Thrasher, a character for Shadowrun (tm)

Table of Contents

• Concept
• Physical Description (Mundane & Astral)
• Background
• Building Thrasher
• Character Progression
• Current Incarnation - How He Looks Now

Concept

The original premise was what I call an "Oy! boy".  When I say this, I refer to what I see as a sort of British neo-punk rocker.  I imagine mohawks, piercings or tattoos, confrontational attitudes, lots of beer, slam dancing or mosh pits, etc.  Well, in the 21st century of the Shadowrun universe I am sure they have gone one step further.  So, I imagine him as probably running with a crowd in which dancing was an awful lot like fighting.  Actually, most people would say it actually was.  To make him a little more viable as a Shadowrunner, I decided he went into the military.  This could help take some of the edge off his attitude and give him some useful skills for Shadowrunning.

A Heavy Weapons skill was a given, but I also liked the idea of him being a solid point man.  So, I sunk a few of his Adept power points into Enhanced Stealth and Enhanced Perception, and decided his father was an Amerindian.  However, I wanted to have the "Oy! boy" flavor to his personality, so I decided his mother was a native of London and the father was a slimy bum.  One of the parents should be the same race, unless they are both human and he is one of those rare few children still expressing the meta gene.  I decided he was interesting enough without going overboard and I made his mom a Troll and the father an Ork, an Ork with a taste for . . . generous women.

I wanted Nigel to have a "streety" feel, so I opted for an economic downturn in his family's past.  The father, Ork is/was an Amerindian Corporate wage slave that was passing through London on a trip.  He promised the mother the sun and the moon and filled her head with dreams of domestic paradise in Seattle.  She moved to Seattle and was stranded there.  She raised Nigel as best she could.

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Physical Description (Mundane and Astral)

This is the stereotypical big Troll.  He is a full three meters tall and astonishingly muscular.  He does not carry an excessive amount of fat nor is he as lean as an olympian.  His hair is very straight and jet black.  He keeps it somewhat long, letting it grow down to about the middle of his shoulder blades.  His complexion is a dark olive.  His eyes are a deep, fathomless black.  He lacks tusks, but has a solid set of teeth.  His horns are quite small as well, essentially short, squat nubs of horns, spaced wide and high on  his forehead.  His ethnicity appears to be a muddled Caucasian, but it is not readily apparent that the other influence is Amerindian.

Normal Clothing

Attitude

When it comes to women, it's a different story.  He is still full of hormones.  As such, a pretty female face is more convincing to him than a lot of things.  He has finally gotten past doing really stupid things for a woman's attentions, but he can still be swayed to be a little inconsiderate.  He is equally fond of Troll and Ork women.  This is probably just as much a consequence of his looks and race tainting what women respond to his advances.  He finds some human women attractive, but Elves are just downright frail.  He is sincerely worried about seriously hurting any would be Elven lovers.  Of course, he is always willing to try . . .

Aura

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Background

[Byron "Rutting Buck" Madison was a grade A slime ball.  He traveled quite a bit working as a low-level freelance broker.  Basically a globe-trotting wage slave.  However, he made more than enough money to impress the poor and SINless that are all too prevalent the world over.  His favorite gimmick was to go slumming among the SINless and find some young, attractive poor girl barely out of puberty and seduce her.  He would convince her that she was everything to him, "love at first sight", etc.  The charade would continue with promises of citizenship and marriage.  He would use this to convince the girls to share their . . . charms and then he would called away on "urgent business".  Most of his victims would write it off as a lesson learned.  Others would seek vengeance, but he was long gone.  A precious few would buy the act hook, line, and sinker, and burn all of their resources getting to Byron's supposed home city, Seattle.  Once there, they would usually find out things were not what they had seemed and the struggle for survival would start anew, but this time surrounded by a whole new batch of urban predators and scum bags, and without the friends and family from back home.  Nigel's mother, Diana Penelope Smithers, was one of these unfortunate latter cases.

She was blessed with some luck though.  She was quickly taken into the Ork Underground community and saved from a lot of the pain and suffering.  It was still in its infancy, only having been formed a few months ago during the Night of Rage]

Nigel drains his beer and opens another, continuing, "Anyway . . . Oy! watch where yer fraggin walking meat!"  He yells at someone that bumps into him.  "Where wuz I?  Right, anywise, turns out our luck wasn't all bad.  We had just missed the Night of Rage and she fell in with the newly forming Ork Underground.  Me Mum was quite a bird, she was.  She helped build the sorry UG with her own hands.  I grew up in this fraggin' weird commune type of setting.  O' course, once everything was somewhat settled, the UGers started doing the same ol' drek as the breeders and prit'ee soon the UG was only slightly better than topside.  Usually, the only difference was that you were more likely to get mugged by an Ork or Troll down there.  Things finally settled down and slowly the UG became a decent place to live, if you like being a moleman, that is.  I didn't much care for it.

"When I was about fifteen, me mum found herself a new squeeze, and I headed topside, looking for action.  It didn't take long.  I soon became a regular tourist of the Redmond Barrens. That's when I met Buddy, a pal o' mine.  He was a Dwarf from Australia that had been living near the Barrens for a few years, so he knew something about how it felt to be a meta stranger and he knew the area.  I kept him alive and he kept me informed.  The little bugger was a bloody adrenaline junky, but not in the way you think.  Every damn time I turned around he wanted to hear how dangerous it was and how many people were wounded or killed.  I couldn't bloody well pass wind without giving a fraggin' After Action Report!" He laughs loud and deep.  The volume and bass tone tripping your tactile senses almost as much as your ears."

Nigel looks off down the bar, apparently convinced someone is antagonizing him.  The poor slob looks out of place in the bar, probably a businessman looking for danger.  "What?" he yells.  "Shut yer soy hole while you still have the choice, you bloody wanker!"  The supposed antagonist turns away.  Nigel continues to say loudly "Bloody well right, sod off or get sawed off twit!"  Nigel waits, his attention focused on the prospect of a nice friendly brawl, but the moment fizzles.

He grunts and shrugs, turning back to you and continuing, "Anyway, Buddy and I ran together more or less for about two years.  One morning, after a LONG night of drinking, we woke up and found a few surprises.  I had a pierced ear, Buddy had a tattoo on his chest of a kangaroo with boxing gloves on and we both had little pieces of paper in our hands.  Apparently, we had enlisted in the military in our drunken fog.

"Training was nuthing.  Buddy and I had seen a lot worse many times.  A bit of bad luck and we were separated.  He went into a supply company and I went into the Infantry.  Things went OK.  I was a big Troll, so I was given the machine gun most of the time.  I qualified with my shotgun though.  There was a snafu with one of my officers.  He was a Humanis Policlub bastard and went a little whacky one day.  He started pulling out a minigun to take me out.  I had never been so afraid.  I have seen what those little babies can do!  Anyway, I knocked that thing aside and punched him as hard as I can.  Unfortunately for him, I manifested an ability to kill people with my hands and feet.  I was not court-martialed or anything, but a promotion passed me by and I seemed to suddenly get a little too much attention from my superiors.  It was gettin' bloody irritating.  Everything I did was checked against the list of things they could put my hoop in a sling over.  I requested transfer.

After being stationed at a different base, I was identified as being half Amerindian.  Suddenly, I was "Tonto" to the drill instructors.  My fellow privates knew better than to try out that moniker on me.  Turned out for the best in the end.  I learned that I also had a greater perception than normal and a real gift for sneaking around.  I got into a few bar fights after that and I was fraggin' unstoppable!  I was moving lightning fast and taking people out left and right.  I also developed an amazing sense of smell and my eyes gained the ability to protect against flares.  Well, I was the point man for a while, then it came time to get out and I damn sure did.  Don't get me wrong, I learned all kinds of drek in there, and I would not go back, but there was no way I could have been a "Lifer".

"I got into Shadowrunning as soon as I got out.  The only way to fly for those that want to get out of the filth, if you ask me.  So that brings me up to where we met and why I am here looking at yer ugly face and drinking this swill."  He laughs affably at you and you fire off a retort.  He feigns anger "Hey pal, you'd better watch it."

Starting Contacts

Buddy Hunter, Mercenary Fixer - Australian, Caucasian Dwarf.  He usually wears a bush jacket and safari style hat which makes him look like a squat, big game hunter.  Buddy was a quartermaster for <faction> in the <conflict>.  He loved the proximity to danger but lacked the drive to get shot at himself.  He would aggressively pursue news of fighting.  After his depot was overrun and his arms blown off while trying to surrender, Buddy decided he was no longer interested in being quite that close to the action.  Buddy still tries to live vicariously through his merc and runner contacts.  He is always hungry for war stories, the more gruesome and violent, the better.  His cyber arms are not obvious and he tends to be very sensitive of any undue attention paid to them.

Nigel was one of Buddy's first dealers in vicarious living.  Nigel would go into the Redmond Barrens and whoop it up, returning later to tell Buddy of his exploits.  It was not unlike a drug for Buddy.  Although he never did, as far as he could tell, Nigel could very easily have taken advantage of it.  Buddy admired that in Nigel.  Buddy and Nigel got drunk one night and woke up with throbbing heads, aching tattoos, and military enlistment papers in hand.  They saw each other occasionally in the service.  Both of them left the service as soon as their term of service ended.  Buddy due to a medical discharge and Nigel because he felt he had already learned enough to be a valuable resource in the streets.  They hooked up after getting out and now hang out together semi-regularly at a seemingly rough bar in Auburn called The Pulled Pin.  It caters to serious and wannabe mercs and some shadowrunners.  Generally, vets are more welcome here.  However, just about anyone can come in and get a drink in relative safety.  Burning a flag or toting a gun might require discussion with the club's . . . courtesy staff.  Over the door is an three frame neon animation -

1) old-fashioned pineapple grenade
2) pin pulled
3) stylized explosion

<repeat 1 through 3 until bored>

BTW, "Buddy" is his first name.

Buddy has short very curly brown hair that is usually matted down on his head from his ubiquitous safari style hat.  He has two synthetic cyber arms about which he is very sensitive.  He has an average build for a Dwarf and carries only a little fat.  He stays clean shaven and his skin is remarkably tanned and weathered, but not from patrolling the Australian Outback.  Rather, Buddy is quite concerned with keeping up his Aussie wilderness man image and is a regular customer of Sexy Dark tanning salons.  Left to his own devices, he'd probably have soft, pasty skin from living indoors so much.  His clothes all seem to suggest he is about to jump in a range rover and track a wallaby.

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Building Thrasher

Attributes (12): 30
Magic (8) Adept
Race (8) Troll
Skills (0) 26
Resources (0) 5 k¥

Rationales

Finally, he ended up with:
 

Attributes	Rating		Skills	Rating
Body	11(12)		Unarmed Combat	6
Quickness	4		Heavy Weapons	6
Strength	10		Athletics	4
Charisma	2		Stealth	4(6)
Intelligence	4		Shotgun	4
Willpower	3		Street Etiquette	2
Reaction	4(8)
Combat Pool	5		Knowledge Skills	Rating
Magic	6		Redmond Barrens	4
Essence	6		Small Unit Tactics	4
			Gang Identification	4
Adept Abilities	Cost		Shadow Haunts	4
Enhanced Reflexes 2: +2d6 initiative, +4 Reaction	3		Seattle Ork Underground	4
Killing Hands (M)	1
Enhanced Perception +2d6	1		Languages	Rating
Enhanced Stealth +2d6	0.5		English (Cityspeak)	4(6)
Improved Scent	0.25		Read & Write	2(NA)
Flare Compensation	0.25

Gear
Franchi SPAS-22 in a concealable holster	Ingram Valiant with stock shock pads, gas vent 2, internal smartlink, bipod

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Character Progression

Run 1

Good Karma: , Karma Pool:

Rationale:

Good Karma Unspent: 0

Run 2

Good Karma: , Karma Pool:

Rationale:

Good Karma Unspent:

Current Incarnation - How He Looks Now

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