Saffron

Saffron is a very alluring redhead who usually has a very innocent look about her. The innocent look is nothing but a ruse. When she shows her true self, which is rare, she is cocky and arrogant, but no less beautiful. Saffron knows that he looks and her training drive men wild. In fact. that’s what she relies on when it comes to pulling a job.

Adelei Niska

Were it not for Adelei Niska’s brutal reputation, he might be able to pass for a legitimate businessman from the old country. He is small in stature and bald, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He wears fine suits, usually appears well-mannered, and speaks with a thick accent. The simplicity and elegance of Niska’s appearance lends to the horror of his reputation, though. He maintains his calm demeanor and eloquent speech even when angry, and always keeps his philosophical banter going during long torture sessions. Those who haven’t heard of Niska might not think that they’re dealing with much, but he tends to change people’s minds very quickly.

Gallilei

Positioned smack dab between the Border Worlds and the Core Planets, the moon of Galilei should logically be a center of trade around the ‘Verse. It would be, too, if the Alliance hadn’t found it more useful as a death trap. The history has been wiped from the books, since the winners always determine how things happened. Officially, Galilei is just one of those places where the terraforming didn’t quite take. To those few who know the truth, there is a much darker story to it.

The Registered Companion

There’s an old joke saying that the difference between pornography and art is a government grant. Some folk seem to have taken that saying to heart, and the result is the registered companion.

Companions are recruited by an organization known as The Guild as young as the age of 12. The Guild operates on the Core Worlds and train young ladies and gentlemen in a wide variety of skills, ranging from posture and speaking to history and culture to social activities, such as dancing and fencing. Companions tend to be very well-spoken and graceful, and at times it becomes easy to forget that they are essentially high class prostitutes.

Although some may consider them fancy whores, the role of the companion cannot truly be compared to the prostitutes of Earth That Was. Many of their traditions come from the Japanese geishas and the Italian courtesans of bygone eras, but even those groups did not have the high standing that companions have. Companions can be male or female, and they get to choose their clients from a pool of applicants, be they of the same or opposite gender. They provide a number of services beyond sex, including massages, meals, and advice. They are often paid to attend social events such as balls and parties, where their grace serves them best. In addition to being able to select their clients, companions themselves are regarded very highly in society. They are allowed to have indentured servants of their own and hold a great deal of power on their own in the core worlds. Clients who mistreat a companion will often have troubles with Alliance authorities. Such clients also earn a black mark with the Guild, meaning that no companion will service that person again.

The Reaver

NOTE: The Reaver is an NPC archetype only. It is not intended for player characters.

For the past ten years, Reavers have terrorized travelers in the ‘Verse. They showed up like ghosts from space, with no explanation for their arrival or reason for the crimes they commit. At one time, they seemed to have been normal men, but they have long since crossed the line of humanity. They are not men, and they are not animals. They are monsters. They are Reavers.

Reavers travel in groups, flying around in boats and skiffs that have often been mutilated, repainted, and marked with the blood and corpses of their victims. They can be male or female, although gender boundaries become nonexistant once one becomes a Reaver. Reavers cut up their own faces and mutilate their own bodies. the scars they give themselves are not for ceremonial or religious purposes; they are there because Reavers simply love pain. They attack in raiding parties, although they seem to have no language or form of communication of their own. They don’t just kill, either; they prefer to keep their victims alive as long as possible. Reavers will eat their victims’ flesh, rape them, and tear their skin off, in no particular order. Whatever mind they have left tells them nothing but how to cause pain.