Neznayka

Neznayka

Face, Animal Wrangler, Scrapper
Breathe free now, child of steel and sapling
Discord	sleevey.
Reddit	[1]
Metatype	Elf (Dryad)
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	1
Public Awareness	0
CDP	34
D.O.B.	3/6/2062
Age	23
Folder	[2]
Priority	Metatype - D Attributes - C Magic/Resonance - E Skills - B Resources - A
#Max IGs/Ascension	7

Character Information

Summary

The daughter of a Vory Sovetnik who was brought up as an asset in the paracritter smuggling business. After a breakout from TerraFirst and a few years of work for them in exchange for the cyberware that saved her life, she is ready to take on the sprawl of Seattle and tie up some loose ends. Plus, it turns out the whole running thing is a good bit of fun!

Goals

Kill Pyotr Volkovi

Find Mishka's cubs and Katarina

Liberate critters from cruel confinement in this new place

Stick it to the Vory

Help Saint. Whatever that means.

Background

Zhizn Volkovi’s life is not a story easily told without first telling the story of her father, Pyotr Volkovi. Pyotr was a Sovetnik for the White Vory in the UCAS (Near Athabaska). The organizatsi’s typical gambling and protection rackets simply were not paying enough. The previous Sovetnik was replaced by Pyotr’s knife in his back and when Pyotr took charge, his excellent guidance led the organizatsi into an age of prosperity. He pulled them into the smuggling trade and the organization profited greatly. The area outside of Athabaska didn’t have much but it did have wilderness and paracritters in spades and this was the resource that Pyotr would sink his ragged teeth into. Through connections with poachers in the greater area, they soon began to corner the market on pelts and living critters smuggled from that side of the continent. In order to keep up appearances and to launder this money, Pyotr opened a circus for the rich and powerful to enjoy. It proved a crucial staging ground to pull over key members of the audience into the Vory’s fold through bribes, blackmail or threats. It was here that Pyotr made his first mistake.

Zhizn was not born out of love, her mother was no one of importance to Pyotr, cast aside like an empty gun. However, in the child he spied opportunity. She was a dryad, an eye catching trinket to be sure but more importantly, she carried his blood. Such a brilliant spark would never be wasted so, he let the child steep in the gene vats, ripping a more perfect smile from her very genetic code. Once she was old enough to walk, he began to teach her the business. Both sides of the trade.

Pyotr was not a kind teacher. When the young Zhizn failed to grasp a particular concept (as she often did regarding the finances) or failed to keep an animal in line, he would lock her in the cages with the rest of the critters and leave her there for the night. She would cry herself to sleep on a concrete floor, wrapped in straw and the clutches of steel bars and she taught herself to hate her father.

She did learn a thing or two, enough to fake her way through it. How to make people turn their eyes towards what you want them to. How to teach an animal to march willingly into a cage (she hated almost more than she hated her father). How to lie and cheat and steal and kill. However, for every cruel lesson imparted onto her by Pyotr, she had the wisdom of her only friend. A blind old woman named Katarina. She worked with the animals and taught Zhizn everything she knew about the creatures, taught Zhizn to look at the world through their eyes too.

During this time, the Vory shipped in two horned bears. One named Mishka and one named Alexei. Horned bears, being awakened creatures capable of sensing the truth beneath metahuman skin, sensed Zhizn's troubles but also her kindness. Soon enough, the three became inseparable as only prisoners can be. They looked after one another in those cold cells, Zhizn shielding the bears from the whips of the circus workers and the bears seeming to listen to her as she told them about her father. It went on for a time, her father’s fire tempered by the kindness of Katarina and the friendship of the two bears.

Like many terrible terrible things, the shattering of Zhizn’s life began with something wonderful. Mishka was pregnant with a litter of cubs! It was the cause of much rejoicing, paracritters breeding in captivity is a rarity of all rarities. Soon enough, the litter was delivered safely and 4 cubs joined the outside world, blindly clinging to their mother. That was when her father went too far.

Pyotr Volkovi announced that once the pups grew a little older, Mishka would be killed and her pelt sold while Alexei would be sent to an Aztlan fighting ring. It was that final, ultimate cruelty that inspired Zhizn to free her friends. She convinced a guard to loan her his commlink and leaked the location of the smuggling ring, as well as the full details of the paracritters kept there and their ultimate fates. She was sloppy, the leak was caught quickly by Vory techies but it was also caught by someone else. TerraFirst!

Zhizn doesn’t remember that night particularly well, most of the details later were filled in by Chloe Green after the fact. She remembers fire and noise. She remembers footsteps and gunshots. She remembers seeing Alexei shielding her, remembers the sound of round after round sinking into his hide until he went still. She remembers Mishka tearing a man in half in front of her. Then … nothing.

Chloe told her after the fact that the rescue operation had been caught early in their rescue attempt. Their breaching explosives went off early and Zhizn was caught in the blast. By the time the team had recovered from the blast and moved in, Alexei was dead. They barely managed to secure Mishka and Zhizn before leaving. No sign of the cubs.

They fixed her after the explosion, giving her strong steel where flesh once was. Made her better. She paid them off with work, putting her skill with a crossbow to work. They were kind to her, letting her go after only 3 years of running ops for them. She left following a rumor from General Hodge, that Piotr had reestablished himself near Seattle. Whatever the case, she has finally been cut free. Will the streets of Seattle offer the freedom she craves? Or will she merely fall into a greater cage than she could ever have known?

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

Animal Empathy - Raised from a young age around animals and guided by Katarina's gentle hand, Neznayka is one of the greatest animal wranglers the sprawl has ever seen

Bilingual - Russian and English are both required if one wishes to lead an important life in the Vory

Restricted Gear (Mishka the Horned Bear) - Her best friend is a half-ton bear with antlers

School of Hard Knocks - She learned a few useful things during her time growing up the Vory

Too Pretty to Hit - She is gorgeous, even in that kind of goth way, killing her would be like shooting a gorgeous panther or something. It would just be a shame.

Negative

Distinctive Style - The dryad glamour is pretty noticeable. That and the small army of critters. And the giant bear.

Emotional Attachment (Horned Bear) - Mishka is the best bear around.

Phobia (Mild), Cages - There's baggage there.

Vendetta (Pyotr Volkovi) - He'll die. He has to.

Wanted (The Vory, 20,000 nuyen, Alive) - She's still a valuable asset for them, running loose. They'll make an attempt to recover that asset alive. For now.

Run History

Name	GM	Metaplot	Threat	Date of Run
The Bear and the Nightingale	Sarcarian		High	24 July 2085
Surveying the Situation	Sarcarian		High	4 July 2085
The Princess of Friendship	LHog		High	21 June 2085
Piscine Plunder for Gator!	Elayne		High	12 May 2085
Wrong place, fight time	TidanShock		High	4 May 2085
Redmond Animal Rescue	Dexcaliber	Hound-Eat-Hound World	Milkrun	20 April 2085
RATS- Spectacular Spectacular!	Villiers	All The World's a Stage	Milkrun	13 March 2085
Gnashing and Hissing Sounds	Orion		Medium	4 March 2085
El Diablo Cazador De Hombres	Asmodeus	Meatgrinder	Extreme	2 March 2085
Spray, Pray, and Co-Pay	jit	Compound Interest	High	17 February 2085
Outsider Trading	Sample Text	Compound Interest	High	27 January 2085
Finnigan's Wake	LHOG		Deadly	25 January 2085
Herding a Bear	LHOG		Milk Run Escalated to High	8 January 2085
Redmond Rage	Sample Text	Compound Interest	High	31 December 2084
Alea Ecta Est	Fangblade_		Deadly	30 December 2084
Meatgrinder, Part 1 - Tide of Darkness	Asmodeus	Meatgrinder	Deadly	21 December 2084
Matrix Medicine	Lotus		Medium	8 December 2084

Affiliations

Contacts

Contact	Connection	Loyalty	Archetype	Profession	Aspects	Chips
Chloe Green	2	4	Fixer	Fixer	Activist, Environmentalist, Rich Brat	-1
Jaelisha	2	4	Custom(G,A,K,N)	Animal Trainer	Veterinarian, Animal Breeder, Paracritters	Even
Canvas	6	1	Gear	Artisan Street Doc	Artist of the Flesh, Custom Design, Cyber Singularity Follower, Art Aficionado, Chrome Supplier, Workshop, Snohomish Resident	Even
Ret. Adjutant-General Joseph Hodge	3	4	Legwork	Retired UCAS Adjutant-General of the Former US Virgin Islands	So Terribly Lonely, Long in the Tooth, Proud Veteran, Served With Distinction, Islander at Heart, Grateful for the Green	Even

In Character Information

Matrix Search Table

Threshold	Result
1	Footage from a snohomish trail cam. An enormous bear runs past the camera, followed by an elven woman wearing a tracker jacket.
3	Aerial footage of a roadside gathering, featuring a handful of critters (including the same bear) and an elven woman playing an acoustic guitar to two other drunken elves.
6	An extensive profiling of higher class Vory, featuring a photograph of a younger Neznayka standing next to stern elven man. The man is marked as a potential Sovetnik.

Shadow Community Table

Threshold	Result
1	Nez-nai-kuh? Uhm, I think there's a lady that runs under that name. Yeah, some kind of animal wrangler.
3	No, I remember! She was real pretty, looked like everything made sense in the world. Had a posse of critters tagging along, rats and that kind of drek, vermin y'know, but that didn't make her less captivatin'.
5	Think she might be Ex-Vory. Russian Accent is one thing but she knows a lot about them, tries to avoid 'em too. Might just have some bad blood though.

Assensing Table

Threshold	Result
1	A verdant aura that appears like a snapshot into the depths of the woods. You hear birdsong and the crackling of branches. You smell leaves and dew. She looks relatively happy, likely in a good mood and she is mundane. She carries the scars of past injuries, deep burns across the trunks of the tree but appears recovering.
2	The aura appears fainter around the arms and spine, likely denoting the presence of cyberware.
3	The burn marks from the trees are caused by fire. Perhaps shrapnel too? Essence is probably lower!
4	The aura twirls and whirls across the body, little bio-alterations here and there. .73 Essence
5	Those alterations run very deep, down to the genetic core, permeating each and every cell. The forest is a changed one.

Appearance

Clothing

She's usually clad in forest camo, with a grey mana-infused cloak tossed over an armored hunting jacket worn over baggy pants and a sleeveless top. She wears that chrome loud and proud, each arm with a forest camo shell eith a rubbery coating, designed to not break when a certain bear grabs hold of an arm with their teeth. She usually has an enormous crossbow slung over her shoulder, too. Creeping just above the hem of her shirt and along her neck is a sheet of ragged scar tissue.

Matrix Persona

A stylized chibi creature, the exact creature changing depending on her mood

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	Criminal Escapee	The Vory are looking for her. Ideally alive. Likewise, she's got beef with the criminal organization right back.
Aspect 2	TerraFirstest	Nezkaya used to work for TerraFirst!, she bled and killed for them. She owes them for saving her and Mishka and supplying her with cyberware but likewise, that debt is supposedly paid. Right? Right??
Aspect 3	Bear Necessities	Nezkaya is taking care of a large number of animals. Despite mechanically being able to support them, she may require certain supplies or go out of her way to nab certain things for her friends. This may or may not influence her work.
Aspect 4	Modern Day Steve Irwin	Nezkaya likes critters, maybe more than people. As a result, she can't bear to see them suffering and will go out of her way to help them out.
Aspect 5	Mess me up, boss!	I am completely fine with long term consequences for my characters, as long as it doesn't feel unannounced or forced. Long term changes to a character make more opportunities for interesting roleplay, and so don't be afraid to give them out if they are deserved