Day 20: Richards the Brain
#CharacterCreationChallenge
Day 20 is a Gnome, a metavariant of the dwarf that is… even smaller, less stocky but potentially smarter. And this one is about as smart as it gets, albeit a little lacking in the social department. He is both a Hacker and a Mage, following the Chaos Magic tradition that tends to have a “anything that works” approach to magic and he views magic as “hacking the source code of reality”.
Appearance and first impression
As a Gnome, Richards is small, less than a metre, and commonly mistaken for a child. He usually wears a Lined black trench coat and when on a run carries a number of bulky electronic items with him, full of cables that stick out in every direction. He has a curt and abrupt manner of speaking and rarely bothers with pleasantries and politeness.
Backstory
Since early childhood, Richards had to fend for himself - he never knew his parents and grew up among the anarchists in Berlins eastern half. He quickly figured out that as a Gnome, he would never be able to get by on Brawn, but his magical talent combined with his inherent understanding of technology gave him an edge he could use.
Priorities
Once again, I used a Sum-to-Ten approach, with Attributes and Resources taking the top spots at B. Skills follow right after, and both Magic and Metatype can be as low as D. He is an aspected Summoner, and as such there is no point in having a higher priority for Magic (we don’t need spells), and we only need enough adjustment points to get Magic to 6. All in all, we end up with:
B: Attributes (16)
B: Resources (275,000)
C: Skills (20)
D: Metatype (Gnome, 4) -5
D: Magic (Aspected Summoner, 2)
The Gnome metavariant costs 5 Karma.
Attributes
There are really only two regular Attributes we need a lot of: Logic, and Willpower, in that order. Gnomes have a maximum of 7 in both, so even the second-place Willpower can be at 6. Of course we also want Magic at 6, which leaves us no adjustment points, and a starting spread of:
Body 1
Agility 3
Reaction 2
Strength 1
Willpower 6
Logic 7
Intuition 2
Charisma 2
Edge 1
Magic 6
Skills
Cracking gets maxed out at 6, and we want both Electronics and Conjuring as high as possible, too, so they go to 5. Below that we need a bit of Astral (but not much because spirits can handle most of that) and a tiny amount of Engineering and Piloting (and we earmark Biotech and Firearms for later - Bioetch because it pairs with Logic and as a Summoner, Richards can’t do magical healing, and Firearms because… a Shadowrunner should have some way to fight).
Knowledge Skills
We have a lot there. German is the native language, and aside from that we have a good mix of magical, matrix and general knowledge.
Qualities
Off the Grid is a Berlin-specific quality that gives a Hacker advantages in staying out of trouble (by reducing the Overwatch Score they accumulate abnd giving them bonus Edge for hiding and avoiding tracking) as long as they are physically located in certain anarchist districts of Berlin.
Analytical Mind is again super cheap and super useful for a Logic-based character.
Trust Issues limits the maximum loyalty of any contact, and prevents gaining or spending Edge on Influence and Judge Intentions tests.
Uncouth prevents the character from spending Edge on any Charisma-linked tests. There is some overlap here, and GMs may houserule that Uncouth and Trust Issues cannot be taken together, but rules-as-written, they can be.
Finally, Gear Acquisition Syndrome at rating 2 means the character needs to spend at least 2,000 Nuyen on new gear every month before they can use their specialties or expertises. Given that a Hacker needs lots of gear, that should be easy to achieve.
All in all, we gain 15 net Karma from Qualities.
As a Gnome, Richards also has Magic Resistance, Neoteny, Thermographic Vision and Toxin Resistance.
The latter two are pretty clear and have shown up a couple of times in other Dwarf characters.
Magic Resistance provides a bonus Edge for any Magic Resistance tests, but also makes the character harder to heal with Magic.
Neoteny is specific to Gnomes - they basically look like children. It reduces the physical condition monitor, physical attribute maximums, and a negative dice pool modifier to Social tests when apparent age is a factor. Prices for worn gear like armor are also increased and the character may have to prove their age in some situations (like getting into a nightclub or bar).
Gear
Weapons
An Ares Light-Fire 70 Light pistol with Quick-Draw Holster and 50 rounds of ammo are the only nod towards personal combat Richards is willing to make.
Armor
The classic Lined Cost with some Electricity and Cold resistance.
Magical Gear
A rating 6 Magical Lodge is more or less a requirement - in Richards’ case, it involves a lot of cables and LEDs arranged in arcane patterns…
A Spirit Focus for Summoning Air Spirits at rating 2 gives him 2 extra dice to… summoning Air Spirits. Aside from the 8,000 Nuyen price tag, it also needs to be bound with 4 Karma.
Hacking Gear
A Renraku Kitsune Cyberdeck is a decent, middle-of-the road Cyberdeck that Richards can actually afford.
A rating 3 Cyberhack is a bit of a special case - it’s a breadbox-sized item that can be connected to a regular Datajack and then provide Data Processing and Firewall attributes like a Cyberjack, but without the high Essence cost (which would be crippling to a Mage).
A Data Tap can be attached to a data cable and provides direct access to the devices on both sides.
And an Electronics Shop means Richards’ home is well-stocked for working on all sorts of electronic hardware, especially Cyberdecks and related gear.
Finally, we have a large collection of Cyberprograms - basically, all of them. We can’t use them all at the same time, but we have them to choose from.
Vehicle
The Honda Spirit is an economical, ubiquitous, three-wheeled small car. It has been fitted with Metahuman adaptations so a Gnome can control it, and a Smuggling Compartment for all the highly illegal hacking gear.
Augmentations
There is almost no way to make a Hacker concept work without at least some Augmentations - which unfortunately means our Essence and therefore our Magic attribute are reduced. By replacing the Cyberjack with a Cyberhack,. I managed to get pretty close, though - the required Datajack only costs 0.1 Essence. This still reduces Magic by 1, but it leaves us with up to 0.9 Essence we can spend on something else. And what comes to mind (pun totally intentional)? More Logic from a Cerebral Booster at rating 3! It’s expensive, but it adds an extra 3 points to both Drain Resistance and most Hacking rolls.
Other stuff
Everything else Richards has is pretty standard fare, nothing worth mentioning really.
Adding it all up
Altogether, Gear costs 330,555 Nuyen, quite a bit more than the 275,000 from the priority table. This costs 29 Karma to pay for, plus 4 for binding the Focus, for a total of -33. But we start the game with 2,445 Nuyen, which should allow us to buy a few items for the Gear Acquisition Syndrome negative quality.
The Augmentations cost 0.7 Essence, leaving us with 5.3, which reduces the Magic attribute to 5.
Spending our Karma
After gear, qualities and Metatype, we have 27 Karma left. Those go into a point each of Firearms and Biotech, and specialisations in Cracking (Hacking), Electronics (Computer) and Conjuring (Summoning), leaving us 2 to start the game with.
Finishing it up
Contacts
Because of the low Charisma, we have the usual issue of not being able to get any highly connected contacts right now, including no proper Fixer. So here’s what we do have - all of them have Connection 2, Loyalty 2:
Clobber, a Troll Street Samurai. He is by no means a Fixer, but he knows a few people in the Shadows, and may potentially be able to introduce Richards to a Mr. Johnson (or Herr Schmidt as they are called in Germany) who needs a Hacker or Mage (or both).
Blaze, a gamer kid who has been playing some Matrix games with Richards, possibly the closest he has to a friend. Because Blaze is a SINner and comes from a “good” corporate family, he may be able to get some legal gear for Richards, especially Matrix-related items.
Xeno is a free spirit, specifically a Task spirit that has (unusually for spirits) some understanding of Electronics and may also be able to help with some magical resources.
Calculations
Attack Rating:
Unarmed: 3
Astral: 15
Defense Rating
Physical: 4
Astral: 2
Initiative
Physical: 4 + 1D6
Astral: 12 + 2D6
Matrix (AR): 4 + 1D6
Matrix (Hot-Sim): 2 + 2D6 + Data Processing (depends on configuration)
Notable Dice Pools
Summon Air Spirit: 14
Summon Other Spirit: 12
Other Conjuring: 10
Resist Drain: 16
Astral Combat Attack: 8
Assensing: 4
Hacking: 18
Other Cracking: 16
Most Legal Matrix Actions: 17
Condition Monitors
Physical: 7
Stun: 11
And there we are
The final version of the worksheet can be found here .That’s it for Day 20 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge
Published at NZDT