Ghost (Played by Salem)

### Affiliation

Special Air Service (SAS), Coalition, Task Force 141, Armistice (formerly), Joint Task Force (JTF) - Ghost Team

## Player Information

* Discord Name: salempoe
* Age: 29
* Time Zone: EST

## Character Information

* Universe of Origin: Call of Duty
* Canon
* Latecomer

## Description

### Distinguishing Features

Keeps his face hidden at all time with masks, alternating between a full-coverage mask with a 3D skull plate sewn into the front or a black balaclava mask with a skull print; wears black camouflage paint around his eyes; a grayscale skull tattoo sleeve on his left arm; no piercings; has a fair share of scars, including multiple deep puncture wounds on both sides of his ribcage and gunshot wounds in his right abdomen and left thigh.

### Personality Traits

Rational, informed, independent, creative, self-motivated, determined, goal-oriented, ambitious, curious, skeptical, respectful when justified, unconventional, stubborn, harsh, arrogant, dismissive of emotions, critical, combative, socially clueless, isolated, loyal to those who deem their worth, protective over those he cares about, tense, standoffish in unfamiliar situations, touch-averse, partial to dry/dark humor, private, secretive.

### Skills

No supernatural abilities, however he is a trained soldier with a little over 20 years of battle experience. He is considered an expert in clandestine tradecraft, focused in sabotage, ambushes, and infiltrations into denied areas and hazardous environments. He is trained and qualified to handle a garden variety of weapons, such as rifles, machine guns, knives, explosives, and so on. He is also trained in hand-to-hand combat, navigation, and first aid.

## Background

### History

*(Note: My interpretation of Ghost is a mixture of canon source material from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II 2022 video game reboot, the Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comic book series, and my own personal headcanons.)*

***TW: Mentions of domestic abuse, substance abuse, drug overdose, 9/11, terrorism, kidnapping, torture, live burial, murder, war***

Simon Riley never knew stability in his youth. Though he was the eldest of two sons, he was quiet and easily frightened compared to his little brother, Tommy. This was caused — and further exacerbated — by living under the same roof as his father, a callous and erratic man who used the "punk-rock lifestyle" as a piss-poor excuse to do whatever he wanted without any regard for the safety of his family. Since Simon was young, his father was determined to “make a real man” out of him — and in doing so, he forced Simon into countless situations that endangered him, such as handling venomous snakes (even forcing him to kiss one) without professional guidance and taking him to concerts where illicit drugs and alcohol were rampant. In fact, Simon was only eight years old when he saw death first-hand, after catching his father administering opioids to a woman in the bathroom. She overdosed and died in a toilet stall because of him – yet instead of calling for help or removing Simon from the situation, he forced his son to laugh at her corpse, claiming that it was all right to do so since she had died with a smile on her face.

As the years passed, Simon did not grow any closer to his father. In fact, in his adolescence, he grew distant from his family altogether, hellbent on staying out of the house as much as possible to escape the chaos. He found structure in the form of a job as an apprentice butcher at the local grocery, but his true calling came after the September 11 attacks in the United States. He decided to enlist in the military at sixteen years old, where he was accepted into the Special Air Service. His first stint lasted eighteen months before he was able to return home, though eighteen months was all it took for his family to implode on itself. His brother, Tommy, was spiraling due to a heavy opioid addiction and stole money from their mother to feed his habit. And while his mother was helpless and distraught, his father did fuck all to help, instead seeking company and entertainment from those same crowds who got Tommy addicted in the first place. Because of this, Simon chose not to return to the military until he could help straighten things out. From January 2003 to June 2006, he helped support his brother through his recovery – and in the meantime, thrashed his father and kicked him out of the family home for all the grief he caused.

With Tommy clean, his mother happy, and his father out of the picture, Simon returned to active duty. For a while, he was stationed in Iran, until he was relocated to Mexico and paired with an American team in order to help take down the Zaragoza drug cartel headed by Manuel Roba. However, things went south the moment Simon's commanding officer sold him and the rest of his team out to the enemy. They were carted off to a brainwashing facility headed by Roba, where he and his comrades were subjected to unspeakable acts of physical, psychological, and emotional torture. Yet when it was proven that Simon could not be broken like his teammates, Roba forced him into a casket with his commanding officer — already dead and rotting — before he was buried alive. And even that wasn't enough to keep him down.

Whether by miracle or pure survival instinct, Simon managed to dig himself out with nothing but a jawbone. He was the only one of his teammates to make it through the brainwashing facility and still keep his autonomy, for the rest of his team had either been broken and brainwashed by Roba or died trying to resist. In the time that it took for him to flee Mexico and recover from his injuries, he was unable to return to active duty. Around Christmastime, he returned to Manchester to reunite with his family, only to discover that all of them — his mother, his brother Tommy, his sister-in-law Beth, and even his young nephew Joseph — had been fatally shot. This led to him taking matters into his own hands. With his face painted like a skull, he infiltrated Roba's base and slaughtered everyone in sight: his former teammates, Roba's henchmen, and even Roba himself.

After the incident, Simon Riley faded from existence. His records were sealed within the military, his identity kept secret. And with a mask taking the place of face paint, Ghost was born.

In 2019, Ghost was recruited by Captain John Price to join Task Force 141, a multi-national special operations task force and counter-terrorism military unit. Over the span of four years, he aided Task Force 141 in several missions against the international terrorist group Al-Qatala, including driving out an invasion in the city of Verdansk, the assassination of General Ghorbrani in Al Mazrah, the hunt for Major Hassan Zyani in Mexico and the United States, and the search-and-destruction of stolen American missiles. After Hassan was killed in action, Ghost and the rest of the task force had their sights set on one of Al-Qatala's associates — until a rogue portal opened after their mission debrief.

What waited for him on the other side was a brand-new mission. One he had no preparation for.

### Motivations and Goals

To recon the Nexus Hub in its entirety and figure out anything and everything he can — its inner workings, its people, its functionality — then promptly get the hell out to reconvene with the rest of his team.

## Room

Currently in a general boarding room. Personalized rooms can be purchased for 400 UT.