STATUS:
i hear dies irae bells ringing in my ossicles every time i claw from the dirt and peer wistfully through the rpg tomb doors thinking, "one last job..." another bony finger of the monkey's paw curls up
2 yrs ago
Current
i hear dies irae bells ringing in my ossicles every time i claw from the dirt and peer wistfully through the rpg tomb doors thinking, "one last job..." another bony finger of the monkey's paw curls up
5 yrs ago
i can't believe it's already christmas today
2
likes
5 yrs ago
*skeletal hand emerges from an unmarked grave* the drive thru forgot my side order
2
likes
6 yrs ago
Imagine having an opinion on rpg dot com
6 yrs ago
Let’s play a game where you try to sext me and I call the police
1
like
Bio
Maybe the real plot was the friends we made along the way. [Last Updated: February 1, 2025]
I'm too old for this shit and I have learned not to share too much of my personal life on the internet. I earned a 4-year English degree, work as an English and writing tutor at a local college, a communications copywriter for a non-profit, and I'm a development editor at an academic publishing company. That means I word good.
I like literature and poetry. I first started writing as a hobby with online roleplay at the start of 2010, and I've slowly drifted away from it in recent years. I enjoy most genres, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites, they would be sci-fi and high fantasy—heavy emphasis on the high fantasy. Some of my favorite moments have come from Elder Scrolls roleplays, since it appeals to the D&D nerd in me.
I have a tendency to get carried away with making my character sheets. I've always been a fan of characters overcoming their weaknesses and obstacles and I try to make that show in many of my characters. Therefore, many of the narratives I explore come from a place of vulnerability, but I try to balance the heavy themes with light whimsy. Sometimes though that door swings the other way and I lean into the whimsy while sneaking in moments of vulnerability.
I also try to research whatever it is I'm writing about so that I'm not just spitting into the wind. Unless that's what my character is doing, in which case I try to make sure that's made clear in my writing. Sometimes that gets in the way, like in the case of blacksmith character I wanted to make but felt compelled to study up on blacksmithing first (don't fall into that trap, no one really gives a shit).
It’s kind of hard to define my style, as I’m influenced by all sorts of literary movements and schools of criticism; dark romanticism, modernism, post-modernism, Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism—I have a lot of isms in my pocket. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite dark romantic authors, Dickinson is one of my favorite naturalist poets, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost—they’ve all in some ways informed my writing, as well as many others. I even tend to look to some of my fellow guild mates for inspiration or analyze what I like about their writing and see what I can do to improve my own through their example.
All across the deck of the Phoenix, her passengers scurried and made themselves busy to make her space-ready. The engineer and his helper tinkered and toyed as they made sure the drive and engines were warmed up and operational, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. The pilots on the bridge tested their systems and played their music, while the droid co-pilot swiveled around on the actuator in its waist and blinked one of its photoreceptors to face Baarsuth and give him a thumbs-up and a wink. The others downstairs were preoccupied with their own matters and squaring away business where it was needed. The vessel was alive and bustling with activity. From the outside, the pilots' activities could be seen as they exercised the spoilers, ailerons, the rudder, and warming up the stabilizers, maneuvering jets, and the attitude and lateral thrusters. Heat distorted the light as the repulsorlifts began whirring – any minute now, the Phoenix would be ready to take off.
The sound of static buzzed across the ship, until the sound of Zekha's familiar voice blared across the separate decks, "Attention crew; it's your engineer speaking. Our brave and noble vessel is prepared for departure from a mechanical standpoint. The bridge is yours, captain, take us to the inky voids of space and to a land of cheap liquor and women if you would."
The speakers crackled a bit, before a different voice began to speak, one which belonged to the apathetic twi'lek mercenary who the crew had met in the cargo bay, “Pilots, set a course for his mother's house.”
“Ah, I do miss home cooking.”
Crackling ensued once again as the agitated voice of the captain came alive through the speakers, “Keep the ship's channel clean of gabbin’. Baarsuth, Bo – make preparations for take off. Engage inertial compensators and artificial gravity generators. Light up the afterburners.”
B-0 listened to the chatter over the intercom with quite a bit of confusion. Were they really charting a course for a place with cheap liquor and women? If that was the case why would they not stay on Alderaan? But wait...now they are going to the captains mother's house? That seemed like a strange choice as well. B-0 certainly wasn't a creation built for jokes or sarcasm, luckily she was only the co-pilot on this trip. So it came as a relief to the droid when the captain came over the speakers, giving real instructions.
Baarsuth sprung into action. His hands flew across the control panels as if the ship were his. While he turned on the ship’s artificial gravity and engaged the inertial compensators, B-0 activated the navigational software. The droid worked efficiently. Her arms reaching across the controls in front of her while her head swiveled, taking in the various meters above them. After a few moments of button pressing and toggle...toggling...B-0 turned to face Baarsuth. She let out a series of beeps and trills that could loosely be translated as: Let's do this thing. Baarsuth smiled and turned the music up. A new song was playing, one with a thrashing, tank-like guitar that almost sounded like an engine revving. The music player’s screen revealed the song was “Hyperdrive” by Starfleet Cru. Baarsuth’s hands rested on the primary controls, his finger hovering just above the button to engage the thrusters.
A few moments later, Zekha was entering the cockpit, looking around for any obvious deficiencies. Other than the general wear and tear of such an old heap, it wasn’t a death trap, so that much was comforting. “So, droid, who made you?” he asked, climbing up onto the back of B-0’s seat to get a better look at the bird-like head of the co-pilot. “What is your function?”
“Stop distractin’ my droid, Zekha,” Baarsuth shouted, glaring at the engineer. “We’re workin’ here.”
“It’s a droid. Droids don’t get distracted, isn’t that right pal? You can process information faster than our squishy brains ever could. Don’t let Baarsuth tell you you aren’t better than him in every conceivable way.” Zekha retorted conspiratorially towards B-0.
B-0 had tried to ignore Zekha's pestering. She was trying to work, and the sooner they got this ship off the ground the sooner she could continue her search for the Force. He had asked her some, frankly, personal questions. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of an answer, that was what he wanted her to do. She tried to get back to work, her motors whirling a little louder than before. It only got worse as Baarsuth joined in.
Droid. Droid. My Droid. Droid.
She suddenly slammed one of her metallic hands onto the control console, dragging her hand off of it with a grating screech.
"Bo." She said. Her voice remained jittery and robotic, her facial expression permanently neutral, but her body language read irritation.
The ship lurched a tad, catching everyone slightly off guard, and Shai especially as she was climbing the flight of stairs up towards the bridge, but she managed to keep her footing when she lunged for a tight deathgrip on the handrails beside her. She felt a large hand that was suddenly and firmly set against her back.
“Careful now,” the crew could hear the captain say from behind her, “if this piece of junk has got one thing going for her, it's her afterburners. They're practically brand new since the old ones were blasted off. They've got enough kick to them in just warming up to make the Phoenix jump on her landing gear.”
As the two stepped onto the bridge, Varen gave an appraising look over the bickering crew surrounding with an unsympathetic countenance. With a sigh he grumbled, “Among all of us fleshy sacks of shit, Bo is the only one who was built for space travel and won’t blow up like a bloody balloon inside a vacuum. Can you brats please not piss them off? Baarsuth, start taking us up.”
“Aye, cap’n.”
“Where’s Liak’ykam?”
Liak’ykam had been taking her tour of the ship’s mess hall, which was a rather flattering term for a glorified pantry. The cooking equipment was pretty minimal, and most of it quite foreign to Liak’ykam. Fortunately, despite the Basic she did not know how to read, the majority of it seemed fairly intuitive. It had been quite some time since she had prepared food - truly prepared food, with proper materials and everything. She chuckled at herself, at the feeling of giddiness she got looking over the different spices (labels were useless; she identified them far more easily by smell) and the various foodstuffs. Most of it smelled synthetic, factory-made, the exact opposite of what food could be. Perhaps this is for the metal one. There was a supply of real ingredients, and not nutri-paste or something equally abominable. If it wasn’t too much of a bother, she might ask the Captain Varen Kray to stop at the next spaceport and pick up some actual food. Surely they could barter something worthwhile for it, and she was certain everyone would feel better and do their jobs better with Wookiee-sized portions to sustain them.
Liak’ykam took her hood off for a moment, feeling a bit warm in the cramped kitchen. She supposed if the next planet had wildlife - and she certainly hoped it did - she could go hunting while the others did whatever it was they were doing. As she perused the various stores, attempting to plan some sort of fresh, coherent cuisine from the mismatch of ingredients designed to last until the heat-death of the universe, she felt an itching of sorts. She could not hear the Captain Varen Kray ask, “Where’s Liak’ykam?” from the bridge - could she? She heard it in her ears, like an echo from far away, and in the pull of her feet in that direction. Liak’ykam thought she felt something deeper, as well, something like a tarentatek waking from slumber, but she could pay that no mind. Liak’ykam walked onto the bridge, feet falling silently even for such a large Wookiee, her walking stick held gently in her hand, as the Captain finished asking where she was.
“Here, Captain Varen Kray,” her translator warbled. She placed her hood back up and gave them all a polite nod of the head. The ship rumbled to life beneath them and Liak’ykam - for a moment of childlike panic - braced herself against the wall, steadying herself with her walking stick as the afterburners thrusted them forwards. She chuckled. “Forgive me,” she said, smiling. “This is my second flight. What do you need for me to do…? “ she almost called him little one, because the Captain Varen Kray was quite small, and so young, too, but she did not think he would appreciate that on his ship. The other young ones had been fighting. Nothing serious, like kath pups snapping at each others’ legs, but fighting nonetheless.
The pilots took the ship up, B-O and Barsuuth handling the controls with practiced ease. Under Kray’s watch, they input the coordinates as they took the slow route out of the atmosphere, building up speed as they broke the pull of gravity and hit open space. The coordinates for Tatoooine were punched in, the ship lurched, and rocked, then made the jump to lightspeed. Liak’ykam braced herself against the wall with one hand and with the walking stick in her other, feeling the rush of speed low in her stomach.
The ship dropped out of lightspeed and Tatooine was there in the distance, a brown desert hanging in empty space. They’d come in at the edge of the system as the captain preferred - it was better to arrive with a little room for maneuvering, should something less hospitable than a welcoming party ever be waiting for them. Varen Kray looked over his pilots idly, everything on the Phoenix having worked just as it should -
Then the comm system burst with static for a moment, drawing their attention. It warbled, the connection weak, then finally came through. The pilots adjusted the controls for a moment, attempting to get a stronger lock on the signal. It repeated itself every few seconds, a short burst set on automatic repeat. It wasn’t far away from where they were.
“A distress signal,” the captain said. He nodded to the intercom and told Barsuuth, “Get everyone up here to the bridge. We have matters to discuss.”
Following Barsuuth’s relay, the crew assembled in the bridge. It was cramped and they were slightly too close to one another for comfort and the distress signal kept repeating automatically. “Nothing discernible or special,” the captain announced. “A standard distress call, just far enough from Tatooine that their port officials wouldn’t pick up on it. Anyone jumping right to lightspeed out the docks might miss it as well. No telling how long it’s been going.”
“Is it just me or is that distress signal getting closer?” Woo’rah commented sardonically, glancing toward the captain with a knowing look. “Maybe they’re politely informing us they’re coming to kill us all.”
Liak’ykam stayed quiet - it was not her place to speak in affairs of which she knew little. The taller hairless one seemed quite convinced it was a trap. Liak’ykam was in agreement - she had seen it before, in Kashyyyk, when they recorded the screams of the little children to lure them away from the village. She drummed her fingers against the walking stick, limbering them up. At the same time, she did not know how these distress signals worked. Perhaps it was legitimate. If they were looking to prey on those who would help others, they might deserve justice. Perhaps it was not their place. She stayed quiet and listened.
"I came all the way just to inspect this ship." Shai said with the hint of smile on her face, gesturing with the dataslate she had been given.
“Look at that, a sense of humor. I never would have thought.” Woo’rah bemused, idly chewing on her chewstim.
After a moment of thought, Shai said, “Would you mind if I stayed here for now? It's so... crowded up there. Everyone talks too much.”
“Now you know why I'd rather spend my free time down here.” She replied matter-of-factly. “Fine by me if you're as much a fan of small talk as I am.”
“I should have brought my own hammock.” Shai responded dryly as she searched around the cargo hold for a place that looked comfortable enough to withstand the roughness of takeoff. “Maybe the Captain will let me move my bunk down here.”
“I doubt it. Varen likes to keep his crew with the rest of his crew. You’ve heard it before: the crew comes first.” The other twi’lek threw her hands up melodramatically. “Crew this, crew that - it gets repetitive and boring, but credits be damned if he isn’t gonna treat you lot like his own stinking family. He’s good people. Even if he doesn’t like showing it.”
“Besides, the captain knows I like my space.” She continued, and then she leaned in a little closer to Shai and with a smirk she says, “He also knows he needs a place to keep all the dangerous spacers and mercenaries like me away from his darling little crew. Just in case.”
As close as Woo’rah was to her, Shai didn’t notice until just now that there were at least one or two teeth behind the escort’s lips that looked as though they were sharpened.
“Please,” Shai mused as she took a step back and pushed two crates together, forming a makeshift bed, “you don’t look that dangerous to me. Looks can be deceiving though.” The smaller twi’lek added with a sly smile as she scooted her ‘bed’ into the corner of the cargo hold and climbed on top of it. “Either way, I’ll try to stay out of your lekku while I’m down here.” the Twi’lek Exile finished, before pushing her own lekku onto her chest and putting her hood over her eyes.
“Be glad I’m not being paid to kill you, then.” She responded, her dull eyes lighting up for a moment until--
“Woo’rah.” A gravelly voice snarled from behind. The mercenary whipped around to see Captain Kray standing not too far behind her with an irritated and disapproving look on his face. That face then turned to look at Shai, and he said, “Miss Rivelia, a moment of your time in my cabin, if you would. At once.”
The captain turned around and marched through a door not too far away from the pair of twi’leks on the bow-starboard section of the cargo bay.
Woo’rah sighed and sat back at her work station, propping her feet on a strange-looking case of opaque flexiglass. With no effort made to hide her sarcasm, she said, “Time to pack your bags already? Shame. I was looking forward to being pestered some more.”
Shai heard the Captain’s voice and hopped to attention out of habit, her hood still over her head. “Aye sir, I’ll be there in a moment.” The smaller twi’lek answered in a neutral tone. What could he need? Had she done something wrong? After the Captain had excused himself from the room, Shai relaxed and gave a half salute-half wave to Woo’rah, “Oh, I won’t leave you that easily. Try not to miss me too much.” Shai Rivelia pushed her hood back and followed the Captain into his cabin.
“We don’t have much time left before take off, so I’m going to make this quick.” Shai heard as soon as she stepped through the door. Looking up, the captain’s face looked grave and his eyes were staring daggers into her. She also found herself in what looked to be an office, except the office also had a heavy arsenal that was mounted upon the walls.
“I don’t know where you came from, and frankly I don’t care. But that is the last time I want to see that blasted device, do ya hear? I won’t have myself any rotten war following my crew and I around the galaxy. There’s only one side anyone is allowed to take on this ship, and that side is the Phoenix. Do I make myself clear?”
Shai stood ramrod straight, eyes fixed perfectly ahead, face blank. She had been dressed down like this in the past. This was not new to her. The reason, of course, was. Usually it was her Sith betters doing the reproaching. Not her being reproached for being a Sith. Well it was not exactly that, but the Captain didn’t seem to care if she was a Sith or a Jedi. Not too surprising. Shai Rivelia had noticed throughout her travels that many hated anyone who used a lightsaber no matter which side they were on. Not that she used one anymore. The weapon was dead. Just like the Sith who wielded it.
“Crystal, sir.” the twi’lek responded, her voice betraying nothing of her inner turmoil.
“Convince me.”
“Sir?” Shai responded, slightly confused and tensing up. What was he asking her to do? Destroy the rest of the blade in front of him? She couldn’t. It was one of her only possessions. To lose it… Would be to lose the last part of her past. She felt her whole body tense up at the thought. The past hurt to hold on to, but sometimes we hold on to things that hurt us. Or maybe it was impossible to let go completely. The twi’lek didn’t know the answer.
“I’ll give you time to figure out how,” the captain said, “you’ll have until we land on Tatooine.”
Now what did I say? I said a couple days, and it's been a couple days. Ask and you shall receive!
Some notes:
I did a bit of editing to the OP to make it look a little cleaner and easier to understand.
This includes changes to the Carrying Capacity secondary stat. Instead of measuring it by pounds, we're doing it by kilograms as the Star Wars universe does. This makes for an easier time trying to figure out our weight. Now 1 Power = 5kg and 1 Fitness = 2.5kg. As a reminder, Carrying Capacity only governs being able to perform actions with a certain amount of weight. Your total capacity would be 150% of your CC. Be sure to make some of those edits on your sheet in the character tab for future reference.
I also created a group Discord chat for us should you wish to use it. PM for details!
<BAARSUTH> Check: Computer Use (Acumen) Dice: 1d20 Bonus: +6 (+Advantage from <B-0>) Roll: 14 Result: 20 (SUCCESS)
Oh yeah, there's nothing to worry about. <B-0>'s analysis of the unfamiliar piloting panel was able to quickly and ably guide <BAARSUTH> through the process as well. Everything looks crystal clear from bridge. Lock-threat warning system looks good, stabilizers were in the green, and though the target tracker was kind of spotty, the micro-maneuvering controls were beautiful. The only peculiar thing worth noticing was the fact that there were multiple telesponders that were hidden in obscure locations on the bridge, and you doubt you found them all. Normally a ship would only need one, since all it did was automatically transmit the ship's identification profile to starports and military vessels.
<LIAK'YKAM> and <ZEKHA>
You know what I say when the characters have to perform a new or possibly challenging task? It's roll time.
<LIAK'YKAM> This isn't gonna end well. Check: Repair (Acumen) Dice: 1d20 Bonus: 0 Roll: 13 Result: 13 (SUCCESS) That's unexpected.
Between the technophilic misanthrope and a tribal elder who thought star ships made great pottery for wroshyr trees, the two of you managed to take care of things pretty well as far as pre-flight checklists go. <LIAK'YKAM>, you did as you were told and followed those directions diligently. While you might not have much if any knowledge of star ships at your disposal, you certainly aren't a stupid wookie. Some things your dug partner had you do were self-explanatory: make sure the needles don't go into the red, make sure nothing bright was flashing, make sure that nothing loud was banging. The last might've been a little trickier, given the hum of the hyperdrive, but so far nothing sounded like there was a terentatek on board the Phoenix. That only thing you might have found of note was the fact that some wiring was protruding from a panel of the... you don't know what it is, but you figure that <ZEKHA> could probably tell you. Speaking of...
<ZEKHA>, admittedly you found it slightly more challenging a task than you anticipated it to be, but that could also very well be the case of working with worn-down and dated equipment. Stuff so old that you might have forgotten had existed and had to take a minute to remember how to operate them, so you might have made a mental note to obtain a newer model of the power outlay differentiator and the alluvial dampers for the hyperdrive. One particular thing of note you found was an issue with a heated solenoid for the fuel reversal system that fed fuel to the ship from two individual tanks. You know from your experience that it has two purposes: the first is how firing from one side and then the other helps with the center of balance of the ship so that one tank doesn't get much heavier than the other. The second purpose is to keep any one engine from getting too hot. When a reversal is happening, combustion air is also reversed. One valve closes while the other one opens, and the valve that closes directs the exhaust through a flush vent and into space where it doesn't suffocate and kill the crew. The bad solenoid controlled combustion air. For you, it was a simple fix of replacing the wiring of the solenoid's coil, but you also know that it's often the simple fixes that kept exhaust from flooding the ship and slowly killing everyone on board. Nice job.
<SHAI RIVELLIA>
When <ZEKHA> sent you off with the duty to perform the pre-flight checklists, the job itself was mostly simple. There were a few things with a box next to it that you were supposed to indicate with a check mark or the letter x, and some of those things might have included whether or not certain cooling units were running properly, if loose objects were either secured or put away, any loose panels or missing equipment - then there were other fields such as whether the coupling motivator was giving you the correct readings or if the condition of the hyperwave emissions enhancement filter was good. Such things were far and away from your responsibilities on the last ship you were on. As you proceeded into the cargo bay, Woo'rah wasn't where you remembered her being. The hammock was empty, but you did hear some noise coming from the same curtained off workbench where you originally met her at.
Labored sounds of a woman came from behind the welding curtains which was followed by the scraping of heavy equipment being moved around as a metal-against-metal type of hammering sound, like someone had just dropped or thrown something somewhere, finally prompted a sigh. Almost dramatically, the welding curtains were thrown aside and Woo'rah walked out with a bead of sweat on her forehead. Most of the stuff in the cargo-bay looked like it was tucked away, secured, or stored somewhere, which could very well mean that the sole denizen of this bay was hard at work since the crew left. She looked around for a moment, apparently glossing over <SHAI RIVELLIA> entirely, like she was trying to see if she had missed anything of importance. That was until you began speaking to her directly.
"We're getting ready for departure, is all your stuff squared away down here?"
Woo'rah looked at you for a moment as though she didn't notice you standing there at all, then shrugged and said simply, "For the most part."
The taller twi'lek waltzed around the curtained-off work bench taking a good look at all corners of the cargo bay before making her way back around the other side, apparently satisfied with the job she's done and made a beeline back towards you.
"Was that it, missie?" Woo'rah asked, with the same sort of smug-albeit-bored expression on her face. "The sweet little thing was just coming in to check up on me?"
You hadn't stood directly next to her before, and now the height difference was actually clear: she stood over a foot taller than you and her musculature seemed a little more defined. She seemed to find some amusement out of this face as she literally looked down at you with her hands on her hips; though you got the sense it was more from the absurdity of the height disparity between you instead of it being a taunting gesture. As if fully anticipating your agitation, she just smiled for a brief moment, not giving you a chance to respond to her before she continued.
"What is such a shy little munchkin doing out in the bantha's end of space, anyway?"
Now that part was definitely her teasing you, but you didn't need the Force to tell you that.
If RPG allowed me to "love" posts with a little heart emoji, I would punch that button in a heartbeat. Everyone's posts have been fantastic! I'm looking forward to see where this goes, and hope I get the privilege of writing with you all in the future.
I did finish the revisions on my sheet should that time come, and I'll keep it posted here for future reference.
"Hiya! You can call me Rey. Wanna go on an adventure?"
Race: Human Sex: F Age: 24 Profile: Explorer DOB: 2161 CE Homeworld: Earth
"Take a picture, it lasts longer."
Appearance:
Reyna is athletic and it shows in her body, as expected from someone fit to join APEX squad. Her arms and legs are toned well, and she’s got abs outlined on her torso. Even so, Reyna is a woman who doesn’t reject her femininity and occasionally indulges in pampering herself when time allows her to. She isn’t very tall, standing at the modest height of 5’6”, leaving her looking up at most of the other soldiers or security personal both on and off the Nexus and she weighs in at around 140 lbs, 28F, which is rather heavy for her size, but most of it is muscle that she has earned while on the job. She has a sturdy frame, and has just a few curves around her waist and back. Underestimating her because of that isn’t wise, since she packs a lot of strength in her figure. She practically exudes confidence and pride in her posture.
Button nose, thin eyebrows, smooth skin, freckles - her soft facial features are occasionally tarnished by a scowl, which is not her standard go-to disposition unlike her typical enthusiastic and full of life demeanor. When you do get to see her when she is excited, you witness the emboldening her green eyes and the stretching of her lips to form a toothy grin that shows well taken care of teeth. Her naturally bright and short, curly red hair is managed with an undercut and is well groomed. There is little oil that naturally accumulates in it, so it remains rather manageable and light like a cloud. She has scars over her knuckles from the various fights she has gotten herself in, on her fingertips from climbing on a variety of surfaces, but doesn’t really have too many of particular note aside from a long line outside of her right eye from a blow she received while on a job.
She has a couple of accessories which is composed mostly of piercings. She has two piercings on her left outer brow, one tongue piercing, and piercings that nobody has any right to knowing about - all of these are removed while on duty as an additional safety measure. On her right shoulder blade is a simple tattoo of a compass, which she got without her mother’s knowledge when she was in her teens. It’s somewhat special for her. It has part to do with her love of adventure and part to do with, despite its simplicity, loving the design. There's another tattoo in black ink that goes around her neck that almost looks like choker thanks to its thin, honeycomb-like design. There is one small little tattoo on her wrist of an inch-by-inch square that was done with a special kind of ink that interacts with the electromagnetic spectrum (or the different wavelengths of light). Depending on the rays it is exposed to, it will change color or have a faint glow of different hues in particular wavelengths.
"Let's make history!"
Background: Reyna's father was an N7 soldier, Riley Baker, and her mother, Cheyenne Baker, was a photonic engineer - a techy that worked with light, lasers, and was apart of a team that developed cloaking technologies. It was totally coincidental how the two managed to meet one another, and an even greater wonder how two clashing personalities ever got along, but they did. Both lost a lot in the First Contact War, which Riley had fought in against the Turian fleet, and he could never truly bring himself to trust the aliens of the Citadel. Cheyenne on the other hand, always tried her best to view hatred and prejudice as holding a burning hot piece of coal in one's hand, and decided instead to cut her losses and attempt to move forward and work with the aliens towards a better and brighter future. One of these joint projects was included her team, being one of many, working with the Turian Heirarchy to develop new ship technologies, such as the SR series. While ships are notoriously difficult to hide, her experience had at least contributed to the data that shows cloaking technology to be unreliable. Cheyenne's optimism helped to warm and thaw Riley's jaded heart as much as his grounded realism kept her head out of the clouds.
As a result, she was piled on with expectations since an early age. Though some of her father's rigidness and discipline left a mark on Reyna, he was never around for very long as his duties kept him busy and away from home, which left most of the responsibility of raising a child with her equally overworked mother. Much of Cheyenne's technical know-how and ingenuity managed to rub off on Reyna, but that might have done more harm than good since the problem child was then able to get into even cleverer trouble and mischief whether it was sabotaging equipment (reprogramming the A/C to give hot air when you asked for cold and cold air when you asked for hot) or using it for ulterior motives (invisible laser-based tripwires triggering obnoxious air horns).
Usually, threats of her father returning home would instill the fear of God into her, so it might be safe to say her relationship with him wasn't the healthiest. She saw his lack of presence as an invitation for blatantly disrespecting his authority, or at least she did whenever it was behind his back. An active fear of her father and his punishment would influence how she views and approaches men later in life, but one possible reason for her father's emotional distance could be a sense of failure on his part. He had hoped a child might follow in his footsteps, but much to his dismay, the child never seemed to show any real respect for him or his authority and he knew much of that had to do with his lack of presence. He was met with an impasse, since he also couldn't just let the girl be as rowdy as she wanted to be.
It wasn't all bad though. Her mother only ever pulled that threat card whenever Reyna was truly out of control. Aside from that, the pair got together swimmingly! All throughout her childhood and adolescence, she'd often join her mother on business trips to the Citadel, and every time she did, Reyna would be utterly fascinated by the wide array of species and cultures on board the station. The funny elcor, the weird hanar, the cool turians, the scary krogan, the mysterious quarians, the captivating asari - and the station! It was so huge and exciting, she thought she would never be able to explore every single inch of the place. Her dad was never around long enough to leave any imprint of his prejudice on her, and with the First Contact War before her time, she never seemed to feel the repercussions of the conflict.
She was an explorer at heart, and nothing fascinated her more than the fantasy of searching for and exploring new lands, and that was shown in her fascination with exploring the Citadel. Every time her mother took her, and whenever her business there was concluded, Reyna would beg and beg to hold her mom's hand while they toured around the Citadel. Not just through the Presidium either - the girl wanted to find every nook and cranny that could be found! Her mother obliged most of the time, until her daughter's unbridled curiosity would lead them toward an unsafe district or area of restricted access. Well, one time Reyna got tired of the safety rails and went against her mother's wishes and her own better judgement. In her early adolescence, she nearly risked her life when she sneaked away and prowled inside a docking bay during a ship's take off. Her expedition took a major left turn when the lack of proper maintenance and thorough inspection of the engine's filters exposed her to a sudden burst of eezo dust that made her fall over, terribly ill.
Quickly spotted by dock officials, she was rushed to Huerta Memorial Hospital where she was promptly taken care of. The team managed to restore her vitals to normal levels and they kept her in their care for a while to be sure the exposure to element zero wasn't going to leave any lasting effects on her. A frantic mother came rushing to her side the moment she heard the news, paired with the rare sighting of her father. His apparent concern somehow both warmed and annoyed her at the same. Then came the shit: Citadel Security Services got on her and her parents' asses for entering/allowing kids to enter restricted areas of the Citadel. Of course, Reyna was never allowed, and eventually C-Sec came to understand that after also coming to understand Reyna's stubborn attitude and... "free spirit". They were ordered to keep her on lock-down while on the Citadel or to keep her on Earth. Her parents agreed, though they didn't seem to care very much about the penalty. Her mother was just relieved that she had her daughter alive and healthy. Her father? Well, he seemed pleasantly surprised by the news of the latest test results. Thanks to the exposure to element zero, Reyna had become a registered biotic at age 14.
After they returned home, she was grounded for months. Nothing but catching up on her studies and exercising when she needed to, but on top of that? Zip. Her father Riley had additional plans. While at first screamingly furious, he came to learn to be happy for his little girl. Not just for her health and safety, but also for her newfound potential as a biotic. He seemed to invest more time into her than he did in her earlier childhood and managed to scrounge up the money for L3 implants and the services of biofeedback therapists, but not before exposing her to a handful of vids featuring the asari huntresses and their awesome biotic powers. He wanted Reyna to get amped up and ready for it instead of just forcing her to get machinery shoved into her brain - and it absolutely worked.
At first. As she got older and began approaching adulthood, just beginning to get a grasp on the simplest of biotic mnemonics, she had a lot of time to slow down and start thinking and listening more. Over the years, the more she thought and the more arguments between her parents she pretended to be deaf to, the more her relationship with her father seemed to deteriorate again. Her mother felt that her father was pushing Reyna too hard to hone her biotics, that it was beginning to seem like he was doing it because he wanted it - not because he was trying to support what Reyna wanted. Hearing that hit a chord in their daughter, and suddenly she wasn't so sure how to feel about this "gift." She understood that her dad wanted this for her so that she'd be "better off in the end", but she began questioning her own decisions.
Still, not every fiber of her being hated him. Some part of her looked up to him and what he did, because after all, Riley was an N7 badass. Despite that, she was just sad that he wasn't a better father because of it. She didn't want to follow directly in his footsteps and potentially be the same kind of jaded person as him, but some part of her did want to make him proud even if she didn't want to admit it. That's one of several reasons why, in 2177 when she was 16, her heart sank when she the news reached her from Akuze, regarding the pioneers and fifty marines killed by a thresher maw. It was one reason why she wanted to enlist with C-Sec 2 years later, but they only took council-represented species and individuals who have proven their merit, so she was forced to settle with enlisting with an Alliance peacekeeping force. Her dad might have showed her which end of the gun fired the bullet, but he never had the time to show her tactics the way the Alliance did, he never taught her the importance of teamwork like the Alliance did, nor did he have a specialist that taught her how to use her biotics more efficiently. She became the subject of some belittlement among the force when she stood quite a bit shorter than the rest of her new comrades, but she was determined to not let it deter her. She received training as a recruit for about a year until she was released into the field at 19.
It worked out for her in any case, even as young as she was. She was always an athletic one, and the regimen from the program did help to cool her head down a little as well as show her a thing or two about firearms and explosives. Her days as a troublesome kid actually came in handy! She knew cities, geography, ships, and station layouts almost intuitively. Whether it was figuring out where all the nooks and crannies were, giving chase, or giving insight into what a suspect might be thinking, she had something to contribute. The tech knowledge that her mother taught her came in handy time and time again when it came to knowing how to work the consoles and terminals, and her casual nature made her rather approachable to civilians. She excelled most of all in close quarters combat scenarios, both in the general sense and in hand-to-hand, having demonstrated the martial skill and strength to thrive in those situations. Some of her compatriots called her "the smallest krogan ever", though whether it was supposed to be an endearing tease or mean-spirited taunt was sometimes hard to discern.
It wasn't all what it was cut out to be, though. The charm and excitement of it had begun to wear off after a couple years' time, as no amount of light-speed chases or high-profile murder mysteries could keep her from becoming increasingly agitated with the amount of bureaucratic red tape that threatened to trip her feet every step of the way. What's more, it could only contain her attention for so long before it started drifting off towards the stars again. Even as blood-pumping as the job could sometimes be, there was an ever-present and growing thirst of wanderlust that was waiting to be sated. When her initial contract with the Alliance ended after three years, she resigned on impulse and went looking for something that might take her to far away places. Her skill set limited her options, so she decided to sign on with something similar. She found the private security agency, Elanus Risk Control Services.
In doing so, she requested to be assigned to a contract with a research department where she could be out in the field and was ultimately assigned to an exoarchaeology team that was based out of the Citadel. It was a win-win, given how many jarheads would rather be in the center of the action or somewhere within a certain radius of a club or bar, and C-Sec personnel never left the station to be escorts. The exoarchaeology team specializing in studying Prothean relics (and possibly digging them up if they were lucky) was much more exciting to her - and the expedition team has been requesting precautionary security after the Akuze incident. The team, consisting of two asari and a salarian, probably never expected their security to be a 22-year old human as excitable and enthusiastic for exploration and discovery as they were.
The team became more than willing to pay the regular fees as they and Reyna had become virtually inseparable. The two asari, T'lee and Vesalia, were like two intelligent older sisters that found just as much enjoyment in teasing the human girl as they did in showing her what they knew about their craft. T'lee was the younger of the two and connected with Reyna almost immediately, as they both had the same time of giddiness in uncovering the unknown while Vesalia was more dignified and debonair. The salarian, Jarros, was virtually encyclopedic and was like the tired and annoyed dad-figure trying to shepherd everyone along in a way. Despite each individual's passion, there was never any massive, ground-breaking discoveries beyond the odd artifact or knick-knack. An expedition on Therum that had ultimately turned up nothing of note did however end in a confrontation that resulted in Reyna standing off against a rogue scavenger. The shootout forced her to utilize everything at her disposal: first, she popped a small biotic barrier and layed down suppressive fire as soon as the ambush began in order to give her team the time to find cover. Once they were safe and sound, she frisbee-tossed a trip mine in the scavenger's direction to create a massive plume of dust and smoke, then closed the distance with a tactical cloak and disarmed them by destroying their weapon with her omni-blade. Holding them at gunpoint, she showed mercy by allowed them one chance to run away.
The team was thankful of course, and honestly a little surprised that Reyna was kinda good at her job. T'lee and Vesalia was intrigued most of all that Reyna was a biotic all this time and never said anything about it. "It wasn't important," Reyna said. Despite her disappointment of an answer, the two asari were actually rather competent biotics themselves (just... not combat trained), and offered to help her refine her abilities. If for whatever reason Reyna was with them while off-duty, they'd teach her all the tips and tricks they knew about biotics whenever Reyna wasn't working with biofeedback therapists. This lasted until this accelerated learning got her reasonably caught up with other biotics around her age. She never realized how shabby she really was at it until T'lee and Vesalia started showing her the ropes. Aside from that? Countless more adventures. They learned from that last encounter to practice proper precautions, and let Reyna scout around the area first before establishing a dig.
Reyna has deep-seated regrets over not being present for the Battle of the Citadel when the geth attacked in 2183 a year later, as she and her team were in the Attican Beta cluster at the time, studying the Prothean aqueducts on Feros in addition to providing relief efforts following the Thorian incident that had occurred there. Most of the geth that were in the system moved to attack the Citadel. Her team talked her down into trying to return, because after all, they weren't a combat team! They weren't prepared to enter a full-scale battle, and what was one more security officer to the Citadel than just another dead body? She conceded and remained with her partners. The Citadel and the Alliance went on to win that battle even without her, but ever since, Reyna felt dirty for not having been there when they needed every person they could get their hands on.
Her guilt became even worse when she learned that her mother was on the station when they attacked. Her father was on one of the Alliance ships. She never heard from either of them again after that battle. The following year wasn't the same after that; nothing was, really, and she learned to distrust AI with every fiber of her being. She still found her escape in exploring and discovering, as it was her way of running away. She still had family in T'lee, Vesalia, and Jarros, and yet... she felt gross in saying that. Disgusted. Almost like she was betraying her real family's memory by rubbing salt into a wound. When she heard of the Andromeda Initiative and what it stood for, it sounded like a dream and a second chance both wrapped up in a neat little package. She still said her goodbyes to her team though, she didn't want to look back on the Milky Way with any more regrets. She didn't want to betray them too.
There was a system as to how the Initiative prioritized the order in which the cryo-pods opened. Aside from key administrative personnel and Pathfinder teams, generalists typically came first once the Nexus was stabilized, followed by specialists. As young as Reyna was, what did she have to offer? Well, she was pretty much a textbook case of generalist, but most importantly she has always viewed herself as an explorer first and foremost. What the Initiative needed were scouts and pioneers to help find the way, and even with as much admiration Reyna had for the chosen Pathfinders, God be damned if she was gonna let them hog all of the glory in that. She inherited the years of research on photonic engineering and cloaking tech that her mother left behind to bring with her, she was as tech savvy as her mother could make her, had six years of security experience under her belt, and she was a registered biotic. She had her dad to thank for that. In the end, despite not following in his footsteps, it seemed like she grew to be a little jaded anyways. It's funny how things work out sometimes.
So finally, she got onto the Nexus for a long six hundred plus year one-way trip. She hatched only fairly recently, only a month before the Hyperion arrived amidst concern that none of the Pathfinders will make it to Andromeda, in preparation for attempting new colonies. But now that the human Pathfinder is here, there is rumor going around that she was nominated as a candidate for APEX. Apparently it's quite an honor, especially considering that would make her one of their youngest operatives - unless you count the salarians.
"I took the path less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
Personality: Reyna has come to Andromeda bearing a lot of loss and guilt on her shoulders, slightly jaded, but it seems like she tries her damnedest to push on like her mother did before her -- and it can be seen in her eyes, that pain in her chest that attempts to bury and hide as puts up a smile and a brave face. She buries it with unrelenting cheer reminiscent of her youth, allowing herself to be excitable and playful, and she can be much like an angaran in how she feels her emotions freely and strongly. However, this also means she was born with a quick temper that takes some time and attrition to coax down and is rarely the type to say sorry first. This temperament was disciplined a fair bit after she signed up with the Alliance, so she has a little more restraint. She otherwise expresses herself freely and unabashedly, as if allowing the feelings of the moment to be untethered to any inhibitions lets her forget the feelings she's buried in the past. She’s also quite prideful of herself, and she takes challenges and contests very seriously to the extent that she might be an obnoxious winner or bummed out loser, as either result can have a grand impact on her esteem. Her lack of presence during the Battle of the Citadel is a prime example in this regard, as she has a tendency to carry all of her failures with her.
Much of her tough competitive side stems from growing up in densely populated Earth cities where being tough meant respect, and the fact that her father was never around meant there was never a heavy hand around that kept her from plowing over her hard-working mother. When appealed to her interests however, she reacts in what many would consider exaggerated excitement. For example, she is an explorer at heart (as emphasized numerous times already). She loves discovery and, surprisingly enough for a city girl, enjoys nature! Especially any remote locations untouched by civilization. There also exists a fascination for bugs, fossils, artifacts, ancient relics and architecture, and bones. When these interests are appealed to, she shows a complete change in character: her eyes light up, a toothy grin from ear to ear, and her stern voice is replaced with what turns out to really be a talkative, excitable girl who embodies the senses of wonder and wanderlust. This child-like giddiness usually catches off guard anyone who is not wholly familiar with her and has only met with her abrasive side. Not just that, she has a curious fondness for poetry - not to say she practices, but she appreciates the art.
There are unique distinctions in her interactions with others which are dependent upon the other’s gender. Even as someone who identifies as bisexual, she approaches men with more caution, and is usually dismissive of their advances after being spurned and harassed one too many times. Even if acknowledging that a man might be attractive, she is still quick to judge or doubt their intentions. Even outside of romance, she holds her ground whenever she's in conversation with men as she fully expects to defend herself and what she knows to be true. She doesn't judge those who are or would engage in inter-species relationships, though she wouldn't think she'd do so herself - with exceptions. She still finds herself with a predilection for asari despite the fact.
She came to Andromeda dreaming of a new life of exploration and discovery, to find and experience things no one else has before and to find a second chance at a life without regrets. Her experiences in the Milky Way has definitely made her less impulsive and more prone to careful thought in approaching a dire situation. She has every intention of giving the Initiative everything she has for the betterment of all of the colonists. If Reyna has learned anything, it's that there is one question she should ask herself before deciding anything: "Will I regret this?"
She's mostly a scout out in the field and can lay trip mines in key choke points or routes to either cripple supply lines or simply alerting everyone within a couple miles' radius of an enemy's location, but sometimes your back is against the wall. When it comes down to the nitty gritty in combat, she channels all of the pent up frustration, angst, and anger that has been welling up over the past two years (well, 635 years). Her style is reckless, which can be seen in how she uses her biotics to charge right into the fray and trust in her biotic barrier and her armor's shields to keep her alive and well long enough to quickly dispatch the hostile with her omni-blade or souped up pistol - assuming her biotics didn't knock them out right away. If she's in there for too long, she relies on her mother's cloaking technology to get her out of the fray quickly and recharge, before hitting them hard and fast again. Her biotics allow her to blink around the battlefield quickly and over a fair distance, meaning she is able to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. These kinds of guerrilla hit-and-run ambush tactics is great for either quick assassinations or battles of attrition, and her close-quarters-combat expertise allows her to thrive where the intensity would normally be suffocating to others.
Despite her shortcomings, Reyna is an exuberant and faithful companion once you can look past her attitude. She exudes great positive energy when she’s in a good mood and is very confident and flirty in social interactions, even if just to a playful or platonic extent. Once she considers you family, there’s virtually nothing that she’ll let stand in her way to protect you - not after the last two families she had to leave behind. While her skill set may allow her to thrive best while acting as a lone wolf, she actually prefers the sense of community that working in a team provides - just as expected from someone who puts so much value into family.
Reason for being awoken from Cryo: Fear of the possibility of no Pathfinder making it across dark space, Reyna was awoken in a second wave of explorers and pioneers to help the Milky Way colonists find a viable home somewhere in Andromeda. Now that the human Pathfinder is here, she's fighting for her right to be out in the field so that she can stick her nose right in the face of discovery.
"Just a friendly reminder: I have a gun."
Equipment:
Reyna dons the Initiative Spearpoint armor with a built in jump jet and washed-out red paint job with a black secondary color. The armor is as equally useful for exploration as it is for combat, but with one major difference: she replaced the chest piece with Hyperguardian armor, allowing immense protection to her vitals in addition to amplifying her physical strength. The only weapon she carries with her is a Talon model pistol that was modded to give it a little extra kick. It's small and easy to draw, but in actuality, it feels like you're firing a shotgun. This little hand cannon has enough power to punch a hole straight through someone's shields. Too bad it has a small clip.
She is also highly reliant on her omni-tool for scanning new and undiscovered specimens, and the omni-blade that comes with it.
Reyna incorporated the same concept of the tattoo on her wrist into a piece of her armor in a more sophisticated fashion. A piece of it was treated with a special polymer that reacts with the electromagnetic spectrum and changes in color and luminosity depending on the wavelengths it is exposed to, with small squares side by side for each wavelength. This has proven to be useful when the interference of such wavelengths may interfere with her omni-tool's scanner.
Powers:
Adrenaline Rush
Trip Mine
Backlash
Charge
Sabotage
Tactical Cloak
Font Colour: LightCoral
"Light coral, pfft! What? Come on, it's fucking red."
Let me know if anything needs work! I'm mostly just psyched I was able to squeeze this out in the time I had.
Race: Human Sex: F Age: 24 Profile: Explorer DOB: 2161CE Homeworld: Earth
Appearance:
Reyna is athletic and it shows in her body, as expected from someone fit to join APEX squad. Her arms and legs are toned well, and she’s got abs outlined on her torso. Even so, Reyna is a woman who doesn’t reject her femininity and occasionally indulges in pampering herself when time allows her to. She isn’t very tall, standing at the modest height of 5’6”, leaving her looking up at most of the other soldiers or security personal both on and off the Nexus and she weighs in at around 140 lbs, 28F, which is rather heavy for her size, but most of it is muscle that she has earned while on the job. She has a sturdy frame, and has just a few curves around her waist and back. Underestimating her because of that isn’t wise, since she packs a lot of strength in her figure. She practically exudes confidence and pride in her posture.
Button nose, thin eyebrows, smooth skin, freckles - her soft facial features are occasionally tarnished by a scowl, which is not her standard go-to disposition like her enthusiastic and full of life demeanor. When you do get to see her when she is excited, you witness the emboldening her green eyes and the stretching of her lips to form a toothy grin that shows well taken care of teeth. Her natural bright red hair is fashioned into a curly faux hawk, and is well groomed. There is little oil that naturally accumulates in her hair, so it often remains lightweight and fluffy. She has scars over her knuckles from the various fights she has gotten herself in, on her fingertips from climbing on rock, bricks, and concrete, but overall, doesn’t have too many aside from a long one next to her right eye from a blow she received while on the job.
She has a couple of accessories, which compose mostly of piercings. She has two piercings on her left outer brow, one tongue piercing, and piercings that nobody has any right to knowing about. On her right shoulder blade is a simple tattoo of a compass, which she got without her mother’s knowledge when she was in her teens. It’s somewhat special for her. It has part to do with her love of adventure and part to do with, despite its simplicity, loving the design. There's another tattoo in black ink that goes around her neck that almost looks like choker thanks to its thin, honeycomb-like design.
Background: Reyna's father was an N7 soldier, Riley Baker, and her mother, Cheyenne Baker, was a photonic engineer - a techy that worked with light, lasers, and was apart of a team that developed cloaking technologies. As a result, she was piled on with expectations since an early age. Though some of her father's rigidness and discipline left a mark on Reyna, he was never around for very long as his duties kept him busy and away from home, which left most of the responsibility of raising the child with her equally overworked mother. Much of her technical know-how and ingenuity managed to rub off on Reyna, but that might have done more harm than good since the problem child was then able to get into even cleverer trouble and mischief whether it was sabotaging equipment (shitty toilet water shooting up your butt, or reprogramming the A/C to give hot air when you asked for cold, or cold when you asked for hot). Usually, threats of her father returning home would instill the fear of God into her, so it might be safe to say her relationship with him wasn't the healthiest. His lack of presence invited blatant disregard for his authority, or at least whenever he wasn't home. An active fear of her father and his punishment would influence how she views and approaches men later in life. One possible reason for her father's distance is a sense of failure on his part. He had hoped a child might follow in his footsteps, and to aid in that, followed the steps known to safely make Reyna a biotic. She never showed any signs.
It wasn't all bad though. Her mother only ever pulled that card when Reyna was truly out of control. Aside from that, the pair got together swimmingly all throughout her childhood and adolescence! She'd often join her mother on business trips to the Citadel, and every time she did, Reyna would be utterly fascinated by the wide array of species and cultures on board the station. The funny elcor, the weird hanar, the cool turians, the scary krogan, the mysterious quarians, the captivating asari - and the station! It was so huge and exciting, she thought she would never be able to explore every single inch of the place. The First Contact War was before her time, and dad was barely around to leave any mark of his prejudice on her as a man who had fought in it. She was an explorer at heart, and nothing fascinated her more than the fantasy of searching for and exploring new lands, and that was shown in her fascination with exploring the Citadel. It got her into trouble more times than she could count, with one time in her early adolescence nearly risking her life when she snuck inside a docking bay during a ship's take off on one of her many "expeditions". A lack of proper maintenance and thorough inspection of the engine's filters exposed her to a burst of eezo dust and made her terribly ill.
Rushed to Huerta Memorial Hospital, she was promptly taken care of. The team managed to restore her vitals to normal levels and they kept her in their care for a while to be sure the exposure to element zero wasn't going to leave any lasting effects on her. A frantic mother came rushing to her side the moment she heard the news, paired with the rare sighting of her father. His apparent concern somehow both warmed and annoyed her at the same. Then came the shit: Citadel Security Services got on her and her parents' asses for entering/allowing kids to enter restricted areas of the Citadel. Of course, Reyna was never allowed, and eventually C-Sec came to understand that after also coming to understand Reyna's stubborn attitude and... "free spirit". They were ordered to keep her on lock-down while on the Citadel, or to keep her on Earth. Her parents agreed, though they didn't seem to care much. Her mother was just relieved that she had her daughter alive and healthy. Her father? Well, he seemed pretty pleased with the news of the latest test results. Thanks to the exposure to element zero, Reyna had become a registered biotic at age 14.
After they returned home, she was grounded for months. Nothing but catching up on her studies and exercising when she needed to, but on top of that? Her father Riley had additional plans. He was so happy for his little girl, both for her health and safety, but also for her newfound potential. He seemed to invest more time into her than he did in her earlier childhood, and managed to scrounge up the money for L3 implants and the services of biofeedback therapists, but not before exposing her to a bunch of vids featuring the asari huntresses and their biotic abilities. He wanted Reyna to get amped up and ready for it instead of just forcing her to get machinery shoved into her brain - and it absolutely worked. At first. As she got older and began approaching adulthood, just beginning to get a grasp on the simplest biotics, she had a lot of time to slow down and start thinking, listening and reflecting more. Over the years, the more she thought and the more arguments that she has been hearing between her parents and pretending to be deaf to, the more her relationship with her father seemed to deteriorate again. As it did, the more that her biotics seemed to be this nasty, disgusting thing that her dad wanted for her so that she'd be "better off in the end".
Still, not every fiber of her being hated him. Some part of her looked up to him and what he did, she was just sad that he wasn't a better father because of it. She didn't want to follow directly in his footsteps, but some part of her did want to make him proud even if she didn't want to admit it. That's one of several reasons why, in 2177 when she was 16, her heart sank when she the news reached her from Akuze, regarding the pioneers and fifty marines killed by a thresher maw. It was one reason why she wanted to enlisted with C-Sec 2 years later, but they only took council-represented species and individuals who have proven their merit. So she was forced to settle with enlisting in an Alliance peacekeeping force. Her dad might have showed her which end of the gun fired the bullet, but he never had the time to show her tactics the way the Alliance did, nor did he have a specialist that taught her how to use her biotics more efficiently. She became the subject of some belittlement among the force when she stood quite shorter than the rest of her new comrades, but she was determined to not let it deter her. She received training as a recruit for about a year until she was released into the field at 19.
It worked out for her in any case, even as young as she was. She was always an athletic one, and the regimen from the program did help to cool her head down a little as well as show her a thing or two about guns and explosives. Her days as a troublesome kid actually came in handy - she knew cities, ship, and station layouts rather well. Whether it was figuring out where all the nooks and crannies were, giving chase, or giving insight into what a suspect might be thinking, she had something to contribute. The tech knowledge that her mother taught her came in handy time and time again when it came to knowing how to work the consoles and terminals, and her casual nature made her rather approachable to civilians. She excelled most of all in close quarters combat scenarios, whether in the general sense or hand-to-hand, she demonstrated the martial skill and strength to thrive in those situations. Some of her compatriots called her the smallest krogan ever, though whether it was supposed to be an endearing tease or mean-spirited taunt was sometimes hard to discern.
Predictably, however, her personal interests lied outside standing bored around some doors. It was only a year in when she put her two weeks in, and moved on to something that might take her to farther away places. She signed on with a private security agency, Elanus Risk Control Services. In doing so, she requested to be assigned to a research department where she could be out in the field, and ultimately was assigned to an exoarchaeology team that was based out of the Citadel. It was a win-win, given how much jarheads would rather be in the center of the action or somewhere within a certain radius of a club or bar, and C-Sec personnel didn't ordinarily leave the station to be escorts. The exoarchaeology team specializing in studying Prothean relics, and possibly digging them up, was much more exciting to her - and the expedition team requested precautionary security after the Akuze incident. The team, consisting of two asari and a salarian, probably never expected their security to be a 20-year old human as excitable and enthusiastic for exploration and discovery as they were.
The team became more than willing to pay the regular fees, as they and Reyna had become virtually inseparable. The two asari, T'lee and Vesalia, were like two intelligent older sisters that found just as much enjoyment in teasing the human girl as they did in showing her what they knew about their craft. The salarian, Jarros, was like the tired and annoyed dad-figure trying to shepherd her along in a way. Despite each individual's passion, there was never any massive, ground-breaking discoveries beyond the odd artifact or knick-knack. An expedition on Therum that had ultimately turned up nothing of note did, however, end in a confrontation that resulted in Reyna standing off with a rogue scavenger in a shootout that had her utilize all of the skills she's gained. She popped a small biotic barrier put down suppressive fire when the ambush began to give the team time to find cover, tossed a trip mine in the scavenger's direction to create a massive plume of dust and smoke, then closed the distance with a tactical cloak and finished the job with her omni-blade.
The team was thankful of course, and honestly a little surprised that Reyna was kinda good at her job. T'lee and Vesalia was intrigued most of all that Reyna was a biotic all this time and never said anything about it. "It wasn't important." Still, despite her disappointment of an answer, the two asari were actually rather competent biotics themselves, just not... combat trained. If for whatever reason Reyna was with them and they weren't on a job together, they'd teach her all the tips and tricks they knew about biotics whenever Reyna wasn't working with biofeedback therapists until this accelerated learning got her reasonably caught up with other biotics around her age. She never realized how shabby she really was at it until T'lee and Vesalia started showing her the ropes. Aside from that? Countless more adventures. They learned from that last encounter to practice proper precautions, and let Reyna scout around the area first before establishing a dig.
Reyna has deep-seated regrets over not being present for the Battle of the Citadel when the geth attacked in 2183 at age 22, as she and her team were in the Attican Beta cluster at the time, studying the Prothean aqueducts on Feros in addition to providing relief efforts following the Thorian incident that had occurred there. Most of the geth that were in the system moved to attack the Citadel. Her team talked her down into trying to return, because after all, they weren't a combat team.. and what was one more security officer to that battle than another dead body? The Citadel and the Alliance went on to win that battle even without her, but ever since, Reyna felt dirty for not having been there when they needed every person they could get their hands on. Her mother was on the station when they attacked. Her father was on one of the Alliance ships. She never heard from either of them again after that battle. The following 2 years weren't the same after that. She still found her escape in exploring and discovering, it was her way of running away. She still had family in T'lee, Vesalia, and Jarros, and yet... she felt gross saying that. Disgusting. Almost like she was betraying her real family's memory by rubbing salt into a wound. When she heard of the Andromeda Initiative and what it stood for, it sounded like a dream and a second chance both wrapped up in a neat little package. She still said her goodbyes to her team though, she didn't want to look back on the Milky Way with any more regrets. She didn't want to betray them too.
There was a system as to how the Initiative prioritized the order in which the cryo-pods opened. Aside from key administrative personnel and Pathfinder teams, generalists typically came first, followed by specialists. As young as Reyna was, what did she have to offer? Well, she was pretty much a textbook case of generalist, but most importantly she has always felt she was an explorer first and foremost. What the Initiative needed were scouts and pioneers to help find the way, and God be damned if she was gonna let the so called "Pathfinders" take all the glory in that. She had the years of research on photonic engineering and cloaking tech that her mother left behind, as tech savvy as her mother could make her, six years of security experience, and she was a registered biotic. She had her dad to thank for that.
So finally, she got onto the Nexus for a long six hundred plus year one-way trip. She hatched only fairly recently, only a month before the Hyperion arrived amidst concern that none of the Pathfinders will make it to Andromeda, in preparation for attempting new colonies. But now that the Pathfinder is here, there is rumor going around that she was nominated as a candidate for APEX. Apparently it's quite an honor, especially considering that would make her one of their youngest operatives - unless you count the salarians.
Personality: She expresses herself freely and unabashedly. While unrelentingly cheerful, excitable, and playful on the surface, she is like an unmoving brick wall in any sort of conflict. If you disagree with her to any extent, she’ll tell you you’re wrong and will hold her ground. She was born with a quick temper that takes some time and attrition to coax down and is rarely the type to say sorry first, and this temperament was disciplined a fair bit after she signed up with the Alliance, so she has a little more restraint, but that doesn't mean there still isn't a fire raging behind those blast doors. She’s also quite prideful of herself, and she takes challenges and contests very seriously to the extent that she might be an obnoxious winner or bummed out loser, as either result can have a grand impact on her esteem. Her lack of presence during the Battle of the Citadel is a prime example in this regard, as she has a tendency to carry all of her failures with her.
Much of her tough competitive side stems from growing up in densely populated Earth cities where being tough meant respect and the fact that her father was never around, allowing her to easily plow over her hard-working mother. When appealed to her interests however, she reacts in what many would consider exaggerated excitement. For example, she is an explorer at heart. She loves discovery and – surprisingly enough for a city girl – enjoys nature, especially at sites of caves or cliff faces or rivers and streams, or a remote location untouched by mankind. There also exists a fascination for bugs, fossils, artifacts, ancient relics and architecture, and bones. When these interests are appealed to, she shows a complete change in character: her eyes light up, a toothy grin from ear to ear, and her stern voice is replaced with what turns out to really be a talkative, excitable girl. This child-like giddiness often offsets anyone who is not wholly familiar with her and has only met with her abrasive side.
There are unique distinctions in the form of her interactions with others which are dependent upon the other’s gender. Even as someone who identifies as bisexual, she approaches men with more caution, and is usually dismissive of their advances after being spurned and harassed one too many times. Even if acknowledging that a man might be attractive, she is still quick to judge. She doesn't judge those who are or would engage in inter-species relationships, though she wouldn't think she'd do so herself - with exceptions. She still finds herself with a predilection for asari despite the fact.
She came to Andromeda dreaming of a new life of exploration and discovery, to find and experience things no one else has before, and to find a second chance at a life without regrets. Her experiences in the Milky Way has definitely made her less impulsive and more prone to careful thought in approaching a dire situation. She has every intention of giving the Initiative everything she has for the betterment of all of the colonists. If Reyna has learned anything, it's that there is one question she should ask herself before deciding anything: "Will I regret this?"
She's mostly a scout out in the field and can lay trip mines in key choke points or routes to either cripple or alert the squad of the enemy's location, but sometimes your back is against the wall. When it comes down to the nitty gritty in combat, she channels all of the pent up frustration, angst, and anger that has been welling up over the past two years (well, 635 years). Her style is reckless, which can be seen in how she uses her biotics to charge right into the fray and trust in her biotic barrier and her armor's shields to keep her alive and well long enough to quickly dispatch the hostile with her omni-blade or souped up pistol - assuming her biotics didn't knock them out right away. If she's in there for too long, she relies on her mother's cloaking technology to get her out of the fray quickly and recharge, before hitting them hard and fast again. Her biotics allow her to blink around the battlefield quickly and over a fair distance, meaning she is able to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.
Despite her shortcomings, Reyna is an exuberant and faithful companion once you can look past her attitude. She exudes great positive energy when she’s in a good mood and is very confident and flirty in social interactions, even if just to a playful or platonic extent. Once she considers you family, there’s virtually nothing that she’ll let stand in her way to protect you - not after the last two families she had to leave behind.
Reason for being awoken from Cryo: Fear of the possibility of no Pathfinder making it across dark space, Reyna was awoken in a second wave of explorers and pioneers to help the Milky Way colonists find a viable home somewhere in Andromeda. Now that the human Pathfinder is here, she's fighting for her right to be out in the field so that she can be right in the face of discovery.
Equipment:
Reyna dons the Initiative Spearpoint armor with a washed-out red paint job with a black secondary color. The armor is as equally useful for exploration as it is for combat, but with one major difference: she replaced the chest piece with Hyperguardian armor, allowing immense protection to her vitals in addition to amplifying her physical strength. The only weapon she carries with her a Talon model pistol that was modded to give it a little extra kick. It's small and easy to draw, but in actuality, it feels like you're firing a shotgun. This little hand cannon has enough power to punch a hole straight through someone's shields. Too bad it has a small clip.
She is also highly reliant on her omni-tool for scanning new and undiscovered specimens, and the omni-blade that comes with it.
If you want people to help keep it running, my eye has been on this game and I'm totally willing to join. I'll let you sort everything out first, though. Wouldn't want to make a full sheet for a dead RP.
[h3]Maybe the real plot was the friends we made along the way. [sub][code][Last Updated: February 1, 2025][/code][/sub][/h3]
I'm too old for this shit and I have learned not to share too much of my personal life on the internet. I earned a 4-year English degree, work as an English and writing tutor at a local college, a communications copywriter for a non-profit, and I'm a development editor at an academic publishing company. That means I word good.
I like literature and poetry. I first started writing as a hobby with online roleplay at the start of 2010, and I've slowly drifted away from it in recent years. I enjoy most genres, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites, they would be sci-fi and high fantasy—heavy emphasis on the high fantasy. Some of my favorite moments have come from Elder Scrolls roleplays, since it appeals to the D&D nerd in me.
I have a tendency to get carried away with making my character sheets. I've always been a fan of characters overcoming their weaknesses and obstacles and I try to make that show in many of my characters. Therefore, many of the narratives I explore come from a place of vulnerability, but I try to balance the heavy themes with light whimsy. Sometimes though that door swings the other way and I lean into the whimsy while sneaking in moments of vulnerability.
I also try to research whatever it is I'm writing about so that I'm not just spitting into the wind. Unless that's what my character is doing, in which case I try to make sure that's made clear in my writing. Sometimes that gets in the way, like in the case of blacksmith character I wanted to make but felt compelled to study up on blacksmithing first (don't fall into that trap, no one really gives a shit).
It’s kind of hard to define my style, as I’m influenced by all sorts of literary movements and schools of criticism; dark romanticism, modernism, post-modernism, Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism—I have a lot of isms in my pocket. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite dark romantic authors, Dickinson is one of my favorite naturalist poets, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost—they’ve all in some ways informed my writing, as well as many others. I even tend to look to some of my fellow guild mates for inspiration or analyze what I like about their writing and see what I can do to improve my own through their example.
[hr][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/dWO4S4r.png[/img][hr][/center]
[h3]Prime Rib Boneheads[/h3][@Dragonbud]
[@Luminous Beings]
[@Maxx]
[@Shin Ghost Note]
[@JunkMail][right][h3]A Bundle of Numbskulls[/h3][@Stormflyx]
[@Hank]
[@Leidenschaft]
[@Peik]
[@DearTrickster]
[@Amaranth]
[@LadyTabris]
[@Gcold]
[@MacabreFox]
[@Mortarion]
[@POOHEAD189]
[@Greenie]
[@Frizan][/right][h3]Calcium Supplements[/h3][@megatrash]
[@ML]
Rest in peace, [@Polymorpheus]
[@SepticGentleman]
[@Byrd Man]
[@Skai]
[@Heat]
[@Chuuya]
[@Enarr]
[@Tiger]
[hr][h3]These Tickle My Funny Bone[/h3][sub]You can find me in:[/sub]
Currently in no roleplays.
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-h3">Maybe the real plot was the friends we made along the way. <sub><code>[Last Updated: February 1, 2025]</code></sub></div><br><br>I'm too old for this shit and I have learned not to share too much of my personal life on the internet. I earned a 4-year English degree, work as an English and writing tutor at a local college, a communications copywriter for a non-profit, and I'm a development editor at an academic publishing company. That means I word good.<br><br>I like literature and poetry. I first started writing as a hobby with online roleplay at the start of 2010, and I've slowly drifted away from it in recent years. I enjoy most genres, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites, they would be sci-fi and high fantasy—heavy emphasis on the high fantasy. Some of my favorite moments have come from Elder Scrolls roleplays, since it appeals to the D&D nerd in me.<br><br>I have a tendency to get carried away with making my character sheets. I've always been a fan of characters overcoming their weaknesses and obstacles and I try to make that show in many of my characters. Therefore, many of the narratives I explore come from a place of vulnerability, but I try to balance the heavy themes with light whimsy. Sometimes though that door swings the other way and I lean into the whimsy while sneaking in moments of vulnerability.<br><br>I also try to research whatever it is I'm writing about so that I'm not just spitting into the wind. Unless that's what my character is doing, in which case I try to make sure that's made clear in my writing. Sometimes that gets in the way, like in the case of blacksmith character I wanted to make but felt compelled to study up on blacksmithing first (don't fall into that trap, no one really gives a shit).<br><br>It’s kind of hard to define my style, as I’m influenced by all sorts of literary movements and schools of criticism; dark romanticism, modernism, post-modernism, Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism—I have a lot of isms in my pocket. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite dark romantic authors, Dickinson is one of my favorite naturalist poets, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost—they’ve all in some ways informed my writing, as well as many others. I even tend to look to some of my fellow guild mates for inspiration or analyze what I like about their writing and see what I can do to improve my own through their example.<br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><div class="bb-center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/dWO4S4r.png" /><hr class="bb-hr"></div><br><div class="bb-h3">Prime Rib Boneheads</div><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/dragonbud">@Dragonbud</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/luminous-beings">@Luminous Beings</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/maxx">@Maxx</a><br>[@Shin Ghost Note]<br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/junkmail">@JunkMail</a><div class="bb-right"><div class="bb-h3">A Bundle of Numbskulls</div>[@Stormflyx]<br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/hank">@Hank</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/leidenschaft">@Leidenschaft</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/peik">@Peik</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/deartrickster">@DearTrickster</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/amaranth">@Amaranth</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/ladytabris">@LadyTabris</a><br>[@Gcold]<br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/macabrefox">@MacabreFox</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/mortarion">@Mortarion</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/poohead189">@POOHEAD189</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/greenie">@Greenie</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/frizan">@Frizan</a></div><div class="bb-h3">Calcium Supplements</div><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/megatrash">@megatrash</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/ml">@ML</a><br>Rest in peace, <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/polymorpheus">@Polymorpheus</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/septicgentleman">@SepticGentleman</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/byrd-man">@Byrd Man</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/skai">@Skai</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/heat">@Heat</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/chuuya">@Chuuya</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/enarr">@Enarr</a><br><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/tiger">@Tiger</a><br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><div class="bb-h3">These Tickle My Funny Bone</div><sub>You can find me in:</sub><br><br>Currently in no roleplays.</div>
Member
Evil Ghost Note
mickilennial
