The Penumbra

One of the least known variant teams, the Penumbra was composed of members of the Lancaster University Variant Studies program, class of 1988. Like most other Variant Studies classes, the members of the Penumbra formed a strong bond with one another that led them on a very strange adventure after graduation—despite the fact that they had been fairly unremarkable as a class during their undergraduate period at the university.
    During the last weeks of their senior year, Scott Auden (a.k.a. the Juggler) received a mis-routed piece of mail—a seemingly incomprehensible advertising flyer. By incredible circumstance the student who was supposed to receive the mail two floors up had just died in a mysterious dorm room fire—presumably caused by the Jamaican exchange student's extensive Rastafarian drug paraphernalia. Intrigued, the VS class of '88 started spinning elaborate conspiracy theories about what was 'really' going on. This was all fun and games until Chris "Technomancer" Tavares analyzed the flyer and found an imbedded message—a routing code for a military computer node.
    Shortly after that an artificial life form mimicking human life broke into Auden's room to recover the flyer. Shortly after that the students found evidence of their dorm-mate's murder. And saw his ghost. Shortly after that they used the routing code to find evidence of a government organization designed to prepare for the return of the Eagle-slayer, with nuclear sanction if required. Shortly after that a trio of cybernetic Rastafarians began chasing them looking for the map to where Haillie Selesse's ring lay buried.
    And they ran across Mafia agents looking for the Maltese Falcon. And found evidence that Area 51 was totally empty—a giant movie set—and the real extraterrestrial holding facility was in Gale, Kansas. And that the Wizard of Oz was a cover story for the end of the world.
    And then things got weird.
    The team took its name from their belief that they were living on the edge of the Twilight and the Real world, where things like this happen all the time ("and constantly to us!" Matt "Mindcrime" Boyd). It's questionable that this is true—more likely they were deep inside the twilight for most of it. This makes ascertaining the veracity of any of their claims rather difficult. After six months of haring around the world looking for what Tom "Nightgaunt" Ladegard referred to as the "Cosmic McGuffen," the Penumbra returned to Connecticut, then split up.
    From comments made to other people and events that are public knowledge from after the Quest, the other players in the race were the Sicilian Mafia, an organization of Cyber-Rastas, a black ops section of the American Libertarian party that had infiltrated the U.S. government, the Sidari criminals from Harborview, and the Freemasons (there are always Masons!). It is also very likely that all of them were hunting something different, and on December 25th, 1987, they found it.

Nightgaunt
Tom Ladegard was used as a receptacle for a daemon spirit by the Coven, but was able to dominate the daemon through force of will. This imprisoned entity gives Ladegard power over shadow and darkness, including becoming partially intangible, generating shadows, changing objects to shadow to destroy them and using shadows to power healing. He is working on his masters in Medieval Literature at LU, and is a member of the Harborview variant team the Swordbearers.

Mindcrime
Matt Boyd is a natural variant with impressive psychic powers. His enhanced neurology increases his speed, reflexes and endurance. It also lets him dominate the actions of others and produce startlingly real illusions directly in the minds of his opponents. Matt's powers also produce a low level feeling of disquiet in those around him, making long term friendships difficult. Sometimes bitter and morose, he vanished after the Quest, and hasn't been seen in years.

Technomancer
Christopher Tavares is a variant whose powers of Hyper-Intelligence and enhanced technical skill allowed him to perfect a limited-use form of nanite technology. Given a few seconds his nanites can form themselves into any piece of conventional or cutting-edge technology or ordinance, or into a variety of variant technology devices of Technomancer's design. He is an avid Kendo enthusiast, and now acts as technical advisor to the Canadian variant team the Northguard.

The Juggler
An inheritance from an unknown and mysterious European uncle, the Marconi Spheres make Scott Auden into an effective Variant as the Juggler. There are thirty spheres, along with an arcane and esoteric guide to Zen Juggling. Auden is an expert in throwing weapons. Each sphere possessed a different power when placed into the pattern, from exploding in flame inducing hallucinations to opening dimensional portals. Auden's current whereabouts are unknown.

Dr. Zaientz
Jack Zaientz is a natural variant whose touch can enhance the effectiveness of any aspect of object or device. He can make weapons more damaging and accurate, armor more indestructible, cars faster, dirt and mud stickier, and so on. Despite his heroic code name, he isn't really a doctor, but is considering becoming an actor so he can play one TV. He is currently getting his masters in computer engineering, using his powers to design the hardware of the future.

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