Acacia Skammer

Acacia Skammer is a character in The Gradual Massacre.

Biography:
When the world collapsed under the weight of numerous, terrible ecological disasters Acacia swore to return the world to a stable state and elevate it to the Eden that humanity had always dreamed of. She was a skilled botanist that was part of what came to be the Last Sanctum, a group of the scientific elite that shared Acacia’s dream. They started with pure intentions, but as the years wore on they grew more brutal and believed anyone left alive in the wide world were little more than an animals. Most had succumbed to the plague that had accompanied the impending disasters of the world’s pre-apocalyptic years, some remained alive but diseased or insane and very few indeed were what could be classed as normal anymore.

The Last Sanctum responded by arming their scientists with increasingly advanced weaponry as they went out into the world. All of it complied to rules initially created to protect the people of the world that could be saved, but their use completely missed the point. Every day unfortunates would be tortured and maimed for no reason other than being in the way of the Sanctum’s forces. Acacia was among these, her worldview gradually becoming more and more twisted and her inherent sadism growing swiftly.

Acacia Skammer was part of the group of botanists creating a sealed Eden that, in theory, only those proved to be free of the plague would be allowed to enter. She worked on breeding ‘superplants’, such as those that had a greater intake of carbon dioxide, offered greater benefits to humans when consumed or produced incredible amounts of produce. She was in the Eden when she vanished into thin air. Her colleagues assumed that the sealed off land had been breached by the ‘plags’ and responded by going on a hunting spree.

Description:
Acacia is a slight woman of average height with dark hair cropped to a stubble and pock-marked skin from a pox she caught when she was younger. Her eyes are grey and initially disarmingly friendly. She smiles and laughs with above-average frequency, but stick around and you’ll start to notice small signs that something’s not quite right about her. The occasionally unfocused eyes, smiling at the wrong moment and her intent observation of others, to name a few. She’s fast and agile, but most of the time you won’t even hear her due to the effects of her boomer. That can get a little creepy too.

But she’ll stay friends with you right up 'til the moment you stop being useful. Then she doesn’t care what you think, only how much you’ll squeal when she breaks your legs. Fortunately she gets bored her victims fairly quickly and she doesn’t always go far enough to kill her playthings. She only cares about getting as much as she can out of people, be it help or fun.

She normally wears the uniform of the Last Sanctum, which consists of a long white jacket that buttons up to side, covering a Kevlar vest and other armoured pieces. Her shoes are steel-capped boots pitted with use and the rest of her outfit is made up of loose and comfortable clothing designed to be waterproof, fire-resistant and tear-proof. She also wears the steel collar of the 3rd Eden Division (useful for when the plags try to slit your throat).

Items/Abilities:
She, like all of the members of the Seventh Sanctum, swore not to harm any people, but in truth was equipped with a standard issue ‘boomer’ (artifial voicebox that links into her metal collar, where it can be emitted through speakers in the steel) that could manipulate sonic sound waves to deter, torture and deafen others. It can also cloak small noises she makes and allow her to see in a similar way to a bat. However, she was surgically deafened so she would not be harmed by the effects of her boomer and as such she cannot hear anything. She can register the sound waves from her boomer as they are received and sent straight to her brain, but this only allows her to use her bat sight. She is also skilled with a stout hand pistol used for ‘mercy killing’.