Been working on fleshing out Ember's backstory, and this character decided to become really important. Ferrous is an ork ganger, from the Bloody Screamers of Seattle, who does some Shadowrunning on the side as a self-taught decker for a little extra nuyen.
This is the type of character I generally lean towards playing in RPGs - brusque, built, and 100% done - but I was determined to move away from my usual tropes this time, so I made Ferrous part of Ember's backstory instead. I did several different concepts of her until I struck upon the hairstyle I wanted.
The team Ferrous usually ran with consisted of a dwarf magician, also their face, called Manners; an elf rigger, No-Scope; a human cat burglar, Canaveral; and Ferrous, the decker.
The job should have been straightforward. Not easy, by any stretch, but simple. Break into the exec's penthouse, kill everyone inside, and wipe the data from the computer terminal. Get in, get out.
That's not quite how it went, unfortunately, since the team had been told by their Johnson to kill everyone in the penthouse, but had not been given details about
who would be there. Which is how Ferrous ended up killing a corp doc, her two assistants, and a woman who had very clearly just given birth moments ago, presumably the exec's wife.
The woman, Ferrous would later find out, was Mallory Nakashima, and she was indeed Yusuke Nakashima's wife.
Mr. Nakashima himself was not at home that day, luckily (or unluckily) for him, and Ferrous was never sure whether Mr. Johnson planned it that way or not.
In any case, Ferrous couldn't bring herself to kill the newborn, despite the rest of her team advising her to do just that. As Spec-Ops teams converged on Manners in the high-rise lobby and an attack chopper locked onto No-scope, Ferrous scooped up the baby, wiped the data, and made for the service stairwell with Canaveral in tow and a private security team hot on their tail.
That was when Ember got their name - Ferrous running down the stairs, the shouts of pursuers echoing above, glancing down to see the baby's orange eyes wide open and staring up at her and knowing the child had a spark in them that would be hard to put out.
Of course, that wasn't where the trouble ended. With half her team dead and the run technically incomplete, Ferrous gained a fair bit of notoriety and decided to take a break from running for while. Her old street gang, the Bloody Screamers, took her back in, although not without some grumbling about the human child she had inexplicably decided to raise and care for. Luckily for Ember, they made friends with the most outspoken of the naysayers, Thumbless Annie, when they used the first tooth they ever grew to bite her hand hard enough to draw blood. Impressed, Annie because one of Ember's staunchest allies in the Screamers, regardless of her personal disagreements with Ferrous.
As Ember grew up and the fallout from the botched run settled down, Ferrous began accepting a few jobs here and there . She had to supplement her income enough to feed another mouth, after all. She had never planned on becoming a parent, and her strategy with Ember was generally to give them only the basic necessary care - food, a place to sleep, an instructive word now and again. She wasn't an overly involved parent, by any means, but Ember knew nothing else, and was perfectly content to with the rare attention their ork "mother" gave them.
Being a decker herself, Ferrous started teaching Ember how to navigate the Matrix at an early age. Ember showed a talent for it, though they proved to be more of a blunt force hacker as opposed to Ferrous's slippery style. She bought Ember their first DNI when they were seven, taking them to a local street doc who happened to be on good terms with the Screamers. It was also when Ember was seven that they ran into some Black IC while poking around somewhere in the Matrix they shouldn't have, and Ferrous got home to find them sprawled out on their face, blood leaking out of both nostrils, barely breathing.
They recovered, but not completely. It was a more effective lesson in caution than Ferrous could have ever taught them.
Fast forward a handful of years. Ember's fifteen. Ferrous's old Mr. Johnson finally caught up with her and had her killed when she wouldn't reveal Ember's location. Thumbless Annie gathered up all of Ferrous's belongings and passed them down to Ember, but couldn't talk the other Screamers out of making them leave the gang. Ember got a Smartlink upgrade for their datajack and some other supplies with the leftover nuyen from Ferrous's last job and went to her old fixer to find work as a decker. The fixer didn't need them at the time, but recommended them to another fixer who might.
And that, presumably, is where the campaign takes off.
Next weekend!
- KP
Quote of the Day: "River, don't touch that... um. What is that, exactly?" "A post-holer. For digging holes. For posts." "Well, it's dirty, and - and sharp."
