Spriggan is, or rather was, a junior member of the posthuman rescue team, Rampart!

Created and illustrated by Joao Marques
Origin by Joao Marques and Thom Chiaramonte

:::

Spriggan

Name: Mandy Satco
Affiliation: Rampart

Attributes:

Melee: 10
Reflex: 20
Muscle: 20
Vigor: 10
Acumen: 20
Observation: 20
Will: 20

Life: 60
Influence: 60

Abilities:

Sprite Generation: Spriggan has developed a very unusual posthuman latent ability: she generates 6” tall glowing creatures, or Sprites, which follow her will, illuminate her path, and perform tasks for her. They can carry small objects, or work together to carry up to 150lbs combined, can perform a multitude of independent functions, and are extremely protective of their creator. It is not publicly known how Spriggan generates these creatures, whether they are indeed truly sentient, and whether or not they exist prior to her conjuring, or are rather creations of her ability. She feels pain at their loss, and has been able to generate substantial numbers of them at once, with the limits of her ability not yet determined.

Spriggan’s ability is actually a highly refined form of light generation, which takes the form of creatures pulled from her subconscious. Her ability to create them in quantity is limited only by the toll on her mental acuity: She can create a number of Sprites equal to 10 times her combined Mental Attributes (at full Life, 600) but for every 50 sprites she conjures simultaneously, she loses -1CS to each of her Acumen, Observation and Will stats, thereby not only weakening her ability to conjure subsequent Sprites, but her ability to control the ones she’s created. Therefore, she can create the largest mass in a single instance, but suffers difficulty giving them complex, independent tasks. Her power has an Intensity Value of 40 for Action purposes. When Sprites, who carry 1 Life point each, and can be attacked in bulk when close together (consider them to have good Reflex [10] and Melee [10], and poor Muscle [5] and Vigor [5], for combat purposes) are injured, Spriggan must make a Will Save or lose control of all Sprites she has created, causing them to dissipate. The Sprites take their form from her childhood obsessions with the mythical creatures, and are only physical manifestations of her relatively low-grade telepathic and telekinetic abilities. She can see and hear through them, up to 1000 meters away, and use them offensively (a swarm attack [20 DP per 100 Sprites using Reflex Attacks]) or defensively (a Block or Parry attack, using their Reflex, deflecting physical attacks away from her, with no injury to her or the Sprites themselves) and can direct them to perform relatively complex tasks (Using Acumen [6] for each Sprite, increased to Acumen [20] when used in a group of 20 or more working collaboratively.) The Sprites can also generate visible light [10 IV; 10 RV], and create a blinding flash [20 IV] when in a group of 50 or more, with +1CS per 100 Sprites used collectively for this attack.

Origin:

Mandy Satco is the daughter of Patricia Elaine Satco, one of the chief administrative advisors of the Rampart Organization, which fund and operate the Rampart posthuman rescue team. She underwent posthuman development at her mother’s request, and showed high compatibility markers when initially tested for the project, though showed no immediate results from the treatments. However, within days, lab technicians began reporting what appeared to be glowing faeries, hovering and darting around Satco’s recovery room. It was soon determined that Satco was able to generate these creatures, initially involuntarily, but with training, voluntarily. Rampart Organization program trainers assisted the young woman in learning how to give her creations, which she called Sprites, directions, to will their creation and motion, and to will them away when desired, as well. Concerned about their inability to analyze a Sprite, which would dissipate if captured, technicians with the program required frequent psychiatric tests to determine her mental competency, which she passed each time. The program directors were eventually convinced her abilities, as bizarre as they were, were simply a manifestation of her subconscious, and that she was capable of controlling her ability to the same standard as other initiates in the program, and gave approval for Satco to enter the Rampart Reserve Team, the training program for the eventual expansion of Rampart to a regional team structure.

Three months into her training in the Reserves, a maglev train derailment north of Vancouver in heavy weather would trigger the emergency decision to graduate two members of the reserves to join the Rampart field team in rescue operations, to compensate for the scale of the crisis in assisting the non-posthuman rescue personnel. The decision was met with opposition by Patricia Elaine Satco, who had grown continuously more concerned with her daughter’s habit of conversing with her Sprites, and surrounding herself with them at all times. Nonetheless, the decision of the directors, partly based on a political agenda of wanting more new Rampart members in the field, from which to populate an expansion team, against the opposition of members of the Rampart Organization who were opposed to accelerated growth in the fairly untested waters of posthuman rescue, superseded hers, and Spriggan, along with her Reserve teammate Dolomite, was in uniform and en route to the crash site in record time.

Throughout the rescue effort, Rampart recovered scores of victims killed in the crash, and spent most of their combined effort trying to rescue potential survivors from the front end of the train, which had fallen down the slopes against the steep Cliffside. Spriggan, Dolomite and Mercury stayed with the remaining cars still littered across more than two miles of track above. After reconnoitering the wreckage, Mercury was able to locate survivors in a car crushed against the rocky hillside, and returned to carry Dolomite back with him, who’s enhanced strength and endurance would be necessary to stabilize the wreckage, leaving Spriggan alone to search for other survivors thrown from the train. Finding only corpses, she eventually heard moans from within the bowels of a ruptured car partially buried in rubble from the landside that had crippled the train. Using her Sprites to illuminate her path, she entered the car, calling out to the survivor.

Mercury found Spriggan’s eviscerated corpse five mintutes later, in the back of the car, crushed under rubble and wreckage. It was determined that she had slipped and unsettled the car, which shifted on it’s axis and tumbled into the ravine below, killing her and whatever survivors she had been searching for at the moment of her death. Considered a potential media disaster, Spriggan and Dolomite’s use in the field was suppressed from the media, and became a confidential, painful secret for the Rampart Organization, emotionally crippling her mother, and devastating the team, many of whom had actively participated in the Reserves training program. Spriggan’s death immediately stalled the plans for a Rampart expansion team, and would call into question the Rampart Organization’s leadership. Spriggan’s loss would be one of the first heavy tolls on an increasingly emotionally fractured team.

And then it got worse.

:::

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Character Factory, No. 73: Rampart
2. TRDL Character Factory, No. 21: Arctica
3. TRDL Character Factory, No. 68: Sol Invictus