[HEADING=1]Setting/Background:[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]Participants/Characters[/HEADING]
NinjaDeathSlap (GM):
Fappy (Co-GM):
ProtoChimp:
Binnsyboy:
The year is estimated to be 2350 AD. Mankind has, marginally, weathered the storm of a Cataclysm that occurred at some point in the mid-21st Century. Records are sketchy as to what the specifics of said apocalyptic events were. Some blame an asteroid strike, others a super-volcano. Perhaps it was a viral pandemic, or perhaps it was simply the natural order of things, civilisation reaching its apex, resources dwindling and failing to meet demand, resulting in all-out war between global powers for what remained as the world died around them. What we do know, is that by the end of the 21st Century, the global population had plummeted from well over 7 billion, to a little less than 600 million.
Now that the worst of the carnage has passed, society is gingerly rebuilding itself on a global scale. However, this new-found peace rests on a delicate balance, as there are some who thrived in the chaos of humanity's downfall, and don't want to see the return to an order that has the power to deny their appetites. Dynamics have changed, and as the Cataclysm brought ruin to established global powers, rendering most national borders irrelevant, the opportunity arose for more enterprising and more flexible organisations to take advantage of the chaos. These entities moved fast to secure fossil fuels and other vital minerals, so that when the dust settled, humanity emerged to find itself utterly dependent on these new giants for their survival.
One such giant is the Private Contractor called Venture Horizon, who succeeded in acquiring most of the previously untapped mineral wealth in the Arctic and Far-Northern Hemisphere. Venture Horizon has many fingers in many pies, operating as pretty much everything from a mining conglomerate, and pharmaceutical company, to a private army who's might dwarfs that of any sovereign state that still exists. Because of this, they are now regarded as the largest global power in the world, and almost every fledgling nation in the hemisphere is utterly beholden to them for the energy and the materials required build humanity back up to its former greatness. Venture however, is not a charity, and, ironically, the new world has opened up the doors to some old trades...
Venture conducts its business as such: The nations who are contracted to it provide Venture with free labour for its mines (in the form of 'Inmates'), and soldiers for its private army (in the form of 'Wardens'), in exchange for Oil, Natural Gas, and other vital minerals extracted from its Resource Acquisition and Criminal Detention Installations (or RACDI's).
It is both on, and within, one of these installations that our story is primarily set. A vast, sprawling complex largely dug beneath the ice and permafrost of Siberia. It is regarded as both the largest mining operation, and the most horrific prison on Earth. Its official name is RACDI-Alpha, but those who toil, kill, and die within its depths know it simply as 'The Pit'.
In theory, 'The Pit' and all its sister installations are explained by Venture, and by those who condemn their citizens to them, as a necessary evil. They are places where the worst that the human race has to offer, people who are beyond rehabilitation, can be removed to until true law can be established. As the rhetoric of world governments would tell you, these beasts conspired to keep the world locked in the Dark Ages with their lawlessness, and know they repay their debt by supplying the bricks and mortar from which true Order and Justice will be built anew (this also conveniently glosses over the horrific conditions of 'The Pit', and the atrocities that are part of day to day life there). Indeed, many denizens of 'The Pit' are exactly what they are made out to be, feral maniacs and calculating terrorists. However, that isn't the whole story. There are many others in 'The Pit' who are political prisoners, made to disappear by corrupt and prejudiced governments; some are falsely accused, and some have simply been put there because the powers at be didn't have anywhere else to send them.
Survival is hard. Escape is next to impossible, and the few who leave are never the same again. Welcome... and God help you.
Now that the worst of the carnage has passed, society is gingerly rebuilding itself on a global scale. However, this new-found peace rests on a delicate balance, as there are some who thrived in the chaos of humanity's downfall, and don't want to see the return to an order that has the power to deny their appetites. Dynamics have changed, and as the Cataclysm brought ruin to established global powers, rendering most national borders irrelevant, the opportunity arose for more enterprising and more flexible organisations to take advantage of the chaos. These entities moved fast to secure fossil fuels and other vital minerals, so that when the dust settled, humanity emerged to find itself utterly dependent on these new giants for their survival.
One such giant is the Private Contractor called Venture Horizon, who succeeded in acquiring most of the previously untapped mineral wealth in the Arctic and Far-Northern Hemisphere. Venture Horizon has many fingers in many pies, operating as pretty much everything from a mining conglomerate, and pharmaceutical company, to a private army who's might dwarfs that of any sovereign state that still exists. Because of this, they are now regarded as the largest global power in the world, and almost every fledgling nation in the hemisphere is utterly beholden to them for the energy and the materials required build humanity back up to its former greatness. Venture however, is not a charity, and, ironically, the new world has opened up the doors to some old trades...
Venture conducts its business as such: The nations who are contracted to it provide Venture with free labour for its mines (in the form of 'Inmates'), and soldiers for its private army (in the form of 'Wardens'), in exchange for Oil, Natural Gas, and other vital minerals extracted from its Resource Acquisition and Criminal Detention Installations (or RACDI's).
It is both on, and within, one of these installations that our story is primarily set. A vast, sprawling complex largely dug beneath the ice and permafrost of Siberia. It is regarded as both the largest mining operation, and the most horrific prison on Earth. Its official name is RACDI-Alpha, but those who toil, kill, and die within its depths know it simply as 'The Pit'.
In theory, 'The Pit' and all its sister installations are explained by Venture, and by those who condemn their citizens to them, as a necessary evil. They are places where the worst that the human race has to offer, people who are beyond rehabilitation, can be removed to until true law can be established. As the rhetoric of world governments would tell you, these beasts conspired to keep the world locked in the Dark Ages with their lawlessness, and know they repay their debt by supplying the bricks and mortar from which true Order and Justice will be built anew (this also conveniently glosses over the horrific conditions of 'The Pit', and the atrocities that are part of day to day life there). Indeed, many denizens of 'The Pit' are exactly what they are made out to be, feral maniacs and calculating terrorists. However, that isn't the whole story. There are many others in 'The Pit' who are political prisoners, made to disappear by corrupt and prejudiced governments; some are falsely accused, and some have simply been put there because the powers at be didn't have anywhere else to send them.
Survival is hard. Escape is next to impossible, and the few who leave are never the same again. Welcome... and God help you.
[HEADING=1]Participants/Characters[/HEADING]
NinjaDeathSlap (GM):
- Name: Officially his only known designation is 'Inmate #4936140', He thinks (based on sketchy childhood memories) that his name might be 'Nikolai'.
- Age: Again unknown, but approximately early to mid 30's.
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Nikolai is a giant, coming in at approximately 7ft tall, and intensely muscular. He is Caucasian, with icy blue eyes, a bald head and a fair, straggly beard. His features would be hard and worn, with a massive jaw and crooked nose, even if it weren't for the twisted, mottled masses of burn and scar tissue, found all over his body and face, the marks of his gruesome interrogation prior to his incarceration in The Pit. Recently, Nikolai has been disfigured even further by injury. Most of his teeth are broken, and his right leg has been amputated below the knee. In place of the lost limb however, Nikolai has a metal, pneumatically powered prosthetic fused directly to his flesh and nerve. Combined with the power of the rest of his body, said leg can be unleashed with enough force to demolish a wall of solid concrete.
Nikolai has a hulking, slightly stooped gait, a result of decades spent in spaces too cramped for him underground. Looking at him, you could easily be fooled into thinking that the man could barely move under his own weight. However, for all his bulk Nikolai is capable of incredible grace and agility, the surprise of which have won him as many fights as his brute strength and resistance to pain. He rarely shows a lot of emotion on his face, partly due to the scars and partly due to a lack of social development. To tell what he's thinking and feeling, you have to be good at reading the subtleties.
Faction: Inmate (escaped)
- Background: Nikolai remembers little about about his life before The Pit, which he has served in since before he was 10 years old, or at least he thinks so (not to mention the significant trauma he suffered leading him to repress much of what he knows of life outside The Pit). He remembers a farm though, through a disturbing, recurring nightmare of his, and as such much of his world view is sorted and contextualized through what he still remembers of that life. Official records state that Nikolai was a low ranking member of a notorious and blood-thirsty outlaw gang operating out of remote farmland in what used to be Bulgaria. It is true that the gang existed, and the farm that Nikolai was born on may well have been part of their cover, but how much he knew of their activities, or the extent of any crimes he himself committed, is highly suspect. In truth, Dog was most likely a victim of a 'Foraging' operation by the government of the New Balkan Union, where soldiers are sent to the countryside both in and around the borders of the NBU, to acquire anything that might be of use to the government... including people who can be sold to Venture Horizon.
Upon arrival in The Pit, Nikolai learned survival one fight at a time. Even before the place hardened him, he displayed both incredible physical strength and an almost inhuman resistance to pain, which allowed him to defeat all the challenges of his early period of incarceration. As he was building a reputation for himself, that was getting him noticed by The Pit's big players, he was adopted by Azrael, who used him as an unthinking and unfeeling blunt instrument for his gang, the Arctic Wolves. Life for Nikolai in that period was deceptively simple. He was like a dog. He killed for his masters, and his masters fed him. The rules were easy to understand, and he was the strongest, rising quickly through the ranks of the Arctic Wolves as a result. However, a part of Nikolai, deep down, resented his lot, and when the Warden in Chief started putting out feelers for Operation Borealis, Nikolai became Lee's agent. It was Nikolai who killed Orphan, lulling Azrael into a false sense of security; and then not long after, Nikolai had killed Azrael too, absconding from The Pit with as many Arctic Wolves as he had been able to rally around him. Together, they became the Free Men.
Since leaving The Pit, Nikolai has found life on the outside hard. In the wide, wild world, even Nikolai is small, and he can no longer get by on strength alone. Surviving, let alone thriving, means that Nikolai must try and reconnect to the boy he once was, before he forgot how to function as an ordinary human being. He is improving, and quickly too, but there is a downside. Nikolai's nightmares are getting more frequent, and more vivid. His brain is at last beginning to remember exactly what happened to hit before he was given to Venture Horizon. The answers that lie beneath Nikolai's layers of psychosis could set him free... or they could destroy him.
- Personality: Nikolai is simple-minded, but by no means dim-witted. His deceptively shrewd internal analysis of people and their motivations has been just as vital to his survival in 'The Pit' as his unnatural physical strength. He is by no means sadistic or cruel. However, he has the potential to be horrifically violent and utterly remorseless. This is because his experiences have left him placing basically no value on human life. In fact, during his incarceration, the only people he classified as 'Men', were the Wardens and the Inmates of the highest status and influence. Everyone else, he sorted into categories of farm animal. He was a Dog, unthinkingly serving Men for the pitiful rewards they offered. He is now learning to be is own person, and to accept the responsibility that entails.
- Age: Again unknown, but approximately early to mid 30's.
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Nikolai is a giant, coming in at approximately 7ft tall, and intensely muscular. He is Caucasian, with icy blue eyes, a bald head and a fair, straggly beard. His features would be hard and worn, with a massive jaw and crooked nose, even if it weren't for the twisted, mottled masses of burn and scar tissue, found all over his body and face, the marks of his gruesome interrogation prior to his incarceration in The Pit. Recently, Nikolai has been disfigured even further by injury. Most of his teeth are broken, and his right leg has been amputated below the knee. In place of the lost limb however, Nikolai has a metal, pneumatically powered prosthetic fused directly to his flesh and nerve. Combined with the power of the rest of his body, said leg can be unleashed with enough force to demolish a wall of solid concrete.
Nikolai has a hulking, slightly stooped gait, a result of decades spent in spaces too cramped for him underground. Looking at him, you could easily be fooled into thinking that the man could barely move under his own weight. However, for all his bulk Nikolai is capable of incredible grace and agility, the surprise of which have won him as many fights as his brute strength and resistance to pain. He rarely shows a lot of emotion on his face, partly due to the scars and partly due to a lack of social development. To tell what he's thinking and feeling, you have to be good at reading the subtleties.
Faction: Inmate (escaped)
- Background: Nikolai remembers little about about his life before The Pit, which he has served in since before he was 10 years old, or at least he thinks so (not to mention the significant trauma he suffered leading him to repress much of what he knows of life outside The Pit). He remembers a farm though, through a disturbing, recurring nightmare of his, and as such much of his world view is sorted and contextualized through what he still remembers of that life. Official records state that Nikolai was a low ranking member of a notorious and blood-thirsty outlaw gang operating out of remote farmland in what used to be Bulgaria. It is true that the gang existed, and the farm that Nikolai was born on may well have been part of their cover, but how much he knew of their activities, or the extent of any crimes he himself committed, is highly suspect. In truth, Dog was most likely a victim of a 'Foraging' operation by the government of the New Balkan Union, where soldiers are sent to the countryside both in and around the borders of the NBU, to acquire anything that might be of use to the government... including people who can be sold to Venture Horizon.
Upon arrival in The Pit, Nikolai learned survival one fight at a time. Even before the place hardened him, he displayed both incredible physical strength and an almost inhuman resistance to pain, which allowed him to defeat all the challenges of his early period of incarceration. As he was building a reputation for himself, that was getting him noticed by The Pit's big players, he was adopted by Azrael, who used him as an unthinking and unfeeling blunt instrument for his gang, the Arctic Wolves. Life for Nikolai in that period was deceptively simple. He was like a dog. He killed for his masters, and his masters fed him. The rules were easy to understand, and he was the strongest, rising quickly through the ranks of the Arctic Wolves as a result. However, a part of Nikolai, deep down, resented his lot, and when the Warden in Chief started putting out feelers for Operation Borealis, Nikolai became Lee's agent. It was Nikolai who killed Orphan, lulling Azrael into a false sense of security; and then not long after, Nikolai had killed Azrael too, absconding from The Pit with as many Arctic Wolves as he had been able to rally around him. Together, they became the Free Men.
Since leaving The Pit, Nikolai has found life on the outside hard. In the wide, wild world, even Nikolai is small, and he can no longer get by on strength alone. Surviving, let alone thriving, means that Nikolai must try and reconnect to the boy he once was, before he forgot how to function as an ordinary human being. He is improving, and quickly too, but there is a downside. Nikolai's nightmares are getting more frequent, and more vivid. His brain is at last beginning to remember exactly what happened to hit before he was given to Venture Horizon. The answers that lie beneath Nikolai's layers of psychosis could set him free... or they could destroy him.
- Personality: Nikolai is simple-minded, but by no means dim-witted. His deceptively shrewd internal analysis of people and their motivations has been just as vital to his survival in 'The Pit' as his unnatural physical strength. He is by no means sadistic or cruel. However, he has the potential to be horrifically violent and utterly remorseless. This is because his experiences have left him placing basically no value on human life. In fact, during his incarceration, the only people he classified as 'Men', were the Wardens and the Inmates of the highest status and influence. Everyone else, he sorted into categories of farm animal. He was a Dog, unthinkingly serving Men for the pitiful rewards they offered. He is now learning to be is own person, and to accept the responsibility that entails.
- Name: Selena Hernandez
- Age: 34
- Gender: Female
- Appearance: Venture Horizon's top femme fatale, Selena stands at 5ft 8in tall, with a slim, hourglass figure, tanned skin, deep green eyes and long, nut-brown hair, that seemed to cascade effortlessly in loose waves behind her. She often wears a severe, cream suit and heels, and is always looking over her thinly-framed glasses. She uses make-up sparingly, but expertly, and she is never seen without her nails painted, blood red, with lipstick to match, naturally.
Used to be, that every move Selena made she made with absolute confidence, gliding around everywhere she went, with an air as though everyone in the room was already under her thumb, just be virtue of her arrival (it was rarely that far from the truth either). Her recent days as a 'collaborator' (read: prisoner in fear for her life) of the new custodians of RACDI-Alpha, has taken the wind out of her sails significantly. She is still, however, able to mask much of her anxiety, and project a air of cool serenity, and assurance in her actions.
- Faction: Executive of Venture Horizon (currently captive)
- Background: Born under the sweltering sun of Old Seville, in what used to be Spain, Selena was raised among the political elite of the Iberian Alliance. The first child of one of the Alliance's most important civil servants, Selena was learning to master the political game while other girls her age played with doll's houses. It was a game she took to like a natural, however, she never shared her father's patriotism for the Iberian Alliance. As the girl became a woman, Selena became ever more aware, and ever more frustrated, at how nations were looking increasingly irrelevant next to private-sector Superpowers like Venture Horizon. Still, the onus was on her to continue her father's legacy, and despite her ambitions beyond the confines of the Iberian Alliance, she served her country well for several years.
At the tender age of 22, it was Selena who spear-headed what was possibly the most crucial political moment of the Alliance's history to date. The negotiation and signing of the treaty between the Iberian State and Ignite Solutions, the pact that was to mark the beginning of the end to the Pan-Arabian War, by forming an alliance strong enough to halt the advancing forces of the Tiger Republics, and push them back out of the Arabian Peninsula. Ironically, Selena's finest hour was also her last straw, as the negotiations with Ignite Solutions had cost the Iberian Alliance much of the territory in North Africa that they had previously held unchallenged until that point in the war. To Selena, it was yet another example of how weak traditional governments had become in the face of private entities. Only a year later, she made the shrewd political decision to choose the winning side, resigning her post and joining the pay roll of Ignite Solutions itself, causing a national scandal, and estranging her from her father.
Half a decade after that, Selena was head-hunted by Venture Horizon, and given a very generous offer. She accepted, and became one of their most prized employees. It came as no surprise to anyone under her when Selena was chosen as the head of the team of Executives sent to RACDI-Alpha to monitor the fragile situation that Colonel Lee Jin-Oh had created. When push came to shove, however, it appears Selena's ruthless, mercenary side has won the day again, surrendering to the forces that overran RACDI-Alpha, providing them with valuable intelligence on Venture Horizon, and selling out the Colonel in the middle of his escape attempt, leading to the former Warden-in-Chief's death.
- Personality: Unlike her early years in the Iberian corridors of power, Selena believed she had found her true calling at Venture Horizon, and became something of a zealot for them. To her, the continued prosperity of the organisation was (almost) as important as the continued success of her own career. That was then though, and now, it would seem that looking after number one is once more the order of the day. Behind her smile, Selena hides the sort of ruthlessness that only someone trained for power since birth can possess, and she will use every advantage she has to continue on her journey towards the top of the pile, whether than be her intelligence, her looks, or her charm. Selena can make a powerful friend, or a dangerous enemy, and you won't know which until it is too late.
- Age: 34
- Gender: Female
- Appearance: Venture Horizon's top femme fatale, Selena stands at 5ft 8in tall, with a slim, hourglass figure, tanned skin, deep green eyes and long, nut-brown hair, that seemed to cascade effortlessly in loose waves behind her. She often wears a severe, cream suit and heels, and is always looking over her thinly-framed glasses. She uses make-up sparingly, but expertly, and she is never seen without her nails painted, blood red, with lipstick to match, naturally.
Used to be, that every move Selena made she made with absolute confidence, gliding around everywhere she went, with an air as though everyone in the room was already under her thumb, just be virtue of her arrival (it was rarely that far from the truth either). Her recent days as a 'collaborator' (read: prisoner in fear for her life) of the new custodians of RACDI-Alpha, has taken the wind out of her sails significantly. She is still, however, able to mask much of her anxiety, and project a air of cool serenity, and assurance in her actions.
- Faction: Executive of Venture Horizon (currently captive)
- Background: Born under the sweltering sun of Old Seville, in what used to be Spain, Selena was raised among the political elite of the Iberian Alliance. The first child of one of the Alliance's most important civil servants, Selena was learning to master the political game while other girls her age played with doll's houses. It was a game she took to like a natural, however, she never shared her father's patriotism for the Iberian Alliance. As the girl became a woman, Selena became ever more aware, and ever more frustrated, at how nations were looking increasingly irrelevant next to private-sector Superpowers like Venture Horizon. Still, the onus was on her to continue her father's legacy, and despite her ambitions beyond the confines of the Iberian Alliance, she served her country well for several years.
At the tender age of 22, it was Selena who spear-headed what was possibly the most crucial political moment of the Alliance's history to date. The negotiation and signing of the treaty between the Iberian State and Ignite Solutions, the pact that was to mark the beginning of the end to the Pan-Arabian War, by forming an alliance strong enough to halt the advancing forces of the Tiger Republics, and push them back out of the Arabian Peninsula. Ironically, Selena's finest hour was also her last straw, as the negotiations with Ignite Solutions had cost the Iberian Alliance much of the territory in North Africa that they had previously held unchallenged until that point in the war. To Selena, it was yet another example of how weak traditional governments had become in the face of private entities. Only a year later, she made the shrewd political decision to choose the winning side, resigning her post and joining the pay roll of Ignite Solutions itself, causing a national scandal, and estranging her from her father.
Half a decade after that, Selena was head-hunted by Venture Horizon, and given a very generous offer. She accepted, and became one of their most prized employees. It came as no surprise to anyone under her when Selena was chosen as the head of the team of Executives sent to RACDI-Alpha to monitor the fragile situation that Colonel Lee Jin-Oh had created. When push came to shove, however, it appears Selena's ruthless, mercenary side has won the day again, surrendering to the forces that overran RACDI-Alpha, providing them with valuable intelligence on Venture Horizon, and selling out the Colonel in the middle of his escape attempt, leading to the former Warden-in-Chief's death.
- Personality: Unlike her early years in the Iberian corridors of power, Selena believed she had found her true calling at Venture Horizon, and became something of a zealot for them. To her, the continued prosperity of the organisation was (almost) as important as the continued success of her own career. That was then though, and now, it would seem that looking after number one is once more the order of the day. Behind her smile, Selena hides the sort of ruthlessness that only someone trained for power since birth can possess, and she will use every advantage she has to continue on her journey towards the top of the pile, whether than be her intelligence, her looks, or her charm. Selena can make a powerful friend, or a dangerous enemy, and you won't know which until it is too late.
- Name: Known only by her alias, 'The Talon' due to her fondness of torturing and killing her enemies by cutting their skin into strips from head to heel, and then hanging their raw corpses by the ribbons.
- Age: Unknown, likely mid-20's
- Gender: Female
- Appearance: Dark-skinned, originating from Sub-Saharan Africa, The Talon's features are hard. She has a strong jaw, heavily lidded eyes, that are so dark brown as to almost appear black and sit far apart on her face, with a wide, flat nose and short black hair. She stands at over 6ft tall, yet even so appears stocky thanks to broad shoulders and impressive muscle definition. BY far her most striking physical feature, is the prosthetic arm from which she gets her name. Starting halfway up the bicep of her left arm, her skeletal metal appendage is fused directly into muscle and nerve. A gruesome and experimental surgery that the Talon apparently performed on herself, with little more than scrap metal for her tools and equipment. This metal arm has almost fully realised mobility, and is freakishly strong. As if that wasn't enough, proportions are distorted further down the frame, the arm possessing three, long fingers, each ending in a lethally sharp hooked blade. It is with this weaponized limb that The Talon likes to conduct her most intimate tortures.
Clothed in a miss-match of different military gear (each item of clothing rumoured to have been taken from the corpse of an enemy officer she has murdered) The Talon moves in confident strides, and can change in a split second to devastating bursts of speed and agility. Nothing about the way she holds herself or travels is ever spontaneous. She is always alert, always calculating her options, before she is called upon to act.
-Faction: Songbirds (Supreme Leader)
- Background: Little is known of The Talon from before she got her name, and she refuses to divulge anything about her past even to those closest to her. It is rumoured, however, that she is an escapee from a facility similar to that of RACDI-Alpha, hidden deep within the jungles of the Congo. What is known, is that she is considered by many authorities all around the world as possibly the most dangerous person alive, and the only terrorist leader operating on a truly international level. The last part adds credence to the speculation about her past, as she may have been able to form contacts with separatists all around the world during her time at the facility.
The conglomerate of Guerrilla groups that she leads is known collectively as 'The Songbirds', with cells active in all four corners of the globe, that have claimed responsibility for bombings, incursions and assassinations in every major power centre. Intelligence suspects that 'The Talon' herself has, until recently, been active somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains, although she continues to elude efforts to capture or terminate her. If any one individual could be called the 'face of global terror', it is her, and her recent theft of sensitive and experimental Venture Horizon weapons tech, does not bode well for anyone she opposes.
- Personality: Those who survive long enough to find their way into The Talon's inner circle may find her generous, honest and caring, and she is known for being an extremely skilled orator as well as a ruthless fighter. Indeed, many Songbird recruits will display a fanatical, deeply personal connection to her, even if they have never before seen her in the flesh. She is more than inspiring, it is like there is something in her words that speaks especially to every individual who hears them, subliminally promising them that all they desire can be theirs if they follow her.
Such a temperament and set of skills mean that the faith of those closest to her is unshakable, many believing firmly that she is a divine harbinger, sent to this world to destroy the enemies of the weak and the humble. Pray, however, that you are not marked as her enemy, as her cruelty and blood-lust give as much reason for her to be feared as to be loved. Sometimes, when she is particularly elated by a victory, or enraged by a defeat, she will spend days at a time shut away with only prisoners and others who have displeased her for company. During those times she will not eat or sleep until every last person in her company has been exquisitely tortured to death.
The Talon is an anarchist through and through. Her only long term objective is the complete and utter annihilation of the current world order. She will leave the building of a new one to others, and if what they come up with doesn't impress her, she will raise it to the ground all over again.
- Age: Unknown, likely mid-20's
- Gender: Female
- Appearance: Dark-skinned, originating from Sub-Saharan Africa, The Talon's features are hard. She has a strong jaw, heavily lidded eyes, that are so dark brown as to almost appear black and sit far apart on her face, with a wide, flat nose and short black hair. She stands at over 6ft tall, yet even so appears stocky thanks to broad shoulders and impressive muscle definition. BY far her most striking physical feature, is the prosthetic arm from which she gets her name. Starting halfway up the bicep of her left arm, her skeletal metal appendage is fused directly into muscle and nerve. A gruesome and experimental surgery that the Talon apparently performed on herself, with little more than scrap metal for her tools and equipment. This metal arm has almost fully realised mobility, and is freakishly strong. As if that wasn't enough, proportions are distorted further down the frame, the arm possessing three, long fingers, each ending in a lethally sharp hooked blade. It is with this weaponized limb that The Talon likes to conduct her most intimate tortures.
Clothed in a miss-match of different military gear (each item of clothing rumoured to have been taken from the corpse of an enemy officer she has murdered) The Talon moves in confident strides, and can change in a split second to devastating bursts of speed and agility. Nothing about the way she holds herself or travels is ever spontaneous. She is always alert, always calculating her options, before she is called upon to act.
-Faction: Songbirds (Supreme Leader)
- Background: Little is known of The Talon from before she got her name, and she refuses to divulge anything about her past even to those closest to her. It is rumoured, however, that she is an escapee from a facility similar to that of RACDI-Alpha, hidden deep within the jungles of the Congo. What is known, is that she is considered by many authorities all around the world as possibly the most dangerous person alive, and the only terrorist leader operating on a truly international level. The last part adds credence to the speculation about her past, as she may have been able to form contacts with separatists all around the world during her time at the facility.
The conglomerate of Guerrilla groups that she leads is known collectively as 'The Songbirds', with cells active in all four corners of the globe, that have claimed responsibility for bombings, incursions and assassinations in every major power centre. Intelligence suspects that 'The Talon' herself has, until recently, been active somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains, although she continues to elude efforts to capture or terminate her. If any one individual could be called the 'face of global terror', it is her, and her recent theft of sensitive and experimental Venture Horizon weapons tech, does not bode well for anyone she opposes.
- Personality: Those who survive long enough to find their way into The Talon's inner circle may find her generous, honest and caring, and she is known for being an extremely skilled orator as well as a ruthless fighter. Indeed, many Songbird recruits will display a fanatical, deeply personal connection to her, even if they have never before seen her in the flesh. She is more than inspiring, it is like there is something in her words that speaks especially to every individual who hears them, subliminally promising them that all they desire can be theirs if they follow her.
Such a temperament and set of skills mean that the faith of those closest to her is unshakable, many believing firmly that she is a divine harbinger, sent to this world to destroy the enemies of the weak and the humble. Pray, however, that you are not marked as her enemy, as her cruelty and blood-lust give as much reason for her to be feared as to be loved. Sometimes, when she is particularly elated by a victory, or enraged by a defeat, she will spend days at a time shut away with only prisoners and others who have displeased her for company. During those times she will not eat or sleep until every last person in her company has been exquisitely tortured to death.
The Talon is an anarchist through and through. Her only long term objective is the complete and utter annihilation of the current world order. She will leave the building of a new one to others, and if what they come up with doesn't impress her, she will raise it to the ground all over again.
Name: General Tiago Hammond
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Appearance: General Hammond stands quite tall at 5ft 11in, but his thick chest, big arms and broad shoulders make him look distinctly stocky. He does not look like a man going to seed any time soon. Caucasian, his strong jaw clean shaven, and with his small, dark eyes heavily shrowded by a think brow, giving him the impression of having a permanent frown. His dark brown hair is cut into a strict, side parting.
His uniform is immaculate, at the moment a cool, Arctic blue in colour, affset by a tight black belt, worn high on his waist. His buttons and boots are polished to a sheen, and he has two rows of old medals pinned to his chest have been affixed with ruler-like precision. He keeps a powerful, .44 Magnum revolver in a cross-holster at his left hip.
You'd be forgiving for thinking General Hammond learned to march as soon as he stopped crawling. His posture is stiff and upright, and he moves with a powerful stride.
Faction: Songbirds (the head of the cell currently occupying RACDI-Alpha)
Background: Tiago Hammond wears the trappings of rank well, and looks about as close to the textbook image of a military commander that anyone can get. You'd be forgiven then, for not knowing at first glance that it was all a lie. He has no official rank, 'General' being more of a nickname bestowed upon him by The Talon (though his men have learned to take the title, and the man, seriously). During his actual military career, Hammond never rose above the rank of Staff Sergeant, and many of the medals he wears were never actually awarded to him.
Born in California, the child Tiago was always fascinated by military history (though, in truth, after the cataclysm, a lot of what is called 'History' is little better than legend). His childhood imagination feasted on names from Alexander the Great to Napoleon, Sun Tzu To Patton. Ambitious men, who had stamped their name onto history through might and tactical brilliance. Tiago worshipped the dream of his name one day joining their ranks. He was going to be a conqueror, uniting countless people of the world under a single, proud, and prosperous banner. As you might expect, he enlisted in the New Confederate Army as soon as he became able, at the age of 16. He may not have been as naturally gifted as some other recruits, but Tiago impressed with his ceaseless dedication and iron will to succeed. He also, to his credit, was seen to display a keen tactical mind. However, the military didn't turn out to be all that it was cracked up to be. While his fierce patriotism was praised, he was flagged by more than a few commanders for his bravado. Tiago seemed to scoff at the notion that their was such a ting as being too willing for a fight.
Still, the young soldier persisted, and served valiantly in Mexico, Guatemala, and was part of the first wave in the ambitious invasion of Venezuela, where the NCA overstretched themselves by going toe-to-toe with the private army of Capricorn International. Fighting them was a dream come true for Hammond, as he saw the private military arms of these corporate giants to be the face of everything that was wrong with the world, armies without any sense of honour or national pride. Despite his enthusiastic, however, the NCA was crushed in the conflict, and sent running with it's tail between its legs. Hammond was devastated by the defeat, and felt betrayed by the force he served despite the unrealistic chances of victory. While he did not immediately leave the army, these feelings only made him more vocal, keeping him almost constantly on the radar of the brass, and not in a good way. To some, his increasingly jingoistic rhetoric made him a joke. To others, it made him dangerous. In either case, Hammond's outspoken nature and over-the-top nationalism created a glass-ceiling that prevented him from reaching the positions of military command that he felt he deserved.
The final straw came when he was posted to the Pacific territory of Guam. On a routine patrol, Hammond's platoon stumbled across a squad of Venture Horizon special forces soldiers, who had been permitted onto the island to perform a jungle training exercise. Hammond was incensed at the sight of people he considered to be the enemy, and saw his chance for some misdirected revenge. He ordered his platoon to open fire on the Venture troops, and did not respond to any calls to cease. His hope had been to pass the action off as an accident, with no witnesses in such a remote location. It didn't work. Hammond was court-marshalled and dishonourably discharged, as the NCA attempted to placate Venture Horizon. He would have gone to prison too, perhaps death row, had he not fled the country.
Hammond's name drops off the map after that, and it is unclear exactly when and where he entered the ranks of the Songbirds. It can be guessed that The Talon was keeping Hammond close, until such a time as his unique style would be useful to her.
Personality: Tiago Hammond might be a tragic, or even comical figure, were he not so dangerous. His old-fashioned notions or military honour and national pride and backed up by a singular determination and ruthlessness. He sees his command of the largest Songbird cell ever amassed to be a well-overdue acknowledgement of his talents and beliefs. His runs his man as if they were a small army, and expects the very highest military standards out of them. He is not sadistic, but at the same time he knows the value of shock and awe, and is not squeamish about using cruel means to accomplish his goals. His jingoism is kept more in check these days, as he is now part of an organisation that recruits people of all nationalities and creeds. Secretly however, he still harbours a notion of belonging to a superior race. Utterly loyal to The Talon, he will die, and command every last man to die, before he surrenders.
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Appearance: General Hammond stands quite tall at 5ft 11in, but his thick chest, big arms and broad shoulders make him look distinctly stocky. He does not look like a man going to seed any time soon. Caucasian, his strong jaw clean shaven, and with his small, dark eyes heavily shrowded by a think brow, giving him the impression of having a permanent frown. His dark brown hair is cut into a strict, side parting.
His uniform is immaculate, at the moment a cool, Arctic blue in colour, affset by a tight black belt, worn high on his waist. His buttons and boots are polished to a sheen, and he has two rows of old medals pinned to his chest have been affixed with ruler-like precision. He keeps a powerful, .44 Magnum revolver in a cross-holster at his left hip.
You'd be forgiving for thinking General Hammond learned to march as soon as he stopped crawling. His posture is stiff and upright, and he moves with a powerful stride.
Faction: Songbirds (the head of the cell currently occupying RACDI-Alpha)
Background: Tiago Hammond wears the trappings of rank well, and looks about as close to the textbook image of a military commander that anyone can get. You'd be forgiven then, for not knowing at first glance that it was all a lie. He has no official rank, 'General' being more of a nickname bestowed upon him by The Talon (though his men have learned to take the title, and the man, seriously). During his actual military career, Hammond never rose above the rank of Staff Sergeant, and many of the medals he wears were never actually awarded to him.
Born in California, the child Tiago was always fascinated by military history (though, in truth, after the cataclysm, a lot of what is called 'History' is little better than legend). His childhood imagination feasted on names from Alexander the Great to Napoleon, Sun Tzu To Patton. Ambitious men, who had stamped their name onto history through might and tactical brilliance. Tiago worshipped the dream of his name one day joining their ranks. He was going to be a conqueror, uniting countless people of the world under a single, proud, and prosperous banner. As you might expect, he enlisted in the New Confederate Army as soon as he became able, at the age of 16. He may not have been as naturally gifted as some other recruits, but Tiago impressed with his ceaseless dedication and iron will to succeed. He also, to his credit, was seen to display a keen tactical mind. However, the military didn't turn out to be all that it was cracked up to be. While his fierce patriotism was praised, he was flagged by more than a few commanders for his bravado. Tiago seemed to scoff at the notion that their was such a ting as being too willing for a fight.
Still, the young soldier persisted, and served valiantly in Mexico, Guatemala, and was part of the first wave in the ambitious invasion of Venezuela, where the NCA overstretched themselves by going toe-to-toe with the private army of Capricorn International. Fighting them was a dream come true for Hammond, as he saw the private military arms of these corporate giants to be the face of everything that was wrong with the world, armies without any sense of honour or national pride. Despite his enthusiastic, however, the NCA was crushed in the conflict, and sent running with it's tail between its legs. Hammond was devastated by the defeat, and felt betrayed by the force he served despite the unrealistic chances of victory. While he did not immediately leave the army, these feelings only made him more vocal, keeping him almost constantly on the radar of the brass, and not in a good way. To some, his increasingly jingoistic rhetoric made him a joke. To others, it made him dangerous. In either case, Hammond's outspoken nature and over-the-top nationalism created a glass-ceiling that prevented him from reaching the positions of military command that he felt he deserved.
The final straw came when he was posted to the Pacific territory of Guam. On a routine patrol, Hammond's platoon stumbled across a squad of Venture Horizon special forces soldiers, who had been permitted onto the island to perform a jungle training exercise. Hammond was incensed at the sight of people he considered to be the enemy, and saw his chance for some misdirected revenge. He ordered his platoon to open fire on the Venture troops, and did not respond to any calls to cease. His hope had been to pass the action off as an accident, with no witnesses in such a remote location. It didn't work. Hammond was court-marshalled and dishonourably discharged, as the NCA attempted to placate Venture Horizon. He would have gone to prison too, perhaps death row, had he not fled the country.
Hammond's name drops off the map after that, and it is unclear exactly when and where he entered the ranks of the Songbirds. It can be guessed that The Talon was keeping Hammond close, until such a time as his unique style would be useful to her.
Personality: Tiago Hammond might be a tragic, or even comical figure, were he not so dangerous. His old-fashioned notions or military honour and national pride and backed up by a singular determination and ruthlessness. He sees his command of the largest Songbird cell ever amassed to be a well-overdue acknowledgement of his talents and beliefs. His runs his man as if they were a small army, and expects the very highest military standards out of them. He is not sadistic, but at the same time he knows the value of shock and awe, and is not squeamish about using cruel means to accomplish his goals. His jingoism is kept more in check these days, as he is now part of an organisation that recruits people of all nationalities and creeds. Secretly however, he still harbours a notion of belonging to a superior race. Utterly loyal to The Talon, he will die, and command every last man to die, before he surrenders.
Name: Yu and Chen Li-Na
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Appearance: Identical twin brothers, Yu and Chen would be indistinguishable from each-other, had they not earned their own unique sets of scars and other body-modifications over the years. Yu has a Tiger tattooed on his chest, and a Dragon on his back, while Chen has a Phoenix on his chest, and two serpents winding round his arms, their heads cresting over his shoulder blades. These tattoo's are remarkable colourful and detailed, relative to the usual marks seen on Inmates of The Pit, and are symbols of their initiation into the Snakeheads. More generally, Yu and Chen both stand at 5ft 6in, with stocky builds and and well-defined physiques. Their black hair is cropped short, and they are both clean-shaven. Dark brown eyes are set deep in square-shaped faces.
The pair tend to dress simply, to the point of minimally, with plain T-shirts, or else no shirts at all, and loose-fitting grey pants worn by most Inmates. They like to wear and carry only what they need, staying as mobile and low-key as possible. When moving around, their pace is quick, and they are both noticeably light on their feet, having clearly had martial arts training.
Faction: Inmates
Background: Yu and Chen grew up poor, little better than street urchins in Population Re-distribution Site 3 (the un-poetic name the governments of the Tiger Republics gave to the ruins of Hong Kong, when they started re-settling civilians in the area. They learned to get around and get by largely on their own, and from the earliest age they did everything together. They demonstrated keen minds, simply by the virtue of surviving in the slums largely without help, but received little in the form of formal education. They both enlisted in the military of the Tiger Republics at 16, not out of any sense of national pride, but rather because they saw it as their ticket to a better life.
For a while, it was. Both learned quickly, and were already more than physically fit enough to endure basic training. What's more, their superior officers noted how, while both were skilled in their own right, their effectiveness multiplied exponentially when they worked in tandem with each-other, and so an effort was made, in unusual defiance of Tiger Army regulations, that they be kept within the same unit. Together, they served two tours in the regular Army, once in Japan and once in Cambodia, before they were invited to join the elite troops of the Tiger Airborne. Breezing through selection, Yu and Chen graduated and were placed under the command of Captain Lee Jin-Oh, weeks before the Pan-Arabian War began.
Few survivors of the Airborne division that participated in the Battle, and later the Siege, of Bahrain, are inclined to talk about exactly what happened over there, and Yu and Chen are no exception. They pulled though, but both returned considerably older and quieter than before. More uniquely, they had both developed a fierce loyalty to their commanding officer, and when Colonel Jin-Oh's outspoken criticism of Tiger foreign policy got him discharged from the forces, Yu and Chen risked their lives resigning in protest. Needing to earn a wage, and having learned to do little else than fight, Yu and Chen entered the private sector, being hired by the Shao-Long Conglomerate, who held sway in their local region. They were hardly loyal, but they both did their jobs well, and quietly, for several years, giving their superiors no reason to have any problem with them. However, on one assignment, scouting a region of Mongolia that was being contested by Venture Horizon, their unit was discovered and outnumbered by Venture forces, and Yu and Chen were taken prisoner. Most of the unit was eventually ransomed back to Shao-Long without incident. However, Yu and Chen were, for reasons not immediately apparent, shipped off to RACDI-Alpha, to find that the place was now being run by their old CO, and he had a job for them...
As new Inmates, Yu and Chen were soon scooped up by the Snakehead gang, one of the smaller players in The Pit at the time, and they both rose through the ranks quickly as hit-men and smugglers. When Operation Borealis reached its apex, Yu and Chen killed the rest of the big players in the Snakehead gang, before disappearing in the chaos. Lee had offered the pair their freedom at the end of the operation, but they both made the decision to stay and continue operating as his agents on the inside, helping him to achieve his vision of RACDI-Alpha as a safe and stable environment.
Personality: Both Yu and Chen take a straight-talking, no-nonsense attitude to things (though Chen is probably the slightly more laid-back of the two). They're professionals. They get the job done to the best of their ability, and don't make a habit of wearing their hearts on their sleeves. The one clue to something deeper going on beneath their cold exteriors, is their fierce, unquestioning loyalty to Lee, which continues even after the man himself is gone.
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Appearance: Identical twin brothers, Yu and Chen would be indistinguishable from each-other, had they not earned their own unique sets of scars and other body-modifications over the years. Yu has a Tiger tattooed on his chest, and a Dragon on his back, while Chen has a Phoenix on his chest, and two serpents winding round his arms, their heads cresting over his shoulder blades. These tattoo's are remarkable colourful and detailed, relative to the usual marks seen on Inmates of The Pit, and are symbols of their initiation into the Snakeheads. More generally, Yu and Chen both stand at 5ft 6in, with stocky builds and and well-defined physiques. Their black hair is cropped short, and they are both clean-shaven. Dark brown eyes are set deep in square-shaped faces.
The pair tend to dress simply, to the point of minimally, with plain T-shirts, or else no shirts at all, and loose-fitting grey pants worn by most Inmates. They like to wear and carry only what they need, staying as mobile and low-key as possible. When moving around, their pace is quick, and they are both noticeably light on their feet, having clearly had martial arts training.
Faction: Inmates
Background: Yu and Chen grew up poor, little better than street urchins in Population Re-distribution Site 3 (the un-poetic name the governments of the Tiger Republics gave to the ruins of Hong Kong, when they started re-settling civilians in the area. They learned to get around and get by largely on their own, and from the earliest age they did everything together. They demonstrated keen minds, simply by the virtue of surviving in the slums largely without help, but received little in the form of formal education. They both enlisted in the military of the Tiger Republics at 16, not out of any sense of national pride, but rather because they saw it as their ticket to a better life.
For a while, it was. Both learned quickly, and were already more than physically fit enough to endure basic training. What's more, their superior officers noted how, while both were skilled in their own right, their effectiveness multiplied exponentially when they worked in tandem with each-other, and so an effort was made, in unusual defiance of Tiger Army regulations, that they be kept within the same unit. Together, they served two tours in the regular Army, once in Japan and once in Cambodia, before they were invited to join the elite troops of the Tiger Airborne. Breezing through selection, Yu and Chen graduated and were placed under the command of Captain Lee Jin-Oh, weeks before the Pan-Arabian War began.
Few survivors of the Airborne division that participated in the Battle, and later the Siege, of Bahrain, are inclined to talk about exactly what happened over there, and Yu and Chen are no exception. They pulled though, but both returned considerably older and quieter than before. More uniquely, they had both developed a fierce loyalty to their commanding officer, and when Colonel Jin-Oh's outspoken criticism of Tiger foreign policy got him discharged from the forces, Yu and Chen risked their lives resigning in protest. Needing to earn a wage, and having learned to do little else than fight, Yu and Chen entered the private sector, being hired by the Shao-Long Conglomerate, who held sway in their local region. They were hardly loyal, but they both did their jobs well, and quietly, for several years, giving their superiors no reason to have any problem with them. However, on one assignment, scouting a region of Mongolia that was being contested by Venture Horizon, their unit was discovered and outnumbered by Venture forces, and Yu and Chen were taken prisoner. Most of the unit was eventually ransomed back to Shao-Long without incident. However, Yu and Chen were, for reasons not immediately apparent, shipped off to RACDI-Alpha, to find that the place was now being run by their old CO, and he had a job for them...
As new Inmates, Yu and Chen were soon scooped up by the Snakehead gang, one of the smaller players in The Pit at the time, and they both rose through the ranks quickly as hit-men and smugglers. When Operation Borealis reached its apex, Yu and Chen killed the rest of the big players in the Snakehead gang, before disappearing in the chaos. Lee had offered the pair their freedom at the end of the operation, but they both made the decision to stay and continue operating as his agents on the inside, helping him to achieve his vision of RACDI-Alpha as a safe and stable environment.
Personality: Both Yu and Chen take a straight-talking, no-nonsense attitude to things (though Chen is probably the slightly more laid-back of the two). They're professionals. They get the job done to the best of their ability, and don't make a habit of wearing their hearts on their sleeves. The one clue to something deeper going on beneath their cold exteriors, is their fierce, unquestioning loyalty to Lee, which continues even after the man himself is gone.
Fappy (Co-GM):
Name: Lucia
Age: 22
Physical Description: Young, Caucasian girl with decently tanned skin, green eyes and brown shoulder length hair. She stands at about 5'6ft and is rather thin, though she has been building body mass by working tirelessly in the mine.
Background: Lucia and her brother Tristan come from a prestigious family who once held tremendous influence over the Mediterranean. She is of primarily Greek decent, but grew up in New Troy, on the coast of Turkey. Lucia lived a privileged life to be sure, but she was far from sheltered. As a child she witnessed the birth of the New Ottoman Empire, a five-year struggle that claimed the lives of millions. As a teenager she witnessed the horrors of the Pan-Arabian War firsthand when New Troy was air raided for a solid week. Despite being the daughter of a VIP she did her damndest in assisting doctors and nurses with the wounded. It was because of this that she began studying medicine. That education was unfortunately cut short.
Her father, Edmund, was a kind and intelligent nobleman who had been lobbying the Ottoman Empire to find their own way and forsake Venture Horizon. After significant bribes from the corporation his best friend had begun conspiring with Edmund's political rivals to attempt a coup. When Edmund discovers this plot he burns the evidence and gives his friend a chance to flee in honor of their friendship... it did not turn out that way however. His once noble friend ended up framing Edmund for his crimes so that he could further his own political agenda and cover his own ass. Edmund is executed and his two children are sold off to Venture Horizon to work their entire lives in the hellish Pit.
Upon arriving, Lucia and her brother are ambushed by thugs under the command of a powerful inmate named Azrael. Another inmate only known as "Orphan" manages to save her, but her brother is taken away. Orphan takes her in knowing that if she were left to fend for herself in the pit she wouldn't survive more than a week at best. Hesitant at first, she realizes he is the only thing standing between her and hell and slowly begins to warm up to him.
Pretext of Incarceration: Political prisoner. Known family's influence has been defunct and she isn't worth anything. Fair game to inmates and wardens... that is until Orphan takes into his protective custody. Now she's hands-off. Period.
Personality: Strong-willed and true to her convictions, Lucia has a hard time keeping her opinions to herself. At one point she may have been a gentle and fun-loving girl, but the circumstances of her incarceration, the kidnapping of her brother and the Pit itself have quickly jaded her to the reality of her situation. She has a strong will to live and one primary motivation: save her brother. She'll trample anyone who gets in her way.
Age: 22
Physical Description: Young, Caucasian girl with decently tanned skin, green eyes and brown shoulder length hair. She stands at about 5'6ft and is rather thin, though she has been building body mass by working tirelessly in the mine.
Background: Lucia and her brother Tristan come from a prestigious family who once held tremendous influence over the Mediterranean. She is of primarily Greek decent, but grew up in New Troy, on the coast of Turkey. Lucia lived a privileged life to be sure, but she was far from sheltered. As a child she witnessed the birth of the New Ottoman Empire, a five-year struggle that claimed the lives of millions. As a teenager she witnessed the horrors of the Pan-Arabian War firsthand when New Troy was air raided for a solid week. Despite being the daughter of a VIP she did her damndest in assisting doctors and nurses with the wounded. It was because of this that she began studying medicine. That education was unfortunately cut short.
Her father, Edmund, was a kind and intelligent nobleman who had been lobbying the Ottoman Empire to find their own way and forsake Venture Horizon. After significant bribes from the corporation his best friend had begun conspiring with Edmund's political rivals to attempt a coup. When Edmund discovers this plot he burns the evidence and gives his friend a chance to flee in honor of their friendship... it did not turn out that way however. His once noble friend ended up framing Edmund for his crimes so that he could further his own political agenda and cover his own ass. Edmund is executed and his two children are sold off to Venture Horizon to work their entire lives in the hellish Pit.
Upon arriving, Lucia and her brother are ambushed by thugs under the command of a powerful inmate named Azrael. Another inmate only known as "Orphan" manages to save her, but her brother is taken away. Orphan takes her in knowing that if she were left to fend for herself in the pit she wouldn't survive more than a week at best. Hesitant at first, she realizes he is the only thing standing between her and hell and slowly begins to warm up to him.
Pretext of Incarceration: Political prisoner. Known family's influence has been defunct and she isn't worth anything. Fair game to inmates and wardens... that is until Orphan takes into his protective custody. Now she's hands-off. Period.
Personality: Strong-willed and true to her convictions, Lucia has a hard time keeping her opinions to herself. At one point she may have been a gentle and fun-loving girl, but the circumstances of her incarceration, the kidnapping of her brother and the Pit itself have quickly jaded her to the reality of her situation. She has a strong will to live and one primary motivation: save her brother. She'll trample anyone who gets in her way.
Name: Nahla Khalid
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Appearance: Nahla has a slender, dark face with large, round brown eyes. Her nose is long and curved, complimenting her large eyes and long face. She keeps her dark brown hair very short, with a longer, lighter fringe across the top of her head not unlike that of a mowhawk. Though she may have been a beautiful maiden in her youth, years of conflict have weathered her features; not that she does much to exemplify her more feminine aspects, anyway. Several small scars dot the right side of her face and neck, the result of a grenade blast she narrowly survived over ten years ago.
Standing at 5'9, she is still considered a rare woman by the standards of her peers and has an incredibly fit body, with modest breasts and wide hips. She has several piercing on her ears and tattoos (mostly consisting of religious and mythological iconography) running the length of her arms, back, the back of her shins and ankles. The most notorious of these tattoos is that of the god, Osiris' cross on the back of her neck. She claims it helps her guide her enemies to an early grave (usually in jest).
While off duty she generally wears her paramilitary, improvised fatigues. A mixture of several nations' military wear. While out on a mission she wears a tactical vest over a t-shirt, with military cargo pants, combat boots, fingerless gloves and the tattered remains of her mother's old burka; reduced now to a torn-up black cloth. Generally, she uses it as an over the shoulder cloak that also covers her nose and mouth.
On most missions she opts to carry her old, trusty M-14 carbine, 9mm glock sidearm and combat knife. Nothing fancy.
Faction: Songbird (Talon's Personal Cell)
Personality: Nahla is an easygoing, likable girl as far as guerrilla soldiers go. Though she has a good sense of humor and gets along well enough with her peers, she's a serious person at heart and rarely cracks jokes while in the field unless a bit of levity is absolutely necessary. She feels such behavior is dishonest and a sign of weakness.
Like her fellow Songbirds, she has a strong sense of conviction and an incredible willpower. After what she'd been through and how she disciplined her mind; it would take something monumentally devastating to truly shake her. Though she celebrates the death of her enemies, she respects them and laments any desecration that may come to their bodies. She is no stranger to killing, but believes you must always have a good reason to commit violence. Torture, rape and disciplinary beatings are unacceptable. Violence is a means to an end in her mind: to defeat your enemy, nothing more.
Background: Nahla was raised by her mother in a remote mountain village in the Arabian Peninsula. Though the boarders in the region were in constant flux, her nationality could most likely be considered Saudi. She was raised Muslim, adopting customs centuries old that required she conceal her feminine figure in a burka. Despite their village's old-world view, however, she was permitted to learn and became fluent in several local languages and dialects at an early age.
She loved her mother and had learned everything she knew of the outside world from her. Sadly however, she lost her to the bloodbath that was the Pan-Arabian War. Soldiers of the Tiger Republics annexed the town to use as an outpost during their initial western push and subjugated the locals in the cruelest ways possible. Every grown man was shot while the boys were put to work, providing the soldiers with free labor and food. The women that hadn't opted to die with their husbands were used, including Nahla's mother.
This continued for seven weeks until one night, on Nahla's thirteenth birthday, one of the soldiers came for her too. Her mother came to her aid, coming up from behind the man and bashing him over the head with a rock. After caving in his skull, she took his weapon and fled the village with Nahla in tow. They didn't make it very far out of the parameter before a sniper caught her mother in the leg. Knowing she'd only slow her daughter down, she begged for her to leave her, forcing her burka into the girl's hands so as to camouflage herself among the darkness. Though it had killed her to do so, Nahla did as instructed and left her mother for dead.
She wandered the mountains for three days and had spent every night huddled in her mother's burka in an attempt to fend of the freezing cold. Starving and exhausted, she was about ready to give up when a guerrilla convoy found her collapsed on the side of a dirt road. After resuscitating her, they told her they were Syrian rebels from the north, cutting through to the heart of peninsula to deliver their brothers from the foreign infidels. She told them about her village and agreed to join their cause if they liberated her village. They made good on their promise.
Nahla found her mother's corpse left in a gutter, raped and mutilated. From that day forth she swore vengeance against the Tiger Republics and all others who had turned her homeland into their own apocalyptic playground. She spent the next 15 years fighting among several rebel factions, all across the Middle East. Eventually, during an operation in the former-Pakistan, she fell in with what she later learned to be a small Songbird cell. Her skills and conviction were noted and it wasn't long before she was brought before the Talon herself.
She has served the Talon well these last several years and believes in her vision absolutely. She doesn't worship her like many of her peers, but has always followed her orders to the letter. She believes that she and Talon have the same dream, but that between the two of them, only Talon is strong enough to see it become a reality. The only true reservation Nahla has is in regards to Talon's abhorrent treatment of prisoners. She has tried to reconcile the horrors Talon has visited on her enemies, but has not managed to completely shake off her doubts. In the end, Talon's "eccentric" hobbies are the only thing keeping Nahla from becoming her enthralled pawn.
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Appearance: Nahla has a slender, dark face with large, round brown eyes. Her nose is long and curved, complimenting her large eyes and long face. She keeps her dark brown hair very short, with a longer, lighter fringe across the top of her head not unlike that of a mowhawk. Though she may have been a beautiful maiden in her youth, years of conflict have weathered her features; not that she does much to exemplify her more feminine aspects, anyway. Several small scars dot the right side of her face and neck, the result of a grenade blast she narrowly survived over ten years ago.
Standing at 5'9, she is still considered a rare woman by the standards of her peers and has an incredibly fit body, with modest breasts and wide hips. She has several piercing on her ears and tattoos (mostly consisting of religious and mythological iconography) running the length of her arms, back, the back of her shins and ankles. The most notorious of these tattoos is that of the god, Osiris' cross on the back of her neck. She claims it helps her guide her enemies to an early grave (usually in jest).
While off duty she generally wears her paramilitary, improvised fatigues. A mixture of several nations' military wear. While out on a mission she wears a tactical vest over a t-shirt, with military cargo pants, combat boots, fingerless gloves and the tattered remains of her mother's old burka; reduced now to a torn-up black cloth. Generally, she uses it as an over the shoulder cloak that also covers her nose and mouth.
On most missions she opts to carry her old, trusty M-14 carbine, 9mm glock sidearm and combat knife. Nothing fancy.
Faction: Songbird (Talon's Personal Cell)
Personality: Nahla is an easygoing, likable girl as far as guerrilla soldiers go. Though she has a good sense of humor and gets along well enough with her peers, she's a serious person at heart and rarely cracks jokes while in the field unless a bit of levity is absolutely necessary. She feels such behavior is dishonest and a sign of weakness.
Like her fellow Songbirds, she has a strong sense of conviction and an incredible willpower. After what she'd been through and how she disciplined her mind; it would take something monumentally devastating to truly shake her. Though she celebrates the death of her enemies, she respects them and laments any desecration that may come to their bodies. She is no stranger to killing, but believes you must always have a good reason to commit violence. Torture, rape and disciplinary beatings are unacceptable. Violence is a means to an end in her mind: to defeat your enemy, nothing more.
Background: Nahla was raised by her mother in a remote mountain village in the Arabian Peninsula. Though the boarders in the region were in constant flux, her nationality could most likely be considered Saudi. She was raised Muslim, adopting customs centuries old that required she conceal her feminine figure in a burka. Despite their village's old-world view, however, she was permitted to learn and became fluent in several local languages and dialects at an early age.
She loved her mother and had learned everything she knew of the outside world from her. Sadly however, she lost her to the bloodbath that was the Pan-Arabian War. Soldiers of the Tiger Republics annexed the town to use as an outpost during their initial western push and subjugated the locals in the cruelest ways possible. Every grown man was shot while the boys were put to work, providing the soldiers with free labor and food. The women that hadn't opted to die with their husbands were used, including Nahla's mother.
This continued for seven weeks until one night, on Nahla's thirteenth birthday, one of the soldiers came for her too. Her mother came to her aid, coming up from behind the man and bashing him over the head with a rock. After caving in his skull, she took his weapon and fled the village with Nahla in tow. They didn't make it very far out of the parameter before a sniper caught her mother in the leg. Knowing she'd only slow her daughter down, she begged for her to leave her, forcing her burka into the girl's hands so as to camouflage herself among the darkness. Though it had killed her to do so, Nahla did as instructed and left her mother for dead.
She wandered the mountains for three days and had spent every night huddled in her mother's burka in an attempt to fend of the freezing cold. Starving and exhausted, she was about ready to give up when a guerrilla convoy found her collapsed on the side of a dirt road. After resuscitating her, they told her they were Syrian rebels from the north, cutting through to the heart of peninsula to deliver their brothers from the foreign infidels. She told them about her village and agreed to join their cause if they liberated her village. They made good on their promise.
Nahla found her mother's corpse left in a gutter, raped and mutilated. From that day forth she swore vengeance against the Tiger Republics and all others who had turned her homeland into their own apocalyptic playground. She spent the next 15 years fighting among several rebel factions, all across the Middle East. Eventually, during an operation in the former-Pakistan, she fell in with what she later learned to be a small Songbird cell. Her skills and conviction were noted and it wasn't long before she was brought before the Talon herself.
She has served the Talon well these last several years and believes in her vision absolutely. She doesn't worship her like many of her peers, but has always followed her orders to the letter. She believes that she and Talon have the same dream, but that between the two of them, only Talon is strong enough to see it become a reality. The only true reservation Nahla has is in regards to Talon's abhorrent treatment of prisoners. She has tried to reconcile the horrors Talon has visited on her enemies, but has not managed to completely shake off her doubts. In the end, Talon's "eccentric" hobbies are the only thing keeping Nahla from becoming her enthralled pawn.
ProtoChimp:
- Name: Travis "The Dragon"
- Age: 37
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Very large, a bulky man and quite tall. He has long black hair, fading slowly to grey. He has a threatening demeanour, looks as if he is likely to randomly murder you simply for being within 10 square feet of him
- 'Inmate' or 'Warden': Inmate
- Background: Travis liked to travel from settlement to settlement. He would stay in one place for a couple months and then travel to somewhere else nearby. Of course, he wouldn't move on until he had systematically murdered everyone living there. He didn't care about age, race, gender, Travis killed indiscriminately, and is known to have committed numerous rapes, though he much prefers to just kill. He would rob whatever he wanted, even if he didn't need it. This would often make him a target for other thugs and thieves, all too willing to die by his hands once he as done torturing them.
Eventually he bit off more than he could chew and didn't realise that a group of women he had been targeting for a few weeks were in fact trained soldiers. He couldn't even kill one before they brought him to his knees and knocked him unconscious. As punishment for his crime they had him sold to Venture Horizon where he has spent the past year in the Pit.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: Multiple counts of rape, and uncountable amount of murder, theft and torture.
- Personality: The worst kind of scum. An overconfident, cocky, arrogant dickhead. Over the past year he has banded together with a few other psycopaths, forming a prison gang: "The dragons". He considers himself the big fish in the small pond, unaware of the sharks that surround him in this pond. His gang is merely small time compared to the other, larger prison gangs. He doesn't care at all for human life and will often go through trouble to kill people for almost no reason. A sadist, psychopath, and loves the "wonderland" the world has become.
- Age: 37
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Very large, a bulky man and quite tall. He has long black hair, fading slowly to grey. He has a threatening demeanour, looks as if he is likely to randomly murder you simply for being within 10 square feet of him
- 'Inmate' or 'Warden': Inmate
- Background: Travis liked to travel from settlement to settlement. He would stay in one place for a couple months and then travel to somewhere else nearby. Of course, he wouldn't move on until he had systematically murdered everyone living there. He didn't care about age, race, gender, Travis killed indiscriminately, and is known to have committed numerous rapes, though he much prefers to just kill. He would rob whatever he wanted, even if he didn't need it. This would often make him a target for other thugs and thieves, all too willing to die by his hands once he as done torturing them.
Eventually he bit off more than he could chew and didn't realise that a group of women he had been targeting for a few weeks were in fact trained soldiers. He couldn't even kill one before they brought him to his knees and knocked him unconscious. As punishment for his crime they had him sold to Venture Horizon where he has spent the past year in the Pit.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: Multiple counts of rape, and uncountable amount of murder, theft and torture.
- Personality: The worst kind of scum. An overconfident, cocky, arrogant dickhead. Over the past year he has banded together with a few other psycopaths, forming a prison gang: "The dragons". He considers himself the big fish in the small pond, unaware of the sharks that surround him in this pond. His gang is merely small time compared to the other, larger prison gangs. He doesn't care at all for human life and will often go through trouble to kill people for almost no reason. A sadist, psychopath, and loves the "wonderland" the world has become.
Binnsyboy:
- Name: Acolyte (formerly Samuel Van Der Linde)
- Age: 34
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Tall and somewhat broad. He is fairly pale, being of Dutch descent. Hair colour is dirty-blonde, as he has ceased shaving his head. His eyes are bright green. Wears a Songbird-given combat uniform, devoid of any symbols of allegiance. Has a large swastika branded into his chest, over his heart after an altercation with White Supremacists in The Pit. As such, now rarely goes shirtless in the company of others.
- Background: Originally from Holland, Samuel ended up in China, and became a heroine addict. Eight years prior to the present, he was found near a state of overdose by a travelling monk, who took him to a temple (or, an approximation of one in these times. It was actually a converted warehouse). During his recovery, he learned about a variety of Asian philosophers, and about the order who had saved him. When back to full strength, he was taught extensive martial arts as a form of meditation, as well as 'healing' via Tai Chi.
Having been in the Pit for several years, Acolyte encountered Lucia and intervened to save her life from several assailants, winning the trust of her apparent protector, the mysterious 'Orphan'. Orphan then extracted from Acolyte a promise to look after Lucia should anything happen to him.
Some time later, Lucia was abducted by the Arctic Wolves, and Orphan killed shortly after. Acolyte, meanwhile, was overcome with one of his blackouts and captured by several members of of the Pit's White Supremacist gang, whose allies Acolyte had injured or killed defending Lucia. Upon waking up, Acolyte was badly beaten and eventually branded. Shortly after, he escaped and encountered Strucker, the Neo-Nazi's leader, who assured him his attackers had been killed for acting rashly. With the help of Strucker and the men at his disposal, Acolyte agreed to partake in an assault on the Arctic Wolves in order to retrieve Lucia.
He managed to reach her, finding her partaking in a prison break with Nikolai and his men. Acolyte then succumbed to a blackout and was carried out with the rest of the men, waking up to partake in the final push. The escape was successful, however their chopper eventually crashed, leaving them to spend three months trekking through the wilderness, during which Acolyte found himself at odds with Nikolai. During this time, his blackouts lessened and faded away. They were then eventually cornered and taken in by the Songbirds. When Nikolai was recovered, he insisted that Acolyte fight him to prove his worth, a test Acolyte passed. When undergoing medical examination afterwards however, it was discovered that is blackouts were caused by some manner of brain tumor, and that their disappearance was a result of change in the tumor's growth. Acolyte now faces his mortality. He fought with the Songbirds to liberate the Phantom weapon from its compound.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: While giving food to the homeless, he was accosted by three of them, who proceeded to beat him savagely. He broke his vow of pacifism and killed them in self defence, but was apprehended. Having no money, he was unable to mount much of a defence, and his identity as a member of his order provided means for killing the three men. He decided to plead guilty, and was sent to RACDI-Alpha.
- Personality: Samuel (referred to as Acolyte, by request as he shares his former name with nobody) is calm and collected. Having formerly taken a vow of pacifism, he was forced to abandon it in order to survive The Pit, as well as protect those close to him. Acolyte is arguably the most proficient fighter within the Free Men, excepting perhaps Nikolai himself.
His greatest weakness came about in the very close shave with overdosing. Since his recovery, he suffered from irregular blackouts lasting from a few minutes to a couple of hours. He can feel them coming, in a very lightheaded feeling and over a period of two minutes gradually loses motor skills until finally passing out. His only solution to this is that he had learned the location of ventilation shafts and carries a screwdriver on him. When he feels a blackout coming, he finds the nearest vent and hides inside, for obvious reasons. This solution is liable to fail him at some point.
These blackouts have now ceased, but at terrible personal cost.
- Age: 34
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Tall and somewhat broad. He is fairly pale, being of Dutch descent. Hair colour is dirty-blonde, as he has ceased shaving his head. His eyes are bright green. Wears a Songbird-given combat uniform, devoid of any symbols of allegiance. Has a large swastika branded into his chest, over his heart after an altercation with White Supremacists in The Pit. As such, now rarely goes shirtless in the company of others.
- Background: Originally from Holland, Samuel ended up in China, and became a heroine addict. Eight years prior to the present, he was found near a state of overdose by a travelling monk, who took him to a temple (or, an approximation of one in these times. It was actually a converted warehouse). During his recovery, he learned about a variety of Asian philosophers, and about the order who had saved him. When back to full strength, he was taught extensive martial arts as a form of meditation, as well as 'healing' via Tai Chi.
Having been in the Pit for several years, Acolyte encountered Lucia and intervened to save her life from several assailants, winning the trust of her apparent protector, the mysterious 'Orphan'. Orphan then extracted from Acolyte a promise to look after Lucia should anything happen to him.
Some time later, Lucia was abducted by the Arctic Wolves, and Orphan killed shortly after. Acolyte, meanwhile, was overcome with one of his blackouts and captured by several members of of the Pit's White Supremacist gang, whose allies Acolyte had injured or killed defending Lucia. Upon waking up, Acolyte was badly beaten and eventually branded. Shortly after, he escaped and encountered Strucker, the Neo-Nazi's leader, who assured him his attackers had been killed for acting rashly. With the help of Strucker and the men at his disposal, Acolyte agreed to partake in an assault on the Arctic Wolves in order to retrieve Lucia.
He managed to reach her, finding her partaking in a prison break with Nikolai and his men. Acolyte then succumbed to a blackout and was carried out with the rest of the men, waking up to partake in the final push. The escape was successful, however their chopper eventually crashed, leaving them to spend three months trekking through the wilderness, during which Acolyte found himself at odds with Nikolai. During this time, his blackouts lessened and faded away. They were then eventually cornered and taken in by the Songbirds. When Nikolai was recovered, he insisted that Acolyte fight him to prove his worth, a test Acolyte passed. When undergoing medical examination afterwards however, it was discovered that is blackouts were caused by some manner of brain tumor, and that their disappearance was a result of change in the tumor's growth. Acolyte now faces his mortality. He fought with the Songbirds to liberate the Phantom weapon from its compound.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: While giving food to the homeless, he was accosted by three of them, who proceeded to beat him savagely. He broke his vow of pacifism and killed them in self defence, but was apprehended. Having no money, he was unable to mount much of a defence, and his identity as a member of his order provided means for killing the three men. He decided to plead guilty, and was sent to RACDI-Alpha.
- Personality: Samuel (referred to as Acolyte, by request as he shares his former name with nobody) is calm and collected. Having formerly taken a vow of pacifism, he was forced to abandon it in order to survive The Pit, as well as protect those close to him. Acolyte is arguably the most proficient fighter within the Free Men, excepting perhaps Nikolai himself.
His greatest weakness came about in the very close shave with overdosing. Since his recovery, he suffered from irregular blackouts lasting from a few minutes to a couple of hours. He can feel them coming, in a very lightheaded feeling and over a period of two minutes gradually loses motor skills until finally passing out. His only solution to this is that he had learned the location of ventilation shafts and carries a screwdriver on him. When he feels a blackout coming, he finds the nearest vent and hides inside, for obvious reasons. This solution is liable to fail him at some point.
These blackouts have now ceased, but at terrible personal cost.
- Name: Captain Luka Korovitch
- Age: 45
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Thickset, with dark hair shot through with traces of grey. Has perpetual stubble, ice blue and a scar from the underside of his chin to just beneath his left nostril.
- Background: From the age of eighteen, Luka served in the reestablished Russian Spetsnaz. As part of his training, he was given a puppy to raise for a year, and then made to kill it. He did this without question. At the age of 29, as a Sergeant, he resigned, despite the stigma in his country associated with doing so. After this, he became a mercenary for hire, being employed on numerous occasions by the New Ottoman Empire, among various other employers. He has two things from his time in the Spetsnaz: His tags and his service Makarov, which he carries in his present duty.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: At the age of 38, he knew middle age was on the horizon. After receiving his facial scar during the territorial war between the reestablished Iran (who had hired him to train and lead a portion of their troops) and the grizzled Iraq, he decided he needed a stable job and accepted an offer from RACDI-Alpha. He has since been promoted twice in quick succession from Warrant Officer to Captain.
Until recent events, Luka had made no progress up the Warden chain of command, despite his high level of competence. This was due to the system's innate bureaucracy. However, upon being commissioned by Lee to form a squad made up of the Warden elite, Korovitch was promoted to Lieutenant. Thus Iron Squad was formed. Their mission was to eliminate a corrupt Lieutenant known as 'Sticks'. Sticks, however, had his own soldiers and expected Lee to send men after him. Iron Squad suffered three casualties, two of them fatal. The third was Lisa Beaumont, whose legs were broken badly in a fall, before Sticks captured and proceeded to sexually assault her. This was interrupted by Korovitch and his remaining men, having wiped out Sticks' forces. Korovitch proceeded to brutally castrate and then execute the other Lieutenant in blind fury.
The extent to which this incident affected Korovitch was due to the similarities it bore to the death of his wife years ago, and before that, an incident at the orphanage Korovitch grew up in.
Over the next three months, Korovitch worked relentlessly to bring the Pit's populace into line and was promoted to Captain, rebuilding and extending Iron Squad's ranks in the process. At the urging of Lisa Beaumont, he contacted Conrad Verner within the prison's mid-level.
When Songbird forces assaulted the facility, Korovitch fought to defend it, but was incapacitated and thought dead. When he came to, his squad was shattered and the Wardens at large defeated. Fleeing into the lower levels of the prison, he discovered inmates parading several of his squad members around in build up to an execution. With the assistance of Verner, he intervened and successfully saved one of them, Fiona. The three then made their way to the chapel where Korovitch murdered Sticks, where they encountered Chen.
- Personality: Through years of combat, he is numbed to death and suffering and places efficiency above all else. This bleeds over into every aspect of his life, from exercise, to eating, to sex. It has been fifteen years since he even heard from a blood relative, and they no longer concern him. He is not needlessly cruel, because there is no need to be, but often sees the best solution to be 'nipping things in the bud'. In short, this means execution by sidearm a lot of the time.
- Age: 45
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Thickset, with dark hair shot through with traces of grey. Has perpetual stubble, ice blue and a scar from the underside of his chin to just beneath his left nostril.
- Background: From the age of eighteen, Luka served in the reestablished Russian Spetsnaz. As part of his training, he was given a puppy to raise for a year, and then made to kill it. He did this without question. At the age of 29, as a Sergeant, he resigned, despite the stigma in his country associated with doing so. After this, he became a mercenary for hire, being employed on numerous occasions by the New Ottoman Empire, among various other employers. He has two things from his time in the Spetsnaz: His tags and his service Makarov, which he carries in his present duty.
- Pretext for Incarceration/Employment: At the age of 38, he knew middle age was on the horizon. After receiving his facial scar during the territorial war between the reestablished Iran (who had hired him to train and lead a portion of their troops) and the grizzled Iraq, he decided he needed a stable job and accepted an offer from RACDI-Alpha. He has since been promoted twice in quick succession from Warrant Officer to Captain.
Until recent events, Luka had made no progress up the Warden chain of command, despite his high level of competence. This was due to the system's innate bureaucracy. However, upon being commissioned by Lee to form a squad made up of the Warden elite, Korovitch was promoted to Lieutenant. Thus Iron Squad was formed. Their mission was to eliminate a corrupt Lieutenant known as 'Sticks'. Sticks, however, had his own soldiers and expected Lee to send men after him. Iron Squad suffered three casualties, two of them fatal. The third was Lisa Beaumont, whose legs were broken badly in a fall, before Sticks captured and proceeded to sexually assault her. This was interrupted by Korovitch and his remaining men, having wiped out Sticks' forces. Korovitch proceeded to brutally castrate and then execute the other Lieutenant in blind fury.
The extent to which this incident affected Korovitch was due to the similarities it bore to the death of his wife years ago, and before that, an incident at the orphanage Korovitch grew up in.
Over the next three months, Korovitch worked relentlessly to bring the Pit's populace into line and was promoted to Captain, rebuilding and extending Iron Squad's ranks in the process. At the urging of Lisa Beaumont, he contacted Conrad Verner within the prison's mid-level.
When Songbird forces assaulted the facility, Korovitch fought to defend it, but was incapacitated and thought dead. When he came to, his squad was shattered and the Wardens at large defeated. Fleeing into the lower levels of the prison, he discovered inmates parading several of his squad members around in build up to an execution. With the assistance of Verner, he intervened and successfully saved one of them, Fiona. The three then made their way to the chapel where Korovitch murdered Sticks, where they encountered Chen.
- Personality: Through years of combat, he is numbed to death and suffering and places efficiency above all else. This bleeds over into every aspect of his life, from exercise, to eating, to sex. It has been fifteen years since he even heard from a blood relative, and they no longer concern him. He is not needlessly cruel, because there is no need to be, but often sees the best solution to be 'nipping things in the bud'. In short, this means execution by sidearm a lot of the time.
- Name: Riley Creed (The Wolf/Wolf Brother)
- Age: 27
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Tall, and broad shouldered, with naturally short brown hair, and a trimmed beard. His most distinguishing feature are his eyes, the irises of which are a bright, feral yellow, which has a tendency to alarm some people.
-'Guerrilla'
- Background: When Riley was ten years old, his parents migrated from England to the new Congo territories. There, they eked out a living, and Riley's father taught him to hunt with a rifle, and the basics of tracking. Their primary human interaction was with a local tribe, who traded with their family on a regular basis. The son of their primary contact befriended Riley, and expanded his hunting and tracking skills. When Riley was fifteen, a panther attacked his homestead while, killing his parents, and leaving claw scars across his back before being shot by tribesmen who had come to trade. Riley was taken in by the tribe, and was trained in their hunting arts, as well as bow shooting, knife fighting, various survival skills, and the making of various remedies and poisons. When Riley was eighteen, he set off travelling from the Congo.
For four years, he traveled, moving up through the Middle East, and into Europe. Hitching a lift back on a cargo plane with members of a new missionary movement (who were killed three weeks later by disgruntled tribesmen), Riley returned. Not alone. He had brought a newly wed wife, and an animal. A wolf cub found close to death in the Scandinavian regions. He had nursed it to health and bonded with it. But while he had been gone, the tribe leader had passed away, leaving no sons. The new leader had determined that his eyes and ways with animals marked Riley as a demon, and he was cast out as the tribe moved on from the area, barely escaping with his life. His wife was not so lucky. The tribe eventually ceased hunting him, and moved on in their nomad lifestyle. Several years later, he is alive and well, his wolf, Odin, full grown and loyal.
When a Venture Horizon helicopter crashed, it was Riley who was sent to investigate as the Talon's foremost hunter. Within a couple of weeks, he had found the crash site and tracked the Free Men. He then spent the next few months tailing them on their slow journey, and relaying their movements to the Songbird base. He alerted them when the Free Men came in close proximity to a village within Songbird territory, leading to their capture.
With the Free Men now housed within the Songbird compound, Riley was given the job of watching over them, as the one who knew them best after months of observation. When the Songbirds and Free Men cooperatively moved to assault a Venture Horizon facility housing the PHANTOM compound, Riley headed up one half of the operation, stealing the chemical weapon and moving it to safety.
- Personality: Riley does what is needed to be done. His life is survival. However, being well traveled, he understands people well. He is always grinning, and is the first to crack a joke or witty remark. This is, however, a facade, concealing a very deep depression.
Unlike other Songbirds, Riley does not necessarily buy into the Talon's worldview. His reasons for following her are his own. While this is an advantageous trait, making him a deal more independent and free thinking than some of his companions, it is a double edged sword. His loyalty, while strong, is even more fickle than that of his wolf, Odin.
- Age: 27
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: Tall, and broad shouldered, with naturally short brown hair, and a trimmed beard. His most distinguishing feature are his eyes, the irises of which are a bright, feral yellow, which has a tendency to alarm some people.
-'Guerrilla'
- Background: When Riley was ten years old, his parents migrated from England to the new Congo territories. There, they eked out a living, and Riley's father taught him to hunt with a rifle, and the basics of tracking. Their primary human interaction was with a local tribe, who traded with their family on a regular basis. The son of their primary contact befriended Riley, and expanded his hunting and tracking skills. When Riley was fifteen, a panther attacked his homestead while, killing his parents, and leaving claw scars across his back before being shot by tribesmen who had come to trade. Riley was taken in by the tribe, and was trained in their hunting arts, as well as bow shooting, knife fighting, various survival skills, and the making of various remedies and poisons. When Riley was eighteen, he set off travelling from the Congo.
For four years, he traveled, moving up through the Middle East, and into Europe. Hitching a lift back on a cargo plane with members of a new missionary movement (who were killed three weeks later by disgruntled tribesmen), Riley returned. Not alone. He had brought a newly wed wife, and an animal. A wolf cub found close to death in the Scandinavian regions. He had nursed it to health and bonded with it. But while he had been gone, the tribe leader had passed away, leaving no sons. The new leader had determined that his eyes and ways with animals marked Riley as a demon, and he was cast out as the tribe moved on from the area, barely escaping with his life. His wife was not so lucky. The tribe eventually ceased hunting him, and moved on in their nomad lifestyle. Several years later, he is alive and well, his wolf, Odin, full grown and loyal.
When a Venture Horizon helicopter crashed, it was Riley who was sent to investigate as the Talon's foremost hunter. Within a couple of weeks, he had found the crash site and tracked the Free Men. He then spent the next few months tailing them on their slow journey, and relaying their movements to the Songbird base. He alerted them when the Free Men came in close proximity to a village within Songbird territory, leading to their capture.
With the Free Men now housed within the Songbird compound, Riley was given the job of watching over them, as the one who knew them best after months of observation. When the Songbirds and Free Men cooperatively moved to assault a Venture Horizon facility housing the PHANTOM compound, Riley headed up one half of the operation, stealing the chemical weapon and moving it to safety.
- Personality: Riley does what is needed to be done. His life is survival. However, being well traveled, he understands people well. He is always grinning, and is the first to crack a joke or witty remark. This is, however, a facade, concealing a very deep depression.
Unlike other Songbirds, Riley does not necessarily buy into the Talon's worldview. His reasons for following her are his own. While this is an advantageous trait, making him a deal more independent and free thinking than some of his companions, it is a double edged sword. His loyalty, while strong, is even more fickle than that of his wolf, Odin.
