Nihlus Kryik

PLAYER STUFF
Name: Tonake
Pronoun: She/her
Email address: madanmarcia@gmail.com
Preferred contact: plurk probably. Email or PM is a-ok though
Other characters: None yet


CHARACTER STUFF
Name: Nihlus Kryik
Aliases: None
Canon: Mass Effect
Role: vaguely benevolent catbird alien who could go either way
Species: Turian
Gender: Male
Age: Somewhere in his turian mid-30s. Curse you, lack of canon ages
Appearance:


Origin story:
Largely similar to his canon. Once again, Nihlus has spent his earlier years in the harsh conditions of life on a small mercenary outpost, outside the Turian Hierarchy space. After his father’s death (Nihlus was 16 at the time), he was forced to join the military by his mother, a year later than most. Although he had talent and the patience to make use of it, becoming the top student, he was never really accepted by his superiors and his peers due to his outsider status. This unfortunate trend continued even after boot camp, becoming even worse as Nihlus started to act more and more independent, relying on his own instincts and disobeying direct orders to do things his way. Even though the outcome of his actions was usually positive, he was only known for his disobedience and his tendency to get in trouble, which didn’t promise him a very bright future in the military.

One of the ways his superiors dealt with Nihlus was to reassign him to a new squad, which never brought any new results – at least not until Nihlus met Saren Arterius. Saren was a Spectre agent who was about the first person to truly recognize Nihlus’s talent and potential, and who took him under his wing. Not only a mentor and a student, Saren and Nihlus also became good friends for years to come. Soon after meeting Saren, Nihlus was also offered a position in the Spectres – a proposition he gladly accepted. Saren’s intuition paid off: free to act as he saw fit, Nihlus made full use of his talents, making a name for himself among the Spectres and becoming one of the Council’s top agents. For years now, he’s been trusted with the most important and dangerous missions the Council needed done.

It was one of those missions that brought him to Earth – though accidentally rather than on purpose. Thanks to fabricated intel, one of Nihlus’s missions ended in a chase across the galaxy between his one-man (one-turian) vessel and a larger mercenary-slash-pirates ship. Cornered, Nihlus gave them one last fight before jumping through a mass relay – incapacitating their ship significantly, but also suffering some damage to his own vessel. The relay he jumped through turned out to lead to the Solar system, not yet discovered by the Council species. Deciding that sticking around the relay would be unsafe (and partially driven by his curiosity), Nihlus headed towards the only planet that seemed to have sentient life: Earth. After running a closer scan of the planet to confirm his guesses, Nihlus decided to touch down, landing not too far from what looked like one of the major cities.

Personality:
Nihlus is confident, determined and good at thinking outside the box – qualities that sometimes make him come off as too cocky and reckless, especially in the eyes of the more rigid turians. Nihlus believes firmly in the decisions he makes and doesn’t have regrets connected to them, which is rather necessary when your job mostly involves killing people and worse. At the same time, Nihlus has enough self-restraint and morality not to let himself get overwhelmed by the power his position as a Spectre offers. Despite “moving better on his own”, Nihlus is still driven by the typical turian dedication to serving the society and fulfilling his duties – it just doesn’t manifest in the traditional way of following orders to the letter. He strives to always get what he considers the best possible result, no matter how unthinkable the actions he needs to take for it are. Taking on an enemy patrol single-handedly? Not a problem.

Part of what defines Nihlus’s “recklessness” is his curiosity and being open to new ideas: he’s more mentally flexible than most of his race, ready to see potential where others would see a threat, and good at challenging and adapting his own ways of thinking to new situations. He makes full use of it in combat, changing his tactics and strategy depending on his enemy. Combined with his uncanny ability to stay calm and collected under pressure, Nihlus's quick and innovative thinking makes him a formidable opponent. As a Spectre agent, Nihlus is very professional and doesn't hesitate to remove whatever is standing in his way or use dirty tactics to reach his goals (up to and including involving innocent bystanders). He has his sense of morals, though, and his actions are never needlessly brutal. The emphasis is on needlessly.

In his dealings with people Nihlus is calm and honest (unless his current mission requires otherwise) - it's very hard to make him take something personally or aggravate him. While he's no stranger to diplomacy, Nihlus doesn't go in for flattery or twisting the truth for the sake of others. His disposition is professional and a little distant - while he doesn't hold prejudices against people and his demeanor is usually between amicable and neutral, he doesn't get attached to people easily and prioritizes his missions over his personal relationships.

Differences from canon:
Nothing much other than the fact CH events take place some couple of hundred years before canon and the Council races haven't heard of humanity yet, which... doesn't even influence Nihlus all that much. He'll just have to decide the human race has potential all over again after arriving on Earth.

Power level: C
Powers:
- Turians as a whole are bigger and have a slightly sturdier build than humans, so that's a vague close combat advantage.
- Lots of sharp teeth, as well as sharp talons on hands and feet (another vague close combat advantage)
- Advanced alien technology, since Spectres get the best equipment (cool guns, a battlesuit with a built-in computer and a spaceship, with more built-in computers)
- General combat prowess. He's good at shooting things
- Also good at strategy

Team affiliation: None (yet???)

First person sample:

*ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION*

From: Nihlus Kryik

Saren.

For someone who can work a crowd so easily you have surprising difficulty choosing words in personal matters. Thank you for your concern. I have made my peace with it. Valtus died honorably, and there isn't more either of us could have asked for.

I'm glad to hear you're open to discussion. I miss our missions together - these sporadic talks don't make for the most productive communication, and I know how you feel about writing these mails. There is nothing like a face-to-face talk.

And you know how I feel about that artifact of yours. I'll hear you out, of course. Maybe this time you will convince me my doubts about it are unfounded. I trust in your judgement, but I expect you to trust in mine too, even if only a little.

And by the way, you're buying the drinks this time.

- Nihlus.


Prose sample:

After the typical numbness of a mass relay jump had died down, Nihlus sat back and started to analyze his situation.

The fact that he had just broken about the biggest Council rule - do not open a mass relay without knowing where it leads - didn't bother him too much. The scan of the area he was in revealed that the relay had most likely been opened before - it detected fragments of ice that the relay seemed to had been encased in before some distance away from the relay itself. If there were any sentient, aggressive, space-faring species in this galaxy they already had a door open into the Council space - and maybe this was a good time for a Spectre to end up in this system. A single stealth-oriented vessel could move freely around the system, and Nihlus could easily gather enough information about its inhabitants and whether they posed a threat to the Council races.

Directing his vessel away from the relay and setting a course to the center of the system (all he had in his vicinity was a tiny, frozen planet - if it even qualified as a planet), Nihlus focused on his more imminent problems. Namely: running out of fuel, as well as running out of supplies, and the damage done to his ship. If he was lucky, he'd find a world with hospitable species familiar with space travel who would have the resources to repair and refuel his ship. If he wasn't... well, he'd have to make his own luck. It wouldn't be his first time, even if it could be his last.

Some time later and still no signs of life on the planets he'd passed, Nihlus finally found what he was looking for: a garden world, seemingly lacking any significant cosmic infrastructure but teeming with life - organized, advanced life, packed into what seemed to be cities. The preliminary conditions scan also showed promising results - a world a little cooler than Palaven, with almost equal gravity and atmospheric pressure, no additional complications. No pressure suit needed, then - a little bit of relief for someone whose ship was low enough on resources without having to bring out additional equipment.

In other circumstances Nihlus would have given himself some time to think, to make a final decision - but he knew that he had, once again, put himself in a situation where going forward was the only choice. Exactly the kind of action he would have gotten berated and called reckless for back in the military - but he was never the kind to settle for less than he could take. And what could offer more than a whole new world?

Activating all of the ship's stealth systems (he did learn to always expect trouble), Nihlus set course for the planet below him.