ALDE: Tarid Rachem del Barca

Here are some details for my FATE3 Character, in M's Spirit of the Far Future game Aldeborahnn.

His name is Tarid Rachem Del Barca. He's a crusty, cantankerous middle-aged "private military contractor" that began his career as part of an SAS-type space marine organization before being mustered out and moving on to where he could make better money with an outfit that's part of MERC. Details haven't been fully worked out yet, but such it is. Cross-posted to my own blog.

I've done a couple of versions of him. Left to right: Tarid as a prisoner on Kaptyen (stinking Medraas dirtbags! Who do they think they are putting him away?) with a couple of shivs, geared up for space combat, in spacer gear and planetside.

The following is a partial first draft of my character for ALDE. Everything here is very much subject to change and further elaboration. Feel not only free but encouraged to comment, make suggestions or to proclaim him either awesome or pathetic. Have at!

Name: Tarid Rachem Del Barca

Race: human (from Cartago)

Concept: Private Military Contractor (Special Forces)

Age: 42

Decription: Tarid is a tall man with a caramel complexion, a humorless rawboned face and intense black eyes set deep in their sockets. His hair has gone somewhat prematurely towards a steely grey from its former black. As a veteran of decades of conflict, his body is crisscrossed with scars from blade, bullet, shrapnel and blaster. The Cartagan has one interesting cultural affectation that he picked up as a child-soldier on his homeworld: when doing so won’t compromise the stealth requirements of a mission, he prefers to mark his face with a horizontal stripe of white warpaint across the eyes. A soft-spoken and raspy-voiced man, he prefers to hold his peace and let others do the talking unless he feels very forceful on the subject being discussed.

Phase I: Origin

A war orphan, Tarid was raised as a ward of the state on Cartago, a world in constant turmoil where the government perpetually tottered on the verge of collapse to insurgent forces that fought as proxies for rival off world powers. Scarcely in his teens, he and all of the boys near his age from his state-run facility were rounded up and handed rifles, then herded in to combat in the desperate days when outside invasion finally came. Unlike most of the others, the boy-soldier actually survived the invasion and his fierce will to live drew the notice of his superiors. It didn’t take long for him to be sent back from the front to receive real schooling and military training.

Aspects: Survive At All Costs; No Yesterday, No Tomorrow

Phase II: Academy

Tarid’s sheer determination and toughness won him a place in the special forces of the imperial navy/marines (roughly SAS equivalent) as soon as he was old enough. He spent this time rigorously drilling and immersed in the military life, having nothing to go back to in his old home world and little reason to care about its fate.

His youthful exposure to the horrors of war had left him with difficulty relating to people, and so he established few friendships or lasting associations, always being alone though operating in perfect synch with his squadmates. Very few of the people with whom he interacted in those days ever really got to know him – he was a soft-spoken cipher at best. The drill instructors took a special interest in the intense young man and pushed him harder than most.

Aspects: Emotional Disconnect; Strict Professional Discipline

Phase III: The War

The years in and around the coup d’etat were an extremely active time for the young marine and he served several tours of duty with distinction, rising steadily through the NCO ranks before applying for officer candidate school. Having no family, friends or social standing beyond the military, he lacked the connections or money to get much traction in his attempt to receive a commission in the old imperial forces and eventually decided that his opportunities might be better elsewhere.

Once he mustered out, he marched straight to MERC and began a more lucrative career as a private military contractor with XE Interstellar. In this capacity, he fought throughout the neutral zone and for or against both the new Terran Empire and the Aureleous Imperium as well as numerous private concerns in wars, conflicts and actions large and small, for causes both just and unjust so long as his employers’ credit was good.

He developed a reputation for following a job to its conclusion and fulfilling mission parameters with dogged determination and unflinching courage, regardless of how difficult the progress became or what had to be done to make it happen: only direct orders from a superior or a completely hopeless tactical situation could dissuade him. He was not foolhardy or brash, but he seemed incapable of giving up: so long as there was some possible way to fall back, regroup and find a different way of achieving his objective he would do so no matter how he had failed thus far.

Aspects: There Is Only War; I Finish Things… That’s What I do.

Phase IV: The Hartfels Incident (or: How Tarid Del Barca Ended Up In a Medraas Jail Cell)

The Hartfels Syndicate had dealings with the Medraas that went south and so some of their men ended up in captivity to the genetically engineered pirates, including  one Serkas Jedner. Serkas had sensitive information that the Hertfels didn’t want getting out, so they hired XE Interstellar to send a strike team in and either extract or eliminate Mr. Jedner to protect their interests. Tarid and crew got in and reached Serkas with scarcely a hitch, but then he showed his true colors as a double agent and betrayed them. Most of the XE men were killed and their extraction chances were shot to cosmic dust, so Tarid decided to switch from "rescue" to "terminate" mode. He was unable to escape, so he's now rotting in a Medraas jail on Kaptyen awaiting either ransom from XE or execution. What a revolting development this is.

Aspects: Tougher Than Men Half His Age; Outnumbered

Provisional Skill Pyramid:

Superb (5) = Endurance

Great (4) = Resolve, Dexterity

Good (3) = Strength, Commando Combat Training, Common Small Arms,

Decent (2) = Parachuting/Grav Drop, Zero-G, Vacc Suit, Alertness,

Average (1) = Recon, Comms, Stealth, MERC (laws, customs & history), Demolitions

Stunts: Military Grade, Last Leg, Feel the Burn, Death Defiance, Bounce Back

Keys: Key of the Masochist, Key of the Mercenary

(edit: changed skills and aspects based on the below discussions. Edit 2: Stunts. Edit 3: Finished Stunts. Added provisional Keys)