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TimemasterUnnamed Papionine Monkey Carrying Anti-Air Cannon
But we just call him the Flak Macaque.
Heavy: Nah.
Tall: Not really? Definitely bigger than you'd expect, though, like he could eat your cat if he wanted to
Old: Hard to say.
Wizard: Fuck yeah, baby
Tier/Influence: 4 (national); or however high you have to be to jump the fence between magic and science.
Group(s): his college band was called 'Lung Rot Emporium'
Appearance: He's a fairly large male gelada, so this. This is a better look at his body shape. That mane stands on end when he's mad, though, and we'd be lying if we said that isn't fucking scary, never mind the lip flip and huge fangs.
That said, a lot of that hair is usually cut short, tied back or shaved due to the nature of Flak Macaque's magic and general line of work.
He wears clothes when he needs to- Mostly welding goggles, gloves or palm wraps, and boots. Often a cigarette, always a fanny pack, sometimes a toolkit. When he needs to, he puts on khaki overalls or a trench coat, both tailored to his size. His rebar staff accompanies him also.
What do you mean, you thought he was an actual macaque? We just call him that because it rhymes.
Personality: On a typical day, Flak Macaque is the deadest motherfucker you ever did see. The guy's seen everything. Life is a brutal unending grind and Flak Macaque has largely given up on optimism, although he's far from pessimistic either, which probably makes him some kind of disgruntled stoic. Or a sage. Depends who you ask, really.
Anyway, Flak Macaque needs a lot of coffee and nicotine to keep himself going, though he at least tries to stay away from cocaine. What's funny is that he does keep himself going. At least part of the reason Flak Macaque is always tired is because he's always working, even in his sleep. It's not clear why.
Morally speaking he's, well, not such a bad guy. Flak Macaque tries to keep civilians out of his riskier business and generally isn't much shadier than your local meth cook. The problem is his complacency with other, darker figures. For someone who tries not to hurt people who aren't asking for it, Flak Macaque spends a lot of time associating with people who will. Mostly by selling weapons to them. And by 'them', we mean private military contractors.
If a UFP sniper drone ever seems to be casting a weird shadow and moving much too fast, you know who to blame.
Abilities:
- ( 4 ) Chromatic Aberration -- Dreams are rarely just the firing of stray neurons during sleep. For Flak Macaque, dreams have not been simple visions since he was a child. When the wizard sleeps, he enters a world in which he is entirely conscious and utterly alone. The Chroma is endless and empty, a place where winds howl forever through vast ruins, where ships hover silent in jets of steam, and strange architecture dominates. Here in the Chroma, Flak Macaque wanders by night, seeking out the anaglyphs- The source of his greatest power.
- ( 3 )
- ( 2 ) Elbow Grease -- A skilled and tireless mechanic, at least at his favoured level of technology. Flak Macaque can not only repair most anything in his punk, but also build it, given time. His depth of experience is formidable, and it has to be- When the machine is happy, the magic is happy.
- ( 1 ) Teeth -- Seriously, have you ever seen a papionine's teeth? Big pointy fuckers.
Anaglyphs: An anaglyph is like a coloured shadow, the silhouette of a spirit that was never born. In the Chroma, they can exist freely, but Flak Macaque can bring them into the real world by binding them to himself as shadows of his own.
Once bound, Flak Macaque can tie them to technology in the waking world. This can confer various benefits to an item with an anaglyph. Only Flak Macaque is capable of moving anaglyphs from one item to another, and they cannot exist as the shadow of a living thing other than himself, or unbound.
An anaglyph functions as a kind of guiding spirit of technology. When the equipment is destroyed, it disappears, and when the equipment is well-kept, it can be seen flickering just over its surface, lending its wisdom and power to the operation of the machine.
Anaglyphs come in a variety of colours and textures, though this has no effect on what power they grant or how strong. This is determined by the saturation of their colour- The weakest anaglyphs are black, the strongest bright. Any object can bear multiple anaglyphs, which may cooperate.
Flak Macaque never chooses what kind of anaglyph he finds each night, or how bright it is. There are no true categories for anaglyphs, but the following are some examples.
- ( ? ) Jagged Reds -- Anaglyphs may change the kinetic properties of their tech. They may stabilise mechanisms or make them move faster. Heidi bears some of these anaglyphs that lift her against gravity, making brief flight possible even though she is very heavy.
- ( ? ) Hairy Yellows -- Anaglyphs may be used to cause chemical and electrical effects, even against the flow of entropy. Heidi bears such an anaglyph to provide her with off-grid power.
- ( ? ) Slick Greens -- Some anaglyphs sense and process data, allowing a machine to respond to stimuli. These are the anaglyphs that most contribute to Heidi's sentience.
- ( ? ) Plumed Blues -- Other anaglyphs cause spacial anomalies. One of these anaglyphs generates a hyperbolic space in the toolbox Heidi carries, allowing Flak Macaque to store a cubic metre worth of stuff in a much smaller volume.
Items:
- ( 3 ) Flak Gun -- Everybody's favourite anti-aircraft shrapnel weapon! Too large to be a handgun, Heidi is built to be collapsible and mobile. She has treads, but four metal struts let her scurry about like some kind of steel labrador. Heidi even has a set of rotating wings for short-distance diesel-fueled flight (although the device tends to belch smoke as it does so). Various anaglyphs power her on the ground, and grant her a kind of simple intelligence.
- ( 1 ) Wizard's Staff -- A meter-long stick of rebar laden with anaglyphs. Flak Macaque uses it to focus his concentration while conjuring, and to help him apply anaglyphs to his projects. This staff is where he stores his shadows when he has too many.
- ( 1 ) Flamethrower -- A pretty ordinary weapon, as these things go. Spits a breath of fresh air a short distance in front of the user. Robust, simple design makes it easy to repair and unlikely to break. As it is fuelled rather than loaded, Flak Macaque doesn't have to worry about keeping it topped up with bullets.
- ( 1 ) Tools and shit -- Yeah. Literally just a box of tools and shit. Heidi carries around all of Flak Macaque's possessions he doesn't keep in his hip pack, including his work clothes and a pistol.
- ( 2 ) Gas Mask -- Obligatory dieselpunk headgear, complete with complementary trench coat. He had some plans to plans to slap shielding anaglyphs on it, but those never panned out. The trench coat has a resilient green anaglyph, though, and the mask filters noise and heightens awareness.
History: Is it too much to believe that there's an entire planet of dieselpunk monkeys somewhere in the galaxy?
History, but actual: Flak Macaque was a mechanic before he completed his wizard diploma and started to travel. When exactly he learned that he could bring anaglyphs back from the Chroma is unclear, but his entire adult life at night has been spent there.
His current employments revolve around augmenting private military technology with anaglyphs. Flak Macaque seems to be throwing more and more of himself into his work as he grows older, even at the expense of his physical and mental health. With no clear goal in his future, it looks like he's running from something in his past.
Name: okay fine, it says 'Virgil Smithereen' on most of his legal documents. He mighta just made that up though.