Nova Kid

Nova Kid

Young Decker
Metatype	Human
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	1
Public Awareness	0
Titles and Awards	0
D.O.B.	June 16, 2061
Drive Link	Drive
Approved?	Yes
Priority	Metatype - D Attributes - C Magic/Resonance - E Skills - B Resources - A

Character Information

Summary

A wiz kid decker who grew up in a single-parent household and is now responsible for his mother's welfare. Reasonably good at working with faces and B&E for the coveted on-site direct connection hacks.

Goals

Support his sick mother, save up for a major medical treatment, avoid the notice of Aztechnology.

Personality

Both a talented young man and someone who barely scraped by in a tussle with a corporation's cybersecurity, Nova Kid waffles between confidence and anxiety. He can be naïve about shadowrunning, sometimes.

Appearance

Nova Kid is a young human male with brown eyes, black hair, and tanned skin.

Clothing

He often wears an Ares Victory: Industrious jumpsuit with a pair of sensor goggles strapped to his head, easily looking like the matrix security professional he often claims to be. He is otherwise fairly unremarkable in appearance, which works to his benefit on the job.

Matrix Persona

Online, Nova Kid appears as a humanoid figure in which outer space can be seen. His icons are space-themed. His marks are stars.

In Play

Take Your Medicine

Nova Kid has an addiction to psyche, a pill that boosts Logic and Intuition. Because he has the genemod Narco, he gets +2 to resist addiction to it, giving him a total pool of 8 Logic + 5 Willpower + 5 rating bonus + 2 Narco = 20 dice! The threshold is only 2, so it's extremely unlikely his addiction will worsen. In addition, Narco adds 1 to each of the attribute bonuses, giving him +2 Logic and +2 Intuition while under its effects.

He also has several doses of cram, an inhalant that gives additional Reaction and initiative. Because he isn't addicted to it yet, Narco imposes a -2 on his addiction test. This gives him 8 Logic + 5 Willpower + 7 rating bonus - 2 Narco = 18 dice. The threshold to avoid cram addiction is 3, so he's still pretty unlikely to be addicted. Narco causes the bonus to be +2 Reaction, though the +1d6 to physical initiative remains in place.

If you take both drugs at once, roll 1d6. On a 1, the duration of all drugs is doubled. On a 2-4, nothing happens. On a 5-6, the duration of crash effects is doubled, which doesn't mean anything for these particular drugs.

Both cram and psyche last 9 hours and take 10 minutes to take effect, so make sure you take them in advance of any action. The following section will assume psyche has been taken in its calculations.

Cyberdeck

Lightning Fast

Normally, any matrix attribute in the cyberdeck can be swapped with another one as a simple action. Similarly, any cyberprogram running on the deck can be swapped for one that isn't running as a simple action. Nova Kid has the quality Quick Config, however, which allows him to make two swaps as a free action instead of one as a simple action. He also has the quality Perfect Time, which gives him two free actions on his turn. On top of that, he has the quality Overclocker, which lets him raise a matrix attribute of his choice by 1 when he reconfigures matrix attributes. (This isn't cumulative, it's just a +1 that can be reallocated when a swap is made.)

Expanded Program Limit

Nova Kid can run 6 cyberprograms at a time thanks to his Datajack Plus. Make sure to take full advantage of that!

Super Sleazy Stealth Mode

Nova Kid uses an Aztechnology Shadow Warrior cyberdeck, which is extra good at being sneaky on the matrix. Because of the deck's special rules, all matrix actions tied to the Sleaze attribute receive +1 to their limit; in addition, Sleaze is increased by 1 if it's configured to be the highest attribute in the array. The cyberprogram Smoke & Mirrors increases Sleaze by 1-5, imposing an equal amount of noise; however, Nova kid has 3 antennae, a piece of cyberware that reduces noise by 1. His datajack also reduces noise by 1. For the full bonus, the cyberprogram Signal Scrub reduces noise by 2. This allows Smoke & Mirrors to be run at a very high level without a drawback. The cyberprogram Stealth grants +1 to Sleaze as well. With all this and Overclocker, Nova Kid's Sleaze can run up to 15! Combined with his augmented Logic of 10, he'd have 25 dice to avoid being spotted when running silent. It's extremely difficult for anything to see him in this mode. Make sure to run Baby Monitor though. It will tell you your overwatch score.

Cybercombat

If Nova Kid engages in cybercombat, he's no slouch there either. He gets a +2 bonus to fight IC because of his cybercombat specialization. Make sure Attack is your highest attribute, because it'll set your limit on cybercombat actions and aid in dealing extra damage. Because Nova Kid is lightning fast, he has a crazy option at his disposal. He can use a free action to set Attack to his highest attribute and run Decryption, which grants +1 Attack, then take a complex action to make an attack, then use his second free action to swap Firewall to be his highest attribute and swap Decryption out for Encryption, which raises Firewall by 1. This allows him to raise his Attack without letting his Firewall down long enough for anyone to do anything about it!

In addition, the cyberprogram Hammer grants +2 damage to attacks on the matrix, and Blackout causes attacks to deal stun damage to any organic users he attacks. Fork allows a matrix action to be targeted at two icons at once, which can be very useful against multiple opponents.

Legwork: Knowledge Skills & Matrix

Nova Kid knows quite a bit about the matrix, the city-state of Seattle, Aztechnology, finance, history, and a few other things. He can also scour the matrix for information with the Matrix Search action (SR5 241), rolling 15 dice (or 17 in hot-sim VR) to locate any information that might be publicly accessible, even if it's fairly obscure. Make sure you configure his cyberdeck to have good Data Processing, because it will serve as the limit for the test. The program Browse will halve the base search time, and the program Search will give a +2 to matrix searches performed in a host. Toolbox will raise Data Processing by 1 as well.

Working On-Site

While Nova Kid isn't great at sneaking around or acting like he's supposed to be somewhere, he's not terrible at it. If you work together with your team's face or B&E, you can get physical access to devices. Doing so allows you to hack via a direct connection, which makes devices much easier to hack and will grant access to anything they're slaved to, such as a host.

Nova Kid is good at posing as a matrix security and/or maintenance worker. His synthetic cyberarm features improved synthskin (CF 87), meaning it's extra hard to detect as a cyberlimb, even realistic to the touch if he needs to shake someone's hand. A metal detector or cyberware scanner will find it, however; don't lie about it though, because his fake SIN has a restricted augmentation license in case anyone asks.

If he needs to do something sneaky, Nova Kid's cyberarm is helpful once again. Though he only has 1 rank in Palming and Locksmith, his arm has 9 Agility, giving him a dice pool of 10 for both of these. In addition, he has an autopicker, which raises his limit by 4 for picking mechanical locks and grants +4 dice when wireless-on. Between this and his skill in Hardware, he is pretty good at picking locks and rewiring security mechanisms.

Nova Kid also possesses various sensors to help with any spy work. His goggles have a sensor array built into them with various visual and audio features, and he has a handheld laser microphone if he needs to record some sound that might be on the other side of a glass or vibrating surface. He can use Electronic Warfare instead of Perception when using his sensor array.

Combat Options

In combat, Nova Kid will be best served by getting out of the way. Ensure your team's muscle is well between you and any threats. Nova Kid's Enhanced Augmented Reality Reflex System (EARRS) will allow him to be mobile while still gaining the full benefits of VR. It will, however, impose a -10 penalty on any combat, physical, social, or vehicle actions, so don't expect to hit the broad side of a barn with his gun while in VR mode. The EARRS does not give a penalty to defense against attacks, so he can still try his best to defend against attacks. With psyche and cram, his base defense pool is 11 dice; he can go Full Defense to make it 16.

Nova Kid should primarily take a support role in combat, boosting his teammates through the matrix using Tag (KC 40) for offense, I Am The Firewall (KC 38) for defense, and Calibrate (KC 37) for initiative. If the team is facing enemy drones or vehicles, he may be able to destroy them on the matrix with the Data Spike action (SR5 239). Alternatively, he can cause them to malfunction with his directional jammer or through other matrix actions.

If necessary, Nova Kid can fire his Ingram Smartgun X pretty well. His synthetic cyberarm has 9 Agility, and he has 6 ranks in Automatics with a specialization in submachine guns. He also possesses a smartlink, which when running the gun wireless gives it a bonus of 2 dice. Total, this adds up as follows: 9 Agility + 6 Automatics + 2 submachine gun specialization + 2 smartgun = 19 dice to fire! Be careful, though: his gun only has 5 recoil compensation, meaning he will suffer a -1 if he fires a long burst. That's not too bad, but each attack after that will accumulate recoil until he takes a simple or complex action to do something other than shoot, so it may occasionally be good to Take Aim, which adds 1 die and reduces the range category by 1 thanks to his goggles and wireless smartgun.

Background

Nova Kid was born to an Aztlaner immigrant who moved to Seattle for work with Aztechnology. His mother worked her hardest to support him during his childhood, with the promise of promotion always seemingly just around the corner. Years of overwork led to deteriorating health, and as Nova Kid came of age, his mother fell very ill. He saw one way out: putting his tech skills to use. Nova Kid stole an Aztechnology Shadow Warrior, and with the help of his fixer, he got his family's SINs burned. His exit left his confidence shaken, but he and his mother are alive, for now. Today, he is working toward a treatment for his mother's medical conditions in addition to fighting for survival.

Narratively Significant Qualities

Brand Loyalty & Emotional Attachment (Aztechnology Shadow Warrior)

Growing up, Nova Kid always wanted to be a decker. He wanted an Aztechnology Shadow Warrior most of all, and when it came time for him to escape the corporation's notice, it was an Aztechnology Shadow Warrior that saw him through it. He is highly attached to it today. Because he knows his Shadow Warrior so well, he gets a +1 dice pool bonus on every roll with it, but a -1 on any roll made with a different brand of cyberdeck. If his Shadow Warrior is ever in trouble, he will do anything in his power to get it back.

Dependent (Demanding)

Nova Kid's mother is in poor health and depends on him for financial support. He works his hardest to help her, and in return, she doesn't ask too many questions about what exactly his job is. She may periodically need something from him.

Frostbite (Computer)

During his escape from Aztechnology, Nova Kid was discovered by a host he was attempting to erase files from. The IC attacked him while he was searching the database, and today, he suffers a -2 to Computer actions while IC other than Patrol are deployed.

Run History

Name	GM	Metaplot	Date of Run
Cleaning up the past	Bulldogc	The Metroplex Governor Race of '84	28 July 2084
30 pieces of Copper shackles	Draknic		13 January 2084
Politicians Always Have Some Skeletons	Aurora		12 February 2083
Smear Campaign	Disco		2 September 2082
Brodie J and the Flamesaw of Love	Aurora		30 March 2082
I Think I'm Sick and I Want to Go Home	Sarcarian		29 October 2081

Affiliations

Contacts

Contact	Connection	Loyalty	Archetype	Profession	Aspects	Chips
Jesse Pop	6	1	Fixer	Trid Pirate	Trid Pirate, Hacktivist, Fence, Networker, NEEEEEEERRRRRRRD, Electronics, Enormous Trove of Pirated Trideo	Even

Allies

None.

Enemies

Aztechnology: Strained relationship.