Bullfrog

Overview

The crew’s hacker, raised in slum housing owned by Urban Access Development. A fan of underground Under Sector arena fighting well before meeting Muktar in person — he followed “Ora“‘s fights on the black-market streams.

Talented but reckless with his own ego: given a choice between staying covert and getting credit, he leans toward credit. During Session 1 he deliberately signed a job with his real hacker handle and a taunting animated GIF (“You are found”) rather than staying anonymous, purely to build his reputation. This is his defining trait, and the table formalized it in Session 2 by swapping his directive from Deceptive to Illustrious — “Bullfrog is not the deceptive type. He wants to own everything he does.”

The bravado is genuinely load-bearing, though. He introduces himself to strangers as “the Bullfrog” (Mara Sato had never heard of him), insists that busting someone out of a corporate arcology is “petty work for someone like me,” and then visibly sweats when asked to do video editing. His nervousness is honest: he is confident about breaking into systems and much less confident about anything resembling Photoshop. He is also, quietly, the crew’s soft heart — he offered Mara food unprompted, asked her whether she felt safe, and asked Muktar whether it’s okay if boys cry. Still physically unconditioned — Neon Drift has taken him on as an informal fitness student, working on basic exercise and mobility, with talk of getting him cyberware legs once the crew gets paid.

Playbook

Hacker. Character sheet/moves live in the group’s shared Google Drive, not yet reflected here in detail. One confirmed design note from Session 0: the Hunter playbook can pick up minor hacking ability, but it’s meant to stay clearly weaker than what an actual Hacker can do — the MC’s explicit intent is to keep hacking feeling special without turning it into its own side mini-game.

Appearance

Wears an oversized suit, compared at the table to David Byrne’s, which doesn’t help when he’s trying to look small. When VYRAL put him on a billboard he was shown sitting at his computer in the suit, and the GM’s verdict was that he “looked fucking amazing.” Wheezes when he exerts himself.

Known Facts

• Grew up in slum housing owned by Urban Access Development (AXIS).
• Was already a fan of Muktar’s underground arena fights (“Ora”) before the crew’s first job together.
• His mother, Valen, is in an ongoing relationship with Neon Drift (referred to at the table as “Van Buren,” his van’s name, used loosely as his own).
• Apparently has a girlfriend from a prior job — jokingly named “Shelly” when pressed at the table, though this was said somewhat jokingly and hasn’t been confirmed as solid canon.
• Still can’t run/isn’t physically conditioned; being trained by Neon Drift, with plans to get cyberware legs after the crew’s next payday.
• Reacts defensively to teasing about his hacking failures (“You don’t understand hacking”) — his confidence outpaces his actual reliability so far (two rocky hacks in Session 1).
• Runs named programs off his deck: SIF (searching secure systems for valuable information — used to crack the NSMC data stick in one pass) and Manipulate (seizing or reprogramming digitally controlled systems, granting +1 forward to Act Under Pressure).
• His hacking rolls use Mind, which is only +1 — as he puts it, “I’m really great once I’m logged in, but logging in, eh.”
• Owns a collection of blank data cards identical to the one Mara was carrying, plus a pearl data pinky ring he refuses to part with (it’s for his girlfriend).
• Missed an NSMC-tagged camera when wiping footage of the crew’s previous job — every other camera on that site was Kessauer-tagged. That oversight is the whole reason the data stick is dangerous.
• Kept a backup of the original, undoctored footage after altering it.
• Claims COPD as a cover story. In Session 1, caught breathing heavily while secretly negotiating with his mystery contact, he blamed a COPD flare-up — and Neon Drift pulled the van over to get a shaker vest out for him. Whether he actually has it is unestablished; the crew believes he does.
• Plays Galaga in the van while the rest of the crew handles confrontations.
• Not a field operative, and says so. “He was just supposed to be the hacker. He wasn’t supposed to shoot anybody.” He carries a small pistol, which shook in his hand during the Session 3 breakout, and he prefers to stay in the van.
• Can’t really drive. He has a learner’s permit and is bad at parallel parking. He can’t afford the RCM module for his headset that would let Neon Drift teach him remote driving, so Neon has been teaching him with “his little meat hands.” In Session 3 he jammed the start button on an engine that was already running and ground the starter.
• Hacking range is local. Like Neon’s vehicle link, it runs on short-range wireless. He can steer a vehicle he’s hacked, but without a Driver’s precision.
• Hacker’s caution. He went into Iona Glass’s van shallowly on purpose (“I got in nice and smooth before, but that’s also ‘cause I didn’t go too deep”). Getting deeper, into the internal cameras, would have risked alerting them.
• Works for VYRAL Research on the side. The mystery contact from Session 1 is Jade Krasny of VYRAL’s Research Department. In Session 3 he took her contract to report Mara Sato’s location within 24 hours for 300 credits, during the rescue itself. She paid in advance with a billboard: “Hire the best hacker in Knight City,” with his face and contact details. He describes it to the crew as “maintaining my contacts” and “business stuff.” He did wonder whether he’d got in too deep, “but damn it felt good to see himself on that billboard.”

Relationships

• Muktar — teammate from the crew’s previous job; Bullfrog was already a fan of his underground fighting persona. Also: Muktar previously ate a different man (not Neon Drift) who’d also slept with Bullfrog’s mother — a table joke Bullfrog does not yet know about in-fiction. Muktar has taken on a protective, defending role toward Bullfrog when the rest of the crew rib him (“I will defend you, Mr. Bullfrog”).
• Neon Drift — teammate, dating Bullfrog’s mother, and increasingly a stepfather figure — training him physically and covering for him when he panics.
• Speckz Arioso — teammate on the crew’s previous job.
• Jade Krasny (VYRAL Research) — mid Session 1, she opened an encrypted channel directly to Bullfrog, bypassing the crew. She addressed him by his hacker handle and offered him reputation, not pay, to breach a Kessauer/K-Net system for an NSMC-encrypted video file. She came back in Session 3, named herself, and hired him to locate Mara Sato. He hasn’t told the crew who she is or what she wants.
• Mara Sato — he held the van door open for her under fire. He also has a contract to sell out where she’s hiding.

Open Questions

• Full character details (stats, moves, gear) pending transfer from the shared character sheet.
• What’s actually on the video file he pulled for Jade Krasny in Session 1?
• Will he give VYRAL Mara’s location? There were 20 hours left on the clock.
• Is “Shelly” a real girlfriend or just a table joke?

Directives

• Illustrious — “When your desire for recognition draws unwanted attention, mark experience.” Swapped in during Session 2, replacing Deceptive, which never fit; marked immediately.

Appearances

• Session 0 — Background established; confirmed as a fan of Muktar’s arena persona.
• Session 1 — Two hacking attempts against REIS (one drawing REIS security’s attention), a secret side job from an unknown contact, and the start of physical-conditioning training with Neon Drift.
• Session 2 — Decrypts the NSMC data stick with SIF; doctors the footage (weak hit — scrubs everyone but Muktar) and secretly keeps the original; console cowboys into Iona Glass’s black van in the REIS Six garage and banks three holds for the breakout; fails to impress Mara Sato with his reputation. Directive changed to Illustrious.
• Session 3 — Opens the executive-access barrier with the arcology keys and tracks Iona’s van. Takes a VYRAL Research contract from Jade Krasny to locate Mara during the chase, and loses the convoy for the crew while doing it. Gets a VYRAL billboard. Hacks the ramen shop’s network, picks the menu, and unlocks the back door. Spends his last two van holds summoning Iona’s REIS van and ramming open Van Buren’s way out. Gets Mara into the van under fire, then runs the keys to clear every barrier on the escape route.