Character Writeup 2: Talon(Elven Street Samurai)

Details:

High Pain Tolerance(1) allows him to ignore a box of damage for modifiers.

Will to Live(2) extends his damage overflow box by 2.

Combat Monster makes him make a Willpower(6) test to pull out of combat if all enemies are not incapacitated or dead.

Flashbacks force a Willpower(6) test on a certain stimulus, or else he is incapacitated for 1d6 minutes.

Distinctive Style makes others get a -1 to their TNs to remember details about him.

His cyberware is detailed on his character sheet. Any equipment and other things are listed there as well as his stats, etc-I’ll probably put that in a more mechanical, character sheet section.

(The timeline is still in the 2050s, where we play.)

Character has some sensitive stuff in his background regarding sex work and bunraku parlors, so if that sorta thing bugs you, the history might be skipped.

Appearance and Personality: Talon is an elven Street Samurai of Japanese and German heritage, taller than most elves, though it’s not impossible to find elves his size or even taller(Downfall, of course, is one.) He stands about 6'8’’ without his boots on(those add a bit of height), and weighs in at over 350 pounds, though his build belies this; it’s due to his extensive cyberware. He’s got more of an athletic, martial artist type of build; well muscled but agile looking. Both of his legs and his left arm are cyber replacement; obvious, and they’re heavily modified with huge amounts of strength, some quickness and extra armor as well. His legs aren’t visible usually with his long pants and boots on, but his arm is often seen. His right arm-and back-have elaborate tattoos. (He does do work for the Yakuza, but he’s not an official member, but given his father’s old standing, he is one of those ‘gets hired fairly often to do work for them.’ Yes, they are of the more ‘new’ point of view, who have accepted things like metahumans and the like.)

Talon has longish, jet black hair streaked through with purple, worn straight and over one eye normally; he’s pale, with his cybereyes an eerie dark violet color with white irises, reversing it from normal and giving him an unsettling gaze. He tends to wear dark eyeliner rather heavily, giving him a bit of a gothic, glam type look. He has several piercings as well, which he sometimes takes out or leaves in; the final tally is a nose ring, two lip rings, four in his brows(inner and outer), tongue, and one in each ear. He doesn’t always have these all in at once; usually he leaves it to his lip, tongue, and one brow, but occasionally at a club he’ll have them all in. When fighting, they tend to get in the way, so he leaves them out on the job. They’re of a fine gauge, so one can’t really tell he’s pierced if he has them out unless you would examine him closely. He is charismatic and exceedingly 'pretty’-members of the team had joked that they may have the best-looking runner team in Seattle. He often favors tank tops and cargos or loose leather pants; he always wears his tall, heavy combat boots as these are modified to allow his foot anchor cyberware to shoot out from the heels properly. (These are foot-long spikes which can be used to anchor himself to the ground to be more difficult to move…he can also use them as weapons, naturally.) If it’s cold he favors leather jackets or longcoats. He varies his style, though-going for a more glam-like gothic look is not unheard of with ties, open button down shirts, and the like. Some clubbing nights he could look like he stepped right out of a Visual Kei band.

Talon can be a bit of a scary guy to be around. A little unstable, his past experiences have left him mentally somewhat fragile, though he is not a wreck unable to function in society. He’s a little standoffish when one first meets him, and if he decides to trust you, he opens up. He is highly vindictive, though, and exceedingly brutal to enemies; even the giant Downfall-his elven partner in crime and who might be his best friend on the team-winces at some of his doings, and Downfall regularly smashes enemies’ heads in. He revels in combat, and knows the streets very well; he’s the team’s best go-to when it comes to that, as Jolt is still almost eight years younger and hadn’t spent as much time in the underground. He knows spots to lay low, how to deal with street types and organized crime, and can even run undercover street duties if necessary. Needless to say, if they need to deal with the Yakuza, he’s the man they send with no troubles at all. Given his-and to a lesser extent Downfall’s-history with the Mafia, the team tends not to run too hard there; if they need to be dealt with, any of the others tend to do that, as they have no particular background with them.(Ortega is on acquaintance terms with one or two lower-level soldiers, so this helps as well. Talon often needs to hold his tongue. He’s not hunted, as everything that happened went down when he was still in his late teens to twenty, and it’s likely anyone involved in that is no longer alive anyhow. Water under the bridge would be too light of a way of saying it, more like a murky sludge under the bridge.)

He does like to relax from time to time-he enjoys music(the harder and more driving the better for him, guitars and electronics combined for best results; he shares a lot of musical tastes with Downfall), alcohol, coffee, and the occasional light stimulants, though nothing terribly addictive. He loathes anything that affects the mind too heavily(BTLs, strong hallucinogens) due to his past experiences with them, but he manages to grit his teeth and look the other way at the Yakuza dealing with the stuff, though he won’t touch it.

When it comes to food, he eats anything that keeps him going. Like any 'runner he of course has a taste for higher end stuff(much like Downfall he eats plenty of meat, putting paid to the whole 'elves are veggies’ rumors), but he’s perfectly content stuffing himself with Bucket-Burgers, McHugh’s, and crap from various isles the Stuffer Shack, though he won’t touch soykaf which he finds revolting.
He runs to live, he runs for money, to hit back at people who have pissed him off, to deal with his anger issues which he tends to have a lot of, and to stick it to some of the greedier bastards out there. He manages to afford to keep a decent place on a very high floor in downtown Seattle; he loves heights and has one of the highest places there(and the buildings get very high indeed.) He has a quick temper and tends to answer threats rather heavily; perceived threats on his or his teams’ life are likely met with lethal force. His team-mates try to temper him somewhat…and they’re occasionally successful. Occasionally.

He is fairly decent friends with a street doc, Dr. Douglas; Doc helps take care of his limbs(and has taught him to somewhat), and in answer he helps out keeping his clinic safe from potential attackers, as the doc has a bit of a past on him.

Talon spends his spare time training, fighting in underground pits, and even reading; while his education stopped short right around what would have been his senior year, he is extremely intelligent, and likes to read things, particularly things on history, war, and the like. He can be coerced by Jolt into playing some online games with him, and he does like going to clubs now and again, particularly goth-oriented ones. He lives in a decent place on the top of a hi-rise in downtown Seattle; it’s not the fanciest hi-rise, but he loves heights and high places. It looks more like a converted loft; he has it pretty well secured but it’s clear he put more money into toys and entertainment than he did the decor; it’s mattress on the floor of the living room, bedroom converted to an armory and various bits and pieces of music, video game and just plain demonic looking artwork(mostly Japanese mythology based) is around. He had drawn some of them, being rather artistically talented.

Besides being hard to drag out of a battle, Talon can suffer flashbacks from certain triggers; no one really can tell what the exact things are, but certain sorts of simsense seem to send him into it(possibly from the BTLs that were forced into him in his time in the bunraku parlor). He tends not to jack into things when on jobs due to this, in case he runs into it, but there could be other things out there as well. He hates bunraku parlors; despite the fact he barely remembers anything from his time there(and he sort of doesn’t want to anyway), he will hit them and hit them hard when he has the chance. (He has little problem with regular, by-choice prostitution and well-maintained brothels; he made the choice himself, and he has no problem with others who do, though he does not do this anymore.)

He is very close to and defensive of his team.  Despite an almost antisocial and dangerously violent air, he was rescued by Downfall and the team he was running with at the time when they were hired to break people out of the bunraku parlor; he was under the effects of BTL and thus unable to do anything about it. He is particularly close to Downfall. It has been hinted that the two had shared more than friendship. If any one of them are messed with and he finds out, the person had probably better steer very clear…

Quotes:

“I said I wouldn’t lay a finger on him, and I didn’t. Didn’t say anything about kicking his head in.”

“They built me to serve them. So I served them. They didn’t like it all that much.”

“Blood for blood. For every one of mine you take, I’ll take ten of yours.”

History:  Darren Fuse was born to two elves; a Japanese father and his mother was German-American. He has some family in Germany he knows, though he has never met them.) They were upper-middle class living in Seattle his mother a successful corporate accountant…but his father with  ties to the Yakuza, which he kept secret from Darren(his mother knew.) Usually more traditional branches did not allow Metahuman membership, however he belonged to one that moved ahead slightly, knowing talent when they saw it and would hesitantly give membership to metahumans who proved their worth, which his father had done at a young age, apparently.

His life was fairly normal and middle class for the first part of it; up until he was a teenager nothing much went on with him. He went to school, he had friends, and he discovered an interest in martial arts at a young age which his parents fostered, since it gave him discipline and control, kept him in shape, and he was quite good at it, as well. His circle of friends was small, but fairly close.

This all changed after the Mafia gunned down his father when he was fifteen; his mother was distraught, though she naturally had a feeling that something could go wrong at any time. Darren himself never knew the truth until after the funeral, when he decided to go through some of this father’s things…things even his mother didn’t know about. He discovered the truth…but said nothing to his mother. He had other plans.

He could fight, and he could use a few of his own resources-he did hang out at areas that may have been considered seedy-that he considered trying to hunt down the people who did this. He was young, and angry; viciously angry. After a bit of time of poking around; he discovered a Mafia hideout; he decided to strike when it was lightly guarded.

Armed with only a knife and a cheap armored vest he had procured-he was better at fighting with his bare hands, but he decided to go somewhat armed-he snuck around the place, managing to sneak in…but he was seen.  A fight broke out-and the young Darren shocked them at his strength, speed, and ferocity; being an elf he was taller than humans his age, and being taller than average, he was larger than most of the men there. He was unrefined, though had eight years of training behind him already…he had started at the mere age of seven, at his father’s behest.

Still, he was wounded; there were more of them. At the end, though, Darren sat there with his knife having done some damage; he had also came across a lead pipe which he had used to some extent that he had torn out of the wall in an adrenaline-fueled rage. The two deaths, however, were caused with no weapon whatsoever, bloodily beating two of the men to death on the ground.

He had been stabbed twice and shot once, though, in his time. Plus…he had been seen, three of the men escaped wounded(carrying one who was critical) and he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Thanks to his contacts, he was able to shift himself over to Dr. Douglas, a street doc a friend of his knew, who patched him up, no questions asked.

He managed to-by some miracle(and some hefty painkillers the doc gave him)-hide his injuries…and oddly enough, no retribution came through right away. That happened closer to when he was 17. Hearing about it, and not wanting his mother to suffer, he packed a few of his things and slipped away into the night, leaving a message that it would probably be a good idea to leave the city. His mother, a successful businesswoman, could easily find work in Denver or something he figured(he wasn’t sure where she moved to-but she indeed moved, but not after trying to find out where he went.)

He didn’t have much he could do but underground stuff; given he was good at hurting people, he did odd jobs roughing people up and made money in fighting pits. One day, however, he was approached by someone whom found him quite attractive…and they had mistaken him for a joyboy, given his very 'pretty’ appearance. He then got an idea…it was good money if you went to the right clientele, and being bisexual opened up his clientele to many a person.

With this money now coming in-along with his other criminal activities, he managed to set himself up in a low end of town. He was quickly discovered by an Elven woman known as Madam Star; she happened to run a very high-class 'establishment’, if he was interested. He was, and this net him even more money. He also worked a bit as a bodyguard for some of the other joyboys and joygirls, as most  of them often had only the bare minimum of self-defense knowledge.

For a few years, he worked odd jobs in the underworld, most of them having to do with violence, but he did still occasionally work for Madam Star, as it was good money without the need to hurt people. He even occasionally ended up on a shadowrunning team needing muscle; he got bits and pieces of 'ware over the years, though he mostly had enough money to keep himself with a lower lifestyle roof and food, he was able to get a few pieces of combat cyberware put in.

His past caught up to him, though, right around the time he turned about twenty-three or so; the Mafia had pinned him down(after one of their members had gone to the very establishment.) Sneaking up on him one night when he was out, they managed to finally subdue him with drugged shots; he did kill two more of their number with his bare hands before they did so. They were at an impasse; he caused them far too much grief to kill without a massive ceremony, and he could possibly get them quite a bit of money. On top of that, they wanted their revenge…so they sold him to a bunraku parlor.

He does not remember much of this time, thanks to the personafix chips, BTLs and other things they had feeding through him the entire time, as they did. He brought them in a lot of money, and eventually they had him converted into having multiple cyberlimbs for their cyberfetishists, and he ended up doing even worse things, as this place was known to cater to rather nasty, violent fetishes.

The less said about all of them, the better, but he occasionally has flashes of horrible things which he doesn’t like to discuss.

He was rescued by Downfall and his team around a year later. After 'cleaning the chips’ out from him and taking off any other overrides or whatnot they had on him, he put his cyberlimbs to use and killed every trafficker and shady individual in the place. Mentally, he was a wreck; the team also knew Dr. Douglas(he worked in a rather known shadow clinic in Seattle-well, 'known’ to the ones in the shadows that is), so they brought him around. The doc kept him to help him detox from the severe BTL addiction that he had ended up with, though he couldn’t do too much for his mental state, and said as much. For some reason Downfall took to him and would occasionally go there to talk to him to help bring him out again. (Downfall bringing him some driving heavy aggrotech music somewhat helped, as it was one of the genres they had in common; having little things in common seemed to and he started bringing coffee as well, given Darren’s hatred of soykaf. While the other teammates introduced themselves, Dr. Douglas had said allowing Downfall to be the sort of main contact for now was likely best. They also had underground fighting bloodsport pits in common.)

The entire thing probably took another month; at that point, Darren was back to a person who could function pretty much normally in society; he was quiet and easily triggered into flashbacks by certain simsense overloads(he sticks to regular trid or flatvid movies when he wants to watch things; smartlinks don’t hurt him thankfully), he also had quite the hairtrigger temper, getting into fights that turned ugly due to his strength. But he was coming around. After several more months, he would become the runner they knew. He and Downfall would spend time at each other’s places, having bonded to what seemed like a legit friendship, and he grew on the rest of the team as well, allowing him to fit in nicely as another heavy hitter(they had another teammate, an archery adept who only went by the name of Wind, who died on a run about three months before, and were looking for a replacement; while Talon did a lot of in-close combat, he was also very skilled with firearms, so he did fill in more ranged weaponry.) He stuck on the team and has been there for the past three years, which seemed to have gone by very quickly.

He managed, through the help of Spanky the fixer, to get a decent pad in downtown Seattle on the highest floor of a massive, middle-class hi-rise; he had a few of his old possessions-his katana, given to him by the Yakuza for his first kills, was liberated from the bunraku people who had kept it(he never did figure out why) was a prized one. He’s quite good with it, though he prefers to fight with brutal unarmed tactics.

He does do work for Yakuza out of Seattle; the people he are with follow the New Way and such are not as bothered by the fact he is a half-Japanese elf; while they do tend to prefer pure Japanese humans, his father was a respected member for a very long time, and between the family ties, his father’s work, and the own work he did for them on his own, he deals easily with them.

He has no idea where his future will take him; after all he’s been through, he lives for the moment.

He will, however, continue on his path to 'right a few wrongs’.

Contacts(mostly described more in detail in NPC section):

Dr. Douglas is a street doctor; man of roughly around sixty, but in excellent health. He was a skilled cybersurgeon working for a corporate delta clinic; he ended up knowing a bit too much one day and was targeted for something nasty, as he found out when his substitute turned up dead. He quickly enlisted the help of a shadowrunning decker and moved out, erasing his old life to set up a clinic in the Tacoma district. He may have a strong resemblance to Morgan Freeman.

Spanky is the known Fomori who runs a craft beer bar called Goal! and loves football. He’s a very, very well connected street fixer. He runs Goal! in the more underground downtown location, and it’s highly successful. There are several rooms to meet in. (He has a bigger write-up due to his importance in our games in a separate area.)

Killswitch is an elven combat technician; He is an expert at fixing electronic and mechanical devices 'on site’. He’s even heavier cybered than Talon, with only his head and left arm remaining, and both of his legs are highly custom Kid Stealth taloned monstrosities(that basically look like the legs of a raptor) that he is very good at using as well-runs that require techs that don’t need bodyguards he is ideal for. Is known for his long, green hair and solid, nearly glowing green cybereyes. He has gone on a run or two that needed extra tech when Jolt was injured; he occasionally trades them for the odd bit of interesting tech.

Huginn and Muninn are twin elven bouncers at Spanky’s bar; one is an adept, one is a sam. they are quite a cut above normal runners; they are not used for common occurrences(game note: GMs shouldn’t let them ever go on runs with the team, see NPC section.) They are good for street and corporate info.

'Mama’ is a talismonger; a short, heavyset graying human Hispanic woman, somewhere in her late forties roughly. She has a classically messy talismonger shop, but is also a skilled mage in her own right. She is great for magical knowledge, fetishes, and rituals. She practices Santeria, following Legba.

Pedro is Mama’s younger brother; tall and lanky, in his late thirties, he has a goatee, top hat, and wears an old suit with no tie whose legs seem too short; he works as a mortician. He also practices Santeria and follows Ghede, the Loa of the Dead. He is useful for things having to do with certain types of magics, or organlegging.

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