CHARACTER Cassus Akovin, "The Red Hand"

[Cassus Akovin]

Name: Cassus Akovin
Alias/Handle: The Red Hand
Age: 27
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Birthplace: Kharkiv [Grew up in Brooklyn, NY, NUSA since age 6]
Appearance: At 1.75 meters tall and 80 kg (flesh weight), Cassus Akovin, at first glance, lacks most of the extensive body modifications that one might expect for a punk living in Night City, let alone a Ripperdoc. That is not to say he is entirely without modification, as he has made a specific aesthetic choice as a resident "Soviet" immigrant to have his cybernetic left leg awash with "communist red" plating. Typically, he wears a full-face mask that provides various functions to assist him in selling his persona and Ripperdoc skills, but under the mask, he has a tattoo of a tear going down one cheek. He also typically has several wearable tools, such as a Soviet rendition of the Arasaka Exoglove with ambitious modifications, if not qualitatively reliable.

Background:

Family Ranking: Suburban
Parents: His father, a USSR Army General, was killed by the regime after exposing his scandalous fraternizing affair with Cassus's mother, a military cyberneticist and scientist within his department, along with receipts indicating clandestine lucrative business contracts with American companies with data exfiltrated out of the USSR. His mother fled to NUSA as a refugee with cooperation from Militech operatives in exchange for her research and intimate knowledge of soviet technology operations.
Childhood Environment: His mother was highly protective of him in his earliest years, but as he got older, the demands from Militech grew more extensive. He saw his mother less and less. This left him to his own devices, though supervised by a local Russian who took in his mother after her exfiltration as a surrogate sister to remove suspicions of a woman with a child immigrating alone seemingly without reason. Cassus and "Uncle Crol" would fight constantly, but his exposure to the Ex-Militech Mercenary taught Cassus much about "the real world" on the few occasions he managed to track him down while running out into the city alone. Even as new gangs and crews populated Brooklyn, the Russian Mob remained alive and well, and seemingly at Uncle Crol's disposal. Eventually, however, after one of these exploits, Cassus returned home to find his childhood home desecrated with the remains of his mother. A loose end tied up by Militech when her usefulness had met its end. At that moment, he no longer considered himself a child but a man with a mission, instilling within him a deep-seated rage against the duplicitous and inhuman corporations.

Personality:

Cassus Akovin and "The Red Hand" are almost entirely distinct from each other. To outsiders and customers alike, The Red Hand Ripperdoc is a morbid, though reliable, imposing figure, that seems to take an unusual amount of pleasure in ripping out "boring corporate trash" and replacing it with "exciting soviet robustness." He never shows his face, appears almost entirely unmodified, and habitually uses old soviet idioms and proverbs in conversations that seem out of place or beggar belief in their authenticity. If questioned, he will admit he is Ukrainian, and so his "Soviet" was different from the other "Soviets" but "twice as reliable!"

Whenever comfortable enough with someone he isn't potentially selling to, Cassus allows his Red Hand persona to drop and his near-native Brooklyn sensibilities to bleed through. In truth, almost everything he knows about the Soviets, Russians, and even Ukrainians is from movies, books, tall tales from the mafia, and what few pieces of knowledge his mother let slip during rare, stressful, drunken nights, right alongside "facts" he entirely made up improvised on the spot. In private, Cassus is more laissez-faire about the world, not nearly as severe in his mannerisms, and admits that, no, he doesn't really believe soviet tech is more reliable than modern cyberware. Where the Red Hand's hobbies are buried in technology and bloodwork, Cassus finds his peace in old shows and older books.

The one string of truth that ties both halves of his life together is summed up in three words: corporations must die.

Friends:

• TBD

Enemies:

• TBD

Lifepath / Role:

Medtechie with emphasis on the Techie for Cyberware and gadgets that assist with Cyberware creation, maintenance, and installation. Anesthesia optional.

• Techie (gadget and gear expert)
  • Special Skill: Maker - Expertise in repairing, crafting, and upgrading gear, weapons, and cyberware.
• Medtechie (medical tech, nurse, or doctor)
  • Special Skill: Medical Tech - Expertise in saving lives and, crafting or healing.

Skills:

• Technical Brilliance
• Acting
• Freerunning Parkour
• Kickboxing and Brazilian Jujitsu

Language(s):

• Ukrainian [native but degraded]
• Russian [advanced]
• Italian [proficient]
• Japanese [novice]
• English [native-equivalent]

Cyberware:

• Advanced Cyberleg (Left) HL: -3
  • Prehensile Cyberfoot
  • Hidden Storage Compartments
  • Popup SMG in the kneecap
  • Piston-powered extension for greater reach and sudden upward acceleration
  • Red Plating

Empathy:

5 (Understands people's emotions well enough but is deeply traumatized by corporations to the point he barely recognizes anyone associated with one as a person.)

Humanity:

50-3 = 47

Gear & Style:

The Red Hand is always prepared for wet work, whether replacing cyberware consensually or giving someone a need for cyberware unconsensually. Though he is a Ripperdoc and spends most of his time working extensively with technology, he is not unfamiliar with the need to protect oneself. Thus, he has invested all his life heavily into misdirection and underestimation, modifying his cyberleg to provide him with all manner of surprising dexterity and capability. Not one to rely too heavily on cybernetics, however, he also maintains an active lifestyle with kickboxing for offense, free running parkour for mobility, and Brazilian Jujitsu for ground fighting if he gets caught. Having a third hand in a pinch enables more complex maneuvers for almost all activities. However, he tries to dispel any rumors of this by using a "Soviet" Exoglove with its own red paneling to provide the cover story for his eponymous alias. Only his allies, his most trusted customers, and the few enemies who managed to survive him are aware of the "real" Red Hand.

History:

Before his childhood ended, Cassus had dreams. The city was a sprawling jungle, and it was his to explore. For one reason or another, Cassus desperately wanted to fit in with the street kids who had nothing, and with that nothing, they could only entertain themselves legally by running, leaping, and flipping off the concrete and metallic infrastructure around them. He was not trusted, generally, because he stood out as a kid whose clothes were too clean and his cheeks too full. Still, with persistence and adolescent bravado, Cassus managed to ingratiate himself into this little gang of free runners. It was a regular occurrence that as his mother was dragged away for another clandestine research project with bizarre urgency, he would escape out his window and climb his way across buildings to find his band of brats. The day would usually end after his surrogate uncle would send out "the dogs" to pick him up wherever he wandered off to, the youths scattering at the suggestion of the mafia thugs.

That all ended abruptly one day when his dreams and ambitions were pushed too far across a chasm, and he fell ungracefully through the rebar of an unfinished skyscraper. Cassus was lucky to be carried away alive, but he did so without his mangled left leg. His mother nearly died with panic, discovering her only son laid low under her surrogate brother's supervision. Naturally, he was forever forbidden from leaving the home from then on, and for once, their desires aligned. The fall and the loss of his leg left the adolescent Cassus traumatized and in a state of re-evaluation; seeing the terror in his mother especially convinced him to remain indoors and study more useful matters for his future.

Nonetheless, as the concern over his life was reassured, as an expert cyberneticist, his mother found the time to custom-build his new leg. It was simple and functional at first, but as time passed and she made more time to see him under the pretense of maintaining his leg, it became more personalized and unique to her son. For the first time in years, since the demands of Militech had put a rift between them, mother and son could bond over a shared interest. As she worked on him, he asked questions and learned from her experience and knowledge. He was eventually entrusted with being able to do some of the work himself and practice on some of her less-specialized cybernetics.

Good things don't last forever, and a child who has learned a lesson once has learned nothing at all. Despite the trauma his teenage rebellion caused, despite the restoration of the bond with his only parent, Militechs' demands only grew more aggressive, and old habits and desires resurfaced. One day, while confronting his fear and reliving his past joys with a new foot forward, regaining his confidence with the superb handiwork of mother and son, his return home was anything but victorious. His mother was murdered in her home while he was away, with shell casings littering the hallway that Uncle Crol recognized likely came from Militech. With Cassus numb to the world, Crol did what he did best, securing the people close to him away from direct harm. Shipping him out of Brooklyn with mobsters acting as protection detail, Crol was doing what he thought was best: sending the young man away from where he grew up before he did something stupid and made himself known as a loose end to Militech.

Over time, numbness became rage, but Cassus recognized it was impotent rage. The people were at the mercy of the corporations, their lives made as often as they were ended, and despite his family's affluence, he was not materially any different from those street kids he ran with. He got lucky, and he could live longer, but skilled or not, his life could terminate at the end of a barrel as easily as on a stake of rebar. For years, he ran several jobs with different groups to make ends meet and installed cyberware for various people from place to place. Still, eventually, Cassus needed another fresh start. Opportunity called at Night City...