Character a Day 2021: Eclipse Phase: Penumbral Shadow – Day 3

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Final Character

Character

Name: Damien Kinnear Background: Freelancer Faction: Extropian Motivations: Thrill-Seeking, Independence, and Self-Reliance High Concept: Talented Troubleshooter with a penchant for getting in trouble Trouble: It's Hard to let go of the Past Aspect: Uncanny knowledge of human behavior Aspect: I Have Learned to Adapt Refresh: 2

Background

Damien grew up in what passed for a middle class- his parents were corporate wage slaves for a Martian hypercorp, and had him as a perfunctory act. They made enough that he grew up with a series of nannies, going to perfectly good schools, living in a perfectly good middle-class apartment. It was a good life, but he didn't particularly like it. He always felt something was missing, and when he was shuttled from school to home, looked down into the city with more than a little longing.

He soon found out that the life he'd seen wasn't necessarily as clean as he'd thought, for one day when he came home, all of that had been ripped away, and he found out that the life of a corporate climber was only as secure as your last delivery. At the time, he didn't know what happened to cast him down out of the towers of the affluent, but later, he found out that his father had attached his star to what seemed like a high profile project that he could land easily, but it turned out to be a sinking ship. His father was terminated because of the project's failure, and his source didn't leave it to any imagination that it was anything but literal. His mother was a casualty also, and they found themselves living on the dole in the dirty streets.

His mother resented the fall, and having to eke out a life, and was always trying to find her way back into the company- or really any company. Damien, on the other hand, found out how to negotiate his new life, and put what he'd learned to use, networking and doing favors. First small ones- running a package, checking a drop point- but later more serious courier jobs. Though he never let his mother know, he nurtured his former contacts among the kids, and made it known that he was able to get them things that weren't necessarily available at their ages in the arcologies. Through this, he found he had a talent for reading people and finding people- it was a lot deeper than the things that he found for them; he was able to figure out what they actually needed and prey on these desires. This led to a more hands on role- their illicit desires would get them into situations, and Damien was just the person they needed to make the problem go away.

When he was able to leave, he parlayed the favors he had received into a way to get his certification as an investigator. He didn't want to be a cop- it was too restrictive. But an investigator- or more like a troubleshooter- it wasn't too far from his hustle on the streets. He found that he was able to find things that others overlooked or missed, constructing narratives that led to results for his clients, finding people that didn't want to be found, and removing 'obstacles' for his clients, cleanly and quietly.

But when working for one client, you always run the risk of raising the ire of another, and so it was he found himself persona non-grata. He left the Martian soil he'd called home for the belts, taking odd jobs in order to make the hop from one dive to another. In some ways it was another fall from grace, and in others it was freeing. Being able to explore the various stations in the belt, gaining berth where ever he could- it was that same thrill he'd enjoyed when first exploring the city where he'd spent his life. And he found, more than the money from the jobs, it was the risk and intellectual challenge that spurred him on.

Phase One: Your Introduction to the Life

After falling to the streets of the arcology, Damien scrabbled to find his way in his new environment with little support from his mother. He made contacts with his old friends- children were less likely to abandon their friends because of things that happened in the world if the parents didn't know about it. It was especially useful that Damien could get them experiences they didn't know. It was precarious running interference between corp kids and criminal gangs, but Damien new how to walk that edge, especially because he was gifted in reading people. He grew from a fixer into a troubleshooter naturally, as the situations that he led his friends into required someone to quietly get them out of them.

Phase Two: A Recent Incident

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.

Ego

Approaches

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

Skills

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

Academic Skills

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

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

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

Stunts

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.

Morph

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

Stats

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

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

Networks

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