Dakkon Ryedius

Our gaming group is starting up an adventure using the Stars Without Number rules.  It's been a long time since I've gotten to play a space opera RPG, the last one I played was the West End Star Wars RPG.  Normally I'd spend some time thinking about the character and coming up with a story; however we were rolling for stats so the dice were going to be a big influence on what each of us plays.

Well we've rolled the dice and I get to play a space marine.

The dice actually wanted me to play the Expert class, but I really wanted to be a space marine so I'm just going to make it work.  Initially I had it in mind to play a Jayne Cobb style character; quick with a gun, not terribly bright, and a gruff but generally honorable guy.  Then the dice came up with my intelligence being the highest stat, so now my character is more like Roy Greenhilt in space.  So I'm not entirely sure how I want to play him.

I did come up with a back story for him.  A bit shorter than what I usually put put together, the rolled stats threw me off my routine I guess.

“Yeah, all the posters say ‘Join up! See the universe!’” he takes another drag from his cigarette. “You’ll see it alright. The only view out the window of the barren asteroid they station you on is the universe. All the blackness of space right there for you to enjoy.” Another drag follow by a slow exhale of smoke. “The damn force is too big for itself now. No reason to move troops around, they just put you somewhere and forget about you. Till some fool spacer gets stuck out in the black, they scramble through the records and suddenly remember they put you out there too. All of a sudden you get orders. ‘Go out and save them’, ‘Simple rescue mission’, as if they know what they’re talking about. Damn paper pushers just tell you what’s on their sheet as if it’s its got all the knowledge in the universe written on it.” He spits. “‘Head on in, shouldn’t take but a few hours to get them out again.’ They don’t care about the radiation in the nebula and the high speed debris that caused them to be stranded. Same stuff tears holes in your ship, kills of your squad. Losses get too high and the paper pushers cross you off their sheet, all of a sudden you no longer exist. Doesn’t matter that you coax your ship to limping back from that damn mission. ’You’re not on my sheet, nothing I can do for you’. Was fine by me, I had my fill of their orders anyway.” A wry smile. “Their signs were missing a sentence, once they've had enough of you… that’s when you get to see the universe.”

 I've been meaning to sketch a picture of him, but my kids have been making me watch a lot of Dinosaur Train a lot and now every time I sit down to draw all I can I come up with stuff is like this: