Brakka O'Bannon

![[Brakka O'Bannon.png]]

"On the up, me. Straight as they come. Now do us a favour and stand aside, before I 'ave to be unfriendly about it."

Concept: A juiced-up orc/simian pit-fighter in a bowler hat, working the door and working his parole — a feral scrapper trying hard to go straight and not quite managing it. The trouble isn't only the addiction. Part of him wants to let go. Tooth, claw, and burning blood-rings; the worse the beating, the deadlier he gets. More anti-hero than hero — but he'll always rally for the crew.

Look¶

Broad as a doorway and built like a siege engine — orc heft with the long reach and grip of simian blood, though small for a vat-batch (he was meant to be bigger). Tusked, scarred, eyes gone a little feral when the juice is up. Around each forearm, searing rings of blood-light smoulder and brighten as he takes punishment. Over all of it: a battered bowler hat and the careful, too-tidy manner of a man performing respectability. Cockney in the mouth, New Shamir mutagen in the veins. They call him "Breaker." It used to be a promise. Now it's the thing he's trying not to do — to his parole, to furniture, to faces.

Background¶

A discarded New Shamir vat-batch — a runt, culled from the tanks and dumped, who had the bad manners to survive. He grew up gutter-feral on Cadwallon's streets until the Guild of Thieves scraped him up and poured him into the blood-sport circuit: the bottom-tier Little Arenas of Gamehead first, then the Chains-and-Stone amphitheater in Ogrokh. The Thieves kept their fighters winning with mutagen decoctions — highly addictive drugs that made him stronger, faster, and a great deal more feral. The Guild owns his old fight-contract and his supply both.

He got out of the pits, but he did not get clean. He ran with a crew, did real crime, and finally got pinched by the Militia. Now he's working off his sentence the Cadwë way — as a free leaguer on "free duty" (Den Azhir's 996 reform), a Militia handler holding the leash. He cannot break parole again. Between odd jobs he bounces the door at one of [[Jareth]]'s establishments, and lays low at Lady Allya's Tavern in the Muck — the one heated room in the lower city that'll seat a juiced orc, and the best place to hear things and pick up the kind of lesser-evil work a man on parole can almost justify.

Drives¶

Wants: to stay out, stay clean-ish, keep the leash slack — to actually be the respectable doorman he's pretending to be.
Bond: the crew. He'll go feral for them without thinking twice — which is exactly the problem.
Flaw — the beast is his, not the bottle's. Brakka tells himself the rage is the mutagen: that if he could only get clean, he'd be a decent man. He's lying. Part of him likes the devolution — the blessed silence when the thinking stops and there's only the work of teeth and fists. The juice didn't make him this way, it just gave him a convenient excuse. Going straight isn't fighting an addiction. It's fighting himself, and he's losing slowly.

Experiences¶

Pit Fighter — read a room for the real threat; take a hit and keep coming
Never Say Die — wont go down without a fight OR during one
(Finish the Job, See Red)

Connections¶

(Penciled in — to run past Ben, Erik, Josh, and Rob.)
- Half Moon — the redemption mirror, and a colleague: both on [[Jareth]]'s payroll (Half Moon minds Longshadow; Brakka minds the door), both fighting their own natures. Half Moon likely vouched for his free-duty parole — the patient hand on a feral shoulder.
- Longshadow — same orbit. Longshadow haunts the dens and houses Brakka bounces; the noble delinquent and the ex-con doorman, each performing a respectability neither has.
- Nogzop — the tempter. A criminal trying to go straight is exactly the sin Nog wants to squeeze. "C'mon, big lad — one little job."
- Julian — a duelist forever "challenged" by disguised assassins, and a bouncer who knows real violence from theatre. They'd clock each other on sight.
- Lady Allya — the Wolfen matron of the Tavern in the Muck; respected and feared, and the lower city's best ear. Brakka's lesser-evil patron: she feeds him off-books work and information, and tolerates what he is. What she's owed in return is a leash of a gentler, smarter kind than the Militia's.

Hooks¶

Made, then thrown away

Brakka is a New Shamir vat-batch — a failed one, discarded as a runt. That he lived, and then thrived enough to fight his way out of the pits, is exactly the sort of result the Scorpion technomancers would want back on a table for study. New Shamir has a claim on its escaped mistake, and the Meanders of Darkness are on the far end of that thread.

The Guild owns the leash

The Guild of Thieves holds his old fight-contract and controls his juice. That's a stronger leash than parole — and the day they call it in, "free leaguer Brakka" and "Guild asset Breaker" are forced into the same room.

One more strike — and they know how

His Militia handler is no friend. The next time the rage gets loose in public, free duty becomes a cell. A rival, a creditor, or an old pit-master who knows precisely how to provoke the devolution can end him without lifting a blade — just by getting him to be what he's trying not to be.