Speckz Arioso

Overview

The crew’s hunter — makes a living finding people and things on request, which has made him a known (if arm’s-length) resource to several of the other PCs even before they formally worked together.

Served in the military against his own will, where advanced cyber-eyes with every available feature were forcibly installed on him for tracking/surveillance purposes. When he left the service, his ripperdoc contact Alfonso disabled the recording/transmission and tracking capability, botching most other features in the process — he now has only the three standard functions of an ordinary cyber-eye: thermographic vision, light amplification and magnification. Alfonso calls him “Lex,” possibly his real first name (unconfirmed). Worships “Telex,” having previously worshipped and disliked a deity referred to as “four.”

Playbook

Hunter. Character sheet/moves live in the group’s shared Google Drive, not yet reflected here in detail. What’s come up in play:

• Edge +2, his best stat (“better than my Synth”). He uses it for Assess.
• Eye for Detail — when he surveils a person or place, he marks Intel and rolls Assess. It needs actual surveillance, not reading a face mid-conversation (see Session 2).
• Armor 1.

Appearance

Not yet described in play.

Known Facts

• Was hired by both Neon Drift and Muktar for past jobs before the crew’s previous mission together, which is how they knew of him going in.
• Hired by Neon Drift to track down former Van Life members; the first lead he surfaced was Van Morrison.
• Still owes his ripperdoc contact Alfonso money from a past job that fell through.
• In Session 1, worked Section 36 under the fake name “Han” to trace Mara Sato, then called in Alfonso as a declared contact to confirm she’d had a tracking implant removed.
• Grew up in the Lucky Strike gang, established at character creation and surfaced in play in Session 2. He knows Lucky, the gang’s head, personally. A young member named Mike gave him a contact number and an open invitation to reconnect; Speckz deferred it until after the job.
• Carries a holdout pistol (loaded with gel rounds, with regular ammunition available), a silencer, targeting goggles, and a sniper rifle — though he pointedly did not take the playbook move that would make him good at sniping, and the table ruled he can’t infiltrate into a firing position.
• Mercenary by default and open about it: “I just want to get paid for this job. After that… there’s other jobs, and if one of those jobs is saving you, then, you know. That’s another job.”
• Reflexively reaches for the blunt option first — his opening move on Mara was to shoot her legs with gel rounds, and his first instinct on the incriminating footage was to insist to her face that it was obviously doctored.
• Plus-zero Mind, and canonically a poor speller. He believes the city is spelled “Nite City.”
• Paid two cred in Session 2, which he immediately earmarked for repaying Alfonso. Muktar paid him his own two-cred share as well, once Mara was free in Session 3.
• A professional tracker, and touchy about it. “I’m a hunter and I would never blatantly follow a person.” He argued for shadowing Iona’s convoy from miles back. When the crew lost it, he picked the trail up on foot and found the target in the ramen shop. He says he has done work in that upscale part of REIS Six before.
• Was the first to question the breakout once the money was in hand: “We got paid, guys. Do we have to do this?” He went in first anyway.
• Prefers non-lethal methods when he has the choice, like gel rounds to the head (“they’re unconscious and probably concussed, but they’re not dead”). He’ll kill when protecting the crew calls for it. In Session 3 he took a shot rather than duck out of the way, so he could put down a guard covering the crew’s exit.
• Carries a knife, along with the silenced holdout pistol. The pistol jammed in the Session 3 fight, and he finished with a borrowed heavy pistol and his hands.
• Was the first to say what Iona Glass is: “She’s a bot.”
• Injured in Session 3, with a wrenched shoulder and a gunshot that his armor absorbed. Nothing that won’t heal.

Relationships

• Neon Drift — prior working relationship (paid research jobs) before the crew’s previous mission; currently doing Van Life tracing work for him.
• Muktar — prior working relationship (paid research jobs); the two have a “link” from helping each other, per the crew’s post-mission recap.
• Bullfrog — teammate on the crew’s previous job.
• Alfonso — longtime ripperdoc contact; removed the tracking capability from Speckz’s forced military cyber-eyes; still owed money by Speckz.

Directives

• Filial — “When you put the advice of ______ ahead of the mission, mark experience.” The name is still blank as of Session 2; candidates floated at the table were his former sergeant, or Lucky of Lucky Strike. Muktar was jokingly proposed as well.
• Vengeful — “When you harm the military or their interests, mark experience.” Nothing military has come up yet.

Open Questions

• Full character details (stats, moves, gear) pending transfer from the shared character sheet.
• Is “Lex” his real name?
• Who goes in the blank on his Filial directive?
• What does reconnecting with Lucky Strike cost him?

Appearances

• Session 0 — Backstory established; hired by Neon Drift to trace Van Life.
• Session 1 — Traces Mara Sato through Section 36 contacts and confirms her tracker removal via Alfonso; military/cyber-eye backstory revealed.
• Session 2 — Takes Mara Sato at gunpoint (Play Hardball, weak hit); guesses correctly, by accident, that Iona Glass is her mother; reconnects with the Lucky Strike gang through Mike; walks Mara into the handoff at gunpoint and rolls a 10 on Assess against Iona Glass, banking hold for the breakout.
• Session 3 — Tracks Iona and Mara on foot from the garage to the ramen shop with Eye for Detail and Reveal Knowledge, and plans the back-door entry. Puts down the two rear guards with gel rounds and silences the chef. Grabs Mara and fights Iona for her, and gets his shoulder wrenched and his pistol jammed doing it. Clears the kitchen with a knife so Mara can reach the van. His Session 2 Assess hold on Iona went unspent.