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« on: October 17, 2011, 09:54:52 AM »
((The Second Supporting Character to David Morgan. I have two others I could do - Isiah Muthambo, David's old Regional Commander and now colleague/friend, and Albert O'Conner, a Cape Coloured street-smart fixer with a minor talent or two. They are not as crucial to David's character though.))
Name: Rikard Baldersson
High Concept: Half-Aesir Mercenary
Trouble: Never leave an enemy alive
Additional Aspects: Are you looking at me?, Grandad is watching, Loyal to the death to those who earn it, Mercenary Code of Honour, Talk is cheap
Refresh: 13 – 12 = 1 Remaining (also have applied 8 skill points to the basic Submerged package)
Skills:-
Superb (+5): Fists, Weapons
Great (+4): Athletics, Intimidation
Good (+3): Alertness, Endurance, Might, Presence
Fair (+2): Conviction, Guns, Stealth, Survival
Average (+1): Burglary, Craftsmanship, Driving, Lore
Stress
Physical 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mental 0 0 0
Social 0 0 0 0
Powers:-
Inhuman Speed (-2)
Inhuman Strength (-2)
Marked by Power (-1)
The Catch (Mistletoe, esoteric research required) (+2)
Supernatural Recovery (-4)
Inhuman Toughness (-2)
Mortal Stunts:-
Linguist (-1) (Scholarship: +4 to Scholarship level when determining known languages) (Speaks: English, French, German, Old Norse, Swedish)
Killer Blow (-1) (Fists: Spend a FP 1/session to add 3 damage to fists)
You Don’t Want Any of This (-1) (Intimidation: +2 on Brush Off Rolls)
Character Thumbnail:-
Rikard has no idea who his father is. Nor does his mother. All both of them knew is that, on a wild night in Stockholm, celebrating a victory in a soccer tournament around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, his mom got drunk, got laid, and got pregnant. Rikard is the result. It soon became apparent that he was not “normal”. Faster, tougher and stronger than his peers, Rikard was at first teased, then feared as began savagely beating any would-be tormentor.
Devoid of direction, Rikard joined the army at 19. Despite constant issues over insubordination and excessive violence, he found that he loved the life. Finding the Swedish army “boring”, he joined the Finnish army in 1925, and stayed with them for more than two decades. A complication arose when Rikard discovered that he was not aging significantly – by the time the Winter War began in 1937, he was in his late 30s and looked barely into his 20s.
Rikard served with the Finns throughout the Second World War. In the aftermath, and given a discharge, he joined the French Foreign Legion and served for 2 terms before becoming a mercenary. It was in the late 50s that things changed forever. He was visited in his run-down, vermin infested quarters by a tall man, formally dressed in a manner inappropriate for the tropical hell hole in which Rikard was serving, and sporting an eye patch. This individual berated Rikard for the waste of his talents, his drunkenness, his casual propensity for violence, emphasizing that he was a disgrace to the blood.
Rikard was enraged – he flew at the individual, who proceeded to administer the only comprehensive beating that Rikard had ever received. Broken and bleeding, Rikard really looked at the visitor properly for the first time and revelation came to him – this was Odin, the All-Father. It couldn’t be, it was impossible, but it was true nonetheless and explained so much – Rikard was at least part Aesir. Recognizing the signs of understanding, Odin opened a way and took Rikard away to Oslo.
The next few years were ones of education and investigation. No revelation came about who his Aesir parent was, but the discovery of a vulnerability to Mistletoe and a reading of the old myths lead Rikard to adopt the surname Baldersson. He trained with the Einherjar, and became a “consultant” for Monoc Security, one that was seldom hired out but who acted directly on behalf of the company. It was in this capacity, working on a hunter-kill mission in Egypt, that Rikard met David Morgan. They worked well together, and a friendship sprung up based on mutual respect.
Over the next few decades that encountered each-other semi-regularly, their relationship growing stronger. When Rikard heard that David had become a Warden and had been assigned to Africa without any meaningful support and in the midst of the war between the White Council and the Red Court, he requested and, unexpectedly, received a leave of absence from Odin, who he facetiously always addressed as “granddad”, and travelled to stand by his friend – where he has been ever since, opening up a sub-branch of Monoc in Cape Town to serve both his own loyalties and his duties to his “Grandfather”.
Rikard appears archetypeally Nordic - 6'4", about 220 lbs of solid muscule, pale blond hair (cut in a military style) and ice blue eyes. He dresses casually, or in appropriate "working" or "combat" gear. He is never without at least one gun (usually something enormous in calibre), although when he is "working" he favours either a solid steel fire axe or a 10 lbs sledge hammer and getting in up close and personal. If he has to use longer-reaching weapons, he favours the European assault rifles, particularly the old FN-FAL or British SLR.