And now it's time for the critiques and the sheet selection.
If any of these seem particularly harsh or sarcastic, it is not a judgement of you as a person and I appreciate your interest all the same, this is merely a blunt and honest critique of what has been submitted for review.
Enjoy.
I quite enjoy how Hildia’s early life is marked by a need to be different, and her attempts to express herself ended up in an embarrassing failure. While she was restless, she didn’t act out and become a rebel without a cause. I very much appreciate that! It seems like a lot of people look for an excuse for their quarians to be rebels without a cause.
A minor lore thing, usually when quarians return from a pilgrimage they stay with the Floatilla and stay there for the remainder of their lives, unless they’re deployed like marines. Part of the reason for the pilgrimage is so quarians with wanderlust miss the community and inclusiveness in home and kind of get their youthful curiosity out of the way. Even if the idea of coming and going was how Hildia saw it, chances are she would know that once she’s back, she’s pretty much home for good. Also, space pirate is a redundant term. :P When somebody in this universe is talking about piracy, it goes without saying it’s usually one of the galactic shipping routes being attacked in space, not boats on a planet. Someone would likely have to go out of their way to specify if they meant maritime piracy.
We run into a bit of a problem with those said pirates that needs a bit of clarification. Since they send quarians off alone on a Pilgrimage, they’re not launched off in a group, probably spread out over the year depending when they come of age and their training is complete, and even if some departed at the same time, there’s very little chance they’d all be going the same way for long, if at all; they have very different directions. The odds of them all getting hit by a group of pirates would be astronomical, and no band of pirates would be insane enough to be tailing and within range of the Floatilla; they are the biggest fleet in the galaxy, and most of their ships are armed in the interest of protecting themselves. Now, if Hildia was individually targeted well on her journey to a new system, that would be much, much more plausible, but the large group of dead pilgrims? Not so much.
One thing I’m concerned about is why a group of pirates would trust one of their prisoners to work with their very sensitive electrical systems; there’s no telling what she would do to it, and if she thinks it would be better to die than to live as their slave, then what’s to stop her from shutting off life support while most of the crew sleeps and then fight to prevent them from correcting it? Keep in mind that when people don’t know how technology works, they won’t be able to tell exactly what somebody’s doing with it. Either this is the most incompetent or trusting group of pirates ever, but it doesn’t really make sense for them to trust her with something so sensitive like their equipment, that their lives depend on. Makes more sense just to keep it as her being a fetish for some old turian pervert, since sex trafficking has always been a major issue.
Wait, the turian was a politician? The president of the United States couldn’t hide a blow job, and this guy is involved with sex trafficking and it remained unnoticed up until he died? I get a lot of people have dirty laundry and what not, but I really don’t see a politician who is usually under the spotlight getting away with something like that for long.
Hildia should have never been so naïve towards how quarians are perceived by the rest of the galaxy, it’s not exactly a secret how they’re generally treated by the galaxy at large since they’re basically treated as a band of roving, thieving gypsies that are a drain on resources whenever they enter a system. She shouldn’t be having an existential crisis about her place in galactic society, especially after her training to partake on her pilgrimage. Also, while stranded on this unnamed planet, what the heck did Hildia eat? Quarians have to eat purified dextro-amino friendly food, which is usually this paste that they can purchase that’s provided by quarian manufacture or special ordered turian food. She couldn’t just go up to a grocery store because quarians need very special food just to survive.
I can certainly understand what drove her to commit crime to survive, but what exactly made her want to not go back to the Flotilla, especially after all the experiences she’s had to endure? Plus, just because she earned herself a fair deal of credits from thievery doesn’t mean she found something to bring back to offer the Flotilla. Also, it’s very unlikely she’d be a slave for 3 years and being treated in such a degrading way without some kind of mental imprint, but that’s a minor point.
Getting invited into a thieving society after a chance run-in with two other thieves is fine and all, but there’s no way in hell any competent organization is going to trust somebody they don’t know without some kind of trial period and monitoring. Oh, and there’s the mental imprint I was asking about the previous paragraph. She doesn’t trust turians, makes sense!
Being hired as a mercenary mostly implies she’s operating within a group. There’s a reason they’re called soldiers of fortune, since they typically fill roles associated with a soldier’s line of work.
There’s also a good chance that if her chosen criminal profession came to light, the Flotilla would not accept her back, since they don’t really have the resources to jail members of their society, and since exile is the equivalent of a death sentence, then what would be the point to bring her back to stand trial to release her? As well, she was violating the law of places in the galaxy that do not concern the quarians – they only try people who have affected the Flotilla and quarian society. She wouldn’t be made to stand trial for something she did on some backwater planet halfway across the galaxy.
Overall, not too shabby, just a lot of leaps in logic that need to be addressed.
We start off with a big honking bit of lore issue that I don’t know what the hell happened. In Mass Effect 2, you play through exactly what a krogan goes through to become a member of Clan Urdnot with the Rite of Passage (that little jaunt on Grunt’s Loyalty mission where you fight waves of Tuchanka wildlife and a thresher maw under the direction of the clan Shaman). There’s no mention of the Rite of Passage, which is an absolutely massive part of krogan society, even if it is different for each clan. Executing crash landed aliens is an absolutely unremarkable event in a krogan’s actions, even if it doesn’t happen every day. It would absolutely not be what gets a krogan admitted into a clan. Also, I don’t see why his drinking of ryncol (why the quotations?) is a specific character quirk mentioned, since drinking is drinking. Unless it’s a unique character trait or notable because of excess or something else, ryncol might as well be like knocking back a whiskey for a krogan. And where are these other non-krogan opponents coming from? It’s the Krogan Demilitarized Zone, which means that the entire area’s restricted from space travel by most traffic and virtually nobody has any business going to Tuchanka because of how dangerous it is, and I seriously doubt there’s a trafficking trade going on for krogan going off world to capture people to bring back to fight in some silly contest. That’s a lot of time and resources dedicated to something petty, especially for a planet that’s basically the Fallout universe.
Okay, so he joined the Blood Pack (any particular reason?), but going from being a race supremacist to ultra-tolerant in the span of two paragraphs either seems completely unnecessary to mention in the first place or a rather unbelievable shift in character development. What would make him suddenly change his heart and befriend a vorcha (which typically are used as cannon fodder by the Blood Pack. Seriously, they condition vorcha on a planet where they die by the dozens until they’re tough and vicious enough to make good foot soldiers) and a batarian (who probably wouldn’t be admitted to the Blood Pack on the condition that it’s almost entirely krogan with vorcha as rank and file. Batarians are also more prone to a racial and social superiority complex based on Khar’shan having a rigid caste structure)? Also, why mention his drinking again if it’s a constant fact of his life, and also the vast majority of non-krogan cannot drink ryncol on account that you’re told by Grunt that it “hits aliens like ground glass”. While Shepard managed to drink a few glasses, keep in mind that Shepard also has cybernetic enhancements and it still knocks him out hard after a few glasses. Most aliens probably wouldn’t not touch the stuff, even if it wasn’t potentially fatal for some of them.
“The pair fought, messing up Erolo’s place in the process. Until finnaly , Erolo both men in the leg.” What are you even trying to say there? This whole paragraph is extremely hard to follow.
Erolo seems mighty calm for a guy who just had his place trashed by two krogan fighting. Also, if they’re all still in the Blood Pack at this point, then how the hell does Siddark have the means to pay Bragar? I’m pretty sure if they’re being offered a contract by their outfit, their bosses would be the ones paying them, and there’s nothing that should be giving Bragar reason to protest the reasons for the contract. Unless they’re doing under the table deals off the Blood Pack books (which is never specified), they shouldn’t be caught off guard by this and it should be overseen by one of the officers. Either way, it’s very inconsistent, and Wodu seems to be there for no other reason than to set up cheap drama. He’s literally introduced and suddenly he’s an arch enemy of Bragar. Why? What did he do that possibly warranted him to start tearing his friend’s place apart at the sight of him? I can’t stress this enough, you JUST introduced this character. It makes no sense for him to suddenly show up as Bragar’s nemesis if there’s been absolutely no foreshadowing or indication he had any enemies in the first place.
“Things went well until Escilpe began wrappling in. Erolo powered up the ship has Bragar fought off the Mercs, he rode the ship with Erolo. A well placed Sniper Shot later murdered Erolo, has the ship went out of control. Bragar managed to drive the ship, he however looked to the lifeless body of the Asari, turned out she was a fake.”
WAIT, WHAAAT? I can suspend disbelief as much as the next guy, but this whole quotation heavily implies that Erolo was shot by an expertly placed bullet while the ship was flying. Either this is the luckiest sniper in the world, kinetic barriers are no longer a thing, Erolo had no armour or shielding (which seems like a horrible lack of foresight), and the sniper knew exactly where they were going to be flying well in advance to set up a position where he had a perfect angle on a cockpit, which I should mention that the vast majority of spacecraft in Mass Effect don’t have cockpit windows, they rely on sensors. And how the hell would Bragar know that the asari was a decoy?! He never seen her before in his life, so how would he know if she was the genuine article or not? And how did she die? The only person mentioned by name to have been killed was Erolo. Also, if he managed to regain control of the ship, why the hell would he abandon it for the shuttle? That’s an expensive and important bit of technology that shouldn’t be so casually disregarded, especially for one that has a lot less range and protection. And how the hell would he know if Siddark and Wodu betrayed him? Sure, he has a grudge against Wodu, but why would Siddark tip off Eclipse? That’s a bit of an irrational leap. There’s turf wars between Eclipse, Blood Pack, and the Blue Suns all the time. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that an unprotected little side job was discovered and ambushed.
Oh, and he somehow had a weapon on the Citadel to murder Siddark, who for some reason decided to go to the Citadel for whatever reason after an entire life on Omega and while serving the Blood Pack. You do know that it’s illegal to carry weapons on the Citadel unless you’re on-duty military or C-Sec or have a permit based on your job function, right? And it’s sure a good thing that C-Sec is a bumbling bunch of incompetents without weapons that allowed a krogan to escape while they all had weapons and forgot to call ahead to lockdown the ward’s docking bays to prevent a dangerous fugitive from escaping. Seriously, C-Sec is among the best of the best. They’re not a bunch of mooks who wear fancy uniforms. They’re mostly ex-military and police members who had clean and solid service records, not mall security guards. There’s a very real chance that within seconds of Bragar shooting Siddark that they would have had their guns on him.
Oh, great. The Siame Industries PMCs are a bunch of incompetent mooks, too. If they knew enough to track down Bragar for his crimes, why would they confront him with two men with pistols who are terrified? They’re hardened military contractors, not… mall security guards. And he noticed Siame Industries printed on the haul, but only figured out who they were after reading their name tapes? I can’t say I’m really a fan of taking liberties with a faction in this game that you know nothing about since I haven’t actually done any scenes with them. And if he didn’t disable the other ship, what’s to prevent it from tracking him to Cartagena Station? Seriously, it would not be hard.
And “uncover the truth about Siam Industries”? What are they, the illuminati? Why would he suspect there’s anything more to them than being a private military contracting and security service that is being contracted to enforce law in the Attican Traverse?
I hate to say it, but I don’t really think you’re a good fit for this game.
A pretty solid reasoning for Daryna being born off Kahje so far, although I do question a captain that would boot them off on one of the more dangerous hubs of the galaxy because of unprofessional conduct. Wouldn’t he just fire them dump them off on Kahje? Given the close and intimate relationship drell and hanar share, abandoning them away from home for something as relatively minor as a relationship seems excessive. I do like the touch with the batarian scientist who was secretly experimenting with eezo while promising to make sure that Daryna would be free of Kepral’s Syndrome. Given how “designer babies” are a thing now with people fearing for their yet-to-be born child’s health, this is sadly a very likely scenario, especially since Era and Tivan had nothing when they were unceremoniously dumped on Omega.
Damn, parents of the year for trying to get their daughter back to a proper home. I’m curious how Khel Galdor just up and left a pirate band (like a gang, it tends to be a rather tricky thing to attempt to leave one so cavalierly). Other than that, I’m liking it so far! Daryna’s shitty childhood is well balanced by a caring set of parents, and having grown up with a guy who never knew his biological father and his ancestry, I thought the point that she largely had to try and figure out who the drell were on her own is something eerily familiar. Honestly, I quite like the foundations you’ve set out of Daryna’s life. It makes it really easy to see what would shape her into the woman she’d become. I also quite like that her sexuality was organically revealed in her back story, I often find that people are way too eager to point out their character’s sexual orientation like it’s a check point for potential romance partners rather than a part of their identity.
Oh man, and now she has a serious mental health issue. This girl’s life is official the shits. While I can appreciate the mathematical probabilities of having this disorder, pointing out that it’s possible she’s the only member of her species that has it gently brushes on the special snowflake thing I worry about, although given how well this sheet’s read and nuisance Daryna’s coming across so far, I’m not overly concerned. I do like the idea that the medical issues associated with other species exposed to eezo has a rather unique effect on some drell; that was actually an inspiring bit of initiative. I’m curious how this will all play out as an in-game experience.
You may want to dial back the idea that she was way more powerful than her asari peers, given how biotics are very much a part of asari identity and physiology, as well that her peers likely had training well before she revealed her own biotics. I can appreciate that given the genetic experimentation, she’d have a lot more raw potential, but this reminds me of a parallel to Jack, but keep in mind that Jack’s amazing abilities are the result of cruel Cerberus experimentation and torture when she was a child over the course of years. Think of it like a bomb, in a way. You can have all the compounds and ignition sources necessary for the explosive reaction without a proper casing, but the potential is wasted without proper containment and purposeful design. A young girl just starting to use her biotics in a class where a bunch of her peers had a few years on her is very unlikely to surpass them. Her potential can certainly be recognized, and I can even see her surpassing some of the laggards, but all of them is a bit of a stretch.
I’m not a fan of her being able to Dominate the minds of fellow students and certainly teachers after only 3 years of training; Morinth was doing that shit for hundreds of years and you’re still able to resist her as Shepard, and most of Morinth’s victims were seduced over a long period of time. A young, barely trained girl is certainly not going to be able to overpower the minds of a race of natural biotics, especially those who have been practicing for hundreds of years. I can, however, see instances of her even attempting to do it in the first place being a concern worthy of expulsion, since if you can be expelled for kicking the shit out of somebody, I’m pretty sure controlling their mind’s right up there on the “don’t do that” list.
Also, why would Jarr bring Daryna to bars? I’m pretty sure she’d still be underage across most of the law-abiding galaxy. Might want to expand on that, ‘cause otherwise it just makes civilization look like it hates (loves?) young adults.
You may want to also work on Daryna’s sudden love for thievery and getting away with it; Dominate is a power with a serious potential for God modding, because if you get into a player verses player fight, what’s to stop her from controlling the mind of another player character? It needs to have limits. Also, given all the security measures that are bound to be around Illium, I can’t imagine she’d be walking around committing crime without repercussion, ESPECIALLY since Illium is still a largely asari planet and I am not going to let Daryna be the most powerful biotic in the galaxy. You need to scale back the capability of her Dominate ability and possibly her entire biotic potential, because as stands, she’s a very overpowered character with a lot of room for abuse. If it functions like a temporary power like it does in the game, then it won’t really be an issue, especially if it can’t be “spammed” and used on more than one person at a time.
Barring that, a fantastic backstory!
I love when people create tells for their characters; it gives attentive players something to look for when exchanging dialog with other characters. I was happy to see you put that in.
Apparently asari and krogan parents are a popular pairing in this game so far. :D
You might want to expand upon how Saseen and her friends went from a normal childhood to running drugs and messages for gangs, it’s a very 0-60 leap that’s somewhat jarring, since nothing before this paragraph really indicated her and her friends even had connections or inclinations towards that. It’s a quick an easy thing to expand upon or alter slightly, like having their contacts simply be known repeat offenders, because gangs are kind of serious business.
I think we’ve already discussed the whole pirate gang thing before, so we’ll carry on past that. Main thing I was concerned with was that after joining this gang if she ever returned to the Citadel, you and I agreed it was very unlikely, at least for quite a long time. I do like that she tried to maintain contact with her family, since it’s quite often you see people just cut off family ties with their RP characters. The friction between Saseen and her law-abiding sister is something I anticipate will have some dire consequences down the road, which is something I look forward to being explored more.
It’s also a nice progression for how she built herself up in the pirating world, and I think it’s a pretty cool way around that isn’t presented as excessive or over the top, and having her not being blood thirsty is a boon. You’ve done a great job as presenting Saseen as the “lovable rogue” who simply wants adventure. Given how a lot of asari end up becoming mercenaries with much more violent outfits, this is a very believable and more independent way of going about things.
Also, them dastardly back stabbers! Something to keep in mind is Siame likely wouldn’t be doing deals with criminals, especially if they’re going to go right back to what they were doing before. There would have to be some sort of amnesty and likely a parole program for Lurum and the other pirates if they were offered something. Siame Industries simply wouldn’t stop at going for the captain. After all, what’s she going to do without a ship? They probably wouldn’t have a hard time tracking her down if they knew she was on the station, but then there’s the whole problem of Cartagena Patrol, which tends to frown on people stomping on their jurisdiction, especially since Siame Industries isn’t a law enforcement agency.
Overall, pretty good!
One thing I love about this sheet right off the bat is you seem to have a solid grasp of the batarian caste system and how much social status matters to them. Given how lower class people are much more susceptible to the allure of crime, especially in a society with very little upwards mobility, Kesik was more or less screwed from the start. That’s good. His relationship with his mother, I can tell, is a close but not exactly functional one, but it is touching and adds a softer side to him. Escaping that life and being exposed to the batarian government’s propaganda is also a great way to colour the early years of Kesik, and it shows you’ve been doing your homework.
I find it interesting that it’s his military service that let him see through the fog of propaganda, given that their military is probably subjected to quite a bit of reinforced propaganda, probably not unlike Soviet commissars. What exactly did Kesik experience that soured his opinion of the batarian government? Some more expansion on this would be a great way to find out more about what he’s experienced and draw from what shapes his opinions in a game. I do like that while he started to see cracks in what he’s been indoctrinated with his entire life, his prejudices are still there – it’s hard to believe something when your entire life is shaped around the idea that a lot of problems are caused by the aliens outside of the Hegemony.
More piracy! Arr. Him and Saseen should become BFFs and share peg leg stories.
I also like how he tries to have a heart of gold while still being stuck as a racist asshole. Fantastic!
Honestly, I have very little to critique. You did a solid job writing this up and I love the character. The modifications to the Kishock are fine, as well, as they don’t dramatically alter the gun and have some balancing characteristics.
No last name? Also, please pick one of the six default classes as a parent class. Cabal Rebel doesn’t really tell anybody much of what her combat proficiencies are past she’s biotic.
Given how the Cabals are a military unit, I doubt Traja’s parents would have been given the option to turn her over to the state, especially at such a young age. Plus, there isn’t really a way to tell if someone’s a biotic until their abilities begin to manifest in some measurable way. Having a lot of eezo in your blood isn’t necessarily an indicator you’re biotic; it might also be a sign of chronic illness due to exposure to a rather unpleasant substance, and I can see the weakened carapace being a legitimate health concern. Legally, I don’t think the Cabals could take her in until her conscription term of service came into being at 15. It would make more sense for her parents to put her up with the foster home until she became of age right off the bat.
I do like that she took the general perception turians had about humans at the time as her own, it does connect her to her culture, even if she’s largely ostracized and detached from it due to her being biotic. Having an independent streak from turian culture is a good start for someone who feels shunned by their society.
If she was physically incapable of dealing with training on Palaven, they likely would have sent her to one of the several colony worlds to serve in units primarily stationed there, but do consider that her freedom in the military would be very limited, and being insubordinate and failing in her obligations or refusal to follow orders could very well lead to a court martial, which can lead to imprisonment if not worse. Take it from me; when I was in the army, one of my fellow recruits got court martialed for not shaving for one day. Imagine what the turians would do, considering they demand discipline and selflessness like nobody else. Failing to clean a weapon property would be seen as negligence that would almost be as severe as if a comrade was killed because of a weapon malfunction, the person not maintaining their weapon would be more at fault than the enemy soldier who pulled the trigger. Also, killing medics is a huge no-no, because it leads to escalation. A rogue soldier killing enemy medics and disobeying orders would find themselves in serious shit with their superiors. The lightest I can see anyone getting off with that is being transferred to a support unit away from the front lines, but once again, a court martial is much, much more likely.
Also, she wouldn’t have a choice to “join” the Cabals as a turian biotic. She’d be enlisted immediately upon her conscription age and have no choice to serve in those units. I can’t stress this enough; turian biotics are very ostracised by their society, and the Cabals are very much like the segregated race regiments you used to see in the US in the early 20th century. The only difference is that Cabals act as a much more independent and specialized force that’s a lot more free-spirited than their contemporary counter parts and fulfill a role much more like army Rangers or even special forces, apart from the main force. They tend to do things a bit more unconventionally, which in a way should have worked better for Traja’s temperament.
Also, do take into consideration that her going AWOL will mean that she’d be wanted by the turian military to be put on trial. I doubt she’d care, but if she ever intended to return to another turian colony or her family, there would be a major obstacle in the way, given that she wasn’t discharged from the military or fulfilled her 15 year service term.
Overall, nothing too bad, but it does need to address the things I brought up before I could consider it for acceptance.
And so now we stumble across our first non-combat oriented character submissions, and a rather interesting one at that. It’s not every day somebody makes a character with abnormal birth defects that can prove to be a major liability later on, so that there’s an eye raiser.
While the idea of a basement-dwelling nerd with a super villain origin story is pretty awesome, especially how he turned on a father he had no love for out of petty revenge. One thing that does need to be addressed, however, is the fact that all turians have to do some form of civil service starting at 15. While the military is clearly the most common route, and if Aran is unfit for military service, he still would have been required to serve in some other capacity, likely in something related to technology. If he were going to make an escape, he’d have to do it before the turian conscription came knocking, well before he was 19. You may wish to adjust accordingly.
I do quite enjoy how his hubris came back to bite him in the ass when he went after Rebekha Siame, as it demonstrates that despite his considerable talents with technology and manipulating the Extranet, he’s still fallible and capable of being bested.
It’s a short back story, but I think it covers all the relevant information and it gives a solid outline for who Aran is and what he’s capable of. His talents off the battlefield are more than balanced out by his utter lack of physical prowess or combat experience, which should give him plenty of challenges if he’s ever stuck in a shootout. I like it!
It’s hard not to read this sheet without some Slavic-sounding folk tunes ringing in the back of my mind, I gotta admit.
I enjoy the fact he’s come from a solid academic background and pretty mundane life that carries on the same curiosity and youthful adventurousness that grips a lot of people and causes them to join the military or blow 3 months worth of wages on a backpacking trip across Europe. He comes across as a normal, abet intelligent man who struck out because he wanted to, not out of desperation or a silly, contrived reason.
His military service, other than his equipment failure (a shockingly common occurrence with military tech, I’m all but certain the future just made that shit WORSE), is pretty open and close book, which isn’t a bad thing! It gave him the experience he needed to make himself a valuable asset to his future employers. This all works rather nicely to build a foundation.
I know his parents are pissed at him for ditching academia for the military, but would it really be enough for them to disown him? There’s nothing else indicating he really had conflict with his family, so this seems really severe. Most people I know who went into the military against their parents’ wishes eventually gained their respect for succeeding, regardless of what they initially wanted for him. Would this really be so different, or was there more at play here?
Also, excellent reasoning for a quarian being exiled, or just saying he was there, “Just ‘cause.”
I like the work in that started Iosif’s troubles with Siame Industries, especially after he was just finding his own pace with his two fellow freelancer partners. I wasn’t actually expecting Jedrah to be such a ruthless bastard, but selling Iosif to batarians for even more money was just damn cold. I love it.
I think his experience with batarians would definitely give him another thing in common with Tanya, as well as their prior Systems Alliance military service. They both have pretty similar upbringings and terms of service, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not finding a lot to question with this sheet, it’s very solid so far. He’s an average guy with a unique set of skills who had a load of bad luck.
You may wish to expand on the slave revolt a bit more, because you can be sure it’s probably not the only time it happened, and it would likely be very difficult for Iosif to escape the camp undetected and steal an unattended shuttle. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it certainly wouldn’t be easy. This is certainly one area I would like to see expanded and better explained, because escaping slavery should never come across as a pretty trivial matter that just required a few belligerent uprisers. Plus, escaping from the planet’s air defences and radar is also a concern with a shuttle. I would think it would be pretty easy to track a shuttle if they knew it was missing and reported it right away.
I’m not sure if you’re implying Siame Industries were the ones that sold Iosif into slavery, but they would be vehemently against that. It’s hard to maintain a reputation as a moral, law-abiding organization if you’re implicated in the slave trade, especially since the Systems Alliance is one of your biggest contractors. A corrupt officer working off the books might be an option, but do try not to assume too much about SI’s morals and activities until the game gets going. Remember, what they’re doing isn’t exactly villainous; it’s largely inconvenient to us crime loving sons of bitches.
All and all, other than a few minor squabbles, I like it!
Hey! Good to see you again Legion. I hope you can be a bit more active this time around! Either way, I’m throwing you into the Legacy Player list, so you won’t be taking up one of the 8 slots.
And so we have the magnificently bearded Viking man. Hardcore. So hardcore that he apparently always had the awesome scruff by the time he was 15. He must have never shaved since he hit puberty, Jesus.
For the most part, his young years seem a-okay to me, but I’m kind of concerned about how easy it was for him to find and slip into his mother’s gang. Nothing suggested he knew any of those gang members and it wasn’t until a few years prior that he was even made aware of the fact his mother was in a gang. How would he know how to seek them out and how far would a family name go with them? He has no criminal record and a shining academic record, not exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to drop all of that to become a criminal, even if he had a justifiable grudge, although if he was raised by his aunt and uncle, would he really feel such an emotional attachment to his parents to make him drop everything in the name of revenge? It’s also a bit of a jump that someone who likely never fired a gun before in his life or got in worse than a fist fight would suddenly become a competent killer, coming out on top of a 2-1 odds situation without having some form of training or experience. He pretty much goes from honour roll student to hardcore gangbanger at the flip of a switch… kind of concerning.
I think it would honestly work better if his act of vengeance against the Godz came about after a few years of running with his gang or the black market like he had been between 2158 and 2161, where he was kind of eased into that kind of life and had an opportunity to at least become familiar with it and violence. It’s certainly a lot more believable than like I said, student to cold killer in such a short period of time. Hell, even Batman didn’t just wake up one day, put on a stupid suit, and start fighting crime. He dedicated years of his life to training before taking on Gotham City. He had to start somewhere, Henrik should, too.
If his Revenant is modified to fire faster, do keep in mind that the thermal sink would likely overheat much, much faster. Make sure you take that into consideration in your posts if he’s doing a lot of shooting.
The return of RSC! How did I know Marianna’s mom would get involved in this? :P Also, was Henrik always involved with the Red Devils, or was it a recent position? Might want to elaborate a bit. Also, why would RSC just leave Henrik there? He was involved with a gang they were trying to take down and actively trying to kill him. Wouldn’t they shoot him and leave him for dead, or apprehend him? It would be like killing Zaeed and leaving Viggo because he wasn’t the one in charge of the Blue Suns. Doesn’t really add up. I also know that RSC is your personal creation, but would they really hire a guy they were fighting before hand? Siame Industries would only hire Hendrik if he was signed into a contract with them and cleared enough of a background check, so if you think he would have worked with them, keep that in mind. They’re a professional force, and while they do need to bolster their numbers with capable recruits, they also don’t want a reputation for hiring a bunch of thugs.
Overall, pretty good! Just change a couple things around and it’s solid.
Also, I know the Revenant is a light-machine gun, but it is also a shoulder-fired weapon, so it fits well enough into the assault rifle category. There’s no reason Henrik couldn’t pick up an M8 and use it efficiently in a similar manner.
Off the bat, why would the hanar hire asari and turians to train their assassins, considering they have their own trained and experienced drell assassins that are still a part of the Compact? Also, how would they know about his biotic abilities when he was a baby? Biotic powers don’t manifest in infancy. They also don’t guarantee someone would be an appropriate choice to be an assassin; it’s impossible to know if someone’s going to be any good at something when they’re still incapable of speech. And once again, why would he need alien tutors when the hanar and drell are more than capable of providing the education, supplies, and training he’d be receiving? Plus, why is his training so much more important than any other drell to warrant so much attention and extra resources?
Wait, why the hell would the hanar be ordering assassinations and coups on the Citadel? I’m pretty sure it would start looking suspicious as hell that political enemies of the hanar start dropping dead all over the place, and the drell body guard that usually follows them is unaccounted for. And why would a volus councilman have connections to a gang leader? If the word of that got out (and it probably would, see White House Blowjob above), it would be an instant trip to prison for the councilman. What could he possibly be getting out of having criminal connections? Also, how would the councilman know that there was an assassin going after him? Did Roku broadcast his intentions earlier, or hanar masters tipped the guy off for whatever reason? It doesn’t add up. Also, a krogan mercenary’s sole purpose would not be to kill a single assassin. It’s another job, not their life purpose.
Once again, how was Roku identified to the point a council member would implicate himself in criminal activities by hiring guns to kill his assassin instead of notifying C-Sec of the plot? And since C-Sec is investigating the hanar who hired him, don’t they realize firing an asset they’ve trained since childhood is not only a horrible waste of resources but it also implicates them? Threatening Roku with criminal action for not returning their property is adorable, considering they were using him as a hitman with a pile of illegal killings behind him. It makes no sense for the hanar just to cut him loose because of one botched job that should have never been an issue to begin with.
And I should have emphasized this more, but Rule number 1: [/I] You God Mod or your character turns out to be Cerberus Agent Mary Sue, expect a horrific death and no refund. This includes irritatingly perfect characters with relationships with characters from the video games[/I]
Should have definitely highlighted that I do not want people to entangle their character histories with established lore characters. There’s dozens, if not hundreds, of organizations on Omega. Having him immediately go work for Aria shrinks the universe and does not bode well for the creativity aspect. I really do not want someone to have a canon character theirs knew show up as some kind of deus ex machina, like if the group was on Omega and suddenly Roku goes “Oh, it’s cool! I know Aria” and attempts to resolve the situation like that because of some lame attempt at plot leverage.
And now we got the obvious Archangel knock off inspiration. Terrific. So now Aria suddenly doesn’t care about the going ons in her station and Roku betrays her for no given reason and somehow manages to survive years after targeting her men even though she has infinitely more resources and manpower than Roku. And is there some kind of directory for assassins? How the hell did he manage to get a group of Archangel knock off assassins together to take on Aria? Are they all suicidal? This is a groan inducing attempt to introduce a badass factor to the character, and it also starts to break rule number 5., Original characters only, thanks. Obvious rip offs of established characters will also not be tolerated. I was hoping your screen name wouldn’t be an obvious bit of foreshadowing.
Oh, and he fights Aria one on one and survives. Do I need to remind you she subdued the entirety of Omega and the fact that her enemies typically don’t survive encounters with her? She is not to be fucked with.
Seriously, I don’t think you know what we’re going for here.
Groan.
The exact same thing I was talking about last time around about universe shrining canon character connections is a big no-no. This also has the added complication of if multiple characters know the same canon character, then there’s a conflict of interest and interpretation of lore. Do away with it.
And what kind of father would force his 11 year old boy to kill a man? And chances are, it wouldn’t be Aria’s forces that are owed “protection fees”, that would fall under one of the many gangs that control the various districts, kind of like how the plague zone in Omega in ME2 was controlled by the Blue Suns, where a lot of the residents you see say offered reasonable prices for their services as an impromptu security force. Also, why would Aria let Kalux’s father bring an 11 year old kid to represent her? You don’t act as the de facto leader of one of the most powerful hubs in the galaxy by running a sloppy organization. It’s insanity. And an 11 year old boy murdering a man in cold blood turned him into a “sarcastic cynic” instead of a traumatized mess? Remarkable.
And once again, why would Aria let a 14 year old kid represent her for any sort of assignment that isn’t delivering newspapers or anything trivial? Seriously, a young kid barely out of puberty is NOT going to be trained as a child soldier, let alone somehow become more badass than his father after 3 years. I guess decades of experience don’t matter when you have a child prodigy.
Woo, fantastic. A 5 year coma. Here comes the brain damage and physical ailments from being a stationary lump for so many years, here’s the developmental pay off…
Damn it.
Convenient his father, who was likely the only person keeping him alive instead of having the plug pulled on a vegetable, is suddenly a traitor who killed his mother for… what reason? I’m glad he had absolutely no reservations about killing his father, because that would just be unbelievable, wouldn’t it?
Oh great, now we have Zaeed Massani as his BFF. Seriously, stop digging up canon characters to try to flesh out the lack of character.
And if everyone got super wealthy from being a mercenary, every one of them would retire after ten years on the job with a penthouse on Bekenstein with nightly escorts to screw in their beds covered in wooly mammoth fur bed sheets. Also, drinking and gambling problems are not things you associate with someone being wealthy. Ever hear that song, House of the Rising Sun? It’s exactly about that. He should be terminally broke and crawling from job to job to fuel his self-destructive habits.
Also, if he owed Eclipse money, how is he still alive if Aria shot up a merchant for refusing to pay his own fees? Glad to know Eclipse, one of the most powerful factions on Omega, is terrified of an alcoholic turian who has easily traceable vices. Good thing they didn’t pay off the owner of Kalux’s favorite casino to take him out back to be shot or poison one of his many drinks. It’s not like that’s not a common occurrence on Omega, except for that batarian that poisons every human that he serves while working in Afterlife with Aria’s full knowledge.
Siame would not hire a career criminal out of Omega, full stop. Also, if they did, he would not get a choice of where he is assigned. Siame Industries is not a vessel for his vendetta fulfillment.
Also, you’re taking a LOT of liberties with an organization that you don’t know anything about because I haven’t even introduced them in the game, and instead of fact checking with me to put SI in your back story, you’re basically taking control of something that’s a GM controlled story faction for your own purposes. I cannot claim to be a fan of anybody doing this, ESPECIALLY if you’re claiming your character is becoming a star in an organization that, once again, you have no idea how it works, who’s involved, or even what they fully do.
They also wouldn’t create a unit and then let it dissolve to become the very thing they’re trying to stamp out of the galaxy. That’s ridiculous.
One thing I like off the hop with this sheet is how the typical quarian upbringing lays the seeds for Kali’s eventual fall from quarian society, and gives room for her skills to develop with her interests in AI technology. I suspect that people like Admiral Xen who have a fascination with what makes the geth work and AI technologies wouldn’t be such a rarity (she is an Admiral, after all. She has to have no small amount of supporters), and Kali fits that nicely. I’m on the fence if you should mention that her path would be on that would eventually lead Tali’s father to death, but since it has no bearing on the character and she wasn’t directly responsible for his own mistakes, I’m okay with it. I do like that that Kali subscribed to quarian society unquestioningly, and from all appearances was a model child and young citizen of the flotilla, as well as her pretenses of leaving on her pilgrimage with good intentions. It makes her inevitable fall all that much more profound.
I should point out that all quarians leaving on the flotilla have a familiarity with how to fight and defend themselves, since they are expected to run into trouble. Just about every quarian you run into in Mass Effect is more than capable of holding their own in a fight, and Kali would be no different. The rest of her adaptation to Omega makes a fair deal of sense, so that’s more of a minor aside than a critique.
This next paragraph I absolutely adore because it would be such a revelation for a quarian to have something a simple that everyone takes for granted such a lock and privacy, as well as space to expand and explore her own personality. I thought that was a fantastic bit of insight, and honestly, bravo. Her love of such a messy, chaotic environment seems like a natural extension of her personality and a realization of something she’d always been craving but not aware of what she wanted. The sense of loyalty and devotion she has to the good people of her adopted dwelling as a parallel is honestly touching, and I think it’s once again a fantastic bit of insight I may have never considered.
Seriously, well done. I love this sheet.
I got a good chuckle out of that picture, dear god man, welcome back.
We already have a lovely stubborn batarian personality that sees humans as inferior and needs to be the guy in charge; I can already tell this guy’s going to be an absolutely joy to not get along with. XD And fuck, he takes trophies like dog tags and displays them openly. It’s going to be very hard for Tanya to not want to shoot him in the face upon first meeting.
This guy has had a hardcore upbringing, and I’m kind of happy (I have no idea if that’s the right way to put it; it’s pretty fucking horrible) you remembered those cranial implants from ME1’s Mindoir survivor. It’s bad enough that batarian society is all about propaganda and twisting public perception of galaxy, but Valok’s basically had his ideals beat into him. I’m not sure if a kid could endure all of that without no small amount of trauma, since that’s still a huge developmental phase in his life. You may wish to explore the worst of it happening a bit later in his life when he wasn’t so vulnerable, but either way, it’s intense and certainly makes a harsh contrast to other characters.
“During the fighting he watched as some of his troops slit the throats of human children in a bid to frighten the Marines,”
I have no idea if that’s a call back to what Tanya experienced, but this is already crazy that he was apart of the Mindoir slaver raids on the opposite side of Tanya, so that alone is a “holy shit” revelation that I’m happy you decided to pay homage to, and his own twisted perspective on the events is fantastic. It’s interesting he can reconcile the image of a proud, honourable batarian warrior with a slaver. It’s quite the contrast. Great research into the Skyllian Blitz, by the way. I have nothing to suggest to be addressed there.
I have no idea how Valok’s going to interact with the characters in this story, but it’s a damn interesting thing to look forward to.
Hey Haemonculus! Been forever seen I’ve seen you around. Didn’t recognize you with the different screen name at first. ;)
You have a lot of character quirks and tells that I find quite amusing, I hope you manage to keep all that consistent.
Prize for the most dysfunctional and intrinsically violent quarian family goes to the Zanis’. Glad to know not everyone subscribes to the happy family tendencies of quarian society so rigidly. It’s good that you do demonstrate there are repercussions for a lot of their antics; murder is pretty frowned upon, no matter how justified it’s claimed to be, for instance.
Loral is remarkably pragmatic and cynical for a young quarian, I assume being raised by a family of shit disturbers pretty much ensured he’d have his beliefs shaped in such a fashion to see trying to reclaim the homework from the geth as a pointless and suicidal endeavor and quarian dependence on technology and being vagabonds as an embarrassing failure of the species rather than a virtue of adaptation. It’s rather compelling, especially since he did apply himself to quarian society in an appropriate manner for most of his early life. It’s good to see his own lapses were a progressive thing rather than a sudden switch.
Holy shit, he didn’t show up on Omega first thing. That seems to be the go-to spot for most of our applications. :P I’m also glad you show that the Citadel, in many ways, is nowhere near as accepting as Omega is. For most, it’s a relatively easy place to get by, but it’s absolute hell for a quarian.
I was about to ask about how exactly a slaver/ pirate ship got by C-Sec, but you mentioned it was disguised as a shipping frigate, so that satisfies me, so long as the slavers weren’t marching around the Citadel, blatantly armed. Remember; C-Sec isn’t a bunch of incompetent fools. These guys would have to have a pretty solid operation to get away with their actions. Likewise, Loral’s overthrow of his captors is actually a pretty cool read, it shows how resourceful him and the other slaves were. A good write up so far of his so far rather exciting pilgrimage. The crate of jammed guns was a nice touch to show his vindictive side, although it conflicts somewhat with him telling the other slaves not to kill the slavers when they were fighting for their freedom; I assume it’s because he didn’t want people to have that on their conscious, or to be caught with a pile of corpses when they reached secured space?
This is actually really interesting; I think this is the first quarian sheet where a quarian has actually completed his or her pilgrimage I’ve ever seen.
It’s cool that despite all the troubles he ran across, Loral kept true to his ethics and desire to improve the lives of quarian people through experimenting with their biology rather than trying to reclaim their homeworld. I’m also glad it wasn’t a rash decision for him to try his experiment on a quarian test subject, but rather a calculated risk. It seems to run very well with not only his personal motives, but his family legacy. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.
My primary concern comes with him injecting half of his ship’s crew; it seems like a rather desperate and reckless thing to do for someone who had been so cautious with his research up until that point. I understand he thinks that he’s on a time limit and needs to have a wide test research study group, but would he really be the kind of guy to risk the lives of dozens of people in the name of his research? It seems like something that’s pretty callous out of nowhere. Either way, you’ve put a lot of thought into exactly how he’d produce, distribute, and the attributes of the virus, as well as security precautions the quarians would take. I’m actually reasonably impressed at the attention to detail. This reminds me a lot of the plot in Rainbow Six to unleash Ebola-Zaire through the Olympic air conditioning system to infect most of the world with a hugely fatal virus. That’s a compliment; this is kind of chilling to read. Loral’s insane.
Also, the symptoms of the virus in the victims is positively grisly. You must have had a field day writing all of that up!
Overall, a very good read and a solid sheet. It’s been a while since I’ve read something on RPG that gave me chills, but this fit the bill. Good job, you mad quarian bastard, you!
And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the chosen 8.
Aran Nykerius
Saseen V'nalas
Daryna Elehex
Kesik Bal'uim
Iosif Sevchenko
Kali'Zael nar Stalingrad
Ka’Birheil Valok
Loral'Zanis vas Korvus
And of course, the reserve roster in case we have anyone drop out. These sheets were good, but were edged out (in some cases only ever so slightly!) by the initial 8. Should an opening pop up, I will PM the owners of these characters and ask if they are still interested in participating.
Traja
Hildia'Naryha nar Shellen
In all cases, there was a lot of fantastic effort put into these sheets, and it's been an absolute joy to see the response to this game!
Nyxella
TokyoPewPew
Tlaloc