PLAYER NAME: Spider CONTACT: CellarSpider#9984 HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Already here, and hankering to throw a different clone into this game.
BACKGROUND: Warframe lore is a twisty-turny labyrinth, and the wiki is deliberately vague to avoid spoiling new players, so I'll provide a background here. As is fandom tradition, I'll also avoid spoilers where possible, but Kahl was introduced in a major storyline mission, so some spoilers are inevitable.
Kahl-175 is a Grineer, one of a race of near-human clones inhabiting the solar system in the far future. Once a genetically hobbled caste of heavy laborers and disposable soldiers, the Grineer rose up centuries ago and killed their masters, establishing a new empire under their Twin Queens. Instead of granting freedom, the Queens subjugated their followers and turned the Grineer to conquest. Mentally conditioned while still in their cloning tubes, a Grineer comes into the world fully-formed, and fully indoctrinated.
That's where Kahl comes in. A soldier stationed on Earth, he was deployed to a desperate battle against an alien and technologically superior force he had no understanding of. When his squad was killed, he offered up a last-ditch plan: he would carry a bomb to the foot of the enemy's forward base and detonate it, to give the Grineer a chance to win. While he attempted to steady his resolve with the knowledge he was doing this for the Queens, something had started to change in Kahl. When he at last reached his target, wounded and exhausted, he admitted he was truly doing this for [his] brothers.
The plan failed--the bomb was deactivated by the invaders, and Kahl was captured, placed in a mind-controlling Veil, and forgotten about by everyone. The war was fought, the invaders won, establishing the Narmer empire. A resistance rose and freed the system, but no one came to free those already enslaved. Kahl's Veil eventually malfunctioned, allowing him to break free. Underestimated by everyone, his canny problem-solving abilities led him to cobble together an emergency beacon, and then solve a more intractable problem: the prejudice of the person who eventually responded.
Kaelli Entrati was one of the few surviving members of the immortal race that first created the Grineer as slaves. Not bothering to give her name to Kahl, he dubbed her 'Blue Girl'. He proceeded to extort his rich and privileged 'savior', dangling the promise of valuable intelligence in exchange for aid in freeing everyone enslaved along with him. Grineer or otherwise, it didn't matter anymore. All the enslaved are his brothers now. By the end of the escape, he'd not only saved everyone, but also gained an ally--'Blue Girl' had grown invested in this strange, exciting new project.
Kahl created a home for himself and a core group of escaped slaves. The group stayed small, moving quick and avoiding detection, forming a tight-knit family along the way. Blue Girl's family refused to provide them shelter, however, and her own thoughtless expressions of prejudice forced Kahl to establish ground rules and ground truths for their continued collaboration. But it also became clear that she envied the easy way that Kahl formed strong connections with others, realizing that genuine affection was something her own family lacked. Kahl was sympathetic and tried to include her in his family, a work in progress as he strives to free his brothers.
ABILITIES | POWERS: Kahl's genetic template was designed for hard labor or wielding heavy weapons with ferocious kickback. Combined with his prostheses, his strength surpasses a human in peak condition--at one point he manages to lift a crashed vehicle that probably weighs at least half a ton. In his heavy armor he won't be out-sprinting anyone, but he can run at a good clip when called for.
While Grineer are often considered brutish and uncreative, they have a rarely acknowledged flair for improvisation, especially in modifying existing tech. This stems in part from their need to maintain their prostheses under harsh conditions. Kahl has shown aptitude for modifying tech, once he understands how it can be pushed. More details below in Inventory.
As a cyborg, Kahl has a few assistive technologies that help him compensate for his disabilities. Most obviously, he has prostheses that replace everything below his elbows and knees. These can be detached and repaired as necessary. He receives a certain amount of targeting information from his implants, allowing him to gauge depth and track targets despite having lost one eye. If something comes at him from his blind side, though, he'll still be caught off-guard.
He also... well, he basically has his in-game HUD, including an objective list he can make for himself. Once he's been in a space, he can keep a map of its floorplan available for a while, but it will eventually get automatically purged. He can pin coordinates within his line of sight, for his own reference and for anyone who's also looped into his systems. Other people can set coordinates for him, if they have the technological capacity to do so.
While it's unlikely to happen, any other Grineer he encounters will show up on his HUD with their genestamp ID and present status.
PERSONALITY: Kahl at first seems like a purely blunt instrument--his solutions to problems are often brute force or violent, he's uneducated outside of what his conditioning has taught him, and he speaks in slow, simple, grammatically broken sentences. And to top it all off, he looks homely at best, marked by injuries, amputations, genetic conditions that prematurely age his skin. To people from the Warframe canon, this is precisely the stereotype of the Grineer: big, dumb, short-lived brutes with identical faces, only differentiated by their deformities.
But all this is deceptive. Kahl is a quick improviser within the world he understands, and the language he speaks so brokenly is actually his second language, using a dialect that reflects Grineer syntax and culture. As a prosthesis-wearing disabled man who's spent much of his life in rough conditions, Kahl is also very adept at making tweaks, adjustments, and even complex modifications to tech and machinery he's familiar with.
This is not to say that he is neurotypical, however. From their inception, the Grineer were deliberately designed to think differently than the average human, in an attempt to make them more controllable. The Grineer Empire kept that template unaltered, both out of defiant pride in what they were, but also so that their Twin Queens could try and keep them enslaved, as long as they were promised honor, duty, and glory in the name of their people.
Kahl rejects this, but he often doesn't have the words to fully express what he thinks, or can't summon them immediately. He sometimes needs a long time to think about charged topics like this, dropping a conversation for an extended period before suddenly coming back to say his piece. Kahl knows Grineer were built different, but that does not excuse the way people speak about or treat them.
Kahl is also supportive of disabilities and illnesses in his found family, regardless of their severity. One of his brothers, a Grineer woman named Jarka, has terrifying PTSD flashbacks that once led her to shoot Kahl, an act he's forgiven her for. However, he has had to kill at least one veiled grineer, a man so thoroughly destroyed by Narmer that recovery was impossible.
Kahl isn't content with the limits of his current existence, however. He wants to be "smarter", and is interested and insistent on "talking science with Blue Girl", despite her belief that the attempt won't succeed. This is also a prime example of his general approach to socializing: Kahl will do his best to include people in social activities, out of a genuine desire to connect with others.
Family is the most important thing to Kahl. His brothers are a part of him. He has no reservations in saying that he loves them, and he'll do everything to protect them. Occasionally that means following stereotypes of how people see Grineer--acting as someone who exists solely to work, fight, and die. But that bond between Kahl and his fellow Grineer, or even with anyone who was veiled, that's his higher purpose. (Side note--as seen above with Jarka, "brother" is a gender neutral term for Kahl. Due to the matriarchal slant of the grineer, a male speaker using "sister" would imply someone above him in a hierarchy, rather than a peer.)
Kahl has no problem killing anything and everything that stands in the way of his goals, but since he's left the army, he's grown more appreciative of animal life. He apparently used to shoot animals that got in the way--now he watches others in his camp feed local animals, and stares in fascination at bugs that land on him. If the bug stings him? It's not the bug's fault. It's little, and he's big. It doesn't know any better.
Also, Kahl likes fishing. He's not great at it, but he's brought home at least one boot. Plus, Blue Girl sent him a fish from her homeland. It was very ugly. He loved it.
SAMPLE: I've yeeted him all over the TDM, with a good sample thread available here.
INVENTORY: Kahl carries with him... Greerlance Rekk armor- The standard combat armor for most Grineer soldiers. It's a mix of old and new plates, made of a blast-resistant material that provides heavy protection to his organic parts. It's decorated with a unique teal blue abstract pattern that marks him as receiving some past recognition for notable service. you can customize Kahl's look and he's happy to own more than one set of armor, but I'll spare everybody the fashion abominations that can result from this A Grakata assault rifle- A standard Grineer assault rifle. Thanks to Space Magic(tm), its magazine is essentially infinite. (Infinite ammo for Kahl is a purely game mechanic thing, which can be scrapped as appropriate.) Five incendiary grenades- Fire!! A reusable, collapsible barricade- This inflates on deployment into a low bulletproof wall, approximately 1.75m wide, 1.5 m tall, and 30 cm thick. A basic Grineer trauma kit- charge it up, apply to the wounded, and there's a fair chance they'll be back on their feet with some life back in them, but not happily. Also includes basic tools for adjusting and maintaining Grineer prostheses. the Veilbreaker- A forearm-mounted device personally created by Kahl. A former EMP ram, the Veilbreaker can lob an energetic projectile at a target, creating a localized blast of electricity that stuns people or creatures within range. The Veilbreaker can also create a close-range, sustained charge that can short out electronics or deliver a powerful shock. Kahl has adjusted it to avoid causing lethal damage, and it has been further modified to be less traumatic by his ally Chipper, after An Incident involving much swearing. standard Grineer prostheses- These neurally-linked prostheses are armored to the same standard as the rest of his equipment. With their connection to his nervous system, he feels sensory feedback through them. As noted above, they help enhance his strength to some degree. an eyepatch- Poor boy lost his left eye during that one big battle, but on the plus side, the game devs are absolute nerds, and gave him an off-brand version of Snake's eyepatch from MGS4.
NOTES: Kahl's prosthetics make him pretty able-bodied, but it's still worth noting that his disability stems from a genetic condition that can impact Grineer health. I have no plans to explore this at this time, however.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? If you feel like it, sure!
Kahl-175 | Warframe
CONTACT: CellarSpider#9984
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Already here, and hankering to throw a different clone into this game.
CHARACTER: Kahl-175
CANON: Warframe
CANON POINT: post-Veilbreaker
BACKGROUND: Warframe lore is a twisty-turny labyrinth, and the wiki is deliberately vague to avoid spoiling new players, so I'll provide a background here. As is fandom tradition, I'll also avoid spoilers where possible, but Kahl was introduced in a major storyline mission, so some spoilers are inevitable.
Kahl-175 is a Grineer, one of a race of near-human clones inhabiting the solar system in the far future. Once a genetically hobbled caste of heavy laborers and disposable soldiers, the Grineer rose up centuries ago and killed their masters, establishing a new empire under their Twin Queens. Instead of granting freedom, the Queens subjugated their followers and turned the Grineer to conquest. Mentally conditioned while still in their cloning tubes, a Grineer comes into the world fully-formed, and fully indoctrinated.
That's where Kahl comes in. A soldier stationed on Earth, he was deployed to a desperate battle against an alien and technologically superior force he had no understanding of. When his squad was killed, he offered up a last-ditch plan: he would carry a bomb to the foot of the enemy's forward base and detonate it, to give the Grineer a chance to win. While he attempted to steady his resolve with the knowledge he was doing this for the Queens, something had started to change in Kahl. When he at last reached his target, wounded and exhausted, he admitted he was truly doing this for [his] brothers.
The plan failed--the bomb was deactivated by the invaders, and Kahl was captured, placed in a mind-controlling Veil, and forgotten about by everyone. The war was fought, the invaders won, establishing the Narmer empire. A resistance rose and freed the system, but no one came to free those already enslaved. Kahl's Veil eventually malfunctioned, allowing him to break free. Underestimated by everyone, his canny problem-solving abilities led him to cobble together an emergency beacon, and then solve a more intractable problem: the prejudice of the person who eventually responded.
Kaelli Entrati was one of the few surviving members of the immortal race that first created the Grineer as slaves. Not bothering to give her name to Kahl, he dubbed her 'Blue Girl'. He proceeded to extort his rich and privileged 'savior', dangling the promise of valuable intelligence in exchange for aid in freeing everyone enslaved along with him. Grineer or otherwise, it didn't matter anymore. All the enslaved are his brothers now. By the end of the escape, he'd not only saved everyone, but also gained an ally--'Blue Girl' had grown invested in this strange, exciting new project.
Kahl created a home for himself and a core group of escaped slaves. The group stayed small, moving quick and avoiding detection, forming a tight-knit family along the way. Blue Girl's family refused to provide them shelter, however, and her own thoughtless expressions of prejudice forced Kahl to establish ground rules and ground truths for their continued collaboration. But it also became clear that she envied the easy way that Kahl formed strong connections with others, realizing that genuine affection was something her own family lacked. Kahl was sympathetic and tried to include her in his family, a work in progress as he strives to free his brothers.
ABILITIES | POWERS: Kahl's genetic template was designed for hard labor or wielding heavy weapons with ferocious kickback. Combined with his prostheses, his strength surpasses a human in peak condition--at one point he manages to lift a crashed vehicle that probably weighs at least half a ton. In his heavy armor he won't be out-sprinting anyone, but he can run at a good clip when called for.
While Grineer are often considered brutish and uncreative, they have a rarely acknowledged flair for improvisation, especially in modifying existing tech. This stems in part from their need to maintain their prostheses under harsh conditions. Kahl has shown aptitude for modifying tech, once he understands how it can be pushed. More details below in Inventory.
As a cyborg, Kahl has a few assistive technologies that help him compensate for his disabilities. Most obviously, he has prostheses that replace everything below his elbows and knees. These can be detached and repaired as necessary. He receives a certain amount of targeting information from his implants, allowing him to gauge depth and track targets despite having lost one eye. If something comes at him from his blind side, though, he'll still be caught off-guard.
He also... well, he basically has his in-game HUD, including an objective list he can make for himself. Once he's been in a space, he can keep a map of its floorplan available for a while, but it will eventually get automatically purged. He can pin coordinates within his line of sight, for his own reference and for anyone who's also looped into his systems. Other people can set coordinates for him, if they have the technological capacity to do so.
While it's unlikely to happen, any other Grineer he encounters will show up on his HUD with their genestamp ID and present status.
PERSONALITY: Kahl at first seems like a purely blunt instrument--his solutions to problems are often brute force or violent, he's uneducated outside of what his conditioning has taught him, and he speaks in slow, simple, grammatically broken sentences. And to top it all off, he looks homely at best, marked by injuries, amputations, genetic conditions that prematurely age his skin. To people from the Warframe canon, this is precisely the stereotype of the Grineer: big, dumb, short-lived brutes with identical faces, only differentiated by their deformities.
But all this is deceptive. Kahl is a quick improviser within the world he understands, and the language he speaks so brokenly is actually his second language, using a dialect that reflects Grineer syntax and culture. As a prosthesis-wearing disabled man who's spent much of his life in rough conditions, Kahl is also very adept at making tweaks, adjustments, and even complex modifications to tech and machinery he's familiar with.
This is not to say that he is neurotypical, however. From their inception, the Grineer were deliberately designed to think differently than the average human, in an attempt to make them more controllable. The Grineer Empire kept that template unaltered, both out of defiant pride in what they were, but also so that their Twin Queens could try and keep them enslaved, as long as they were promised honor, duty, and glory in the name of their people.
Kahl rejects this, but he often doesn't have the words to fully express what he thinks, or can't summon them immediately. He sometimes needs a long time to think about charged topics like this, dropping a conversation for an extended period before suddenly coming back to say his piece. Kahl knows Grineer were built different, but that does not excuse the way people speak about or treat them.
Kahl is also supportive of disabilities and illnesses in his found family, regardless of their severity. One of his brothers, a Grineer woman named Jarka, has terrifying PTSD flashbacks that once led her to shoot Kahl, an act he's forgiven her for. However, he has had to kill at least one veiled grineer, a man so thoroughly destroyed by Narmer that recovery was impossible.
Kahl isn't content with the limits of his current existence, however. He wants to be "smarter", and is interested and insistent on "talking science with Blue Girl", despite her belief that the attempt won't succeed. This is also a prime example of his general approach to socializing: Kahl will do his best to include people in social activities, out of a genuine desire to connect with others.
Family is the most important thing to Kahl. His brothers are a part of him. He has no reservations in saying that he loves them, and he'll do everything to protect them. Occasionally that means following stereotypes of how people see Grineer--acting as someone who exists solely to work, fight, and die. But that bond between Kahl and his fellow Grineer, or even with anyone who was veiled, that's his higher purpose. (Side note--as seen above with Jarka, "brother" is a gender neutral term for Kahl. Due to the matriarchal slant of the grineer, a male speaker using "sister" would imply someone above him in a hierarchy, rather than a peer.)
Kahl has no problem killing anything and everything that stands in the way of his goals, but since he's left the army, he's grown more appreciative of animal life. He apparently used to shoot animals that got in the way--now he watches others in his camp feed local animals, and stares in fascination at bugs that land on him. If the bug stings him? It's not the bug's fault. It's little, and he's big. It doesn't know any better.
Also, Kahl likes fishing. He's not great at it, but he's brought home at least one boot. Plus, Blue Girl sent him a fish from her homeland. It was very ugly. He loved it.
SAMPLE: I've yeeted him all over the TDM, with a good sample thread available here.
INVENTORY: Kahl carries with him...
Greerlance Rekk armor- The standard combat armor for most Grineer soldiers. It's a mix of old and new plates, made of a blast-resistant material that provides heavy protection to his organic parts. It's decorated with a unique teal blue abstract pattern that marks him as receiving some past recognition for notable service.
you can customize Kahl's look and he's happy to own more than one set of armor, but I'll spare everybody the fashion abominations that can result from thisA Grakata assault rifle- A standard Grineer assault rifle. Thanks to Space Magic(tm), its magazine is essentially infinite. (Infinite ammo for Kahl is a purely game mechanic thing, which can be scrapped as appropriate.)
Five incendiary grenades- Fire!!
A reusable, collapsible barricade- This inflates on deployment into a low bulletproof wall, approximately 1.75m wide, 1.5 m tall, and 30 cm thick.
A basic Grineer trauma kit- charge it up, apply to the wounded, and there's a fair chance they'll be back on their feet with some life back in them, but not happily. Also includes basic tools for adjusting and maintaining Grineer prostheses.
the Veilbreaker- A forearm-mounted device personally created by Kahl. A former EMP ram, the Veilbreaker can lob an energetic projectile at a target, creating a localized blast of electricity that stuns people or creatures within range. The Veilbreaker can also create a close-range, sustained charge that can short out electronics or deliver a powerful shock. Kahl has adjusted it to avoid causing lethal damage, and it has been further modified to be less traumatic by his ally Chipper, after An Incident involving much swearing.
standard Grineer prostheses- These neurally-linked prostheses are armored to the same standard as the rest of his equipment. With their connection to his nervous system, he feels sensory feedback through them. As noted above, they help enhance his strength to some degree.
an eyepatch- Poor boy lost his left eye during that one big battle, but on the plus side, the game devs are absolute nerds, and gave him an off-brand version of Snake's eyepatch from MGS4.
NOTES: Kahl's prosthetics make him pretty able-bodied, but it's still worth noting that his disability stems from a genetic condition that can impact Grineer health. I have no plans to explore this at this time, however.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? If you feel like it, sure!