Character a Day 2021: Eclipse Phase: Penumbral Shadow – Day 2

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Time for the build!

Name: Damien Kinnear

Character Concept

The first step is to select a character archetype. Looking at the different ones, I can go with Social > Investigator or Combat > Ego Hunter. The latter appears more in line with what I was thinking, so Ego Hunter it is. I make note of the skill notes – Enforcer, Investigator, Fighter, Forensic Specialist. Sounds like my guy.

Next we go with origin Freelancer. I could go Underclass, but Freelancer is more of where I want to pull from. For Faction, I'll go with Extropian, and for Motivations, I'll choose, Thrill-Seeking, Independence, and Self-Reliance. He learned from his parents' plight to never put his fate in another's hand, but be the one that they depend on. And for some reason, he's attracted to the adrenaline rush of living on the edge.

Zarathustra Phases

These are similar to Fate Core, except there are 4 instead of 3. The other interesting thing – no Aspects come out of this, unlike in Fate Core.

Phase One: Your Introduction to the Life

I already detailed this in his background, but his introduction was through scrabbling to find his way in the streets, while negotiating his way around the pervasive criminal element and staying as peripheral to it as possible.

Phase Two: A Recent Incident

Recently, he's been going from berth to berth, ending up on stations in the Black. I want to emphasize that his life has been anything but stable.

When his last transport- a long hauler- docked here, he had the feeling from his interactions with the captain and from bits and pieces of his interaction with the crew that he needed to skip. They had been more and more desperate for work, shuttling items from a few different way stations, and he'd happily stayed on for a while to let the heat from his prior job die down. His instincts proved right- he found out the ship was interdicted for smuggling a bit after he got off.

But that left him between jobs, so he hung out around the bars and the security station, finally catching wind of a private gig to find the kid of one of the workers in the kiosk on the station. Low paying, but there wasn't too much area on a station this size. He found the kid all right- dead. And that put him in the sights of the local cools. He negotiated the space between the parents and the cops, solving their case for them. The parents refused to pay, but there was a bit of scratch from the police for his help.

Phase Three: Entanglements

Since I'm making Damien alone for now, this one is a rough sketch of a theoretical entanglement with an investigation into another PC dirtside on one of the moons of Jupiter.

Phase Four: Complications

Again roughing out Damien being on the opposite side of a pursuit of a missing person that one of the other PCs had been tasked to retrieve.

Making Ego Aspects

In this phase of character creation, we go through the normal High Concept and Trouble, and add two aspects instead of three.

His high concept is that he is a Talented Troubleshooter with a penchant for getting in trouble. His trouble relates to his knack for making enemies, i.e. It's Hard To Let Go of the Past. He knows how to read people, giving him Uncanny knowledge of human behavior, and because of the difficult circumstances of his upbringing, I Have Learned to Adapt

Approaches

As an Ego Hunter, he is of course primarily Insightful at +2, and his knack for getting in the middle of things makes him Bold at +2. He's not Brutal at all, having more finesse, so I put the 0 in that one, leaving Precise and Swift at +1.

Bold: +2 Brutal: +0 Insightful: +3 Precise: +1 Swift: +1

Skills

I think there will be 5 players, so that leaves us each with 54 build points.

Physical Skills

Athletics: 1 Ballistic Weapons: 2 Discipline: 1 Drive: 1 Endurance: 1 Infiltrate: 2 Notice: 2 Scrounging: 1 Sense Trouble: 2 Somatics: 1 Stability: 1 Tracking: 1 Unarmed Combat: 2 Zero-G Ops: 1

Total Physical Skills: 20

Academic Skills

Business: 1 Criminology: 1 Economics: 1 History: 1 Human Terrain: 1 Law: 1 Linguistics: 2 Psychology: 1 Research: 1

Total Academic Skills: 10

Interpersonal Skills

Charm: 1 High Society: 1 Flattery: 1 Interrogation: 1 Intimidation: 1 Kinesics: 2 Negotiation: 1 Protocol, Criminal: 1 Protocol, Law Enforcement: 1 Reassurance: 1 Streetwise: 1 Tradecraft: 1

Total Interpersonal Skills: 13

Technical Skills

Data Analysis: 1 Electronic Surveillance: 1 Evidence Collection: 1 Forensics: 1 Imaging: 1 Interfacing: 1 InfoSec: 1 Kinetics: 1 Pathology: 1 Sensors: 1 Surveillance: 1 Traffic Analysis: 1

Total Technical Skills: 12

Create Your Muse

Muse

When his Mesh was implanted and his Muse installed, it gave him a sense of security. It was someone he could depend on, in a world where he could depend on no one. He named his mesh Zara, and it speaks in a feminine voice.

Reseach: 1 InfoSec: 1

Morph

I want him to still be in his natal sleeve, but with upgrades to it. I take a look at the Ghost Sleeve, and take some of the upgrades for the Flat sleeve, paying the price of the Ghost.

Type: Biomorph, Flat, Augmented Aspects: 100% pure old-fashioned home-grown, Black market augments Traits: Essential Biomorph Traits (Cortical Stack, Mesh Inserts) Stunts: Stealth, Reflex Boosters Durability: Good (+3) Stress Boxes: 4 Refresh Cost: 1

As a natal morph, he gets 3 points to spend, and spends them as follows:

Body: +0 Acuity: +2 Celerity: +1

Stunts

1 Refresh is spent on the Morph, leaving 5. I spend 3 on Ego Stunts, reflecting the fact that he is an agile infiltrator.

By My Hand, Set the World in Motion: Through a combination of speed, dexterity, and uncanny timing, you always have a path forward. In a static environment, this means that you are capable of crazy parkour-like movement to get almost anywhere that could be physically accessed. In a more fluid environment you are impossible to pin down or fence in, as you’ll always find the gap. Mental Blueprint: You’re highly skilled at visualizing the whole of a target based on just a part of it. When casing a location, you receive a +2 on Infiltration rolls to create an advantage. I Can See Through You: Smaller parts of a larger truth can contain a blueprint of the whole – and as someone unnaturally in tune with all kinesics, you are adept at pulling the larger truth out of a single individual. Gain +2 on kinesics rolls to read body language and see through attempts at deceit.

This leaves him with 2 Refresh.

Networks

And with that, Damien is done.

–> On to Day 3