AUSTIN HAMMACHER

• Species: ExoHuman
• Born: 2598, aboard the Last Frontier
• Affiliation (Beta Age): Freelance Bounty Hunter, former settler of the Hope Region
• Place of Residence: Nomadic (frequently operates out of Morningstar)

Austin Hammacher was not born a killer. After the crash landing of the Last Frontier, he was simply a man looking for a quiet place to build a life. He applied for an agricultural plot through the Land Allocation Office and was granted a farmstead in the fertile but remote Hope Region. He moved there with his wife and their twin daughters, determined to carve a peaceful existence out of the harsh frontier.

However, the Land Allocation Office had drawn borders over territory the Honga Tribe considered sacred. A bitter territorial dispute ignited almost immediately. Believing the law of the Free State would protect him, Austin refused to yield. When a delegation of four unarmed Honga arrived at his farm to negotiate terms, the tension boiled over. In a panic-driven escalation, Austin shot and killed all four negotiators.

The retaliation was swift and devastating. The very next night, the Honga struck. They did not burn his farm or kill him; instead, they abducted his wife and twin daughters. The tribe left Austin a chilling ultimatum: his family was now “lost to him, just as their tribe members were lost to them.” To ensure his compliance, the Honga demanded he abandon the land permanently — in return, they would do him the favor of not reporting his quadruple murder to the Free State authorities.

Broken, blackmailed, and stripped of his family, Austin surrendered the farm and drifted north into the Atrana Mountains. He took a temporary job as a manual hand at the Forge of Atrana near Morningstar. Surrounded by the construction of hunting gear and heavy weaponry, Austin channeled his grief into steel. He learned the craft of weapon-making and built a massive, customized DIY hand-cannon completely from scratch.

Realizing that violence was the only currency the frontier respected, and having heard rumors of lucrative payouts, Austin turned to bounty hunting. He became a cold, pragmatic tracker, hunting desperate people for Kourou—perhaps harboring a delusional hope that if he amassed enough wealth, he could one day buy an army to march into Honga territory and take his family back.

• Frontier Farmer (Early Beta Age): Attempted to tame a disputed plot in the Hope Region before the violent collapse of his family life.
• Forge Hand (Mid Beta Age): Worked temporary labor at the Forge of Atrana, acquiring the metallurgical and mechanical skills needed to maintain and craft custom frontier firearms.
• Freelance Bounty Hunter (Late Beta Age): Operates as a ruthless, opportunistic tracker enforcing the warrants of the Guarding Troopers and wealthy private clients for purely financial gain.

• Traits: Hollow, pragmatic, cynical, hyper-vigilant.
• Behavior: Speaks in low, blunt sentences; views every interaction as a transaction; drinks steadily but never allows himself to get sloppy.
• Values: Kourou, self-preservation, and a buried, unspoken grief. He has completely abandoned any belief in the justice system or the Free State.

• Height: 1.88 meters
• Weight: 92 kg
• Appearance: A rugged, scarred survivor. He wears heavy animal furs layered over scavenged, scuffed polymer armor. A mechanical, repurposed breather mask hangs loosely around his neck. He explicitly avoids the “cowboy” aesthetic, looking entirely like a product of a crashed starship and a freezing mountain range. Beneath his armor, tattooed over his heart, is a crude, self-inked portrait of his wife and twin daughters.

• Armor Class (AC): 14 (Scavenged polymer mesh and thick hide)
• Hit Points (HP): 45

• DIY Hand-Cannon: Ranged Weapon Attack — +6 to hit, range 30/60 m, one target. Hit: 1d10 + 3 piercing damage. This weapon is brutally loud and visually intimidating, venting gas and sparks with every shot.
• Heavy Pistol Whip: Melee Weapon Attack — +5 to hit, reach 1.5 m, one target. Hit: 1d6 + 2 bludgeoning damage.

• Nothing to Lose: When Austin falls below 15 HP, he gains advantage on all attack rolls. He fights like a man who is already dead.
• Frontier Tracker: Austin has advantage on all Wisdom (Survival) and Wisdom (Perception) checks related to tracking humanoids through mud, snow, or fog.

Austin claims to care only about the bounty, living by the grim motto: “Alive or dead, I ain't picky.” On the surface, his only goal is the accumulation of Kourou. However, his underlying psychological drive is a toxic mix of guilt and vengeance. He hunts others because he failed to protect his own, using the brutal simplicity of bounty hunting to avoid dealing with the ghosts of his family.

Austin Hammacher's story does not end with peace or redemption. When the Great War eventually erupted across the world, Austin enlisted in the Volunteer Army of Man, likely seeing the war as an excuse to exact legal, unrestrained violence against his old enemies.

His bitter crusade came to a violent end on December 17, 2629. During a brutal skirmish in the very same Hope Region where his life originally fell apart, Austin was killed in action by warriors of the Honga Tribe. The Free State recorded him as a casualty of war, but in truth, it was the final, inevitable settlement of a blood debt that began years earlier on a disputed patch of dirt.

• The Standoff: Austin is not a grandstanding villain. When he confronts the PCs (e.g., in Saw's End), he does not monologue. He states his business, draws his weapon, and expects compliance or violence.
• Transactional Morality: Because Austin only cares about the payout, clever PCs who are flush with cash might actually be able to buy their way out of a firefight by offering him double the bounty right then and there. He has no loyalty to the Guarding Troopers.
• The Tattoo: If Austin is killed or incapacitated by the PCs, discovering the tattoo of his twin daughters and wife on his chest should provide a sobering, grimdark moment for the players, reminding them that everyone in the Beta Age has a tragic reason for the things they do.

• Beta Age
• The Honga Tribe
• Hope Region
• Forge of Atrana
• Morningstar
• Saw's End
• The Great War
• Volunteer Army of Man