you can call me Karp

Addressing the three-member-battle-system-shaped elephant in the room because chapters 2 and 5 REALLY wanted to rub this rule in our faces, like you can't tell me that I'll look like this:

Big Three

for a while these three were understood as the three most powerful psychics in the US and were the people who were called into any dangerous situation. they flew all across the country (probably into Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean too during extreme circumstances) and shouldered a massive amount of the monster suppression burden while active.

Kev - i kinda know a lot about them but most of it isn't gonna be present in the game because they die like 2 weeks before the game starts. the incident they die at isn't uniquely dangerous they're just chronically overconfident and probably go in jetlagged.

Pbox (placeholder name) - used the puzzlebox. dies right in front of Anaia, who takes the puzzlebox and finds she can use it. while Anaia can only use 7 forms of the box, Pbox has access to seemingly dozens. LA native and kinda an all-american hero, smiley but not flippant.

Ace (placeholder name) - effectively has a sniper rifle, and is best-in-the-world at suppressing monsters from long distance. badly injured in the same incident that killed Pbox, blames herself. pleasant but brusque woman, holds herself to very high standards.

Southern California Monster Suppression Squad

in my head monster suppression is more like a fire department than a branch of the military. they're managed on the municipal/state level, although many initially started as independent NGOs (including the SoCal one), and the culture reflects that.

Anaia - our protagonist and the newest member of the squad. was a civilian caught up in a very large-scale incident, watched Pbox die, took up the puzzlebox and that's how she found out she's psychically capable. i have like so much about her she's a rebuke of big man theory and she's a femme lesbian and she has ridiculous amounts of pressure on her and she has a humanities degree probably?

Brass (placeholder name) - uses brass knuckles. an example of a person who's only a little psychically gifted but incredibly talented in all other areas of the work (great judgement under pressure, great situational awareness, great at working with civilians. she was probably either an EMT or a trauma nurse/ER nurse before the psychic emergence. also, Pbox's sister, and was present at the scene he died. strained relationship with Anaia, as you can imagine. also world's most guarded person.

Lilac - comes out as a trans woman like a day before the game starts. is neurotically dysphoric about her hands to the extent she can only do her psychic stuff if they're in her hoodie pockets. wears That One Babytrans Skirt and a big hoodie. also she's wayyyy too young to be doing this work, she's like 19 i think. mainly doing this work for the money (no post-secondary education, limited support system), feels very weird participating in the fervently pro-human culture of the monster suppression squad as 1 someone incredibly alienated and 2 someone who feels the general public is incredibly hostile to her as a trans woman.

Coins (placeholder name) - creates these psychic coins and can switch the location of any given coin with himself or another person (provided he has "tagged" that person). this is ridiculously useful, and he's one of a single-digit number of people in North America capable of any sort of teleportation, so he's doing this job despite being kinda the worst possible personality for it - meek, indecisive, can not stand up pressure or especially conflict. very sensitive person.

Metrics (placeholder name) - can blow shit up (specifically, can convert nonorganic nonmonster matter directly into an unstable form of psychic energy, which explodes shortly after). as psychics go abilities like this are pretty common, to the point he knows exactly how his statistics compare to others (specifically the raw stat of unit of psychic energy per square inch of matter), and he works really hard to get his numbers up. kinda twitchy and a little too loud. he has a self-aggrandizing manner that can read as arrogance, but he uplifts others enough (and, when the chips are down, he takes his work seriously enough) that he's not too hateable for it.