by the nicknames Judas, Eris, and Bel(the latter would be Beelzebub, only Bel was shortened.)

The job went very well, and the four ended up working together a bit more often. In time, they got to know one another bit by bit, and as time passed, the idea for Nocturnal Sin was then realized(info on them here), when they realized they could fill in where the authorities either could-or would-not. He was made a lieutenant-being a founding member-with Judas being overwhelmingly wanted as the leader. As time went on he solidified himself as the symbol of violence and wrath. Later, he developed a relationship with Astarte, the newest mage, which he retains now almost a year later.

The gang continues their typical work, and the lieutenants even take more 'runner like jobs to bring in a bit more cred than normal, allowing them to maintain their pretty decent hideout. He also ended up in good working shape with Spanky, who enables them to get some even better jobs when they need it.