Bulan

Rizal Matapang "Bulan"

Infiltrator, Surveillance, Runner, Flexible Combatant
(Not who he used to be.)
Player	[1]
Metatype	Human
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	0
Public Awareness	0
Titles and Awards	0
Folder	[2]
Priority	Metatype - D Attributes - B Magic/Resonance - E Skills - C Resources - A

Character Information

Summary

An outwardly bright and cheerful BTL addict who was forcefully and heavily augmented against his will. Determined to use his new body to run the shadows and find some answers.

Goals

-Discover the fate of Rosemary Wilde.

-Uncover the reasons behind his augmentation.

-Reveal the identities of who was behind his augmentation.

-Survive long enough for long term goals to matter.

Background

Rizal Matapang was born poor and SINless as they come in Seattle to a family of his parents, his grandparents, a great grandpa, an aunt an uncle, 4 cousins and 5 siblings. There were a lot of mouths, not very much space and they mostly got by on sheer numbers, able to resist attempts at shuffling them away from their squat. It was an abandoned one-story motel off in the boonies of the Puyallup barrens that his father and uncle had spruced up a bit, knocking down walls to turn the rooms into a facsimile of a home. They survived largely on charity and the remains of the soykitchen in the old continental breakfast bar. It was, frankly, horrible. The kids of the family didn't get a formal education, rather being homeschooled by their grandparents. Rizal gathered when he was a kid that there was a reason his family was in the state they were in but that his parents and grandparents were too ashamed and embarassed to speak of it, so all they knew was that they were poor as fuck.

Rizal, like his cousins and siblings, ran around in the barrens in places only kids manage to be safe in, getting underfoot of gangers and only being tolerated due to their youth. It helped them to learn some of the skills they would need to survive though and it made their names and faces known to the local powers, which as they aged helped them to get their fingers into odd jobs that helped their families to survive. Rizal wasn't strong or smart but he had a cute smile and was fast so he was given things to slip past authorities and rival gangs alike. He became quite good at fast-talking his way out of things and running when the time was right.

When Rizal was at the tender age of 13 he tried his first BTL, a "free sample" from a pusher with a trodenet and an old commlink. It was like he was seeing the world how it was supposed to be seen for the first time and when his sample ended he wanted more and more. He burned his nuyen buying moodchips from then on and when he felt brave he would go to a local BTL den and get slotted in for a few hours to experience an adventure in another world entirely, the truest essence of escape. He would have to slot another euphoria chip just to smile again when he left the parlor and went back home. His addiction was uncovered by his siblings after not too long, after all there was no privacy in their "house," and Rizal ended up being cast out as an embarassment. A hypocrisy, his parents were both getting high, but those were good natural drugs not cyber-dependant sinfulness, so of course it was completely different.

Rizal ended up doing his running and sneaking for the BTL parlor known as Dawna's Dreamatorium once the money ran dry but his addiction ran hot. He traded work for a place to lay his head and regular chips to slot but he needed more and more over time. At his worst, Rizal would slot another chip as soon as one burned out so he could avoid the crash, or at least delay it for a while longer, before spending sometimes days in despondent fugues once his dealer's good graces ran out.

Rizal was the perfect target for exploitation. SINless, rejected by his family, not belonging to any gangs. He had no protection except for the Dreamatorium and Dawna was not a protective person.

What happened next is not known to Rizal, one day he was slotted a chip that made him feel... pacified. He was led to a place in the richer part of Seattle and given to this clean looking doctor and his crew before they slotted in another dreamchip and then... He was in that dream for what felt like years but what turned out to be almost 12 weeks in the real world. He woke to smoke and gunfire, the sizzle of magic and the roar of spirits. He was hauled out of his tube (his tube?) by a tall burly woman and dragged to safety where some things were explained to him.

This woman was Rosemary Wilde, a runner skilled with both guns and spirits, who had been hot on the trail of a friend of hers who had disappeared. The trail led her to this lab led by an unknown doctor and staffed by, as it turned out, personafixed bunraku slaves uploaded with programming to make them perfect nurses. Apparently Rizal along with some others from BTL parlors across the city had been given to an underground ripper doc to be turned into Bunraku sex slaves, only there was a hell of a lot of money being funneled into the project from unknown sources. Bunraku jobs were normally quick ones, solder in a permanent simrig and bodysculpt a little into the perfect sex pet. Rizal and the other victims had been extensively cyber and bio augmented, like hundreds of thousands of nuyen of mods each, transforming them into covert superhumans. Theories abound but according to Rosemary the mysterious bunraku doc escaped and countermeasures had been fired that wiped every computer in the place and burned out the bunraku nurses hard. Some of the other patients also didn't make it but Rizal and a handful of them were lucky, Rosemary was able to use a contracted tech spirit to protect them.

Rosemary ended up helping the victims, including Rizal, get some discreet medical attention and remove any lingering security measures left in them, but there wasn't much else she could do. While the other victims wandered back to their homes, Rizal was still homeless. She felt responsible for him, so Rosemary brought him to her apartment, a discreet place above a dwarven takeout place and an orc-run laundromat. They were only together a few weeks but Rizal stuck to her like glue, following Rosemary as she did followup investigations into the augmentation lab, running around a bit for her and helping her sneak into some places they weren't supposed to be... And the whole time he was doing it Rizal realized he hadn't slotted a single BTL chip! It was like a new lease on life. Rosemary felt like she was becoming a friend, a real bond like something between student and master or aunt and nephew. After a little over a month and a half of this, being this older shadowrunner's apprentice of sorts, she suddenly disappeared. One night Rizal went to bed, the next he went to bring Rosemary her morning soykaf and she was gone. She left only a note that said "Watch the place" and a fake SIN she had made for him with the credentials to the apartment, on top of a collection of equipment she didn't pack with her, though her best stuff she'd taken.

Using his new heavily modded body and the start that Rosemary Wilde gave him, Rizal wants to become a shadowrunner. Ultimately his goal is to find out where Rosemary Wilde went after her final run and to discover the purpose behind his alterations and the people who orchestrated the whole event. He doesn't know what he will do with the information, he just knows he has to know.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Barrens Rat: Rizal's used to smuggling things on himself, even larger things when he was very small. Those skills haven't atrophied over time.

First Impressions: Rizal's dazzling smile and energetic way of coming on to someone can really bowl you over until you get used to it!

School of Hard Knocks: Rizal's schoolhouse was the streets and the homey wisdom his family had to share, not book learning.

Addiction (BTL Chips): Better. Than. Life. Rizal got hooked on moodchips specifically when he was young but he's not so picky that he won't slot a dreamchip or something more extreme every now and then. It's hard to resist, I mean it's so easy to feel on the inside the way he pretends to on the outside. All it takes is the satisfying click of one handy little chip...

Scorched: Rizal has no idea what happened but since his rescue he's had a hell of a time feeding his addiction when it strikes, he has these blackouts now and he doesn't always know what he does when they happen... It's a motivator for getting clean but it doesn't stop him from indulging either.

Affiliations

Contacts

• [[3]] - Connection 4, Loyalty 3 - Fixer
• [[4]] - Connection 5, Loyalty 3 - Street Doc
• [[5]] - Connection 2, Loyalty 1 - Infobroker

Enemies

That Fucking Ripper Doc: Rizal isn't sure what he's going to do with the bastard but he's sure as hell going to find him!

In Character Information

SINs

Level 4 Fake SIN: Naldo Rodriguez. Naldo's got a bit of a record, but just enough so you brush off the lesser stuff he does. He works as a bounty hunter for bail jumpers and has plenty of licenses for weapons, armor and 'ware designed for taking the heavies down. It's meant to be his legit SIN, he hasn't picked up any burners yet mostly because he hasn't learned that you should have some around.

Description

Before everything happened Rizal was a skinny, malnourished street kid like a thousand others. He wasn't bad looking, wasn't good looking, was wiry and forgettable in most ways. Your eyes would have slid right off of him. After his forced transformation, things are very different.

The Rizal of today is a bronzed god, formed to fit your dreams. Formed to specification. Muscle augmentations gave him size and muscle toners gave him intense definition, meaning that every inch of his tall, lean frame is rippling and bulging with perfect curves of firm muscle. His biceps are thick rounded hills, his chest is broad and deep, his abs are an 8 pack of rippling beauty you could catch your fingertips in. His long legs have thick, inviting thighs and powerfully rounded calves ending in big solid feet that easily and efficiently carry his weight. He looks like something out of a talent's artbook than something nature made. His whole body is like silk covered steel, begging to be touched. His skin is a golden tan that contrasts with the white of his smile and the light gray of his eyes, his hair is a shock of artfully mussed close-cropped black spikes. And that baby face of his though, he has a youthful pretty face that seems to both contrast and compliment his build with a boyish beauty with a little ski-lift nose, soft full lips and gorgeous angular eyes.

Rizal radiates a masculine beauty that he oftentimes doesn't really know what to do with, though the confidence boost at being so gorgeous has helped him become a little more social. It's a shock he doesn't suffer from more intense dysmorphia, after all this really isn't his body. At the same time he has to accept the fact that it is, he's been altered but he is still himself. When you grow up hating how you look it becomes easier to embrace changes about yourself, though the feelings of violation will never really go away.

Rizal's personality hasn't changed very much from his youth, his smiles and expressions are utterly blinding in their sincerity and force, which is something he uses to cover up how easily depressed he can feel. He's a bit of a mess that way, filled with determination to be as optimistic as possible in a world that shivs optimism in the face, yet wracked with doubt and guilt at things that aren't even his fault. Rizal needs positive reinforcement and praise and a lot of physical contact, he easily becomes convinced that people hate him or that he's a failure when he doesn't receive the affection and validation he aches for. These same feelings, however, push him to excel at whatever he feels he must try his hand at. His augmentations made him an amazing infiltrator, so he's been recently working hard to cultivate the skills to complement his new body. He's been feeling quite alone since his rescue, which isn't good for him psychologically or in the course of fighting his addiction...

Rizal turned to BTL chips early in life to combat his depression, struggling under the weight of being poor and SINless in Seattle. His chips of choice are moodchips, generally choosing euphoric moods that allow him to feel the way he pretends to feel. The crash is always hard on him, usually bringing him to tears when he remembers that it's only an escape, a lie. He struggles hard with his addiction, the odd moodchip or dreamchip finding itself slotted in so he can cope with life with a smile or even escape for a few hours. He likes dreamchips where he's always the hero, reveling mostly in romantic fantasy. Since his rescue he's been trying to get off of the chips and he's made some progress, but BTLs are seductive and he finds himself reaching for them still. What complicates things is that since his rescue he's suffered some bad burnout on occasion using them. He's lost time while suffering from BTL crashes and he doesn't always find out what he does during that lost time.

Clothing

Rizal has tended towards more light and showy clothing lately, wearing stuff that either has no sleeves or sleeves he can roll up and nice tight jeans. When he's on the job he's managed to get his hands on an Argentum longcoat that basically goes with everything, it's AR fashion ready to project an outfit but also electrochromatic so the physical garment can be made to look as business ready or street chic as need be.

Matrix Persona

Rizal's matrix persona looks like a kung fu hero wearing a headband and waistwrap with leather bands adorned with wooden beads wrapped around the biceps and neck.