Character:Cursor

A character for Aberrant, created by Shisumo.

Character Stats

Cursor
Birth Name: Desmond Ailes
Nature: Analyst
Concept: Reality Hacker

Strength 2
Dexterity 2 (Athletics 1, Drive 1, Firearms 1, Legerdemain 1, Martial Arts 1)
Stamina 3 (Endurance 3, Resistance 3)
Perception 2 (Investigation 3)
Intelligence 5 (Academics 2, Computer 4 [Hacking, Programming], Engineering 2, Intrusion 1, Science 2)
Wits 3 (Biz 1)
Appearance 2
Manipulation 4 (Streetwise 2 [Black Market], Subterfuge 2)
Charisma 2

Backgrounds: Cipher 3, Node 2, Resources 3

Willpower 4, Quantum 4 (Quantum Pool 28), Taint 4 (Aberration: Anima – Swirling computer code symbols)

Quantum Powers and Mega-Attributes
Mega-Intelligence 2 (Engineering Prodigy)
Cyberkinesis 2 (Alter Data, Reprogram)
Entropy Control 2 (Breakdown, Probability Corruption)
Luck 2

Initiative 5, Movement 7m/14m/26m

Character Description

Desmond Ailes was once a fairly ordinary hacker, committing cybercrimes for fun and profit, skipping college because the life of a data cowboy was so much more glamorous. He was talented, creative, and smart - though he was largely self-taught, there were few hackers his age who could outmatch him. The Secret Service and FBI could never track him down; private contractors fared no better.

Eventually, however, Desmond met his match, when he attempted to hack the Project Utopia secured files. In a marathon programming and hacking session, Desmond found himself slipping into a kind of hallucination, where the world itself turned into numbers that he could touch, manipulate, and corrupt.

Desmond Ailes has seen the shape of the Universe, and it is data.

Now he uses that knowledge to change the way the world itself functions. He can corrupt the function of machines and even people by adding faulty "code" into the fabric of existence. He can sense and interact with machines from some distance away. And wherever he goes, he sees the twinkle of flickering code glittering behind the facade of ordinary reality...

Commentary

Aberrant was the second of White Wolf's Aeonverse (sometimes called the Trinityverse, due to legal complications surrounding Viacom and the Aeon Flux cartoon) games. It is a game of modern-day supers, set in a world that was (at the time of publication) less than a decade away. It postulated the sudden appearance of superheroes worldwide, starting in 1998, and chronicled the way they impacted humanity over the following 10 years, and then beyond. There were strong elements of "power corrupts" behind the game's worldview, but it also developed several concepts that were, as far as I know, more or less completely new to supers gaming at the time. Among these were: the XWF (Xtreme Warfare Federation), a cross between traditional comic-book hero vs. hero battles and professional wrestling; professional super-powered mercenaries, hired to fight proxy wars in developing nations in lieu of a whole battalion of regular troops; an organization of homosexual supers, including several who had super-powered social capabilities strong enough to make the most firmly hetero people take a second look; and an apparently beneficent organization working to channel super-powered efforts to the good of humanity, who nevertheless (in classic White Wolf style) had a Dark and Dangerous Hidden Agenda.

The system is yet another take on WW's classic Storyteller system, incorporating a number of elements (fixed TN for dice, no-roll soak) that would later be incorporated into Exalted when it came out. There were a few changes, such as tying Abilities directly to Attributes, that were not maintained, however. Regardless, the system was a solid improvement over its predecessors, and all of WW's new projects since the Trinity release have drawn from its example.

(chargen time: 40 minutes)