"The Cretan"

"The Cretan"

Archetype
(Troll Edgelord/Soak Tank)
Discord	@youmayfirewhenready
Reddit	[1]
Metatype	(Troll -Minotaur)
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	0
Public Awareness	0
CDP	0
D.O.B.	May 1st 2061
Age	24
Folder	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiOOX-IxW2xhP2mDbVl43MJ2OtAl6NEi/view?usp=sharing
Priority	Metatype - A Attributes - B Magic/Resonance - E Skills - B Resources - E
#Max IGs/Ascension	1

Character Information

The Cretan carries a small, battered, red and white book wherever he goes. Usually he keeps it tucked carefully in his pocket. When he is alone, or unaware that he is being observed, sometimes he'll take it out and hold it in his hands thoughtfully. Rarely does he ever open it. The cover is deeply faded, the title long worn off, but there is still a red cross visible in the bottom right corner.

Summary

Alkaios "The Cretan" Mallas is a Troll (Minotaur) Edgelord and Soak Tank, with a long-term goal of growth over time. (Start wobbly, finish strong!)

Goals

Find some way to afford the cognitive therapy Alkaios needs to fully recover from his brain injuries, and then find some sense of purpose in life.

Background

Due to the severe brain trauma he has suffered, Alkaios has hazy memories of many stages of his life, especially growing up on Crete.

In his childhood, he remembers being well-loved and cared for by his mother. Distantly is the only way he can recall his father, in all senses of the word. He doesn't recall where his father worked overseas but rarely did he see him. In those times of union, remembrances of affection surface easily, and then painfully. Alkaios does not know when exactly his father died but only that he is no longer living.

In his youth, he remembers being bullied by human children and turning the other cheek. Huge even in his early teens Alkaios never once struck those that teased him, so afraid he was of accidentally killing or maiming even those who brought him nothing but pain. He recalls fair treatment by his community, even though he was the only of his kind that he ever knew. He was not treated unfairly by the adults of his world or, perhaps, he cannot now recall those painful memories.

Even from his youth he recalls wanting to protect and help others. With his prodigious strength and endurance he served as a volunteer firefighter in his little town. Even as a teen he was taller and tougher and stronger than any adult he knew. His mother, most of her extended family killed by during the AFA's invasion in the 2030s, urged him to join the Federation Marines. Seeing it as an opportunity to protect his community and the rest of Federated Hellas, he enlisted with a special exemption at 16.

Here his memories tend to sharpen into clearer focus before washing away entirely.

He enjoyed his time as a marine. He was told early that he was officer material and that praise burrowed itself deep into his brain. Driven and fanatically conscientious he quickly moved up the ranks, earning an invite to the Hellenic Military Academy at 18. There he faced initial discrimination due to his metatype but quickly turned his doubters into supporters. Soon thereafter he was sent as a junior officer to serve-and-observe with the Hellas Navy's special warfare unit, the Underwater Demolition Command.

His memories crystalize the most vividly on the starless night of March 18th, 2082.

His unit was dispatched to intercept a freighter that had failed a naval credential check. Sailing under a false Maersk flag Alkaios and his team sliced across the dark waters of Mesogeios Thalassa. They boarded the vessel, coming under heavy automatic weapons fire, but quickly overwhelmed the armed crew. The special forces unit discovered the deck of the shipping freighter was filled not with cargo containers of contraband, but living people. Slicing open the locks from container after container they discovered that there were thousands of Muslim refugees stowed away in hundreds and hundreds of shipping containers.

His commanding officer, like many people of the peoples of Hellas, had lost his whole family tree to the AFA invasions. With the assent of his men the commanding officer ordered his team to plant depth charges and sink the vessel, rather than steer thousands of unwanted and still-blamed Muslim refugees into port.

Alkaios was given the command to assist with the setting of charges. Alkaios, spine stiffening and his heart sinking, refused his order. Instead he radioed in that the special forces unit had uncovered a massive human smuggling operation, calling in the estimated number of refugees, and advised Command that they were steering the vessel into port.

Alkaios's life was over.

Upon returning to port his commanding officer had him arrested by military police for failure to obey an order and dereliction of duty. In the whirlwind that followed Alkaios was ultimately freed, and honorably discharged, but only after he told a Hellas Naval Tribunal the truth.

His discharged squad came for him some nights later. Here all memories swirl into darkness but Alkaios remembers willingly meeting them in the square of his village and, like in his youth, not striking back as they sought to snuff out his life. Blessed with supernatural toughness he survived the torturous beating, left handing by his feet from a street light, his face a crushed mass of blood, his horns sawed off right to the flesh of his crushed skull.

It has been two years, nearly, since the mauling. Alkaios never returned home from the hospital he'd been flown to in Athens worrying that the soldiers would return or, worse, would target his mother. Forced even with his brain injury to pit fight in illicit "No-Aug" match-ups he would raise just enough drachma to start intensive therapy, only to have another TBI send him crashing down and his money stolen/wasted on hallucinatory benders.

It wasn't until a cousin from Seattle reached out, inviting him to his wedding, that Alkaios broke free from his cycle of self-destruction. Flown in on his cousin's dime Alkaios was given a fresh start at life. With his military training and a body as durable as tungsten (and plenty of Shadowrunner trids watched in his intial recovery) Alkaios has decided that running the shadows might be the best way for him to afford the nuyen and time needed to fix what still remains broken inside.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

Community Connection: orks and trolls can't help but love the guy. Even though he's new to Seattle he's been taken in within the Ork Underground and has been given help with housing and the adjustments to a new continent and way of life.

Born Rich: not actually born rich, this quality is reskinned in roleplay terms to cover his military training, the small amounts of augmentation The Cretan has around the edges, along with his starting equipment.

Exceptional Attribute (Body): The Cretan is exceptional, physically. Just a few moments in his presence and you can sense it. No magic, no augmentation...just pure physical superiority.

Negative

Addictions (Mild: Kamikaze and Numb): The Hellas Navy discovered they could save huge amounts of drachma by augmenting their soldiers in large numbers with genetech, priming their soldiers to be better adept at using combat drugs and thus saving fortunes off their military budget by not paying for the clinics and cybertechnologists necessary to improve their soldiers the old-fashioned way. The Cretan views Kamikaze as an unfortunate necessity when violence breaks out, and Numb much the same way...though in dark times The Cretan will turn to Numb for, well, exactly what it says on the tin.

National Sin (Federation of Hellas): He's a foreigner in Seattle and his Greek, sadly, will always be better than his English.

Code of Honor (Soldier's Code): The Cretan takes this very, very, very seriously. He's quiet about his beliefs but will not bend them.

Run History

No runs yet. This list will auto-populate when this character is tagged in a run AAR.

Affiliations

Contacts

Hez-kukra

Contact	Connection	Loyalty	Archetype	Profession	Aspects	Chips

Allies

None, yet.

Enemies

None yet, thankfully!

In Character Information

Looking to recover myself, and then find my people.

Matrix Search Table

Threshold	Result
1
3
6

Shadow Community Table

Threshold	Result
1
3
5

Assensing Table

Threshold	Result
1
2
3
4
5

SINs

Alkaios Mallas (Federation of Hellas, Legitimate SIN) Dimitrios Manikas (Fake SIN Rating 3, UCAS Issuer)

Appearance

Alkaios "The Cretan" Mallas is imposing, even by Minotaur standards. Standing more than a full foot taller than the average Minotaur Alkaios is much closer in height to the average troll than he is the average Minotaur. He is built like a truck, implausible layers upon layers of muscle. Many Minotaur would consider him to be "hairless" when, in fact, his genetic expression for hair has emerged more like a typical Greek man than a full-furred Minotaur. With a head of thick curly hair and a pale white, marbled body he appears to be as much a Grecian god-given-flesh than anything else. His stunning physique is head-turning and alluring with the sheer physical power evident in his flesh but his face, tragically, does not match the Adonis sculpture upon which it sits.

From a distance it isn't immediately obvious but up close it is apparent that Alkaios suffered at least one, if not multiple, terrible and life-altering injuries to his face and head. While the stubs of his sawed-off horns are well concealed beneath the thick black of his Hellene mane, his nose is not. Crushed repeatedly, and ruined at some point by the hands of inept (or perhaps meta-hating) surgeons, his nose appears to be the bent and broken reconstitution of a human's, not Minotaur's. Uneven scars cross jag along the jaw and neck and in the crevasses of his bare cheeks. It is hard to tell in passing if a thick black coat of beard could grow from the maze of scar tissue but if it could, no one will know as Alkaios keeps it shaved sharp and clean.

The eyes of Alkaios, too, are unnerving up close. Inhumanly large, the whites are faintly bloodshot, even at rest, from repeated abuse of the Kamikaze street drug. The pupils too are unnerving being fully, completely black...they sit amongst the maze of scars like two deep, inky wells. There is a tragic sense, when examined up close and with a tender eye, that Alkaois might once have been considered handsome in the unusual but striking look of him. But after some untold torture and disfigurement he now carries the countenance of Frankenstein's Monster and the eyes of an exhausted, defeated bull.

When Alkaios smiles he flashes a painful pearlescence of straight large but clearly artificial teeth. When Alkaios smiles there is genuine gentleness there; unmistakable softness and shy sweetness.

The scarring that so dominates his face is not nearly as pronounced elsewhere on his body. His gigantic hands are heavy and rest at the end of piston-strong forearms. His knuckles are augmented with striking callouses, thick and coarse pads that lend his blows even more terrifying power. His legs are thick as tree-trunks and his feet to match. Despite the colossal size of Alkaios there is an obvious athleticism and a sense of boundless, unstoppable strength.

Clothing

For now The Cretan wears the same gargantuan armored jacket wherever he goes, with solid slabs of battle-boot clunking along beneath.

Matrix Persona

A White Bull, Cartoonish and Disney-Friendly

Media Mentions

N/A