Kranos Faaral

Kranos Faaral was a male turian mercenary and crime lord who commanded the Ten Red Turians, an extremist group that called for the complete destruction of the Systems Alliance and the human race. Born on Palaven, the Turian homeworld, Faaral served in the Shadow Marshals, the Turian Hierarchy's equivalent to the Citadel Council's Spectres, the Asari Commandos, the salarian League of One, and the human N7 Commandos, for many years until he and his partner failed a mission. Their capture by human slavers threatened to expose the Shadow Marshals to the Citadel Council. Although Kranos partner' was tortured and killed, Kranos was able to kill the slavers and escape to Palaven. Upon his return to the turian homeworld, the Shadow Marshals arrested Kranos because he had violated their Codex of Conduct, and sealed him inside of a cell in a maximum-security prison facility on said planet. During a Cerberus commando squad's raid on the prison, Kranos took advantage of the confusion and chaos and managed to sneak into a prisoner transport bay and steal a prisoner transport shuttle. Kranos managed to get to the Citadel, a massive space station and the heart of Citadel Space, where he used the small amount of funds he had stolen from the Purgatory to buy himself a small apartment in the 800 Block. Deciding that he needed money to continue moving around and avoiding the detection of the Shadow Marshals, Kranos decided to become a mercenary. At first, due to his being partially insane, many potential employers decided not to hire him, but eventually a representative of the Shadow Marshals, who had adopted a wait and see approach towards him, contacted him and supplied him with his first mission, a raid on a Blue Suns' warehouse to secure an OSD.

Following the successful completion of his first mission and the recommendation of his first employer, contracts started to flood in. As he completed more missions, Kranos built up a personal fortune which allowed him to create his own extremist, criminal organization so that he could pursue his revenge against Humans, who had earned his undying hatred when they had captured him and his partner and torture and killed his partner in front of him in order to find about his activities.

Early Life
Kranos Faaral was born on Palaven, the homeworld of the Turians. He was taken to a Shadow Marshal Enclave Temple, in fact it was the main Shadow Marshal Enclave Temple on Palaven, when he was very young, so he did not develop any connections to his family, clan, or city. This was done in order to maintain complete loyalty of the new Initiate to the Turian Hierarchy. Although he and the rest of the Initiates were kept mostly in the Enclave Temple, he was allowed out to explore his native world with supervision, which made him prefer his homeworld to all other worlds, and as such he could not stay on any one world, other than Palaven, for very long. When Kranos was fifteen years old, he began his training in the higher disciplines of conduct, where his instructors and oveerseers, one of which was Garrus Vakarian, a potential Spectre candidate at the time, felt that he had strong potential in combat. He studied battle tactics and other species, as he believed that knowing your enemy and how they think would allow him to create strategies that would give him an advantage over his opponents. Many of his overseers, however, also thought that his skills gave him too much confidence, which Kranos subsequently brushed off.

After Kranos turned twenty-eight years old, and after he had successfully completed dozens of missions for the Shadow Marshals, Kranos and his partner, a female Turian who he had entered a romantic relationship with, were sent on a mission to the Human world of Elysium after the Skyllian Blitz, a Batarian pirate and slaver attack, where they were attacked and kidnapped by a group of Human slavers who were looking for new pieces of property to sell to prospective buyers on Human colonies in the Terminus Systems. Kranos and his partner resisted, but his partner was tortured and killed in order to prevent Kranos from attempting to escape again. Kranos sat in the slavers' base of operations on Elysium for another month before he took advantage of lax security, and killed all of the slavers, and escaped back to Palaven.

Upon his return to Palaven, Kranos was arrested by the Shadow Marshals for violating parts of their Codex of Conduct, such as never directly put the Shadow Marshals in danger of being discovered. Using their influence and vast wealth, the Shadow Marshals purchased a cell for Kranos in a maximum security prison. For several days Kranos languished in his cell, until a Cerberus commando squad and their supporting personnel assaulted the prison and attempted to kill Warden Harvik. In the chaos and confusion, Kranos managed to escape from his guards and steal a prisoner transport ship. Kranos eventually arrived at the Citadel, a massive space station where Kranos could avoid detection due to its large and crowded population. Broke and alone, Kranos decided to become a mercenary. For several days, Kranos went without work due to his being partially insane until a member of the Shadow Marshals, who had found him eventually but had adopted a wait and see approach, contacted him and agreed to give him work.

Data Recovery
Contacted by a prospective employer, Kranos lounged around in Chora's Den, a disreputable club and bar in the Kithoi Ward, while he awaited the arrival of his employer. Eventually, after several hours of drinking and waiting, Kranos was contacted by a Citadel Security Services Captain named Winter who had been bribed by Kranos' secretive, Turian employer. Captain Winter guided Kranos into a private booth near the back of Chora's Den where he was greeted by his employer's bodyguard with a metal detector and weapons scanner. Not expecting any trouble, Kranos had left all of his weapons back in his apartment in the 1450 bloc, and thus was allowed into the booth to meet his employer, a wealthy turian Shadow Marshal named Ontok who was posing as a Citadel Security Services Executor.

Executor Ontok explained the mission parameters to Kranos over several glasses of a sickly and sweet asari concoction. The mission was to retrieve an Optical Storage Device, a small and portable data storage unit, from a Blue Suns warehouse in the Factory District of the Sizera Ward. Kranos agreed to the mission and returned to his apartment to collect his weapons, armor, and the rest of his gear. Having been provided with a small dropship for use during the mission by Executor Ontok, Kranos promptly flew to the Factory District, and having located the Blue Suns warehouse, landed behind the cover of a large skyscraper. Kranos scouted the warehouse, spotted its defenses, and then rushed the warehouse, taking down several dozen Blue Suns mercenaries with precise and accurate shots from his heavy pistol.

Downing a particularly zealous Blue Suns mercenary who was attempting to throw a grenade at him, Kranos found himself with an entrance into the Blue Suns warehouse as a sizeable portion of the main door had been destroyed by the grenade blast. Kranos carefully entered the warehouse, and after taking out the remaining Blue Suns mercenaries, LOKI Mechs, and FENRIS Mechs which were guarding the warehouse, managed to capture the Blue Suns section commander of the warehouse who had stolen the Optical Storage Device, or OSD, from Executor Ontok's men. After threatening to torture him, Kranos managed to get the Blue Suns commander to give up the code to the wall safe. Kranos opened the wall safe and retrieved the Optical Storage Device, and returned it to Executor Ontok and his men for a hefty sum of credits.

The Ten Reds
Following his successful completion of Executor Ontok's mission, Kranos experienced a surge of new customers and clientelle who, after watching footage of his mission that was recorded by his armor, were eager to hire him and his Turian Shadow Marshal commando training. For several days, Kranos loitered in his apartment in the 800 Bloc, sorting through various missions that had been sent to him on his personal terminal. Getting bored, Kranos sauntered down to a restaurant in the Zakera Ward, pulled an assault rifle off of his back, and began gunning down humans. Impressed by his bold-faced and brutal massacre, Faaral was recruited into the Ten Red Turians. Through cunning and well thought out killing of the gang's ten leaders, Kranos soon secured control. Under Kranos' leadership, the gang exterminated hundreds of humans, whilst sustaining a continuous profit through drug trafficking.

Kranos eventually attracted the attention of the mass murderer Kymir Jhoeli, who was disgusted by the bigoted Ten Reds. Kymir successfully orchestrated the dissolution of the Ten Reds from the interior, after he assimilated himself into the crime legion. Kymir planted immensely powerful firebombs (highly similar to the ones he used on Omega as a teenager) within eight of the Reds' ten headquarters, eliminating the majority of the forces and igniting a civil war between Kranos and the remaining crime lord, both believing that the other was responsible for the bombings. By providing Kranos with a powerful arsenal of explosives and weapons, Kymir enabled Kranos to overtake the other crime lord's facility. With Kranos' trust firmly in place, Kymir proceeded to burn Kranos nearly to death, then turned him over to a hospital for treatment.

When Kranos was released from the hospital, he was promptly imprisoned for his gang's actions. After Kymir got himself into the same prison on a minor offense, Kranos confronted him, asking what the point of the whole, obscenely complex plan was.

"You want to why I initiated such an elaborate murder plot for you specifically, Kranos? I did because you are a disgrace to our people.  Your monstrous campaign against the human race thoroughly sickened the most infamous mass murderer in the modern day universe.  The power vacuum left behind by your "Ten Reds" will overtaken by hardworking, garden-variety cartels...made up of humans.  That's justice for you."

After incapacitating Kranos, Kymir incited a massive prison riot by displaying the crime lord's body in the central hall. In the ensuing chaos, Kymir escaped from the prison. Kranos was torn apart by the human prisoners.

Appearances

 * Mass Effect Origins

Behind the Scenes
Kranos Faaral was created by InfernalWarrior as his first, and so far only, character on the Mass Effect roleplaying game set during the two years after Commander Shepard's death at the hands of the Collectors, or the period between the events of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect Origins. Inspirations for the creation of Kranos Faaral came from Garrus Vakarian, Saren Arterius, and Nihlus Kryik.

InfernalWarrior created the character of Kranos Faaral for use on Mass Effect Origins. The name "Kranos Faaral" was derived from the Italian root of the English word "cranium", "cranio", and a more modern version of the English word "feral" which would sound more like a name.