Chani
Chani Abyss
The eccentric Special Projects Commander who has a mentoring habit and knows far more than she lets on.
Stats
- Name pronunciation: Sha-nee Aa-bis (Chani's full name is Chanilinaicanau M'tyoiderit Abyssterilon, but you'll get in trouble if you call her that.)
- Species: Hominin
- Age: Approximately four hundred thousand years
- Pronouns: She/her
- Affiliation: Rangers
- Birthplace: Ranger HQ
- Aliases: Reaper
Quotes
"I don't believe in coincidences."
History
Chani was born in the Second Age to Gerald Abyssterilon (one of John Abyssterilon's sons) and Helena of Station 41. She grew into a precocious, too-smart, always-getting-into-trouble kid who took after both her mother and John, to literally everyone's dismay. Her favorite pasttimes were tearing things apart to see what they did and inventing things with scraps, and she was insatiably curious, though oddly cold. She never smiled.
John adored her. He was always smiling around her, so that was the image she had of him: jovial and indulging. Only later did she find out that he was, in reality, a terminally serious man. When he disappeared, she was still only a child, but he’d answered enough of her incessant questions for her to get his wisdom directly from him, which she held close to her heart when she decided to become a Ranger officially. It was said back then that he and Damien had turned traitor, abandoned the Rangers for unknown reasons, which quickly spiraled into rumors that took on their own lives. This hardened young Private Abyssterilon, who became angry and threw herself body and soul into the work her grandfather had left undone, desperate to find anything that would exonerate him of the stains on his name. For a while, that meant taking on any and all combat missions she could. She rocketed up the ranks and racked up combat experience, during which time her clinical and brutal nature gave her the callsign Reaper.
After far too long of that she became disillusioned: no matter how many combat missions she completed, no matter how many times she killed, no matter how many high-ranking evil people were taken out or lines broken or facilities destroyed, it was like trying to sweep back the ocean with a broom. Eventually she started putting some of her grandfather’s cryptic advice into context: that the people were what mattered, that the system was her ultimate enemy. To that end, her attitude shifted drastically when she became a Sergeant: she became more hardened and resolute, though she hid it behind her patented calculatedly easy smile.
During the Elysian Conflict in the early Sixth Age, she was gravely injured and almost killed, and only by replacing over half of her body with cybernetics was her life saved. After this, she was forced to take on the Commander rank and given leadership over the Special Operations Division of the Rangers.
Personality
Chani is deeply empathetic, cunning, cutting, and secretive, though the facade she puts on is one of easygoing eccentricity. She doesn't trust anything or anyone, and constantly stretches herself to the limit in her attempt to singlehandedly take the wheel of a universe gone way off-track, and pull it back. She has a strong moral compass and a strong conception of justice, but outside of the bounds of those personal ideologies, she is very 'the ends justify the means.'
Her hobbies include tinkering with things (usually things that really shouldn't be messed with) and all forms of engineering/inventing. She loves all things dwarf and her choice destination for a vacation is a dwarven colony planet. She has a particular penchant for ancient hominin aviation, and has a whole warehouse of scavenged old flying machines from across various hominin worlds. Despite enjoying the ambience of bars and her combat prowess, she can't dance, though she forces herself to learn the steps to the latest ~fancy~ dancing so she can show off at the galas she's often forced to attend as a high-rank political figure.
Description
Chani is described as being a muscular six-foot-tall woman with beige skin and colorless eyes with aperture pupils (due to a vision augmentation implant). She has hip-length, straight, ash-blonde hair that is parted to one side and loosely gathered at the nape of her neck. She is not typically feminine, with a larger jaw, thin lips, and deep-set eyes without visible eyelashes. The bright green Abyssterilon clan marks have been tattooed on her cheeks. There are multiple visible indications of her extensive internal cybernetics: four metallic dots under her chin, a circular metallic port under her left collarbone, purple imperium lines down her sides, a rectangular port on her left temple, and a rectangular slot underneath her hair at the base of her skull.
She is most often wearing a custom loadout of the Ranger light duty rec-suit.
Combat
Chani is a master tactician and weapons expert, and most of her gear she made or modified herself. Taking her on is like taking on an army. She is always armed with her custom energy pistols, Stuffy and Snuffy, and she is deadly with them. Her full loadout includes both loose grenades and a grenade launcher, a rifle, spell crystals, energy daggers, and her beloved flamethrower.
Interpersonal
Family:
- Gerald Abyssterilon (father)
- Helena of Station 41 (mother)
- John Abyssterilon (grandparent)
- Damien Rivios (grandparent)
- Xhani (child)
- The Stonebreaker Clan (dwarf)
Friends:
While Chani is relatively close to everyone due to her nature, her closer friends are the below:
Lovers:
Chani is polyamorous and pansexual and will take on both romantic interests and short-term sex partners as she sees fit. Her longest-term lover and the source of the other half of the genetics that contributed to create Xhani is Avandra.
Professional:
Chani, rather literally, lives to forge professional relationships. Listing them all would be listing at least half the known metacosm.