Stills-the-Echo

Wanderborn engineer-turned-drifter — a tunnel-born master of machines with a tarnished name and a family back in the deep warrens.

A pale, elongated woman with the huge close-range eyes and large pointed ears of the Wanderborn, trailing the faint constant chitter of echolocation. Stills-the-Echo — Echo, to anyone who's worked a shift with her — kept the warren's tunnel-borers and life-support alive on a family trade, washed out of the merchant halls, made a real name as an engineer — then lost that name to a scandal she didn't earn. Now she works the fringe: odd technical jobs, salvage, and whatever keeps her partner and daughter fed.

• Heritage: Wanderborn
• Age: 34 (4 terms)
• Careers: Merchant (failed entry — wandering term) → Engineer (2 terms) → Drifter (1 term)

Characteristics§

Characteristics grant Advantage/Disadvantage, not numeric modifiers. Echo took a 1/1 split.

She is sharp and deeply schooled, but no good at the social game — a fact the dice drove home hard at the very start of her life as a Wanderer.

Skills§

All other skills Untrained (−3).

Trauma§

Starts play with no trauma marks. During creation she took two points — Shaken (failed Merchant entry) and a second point she placed on Wounded (the scandal). Both are first nodes and clear at the end of creation; nothing overflowed into Maimed or Broken.

Physical:  [ ] Wounded   [ ] Maimed
Mental:    [ ] Shaken    [ ] Broken

Base armor 3 (6 with the concealable vest, +1 Rad).

Boons & Banes§

Boons (Advantage in relevant situations; 1 Momentum to activate in play)

• Reads the Tunnels — navigating, sensing, and getting her bearings in darkness, enclosed, or underground spaces (Wanderborn echolocation).
• Field-Rigged Fix — improvising a repair from scavenged or wrong parts (Mechanical/Engineering).

Banes (Disadvantage in relevant situations; the table-granted one and any beyond the first two earn 1 XP/session when invoked)

• Tarnished Reputation (from Life Event) — her name still drags in any circle that remembers the hab-block failure she was blamed for.
• Light-Blind (starting, +5 XP) — those huge dark-adapted eyes are miserable in bright surface light and open sky; Disadvantage on Recon and ranged attacks in glare or wide-open daylight.
• Low-Gravity Frame (starting, +5 XP) — a body built for the underground low-g of Wanderstar; Disadvantage on sustained Strength/Athletics exertion in standard-or-higher gravity.

Contacts§

• Tends-the-Kiln (Kiln) — Ally. Echo's partner, a quiet Wanderborn kiln-keeper who tends the heat-shield ceramics in the home warren and raises their infant daughter, Lull (a child's milk-name; she'll earn her own phrase in time). Firmly in her corner: a safe place to come home to, the family network of the deep tunnels, and someone who will spend their own capital for her. (Gained: Life Event 65 — a child's birth.)
• Moose Trueyoke-Ember — Contact. A Dray (Companion, ox-stock) foreman who chairs the warren works-committee and pushed for Echo's appointment as a tunnel-safety warden. Reach: labor crews, works budgets, and word on who's hiring in the deep works. He wants dependable safety oversight; Echo owes him the seat. (Gained: Life Event 33 — minor office.)

Credits & Gear§

Cr3,000 (base Cr2,000 + Cr1,000 from a long, lucrative Engineer contract).

Outfitting — took rolled gear on both choices:

Weapons & Armor (Random Gear)

• Concealable flak vest — TL 7. Armor +3, Rad 1. Trait: Concealable (Disadvantage to spot or find in a search). Crude grade.
• "Bulwark" boarding scattergun — TL 11. Damage 4D, Magazine 6. Traits: Spread (Advantage at close range, Disadvantage beyond short), Zero-G (fire in low/zero-g with no recoil penalty), Slow (fires every other round). Crude grade.

Equipment

• Echolocation rig (Hollowsong) — TL 9, Cr800.
• Mechanical toolkit — TL 6, Cr300.

Trinkets

• Jar of Wanderstar soil — still faintly warm to the touch, or so she tells herself.
• A Sable Thresh-Ember medal — wildly inauthentic; she loves it anyway.

Play Notes§

In play she begins with Momentum 3 each session. Her Education Advantage shines on technical and academic tests; her Social Standing Disadvantage (and Tarnished Reputation) bite whenever she has to charm, negotiate, or trade on her name. Reads the Tunnels and her echolocation rig make her superb underground and in the dark; Light-Blind makes bright surface worlds genuinely hard. Lead with the engineering, keep the scattergun for boarding-range trouble, and lean on Kiln and the warren when a problem is bigger than her own hands.

Creation Log — Every Roll

All rolls made with real randomness in the sandbox. Advantage = roll 3D6 keep highest two; Disadvantage = keep lowest two. Adv/Dis are free during creation (no Momentum). Trauma placement is the player's choice of any open node.

Setup (randomized, not chosen)§

• Heritage — d4 (rerolling 5–6) → 2 = Wanderborn.
• Characteristic split — d4−1 → 1 pair (1/1). Stat picks: Advantage → Education; Disadvantage → Social Standing.
• First career — d12 (d6=1 low, d6=5) → 5 = Merchant.

Term 1 — Merchant entry (FAILED → wandering term) · age 18 → 22§

• Entry test (Social Standing = Disadvantage): 3D6 [2, 2, 3], keep lowest two [2,2] = 4 vs 8+ → FAIL.
• Result: +5 XP, 1 trauma (placed on Shaken), wandering term (no fixed skills, no career event). Merchant now flagged −2 on any future attempt.
• Life Event — 1D6 → 2 (Family & Loss); D66 → 24: A family trade or craft passed down to you. → Mechanical (Trained) (her home warren's tunnel-machinery trade).

Term 2 — Engineer entry (PASSED) · age 22 → 26§

• Entry test (Intellect = neutral): 2D6 [6, 5] = 11 vs 8+ → PASS.
• Fixed skills at Trained: Engineering, Mechanical, Electronics, Physics (Mechanical already held — no change).
• First term = auto-success. D66 → 64: A long, lucrative career building and fixing. → +10 XP, +Cr1,000.
• Life Event — 1D6 → 2 (Family & Loss); D66 → 65: A child's birth steadied everything. → Gain an Ally (Tends-the-Kiln), +10 XP.
• Choice: continue. At Advantage and low-risk; she takes a second term.

Term 3 — Engineer term 2 (SUCCESS) · age 26 → 30§

• Term roll (baseline Advantage; Intellect neutral → Advantage): 3D6 [1, 4, 4] keep highest two [4,4] = 8 vs 8+ → SUCCESS.
• D66 → 22: A demanding refit taught you to engineer under pressure. → Engineering +1 → Experienced.
• Life Event — 1D6 → 6 (Reputation & Society); D66 → 11: A scandal destroyed your good name. → 1 mental trauma (placed on Wounded to keep it in the clearing tier), Bane: Tarnished Reputation.
• Choice: retire from Engineer. Both first-trauma nodes are now filled (Shaken from the Merchant fail, Wounded from the scandal), so any further Hard Exit or Disaster would carve a permanent Maimed/Broken — and she has a partner and newborn at home. She leaves engineering cleanly (stopping after a Success is always safe).

Term 4 — Drifter entry (PASSED) · age 30 → 34§

• Entry test (Dexterity = neutral): 2D6 [3, 6] = 9 vs 8+ → PASS. Fixed skills at Trained: Survival, Sneaking, Driving, Network.
• First term = auto-success. D66 → 35: A lucky score left you a little ahead. → +5 XP.
• Life Event — 1D6 → 6 (Reputation & Society); D66 → 33: Elected or appointed to a minor office. → Command (Trained), gain a contact (Moose Trueyoke-Ember).
• Choice: stop. A 2nd Drifter term would roll on Dexterity (neutral, ~42% to continue) with lasting-trauma risk — not worth it. Career phase ends at 4 terms.

Step 4 — Credits & Gear§

• Took rolled gear on both choices (kept base Cr2,000; +Cr1,000 career = Cr3,000).
• Choice 1 (Random Gear):
  • Provenance 3 → TL (1D3) → TL 7; type (1D6=5) → Armor; grade 2D6 → 3 (Crude); armor traits 2D6 → [7 = No Trait, 10 = Concealable] → Concealable flak vest, +3 / Rad 1.
  • Provenance 4 → TL (1D3) → TL 11; type (1D6=4) → Ranged weapon; grade 2D6 4, TL10+ reroll 5, keep better 5 (Crude); trait slots D66 → [44 = Slow, 51 = Spread, 66 = Zero-G] → "Bulwark" boarding scattergun, 4D, Spread / Zero-G / Slow.
• Choice 2 (Equipment ×2 + Trinkets ×2):
  • Equipment D66 → 53 = Echolocation rig (Hollowsong), 32 = Mechanical toolkit.
  • Trinkets D66 → 12 = Jar of Wanderstar soil, 25 = Sable Thresh-Ember medal.

Step 5 — XP§

• Total XP = 80 = 40 base + 30 career (5 + 10 + 10 + 5) + 10 from two starting Banes (+5 each: Light-Blind, Low-Gravity Frame).
• Spent (80):
  • Engineering Experienced → Professional (10)
  • Mechanical Trained → Experienced (10)
  • Electronics Trained → Experienced (10)
  • Recon Untrained → Trained (10)
  • Ranged Weapons Untrained → Trained (10)
  • Athletics Untrained → Trained (10)
  • System Operations Untrained → Trained (10)
  • Boon Reads the Tunnels (5)
  • Boon Field-Rigged Fix (5)
• Remaining XP: 0.
• End of creation: Wounded & Shaken cleared → enters play with no trauma marks.