Character a Day 2021: Eclipse Phase: Transhumanity's Fate – Day 2
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I am very familiar with creating a character in Fate Core, but this seems to blend elements of Fate Core with Eclipse Phase, which is interesting. One thing to note- the references in Transhumanity's Fate are to Eclipse Phase 1st Edition, but they are easily found in the 2nd Edition books.
Name: Delia Kanzaki
Character Concept
The first step is to select a character concept from Eclipse Phase. In 2nd Edition, there's no list of Character Concepts, but I'd assume that they mean Career. For Del, I choose Covert Operator. Similarly for Background and Faction I choose Underclass and Criminal. Motivations, I have to think a bit about. She has real abandonment and trust issues, so I choose Find A Tribe and Stability. For her third, it's the one constant in her life- Survival. It's strange to see that none of these result in any mechanical teeth- they are just to flesh out the character.
Her codename is Intruder, representing the fact that she can get into places, but on another level, it represents the fact that she always feels like an outsider.
Firewall 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: How You Got Noticed
I already detailed this in her background.
The clan that Delia ran with dealt in black market stacks – the stacks of those abandoned during the TITAN crisis. Some of these were the source of an exigent virus, and Firewall put an agent, Kano Seiji, in place to find out the source of these stacks. Delia became close with the agent, never knowing who he was, and when Firewall extracted him, they forcibly extracted her also.
Phase Two: A Recent Mission
For this phase, I want to show that in a lot of her missions, there's no drama and no excitement. Just the stress of being undercover alone.
Similar to what Kano Seiji had done, Delia was put in place in a small scavenger gang because the problem of corrupted stacks had arisen again, and they wanted to know if this was truly an x-risk, or was it just a case of bad trips by the people harvesting the Egos. It turned out to be nothing, but it did stir up memories being there.
Phase Three: Crossing Paths
This is going to be a bit tricky, as I'm making Del up alone. For the first one, I make the obvious choice of meeting her first contact again.
Meeting Kano again brought those same memories of her life before to the forefront. This mission was an active infiltration of a corporate entity to remove data from their possession of a particular gatecrashing exploration. The mission went to spec, but the memories surfaced jeopardized that ending. Kano helped Delia work through her memories in order to get the mission accomplished, and they grew closer as a result.
Phase Four: Crossing Paths Again
Seeing that a lot of Del's life is patterns and repetition, I choose to lean into that.
Undercover in an underground fighting ring, Delia found herself outed by the hacker she'd been sent to find and silence. One of the fighters, Makov Rizova, stepped in to help her turn the tables on the hacker, finishing her mission. In return, she did what Kano had done for her- extracted Rizova from his forcible indentured servitude in the underground.
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.
Her high concept is that she is a Talented Infiltrator from a Troubled Background. Her trouble relates to her trust and abandonment issues, i.e. It's Hard To Let Go of the Past. Her training on the streets and under her Oyabun showed her that My Body Is A Weapon, and because of the difficult circumstances of her upbringing, I Have Learned to Adapt
Skills
There are two options for Skill Pyramids or the option to spend 25 points freely. I choose the Deep Focus Pyramid.
Great (+4): Fight, Infiltrate Good (+3): Athletics, Notice Fair (+2): Shoot, InfoSec, Investigate Average (+1): Deceive, Cover, Rapport, Will, Somatics
Morph
I want her to still be in her 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
Stunts
1 Refresh is spent on the Morph, leaving 5. I spend 3 on Ego Stunts, reflecting the fact that she 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. Silent Takedown: You're skilled at taking down opponents giving them no chance to respond. When you can surprise an enemy or attack from a place of hiding, with a successful attack, you create a boost. If you succeed with style, you get to invoke that boost for free twice.
This leaves her with 2 Refresh.
Muse
When her Mesh was implanted and her Muse installed, it gave her a sense of security. This was someone that would never leave her, and so she named it Kaneko – her only memory of her brother being his name.
Investigate: Average (+1) InfoSec: Fair (+2) Stress Boxes: 2
And with that, Del is done.
–> On to Day 3