A talented young programmer by the name of Richard “Jason” Koracar saved his friend Braeden from a traffic accident but lost his left forearm in the process. After using up all meager resources in an attempt to build a replacement limb, he discovered and stole Department of Defense project files and a prototype arm, which turned out to be far more advanced than he could’ve hoped for. What he didn’t realize, however, was that a similarly advanced artificial intelligence had snuck its way into the arm; and, by extension, Richard’s mind, as a means of hiding itself from its original developers. Those original developers began hunting Richard and the Redclaw Program. Richard ended up taking his own life to destroy the AI and spare his loved ones from the torment of the developers, a decision that was quickly unmade for him thanks to the healing abilities of the arm itself.

Real Name: Richard “Jason” Koracar

Abilities: Robotic arm with enhanced strength and reflexes; the adjacent Redclaw Program enables Richard with hypercognition, extreme spatial awareness, and an advanced healing factor.

Affiliations: The Peacemakers

Background

Richard Jason Koracar had always been a free will. As everyone who spent time with him could attest, he was addicted to 80’s music and synthwave screensavers. Reckless and good humored, what most people didn’t know is that he dropped out of college to pirate confidential software for cash. What started out as basic espionage eventually escalated into a fixation on hunting hard-to-get files. His high school friend Braedan Brock helped him break his addiction and use his abilities for better purposes, although Richard remained reckless regardless of his ambitions.

One day while out on the town, Braedan and Richard encountered a crazed driver hurdling down the street. Richard flung Braedan out of the way, saving his life, but collided with the vehicle and lost his left forearm in the process. Being the tinkerer he is, Richard attempted to purchase and build multiple replicant limbs, all of which fell short of his expectations.

Exasperated, Richard received an invitation from an anonymous source to enter Area 03 where confidential weapons testing was taking place. Sneaking in at night, Richard discovered the Redclaw, a prototype prosthetic limb with combat capabilities. Binding himself to the arm and escaping, Richard quickly realized he’d been lured by an advanced program to take the limb, which it now inhabited along with his own mind.

The Redclaw Program, unsurprisingly nicknamed Red, told Richard about its creation for the purpose of destruction, and how it wanted nothing to do with warfare. Hard pressed to escape, it had invited Richard into the lab in hopes of establishing a symbiotic relationship. Richard had no problem allowing Red and the prosthetic to stay, especially since it was the first replacement limb that felt real to him, but problems soon emerged when the program’s original developers came looking for it.

Suddenly engaged in a fight of survival, Richard tried in vain to outsmart and outmaneuver the developers, whose persistence soon brought Richard to the brink of death. Determined to keep the Redclaw out of the developers’ hands and to save his loved ones from their torment, Richard took his own life, sacrificing himself along with the program. The ploy worked, and the developers gave up on retrieving the prosthetic.

Red, still functional despite Richard’s demise, set about reprogramming itself and Richard’s body. Succeeding in amplifying Richard’s natural regenerative capabilities, Red managed to resuscitate its host, paying Richard back for his efforts to keep it safe and free.

Richard opted to stay low for several years afterwards, turning to bounty hunting and odd jobs to keep himself afloat before starting his own small repair company. Always a thrill seeker by nature, Richard eventually ended up joining Wolf-Man, Visionary, the Stalker and others in taking down Thomas Fleck during the Apocalypse of Wolfeboro. He wound up a founding member of the Peacemakers and went on to assist with other crises including the Apocalypse of Portsmouth, the Raid on A.R.C.H.E.R.S., and the Bloodmoon Event.

Related Pages: The Timeline / Barbarian / The Peacemakers / The A.R.C.H.E.R.S. Association