Azazeal's archive

[Azazeal849]

I believe that at this time they are busy with a Heist.

Although there are other reasons why I have not included them as yet, such as a lack of decent plot ideas on my part, and (having just read Dak’s new character sheets) feeling that a badass assassin and an angry psyker might be stepping on Sarna and Alyss’ toes a bit.

[Azazeal849]

THE SHADOW WALKERS

Technically, the above title refers to the entire Night Lords 17th company - my personal band of evil, time-displaced super-soldiers, who used to tear up our local 40K games on a semi-regular basis. However, what I’m actually going to write about today is the two of them who have featured in other stories, and so have something resembling a personality: Kira Loque and Azazeal.

Yes, he is a reference to the same character as is featured in my username and avatar. In fact, his entire squad are named after Hex characters (the various fallen angels, specifically)

Featured In: Hearts of Darkness, Ampoliros Adrift (thread no longer available; PM for copy), Heist (pending)

Az and Kira’s first step towards characterhood came when I decided to give the 17th a showing in the 40K spin-off game Inquisitor. Because many 40K-equivalent characters are hilariously overpowered in that game (space marines, for example, literally break the game system) I thought the best way to dial it back would be to feature the characters earlier in their careers. So Azazeal the chaos marine became Azazeal the aspiring recruit, Kira the primaris psyker became Kira the psyker-in-training, and Dregor the obliterator became Dregor the tech-priest with an obsession with the obliterator virus. Their justification for being out in the field was simple - thrown far into the future, the 17th needed information, supplies and recruits, and those recruits needed to be tested to determine their worth. Their human auxiliaries could kill two birds with one stone, being subtle and devious in a way that regular space marines aren’t normally qualified for.

Sadly, I didn’t write up my Inquisitor campaign featuring them in the same way I did for the two featuring my Eldar rangers. However, it made me want to write about them, and soon enough they started appearing in RPs. Hearts of Darkness was a test run, and as time went on I found myself focusing more on Az and Kira, with Dregor and their space marine handler Comorant taking more of a support role. After Ampoliros, however, there was a long period where I set them aside. As I noted in a previous post, this was partly to do with a lack of suitable plots, but it was also because I was struggling to fully visualise the characters. As I gained more experience in writing, I wanted to move away from the teenage staple of “characters who do cool stuff” and towards “characters who are cool in themselves”. Developing Az and Kira beyond their basic premises proved surprisingly difficult, even after re-reading all their old material.

Luckily, PaintSerf was around to provide inspiration and motivation with an upcoming RP concept called Heist, which is shaping up to be 40K’s answer to Ocean’s 11. I eventually went back to basics and thought about Az and Kira’s childhood, rather than them simply leaping into existence as young adults with a bit of occasionally-referenced backstory. Az managed to manipulate his way to the top of a feral tribe before the Night Lords arrived and picked him - how? Clearly, he is both charismatic and has absolutely no compunctions about screwing with other people. A competent fighter yes, but above all a manipulative bastard who is making plans to kill everyone he meets. Kira got stuck with an incredibly obvious psychic familiar in a society that rounds up all psychics to be either trained or killed. Clearly, she’ll have had to go into hiding in some way. Even worse, her planet has a significant mutant underclass that she’s been taught all her life to hate, and what is a psychic but a form of mutant? How does she come to terms with that? How does her own family feel about all this? Kira’s story quickly became both desperately sad and almost an allegory for an LGBT+ person coming out to an unsupportive family.

Anyway, I finally feel confident enough to write them some actual character profiles, so here you go.

Trivia: The Azazeal reference was previously even more blatant, as his appearance was modelled on Michael Fassbender. But since he’s already busy playing Danny Hawke, I switched to James McAvoy, who has portrayed enough cheerfully manic and dangerous characters (Filth, Split, Atomic Blonde...) to be a good inspiration.

Spoiler: Az’s profile 

“I fired first. I also fired second and third.”

Name: Azazeal
Age: 19
Occupation: Aspiring Night Lord

Physical Description: Although he stands at an unassuming 5’7, Az is solidly built - a fact he often likes to hide under loose clothing. He is boyishly handsome, with animated blue eyes and a broad, inviting face, seemingly made for smiles (false though they may be). His skin is pale but tans easily, and although his hair is dark his beard comes through almost entirely ginger. He carries himself with easy confidence, often slouching but never slovenly, and has adapted well to life outside his feral-world home. Most of the time, he affects a middle-class Scintillan accent.

Personality: Az inspires confidence in the people he charms, and occasionally seething dislike from the people who know his true colours, with very rarely any middle ground. He is a man of grandiose ambitions and is ruthless in realising them - he doesn’t hate his targets (or indeed the imperium) on any personal level; they are merely in his way. A laid-back charisma allows him to manipulate people towards his ends, and when he’s bored he has been known to push other people’s buttons simply for the fun of it.

Background: Az grew up on the feral world of Grigori, a former astartes recruitment world, but long out of contact with the Imperium since their overlord chapter was destroyed in the early 300s of M40. The law of his home Aesyri tribe dictated that boys and girls should start forging their own careers from age 12 - as soon as he discovered he was good at persuading people, he started setting up webs and pitting rivals against each other. Once he paid off a critic to loudly condemn him and to lend his sword to every plot against him...plots which were immediately reported back to him.

Az might have become a tribal chieftain, had the Shadow Walkers not arrived. Still grappling with ten thousand years of time displacement, the Night Lords 17th company had a full apothecarion at their disposal but no new recruits to replace battle losses. Initially they planned to recruit young teenagers as all astartes do, but with an insufficient number of promising candidates they were eventually forced to cast their net wider. Older humans could be augmented by cybernetics and limited gene-forging, though they would never stand quite equal to true chaos marines. Az cared little for this when the offer was made; what he saw was a chance to become something greater than his fellow humans, and to rule over far more than a simple patch of steppe.

Killing two birds with one stone, the Shadow Walkers split their aspirants up among a number of infiltrator teams - each commanded by an astartes handler and accompanied by heretic crewmen, tech-priests and other Night Lord auxiliaries. They were tasked with proving themselves through obtaining the information and supplies the Night Lords needed to survive, without drawing the attention that would be gathered by the deployment of full astartes. Az has sought allies for the Shadow Walkers on Coreltis, undermined imperial power on Dargaard, and now a new mission has caught his handler’s baleful eye.

Spoiler: Kira’s profile 

“It was the first thing their codicier said to me. Don’t fear your enemies. Make them fear you.”

Name: Kira Loque
Age: 19
Occupation: Rogue psyker

Physical Description: Kira is an unassuming young woman, with pallid skin and wispy black hair. She has a broad nose and thin lips that seldom smile. The most notable thing about her is a small green snake that is always somewhere about her person - most commonly coiled around her left arm. Unless an undercover mission requires otherwise, she will generally make the absolute minimum effort required to be presentable, and her most common attire is crewman’s overalls, often with the left sleeve rolled up or cut away. The nails on her right hand are habitually ripped and bloody, from biting. Pointing this out to her is liable to piss her off.

Personality: Kira is pessimistic, guarded, and sometimes impulsively angry. Sure ways to irritate her are to bring up the subjects of religion and family or (Emperor help you) the inquisition. She prefers to keep to herself, and attempts to connect usually make her suspicious; even her fellow Night Lords are more co-workers than friends. If you were to ask Kira what she wants out of her job, she would say revenge - though the truth is rather more simple. She wants security, and for all their faults the Night Lords provide that. Is it really better anywhere else?

Background: Kira comes from Dargaard, a hive world with frequent unrest caused by a large mutant population. She was born in a dirty little corner of the midhive, to a conservative single mother, and attended scholem with the other hiver juvies, listening to the local preacher hammer on about their duty to work for the emperor, and to hate mutants (they even had a catchy little school song about smashing the mutie underhivers). All that changed when she realised that she was a mutant herself.

First it was the astral dreams - always involving snakes. Either one followed her as she drifted away from her own body, or she was the snake, gliding silently through the hive ventilation ducts. Then she realised that she could make small objects move, and twists of waste paper catch fire. One night, after a particularly vivid snake-dream, she woke up to find a real snake curled around her arm. The lie that she had “found it” lasted about an hour; when her mum tried to pull the familiar off her, she went into a seizure and started vomiting blood.

Kira was painfully aware that her mother never quite looked at her the same way again - and whenever she got really angry, she would call her “twist” - though she still did her best to protect her daughter regardless; pulling her out of scholem on the pretext of a long-term illness and teaching her her own manufactorum trade in the evenings, even though it wore her down. Still, confined mostly to the hab, Kira spent her days feeling bored, unhappy and isolated, caught between anxiety of other people finding out and self-doubt at being the one thing everyone knew was wrong. Sometimes she would experiment with her warp gifts, only to stop guiltily. Other times she felt so unclean that she tried to prise the familiar off herself, but only succeeded in nearly incapacitating herself with pain.

The ruse fell apart during a particularly bad mutant riot, which spilled over into the midhive. Using her powers in self-defence, Kira revealed her psyker nature in front of a dozen witnesses and arbites riot police. Both she and her mother were imprisoned, pending judgement by the inquisition. And then the Shadow Walkers intervened. Though their original aim was to free a prominent mutant leader and create chaos to cover for their future operations, Azazeal’s team stumbled across Kira and saw potential - a fast-developing psyker with a reason to hate the imperium and nowhere else to go.

[Azazeal849]

VACUUM CROWS

Mechs. They don’t make much sense, scientifically speaking, but they are awesome. I have kicked about a few half-formed ideas previously, most recently a pilot for the IMS (the bad guys in Titanfall), but since Dakkagor is now threatening to launch a new mech-based RP I should probably step up.

While my profile for the pilot(s) is still under construction, pending more details on the story universe, I did have a fairly clear idea for what kind of mech I wanted to field. Since I’m trusting other players to bring the heavy hitters, I decided to create a kind of support mech that is essentially a futuristic AEWAC platform. Hopefully it will fit in with what Dak has planned, and no doubt there will be edits to this post to follow!

The guide I used to construct this mech was Vietmyke’s impressively detailed homebrew system from the RP Falling Skies, which can be found here.

Spoiler: Pilot 

Pending

Spoiler: Mech 

An STX-042 Horus with standard loadout of jammer arm and external targeting suite

SPECIFICATIONS

Designation: STX-042 Horus Mk III M (mass produced)

Type: Mobile Armour Suit (MAS)

Affiliation: United Earth Empire (UEE)

Role: Following in the footsteps of the Mk 1 Odin and Mk 2 Sky Eagle AEWAC suits, the Horus provides early warning and control capability to a MAS battle squadron. It is designed to operate both in space and in atmosphere.

Chassis: Light. On the standard classification scale of ultra-light to ultra-heavy, light MAS are viewed by some as the smallest "true" class of MAS. Standing at up to ten metres in height, these MAS typically use a tri-core power system and are the heaviest types capable of sustained flight. Mobility was essential to the Horus’ role, and thus the smaller, lighter chassis was selected despite generating significant technical headaches for the engineers who were tasked with squeezing all the requisite equipment into the reduced frame.

Engine: Triple core chem-nuclear reactor, with an additional dual core power plant mounted externally on the Horus' back

Operating Time: 10 Hours. A common weakness of UEE units is their low operational endurance compared to Coalition MAS. This has been specifically addressed on the Horus due to its command and control role, albeit by the expedient of mounting vulnerable external power cells.

WEAPON SYSTEMS

Trident Missile System: A scaled-down version of the Claymore launcher mounted on the PTX-071 Sentry, the Trident is fitted to the lower legs of the Horus. Both launchers carry three Trident scatterpack missiles, each of which mounts four independently targeting warheads. The carrier missile designates its target(s) before launch and utilises semi-active radar homing guided by the Horus’ own systems. The Trident warheads themselves are heat-seeking and mount Sidestep course-correction systems. Missile range is approximately 200 km in atmosphere, and can be significantly extended in space using a pre-selected “pulse” function. Four warheads striking together will generally shatter a Class 1 shield, or cripple a Light or Ultra-Light MAS.

Countermeasures System: The Horus mounts modular countermeasure pods in each shoulder to foil incoming missiles. A chaff launcher with three charges is used to spoof radar guidance, while two single-shot flare packs divert heat seekers.

ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS

External ERS: The distinctive spheroid dish mounted above the Horus' chassis houses its Enhanced Radar Suite, which effectively doubles its radar range compared to standard combat MAS. Its modular construction and integrated energy source minimise drain on the Horus' own power cores. As it is an external system, it is more prone to damage than an internal one.

Integrated Smart-Target AI: The Horus’ internal processor contains an augmented targeting system which can track, identify and acquire up to 40 targets, including missiles and other MAS, instead of the standard 5. Targeting solutions can then be fed to allied MAS, or to the Horus’ own missile system. Synergising with the Horus’ long range radar, the targeting system provides powerful AEWAC capability to a UEE battle squadron.

External Targeting Suite: The Horus' left arm is a modular mount, most often equipped with a distinctive vaned targeting system that is used to co-ordinate the fire of allied MAS, improving their range and accuracy. This system is occasionally replaced with additional defensive armament, particularly in atmospheric missions where the variety of non-MAS threats is increased. The most common switch-out is a 30mm gatling gun which provide autonomous and automatic defence against incoming missiles, aircraft and other fast-manoeuvring threats. Each gun system is fully modular, containing its own loading, traversing and dual-radar targeting systems. Once activated the system automatically undertakes the entire air-defence process from surveillance and detection to destruction, including selection of the next priority target. The cannon has a firing rate of 4200 rounds per minute and carries 1000 rounds in an internal magazine. The effective range of the weapon is 100-4500 m.

Integrated Radar Jammer: While the advanced Stealth Drives utilised by the Coalition remain unavailable to most Empire MAS, the Horus’ secondary purpose is to deploy the powerful radar jamming system in its right arm to cripple the long-range targeting systems of enemy MAS. Combined with the Horus’ Smart Target AI, the jamming can be directed at multiple targets simultaneously. This is a powerful force-multiplier that has brought UEE MAS teams victory against superior Coalition forces on numerous occasions.

DEFENCES

Class 2 Shield Generator: This energy shield is a fast-recharging barrier of energy that coats the exterior of the MAS, dissipating laser weapons and deflecting ballistic projectiles away from the hull. Energy absorbed is channelled to the radiator vanes flaring from the Horus' shoulders, or else drained into an impregnated aluminium heat sink. As long as it receives power, the shield can drain and recharge almost indefinitely. Large individual impacts will force the shield to trip out to avoid damage to the generator, leaving the MAS temporarily defenceless, and sustained fire may overload the heat sink and force the shield to shut down permanently. The Class 2 generator mounted on the Horus is standard for a Light chassis MAS, providing defence against high-calibre infantry weapons, lightly armed vehicles, and shrapnel from proximity-burst missiles. However, it is not designed to stand up in MAS-to-MAS combat, and will shatter when hit with sustained artillery fire or a heavy plasma weapon.

Armour: The Horus’ airborne operation and non-combat role preclude the use of additional heavy armour, and its hull is the standard ceramic alloy construction as other Light-chassis MAS. It is proof against small arms and shrapnel, but most larger weapons pose a threat, particularly to its delicate external systems.

[Azazeal849]

READING THE RUNES

So I’ve been thinking for a while now that Runes has been my most challenging project, and now that it’s finished I wanted to unpack some of the learning points from this. For those that are reading it, feel free to leave comments - I love feedback.

Before anything else, I want to thank all the site members who took part in the project: Kris, Scottie, Kiro Akira, Splat, Price, Derpnaster, Minkasha, Underblank and Katrina. Additional thanks go to Minkasha (for plot help and ready-made excuses to have more Leveler scenes) and Scottie (for subplot ideas, character insights and the occasional pointing out of logical progressions that I had missed). And I also want to add that despite Runes being “challenging”, I have very much enjoyed writing it with you all.

So where did it all start? It’s usual for me to have two or three unwritten RP ideas rattling around in my head at any given time - sometimes fully pre-plotted sequels to whatever I’m currently writing, sometimes half-baked concepts that never really get developed. Often, they come from a book, film or game I’ve just experienced that makes me want to write something similar. For example, the basic premise of Eclipsis came to me after watching Event Horizon, and the Replicants were inspired by the CGI remake of Captain Scarlet, which I watched a couple of episodes of because I’m a neeeeeerd.

The foundation for Runes came out of replaying Myth: The Fallen Lords, a dark fantasy game in which the living struggle against the twisted shades of their world’s greatest heroes. The concept didn’t go anywhere for a long time, because I’ve always been more comfortable writing sci fi than fantasy, and I also worried that my typically serious and gritty style was more at risk of seeming cheesy in such a world.

And then Karma roped me into Sojourn, a cookie-cutter fantasy adventure that I normally wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole, but with the twist that it was supposed to be a parody (something that I missed in my initial skim-read). I decided to take one of the characters from my Runes concept and play up his egotistical and snarky attributes to the point of comedy. Sojourn folded disappointingly early, but it was still quite fun to write an overtly comedic character for once.

By chance, Kris contacted me not long after this to ask about co-GMing a story, and armed with my new appreciation for silliness, I pitched Runes to her. Kris was able to fill in a few of the story gaps that I had been struggling with, as well as flesh out the world (the Mer and the anti-magic Risemen were both her idea). The runes themselves, with their ability to instantly grant magic to anyone who touched them, remained central as a metaphor for power - essentially standing in for money, oil, WMDs...any form of power that can be hoarded and used to coerce or dominate others. Power being a force that reveals true motives was very much the message behind the various rulers of the three cities - as well as corrupting in a more literal sense, with extended rune use damaging and degrading people’s bodies.

With my new confidence for light as well as serious writing, I felt that Runes could possibly work as either, and so I put the decision to the players in an interest thread. They seemed to prefer something more light-hearted. Having just finished watching Final Space, I wanted to craft a similar story - one which at its core was rather silly, but had room to delve into emotional or dark territory. Balancing these two was probably the biggest problem I ran into with this RP, although it wasn’t the first one.

The first issue I hit was with the story’s NPC characters. With a theme of power being a blade without a hilt, I wanted to show a range of ways in which people could use it: from the PCs using it for good, to various minor characters using it for evil, to the grey areas in between like the egocentric Immortal who hoards power but isn’t explicitly out to dominate anyone, and the main antagonist Leveler who seeks a theoretically noble goal by extreme means. I also created a squad of lieutenants for the Leveler with the intention of letting their different personalities play off the PCs as well as each other, and to offer some varied perspectives on the major plot developments. In practical terms, they were also there to make sure that the Leveler didn’t have to do everything herself, and wouldn’t diminish her sense of power and threat by putting the players through multiple narrow escapes from her. So far, so good.

One of these “lieutenant” characters, Redmoor, was the creation of Splat to serve as a personal antagonist for her character. I then hit on the idea of doing this for everyone, with all the PCs getting their own personal nemesis secondary to the overarching villain. I hoped that this would give players additional investment in the story, but it turned into a complete disaster because I forgot one of the fundamental constants of GMing on RPA: player attrition. Two players bowed out after a single post, and two more for personal reasons by the end of the second act, leaving many of these 1x1 rivalries unbuilt or hanging. Redmoor probably had the worst luck, being set up against the PC Raven, then Solar, then Red, all of whom eventually dropped from the RP. With the “personal nemesis” plot truncated for a lot of characters, I belatedly started treating the lieutenants as more of a unit instead of pairing them off with individual PCs. This was probably something that I should have done from the beginning, as letting the players fight as a united group (forging their own bonds and picking their own nemeses) would have been better for their own character development too.

At the start of the RP, I PM’d everyone to ask if they wanted a particular subplot or character arc written in. I was doing this to mentally sort the players into the ones who had a particular idea in mind, and those who would just flow along with the plot, reacting to events with no particular character development or relationship building in mind. Of course, I forgot about a third group - those who have no plan at the beginning but still want to develop some kind of arc as they go. I did schedule a few “down time” scenes where the PCs were left to their own devices to do character scenes among themselves, but this wasn’t really enough with the reduced pool of players available by act 3.

Balancing the down time between writing NPC interactions and encouraging the PCs to talk to each other was something that I struggled to get right in this RP. In an attempt to keep the pace of the story moving forward, I also wrote a lot of conversations out in full, between NPCs and inactive PCs - I’m not sure if this gave the remaining PCs enough opportunity to speak. Although it ensured that important plot and character beats were covered, I might have given the players too little room to maneuver, out of fear that they might not ask the right questions to prompt exposition out of the right characters.

I also feel that I could have paid more attention to the players’ plans beyond the initial subplot offer. I made assumptions about which inactive PCs could be easily retooled or which ones the players still cared about. As an example of the former, I killed Raven early and brought a swift end to his rivalry with Redmoor - something that I could have made more of if I wasn’t being lazy. As an example of the latter, I made the effort to develop Solar but then made him a shock death based on process of elimination (Illusion had a subplot still to play out, and Wraith I was holding in case of Price’s return). Unfortunately by doing this I also robbed my remaining PCs of a budding friend, which I might not have done if paying proper attention to my remaining players.

The biggest problem for me and my players though was one that I mentioned previously: tone. The original rules that I made for myself were something akin to those of Final Space - silly except when emotion or combat was required, and generally turning dead serious when the main villain shows up. This can be seen in the rather dark prologue featuring the Leveler, compared to the grim but humour-dusted opening scene where the PCs arrive in the Enlightened City. Unfortunately, I didn’t explicitly communicate this blueprint to my players, which led to PCs running the gamut from almost totally serious (Wraith) to almost totally loopy (Hole). The latter, incidentally, also made me break my own rule of keeping the Leveler’s presentation non-comedic. Adding to the potential for player confusion was a mostly serious first act being followed by a mostly silly second one (due to the introduction of the crazy Hole and the highly snarky Immortal), and then flipping again to a mostly serious third (featuring sinister and creepy Mer that somewhat clashed with the one the players had been previously introduced to). As my first attempt at juxtaposing tones, I don’t think I succeeded all that well.

Because of trying to fix these mistakes - the evolving tone, the evolving miniboss dynamic, trying to juggle inactive PCs - on the fly, I ended up with a messy plot and many setups without payoffs. If I ever want to do my usual thing and novelise the finished RP, there is definitely going to be some amount of rewriting needed. But a bigger sin than the incoherent story was an RP that was sometimes not particularly fun for players, with them playing catch up even more than I was. I could definitely have done more here to make a better RP and there are some lessons which I will try and take forward to future projects.

[dakkagor]

I should have made time for Runes. I should really make time to go and read it now its finished. Balancing tone is hard.

[Azazeal849]

It is indeed. You’re quite welcome to read through - let me know what works and what doesn’t...and if you can follow what’s going on!

I don’t think I’ll have time for rewrites anytime soon, but one of the clearest cut changes would probably be the ending - narratively speaking it makes far more sense to have the Leveler die in front of the PCs, so that everyone sees the godlike being proved mortal, and the PCs aren’t implicitly looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. The Hole presumably still ends up in space, albeit teleporting there in a mad fit of grief this time.

[Azazeal849]

VACUUM CROWS II

I considered simply editing the post above, but the eventual Vacuum Crows story ended up diverging somewhat from what I planned above. This is not, of course, a knock towards the game’s creator Dakkagor, who’s fertile imagination and punchy writing style continue to be an inspiration; merely a thought that a significantly different character (and mech!) deserved their own post.

The mechs in Vacuum Crows - known as “cores” - are not the sleek, mass-produced technology of Gundam sci fi. Rather, they are mysterious relics in a wild-west of a future, that call to their pilots in an almost spiritual way. Further, the fact that each core “grows” either a sword or a shield as their first weapon attachment suggested a focus on epic, face-to-face duelling that didn’t really mesh with my original idea to create a back-line AEWAC machine. I overhauled the design accordingly, although you can still see a couple of nods to the original “Horus” mech and its emphasis on electronic warfare.

Picking whether mine was going to be a sword core or a shield core informed both the fighting style and the pilot - I liked the idea of pilots matching with cores that mirrored their personality, fitting in with the spiritual, extension-of-the-pilot vibe that the Crows machines seemed to exude. A shield core naturally leant itself to a pilot with a desire to protect and defend; the kind of character who might also be drawn to the honour code that some pilots in this universe aspire to. Normally I’m too pessimistic about war and what it does to people to play such an idealistic character straight, although after many months working on the bleak Reckoning I was ready for something a bit lighter. It also would be fair to argue that while war often brings out the worst in human nature, sometimes, in some people, it also brings out the best. Why not write a story about a warrior who sees his code of ethics sorely tested but, instead of collapsing, shows why it’s so important to uphold those ethics in the first place? Thus Arjen (that’s “Ar-yen” by the way, not “Ar-gen”) Zaraki was born.

I fleshed out Arjen with some rather simple inspirations. A work-hard-play-hard type, as many soldiers are (and who can blame them?). A protector of the “little guys” fighting alongside him, drawn from an idea I’ve had since watching games of Titanfall for a pilot from the (nominally villainous) IMC who nevertheless does his best to protect the poor grunts running around his mech’s feet. And lastly, part of a brotherly trio inspired by the three vampire sisters from Resident Evil: Village, whose personalities can be summed up as “the serious one”, “the egomaniac hunter”, and “the loopy one” respectively. Their cores are, of course, named for the three Gorgon sisters, with a nod to what each of their names mean in their battlefield function. For the record, I 100% subscribe to the interpretation of Medusa as a warding talisman and / or a pre-Greek goddess of wisdom, rather than just a monster for Perseus to fight.

Vacuum Crows is currently on hold due to work commitments, something that seems to be hammering us all as the world attempts to come out of COVID lockdown, but now with a solid concept and (finally!) a pilot, Arjen and his mech stand ready to slam down and absorb an enemy missile strike (character establishing moment, and all that) as soon as they are needed.

Trivia: Arjen’s brothers take their surnames from two members of The Agonist, my favourite metal band.

Spoiler: Arjen 

Name: Arjen Zaraki (callsign: Guardian)
Age: Just under 1 Cronite year (28 Cradle years)
Gender: Cis male
Nation of Birth: Titan, Cronus sub-system

Background:
Born on Titan, Arjen was a restless youth like most Crows. Still, he tried to do his expected duty, and trained as an electrician in order to complete a tour of the Xanadu solar farms. He couldn’t stand the monotony of the job and, on an impulse, travelled to the starport to book passage offworld. The one pilot who didn’t reject his request was Ishana Varsi, who unbeknownst to him was a Crow recruiter who knew what he was before he himself did. During the months-long journey to Titan, which involved several stops and one unfortunate encounter with Exile pirates, he began to fit in with the others, especially two fellow Cronites: Darian and Gavrail - they have stuck together ever since and become almost as close now as brothers. Arjen has often meant to contact his real family, but the shame of abandoning them and failing to complete the Cronite rite of passage always stops him at the last minute.

Beginning again on Titan, he fully embraced his Crow training under Varsi’s instruction. Unlike his brothers, he also fully embraced the fast-paced Zuessian culture, leading to a lot of hangovers. Through training, a pattern began to emerge between Arjen and his two “brothers” - Darian was the aggressive hunter of the group, Gavrail the watchful lookout, while Arjen, older than the other two by a year, often took on a protective role. They were assigned accordingly, to a trio of sister Cores geared towards attack, surveillance and defence respectively. Although Crow contracts often separate them, the three brothers always manage to meet up at least once per solar year at the rookery on Ganymede.

Arjen has a Cronite’s respect for family, a word which he now extends to anyone under his Core’s aegis, and this naturally drew him towards the Ravens. Despite this protective instinct, he is not exactly cool and calculating (that was always more Gavrail’s thing); the two most important things Varsi ever taught him were the Raven’s honour code, and that while the savage thrill of destroying an enemy is unavoidable, one should be careful not to become ruled by it.

Skills:
Intercept - competent in using jet bursts to interpose between allies and hostile fire
Shield Offence - while Medusa’s energy shield is primarily defensive, can also use it effectively for shoving and edge-bashing
Insightful - good at reading people and his instincts about strangers are usually (though not always) accurate

Flaws:
Fights Fair - can artificially handicap himself in fights, for example using Medusa’s jammer to thwart enemy attacks, but never to blind their defence
Addictive Personality - a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and if there’s food, alcohol or narcotics available, he’s probably going to consume too much of them

Links:
Darian Merino, Crow - pilots the core Stheno. One of Arjen’s two “brothers” from Titan, his approach to warfare is that of a big game hunter, with an enthusiasm that can sometimes border on the sadistic. This may yet lead to arguments between them. Tall and wiry with a graceful, economical way of moving.

Gavrail Kell, Crow - pilots the core Eurayle. Arjen’s other “brother”, he is a spiritual man (some might say eccentric) who elects to spend more time than necessary bonded to his Core, often even sleeping inside it. He is, however, almost impossible to surprise, and has preternatural instincts about the ebb and flow of a battle. Small, curly haired and slightly built.

Arakeen Toth, engineer - ‘Lift cephalopod, one of the few people Arjen trusts to work on his Core. Has a tendency to jump between thoughts or conversational beats quicker than most people can easily follow. Darkly coloured with distinctive blue rings that flush when excited.

Ishana Varsi, mentor - invalided early in their career thanks to an unfortunate accident, they now act as a recruiter and mentor for fledgeling crows. Arjen still considers them an almost parental figure. An androgynously pretty human with wispy hair.

Story beats:
As mentioned above, losing an unnecessary honour duel and being pressured by events to decide how much a code of ethics actually matters during wartime.
A recurring enemy who could be either an amoral contrast or a sympathetic character who just happens to fight for the other side.

Spoiler: Medusa 

Name: Medusa
Weight class: Medium
Motive system: Plantigrade
Left arm weapon: Energy shield
Right arm weapon: Smoothbore cannon (heavy projectile), with shot selector for thermobaric explosive, kinetic penetrator, and nanite smoke cloud
Left shoulder weapon: Laser CIWS (medium energy) for close defence and anti-missile
Right shoulder system: EW pod (directional jammer), can eject shriekers in the event of a home-on-jam attack
Head system: Standard active / passive sensor suite