Derrick Phezir
From UTRPG
| Derrick "Boomer" Phezir | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspects | |||||||||
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| Skills | types: space, combat, track | ||||||||
| Superb (+5) | Pilot | ||||||||
| Great (+4) | Engineering, EVA | ||||||||
| Good (+3) | , MicroG, Brawling | ||||||||
| Decent (+2) | Science, Brokerage, Culture/Tech, Energy Weapons | ||||||||
| Average (+1) | Computer, Gunnery, Profession: shipper, Stamina, _____ | ||||||||
| Stunts | |||||||||
| Diaspora/Gravity assist | |||||||||
| use a gravity well to get a V-shift boost | |||||||||
| Culture/Tech systems | Viagra (TL +2), Areston (TL +3), Halogia (TL -1) | ||||||||
| FP | 1 | Refresh | 5 | ||||||
| Stress Tracks | Consequences | ||||||||
| health | |
mild | |||||||
| composure | |
medium | |||||||
| wealth | |
serious | |||||||
Derrick Phezir is a character in the Tales of the Efferdhal Lily campaign. He is played by Dave.
Contents |
[edit] Background
[edit] Growing Up
Derrick was born on V 12 b, in the Viagra system, to a family of cargo shippers. He spent most of his childhood, and much of the rest of his life, on board freight ships. He always dreamed of making it big, and was encouraged to do so by the unflagging (and sometimes unfounded) support of his mother.
[edit] Starting out
At 20 Derrick became the first person in his extended family to graduate from college, when he got a diploma in small business management from South Areston Correspondence College. He went on to run the dangerous and profitable Halogia trade route, transporting volatiles and silicates to the Viagran refineries. He gradually developed an interest in chemistry and physics, and a few years later was accepted to the University of Areston, to do a BSc in molecular chemistry.
[edit] Moment of crisis
An astrophysics student named Preston Feckless Wilkinson was in the same graduating class as Derrick. Wilkinson was convinced by his fraternity to prank some of the off-worlders by sabotaging a transport to the Viagra system full of recent graduees and their families. The objective was to recalibrate the slipdrives to send the transport to Erewhon instead, but the heat-dissipation systems were damaged and there was a blowout in the cockpit, killing the flight crew.
As the powerless transport careened toward the Erewhonian sun, Derrick took the controls and guided the craft into orbit around Erewhon-1. As thanks for keeping Preston out of even more trouble, and to keep Derrick quiet, the Wilkinson family offered Derrick a job as a private pilot, at a salary he couldn't refuse. He decided to put his MSc plans on hold and to take the job.
Read Preston's account of the story
[edit] Sidetracked
On his last Halogia run before starting his BSc, time restraints were tight. Derrick's navigator had to time the entry into the slipknot back to Viagra precisely before the Dead Star got aligned with the system's large gas giant Halogia-5. The timing was off, and the freighter found itself stuck in S-space. With systems failing, and subatomic decay eating away at the ship's supply of volatiles, the experienced crew tried everything it could think of to get back on course.
Jacob Ogilvy, a scientist accompanying one of the shipments insisted the problems were due to effects from the Dead Star, but he was ignored. Eventually he took Derrick aside and showed him the Dead Star artifact he was shipping. He explained that a slip drive phase modulation would compensate for the artifact's space distortion effects. Derrick was inclined to trust this fellow Viagran, and didn't see that there was much to lose by trying his suggestion. He modified the drives as Jacob suggested, and brought the entire crew and its cargo home safely.
Read Jacob's account of the story
[edit] On my own
Derrick is good at what he does. He is a skilled pilot and navigator, and a talented engineer. He can barter with merchants, and hold his own in a discussion of experimental quantum compression techniques. Still, he doesn't feel like he has actually achieved anything he set out to. He is pushing 40 now, and still thinks that he will get around to starting his MSc at some point.
[edit] Other adventures:
Derrick was once engaged to be married, to a pretty dispatcher named Noemi Antos. They had agreed to set the date of their wedding when Derrick got accepted to a master's program. As the years dragged by and Derrick kept finding excuses to put it off, Noemi got more and more disenchanted. Finally she left him, and Derrick went on a bender.
He was killing a hangover with Viagran Bourbon in an outrigger bar off Viagra 8 h when he was approached by Jett Miner, a Tombstonian mercenary of some stripe. Jett needed a fast no-questions cargo transport out of the system, and someone had pointed him Derrick's way. Leaving the system sounded like a great idea to Derrick, so even though he didn't have a rig at the time he accepted the job. He stole his brother's freighter and headed toward Halogia with nothing but the clothes on his back and a suitcase full of booze.
The two got along well on the trip, and by the time they got into Halogian space were both far more drunk than was safe. Even in that state, Derrick was experienced enough to have avoided the inevitable pirate attack. Unfortunately, when their first threats and demands came over the comms, Jett took the mic and started threatening back -- yelling about how dare they threaten him and he had a hold full of advanced weaponry that would blast them to atoms.
The pirates got angry and attacked, but as it turns out Jett wasn't bluffing. The cargo he was shipping was in fact a load of stolen weapons. After a harrowing conflict, and a firefight which involved Jett in an EVA suit, hanging out the aft airlock with a high-powered railgun, the pirates were driven away. Derrick's brother's rig was destroyed, and Derrick and Jett were very lucky to escape with their lives.
The whole thing was pretty damned stupid, in Derrick's eyes.
Read Jett's account of the story
