Snap's concept, background, and physical description:
Alias: Snap
Concept: Snap has an anger problem. He is well aware of this fact and has gone to great lengths to learn to control himself and learn more self-discipline. He's tried psychotherapy, philosophically-oriented martial arts, hell, even yoga. He's managed to learn how to hold on to his temper a bit longer. But under stress he eventually, well... snaps. In the shadows such a lack of self-control is a liability. Yes, with all his practice and training he can get through a shadowrun that calls for discretion... if everything goes reasonably well. But if (when) the shit hits the fan, Snap reveals his total lack of regard for the concept of 'proportional response'.
The life expectancy of a shadowrunner with such a problem would normally be extremely short, except for one thing... Snap is very, very competent. He's surprisingly intelligent, even when he loses control (his is the cold, implacable type of rage) and will ruthlessly exploit any tactical advantage he can get. He's got a technology fetish to rival any nerdy scientist, which becomes exceedingly dangerous when combined with his MacGyver-like instincts. His strongest edge over the opposition, however, stems from his primary weakness: no one is as prepared as Snap for the sudden transition from peace to violence.
He's successfully fought his way through "impossible" odds enough times that he's got one hell of a rep. Unfortunately that mostly just makes shadowrunning teams stay well away from him. And so Snap, despite his competence, often has a hard time making ends meet. The jobs that call for his particular capabilities are few and far between, giving him little choice but to take the hardest, riskiest work.
Background: Snap's anger problems have a very good cause--he's the end-product of the oldest type of genetic manipulation known to man: selective breeding. Soon after goblinization began it occurred to several less-than reputable scientists that Orc's short maturity and gestation times combined with large 'litters' meant that selective breeding of metahumans was now feasible over the course of decades, rather than centuries. And so, financed by a western Pakistan, the scientists set out to breed super soldiers, subjecting the captives to brutal conditions and then selecting for reproduction those candidates that demonstrated the most cunning and aggression.
Born in 2053 Snap was one of the first (and only) cadre of "graduates" from the Accelerated Metahuman Development program. Ruthlessly trained and then carved up and augmented with cyberware stolen from the dead soldiers of western militaries, they were to serve as the regime's secret weapon. Unfortunately for the program's sponsors, by this time developments in the field of direct genetic manipulation made their decades of work obsolete. Who wants to deal with the psychological problems of traumatized, half-crazed, inbred Orks when you can get a more reliable, more effective, result in a laboratory? And so after several "incidents" involving these unstable soldiers the project was to be forcibly shut down and the subjects liquidated—with predictably disastrous results when the subjects strongly objected to their termination.
Since escaping the AMD program Snap has remained on the move, slowly learning the skills necessary to function on the edge of society. Despite being a member of the Shadow community for five years, he has never officially been part of a team, most likely due to both his ill-tempered nature and his disturbing appearance. Instead he drifts from job to job, usually somewhat desperate to find employers who will hire him.
His penchant for sudden, intense violence makes him excel at diversions and distractions. This talent attracted the attention of the paramilitary arm of the Rinelle te'Kesrae rebellion in Tir Tairngire. Employed as a eminently-disposable asset, Snap came to high level attention after repeatedly surviving the suicide missions for which he was hired. Eventually his involvement with the rebellion came to a head in 2071 when he covered the escape of several cornered leaders of the Rinelle by single-handedly engaging the approaching Tir Ghost teams in a running battle through the streets of Portland. Snap caused so much collateral damage that the Tir forces believed they were chasing their targets rather than a lone gunman, allowing the rebellion leaders to slip away without notice.
Snap barely survived this ordeal, eventually breaking contact with the Tir pursuit only to collapse, barely alive, in a safehouse. Rinelle forces smuggled him to California for treatment: recovery took almost a year of secret hospitalization, physical therapy, and repair of his implants. Tir Internal Security continues to look for Snap, but the resources devoted to the manhunt have died down considerably.
Finally recovered, Snap finds himself in a bad place. He was in a coma for months, and much of the support structure he built for himself languished: safehouse leases expired, online data backup accounts were terminated for nonpayment, and contacts have grown distant. All but a handful of his drones are gone, smashed on the streets of Portland. Worse, his custom high-end internal commlink was destroyed beyond repair and he can't afford to buy the parts to build a new one, let alone replace the valuable programs. Frustratingly, his notoriety from the Portland incident makes employers wary about hiring him, and he's almost burned through his meager savings.
On the plus side, due to his sacrifice Snap has become something of a legend in the Elven underground. Snap's too hot to use in the Tir, but his contacts within the movement are trying to help set him up with work. Heck, he's so well-regarded that he could probably rely on them to support him, at least for awhile, but it would never occur to him to ask.
Physical Description: Inbreeding and crude genetic manipulation has left an indelible mark on Snap's visage. In particular, like many of the inbred, he suffers from Mandibular Condylar Hypoplasia, characterized by marked asymmetry of the face. His disfiguration is accompanied by an almost palpable aura of menace, a trait eagerly selected for by the researchers in the AMD program. Snap shares the slight greenish skin tone common in Hobgoblins along with the characteristic slight build and shorter stature compared to baseline Orks.
