Obscura is a privately-funded posthuman employed by the PDI facility in Canso, Newfoundland, as part of the company’s security force, Polaris.

Art and Origin: Thom Chiaramonte

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Name: Danica Willow
Affiliation: Polaris

Attributes;

Melee: 25
Reflex: 25
Muscle: 20
Vigor: 25
Acumen: 35
Observation: 35
Will: 20

Life: 95
Influence: 90

Abilities:

Neurological Disruption: Obscura’s latent posthuman ability involves the projected manipulation of neurological tissue. Specifically, she can cause dysfunction in the language center of the mammalian brain, temporarily disrupting the ability to comprehend and communicate in her opponent. In it’s raw state, this ability is of only 10 Intensity, making it only moderately effective and primarily suited to non-combat stealth operations. However, with the use of her Babel Cloak, the effects of the ability are significantly enhanced: the effective Intensity is raised to 40, and up to 10 targets may be affected in a single attempt. The resolution of attacks involving this ability require no formal Attack on the part of Obscura, but rather an Acumen Save on the part of her opponents. Each target must make a Save, modified by the following:

Range: if the opponent is from 0 – 1 meters from Obscura, a Red Cell is required; 2 – 5 meters, an Orange Cell; 6 – 15 meters, a Yellow Cell. If the target is enveloped by the Babel Cloak in a Grapple Action, the effect is immediate and automatic.

Intensity vs. Acumen: If the target’s Acumen is higher than the effective Intensity of the Attack, the target receives a +1CS to the Save; If the target’s Acumen is lower than the effective Intensity of the Attack, then a -1CS is applied to the Save.

The affects of a successful attack include disorientation and mild shock, reflected in -2CS applied to any Acumen, Observation or Will Actions or Saves; additionally, the target is unable to communicate with others, including verbal, visual and tactile signaling. When first affected, each target must make a Will Save, including the penalty above, or be routed in panic. The duration of this effect is 1-10 rounds.

Note: Without the use of the Babel Cloak, Obscura must make an Action using the normal ability Intensity, and score a Yellow Cell or higher, in order to affect a specific target vs. all within a given selected range. With the use of the Babel Cloak, she may target groups or individuals automatically with no Action required, as stated above.

Weapon Proficiency: Ballistics: Obscura is proficient with ballistic weapons and receives a +1CS to use them effectively.

Origin:

Danica Willow was an executive aide to a business envoy from TomorrowTech, to the newly privatized Posthuman Development Initiative [PDI] in Canso, Newfoundland, meeting to discuss potential collaboration and supply agreements for national contracts during the early days of the private posthuman procurement period initiated largely by PDI’s official rejection of government affiliation. TomorrowTech was a smaller posthuman lab, cobbled together from black market posthuman process data and greay market technologies laterally related to many of the same bio-engineering courses used in early posthuman development by PDI and others in the National Hero escalation period. Considered only moderately more reliable and legitimate than the host of underworld posthuman black labs sprouting up in Asia and Eastern Europe, TomorrowTech had little access to the prime, lucrative contracts with the nations of the European Union and large multi-national corporations beginning to pursue private posthuman teams for public relations, propaganda and cultural value. PDI’s reputation and fairly unique standing as one of the founding posthuman development labs assured it’s desirability as the go-to group for private posthuman contracts, but was unable to meet the outrageous demand for the exhorbitantly expensive posthuman product worldwide. TomorrowTech had the facilities and the labor to met demand, but limited technological experience or quality control. The hope was that an alliance between the two companies could yield a feasible means to meet the international demand for posthuman representation, and undermine the growing interest in theblack market labs with which TomorrowTech was admittedly related.

Unfortunately, the meeting did not go well. The executives of TomorrowTech over-reached in their assessment that PDI needed their manufacturing network more than they needed the posthuman development experience of the Canso group, and the proposal for alignment was disproportionately favorable to TomorrowTech, and bordered on blackmail. The stakes were made clear: if PDI did not align with TomorrowTech, the young Hong Kong enterprise would merely gobble up the host of Asian black market labs and create a cheap, somewhat disposable source of posthuman tech for emerging powers in the region. But the PDI agents had done their research, and were familiar with TomorrowTech’s financial ties to Hong Kong triad funding, and were prepared for this eventuality. The master conference suite in PDI’s facility was secretly one of the only Scramble Boxes in the known world at that time, a rumored but never-proven technology clandestinely developed by PDI as a self-defense mechanism against it’s own product: a modular-frequency audio pulse matrix that played havok with the unique molecular properties of the herdened cellular structure of most posthuman physiology based on the PDI design model. While the Scramble Box could not deactivate or dampen true posthuman latent abilities, it could cause sufficient cellular malfunction in posthuman tissue, effectively causing their own bodies to deteriorate sufficiently to incapacitate posthumans within the effective range of the Scramble Box’s interior perimeter.

The moment the TomorrowTech executive team attempted their ambush of the PDI representatives from within the company’s own facility, the Scramble Box was activated, and 5 of the 7 aides to the TomorrowTech negotiators were immediately incapacitated. The remaining three executives, and two normal human aides, were left standing among the quivering bodies of their secret posthuman operatives, with the PDI negotiators in control. However, both sides were at an impasse: PDI security could not enter the conference room without deactivating the Scramble Box, and further, TomorrowTech negotiators now new PDI’s secret technology existed, which was a significant security issue. One PDI negotiator, Gourde Riarden, a former SAS officer and experienced mercenary before joining PDI as a security consultant and later executive in the development arm, made a creative, if startling proposal: Join PDI as an exclusive contract staffer immediately, and receive a salary ten times their current TomorrowTech income; otherwise, face indefinite detainment, as the Canso facility was now operating as an independent city-state with sovereignty granted by the Canadian government.

Aide Danica Willow, weapon drawn, thought for a moment, and was the first to agree to these terms. But in a surprising move, immediately turned her weapon on the other remaining aide, shot him in the chest, then turned and executed the three TomorrowTech negotiators at point blank range. As the PDI negotiators scrambled for cover, the Scramble Box was deactivated and PDI security stormed the room, preparing to move against their TomorrowTech target. Dropping her weapon, Willow announced that she was privy to TomorrowTech’s contingency plan, a bio bomb planted in the belly of one of the three negotiators, triggered to deploy if they didn’t safely return to their plane at the scheduled time. The TomorrowTech team was effectively on a suicide mission, as the terms of their corporate employment included extraction countermeasures.

While PDI management were unsettled by this turn of events, Riarden was impressed with Willow’s decisive action and effective decision making, and not only backed her employment by PDI as proposed (though not necessarily agreed to by the PDI leadership) but suggested her for candidacy in the PDI posthuman program. She began treatments within two months, and was successfully launched as a posthuman operative late that same year, using callsign Obscura. Her unique latent posthuman ability involved the scrambling of the language and communication centers of the human brain, intensified and manipulated as an offensive weapon by her custom Babel Cloak, designed to allow for precision application of her ability. She joined the PDI posthuman security team, Polaris, as their latest member, rather than being shopped out to fulfill contract requests by PDI’s clients. While TomorrowTech had suffered a serious blow in the loss of the five posthuman agents that entered PDI disguised as executive aides and never returned, no further communication between the two companies occurred, and no retaliation for this counter-ambush was attempted by TomorrowTech on an official basis. However, PDI would continue to be the target for posthuman and conventional paramilitary attack, both by zealous government interests, such as their former partners in the United States, and by private posthuman teams acting in the interest of unnamed employers, and even personal attacks by rogue posthuman agents abroad. When the original TomorrowTech posthuman operatives, long assumed assassinated along with the executive negotiators, would reappear on the international posthuman stage, it would be in an entirely unexpected and unconventional manner, and raise serious questions about the posthuman threat to national interests everywhere.

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You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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