I’m playing in three games right now, so I’ve got three answers, plus two honorable mentions.
Star Wars: The Republic
- Zor Nabat
- Male Twi’lek Corporate Officer (Level 3)
- Background – Bankrupt
- Focus: Inspiring Leader
The upstart corporation Cobbatha Collective Designs excelled at developing aftermarket add-ons for commercial starships. Cobbatha had its start in the slums of Paris, where Zor’s father, Vem Cobbatha, worked in the shipyards by day, and modded swoop bikes by night. Knowledgable and charismatic, he attracted a like minded crew of individuals. Pooling their resources, they made the jump from swoop bike modding to starship modding, a far more profitable endeavor. They also up through the planet’s many levels, finally settling into a firmly middle-tier existence.
There, Vem’s work took on a more crusading nature as the firm began specializing in aftermarket mods for black box corporate systems. If the component said “No User Serviceable Parts” inside , the Collective found a way to machine a replacement part.
Though profitable, and to Vem’s mind, moral, the Collective’s work drew the ire of the Licensing Consolidation division of Czerka Corp., which saw the Collective’s after-market parts as being a direct threat to their intellectual property. Given no relief by the courts, which cited the Republic’s longstanding respect for technological modifications of one’s property, Czerka chose other challenges. Acting through proxies, they caused a series of unfortunate accidents to befall the Collective’s most influential families, targeted the company’s supply chains, and launched espionage missions that replaced Collective parts with faulty Czerka-designed mods. The resulting wave of misfortune forced the Collective into bankruptcy. Shortly there after, Vem Cobbatha disappeared.
At the time, Zor was a young executive with the company – an excellent salesman with enough technological knowledge to talk the talk (even if he never could walk the walk). The bankruptcy and disappearance of his father devastated Zor and his family, and he was forced off world to find new employment. He still sends credits home to his mother … and dreams of forming his own company, reaping enormous profits … and getting revenge against Czerka Corp.
D&D 5th Edition: Chroniclers
- Kne Godfinder
- Male Gnome Cleric (Level 7)
- Domain: Knowledge
- God: All of them. Why choose when you never know who can help you in a given situation?
Kne Godfinder is a male rock gnome obsessed with lost gods, ancient tombs, and other forgotten strangeness. He’s a discredited academic, having been kicked out of college for pursuing ever-more esoteric lines of research. He has no desire to resurrect an ancient evil god, but if he came across references to a forgotten quasi-diety of streams and puddles, he’d be SUPER excited.
Kne worships no one god; his approach is far more pantheistic. He worships all of the gods of knowledge to one extent or another, and if offering a prayer to the aforementioned quasi-diety would help, he’ll do that too. Unsurprisingly, he’s a knowledge domain cleric. his primary roles in delving are knowing stuff, healing people, and opening doors that perhaps should have been left closed a wee bit longer.
Trivia: I occasionally misspell “Ken” as “Kne” when typing too fast. Whenever I did that, I thought … I should make a D&D character named “Kne” … with Chroniclers, I finally did.
GURPS: The Fast and the Furious
- Miles MacGuffin
- Male human
- Overconfident, gizmo-making, hard-to-kill guy who shows up just in the nick of time. Maybe.
The Fast and the Furious is one of Gamer Working Group’s (my lunchtime gaming groups) two ongoing campaigns. Powered by GURPS Lite, it’s not actually set in the Fast and the Furious universe, but it is inspired by its cinematic rules.
Like the rest of our characters, Miles is supremely overconfident, with only some of the skills and abilities to back up that overconfidence. He’s the gadget guy, whose special ability lets him have just the right tool at exactly the right time. Like say, a clothes hanger when we need to break into a car or – as the campaign progressed – a gadget for descrambling encrypted police communications. Over the years, he’s become increasingly hard to hill, having survived multiple near-death experiences.
Honorable Mentions
Xanaleth, male astral elf cleric (arcane domain): My character for our Lair of Secrets short-run Spelljammer Academy game. Xanaleth is condescending elf who’s already lived several lifetimes in the timeless Astral Sea, and is dismissive of those with less life experience … despite the fact that his own practical life experience is exceedingly limited. Think Lt. Gorman from Aliens, but with less self awareness of his own shortcomings.
Ordwell Starcrasher, male pilot. My character for our Lair of Secrets: Scum & Villainy campaign. A former racer, now pleasure-seeking, daredevil pilot
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