Nineteen years, four of them on secondment to an office that no longer " + "appears in the directory. Signs for everything and reads it first.
" + "Anchor: a wedding ring she does not wear, kept in a coin envelope " + "in her jacket.
" }, { key: "pc_okonkwo", name: "Ben Okonkwo", role: "heavy", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_okonkwo", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 33, physiological: 33 }, ch: { str: 17, siz: 16, con: 16, int: 11, pow: 11, dex: 13, cha: 11, edu: 10 }, talents: ["hard_landing", "first_through"], bio: "Goes through the door and holds the corridor while everyone else does the " + "clever part. Has never once complained about being the one who is hit.
" + "Anchor: his sister's voice note, saved and never deleted.
" }, { key: "pc_sandoval", name: "Rey Sandoval", role: "overwatch", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_sandoval", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 37, physiological: 37 }, ch: { str: 12, siz: 12, con: 13, int: 14, pow: 13, dex: 17, cha: 10, edu: 12 }, talents: ["first_through", "read_room"], bio: "Takes the long lane and the long view. Keeps a private list of the shots " + "she chose not to take, and will not discuss it.
" + "Anchor: a paperback with somebody else's name inside the cover.
" }, { key: "pc_bhattacharya", name: "Arun Bhattacharya", role: "registry", rank: "Senior Field Officer", portrait: "pc_bhattacharya", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 56, physiological: 56 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 11, con: 11, int: 17, pow: 15, dex: 11, cha: 12, edu: 17 }, talents: ["chain_custody", "debriefer", "requisition"], bio: "Thirty years in the registry. Has read files that were withdrawn " + "before he finished them and remembers what was in them anyway.
" + "Anchor: a brass slide rule that belonged to his predecessor.
" }, { key: "pc_rahimi", name: "Soraya Rahimi", role: "settlements", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_rahimi", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 41, physiological: 41 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 11, con: 12, int: 15, pow: 15, dex: 11, cha: 17, edu: 15 }, talents: ["read_room", "debriefer"], bio: "Writes the arrangement that everyone can live with, then holds both sides " + "to it. Has never raised her voice on an operation.
" + "Anchor: her mother's tea glass, chipped, carried in a sock.
" }, /* ---------------- trades: recruited from an ordinary job ---------------- */ { key: "pc_nkemdirim", name: "Dr Chidi Nkemdirim", trade: "doctor", rank: "Probationary", portrait: "pc_nkemdirim", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 32, physiological: 32 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 11, con: 12, int: 16, pow: 13, dex: 13, cha: 13, edu: 18 }, talents: ["triage", "read_room"], bio: "Six years of emergency medicine and eleven months of this. Still the " + "calmest person in the room, and still startled by what the room contains.
" + "Anchor: a pager that has not worked since 2019.
" }, { key: "pc_kowalczyk", name: "Marek Kowalczyk", trade: "engineer", rank: "Probationary", portrait: "pc_kowalczyk", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 30, physiological: 30 }, ch: { str: 13, siz: 13, con: 13, int: 17, pow: 11, dex: 14, cha: 11, edu: 15 }, talents: ["hard_landing", "requisition"], bio: "Chartered, unimpressed, and the only person who asks what a thing is made " + "of before asking what it wants.
" + "Anchor: the first tool he ever bought, resharpened forty times.
" }, { key: "pc_finch", name: "Wren Finch", trade: "criminal", rank: "Probationary", portrait: "pc_finch", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 26, physiological: 26 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 10, con: 12, int: 14, pow: 12, dex: 18, cha: 14, edu: 9 }, talents: ["cover_work", "clean_scene"], bio: "Opens things without leaving a mark, which is the part she is proud of. " + "Signed the Act in an interview room, which is the part she is not.
" + "Anchor: a door key to a flat that was demolished.
" }, { key: "pc_agyeman", name: "Joseph Agyeman", trade: "police", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_agyeman", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 52, physiological: 52 }, ch: { str: 14, siz: 14, con: 14, int: 13, pow: 13, dex: 12, cha: 14, edu: 12 }, talents: ["read_room", "chain_custody", "first_through"], bio: "Twenty-six years on division before somebody handed him a file with no " + "crime number. Knows how a statement is taken and how a scene is lost.
" + "Anchor: his old warrant number, written inside his watch strap.
" }, { key: "pc_lindqvist", name: "Professor Åke Lindqvist", trade: "professor", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_lindqvist", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 63, physiological: 63 }, ch: { str: 9, siz: 11, con: 10, int: 17, pow: 16, dex: 10, cha: 14, edu: 19 }, talents: ["debriefer", "wrong_memory", "read_room"], bio: "A chair in comparative folklore and a reading list nobody else has " + "finished. Was consulted once and never quite sent home.
" + "Anchor: a photograph of a lecture theatre, taken from the back.
" }, /* ---------------- second intake ---------------- */ /* Six more, written for the group that actually plays. Three postings and three trades again, and none of the six repeats a posting or a trade already on the sheet above, so the roster covers sixteen different jobs and no two players pick the same character by accident. */ { key: "pc_pollard", name: "Gareth Pollard", role: "warden", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_pollard", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 47, physiological: 47 }, ch: { str: 14, siz: 15, con: 16, int: 12, pow: 13, dex: 12, cha: 11, edu: 10 }, talents: ["chain_custody", "first_through"], bio: "Sits with a site all night so that nobody else has to, and writes down the " + "times. Has never once been found asleep and never once complained about it.
" + "Anchor: a wind-up alarm clock that has not kept time since 2003.
" }, { key: "pc_ashcroft", name: "Dominic Ashcroft", role: "anchor", rank: "Senior Field Officer", portrait: "pc_ashcroft", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 38, physiological: 41 }, ch: { str: 11, siz: 12, con: 13, int: 15, pow: 17, dex: 13, cha: 12, edu: 14 }, talents: ["out_of_step", "borrowed_hour", "not_quite_here"], bio: "Holds the door open while everyone else goes through it, and stays filed " + "correctly for as long as that takes. Three years older than his birthday says " + "and does not discuss the difference.
" + "Anchor: his own school tie, cut in half; the department has the " + "other half.
" }, { key: "pc_braithwaite", name: "Neil Braithwaite", role: "pathology", rank: "Field Officer", portrait: "pc_braithwaite", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 51, physiological: 51 }, ch: { str: 11, siz: 12, con: 12, int: 17, pow: 12, dex: 13, cha: 10, edu: 17 }, talents: ["chain_custody", "clean_scene", "triage"], bio: "Establishes what a thing was, which is usually the question the case turns " + "on. Talks to the table, not to the room, and is right often enough that " + "nobody minds.
" + "Anchor: a fountain pen his father used to sign death " + "certificates.
" }, { key: "pc_renshaw", name: "Kate Renshaw", role: "interview", rank: "Senior Field Officer", portrait: "pc_renshaw", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 44, physiological: 44 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 11, con: 12, int: 15, pow: 14, dex: 12, cha: 17, edu: 15 }, talents: ["debriefer", "read_room", "wrong_memory"], bio: "Sits with the witness afterwards, for as long as it takes, and is very hard " + "to lie to twice. Gets more out of an hour and a pot of tea than the rest of " + "the department gets out of a warrant.
" + "Anchor: a hair clip that belonged to a woman whose statement she " + "never finished taking.
" }, { key: "pc_sharrock", name: "Danny Sharrock", trade: "builder", rank: "Probationary", portrait: "pc_sharrock", chosenStyle: "reflex", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 42, physiological: 42 }, ch: { str: 16, siz: 15, con: 15, int: 12, pow: 10, dex: 14, cha: 12, edu: 9 }, talents: ["hard_landing", "first_through"], bio: "Twenty years of sites and other people's mistakes. Knows what a building is " + "about to do a good few seconds before it does it, and says so, loudly.
" + "Anchor: a bent nail from the first roof he ever stripped, kept in " + "a tobacco tin.
" }, { key: "pc_ferriby", name: "Colin Ferriby", trade: "it", rank: "Probationary", portrait: "pc_ferriby", chosenStyle: "deliberate", species: "baseline", age: { chronological: 29, physiological: 29 }, ch: { str: 10, siz: 12, con: 11, int: 17, pow: 12, dex: 13, cha: 10, edu: 14 }, talents: ["echo_sense", "chain_custody"], bio: "Second line, then infrastructure. Has read the logs nobody else reads and " + "believes them over people, which is either the reason he is here or the " + "reason he was let go.
" + "Anchor: a dead hard drive with his own handwriting on the " + "label.
" } ]; /** * THE SAME TEN, BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT FOUND THEM. * * Same person, same characteristics, same face — a civilian who has not been inducted * and has never been issued anything. Skills and tools come from the trade alone, so a * player can hold the two sheets side by side and see exactly what the job did to them. * (The linguist is the one who already speaks trade cant before she arrives. It is a * language, and she is a linguist.) * * Five of the ten went into the department straight into a posting rather than out of a * trade, so this is where they came from. Between them the ten cover all ten trades * exactly once, which means this set also shows a table the whole trade half of * character creation without anybody having to read the rules for it. * * `job` replaces the rank line on the sheet. The second paragraph of each biography is * the seam: what they did that got them noticed. It is the hook a GM pulls on. */ export const BEFORE = { pc_holloway: { trade: "linguist", job: "Court Interpreter", age: 25, bio: "Interpreting at magistrates' courts and immigration tribunals. Ten hours a " + "day saying other people's worst sentences in the first person, and going home " + "able to repeat every one of them.
" + "How they found her: she interpreted a statement nobody had asked " + "her to hear, and then wrote down what the room had done while it was said.
" }, pc_okonkwo: { trade: "builder", job: "Steel Erector", age: 28, bio: "Ten storeys up on a frame with no floor in it yet, in weather that sends " + "everyone else down the ladder. Never late, never sick, and never the one who " + "says the job cannot be done.
" + "How they found him: he carried two men off a site that had gone " + "wrong in a way the report could not describe, and he did not ask a single " + "question about it.
" }, pc_sandoval: { trade: "it", job: "Network Field Engineer", age: 31, bio: "Alone at the top of a mast in the dark with a laptop and a flask, fixing " + "links for towns that only notice the network when it stops. Long climbs, long " + "views, long silences.
" + "How they found her: a relay logged forty minutes of traffic from a " + "site decommissioned in 1994, and she kept the file instead of clearing it.
" }, pc_bhattacharya: { trade: "scientist", job: "Research Chemist", age: 26, bio: "An industrial laboratory, a bench, and a notebook filled in the same hand " + "every day for four years. Slow, exact, and constitutionally unable to leave a " + "discrepancy alone.
" + "How they found him: he noticed a batch record amended by somebody " + "who had never worked there, and he raised it in writing. Twice.
" }, pc_rahimi: { trade: "entertainer", job: "Local Radio Presenter", age: 33, bio: "Mid-morning phone-in on a station nobody outside the county has heard of. " + "Six years of listening to people who rang up angry and hung up calmer.
" + "How they found her: she talked a caller down from something on air " + "for eleven minutes, and the recording of those minutes does not play back the " + "same way twice.
" }, pc_nkemdirim: { trade: "doctor", job: "Registrar, Emergency Medicine", age: 31, bio: "Six years of A&E and the flat calm that comes with it. The one the " + "department turns to when nobody else will say the decision out loud.
" + "How they found them: a patient came in with an injury that had " + "healed in the wrong direction, and the notes they wrote were too good to leave " + "in the system.
" }, pc_kowalczyk: { trade: "engineer", job: "Structural Engineer", age: 29, bio: "Chartered, practical, and happiest with a survey and a set of drawings that " + "disagree. Asks what a thing is made of before he asks what it is for.
" + "How they found him: he condemned a footbridge on load figures that " + "were correct, for a span he had measured three times and got three " + "answers.
" }, pc_finch: { trade: "criminal", job: "Between Things", age: 25, bio: "Not organised, and not caught either — doors, locks and other people's " + "assumptions, worked quietly and left tidy. Rents by the week and pays cash.
" + "How they found her: she was inside a building she had no business " + "in on the afternoon it stopped being on the street it was on, and she was the " + "only witness who could describe the inside.
" }, pc_agyeman: { trade: "police", job: "Detective Sergeant", age: 50, bio: "Twenty-six years on division. Takes a statement properly, keeps a scene, " + "and has watched three generations of the same families come through the same " + "door.
" + "How they found him: a file with no crime number landed on his desk " + "and he worked it anyway, on his own time, and got further than he was meant " + "to.
" }, pc_lindqvist: { trade: "professor", job: "Professor of Comparative Folklore", age: 59, bio: "A chair, a reading list, and forty years of stories about places that take " + "people and give them back wrong. Treats them as evidence rather than as " + "literature.
" + "How they found him: he was consulted once, as an academic " + "courtesy, and gave an answer so specific that he was never quite sent " + "home.
" }, pc_pollard: { trade: "police", job: "Custody Sergeant", age: 39, bio: "Nights, on the custody desk, for eleven years. Signs people in, signs them " + "out, and writes down the times, which is the entire job and most of the " + "reason it is done properly.
" + "How they found him: he logged a detainee in and out on the same " + "sheet, in his own hand, forty minutes apart, and there is no detainee.
" }, pc_ashcroft: { trade: "scientist", job: "Research Physicist", age: 31, bio: "A university group, a beamline, and six years of measuring one thing very " + "carefully. Comfortable with results that are correct and unwelcome.
" + "How they found him: he published a null result nobody wanted, twice, " + "and the second time he included the run his supervisor had asked him to " + "drop.
" }, pc_braithwaite: { trade: "doctor", job: "Consultant Histopathologist", age: 41, bio: "Twenty years of establishing what a thing was. Talks to the specimen rather " + "than the room, and is right often enough that nobody minds.
" + "How they found him: he reported a sample as being from a tissue " + "type he could not name, in writing, under his own signature, and refused to " + "amend it.
" }, pc_renshaw: { trade: "entertainer", job: "Actor", age: 37, bio: "Eleven years of rep, tour and two soaps, and a decade before that of front " + "of house. Learned to read a room from the wrong side of the lights and never " + "stopped doing it.
" + "How they found her: she took a witness statement off a stranger in " + "a foyer, unasked, in longhand, and it is the best one anybody took.
" }, pc_sharrock: { trade: "builder", job: "Site Foreman", age: 39, bio: "Twenty years of sites, scaffold and other people's mistakes, and a voice " + "that carries across one. Knows what a building is about to do.
" + "How they found him: he stopped a pour because a wall was in the " + "wrong place, and he was right, and the drawings agreed with him afterwards " + "and had not before.
" }, pc_ferriby: { trade: "it", job: "Infrastructure Engineer", age: 28, bio: "Second line, then infrastructure. Has read the logs nobody reads and " + "believes them over people, which has cost him two jobs.
" + "How they found him: he kept a packet capture his employer told him " + "twice to delete, because the timestamps in it do not run in order.
" } };