Adelaide "Tachyon Alice" Bostwick

Note: This character is originally created for a Shadowrun game. She may be easily adapted to many cyberpunk or sci-fi settings.

Appearance
Standing roughly nine and a half feet tall, and nearly five feet broad, Tachyon Alice tends to dominate a room in the special way that only a troll can, mostly by taking up all of it. Worse, her preferred clothing, a flaring blue dress, complete with lace petticoats, and blood-stained white apron, in a style centuries out of date, tends to flare out, only enhancing the presence of her 450-plus-change pound frame, which, though ample, is surprisingly effeminate for her sub-species. Fortunately, however, a great deal of surgery has gone into regularizing her face and blunting the very worst of the more monstrous features. With dainty fangs, small, tightly curled horns, and comparatively smooth skin, it can almost be described as attractive even to humans. Two polished steel datajacks can be seen above her ears, worn almost like earrings, though they seem to disappear into her coarse, multi-colored hair.

Inside the Matrix, Tachyon Alice appears as a silver figure wearing the same dress, with a twelve-barreled mini-cannon slung under one arm.

History/Background

The daughter of a wealthy English family, Tachyon Alice was born as Adelaide Bostwick. Despite the recent resurgence of magic into the world, she was born a human, her parents breathing a sigh of relief. The old family tales had apparently been just that, tales. For eleven years, she was able to live the sheltered life of a the child of a ranking corporate officer, never lacking in amenities and it was during this time that her parents chose to try to mold her to the aristocracy that they felt she was born to. Many pounds sterling were spent on charm schools and etiquette lessons, and she learned those lessons well, particularly the power of appearance and politesse. But soon, the change would come.

As an adolescent, her growth spurts were tremendous, her skin roughening, hardening in places, as her body changed, painfully so. Her teeth lengthened to fangs, while horns like those of a ram sprouted from her head. She was a Troll. Ashamed, her parents drove her from her home, disowning her as soon as they could let their fear and shame overcome their guilt. For several months, she would drift from shelter to shelter, eventually falling in with a gang in London. Already over seven feet tall at twelve years of age, it would not take her long at all to learn how to bust heads with the very best of them, the hard lessons of the street, though she would only ever be strong relative to the smaller meta-types.

For several years, she would run with this gang, managing to scrounge enough food to grow tall, her keen mind and quick smile giving her her choice of friends and, from time to time, even the occasional man would brave her bed. It was when she was sixteen that a small group of runners would pay the gang for shelter, and while she found them curious folk, she found herself most interested in the elf that seemed to spend most of his time plugged into a strange silvery box and catatonic. Brief exchanges when he was concentrating on the outside world would let her know that he was a 'decker', a hacker of computers. Fascinated by first the man, then his art, she knew what she was going to do. Shortly there after, she killed a man for her first deck, paid a street doc for the jack implant, and got to work learning.

Over the next few years she would refine her skills, occasionally working for hire, until the heat really got turned on. Through her own abilities, and a little help from the Orkish Underground, she would escape to New York City, where she would start to establish a reputation as a competent combat decker, one of the few deckers brave enough to kill a man just to hack his computer. From her ability with the computer and the basis of her signature costume, she would choose her street name, 'Tachyon Alice.'

Special Equipment
Besides her deck, Tachyon Alice carries little unique equipment. Her chosen weapon is an enormous revolver, chambered in 20 mm cannon rounds, while she carries a massive butcher's cleaver as a side arm.

Roleplaying Notes

Above all, Alice is polite and elegant in her behavior, even in the middle of combat. For being a quarter ton of muscle and armored hide, she is exceptionally charismatic and intelligent, more so than even an average human. She is occasionally vain about her appearance, and while it is difficult to offend her over it, she will go to some lengths to maintain it.

She invests a great deal of time in her hobbies, even to the point where she may endanger her companions should the chance to indulge them may come up. However, her collection of plush teddy bears is both tremendous and valuable, with the original bear of Christopher Rogers being her holy grail. So too, does she indulge in loud, fast, and driving techno music, her preferred method of ear drum breaking. She is not entirely above an occasional rave, though she is better able to resist them than teddy bears.

Possibly disturbingly, Alice enjoys her 'job'. Unlike many other hackers and deckers, she is more than willing to take the direct and physical route if that is the most effective - More than once, asked to disable an electronic lock, she has simply punched or shot the lock out of existence.

From time to time, she may attempt to take a lover. This poor soul is usually orkish or another troll, though the occasional human is brave enough to try. These poor humans tend to get broken.