Rafael Cordova
Rafael Cordova de Almaraz "el Rata de Cocinar"
Profession: Pharmacist and Cook
Age: 35
Nationality: Originally Spanish, Now A Temple On Mars And Also Spanish
Adjectives:
- Bitter
- Compassionate
- Curious
- Obsessively cleanly
Drives
- Revenge on my old crew and college for abandoning me
- Live in peace
- Fully revive new species
- Discover as much as I can about myself and the rattakan
Education: Medical College/Memories of Ancestral Ghosts
Health 7, Morale 11
Allegiances: Ally: Prehuman Races 2, Ally: Commoners 1, Enemy: Old Academy 1 (If available he's also Ally: Sorcerous Societies 1)
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Liar's Tell 1
Ancestral Abilities: Rattakan 2
Sorcerer Abilities: Corruption 3, Leechcraft 2
General Abilities: Bind Wounds 7, Preparedness 7, Sorcery 9, Stealth 3, Sway 4,
Spheres:
Rats (Imbue self with even more ratlike traits or control the mundane kind)
Disease (Manipulate pathogens through a combination of mundane knowledge and alien understanding of biomancy)
Ghosts (Attack Sphere - Call on ancestral spirits of the original rattakan and pull rank on more modern dead, overwhelm enemies with alien memories and spirits to attack Morale)
Gear:
Medical Tools, Cleaned of Rust: They were covered in scabral and mold while he was trapped on Mars, but for both practical and ethical reasons he's sterilized and restored them - but keep the same ones to remind himself he was once human and it's best to live at a reasonable distance from them rather than conquer/ruin them.
Martian Scabral Crystal: His doom as a human but salvation as something else, this alien bit of Corruption pseudo-technology contains the genetic memories of the original rattakan species before Mars became uninhabitable due to war and drought - and infects humans close to it with their nature, becoming vulnerable to holy symbols of conventional society to drive them to accept their "new family" and genetic remaking into a rattakan/human hybrid. He sleeps with it most nights, trying to figure out what he is now, and his adopted species.
Herbal Pack, Always Prepared: Because whether it's treating people or being the chef, it's useful to have a supply of medicine and spices both. If anything, he's a better chef now that he has more of a sense of smell.
A Burning Grudge: You don't get deliberately backstabbed by colleagues who became aware you knew and were not pleased with their reckless smuggling business and trapped in an underground prehuman temple, only surviving by becoming a hybrid of yourself and its builders over the course of terrifying, agonizing weeks that only allowed you to escape because you can shrink down to mundane rat size, and also not be human anymore without developing a very large skepticism of exploration missions and the royals who back them - which syncs well with what the ghosts in him want, if a significant portion of their backers are incapable of exerting power that's a perfect place to begin rebuilding their prehuman, murine culture from fellow angry rebels.
Ghostly Voices In His Blood: The alien natives of Mars were not solely giant sorcerous rodents, but they are the most prominent among the choir of alien languages in the back of his mind, reminding him of the beauty of a once-lush world and the anger at the invaders who destroyed it - and the shame at having been part of the reason it is red now. They mostly sing, it seems, and are surprisingly sanguine about any humanitarian causes and cleanliness - rats aren't actually naturally dirty or selfish animals, just clannish and prone to survival at all costs, and that goes for the bipedal ones too.
Antediluvian Playing Cards: Rafael likes gambling on low stakes, and finding these while remembering how to play them introduced him to rattakan solitaire - which helped him fight the boredom after he was done starving and now had enough breath to realize how lost and frustrated he was in the catacombs. And then got a bunch of sailors looking for a cook and ship doctor very fascinated with a brand new way to lose their wages while hobnobbing and convincing them his creepiness did not outweigh his usefulness and adherence to never betraying like he was betrayed (he told them everything about being screwed over by his fellow Spaniards and escaped a temple a sorcerer, just leaving out the fact he is also now a wererat).