Valvravn

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Valvravn
ValvravnTemp.png
Technomancer Hacker/Rigger
Scavenge to Survive
Speak to the voices
Sisters to Save
Discordbreeze5768
Redditbuhbuhbrez
Wiki UserBreezy
MetatypeHuman
Street Cred0
Notoriety0
Public Awareness0
CDP0
D.O.B.2066-07-19
Age19
Folder[1]
PriorityMetatype - E
Attributes - C
Magic/Resonance - C
Skills - C
Resources - A


Character Information

Summary

A PTT experiment that escaped in '76 during the quarantine, barely managing through that mess and hiding out as she moved west until she was finally picked up by Cairn in Seattle as a valuable hacker. In her body is the cyberware of her failed sisters, whom she believes she can still hear through the resonance. Cold from years of pain, loss, and hardening herself to survive the harsh quarantine of the Boston Lockdown, Valvravn is a highly intelligent hacker who is focused on her own survival first and foremost, for the sake of the sisters she cannot bear to lose a second time. She is heavily burnt out, scarred physically and mentally by her time under Neonet's thumb, and frighteningly aware of how frail she is.

Goals

- Survive. No matter the cost.

- Deepen her connection to her sisters (aka the Resonance)

- Ensure that the remnants of Neonet haunt her no longer

- Maybe, just maybe, find a way to heal from the horrors of her childhood

Background

Starling was created as a part of a Neonet security operative project during its grand IPO: Project Valkyrie. Specially designed and grown test subjects meant to be used for matrix operations, defense, and security response. Simply put, they had created the backbone of the modern matrix, and they weren’t about to let it be used against them. But the project had a great deal of issues. Deaths during surgeries to install new cyber, mental health issues, some subjects trying to escape their holdings. It was going horribly. Starling herself was the last in the line, a final chance. Her handlers made it clear exactly what would happen to her if she were to try and escape. And her reward for her compliance as she grew up? Horror.

Her time there was scarring, physically and mentally. Her body was torn into over and over again to put in the cyberware from failed subjects. Even when she screamed to be released, they would sedate her, and she would wake up feeling the strange additions to her body. Then tests to ensure she was working optimally. Modifications made to her body to keep her distinct. Easy to find. Inhuman. Slowly crafting her into their perfect tool. Years went by of this. Surgery. Testing. Experimenting. Repeat. It took massive tolls on her body. The constant surgery installations led to muscular atrophy and damage, requiring more installations. Everything felt…wrong. Her body felt weak, her mind raced. Being awake was unbearable. But trying to sleep, and sleeping itself? Haunted her. Every surgery, every installation, made the voices grow in strange ways. Distant, yet greater in volume. At first it felt more like a whisper. A quiet voice that she had never heard before. By the third installation it had grown into a chorus. By the time she needed the muscular replacements, it was a torrent. Information in familiar yet unknown voices, constantly pleading with her, distant and yet ever present. It was the matrix. Or, something within it? It spoke to her, in a language she felt she understood intuitively. A beautiful configuration of the code, just like they had wanted from her when they made her. It was part of why she was able to do so well, not get written off as another failure. And yet every installation pushed the choir further away. They haunted her, pleaded with her for salvation, and she couldn’t do anything for them. Constantly growing further, further, further, until she felt so… Alone.

Through the years, they whispered to her. Filled her in on the situation. She began to recognize them: Sparrow, Kestrel, Dove, Hawk, Crow, and Eagle. Those were the names she could make out, at least. Maybe there were more of her sisters. Who knows? What mattered was what they were telling her. Showing her. Something was happening on the outside. Something that seemed bad for Neonet. A chance to escape?

It was 2076. Something just crashed through the tower. The place was being evacuated. She was to be escorted out, on a different route to keep her presence hidden. They didn’t expect her to be capable or willing to make a break for it, taking control of the car and their devices to make her escape. And she wasn’t expecting the sudden assault from the iridescent squatters that forced her to total the car and ditch her exit strategy.

She missed her chance. Shortly after, she was stuck in the quarantine. For one year she was scavenging around. Hiding. Scraping by. Watching the bodies drop. Trying to find a way out. It took a whole year for her to figure out the way the shadowrunners were doing it. Tailed some of them as they were making their getaway. Used them as a distraction as they fought off the spirits and the drones at the checkpoint. Booked it as far as injured, scarred legs could take her.

From there, she kept scavenging and robbing as she traveled. Cold and hardened from her youth spent tormented and struggling to survive the quarantine. Took drones and vehicles as needed to stay alive. To keep getting away from Boston. From her handlers. She knew being back on the public grid would mean someone would notice her, that her escape couldn’t have been perfect. They’d want her back as soon as they realized they could get her back. So she kept moving. Kept running, all the way to Seattle. For a while, she was just using block gangs as cover. Hiding out until she could get a boat easy enough and keep heading away from Boston. But her work, however small, caught the attention of the Linnorm free spirit, Cairn. Someone who knew at a glance exactly what she was. And it made her a proposition: Join the Haven, collect gifts for it, and they would give her a community who could protect her and, possibly more importantly…show her how to do more than she was doing already. Perhaps that meant simply hacking better to it, but to her, it sounded like a chance to recover from what Neonet took from her. Her sisters.

Something stirred in her heart again, after it had stopped beating in Boston. She needed to do right by them. No matter what it took.

Narrative Significant Qualities

Positive

<Living Supercomputer (PTT, Restricted Gear, Trust Data Not Lore)>

Even as a child, Valvravn was an exceptionally intelligent girl. Being well trained and highly invested in, she was always going to come out a genius. Being in touch with the Resonance only heightened her use cases.

Negative

<Marked By Their Grip (Distinctive Style, Records on File for Neonet/Novatech, Wanted for 50k by Novatech)>

Her getaway was never going to be completely clean. They spent way too much on her and her sisters to just let an asset go to waste because of some damn dragon. She and the others were modified to stand out, be noticeable.

And her cage looks so empty right now.

<Haunted (Impassive, Phobia (Uncommon, Severe, Surgical Equipment), Social Stress (Doctors/Researchers)>

Boston was Hell. Before, after, and during the damn Lockdown. She saw a lot blood being spilled. She was always keenly aware of the wrongness in her body. The way her sisters grew distant. It's hard to be unchanged by something like that, even for the most hardened of criminals

Run History

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

Affiliations

Contacts

Contact Connection Loyalty Archetype Profession Aspects Chips
Cairn 5 1 Fixer(G,N,K,A) Collector of Baubles That Which Bears Many Curses, Collector of the Rare and Exotic, Rarity Is the Best Currency, Esoteric Curiosities, Spirit of the Lost, Whispers in the Pipes, A Simple Trade Even


Organizations

Allies

Enemies

In Character Information

Symbols and Signatures

Matrix Search Table

Threshold Result
1 Always in a hood and helmet. Basically any trace of her is eliminated right after, so the trail is hard to follow
3 She's a damn good hacker. Probably why she's so eager to erase parts of her life. But she can't get everything. She's REALLY young, according to the photos. And always online. And she has these feathers on her head that are speckled. SURGEd or sculpted or something. She's probably covering herself head to toe to hide em.
6 She was in Boston. Follow the trail of her appearances and it leads all the way back to when the Lockdown first started. She was really young back then, coming out of the 4th tower. What a girl like that was doing in the tower...? Well, considering she got out, she had to have something crazy about her to be right there at the time.

Shadow Community Table

Threshold Result
1 Fresh face. Kinda. She always keeps it hidden under the damn helmet. But not much is known on her. Might've been with some real small time gangs? Who cares, though?
3 Hacker type. Good at it too. Kinda mumbles to herself a lot though. Likes to stay back and scavenge for things though. Thrifty, I guess
5 She's real concerned about bein' seen. Good at her job, despite being pretty young. They say she's haunted by dead folks but ain't magic, and she's definitely got someone after her. Bad news all around.

Assensing Table

Threshold Result
1 A wounded animal. Wings clipped and beaten. A torrent of fears and grievances in that pretty little head. There is no magic underneath her wings. And though she may have flown high before, right now the great beast is weak.
2 Her muscles were ripped up, shredded, and replaced. Her mind has been cut, and wounded, and replaced. Wires where veins should suffice, near the spine. Those are the wounds that clipped her.
3 And those wounds were not made by what was best for her. They were scavenged and re-used. The bones and bodies of the fallen, to make the black beast a great tool for the future. And yet the beast struggles. It cries out. It is horrified by the strangeness it feels.
4 But there is an echo there. The ugliness of this new body gives the beast insights, perhaps. But not magical. So what...?
5 The voices of the past. The dead, carried on. The countless others like her, who died for her, to bring her mind a connection to a world we built from sacrifice. That is her salvation. The one thing the beast wishes to fly back to. It is not magic, but it is something else. It Resonates throughout her, and gives her a strength to march on. A need to march on.

SINs

Sera Merseun (R4, UCAS)

- Driver's License

- Restricted Augmentations

- Private Investigator License

- Drone License

Appearance

Valvravn, or more fittingly Starling, is a short woman at 5'3". A pale woman with brown, messy curls for hair and blue eyes which are the most vibrant part of her appearance. She has feather tufts where her cyberears would be (they hide the antennae), along with a short flared tail, 2 wings, and feathers going down her arms and hips, all black with speckled white spots like her namesake. These are part of the naming convention of the project her creators were in charge of and a means of keeping her distinct and easy to pull out of crowds for re-capture, but also manage to hide the myriad scars all over her body from tests and surgeries, though along her torso and back there are still quite a number of scars visible.

Clothing

To hide her more distinct qualities, Valvravn almost always has a very large, armored coat to cover her body, a loose dark blue hooded thing that isn't too insufferable on her feathers that she feels herself chaffing. For the rest of her body underneath the coat, she frequently goes with a black and blue bodysuit with hidden cutouts for her feathers, tail, and wings as that's more tolerable with one layer than two. For a more casual look, she uses halter tops and skirts that either avoid her feathers or are loose enough to not hurt her. And almost always, she has a helmet and forearm guards to as a secondary measure. She despises her feather tufts being seen, though not when she is in private and in more casual attire. Finally, for one last layer of security, a cloak. This is mostly to hide the bodysuit and make her seem more like a beggar rather than an eccentric, though it really only makes her stand out more.

Matrix Persona

Unlike her small frame in the meatspace, her persona is a tall thing with a great wingspan, elongated limbs sprouting over an armor-clad body, talons to snatch what she desires, and a small hooded cloak to hide it all when she does not deem it necessary to hunt. That, is Valvravn.

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 Starling is still wanted, and that can be a very easy complication on a run if someone wishes to exploit it.
Aspect 2 Despite her coldness, she is ATTEMPTING to better herself and help others, specifically the smaller block gangs who stand no chance against greater level syndicates. While she won't endanger herself, she will try to help them when she can.
Aspect 3 The Resonance is both a reminder of what she lost and her pathway into reclaiming herself and her family. She needs to go further. She needs to rediscover herself.
Aspect 4 She knows that, in order to become more capable...she needs to improve her ware at some point. But can she really overcome the mental scarring of her past? Willingly go under the knife again?
Aspect 5 How far will she go, just to survive? How depraved will she get, wandering broken battlefields for the dead and dying to pluck apart?

Media Mentions

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