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Name: Soren Almaya
Age: 35
Species: Human
Augmentations: None
Appearance: Medium build (5’7”). Brown eyes, black hair, tan skin, almost always dresses casually.
Biography: A cyberneticist by day, but an avid tinkerer by night. He makes his living repairing and modifying external augmentations like artificial limbs. Ironically, despite being so intimately familiar with augments, he refuses to get one himself as he is afraid of surgery.
He had heard of "The Purifiers" before, but he dismissed them as obnoxious cranks. That all changed when his workshop was looted and everything in it destroyed. He immediately knew who was guilty thanks to the cracked gear emblem scrawled on the wall.
After the pulse-bomb and subsequent chaos in Lanthae, he fled the city in a stolen vehicle along with Anne. Having lost nearly all his possessions except for a few augment repair tools and personal belongings he was able to salvage from the ruins of his home/workshop. He scraped together what credits he was able to recover and was able to rent a rundown house in Seryet City. Since Seryet City does not recognize Lanthae’s augmentation repair licenses, he was forced to take various odd jobs ranging from janitor to cashier just to pay the rent. He splits the rent with two people (Uziel Bautista and Andrew Schatten). As of now, he works as a mechanic at Sky Farms. As a side job, he works on repairing augments…be they legal or illegal.
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Name: Aaron Geasbrecht
Age: 41
Species: German Shepherd
Augmentations: None
Appearance: A tall and very solidly built German Shepherd (5’11”). He has brown eyes and tan fur. Almost always dresses in t-shirts and blue jeans.
Biography: A former construction worker who had his job replaced by an augmented person. Despite protests, he was let go. It was this moment that he felt resentment towards the augmented, feeling that they were taking jobs from honest, hardworking unaugmented beings. What finally drove him over the edge was that his own son had announced that he was going for augmentation surgery. Fuming, he severed all ties with him. Later that night, he read an article about an anti-augmentation protest by "The Purifiers". This eventually leads him into the ranks of this organization.
After the Purifiers’s pulse bomb plunges Lanthae into chaos, he narrowly escapes a lynch mob that had formed to hunt down remaining Purifiers by stowing away on a cargo truck. Finding himself in the small algae farming town of Braunii, he rents a house and finds a job as a day laborer.
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Name: Anne "Nitro" Phoe.
Age: 44
Species: Shetland Pony
Augmentations (Cybernetic): Implant that allows her to receive and transmit radio waves as an artificial form of telepathy. The antenna for the implant is disguised as a cosmetic "unicorn horn" implant (surprisingly popular with young Equines). This horn is both sharp enough and firmly implanted enough that she can gore her opponents with it.
Augmentations (Genetic): She carries some artificial genes that allow her to produce much more red blood cells than average and without ill effect so she resists the effects of low oxygen environments and has higher endurance than normal.
Appearance: A Shetland Pony (about 5’1”) with a brown coat and black mane and tail. Her coat from the elbow and knees down is black. A foot-long polished silver horn protrudes from her forehead. The horn is completely smooth except for some decorative fluting at the base.
Bio: She is an "oil farmer" (a vertical farm that grows genetically engineered algae that produce biosynthesized crude oil). She is very intelligent but few would know that because outside of work, she is almost always high on something. In addition, she has racked up numerous hospital bills due to her rampant drug abuse and subsequent injuries and/or overdoses.
Her drug dependency came about during her college and grad school years. Her perfectionist attitude meant that nothing less than the highest grade was acceptable. In addition, she often took numerous difficult classes (usually going over the permitted credits limit). As a result of this, to make perfect grades, she began using drugs of all sorts ó ranging from nootropics to classic stimulants. No one ever found out but she paid a heavy price ó she became a full blown drug addict. Since her job doesn't pay enough to fuel her drug habit, she has resorted to various legal and illegal ways to make enough creds to buy drugs ó everything from synthesizing and selling drugs, to assorted odd jobs. Currently, her alternative income now consists of stealing augments, parts and other electronic devices and hocking them to fuel her addiction.
After the Purifier’s pulse-bomb devastates Lanthae, she hitches a ride with Soren and later takes a maglev train to Seryet City. Unbeknownst to her, this is the same city that Soren is headed to. She is currently living in a rundown hotel and selling scavenged electronics out of her room.
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Name: Uziel Bautista
Age: 24
Species: Human
Augmentations (Cybernetic): Left arm is a class 2 augment that contains an attachment point for various tools. It also contains shock absorbers and vibration dampeners to lessen the discomfort felt when striking with the arm or using the attached tools. The fingers can be magnetized at will to pick up and hold magnetic objects. Computers inside the arm also compensate for involuntary hand and arm movements for maximum precision when using tools.
Augmentions (Genetic): None
Appearance: An unremarkable looking Mexican man about 5’4” with brown eyes, black hair and tanned skin. His left arm is a sturdy but rather beat-up prosthesis with numerous scuffs and dings. He usually wears a tan jumpsuit with numerous pockets and a tool belt.
Bio: Born to a family of Mexican immigrants, Uziel was an exceptional student in high school and college. He graduated with a degree in agriculture and soon found a job as a farmhand at Sky Farms, one of the many hydroponic farms in Seryet City. He proved himself to be a hard worker and coupled with his degree in agriculture, he soon became the foreman of the farm. Unfortunately, he attracted the ire of one of the workers, who happened to be an ex-convict Bison. Angry that Uziel had been promoted over him, he plotted to kill him and make it look like an accident.
One day while Uziel was repairing the algae press, the machine suddenly turned itself on, crushing his left arm. When they finally freed him and took him to the hospital, his arm was so badly damaged they had no choice but to amputate. Later, he learns that someone had intentionally turned the machine on, despite the switch being locked in the “off” position.
At first, he was fitted with an industrial-duty class 1 prosthetic arm but he decided to exploit the potential uses of his artificial limb and applied for a class 2 prosthesis license.
Despite the wages he earns, he is barely above the poverty line due to the legal fees he sustained suing the equipment’s manufacturer.
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Name: Doctor Andrew “Andy” Schatten
Age: 34
Species: Rhesus Macaque
Augmentations (Cybernetic): None
Augmentations (Genetic): Expresses GFP; as a result, his fur will fluoresce light green if exposed to UV light. Modified sodium pumps in neurons render him immune to sodium agonists or antagonists such as tetrodotoxin. Saliva is toxic, causing significant irritation if it gets into a wound, temporary or even permanent blindness if it gets into the eyes (from a Spitting Cobra).
Appearance: A Rhesus Macaque of average build (5’4”) with tan fur. His face has a few scars on it, including a rather long curved scar that stretches from his right ear to his neck. A freeze brand on his left bicep depicts the DNA double helix.
Bio: Born to genetic engineers of some fame, he expressed an interest in molecular biology since he was a boy. His parents encouraged this, hoping to continue their legacy. In high school, he proved to be an excellent, albeit troubled, ill-tempered and rather vain student. In contrast to his high grades and academic honors, he had significant disciplinary problems. Mostly fighting and shoplifting. He did grow out of this and later earned a Bachelor’s degree followed by a Masters and a Ph.D.
He was soon hired by the Seryetian biotechnology company Drosha Genetics as a gene mods scientist ó at the relatively young age of 24. Most of the gene mods that he researched were supposedly for medical purposes only as Seryet City bans non-medical gene mods. One night, while overhears some young Seryetians lamenting that the largest biotech company in Seryet City doesn’t do cosmetic gene mods.
Realizing that this could a very profitable side business, he opens up a black market in his lab specializing in various non-medical gene mods. Unfortunately, it did not last. He had found a way to target a viral vector containing the GFP protein to specific cell type and make it temporary. Seeing as he could not go through the company’s ethics committee, he decides to test it on himself. As it is a success, he rather foolishly decides to publish his paper in the journal Genetic Modification, claiming that the experimental “subjects” were “Rhesus Macaque Lab Body Model III ”. Since there is no such model of lab body, Doctor Schatten was very quickly found to have grossly violated the internal code of ethics of Drosha Genetics, several laws in Seryet City and the code of professional conduct for the Society of Genetic Engineers (SGE).
As a result, he is stripped of his SGE membership, fired from Drosha Genetics, permanently banned from ever working in the field of biological sciences, fined several million creds and sentenced to seven years in prison
Since he now has a rather extensive (albeit nonviolent criminal record), it is very difficult for him to get employment. He drifted between several jobs ranging from janitor to longshoreman to oil farmer. He even did a stint in a black market cosmetic gene mod company before they were busted.
Currently, he lives with Soren Almaya and Uziel Bautista. He works at a scrapyard at the edge of Seryet City as a “junkyard dog”.
