Companion (familiar)
Even Technocrats get lonely, especially thos who spend a lot of time away from the Masses. In the rarefied atmosphere of Horizon Constructs, remote laboratories and Voidcraft, these operatives occasionally make companions to accompany them on their duties. More often than not, these constructs are odd creatures; even though many of them appear to be perfectly normal examples of their kind, any perceptive person can tell that they're more than they seem to be...
This Background is rare among all the Conventions -- it smacks too much of medieval wizardry. However, those few Technocrats who have Companions often swear by them. The newer, younger breed of Technocrats seems slightly more inclined to have Companions than their elders do. These Companions often take the form of house pets or the other creatures listed below:
- Iteration X: Robots, AIs, intelligent weapons, data beasts and attack progs.
- NWO: Ais, intelligent animals (attack dogs, pets)
- Progenitors: Bioconstructs (human, animal and other), genegineered beasts, "normal" animals with very abnormal abilities.
- Syndicate: Pets, attack animals, humanoid constructs (usually very attractive and efficient).
- Void Engineers: Alien creatures (that is, materialized spirits; see the movie version of Lost in Space), genegineered animals, data beasts, robots, LERMUs and other bioconstructs.
In game terms, the Background works exactly the same ways as the Background: Familiar, with the following exceptions:
- A Technocrat does not perform a "bonding ceremony; most of the time, he makes the Companion with biotech or hypertech, invests it with a bit of self-will and some intelligence and dotes on it a bit. Over time, the creation bonds with the Technocrat...often becoming far more than the "little friend" the operative expected. Void engineers occasionally bond with creatures from "out there"; such bonds violate Technocracy policy, but in the Deep Universe, Supervisors often look the other way unless there's trouble.
- The Companion does not devour Tass or Primal Energy per se, but it does follow the Technocrat around, demanding favors and attention. Many of those favors involve strange diets (high-energy food, alien plants) and close personal contact (affection, sex, mind-melds, etc.) -- both of which supply the Primal Energy the Companion requires. For some odd reason, all Companions, even animal and robotic ones (but not AIs), seem to love Erg Cola.
Naturally, you're responsible for anything your Companion does -- an important consideration for agents involved with sensitive material. An angry Companion can make an operatives life very difficult; these creatures seem to know all sorts of classified information, and the Union is not nearly as tolerant of such breaches as the Traditions might be...
(Note: This Background covers really special, personal companions. Many operatives have allies [robots, super-smart dogs, flesh-eating carpets, cute-but-dumb sidekicks and so on] who don't have the special "talents" that Companions possess. Use the Background Allies for these characters, instead)
