Cleo Love

Overview

Appearance

Average height, in shape, natural hair.

Background

Started cooking for herself when a biology student. Thrown out of UCLA for abusing the lab facilities as part of a cooking experiment. Now cooks for her livelihood in local indie restaurant 'Patra'. Knows there is more to the world than the textbooks say, and wants to find it out.

Objectives

• Obtain a source of fresh dinosaur products.
• Become a Hero.
  • Learn to fight.
  • Learn to drive.
  • Find a teacher.
    • Tovar is creepy.
    • Antifa are scary.
    • Do the etherites do correspondence courses?
• Get out of debt.
• Free the waifs.
• Travel to the farthest lands and find the rarest ingredients.
  • Save them from extinction.
• Become the world's greatest chef with a fabulous restaurant.

Vital Statistics

Name// Cleo Love

Tradition// Orphan (Etherite)

Concept// Etherite chef.

Image Song// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtF59ti_kAU

Nature// Avant-Garde

Demeanor// Guardian

Essence// Questing

Chantry// Patra

Things to Track

Initiative// 8

Willpower// 1/8

Health Levels// -0 x 1, -1 x 2, -2 x 2, -5 x 1, Incapacitated

Current Damage// 0

Arete// 4

Quintessence// 1/4

Tass// 0

Paradox// 0

Attributes

Strength 3

Dexterity 4 [fine work]

Stamina 4 [inexhaustible]

Perception 4 [chef's sense]

Intelligence 4 [creative]

Wits 4 [multitasking]

Charisma 3

Manipulation 2

Appearance 4 [healthy]

Abilities

TALENTS/

Alertness 3

Athletics 3

Awareness 3

Intuition 3

Streetwise 2

Subterfuge 1

SKILLS/

Business 2

Cooking 4 [innovation]

Drive 1

Etiquette 1

Firearms 2

Leadership 1

Martial Arts 1

Pilot (spacecraft) 1

Research 2

Stealth 2

Technology 3

KNOWLEDGES/

Computer 1

Culture (food) 3

Languages 1 [English, Spanish]

Lore

Nephandi 1

Vampires 1

Media 1

Medicine 1

Pharmacopoeia 1

Science

Biology 3

Biopsychology 2

Chemistry 1

Paraphysics 2

Subdimensions 2

Paradigm

Vitalism - the universe is best understood as a living creature, as is the earth, and humanity.

Metabolism - the essence of life is to transform energy and matter within oneself, to conquer entropy and grow greater step by step.

(http://imgur.com/a/727lW)

Foci and Spheres

Dimension 1

Life 3

Matter 3

Mind 1

Prime 2

Time 1

Rotes

Grocery Sense (Life 1, Matter 1) helps pick out the actually best ingredients rather than the most expensive or best-looking.

Hearty Meat Soup v1 (Life 2) always helps Cleo recover quickly after workouts.

Pepper Spray (Prime 2) uses Cleo's special preparation SuperCayenne to debilitate attackers with agonising yet spicy pain.

Plant Food (Life 2, Prime 2) is Cleo's special formula super-fertiliser that can cause plants to grow almost instantly.

Weird Fridge Hustle (Life 2, Matter 2) is what Cleo calls her escapades in making an at least edible meal out of almost any ingredients, even if the taste is a bit strange.

The Zone (Time 1) is achieved sometimes during stressful busy nights. Cleo knows exactly what to do when to have every piece of the cooking process slot together perfectly.

Backgrounds

Avatar 4

Debt -3

Node 2

Resources 2

Sanctum 2

Social Links

Ringo Laplace is Cleo's former roommate and friend on the biology course. She is a sceptic at heart who finds Cleo's strange beliefs and course-ditching incomprehensible, but still visits frequently and regularly tests food. In her spare time she studies quantitative finance and machine learning. Japanese-Quebecois overseas student.

Jake Ancona is one of Cleo's exes. A philosophy major (in an analytic course, but likes the continentals) who is fascinated with the different ways the world can be understood and enables Cleo's vitalism. A Patra regular. Winds up Ringo when they are around at the same time. White, volcel.

Sarah 'Stardust' Moxie is an activist Cleo met at the gym. An anti-capitalist at the forefront of the local Fight For 15, #noDAPL, and more besides. Bounces between different health fads and doesn't trust food made by 'corporations', needles Cleo about being petty booj. Cleo once had to physically prevent her from getting a 'BLM' tattoo. White, rainbow-haired.

Rafael Cruz (no relation) is one of Cleo's main food suppliers with a good line in obtaining obscure, cheap or otherwise unusual ingredients. He appreciates a good meal, an entrepeneurial attitude and app 4. Mexican-American, middle aged, happily married.

Lupita Robles is a UCLA film student who met Cleo during a psychology experiment. She dreams of making artsy or political concept films but plans to use ruthless audience appeal to accumulate the connections and resources to do so. She is good at tricking people into helping out with her amateur productions; her greatest coup was convincing Ringo to play a doomed biologist in a horror short. Second generation afro-mexican-american, polyglot.

Marcus Brown has variously moved lab supplies, moved kitchen appliances, moved food and removed pests for Cleo in the years she has known him. He was discharged from the army after losing an eye in the Middle East but has not made the details public. Black, disfigured RHS.

He is aware of the supernatural.

Equipment

White Archive: Library 2 (cursed) [A DVD backup of Dr. Granfield White's experiments, contacts and contract negotiations.]

Tome of Roots: Library 4 (Life/Prime, cursed) [A book produced by the malevolent entity under LA of its own flesh, written in runes of no known language that can nontheless be read.]

Edgelord Diary: Oneshot Library 5 (Mathematics/Entropy, cursed) [Diary of an incel who designed an evil student rating system, with interesting remarks about statistical analysis and machine learning.]

Princip Principle: Library 2 (strategy/history/firearms/entropy/forces, cursed) [Manifesto of a Euthanatos cult who seek to destroy the corrupt technocratic world by killing Great Men to precipitate chaos.]

Green Sun Praxis: Describes ancient titans who supposedly created the world. Contains a number of rituals to summon demons.

Dryad Flower: A gift from a spirit of life. Will keep Cleo alive, once.

Patra

A small restaurant by UCLA popular with some students. Has a constantly revolving set of innovative 'specials'. Employs some servers on and off, but cooking and management is the job of the proprietor Cleo. Constantly in debt.

Cleo lives in the rooms above the restaurant. It has a small yard that produces unusually delicious fruit, veg and eggs unusually quickly, and a basement with some of her ongoing experiments, as well as some workout gear and restaurant supplies. On the floor above is a mysterious shut-in girl. Rooftop solar helps pay the power bills.

Node 2: mysterious ingredient tass

Sanctum 2: -1 difficulty on cooking rituals, arcane 2 (kitchen only)

Dog 1: Ruffles

Outfits

One nice dress for parties (not used for more than a year).

One decent suit from when she tried to get hired after dropping out.

One maid outfit from that theme night where she accidentally bought rather than rented.

Kitchen duds covered in stains, but clean.

Futuristic cosplay with a cool helmet. Eyecatching. Works as a focus for Sistine.

Biofibre skinsuit 4 soak, no penalty, can be worn under clothes. Requires a matter 3/life 2 effect to manufacture, requires a life 1 scan to remove -1 dex penalty.

Transport

Public.

Weapons

Punch 3B, diff 7

Kick 4B, diff 8

Frying Pan 4B, diff 8

Kitchen Knife 4L, diff 8

Pepper Spray

9mm Glock

Misc

2 Patra tass (vantablack sapote)

5k in cash and loot

1kg cocaine

1 dog

some chickens

temporal stasis minifridge

Merits and Flaws

Merits

Concentration

Restaurant

Spark of Life

XP

• Cleo Prologue - Vampire Coffee: +5 (5)
  • Lore (Vampires) 1: -3 (2)
• Itzel Recovery: +5 (7)
• Twins Recovery: +5 (12)
• The Aubergines That Leapt Through Time: +7 (19)
  • Science (paraphysics) 1: -3 (16)
• Mr. Hail: +5 (21)
  • Matter 3: -14 (7)
• Oil District: +5 (12)
  • Stealth 1: -3 (9)
• Baptism: +7 (16)
  • Firearms 1: -3+1 (14)
• The Silver Forest: +7 (21)
  • Science (paraphysics) 2: -1 (20)
  • Stealth 2: -2 (18)
  • Subdimensions 1: -3+1 (16)
• Darkness: +6 (22)
  • Pharmacopoeia 1: -3 (19)
  • Martial Arts 1: -3+1 (17)
• Roots of Evil: +5 (22)
• Reefer Madness: +5 (27)
  • Science (biopsychology) 1: -3 (24)
  • Life 3: -16+2 (10)
  • Science (chemistry) 1: -3+1 (8)
• Sewer Talk: +5 (13)
• Problem Walks Into Patra: +5 (18)
  • Drive 1 (15)
• Turns Out Trickster Gods Lie To You: +6 (21)
• Space Truckers: +5 (26)
  • Arete 4: -24 (2)
• Ethics Committee: +5 (7)
• The Flesh Market of Arborea: +5 (12)
  • Dimension 1: -10 (2)
  • Subdimensions 2: -1 (1)
• Blowing The Lid Off: +4 (5)
• Dropping The Lid On: +5 (10)
  • Mind 1: -10 (0)
• The Metric System: +5 (5)
  • Biopsychology 2: -1 (4)
• Princip: +5 (9)
• Picnic: +5 (14)
  • Firearms 2: -2 (12)
  • Lore (Nephandi) 1: -3 (9)
• Badass Swords: +4 (13)
  • Science (Chemistry) 2: -1 (12)

Lessons

• Itzel is a good person and a good priest, but seems unhappy, and will probably need support.
• The universe is more than just life and matter. Cleo will need to understand mental and cosmic metabolism if she's going to save the world and her friends.
• There are people who know, but have been terrified into silence. Probably many more than you'd think.
• The restaurant is vulnerable and obscurity is no longer sufficient security.
• Without your friends you'd be dead.
• Yes, the trickster god will lie to you.
• There's something special about me.
• Some of my work is considered controversial even among Etherites, I had better be ready to defend my turf.
• Some Technos are not evil so much as very very sheltered.
• Some traditionalists collaborate with the enemy. The war is pretty complex.
• There are things besides the outside that Sistine is scared of.
• Itzel may have phenomenal cosmic power hidden inside. Or outside.
• There is collaboration and collegiality across the war fronts at the highest levels, beyond just opportunism. Concerning!