Gwendolyn “Gwen” Rathan (Knot)

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[size=150][b]Character Description[/b][/size]

[list][b]Name:[/b] Gwendolyn “Gwen” Rathan

[b]Gender:[/b] Female

[b]Age:[/b] 14-years-old

[b]Height:[/b] 4 feet 6 inches

[b]Favorite Color:[/b] Pear Green

[b]Eye Color:[/b] Green

[b]Hair Color:[/b] Wine Red

[b]Appearance:[/b] [spoiler][img][/img][/spoiler]

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[b]Equipment[/b]:

* MacGuffin:  A floppy stuffed brown dog about the size of a terrier which she’s had for as long as she can remember (she keeps her ‘diary’ in a hidden pocket inside).  Name comes from something she found funny she heard her father say about a book he was reading.
* Bot swarm:  Each named and seen as unique in her mind, they are pets to her.  Using R/C technology and primitive If-Then programming, they allow her to scavenge, peep, work, and trade with others without personal contact.
* Tools:  A mix of things she’s scavenged over the years and a few custom creations she’s managed to piece together.
* Johnny Bot:  A salvaged DARPA robot she’s recovered, repaired, and modified (she treats him like a brother).  Equipped with a ruby laser that Gwen uses him primarily to cut and weld, this bot allows her to bluff on off chance rogues get close to her lair.  When going out into the field, she attaches a chair to his back and let’s him carry her tools and supplies.
* Lair:  Built in part of basement underneath the ruins of Cambridge University.  Using salvaged grad projects from above, it has integrated hardware for turning polluted water, and urine, into both fresh water and power (through electrolysis and a hydrogen fuel cell) that she can trade excess for supplies.  It also contains the salvaged campus super computer.
* Daily necessities:  Though not everything appropriate for both age and gender, she has collected some things to deal with stuff that drives her crazy.

[hr][/hr][size=150][b]Strengths and Weaknesses[/b][/size]

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[b]Skills[/b]:

* Mechanical engineering:  Seeing mechanical problems as a three dimensional puzzle, Gwen is able to cobble together a wide range of gizmos and gadgets.  Just don’t ask her to explain how they work.

[b]Weaknesses[/b]:

* Agoraphobic tendencies:  Though not fully blown, Gwen has real issues with leaving her underground lair.
* Head injury:  Though long healed, the head injury she received while escaping the invasion causes some....oddities to this day.
* Recall:  Though never her specialty, but perhaps aggravated by her old head injury, Gwen has issues with memory recall.  It can even take multiple encounters before she can connect faces with names.
* Antisocial:  Gwen’s history has given her a fear that organic people will abandon her.  This has lead to her having more faith in her mechanical companions and a tendency to try and drive others away so she won’t form attachments.
* Communication:  Given her years of isolation and general lack of interacting with others, Gwen is not the best at talking with others.
* Stress:  As part of her lacking real socialization for so many years, high stress can accentuate her issues communicating.  To much stress and she’ll start talking in broken sentences.
* Broken education:  Though a normal school education up to the day of the Ragon invasion, Gwen switched to learning from the broken remnants of the Cambridge intranet.  Though this selection of data has exposed her to a lot of useful and helpful knowledge, it also includes a lot of things far from appropriate for her age.
* Malnutrition:  Due to five years of an inappropriate diet and living underground, Gwen is short for her age, easily sunburnt, and has bad stamina.
* Combat - Age, training, and malnutrition means that, while feisty, Gwen is easily overwhelmed by others, especially those bigger than her, let alone have been trained.
* Guns:  Gwen has a serious distaste for weapons.  Most that wind up in her hands are dismantled for parts.  She has to be seriously bribed to actually do work on one....or at least really be on good terms with the other person.
* Athletics:  Though Gwen does her best to stay healthy and not overweight, she has always been far from an athlete.

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[hr][/hr][size=150][b]Background:[/b][/size]

[list][b]What did you do before the War[/b]:   Third grade student

[b]What do you do now[/b]:  Grease monkey/wrench wench/mechanic/hermit

[b]Personality:[/b] Gwen’s experiences during the Ragon invasion left her with serious psychological scars.  Frightened by the thought that anyone organic is only naturally going to leave her - her head injury making some memories fuzzy - she not only puts her faith in her mechanical creations, but actively tries to drive people away.  It can take a lot of effort, but there are those who have managed to get the teenager to tolerate them to various degrees.

As a result of the combination of her old head injury and five years of raising herself, Gwen has an odd way of speaking.  Gwen jumps around in the phrases she uses and her word choices.

Gwen has a major berserk button:  [i][b]NEVER[/i][/b] mess with MacGuffin.  You disturb the plush, she will go off on you.

[b]Backstory[/b]: The daughter of a pharmacist mother and a DARPA scientist father, Gwendolyn Rathan wasn’t that atypical growing up.  She had a curiosity for machines that her parents did their best to nurture, but Gwen also spent an otherwise normal childhood - even if her father was rarely around due to his job.

Unfortunately, the world burned on August 12th, 2128.  The Ragon invasion began when the then nine-year-old Gwen was at the birthday party of a classmate while her mother socialized with the other parents.  Separated in the chaos, the young Gwen was running through the streets alone and afraid.

Following the emergency instructions her parents had drilled into her, Gwen scrambled through the ever growing rubble towards Cambridge University, where her father was at work.  In her rush, she stumbled and took a fall down a staircase in front of one of the city’s basement apartments.  Bleeding from the sustained head wound, she quickly lost consciousness.  Awakening hours later after the sun had set, Gwen crawled out of the half buried stair case with her stuffed plush clenched in her hands as she stumbled the rest of the way.

Eventually finding her way to the university campus, her memories muddled, the exhausted Gwen searched the ruins for a bit before conking out in a section of the basement.  Over the following five years, she buried herself in creating a mechanical ‘family’ that would never leave her as she turned her corner of the campus’s basement into her home using materials scavenged from the ruins above,

Gwen had gotten herself more or less set up when Hannah 'Gopher' Brown stumbled upon the youth.  After a tense first meeting, Brown, though respecting Gwen’s decision to keep to herself, took it upon herself to regularly check in on the young survivor.  It was Hannah, in fact, who got Gwen into trading with other survivors in order to get things she needed to survive that the girl wouldn’t be able to get on her own and didn’t raise a fuss when Gwen crafted specialized drones for her to use in this role.  An eyebrow was raised, however, when Gwen insisted on using a code name over her radio based trading.

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