Sorry, folks, this has been a tough weekend for me. October is the best month for garage sales.
Here is a very rough draft of Syke that I had hoped to refine but I will put up now and wing it as the game goes by...
Syke
OK, Here's a preliminary bio on Syke. Feel free to add comments. I'm taking my time with Syke as this game is going a makeover and just retconning the current characters will probably take a week or so. I am writing Syke so that the character can be added later as passenger/crew/stowaway. I'm starting with the constants on Syke along with variations that may appeal to Leif and the players.
Ishmael Sykes
Cornucopia was an ugly, lifeless world that was just right for a megacorp to terraform just enough to support simple crops and the simple labor needed to harvest them. Life on this cold world was poor and difficult but safe. Cornucopia's main drawback was that it was dull, agonizingly dull. The only real excitement for Cornies was volunteering for the far-off Frontier War.
(Good mental references for Ishmael on Cornucopia would be Star Wars' Luke Skywalker on Tattooine or Alien's Newt on LV-246 [assuming no trouble with the 'neighbors'].)
The majority of the laborers on Cornucopia are both poor and of relatively pure Solomani stock. With little physical resources, the laborers decided to take great obvious pride in their Solomani heritage (while also secretly envying Vilani culture and position). The Sykes clan were of such a religious persuasion so as to be as fruitful as possible. Young Ishmael was the tenth such blessing to his happy and exhausted parents.
Family tradition was that all children were expected to contribute to the clan as soon as they could but they didn't have to do it on-world. 'Ishie' was off-world like a shot, both the sheer joy of being in Space and to take revenge on the Zhodani for two fallen siblings.
In the last days of the Frontier War, Ishie found himself in the military taking part in a successful action against a Zhodani ship. The psychic screams of the dying Zhodani nobles awoke Syke's latent psychic powers, making him experience the memories and feel the agonizing death of each of them. He became catatonic and non-responsive. He was mustered out of the service on a medical discharge before his full-term.
Since then, Ishie has drifted amongst the stars, trying to find odd jobs where he can. He only really feels peace aboard a spaceship where the limited number of minds nearby don't overwhelm him so. He gives some of what he earns back to his family but he doesn't ever really believe he can go home again. His current goals are to find a Psionic Institute, or guidance from the hated Zhodani or to end it all to end the voices, whichever comes first...
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