Carrion

## History

### Childhood

Cayce Urriah was born in Emerald City, in the area surrounding the cross of Green St and Garden Blvd, what would come to be known as the Verdant Slum. The 'Slum was mostly neutral territory when she was a child: To the north on Grove there was the One-Eights Gang, a violent crew of amphetamine peddling gangers who dyed their twisted locks bright red and wore red vests. To the south on Vine was the Emerald Kings crew, who wore bright green track suits and dealt in stolen electronics and weapons. The Verdant Slum, however, was mostly safe.

Despite being made of Section Eight apartments, Project Housing, and being surrounded by warehouses, the Verdant Slum was pretty peaceful. The Slum was the territory of a small crew of smugglers lead by a woman known as Eve Faith. Her warehouse office was a black market and safehouse for the local crews, protected by her own crew of about ten men and women. Her organization, known as The Council, provided fencing, fixing, and diplomacy services to the local gangs and criminals. As a side effect, the Verdant Slum was protected by the gangs who utilized their services.

Cayce grew up in safety, playing ball in the streets as a kid, and exploring the alleyways and nooks of the Slum without fear of attack or injury. Her small crew of local kids ran rampant when they rolled out, idealizing the gangers who walked through their turf and acting out what they saw: Committing petty crimes like shoplifting and playing craps on the sidewalks. Because Eve kept the police out, 'The Crew', as they called themselves never ended up in real trouble, save for being chased out of bodegas with shotguns once or twice. That changed when Cayce was twelve and got ahold of a pistol and held up a convenience store without a mask on.

### With The Council

Cayce had no idea who kept her neighborhood safe, and took the relative safety to mean that she was free to do what she chose. However, she awoke from a solid dream the next night to find a chair pulled up next to her bed, and a middle aged, fire-eyed, woman sitting in it. As she screamed, a hand slammed down over her mouth, and the woman began to laugh loudly.

Eve, rather than punishing Cayce for robbing one of her clients, recruited her. Eve was a mutant with two specific abilities, and one of them was within her eyes, that allowed her to determine the mutations of others. She saw Cayce's unawakened mutation - the ability to ghost small objects away into an 'outer place', and draw them back later, and saw great potential. So she spoke calmly to the girl and told her that she had the capacity to be powerful, and that she would help her reach that power. Cayce accepted without a moment's hesitation.

Cayce's parents, with trepidation but also immense fear, handed the pre-teen off to Eve and The Council for a wad of bills much smaller than Cayce thought she was worth. Eve loaned Cayce out to the owner of a local stage magic shop as an apprentice, in turn for the guy teaching her sleight of hand and some specific tricks. As she learned over the next two years, Cayce became a master of sleight and misdirection, and as if it was natural, she unlocked her mutation. Now able to ghost away any object about the size of a cell phone, she moved on to combat training. Her time now, with The Council involved learning how to fight with her fists and feet, as well as knives and daggers. She was given a grip of throwing daggers by one of her Council mentors, and taught herself the art of target throwing.

By the time Cayce was sixteen, the streets had changed, and the Verdant Slum was heating up. The Council's services were having trouble meeting the demands of the One-Eights and the Emerald Kings, as they expanded rapidly. This expansion even threatened to expand into Cayce's neighborhood. Cayce ended up working directly with Eve, and was involved in many peace talks where weapons were disallowed-- she kept Eve's holdout pistol in her 'ghost space', along with a couple of throwing knives. It was one of these meetings where The Council finally was destroyed.

The leader of the Kings and Eve with Cayce were meeting in the Council's warehouse, when explosions rocked the building, causing everyone to scatter. The ceiling came down on top of Eve and Cayce, but Eve was able to push the two of them out of the way-- mostly Her leg was trapped beneath debris, and she saw more on its way down. She looked down upon Cayce, who had become like her adopted daughter over the next few years, and willed her other mutation onto the girl, Probability control. The power clicked into place just as the ceiling came down above them. Bits of roof fell around her, but didn't touch Cayce's body at all. One-Eighters flooded the building, but their guns all jammed as they tried to fire on the girl-- several of them exploding in their owners' hands.

Cayce ran, and as she fled, the rest of the building came down on the attackers, killing most of them. However, immediately afterwards probability flipped back and she slammed face first into a parking meter, blackening both of her eyes. Her feet slid out from under her, and she slammed to the ground. As she flailed, trying to find her balance, a man walked over her, with murderous eyes. Dex, the dreadlocked leader of the One-Eights grabbed the flailing girl and hauled her up, dragging his wicked serrated Bowie knife down her cheek. However, Cayce's other ability wasn't all wobbly, and she drew one of her own daggers from 'Ghost Space' and drove it into his jugular, kicking back as his spray of blood filled the air and she finally found her footing.

When the smoke cleared, most of The Council, The One-Eights, and the Emerald Kings were all dead. Cayce looked across the ruined landscape of the place that had been her home, and called to the sky, "ALL THAT IS LEFT IS CARRION FOR THE VULTURES TO PICK OVER!"

### Birth of Carrion

And then a grin crossed her face, and she knew that she had a new name.. and a legacy to rebuild. Eve's stashes had been emptied out by survivors of the attack on the Council, who fled Emerald City to seek out new lives, but a handful of caches only Carrion knew about and a grip of bonds that survived the fire allowed her to find her footing for a new start. Carrion, on her nineteenth birthday purchased a bar known as The Drunk Tank, under the guise of Vulture Holdings LLC, a shell company she built using a cheap LawyerZip package. Within weeks of setting up, she began to conceive of her new potential crew.

The Outfit was drafted up on paper in her apartment. It would formally known as The Guild of Excess Temerity, (but mostly just referred to as 'The Outfit' by members and locals), she decided, like The Council, it would provide a neutral space to anyone of interest and worth in the territory around The Drunk Tank-- criminals, vigilantes, mutants, supers, and more. And with that decision, she began to make phone calls.

## **Personality**

Cayce is whim and will driven, and acts based on heart and gut urges. The law has never meant much for her, but the agreements made with other people, family, and friends mean more to her than any moral code. She'll kill without much thought if the person is deserving, hero or villain, but she might help a random person on the street if she felt like they deserved it.

Cayce is a woman of shifting moods, and can be excessively jovial, but when angered, she focuses solely on the cause or source of anger until it is handled. This has ruined a handful of her close friendships.

When working, she tends to keep a vague level of her own personality showing, but behind that she's a cold and consummate professional, and can turn her empathy off when the job requires it.

## **Mutations**

### Ghost Space

Carrion can keep any item just slightly larger than a cell phone in a pocket dimension she calls 'Ghost Space', and can draw it back into 'real space' with a flick of her fingers. She typically keeps a couple of knives in Ghost Space, as well as her wallet.

### Probability Manipulation

Carrion can control probability for short bursts of time. She can turn others' luck against them and give herself the advantage. Dice land on optimal numbers when gambling, guns jam or fail to fire, fists miss her by feet, enemies lose balance, and all stop lights are green.

HOWEVER: Once probability flips back into balance, she will have a bad time. She'll fall down, hit something, chairs under her will suddenly slide out from beneath her, anyone trying to help her will fail catastrophically.

## **Skills**

### Sleight of Hand / Misdirection / Theft

She's a master of sleight of hand, even without Ghost Space. She'll shake your hand, and your class ring is just -gone-. She'll point out something cool in the distance, and your wallet will disappear.

### Brawling

Carrion is a pretty good fighter. She's skinnier and smaller than most people who fight regularly, but she's good at weaving, dodging, and knows where to hit to put an opponent on the ground rapidly.

### Knives

Knives, knives, knives, knives, knives. Carrion is a trained assassin with a dagger, switchblade, pocket knife, fuck even a sharpened toothbrush. She can throw knives with the best of them.