Introducing: Alexi Shipon
Updated: Nov 5, 2021
So we started a new campaign awhile back. This time we are using GURPS using the traveler setting. The source books for this campaign has been the Basic Set, Traveller: Intersteller Wars, Ultra Tech and Spacehips.
The noisy and smokey bar is suddenly silenced after the sound of 50 shot glasses hitting the floor of the bar as the table they were sitting on flips over. Alexi is on the business end of gauss shotgun pistol and he is sweating the vodka out of his bloodstream very nervously. Alexis eyes are looking directly at the man across from him and his nervous fingers on the trigger of this massive pistol. A bead of sweat drips down the brow of Alexi's and as the sweat hits his eye he knows now that he is in more trouble than he bargained for.
The creaking of the metal hull of the hero class ship wakes Alexi from his sleep. The ship is entering the atmosphere of planet Alexi has never been. He is a stranger in a lot of places these days. He has taken up as a ships engineer on the Rainbow 2. The Rainbow 2 is not a looker and is a very utilitarian ship that's been making deliveries across the sector. Alexi is up checking the systems one more time before they land. The ship is not in its prime and Alexi is starting to think that he is not getting paid enough.
Young Alexi was always in Nikolai's shadow. Alexi was working on some spare parts and creating his own toys while his father Nikolai worked on maintaining the ship. This was was their fourth run on the Rezvyy a cargo ship hauling medical supplies to remote regions of the sector. As the ship was landing on a small planet that was being ravaged by a very wide spread case of B.1.617.2. The virus also plunged society into a very dark place. That's when the surface to air missile hit the the Rezvyy engine and sent it into a spiral down to the surface of the planet.
There is a young Russian woman talking to Alexi in a bar. She is clearly nervous to be speaking to Alexi. Her voice is sad and forlorned, the message that she has given to Alexi is a collection of letters written to her fiance who has been on another planet in the system for 2 years. She was right to be nervous as they were speaking her brother showed up and mistook Alexi for some sort of suitor. Shots fired out across the bar and Alexi ran out the back of the bar and made haste to the Rainbow 2 and the got the ship under way with the rest of the crew without a single hole in his own hull. This was not the first or last close call Alexi would have delivering messages between planets for people of the underworld and people.
As the ringing in his head was slowing down he picked himself off the ground and started to look for his father.
Alexi head was ringing and he is now realizing what has happened to him. The Rezvyy was now a pile of scrap. Alexi's eye was damaged in the crash and he could barley see out of his remaining eye. As the ringing in his head was slowing down he picked himself off the ground and started to look for his father. It did not take long for him to find his father's corpse amongst the wreckage. Alexi then heard voices coming towards the wreck. Planetary scrappers were on their way to find any parts or pieces that could be useful. Alexi had to move quickly to get out of there. This was the last time he saw his father.
So all this brings us to the beginning of the campaign where we find Alexi maintaining the Rainbow 2 as the ships engineer. Alexi has been the ships engineer for some time now. Alexi has built a fairly decent network of people that he transports data for. His crew mates still do not know that this is a side hustle for him. The very first part scene in the campaign Alexi takes down the ships captain with his gauss pistol (he was about to cause some serious damage to the ship). This leaves the crew without a captain until the Adams Character who bought an insurance policy on the captain inherited the ship. And here we go...
I really enjoyed designing this character. Building some of the mystery behind his story was especially interesting. Alexi makes some side cash while traveling aboard the Rainbow 2 by transporting messages between people on different planets. Its not practical to sent interstellar email. Alexi has started a hobby while on these long voyages where he has been decrypting the messages that he is transporting. Alexi picked up some of the hacking skills from his mother Catherine after the tragic crash that killed his father and took Alexi's eye. Alexis mother was a systems operator at one of the star ports that Nikolai. Alexi is very good at a myriad of skills related to the upkeep of the ship and smuggling, but as I always do in GURPS I have forgotten some of the basic skills like survival. The hard part with GURPS is there is a skill for everything and by the time you put points into all the awesome stuff your character want to do you don't have enough for literacy or swimming and then you are rolling at defaults. Our GM Rick really loves to test the depth of our characters too.
I hope that you enjoyed this little bit about my current GURPS character.
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