Fischer

Fischer

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Mage
(Mastermind, Summoner, Tactician)
Player	RandomChummer
Metatype	Elf
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	1
Public Awareness	0
Titles and Awards	0
D.O.B.	December 10, 2030
Folder	Folder
Priority	Meta C, Attr B, M/R C, Skills B, Res E

Character Information

Summary

Fischer is the man behind the curtain. His weapons are the people, machines, and sprites he influences and directs. Like any good player, he knows the value of his pieces---a careless sacrifice only leads to weakness. Fischer prefers to empower, inform, and position his allies and subordinates, leveraging their strengths to secure victory. Whether they believe it is their goals they are achieving or his is immaterial to Fischer. In the end, he always comes out ahead.

Goals

The Great Game defines his life. Fischer lives to play and measures his existence by triumphs and defeats.

• Challenger: The Great Game is not kind to those who are stagnant. Conflict and struggle are the crucible in which greatness is forged, and Fischer actively seeks out stronger opponents. He is not an idiot and will avoid battles he expects to lose, and he knows there are many paths to victory, most of which require patience, preparation, and resolve. "Fighting fair" is just a myth perpetuated by combatants who have over-committed to a strength and seek to protect their vulnerabilities.

• Explorer: Secrets are meant to be uncovered, but only by the worthy. Fischer believes that the hidden world is a series of trials meant to separate the exceptional from the rank and file.

• Aeronaut: Fischer has always had an eye on the clouds. At a personal level, he sees the streets as a metaphor for the common man, and he believes he can be more, both figuratively and literally. Whether piloting a drone in VR or physically being held aloft, he sees the sky as his providence.

Background

Magnus Lasker was born December 10, 2030 in the fledgling state of Pomorya, a human to young elven parents. With the onset of the first Eurowar, his family fled the continent and followed the tide of elven immigrants settling in Portland. Young Magnus grew up a fairly sheltered life of private education, but in a stratified elven society, he was always one step removed from the world. It was in this isolating environment that he met Evelyn Lombardy, in whom he found a kindred spirit. Another human, Evelyn and Magnus bonded over their shared pseudo-pariah status and became fast friends.

By twenty-two, the pair had become inseparable, and they had begun to see their second-class status as both a challenge and an opportunity to move more quietly beneath mainstream Cara'sir society. When Portland closed its trading doors to the greater world in 2052, Magnus and Evelyn decided to follow the free port to Seattle. They moved into a small apartment downtown and began working to manipulate the burgeoning trade deals in the area. It was during these formative years that both Evelyn and Magnus shaped their philosophy of the Great Game. The inception of the idea began, naturally, over a game of chess---their shared passion. It was the striking similarity of their economic and political machinations to the feints and gambits on their board that set them talking. As years passed, it became a strategy, then a guiding philosophy, and finally a defining code.

Years went by, and Magnus worked alongside his compatriot with great success, quietly accumulating modest wealth and power. On the night of March 22nd, 2064, he met Evelyn for their habitual Saturday evening game of chess. Magnus was engrossed, his mind completely focused on his moves. His lifelong friend was not. Just as Lasker seized victory on the board, he felt the prick of a needle in his neck, and his world went black.

Magnus awoke in a private hospital room in Seattle ten years later with an letter on his chest. It explained of his friend's betrayal, of the coma she had induced, and of the fate of his now-defunct SIN. This was his final lesson: that there are no true allies in the Great Game, merely other players with aligned goals. She explained that she had discovered this truth years before and tried time and again to nudge him towards the same realization, but he had never come around. So she had resigned herself to the only option left. Experience is a harsh teacher, but it cannot be ignored. Defeat was the only way to teach it.

What Evelyn did not plan was the side-effects of existing in a chemically induced, VR-mediated coma during the second Matrix crash. With the Matrix infrastructure torn away from him, Magnus began a nine-year drift through ambient signals of the electronic world around him. When he was finally released from his virtual prison, he found himself inextricably linked to the electronic world around him. Computer systems now bent to his thoughts, and he could feel the ebb and flow of data from billions of connected devices.

And so Magnus returns to his seat at the table of the Great Game. After a painful physical rehabilitation to undo the effects of the chemical damage and subsequent atrophy, Magnus has thrown himself back into the shadows. He harbors no resentment to his friend. On the contrary, she gave him the most valuable lesson she possessed and, unexpectedly, the most valuable tool he now has. Backed by a formidable arsenal of machine and Matrix, he is ready to play once again.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Fischer is a man at the nadir of his power and the apex of his life. Enfeebled from a year-long coma, stripped of all his possessions, and thrown to the urban wilds of Seattle, he could not be happier. He has been enlightened to his true purpose, and opportunity flourishes around him.

Outwardly, Fischer is a gaunt elf with a calm, piercing gaze. He sometimes struggles to manage with the simple physical tasks required of daily life, and his hands often betray a slight tremor. He dresses well, and when he speaks, it is with composure and a hidden strength. His personality tends to be that of an arbitrator in public (though perhaps he would prefer the term "arbiter" instead), and he attempts to achieve his ends by convincing others that their interests are aligned. He rarely engages in overt threats or coersion, but when he does, it is always backed up with extensive preparation.

Before his fall, Fischer was a ranked grandmaster in chess, and he continues to play avidly. Fischer sees chess as a reflection of the universe in microcosm, and his love of the analogy tends to spill into his activities. He works with the Matrix in AR, visualizing personas and icons as pieces on a board. When he summons spirits, the astral negotiation for their calling is executed through quick games---execute a cunning strategy and a spirit will reward the insight with a service, but lose the game, and the summoning will be shunned. Fischer has practiced this method to the point where he can execute it in his head, but he still prefers the feel of real pieces in his fingers.

His daily routine includes continuing physical rehabilitation, time in the matrix to stay abreast of events, long-term study in the arcane arts, and of course, dedicated time to his favorite vice.

Affiliations

Contacts

• Ellie Esps - Connection 4, Loyalty 2 - Fixer
• Paul Emmers - Connection 4, Loyalty 2 - Swag (Vehicles/Drones)
• Anatoly Yevgenyevich - Connection 2, Loyalty 1 - Hustler (Shadow services)

In Character Information

Tradition: Lex Magna Venatura

(mechanically identical to Vodou, including possession, just roleplayed differently)

Adherents believe that all life is part of an interconnected web of conflict they call The Great Game. Every beast, metahuman, and spirit is a piece of the board, and physics, technology, and magic merely rules of play. The tenets are threefold:

• The Great Game is eternal. You cannot win this game, but the only true losing move is not to play.
• The Great Game is recursive. You have your pieces to control and manipulate to achieve your goals, and so you are manipulated in turn by greater players. You are a pawn, you have pawns, and your pawns have pawns. It's turtles all the way down.
• The Great Game is unknowable. Human games have finite rules, finite space. With enough time and resources, these are beatable. The Great Game cannot be beaten, because it is infinite. Unraveling its mysteries brings power, but it also reveals still more mysteries.

SINs

Victor Alekhine (R4). Private contractor, astral analysis. (Recently off medical disability.)

Appearance

Clothing

A high-quality tailored suit. "A gentleman without a suit is just a man."

Matrix Persona

A metahuman much like himself, dressed in a fine suit, but with a field of stars instead of a face.