  Niko19 - they/them - Goblin - Masc-attracted Clearance Level 1 - Engineering Intern #44289 - Sanctuary City 
△ intelligent, problem solving, loyal, energetic ▷ witty, snarky, very quiet or very loud, opinionated ▽ cowardly, introverted, love-seeking, horrible taste in people About Niko's persona varies widely on how you're seeing them. If you were to run into them on the Grid, they are outgoing, confident, and the life of the digital party. They know what they can do and they're not afraid to back it up with their skill, and they feel comfortable presenting in virtual cyberspace behind their pair of avatars (which look nothing like them). In meatspace, things are a bit different. They are skittish and quirky, and an intense coward. Once they warm up to someone, some of their true personality comes through - snark, confidence, and excited energy in anything they're doing. They desparately want to connect with others, to the point that they are easily manipulated by both kindness and fear. In shorthand, Niko embodies the "Playful Hacker" trope. Niko is a hardcore introvert that is a bit slow to trust new people. Despite this, they do have a mouth on them that tends to get them in trouble - with possible friends and foes alike. They have absolutely no experience romantically, and very minor experience with friendships. If they were to get close to people, they would be a ride-or-die. Typical Appearance 4 feet - 45 pounds - orange eyes - red hair The goblin stands at 4 feet tall, fully grown for their species. They have purple skin and poofy, barely tame-able magenta hair. They prefer to dress in a mix of cyber/streetwear and comfy aesthetics. They've very obviously augmented their body and they don't try to hide it. Their orange eyes contain triangular pupils for constant Augmented Reality (AR) overlay. Two black and green horns peek from their hair for a better Grid connection, no matter the location. A stumpy mechanical tail acts as a large hard drive. Finally, both of their legs have been amputated at the knee and replaced with cybernetic, digitrade limbs. The tech across their body is by no means high tier - it's whatever they could afford or scrounge up in their back alley lifestyle. Gear & Extras Niko's body is cybernetically enhanced in a multitude of ways. Robotic legs that don't do anything but look cool. A tail that acts as a hard drive. Horns that allow Niko to access local internet/gridspace/etc. Cybernetic eyes that allow for recording, instant Net searching, color matching, looking up usernames… you name it. Brain implants that allow Niko to see AR overlays in real time, as well as do minor hacks remotely without the use of a device. They will also tinker with and create small robots if given the time and supplies. It's not uncommon to see them with a bot dedicated to making ramen, casting holographs of their digital crushes, or doing minor damage.
Original World - Original Character
◁ [ MOOD BOARD - PLAYLIST - PLOTTER ▷ Art Credit: lambofdawn |
 ▲ Cybernetically Enhanced Niko's cybernetic enhancements (detailed above) allow them to interact with anything technological with just a thought. They are able to access things like internet and radio waves with ease, as well as gain instant, basic level information on most things (who manufactured this couch, what hexcode the paint color is, what your username online is). ▲ Expert Hacker Niko used to complete hacks for money in Sanctuary City. They are very good at getting in and out without being detected except for calling cards that they leave. They are able to complete quick hacks in real time that can damage or incapacitate others with any amount of cybernetics in them. ▲ Bot Creator Niko loves tinkering and creating little robots. While they're not at the level of creating full scale automotons or artificial intelligence, they are able to make small robots with specific tasks or goals in mind. ▼ Irredemable Coward Niko desperately fears and protects their own life. Even if the situation is a split between protecting new friends or surviving, they will be gone with a puff of smoke. They would much rather attack from very, very far away. ▼ Socially Inept Niko was bullied and discriminated against endlessly growing up. Escaping into the digital space did no favors for their ability to associate with others. While they're capable of doing it with ease in digital spaces, they struggle with face to face interactions. While they will eventually warm up, they have issues with being blunt and childish in their conversations. ▼ Tiny Frame Very puntable, very fragile. Absolutely unable to throw a punch. A strong breeze would get them down to 1 Hit Point. History Content Warnings: Fictional Racism/Non-explicit self-harm disguised as body modification Niko was born the 12th out of 14 children to Berekx (Dad) and Meesron (Mom) of the Gritgrash clan. Goblins have a knack for reproducing as many kids as they can and often - how else would one of the weakest species in the Kronos be able to continue on? Besides, if they did end up surviving they turned out to be good additions to any given clan. Niko was always an… odd child. They weren’t ever a crier as a baby, and spent most of their time in their formative years oggling at things and trying to take them apart. Niko’s parents tried to raise them the same way they did their other 12 children, with the same amount of Goblinic chaos and lack of schooling. Niko learned how to speak and write Goblin, but had to teach themselves how to write Common. Early on, Niko could be found taking apart the family fridge, their older sibling’s weapons, and bits of scrap that their father would bring home. It was endlessly frustrating to the family, who didn’t quite know how to deal with the behavior. Niko was teased and bullied often by the older siblings in the home who would pull on their ears and mock them for pretending to be “human”. Berekx plied his trade as a scrapper in the lower Stiffs. He would spend his day scrounging out of garbage cans and back alleys for things that would sell well. Once Niko was old enough to walk and take orders, they started joining their dad on his work circuit (their parent’s attempt at trying to make a “proper Goblin” out of Niko). It was on these runs that Niko would start pocketing away old tech that they could tease apart in secret. They constantly were seeking knowledge, and would pilfer anything that could give them more. By age 7 (teenagerdom for Goblins), they were starting to build rudimentary gadgets of their own. It was around this time that they were first introduced to the Grid. An old, five generations out of date visor set opened their eyes to the AR overlay that the rest of the world could see. The ability to search for anything at the slightest eye twitch, to see past people’s skin into their wallets, the glowing glamors of the ‘net. They were instantly hooked. Niko immediately started searching for the parts to build themselves a portable system so they could access the Grid whenever they wanted (shaped like a Gameboy Advance SP!). From then, it was all “downhill” if you asked Niko’s parents. They quickly fell into the silicon heat of the city, learning more about body mods, forums, and hacking at an electric pace. They moved out of the house at age 13 into a small…hole in the wall to start. Before long, they had gotten the hang of lifting creds off of people they passed by with a pocket scanner and started running small hack jobs to fill their own back pocket. They used this money to start finding four walls and a roof - a quest that would eventually lead to them finding the abandoned karaoke bar. Throughout their childhood and their fledgling adulthood, they were constantly reminded that they were Other and Lesser Than due to their race. Even among Goblins Niko was shunned, and the wider community did no better. They were often outright ignored, or spat at and grimaced towards if they were noticed in public. People would often look at them with suspicion of criminal activity, if not outright being hostile to them. The only sense of community Niko could find would be in the forums that they trolled, and even then it was through three layers of anonymity. The people who thought they were funny didn’t know it came with purple skin and ears the size of dinner plates. The body mods started regularly enough - the eyes would make it much easier and faster to access the grid and the Alternate Reality Holograms plastered all over the city. The horns were an added touch - better connection to the Grid, no matter where Niko was. They allowed the young hacker to quickly run applications that often took a screen - texting, recording, you name it. The tail came next. Sure, you could have a hard drive squeezed between your skull and spinal cord, but why do that when you could have three times the space somewhere that (likely) wouldn’t kill you if it was hacked? If Niko was being honest with themselves, they’d say that it was their first “fuck you” - to the culture that told them their body was disposable and disgusting; to their own demons telling them no one would ever find them attractive, anyways. The legs… the legs were the most obvious self harm. One night lurking too hard in the wrong places, one spiral of rumination too far into the depths of self hatred, and one more passerby hissing at their face. The legs didn’t serve a purpose - they weren’t making Niko faster or smarter or more dextrous. They were an attempt to further destroy what was holding them back. The first iteration was completed by a back alley mech-doc, and Niko has been toying with the design and building new ones since. Not everything was doom in gloom in the abandoned karaoke bar. Niko fell hard into the world of video games, specifically dating sims. The pixels on the other side of their screens didn’t know what they looked like or how they acted, and they didn’t care. The code loved them anyways. In spite of. Niko isn’t delusional - they know with intimacy how the games work and that the bots and apps and stories aren’t real, but it doesn’t hurt to hear the words, anyways. They are able to find the love and companionship digitally that they never had access to in real life. Their tastes in fictional characters varies pretty widely across the morality spectrum: from good boys who would make them lunchboxes for their fake schools to murderous monsters who wanted nothing but to rend them apart. There’s an intimacy in being so wanted that you lose yourself, right? Niko has absolutely no experience with people in a romantic or sexual sense outside of the Grid. While they can put on the right face and dance the right moves behind their VR avatar at an equally virtual club, if ever faced with physical proximity they would be overcome with a mix of excited overwhelm and intense self hatred.  |
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