Travellers #2
Continuing the ‘character-a-day‘ challenge for Traveller, here is the next batch of 6 characters. Their backgrounds put them either in the Islands region of Reft sector, or in the Trojan Reach, but they can easily be moved to anywhere.
Dr Grace Gardner
Dr Gardner is a bright woman who believes that her best years are ahead of her. Things haven’t always gone her way, but she tries to remain optimistic about the future. She can be slow to trust new people though, having been burnt before.
Grace Gardner grew up amongst the asteroids of Serendip Belt (Reft, New Islands, 1323) daughter of two low ranking engineers who instilled a love of all things technical and scientific in their daughter. At university she studied Medicine and Cybernetics, and got involved in a pro-peace political movement. That distracted her from her studies, so though she graduated she failed to get the Honours that she was hoping for.
She took an interesting job at a teaching hospital, broadening her skills into Xenology but despite excelling was looked over for promotion. She doubled down and did investigative research, but her paper was stolen by her boss Dr Sarah Miklaganki, who failed to credit her. Fed up, she found a new job across the system, where her new boss appreciated her efforts and they formed a long lasting friendship.
However, whilst still only 34 she realised she was getting bored, so her boss suggested that she went out to find strange aliens rather than waiting for them to come to her. Through some help from his contacts, she managed to get her hands on an old Lab ship, the Prime Explorer, and is now ready to head out with a crew and a mission of her own.
Htoalhfua
Htoalhfua should have been a typical male Aslan, but things didn’t work out that way, and pretty much every attempt he has made to find himself a home or family to call his own has failed. He’s pessimistic, always expecting to be disappointed in how things turn out. He is quick to take offence to challenges to his honour, but that’s because he feels that’s all he has left of being an Aslan, rather than because he values his honour.
Htoalhfua was the second son born into a great clan, though the clan’s glory days are long past, having mostly been lost by the time of his grandfather. His father tried to claim territory back, and succeeded to some extent, but the clan is now mostly forgotten.
He entered the military, spending a few years as a ground soldier, but was injured in a battle on some nameless world, one of the few survivors of his regiment. He left the army, joining a pirate crew to gain land on their own terms rather than fighting for another, but was again severely injured when his raiding ship was destroyed, and he survived to become a scavenger.
Even that didn’t last long, and he left Aslan space for he Trojan Reach, trying to join a human pirate crew, but instead ended up just drifting from job to job, struggling to make a living. He got into a deadly fight with another Aslan on Imisaa, killing them, and is now hiding out from his own kind, hoping for a human ship to take him further away from his homeland.
Ishza Irulash
Ishza Irulash is a journalist who covers the darker side of human nature, making holovids on crime, poverty and the lesser known aspects of society.
Ishza went to university to study journalism, never quite expecting where it would take her. She graduated and went into journalism, where she got her first job reporting on gangs in the crowded arcologies of her homeworld of Tobia (Trojan Reach, 3215). It was there that she met her wife, Ashke.
With the success of her first holovid, she was asked to make another and quickly got stereotyped into “the woman who does dangerous and weird stuff”.
She went independent for a bit, making a series on pirate groups in the Reach, and then got sued by another journalist who claimed that she had stolen his ideas. The court case actually raised her profile, even though it cost her some money.
She is now in her late 30s and trying to decide what to do with herself. She has some ideas about stories which could be dangerous, but Ashke is wanting to settle down and have children.
Jacob Jacob
Jacob is an ex-Scout who has seen a lot of alien worlds. He takes the unusual and unexpected in his stride, and has learned to always have an escape route out of any situation. He is rather taciturn and humourless, only speaking when he has something practical to say, but not knowing how to be diplomatic when disagreeing with people.
Jacob grew up on Junction (Trojan Rech, 2804), where he lived on a farm far from the even limited technology of that world. His farm was barely profitable though, and after a harsh winter in which the rest of his family died, he decided to travel to the starport and apply to join the scout service at the age of 24. When asked his name, he just gave “Jacob”, and not realising the concept of a ‘family’ name, just gave “Jacob” as that as well. So that became his official name.
He was accepted, and was pretty soon in the thick of it. Whilst on a mission in the system of 627-301, his ship was attacked by pirates and he the rest of the crew were captured. He escaped, killing several pirates and stealing a ship to get to safety. The self-styled pirate princess Juuma Iodiishi still blames him for burns she received during the event.
His exploration took him to the spinward edges of the Trojan Reach, where he made first contact with a pre-technology human species. The expedition was botched when he made some basic protocol mistakes, earning him the enmity of Professor Jazooka who had been carefully planning first contact with that species for almost a decade before Jacob blundered into them.
He found himself blackballed from several potential missions after that, and took to spending his time gambling. Eventually he was given a mission out near the Florian League. Thinks went badly again, and he found himself having to hitchhike back to Imperial space, taking the long way around through Dpres and Sindal sub-sectors. He made some friends, and some enemies during that event, but got back alive.
He has since decided that the Scout service isn’t for him, and is now looking for independent work.
Kathy Kiggisu
Kathy Kiggisu is a tall, skinny woman with a cheerful, outgoing personality who willing to try her hand at anything. She will generally say yes to a request, and then figure out how to deliver on it afterwards. She finds that working under pressure in a high stress environment is where she really shines.
Kathy was born in the Serendip Belt, but under a different name. She grew up in the spacer community, spending a lot of time around free traders at the starport. She found that it was easy to get a job with a crew, going out around the Islands doing odd jobs on the ship.
During that time she witnessed the murder of her captain by a gang boss, and was taken into witness protection. She testified against the boss, which led to a conviction but she had to change her name and move away from her home system, becoming Kathy Kiggisu.
She became a fixer on Imisaa, obtaining very special items of either rarity or illegality for her clients. One was so impressed with her skills at obtaining a very rare species of cat from Terra that they provided her with a TAS membership. From there, she branched out into predicting commodity markets with which she had a lot of luck.
In the last few years Kathy has learned a number of different jobs, moving from one thing to another and picking up a little bit of everything. She now has ownership of a Free Trader, the Spinward Comfort, which she is using to extend the reach of her operations.
Lusi Ludadagi
Lusi Ludadagini comes across as an insufferable complainer. He’s served his terms in the army, and has seen the horrors of war, but it soon becomes apparent that he was always like this. He doesn’t care about anyone other than himself, and he isn’t always very good at hiding it.
Lusi Ludadagini is the son of a minor noble from the world of MacDermont (Trojan Reach, 2801). He was hoping to be able to get away with an easy life, but his parents refused to fund his lifestyle, so he ended up joining the army as a bluff to get them to reconsider. They didn’t.
He joined the support arm, managing to get a cushy job as a cook about a small frigate. Unfortunately, the frigate was captured by pirates and he was taken prisoner, spending six months on a pirate ship as their hostage. He managed to persuade them to keep him alive, and was eventually released.
He was hoping that this experience would allow him to leave the army and take up a safer life, but that was not to be, and ended up on the front lines in some minor planetary war, where he learned to fix vehicles and patch his friends together.
After over six years of fighting countless nameless skirmishes, he stepped on a landmine which fortunately for him only partially detonated. He spent the next two years in and out of hospitals having his limbs regrown until he was discharged.
He now doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s seen the horrors of war, which has forced him to grow up a bit, but still feels that he shouldn’t have to work anymore. He’s not sure what to do with himself now, except to try and find a paying job where he can get away with doing nothing.
