TEN THOUSAND EMPTY TOMBS: VARIANT ZOUAVE (OR JUST SETTING BUILDING)

 It's been a long, bloody revolution -- a century of bloodletting -- and back in your day you've seen it all.  Now, for whatever reason, you've picked up a dusty weapon and strapped the old plate carrier on again.  There are no rebels now; they're just the government.  Kids who were born after the War are soldiers now and people are already forgetting.      

This is a set of variant Zouave backgrounds and kit.  Use it with the other Zouave features except the B template probably needs some work to fit in a modern setting (no duels here).  But you were a badass revolutionary and people do take you more seriously as a result.

TALL TALES

Back in the day you:

1. Defeated an Imperial exomarine in single combat (half true): One servo was broken and he didn't have a gun.  But you caught him under the arm with a compressed gas knife while you got pummeled by a mechanical fist.  You get +4 to hit with light weapons while you are being grappled.
2. Fought alongside Old Man Rat in the siege of Face 54-K01 (true): The worst campaign in a century long war.  You met the legendary rebel in his later days -- still fighting at the front. Hand-to-hand fighting in tunnels barely big enough to wriggle through.  1-in-6 chance you can't sleep through the night without pharmaceutical assistance.  But you are at home below the ground and can spot most spelological hazards and avoid them.  You are also totally unafraid of claustrophobic spaces and can fight effectively in implausibly tight quarters. 
3. Stormed the Governor General's palace (and obliterated his gold-plated toilet) (true): You're really good at looting.  It takes you half as long to search rooms and you can appraise most mundane loot to a reasonable degree of accuracy. 
4. Lost in the mountains in the Plateau War (true): Stranded with just one tank of supplemental oxygen, you managed to scavenge what you needed to survive for several weeks until the seasonal storms receded.  +4 on saves against environmental hazards.  You're harder to trip than a mountain goat. 
5. Hot drop with a defective heat shield (half true): The shield only gave out at Mach 3. It was still a really bad time.  You're that person who takes the controls in any aerospace disaster.  Doesn't matter that you aren't a pilot.  You'll land safely (but maybe not intact).
6. Survived a gas attack (true): You can don armor 10x quicker and can sleep well enough in a pressure suit or heavy armor.   
7. Stranded at sea in the Long Campaign (false):  You were stranded for a few hours but you managed to fix the life raft's electric motor and spent a good few months on a very nice tropical island.  The psychological effects of isolation don't bother you much and you're unsettlingly lucky when living off the land.
8. Tutored by a Reborn Sister (true): You are totally unafraid of death.  Not suicidal.  But willing to consider acts of heroism sane people would not.  You also have +4 on saves against fear.
9. Took an Imperial tank on a joyride (true):  You can steal any ground vehicle or crude aerospace craft with the stuff in your pockets and operate it well enough to cause some problems. 
10. Survived a suborbital exfiltration after the battle of the Red Mare (true): Being caught in midair by a spaceship is nerve-wracking.  There's only one shot and if they missed you'd have tumbled down to the surface and left a big red crater.  Your sense of timing is impeccable.  If you need to do something at the same time as someone else, you always do.  You are also very good at judging distance and can make ranged attacks against very fast targets with no penalty.

KIT:

A souvenir from your past:

1.  An exotic power cell made of tightly-wound Gardener superconductors.  With a day's work you can configure it for use with a single portable energy weapon.  Twenty times the capacity of a regular high performance battery (no other mechanical changes).  If it explodes everything nearby will have a very bad day.
2. Precious fullerene cable.  100m of rope in a container the size of a large cigarette lighter (dangerously sharp but with proper protective equipment that you don't have you can do stupid things like rappel with it).
3. Gardener repair hive -- A porous spongelike structure made of durable ceramic the size of a fist.. Restore all your HP once per month.  1 in 6 chance you will be killed or turned into an uncontrollable Meat Horror (player's choice).  The latter effect is what it was used for in the Revolution. There is a further 1 in 20 chance that you retain enough of your mind to control the Meat Horror. 
4. Monowire sword -- very fragile (likely to break if used against armored targets) but incredibly sharp.  Retractable and fits in a compact package).  It's still possible to get new blades for these but very difficult and expensive.
5. Lucky boarding axe.  Reroll any critical fumbles.
6. Imperial signet key -- this opens all sorts of weird stuff (you're not sure what -- try it on everything!).