Important information to note regarding the Convocation and its setting:

The story "Repurposed" is a fan fiction mashup which takes three games, and two game-worlds and liberally mixes them together. (Three games, two worlds - Half Life and Portal exist within one cohesive universe, while FEAR takes place in its own.)

Many of the names, characters, places and general background are taken from those games and settings. Given that Repurposed is not a 'retelling' but a completely different spin on all of that, while it *helps* to know the characters and names, it's not always 'just like in the games'. I've tried to mix up who says what, what inflection might change, and often entire attitudes of characters that might at first be familiar, but turns out - they're not.

One thing to note is that my interpretations of these characters, the settings, devices, and all - are not to be considered what I think as 'canon' for those games and their worlds. While I can certainly make a compelling point of my ideas, since this is a mashup and not exploring the single-worlds on their own, please don't think that this is what I think the characters 'actually are' in terms of motivation, style, or purpose.

SPOILER ALERT: if you haven't played these games, and think you'll want to, and don't want to spoil them.... ... yeah don't even bother reading this whole thing... :) TOO LATE.

Characters from Half Life

• Gman - in Repurposed is known as Keenan Lane, kallah-vahh, The Mystery, and other such names. In Half Life 1 he makes his presence known, but not until the very end of the game do we 'meet' him. He is creepy as hell. In Half Life 2, he utters the fateful words, "Rise and shine, mister Freeman, rise and... shine." His entire speech can be found online along with all his other appearances in the games. He appears only at the very beginning of HL2 episode 1, for complicated reasons, and returns only during a fairly climactic moment in HL2 epsiode 2, where he passes along an equally fateful, "Prepare for unforeseen consequences." Most of his physical mannerisms, and his appearance, are intact in Repurposed. However, since we know absolutely nothing about the character during game play, I've taken logical extensions of his behaviors, wondered 'why' would he do or say something, and given him a very specific background in the process.
• Dr. Gordon Freeman - the protagonist and player-character of the Half Life universe games (HL1, Hl2 and the Episodes, anyway). Freeman is a scientist, recently employed at Black Mesa and sadly his duties aren't remarkably scientific. Though he has written extensively on the most amazing things (just... take a look at the title of his thesis...) like any newcomer he's got the shitty job of pushing buttons and wheeling experiments around. Until everything falls apart, and he's stuck fighting his way through endless groups of aliens, monsters, and even other Human soldiers sent into the facility to kill everything themselves. He is reasonably unchanged from his appearance and demeanor in the games, into Repurposed, however my version does talk.
• Barney Calhoun - originally a generic security guard, but given a major role later. Not yet created for Convocation. He owes Gordon a beer. He is an absurdly brave and ruggedly handsome rebel leader, doing undercover work. Later he leads a group of rebels to a safe area, and we haven't seen him since. He remains essentially unchanged for Repurposed, though he will not be traveling to Europe, rather staying on hand at Black Mesa while others go.
• Alyx Vance - the daughter of Eli and Azian Vance, a very gifted engineer and explorer who grew up mostly after the world had been destroyed by the Resonance Cascade. In Half Life 2 she serves as a catalyst, aid, and guide to get Gordon from place to place, and also as a method of exposition. Her role in Repurposed is multi-fold, from bringing the children at the Enrichment Center together with the scientists at Black Mesa, to helping create the network of information that will eventually allow the destruction of Ulathoi. Though her purpose may be a bit different, her personality remains largely unchanged.

Characters inspired by Half Life (who would remain primarily in that game without modification)

• Dr. Mars Walsh
• Noah the Vortigaunt

Enemies/Creatures from Half Life

• Vortigaunts - linked elsewhere. The Vorts are humanoid aliens from a distant planet, who are clearly intelligent, tool-using, and able to manipulate 'Vortessence', powerful psychic abilities. In Half Life 1 they were enemies, but there were indications that even as Gordon fought his way through their ranks, they were originally or typically peaceful, and only after other creatures (the Controllers, minions of Nihilanth) alerted them, would they begin attacking. In Half Life 2, they have been incorporated into Earth's civilization, as many of them had become trapped there after they were moved by Nihilanth through the 'portal storms'. They were present when Ulathoi arrived, and have been involved with the resistance against them. They are powerful allies, with abilities to communicate across long distances, heal life-threatening wounds, supply energy to devices, and 'contain' even other extremely powerful entities using their Vortal power. In Repurposed, their history on Earth is more detailed, and they are intimately connected to the Pantheon and their success in communicating to Black Mesa. The children of the Origin program feel a stronger kinship toward the Vorts because of their own psychic powers, and have largely adopted the Vortal words for such things because the Vorts 'understand' them better. Vortigaunt language is used frequently by a number of characters in Repurposed, and most of the main players have Vortal 'titles' which can be interchangeable with their 'name'.
• Ulathoi - also known as "The Combine" or "the Universal Union", "Our Benefactors". They are a trans-dimensional 'entity' which is composed of billions of individual creatures, all acting as 'cells'. Thus, a species from one world which has heavy armor and can be adapted to other atmospheric conditions might be augmented into a 'digging device', or even a 'tank' designed to eliminate enemies on worlds far from its own. Every creature with very few exceptions has been physically modified to incorporate a distinctive 'Combine' look: semi-machine, often reprogrammed, and completely under the Overwatch's control. Their title of Ulathoi is Vortigese, meaning "manufactured family" - thoi is 'family' and ula essentially is a remarkably negative connotation of 'created'. The 'creature' itself exists across numerous dimensions where physics may or may not behave in the same manner as on Earth's. Physically, the 'form' of Ulathoi's body if it can be called that, is nearly 1.7 light years in length. While it is massive it somehow maintains a moderate gravity well (or, more likely, exists outside of a dimension where mass and gravity are intimately connected). Its 'brain' is made up of the oldest of its adopted life forms, which had at one point been reasonably humanoid, but over a short 4 thousand year period forced themselves as a species to evolve into a far different functional appearance. The 'Advisors' which reside within the Citadels put down on any given planet are merely 'sensory apparatus' to these ancient creatures, but seem to have their own full life cycle as well, and may be genetically related.
• Wallace Breen - though in Half Life 2 we do fight Breen, it's more a merry chase and never actually getting to murder the man who betrayed the Human race to the Combine. A scientist himself, but having largely left the realm of the lab and entered the administration of Black Mesa, he emphatically insisted that the experiments be completed in the Anti-Mass Spectrometer on that fateful day the world ended. No one has any love for him among the rebels when Gordon finally comes back to the real world. In Repurposed, however, his fate is rather different. With cloning technology available, Breen is split into several 'parts', given adequate personality downloads to "think he's the original", and sent off to various Cities around the world. Ostensibly he is meant to relay the information found there to Lane and Wilson. He is not really an 'enemy' in Repurposed so much as a 'tool'.

Characters/Enemies from Portal

• GLaDOS - though she isn't actually a 'character' in the Convocation per se, the entity known as GLADOS plagued the children in the Origin program for years, in Repurposed. GLaDOS as she is in Portal 1 and 2 is just about the most atrocious artificial intelligence in games, and her role in Repurposed is extremely similar. The people she deals with are all that *really* changes.
• Chell - not yet created for the Convocation, but I plan on it. This 'mute lunatic' is not really mute, but simply has nothing to say and no one to speak to anyway, in Portal. In Repurposed she is part of the 'Expendable Labor Lifeform' group, the ELLs - designated by their first letters, CHell in this case. She's incredibly smart, and very tenacious.
• Doug Rattmann - is not the kinder, gentler character from the Lab Ratt comic released by Valve. Let's just say that he met his end and that's a good thing. In Repurposed, Rattmann was one of the engineers who created GLADOS but was strongly affected by Alma's negative Vortal presence over time. He was completely insane, extremely dangerous, and managed to survive far, far longer than anyone expected him to.

Characters inspired by Portal

• Dr Rachel Cooper - not yet created for the Convocation

Characters from FEAR

• Paxton Fettel - though Paxton begins the FEAR game experience by showing us just how horrifying the sounds of cannibalism really are, and he seems to be the villain, there was never any doubt that he was by far one of the best characters portrayed in a game. The guy swaggers like he owns the place. His clothing, posture, and in-game background information are all remarkably intriguing - why does he wear motorcycle leathers? Was he able to get out from the project that Armacham had him stuck in? Who is he, really? Repurposed explores that idea but from an angle that the games only provided long after I'd started writing - what would he have been like as that 10 year old child, that Alma, his mother, tortured and possessed? What about if she hadn't? In the Convocation, he is known as Xkah'shuu-vahh, the Inheritor of the Mystery. The similarities between him and Gman (at least, having played both games a LOT and seen them) are numerous. They are creepy as hell. They speak in an incredible voice. Their eyes are quite intense and an unusual color. They both have ravens associated with them, along with teleportation. It was after a friend on the fear forums suggested Wilson Carver's character to me, that I took off with their relationship.
• Geoff Fettel - in the games Fear 1 and 3, Geoff has no name and remains nameless because he was unnamed as a person in that world. He is known only as 'Pointman' to his squad mates in Fear 1, and in Fear 3 generally Paxton refers to him as brother (spoken in a very specific manner). Pointman is a very typical 'silent protagonist' player character, in that he literally seems to be mute in the games. Whether he can speak or not, he and his brother do share a connection - Paxton refers to this in the introduction of FEAR 3. In Repurposed, Geoff is obviously named, speaks, and has a far nicer relationship with his brother than he would have otherwise.
• Alma Wade - though she does not appear in the Convocation (for the obvious reason that she's dead) she plays a very strong role in the FEAR games. As the mother of both Paxton and Pointman, and the daughter of Harlan Wade, everything kind of falls on her for 'what went wrong'. In the games, she is a very typical "scary little psychic girl" akin to those found in movies like The Ring. Her role in Repurposed is very similar, but she is not 'put on life support' - in fact she is still up and around for the entire thing. Her actual use in Repurposed is detailed elsewhere. She is really, really dangerous. She is one of the very few things - people, events or otherwise - that Keenan outright fears.
• David Hoyle - he was unnamed in the Fear games, however we know that he is the Senator who is called upon to send in a specific set of troops at the start of the first game, and who is pleased to hear that the experiments are 'successful' at the end. In Repurposed he plays an important role in the genetic history of the characters, as well as the general level of technology available to the world.
• Genevieve Aristide - the CEO of Armacham, responsible for many of the programs that were put into place including that which brought Pointman around to hunt down his brother Paxton. A genuinely unlikable woman, she uses her considerable fortune to collect powerful people around her including Hoyle and a good number of world leaders. She somehow manages to survive through Fear 1 and 2, though her fate is undetermined in 3. In Repurposed, she, rather than Wallace Breen, becomes the head administrator of the world government and later the interface to the Combine.
• Norton Mapes - a massively rotund but highly intelligent and canny programmer working for Armacham. In FEAR he assists Pointman 'sort of', but at any given time the disgusting man is just on the safe side of being gunned down by the player. In Repurposed, he serves a similar purpose, however his goal to aid Aristide is taken a very big step farther when she is put in charge of the Human Combine efforts. He is remade as a proper Combine, into a monstrous spider-like creature - known as Overwatch.

Characters inspired by FEAR

• Melissa Larrabie
• Wilson Carver