ÉAN OXMO
Character, lore and world building
Game Setting
The game is a science-fiction, action RPG, set in the 24th century.
The Pochteca Empire has colonized most of Earth, driven by an insatiable hunger for resources. The resulting civil wars and environmental destruction led to many people from the Empire’s conquered lands becoming refugees, denied the same rights as its own citizens in the Tonaz Imperial City.
In 2359, mysterious portals appeared around the Imperial City, leading to an exoplanet similar to prehistoric Earth, later named Noctis and popularly referred to as The Nighting for its unusual purple skies. In 2360, forays to harvest the abundant resources were attacked by colossal aliens dubbed the Byzantines, visible only to particular types of human minds. These humans formed the first Military Traveler Unit for the First Nighting War, which lasted ten years and ended in the closing of the portals.
When the game begins, it is 2381. New portals have opened and this time, Noctis and its Byzantines may start leaking into Earth. You play a refugee who has just been drafted into the Second Nighting War. Joining the resistance led by Éan Oxmo may be your only way out.
Character Overview
Name
Éan Oxmo
Age
34
Place of Birth
Copàn refugee camp on the outskirts of the Tonaz Imperial City
Affiliation/Team/Organization
The Reffo Resistance; formerly part of the Military Traveler Unit (MTU)
Alignment
Chaotic Good
Keywords
Brave, Lost, Kind, Strange
Summary
The idealistic eternal outsider
Voice Quality
Clear, honest
Quote
“The Empire has devoured us for too long. Do you want to bite back?”
Background
Éan is the only child of refugee parents from the Xoxotic archipelago, rendered uninhabitable following severe soil erosion due to unsustainable mining. At age 4, his lower leg was amputated following a drone attack on the camp, suspected (but never proven) to be on Empire orders.
As part of the Refugee Conscription Act of 2361, Éan, then 14, was sent into Noctis, initially as cannon fodder for zones where human bait was used to draw out Byzantines, to make up for the lack of an assigned Traveler to spot them. He was later promoted to the MTU after his ability to see Byzantines was discovered. He retired at 24 and spent the next ten years as an odd-job man in the refugee camp, helping to improve conditions as best as he could. When the portals reopen, Éan is conscripted again.
Unique Look and Abilities
Éan is handsome but with his pale skin and fine hair, he looks bleached out and insubstantial except for his dark eyes. He still wears the outdated 21st century legblade he was fitted with in the camps, refusing the advanced integrated flesh prosthetics available to the imperial army.
Even for a Military Traveler, Éan adapts easily to Noctis’ atmosphere and can spot Byzantines with great accuracy. He is one of few Travelers able to predict their spawning. He usually fights in the standard MTU combat formation – paired with a dedicated sniper who provides additional firepower based on the Traveler’s reports on the location of Byzantines. Éan has sniper training himself but will avoid firing if a less violent option is available.
Psychological Profile
Éan’s primary driver is the search for a home where he belongs. He is torn between a sense of duty to his fellow refugees and a desire to escape into the alien world of Noctis.
At first glance, he comes across as light-hearted, generous and somewhat eccentric. Éan is highly intelligent, rational and determined not to let his circumstances harden him. At the same time, he follows his own personal logic, including a strong sense of justice. He does not seem completely aware of the significance of rules and will simply ignore or subvert them if they do not make sense to him.
His status as a refugee, and his long tours of duty on Noctis at a young age have made it difficult for Éan to have a sense of identity based on physical attributes such as a place of origin or race. His sense of self is instead based on his personal beliefs and thoughts, influenced by his choices in reading and studying. He thus found it easy to reject the “human versus alien” propaganda presented by the Empire to stir public opinion and recruit soldiers against the Byzantines. While Éan is unfailingly polite and friendly, he finds his imperial comrades and even his fellow refugees as alien to him as the Byzantines. He fights for increased refugee rights and refuses to inflict unnecessary harm on the Byzantines simply because he does not think it is fair.
Additional World and Character Info
1. Imperial scientists have theorized that the ability to spot Byzantines depends on the capacity of the mind to “travel” to Noctis along with the body. Most human minds cannot travel interdimensional distances and are thus not fully present in Noctis, even when their physical bodies are. Minds with high traveling abilities are assigned to Military Traveler roles, while those with moderate to low abilities are trained as snipers. Those with no abilities (mostly refugee conscripts) are used as bait. Éan’s detachment from his fellows and his lack of a sense of home might be the reason his mind travels easily to Noctis.
2. Like most military personnel serving long periods on Noctis, Éan suffers from Nighting Syndrome – a sort of chronic jetlag caused by his body constantly shuttling between Earth’s 24-hour day and Noctis’ eternal dusk. He finds the fatigue and brain fog easier to deal with on Noctis than on Earth.
3. Éan made his peace with the conscription for two reasons – it gave him and his fellow refugees additional rights, such as increased rations and political representation, and it allowed him access to the Imperial City’s public library. Éan still visits the Imperial City once every few months to collect his meagre pension – and to steal books from the library that he passes onto others in the camp. He was caught once but the librarian let him go because it was the first time in months that anyone actually used the library.
4. Éan likes making jokes. Unfortunately, they tend to be about things like dinosaurs with impressive vocabularies (“A thesaurus!”).
5. Éan is fond of history and loves protest songs from the Vietnam War era of the extinct Merican Mercantile Empire. If he had a theme song, it would be Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”. Since these are now considered classical music, his habit of listening to “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” on night patrol made his fellow refugees think he was an elitist snob trying to “act Imperial.”
6. Éan is the posterchild for malicious compliance and great at finding loopholes – for instance, his military orders stated strictly that he had to watch out for Byzantines on twelve-hour shifts. But the orders said nothing about actually reporting them for destruction by snipers. He therefore only reported them when other personnel were in danger and only enough to ensure that refugee bait wasn’t sent in or his partner wasn’t reprimanded for failing to meet daily kill targets.
7. Sidonia Ixtab, his long-term partner in the First Nighting War was a Class I sniper and one of the rare Imperial citizens volunteering for field duty. Despite thinking that Éan was the biggest weirdo she ever met, she often used her status as a citizen to protect him from reprimands for disobedience. She is now a major in the Imperial Army. They have not seen each other in 10 years. Hers is the only face he can recognize when he dreams of the war.
8. If he hadn’t been a soldier and if he had had access to formal schooling, Éan would have wanted to become an architect.
9. Éan keeps his legblade, uncomfortable and outdated as it is, as a constant reminder of who he is really fighting for – his fellow refugees, not the Empire.
(c) 2019 – Shoma Patnaik