314: Master Chemist

ENTRY 314: Master Chemist

“You see this mottling on the skin? Repeated damage from subcutaneous injections. And from the look of it, his drug of choice has been contaminated by flesh-eating bacteria. Observe how easily I can bruise the muscle...hmm, if the noise bothers you, yes you may gag him, but keep the airway clear. This one will be ripe for processing soon."
- Master Chemist instructing the apprentices, Tuesday afternoon

Among the Nine Lives, the venerable Master Chemist holds sway over all technical operations related to chemistry and pharmacology, overseeing the creation and distribution of drugs, purchase and testing of source chemicals, the cleanliness and efficacy of the labs and facilities, and the training and management of subordinate lab technicians, drug dealers, etc. While dealing in chemical narcotics, stimulants, etc. has diminished somewhat due to the greater profit margins of narcoalgorithms and shifting attitudes and legalities that make formerly banned substances available, the Nine Lives still have a considerable market in counterfeit and cheap pharmaceuticals, as well as smuggling in combat drugs, substances that are difficult or expensive to manufacture locally, and various materials (often fake or substitutes) for traditional medicine practices that are still popular in ethnic enclaves.

Master Chemist is an older gentleman, with skin like pale yellow ivory marked by an intricate network of dark blue tattoos, some of which glow at odd times. A practical man, he is almost always dressed in tailored suits of artificial silk which often double as lab clothes, favoring little jewelry or ostentation. A firm believer in better living through chemistry, the hidden pockets of his suit contain a pharmacopoeia of pills, inhalers, small single-dose syringes, and other samples, and he often diagnoses those around them and gives them "prescriptions," couching his language to be mystical or scientific based on what he believes their mindset to be.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
13	18	20	10	12	10	20	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	40	8	80	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Academic: Biology 60, Academic: Chemistry 80, Academics: Genetics 40, Art: Cocktails 50, Deception 25, Fray 35, Free Fall 45, Hardware: Chemtech 80, Interests: Black Market Drugs 50, Interests: Chemistry Research 50, Interests: Traditional Chinese Medicine 45, Interfacing 30, Kinesics 30, Language: Native Mandarin 85, Language: English 75, Language: Hindi 66, Medecine: General Practice 45, Medicine: Pharmacology 60, Networking: Autonomists 25, Networking: Criminal 65, Networking: Scientists (Chemists) 33, Palming 50, Perception (Taste) 44, Profession: Chemist 50, Protocol 40, Research 35

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cosmetic Augmentation (tattoos), Emotional Dampner, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Taste, Multitasking, Oracles

Traits: Aged, Allies (Nine Lives)

Using Master Chemist

"Traditional" drugs are not on the way out in Eclipse Phase, though some players might get that impression. While quite a lot in the way of narcotics, hallucinogens, etc. can be emulated using software, there are quite a few biomorphs still running around that need everything from erectile dysfunction and birth control medication to classical tobacco, cocaine, opium, datura, alcohol, etc. The Nine Lives seek to fulfill those needs only where there is a market - most major habitats have hypercorps competing to produce the latest chemical enhancer or drug and market it as a friendly product, while the Nine Lives are mostly content to operate knock-off brands, especially commercially unsuccessful products that are discontinued and leave the remaining addicts fighting over the dwindling supplies. The Master Chemist, then, is technical overseer of a middle-sized operation that spans the range from legitimate to hideously illegal based on which habitat he occupies at the time; his age and contacts within the Nine Lives have secured his position, but he is not an ambitious man looking to expand the boundaries of his domain - which his superiors see as sensible, but his underlings see as a sign of potential weakness.

As a contact, the Master Chemist is at base an excellent supplier and sometimes-employer, able to provide any drugs the player characters need and in return needing them to make deliveries, steal precursor chemicals, equipment and recipes; and of course act as a general authority - "There is knowledge in here," he will often say, tapping his head "That has never been committed to a computer." He functions much the same as an antagonist, although he draws a line between professional and personal animosity - if the PCs interfere with a Nine Lives operation, he will see they are afflicted in kind, using Nine Lives resources, and will often allow them a chance to buy their way back into his good graces. If the matter becomes personal, however, the Master Chemist will target their friends and families, working to destroy all they hold dear, offering the player characters only one way out - and many of the Master Chemist's enemies have been found dead by "suicide," having taken quite an overdose.

286: Echo Zelazny

ENTRY 286: Echo Zelazny

“I had a future. I spent it."
- Echo, drink #5

Life doesn't turn out like people plan. Echo had a family, friends, was a student at a medical school on Luna, with a full hypercorp scholarship. She grew up in a structured environment, with multiple safety nets and safeguards to keep her from stumbling off the path set up for her - drugs, minor legal troubles, surprise pregnancies, these were special cells on the spreadsheet of her life, triggering subroutines that would swoop down from above and sweep her back on track. A better life than 87% of transhumanity, guaranteed.

It took her a shock to see the cage she lived in. The experiences they kept from her, the ways they guided and manipulated her. Parents, corporate sponsors, teachers, her so-called friends. She hated them all, and wanted out, and found a way. It took a lot of blood to leave her old life behind, and some people still want Echo to answer for it. For those that helped her, she's still working down the debt as an illegal medtech, dealing drugs when she has to, harvesting organs when asked to. Anything for a credit, anything to get her out from under. She stepped out of one cage and into another, and Echo wants out of that one too.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
16	18	15	15	12	18	20	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	40	8	80	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Academic: Biology 60, Academics: Genetics 60, Academics: Nanotechnology 50, Art: Bodysculpting 40, Art: Writing 40, Beam Weapons 40, Deception 25, Fray 35, Free Fall 45, Hardware: Medtech 40, Interests: Black Market Drugs 40, Interests: Genetic Research 40, Interests: Morph Designs 45, Interfacing 30, Kinesics (Pain) 30, Language: Native Czech 87, Language: English 35, Medecine: General Practice 45, Medicine: Gene Therapy 40, Medicine: Nanomedicine 38, Medicine: Trauma Surgery 50, Networking: Autonomists 25, Networking: Criminal 35, Networking: Scientists (Students) 33, Perception (Visual) 44, Profession: Lab Technician 40, Profession: Medical Care 44, Programming 33, Psychosurgery 50, Research 35, Scrounging (Medtech) 40

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Multitasking

Disadvantages: Blackmark (Luna), Neural Damage (echolalia)

Using Echo Zelazny

Echo is your basic criminal medtech, good to drop into an adventure for all your can't-let-the-authorities-or-insurance-company-know needs. Unlike most, she's basically an indentured servant, working down a massive debt tied into the multiple murders she's still on the hook for back in Luna. So she's professional, but prone to depression and looking for distractions and a way out. If the PCs offer either of those, she'll play along. Of course, if she can pay off her debt by turning them in to her bosses, she might do that too. PCs are going to be in an interesting negotiating position if she brings this up in the middle of stitching them up or selling them drugs, and she's not above using their health as a bargaining chip. Echo's plans to make a big score and get out clean are the most likely way for her to be a direct antagonist to the PCs, getting them involved in her machinations.

272: Jun ibn Shiloh

ENTRY 272: Jun ibn Shiloh

Cannon crawls across the surface of Mercury, a city-sized insect-factory spitting building-sized ingots into orbit. Built and owned by Jaehon Offworld, the majority of the population works directly for the hypercorp...but not everyone. Jaehon has long recognized that having individuals outside the corporate structure can be convenient, economic, and even necessary at their installations. Deniable people that the employees can interact with to obtain what the corporation, for its own reasons, cannot provide them. Not simply whores, drugs, and illegal media, but less tangible services such as loans, confession, lovers, espionage, and assassinations. Vital functions that need an outlet to prevent disruption in the corporate environment, made all the easier if the corporation has an understanding in place with the individual.

So on Cannon, there is Jun ibn Shiloh. Officially, he is a free agent, kept in place on the station as a representative-for-hire for various groups, hypercorps, and criminal syndicates. Instead of the cost and expense of sending one of their own down to Cannon, someone who does not know Jaehon's corporate structure or the social underbelly of the habitat, they hire Jun. As such on any given day ibn Shiloh may wear several different hats, meeting in the morning to inspect that Cannon is disposing of its mining slag properly according to its agreement with the Association of the Exploitation of Mercury, and in the afternoon having a quiet word with a mid-level supervisor on paying her gambling debts to the Night Cartel, and in the evening acting as a puppet sock to entertain a husband whose wife is out on a mineral surveying expedition for a month.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
13	18	18	12	17	13	22	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	44	8	88	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Academics: Geology 47, Art: Dance (Erotic) 43, Blades (Knives) 37, Clubs (Wrench) 30, Fray (Full Defense) 26, Free Fall (Microgravity) 25, Infiltration 40, Interests: Gambling 50, Interests: Gossip 40, Interests: Mercury 33, Interests: Mining Law 34, Intimidation (Verbal) 67, Kinesics (Sense Motive) 45, Kinetic Weapons (Pistols) 45, Language: Native Japanese 87, Language: Arabic 73, Language: English 62, Language: Mandarin 68, Language: German 81, Language: French 37, Networking: Criminals 35, Networking: Hypercorps 44, Perception (Visual) 50, Persuasion (Negotiation) 56, Profession: Escort 35, Profession: Representative 47, Seduction 34, Unarmed Combat 25

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Puppet Sock

Traits: Genetic Damage (Marfan syndrome), Mutant, Striking Appearance (1)

Using Jun ibn Shiloh

Depending on how you count his immediate ancestry, Jun ibn Shiloh is either a second or fourth-generation spaceborn flat; the details of which would probably make for an exciting Mesh-based dramatic series. As a result of this inbreeding between close relatives, Jun has Marfan's syndrome - resulting in a tall, lanky appearance and some ongoing health issues - and some abnormal (though fully functioning) genitals, including four testicles and two penes. On any other habitat Jun would probably be a prostitute or a porn star, but on Cannon he is more valuable for his independence than his freaky genetics. As such, no matter how cool Jun may come across, he will get agitated if anyone brings up his genes or "extra attributes" in a negative light; he's tossed at least three people out of an airlock onto the surface of Mars because they called him a freak, it's not a label he appreciates. As an NPC, Jun is valuable to the PCs either as an agent - i.e. someone to engage to snoop around or do things because they don't want to or cannot go to Cannon themselves - or as a local guide, helping the PCs find their way around and showing them where they can score drugs, weapons, gambling, or anything else shady and not-so-shady that they desire. Ibn Shiloh has a lot of friends and a lot of favors locally, so he feels fairly secure in the event someone threatens him, but by the same token he is very antsy about leaving Cannon for any reason, or for anything that can seriously disrupt life on the habitat. As an antagonist, Jun will probably target the NPCs as outsiders, easy scapegoats for a big crime or as direct threats to his own position.

213: Demi Wannah

ENTRY 213: Demi Wannah

“We are as we make ourselves to be.”

- Tattoo on the back of Demi Wannah’s neck

Demi Wannah was born with no legs, just a pair of crippled stumps. Her parents abandoned her, and the overburdened habitat she grew up in during the Fall consigned her to an institution, where her legs were amputated, she was sterilized, and her budding breasts burned off so that she would be less of a burden. When she was old enough, she built herself some new legs, and escaped.

The past is a datafile to Demi Wannah that she has archived and left forgotten. Her attention is on the now, on her work—mostly freelancer graphic design for local microcorps, and some custom design for synthmorph and cyberlimbs. With the new lower torsos of her own design she walks, scuttles, crawls, slithers, fucks, kicks, skips, jumps, and every other thing just as anyone else does, and never takes it for granted. With her new “saucer” augmentation, she even has limited flight via vectored thrust, though it makes her airsick.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
20	19	14	15	12	18	21	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	42	8	84	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Academic: Bioengineering 60, Art: Architecture 40, Art: Graphic Design 45, Free Fall (Microgravity) 30, Hardware: Robotics 36, Interests: Custom Implants 60, Interests: DIY Augmentation 60, Interests: Unique Morphs 60, Language: Native Portuguese 84, Language: English 50, Language: Spanish 66, Networking: Hypercorps 30, Networking: Media 30, Perception 60, Profession: Graphic Designer 65, Protocol 33, Unarmed Combat (Subdual) 28

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Multi-Tasking (x4), ModularTorso*

Disadvantages: No Cortical Stack

* Unique augmentation; Demi Wannah’s legs and lower torso have been replaced with a modular slot that can be fitted into custom-designed mobility systems based on synthmorph designs with different mobility rates and augmentations. Among the lower torsos available to Demi include a bipedal walker (4/16), arachnoid walker (4/24), thrust vector “saucer” (8/40), and snake (4/16, 8/28 rolling).

Using Demi Wannah

Demi bears the scars of her past, and the handmade augmentations that are her future. As a contact or an ally, she can provide the PCs some custom augmentations or put them in contact with someone else that can. As an antagonist, her early upbringing has affected her ability to form close relationships and relate to other people—she has a tendency to steal and betray people, imagining that they are going to steal and betray her. As a plot hook, most actions will resolve either around Demi’s past or her work designing custom synthmorph limbs.

Seed

• People start dying on the player’s habitat. After some sleuthing, their only common factor is their past with Demi—the doctors, nurses, and administrators who bureaucratically condemned and mutilated her. When the PCs confront her, she does not struggle or seek to explain. If they turn her in, they are given a small reward—and according to the consensus of the habitat, she will be given a public trial and anyone is allowed to speak for her. The PCs will be asked to attend as witnesses. If they do nothing, she will be mindwiped and the cost of the procedure and her re-education taken out of her belongings—she may even lose her morph entirely.

167: Codename: Sector

ENTRY 167: Codename: Sector

There is a mole in Firewall; an undercover agent or leak who is passing Firewall’s data and technology to outside parties, including various suspected TITAN affiliate groups, former collaborators, and exsurgent cells. Firewall agents have been killed or infected, their missions blown. Valuable intel data and equipment has gone missing. The counterintelligence agents attempting to track and identify this mole know them only by the codename Sector. While they do not yet have definitive proof of Sector’s real identity, they have three strong suspects.

D’lish is a freelance media tech, veteran of six gatecrashing documentaries and a brief but high-ratings civil war on one of the Venusan aerostats. Murky personal history involving some military training; no record of birth or family. She started stringing for Firewall in media circles six years ago, began running her own agents within eighteen months, gradually gained greater access to the organization as crises came up and were contained or dealt with.

Artemis 1 worked her way to the top of the matriarchal sex-economy hypercorp AllLove, and used her position to fund reproductive health education throughout the solar system. Appeared on Firewall watch lists after attempting to convene a conference on suspected sexually-transmitted diseases left behind by the TITANs; contacted after her personal cadre of troops firebombed three reproductive health clinics that were implanting xenomorph embryos in unsuspecting transhumans. Became a close advisor on viral research who personally took part in several research-and-recovery expeditions.

Jules Mars, professional war orphan from out of Mars. Fifteen nanoseconds of fame for being the last living transhuman rescued from the Zone; her muse managed to parlay that into a career as a minor media personality focusing on the rights, benefits, and care of veterans and survivors. Her continued prominence in the Martian mediasphere is in part due to Firewall support, as Jules’ continued advocacy and has placed her at the center of a number of groups that Firewall likes to keep tabs on. At this point, she has become so adept at handling her Firewall handlers it is not clear what Firewall assets she has access to.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	13	12	18	13	13	30	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	60	12	120	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Academics: Psychology 47, Academics: Sociology 53, Beam Weapons 40, Fray (Full Defense) 56, Free Fall 55, Infiltration 50, Interests: Exsurgent Cells 50, Interests: The Fall 50, Interests: Firewall 40, Interests: TITANs 50, Intimidation (Verbal) 67, Kinesics (Sense Motive) 45, Kinetic Weapons (Pistols) 45, Language: Native French 87, Language: English 73, Language: Skandinavíska 68, Networking: Autonomists 36, Networking: Criminals 47, Networking: Hypercorps 40, Networking: Media 55, Perception (Visual) 50, Persuasion (Negotiation) 56, Profession: Intel Ops 65, Scrounging 44, Unarmed Combat 40

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack

Traits: Allies (Firewall), Eidetic Memory

Using Codename: Sector

The three suspects listed above are only the most likely possibilities on Firewall’s list. Gamemasters may choose for any (or all, or none) of them to be Sector. The search for a mole is a venerable story trope with lots of material to draw on for an Eclipse Phase campaign, but in EP there exist any number of possible twists: each of the women mentioned as suspects may be no more than sleeves for the ego of the real morph, or Manchurian Candidates whose psychosurgery-installed behavioral routines are trigged by certain code phrases.

122: Jzon

ENTRY 122: Jzon

Every organization of a certain size and maturity recognizes the self-defeating nature of its own structure. Once you get enough people in an org, change from the inside becomes difficult, and rules get in the way of getting something done. It’s the same for book clubs and governments as it is for a gang or Triad. In the days when humans all lived in tribes, they’d have a shaman—somebody that lived at the edge of the group, able to look in, with special skills and authority. Sometimes hated, feared, or respected, most likely all three, the shaman doled out medicine and advice, acting as an intercessor between the inner universe of the tribe and the vast unknown world. These days, transhumanity doesn’t have shamans. It has fixers.

Jzon has been a fixer since before the Fall, a stringer for the Yamaguchi-gumi back before the skies burned and the oceans went black. Up the gravity well, he fell in with the early Triads as a troubleshooter, helping get new operations off the ground and running smooth, then moving on to the next habitat, usually with a new face and a new name. Never a guy with the chops to run his own operation, Jzon usually likes to play himself off as a consultant—he makes the introductions, arranges the meetings, analyzes the process, suggests improvements. He knows everybody and almost everybody knows him, if he chooses to call in a favor, from Jupiter to Mercury and every habitat in between.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
14	10	15	10	20	10	12	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	30	6	60	30	6	45

Morph: Flat

Skills: Beam Weapons 40, Blades 35, Clubs 30, Fray 50, Free Fall 30, Infiltration 50, Interests: Drugs 50, Interests: Gambling 50, Interests: Gangs 50, Interests: Prostitution 50, Interfacing 50, Intimidation 66, Kinesics 45, Kinetic Weapons 40, Language: Native English 70, Language: Mandarin 60, Language: Japanese 60, Networking: Autonomists 25, Networking: Criminals 90, Networking: Hypercorps 25, Networking: Media 25, Perception 50, Persuasion 50, Profession: Fixer 80, Protocol 75, Research 50, Scrounging 30, Unarmed Combat 35

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Skillware

Traits: Allies (most criminal groups owe him a favor), Immortality Blues

Using Jzon

Fixer-types are useful for gamemasters because they can cut through the social and legal strictures to bring PCs into contact with people that they wouldn’t normally be able to interact with. Jzon is of the organizations he deals with but not part of them; they’re paying for his services but they aren’t always grateful or graceful about it—so he has a tendency to subcontract, hiring others to do the dirty work or cover his ass. That’s where the PCs come in, invited to sit down and share a beer with Jzon at a small table in a secluded space bar with a Triad underboss on one side and an exhuman on the other, to politely discuss how group A is going to get group B the transuranic elements that were promised and paid for—and then Jzon is going to look up them and smile and ask if they want the job. Physically, Jzon isn’t much of a threat. In a fight, he’ll generally lie low and escape. He’s a good boss but an indifferent enemy, since there isn’t much profit in revenge; Jzon’s idea of getting back at someone is to hire them for a set-up through a third-party and then forget all about them.

076: Lois Wylie

ENTRY 076: Lois Wylie

If you believe the hype, genefixing freed transhumanity from the forces of natural selection; “intelligent redesign” eliminated genetic diseases and predisposition to obesity, alcoholism, male pattern baldness, and hundreds of other negative aspects of the old human condition. The first splicers fulfilled the celebrity image of thin, fit, healthy, and symmetric that had been force-fed as icons of beauty for the last couple centuries. What most transhumans don’t acknowledge is the general creative sterility of the genefix process—splicers were crafted by careful screening and filtering of genes, the removal, amendment, and replacement of markers for genetic disease, but nothing new was ever added to the process; the gene hackers simply worked with what nature had already made available. Theoretically, natural breeding could throw up a “superflat” who, without genefixing, possesses genetic advantages equivalent to a splicer.

Of course, as superflat Lois Wylie will tell you, having all the genetic advantages in the world doesn’t mean much if you’re not in a position to exploit and develop them to their full potential. Raised in poverty and having spent the last decade moving from scum barge to scum barge, Wylie is a rootless jack-of-all-trades that seems to gravitate toward the shadier deals, never quite earning enough to make her passage onto a proper habitat.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
17	16	17	16	16	19	17	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
7	1	34	6	68	30	6	45

Morph: “Superflat” (Splicer)

Skills: Beam Weapons 55, Blades 44, Climbing 44, Clubs 55, Fray (Full Defense) 45, Free Fall (Microgravity) 67, Hardware: Armorer 33, Infiltration 44, Intimidation 55, Kinesics 44, Kinetic Weapons 55, Language: Native Dutch 86, Language: Cantonese 55, Language English 55, Language: Spanish 55, Neworking: Autonomists 44, Networking: Criminals 55, Perception (Hearing) 56, Persuasion 33, Profession: Bodyguarding 44, Profession: Drug Dealing 44, Profession: Escorting 44, Profession: Military Ops 44, Profession: Profession Rackets: 44, Profession: Security Ops 44, Profession: Smuggling 44, Unarmed Combat 66

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts

Traits: Innocuous, No Cortical Stack

Using Lois Wylie

In today’s world, Lois Wylie would be a badass bordering on superhuman. By the standards of Eclipse Phase, sometimes being just human isn’t enough. Denied a big break and passed over as just another flat, Wylie moves from job to job and syndicate to syndicate, frustrated and more than a little violent if pushed. Gamemasters can use Wylie as mercenary muscle, either for the PCs or the NPCs, but a little respect for her skills will go a ways farther than just credit—though she expects to be paid, too. As an antagonist, Wylie likes to plan out jobs ahead of time and in detail, disguising her real objectives with as much noise and chaos as possible, with back-up plans and escape routes rigged with traps to discourage pursuit. As a contact, Wylie is more loyal than most of her acquaintances will give her credit for, but maybe not the most forthcoming if there isn’t something in it for her.