THE NIGHT CREW
(FOR GM EYES ONLY)

The Night crew formed when Okira Munitiro hired Jose Mendez and Jason Ashwynd as muscle.  In the beginning their jobs were strictly acquiring and moving stolen electronics and anything else they could get their hands on, but they soon came under contract to a heavier fixer out of Chinatown named Chin Shen.  Things moved smoothly for a while until they took a job for Chin that involved stealing a Biotechnica shipment from a truck leaving las vegas.  The job was successful, but was perhaps more than they bargained for as Chin disappeared and Jose found the police waiting for him at his door.  After a harrowing escape, the crew took to the streets, trying to find Chin.

During this period the Crew discovered the secret behind the upcoming Carnival through the use of a netrunner.  The team, now desperate for cash, came upon an idea.  They would move now, find some of the highest level bounties and take them out before they were aware of the danger, and keep the bodies frozen until Carnival, then turn them in for the reward.  They carried out their plan and kept the van with the bodies in it in a warehouse owned by Chin.  The plan was working well until Biotechnica found the van.  When the crew showed up to get the bodies, the police were waiting for them.  Again, by sheer luck and desperation, the crew managed to escape, with the bodies.  Jason was wounded however, and was taken to a trusted ripper.  Okira and Jose moved straight for the combat zone, which was now inescapable during Carnival.  They hid out for a night waiting for the bodies to thaw, then turned them in the next day, again hiding out for the rest of the week, holed up in a burned out house.  Around the 4th day, Jose went out to scout for food and water, it was at this time that the infamous "Maelstrom Shootout" occurred.  He was pinned down but managed to fight off a large group of Maelstrom who were scouring the 'Zone in a bus for bounty hunters.  He was supported ably by Okira's sniper fire, and from Jason who was watching it l ive on television from his recovery bed.  While he survived, Jose was badly wounded, near death.  Okira managed to retrieve him, but until carnival was over their was very little he could do. 

Luckily Carnival ended early and Okira was able to smuggle them out by paying a corpse retrieval truck driver to let them hide with the bodies. 

During Jose and Jason's recuperation Okira discovered the name of the man responsible for the Biotechnica Department that was hunting them.  This led them to the Revelation that the package they stole was from a closed top secret research facility in Nevada.  The project going on here was headed by James Laterne, the man responsible for the death of Jose's parents.

It was also during this time that Jose gave his famous television interview to Gen Lei-Yool of Net-54.  Immediately after the interview he had their trusted ripperdoc perform cosmetic surgery on his face, and began a blog detailing the exploits of The Night Crew.  He even hired the Crews netrunner contact to create multiple mirrors for the blog, who went even further as to farm it out to his friends, making it nearly impossible to shut the blog down.

 Upon their recovery, the crew traveled to Nevada, and found the facility.  The site was built inside what appeared to be an abandoned missile silo in the most irradiated part of the Nevada Test range.  It appeared to have not been used for years, but they soon discovered this was a purposeful cosmetic mask, and the site had only been abandoned for a few months.  During their search of the facility, they found Elsie and enough cutting edge technology to make them a fortune.  There was very little else left of any use to anyone, but they did manage to find enough information on a computer accidentally left behind to discover the site was the home of a genetic research project known as E.L.S.I.E. (Engineered Life System Intelligence Enhanced), for which they named the girl after.  The similarities between this project and the one Jose's father was working on were staggering, and in fact this project was found to be Phase 2 of the former.  They also discovered, nearly to their deaths, that the site was guarded by 6 Giger Full conversions.  The resulting conflict left all the crew wounded, and again Jose was close to death, his right leg and arm had been destroyed and it was only due to the facility having a fully stocked trauma unit that he survived at all.  They escaped, somehow managing to kill all but on of the Gigers.



Fortunately for Jose, the technology they escaped with allowed them to not only afford a Gemini full conversion body, it allowed them to travel to Europe for the procedure and therapy that followed.  Of course this depleted nearly all their funds, so upon their return once again they set out in search of work.

Desperate for money, and still hiding from Biotechnica, the Crew hired on with a man known only as "The Russian", a notorious loan shark and drug dealer out of Little Odessa.  To date they have pulled one job for him, the slash and burn of a property owned by a man late on his payments.  But they are always on call with him, and The Russian does not forgive mistakes.  His reputation for merciless retribution is the stuff of urban nightmare.

their netrunner friend was able to find the location of Chin, he was hiding out in Old Los Angeles, waiting for smugglers to get him to Vietnam where he could safely disappear.  The crew went to the ruined and inundated city, and confronted him.  Chin was grateful they were alive, and told them he was hired to get the package by an old friend named Doctor Francis Young, a former scientist for Biotechnica who had left after discovering a terrible secret.  Chin told them they might be able to contact Young through an associate, a fixer from New York who had recently come to Night City named Elliot Weir.

They got in touch with Wier, who informed them that Young would meet with them only if they successfully extracted his daughter from a Biotechnica Subsidiary called Norcross in New York and bring her safely back to Night City.  The crew agreed, and is at the moment attempting to do just that.


Name: Jose Mendez
(AKA: Thomas Winston, Chico Sanchez, Sancho Panza, The Gunslinger)
Role: Solo
AGE: 25
GEMINI BODY WITH THE FOLLOWING STATS
Int: 10 REF: 10/16 TECH: 7 COOL: 8
ATTR: 6/10  LUCK:5 MA: 7/15 BOD: 8/12  EMP: 10/4
CHARACTER POINTS: 160
Jose started life at a disadvantage.  His father was killed when he was 13, and his mother seemed to live in a constant state of fear.  Finally, not long after he graduated high school, without apparent rhyme or reason, she took her son from their San Francisco appartment and fled, heading south, telling the boy they were going to live with her family in Gaudalupe Mexico.  They got as far as Night City, they got a hotel room, and after Jose went to sleep, she snuck out of the hotel and was never seen or heard from again.  While out looking for her, he came back to the hotel just in time to see men bearing the Biotechnica Logo searching their room.  Jose confronted them, and they tried to apprehend him, but luck was with him and he managed to escape.  From then on he lived under the Radar. 

Life alone on the streets of Night City is not a pleasant thing, and Jose often found himself having to fight just for a dry place to sleep.  He found he was good at it, more to the point, he found he liked it, Violence suited him.  He started hiring himself out as muscle, quickly gaining a reputation on the back streets for being small but fierce, and almost merciless.  It was hiring himself out like this that led him to meet Okira Munitiro, a small time fixer looking for protection. 

Since meeting Okira and Jason, Jose has discovered it was his parents employers, Biotechnica, that killed his parents.  He had been suffering from ever more frequent and ever more painful migraines.  After getting x-rayed, it was discovered their was a cyst on the back of his skull that was causing them.  He had it removed, only to discover the cyst was really a microdisc wrapped in a protective casing which had started growing a calcium deposit.  The disc contained a letter from his mother which revealed to him the circumstances behind his parents death.  His mother had implanted the disc while he was sleeping, knowing that it would eventually lead to headaches which would reveal the disc to him.  More importantly, it reveal His father was a genetic engineer, working for Biotchnica on a top secret project known as G.A.B.E.L., which stood for Genetically Altered, Biologically Engineered Life.  That he himself was a product of this Project, and that he had a lost brother.  It was his research into this that allowed them to find the information that would lead them to discover Elsie.  And it was that misadventure that led to his being damaged and undergoing full conversion body replacement. 

Heavy therapy in Switzerland allowed Him to keep most of his sanity, but Jose is cold, and moves straight for the resolution in all situations,  He lacks patience, and since his mothers death he has become withdrawn and callous.  People mean little to him, and the only ones he has ever shown any real loyalty or affection for are his companions.


Name: Jason Ashwynd
(AKA: The Mad Bomber)
Role: Solo
AGE: 26
Int: 8 REF: 10 TECH: 9 COOL: 9
ATTR: 4  LUCK: 10 MA: 9 BOD: 10  EMP: 9/8
CHARACTER POINTS: 156
Jason's parents were Japanese street gang members who fled japan to escape legal prosecution.  Upon arrival they sold Jason to a militech academy.  Jason spent his entire childhood being groomed as a corporate soldier.  At the age of 18, after getting in countless bouts with authority at the academy, he was "encouraged" to enlist in the military, with the promise that after a successful tour of duty Militech would provide him with a high paying career.

He coasted through basic, but discovered he had an affinity for explosives, and was soon placed in an E.O.D. unit.  But after a lifetime of taking orders he became fed up with Military discipline.  He began selling explosives to civilians off-base.  The money was good, but he was soon discovered.  After 6 months in Leavenworth (the evidence against him was sketchy, and he was able to plea his sentence down), he was released.

Militech was not pleased, they had invested years, and thousands of dollars, into Jason, and his dishonorable discharge was a direct slap in the face to his corporate handler.  Less than a week out of prison Jason was paid a visit by the handler.  Accompanied by two Militech Solos, the handler  beat Jason to pulp and gave him an ultimatum, return to militech and sign a lifetime contract or be found dead in an alley in the morning.  Jason agreed, but faked a coughing fit to get to the bathroom.  In the bathroom, Jason created a pipe bomb from the chemicals under the sink and the toilet paper holder in under 2 minutes.  He opened the door, throwing the hastily made pipe bomb into the room.  The blast killed both of the solos and severely maimed the Handler.  Jason escaped and fled to Night City, on the run from both the law, and Militech.  He changed his last name from Muratoki to Ashwynd and began hiring himself out as an explosives expert and bodyguard, which eventually led him to Okira and Jose.

Jason is quiet and reserved, his one passion in life being explosives and anything that goes bang.  Like Jose, he hates authority and hates taking orders.  He is also constantly watching over his shoulder for Militech.



Name: Okira Munitiro
(AKA: The Night City Strangler)
Role: Fixer
AGE: 31
S.I.N.: 5215-286-71345
Int: 9 REF: 10/9 TECH: 5 COOL: 10
ATTR: 8  LUCK: 3 MA: 5 BOD: 6/7  EMP: 10
CHARACTER POINTS: 155
Okira is the odd one of the bunch, in that he is not an orphan, both his parents are alive and well.  Nor was his childhood anything short of normal.  He grew up in the New Las Angeles Arcology, safe and protected.  He excelled in school until he got to college, where stress and lack of familial support brought on painful ulcers that plague him in high stress situations to this day.  The ulcers got so bad in college that he dropped out, and decided to travel the country instead.

He spent a few years traveling with the Gypsy Hearts, and they welcomed him into their family.  The life suited him for a while, and he began making money where he could selling drugs and tech and the various Nomad Markets he visited.  But it wasn't long before Jason began to miss the life of the big city.  The family aspect of nomad life was appealing, but it was also boring.  He said his farewells and left the group the next time they Hit the Night City market.

He went back to New L.A., and tried going back to college, but when his grades started to slip he began selling drugs and stolen electronics he would receive from his contacts in the nomad community.  One of his clients he discovered, almost too late, was an undercover cop named Harris.  Okira set Harris up on a bad deal, then fled to Night City, never looking back.  In Night City he became a fence and a drug dealer, but soon realized he needed more than a flashy smile to protect him and sought out bodyguards.  That was how he met Jose and Jason.

Okira is by far the most laid back and amiable of the crew, in fact before he met them he had never personally committed an act of violence in his life.  Their continued influence has led Okira to be nearly as adept at violence as his companions.  While still laid back, he is now prone to lose his temper quickly, and after witnessing him Strangle opponents to death on two separate occasions Jose and Jason dubbed him "The Strangler".  Okira and Elsie have formed a strong connection, and he treats her as if she were his own daughter, or little sister.


Name: Elsie
Role: Netrunner/Solo/Tech
AGE: unkown, appears to be 12
Int: 12 REF: 12 TECH: 8 COOL: 6
ATTR: 7  LUCK: 3 MA: 6 BOD: 4  EMP: 10
CHARACTER POINTS: 99
Elsie was genetically engineered as part of a top secret Genetics Research Project run by Biotechnica.  When the project was scrapped Elsie and the other subjects were to be destroyed, and the facility (hidden inside an abandoned missile silo in Nevada) shut down.  It was dumb luck that allowed her to escape, when two researchers hid her incubation pod in a food storage room in the facility.  Unfortunately, they were killed when they tried to return to retrieve her.  When the facility was powered down, Elsie's pod opened, and she found herself awake and alone.  Her only times of awareness preceding had been with the researchers who taught her to walk and tested her cognitive and physical aptitude.   She was barely able to survive.  She remained hidden, watching from air vents the Giger Borgs that had been left to guard the facility.

Uncannily when the Crew found her, she had already learned how to run, and was adept at evading detection.  She had been following them for an hour before she made a mistake and stepped on glass from a lightbulb they had shattered.  The crew immediately took her in, and have been caring for her ever since.

Elsie's intelligence and reflexes are super human, and she learns at an inconceivable rate.  She was speaking and understanding English in a little over a week, and has displayed the ability to mimic any action she sees performed perfectly.  The crew has allowed her access to the latest VR learning programs confiscated from the facility, and after 3 months with the night crew she is already becoming a skilled netrunner.  Some of the programs she has interfaced with were military training programs, which have proven to be somewhat disconcerting for the crew, but they can't keep from information, as she is insatiable about learning.

Elsie has accumulated the knowledge of a 15 year old girl, but emotionally she has had less than a years worth of life experience.  In many ways this has proved dangerous, and even disastrous.  Her personality is that of a precocious child, and she speaks in broken English, using the minimum of words necessary to convey a message.  Her demeaner is ever changing, one moment she is chasing butterflys, dancing around the room, or using ketchup to fingerpaint on the wall, the next she is taking apart Okiras laptop, killing a bird, or loading a gun.

Elsie is still a mystery, and her abilities and capabilities are still unknown and yet to be revealed. 

While originally Jason and Jose were employed by Okira, they are now equal partners in every thing, and Elsie is beginning to enjoy this privilege as well.


Written By Deric Bernier, Characters created by Deric Bernier, James Bernier, Cameron Jacobs, and Jeff Gray.  Images by Deric Bernier.