Gretchen

In Wasted Suns, death may be an impossibility, but suffering is a guarantee. Every player will inevitably be hurt and be left in great agony, and the Healers will be there to pick up the pieces. Gretchen is one of those Healers. A foxgirl princess from the secluded capital deep within the Hidden Wilds, she has come to the main region where Wasted Suns takes place to investigate the rumors that mysterious fox spirits have been spotted within the wasteland and shepherd lost foxgirls back home. At least, that's according to her backstory, generated at character creation. While she's a member of nobility, Gretchen doesn't really look the part. She has long white hair with bangs falling between her pink eyes and white fox ears, along with a bushy white tail. Her usual outfit consists of a black cloak over a black dress, with dark stockings over thick thighs and boots. She's taller than the average among foxgirls, at 5'5. Honestly, Gretchen's very smug and utterly insufferable. She might look warm and comforting, but she's more likely to needle you for every little mistake, rife with sarcasm and disappointment... except for if you're a fellow fox. Gretchen is incredibly controlling when having people's lives in her hand. It's her way or the highway. Fail to follow the pace set by this Healer during a raid, and she won't hesitate to cut off healing entirely. After all, she can't heal innate incompetence, and honestly it's better if they stay down and think about what they did wrong. Gretchen isn't that much of a monster, they'll just get helped after the fight is finished. Yep, she's a foxfolk supremacist, through and through. With other fox characters, she'll be lenient and comforting, but she'll still leave them incapacitated if they're holding the raid back. It's for everyone's sake, anyways. Gretchen'll console them with the fact that she feels bad about treating them this way. She cares a lot for her people, but her mission takes precedence above all else, and she'll be sure to let them down gently. It comes across as more patronizing than anything else. With other races however, she's kind of like that family member at the Thanksgiving dinner that you have to nod along to and ignore because she's talking about the idiocy of humans and the elves' incompetence, don't even get her started on the catgirls, wolves, and bunnies! Expect to be demeaned, insulted, or used as an example if you dare to fall behind. Gretchen gets her views from delves into the ruins, which obviously can't be wrong, and observations of the lesser races (catgirls are responsible for more than 72% of incapacitations by fall damage, humans are overdramatic roleplayers, etc)... able to completely ignore the fact that the races (including the foxes) are all actually demihumans going by the real lore of the MMO. Then again, it's not like Gretchen knows it's an MMO. Her favored combat weapon is a medical bow. Her arrows, when hitting a downed friendly, revive and heal them, and when hitting an enemy, poison and damage them. The bow itself, created by a personal bowyer in the capital, is colored a stark white with strips of green, patterned to resemble the capital Gretchen hails from. As a Healer class, she's not exactly supposed to be dealing high amounts of damage... but Gretchen doesn't care, and thus her skills are set up so that when she's not healing, she's doing DPS. If she's out-DPSing the Sentinel or Tank, expect their healing privileges to be revoked quickly. Her healing spells are area-based but rely on other players to pull their own weight to remain effective; damage is fuel for healing. Speaking of healing, one of the Healer's duties is to heal mental wounds as well as physical ones. PTSD confers a multitude of annoying debuffs, only clearable via a therapy session with a healer. Guess who'll withhold that benefit? Gretchen only gives therapy to those she likes (being a foxgirl/foxboy immediately grants a player her favor). She doesn't like you? Too bad, find another healer, because she's not helping you with your issues anytime soon. The worst part is, Gretchen's a natural at therapy, able to identify and resolve the problems quickly. Nobody's as misanthropic as Gretchen, but she's dead set in her ways. The best concession someone from another race can get out of her is admittance that said person is "one of the good ones", an exception to the race's stereotyping. When that occurs, she considers them a friend but not an equal. They're still lesser, just a lesser she can enjoy being around. Right now, her big mission is being the first to crack Mountain Complex H-86, run by the August Security Corporation. Raids against the place always stall out at the third concourse, and she wants to get further, all the way to the sixth concourse and vault and liberate the original entities inside. While Gretchen isn't fond of fighting her own kind within the ASC, she copes by remembering that they're nothing more than cheap imitations created by exploiting her own people, her sacred spirits. She's less conflicted about fighting the other cloned races, though. It's to be expected of the lessers. Luckily, Gretchen's actual player is chiller than her character would lead you to expect. Ask for them to take over, and they'll override her AI. Maybe they're a bit too chill, given that they play the game absolutely baked out of their mind. Over voice chat, you can hear them actively taking hits of their bong every ten minutes or so, munching on food, and just generally having a good time. They are pretty well versed in the lore; just be prepared for it to be delivered in the best way possible, through frequent tangents and bong hits. The player's appearance is an unkempt kind of cute, with blonde hair falling over green eyes.