Rathound

Rathound

Loup Garou Adept
Wasteland Werewolf
Slightly Radioactive
Discord	@discogoblin#9660
Reddit	[1]
Metatype	Human
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	1
Public Awareness	0
CDP	0
D.O.B.	5/13/2028
Age	57
Folder	[2]
Priority	Metatype - D Attributes - A Magic/Resonance - D Skills - C Resources - C
#Max IGs/Ascension	0
# Optional Infected powers allowed	0
Essence(Current/Max):	3/9
# Optional Drake powers available	Major Powers:0 or Minor Powers:0

Character Information

Summary

The escaped lab rat of a toxic mage hailing from the SOX; a once-proud werewolf who now feeds on roadkill, purely concerned with surviving the night. He's unstable, aggressive, and visibly monstrous, yet shows a surprising amount of care for the creatures who live in the shadow of the sprawl. There among the weeds and the flea-bitten cats, he seeks absolution the only way he knows how: brutal, unending violence against the people responsible for killing the earth.

Goals

- Heal his mutilated body and soul (restore his essence and increase his magic)

- Get revenge on his former captor, and any toxic mages he meets along the way

- Get back into to the spirits' good graces and earn the boon of a powerful mentor

Background

Bang. A door swings violently open, dented by the impact of a steel-toed boot. Rathound steps into a boarded up gas station, cast in shades of monochrome by the ash storm raging outside. Mt. Rainier’s fury whips against the walls with the sound of a million chittering bugs, while the building’s former tenant- a half-mummified squatter- sleeps soundly on a putrid mattress, surrounded by empty inhalers. Once, the Loup Garou made his home in the beautiful old growth forests of France. Now, he’s grateful to have a soft bed as he kicks the desiccated body aside.

That night Rathound dreams of carefree hunts in the halcyon days of his youth- him and his pack against the world, striking fear into mortal hearts, arrogant and cruel in equal measure, high off their own supply. They imagine that they are like conquerors of old, bringing the masses of sheep to heel. They brush off the warnings of other infected as the baying of tired old men. When the boot comes down it is swift and decisive: mortal hunters set the forest ablaze, driving the Garou into a minefield and gunning them down as they try to escape. The sole surviving “lord of the night” scampers east with his tail between his legs, seeking the only refuge he can in the blighted lands of the SOX. There, amid the skeletal wreck of the future, he meets a man who will be his doom, kneeling in the mud with tear tracks streaking through the grime on his face.

What’s with the tears, Rathound asks. The man regards him thoughtfully. It’s because we're trapped between worlds, you and I, no longer able to live in the old and yet tragically unprepared for the new. I want us to finally break from those shackles which bind us to the will of the gods. Do you understand? Rathound nods, and thinks ‘this old fool’s cracked’. He also thinks- wrongly- he has nothing left to lose, so he follows the old man back to his home while planning to kill him and loot his stuff. For the second time now he underestimates mortals, and for the second time now he walks into a trap. The man, a powerful toxic mage, imprisons the Garou in a long-dead reactor. He tells him that he will make a new life form suited to the future we've brought upon ourselves. There, beneath the spirits' baleful glow, white-hot metal begins to split flesh. Years blend together as Rathound's dreams dissolve into a jumble of screaming nightmares.

He wakes with a start, drenched in sweat, the sound of power tools ringing in his ears. He rolls off the bare, sticky mattress and checks his surroundings for pursuers. Quiet. The world is still after the storm, with rays of fading sunlight poking through the boards. Rathound clenches his cold metal fist and reminds himself that he is free. He's run to the other side of the world, and will keep on running till he finds what he needs. He'll cleanse his body, restore his lost rage, and use it to wreak bloody revenge on the ones who dared to defile him so. But first, he needs to make it to the sprawl before he starves to death. He throws on his jacket, hops on his dirtbike, and guns the throttle like a man possessed; cutting through the ash like a field of fresh snow on his way towards the glittering skyline.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

• Infected, Loup Garou: The details of Rathound's mortal life are as blurry as they are unimportant. A boring mortal whelp in a boring mortal town, going through the undignified grind of rural poverty. As far as he's concerned, he's always been Loup Garou. Demigods have no need to remember their time shoveling horse shit.

• Tough as a Radroach (High pain tolerance, radiation sponge, dual natured defender): When you've already come back from the worst, little things like gunshots don't seem all that bad.

Negative

• Pressure Cooker (Superhuman psychosis, PSC combat monster): Even setting his appearance aside, regular people find Rathound unsettling. His bone-deep sense of superiority, habitual use of combat stims, and crippling body dysmorphia all make for a violent emotional cocktail. He is liable to go berserk when provoked, and fights like a cornered animal.

• Off the Grid (Paranoia, uneducated, disheveled): Garou don't exactly hang out at coffee shops, but even among his own kind Rathound stands out as a crazy loner. The man is practically feral and spends most of his time in wolf form. Up until recently he didn't know that the matrix had crashed a second time. He only interacts with human society when he absolutely needs to, because any one of them could be a hunter or an agent of his captor in disguise.

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
Clay "Claymore" Nelson	1	1	Fixer	Disposable & Deniable Assets Manager	Disposable Assets, Deniable Assets, Low Expectations, Hero(?) of a Thousand Faces, I Found This On a Dead Runner, Bad Apples	Even
Cendra	1	3	Gear	Free Spirit	Treasures of the Magma, Surprisingly Animal-Friendly	Even

Allies

• Clay "Claymore" Nelson: A small, petty man, too scrawny to eat, but useful for the connections that he brings. Rathound believes he's taking advantage of the sleazy mortal fixer, but in all likelihood it's the other way around. Some people never learn.

• Cendra: It pays to have the spirits on your side, for they are notorious gossips. Rathound squats in the volcanic wastes that Cendra claims as her domain, and honors the spirit with periodic offerings of charcoal, trinkets, and questionably-sourced meat.

Enemies

• Huxley: Rathound's former captor, a mad toxic mage with coterie of spirits at his beck and call. He makes his home in a wizard tower built within a nuclear reactor, performing gruesome experiments to elevate humanity to a new state of being. As far as Rathound knows he's still working in the SOX, but that doesn't stop the garou from constantly checking over his shoulder.

In Character Information

Matrix Search Table

Threshold	Result
1	Some rambling article from CryptidWatch about the "Mt. Rainier Mutant". Apparently he can fly and shoot radioactive laser beams from his hands.
3	Okay, maybe this is actually something. Scattered reports from around Hell's Kitchen tell of an unnaturally large white wolf, which prowls the streets after gang fights to drag the bodies away. Some more questionable sources also claim to have seen the beast take other forms, though they haven't attracted attention from any serious hunter groups.
6	One news article really sticks out, from Puyallup city about a month ago: a waste management company known for illegal dumping had their office trashed by an unknown assailant. One of the surviving employees made a post on MeFeed calling it a monster attack, and saying that the company covered it up because they didn't want legal scrutiny. Their account mysteriously went silent a couple of days later.

Shadow Community Table

Threshold	Result
1	The latest Puyallup urban legend, a ghost that comes in the night to defile the bodies of the dead. Can be warded off with sage, fire, or glowsticks, depending on who you ask.
3	Most urban legends have a grain of truth, and this weirdo is probably the source. Lower profile than one might expect, he prefers opportunistic scavenging to any real feeding frenzies. Not affiliated with Fear the Dark or any infected gangs.
6	People have quietly speculated what happened to make him look so... fucked up. Theories range from cyberpsychosis to corporate blood magic and aliens, but the most likely one seems to be a run in with a toxic mage. Probably a subject to be broached with caution. He seems a little touchy about it.

Assensing Table

Threshold	Result
1	Awakened, infected, and in poor health both physically and mentally. His aura is a sickly green and looks like a liquid just about to boil.
2	Holes in the essence around the left arm look like they've been chewed by bugs. Whoever installed this cyberware did so without regard for comfort
3	Strain 2 infected, with a healthy dose of radiation poisoning on top of that. Not actually toxic, notably, just ravaged by long-term exposure.
4	His bioware almost seems alive, growing like a parasite inside his body. The strongest concentrations are in the heart and brain. Essence 3, magic 3.
5	His genes are edited in the way that a dissonant technomancer edits a host: incoherent to outside observers, done for a reason only they understand. The changes offer no apparent benefit, only a bunch of additional health problems.

SINs

• Jacques Martin (R4 Fake): A UCAS citizen with a motorcycle license, courtesy of Clay to 'celebrate a new partnership'. This fake SIN has seen at least a dozen former owners.

Appearance

6'4, 230 pounds, covered in patchy, iron-grey fur. On his right arm, claws the length of daggers. On his left, a heavy industrial cyberhand. Running down his back is a metal apparatus with needles and vials for combat stims. His mouth is a yellowed hacksaw of teeth, and his pale red eyes have translucent membranes which blink vertically. Beneath all of that is a human man in his 30's, with sharp, craggy features and weather-beaten skin, the look of a lifelong drifter.

Clothing

Rathound wears a tailored gas mask to hide some of his more monstrous features, paired with a black armored jacket, biker jeans, and brown leather ankle boots. He also wears a forearm bracer with a biomonitor and geiger counter.

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	Food Motivated	Grand ambitions are all well and good, but Rathound's gotta look out for number one. He will do some insane shit for the promise of a free meal.
Aspect 2	Paranoid	The hunters, the spirits, the corps, they're all after him. Rathound's constantly on the move from threats both real and imagined. If he feels the net closing in, he may start to panic and do something stupid.
Aspect 3	Urban Ranger	Rathound's got an affinity for the downtrodden wretches of the sprawl, and will fiercely protect these creatures from people who'd sicken their habitats further. This is done through- you guessed it- violence. Litterers are jumped on sight.
Aspect 4	Infected Solidarity	Though not exactly personable towards his kin, but he does feel a certain obligation to help them out when they're in need. Bonus points if they're the type who can't blend into polite society.
Aspect 5	Cocky Bastard	One could say Rathound's got the charisma of a rock, but that would imply knowing when to keep his mouth shut. The garou will never back down from a direct challenge, no matter how risky or inconvenient.