This is the first of several character backgrounds, in preparation for our upcoming Hero System campaign. Spider Monkey is the speedster of the group, a small spider monkey that was experimented on in a science lab, before escaping into the wilds of The City, to join the group.
For each character, these are drafts, some of the details may change before the game actually starts as I continue to fine tune.
The experiment was intended to test the limits of a new wonder drug, a serum to fight the effects of aging and dementia. To this end, the lab brought in many different lab animals, an approach required by the process before human trials could eventually proceed.
For the most part, many of his brothers and sisters died, one after another injected and then dissected for the pursuit of science. A small number were left for long term observation – and he made sure that he was one of them after he realized what was happening.
At first, it was a slow awareness and recognition of the patterns and goals of the humans. Then it was an understanding of their language, along with an increase to his natural speed and agility. Unrecognized by the scientists who were studying him, they had accidentally created the creature now known as Spider Monkey. Before their tests could detect the changes, he was already intelligent enough to falsify the results, or fast enough to swap places with the other lab subjects. Those humans couldn’t tell one animal apart from another, except by those silly RFID tags and toe tag labels, something that he could easily exchange with the others.
Then one night his opportunity arrived, and one of the cages wasn’t fully engaged. In a flash, Spider Monkey was gone, climbing into the air vents and quickly escaping from the complex. No alarm was ever triggered, he is not sure they have ever realized he had escaped, but the world he emerged into was not the juggles of South America he was expecting.
Instead, he found himself in the streets of The City, smells and sounds and sites overwhelming his senses. The humans he encountered found him “cute” and “adorable” for the most part, so finding food was simple – the few who feared or hated him were no match for his speed. As he explored this new concrete jungle, he found new friends, who though different, were outsiders like him, and shared a sense of family he longed for.
For now, he will stay with them, while he adapts to this strange new world.
