Hanlon Greyrazor (Traveller Character)

Before the flashbang injury.

Have I mentioned that I love the lifepath generation as part of Traveller's character generation? Cyberpunk rocks pretty hard for that as well. I just love getting a story out of rolling dice. It's like a bonus mini-game you get to play before actually playing the game.

Over on The Plus One Experience Discord server, we were discussing choosing to act in bad faith for the attention vs. simple incompetence. The concepts of Hanlon's Razor and Grey's Law came out simultaneously. So I portmanteaued the hell out of those two terms and came up with Hanlon Greyrazor. And this dashing rogue in my head cried out for stats, so I broke out my Mongoose Traveller book and found the Central Supply Catalogue to outfit him with some chrome as a hat tip to Cyberpunk.

Hanlon Greyrazor 764CA9 (Human Male, Age 38) (Current Balance Cr 24,000)
Admin 1, Advocate 2, Astrogation 1, Athletics 0, Broker 0, Diplomat 1, Drive 0, Electronics (Computer) 2, Gambler 1, Gun Combat 1, Heavy Weapons 0, Mechanic 0, Medic 1, Melee 0, Navigation 0, Pilot (Spacecraft) 1, Recon 1, Steward 1, Streetwise 1, Vacc Suit 0

Early Life

He wanted for nothing living on the family estate on Glenroe, the youngest child and only son of the Clarke family, led by the Baroness Eleanor Clarke, his mother. Early on he discovered a penchant for fixing ground cars, driving fast, and getting lost (Drive, Mechanic, and Navigation at 0 for background skills), but his dream has always been to get far away, owning a Free Trader and flying wherever he wanted with whatever cargo appealed to him. But he enjoyed the good life his mother provided, so he dutifully started on the path she laid out for him.

The family had trouble keeping honest lawyers on retainer who didn't pad their billable hours every time the family called, so his mother sent him to Shanskirn University, two jumps away. He studied law, as his mother wanted, but he carved out a minor in Astrogation and took as many courses as he could on Starship Piloting as sort of a second minor, taking his first steps toward his dream of owning a ship. He excelled in his studies, graduating with High Distinction. He received an offer to join the Navy witha possible commission, but his mother wanted him home to start taking up family duties in the Barony's bureaucracy. He wanted to see a little more dirtside action, so he took matters into his own hands. He tried his best to get a job as an intelligence agent, knowing he probably couldn't pass the field agent physical, but he got denied in the end. In a moment of depression and weakness, and probably mentally altered on some sort of recreational substance, he submitted to the draft.

In The Army

The Sector Defense Forces took him, glad for another warm body with a gun, and he had basic training at Glendown, a harsh asteroid base. His college life and sharp mind landed him on a hovertank crew, and his first assignment involved supporting anti-insurgency efforts in the cities on Tourmaline-2. It went poorly, to say the least.

Hanlon took the role of threat identification seriously (earning Recon 1), but it seemed like everyone not in his platoon were aligned with the rebels. Tanks were intended as deterrent force, but the rebels could sneak up invisibly and open the locked hatches somehow. They tossed incendiaries and flashbangs into the tanks, disabling the crew and taking the tanks into the hills to serve as artillery to fortify their newly-liberated cities. Hanlon escaped serious injury except for a burn on his left thigh where a flashbang detonated, and his right ear still rings occasionally. The army healed his body, but quietly discharged him with no benefits for "excessive loss of materiel", and assumedly to keep the loss of an entire tank platoon quiet.

Hanlon realized he had no ties to his family, who probably assumed he died in action given his lack of discharge ceremony, so he reinvented himself. He changed his name to Greyrazor and talked his way into having his law degree transferred to his new name. He had seen enough action to last him the rest of his life, so he sought a desk job somewhere big and quiet.

MediShield Advocate

He landed a legal aide job at the local Medishield corporate office on the regional capital world Corinth. His superiors had him doing grunt work cleaning up old records and officially closing the book on dead casefiles, but he pieced together enough information about several secrets to make his life interesting. He earned a promotion out of the records department, and gathered a packet of evidence to make himself a little nest egg with an information broker (earning Electronics (Computers) 1 and Streetwise 1 on top of Broker 0).

MediShield sent him to technical training for his new position focusing on keeping corporate clients happy and making sure paperwork follows correct procedure (giving Electronics (Computer) 2, Admin 1, and Diplomat 1). He quickly ascended to Managing the Corporate Relationship team, and then the higher-ups started grooming him for other assignments, training him as more of a corporate espionage agent (giving Gambler 1, Medic 1, and Steward 1). They also pushed him to get some augments to record information and make sure he could understand every word spoken near him (Neural Comm and Wafer Jack, both with TL12 Invisitech). He retired as quickly as he could after he realized what his next assignments were likely to be.

Current Situation

Hanlon cashed out his nest egg and took his severance package (Cr 100,000), then immediately paid off the outstanding debt for his Invisitech Neural Comm (TL14) with Translator software and Invisitech Wafer Jack (Cr 60,000). He swears that his implants make him think faster (Int +2 at muster-out), but the surgeon swears he added no intelligence mods. He also invested in a tailored vacc suit (Cr 14,000) and protec suit (Cr 1,500), both custom-made with smart fabric.

He has a staunch friend in an angel investor (Ally) who knows his true identity and profited handsomely from the MediTech secrets Hanlon found. His angel made sure that his augments had no corporate overrides attached and now wants to help Hanlon finally realize his dream of owning a starship (2 Ship Shares).