Saturday, March 4, 2017

Lucretia Blackbroom

Real Name: Ursula Ventura
Aliases: Lucretia Blackbroom, Ursula Seawitch, Venture Ursa
Known Affiliations: Hypercorps, Socialites
Specialty: Hacking, Traditional Medicine, Social Engineering
Age in AF 10: 26
Primary Location: Mars or Luna

Belief is power. This is a statement attributed to the mysterious subculture of Bruixeria. People in power like to believe they are safe and beyond reproach, but fear that which can reach them. People who are oppressed, downtrodden or unlucky believe they have hope for the future. These believes are said to catalyze the heart and soul of the mysterious "Lucretia Blackbroom".
In reality, Lucretia began her life as Ursula Ventura, a child of a hyperelite dynasty investing heavily in orbital infrastructure and manufacturing around both Luna and Mars. Ursula did not fall into the first stereotype of a scion child as a spoiled brat, but when instead for the next most common - a young rebel. With her superior genetics, resources and education, Ursula was able to become a skilled hacker at a young age. She engaged in typical childhood pranks and petty cracks, but also occasionally performed disruptions to move her family members around the system on business, leak sensitive documents or private conversations to bring actions of the company to light. Of course, she was not so skilled as to be beyond investigation - and shortly before the Fall her family capitalized on her avowed "respect for life", and bundled her off to a prestigious medical school on Luna to begin training as a doctor. The Fall hit the empathetic young Ursula hard, the canned feeds of destruction around the system giving her a distaste for violence, and the results after such as the rise of the Clanking Masses and other Indentures sickened her further. But she had also begun to study interesting electives at school, which gave her ideas about how to help people.
Claiming she could not stomach to perform medicine on live people anymore, Ursula quietly transferred to UMars to study a fine art degree. Her parents thought she had settled down as a normal, talented young socialite. But, Ursula wasn't yet done with her desire to help people. In school and in deep dives on the mesh, she studied the goings on with the Barsoomians, Clanking Masses and many other sins of the Hypercorps, and also ran across the idea of the "Bruixeria". With her combined technical, medical and cultural knowledge along with good poise and social skills, Ursula realized a good way she could help people, strike at the hearts of the hyperelite and maybe do a little good in the world.
So the alias "Lucretia Blackbroom" was born, a bruix greyhat who appears mysteriously in communities on Mars and Luna. Lucretia can heal many harms, such as alleviating pain of GSPs, simple work-related injuries and address some basic mental health through mood-altering substances. She can find broken objects or components and fix them for no charge, recover lost or stolen property, and expose abuses by those in power. When sent against those who oppress or abuse, Lucretia can subtly poison or sicken, she can learn deep dark secrets to expose or blackmail with - she can steal assets and funds digitally and "relocate" them among many other things. Ursula uses her hacking and social skills to find weaknesses in systems - human and digital, in order to get what she wants, which is to help people.
She's not without limits or flaws, however. While subtle and well regarded, she still has a deeply grained fear of violence or combat situations, and her rebellious, headstrong nature keeps her from working as a unit - being a rare, solitary bruix. Fighting physically is not how she accomplishes her goals, she does so with  theatricality, information and manipulation.
In her daily life, Ursula sticks to a conventional morph, which looks like a very average woman of latin descent, with a little bit of a dramatic flair in her mannerisms and dress which befits an average actress or performer from a highly ranked family. In her disguise as Lucretia, she takes many guises, but all involve the peak of the Legend - clattering jewelry, chains and bones for accessories, dark garb which is silky or leathery often adorned with spines, ruffles or feathers to add a mysterious "natural" air. Her face is hidden behind elegant masks with a birdlike aspect, her skin in mysterious patterns of "arcane power" which are just chameleonic or simple paint.

COG 20 COO 20 INT 20 REF 15 SAV 20 SOM 10 WIL 20
DUR 35 WT 7 LUC 40 TT 8 INIT 7 MOX 2 SPD 1
Exalt morph
Motivations: -Family +Owning Systems +Helping Others
Skills: Academics: Cryptography 60, Academics: Economics 50, Academics: Sociology 50, Art: Performance 45, Art: Fashion 63, Deception 60, Disguise 45, Fray 50, Hardware: Electronics 35, Impersonation 40, Infosec 68, Interest: Martian Superstitions 60, Interfacing 50, Intimidation 63, Kinesics 70, Language: Native Portuguese 85, Medicine: Paramedic 60, Medicine: Traditional Medicine 50, Networking: Media 60, Networking: Criminal 40, Palming 40, Perception 55, Persuasion 75, Profession: Social Engineering 68, Profession: Medical Care 50, Programming 60, Protocol 70, Research 50
Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Clean Metabolism, Enhanced Pheromones, Endocrine Control, Enhanced Vision, Enhanced Hearing, Medichines, T-Ray Emitter, Chameleon Skin, Grip Pads, Skinflex
Traits: Digital Ghost, Untarnished Reputation, Combat Paralysis, Not A Team Player
Gear: Anonymous Account, Electronics Tool Kit, Exploit software, Gnat Bot x2, Radio Booster, Sniffer software, Spoof software, Tracking software
50 f-rep

Using Lucretia Blackbroom:
"Lucretia" is a great way to directly introduce the Bruixeria concept - and evoke a classic archetype. She's very robin hood-esque, or even like a masked superhero, a person who is driven by the plight of others to help in mysterious ways beyond the comprehension of normal people. A young rebel, Ursula wants to help the downtrodden and use her resources to better others as opposed to a typical representation of many hyperelite. But is this just childishness or is she serious? The character has some options and depth to use as an NPC. She might be an antagonist, especially for a technical or social story, where her strong abilities might pit her against a group of PCs who are working for someone or investigating something and don't pierce her veil of deception. Maybe their actions come back to haunt them as Lucretia thinks they are "bad people" to work against. Or she might be an ally, someone called in with the right favor or right knowledge to offer mysterious help in "mystical" ways which might baffle characters expecting clear-cut solutions. While not built for combat, Lucretia is balanced as a playable character also, a hacker and face who can adjust to many situations, and could provide support in a combat situation by offering medical aid to others.

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