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Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - DM Spiral - 06-19-2021 Here be the Character backgrounds.  Post them here.  Starting Information - All of you grew up in or around the same neighborhood in one of the last bastions of humanity in North America - Chi Town.   - You are all friends in some relative fashion. You are all either family, best friends, or at least see each other in a somewhat positive light. - You completely believe when the game starts, that you are 100% good ole fashioned human. As we play you will figure out the other crazy supernatural shit about yourselves. - We are using Photo Avatars for this one, Not Art. ---Aaron, Marcus and Viego--- Aaron, Marcus, and Viego were raised together with several other boys and girls in what they were told was an orphanage just inside the Burbs of Chi-Town. This Orphanage was a training facility and school for ten children.  Only Aaron, Marcus, and Viego have survived the training to reach adulthood. Their lives were and still are relatively isolated. Raised to fully embrace the Coalition and keep humanity safe from all the monsters in the world, they have been trained to fully embrace the Coalition and their duty to it. All three boys have yet to discover why Generals and top brass of the Coalition have been so fascinated with them.  They are almost treated like favored children, especially Aaron and Marcus.  Viego a little less so, the Emperor coming off more like an Uncle to him. Emperor Karl Prosek Even the Emperor himself gives them monthly visits and acts almost like a father to the boys.  They have not seen much of the outside world to completely honest.  They get intense military training almost constantly, though what little free time they have, is encouraged to peruse whatever activities they find interest in.  All three boys read, play video games, and watch vids of heroic Coalition films. They are also encouraged to pursue more physical activities like sports, wrestling, kickboxing, etc.  And from time to time, they are sent to help build or repair Coalition bases so they know the value of hard labor and the satisfaction of working with ones hands. For guardians they have an entire pack of Dog boys that answer to the three like highly intelligent pets and will die for the remaining three boys without question.  This is one of the reasons they don't get much interaction, the Dog Boys will threaten anyone who gets to close the boys, even other Coalition soldiers who are not authorized to be around them. Sergeant Bones Corporal Biscuit  Private Franz Private MoMo.  ---Khayman--- Sergeant Khayman has been training the boys since they were ten and understands the boys life. He has seen a number of odd things about them, such as all of them possessing incredible speed, strength and endurance.  All three boys far exceed normal human capabilities which does make the young soldier worry. He trained them in the ways of fighting and what it means to be a Coalition soldier. He became much like an older bother to the boys, and now they are fast approaching the age of manhood where they were be sent on their first missions. It fills the man with a bit of unease, but he knows he's trained them to the best of his ability. Marcus in particular is an amazing fighter and has surpassed him in many ways. Viego was always a bit awkward, never mastering the higher fighting styles, though the boy did well enough.  And Aaron … well, Aaron is … Unique. An Excellent fighter but where Marcus was physical, Aaron was more mental. (In more ways that one. LOL!) While the boys had dozens of teacher's in various subjects, it was Khayman with whom they bonded the most with, All three of them looking up to him, not only as a Commanding Officer, but as an older brother.  While Khayman might have hoped to keep things completely professional, that was something he simply was unable to fully do as he looks at the boys like little brothers. It was when he realized this, that his unease over their very odd situation began to sink in.   ---Nolan--- Lieutenant Nolan has just received an assignment under the highest level of classified he has ever seen on a Coalition missive. It was hand-delivered by the Emperor's son and right hand man Joseph Prosek himself, head of the Public Relations and Intelligence Divisions. The simple fact that this man approached him at all left Nolan feeling no small amount of trepidation. His new assignment was to arrive at this facility and study the three young men who were housed there.  It was an odd assignment considering his specialty, studying supernatural creatures, deebees and magic, but he was in no way going to argue with what was possibly the second most powerful man in the Coalition.  Joseph Prosek, Minister of Intelligence. RE: Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - Nolan Randall - 06-27-2021 Background Nolan was born to an ordinary human couple living in 'the Burbs' slums of Chi-Town. Or so he thinks anyway. In reality his grand-father was a near human D-Bee who had arrived in Rift Earth through a Rift approximately 70 years ago. In order to blend into society, his grandfather, his mother, and unbeknownst to Nolan, he himself (though he was too young to remember) have undergone cosmetic surgery to lose their D-Bee features (pointed ears), and as a child Nolan was taught always to hide his eyes with contact lenses and/or goggles and sunglasses to hide his cat-like irises. Unaware of his ancestry, Nolan simply thinks the strange eyes are a family mutation, that they must hide or be ostracized by their neighbours Nolan's father is completely human, and as far as Nolan knows may even be unaware that his wife, and his father-in-law, have this mutation. As soon as he was old enough to understand,Nolan's mother prepared him in how to hide his eyes, but before she felt he was old enough to be told the truth of his ancestry, she died of one of the many diseases that run rampant in the slums. Growiung up in the slums was difficult, and from a young age Noolan grew used to hard labour, assisting his father, and then eventually working on his own as manual labor, and somethimes hired muscle. Secretly, Nolan's grandfather and mother taught him to read, taught him to question everything, but also taight him the necessity of keeping such knowledge secret. However, there are few ways out of the Burbs, and most end in a very short, brutal life. One of the few ways out for many young men is to join the CS military, and Nolan decided to do just that. He isn't overly physical, but he is above avereage, and the young man soon showed promise, as he copuld endure hardships that had other trainees begging for mercy and/or simply collapsing. Then he made a mistake, one day early in his career as a soldier, he was acting as a messenger, bringing a report from his platoons lieutenant to his commander,. He was caught reading the brief, something that tno one suspected he could do, so they had not bothered to secure it in an envelope. After he was punished though, the commander decided not to waste that skill. Literacy was a rarity, and while not a skill to be shared, that ship had sailed so the CS would make use of it. Nolan was assigned to a special operations unit, one tasked with finding technology lost in the Dark Ages. That assignment eventually led him to the next, tasked along with the team of learning everything they could of ley lines, nodes, and Rifts. If the CS can learn to predict Rifts, harness the powere of the ley lines, or even command REift portals themselves the knowledge would make them unstoppable. He was tasked with learning everything he could, being given access to countless books that were 'forbidden', some of them written by authors from alien worlds, others just history that the CS would rather not have the general populace knowing. This had an unexpected result. It was in reading a forgotten elven treatise on magic that Nolan had an epiphanyt, something fnally clicked, and in that moment he could actually sense the magical energy of a nearby ley line. Entraned Nolanstudied even more feverishly, aware that he could not dare show the CS that he was making any signifigant progress at all, but all the while learning magic, and strengthening this new gift. Nolan is conflicted, he has succeeded at the task the cS set him to do, but if the CS learns just how well he has succeeded, then he is doomed. Because he did not find a technological way to harness the magic, rather he has become a part of the magic itself, and therefore opposite of everything the CS stands for. He is completely confused by this new gift of being able to literally see magic, and he even thinks he has a grasp of several simple magics, but he has dared not try them for fear of being caught. RE: Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - Viego - 06-27-2021 Viego Viego was an odd child. After all not every child is raised in a secret military program. Almost none of those that are would be taught to read by Coalition law. Then there was the trained with such strict military training and monitoring.  Of course Viego didn't think anything about it was odd.  Obviously it was normal for him. He did find it odd the doctors were always asking him about his dreams, how he felt, and that his medicine regiment was so rigid. Because he felt great.  He had a lot of testing, physicals, and was monitored a lot. Of course he didn't mind. The dog boys played with him, as well as Aaron and Marcus. They were all that was left of the many children that had started. Viego knew the others hadn't made it. He wasn't sure what they had failed at though. Mostly because he wasn't told what they failed at, but he caught the occasional conversations from the adults when they thought he couldn't hear, but Viego was pretty good at well listening. Viego tried his best, but he wasn't as strong as Marcus, and no one was as smart as Aaron. Viego always joked he must be the good looking one then, but he knew that wasn't true.  Of the dog boys Viego liked Biscuit the best, followed by Bones.. He was a tough scrapper of a dog boy and he told the best stories. Bones tried to keep it professional, but Viego knew he liked him. All of the dog boys weren't afraid of Viego and they would rough house with him, and best of all they told stories. Viego and psistalkers did not get along. They gave Viego this itching annoying sensation. And it seemed he bothered them as well, luckily they almost never had to interact. The emperor came occasionally, and Viego liked him. But the man as mostly there to visit with Aaron and Marcus and it showed. Viego was aware the man kept him at a distance compared to Aaron and Marcus. Still it never bothered him honestly. Viego was used to being somewhat alone, the brothers were good friends, and they had each other. Viego didn't begrudge them, or lament things, it was just how it was.  Besides the General Ross Underhill was always nice to him, and the General stopped by more often then the Emperor. Viego thought highly of the man and idealized him. He was always asking him about mechs, aircraft, and such. For Viego's passion was to fly. He dreamed of it. He wanted it so bad, and the SAMAS and other flying mechs were the coolest things in the world to him. He trained at other stuff cause he had to but he loved, dreamed, breathed and worked his ass off for the chance to fly. Sometimes he would have vivid dreams of flying among the clouds and such. He didn't like telling the doctors about them. Because when he told the doctors about they usually have him more pills to take. For his dreams were about flying. And he loved them. Sometimes they were about flying, and dragons... Dreams of dragons, and platinum scales...  But those dreams were rare, and usually hazy, hard to recall. RE: Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - Marcus Brand - 06-29-2021 Marcus grew up in a Coalition Facility with eight other children and his brother Aaron.  It wasn't an orphanage as he would later learn was usually the place for lost children.  This was some place different, some place unique. From his earliest memories, Scientist and Soldiers were his parents. He and the other children were cared for and taught with such attention and detail, it was almost hard to imagine. It was as if the ten children were royalty and not some abandoned castoffs.  Still, royalty aside, the training and education pushed the kids to their absolute limits. Most of them either didn't survive the trials or were taken away due to failing the tests. He was told it was all due to physical complications or weakness, or some other factors they wouldn't elaborate on. Regardless it taught him early on that life was fleeting and if he was going to survive he would have to give these people everything he had. It was also a lesson that made him cling to his brother and best friend, fighting with all he could to make sure they didn't end up like his other friends. His parental figures seemed sadden by the loss of the others, but it didn't make them lessen the severity of their training and conditioning. Soon the three remaining children had survived the earlier ordeals and taken to the regiment, becoming used their way of life. Granted they didn't have much choice, as it was all they knew, but such was life.                            The harsh training for the three boys became life as usual. Most of their time was taken up with lessons on the Coalition, the Military, Weapon Training, Physicals Training, Combat Training, Hand-to-Hand Training, Military Theory, Coalition Strategy's, CSA's Enemies and their methods. The three of them excelled in different ways, though they all did well enough in their own areas of talent.  Marcus dove into his Physical training, while Aaron was more or less a mechanical genius, and Viego …well Viego tried to do most things but always fell a little short, though he was particularly good at flying. Still he did well enough that Marcus didn't have to help him with the physical stuff and Aaron only had to help him with his Coalition studies off and on. Marcus embraced everything about the Coalition. Learning that Humans once ruled this planet before the time of the rifts.  Before the time of monsters and other horrors came rushing into the world of men. Emperor Prosek himself would sometimes arrive to tell them stories about Coalition battles and some of the enemies they had faced and defeated.  He wanted to be everything he could to impress the men and women who raised him, especially his Emperor.  Sometimes General Ross would visit and talk to them too, he was always particularly nice to Viego.  Which worked out as the Emperor always seem to favor He and Aaron.  It was good that they all had someone to look up too.  The one person that was almost a constant in their lives though, was Khayman. He was their commanding officer, their trainer and for intents and purposes, their older brother. Almost everything Marcus knew about fighting and the soldiering, came from Khayman. So when they all were told that training was over and they were to take their place in the Coalition Military, Marcus had never felt so excited in his entire life. Finally he and his friends would get to see some more of the world. At least more than the surrounding little shanties and forests that they had snuck out at night to explore with their dog boys. Now they would get to see if all that training and studying would pay off as they fought to defend the last bastion of human civilization. RE: Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - Aaron Brand - 07-03-2021 Early into the boys' lives, the Coalition had swiftly discovered that Aaron possessed startling levels of intelligence and could process and retain information at an almost frightening level. He seemed to have a particularly strong affinity with machinery, electronics, and weapons of all sorts, preferring to work with his hands over learning "abstract" information such as lore, history, etc. Aaron's education was specialized with a heavy focus on multidisciplinary engineering; due to this, Aaron was sent to arm and repair Coalition bases more often than the other boys. He would also be occasionally assigned to assist the weapons and tech divisions as part of training and quickly proved his worth to the veteran researchers there. Like Marcus, Aaron was raised to embrace the Coalition. And while he didn't believe the Coalition to be without flaws, Aaron did believe that it was humanity's best shot at maintaining and protecting human civilization. He followed orders faithfully and kept any doubts to himself, partly because of Marcus' strength of faith in the cause. If there was one thing that held Aaron's loyalty above the Coalition, it was his brother Marcus. Aaron is a bit of an eccentric individual, driven by curiosity, constantly examining and tinkering with pretty much anything he can get his hands on; things unrelated to metal and machines will oftentimes catch his interest as well, even if it initially seems that he's distracted or not paying attention (Khayman likes to test new dishes on Aaron, who will normally eat pretty much anything as long as it's salted). Sometimes it may appear that Aaron is absent-minded, but that would be a grave error to make, for he is extremely sharp and focused; even when it seems like he's distracted, his attention is on what matters most. Aaron is also very outgoing, if a bit sharp-tongued. When he's not around people, he'll have a radio or TV blaring in the background while he works. The combination of his quirks and sociability give him a very charismatic personality, and people tend to lower their guard around him as a result. RE: Humble Beginnings (Backgrounds) - MSgt Khayman Tamaroa - 07-04-2021 Khayman, the orphaned child of two Atlantean nomads was taken in by Cyrus Stein, a soldier in the Coalition State Army and his wife Minoa. Oblivious at first as to the heritage of the toddler, they knew something was amiss as his tender flesh was already covered in a multitude of finely drawn tattoos. Performing research and mild inquiries here and there, they soon came to the conclusion that the young child was a True Atlantean, and from the numerous amount of tattoos, one that was destined to battle the undead, the most hated of Atlantean foes.  Knowing the punishment that would fall upon them should they not turn the child over to the authorities, they kept his existence a secret until he'd reached the age of ten when they unable to hide him any longer. Telling their friends that he was the child of one of Minoa's relatives, come to stay with them, they enlisted the help Paseka Teo, one of Minoa's cousins and a talented tattoo artist, to cover the Atlantean markings in a fine tapestry of tribal designs, which wasn't usual even considering the young boys age. Adopting the surname of Tamaroa, after a hero of Minoa's lineage, Khayman was introduced to the world of Chi-town as their nephew.  Even at the age of ten, Khayman was an impressive youth, long wild dark hair and those tribal tattoos covering his body, he was an intimidating young boy, so much so that the other children in the neighborhood around the Stein house were terrified of him, until they got to know his often gentle nature. Though by no means a coward, Cyrus continuously trained the boy in the arts of hand to hand combat used by the Coalition States Special Forces and the older bullies in the area soon came to fear Khayman as much as the younger children came to appreciate him.  But life goes on and at the age of sixteen, Khayman's adopted Uncle was slain in a border skirmish to the north of Chi-town, and within only few months Minoa succumbed to an illness not uncommon in that region. Orphaned yet again, the sturdy heart broken teenager was taken in by Cyrus' commanding officer who seen potential for the young man in the military. Soon after his seventeenth birthday, Khayman enlisted determined to make his uncle Cyrus proud.  Having distinguished himself shortly after enlistment, Khayman was put in charge of three young boys. Veigo Silver, a somewhat introverted youth. Aaron Brand, an inquisitive boy with one of the sharpest minds Khayman had ever seen, and his brother Marcus Brand, who's zealous nature and determination to be the best sometimes worried the older teenager. Accepting the promotion to Sergeant, he was responsible for the physical combat training the three youths received and while he tried to keep things as professional as possible, like the kids in his neighborhood growing up, he quickly began to see himself as more of an older brother, then as their commanding officer. Khayman's only issue about hanging around the three young boys was their ever present Dog boy protectors. Each of whom seemed to hate the Sergeant for some unknown reason. And while Khayman was never aggressive toward any of them, he neither backed away from them either. Now as the boys were reaching that age where their training would be called into question, Khayman finds himself worrying over whether or not they are truly ready for what this world has in store for them.