The Scavenger

A female stormwarden caste mainan, very far from home, trying to scrape together a life and a living despite the odds.

## Early Life

Tropico originally was apart of the Terrakey, a massive Ark ship adrift in the Star Forge Nebula. Her people, the Mainan, are servitors, loyal to the Matari, their creators and the Ark’s overseers.

The Mainan are segregated nominally by subrace caste dictated by an associated force of nature and by extension an intended job, Tropico’s was a Stormwarden; a weather forecaster.

This was not to say she didn’t have hobbies or work, she was an artist, fancying painting in water color and working over sandstone and wood to make small figurines.

## It all goes downhill from here...

### Late night Mutcorvian bushwhack

It was a late summer night when her world came crashing down around her.

The Terrakey had briefly breached out of the Star Forge Nebula, and was consequentially invaded by an opportunistic crew of scavengers straying too far from their peers, to places they ought not be.

The Arkship had been breached and subsequently a raiding party made their way into the depths of it, intent on snatching bodies for food stores or at the very least what loot they could grab.

However, the only thing they managed to bag was one whole stormwarden before the Ark’s security measures responded with extreme prejudice.

The invaders were Mutcorvians, a highly adaptive, aggressive, hiveminded bird-like species, they had every intention on going back for seconds once their bodies hardened for the fight to come.

Tropico, now fully conscious, with a splitting headache, scratched up and roaring mad… did not give them this opportunity.

With claws and feathers a’flying in the confined space, she fought back with unrivaled rage, out-matching and overpowering the crew of the small vessel in short order, taking the weapons of the downed members when melee was not an option for engagement.

When the last bird-thing was slain, the Stormwarden attempted in vain to exit the cramped space… until she found that she was in a vessel in a sea of black, littered with glittering stars and at the fringes of whispy red smoke.

The ship had disengaged with the boarding port, and now was adrift… By the time she had figured out the controls of the ship and got the vessel turned around, the Terrakey had already began to sink back into the red storm of the Star Forge Nebula.

Tropico found herself unable to return home…

### Adrift on a black sea, a red storm at her back

The Mainan, faced with the harrowing reality of her situation and the uncertainty of her future, realized she had no where to go except outward, she turned the ship around once more, and began to coast along on the black sea of the universe. Figuring that she didn’t know where she was going, but that she’d find out when she got there.

Within the first week she’d eaten the Mutcorvians first, or at least what of them that was actually edible, as a means and forethought to preserve what equally edible rations she could scavenge among the stock and stores.

What of them she couldn’t eat, she figured out a way to dispose of, as not to stink up the cramped containment with decomposition, without shunting herself out along with them.

With every passing day, the stormwarden grew to understand the controls of the ship, mainly by rough guesstimate and then active experiments and testing of what each button, level, toggle and switch did.

By the third week of coasting, rations were beginning to grow slim and the Mainan was dozing with half lidded eyes, staring out into space, coming to terms with the reality that starvation would be her end… Cruel and ironic, really, plucked from her home to satiate the hunger of others, only to suffer the fate of dying of it, herself.

### The Rhyn

Before she could be allowed to ruminate further on things like how spacious her coffin was for her burial at sea and how pretty the view was. Her thoughts were touched on, like a buzzing, ringing in her ears…

The psychic intrusion, so sudden and deliberate, was the first real stimulus she’d felt in so long, feathers ruffled, hair prickled up and skin gathered goosebumps. A raw, unsettled reaction.

Only to be further set off when the ship suddenly lurched, the ship echoing with the booms of metal on metal, something had grabbed onto the ship and now held it securely. She was no longer adrift…

She jolted up out of the pilot’s seat, throwing off the blanket and reaching for the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon, one of the knives the bird-things had.

A hiss sounds as a change of pressure rings through the ship, a rush of fresh air floods the compartments of the somehow space-worthy junker. The Mainan sucked in the air greedily, it gave vigor to her defense. Whatever came for her, she’d fight with the same tenacity as she did before when her life was on the line.

The rumble of foot tread seemed to echo and reverberate around the ship as it was boarded, from multiple angles, the stormwarden realized far too late that she was effectively cornered and outnumbered, just as she caught sight of the intruders.

Tall, clothed in flowing robes and dense plated armor. Helmets? Or masks, perhaps? With an arching crest much like the tails of the scorpions from her home. Glowing eyes meeting her with the same immediate scrutiny.

The Stormwarden’s wings flared, her claws scraping along the walls and floors as they fanned out, glowing hair fell around her face, framing it as she let out a shrill, haunting and *angry* cry, like an air raid siren out the lungs and mouth of something hardly over half their height.

That was their one and only warning before feathers and fury lunged at them. But the gesture was much like throwing herself full force against a brick wall, the knife brandished breaking like so much clay pottery.

One firm grip wrested the knife out of her hand and before she could respond, she was knocked cold, the warrior’s nearest ally spinning their rifle to smash the butt against her skull.

This was how the stormwarden became acquainted with the Rhyn.

They taught her their tongue, fed her, clothed her and in the end supplied her, as her road was not to end there.

### Rise of The Scavenger

But her time with them, however short, did not prepare her for what would follow, her life steadily devolving into blind sailing to scavenging, raiding and pilfering, if she didn’t take it to pad her pantry, she took it to patch and upgrade her ship.

With every fight, she patched armor together, her jumpsuit became a carefully stitched together mess of the clothes given to her by the Rhyn and what cloth she could readily find and scrap together.

Her arsenal of weapons also grew as she effectively bullied what small vessels of Mutcorvians she could find. Earning her some fear and notoriety among the Shitravens.

Alas, to spend so long in space, to be alone out in the black took its toll on her psyche, and her choices became more and more bold and reckless. Having taken up tailing behind a pirate fleet, scavenging from what they raid, taking what they didn’t. Even brazenly stealing directly from them when they grow complacent, grow used to the scrapped ship’s chronic presence, let their guard down.

But despite her recklessness she was smart enough to keep her distance, so as to escape before she was gunned down or captured, lending to a long lived game of cat and mouse.

Earning her the title of “The Scavenger”.

## Description

### Physical

Tropico Mazaai Vahkstern is a female humanoid, standing 5'6". Though, she has many features similar to a normal human woman.

Her skin is deep grey in color, accented by patches of darker grey and deep green. She's further detailed by lime-green markings across her body, such as the tips of her fingers and a set of distinct markings on her face: A chevron-like arrow with a dot cradled in the bend on her forehead, and two markings on either cheek.

A messy, tufted mop of hair much the same color frames her face and spills down over her shoulders.

All lime-green features glow with an ethereal bioluminescence.

A pair of wings, with the same structure and feather formation as Ospreys, flank her body. Three hook-like talons extend from the wrist of the forelimb on either wing.

These limbs function like a second pair of arms. They have the ability to posture, and manipulate things to a degree, they cannot, however, open doors, or perform functions requiring fine manipulation.

Along her back is an exposed spinal cord, a glowing, flexible pipe anchored by chrome silver rings to the skin. Likewise, on her chest, where collar bones would be on a human are plates that sit on the surface. Between the innermost points of the plates is a lime-green, crystalline nodule. There are no signs of scar tissue to indicate that these are installed augmentations.

Her face is mask-like but blends with the rest of her head with no signs of having been physically attached. The mask has a muzzle-like mouth, a pair of squared flanges where the ears would be on a human, and the brow swoops moothly up into the hairline.

These details indicate that she was either made like this or born biomechanical.

### Clothing

The garments she wears are scrapped together, having swiftly learned the dangers of space travel without protection.

The primary rig she wears is a patchwork of multiple space suits, functional but also practical, fitting her wings as well as resisting oxygen leakage.

Fitted to the rig are pieces of metal bent, beaten and shaped to form makeshift armor, or pieces that she has taken off of fallen combatants.

Most other clothing that she wears is hastily cobbled together to keep her warm in the black waters of space. The undermost layer of clothing is light, indicating summer wear.

She’s festooned herself in small trophies from her battles, chief of which is a choker necklace made from Mutcorvian pin feathers.