300: Su Bede

ENTRY 300: Su Bede

"Su's face today is designed by Alafonzo, and carved from the bones of orphans that died during the Fall. Order yours now and one tenth of every credit will be donated to..."
- Partial marketing spiel

It takes more than the gaunt figure of a heroin addict to be a successful model in today's fashion industry. The proliferation of morphs has changed the standards of beauty from the classical starvation victim to a plethora of transhuman standards, and fashion has adapted to this new environment by trying to capture the elegance, grace, and dead sexiness inherent in every morph. So bouncer models have breasts that are only realistic in microgravity, mentons shave their heads to show off the access jacks, and neotenics aim for an androgynous look that minimizes secondary sexual characteristics. Su Bede has it harder than her biomorph peers - she's a synth.

When an hourglass chassis is something that can be banged out in a shop in an hour, synth models like Su have to work less on their physical appearance than their physical movements; absent the mammalian fascination for cleavage she commands the audience at fashion shows with poise, grace, movement, and stance. One of the first synth models, Su has invented some of the theatrical language of contemporary synth modeling, making use of the extended range of motion of synth morphs and alternating between deceptively simple "natural" movements into complicated rotation routines that would be impossible for biomorphs to imitate. Su Bede has parlayed her modeling success into her own clothing and jewelry lines, but now she has started something more ambitious: cosmetic inlays.

Metal, plastic, even gemstones, anything artificial is ridiculously cheap to manufacture - so Su has begun to model interchangeable cosmetic augmentations for synthmorphs based off of expensive organic materials. Wigs of real hair, fur, feathers, kelp, etc.; faceplates of bone, wood, porcelain; strips of leather that dangle from the shoulders like a cape or gird about the loins like a cannibal's miniskirt; and those are just the initial offerings in her catalog. If these biosource cosmetic inlays take off like Su thinks they will, they might just be her shot into the big time.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	15	15	25	15	20	20	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	40	8	80	40	8	60

Morph: Synth

Skills: Academics: History (Fashion) 40, Academics: Psychology (Fashion) 37, Academics: Sociology (Fashion) 37, Deception (Cosmetics) 40, Disguise (Cosmetic) 44, Free Fall 26, Interests: Fashion 50, Interests: Gossip 40, Interfacing 26, Language: Native French 92, Language: English 80, Language: Italian 78, Networking: Criminals 25, Networking: Fashion 80, Networking: Media 44, Profession: Fashion Designer 55, Profession: Model 45, Protocol 55

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cosmetic Modifications (wood, stone, and mother-of-pearl inlays)

Mobility System: Walker (4/20)

Traits: Armor (6/6), Social Stigma (Clanking Masses), Uncanny Valley

Using Su Bede

Fashion is one of those weird industries that is all appearance; the skill and efforts and logistics that goes into the design and production of the models' glamour is often lost on the casual audience, who see only the peacock-strut of starved men and women parading in gaudy and sometimes silly outfits on the Mesh. Yet make no mistake, this is a multi-billion credit industry, and behind the artsy pretension and surface vanity of high fashion lie ruthless, resourceful business people and highly-trained, dedicated models who twist and contort their bodies into specific roles over long periods of time. While it is easier than ever to achieve the physical appearance that you desire in Eclipse Phase, just having chiseled abs and butt-cleavage so mathematically perfect that a geometry teacher would weep in joy isn't enough to succeed - especially when you're a synth.

Su Bede is an "in" that the gamemaster can use to introduce the player characters to the fashion industry in Eclipse Phase. She knows practically everybody that is anybody, from the has-beens to the players to the hot young things from the meat markets. As a contact, she is their ticket to meeting the people who do not accept random friend requests or questions from strangers, and has enough pull and dirt to get the PCs what they need, from an invitation to rustling up a good costumer in the middle of the local sleep-cycle. Her modeling activities and new cosmetic inlay line are also solid points to hang an adventure on, from rivalries and business trouble to inconvenient bodies in the dressing room that need to be done away with before the curtain goes up. As an antagonist, the PCs are only ever likely to earn Su's wrath if they thwart or threaten her ambitions - something that they could easily do accidentally in the course of other work, like intercepting a load of illicit seasoned cinnamon-wood that was supposed to go into her latest project. However, her influence doesn't generally extend to ordering hits or making the PC's lives hell - but she will see them blackballed from the fashion industry, making everyone refuse to even talk to them, unless they can find out what they did wrong and make amends.