A Test of Character - Cassadore "Cass" Nine Feathers - 6/9/10

Earlier this week on Twitter I let loose that we're going to be playing a game of Serenity. This games has long been promised by one of our players, and I've been annoyingly asking, almost on a weekly basis, when he's going to get his game going for us. Luckily for the group, school is out, and our Serenity GM is off for the summer. He's got three months now to plan for our whole campaign. We'll be playing on Friday June 25th for our first session, and this Friday is our first real character generation time. In my excitement, I've kind of already developed my entire character with a degree of tweaking left open to make sure I can fill a couple of different roles amongst the crew if needed. Keep reading to see how Cass Nine Feathers was developed and for a first draft of his stats!


My first task was to figure out what concept I wanted to work with. I originally came up with a character who was training to be a registered companion, but dropped out of the academy before graduating. He then took the cortex spectre asset and was basically a ghost in the system - as far as official records go, he had none. Then I found out, when the GM sent the group an email, that companions were a no-no for his game and cortex spectre was one of three assets banned. Oops, back to the drawing board!

One of the aspects I kept from my old, unnamed companion academy drop-out to Cass was that of focusing on melee combat. I often avoid playing combat-heavy characters that dish out the damage in favor of more charismatic, often goofy characters. I wanted to really challenge myself and the genre and focus on a stoic, stealthy, rogue type of character. Instead of my companion character, who focused on fencing and baton, Cass is all about knives.

A couple of influences contributed to me picking Cass Nine Feathers, descendant of the ancient Apaches from Earth-That-Was. First is that I just listened to the episode "Apache Tears" from the Hardcore History podcast. Dan Carlin, the host of the podcast, has a very strong talent for taking history and making it all seem so badass. This leads me to the next badass thing: Deadliest Warrior. I just started watching this on DVD. The show pits two warriors from different cultures and times in an anachronistic fight to the death. One of the episodes I saw was Apache vs. Gladiator. Besides the fact that the Apache won, I was thoroughly impressed with the versatility an Apache warrior had with knives whether thrown or wielded in quick, cutting combat. Add this silent and instant killing ability to the freaky talent of being able to disappear in the wild as the original American guerrilla fighter, and you have the makings of a badass character.

It's also important to ask the question about Serenity: we have all these cowboys, but where are the indians? It's not a serious question, of course, but indians never showed up in the series at all. You could suppose that the Chinese aspect of society represents the "other" or "native," but that's really not a good comparison. I thought it'd be fun to try something new. Anyway, here's what I've got going for stats for Cass.

UPDATE! Mister GM let me get a gander at the Big Damn Heroes expansion (pictured above) so I've updated the assets/complications just a bit now.

Cassadore "Cass" Nine Feathers - Big Damned Hero

Assets
Fightin' Type (Major)
Lightnin' Reflex (Major)
Nose for Trouble (Minor)
In Plain Sight (Major)
Trustworthy Gut (Minor)

Complications
Credo (Major)
Deadly Enemy (Minor)
Ego Signature (Minor)
Easy Mark (Major)
Things Don't Go Smooth (Major)

Attributes
Agility: d12
Strength: d8
Vitality: d8
Alertness: d10
Intelligence: d6
Willpower: d10

Skills
Athletics: d6
     Specialties:
     Dodge: d10
     Running: d8
Covert: d6
     Specialties:
     Stealth d10
Discipline: d6
Guns: d6
     Specialties:
     Shotgun: d8
     Pistols: d8
Mechanical Engineering: d6
     Specialties:
     Mechanical Repairs: d8
Melee Weapon Combat: d6
     Specialties:
     Knives d12
Perception: d6
     Specialties:
     Search d8
Ranged Weapons: d6
     Specialties:
     Throwing Knives d10
Survival: d6

Gear
Ballistic Mesh - 46 credits
20 Combat Knives - 1.6 credits x 20 = 32 credits
Security Baton - 1.2 credits
Hatchet - 16 credits
Pistol - 18 credits
Shotgun - 50 credits
Debugger - 20 credits
Disguise Kit - 65.6 credits
Eavesdrops - 47.2 credits
Lock Picks - 14 credits
Lock Picks, Electronics - 35.4 credits
5 Mag Charges - 27 x 5 = 135 credits
5 Optical Bombs - 16 x 5 = 80 credits
Tool Set, Basic - 14.4 credits
Total: 574.8 credits spent/2,425.20 credits to my name

So there you have it. Without going majorly for guns, I did my best to boost myself with damage and pure combat-y goodness. Very little frills here, and I hope I stayed close to what historically Apache warriors were good at with running, knives both throwing and melee, covert, perception, and survival all thrown in! The mechanical engineer bit is included to actually be of some use outside of combat (whatever that phrase actually means).