Hovid

Aspects

 * It’s the family business! (invoke to know a random tidbit, compel to have someone recognize his family - or to have them show up)
 * Shipboard (b)rat (invoke to do something fancy on a ship, compel to make him ignorant of planetside ways)
 * Up my sleeve (invoke for random equipment, compel to drop or not fit something)
 * The fine line between two worlds (invoke to navigate the unfamiliar, compel to say or do something inappropriate)
 * That’s not just a legend! (invoke to know details, compel to force him to pursue a mystery)
 * Most hated man in eight systems...for fifteen minutes (invoke to resist social pressure, compel for negative reactions from others)
 * A leg is a terrible thing to waste (invoke whenever care is needed, compel to make him volunteer to step into danger)
 * The wrong people...at the right time (an open-ended story aspect)
 * It’s all just smoke and mirrors (tag to lie effectively or pull off a deceptive maneuver, compel to see conspiracies everywhere)
 * I’m on a mission from God! (tag to persist in the face of adversity, compel to persist in the face of adversity)

Stunts

 * "X marks the spot" (use Archaeology for wealth track, on the theory he can dig up something useful to trade or sell when necessary)
 * Military-Grade Bureaucracy (i.e., forgery - will that ever even be useful? I do like the idea)
 * "Picked it up along the way" (use Archaeology for Science)

Equipment
Harm 2 (4 BP) Penetration 3 (3 BP) Range 1-3 zones (2-1=1 BP) Low recoil (free) Non Lethal (attacks Composure only, -1 BP) Rechargeable (-1 BP, has a Low Battery aspect) Transfer Aspect: Shaky synapses (1 BP) - can be tagged by wielder during a maneuver to apply any aspect restricting mobility to a character or zone
 * Encryption device: Data stress track OO; Aspect: Co/dec - Use once/refresh for bonus to rolls for handling coded data or Comms rolls (further use burns Fate to generate new security keys)
 * Becca: A shotgun-like energy weapon with BECCA etched by hand into the barrel, and below that in heavy stencil Bayou Extreme Crowd Control Appliance. The large barrel powers a standing electric wave tuned to scramble human muscular synapses. A large dial allows some control of the neural effect.

Growing Up
Hovid’s parents could charitably be called treasure hunters, or more accurately thieves. Though nominally a citizen of New Denali – who quietly underwrote his parents’ “business” – Hovid spent nearly all of his childhood on a battered and hardly livable ship, the Naked Moose, flitting amongst all the clusters of the system in search of bounty. The boy was told, early and often, to keep out of the way, so he spent his time looking and learning, vacuuming up every tidbit of ancient lore his young mind could store. But of course the young boy pined for his parents’ affection, so he watched them like a keen-eyed Aztlan hawk and absorbed all he could. When that didn’t work, he dug deeply into the newsnets and archives to learn everything he could of them – and of the pain their destructive methods caused their victims. He kept even more quiet after that.

Aspects


 * It’s the family business! (invoke to know a random tidbit, compel to have someone recognize his family - or to have them show up)
 * Shipboard (b)rat (invoke to do something fancy on a ship, compel to make him ignorant of planetside ways)

Starting Out
It all changed on a rare trip planetside, when a rival group of Hermod smugglers kidnapped Hovid as he attempted to bum some spare parts on New Azlant. They intended to hold him as leverage over his parents, but the questionable wisdom of that plan became apparent when the Naked Moose burned spaceward just an hour later without so much as pinging for a ransom. The smugglers’ captain, a laconic man referred to only as Vice, told the boy he was out of luck and drew his pistol.

Hovid remained calm and asked what the ransom was to have been, and then he simply smiled and asked for a knife. With six blasters trained upon him, he calmly slit open his left calf and pulled out a gleaming golden credit chit, hidden by his mother in preparation for a time of (her) need. “This ought to cover it, sir.”

The Hermod crew stared, mouths agape, as blood streamed down the boy’s leg, until Vice leaned his head back and laughed uproariously. He tossed the chit back to Hovid and told him to go make something of himself.

Hovid smiled weakly and limped outside without another word. He somehow found the strength to walk into one of Bayou’s most prestigious boarding schools, where, after all, money talks. Loudly.

Much to his surprise, his four years amongst Bayou’s elite did more to generate sympathy for his parents than his fifteen years at their side. Hovid lost himself in his studies of the ancients, steeling his jaw until graduation and stealing away for chats with the streetwise Vice on weekends.

Aspects
 * Up my sleeve (invoke for random equipment, compel to drop or not fit something)
 * The fine line between two worlds (invoke to navigate the unfamiliar, compel to say or do something inappropriate)

Moment of Crisis
After graduation, Hovid expected to work for Vice, but the Hermod had developed a strange sense of pity for the boy and demanded better things of him. So Vice got him a legitimate job with an outfit known as the Roots Reclamation Project, where he could use his well-honed skills at “recovery” to better the world around him, identifying and converting ancient technology to improve the Spinward societies – or that was the public face of the Project, at least.

Hovid quickly developed a reputation as the best damn artifact hunter in the outfit. He fell in love with the mysteries, which never grew old, and the selfless fellowship of the Project’s members. Of course, this being the Local Group, this sense of brotherhood was simply the subtle way that the Project’s leaders roped their employees along to more and more questionable tactics. Because the Roots Reclamation Project had much bigger ideas than bettering society.

So it was that Hovid found himself on New Azlant, chasing legends of the hyper-efficient spin drives that carried the Maori people to their new home. The young man didn’t entirely understand why the Project demanded such secrecy in this operation, but his associates never questioned it and neither did he. So it came as something of a surprise when the blinding floodlights switched on, and seven heavily armed helicopters landed around their tents.

Hovid thought he’d been careful, but it turned out a local cyber-guru named Mekel had tracked his database queries and followed the bizarre connections that had led Hovid to the buried drives. The ensuing scandal nearly destroyed the Project, whose leaders only escaped by pinning the blame on the young man.

Connection: Mekel

Aspects


 * That’s not just a legend! (invoke to know details, compel to force him to pursue a mystery)
 * Most hated man in eight systems…for fifteen minutes (invoke to resist social pressure, compel for negative reactions from others)

Sidetracked
Hovid was cut adrift from the Project and hounded by the press, at least until the next scandal came along. He nearly turned to the comforts of drink, until a stout hand clenched around his shoulder and yanked him out of the bar. Thirty minutes later, Hovid’s ears hurt from Vice’s tirade, but he had a new job: Vice was stepping up from smuggling into the “reclamation” business, and Hovid was going to be his new bloodhound.

Thirty minutes after that, Hovid had effectively disappeared from the cluster, at least as far as the media nets knew.

The smuggler finally opened up about his business, and Hovid learned the real story behind his aborted kidnapping, It turned out the rascally-looking fellow who’d shown him around the repair yards had been eyeing him as more than just an easy mark. It was too bad, really, because the man had seemed nice enough. But, considering his parents’ response, this was probably for the best – and the poor man had lost a leg in the process. Hovid didn’t feel guilty about that, but he did take it as a lesson. The consequences of failure in his new job looked to be rather more serious than his old, and the young man took this lesson to heart.

Hovid did all he could for Vice, quietly spotting artifacts as the Hermod ship flitted through the system, trading ancient thrusters, antigrav units, and vintage Tree modules for cold, hard cash. To be honest, it took only a small part of Hovid’s skills, so he distracted himself behind Vice’s back with digging into the Roots Reclamation Project.

The trail was long and cold, but Hovid became rather adept at pushing papers past faceless bureaucrats across the Net, teasing out the clues to a puzzle few knew was there. And at the bottom, operating the Project as a charity wing but secretly using it to extract the secrets of slip drives, lay a name so commonplace in the Local Group that Hovid had come to ignore it: the Trade Guild of Tyr.

Connection: Ritter

Aspects
 * A leg is a terrible thing to waste (invoke whenever care is needed, compel to make him volunteer to step into danger)
 * The wrong people...at the right time (an open-ended story aspect)

On Your Own
Hovid’s discovery both shattered and remade him. He felt used and abused, his life’s work useless – and he quickly realized that working for Vice was no better, for the Hermod just used his skills to aid the other side in this vast and pointless trade war.

But it also gave him purpose: no more would he fall prey to deception of the establishment, and no more would he work at another’s behest. And, more immediately: revenge.

Hovid fled Vice’s ship, the Wanton Sinner, when they next docked in Bayou, leaving behind – in a vain attempt to deflect Vice’s anger at his disappearance - detailed instructions to find a dozen relatively harmless artifacts at the far ends of the cluster.

He then put in a call: that netrunner kid Mekel had somehow put together the same clues Hovid had on New Azlant. Maybe he’d want to know the rest of the story – and at least telling his story would assuage some of Hovid’s guilt about the dig. He offered to meet the kid on Eden Station and tell him something important.

Aspects
 * It’s all just smoke and mirrors (tag to lie effectively or pull off a deceptive maneuver, compel to see conspiracies everywhere)
 * I’m on a mission from God! (tag to persist in the face of adversity, compel to persist in the face of adversity)