I've started up a game with a mostly new set of players, and in doing some preliminary prep for things, I've noticed that I have a relatively small set of NPC's I use. I'm trying to correct this, but I'm having trouble coming up with workable concepts for this.

The game in question is running 4e rules, for what that's worth, and I'm leaning a bit more to the mohawk side of things with this new group. Putting a number to it, I'd say a 4 on a scale of 1-5, 5 being full mohawk. I've had 1 interesting idea so far, but would only be useful in very specific situations. A cybered mantis shaman Bug-hunter with Weapon Focus Cyber-spurs isn't something you see everyday.

So, what I'm looking for is just some suggestions for NPC concepts, something that will mesh well with a primarily mohawk feel. In particular, I'm looking for concepts for NPC runners, since due to mainly GM-ing games I don't have much to mine from my past characters. Thanks in advance.

A few ideas.

TankJack: A full body replacement, generally themed towards being able to jump around and shoot effectively, while absorbing helacious damage. He woke up on an operating table in some secret lab in the barrens and fought his way out. He has been on the run since then. Oh, and he doesn't really know who he is, so he's kinda trying to figure that out, as well as what happened to him, and how to survive being hunted by Ares.

Jolly Roger/Meat: Outwardly, the massive ork who bristles with augmentations and unmitigated violence seems simple. He's a thug, a low-brow, violent type, the sort of being commonly known as a "blunt instrument". He's unsavory at best, and down right despicable at worst. That's the commonly held view of Meat.

However, Jolly Roger is far worse than most people can begin to imagine. His extensive array of augmentations have been harvested from victims, because meat is one of the most frightening aspects of the sixth world: He's an Organ Legger. Jolly Roger is far smarter than most give him credit for, and despite a reputation as a trigger puller and ruffian, he is actively engaged in a massive organ reposession ring. Those who know him on a personal level are intesnsely paranoid and frightened, because you never know when he wants what you have, and he will take it.

The Greenfaced Monkeys: A triad, nominally of Hmong and Cambodian heritage, the Green Face Monkeys are more akin to a street gang than an organized crime syndicate. They largely make their money by hijacking criminal deals, and as a whole tend to be brash and violent. Their signatures are wearing suits or tuxedos, green masquerade/ball masks, drug use and violence.

Here are a few that I’ve used which have been interesting enough to be memorable, get drafted as recurring characters, etc.

‘George’ the (extremely large) troll security mage (yes, ‘George’ is his working name. George is not overly imaginative). Trolls are big. Some trolls are even bigger. Then there is George—he isn’t all that strong, as trolls go, but strong enough to haul around an extra four hundred pounds or so fat. He has the exceptional body characteristic, an agility of one, reactions of two, intuition not much higher. He isn’t going anywhere fast, except when astral, but that’s OK—with his body and security-grade armor and magical defenses, he isn’t going to get moved easily either. He can normally be found in a protected location, inside a ward, sitting in a very heavy-duty folding chair, keeping watch with a periscope and a mix of small bound fire spirits, watchers, and his own astral presence. So long as he’s well supplied with Super-Salty-Soy-Snax!™ and soy-caff, he’s good for ages. You’ll never catch him in the open, he prefers to harass and monitor with spirits, but he has a fair array of spells and a good astral combat skill. He makes a good hireling to toughen up the opposition, especially if they would not normally have much magic. He doesn’t care a lot about who he works for, so long as their money is good. He will surrender if he is in mortal danger (it is in his contracts that he can—he doesn’t work for people who expect fanatics).

‘Angel’, Humanis mage. Her astral form looks like a classic blonde-bombshell, but physically she is an underfed, rat faced, acne-cursed teenager, who is bitter with the world. Humanis has given her a target for her bitterness, and since she doesn’t really see others as real people, and certainly not meta-humans, she has no issues with throwing fireballs into crowds of orcs or setting fire spirits on trolls. She’ll always have more subtle back-up/managers nearby to help extract her, as someone with her talents and lack of remorse is an asset that that local humanis group values highly. She isn’t courageous, except in the way that a cornered rat might be courageous, but given a chance to bully ‘race-traitors’ she’ll happily take it. Runners may feel that she can be saved from her wayward ways, or at least have some hesitation about ganking an underfed teenage girl, so she has a reasonable chance to be a menace more than once.

‘Vlad’ the vampire who thinks he’s a vampire. He was a chiphead, running a chip that made him think he was Count Dracula. Then he got infected and became a vampire. He is dramatic, melodramatic, and a bit confused as to his actual abilities. He is a vampire and will feed without particular remorse, but beyond that he can be reasoned with, and may actually help runners at times—especially if they are leaving living but disabled bodies behind.

The Dread Pirates are a gang of five or so (it changes periodically) trolls who are convinced that they are, you guessed it, pirates. No chips involved, just somewhat confused trolls. They affect historical dress, stuffed parrots, faux-pirate speech, and the occasional eye-patch. One even has cyber-hand and foot resembling a pet leg and hook, but far more functional. They keep their booty in their base (the top floor of a low-rise apartment building in the barrens of your choice, which they’ve managed to rig as a faraday cage), and sometimes end up with items of value that they don’t recognize as such, due to their somewhat random criminal nature. They are a mix of low-level and tough, such that more organized crime and law enforcement both tend to leave them alone, so their occasional ‘boardings’ (actually overturning smaller cars that have stopped, and then taking everything non-biological from the car) and assaults (home invasions in the seedier parts of town) have netted them a motley collection of items. I’ve used them mostly as ‘someone hires you to recover a McGuffin, which the Dread Pirates are holding.’ They are smart enough to upgrade their defenses and security if they are successfully robbed.

Dave, the unlucky guard. He used to work for a security firm, before the place that he was guarding got smashed by the runners, and he got fired. Desperate for work, he hired on with a criminal syndicate, until the runners made him look a fool. He resorted to taking a job as the night security guard at a strip mall, until he got fired after a battle between the runners and a go-gang burned the place down. The runners would never even realize it, except that he’s a regular at their favorite bar, and always telling his latest tale of woe. Somehow he never recognizes the runners, even as he sinks deeper into depression and alcoholism.

Lex
Ork Woman with Human looking. just 21 years old. about 2.2m tall, most of that is legs.
Both Legs obvious cyber-replacement, you won't find a pair of legs that pretty and strong with an ass that cute anywhere else outside fashion magazines.
Retractable Weapon-Mounts on both legs, built in cyber skates and foot anchors.
Wears usually hot pants or short skirts and works in an 1950's retro caffee where the waitresses skate around the place to deliver orders to customers.
Wear a long enough skirt and you can hide an LMG under that.
Speciality: Athletics and Heavy Weapons/Auotmatics obviously.
"Panty Shot! Now in .50BMG!"

Mole.
1m short("jesus don't call him that!" *runs away screaming) Mole Shaman Dorf or Gnome, i forgot.
Has a short fuse. One singular Cyber-Eye-Replacement with Lights, Low-Light, Microscope in it.
Shape Earth Spell does Force x m³ so a 1m high x 05m wide and 12m long tunnel at force 6, no problem!
Kinda Sorta Archeologist in his free time.

Blurr
Human. Complete Body Ruthenium Polymer Coat. And Ruthenium Polymer Coated clothes/armor.
Does not talk much, usually uses his Ruthenium on his face to speak in emoticons. Like displaying a BIG QUESTIONMARK on his face for example.
Most of the time tries and successfully annoys people by using the rest of his Ruthenium to basically make himself unbearable to look at by making it hard to see his actually outline and being blurry on purpose.
Of course, his speciality is sneaking . . .

Synk
Elf with all of the ear and voicework done. And implanted speakers.
Can fool most voice recognition systems and sweet talk in any language.
Also very good at listening in on people on the other side of a room unnoticed from the other side of the street.
Uses his ware to annoy people by making sure his own voice is NEVER in sync with the Movement of his lips.
Has had one too many old time eastern chips. He is a face.

A.S. (Artificial Stupidity)
A Decker. Has one cheap Cyber-Deck in a fixed location of a basically bought coffin at a coffin hotel that he uses to remotecontrol a Drone with a holoprojector on it to do the "Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi! You are our only Hope!" Hologram thing during meetings. NEVER is anywhere ever in person.

I had a firefighter statted up once.
All Cyberware and all skills were perfect for actually riding around town and fighting fires, but on the other hand made him a formidable Street-Samurai wit a preference for Firebased Weaponry.

Gecko.
Geckos can throw off their tail if needed to escape.
Gecko can throw off his Arms in order to escape.
Gecko is also the Asshole that has a smuggeling compartment filled with plastic explosives in his Arms.
Demolitons/Tech/Coward.

I've been using the local equivalent of Jackpoint or Shadowsea in my game set in MN as a form of exposition, so I have a ton of NPC runners, although I've fleshed out ideas and attitudes more than visuals, since many of them the players never actually physically meet.

Some highlights:

Brynhild, troll smuggler who runs the Tbird route up to Thunder Bay. Asatru and resents the more extreme elements of the Asatru community, the Winternight wannabes and so on, for making her people look bad. Big blonde woman of Norse descent, hoop earrings and mjolnir pendant around her neck, hangs out at the metal club downtown.

Redeye, white male human rigger from rural MN. Former commercial airliner captain for Aeromexico, now Scorched and dequalled from commercial flying. He's trying to make enough money to get his brainpan fixed, investigate the Flight 821 debacle, and salvage his failing marriage. About 50, kind of looks like the Men's Wearhouse guy without a beard, and is augmented to be able to operate for extended periods at altitude even in the event of decompression (internal air tank and the like). Working on making a couple homemade smart bombs for his personal Cessna.

Neon, petite human razorgirl whose cyberlegs' lights make people think of the pet fish whose name she's been labeled with. Big into the latest technical achievements (has a bit of a singularitarian bent), a natural early adopter. In this sprawl, people tend to gravitate towards either Ares or Evo, and she's in the latter camp.

Briarpatch: Black male human shaman. His totem is essentially Brer Rabbit. Has a strong relationship with AZT, and as a result of one of his runs for the Pyramid, a local Yucatec Maya shaman runner (a former PC) has been out to get him. She keeps killing his teammates, but he keeps escaping; it's really starting to affect his rep.

Wheat Germ - Male troll from Portland, former Rinelle dissident. Big into a lot of super Portlandy stuff, like urban gardening and craft beer, but for him it's a traditional culture he's trying to preserve under elven oppression. White redhead with a beard. Bikes into combat because it's silent and stealthy and with high strength he can pedal really, really fast. Also a go-to explosives guy.

Public Enemy Number One - Heavily inspired by the Road Rash II character of the same name. Motorcycle adept who's into the local street racing circuit. Oddly, I kind of imagine her as a musclier Kristen Bell with some facial damage from fights and crashes. Is an ork, but due to broken tusks from a crash and a small frame by ork standards, occasionally is mistaken for human. Due to a poorly healed hip injury, essentially unable to run in the literal sense. From the wilds of Chicago originally, grew up from about 13 onward without any family, so she's kind of socially poorly adjusted. Uses an enchanted steel chain.

Don't have a name for this one yet, but a female human courier a la Mirror's Edge. Of Chinese descent, she's got cyberlegs whose feet are skimmer disks, fashioned to give the appearance of bound feet (largely playing this for creepiness), and who has a belt with small jet turbines attached to her hips for forward propulsion.

Jukebox. A former PC that nobody in my group could get enough of. Always managed to survive even the most mohawk, haywire run (hijacking a city bus with a rocket launcher, et al). Basically Tony Montana or Jackpoint's Kane as a lesbian Ojibwe dwarf. In person, alternates between kind of awkward ("I'd like to buy some drugs please") and full Spartaaa ("WHO'S THE SQUAT NOW!"), but doesn't actually talk all that much. Knows all the best frybread places in Minneapolis. Dating a lazy mediocre hacker chick who's more on the butch side (Zipper from On The Run), while she dresses pretty middle of the road gender wise.

behold the power of Blackjack

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