Muktar

Overview

The crew’s killer, and a former Under Sector arena fighter (ring name Ora, after the Komodo dragon — a nod to his Indonesian/East African heritage). Fought as a “pit slave” for NSMC, forced into combat against other people NSMC wanted disposed of. Escaped the Under Sector with a dying rival agent’s help and now lives topside, trying in his own way to make up for what he did to survive.

He’s an unrepentant-sounding but genuinely conflicted cannibal: he eats people, but only ever with the group’s buy-in, doesn’t actively want to, and views everyone he’s eaten as fellow victims of the same system rather than prey. Retains fragments of their memories when he eats them.

Has a strong personal code around respect and fate: he extends good faith to people even when he’s heard bad things about them (declining to repeat a disrespectful nickname for Iona Glass “until I know otherwise”), and reads people who’ve taken control of their own circumstances — Mara Sato, Dolores at the Early Bird Diner — with open admiration (“you sound like a lady who is in charge of her fate”). Also the crew’s most consistent defender when the others turn on each other, notably shielding Bullfrog from blame after a botched hack — and, in Session 2, correcting a stranger on the spot: “his name is Mr. Bullfrog. He deserves your respect.”

His philosophy hardened into something closer to doctrine in Session 2. He holds that “everyone has a choice to choose their own fate every day,” which he applies without flinching in both directions — it’s why he respects Slim Jimmy for giving up his van, and also why he’s comfortable killing VYRAL employees who, in Neon’s framing, never got the chance to choose. He briefly feared Mara Sato was a pawn being pushed rather than someone taking her own fate, then concluded she’d used her VYRAL contact rather than being used, and pledged his Rontai to her freedom. He was also willing to walk away from the payday entirely rather than hand her over, and only went along with the plan on the promise she’d be broken back out.

He kept that promise in Session 3, and it widened into a mission of his own. Once Mara was free, he told her he had committed to her freedom because of the choice she made, that others will make the same choice, and that he’d be committed to their freedom too. He asked for the right to call on her when that happens. He also respects people across the line from him. He told Iona Glass to her face that her daughter “does not wish to see you anymore,” apologized when she promised retribution, and urged Mara to let her mother know she was safe: “She is not a good mom, but she is your mother. You are lucky to have one.”

His instincts on tactics are more careful than his methods. During the tail he argued for caution with an arena analogy: an aggressive opponent puts you on guard, a hidden one doesn’t. Then he walked through the front of the restaurant in full view, because he can’t do anything discreetly and knows it. His player felt afterward that the characters had handled it poorly.

Playbook

Killer. Reskinned mechanics established at Session 0:

• Wetware — NSMC’s term for cyberware-equivalent enhancements caused by prolonged exposure to black salt in the Under Sector; mechanically identical to standard cyberware, reflavored as mutation rather than implants.
• Gut Knowledge — a reskin of the Killer’s “corporate secrets” move. Muktar doesn’t have corporate connections; instead, he retains fragments of memory from the people he’s eaten, which is how he knows things he’d otherwise have no way to know.
• Directive — “When you put the responsibility to [the people I’ve eaten] ahead of the mission, mark experience.” He treats obligations his victims couldn’t fulfill (family, debts) as his own to carry out.

Appearance

About seven feet tall, bald, and large enough to be conspicuous. Bullfrog could not scrub him out of a video that three other people fit into. Scales and bumps run along his chest and shoulder, crocodile-like, which he attributes to being born in the black salt of the Under Sector. Wears black armor-like gear: a leather harness and tack. Under the skin of his chest are small subdermal plates, and he bleeds a black ichor. Carries the Rontai, a mining drill head on a heavy chain, wrapped around his neck with the head hanging chest-high, clinking as he walks.

His claws come out of his fingertips: black, hardened, slightly curled talons, like a raptor or bird of prey, made of black salt and able to tear through metal. Mechanically they’re a reskin of implant weaponry, treated as bioware.

Gear

• Rontai — his gladiatorial weapon from the Under Sector arenas; a mining drill head on a chain. Left behind for the Session 3 breakout as too conspicuous.
• Automatic shotgun (3 harm) and a revolver.
• Black-salt claws — reskinned implant weaponry (see Appearance).
• Dermal plating — subtracts 2 from his harm rolls. He has 0 armor, so it doesn’t reduce the harm itself; it represents him shrugging off pain.

Known Facts

• Arena name: Ora. Popularity is rising as footage of the exposed wetware scandal drives interest in the underground fighting scene’s back catalog — he may become more publicly recognizable over time.
• Escaped the Under Sector using an extraction plan given to him, on her deathbed, by a captured rival corp agent named Kestrel. He considers himself in her debt and hasn’t yet found who (or what) he owes it to on her behalf.
• Will not eat someone without the group’s agreement, and generally doesn’t want to eat people anymore — it’s something he feels he had to do, not something he enjoys.
• Motivated by a broader belief in people’s right to choose their own fate; strongly opposed to any technology (like NSMC/VYRAL’s wetware mind-control program) that would strip that choice away entirely.
• Born in the Under Sector, not merely brought there — the black salt is what gave him his scaling.
• His account of the accords: NSMC supplies black salt to the other corporations but is barred from using it themselves, having to buy the finished cyberware back; in exchange, the other corps are supposed to have no presence in the Under Sector at all. Muktar knows firsthand that they operate there anyway, in a limited and deniable capacity.
• On Under Sector conditions: it is cold, not hot — “in the Under Sector, wealth is measured in warmth.”
• The Under Sector is as deep as Knight City is tall, and the Combine controls all of it.
• Wants real seafood, and will invite himself to a corporate director’s family dinner to get it.
• His profile as Ora is becoming a practical liability: one of Iona Glass’s security detail recognized him on sight at the REIS Six handoff. He did not react.
• Has never been to the ocean. He thought kelp was grass (“I assume grass would be crisp and clear. Very refreshing, maybe”). He’s still after lobster.
• Paid Speckz Arioso his own two-cred share of the Sato job once Mara was free, as he’d promised during the tail.
• Has killed in the crew’s service, and draws a line around it: “I had not ended anyone who did not deserve it.” In Session 3 he shotgunned one of Iona’s guards, after letting the man shoot first.
• Badly hurt as of Session 3. A shotgun blast to the chest and being hit by a car left his harm clock at roughly 2200–2300. He needs an EMT kit or urgent care, not just a drone’s sensors.
• Iona Glass knows him by name and has promised retribution.

Relationships

• Kestrel — dying rival agent who gave him his escape plan; he owes her an unresolved debt.
• Speckz Arioso — prior working relationship (paid research/tracking jobs) before the crew’s previous mission; now helping Muktar try to track down who Kestrel’s debt is owed to.
• Bullfrog — teammate; was already a fan of Muktar’s arena fighting under the name Ora before meeting him. Bullfrog follows Muktar’s lead (“I feel like this guy knows what he’s talking about”). Muktar teases him dryly and is quietly worried about him: “I care deeply for Mr. Bullfrog and I do worry that something is distracting him.”
• Mara Sato — he pledged his Rontai to her freedom and delivered it. He has asked to be able to call on her help freeing others someday, and she promised to listen.
• Iona Glass — he respects her and fought her anyway. He threw her into a wall in the ramen shop. Her last words to him were “You do not know who you have angered.”
• Neon Drift — teammate from the crew’s previous job.

Open Questions

• Who (or what) did Kestrel actually owe a debt to, and how does Muktar find them?
• How does Muktar feel about his rising public profile as “Ora” now that the underground fighting scene is drawing more attention?
• Full character details (stats, moves, gear) pending transfer from the shared character sheet.

Appearances

• Session 0 — Full backstory, playbook reskins, and directive established; Kestrel debt and rising public profile introduced.
• Session 1 — Retraces Mara Sato’s commute and uses Gut Knowledge to uncover VYRAL’s involvement in her disappearance; defends Bullfrog from the crew’s teasing; philosophizes with Neon Drift about fate and choice.
• Session 2 — Names and pledges the Rontai to Mara Sato’s freedom; accepts being the one person left identifiable in the doctored footage; confronts Iona Glass over concealing that Mara is her daughter; rolls Get Paid. Recognized as Ora by REIS security. Marked his Strange directive for persuading the crew toward the job that frees someone over the job that pays.
• Session 3 — Argues for a cautious tail, then walks openly through the ramen shop (“Bitches leave”). Takes a shotgun blast without dodging and kills the man who fired it. Is hit by a Cadillac crashing through the front. Claws Iona Glass’s cybernetic arm until she lets go of Mara, then slams her into a wall and covers the crew’s retreat. Pays Speckz his share, and asks Mara to someday help him free others.