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Post by Frederica Sanchéz-Davis on Apr 17, 2018 6:37:18 GMT
Character Name: Frederica Sanchéz-Davis Player Screen Name: Lemonancy Character Type: Primary Supernatural Type: Mortal Concept: An internet hitwoman whose day job is a PI Nature: Conformist Demeanor: Scientist Path of Humanity: 6 Appearance: Frederica is a 25-year old half-Mexican woman. Her baseline, comfortable clothing consist of tank tops, flannels, and jeans, but when she's on jobs, she wears whatever will help her blend in the best. Personality: Growing up, Frederica idolized samurai. Not for their "badass swords" or cool armor, but because of their code. She, too, liked to think of herself as a loyal retainer to a powerful and important lord, and hoped that that could be real one day. This is even something she hides to a certain extent, because if people knew that she carried a copy of the Hagakure in her go-everywhere backpack, they'd be a little put off. To the outside world, however, it's incredibly obvious that Fredi is curious, almost to a fault. She has a very analytical approach to breaking down a scene, and loves to take time to think, and plan. Planning is everything. Stick to The Plan, and it'll be fine. Bio: Frederica grew up in Grand Island, Nebraska with her mother, father, 2 younger sisters and her younger brother. She is a third-generation Mexican immigrant from her father's side, and probably Irish or something from her mother's. They didn't really think to keep track. Her dad, Joseph Sanchéz, was a used car salesman who did pretty well, and her mother, Nicole Davis, was a part-time accountant for the police force. She went to school at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln for Criminal Justice, and tried out a CS minor before deciding to go with Linguistics instead. But she did meet a couple of important friends that got her started on what would eventually become her career. They introduced her to the world of Onions, a layer of the internet that hosted all kinds of illicit activities. Suddenly, Fredi's world was wide open. She pored into TOR, set herself up an account on the Silk Road as a private investigator and bodyguard for hire, and got to work. That was six years ago. She's still a private investigator officially, but more of her income comes from her "dark web" activities. Four weeks ago, she was contacted by an anonymous party searching for someone who has experience in investigation and no qualms about finding a permanent solution where no others can be found. Her client believes that some group that wants to destabilze the government of the Forlorn Isles has infiltrated the right-wing party on the island. Her mission is to find out what this group is, and if there's a clear shot, to take it. Attributes: Strength: 2 xe Dexterity: 3 xxx Stamina: 3 xxe Charisma: 2 xe Manipulation: 4 (Subtle interrogation) xxxx Appearance: 3 xxe Perception: 4 (Lie detector) xxxx Intelligence: 3 xxe Wits: 3 xxx Abilities: Talents: Subterfuge 4 (Seamless narratives) xxxf Alertness 3 xxx Streetwise 3 xff Skills: Firearms 4 (Pistol primary) xxxf Drive 4 (Getaway car) xxxf Disguise 3 xxx Stealth 3 xxf Larceny 3 eee Melee 3 eee Professional Skills 2 (Gun Repair) ee Knowledges: Investigation 4 (Money/Influence trails) xxxf Computer 3 xfe Finance 2 ee Linguistics 1 f Backgrounds: Armory 4 xxxx Frederica's been working on her truck, a 2005 Ford Ranger, for a long time. It has her computer with the Onion setup, a shotgun, a rifle, a small armory of pistols, and some light body armor. She has also secured her truck onto the island. It's her mobile operating base. Contacts 2 xe Frederica is well connected as a result of her line of work. She knows a hacker from her time at the University, and has a couple of people in the area that her client put her in contact with. Furthermore, a member of the local police force, Liam Abbey, has been bribed by Fredi's client and is willing to assist her in small favors. Resources 2 ee Fredi is wealthy. Not extremely so, but hit work pays well. She lives modestly, and spends mostly on her truck. As a result, she has a large back account that would allow her to have a pretty large rainy day fund. Low Influence e Fredi's experience being a "dark web" hitwoman have led her to be able to speak in a way that people associated with the darker, fringes of society will clue into. Virtues: Conscience 3 xxx Self-Control 3 xxx Courage 5 xxxxf Humanity: 6 Willpower: 6 Current Experience: New ranks in Resources and Retainers. (64) Upgrade Contacts and Resources to two. (60) First and second ranks in Larceny, Professional Skills, and Melee. (51, 45) Third skill in Larceny (41). Third point of intelligence, appearance, and stamina. (17) Second point of strength and charisma. (9) Third point of Melee. (5) First and second point of Finance. (0) Change rank in Retainers to one in Low Influence. Freebie Points: 0 One point of willpower. (20) One point of courage. (18) Two ranks of streetwise. (14) Fourth ranks in Investigation, Firearms, and Computers. (8) Third ranks in Stealth and Computers. (4) Fourth rank in Drive. (2) Rank in Linguistics knowledge. Fredi knows English and Spanish. (0) |
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Post by Strigus on Apr 17, 2018 13:34:09 GMT
Unfortunately, we do need the freebie/XP breakdown. However, it shouldn't be as severe as remaking the character from scratch, since you got this framework now and just need to recalculate what you did.
I made the same mistake of not recording back on NSB, and when I went through a second time all I found it helped to mark the points either X (from character creation) F (from a freebie) or E (from XP), then backtracked to calculate it all at the end. I also squeezed out a few extra points, being a little more familiar with the system, so hopefully you'll benefit a bit going through a second time.
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Post by Frederica Sanchéz-Davis on Apr 17, 2018 16:56:19 GMT
Ok! Done. Think you could give it another look?  |
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Post by Strigus on Apr 17, 2018 22:42:56 GMT
I apologize, I meant the whole XFE system for your own notes. There's no need to include them on the sheet itself, though you can keep them up until your character is approved if it helps you keep of what's going on.
You overspent a little on backgrounds with XP. Being mortal, you'll buy them as Age: 0 under the House Rules, so they cost 2 new and 1xCurrent to improve, but you seem to have spent at the rate of 3 new and 2xCurrent. This will refund you 4 XP to spend. You've also got 5 knowledges instead of 4 from character creation (using the X), so assuming you shift computers down a point (XF), you can spend those 4 to bump it back up to 3 (XFE) and nothing really changes. Or you can respend them as you'd like and knock one of your knowledges down. Up to you.
As for Freebies, things mostly look good. I would like to point out, though, that the Natural Linguist merit doesn't give you another language, it just adds dice to language related rolls. It looks to me like you want to be bilingual, which would be represented with the Linguistics knowledge in our House Rules. They also, rather neatly, both cost 2 freebies. So, you can keep Natural Linguist but only speak one language (English or Spanish, your call) or you can respend the 2 on Linguistics and be bilingual, but lose the bonus dice and flair of being naturally gifted with languages in general.
Once you make those last adjustments, you'll be good to go from a mechanical standpoint. From a story standpoint:
The background works well, though I'd appreciate some more detail. Her family is mentioned in some detail, taking up about a third of her bio. Does this mean they're important to her? She's also quite mobile, clearly willing to travel for her work. Does this conflict with her family? Does her father, who works in law enforcement, know about her illegal activities? Disapprove? Or does the entire family buy that she's just a PI, and sought enough to travel for it?
Armory 4 is quite high. She's got flak jackets, grenades, and machine guns, all stored in her truck bed. This is quite a feat, especially for a new arrival to the isles. Not to say it's impossible, but it's certainly something that would have been difficult to transport to the isles, and likely to get her into serious trouble and, should she actually use some of that equipment, put on a government watchlist. Let alone if she gets pulled over and a cop happens to look in the back of her truck. It's possible you want to go lower (Armory 1 covers the shotgun, rifle, pistols, and light body armor mentioned). If you want to stay this high and keep some military-grade goodies, I would appreciate a bit of a description on how she keeps it hidden from law enforcement, particularly with it all being hidden in the truck.
Retainers tend to be servants and bodyguards. A bribed police officer willing to do small favors doesn't really fit there. He'd probably function better as a contact. I understand that's more expensive, but you only have one contact (the hacker) clearly defined, so you could replace the vague locals with the dirty cop if you'd like, freeing up a background point (or 2 XP). Alternatively, you could reassign a more proper retainer. Perhaps a local who owes her a debt and feeds and shelters her. Or a partner who travels and fights with her. Something more in line. If you make him a contact and replace the background, something like Low Influence (Onion Net) might be a fitting purchase, though by no means necessary.
Also, does she have any experience with the supernatural? If not, that's totally fine- the Masquerade is meant to keep all that a secret from normal people, and works quite effectively. My only concern, however, is that she's coming to Oddhaven on temporary work involving government stability. She doesn't have anything really tying her to the setting, or to the other players who are mostly vampires, and if not, are only a degree removed from vampire society. Storytellers could do some work to force her into contact with other players, but it would be much nicer if there was something preventing her from just doing the job and leaving the isles. Maybe her first day, she witnessed a masquerade breach and, rather than being frightened away, she's fascinating and trying to figure out what's going on when she isn't investigating her actual job. This could even involve the vampire who she saw trying to snuff her out since she's a witness, and thus potential damage to its reputation. Or maybe the group she's investigating is actually a cult trying to gain political influence their vampire lord, and her first encounter was with one of these cultists was a ghoul who was inhumanly strong and tough, making her realize something more is going on. I'm not sure exactly what, but something that connects her to the rest of the setting and the players would be appreciated. |
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Post by Frederica Sanchéz-Davis on Apr 18, 2018 3:18:48 GMT
Hey thanks, I was trying to chug my way through the maze of house rules but I missed a couple things, I guess!
I've moved some points around, changing some mechanical stuff, languages, etc. Speaking Spanish is ENTIRELY a flavor thing, because the languages here are Portuguese and English, and English and Portuguese are NOT the same.
I'd love to elaborate on her background. I'm now headed over to Zepp's house, so I'll post some more stuff later tonight.
The reasoning for taking armory 4 was a disconnect between flavor and mechanics. For me to be able to get a ranged weapon with two categories, like Quick Draw and Improved Concealment, I need literally Armory 5. It never seemed like too much of a stretch to me to have a pistol that is easy to conceal and easy to pull out, but that's something I'd like to work with you on. It's a flavor thing that I'm willing to spend a lot of points on, but not for the purpose of getting the kinds of weapons that deal additional damage to Vampires or other non-mortals, I just want a Hollowpoint pistol with Brutal and Knockback, which feels accurate for a weapon that would fire that kind of ammunition. I don't know, that's something we can work out ourselves.
I don't want her to be aware of supernatural stuff yet, no. The reason I didn't really explain how she would stumble upon that is that I wanted to know if you wanted me to write whether the city council is actually vampire or if you wanted to write that. Evidently, you want me to write that, so I will do so! I just thought that would be what we'd explore in the Prelude Zepp said I'd have.
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Post by Frederica Sanchéz-Davis on Apr 19, 2018 9:08:50 GMT
Four weeks ago, Frederica received an email and two bitcoin in advance payment. Three weeks ago, she contacted a landlord in the Portuguese Quarter, and got an apartment. Three days ago, she drives off of a ship from Brazil that was carrying goods for the island.
As she drives toward her new apartment, she can't help but smile. Her sunglasses reflect the sky's beautiful blue. She's been given a helper in the police force, and leads with the library AND in business? Easy job, dream come true.
There wasn't much to unpack here. Never is when she moves in places. A sudden, unexpected dread grips her stomach. She tosses her flannel aside and slides out a tray underneath her seat, and quickly dons a leather jacket she removes from there. Digging into her sunglasses case, she retrieves a pair of cycling sunglasses and puts those on.
She's about to step out of the car when the voice goes off in her head. One last thing. She opens up her glove compartment and retrieves her favorite pistol, the holdout. She slips it into her side jacket pocket, slings her backpack over her shoulder, and makes her way inside.
She's signed the lease ages ago. She shows her ID and gets the key, as was the plan. She twirls it around her finger and heads up the stairs to her new place. She quickly identifies the power outlets, and sits down cross legged in front of one.
While her laptop boots, she fishes in her bag for one of her four power cables. She's not planning on taking inside all of her clothes today, but she does plan to get something done, and it's the most important thing she can do while she's on the job: setting up internet. She busts out her mobile hotspot and gets that running, and then queues up a quick scan of neighboring wifi networks. While that's running, she closes her eyes and thinks back to how she ended up in this line of work.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Sophomore year. Three weeks before finals. She turns to her friend Gerald and says "I think a private investigator might be the way to go? I'm not sure I'm exactly cut out for the force, with the CS and Linguistics... I just feel like I'm more useful elsewhere."
"I... I think I have something you might like. A place where you can put some PI skills out in the market." Gerald's voice suddenly wavers, and takes on a new tone. "But uh, you might need to download some programs first."
Her skin crawled slightly. Download some programs. Last time she downloaded some programs she ended up getting in some trouble with her campus's internet provider. And that was just for some easygoing hacking, like a brute-force password algorithm, a packet sniffer, and the firmware for a keylogger.
This was more. Getting an onion browser set up definitely was not illegal. It didn't put her on a list, and it was easy, too. But somehow this was different. People didn't go on the "dark web" for legitimate purposes. "I put ads for my hacking on here," Gerald continued, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "You know I'm good, and this helps me connect to people who need someone good instead of just someone."
Fredi gulped. "And like. I can stick to just doing investigation, yeah?" "Oh, yeah, for sure," was Gerald's reply. Good, she thought to herself. Good.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Frederica was on a job to investigate a high-powered attorney and his client base, and dig up some dirt on this guy. Bitcoins were flowing, and she was getting some notoriety and valuable jobs. She was getting connected, and because it was all legal, she was getting connections that often resulted in above-the-table payments too.
Routine. Disable the cameras, go in for an interview asking about an upcoming trial, record the whole conversation and carry a fake speech recorder as well. Fredi knew the drill. She'd done this before. Usually they were hard to crack, these lawyer types, but they always did crack.
She was not prepared for how brazenly he spoke in person. Why is he confessing so easily? She knew she was manipulative, and good at getting people to give her the information she wanted without them knowing she wanted it, but this was ridiculous. Then, when he started talking about the many clients he'd taken advantage of, she realized that he wasn't confessing. He's bragging.
Cameras: off. The way of the warrior is death. Car: outside. One should make one's decisions within the space of seven breaths. Gun: jacket pocket. If one fully understands the present moment, there is nothing left to do. Police: four minutes away. The blood started pounding in Frederica Sanchéz-Davis's ears.
Five minutes later, she sat in the front seat of her car in a Burger King parking lot with her heart finally starting to slow. Her senior year was the first time she'd killed a man.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Frederica awakes with a start. She didn't realize how tired she'd been. She checks her phone for the time. It's 9:26 P.M local time. Tonight, it's time to get some sleep. Tomorrow, she'll head to the library.
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Post by Strigus on Apr 19, 2018 22:59:23 GMT
Alrighty, so you can just keep Armory high to represent access to a few high quality guns as you planned. As long as you aren't carrying around grenades and military-grade gear with you, the authorities also probably won't harass you as much either. I'd also say, having invested the points, that if you wanted to gear up before a big fight, you could roleplay using some of your underground contacts to get that higher tier equipment (though the authorities may take interest if you do). I also appreciate the little extended background there.
Anyhow, approved for play. |
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