TRAITS

   Credo (Major Complication) - Boris does the job. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost, don’t matter if the right thing to do would be to get the hell out and leave it all. Man takes a job, he has to do it. And damned be those who want to hinder him in doing it, too.
   Fightin’ Type (Major Asset) - Boris is a soldier, born ‘n bred. He’s spent so much time in combat situations that he’s able to keep a keen eye and a cool head while fighting. Enables him to act quicker, react quicker when there’s fighting going on.
   Healthy As a Horse (Minor Asset) - Boris can’t remember the last time he’s been ill. It just never seems to happen to him. Years in the muck in the trenches and the fellow didn’t catch as much as a cold. Can eat all he wants, too, even if the stuff has grown a life of its own.
   Slow Learner - Mechanical Engineering (Minor Complication) - Machinery, engines… to Boris they’re all needlessly complicated and beyond his understanding – and interest for that matter. As long as things work, he’s happy. Boris still believes that duct tape and a sharp tap with a hammer can fix most things. He’s usually dead wrong.
   Steady Calm (Major Asset) - War changes people. Seeing squad members torn limb from limb by Skiff fire tends to leave a mark on a man. Boris, for one, learned that whatever happens, it’s likely he’s been through worse in the past. He’s not likely to be troubled by what he calls ‘minor inconveniences’. Come to think of it, he’s not troubled by a whole lot really.
   Straight Shooter (Minor Asset) - Boris don’t lie. Big oaf don’t know the meaning of sarcasm or double meanings either, don’t understand why people don’t just say what the bloody hell they mean instead of twistin’ their words. It’s a matter of principle more than anything else. Say what you think, say what you want, and it’ll turn out ok. Of course, he’s more often wrong than right in this belief.
   Things Don’t Go Smooth! (Major Complication) - Boris is unlucky. No, that’s not right. Things just tend to go wrong those few times he’d really need them to go right. Poor fella’s never been able to wrap his head around why this is so, neither has he ever learned to see it coming. It just happens, and he has to make do the best he can.
   Tough As Nails (Minor Asset) - Gettin’ hurt, too, is merely an inconvenience to Boris. Fellow caught more bullets than he can count, and still might be carryin’ a couple around inside him for all he knows. He’ll bleed like any man, mind, he just won’t pay it as much heed. Pain’s only pain, he tends to say.

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

   “It’s hard to tell you a whole lot about who Boris Vassiliev really is, cos’ for all I know he don’t even know that himself. He’ll talk about whatever you want him to if you just have the nerve to get past his gruff face and quiet ways and ask him. Won’t talk much ‘bout the war though, but what little he’ll tell will teach you he was as loyal a soldier as the Independents had at their disposal. Raised on a shabby border moon, Boris had been scrapin’ dirt off rocks for a livin’ as long as he could remember, so to speak. Getting into the army happened to him more out of the desire to have regular meals and a decent wage than out of any qualms he might have had with the Alliance. Not that he likes ‘them stuck up Core bastards’, they tend to get in his way when doin’ things the way he wants to do ‘em.
   “Boris is an opportunist, but he’s strangely loyal to whoever he’s working for, a sense of duty havin’ been hammered into his thick skull from a young age on. Made him quite the soldier, and he quickly found himself leadin’ his own squad. Forced to lay down arms like the others in the end of course, like all of the Independents, not that Boris minded too much. The war had left its scars, both on the in- and outside, and Vassiliev was more than willing to pick up his life of selling low and selling high once again. But things weren’t the same. The world wasn’t the world he had known when going into the army, and doing what he wanted to had become quite the impossible task to do on his own. Things had changed faster than Boris liked ‘em to, old contacts and mates he had known before the war bein’ dead, locked up or gone. The Alliance had shot him full of holes in the war, yet only now did he really feel that they’d messed up his life.
   “Not a man to mourn or ponder on things he can’t change anyway, Boris went to work again, startin’ up from scratch once more. Found himself a crew lookin’ for a captain, patching up a piece of junk that they intended to use for smuggling and the like. It wasn’t much, but to Boris it meant work. And jobs are jobs, after all.”