Raven

Subject: Ryan "Raven" Dakota. Male, Human Vampire, Age 26.

Background: Born in the turbulent 40s, Ryan was the children of two middle-class hotel owners (The Southern Raven) in New Orleans in the CAS. Dissatisfied with his life and amid the decadent, crime-laden surroundings that the old city had to offer, Ryan started inching his way into the criminal underworld. Starting with peddling chem-drugs, he eventually moved his way up to the BTL scene, when a local houngan approached him. The houngan asked why he had stopped selling chem-narcotics. Ryan replied that they were lower-income. The houngan smiled and offered him twice as much as he was making as a BTL dealer to go back to chems, so long as he only sold those the houngan gave him to sell. Delighted to have found his way into the patronage of a local criminal with some seasoning, he dutifully sold novacoke, his increasing influence and income letting him move up in the New Orleans social scene. His client base increased, and he found himself hip-deep in the shadows of the city, without yet understanding what he had gotten into.

Ryan began wondering why some of his client base had begun to dissappear. Few of them seemed like burnouts, and most were simply social sniffers. The houngan, Black Louie, said they were following a path meant for them. He took this to mean they were moving on, so slot 'em. He didn't understand the gravity of his situation until a pair of shadowrunners investigating the disappearances knocked down his door and interrogated him one evening. The runners, a young elf Cat shaman named Cat's Eye and an even younger street sam called Wolf drilled him for everything he knew. After scaring the drek out of the young dealer, Wolf, who clearly was suffering from some sort of chemical narcotic withdrawal, explained that the dissappearances were only linked by their drug habits... drugs which had been provided by Black Louie. Cat's Eye explained that the houngan followed the Petro path, a way of spiritual corruption to gain power. Ryan, never thinking he was hurting anyone against their will, was horrified to think he was responsible for poisoning people. He offered his help to make amends, hoping for some leniency.

Ryan lead the pair of runners to Louie's hideout. A massive firefight broke out, with Louie attended by all of those who had dissappeared. Louie had laced the novacoke with a possession poison that consumed the souls of the users, ultimately turning them into zombies under his command. Although Wolf was fatally wounded in the fight, Louie and his zombies were put down. Cat's Eye and Ryan stayed with Wolf until his end, Wolf explaining that he was, himself, recovering from addiction to Jazz. He asked that Ryan give up the path he walked, and find something more noble. Ryan, whon had come to admire the samurai, tearfully agreed.

He returned to his parrents' hotel to appologize to them for his ways, only to find the place in flames, his parrents dead. Louie had placed a contingency curse on Ryan, destroying his family in the event of Ryan's betrayal. Left with nothing but his earning in a life he regretted, Cat's Eye offered to introduce him to a life where he might make amends. Ryan discarded his name that night, rechristening himself "Raven" after his parrent's prized business.

A transorbital flight to Seattle brought him to the doctors neccessary to equip him for following in Wolf's path. After being cybered up, Cat's Eye introduced him to a fixer, and Raven's shadowrunning career began. He did a few odd jobs before hooking up with some other runners out of the Cobalt Street Apartments. Their professionalism made them into a well-respected group, with runs taking them all over North America. On a return to New Orleans, Raven had the pleasure of killing a teacherous ex-rival, a BTL dealer named Remy. He began building a reputation as a street sam with style, often undertaking dangerous maneouvers of an acrobatic style to surprise the enemy. His initial skill was chip-based, but he proved to be a quick study, and learned to make the skills his own with time.

Shortly before the Cobalt Street Apartments Massacre, Raven dissappeared after taking a job for a local community action committee attempting to eliminate a pair of go-gangs in the area, the Fangs and the Warts. His efforts to create a contained gang war, then kill them all with explosives proved to be successful, but he was unaware that the Fangs, a vampire-wannabe gang, had been recieving funding and attention from a larger group of infected. Learning his past and deciding on an appropriate punishment, they captured him and locked him in a cage with a loup-garou. He barely managed to survive melee with the beast, but was surely infected. Three weeks of painful transformation rebuilt him into the werewolf of nightmare's legend, and he was kept as a pet for one of the gangers for another month before his team was able to locate him. Using expensive bioware and cyber-surgery, the team was able to restore his intellect. He suffered from amnesia, but was, perhaps, one of the first sapient loup-garou.

His difficulties did not stop there, however. As he searched from ways to unlock his memories one night, he ran across a young vampire in a alleyway. Not recognizing what she was, and seeing she was being attacked by an Ancients go-ganger, he rushed to rescue her. The Ancient turned out to be an expert with his blades, however, and Raven found himself critically wounded. The vampire, Peach, then revealed her nature and drained the both of them, consuming Raven's soul wholesale.

Raven's story, however, does not end there. Peach undertook a running career of her own for about a month before being knocked unconscious. She had been working with his old team, and when they uncovered evidence that she was the one who killed him, they kept her unconscious. The mage in the group, Red, used ritual sorcery to coax Raven's spirit into dominance over Peach's. Raven's soul became the primary one, and consumed Peach's. A month of slow regeneration saw her body rebuilt to look almost exactly like his old one, albeit without cyberware and with red eyes.

Raven is assumed to have survived the Cobalt Street Apartments Massacre, and rumors point to him having moved back to New Orleans, despite his distaste for the town, and establishing the "New Raven Hostel". Further rumors speculate about his status as a physical adept, and whether he feeds on his clientelle, now that he is a vampire. Nonetheless, it is likely he is still involved in the shadow community, if only as a fixer.