073: Shedder

ENTRY 073: Shedder

The byword in the Planetary Consortium is upgrade or die—the fear of technological stagnation, , investing in the wrong implants or longevity treatments, seeing the hypercorp that makes your morph or its software discontinue the line. A dropping consumer score on a product can send a fleet of morphs to trade their models, provided they have the resources to afford a new one.

The man now known as "Shedder" is one of the unfortunates who couldn’t. Always a bit of a bottom-feeder, he got by doing gopher-work for bigger players in the inner sphere entertainment industry and a couple years back he made a bad investment in an upgrade: a persistent infection that was supposed to increase tissue regeneration, but without prematurely aging the cells or causing cancer. It would have meant persistently clean skin, teeth, hair, even heightened longevity—but what he didn’t find out until later were the potential side effects. For the past two years, Shedder has been constantly shed skin, hair, even teeth to making way for new tissues, unable to stay anywhere for a few minutes without leaving a slough of skin and hair, constantly scratching at himself.

Naturally, business has suffered, and Shedder has been forced into shadier and shadier deals, all while trying to save up enough to get the treatment fixed…or removed.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
10	15	10	15	15	15	18	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	36	7	72	30	6	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Art: Film 30, Deception (Fast Talk) 55, Fray 25, Interests: Archaic Film Tech 44, Interests: Entertainment Industry Gossip 56, Interests: Underworld Gossip 70, Intimidation 35, Investigation 45, Kinesics 70, Language: Native French 85, Language: Italian 60, Language: Spanish 80, Networking: Criminals 35, Networking: Media 55, Perception 45, Persuasion (Negotiation) 50, Profession: Media Ops 60, Profession: Personal Assistant 60, Protocol (Media) 60, Research 35

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Clean Metabolism (virus), Cortical Stack, Enhanced Vision

Traits: Unattractive (2)

Using Shedder

Shedder is a gopher and low-level flunky with weird connections and a memorable appearance. Never quite a mover and shaker, Shedder tends to get the bad ends of the bad jobs, but keeps his eyes open and waits for his chance. As such, gamemasters may play Shedder as a wild card—a background character driving vehicles, taking orders, and cleaning up messes (he has literally recycled more than a few bodies) who, if the opportunity presents itself, may sell out information on the characters or their operations, or even make off with whatever they’re going after if he thinks he can get away with it. PCs may return to temporary headquarters after a job to find Shedder has “borrowed” some of their equipment, pawning it for funds for a quick scam and planning to return it before they know its gone. Alternately, Shedder may approach them with a job, using secrets his employers and partners didn’t know he knew to plan a heist or ripoff. Unlike most NPCs, Shedder knows exactly how precarious his position is in any deal and will always try to hold something back so that he has leverage on the situation.