220: Mother Okunya

ENTRY 220: Mother Okunya

In the Ge-Rouge residential quarter of the Legba habitat in the Main Belt, she is everyone’s grandmother—a strong but thin and wrinkled woman who will treat every child as one of her own, and every one younger than her as her child. She moves through the community on her errands, busy with purpose, but she always has a kind word, a shoulder to cry on, a handkerchief for snotty noses, and a tube of vacuum seal for every rupture. She has healed marriages and ended them with a word, and her condemnation can mean slow death as their contacts unfriend them from their networks and their rep plummets. All this she accomplishes with the same toothless smile, the kind that lets her tend to her knitting while some of her boys and girls tie the battery wires around someone’s testicles.

The Nine Lives find Mother Okunya effective at policing her section of the habitat, and mostly leave her to it so long as she does not directly involve herself in their business. Indeed, many of the Nine Lives owe her favors, though she never seems to let them stay indebted to her for too long, nor asks for more than any of them can readily part with. In her neighborhood, every eye is her spy, every hand one of her tools. Those who come there always make right with Mother Okunya if they know what’s good for them, and for those who are ignorant she surprises with a visit.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
28	15	20	15	15	10	20	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
7	1	40	8	80	35	7	50

Morph: Menton

Skills: Academics: Psychology (Testing) 55, Academics: Sociaology (Initiations) 55, Art: XP Editing 50, Interests: Old Earth Cultures 30, Interests: Teaching Methods 35, Interests: Torture Methods 50, Interfacing 30, Investigation 30, Intimidation (Torture): 50, Kinesics 60, Language: Native Swahili 95, Language: Arabic 90, Language: English 90, Language: French 75, Language: Yoruba 75, Networking: Firewall 25, Networking: Scientists 25, Profession: Interrogator 50, Profession: Teacher 60, Research 77

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Eidetic Memory, Hyper-Linguist, Math Boost, Multi-tasking, Oracles

Traits: Fast Learner

Using Mother Okunya

This minor crime boss/social hub sees herself as placed in this universe to test those people in it, to find them wanting or deserving depending on their merits. She has no malice or mercy in her soul, and will never, ever break character from the harmless old woman until the trap is shut. For PCs coming to Legba for the first time, she will seem a relatively harmless NPC—the neighborhood’s grandmother—come to greet them and give them a small gift. How they react determines how they are going to be treated for the rest of their stay. The longer the PCs stay in her demesne, the more little tests she will place before them—what do they PCs do when accused of theft? What do they do if they find a valuable object, just lying about? If someone gives them a gift? If a child has an accident in front of them and is injured? If a father takes his son to the walkway and whips him with an electrical cord in public? Keep in mind that Mother Okunya does not follow normal moral or ethical guides; her philosophy is more severe and survival oriented. Violence is met by sudden and overwhelming violence as the entire residential district turns against them; kindness and respect repaid by friendly and helpful locals; dishonesty by firm but polite refusal of service; nobility and honesty by whatever help it is in her power to give. However, the longer the PCs stay the more involved and personal the tests will become—and attentive PCs might notice that none of the long-term residents of Ge-Rouge is without a scar or missing some body part.