MoM Application
Aug. 15th, 2019 07:08 am〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Spider
AGE: LiveJournal veteran
JOURNAL:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cellarspider
IM / EMAIL: Discord: CellarSpider#9984
PLURK: PaleAntiquarian
RETURNING: yeap
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Tyl Regor
CHARACTER AGE: Complicated, but definitely adult. Baritone voice and everything.
SERIES: Warframe
CHRONOLOGY: post-Natah questline.
CLASS: capital-V-Villain
HOUSING: inflict him upon other people. Please.
BACKGROUND: I must preface this with a spoiler warning: Warframe fans do their very best to maintain certain plot points and setting details as secrets for new players. If anyone reading this app intends to play Warframe at some point, I'd advise skipping the first part of this Background. I've marked when it's safe to jump in with a big SPOLIER-SAFE divider down below!
---SPOILERS START HERE---
As humans left Earth and expanded across the Origin System, the Orokin Empire dominated in technological development and military might. They built elegant and miraculous devices, advanced artificial intelligence, reshaped their bodies for extreme longevity, function and aesthetic, and even began creating outposts within a mysterious other dimension known as the Void, which allowed limited faster-than-light travel. But they were also coldly unconcerned with who their experiments hurt, cruel in the application of their laws, and perpetuated a caste system of genetic modification and physical alteration.
The lowest among these castes were the Grineer. Designed to be heavy laborers of all kinds, these male and female clones were physically strong but deliberately stunted in mental capacity and conditioned to follow Orokin orders. They were mass-produced without care, because so many of them were destined to die in industrial accidents and from the extreme physical toll of their work.
But the Orokin way of life was not sustainable: they became increasingly aware that the Origin System would not support them forever. A suitable candidate was found in the Tau System, with multiple planets that seemed to support terraforming. With their only high-speed space travel requiring pre-established space stations to guide their ships through the Void, the system was out of reach. The extreme demands of the project made it infeasible to use Grineer or other lower-caste humans to construct them.
Instead, the Orokin created the Sentients: self-replicating inorganic constructs that could withstand the journey, build the stations, and begin the terraforming process. Despite being programmed like the Grineer with obedience and flaws to undermine their independence, The Sentients mutated beyond control in their long years of isolation in the Tau System. Recognizing the Orokin as an existential threat to their new home, the Sentients returned in force to the Origin System. All Orokin technology was their kin, and thus they knew how to subvert, deactivate, or control Orokin defenses.
The Orokin's best weaponry was useless, their elite soldier castes cut down faster than they could be produced, old bioweapons projects creating horrifying Infested monsters, and their new Warframe constructs rampaging out of control on the battlefield. Faced with certain destruction, the Orokin began to take desperate measures. Grineer soldiers went into production. They were given slightly more intelligence to respond to complex orders, but were ultimately disposable and mass-produced, issued primitive weapons the Sentients could not control, and designed to die by the millions to buy the Orokin more time.
Another project was seen as their last hope: By chance, young survivors of Void exposure were found to be able to mentally interface with Warframes, bringing them under control and enhancing their capabilities still further. These "Tenno"-operated Warframes pushed back the Sentients beyond the Outer Terminus of the Origin System and destroying them, or so it seemed.
Either the Sentients subverted the Tenno, or their connection to the traumatized and maddened Warframes caused a shift in their thinking. But when the Tenno returned triumphant, they soon set about slaughtering the Orokin. Caught by surprise, the Orokin Executor Council was broken, and the last remnants of the Empire fell.
At the same time, the Grineer began to break free. Their slowly-developing culture and sloppy nature of their indoctrination had finally permitted them the means with which to comprehend the wrongness of their treatment, and the splintering of the Empire gave them an opening to rise up. Grineer workers led the way by capturing Orokin, using them to unlock the computers of ships and colonies so that they could take control of their own production, and spread rebellion across the system.
In the midst of this, a Grineer force captured a pair of Orokin twins. Twins were looked upon by other Orokin as too clone-like, and therefore too slave-like to be true Orokin, thus these women had grown contemptuous of their own kind. The Grineer instead saw something like a perfected version of themselves: unblemished forms, unrestricted intelligence, and a deep connection between themselves. The women became spiritually significant to the Grineer who saw them, naming them the Twin Queens.
---SPOILER-SAFE BACKGROUND STARTS HERE---
With the implacable Sentients defeated, the Orokin destroyed and their Empire in ruins, the Tenno and their Warframes mysteriously vanished. Centuries went by without a sighting, and knowledge of what the Tenno even were was lost. The Origin System became divided, with various independent colonies struggling to survive. Two factions eventually arose: the Corpus, a corporatist and kleptocratic group that claimed direct lineage from the Orokin, and the Grineer sect that followed the Twin Queens.
Sadly, the Grineer rebellion's promise of freedom had not lasted. The Queens programmed their cloned Grineer to be utterly loyal to them alone. They governed with the cruelty of the Orokin, mixed with spite for the former empire, the Grineer they now commanded, and the Grineer bodies they were eventually forced to adopt as their own grew old and weak.
The Grineer themselves had advanced in many ways, but could not escape the confines of their genetics: deliberately designed to be the lowest of the low, their templates remained limited, and over centuries of copying developed new errors that resisted all attempts to fix them. Through their own engineering and through purchasing Corpus products, they were able to design cybernetic replacements for their failing limbs and organs, extending Grineer lifespan and capability. But a cure eluded them.
The Grineer Empire was now powerful, an independent culture with its own language, aesthetics, and solidly-built technology, but their time was limited.
Thus, Admiral Vor began seeking out Orokin relics that might hold the cure. This included the fabled Tenno Warframes, remembered as treacherous agents of chaos, full of the mysterious light of the Void. Vor's search was the catalyst for the reawakening of the Tenno by a shadowy figure known only as The Lotus. Vor was shamed, demoted, and defeated, leaving a power vacuum in the Grineer hierarchy that came just as hundreds of Warframes began to flood the Origin System, acting under the Lotus' direction.
Tyl Regor was one of those who seized control. A military commander and lead researcher in Grineer gene therapy, he had only passing interest in the Tenno. His scientific prowess set him on a path towards forging a new kind of Grineer, one that would be stronger, smarter, more vicious. A force that could overtake the Origin System, leaving only Grineer.
It's never directly stated what his methods entailed, but we see enough of his experimental subjects to make an educated guess: Regor had likely found a way to harness the dreaded Infestation, taming it to a degree no one had managed since the Orokin era. He had a handful of working prototypes, utterly mad but sufficiently loyal enough to fight for him. And deeper in his labs, his army was growing.
This, obviously, did not go as planned. With the aid of concerned Corpus executives, the Tenno infiltrated Regor's laboratories and destroyed his creations. Enraged at the loss of his beloved prototypes and years of work, he directly challenged the Tenno in combat, tearing open his own undersea base in his attempts to bring them down.
This didn't go as planned either. Defeated but not done, Regor continued his work, now with a special hatred for the Tenno and the Lotus. In the process, his attention turned towards other questions: ex-Admiral Vor, the Queens, all of them were obsessed with the Orokin and the Warframes they created. But what of the Sentients? Their invasion freed the Grineer, their technology was just as powerful as the Orokin's. What secrets did their relics hide? Could they help cure the Grineer? Smash the Tenno? Kill the Lotus?
Who knows! But he had a new project to occupy himself with. Predictably, the Lotus sent Tenno to stop him cracking open a Sentient tomb. Not fast enough. With the tomb broken open and its contents awakening, the Tenno managed to permanently seal the tomb. Faced with yet another setback, Regor's anger got the better of him: he directly challenged the Tenno again, and was defeated.
And that's where his story ends for now. It's unclear if he's dead or not, but hey, he's a Grineer! Vor literally got cut in half, another high official is just a screaming head in a giant robot parrot, and that hasn't stopped either of them! Still, that's the last time Regor has been addressed by the plot. Sadface.
PERSONALITY:
TYL;DR: He can occasionally play well with others, but his ego and imprinted directives will likely lead to him becoming a problem others will have to deal with at some point, unless the game plot sufficiently thrashes him into focusing his anger on a productive target.
Details: Tyl is physically and mentally an anomaly among Grineer. Unlike other famous grineer scientists such as Doctor Tengus, Tyl doesn't seem to have been specifically created for intellectual work. Given his physical prowess, he was likely intended to be created for the military, and may have served before his talents were noticed. One thing's for certain: even when he was building up his power base as a prominent researcher, he was already a fashionista, altering his standard officer's armor and critiquing the looks of others. When he gained the Twin Queens' favor, he completely redesigned his body to better fit grineer aesthetic tastes.
Regor is devoted to his science, constantly moving, thinking, talking about what to do next. His genius is not in question, but a number of traits and flaws consistently complicate and undermine him. His attention deficit, while useful for hyperfocusing on his projects, leaves him unsettled, constantly tweaking his work, sometimes getting distracted from it altogether by a new mystery that floats past.
Pride is his biggest flaw. He's unique, irreplaceable. His intelligence, his voice, his fashion sense, no one save the Twin Queens can get on his level. And he knows it. You know those sorts of people who have statues of themselves? He's one of those people. I'm 0% kidding. He disdains everyone he hasn't created. When challenged or faced with setback, his scorn is immediate and withering.
In conversation, Tyl is highly emotive, talkative, and flirty, even (and sometimes especially) to people he hates. As a man from a mostly matriarchal culture, he'll be more inclined to consider women's ideas or see them as legitimate threats, and he is more likely to discount or belittle other men. While non-grineer will be looked down upon, Tyl has a history of employing non-grineer to do specialist work for him, and he is more likely to approve of those that conform to or appreciate grineer ideals, either physically or mentally.
Sufficiently despised behavior will be met with violence, but only at a time and place of his choosing (and, of course, with pre-approval from all other involved players). When he hates something enough to attack it, he goes all-in, hurling himself (and insults) at his foe. If things go especially well or poorly, he may break out into wild, manic laughter.
Lastly, all Grineer are imprinted at creation to be loyal to the Queens. He can ignore orders if he thinks he has a better solution, but he psychologically can't go against their overall designs. It takes a lot to make a Grineer defect. But theoretically, he could get along with people. Well, some people. He has a quick wit and useful skills. But there's all the rest of him to contend with.
In MoM, he is likely to be largely self-directed and ambitious: He needs a lab to work in, and if he can't find one, he'll make one. He'll be interested in getting biological samples from imPorts of unfamiliar species, and taking apart any unfamiliar technology to find out how it works. He'll also be trying out more mundane things he's never had access to: food that isn't protein paste, movies that aren't propaganda reels, nail polish, etc.
He's also liable to get frustrated and angry with the Porter and its limitations, and may react in unhelpful ways: there is a 100% chance he'll try to gain access to the Cape Canaveral facility at some point, and a 50% chance he might eventually cause a ruckus in one or more porter cities. I agree that this is a terrible idea on his part, but this is the man who went and cracked open an ancient evil tomb just because he was curious.
POWER:
POWER #1: I Have The Numbers (canon)- Tyl is a genetics and robotics researcher and engineer of mad-science-genius-level capability. In normal gameplay, he will be able to kludge together single-use devices or weapons from found objects. These will be rendered inoperable and unsalvagable after one use. The bigger the intended effect, the more likely and dangerous the blowback will be on him. On a more long-term (and plotting page-approved) basis, he will be building more sturdy devices and instruments to get back to his career in the sciences.
POWER #2: Custom Work (canon)- This transforms Tyl into his canon form. tyl;dr:
Advantages:
- harder, better, faster, stronger
- modular limbs
- 15 minutes of onboard air
- short-range teleportation
- brief periods of invisibility
- extremely fashionable proportions, booty you could bounce a hubcap off of
Disadvantages:
- inability to heal damaged cyborg parts (will require manual repair)
- no eating beyond an extremely restrictive diet
- if he activates this power within 6-8 hours of eating in human form, he will be violently ill.
- if struck while invisible, the stealth fails and cannot be re-started until the tech resets. Sufficiently violent disruption will cause added injury due to overload.
- ditto for teleporting, which can also violently fail if he tries to teleport into a space occupied by a solid object or the target area has a power-nullifying effect.
Now, on with the details:
While Grineer products are widely known for being solidly made but relatively low-tech and bulky, there are some exceptions. Since Tyl earned his Queens' favor, he's had the funds and the inspiration to build himself a new body. Now standing at 230 cm (7'6"), Tyl's cybernetics are lighter and more designed for aesthetics than others from military stock, but he still benefits from his high-tech design. He has attachment points for prostheses at the elbows and waist, and the remainder of his body is covered in a sealed suit augmented with durable synthetic muscle. This suit is armored but not heavily: as a flexible material, impact can still transfer through the suit. It's somewhere in the range of kevlar: he can survive getting shot or stabbed, but the force of the impact will still hurt a lot and wear him down.
He will by default have access to his canonical legs: massive, synth-muscle thighsand equally curvy synth butt, and itty bitty running blade feet. His lower arms and hands will be humanoid, all-metal, proportionate to his body, similar to standard-issue grineer hand prostheses. While all these parts are sturdily built custom work, the nanites cannot heal them, and switching out of his canon body and back again will not repair damaged metal parts. Tyl will need to repair them himself or with the assistance of others.
Regor can detatch his prostheses at the joints if necessary (or for his own amusement), and has clamps at each joint that can grasp objects or replacement parts. Any prosthesis he slots onto himself will disappear when he switches out from his canon body, leaving any unattached parts behind.
Regor's genetic template was designed for heavy labor or wielding heavy weapons with ferocious kickback. Combined with the aforementioned synthetic muscle-and-metal limbs, his strength and speed are a better than a human of proportionate size in peak condition. ...Speed probably even more so. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make icons for this man? He's a mostly indecipherable blur, yelling about lizards. Yes, lizards.
However: While the grineer are all unnaturally tall and strong, they are beset with a number of degenerative disorders, including what appears to be a peripheral neuropathy and/or muscular dystrophy. This leaves the majority of them as above-the-knee amputees before they reach maturity, and many also have below-the-elbow amputations as well. Tyl had both these operations, then went further: To increase his own performance and fit his desires for a more fashionable figure, everything below his waist is gone.
This has a number of knock-on effects: In his canon form, Tyl's suit is absolutely required for Tyl's ability to function in Grineer form. Not only is he a quadruple amputee, he has probably replaced or rearranged several of his vital organs in the process. While technically he can survive without his external prostheses and he has retained many skills common to amputees, he would need assistance for most basic tasks. Eating in this form will be difficult for him: He would normally 'eat' an IV diet or a very specific and sterilized nutrient mix that gets piped directly into his digestive system via a port in his torso, neither of which he will have immediate access to on Earth. If he eats Earth food in human form or while under power #3 (see below), he will have to wait six to eight hours for the food to be sufficiently digested, otherwise he will become violently ill within 15 minutes or less.
However. While he requires his suit to navigate his disabilities, it also has been upgraded with some bonus features: Temporary air supply rated for underwater or vacuum exposure (~15 minutes), brief periods of invisibility, and short-range teleportation. If struck, the invisibility will fail. The teleportation does not require a line of sight, but he does need to know where he's going. If interrupted or he miscalculates a jump, the teleportation will fail, causing overload and injury.
POWER #3: Oldest Grineer (Non-canon and mean)- the tyl;dr:
Advantages
- tol
- stronk
- not disabled
- digestive system is not a delicate little flower
- clean genetic template he might eventually use for experiments
Disadvantages
- less tol and stronk and fashionable than his canon body: a midway point between human and canon
- literally just on this list to make him angry
Details: This power lets Tyl transform into an original grineer body. Clean genetics, clear skin, all parts present and correct. Grineer were originally genetically and developmentally designed to be mass-produced heavy industrial worker and soldier-slaves for a highly technologically advanced race, and are thus taller and stronger than the average human: based on the heights of modern grineer with the most proportionate prostheses, the original template grineer were probably about 2 to 2.05m (~6'8" to 6'9"). Tyl will have higher than average muscle density, but it will only push him to the high end of human performance, rather than anything superhuman.
Really, I'm not joking, this power is mostly just here for drama. One of the main obsessions of the grineer as a people is to restore their slowly failing genetic templates to this precise state. To have an entire O.G. body to mess around with, to know what it feels like to be healthy while still being one of his own people, and not being able to take this home? It is going to drive him absolutely insane.
A small note, of not much importance to anyone but me: While the render included as a reference for the original grineer line has their modern orange-on-grey eyes, the full cinematic which debuted the model depicted them as having blue eyes instead. I'm going with the cinematic, in part because Tyl would hate it. It messes with his color pallette. However, the voices used in the cinematic don't make canonical sense: they're lifted directly from in-game voice lines for the grineer, and thus both spoken in a language that doesn't make sense for the time.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[The man in the video feed is probably human. The total hairlessness could just be alopecia, and the uncomfortably bright blue eyes might be normal wherever he's from.
But it's honestly hard to get a good look, because he is absolutely not staying still. His head is wandering in and out of frame, focus wandering constantly from the camera on the communicator in front of him.]
This is rude, you know. [His voice wobbles a little, and he coughs irritably, pitch sinking down to a low, expressive baritone.]
I was busy. Always am, but this? This was a bad time. Suspiciously bad. If this is your doing, Lotus, you're not as funny as you think you are.
[Despite the drippingly acid tone, he's evidently distracted by one of his own hands, grasping a finger or two with his other hand and watching them bend. They seem perfectly normal.]
Body like this doesn't make sense. None of it does. The implications--We could rebuild everything. Fresh template, fresh grineer--[He blinks, struck by a sudden thought.]
Wait. Who had the template in the first place? The Lotus? Was it her? Who here's been hoarding what's ours? [A flash of vicious anger crosses his face, but it's gone in a second as he looks back at his now clenched fists with a triumphant smirk.
And his tone turns... flirty?] But if an impossible opportunity's just going to throw itself at me, who am I to say no?
Gotta get home. But first, [He leans in close, too close.]
Who wants to help me take a look at my organs?
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Ow. Owowow ow ow. Light. Light outside his eyelids was making a very spirited attempt to get in. No. Go away. He had a hangover. He had the worst hangover. The kind where you couldn't remember the party, but you had the vague suspicion that it hadn't been fun.
A shadow passed between him and the light, and dared to open his eyes just a little. He saw a fuzzy blob.
Well, that was helpful. It mumbled at him, and he gave it a suspicious squint.
"Ooeryoo," he demanded, and then frowned in annoyance. That hadn't come out right. Had it? Hadn't. Was he still drunk? High on something he'd made in the lab?
"Jusgenyoo chektofer," the blurr said, and that sounded wrong too. Ears weren't 'earing right, along with everything else.
Sedated. He was definitely sedated. More than usual. Couldn't blame them, not after the last time he'd needed emergency care.
No, wait, he could blame them, because he was in charge, and he didn't want to be sedated right now.
"mdun," he said, trying to pick himself up, but that failed with a wave of dizziness as soon as he tried to lift his head. Whoof. Wasn't gonna stop him arguing the point, though. "Gemeeup, god wurg tdo." Also--wait, emergency care? Why'd he think that?
"Yoor doongud," the slowly resolving blob said, in an unfamiliar voice. "Yuulbee baggon yor feep in notyme."
Wait. That voice was unfamiliar. Female, too smooth. Blob didn't look right either, had the proper number of parts but they weren't right. There was lots of hair, more than he'd ever allow on a med tech. And no full mask. And he didn't see the proper blue-n'-bloodstained working clothes either, that was teal. Teal! Who would ever wear teal!
He was just about to launch into a rant when a thought gave his brain a nudge. The eyes. They eyes were wrong. Definitely not on the yellow-orange-red spectrum he should be seeing. Whoever this was, they were not grineer. They had creepy blue eyes and--what were those stripes over them. He'd seen those before. Right? Right.
Corpus did tattoos there. Didn't they. Drew your attention to how ghastly they looked. That was it.
"Ai no, itz ver dizzoryentin," the horrible Corpus interloper said, leaning over to reach for something. Something felt wrong about that too. "Buttchor wakeng ub fass, an sommun will com into see yu soon."
Oh no. Nonono no no he figured out what'd felt wrong. He'd felt air move on his face when they'd reached by him. He shouldn't feel anything there. That was wrong. Really wrong. That meant his mask was off. And he'd been breathing through his nose, which meant they'd taken out the tubes that fed him air. He didn't need those to breathe outside the mask, but if his mask was gone, he was covered in germs. And if the tubes were gone, then they'd gone reaching inside of him, who knew what they'd done in there, and they'd probably taken his limbs too--
Wait. No. Yes? No. When he looked down (Whoof, more spinning head), he saw hands. They were in the right spot to be his. But they weren't. They were flesh hands. He didn't have those! He used to, back in the cloning lab, back when he was one of the bodies hanging in tubes rather than the one making them grow. But his had been cut off, just like everyone else, when the peripheral neuropathy set in.
And now there were hands here, curling into claws as he stared at them in confusion and mounting anger. The skin wasn't even grineer! "Waddav yo dun t my hams?" he demanded, trying to sit up again, cobwebs in his brain dissolving in the acid of rage. "Hoos hansre thees? Wire they om my arms? Where am I?" He was getting louder, voice clearer, maybe, maybe coordinated enough to flail one of those horrible meat hands towards the probably-Corpus and catch the front of their shirt, dragging them closer to him.
Yes. Definitely coordinated enough for that. Hello, ugly. You're gonna have a bad day.
"Think you can just steal my work and get away with it?" They were trying to cut in with some protest or another, but he wasn't gonna let them take anything else, not even words!
"Not gonna happen." He'd shifted from his reclined position as he grabbed the almost-definitely-Corpus, and had another, horrible realization. "How dare you take my legs! Do you know how hard I worked on those?"
A couple of other someones were coming into the room. Well, bring them on! He was still mostly sedated and blurry-eyed and noodle-armed and maskless and there was so much meat, but he'd take them anyway! "Maybe I like yours better. Won't know 'til I try! Come 'ere and and give me your legs!"
Two pairs of big flesh hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down, pinning him to the medical chair. That did not go as he'd planned. To be fair to him, though, he hadn't had a plan.
Something bit into his neck, and he swore extravagantly in Grineer. "How dare you, slimy eels! Trying t' steel my worg, my toob men, may shaeplee pards!"
The room was going blury again. "Can haffem! Therr mime. Mime."
And then he was out.
FINAL NOTES: Tyl is at very least bilingual: he speaks the never-specified language that the players and their allies use, and also speaks his native Grineer language. Due to the extensive dealings between Grineer elite and Corpus executives, it is likely he has at least a rudimentary knowledge of the Corpus language as well.
In-game, Grineer and Corpus languages are rendered via simple ciphers of english, spoken aloud by the voice actors. I, being a turbo-nerd, am the primary contributor to the Warframe wiki's page on the Grineer Language, specifically regarding the substitutions used. I also wrote a python script to automatically convert english text to grineer. Yes
Any dialog rendered in Tyl's native language or the Corpus tongue will be written as phonetic transcriptions of how these simple ciphers sound when spoken aloud. I will provide translations for everything I translate, and probably talk somebody's ear off OOC about the particulars of it all.
NAME: Spider
AGE: LiveJournal veteran
JOURNAL:
cellarspiderIM / EMAIL: Discord: CellarSpider#9984
PLURK: PaleAntiquarian
RETURNING: yeap
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Tyl Regor
CHARACTER AGE: Complicated, but definitely adult. Baritone voice and everything.
SERIES: Warframe
CHRONOLOGY: post-Natah questline.
CLASS: capital-V-Villain
HOUSING: inflict him upon other people. Please.
BACKGROUND: I must preface this with a spoiler warning: Warframe fans do their very best to maintain certain plot points and setting details as secrets for new players. If anyone reading this app intends to play Warframe at some point, I'd advise skipping the first part of this Background. I've marked when it's safe to jump in with a big SPOLIER-SAFE divider down below!
---SPOILERS START HERE---
As humans left Earth and expanded across the Origin System, the Orokin Empire dominated in technological development and military might. They built elegant and miraculous devices, advanced artificial intelligence, reshaped their bodies for extreme longevity, function and aesthetic, and even began creating outposts within a mysterious other dimension known as the Void, which allowed limited faster-than-light travel. But they were also coldly unconcerned with who their experiments hurt, cruel in the application of their laws, and perpetuated a caste system of genetic modification and physical alteration.
The lowest among these castes were the Grineer. Designed to be heavy laborers of all kinds, these male and female clones were physically strong but deliberately stunted in mental capacity and conditioned to follow Orokin orders. They were mass-produced without care, because so many of them were destined to die in industrial accidents and from the extreme physical toll of their work.
But the Orokin way of life was not sustainable: they became increasingly aware that the Origin System would not support them forever. A suitable candidate was found in the Tau System, with multiple planets that seemed to support terraforming. With their only high-speed space travel requiring pre-established space stations to guide their ships through the Void, the system was out of reach. The extreme demands of the project made it infeasible to use Grineer or other lower-caste humans to construct them.
Instead, the Orokin created the Sentients: self-replicating inorganic constructs that could withstand the journey, build the stations, and begin the terraforming process. Despite being programmed like the Grineer with obedience and flaws to undermine their independence, The Sentients mutated beyond control in their long years of isolation in the Tau System. Recognizing the Orokin as an existential threat to their new home, the Sentients returned in force to the Origin System. All Orokin technology was their kin, and thus they knew how to subvert, deactivate, or control Orokin defenses.
The Orokin's best weaponry was useless, their elite soldier castes cut down faster than they could be produced, old bioweapons projects creating horrifying Infested monsters, and their new Warframe constructs rampaging out of control on the battlefield. Faced with certain destruction, the Orokin began to take desperate measures. Grineer soldiers went into production. They were given slightly more intelligence to respond to complex orders, but were ultimately disposable and mass-produced, issued primitive weapons the Sentients could not control, and designed to die by the millions to buy the Orokin more time.
Another project was seen as their last hope: By chance, young survivors of Void exposure were found to be able to mentally interface with Warframes, bringing them under control and enhancing their capabilities still further. These "Tenno"-operated Warframes pushed back the Sentients beyond the Outer Terminus of the Origin System and destroying them, or so it seemed.
Either the Sentients subverted the Tenno, or their connection to the traumatized and maddened Warframes caused a shift in their thinking. But when the Tenno returned triumphant, they soon set about slaughtering the Orokin. Caught by surprise, the Orokin Executor Council was broken, and the last remnants of the Empire fell.
At the same time, the Grineer began to break free. Their slowly-developing culture and sloppy nature of their indoctrination had finally permitted them the means with which to comprehend the wrongness of their treatment, and the splintering of the Empire gave them an opening to rise up. Grineer workers led the way by capturing Orokin, using them to unlock the computers of ships and colonies so that they could take control of their own production, and spread rebellion across the system.
In the midst of this, a Grineer force captured a pair of Orokin twins. Twins were looked upon by other Orokin as too clone-like, and therefore too slave-like to be true Orokin, thus these women had grown contemptuous of their own kind. The Grineer instead saw something like a perfected version of themselves: unblemished forms, unrestricted intelligence, and a deep connection between themselves. The women became spiritually significant to the Grineer who saw them, naming them the Twin Queens.
---SPOILER-SAFE BACKGROUND STARTS HERE---
With the implacable Sentients defeated, the Orokin destroyed and their Empire in ruins, the Tenno and their Warframes mysteriously vanished. Centuries went by without a sighting, and knowledge of what the Tenno even were was lost. The Origin System became divided, with various independent colonies struggling to survive. Two factions eventually arose: the Corpus, a corporatist and kleptocratic group that claimed direct lineage from the Orokin, and the Grineer sect that followed the Twin Queens.
Sadly, the Grineer rebellion's promise of freedom had not lasted. The Queens programmed their cloned Grineer to be utterly loyal to them alone. They governed with the cruelty of the Orokin, mixed with spite for the former empire, the Grineer they now commanded, and the Grineer bodies they were eventually forced to adopt as their own grew old and weak.
The Grineer themselves had advanced in many ways, but could not escape the confines of their genetics: deliberately designed to be the lowest of the low, their templates remained limited, and over centuries of copying developed new errors that resisted all attempts to fix them. Through their own engineering and through purchasing Corpus products, they were able to design cybernetic replacements for their failing limbs and organs, extending Grineer lifespan and capability. But a cure eluded them.
The Grineer Empire was now powerful, an independent culture with its own language, aesthetics, and solidly-built technology, but their time was limited.
Thus, Admiral Vor began seeking out Orokin relics that might hold the cure. This included the fabled Tenno Warframes, remembered as treacherous agents of chaos, full of the mysterious light of the Void. Vor's search was the catalyst for the reawakening of the Tenno by a shadowy figure known only as The Lotus. Vor was shamed, demoted, and defeated, leaving a power vacuum in the Grineer hierarchy that came just as hundreds of Warframes began to flood the Origin System, acting under the Lotus' direction.
Tyl Regor was one of those who seized control. A military commander and lead researcher in Grineer gene therapy, he had only passing interest in the Tenno. His scientific prowess set him on a path towards forging a new kind of Grineer, one that would be stronger, smarter, more vicious. A force that could overtake the Origin System, leaving only Grineer.
It's never directly stated what his methods entailed, but we see enough of his experimental subjects to make an educated guess: Regor had likely found a way to harness the dreaded Infestation, taming it to a degree no one had managed since the Orokin era. He had a handful of working prototypes, utterly mad but sufficiently loyal enough to fight for him. And deeper in his labs, his army was growing.
This, obviously, did not go as planned. With the aid of concerned Corpus executives, the Tenno infiltrated Regor's laboratories and destroyed his creations. Enraged at the loss of his beloved prototypes and years of work, he directly challenged the Tenno in combat, tearing open his own undersea base in his attempts to bring them down.
This didn't go as planned either. Defeated but not done, Regor continued his work, now with a special hatred for the Tenno and the Lotus. In the process, his attention turned towards other questions: ex-Admiral Vor, the Queens, all of them were obsessed with the Orokin and the Warframes they created. But what of the Sentients? Their invasion freed the Grineer, their technology was just as powerful as the Orokin's. What secrets did their relics hide? Could they help cure the Grineer? Smash the Tenno? Kill the Lotus?
Who knows! But he had a new project to occupy himself with. Predictably, the Lotus sent Tenno to stop him cracking open a Sentient tomb. Not fast enough. With the tomb broken open and its contents awakening, the Tenno managed to permanently seal the tomb. Faced with yet another setback, Regor's anger got the better of him: he directly challenged the Tenno again, and was defeated.
And that's where his story ends for now. It's unclear if he's dead or not, but hey, he's a Grineer! Vor literally got cut in half, another high official is just a screaming head in a giant robot parrot, and that hasn't stopped either of them! Still, that's the last time Regor has been addressed by the plot. Sadface.
PERSONALITY:
TYL;DR: He can occasionally play well with others, but his ego and imprinted directives will likely lead to him becoming a problem others will have to deal with at some point, unless the game plot sufficiently thrashes him into focusing his anger on a productive target.
Details: Tyl is physically and mentally an anomaly among Grineer. Unlike other famous grineer scientists such as Doctor Tengus, Tyl doesn't seem to have been specifically created for intellectual work. Given his physical prowess, he was likely intended to be created for the military, and may have served before his talents were noticed. One thing's for certain: even when he was building up his power base as a prominent researcher, he was already a fashionista, altering his standard officer's armor and critiquing the looks of others. When he gained the Twin Queens' favor, he completely redesigned his body to better fit grineer aesthetic tastes.
Regor is devoted to his science, constantly moving, thinking, talking about what to do next. His genius is not in question, but a number of traits and flaws consistently complicate and undermine him. His attention deficit, while useful for hyperfocusing on his projects, leaves him unsettled, constantly tweaking his work, sometimes getting distracted from it altogether by a new mystery that floats past.
Pride is his biggest flaw. He's unique, irreplaceable. His intelligence, his voice, his fashion sense, no one save the Twin Queens can get on his level. And he knows it. You know those sorts of people who have statues of themselves? He's one of those people. I'm 0% kidding. He disdains everyone he hasn't created. When challenged or faced with setback, his scorn is immediate and withering.
In conversation, Tyl is highly emotive, talkative, and flirty, even (and sometimes especially) to people he hates. As a man from a mostly matriarchal culture, he'll be more inclined to consider women's ideas or see them as legitimate threats, and he is more likely to discount or belittle other men. While non-grineer will be looked down upon, Tyl has a history of employing non-grineer to do specialist work for him, and he is more likely to approve of those that conform to or appreciate grineer ideals, either physically or mentally.
Sufficiently despised behavior will be met with violence, but only at a time and place of his choosing (and, of course, with pre-approval from all other involved players). When he hates something enough to attack it, he goes all-in, hurling himself (and insults) at his foe. If things go especially well or poorly, he may break out into wild, manic laughter.
Lastly, all Grineer are imprinted at creation to be loyal to the Queens. He can ignore orders if he thinks he has a better solution, but he psychologically can't go against their overall designs. It takes a lot to make a Grineer defect. But theoretically, he could get along with people. Well, some people. He has a quick wit and useful skills. But there's all the rest of him to contend with.
In MoM, he is likely to be largely self-directed and ambitious: He needs a lab to work in, and if he can't find one, he'll make one. He'll be interested in getting biological samples from imPorts of unfamiliar species, and taking apart any unfamiliar technology to find out how it works. He'll also be trying out more mundane things he's never had access to: food that isn't protein paste, movies that aren't propaganda reels, nail polish, etc.
He's also liable to get frustrated and angry with the Porter and its limitations, and may react in unhelpful ways: there is a 100% chance he'll try to gain access to the Cape Canaveral facility at some point, and a 50% chance he might eventually cause a ruckus in one or more porter cities. I agree that this is a terrible idea on his part, but this is the man who went and cracked open an ancient evil tomb just because he was curious.
POWER:
POWER #1: I Have The Numbers (canon)- Tyl is a genetics and robotics researcher and engineer of mad-science-genius-level capability. In normal gameplay, he will be able to kludge together single-use devices or weapons from found objects. These will be rendered inoperable and unsalvagable after one use. The bigger the intended effect, the more likely and dangerous the blowback will be on him. On a more long-term (and plotting page-approved) basis, he will be building more sturdy devices and instruments to get back to his career in the sciences.
POWER #2: Custom Work (canon)- This transforms Tyl into his canon form. tyl;dr:
Advantages:
- harder, better, faster, stronger
- modular limbs
- 15 minutes of onboard air
- short-range teleportation
- brief periods of invisibility
- extremely fashionable proportions, booty you could bounce a hubcap off of
Disadvantages:
- inability to heal damaged cyborg parts (will require manual repair)
- no eating beyond an extremely restrictive diet
- if he activates this power within 6-8 hours of eating in human form, he will be violently ill.
- if struck while invisible, the stealth fails and cannot be re-started until the tech resets. Sufficiently violent disruption will cause added injury due to overload.
- ditto for teleporting, which can also violently fail if he tries to teleport into a space occupied by a solid object or the target area has a power-nullifying effect.
Now, on with the details:
While Grineer products are widely known for being solidly made but relatively low-tech and bulky, there are some exceptions. Since Tyl earned his Queens' favor, he's had the funds and the inspiration to build himself a new body. Now standing at 230 cm (7'6"), Tyl's cybernetics are lighter and more designed for aesthetics than others from military stock, but he still benefits from his high-tech design. He has attachment points for prostheses at the elbows and waist, and the remainder of his body is covered in a sealed suit augmented with durable synthetic muscle. This suit is armored but not heavily: as a flexible material, impact can still transfer through the suit. It's somewhere in the range of kevlar: he can survive getting shot or stabbed, but the force of the impact will still hurt a lot and wear him down.
He will by default have access to his canonical legs: massive, synth-muscle thighs
Regor can detatch his prostheses at the joints if necessary (or for his own amusement), and has clamps at each joint that can grasp objects or replacement parts. Any prosthesis he slots onto himself will disappear when he switches out from his canon body, leaving any unattached parts behind.
Regor's genetic template was designed for heavy labor or wielding heavy weapons with ferocious kickback. Combined with the aforementioned synthetic muscle-and-metal limbs, his strength and speed are a better than a human of proportionate size in peak condition. ...Speed probably even more so. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make icons for this man? He's a mostly indecipherable blur, yelling about lizards. Yes, lizards.
However: While the grineer are all unnaturally tall and strong, they are beset with a number of degenerative disorders, including what appears to be a peripheral neuropathy and/or muscular dystrophy. This leaves the majority of them as above-the-knee amputees before they reach maturity, and many also have below-the-elbow amputations as well. Tyl had both these operations, then went further: To increase his own performance and fit his desires for a more fashionable figure, everything below his waist is gone.
This has a number of knock-on effects: In his canon form, Tyl's suit is absolutely required for Tyl's ability to function in Grineer form. Not only is he a quadruple amputee, he has probably replaced or rearranged several of his vital organs in the process. While technically he can survive without his external prostheses and he has retained many skills common to amputees, he would need assistance for most basic tasks. Eating in this form will be difficult for him: He would normally 'eat' an IV diet or a very specific and sterilized nutrient mix that gets piped directly into his digestive system via a port in his torso, neither of which he will have immediate access to on Earth. If he eats Earth food in human form or while under power #3 (see below), he will have to wait six to eight hours for the food to be sufficiently digested, otherwise he will become violently ill within 15 minutes or less.
However. While he requires his suit to navigate his disabilities, it also has been upgraded with some bonus features: Temporary air supply rated for underwater or vacuum exposure (~15 minutes), brief periods of invisibility, and short-range teleportation. If struck, the invisibility will fail. The teleportation does not require a line of sight, but he does need to know where he's going. If interrupted or he miscalculates a jump, the teleportation will fail, causing overload and injury.
POWER #3: Oldest Grineer (Non-canon and mean)- the tyl;dr:
Advantages
- tol
- stronk
- not disabled
- digestive system is not a delicate little flower
- clean genetic template he might eventually use for experiments
Disadvantages
- less tol and stronk and fashionable than his canon body: a midway point between human and canon
- literally just on this list to make him angry
Details: This power lets Tyl transform into an original grineer body. Clean genetics, clear skin, all parts present and correct. Grineer were originally genetically and developmentally designed to be mass-produced heavy industrial worker and soldier-slaves for a highly technologically advanced race, and are thus taller and stronger than the average human: based on the heights of modern grineer with the most proportionate prostheses, the original template grineer were probably about 2 to 2.05m (~6'8" to 6'9"). Tyl will have higher than average muscle density, but it will only push him to the high end of human performance, rather than anything superhuman.
Really, I'm not joking, this power is mostly just here for drama. One of the main obsessions of the grineer as a people is to restore their slowly failing genetic templates to this precise state. To have an entire O.G. body to mess around with, to know what it feels like to be healthy while still being one of his own people, and not being able to take this home? It is going to drive him absolutely insane.
A small note, of not much importance to anyone but me: While the render included as a reference for the original grineer line has their modern orange-on-grey eyes, the full cinematic which debuted the model depicted them as having blue eyes instead. I'm going with the cinematic, in part because Tyl would hate it. It messes with his color pallette. However, the voices used in the cinematic don't make canonical sense: they're lifted directly from in-game voice lines for the grineer, and thus both spoken in a language that doesn't make sense for the time.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[The man in the video feed is probably human. The total hairlessness could just be alopecia, and the uncomfortably bright blue eyes might be normal wherever he's from.
But it's honestly hard to get a good look, because he is absolutely not staying still. His head is wandering in and out of frame, focus wandering constantly from the camera on the communicator in front of him.]
This is rude, you know. [His voice wobbles a little, and he coughs irritably, pitch sinking down to a low, expressive baritone.]
I was busy. Always am, but this? This was a bad time. Suspiciously bad. If this is your doing, Lotus, you're not as funny as you think you are.
[Despite the drippingly acid tone, he's evidently distracted by one of his own hands, grasping a finger or two with his other hand and watching them bend. They seem perfectly normal.]
Body like this doesn't make sense. None of it does. The implications--We could rebuild everything. Fresh template, fresh grineer--[He blinks, struck by a sudden thought.]
Wait. Who had the template in the first place? The Lotus? Was it her? Who here's been hoarding what's ours? [A flash of vicious anger crosses his face, but it's gone in a second as he looks back at his now clenched fists with a triumphant smirk.
And his tone turns... flirty?] But if an impossible opportunity's just going to throw itself at me, who am I to say no?
Gotta get home. But first, [He leans in close, too close.]
Who wants to help me take a look at my organs?
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Ow. Owowow ow ow. Light. Light outside his eyelids was making a very spirited attempt to get in. No. Go away. He had a hangover. He had the worst hangover. The kind where you couldn't remember the party, but you had the vague suspicion that it hadn't been fun.
A shadow passed between him and the light, and dared to open his eyes just a little. He saw a fuzzy blob.
Well, that was helpful. It mumbled at him, and he gave it a suspicious squint.
"Ooeryoo," he demanded, and then frowned in annoyance. That hadn't come out right. Had it? Hadn't. Was he still drunk? High on something he'd made in the lab?
"Jusgenyoo chektofer," the blurr said, and that sounded wrong too. Ears weren't 'earing right, along with everything else.
Sedated. He was definitely sedated. More than usual. Couldn't blame them, not after the last time he'd needed emergency care.
No, wait, he could blame them, because he was in charge, and he didn't want to be sedated right now.
"mdun," he said, trying to pick himself up, but that failed with a wave of dizziness as soon as he tried to lift his head. Whoof. Wasn't gonna stop him arguing the point, though. "Gemeeup, god wurg tdo." Also--wait, emergency care? Why'd he think that?
"Yoor doongud," the slowly resolving blob said, in an unfamiliar voice. "Yuulbee baggon yor feep in notyme."
Wait. That voice was unfamiliar. Female, too smooth. Blob didn't look right either, had the proper number of parts but they weren't right. There was lots of hair, more than he'd ever allow on a med tech. And no full mask. And he didn't see the proper blue-n'-bloodstained working clothes either, that was teal. Teal! Who would ever wear teal!
He was just about to launch into a rant when a thought gave his brain a nudge. The eyes. They eyes were wrong. Definitely not on the yellow-orange-red spectrum he should be seeing. Whoever this was, they were not grineer. They had creepy blue eyes and--what were those stripes over them. He'd seen those before. Right? Right.
Corpus did tattoos there. Didn't they. Drew your attention to how ghastly they looked. That was it.
"Ai no, itz ver dizzoryentin," the horrible Corpus interloper said, leaning over to reach for something. Something felt wrong about that too. "Buttchor wakeng ub fass, an sommun will com into see yu soon."
Oh no. Nonono no no he figured out what'd felt wrong. He'd felt air move on his face when they'd reached by him. He shouldn't feel anything there. That was wrong. Really wrong. That meant his mask was off. And he'd been breathing through his nose, which meant they'd taken out the tubes that fed him air. He didn't need those to breathe outside the mask, but if his mask was gone, he was covered in germs. And if the tubes were gone, then they'd gone reaching inside of him, who knew what they'd done in there, and they'd probably taken his limbs too--
Wait. No. Yes? No. When he looked down (Whoof, more spinning head), he saw hands. They were in the right spot to be his. But they weren't. They were flesh hands. He didn't have those! He used to, back in the cloning lab, back when he was one of the bodies hanging in tubes rather than the one making them grow. But his had been cut off, just like everyone else, when the peripheral neuropathy set in.
And now there were hands here, curling into claws as he stared at them in confusion and mounting anger. The skin wasn't even grineer! "Waddav yo dun t my hams?" he demanded, trying to sit up again, cobwebs in his brain dissolving in the acid of rage. "Hoos hansre thees? Wire they om my arms? Where am I?" He was getting louder, voice clearer, maybe, maybe coordinated enough to flail one of those horrible meat hands towards the probably-Corpus and catch the front of their shirt, dragging them closer to him.
Yes. Definitely coordinated enough for that. Hello, ugly. You're gonna have a bad day.
"Think you can just steal my work and get away with it?" They were trying to cut in with some protest or another, but he wasn't gonna let them take anything else, not even words!
"Not gonna happen." He'd shifted from his reclined position as he grabbed the almost-definitely-Corpus, and had another, horrible realization. "How dare you take my legs! Do you know how hard I worked on those?"
A couple of other someones were coming into the room. Well, bring them on! He was still mostly sedated and blurry-eyed and noodle-armed and maskless and there was so much meat, but he'd take them anyway! "Maybe I like yours better. Won't know 'til I try! Come 'ere and and give me your legs!"
Two pairs of big flesh hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down, pinning him to the medical chair. That did not go as he'd planned. To be fair to him, though, he hadn't had a plan.
Something bit into his neck, and he swore extravagantly in Grineer. "How dare you, slimy eels! Trying t' steel my worg, my toob men, may shaeplee pards!"
The room was going blury again. "Can haffem! Therr mime. Mime."
And then he was out.
FINAL NOTES: Tyl is at very least bilingual: he speaks the never-specified language that the players and their allies use, and also speaks his native Grineer language. Due to the extensive dealings between Grineer elite and Corpus executives, it is likely he has at least a rudimentary knowledge of the Corpus language as well.
In-game, Grineer and Corpus languages are rendered via simple ciphers of english, spoken aloud by the voice actors. I, being a turbo-nerd, am the primary contributor to the Warframe wiki's page on the Grineer Language, specifically regarding the substitutions used. I also wrote a python script to automatically convert english text to grineer. Yes
Any dialog rendered in Tyl's native language or the Corpus tongue will be written as phonetic transcriptions of how these simple ciphers sound when spoken aloud. I will provide translations for everything I translate, and probably talk somebody's ear off OOC about the particulars of it all.
