This thread is for sample backgrounds that can be referred to while creating a character for NS:SE. 

All the examples are approvable and fit the policy posted in the Policy and House Rules section under Beta Chargen Process:  http://forum.newseattle.org/index.php?topic=766.msg7460#new

If you would like to comment on these backgrounds or donate one of your own, please do so in a different thread or IM them to me. 

Thanks, and enjoy! I hope they help. 


<NOTE: Current PHS is Kujata> Kujata here, modifying dreamers message to just mention that all inquiries should be PM'd to me here on the forum or emailed.  Check my profile to get my email address.  Dreamer did fantastic work compiling alot of these helpful samples, but no need to bog her with messages. I'll take care of things. ^_^ >

Basic Merc:

   So, I’m sitting here getting eaten by the acid rain and waiting for my mark to show up, and I get to thinking.  I swear I’ve spent more time in these damn alleys than with a roof overhead.  My first fight was in an alley.  My first high was in an alley.  Hell, my first blow job was in an alley.  And, of course, all my illegal activities started in an alley.

   Activities, heh, listen to be rising above my station.  My dad once worked at Federated Boeing, but got kicked out on his hoop when he slotted too many chips.  We moved from rat-hole apartment to cockroach-infested apartments and back again while both my parents burned themselves out on BTLs and barely worked enough to cover their habits.

   I was about thirteen when I met this guy… in an alley.  I had already made friends with my gateway drug, and was trying to climb the ranks of oblivion.  This guy had the good stuff.  And I mean the Good Stuff. 

   It got to be that I crashed on his floor and shared stolen cans of beans.  I followed the party, and he was the party.  One night… in an alley… he needed to be in two places at once.  So what did he do?  Sent me with a delivery… to an alley.  It worked out great, he made more money, I got a great high, and I joined the crowd playing delivery boy. 

   A couple more years went by, I got knifed a couple times… in alleys, and we had some awesome fights with others over supply and demand.  Now my dealer buddy trusts me with a good chunk of the biz and security, and introduces me to a new guy. I think he’s a half-baked dealer but there’s something about him that keeps me from completely blowing him off. 

   This guy has more errands for me to do, and hey, I don’t mind a new challenge.  Plus, it’s even better pay than my old gig.  Packages of all sizes, guarding bodies, burglary, and I’m starting to get a hint of what’s going on.  It’s still simple grunt work, but I start thinking over a couple years, if I start polishing up some of these skills of mine and drop some bad habits, maybe I can get even more work. 
 
   How that thought got through the haze of novacoke beats the hell out of me. But it stuck. 

   I started working more for the Fixer than my old boss, and after a nasty fight…in an alley… I was given his blessings to continue.  Or at least he couldn’t stop me then. I felt nothing could stop me. 

   Packages turned from boxes to people, and more and more they didn’t want to come with me.  Funny that, it’s not like I have that many scars.  Then came the fun stuff, I got to watch buildings and things go kaboom.  Kaboom!  Damn fixer started calling me that too.  How I managed to live around so many chemicals yet never realized just how fun they could be outside of my body still keeps me up at night. 

   One day, the fixer takes me to some place in Touristville.  Some place nice, not the alleys we’d been meeting in.  There is some guy wearing a suit.  A fragging suit.  My fix points me to the table and disappears.  Hell, he could have at least let me sleep first.  This suit guy looks down his nose, then slides over intel on something he wants blown up. 

   All I could do was sit back and grin.  I’d finally worked my way up from street rat to runner. 
   

Basic Face:

   The second Crash made me grow up.  Yeah, I know, it changed a lot of people, but it made me face what I had been doing and accept the consequences.  See, I had been running around the city for years.  A few months in Downtown, a few more in P-yup, a couple weeks in Touristville.  Me and my friends would hit a party here, and crash at someone else’s house when we were broke.  And when we made ourselves annoying by not fitting it, we’d get the drek beat out of us until we did. Then I’d go crying to my parents and snag some more cred before heading for the next section of the city.

   The Crash threw everyone for a loop and the chaos became even more chaotic when I no longer had a home.

   I’d been crashing in the Barrens for a week or so after a long jaunt somewhere else when I ended up pissing someone off.  Threats start showing up all over and after one too many close encounters with a black eye, I went sneaking back to my parents.  I was only nineteen, afterall. 

   Unfortunately, my parents were part of the bottom rungs of the high-level execs of Ares.  They were little fish compared to the ones making decisions.  With the Crash, my Corp ID didn’t work, or at least that’s what I thought. 

   “Dad, let me in.”

   “I’m sorry, Theresa, but your mother and I agreed that you are just causing too much trouble with our work.”

   “But, Dad, I’m in trouble!”  I was milking my bruised image for all it was worth.

   “I’m sorry, but you have to live with your mistakes just like the rest of us.  My supervisor agrees with my therapist.  Every time you come back from running away, our productivity goes down.”

   “Where’s Mom?”

   “… She’s in an interview.”

   Then he told the doorman to keep me on the ‘do not allow in’ list.  Real nice, dad.  At least they weren’t the best parental units anyway.  More concerned over their positions than actually what my problems were.  The most concern they ever showed was when I came home sporting a new chipjack and had my hair shaved.  They didn’t think that obvious cyber fit in with their image.

   So, I did what any daughter would do.  I told him to frag off and walked away.  The next day there was a huge deposit in my account.  Guess who it was from? 

   Anyway, I took my beating and figured out what I had done wrong.  Seems the guy thought I was stealing his courier business or something.  All I did was hold a package for someone for a half hour. 

   I got to thinking after that, though.  If he thought I was making money off of that, why didn’t I make money?  It’s not like I had an income anymore. 

   So I had a friend of a friend hook me up with a friend of a friend who needed someone quick and cheap.  That was me. 

   I kept coming back to him, though, and I think he got tired of me showing up all the time.  So he sent me out on a run to the ‘high-class’ part of the city, probably to get me arrested.  He was surprised when I came back in one of the outfits I still had from my old life. 

   From then on he gave me some decent runs and I’ve got something new to do.  I even give him a discount on doing things against Ares.  He gets to keep part of my paycheck. 

Basic Samurai:

   Yawk was born in New York thirty-one years ago.  His father and grandfather, plus his uncles and an aunt, had all been enlisted in the UCAS military.  So Yawk, then Michael Jones, gave up a sports scholarship playing football to join the ranks of his family at eighteen. 

   The day he finished boot camp was a proud day for his family.  He went on happily to climb the promotional ladder for eight years.  He was the one who could go into any situation with a smile and never considered leaving the army even when his arm was blown off.  Instead, he accepted a military discount on cyberware and went right back into action.

   Six months after resigning his contract for another tour, all of that changed. 

   His unit was patrolling an area in Amazonia and came across a young woman trying to run across an open area owned by Aztechnology.  The woman started screaming for help as she was running.  Behind her came a group of corp security and magical baddies.  Yawk’s superior officer held him back from crossing into the corp area and helping, and the woman was killed ten feet from the border. 

   After that, Yawk couldn’t finish up his tour fast enough.  He retired with honors but never took another promotion.  His unit had been stationed in New England and he decided to move to the other coast to gain some distance and on the promise of an old member of his unit.

   His friend promised him work since he hadn’t known anything other than fighting and death for so long.  So now Yawk is in Seattle bunking with an old friend and breaking into the shadows as a samurai.

   He stayed with his family for three months before moving, and every day his father would give him the ‘welcome home, hero’ speech until one day, Yawk blew up at him over the horrors he had seen.  Now, His family thinks that he is just going through a period of adjustment.

   Flaw/Fear:  Yawk fears becoming just like his superior officer and the others of his unit who didn’t make any effort to save someone who needed it.  He also fears that if he keeps getting more cyberware, he will end up that way no matter what.  But he needs that edge to keep him alive and ahead of the game.  He is a sucker for women or children in need and will put himself in obvious danger because of them.

   Goal/Dream:  Yawk hates Aztechnology now for the way they treated the woman and their corp superiority.  He dislikes all corps now because they are above the law of the UCAS and morals, but he will go against Aztechnology for free just to put a damper on their day.  He also has dreams of owning his own bar someday.

   Personality:  Yawk used to be a very carefree man, but now he is plagued by periods of huge depression and anger.  He isn’t quite jaded since he still believes in truth and justice, but when it comes to others in his line of work or corp employees, cynical is a good description.  Somehow, he still holds to a modified code of honor and gives great respect to women, children, and his elders.