Corpse

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

Character Information

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

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 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.

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.

And when the recruiter from Horizon came, Basil believed that life would always be this gentle.

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.

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 sometimes, that was enough.

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.

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.

They vanished that day, taken to a place where their names meant nothing, and their dreams even less.

Pre-Runner Adulthood

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Run History

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Affiliations

Contacts

Contact	Connection	Loyalty	Archetype	Profession	Aspects	Chips

In Character Information

Matrix Search Table

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6

Shadow Community Table

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5

Assensing Table

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5

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)
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