Allie

Thryzz is a Caelian adventurer who specializes in the identification and management of supernatural phenomena that manifest throughout the Sol system. At 90 years old, Thryzz is as spry and as jolly as they've ever been, letting age and experience inspire rather than embitter them to the grey shadws of the worlds around them. There's horrors everywhere, Thryzz will gleefully inform you, but we know exactly how to contain them! Isn't that lovely? Fear has roots in uncertainty, in the unknown and unpredictable, but through the light of knowledge we can relieve ourselves of that fear and traverse a vast system teeming with curiosities safe in the understanding that for whatever we may encounter, in our collective library of shared experience we have answers to their dark questions. Shared knowledge is a beautiful thing, and if you hire Thryzz onto your planned voyage, you'll enjoy the benefit of a vast archive of lived and learned experience, as well as a practical application of that experience in warding your starship from maladies from beyond the void.

From the sizzling surface of Sol to the harrowing void beyond Pluto's reach, Thryzz has spent their life seeking out those things which science alone can't explain in any place they may reveal themselves. Whether it's the lingering ghosts of the restless dead or incursions of subspace into our world, mysterious creatures stowing away on outbound starcraft or any thing that makes your jellies tingle, Thryzz is a living encyclopedia of folk wisdom and parascientific fact. They've spent a lifetime traversing the Sol system, seeking out lived memories and pass-down precautions about the unexplainable truths of our universe. Every world has its cryptids- never seen but spoken of in whispers- or cautionary tales about meeting an ill fate if you don't respect a force beyond your comprehension; we all grew up with them, and those stories all have roots in something which is known but not fully understood. What Thryzz has done is they've taken those stories and woven them into a profession, coming to know the roots of the unknowable and building a set of wards and seals to stitch these stray threads back into the quiltwork of the universe. That's a whole lotta words, but in short: they're a scary-thing hunter, and a damn good one at that.

When one meets Thryzz for the first time, there's two things about them that immediately grab one's attention: first, there's the arm. Thryzz wears a prosthetic limb in place of one of their longer arms, gold in color with two cartridges of water at the shoulder. Caelian prosthetics work a bit differently than most other species, using water pressure inside a thick chambered sleeve to bend and articulate rather than using motors or servos. Hydroprosthetics allow a Caelian to channel their innate electrical properties into a very conductive limb and discharge a larger-than-normal shock with controlled precision through the metal fixtures of their limb. Second, there's the other arms. Thryzz has a series of curious markings inked into their semitranslucent outer membrane, a mix of sacred geometries and Caelian prayer scripts, which they assure you grant them protection from harm. When both arms link together at the hand, Thryzz can form a large circle in front of or around themselves or a companion and feed a specific amperage of electrical power through their limbs, powering their wards. In this way, neither ghost nor ghast nor subspace shift will bring harm within its boundaries. This ward has saved their life many times, they will assure you. And those who have hired Thryzz onto their crew can attest to its power.

While Thryzz is an independent adventurer, the allure of good credits and the promise of an encounter with the paranatural are all it takes for a starfarer to enlist them onto their crew. Timberwolf in particular has hired Thryzz onto the Ermine when Bryce and his crew set out to salvage a particularly gloomy shipwreck, one which is assuredly a graveyard for some bitter or wrathful spirits. Emily, Timberwolf's security professional, swears she witnessed Thryzz ward off a poltergeist attack with their ringed, tattooed arms and disrupt it with a burst of electricity from their prosthetic limb strong enough that she "could feel in her teeth." Cargo haulers like Kessler will occasionally hire Thryzz onto a voyage if the superstitious among them read a mix of solar flare forecasts and ionic stormcloud predictions as the potential for warp current disruptions to allow tendrils of subspace into reality. They tell stories of Thryzz marking their ship's hull with chalk glyphs prior to takeoff, and of witnessing the static incursions of subspace brought out by intersecting storms bend safely around their approach, seeing an horrific and certain death crackle just beyond their ship's windows. It's even been rumored that Thryzz has teamed up with the infamous Jade Hawk in hunting down ancient temples on various worlds filled with magic traps protecting powerful relics, sensed out and dispelled by Thryzz's warding marks. The Jade Hawk seeks to destroy these relics, and Thryzz asks only to learn how they work before they are ushered from a world they're deemed too dangerous to inhabit. They are a true adventurer, taking on any task that calls for their skills for the joy of growing wiser and sharper from the experience.

Lately, Thryzz has found themself on Titan Garden. There's long been rumors of a Terran blood-curse, one which grants supernatural power and immortality to a once-living person at the cost of earning Sol's direct fury. Walking in shadows, it's said that these Terran cryptids have begun to spread from their home planet, inflicting their blood-curse onto other species, its properties interacting with their natural abilities in curious ways. Folktales call them "vampires", and it's said that they build power and influence within a notable concentration of people, who they depend on for nourishment- Thryzz suspects that an independent colony like Titan Garden might be an alluring host for such a paranatural lifeform, and so they've arrived to investigate; to collect stories, to learn about odd encounters with the indescribable, to document scars and bite marks and assemble a catalog of shared experiences into a deeper understanding of vampiric behaviors, and learn who or what might have found an inviting home in the Saturnian frontier worlds. When dealing with cryptids, Thryzz believes that compassion and diplomacy are best practice for first contact, but should said cryptid see a meal in their jellies, then a trusty Caelian steelcutter and an enormous jolt of electricity often make for a good plan B. The important part of lived experience is that you continue living to enjoy it, after all!

With four orange gloves ready and steady it's hard to miss Mrgyl the Kraken, SABLE's favorite boneless boxer from the planet Caelus. An unusual presence in the old Terran sport, Mrgyl has long been a proponent of boxing in the Outer Belt and has sought to make it their own, putting a unique spin on professional pugilism by way of their species distinctly nonhuman traits. In contrast to Mr. Nice Guy, who is big on boxing's history and traditions, Mrgyl the Kraken is all about dismantling ideas of what is "true" boxing and discovering new methods to thrive within the scope and spirit of the sport's rules. Mrgyl will frequently hype up a match in pre-fight interviews by alluding to a new technique they'd invented, encouraging people to tune in and see something they've never seen before. It works, too! What's this four-armed fighter with no bones cooking up this time? Get your tickets to the Imperial Arena and see it live for yourself!

True to their boasts, Mrgyl the Kraken never takes to the ring with the same style twice. Always inventing new techniques, Mrgyl will adapt their whole gameplan around some novel new idea and approach their next fight with a fresh set of moves; this makes watching tapes of Mrgyl's previous matches a somewhat ineffective way to prepare for a match against them, as they're likely not going to be boxing the way they did on the footage you're studying. One thing that unifies Mrgyl's fluid boxing styles is the use of their four arms- this arrangement allows them to play a very defensive game, keeping gloves in front of their face and flanks, bending and weaving around punches while sneaking shots in from awkward angles; to play a very offensive game, raining a flurry of blows to keep an opponent locked in on the defensive; or to play a hybrid style, using their longer arms to parry and jab while keeping their shorter utility arms up in front of their center of mass. Mrgyl isn't very muscley, and they can't take weather quite as many blows as their burlier companions, so they depend on their limberness and their unpredictability to keep them on even footing with SABLE's other boxers. The use of a special belt-mounted rebreather connected to their breathing tubes allows the Caelian to fight without the encumbrance of a standard harness around their neck, an innovation that Caelians in many active sporting fields have likewise adopted.

The Inner Belt fighters all leverage their species' inherent abilities to give them an edge in a match, and you can bet your biscuits their Outer Belt counterparts do the same as well. It might seem easy or tempting to throw a big haymaker at Mrgyl the Kraken, to just knock the Caelian fighter out with an enormous right hand, but above all things you have to be careful not to fall victim to the Kraken's Sting. Utilizing the conductive jellies in their arms, Mrgyl the Kraken is able to release a stored charge of electricity and give their defense an extra crackle and pop, sending a shock through the gloves of a fighter whose aggressive tendencies become too predictable. It's a little too obvious for them to throw electrical punches in the way Dazzlin' Dean is known to throw one venomous blow, and Mrgyl the Kraken doesn't have quite the same oomph behind their shots, so a defensive application of Caelian electricity is the right fit for their boxing needs. Fighters often recoil from the shots, opening themselves up for Mrgyl to move in and shift into a very aggressive stance, showering their opponent in blows while they try to regain their bearings in a match. They can't take too many hits themself so they use their static little cheat to make their defensive moments more worthwhile, quickly turning a match in their own favor. No one likes being zapped by the Kraken's Sting, but trying to catch a wriggly opponent or keep them off of your own defenses can get frustrating round after round, putting even the most seasoned boxer on tilt and leading them towards the temptation of a big sudden offensive with a big juicy payout if they guess correctly. Mrgyl tries to make sure they don't guess correctly and their fans love them for it.

SABLE's leading four-armed fighter is a favorite among many Garden residents, including Red Raven's warp engineer Lydia and Timberwolf's ace pilot, Mahnoor. Lydia loves to cheer for the spicy Caelian, watching them bend and contort around the ring, watching their opponents scramble on the fly to keep up with the fluid fighter. It's almost circus-like, and Lydia's always giggling while the viewers around her groan about their own fighter's withering patience. For Mahnoor the big draw is the Kraken's Sting. She's a fan of old Terran boxing, and it's a real treat to see more traditional fighters be made to work outside their comfort zones against Mrgyl the Kraken. The snap and jolt of the Kraken's Sting going off marks the end of an opponent's patience, and often the beginning of a climactic flurry from Mrgyl's orange mitts. Mahnoor enjoys the other boxers, but she really likes what Mrgyl brings out of them. It's difficult to really put odds on Mrgyl in a matchup, but Calbrix the Florist tends to give them unfavorable odds. Pick a number one to ten, put your credits down and pray that your fighter's got a compatible style in mind for tonight's match. If you guess right you've got a big payout coming, but you gotta be ready to accept you guessed wrong as well. No one knows for sure what to expect from Mrgyl the Kraken, and that is, honestly, a big part of their charm.

Gryzby is a culinary Caelian and the owner of Gryzby's Fine Oils, a Caelian minerals joint operating in the C-District. Gryzby is a food vendor bearing the weight of a mighty challenge, constantly looking for ways to present traditional Caelian foods to the non-Caelian menagerie of an interconnected Sol system. They have a traditionalist background in terms of inheriting their craft from their predecessor and appreciating the rich cultural roots of Caelian mineral blends, but they're of a progressive mind in terms of how to adapt the old ways to the new palates of Titan Garden. Gryzby is friendly but in a salesman's sort of way, a cone of fine oil is a pitch to non-Caelians, a way to disarm their inherent apprehensions at drinking mineral oil and try a taste of Caelus. Yipyap gives it a confused but enthusiastic five barks out of five.

Okay, so, a little backstory: Caelus is a largely-aquatic world consisting of a thick atmosphere over an icy slurry of water, ammonia and minerals collected around a rocky core. Caelians are, by and large, the only species that inhabit Caelus, so their diet doesn't consist of plants or other animal life- instead they subsist on a unique mineral diet. Their internal organs, or "jellies", allow them to break down even tough minerals with little trouble, extracting nutrients from their chemical construction; this process allows them to eat and enjoy the softer foods of other species, as they are effectively omnivorous, but a Caelian diet can wreck havoc on a non-Caelian digestive system. It's a bit of a conundrum if you want to sell Caelian food to non-Caelian customers, but all is not lost! There is another way.

What Gryzby's Fine Oils is, is effectively a reduction of Caelian minerals into a granular state that can be blended with a liquid medium that is gentler on otherworldly tummies than a more traditional mineral dish. These mineral bases can be infused with fruity berry ingredients from other worlds to create unique flavor combinations that are otherwise impossible without the inclusion of a Caelian mineral. "They eat salt just fine, they can eat this as well". It's just a matter of form factor, of presenting Caelian cuisine in a way that a non-Caelian can connect with. In this way being a strict traditionalist is a deterrent, since outworlders genuinely struggle with a Caelian mineral diet. This is where being open and progressive is important: there is a way to make Caelian cuisine appealing, you just need to see it from outside your own shoes and find a way to bridge the divide between your perspectives.

Gryzby's oily medium and mineral infusion is served in a cone and meant to be sipped or dipped with other, flakier mica-like mineral wafers. A cone of Fine Oils are denser than the water of the aquatic C-District, so patrons from Gryzby's home store can carry their meals freely without worrying about them diffusing out into the liquid atmosphere around them. When street fairs or other festivals are going on elsewhere on Titan Garden Gryzby always shows up with a booth and a hand-sized mineral mixer, grinding their curious ingredients into bright, colorful blends that draw the eye and the imagination. Recently Gryzby has been experimenting with gels, creating mineral treats that somewhat resemble a soft-serve ice cream cone, which it turns out is a big draw to Inner Belt humanoids in particular. It's a weird and foreign prospect- would you drink a cone full of colorful mineral oils? If Gryzby has their way you'll give it a shot, and the truth is: you know? It's actually pretty good! Minerals, huh? Who'd have thought?

Krylg is a Caelian communications technology specialist lending their services to the Altair Electronics cause. If you need to talk to technology, or talk through technology, and that technology is broke, don't throw it out! Take it to Altair and ask for Krylg, they will get your hardware working good as new at a fraction of the cost of replacement. Having a spirited and youthful energy about them, Krylg thrives in the good-vibes atmosphere of the Altair workshop, although they can't help but push Bazrai's buttons sometimes- the Ganymedean can be a bit uptight and self-serious at times, so Krylg will often feign ignorance about a topic to get Bazrai all wound up about correcting their minor little details. Sometimes it's hard to step outside yourself and see if you're acting foolish, so Krylg will happily play the mirror, whether or not Bazrai realizes it. Given the nature of their respective specialties they tend to collaborate a lot on various projects, so Krylg gets a lot of opportunities to tease Bazrai. Roflfox thinks its funny and enjoys the little goofball performances whenever they bust out.

Where Bazrai works with inter-system communications, Krylg's specialty is User-to-Systems interfacing, or handling bits of technology that people will try to talk to, or talk through, to get what they want out of it. Anything from wearable speech-to-text computer systems to interplanetary comm-link telephones falls within Krylg's wheelhouse, but one of the most common pieces of tech people bring into Altair Electronics are their personal phones- it's expensive to keep upgrading these things, and new models don't always have the features someone likes on an older one, so a trip to Altair can help extend the life of a phone significantly. Voice tech can be particularly finnicky, especially across long distances and amidst the signal interference produced by basically everything in a crowded place like Titan Garden; it's easy to take it for granted but when it breaks you'll be glad to have a specialist on hand to repair it.

While Krylg likes working with personal communications technologies, the thing they love most of all is to tamper with relay satellites. Big and lonesome and in the middle of nowhere, a network of satellites connects a string of worlds that can at times be close together and at other times be very, very far away, on the opposite side of Sol. You don't always get to pick which satellites your calls relay through, and depending on who owns them you may have to pay a hefty fee to place an interplanetary call- Titan is a long way away from basically everywhere most of the time, you shouldn't have to get nickel-and-dimed because Quasar Galactic happens to own the relay satellites linking you into and out of the Inner Belt. Krylg hates this, so they opt to do something about it. Their work on comm satellites often intersects with Tia's work on public phone terminal payment bypasses- communication is important, they feel, it should be free to everyone.

A frequent collaborator with Timberwolf R&D, Krylg hires out rides on the Ermine to head up into deep space and make physical modifications to corporate-owned relay satellites, adding modules they created themselves to bypass signal flaggers and route directly to the central communications systems, essentially building a tunnel beneath the tollbooth and routing signals back onto the highway. Timberwolf is a favorite hire due to the Ermine's robotic arms being very useful to pluck them back up out of space when they're done working. When one of these modules is affixed to a satellite, Krylg can install a companion device to a comm-link telephone to handshake with the module and discretely bypass the relay toll systems on the satellites themselves as a call's signal bounces into space. Krylg installs this companion device on many personal commphones.

The trick of getting away with satellite vandalism is to pick when you choose to act. Occasionally reports of xenofauna moving into the Sol system will spread among starfarers who happen to spot the creatures early in their travels, before they invariably find a satellite with tasty ice or salt on it to come have a nibble on. It's not too frequent an occurrence but it happens often enough that Krylg can take advantage on short notice, keeping an ear out for xenofauna reports among Titan's travelers. If you know there's creatures around and you head up to tamper with a satellite, there's plausible deniability if network operators detect an interruption in satellite performance. Bryce and his Timberwolf crew are happy to remain on retainer in case another window to act comes up suddenly- they work pro bono, no fees required, although they have an arrangement to receive Krylg's handshaking companion devices as compensation for their services. As a crew of smugglers having backdoor access to interplanetary comm satellites is more useful than credits, especially to someone like Timberwolf's computer toucher, Kollori. With a little tampering of her own, Kollori can monitor Star Patrol communications and pick up fair warning when the heat is wise to one of their smuggling ops, then route their comms somewhere less useful than Star Patrol headquarters, buying the crew enough time to reroute their course and stay off the grid. Krylg doesn't ask questions of Bryce, they're just happy to bring toll-free phone calls to the good people of Titan. It is a humble but noble cause.