Baseline NPCs

Eugene Karlsdorfer

Senior Europol administrator, mentor to Ondre Debinski. An experienced bureaucrat with much pull in the European community. He is one of the supporters of the use of novas for public protection and criminal investigation. His vision has been a strong pan-European police force for many years, and novas make a good excuse for deeper international cooperation.

Privately he is a bit of a Casanova, with a taste for younger ladies attracted by his influence and position. He has a reputation in Europol as a charmer, and not so few jealous boyfriends and husbands of Europol employees that would like to see him fail. But he is to circumspect and well connected for that – at least he thinks so.

Sir Donald L. Carpenter

(Former) chief of British Defence Intelligence Mid-East operations, currently stationed in the UK Nova Defence Task Force.

A talented military man with a distinguished career. Despite having kept a low profile he is very able to take major risks if the rewards are worth it, and make his wild schemes work out. His decision to bring the Iranian dissident nova Taleye Khoyi home to the United Kingdom earned him respect and harsh criticism; it was the intelligence coup of the decade, but nearly broke off all diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran. The Foreign Office hates him for this “rash and dangerous overreaction”, the defense and intelligence establishment applaud his willingness to sacrifice his official cover and career in service of the kingdom. By bringing one of the more powerful novas under British control and preventing her from becoming part of the Iranian efforts Britain has won a major research opportunity, serious kudos from the US and even some international goodwill. What are diplomatic niceties compared to that?

Sir Carpenter is a very intelligent and philosophical person. He does not know what place novas have in the great scheme of things, but he knows they are important and that Britain better know as much about them as possible. He has befriended Taleye, who he treats as a daughter – a dangerous, weather controlling daughter that tends to levitate small objects in her presence, but a daughter nevertheless. Right now he is part of the UK project of understanding novas, mostly because there is no other place to put him without getting problems, but he knows things will blow over in time. He concentrates on issues of detecting novas and perhaps preventing their eruption, as well as gathering information about possible foreign eruptions.

Louis García Carrión

Coordinator of the ENA. A career EU administrator with fine political merits from Spain and the Agricultural directorate.

Jean-Marie Ponty

Chief of the Nova subdirectorate of the Directorate of Territorial Security (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire). A clear-headed, efficient man in his 40s that gives such eminently reasonable suggestions that he does not have to order them. Originally recruited from the police for antiterrorist tracing, he has built a solid reputation for managing tricky developing situations. When a nova subdirectorate was formed he was the natural choice, although the formal power is of course in the hands of seniors superiors. He does not care; he likes the challenge of his job and wants to make it perfect.

He finds outside intrusion into his directorate and French security intolerable, but masks his outrage. He is saddled with dealing with ENA from time to time, and as long as he has no reliable novas or ways of dealing with them he needs it. But he considers the collaboration a huge security leak, a random variable and an imposition due to politics rather than good investigating procedure. A European “nova force” is ridiculous beyond words. However, he keeps careful tabs of everything that is done and especially who authorises it. Especially mistakes done by outside novas are documented. One day when he has enough he is going to use the material with the proper authorities to ensure that nobody interferes with his work ever again.

Carl Landesdorfer

Administrative aide at ENA, responsible for running the practical details of nova teams, meetings etc. He is a very skilled administrator but still too young for any position of greater responsibility – yet.

Carl is somewhat highly strung. When stressed he speaksveryquicklyandincessantly, and he is a stickler for safety, following the book and avoiding undue danger. Deep down he is a quite fastidious and positive person who wants to minimise trouble, dangers and discomfort for every person, but most people only see the bureaucratic shell.

Carl has begun to realize that he fears novas, and this troubles him. He doesn’t want to be prejudiced, but they are so powerful and dangerous. Even worse, he can’t leave ENA without stunting his career. ENA is the place to be if you want to get up in the administration. He even suspects that his superiors use him as an intermediary when dealing with the novas: they also fear them.

Tandu Miliken

Tandu is 18 years old, studying media science. She is also a potential threats to ENA in Britain. She is convinced the novas are dangerous, evil people in cahoots with sinister government agencies and she is out to prove it.

Tandu has always been slightly suspicious of novas. She just said, ”This can’t be good” when she first heard about people with superpowers. And over the years since then she has seen much evidence for it, everything from the Mbane disaster to ominous developments in China.

But it was the death of her sister after a rave party in London that triggered her crusade. Sesta died of drug-related overheating, the medics said. But Tandu knew her sister would never take drugs (she was actually wrong about that) heard that there was a nova at the party. She began to ask around, discovering not just that this particular nova was known for his chemical control but also that there were MI6 people or other spooks present. Tandu began to investigate deeper. She noted some odd remarks in the autopsy report about gallstones and lacunae in the fatty tissue she couldn’t make sense of (doctors she has spoken with have been unable to suggest any normal reason for it either).

Right now she is demanding a new autopsy of her sister. Should it be done, or a careful re-analysis of her blood samples, it would discover both strange lecithin deficiency and a very unusual titanium compound (Titanium 50 dioxide) – the signature of a certain nova…

She is also following up on the MI6 lead. She discovered that there was some kind of nova conference in town during the day, where several novas were present. At least one other briefly visited the party. She is trying to find out about their whereabouts during the night, hoping it might give some more evidence. Little does she know that she might stumble onto something even bigger and more damaging if she is (un)lucky. Both the wild use of emotion controlling powers and the accidental(?) poisoning of several Home Office officials are potential finds. If her investigations come to the Home Office’s knowledge at least some civil servants might give her a leak.

Tandu does not seriously think Sesta was killed deliberately – but she is certain that MI6 and others are covering things up. Maybe novas do damage or infect people, and it is being covered up by the government. Once she has enough evidence, she will go to the press with it. She has a suitable x-files paranoia about the government and is trying to keep her investigations quiet; she actually doesn’t have to worry much right now, but should she run into something more damning her precautions might actually help her against the UK Nova Task Force and MI6 – they certainly doesn’t expect a teen student as a serious threat.