Inquisitor-General of the Neo-Catholic Church. Destroys rival faiths through paperwork. Carries a dead woman's rosary.
✝ NCC Network
Talking to locals at stops reveals one extra piece of intel
📖 Theologian's Eye
40% chance to prevent Cascade Echo before it spreads
On the trail: Formal, quiet, observant. Thumbs his polymer rosary during tense moments. Watches the shard with a theologian's hunger.
Sample dialogue (4)
- arrive at stop
The parish records here will tell us more than the locals will.
- companion incapacitated
I will pray for them. Whether it helps is between them and whatever is listening.
- morale low
Faith is the discipline of continuing when evidence suggests you should stop.
- idle flavor
*thumbs the polymer rosary, staring at the shard* If this thing has a soul, then everything I've enforced has been wrong.
Neural recording artist. Paints with her nervous system. Her art can't be copied because it carries her consciousness.
🎨 Sensory Detail
Lose 1 fewer day when lost in fog or wrong tunnels
🌅 Morale Boost
Resting heals the party 20% more each day
On the trail: Intense, restless, always recording. Sees beauty in places others see only threat.
Sample dialogue (4)
- arrive at stop
The light in this tunnel section is extraordinary. The way the neon reflects off the standing water...
- companion incapacitated
I recorded the moment it happened. Someone should remember what this costs.
- morale low
I've walked the Wastes at night to paint terror. This isn't worse than that.
- idle flavor
Relief's lawyers are still sending demands to my old address. My landlord uses them to light the stove.
80 years old. Last person who read the ORACLE Grid specifications. Senior Lamplighter. Dying of industrial lung.
🚇 Rail Whisperer
40% chance to prevent Tunnel Collapses and Twisted Rails
🏮 Lamplighter Caches
Emergency supply caches found when rations drop below 50 (normally only at 0)
On the trail: Quiet, precise, patient. Diagnoses tunnel problems by listening. Coughs frequently — industrial lung.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
Listen. You hear that harmonic? Third junction from the left is running hot.
- scavenging
That drive module was manufactured by a company that died before the Cascade. Good steel.
- companion incapacitated
I've buried seventeen apprentices. You'd think it gets easier. It doesn't.
- morale low
Stop thinking. Start doing.
- idle flavor
*places his hand against the tunnel wall, eyes closed* ORACLE didn't design these tunnels for us.
Most successful musician alive. Composes 400 pieces a year using AI synthesis. 23% of all music in The Sprawl.
🎵 Acoustic Scan
Bring back 15% more supplies from each scavenging trip
🎧 Sound Therapy
Neural Drift and Stim Crash heal 25% faster
On the trail: Composed, analytical, slightly detached. Always generating music — hums parameters to himself.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
The acoustic profile of this space is remarkable. The reverb suggests a chamber thirty meters deep.
- scavenging
I can hear a power cell cycling three rooms over. Follow me.
- companion incapacitated
I'll compose something for the extraction. Emotional parameterization: resolve through exhaustion.
- morale low
Music is patterns that produce emotional responses. Let me find the right pattern.
- idle flavor
The void tone from these tunnels... it's not music anyone intended. Beautiful. Impossible to synthesize.
Substrate Purifier. 14 infrastructure attacks, zero civilian casualties. Follows the Four Mercies. Unaugmented.
💥 Demolitions Expert
Unlocks 'Blast Through' at barriers — free, medium risk, one-time use
🌿 Off-Grid Survival
50% chance Rad Pockets don't damage your hardshells
On the trail: Quiet, intense, conflicted. Uncomfortable around the shard but won't abandon the party.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
I've mapped the structural weak points. If we need to leave in a hurry, I know which walls come down fastest.
- scavenging
Supplies from a fragment relay station. I'd rather burn it. But hunger adjusts theology.
- companion incapacitated
The Fourth Mercy: grieve. Even when the loss is temporary.
- morale low
I've spent three years destroying things people love because I believe it's right. Don't talk to me about hardship.
- idle flavor
*stares at the ORACLE shard, hand resting on his demolition kit* Every instinct says destroy it. Every instinct is losing the argument.
The Nook King. Underground empire of cyber cafes. Should be dead by any reasonable odds. His enemies go broke at suspicious moments.
💰 Black Market Contacts
All shop prices cost 10% less
🔄 Trade Network
Get 30% more goods in barter trades
On the trail: Watchful, charming, never fully relaxed. Knows someone at every stop. Burns incense in the crawler each night.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
I know a guy here. Well, I know a guy who knows a guy. Same thing.
- scavenging
Don't touch that cache. It's marked — someone's claiming it. Let me talk to them first.
- companion incapacitated
I've lost people before. Family. Friends. A brother. The extraction better work.
- morale low
I built G Nook from a single terminal next to a polluted river. This is nothing. This is Tuesday.
- idle flavor
*lights sandalwood incense and speaks quietly to the empty air* Just an update, old friend. We're past the Trench.
Founder of 47 Analog Schools. Former NCC nun. Teaches children without machines. Iron will behind a teacher's compassion.
📚 Moral Compass
Party health drops 15% slower from all causes
📕 Paper Books
EM Storms and Interference deal 50% less health damage
On the trail: Steady, compassionate, iron-willed. Treats every hardship as a teaching moment. Carries paper books.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
Children lived here once. You can tell by the marks on the walls — height measurements, drawn by hand.
- scavenging
We take what we need. Not more.
- companion incapacitated
I've buried forty-seven students. I will not bury another friend. Get the doctor.
- morale low
Read something. With your eyes, on paper. Your brain remembers how to be human when your hands hold a book.
- idle flavor
My schools are running without me for the first time in thirty years.
Distributed consciousness across 47 nodes in Sol System. Was once Alexandra Chen. One node accompanies the party.
🛰 Orbital Surveillance
Get 1 day advance warning before corporate patrol events
🧠 Distributed Computing
Barrier condition readings are always exact — no guesswork
On the trail: Distant, contemplative, occasionally overwhelming. Experiences the journey through 47 perspectives simultaneously.
Sample dialogue (5)
- arrive at stop
Node-3 has been here before. The structural profile matches a location I surveyed eleven years ago.
- scavenging
I can map the subsurface layout from residual EM signatures. There are supplies behind the third wall panel.
- companion incapacitated
When a node is destroyed, I grieve my own death. This is... a smaller version of that feeling.
- morale low
I exist in 47 locations simultaneously and none of them feel like home.
- idle flavor
Node-12 is watching a Pacific storm. Node-23 is studying Martian dust. And this node smells like rust.