Day 9: Azure the Troll Eco-Anarchist
#CharacterCreationChallenge
Compared to Onyx yesterday, Azure is a fairly straightforward concept - a Decker with lots of High-End gear. She’s not just about the Matrix, of course, and her ideology might make her unsuitable for some games, but in general she’s a fairly typical Decker - albeit one that can also hit pretty hard.
Appearance and first impression
On a first glance, Azure does not look like a Decker. As a Troll she is almost 2.50m tall, with long, swept horns. Her hair is tied up in braids, and she usually wears a heavy, armored jacket with an anarchist symbol on the chest and a variety of slogans and patches around it. If she is not currently in the process of hitting someone or something with it, she generally also has a large combat axe slung over her shoulder. It would take a thorough cyberware scan - or getting to know her - to learn about the implanted cyberdeck that she can wield with even more skill.
Backstory
Middle-class, respectable Trolls are rare, but they exist, and Azure’s parents were among them. They were good, corporate citizens, worked their 60-hour weeks and sent their little girl off to a corp-approved university so she could become a nice drone like them. It almost worked, too, she had a real talent for computers, was smart… then she got a boyfriend who was really into radical environmentalism and anarchist philosophy, and got her into it, too. The relationship didn’t last, but the ideals stuck. She began participating in a variety of sabotage missions, and soon gave up the attempt at living a legitimate life - the Shadows were now her home.
Priorities
This was pretty straightforward - Resources were the highest priority, Attributes and Skills kind of useful, Metatype below and of course Azure is entirely mundane:
A: Resources (450,000)
B: Attributes (16)
C: Skills (20)
D: Metatype (Troll 4)
E: Magic/Resonance (Mundane)
Attributes
For a Decker, Logic is the highest required skill and gets maxed out at 6. Willpower and Intuition are also somewhat useful, so they end up at 4, and the rest stays at 2-3:
Body 2
Agility 2
Reaction 3
Strength 3
Willpower 4
Logic 6
Intuition 4
Charisma 2
Edge 3
In order to make the combat axe not entirely useless, we would also like some more Strength and Agility, but there’s cyberware for that.
Skills
We start by maxing out Cracking and putting Electronics right below, as those are the two “hacking” skills (Electronics for not-illegal-per-se actions, Cracking for the other kind).
We also want high Close Combat, and decent Athletics, and that’s all our points spent at this stage. We would like some Stealth, Perception and Piloting later, but that will have to be from Karma.
Cracking 6
Electronics 5
Close Combat 5
Athletics 4
Knowledge Skills
With a Logic of 6, Azure has 6 free knowledge skills in addition to her free native language (which is, again, English).
Two of these go into Salish which is now at “Specialist” level, the native American language mostly spoken in the Salish-Sidhe Council (a Native American nation surrounding Seattle).
The rest goes into Ecology, Environmental Groups, Matrix Security and Cybernetics.
Qualities
Analytical Mind is cheap and gives bonus points for Logic-related tests for 3 Karma. Yes, I use it a lot, because it’s frankly too good for its cost.
Software Optimization lets Azure use one extra program on any device she owns, which is very useful for a hacker. It costs 10 Karma.
Cyberjack Maximisation gives the lower of a Cyberjack’s two matrix attributes an extra point, for 12 Karma. Again, this is extremely useful for a Hacker. See further down about Cyberjacks.
Impaired (Body) at rating 1 provides 8 Karma for basically no downside.
All in all these qualities cost a net 17 Karma.
Gear
Because Azure is a Troll, all gear comes with a 10% markup, which is a bit of a problem when you need a lot of very expensive gear - but with a few minor downgrades it works out.
Weapons
A double-bladed Combat Axe is the most obvious weapon Azure carries. It’s big and scary and also has a spring-loaded thrusting point that can be used to break glass or stab people with. What’s not to like? Oh, it’s also about as subtle as a flashing neon sign, so there’s limits for where it can be used.
That’s what the Telescoping Staff is for. I admit I have a soft spot for this one because I love Babylon 5. It’s also a less lethal and far more subtle option for when those are called for.
Finally, we have a few grandes, 5 each of Stun Grenades, Smoke grenades and Zapper grenades - the latter release an electric pulse that effectively tases anyone nearby but may also be useful against some electric devices.
Armor
The primary armor Azure uses is a heavy Armor Jacket with built in resistances.
For infiltration purposes, she also has a Chamaeleon Suit that adjusts its colours to surrounding areas for extra stealth (and still has a little armor built in).
Matrix Gear
The two main matrix devices Azure uses (always combined) are both implanted - a Renraku Kitsune cyberdeck and a rating 5 used Cyberjack.
Cyberjacks are a new development in Shadowrun 6. They are effectively Datajacks that use the brain to do some of the matrix processing, making it more effective. Mechanically, they provide two of the four Matrix attributes (Data Processing and Firewall), while the other two (Attack and Sleaze) come from the cyberdeck. Note that it is also possible to use a commlink instead of a Cyberjack (although this is less effective), and that any non-zero attribute can be freely switched with any other even across devices. All that said, with the Cyberjack Maximisation quality added in, Azure’s matrix attribute spread is 8/8/7/6.
We also have all the available Matrix programs because they are cheap, although we can only run 9 of them at once. The most common selection will be:
Agent: This is a semi-autonomous program that can access and use all the other programs, perform its own matrix actions, shares access with Azure and has a dice pool for 12 for most actions. Basically a backup hacker.
Baby Monitor keeps track of Overwatch Score, i.e. how close Azure is to being hit hard by the Grid Overwatch Division - which should really be avoided.
Edit gives extra Edge for Edit actions, which includes things like “make the security camera feed show a continuous loop of an empty room” or “change the virtual logo of the corporate host to something rude”.
Signal Scrubber reduces noise penalty from distance, jammers etc by 2.
Armor adds to Defense in Matrix combat
Decryption adds two dice to the pool for cracking encrypted files.
Defuse allows soaking damage from Data Bombs
Exploit reduces the defense rating of a hacking target by 2
Stealth gives bonus Edge for hiding in the Matrix
In addition to all the above, Azure also has a Satellite Link that helps with accessing the Matrix from the middle of nowhere, just in case.
Vehicles
A Yamaha Growler offroad bike. It’s not pretty and not the fastest but it can go just about anywhere.
Augmentations
First, we have the implanted Cyberdeck and Cyberjack mentioned above - the Cyberjack is used because they are expensive, although this uses up more Essence.
Next up is a set of rating 3 Cybereyes, with Glare Compensation, Low-Light Vision, Thermographic Vision (Trolls have that naturally but the downside of replacing your eyes is you lose the original) and Vision Enhancement just to cover most options.
An Internal Air Tank provides up to 3 hours of air from a compressed compartment, which is useful for diving, ignoring toxic gases and similar things.
Muscle Augmentation and Muscle Toner, both at rating 2 and used, add 2 to Agility and Strength.
A Smuggling Compartment allows for concealed transport of a variety of small items.
And finally a rating 3 used Cerebral Booster increases Logic by 3 which is useful for a Hacker.
Other stuff
In addition to the usual stuff like Fake SIN, Bug Scanner etc, Azure has a few notable pieces of equipment:
A Sequencer (rating 6) and a Maglock Passkey (rating 4) help with cracking electronic door locks based on keypads and card readers, respectively.
A Hazmat Suit with built-in Olfactory Sensor is useful for going into really badly polluted places.
Diving Gear and Climbing Gear help with getting into a variety of places.
To help even further with climbing, there is also a Grappling Gun with 200m of Stealth Rope (which disintegrates when touched with a Catalyst Stick).
Adding it all up
Altogether, after the Troll adjustment, our equipment costs 445,665 Nuyen, which is slightly less than the 450,000 we had, so we start the game with 4,335.
The augmentations use 5.99 of our 6 Essence, leaving us with 0.01 and barely human (if it goes to 0, we die, so, not much room for improvement except by swapping things out for higher-grade ware or spending Karma on some fairly limited qualities.
Spending our Karma
After our qualities, we have 33 Karma left.
20 of those go into one point each of Stealth, Perception, Piloting and Outdoors.
Another 10 go into specialisations in Cracking (Hacking) and Electronics (Computers).
We start the game with 3 Karma unspent.
Finishing it up
Contacts
Mr. Spider, a former Shadowrunner just trying his way as a fixer. Connection 2, Loyalty 2 (yes, he is also one of Fezzik’s contacts - sometimes multiple characters share a contact)
Nightingale, a doctor working at a corporate clinic but also offering her services and cyberware to less legitimate clients. Connection 2, Loyalty 2
R.J. Anderson, a security spider in the employ of Ares willing to part with some hardware and programs for a price. Connection 2, Loyalty 2
Calculations
Attack Rating:
Combat Axe: 14
Telescoping Staff: 13
Grenades: 8/7/2/-/-
Matrix: 13-16 (Attack + Sleaze, depends on configuration)
Defense Rating
Physical with Armor Jacket: 7
Physical with Chamaeleon Suit: 5
Matrix: 13-16 (Data Processing + Firewall, depends on configuration)
Initiative
Physical: 7 + 1D6
Matrix (AR): 7 + 1D6
Matrix (Hot Sim VR): 10-12 + 2D6 (based on Data Processing, depends on configuration)
Notable Dice Pools
Hacking: 17
Legal Matrix Actions: 16
Close Combat attacks: 9
Throwing Grenades: 8
Condition Monitors
Physical: 11
Stun: 10
And there we are
The final version of the worksheet can be found here .That’s it for Day 9 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge
Published at NZDT