Fanatic Heart
This character idea has been knocking around in my head for about 8 or 9 years, ever since I started playing Rifts. When I first read through the Rifts book, I was listening to Black 47's "Fire of Freedom" CD. For some reason, the song "Fanatic Heart" stuck with me. Every time I hear it, I start to think about Rifts, especially North America and the Coalition States. This character, Larry Kirwan, is based on that song, and named after Black 47's lead singer. This is going to use a lot trademarks and copyrighted items by Palladium, Larry Kirwan, and Starry Plough Music. This isn't intended to be an attack of those copyrights, and should not be taken as such.
"If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?"
-sample in Fanatic Heart
Maria and I grew up and later lived together in the Chi-town Burbs... human enough for the establishment, I guess, but we never went in big with the CS. Just two people, trying to make a living, taking money from anyone willing to pay, whether he was human, mutant, or one of the D-Bee's that snuck in past the border guards. We had a good life. Our building had a floor and ceiling... we'd even rigged up a little bit of power and could get water fairly regularly through a tap on an old line that apparently still ran. We repaired things... mostly simple electronics we dug out of ruins or that people brought to us... either for money or barter. I also did a bit of medicine... nothing fancy, but enough to take
care of the people of the neighborhood. Sometimes we'd read letters or contracts for people... they knew they could trust us. I was a good person like that, once upon a time.
I still remember her eyes on the twelfth of July. It was late at night, but we were still up, and the sirens started to go off. I saw the building across the street catch fire, and I knew that the Dog Boys were chasing someone again... either a mage or a burster, or the Dog Boys had gotten a hold of some plasma weapons. I never did find out. Maria and I got dressed quickly, heading towards the door so we could help the people trapped in that building. I'd just grabbed the handle when something exploded on the sidewalk... it ripped open the building, and Maria and I were dumped in the street. She had this huge cut in her forehead... gods, I could see her brain... I just started yelling for help, over and over and over again, until my throat was raw. She looked up at me, and saw me sobbing. She put her fingers to my forehead, and I could feel them sticky with her blood. She whispered to me, and the sound carried above the exploding gas line. I heard her whisper, with her last breath "Our baby would have been beautiful..." She died in my arms as we hid behind that old car that had been sitting there since I was a little boy.
The next two years aren't too clear to me. I became a mercenary, I suppose, and tried to drink away the pain and hurt I felt. All I could see was Maria. Every man or beast I killed carried the face of the criminals I'd seen through the years, the kind that took my Maria from me. Every person I helped had her face. She developed beside me, and I
saw her change through those years... she grew with me, her picture ever kept close to me, inside my heart where no one could take it from me.
One contract, I was working for Northern Gun, tracking down some brigands in preparation for a major raid. I followed on back to their base, but apparently I fucked up, or they had more sentries posted, or something. They captured me, throwing me into a small cell. I can still feel the broken concrete wall against my cheek, the wall I leaned against as the beat me, as they tortured me with cattle prods like I was some sort of beast. I don't remember screaming, and I don't know when I passed out, but when I woke up, then had left me in the cell, with a confession of
crimes against Northern Gun signed in my own hand. I don't know how they made me sign it. I don't want to. But, after three months in prison, they let me out, naked and wandering, to die in the wilderness.
I stumbled back to one of my safehouses, and gathered what I could find. I'd acquired quite a bit in my years of fighting, enough to buy a new left arm to replace the one they fed to the dog, enough to build myself stronger than they could take me again. I left Northern Gun, Michigan, the entire Midwest, and crossed the Appalachians. I went down to where New York used to stand. Maria was with me all the way, every step. We talked into the long nights. We fought, we loved, we lived our life as it should have been in that trip to Manhattan... but every morning I would wake up, my cheeks wet with tears at having lost her again.
I settled into a group of scavengers in Mad Haven... a small village of people who dug through the rubble for salvageable goods. They welcomed a competent gun and decent medic. They didn't mind having someone who could
fix up some of the lesser electronic things, either. A new man, the women made me feel especially welcome, but more than one let me be after I called out Maria's name in the night. I'm trying to make a new start, and I've almost succeeded a couple of times... but then the 12th of July rolls around, and I remember Maria again. I remember her as she lived, as she was when she lay dying, as she was when we were kids. I remember Maria in all her beauty and glory... and her gray silhouette hanging over my shoulder keeps me from slipping to far into madness. But it also keeps me a long way from happiness.
Larry Kirwan
3rd Level Headhunter
IQ 18
ME 21
MA 15
PS 16
PP 15
PE 18
PB 13
SPD 18
HP: 31
SDC: 44
MDC: Hand: 10 Arm: 40
PPE: 9
Alignment and Insanities:
Larry is currently Anarchist, having suffered a traumatic reversal of alignment from his previous alignment of Principled. He knows that he's not the same man he was, but he stopped caring on that tragic night, and has really stopped caring that he's stopped caring. Larry is a recovering alcoholic, and was probably saved from still being a drunk by being imprisoned for three months (though he certainly doesn't see it that way). He is somewhat obsessed with Maria, though not so far as she is his only thought... she steals in on him whenever he's inactive and has time to think, though, so he'll often work himself into exhaustion, trying to forget her for a while.
Bonuses:
+4% on all skills
+3 vs. Psionics
+3 vs. insanity
+1 damage
+2 strike
+5 parry
+6 dodge
+6 initiative
+2 pull punch
+3 roll with punch\fall\impact
+6% vs. Coma\Death
+2 vs toxin\magic
Combat abilities:
HtH Expert, 3rd level
2 attacks per melee
WP Knife
WP Blunt
WP Energy Pistol
WP Energy Rifle
WP Heavy Energy
WP Automatic Pistol
WP Automatic and Semi-automatic Rifles
Robot Combat: Basic (1st level)
Power Armor Combat: Basic (1st level)
Cybernetics and Bionics
Universal Headjack with long range radio modification and scrambler
Amplified Hearing with Ultra-Ear and Sound Filters
2 Underwater Bio-system Eyes
Optic Nerve Video Implant
Bionic Lung with Gas Filter and Oxygen Storage Cell
Bionic Language translator
Bionic left arm
-PS 20 PP 18
--+5 to damage
--+2 to strike and parry
-Retractable Vibro-blades
--2d6 MD or SDC
-Concealed Laser Rod
--1d6 Damage, 800' range
--10 blasts, 6 hour recharge
-Built in Computer\Calculator
-Sensor Hand
-E-Clip port in Arm
--Note that Larry has learned that he can use this to recharge normal E-Clips on his arm's power supply. It takes about 6 hours to fully charge an E-clip, or 8 for a long E-Clip
Skills
Speak American 98%
Radio: Basic 74%
Radio: Scramblers 59%
Detect Ambush 54%
Detect Concealment 54%
Tracking 49%
Land Navigation 58%
Weapons Systems 64%
Read Sensory Equipment 54%
Pilot Jet Pack 66%
Pilot Tanks and APC's 58%
Pilot Robots and Power Armor 71%
Horsemanship 57%
Lore: Demon and Monster 49%
Speak Spanish and Dragonese 74%
Literacy: American 54%
Paramedic 54%
Wilderness Survival 44%
Surveillance Systems 44%
Prowl 39%
Basic Electronics 44%
Computer Operation 54%
Athletics
Swimming 64%
Gear:
Gladiator Armor (gray in color, patched but at full MDC)
Dress Clothing
Camouflage (urban on one side, temperate woodlands on the other)
Gas Mask and Air Filter
Tinted Goggles
Hatchet
2 Knives (d6 SDC)
L-20 Pulse laser Rifle with 7 long E-Clips
NG-57 Ion Blaster with 7 E-Clips
Vibro-knife d6 MDC or SDC
Neural Mace d8 SDC + Stun
AK-47 Assault Rifle with
-4 Clips of Standard Ammo
-3 Clips of Silver Bullets
8 Grenades
-2 Smoke
-3 Fragmentation
-3 Plasma
RMK and IRMSS
Tent, Knapsack, Backpack, Saddle Bags
2 canteens
5 weeks of dried rations
Locket with Maria's picture
Grooming Kit
1400 credits
11000 credits in Black market odds and ends
Nuclear-Powered Wilks Jet Pack
NG Samson Power Armor with on weapons but the knuckle-blades (technically belongs to the community he works with, but he uses it the most)
Flying Titan Power Armor with No wings (his own, salvaged and repaired)
Comments?