Mass Effect: Hired Guns

I'll probably end up playing an asari, volus, or a human.

I'd suggest nothing resembling a volus. You'd be more suit dependant than me. I get sick, might die. You would explode, in event of suit breach.

I would recommend playing human if you've not played the Mass Effect games before. They're the newcomers to the galactic scene, so if you don't quite know how something works, then as a human, you've got a good excuse.

Ditto Ji on being a volus. That's why I recommend against them in the character sheet. Nobody said you couldn't be a Hanar...

This one thinks it would be great to play as this one's people. It praises the Enkindlers that it has been mentioned.

But we're mercenaries. A bundle of loose cannons that don't play by the rules. Can you be Blasto?

I was thinking it was more of a creativity limitation.  Hanar seem to be pink jellyfish nothing more.  Someone one might make one a slightly less pink jellyfish that strangles people then poisons them.  But overall useless pink jellyfish that will probably talk all day.  Itd be extremely easy to be blasto.  Just take things said in dirty harry and turn them into proper hanar speach.

My drell is coming along fine, the history is the only hard part at the moment.

Talk, glow in specific ways that your translator can spit words out, but yes.

Well, we can help if you need ideas. What have you got thus far?

Hm. Possibly interested in running a hanar paleoxenoanthropologist operating a human-designed LOKI mech (on a temporary basis) as its primary physical presence, due to a belief that hired help is, in net, worse than useless. To its endless distress lately, of course.

I'm not sure what it'd be be doing on the ship, though, aside from being ferried to a work site. Perhaps as a consultant if the crew gets into the artifact trade.

Alternatively, I propose a vorcha engineer (edit: junior engineer) carrying on a long, proud clan tradition. Three decades! Unfortunately, it's also the last of its clan (intra-species hostilities, inter-species hostilities, catastrophic accidents...), so it keeps bothering the captain for permission to start raising a kid or several. And to teach them on the job. Because that's the only way vorcha education works.

Also, a question. Since volus are discouraged due to fragility, are elcor discouraged due more to size or ponderousness?

I believe it might be their slowness, and more or less inability to actually do much with themselves. Though the codex entries for their soldiers sound cool, I wouldn't imagine we'd be much of a position to furnish an Elcor with a large machine gun, and VIs to target and reload it for them.

I like the Vorcha engineer, playing against type is the best. And someone needs to be designated engineer, though I guess Balu is also working on that. You could find something else to do as a Vorcha, I guess. Vorcha biotic doctor? That's several words after Vorcha that are very against type.

Someone should also work out who should be Captain. I exclude myself on the grounds that if I had a ship, I would not be doing the kind of things we do. Eo probably shouldn't on principle of being OP.

Elcor are discouraged due to having no evident means of fine manipulation, and being more valuable as set dressing than PC's.

None of our existing characters thus far are captain material, I'd say, myself included.

Elcor mercenary, who's decided this is the life for him/her after a tortuously long internal debate following their acquisition of a high-powered, possibly illegal gun and personal assistant. Also they have either a grabber-bot or biotic powers. Redundant next to a krogan, perhaps, admittedly.

@Ji,
Pilot, I'm thinking now, since one of those is needed. Having one or more tiny vorcha running about the helm sounds less amusing than having them in engineering, but they'd probably just get everywhere anyways.

While I like the idea of low-powered biotics with mundane utility, a vorcha probably doesn't have much time to gain secondary skills beyond its trade. Doctor would be thoroughly unprecedented, yes, but sounds like such a bad idea ("why are all these 'patients' so absurdly squishy?") that I'm not convinced anyone would teach the clan founder to start with.

Presumably nobody would sign on with a vorcha captain, so that's right out, yes. Maybe the captain is hanar, and therefore doesn't participate on any ground missions?

(I am doing so much typecasting here. Welp.)

Well yes, Doctor Vorcha, the biotic mastermind is more of an off the wall concept that should never rightfully be implemented. Which is to say, should definitely show up as an NPC.

I think I'm done with my sheet. Look back on the original post for it.

Solace: I don't see anyone in their right mind letting that character onto a ship, or even near anything sharp. He also only has one major listed skill (which is one of his two personality traits), and that's something likely to be shared by all of the crew.

Not sure what he'd be doing on Tuchanka, but the whole thing seems... a bit too convenient, in that everyone in your backstory seems to have been holding the idiot ball, save for Reldivasse, who was laser-guided to survive.

I'm going to say he still needs work. Tone down the insanity, in particular.

Yeah. I'm trying to get back to how make characters with a sheet since it's been a long time since I last did so.

But, the Shadow Broker of this timeframe is already kinda doing the 'intelligent savage with space magic' thing. Not to say that niche only has one slot, but I dunno how to outdo that.

Anyhow, here's a thing.

Name: Cirrus Kla
Species: Vorcha
Age: 13
Gender: Effeminate
Biotic: Nope

Description:
Wiry ectomorph. Many folds of greenish, oily skin, pulled taut about sections of its crested skull and critical musculature. Three deft, long-ish fingers per black-stained hand, each tipped with a rounded sensory pad protected by some manner of bony fingernail.

Deeply unpleasant coutenance. All entreaties to wear a mask thus far rejected, possibly out of misplaced pride. Bulging eyes with some kind of banded pupil (peculiar to its clan, and not present at birth), nested in blackened tissue, guarded by thick ridges. Batlike nose and needle-sharp teeth, perpetually bared.

Wears a vest and/or bra, boxers, and precious little else. Maybe a belt holding its stuff.

Racial dispositions:
Scared of most other vorcha, and of krogan and humans by extension. Wary of salarians and ambivalent towards asari. Grudgingly admires quarians. Tolerates batarians and the remaining Citadel races.

History:
Proud heir to a clan of vorcha pilots three decades in existence. Trained on a loaned turian ship which had been in the clan for generations, until it was repossessed to be recycled for scrap metal.

One of about, say, three dozen cousins and siblings, all of whom eventually hired themselves out to one spacecraft-possessing person or organization or another. All have since died in a variety of regrettable accidents.

Except for that one who got murdered for harboring ideas beyond its station, yes. And that other one who mucked up the slave raid. And so on.

Kla, by contrast, fell through the cracks, possibly by choice. It spent a while keeping up with the family news until finally, it was chosen as a pilot (for its skill or out of necessity, who knows) by a crew of one or more relatively poorly-armed aliens who, generally speaking, didn't treat it like dumb vermin.

Understandably, it's stayed on with them ever since.

Voice Test:
"Ooh, blue-plate man? I like him. He resolve a misunderstanding with residents of tenement once. Everyone else live. Very good, yes?

"He look very aggrieved, say the whole thing incidental, but not maim nor evict family. I remember and recommend highly."

> How did you recommend him if you don't know his name?

"I know him when I see him," it whines. "We ask around anyways. It work out."

Personality:
Enjoys being alive, having food to eat, having a family, and being respected as a person, in roughly that order.

Wants children before it dies of old age, and may well be capable of asexual reproduction in order to make that happen, but has been sufficiently well-socialized to realize that inconveniencing the crew by doing so unnanounced would be impolite.

Since it credits its continued existence to being both polite and discrete - despite natural selection's apparent precedent, - it has been careful about how and to whom it has announced this desire.

Marketable Skills:
Crack pilot with reliably split-second reflexes. Never calls in sick. Can produce a small pistol from its chestgear with startling speed and fire a few times before the thing overheats. Whether it can hit anything is another matter.

Name:  Ger'tak Metis
Species:  Drell
Age:  28
Gender: F
Biotic: y(natural ability, but no powerful skill)
Description:  The female drell are not known for their figure, like the Turians they are almost indistinguishable from the males. Ger'tak is no different, and doesn't try to be. Her reptilian figure and wiry muscles give her the appearance of a some shattered creature, emaciated and charred. Her exterior flesh is of a dark tan, mottled with black, like a half burnt cinder. The flesh under her neck is a lighter tan, akin to sand. A minor distinguishing feature between males and females, are the ridges on the skull, for females, they are smaller, but more striated and serrated, allowing for more efficient heat dispersal.

She wears brown, black, and tan male civilian's clothing, stained with oil, rust, and various other things. She is left handed, and this is the arm the Omni-tool resides. She has greatly modified her Omni-tool, so that its colour isn't just a simple Iridescent orange, but a vibrant hue of red and yellow it shifts back and forth with, (Still mainly orange) In situations where she is required to wear some form of armour, she wears sub-standard armour with high power kinetic barriers and shields.
Racial dispositions:  She gets along with just about all races, except Batarians.  They just don't warm up to her sensibilities.  Especially likes Quarians and Humans.  And of course the Hanar, saviours of the Drell.  All other races simply arouse her curiosity.

History:  Grew up on a relatively lawless space station in the Attican Traverse, with only her refugee mother looking out for her and only for a short time.  Luckily after her death the damp space station was attacked by a group of Pirates.  For a time she was a slave aboard their ship, entrusted with assisting the mechanic after the discovery of her talents, and the limited appeal of her young reptilian form.  She spent almost a year in their "service" before, while her and the mechanic were out looking for a repair, she got behind the poor Batarian and stabbed him in the leg; taking the money he would have used to buy parts to buy herself a ticket off-world.  Though it wasn't actually a ticket, it was more bribing a Human Frigate captain to take her to the nearest Space-port not in this system.

After the Frigate brought her to the space-port, the captain brought her aside and told her that she should look for work on a friend's Scrapper, and that he'd give her a job. Following his advice she followed the captain's instructions around the space-docks to find the Scrapper he mentioned. She came to the owner and pilot of the Salvage ship and asked if she could be a part of the crew. He chuckled and said there was no crew, just him, his wife and their son. She mentioned the Captain of the frigate, and he took her inside to meet his family. She thought his wife was pretty, and the son was childish. Despite a minor protest from the boy (who had thought her to be a creature from the moon of some out of the way planet that was said to devour souls) they allowed her to help and stay.

She lived the rest of her childhood and teenage years on that vessel. Some seven years in total until one day while the family was salvaging an abandoned ship caught in a seasonal meteor field, a solar flare disabled the kinetic barriers of the ship while they were cutting off pieces of the ghost ship. Suddenly as they tried to quickly get back to the ship to reset the the kinetic barriers, an energy blast struck the wife, killing her. Ger'tak clambered into the ship just into time to see the blast catch the man. The boy was close behind her, and as she grabbed his arm and pulled him in a bolt struck his shoulder and he was knocked unconscious. She closed the airlock and dragged his body into the main hold of the ship. She caught a glimpse out the main view port of the ship that was attacking them; The pirates she had escaped from.

She stood no chance against their boarding party, and she watched as they dragged her friend and threw him out the airlock with no remorse. The vacuum of space does horrors to a human body. Luckily she never saw them. as there was little left of the body that was recognizable as flesh after she was brought to the pirate ship and the small ship was destroyed by the large weapons of the Pirates. The pirate captain was a batarian with a missing leg. Presumably the same batarian as she had stabbed, but he just smirked and waved while he smoked a large cigar, and he was gone and she was in the dark in a room that was damp. She sensed they were going to kill her.

Their mistake though. They locked her in one of the parts storage rooms, as they thought it would be excessively humid. And it was a good thing it was, as while she was scrounging around looking for something to get her out of the prison, she found rusty iron and bits of titanium. The fools even left an old omni-tool in the storage, allowing her to create a thermitic bomb. She had to be careful how she used it, as placing it wrong would eat through the hull, killing everyone including her self. She used a small piece to cut a hole in the lock of the door and escape.

Then she moved on to the engine room, placing the bomb on the a place where it would disable an easily fixable but very needed power circuit, disabling the mass effect engine, and all other mass effect fields on the ship. Alarms started to go off, so she knew they had found her empty cell. She jumped into a maintenance shaft and set off the bomb. The room filled with bright light and then she was weightless. Pirates, while they might be crafty, clever, and creative... aren't the smartest of the bunch. If they were, they'd do something with better benefits. But these pirates, weren't crafty, clever, or creative at all, instead of searching the ship for her, half the crew stood errr- floated around shouting, and the other half watched the ball of glowing thermite as it waited to cool by convection. Only one looked for her. The captain. Who she promptly kicked in the face and tied up as soon as he found her.

A local security ship picked up on a distress call a few days later. They found a pirate ship with 7 half starved, dehydrated pirates locked in the Engine room, and a single civilian lounging in wait in the captain's chair eating some rations. The security officials could hardly believe it.

Personality:  Adventurous and though naive about the world beyond machinery, she has heart even though she may not understand it at times.  The loses in her life have hardened it, and her head, but wise words and a soft touch can break the hardest of shells. She is no stranger to death, but she refuses to cause it unless it is an act of mercy. She will gladly cut your tendons and sit there watching you writhe unable to fully control yourself. She spends most of her free time tinkering with this and that more often than not breaking things, just so she can fix them again, and if she manages to make it better, the more power to her. A deeply analytical person, upon meeting someone she has never met, she meticulous scans them over and over again, finding their weaknesses, strengths, and quirks. She thinks she is far more clever than she actually is, and is genuinely surprised when she is wrong about something she is so sure about. A life among humans has eroded at her drell religion, but some of it remains.
Marketable Skills:  Has an almost innate ability to understand computers, machines, and the like. Her weapons of choice are all in her omni-tool, a good silicon carbide blade, and her trusty plasma-torch-thing, "Ratek".  

Jazz: works for me, you're in.

Balu: Looking good so far.

Both of you, you're welcome to put down preferred weapons in marketable skills, and I think that'll help everyone else. I'd rather we didn't all show up to the party wearing the same gun, though.

I'll still have everyone write in afterwards how they got to be on the ship after we decide who captains the thing; as a reminder, people are encouraged to find a different person and know them from a previous adventure, just so we've got some mutual history.

Solace how about your crazy guy and his kewl "big Sis" (AKA my Drell chick)

Well crazy might be a quotes thing. That was on the list of things James brought up that might need changing.

As an aside, shared personal history as mechanics for slavers. That's not an adventure, but I thought I'd bring it up. James suggests one, knowing where he co-opted the idea from, I suggest two, and to the people on your "left" and "right", so everyone knows from prior experience exactly two other people. This being prior to our actually getting together as a crew I mean. We'd obviously be acquainted since then.

Hm. Are pocket pistols a thing that exists in this 'verse? While a shotgun would theoretically reduce the necessity of aiming well, I think my char would prefer to not appear (heavily) armed.

Might Bere'Riat have run into young Kla and its clan stationside, and somehow been convinced to come back with a job offer in the event he were to obtain a ship?

Edit: As for other chars who've spent time aboard pirate ships, there's always the off-chance one of Kla's relatives was piloting. Tenuous! But it's like... half of a prior relationship.

Turenk might have met you while mercenarying before joining the ship, and then met up with you again when you became the pilot, thus following you into this gig.

Charsheet updated with weapon of choice and prior history with Turenk. I can convert the interview's content to prose if need be.

I may have skipped the middle man, abused my power as a mod, and edited in my weapon of choice directly into the sheet held in the reserved sheet section. I apologize, but it was faster, and no one got hurt.

Despite the advice that's been given to me, I studied up asaris and their culture and stuff because I'm a loser. What are we missing? We seem to have a pilot, engineer, and a couple of shoot-em-up guys. What else do we need? A medic or a sweet-talker or something?