Mercutio Hgarbera

Mercutio Hgarbera

Basic Information
Aliases	N/A
Species	Ferran
Pronouns	Any
Physical Information
Age	Exact age unknown, in the early half of the 100s
Height	5'11
Birthday	June 26th
Unique Features	red eyes, a fused humanoid frame, heavy augments, metal spikes covering the temple, and the chin.
Biographical Information
Homeworld	Singulon
Group Affiliation	Unaffiliated
Status	Alive
Magic/Abilities	Extensive arcane expirence, intermediate medical knowledge, broad general academic knowledge.
Relationships
Kin	Unknown Nomad band
Marital	Single
Out-of-Character Information
Minecraft Username	Albion_Principe
Discord Username	Man Made Enigma

"There's not much to know about me, I am painfully uninteresting" -Mercutio Hgarbera

Mercutio Hgarbera is a man of many contradictions. He is a Ferran who claims to have little care for aesthetics, but anyone can see that the man carefully maintains his frame and seems reluctant to change or modify it. His appearance is an intimidating one, covered in sharp edges and spikes with a fierce stare to match, yet one conversation with the man will typically set most fears of any sort of malice at ease due to his formal, kind nature. He has a deep appreciation for nature and biological life in general, yet simultaneously holds a reverence for the dead or artificial forms of life, as is Ferran custom, along with an almost fanatical need to alter himself to be as far from his biological baseline as possible while also moving. Speaking with a machine-like repetitiveness, he sings the praises of machines, science, and modern medicine, yet chases after the mystic and magical as if his life depended on it. What could this man be searching for?

Appearance

"Tips to look like me? Use too much magic, replace excess flesh, and drink lots of water."

Mercutio stands at 5'11 not including his ubiquitous crown. His frame is made of a dark grey metal with what little of his flesh is visible sharing it's color, this includes the flesh of his mouth, throat, and sclera. She has irises that are usually slits but can dilated to a more normal diameter. Mercutio's face plate is flat and mostly featureless, with the two pieces that make it up allow his beak like mouthparts to sit flush with each other at rest.The surface of her frame hold many signs of it's mechanical nature, sporting bolts and seams.Mercutio is incredibly skinny, seeming almost emaciated by the standards of most species, combine this with the clear signs of her Frame's fusion with her flesh and it givers her a skeletal appearance. Her hands and Feet and in sharpened points, with the whole frame having an overall jagged appearance.

Mercutio can often be seen wearing multiple layers of loose fitting but covering garments, with the most common being lab coats or doctors robes, rarely he can be seen wearing a Sanguard in hot weather.

His stance is proud, with his back straight and the weight placed firmly on the balls of his feet. If he clothing is not blocking the view of his shoes, he can often be seen walking on his toes.

History

Early Life

One day, a lonely child in the Singulon deserts walked into a very dark place. They were drawn there for reasons they could not have deduced, nor could they ever hope to remember. The child couldn’t remember a lot about themselves, such as their parents or their name. This was hardly unusual in Ferran society; it would be hard to go through a single enterprise without finding someone who didn’t know where their life began or who their parents were, but for a child to be wandering the endless seas alone was unusual. The child was drawn to this place, miles away from civilization, by a call they could not describe. The child walked into a cave untouched by sentient hands for years uncounted, and when they returned to this hidden place, they were not the same child that stepped inside. This child had knowledge of things they should never have been able to know, they had a desire to help others far more than they ever did before, and there was something else guiding the course of their actions besides their own desire.

If one were to ask Mercutio about his life before the mission, the Ferran would give several vague statements of having an average childhood, average life, with an average upbringing by Ferran standards. When asked to elaborate, one would be lucky if given any more information than “I was raised by nomads, it was hard but free.” Even when questioned about something so simple as the Kin he was born under, he simply defaults to “They’re all the same, I didn’t bother remembering which.” These sparse answers to utterly mundane questions hardly bothered those who paths he crossed, but should one desire to dig deeper into the unnerving Ferran, they will quickly find that there is very little to find about the man beyond what he willingly gives. As far as basic records will show, and perhaps as far as the universe is concerned, Mercutio appeared one day as a young Ferran, going about her day as if she had always existed, as if her being was just a fact of life.

First Recorded Years

Before arriving on the Atlas, Mercutio was a traveling low-class tinkerer, local wellspring of information, and “medicine man” providing the local community with what little help he could give with their more mundane aches, pains, and Frame repairs. His solutions to problems were often a little unusual. An older Ferran complained of aching joints in their leg; rather than suggest an amputation or painkillers, he would recommend a loosening of the frame and a break from work, followed by an administration of his own special blend of remedies. When he wasn’t making himself materially useful through medical expertise, tinkering, or his own culinary skill, he would often be found answering whatever questions he was asked. He was far from omniscient, and he often wouldn’t have explanations for these answers, yet they typically weren’t wrong despite, seemingly,  having no formal education. He’d inform people on the stars and history, give lectures on mathematics, and would even tutor on literature, all without having access to more than a handful of books. Beyond his knowledge, his arrivals were also a mystery to most people. If asked, most people would simply state that he appeared one day at the edge of town as if crawling out of the desert or appearing from a cave wall, set up shop near the living quarters, helped out a bit around, traded for some food and water, gave some advice, then left once he felt his services were superfluous. People would describe the woman as level-headed, calm, and comforting. She knew what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to, though her typical deadpan tone of voice often showed that she hardly ever cared about how to say it, though it often made her more endearing to those she encountered. People found him hard to dislike, even if they were initially suspicious of him and his arrival. Wherever he went, it wouldn’t be long before he was rubbing shoulders with local leaders, shift heads, elders, and even Local Managers. All of these things combined meant that people often overlooked the many peculiarities of Mercutio Hgarbera, such as his last name, the way his Frame hugged his form so tightly, the strange color of his eyes, or how heavily augmented he was despite his status. People would ignore that whenever Mercutio would appear, a spike of theft related to dead bodies, machinery, and augmentations would often follow not far behind. There were those who were suspicious of him, of course, but as far as anyone could tell, he never acted with even a hint of malice, what little he had he would give freely to anyone who asked, and he shared his knowledge just as freely. He never stayed long, and though many of these communities begged him to stay, he always moved on eventually.

Prior to leaving Singulon for good

Eventually, the woman would find herself in the U.F.S.P. Here, she found that her old tricks bore significantly sweeter fruit. She moved through the social circles of the city with the ease of a fish through water (though at this point in her life, she had never seen a fish, but she intrinsically understood they were good at swimming). Where before she kept the company of Local Managers, rare nomads, and throngs of workers, she soon began to dine at the same tables as the clerks of Regional Managers, renowned scientists, and skilled doctors. While her intrinsic knowledge made her a person of interest among various fledgling scientific groups, part of what made her so popular was how much of a spectacle she was. To the high-class Ferrans, she a mysterious figure with no history and no political connections to speak of, yet she was knowledgeable, intelligent, witty, charismatic, and most importantly for many, she was a capable magician. Furthermore, despite running in such cutthroat, politically minded circles, the man was entirely earnest in his every approach and was seemingly a benevolent entity giving help or advice to all who would simply ask it of him. His popularity rose in these circles, and he became something of a desired subject. It soon began to become a trend amongst the Kins he visited to hold him as a guest for a time, as if it was a sign of wealth or modernity. Within the realm of science, his random knowledge could be trusted to have a basis in actual empirical discoveries or principles, even if he himself had no knowledge of such things. Combine that with his radical theories on many of those same subjects, and it was easy to see why he was so well-liked. In the political sphere, he was highly desired as either a pawn due to his charisma or an advisor for his intelligence. He knew how to get people to like him, and when he set his mind to it he was good at doing so. Finally, the medical world saw him as an oddity to be studied; he was augmented to such a heavy degree that most doctors were shocked he was able to operate as organically as he did, and he seemingly always wanted more. The friendship of so many powerful and influential people came with the privilege of off-world travel, whether accompanying Kin members on business trips or simply wandering the stars. There were a few years Mercutio had spent off-world, exploring the cosmos. During this time, he made allies, friends, and picked up a rather gruesome habit of stalking and killing those corrupt individuals who held positions of power all across the stars. He began this process by making his way into their circles, then befriending them, learning everything he possibly could about them using his charm and wit, before dispatching them and skipping town. There was a fourth group with whom Mercutio spent many hours courting, the occult. Witches, soothsayers, magicians, alchemists, and practitioners of all kinds would soon find their doorsteps darkened by this mysterious man from the desert. From all of these various peoples he learned all he could before departing from their homes.

These circles are where he first learned of the Journey to Locus Atra, and when the thought of joining the expedition first ensnared his mind, he soon found his every waking moment was consumed by thoughts of this journey, of finding this mysterious sphere, of setting foot on this place, and digging deep within its depths to pull from it something he could never truly know. It was as if he was being commanded by something outside himself he couldn’t disobey.

Getting a Ticket

During this time, he began making “friends” with far shadier and for more high-status individuals. His circle was now based on whether or not they could help him get off the sphere. First, he befriended Managers, offering political or economic advice, favors, or what connections he had in exchange for falsifying records of his existence and obscuring what couldn’t be effectively faked. This was relatively easy; whether on purpose or accidental, Ferran record-keeping meant it was more than plausible he had simply never been recorded as existing before. He had an education, though no one would be able to figure out from where, but his position on several research teams meant that he clearly had the knowledge to back up this point. He had visited so many enterprises before he got to where he was that if anyone went looking for him, someone would have remembered him, lending further credence to the idea that his records were just sparse. But even all of this wasn’t enough, he still needed the funds to get a ship to take him there. Mercutio primarily relied on goodwill and favors to get by in his more illustrious circles. When he finally began needing cold, hard cash, he soon found himself back on Singulon in the court of Directors or Regional Managers. These benefactors used his knowledge against political enemies while boosting their own reputation. It was also this time that Mercutio realized just how satisfying it felt to kill the High Class; during this period, no task was too dirty, no wet-work too gruesome, and no one too innocent to stop him from achieving his goals. It wasn’t long before political opponents or Kin rivals started popping up dead under mysterious circumstances. A Local Manager was found dead of some kind of poisoning. A group of L.P.O.s revealed to have been half consumed by the desert sands, loyal clerks discovered butchered in a hidden alley as if savaged by some sort of animal. If he were seriously pressed on how much it cost him to get where he was today, Mercutio would simply respond with an all too telling turn of phrase.

“Enough.”

All that mattered to Mercutio was that the deeds had been done and his benefactor had fulfilled their end of the bargain. It wasn’t long before Mercutio was floating through space, but he wasn’t home free just yet. It was still some time before he wormed his way onto the mission; he spent years performing his old tricks with the rich and powerful, eventually gathering enough favours to get him a position on the team.

Personality

"Love me or hate me, you can't argue with the court of public opinion, and the court loves me."

Mercutio generally seems to oscillate between four settings when it comes to his personality, though each is a part of him, they are tailored to who he plans on interacting with, only those closest to him are allowed view of the whole picture.

The first version one might see of Mercutio is a generally helpful, kind, if a little morbid. He's formal, friendly, and always willing lend a hand, he's the kind of person to go out of his way to help a stranger just because he saw them in need. He's smart sure, but never condescending, his advice may not have been asked for, but it's certainly welcome. He's personable, but never overbearing in his approach, the type to make friends wherever he goes without much issue. He is a fan of food, fun, and drink, taking great pleasure in bringing each to the people around him. Always one to joke and laugh, it hard not to smile when this one is about. This is the persona most commonly seen by his peers, those in need, and fellow members of the working class.

The second is far less talkative and not nearly as open. This one is sauve, quick witted, and eager to please, a sharper mind combined with a sharper tongue gives Mercutio an air of charisma that's hard to resist. He a bit of a showboater, always eager to show off his knowledge, talents, and various skills. He never runs out of tricks to perform or stories to tell, and to top it all off he's quite the charmer. Many are those who have found themselves swept up in the flirts and praises of this persona, even more numerous are those who find him hard to hate. But don't let her demeanor fool you, she's a savant, capable in numerous fields and adept at the games of politicians and business folk. She's the ideal servant, guest, and advisor all in one, making her the favorite and fast friend of any power players in power, politicians, merchants, and anyone who needs someone like that in their corner. She's a connoisseur of all of the finer things in life, elaborate dress, beautiful locations, expensive food, and even more expensive company. This is the personality used to approach vicitims.

The third is a far cry from both of the first two, cold and calculating, disciplined beyond reproach. While the first two were approachable or friendly, this one is an utter ice king, one glare enough to cow all but the most confident of folk. This unassailable persona is accompanied by far the most fearsome intelligence. A master of the Arcane and a savant in the sciences, they are an academic powerhouse, quick to document and even quicker to absorb information. There is no levity with this one, only the task at hand, then the next task after that. This one is known to scientists, scholars, and other thaumaturges as well as victims in their final moments.

The final is a trickster, more akin to something out of a storybook. He speaks in archaic turns of phrase, appears ominously, and disappears often without a trace. This one can often be seen appearing before individuals out of the blue, offering cryptic advise, before leaving just as suddenly as he arrived. This one is hardly ever seen and very rarely by the same person twice.

Likes

• The working class
• Magic
• Learning
• Laughter
• Seeing other people happy
• Family
• Friends
• Sharing
• Food and drinks
• Augmenting herself
• Lerinov

Dislikes

• their body
• People who abuse their power
• The cruel
• The stupid
• The incompetent
• The stubborn
• Saddists
• Economic hardships
• The rich
• Kins
• Changeling

Health Difficulties

Due to extended periods of no maintenance, heavy use of magic, and general poor quality of original materials, the bottom most layer of Mercutio's frame has entirely fused itself with his top most layer of flesh. This severely decreases his quality of life as inhibits things like his ability to move, breath, grow, and completely shuts down his ability to swap frames. This doesn't touch on the potential health difficulties that come with not being able to remove one's frame such as an inability to adapt to new environments or climates. Mercutio has taken extensive measures to work around this limitation, replacing parts and sections of her frame to ease this burden, as well as augmenting their biology to more easily exist in day to day life with these issues.

Despite the discomfort and occasional pain caused by her unfortunate condition, Mercutio remains cavalier about not only potentially finding a cure for herself, but for all those who might suffer the same fate in the future.

Relationships

Euna Caisa

"She is nothing if not competent."

Mercutio Met Euna briefly during the latter's days in corporate espionage, helping her to uncover the shady underbelly of Ferran society to help expose the suffering to off-worlders. The exchange the two had was rather strange, and he departed without much fanfare. After reuniting on Locus Astra, Mercutio very quickly found herself as the Mayor's assistant, handling the more physical aspect of the job. A serious conversation, based on the awkwardness that permeated the two's interactions, had, after a quick talk, the two had become more amicable. Mercutio has even managed to convince Euna to place more of the work on his shoulders. More recent conversations have both made the two closer on a more personal level, as well as souring their relationship somewhat. The debacle with the Check Mates resulting in Mercutio ultimately taking the fall for an order Euna had mistakenly given him. He still wishes to befriend her, but that has been put on slight pause for the moment. Mercutio sees Euna as a level-headed, driven individual; she's intelligent and skilled well beyond her years, but needs to pace herself and her workload.

Maya Sherazi

"She needs more time to herself, and perhaps more alcohol."

The pair encountered each other during the Wayfarer Guild's humanitarian visit to Ferran territory. Local governments had stopped Sherazi's group from doing any real work and Mercutio took it upon himself to lead them to places that really needed the help. Using the group as a cover, he also took the time to help relieve local leadership of the worst bad apples amongst their number. After landing, the two reunited; though they speak sparingly, they are still amicable with a mutual respect for each other's professionalism. Mercutio thinks she's one of the greatest people he's ever met; her kindness and genuine desire to help have continued to impress him.

Lerinov

"An old friend and a great partner, the times we've shared together have been blissful."

During the course of Mercutio's travels, Lerinov and he had encountered each other due to a happy accident. After an honest conversation, the two had come to the conclusion they could collaborate on both professional and non-professional fronts. The two became associates and would encounter each other a select few times further. The two's friendship is rekindled after the initial landing; they often fall into the same patterns as before the landing, though Mercutio now has to be mindful of the other Perils as well as Lerinov's goons. Mercutio has a deep, mutual respect for Lerinov, greeting the Canari jovially and eagerly allowing him access to whatever he might need or want from Mercutio's personal stores.

Sinlaya

"Please don't say that name."

An old Sonyx friend from before his Locus Astra days. Mercutio and Sinlaya had first met while the latter was still within the circus she had grown up in. Sinlaya had spotted Mercutio in the crowd due to his strange appearance, and after the show they had a chance to talk. They quickly found themselves to be kindred spirits, and Mercutio made the promise of connecting her with a friend who would allow the scientifically gifted performer to finally get a chance to pursue her passions. The two spent years traveling together, an impromptu detour taken as Mercutio taught Sinlaya his skills in the art of dispatching the powerful, though over time a rift would begin to form between the two due to a difference in methods. Eventually, after many fights and tears, they would part ways. Mercutio still feels sad about the situation, as she was perhaps one of the few people he could say he had loved in decades at that point.

Ae'thir

Perhaps the most unique case of all of Mercutio's associates, Ae'thir is reliable, knowledgeable, dutiful, and incredibly resourceful. This is about as much as Mercutio knows about Ae'thir on a personal level, as despite the fact that the two frequently work together, their knowledge and workstations being closely intertwined, he doesn't really know much about Ae'thir as a person. He is aware of the other's child, though they treat them with respectful distance for the most part.

Roxanne Oakwyrm

"An interesting puzzle, I'd like to see how they develop despite everything. They are person who interests me greatly, but for now I will do what I can to help them."

Mercutio finds Rox to be extremely fascinating. What he knows about them leads him to believe that they were a person of quite high standing in a well established company known as UNITE though when they had initially conversed about the topic he had played entirely dumb to any knowledge of the company. Due to knowledge given to her by Jelly, he has reason to believe that Rox has done some rather unsanctioned things in their past, but Rox's own brief testimony about their time in the company as well as the passion that arrises when it it brought up leads Mercutio to believe that Rox regrets their time there. Furthermore their actions on Locus Astra involving both Orbit as well as Fig has shown a degree of empathy, responsibility, and care that many other Pathfinders lack, despite the potential dark cloud that hangs over their past Mercutio views Rox highly.

Jelly

"A strange case, but I will do my best to protect them."

Mercutio is incredibly fond of Jelly, appreciating her honest approach, earnest interest in learning, and high degree of competency despite her ignorance to many facets of life. He wants to help her know more and remember her past, but also would prefer to simply help her move past it and live a life she can enjoy. She has been monumentally helpful to him and he feels a responsibility to care for and shield her from what she ca regarding the HSC and her previous captors.

Arden Steele

"For as capable as the kid is, he still shouldn't be here."

Mercutio has a great deal of respect for the hive mind. Though he doesn't know Arden, personally that well, being associated with sherazi is enough to put them in his good graces.