Revision as of 20:44, 22 July 2025

Character Information

Corpse
	File:Placeholder.jpg
Discord	peep_the_dictator#6484
Reddit	[1]
Metatype	SURGE Human/Dryad
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	0
Public Awareness	0
CDP	0
D.O.B.	04/7/2060
Age	44
Folder	[2]
Priority	Metatype - E ; Attributes - E ; Magic/Resonance - A ; Skills - B ; Resources - B
#Max IGs/Ascension	1
# Optional Infected powers allowed	0
Essence(Current/Max):	6/12
# Optional Drake powers available	Major Powers:0 or Minor Powers:0

Summary

Corpse is a Marionette man who has been biosculpted to resemble a female game character. He escaped one of Bonraku’s doll houses with extensive personal sacrifice, and seeks to free as many of the unwilling dolls as possible.

Goals

- Kill the man who kidnapped him.

- Help others in his situation.

- Reconstitute the corpse of his lover as an ally spirit.

Background

Growing Up

Basil grew up in Alaska, back before life got cold. His world wasn’t harsh or cruel like people like to say. He had parents. Decent ones. Xander and Rose weren’t complicated people, and Basil never needed them to be. They were present. Meals came hot and regular. Nights came quiet. He remembered that part most.

He liked small things. Puppets, mostly. Carved wood. Old plastic marionettes from secondhand shops that smelled like dust and mildew. The stillness of them appealed to him. Faces frozen in quiet, perfect expressions. He could spend hours working the strings, pulling joints into careful motion, making them dance until his hands ached.

There weren’t many places in his town for a boy like Basil to belong, but the small queer community folded him in without question. He didn’t need to explain himself there. He didn’t have to. He could exist, soft voiced, small, different. People understood without needing to say anything.

When Horizon showed up, Basil thought his life would stay simple. He thought he could keep it that way.

Young Adult

Corporate promises don’t need to be cruel to kill something. Horizon taught him that. It wasn’t malice that sharpened Basil into a tool. Just process. Just efficiency.

He took the implants. Learned how to work systems. Slipped into the machine, not because he believed in it, but because it was easier than fighting against it. Basil wasn’t built for spotlights anyway. He worked backend. Did what was needed.

He met a girl there. Emma. She laughed softly and listened harder. He never said what he felt, but he didn’t need to. She understood that much, at least.

She asked him to come to a cosplay convention with her once. Northern UCAS. Some throwaway event where people wore bright wigs and fake smiles. He agreed.

They were taken from the parking lot before they even made it through the doors.

Pre-Runner Adulthood

The place didn’t have a name at first. Later, they called it the Dollhouse.

They took his name first. Then the parts of him that made it matter. Personafix modules did the work quickly, erasing him line by line until there wasn’t much left to cut.

Surgeries followed. Bones broken. Skin shaped into what someone else wanted. He became a product. A marionette again, only this time the strings weren’t in his hands.

When the surgeries left him quadriplegic, the Dollhouse found new value in his broken body. Clients liked the helplessness. They called it art.

He would’ve let himself fade, but Emma was there. Close enough that he could hear her breathing if he concentrated hard enough. Her mind was gone, but her body was still moving. Still obeying.

Until a client broke her; Hands red. Dull eyes.

Something in Basil snapped.

Magic didn’t come in a flash. It came in the slow, unbearable weight of anger that had nowhere else to go. His mind burned through the programming, cracking open the matrix woven bindings in his skull.

His body wouldn’t move, but his mind didn’t need it to.

Emma’s corpse did.

He raised her. Bound what was left of her into something half-living, half-memory. Used her hands to cut his own apart, severing his hand so he could feed it into the ritual. It wasn’t clean magic. It wasn’t skilled. It was desperation. He tied her to himself with blood and hope and hate, and in doing so, he ruined whatever part of himself was still salvageable.

When the mana in the Dollhouse finally snapped from the weight of his spell, he burned with it.

Pre-Haven

He crawled from the wreckage. Not literally. His body didn’t move anymore.

Others did.

In Seattle, people started calling him Corpse. It started as a joke, a mage who didn’t show up to runs except as a spirit or drone wearing his voice. But the name stuck. Everything about him felt wrong to people who looked too close. The way his spirits moved. The way they remembered Emma’s posture when he wasn’t paying attention.

The real Emma, was kept in a cryo freezer. Not for magic. Not for experiments. Just to keep her from rotting. He told himself he’d find a way to bury her properly someday, but the programming in his head kept him from explaining why he cared.

So people assumed the worst. He let them.

His reputation grew, like everything else: slowly, and without his consent. Some feared him. Some pitied him. Most just avoided him.

But none of that mattered.

Corpse wasn’t trying to build a life.

He was just trying to finish one.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

Negative

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

Organizations

Allies

Enemies

In Character Information

Symbols and Signatures

Matrix Search Table

Threshold	Result
1
3
6

Shadow Community Table

Threshold	Result
1
3
5

Assensing Table

Threshold	Result
1
2
3
4
5

SINs

Appearance

Clothing

Matrix Persona

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)
Aspect 1
Aspect 2
Aspect 3
Aspect 4
Aspect 5

Media Mentions

ShadowGrid Profile Comments

@@ Line 86: / Line 86: @@
 '''Growing Up'''
-Life wasn’t always cold in Alaska. Not for Basil, anyway. His childhood was a warm cocoon of small comforts, laughter slipping through rooms gently lit by lamps whose bulbs always seemed half-asleep. His parents, Xander and Rose, were the steady heartbeat of that home; present, caring, real enough to fill his memories with the kind of glow most kids only see on faded trideo reruns.
+Basil grew up in Alaska, back before life got cold. His world wasn’t harsh or cruel like people like to say. He had parents. Decent ones. Xander and Rose weren’t complicated people, and Basil never needed them to be. They were present. Meals came hot and regular. Nights came quiet. He remembered that part most.
-Basil was always drawn to the little things; things most people overlooked. Puppets, carved from wood or molded in plastic, small faces forever frozen in smiles. He’d spend hours bringing them to life, fingertips guiding strings, pulling limbs into dance. The rest of the world slipped away when he performed, replaced by quiet wonder, as if all that existed were the puppets, the soft swaying lights, and Basil himself, guiding his small creations gently into story.
+He liked small things. Puppets, mostly. Carved wood. Old plastic marionettes from secondhand shops that smelled like dust and mildew. The stillness of them appealed to him. Faces frozen in quiet, perfect expressions. He could spend hours working the strings, pulling joints into careful motion, making them dance until his hands ached.
-Effeminate and quiet, Basil found his place among people who understood what it was to feel different, to live quietly apart from expectations. The queer community in his city became a refuge, a second home where no one questioned the quiet boy who smiled shyly and spoke through puppets far more confidently than he ever did through his own voice.
+There weren’t many places in his town for a boy like Basil to belong, but the small queer community folded him in without question. He didn’t need to explain himself there. He didn’t have to. He could exist, soft voiced, small, different. People understood without needing to say anything.
-And when the recruiter from Horizon came, Basil believed that life would always be this gentle.
+When Horizon showed up, Basil thought his life would stay simple. He thought he could keep it that way.
 '''Young Adult'''
-Promises weren’t worth much in the Sixth World. That was the first lesson Horizon taught Basil when he arrived in Los Angeles, part of their matrix entertainment program. It wasn’t cruelty that taught him that lesson, but the quiet reality of deadlines, pressure, and measured, careful smiles. Horizon sharpened him into a tool, not out of malice, but efficiency.
+Corporate promises don’t need to be cruel to kill something. Horizon taught him that. It wasn’t malice that sharpened Basil into a tool. Just process. Just efficiency.
-Still, Basil thrived. He accepted the cyberware implants, learned to navigate corporate servers with growing confidence, and built a quiet kind of pride in his skillset. He still dreamed small, content to support others from behind the scenes rather than seek a spotlight that never fit him. He belonged, even if the belonging felt manufactured. He belonged, and for him that was enough.
+He took the implants. Learned how to work systems. Slipped into the machine, not because he believed in it, but because it was easier than fighting against it. Basil wasn’t built for spotlights anyway. He worked backend. Did what was needed.
-He did manage to catch the eye and fancy of another girl there. A girl named Emma, with a laugh like sunshine and a quiet, curious gaze that reminded him of home. He was never bold enough to say how he felt, but when she invited him to attend the cosplay convention in northern UCAS, Basil allowed himself to believe in a brighter story.
+He met a girl there. Emma. She laughed softly and listened harder. He never said what he felt, but he didn’t need to. She understood that much, at least.
-It was supposed to be harmless. Cosplay and laughter, bright wigs and brighter smiles. They went together, hopeful and shy, unaware of the danger hidden behind masks and neon, until hands grabbed them from shadows that should have been safe.
+She asked him to come to a cosplay convention with her once. Northern UCAS. Some throwaway event where people wore bright wigs and fake smiles. He agreed.
-They vanished that day, taken to a place where their names meant nothing, and their dreams even less.
+They were taken from the parking lot before they even made it through the doors.
 '''Pre-Runner Adulthood'''
-They called it the Dollhouse.
+The place didn’t have a name at first. Later, they called it the Dollhouse.
-Names came first. Discarded, like torn fabric from a puppet’s costume. Personality was next, hollowed out with personafix modules, replaced with precise scripts and carefully rehearsed routines. Bodies were reshaped last: bones delicately broken, skin molded and reshaped to match fantasies crafted by strangers. Basil was transformed into a marionette of porcelain and steel, crafted to serve buyers who valued beauty and obedience above humanity.
+They took his name first. Then the parts of him that made it matter. Personafix modules did the work quickly, erasing him line by line until there wasn’t much left to cut.
-When the surgeries went wrong, Basil lost what little remained of his control. A spinal injury rendered him quadriplegic, a cruel twist of fate that the Dollhouse masters turned into an asset. They posed him as a tragic rarity, exotic, expensive, exquisite in his helplessness. Customers whispered appreciation at his stillness, called it art, praised the quiet elegance of his surrender.
+Surgeries followed. Bones broken. Skin shaped into what someone else wanted. He became a product. A marionette again, only this time the strings weren’t in his hands.
-In that haze of helplessness, there was one thing that kept Basil’s fading mind tethered to itself: Emma. She was nearby, trapped in the same porcelain prison. Every stolen glance at her dulled eyes was a blade that carved deeper into him than any surgeon ever could.
+When the surgeries left him quadriplegic, the Dollhouse found new value in his broken body. Clients liked the helplessness. They called it art.
-And then came the customer who pushed too far. Basil watched in silent horror as Emma’s fragile life shattered beneath brutal hands. Something snapped inside him, a force more powerful than grief, sharper than agony. It was anger… pure, searing, incandescent rage.
+He would’ve let himself fade, but Emma was there. Close enough that he could hear her breathing if he concentrated hard enough. Her mind was gone, but her body was still moving. Still obeying.
-Magic surged forth, unbidden, uncontrolled. It burned through Basil’s mind, mentally be rended the personafix programming that had kept him bound. He Awakened violently, yet his broken body refused to obey. Trapped in flesh that would not move, he reached out the only way he could. Through mana and sheer, desperate will.
+Until a client broke her; Hands red. Dull eyes.
-Emma’s body rose, her movements unnatural, broken. A corpse spirit wearing her face, summoned by his rage and grief. With her trembling hands, Basil spoke commands, desperate and harsh, forcing her to sever the hand from his wrist. Pain barely registered through the storm of his fury. He claimed his own limb as a reagent, channeling his desperation into a ritual of binding, anchoring Emma’s spirit to him, determined to preserve whatever scrap of her remained.
+Something in Basil snapped.
-But such magic exacts a price. The Dollhouse was built on anguish, and his act of necromancy tore through the background count, distorting the mana, changing it, changing him. Basil surged, reshaped yet again by wild mana, emerging as something new, unrecognizable.
+Magic didn’t come in a flash. It came in the slow, unbearable weight of anger that had nowhere else to go. His mind burned through the programming, cracking open the matrix woven bindings in his skull.
-Basil died on that blood-soaked floor, alongside Emma. The broken body that remained, still breathing and burning with quiet fury, was something else entirely.
+His body wouldn’t move, but his mind didn’t need it to.
+Emma’s corpse did.
+He raised her. Bound what was left of her into something half-living, half-memory. Used her hands to cut his own apart, severing his hand so he could feed it into the ritual. It wasn’t clean magic. It wasn’t skilled. It was desperation. He tied her to himself with blood and hope and hate, and in doing so, he ruined whatever part of himself was still salvageable.
+When the mana in the Dollhouse finally snapped from the weight of his spell, he burned with it.
 '''Pre-Haven'''
-The Dollhouse burned, and Basil burned with it. The shattered husk that emerged into Seattle’s rain slicked streets was something else. The other runners he found called him Corpse, first as a bitter joke: a quadriplegic mage who never moved, who spoke only through the pale bodies he sent in his place. Soon, the nickname stuck, a name carved from irony and whispered in wary respect.
+He crawled from the wreckage. Not literally. His body didn’t move anymore.
+Others did.
+In Seattle, people started calling him Corpse. It started as a joke, a mage who didn’t show up to runs except as a spirit or drone wearing his voice. But the name stuck. Everything about him felt wrong to people who looked too close. The way his spirits moved. The way they remembered Emma’s posture when he wasn’t paying attention.
+The real Emma, was kept in a cryo freezer. Not for magic. Not for experiments. Just to keep her from rotting. He told himself he’d find a way to bury her properly someday, but the programming in his head kept him from explaining why he cared.
+So people assumed the worst. He let them.
+His reputation grew, like everything else: slowly, and without his consent. Some feared him. Some pitied him. Most just avoided him.
+But none of that mattered.
-Emma stayed with him, too, though not as he wished. Her remains lay locked within a cryogenic freezer, carefully hidden and fiercely guarded. He couldn’t bear to leave her behind; somewhere deep inside, a fragment of Basil still lived, longing for her dignity, for a proper burial, for closure. Yet the scars of the Dollhouse ran deep. The lingering personafix routines bound his tongue, tangled his mind… He could never explain why he kept her body so close. To others, it seemed an unsettling possessiveness, the fixation of a broken man clinging to the last reminder of humanity.
+Corpse wasn’t trying to build a life.
-He could live with that misunderstanding, if only he found a way to bring her peace. Until then, Corpse walked the shadows without walking at all, sending spirits and synthetic drones in his place, existing as little more than a ghost in the Matrix, a whisper of power in the astral.
+He was just trying to finish one.
 == Narrative Significant Qualities ==

Difference between revisions of "Corpse"