Travellers #5

Rather belated, my fifth set of Traveller NPCs as part of my series of characters-a-day. These are characters 25-30, so there is one one set to go to bring it up to 36, though I’m taking a bit of a break after getting the first 31 completed. There is a mix of military, nobility and criminals in this set.

Yasmeen Young

Yasmeen Young is a 38 year old woman. She is tall, strong, has a gruff demeanour and loves getting into fights.

Yasmeen Young grew up in a rough sea-side town on New Colchis (Reft, 1327), where she learned to fish and sail with her father. She was forced to learn to stand up for herself, often getting into fights with larger kids. Not wanting to follow in her parent’s footsteps of barely scraping buy in honest working professions, she moved to the city and discovered that her ability to win fights was just as important. Only now it was knives and guns as well as just fists.

She quickly fell in with the gangs, getting a break when she started stealing high powered cars from rich corp brats. She was soon hired on as an enforcer, a job she excelled at. She could smile and be nice, then smash people in the face when they were off guard, a technique she found tended to confuse and scare people.

Eventually she learned that sometimes she could stop at the ‘smile and be nice’ stage, only needing the threat of smashing them in the face to get them to hand over the money they owed, or otherwise do what she or her bosses wanted her to do.

Other than her car, her favourite memento is a mouse bot she took from an Aslan she had to collect from. She has it programmed to perch on her shoulder on command and hiss at anyone who gets close.

Yasmeen knows lots of people, but there isn’t anyone who she considers a close friend. She has a habit of pushing people away if she feels they are getting too close.

Zachary Zelly

Zachary Zelly is a well dressed man in his late thirties, with dark hair and a short beard. He comes across as friendly and welcoming, as well as slightly dim.

Coming from a rich noble family, Zachary Zelly was able to walk into a job as a diplomat without any questions asked about his lack of ability. Fortunately he wasn’t required to do any real work, just act as a face and name and rubber stamp decisions made by the civil service on Albe (Trojan Reach, 2211).

Despite not doing anything, he did manage to pick up some shooting skills on a hunting ranch, and was given a strange alien pet that looked a bit like a 30cm wide spider which he called “Hunter”, since it was good at catching birds.

After almost a decade of this, he began to gradually realise that his position was one of misdirection and deniability, for some of the papers he’d been rubber stamping didn’t quite add up. He was slow, but not that slow, and discovered that one of the business ventures he was a partner in was shipping slaves out into the Outrim Void. After several weeks of soul searching, he decided to expose the venture. Though he lost money due to it, he decided he wouldn’t be responsible for such things.

From that point on, he started to try and pay more attention to what he was doing, asking questions and actually making decisions. The change in his personality was noted by his underlings, who actually tried to support him in this, and he became to appreciate their help. Unfortunately his family didn’t appreciate this, since it had always been assumed that he would just do as he was told.

There was another scandal involving bribes from Black Sky Industries which he could have kept covered up, but instead chose to become the black sheep of the family by exposing it. He was forced to quit his job soon after, but believed that it had been the right thing to do.

He’s not sure what he’s going to do next, but he has a yacht and knows people, so might try and find a crew to help him make use of his new found appreciate of those not so fortunate as himself.

Octavia Odena

Octavia Odena is a 30 year old woman from Esperanza, an ex-soldier who is looking for work as a mercenary. She is bright, well educated, and physically fit, and is willing to take on the whole galaxy if necessary. She is generally optimistic and outgoing, though doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Octavia Odena was raised on Esperanza, and always wanted to be in the army. She was cleverer, stronger and faster than her peers, and fully expected her career in Esperanza’s military to be long and distinguished. She could have joined the navy, but wanted to join the army where the ‘real’ work was done.

She graduated from the military academy, and did a tour of duty, quickly rising to Corporal and as she would say, she learned to love big tanks and big guns. Everything was going fine until a new CO took a disliking to her after she refused her advances. She did everything she could to ensure that Octavia got the worst jobs, and denied her deserved promotion, finding every reason to question her decisions and actions.

When her term was up, Octavia decided that she didn’t want to take that shit any more and left. She is now looking for a mercenary group to join, anywhere in the Islands, where she work with people she respects and do what she enjoys most – blowing shit up.

Henry Hayes

Henry Hayes is a 42 year old combat veteran that served with the Imperium armed services for over 25 years. He’s not too bright, but makes an effort to understand anything he needs to. He has a crude sense of humour, but as soon as the fighting starts, he’s cool and serious.

Henry Hayes grew up on Tobia (Trojan Reach, 3215), the mixed race son of a middle class Vilani mother and Solomani father, though he considers himself Vilani and knows very little of Solomani culture. He was a bit of a wild child, and wasn’t quite ready to grow up when he entered the Military Academy. As such, he flunked out due to excessive drinking and partying.

He still joined the Star Marines though, just not as an officer, something he’s come to be thankful for. Despite a brief brush with a criminal enterprise which managed to go unnoticed, he stayed mostly on the straight and narrow and was soon promoted.

He spent several tours in the Outrim Void, and his first real brush with combat was a major campaign against pirates, when his commanding officer was killed early in the fight, and he took charge and led the boarding action which resulted in the capture of an important ship. Again he was promoted, and continued to distinguish himself during hostile boarding actions. He was awarded with a custom fitted combat environment suit with self sealing and chameleon IR, which he still has to this day.

He was eventually rotated back off the front lines, spending a term performing garrison duty and training on Romar (Spinward Marches, 2140), where he picked up naval tactics. He got bored though, and was not paying attention when a sudden surprise attack by over enthusiastic raiders bombed the base. He failed to raise the warnings in time, and several people died, including some of his friends. The commanding naval officer, Commander Ekhagisha Ludadagini, blamed him personally for the deaths, but he was officially acquitted of any wrong doing.

He requested that he return to combat, and was given a final tour of duty along the Sindalian Main, where he got to lead a glorious battledress assault against an orbital pirate base. He received his final promotion of his career to Gunnery Sergeant, and as age was beginning to take its toll he mustered out with an army pension and what savings he had.

He now wants to settle down for a quiet life, using some of his savings to buy his way into a nice neighbourhood on Imisaa and into high society, though there’s a high likelihood he will get bored and start looking for something to do.

Sila Rusasu

Sila Rarhar Rusasu is a 38 year old noble woman who has served as an administrator to the Imperium’s Diplomatic service for 20 years. She is an extrovert, willing to listen to people and managing to appear as a trusted confident even to those who have never met her before. Few suspect her of being capable of manipulation and guile.

Sila Rarshar Rusasu belonged to a low ranking noble family on Hradus (Trojan Reach, 2714), and through family connections was able to join the diplomatic core. She was somewhat slow and uneducated, so found herself shunted into a back-office administration job where she could do little harm. She was good looking and had a approachable personality though, and quickly found that people would either underestimate her and talk about things in her presence, or would simply give her what she wanted.

Though her own boss mostly ignored her, a rival of his noted her capabilities and made her an offer – spy on her own boss and report back to him. She accepted, and for several years passed information to a rival department. He never realised it was because of her than his department lost funding and he got demoted. She got a promotion and a new role.

She found herself getting invited to social functions, where she could obtain or dispense information that would benefit her department. She managed to lead Count Ashan Lusushgishu into an embarrassing and compromising situation on camera, a fact that he has never forgiven for, but which elevated her new boss Count Lamiigu Gumnaga Eshagash further up the food chain.

Her job brought her into contact with many people of high status, and she found it increasingly easy to persuade people to her way of thinking. She spent time helping her own neighbourhood, upsetting a corporate CEO who wanted to redevelop a large residential area. When he found out that planning permission had been blocked because of her, he tried to discredit her but failed.

She continued to rise in the service, and though she never officially became a public facing civil servant, she found it far more effective to manipulate people behind the scenes to push forward policies that she and her friends wanted. By the time she decided to leave the diplomatic service on Hradus, she had built up a sizable number of gifts which had been donated to her.

Digarikha Maleka

Digarikha Maleka is a 38 year old man who always seems slightly uncomfortable around other people, as if he’s expecting them to treat him badly. He doesn’t dress well, and his accent and manner of speech tends to be crude and lower class, though he can come across as well educated in his use of words.

Born in the Torpol system (Trojan Reach, 2221) on the world of Traefar, Digarikha was the son of a poor single parent who struggled to make ends meet. He’d spend most of his time at the local library near the spaceport, or playing with the local feral dogs near the spaceport, watching the miners who came off the ships and wondering what their lives were like.

He tried to get into university, but failed, but got a janitors job at the local hospital, where he surprised the doctors with his knowledge of medicine and science. He wasn’t particularly bright, but could remember things.

Digarikha’s skills were recognised with a prize of most important contributor, and was given medical training that allowed him to quality as a nurse. His poor background and lack of formal education limited his prospects, but these were seen as a benefit by a group of doctors running a black street cybernetic clinic on the side. As long as he could do the work, and keep his mouth shut, nobody cared.

So he became skilled in cybernetic surgery, gradually becoming capable enough to take charge of the endeavour. But it wasn’t to last, and the authorities became aware of the operation. Fortunately, he was warned ahead of time and managed to engineer a way off world.

The owner of a lab ship was in for some surgery, and he instead implanted hacked black market skill chips which enabled him to ‘persuade’ him to transfer ownership of the ship to Digar. By the time the authorities arrived to close down the place, Digarikha was already aboard the ship and leaving the system.

Where he goes next he hasn’t decided, especially since he has no idea how to fly such a such.