Difference between revisions of "Maneater"

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'''Social Stress (Crowds)''' - Being a people eater, it is difficult for her to hold her composure around large groups. She also retains some underlying trauma of people, though this aversion only typically arises when outnumbered.
'''Social Stress (Crowds)''' - Being a people eater, it is difficult for her to hold her composure around large groups. She also retains some underlying trauma of people, though this aversion only typically arises when outnumbered.
'''Superhuman Psychosis''' - With humanoids being her only meal for years of her life, and the rather swift end of her master at her own teeth- she's started to view the mundane as weak cattle. This is something, after Grackle's help, that she has tried to overcome in recent years, but instinct still tells her that she's at the top of the food chain- and treats disrespect a bit more ferociously than average.


'''Uneducated''' - You 'toopid
'''Uneducated''' - You 'toopid

Revision as of 22:31, 5 January 2025

Maneater
Maneater.webp
Physical Adept, bodyguard, disposal.
Even prey can make a choice
Either give up...
Or give chase
Discord@miuted
RedditMiut3d
Wiki UserMiuted
MetatypeShapeshifter: Tigrine ((Human))
Street Cred0
Notoriety2
Public Awareness0
CDP0
D.O.B.2077-12-24
Age8
Folderhttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ovMopNegA9F63i3-6beKv58OSngcKuOm?usp=sharing
PriorityMetatype - C
Attributes - A
Magic/Resonance - B
Skills - D
Resources - E
#Max IGs/Ascension1


Character Information

Summary

A terrible victim of circumstance, Maneater is a shapeshifter that ever struggles between her awakened intelligence and the call of the beast. Years being brought up as circus animal and personal disposal unit for snitches have left her with a struggle for self-control, and an appetite for humanoid meat. Craving a better life where she is free from the urge to devour, and waging a bloody war against people like those who have wronged her- Maneater has found her current place in Seattle in service to an unlikely friend, pledging herself to his aid in the life of Shadowrunning in return for companionship and assistance with her gross affliction, taking small steps towards her greater ambition to completely abolish illegal activities involving animals worldwide- however a daunting and insurmountable a task that may be.

Goals

- Dismantle various methods of underworld trade and entertainment involving animals, including but not limited to: fight rings, exotic smuggling, experimentation and testing, and general abuse.

- Repair her broken mind and seek out a more positive relationship with humans and metahumans, rather than viewing them as cattle.

- Assist Grackle in searching out friends to call his own- and ensure that he never has to feel alone.

- Survive... Despite it all.. Survive.

Background

Tara’s oldest memory is a cage. She never knew the chilly woodlands of eastern Siberia, the warmth of her mother’s fur, the thrill of a first hunt. Her youth was a poorly ventilated warehouse filled with the mewling of animals kept in the same terrible conditions as her, a victim of the black market exotic trade. Mercifully, she doesn’t remember much from those times, plucked from the darkness when still a still kitten.

Her new home was with the ‘Schwarz & Whitaker Traveling Circus,’ a production that strove to bring the class, whimsy, and affordability of the 5th world circus to the 6th. The circus was a product of passion for the two founders, a dream of yesteryear reimagined for the audiences of today. Unfortunately, in the world of BTL chips and trideo shows, it wasn’t exactly a profitable dream, but they made do. Tara’s career in show business began as something of a petting-zoo attraction, an adorable tiger cub you could feed and play with, sans the hassle and hazard of raising a tiger. By day she was passed around the grubby hands of hundreds of wide eyed children and cooing adults, and spent her nights hunting the feet of Mr. Schwarz. It wasn’t the life she should have had, but was better than the cage. Then she got older, people stopped cooing over her and started shying away from her growing claws and teeth, and her place became the ring. She found herself back in a cage again, performing tricks at the crack of a whip.

Things only got worse when S&W really hit on hard times. Ticket sales were just never enough, and debts began to stack up. On top of that, traveling the balkanized United States was expensive and difficult. Tariffs, animal cruelty laws, zoning regulations and a myriad of red tape that could change with every stop strangled the fledgling circus. Tara and the other animals were pushed to the limits of their abilities, always some new act or stunt to fill more seats, but she got the worst of it. She was smarter than the rest, able to follow more complex commands, and the things she could do bordered on magic… mostly because it was. Schwarz knew a paracritter when he saw one, and though he didn’t know her exact nature he had his ways of drawing out that fantastical power with carrot and stick. It didn’t help in the end though, no act was so daring or performance so grand it could bring in a big enough crowd.

And then Mr. Schwarz passed away. Some said it was the stress, that he couldn’t take watching his dream slowly die. Others said Mr. Whitaker killed him, wanting to take the reins without the doddering old man holding him back. The doctors said his appendix burst, but that didn’t make as good a story. Either way, it was a turning point for S&W circus. Mr. Whitaker, driven by grief or stress or greed, made deals under the table. It was small things at first, move a “mislabeled” crate here, help a few nondescript “contractors” hop the border there. Just something to help pay the bills.

Things snowballed from there. When smuggling actually began to show results, Mr. Whitaker was quick to embrace this new method of keeping the circus alive. Guns, drugs, people, S&W started moving anything people would pay to move. Pretty soon smuggling was the main business, the acts became just a cover. It was a sloppy operation, sometimes people saw things they shouldn't, or got cold feet about their new work. That was fine. They just made it easier to feed the tiger.

As priorities switched, things only got worse for Tara. She was kept hungry, fed only on what meat the circus got from aforementioned ‘volunteers,’ and saw less and less time outside the cage. Nobody wanted to perform with the man-eating tiger, or risk her getting loose. It was then, hungry and alone, the voice came to her. A gravely, hungry, cruel thing that whispered from the back of her skull. It was there in her worst moments, telling her how to survive, urging her to hold on. Not out of hope for something better, but a simple animalistic need to survive, and maybe yearning to one day sink her teeth into the necks of her abusers. Every time she faltered, her spirit began to break, the voice reminded her of her birthright: to hunt and kill and rend. She was an apex predator, a survivor, and one day she would outgrow this cage and these feeble two-legged things. Beyond these bars, beyond the whip and the crowd and lights, there was a world where the strong killed what they wanted and ate what they pleased, while the weak suffered what they must. One day, it said, that would be her world.

The spirit brought another curiosity to her little cage: A gnome, one of the new performers. He seemed to hear the voice too sometimes, or maybe more to see it, and started coming to Tara every night. Smudged with grease paint and reeking of sweat, he would babble at her in the half-understood language of her tormentors for hours on end, show her books and small tricks of magic. At first she wanted to eat him. It would have been easy, if he just came a little closer. He could probably fit through the bars if she got hold of a limb or his coat. From there he’d probably be gone in only three bites, maybe four if she savored the meal, but she’d have a full belly for a night. The voice agreed. But he kept coming by, kept babbling through the bars most people were afraid to even look at. To her own surprise Tara found she started to enjoy his presence. It was something new, something that broke up the monotony of pacing her cage. If he did stray too close one day and she got a hold on him, she decided she would even miss him.

Eventually the gnome seemed to notice the recognition in her silent face every few words, and started trying to teach her English. He wasn’t the best teacher, but he was eager and dedicated enough Tara began to grasp the language. Tara never talked back, just a growl or chirp here and there to acknowledge his words, but that never stopped him from holding a conversation. The gnome became something of a friend to her, the yang to the voice’s yin. She hardly even noticed he had begun sitting by the bars rather than outside her reach.

During one of the show’s big moves, her feeders brought the gnome to her cage, tenderized as her meat usually was. Somehow the little mage had crossed Mr. Witaker, learned something he shouldn't, tried to run maybe. They threw him into the cage with Tara, more meat for the tiger to deal with. She did as she had countless times before, seized the panicked gnome in her bone-crushing jaws, belly growling for his flesh, and battered him into submission with a few swipes of her massive paws. Then she dragged his limp little form into the dark corner where she had consumed so many lives before his.

But this time, she ignored the gnawing in her gut, and the whispering in her ear. This one wasn’t food. She was a tiger, an apex predator, not an obedient housecat. She was strong, the voice had taught her that, and that meant she could kill what she wanted, eat what she pleased, and protect what she chose. Surprisingly, the voice agreed. She held the gnome down til they were alone, then relented, letting him slip back out through the bars and vanished into the night. He would survive, it was the perfect time to escape. With the circus pulling up roots, they would soon be hundreds of miles away as the train carried them to the next city, and her little friend would be free... while she would still be in this cage. Always the cage. Until the lock clicked, the door slid open, and her bite-sized friend rematerialized with keys in hand. The three of them, spirit, tiger, and gnome, would find their freedom together.

Life outside the cage wasn’t easy. Feeding a tiger is no small feat, especially one with no hunting instincts and a taste for human flesh, but with help from Grackle and her spirit mentor Tara has survived. They scraped by until they arrived in Seattle, discovering the shadow community thriving within. As it turns out there's good money to be made for a killer tiger with human cunning in that line of work, and as Schwarz & Whitaker learned, it takes a lot of money to feed a tiger.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

Mentor Spirit (Wolf (Alt)) - (Flavored as a Tiger instead) Her struggle for survival has led her to seek out guidance, ending up in service to a spirit of a creature not unlike herself- who occasionally imparts with her cautionary warnings in dire scenarios, and encourages practical (If occasionally immoral) solutions.

Mentor's Mask (Adept) - Using her abilities dons her with an inky black mask that imparts on her a more demonic and frightening look, emphasizing her inner beast more clearly.

High Pain Tolerance 1, Resistance to Toxins, Agile Defender - Years of abuse has left her a bit more durable, if a little more broken mentally.

Balance Receptor, Broadened Auditory System (Ultrasound), Low-Light Vision - She a tiger, she do tiger things.

Negative

Addiction (Moderate) (Anthropophagy) - Despite her efforts to turn to more ethical meal options, she's been eating human and metahuman alike for so long that it's subconsciously become her preferred choice. If gone too long without satiating this desire, she usually ends up with shakes, nausea, sleep deprivation, and irritability. Recently she's barely managed to curb this urge to once every two weeks, yet it remains an ever present part of her.

Social Stress (Crowds) - Being a people eater, it is difficult for her to hold her composure around large groups. She also retains some underlying trauma of people, though this aversion only typically arises when outnumbered.

Uneducated - You 'toopid

Run History

No runs yet. This list will auto-populate when this character is tagged in a run AAR.

Affiliations

Contacts

Contact Connection Loyalty Archetype Profession Aspects Chips
Chloe Green 2 4 Fixer Fixer Activist, Environmentalist, Rich Brat Even


Organizations

Allies

Grackle

Enemies

In Character Information

Symbols and Signatures

Matrix Search Table

Threshold Result
1 Little besides articles on unrelated tigers and the history of man-eating animals.
3 Wild Tiger on the loose in Seattle! Escapee from zoo? Be careful when traversing forested areas and bring Repellant!
6 Occasional reports of relatively recent animal attacks in Seattle, though authorities can't be certain as there are never bodies left behind.

Shadow Community Table

Threshold Result
1 A new arrival in Seattle, a shapeshifter, physical combatant known for only operating in her animal form
3 Makes a residency out in the less populated and more forested areas of Snohomish- but where exactly is hard to discern. There is no obvious address.
5 A Maneater, quite literally. Responsible for the occasional disappearance in Seattle, usually documented gangers or criminals.

Assensing Table

Threshold Result
1 Awakened
2 No Cyberwear, Adept
3 No Alphaware
4 No Bioware, Essence 6, Magic 6
5 No Deltaware, No Gene Treatments, no Nanotech. Not a Technomancer.

SINs

Wu Min [Rating 4]

Appearance

Tara is a siberian tiger and thus is pretty damn big, standing on her hind legs she can reach about 12 feet in height and weighs about 600+ pounds. She has no noticeable augmentations, but occasionally will be decorated in various pieces of jewelry when needing to look more appropriate for expensive areas- such as gold ear-cuffs or a bejeweled, gold-chain collar. She often takes an alibi of belonging to Grackle as an exotic pet- though she tries to remain as independent as she can

In combat, she wears critter armor that covers a great deal of her body- shrouding most of it with a cloak that rests along her back. Attached to the armor is a basic commlink she uses with a trode patch behind one of her ears, and a sensor collar.

Character Plot Hooks

Here are characteristics of the character that GMs may take advantage of to add complications to runs, or to otherwise use when in use. If you want to use them in unrelated to runs, please ask first.

Aspect Information Related Run(s)
Disclaimer Tara "Maneater" is a character who's goal is struggling with the immorality of her urges, trying to satiate them while also attempting to do good in the world. I'm not looking to recover her addictions straight away, as it is majorly integral to her early character. As such, occasionally she may try to sate her hunger on a run only if the opportunity presents itself. I do not go out of my way to cause conflict on a table, and Tara will normally try to operate in private- but instances may happen where her activities could upset other player characters and I am fully comfortable with and expect that when playing with others! I really only have intentions of bringing her on more private runs so I don't foresee major conflicts happening, but in the event that such a thing may be concerning for a GM I figured I'd place something here just as reassurance that I am aware of the probability of consequences or conflict, and understand that it may affect my rate of acceptance on runs.
Aspect 2
Aspect 3
Aspect 4
Aspect 5

Media Mentions

ShadowGrid Profile Comments