Desmond Stroud is a player character played by Foxtrot813.

Desmond Stroud
Species:	Nepleslian
Gender:	Male
Age:	23
Height:	5'10“ (1.77m)
Weight:	165 lbs (77.8kg)
Organization:	Independent
Occupation:	Bounty Hunter
Rank:	Seasoned
Current Placement:	None

Preferred Plots:

1. Bounty Hunts

• Height: 5'10'' (177cm)
• Mass: 165 lbs (74.8 kg)
• Measurements:

Build and Skin Color: Desmond has a medium build compared to most nepleslians and light skin, with very defined muscles that come from a physically active lifestyle.

Eyes and Facial Features: He has round, dark brown eyes and a angular face.

Ears: He has round ears.

Hair Color and Style: He has a short dark hair which is almost considered unkept.

Distinguishing Features: He has no distinguishing features.

Personality: Desmond is a person of great ambition and willpower. His drive to get as many jobs done as he can is, with certainty, his most defining characteristics. Even when he is not going after bounties with the rest of his group, he is actively searching for smaller ones that he can tackle singlehandedly or with a partner. Once he sets his mind to get something done, there is little that can dissuade him and change his mind.

Having grown inside the hazardous hull of a freighter, Desmond was more than familiar with danger since a young age, having seen people killed by the vacuum of space and being exposed to it did a number on him, making him become numb to what happens to other people. Spending the best part of his life with less than fifty people for months at a time did it too, turning him into a very reserved person, which was only lessened during his training on the engineering program. For that, Desmond is also a very functional person. He has little respect for people until they prove themselves deserving of it.

Further more, Desmond is a hard going person who speaks little of his childhood, and even less about his family to other people, mainly because he has no initiative or interest in doing so, instead disliking it when people “mind his business”. Despite considering that “the less strings attached, the better,” he still has a soft spot for the people he trusts, or sees going through the same hardships that he has.

He isn’t the kind of person to back down from a fight or a problem, always trying to come with a solution to it and most of the times ignoring the consequences. Most of the times he acts out of impulse, which is a trait that got him on his current situation as a bounty hunter. He has an inherent curiosity coupled with that, and taking down things to find how they work and assembling or modifying them again is one of his hobbies.

• Likes: Jury Rigging, Tinkering, Smoking.
• Dislikes: Nosy People, Things that don't go his way.
• Goals: Make Cold. Hard. Cash.

*Adam Stroud (Father)

*Amelia Stroud (Sister - Older)

*Helen Stroud (Mother)

Desmond was born and spent the best part of his childhood along most of his early teens inside the hull of a huge, old freighter that was owned by his family. Normally, he’d have spent his life on Nepleslia, but because of simple greed from behalf of his parents he spent it inside the freighter with his family and the small skeleton crew that also worked in there.

Growing inside the hulls of the freighter was challenging for him, as there was very few things in it to keep a child occupied and even fewer people to interact with due to the very long routes the ship took, sometimes staying months without docking, leaving him to wander around the inside of the ship to find things out by himself, when he wasn’t being taught by his parents. He picked up interest on technology and how things worked in general during that time mostly by exploring the safe and hazardous areas alike. Eventually, when he had reached his early teens and the freighter had been used to its limit, it was sent to a scrapyard and salvaged.

With the freighter gone, his parents retired from the business and moved back to Nepleslia Prime while Desmond was fourteen. Instead of moving back with them, he was sent to a specialized school to finish his education while still being trained to be a qualified engineer in a four year program, while his sister was sent somewhere to a different one. The deal was simple, he would sign up a contract and be trained for four years and then would work for eight more years for the company.

The four year period in which he was interned in the school was the most active in his whole life, and where he learned most of his skills, including starship engineering. In a few years he managed to know how most starships worked and how to maintain them. Since the school had a curfew, he managed to learn how to hack doors to sneak out of there with the basic tools. Since he also got into trouble with the other students, he also learned how to fight. Eventually he graduated as a fully qualified engineer, although barely.

Then for the next five years, much like his parents, Desmond found himself working on several kinds of spaceships, from massive civilian freighters to private military ships. His routine had been a tough one, he’d be assigned to a ship and would only leave during the time the ship was docked in a station, and only then he rarely even left. Pretty much like in the engineering school, he got the most out of his time. During his stay on the military cutters he became quick friends with the security personnel due to his personality and spent most of his off-duty time knowing how weapons worked and having a general idea of how to use them. Among other habits he also picked was smoking. His career, however, came to an abrupt stop during a shore leave on Funky City. Having decided to go with some of the ship’s crew to a nearby bar where he got himself into a fight and soon the entire crew contingent in there was in the fight as well. By the time the fight had ended there were some people badly injured and since he had been the one who –presumably- had started the fight, Desmond was promptly fired from his current job. Afterwards, gathered all his possessions and got out the planet, using his knowledge of freighters to stowaway on one.

During the next few months he spent trying to get his bearings and burning through his savings, moving from one station to another and doing small jobs with the knowledge he possessed. Desmond finally decided to get into a different business. Knowing how to handle a gun and know his footing on a fight as well as busting through a door or two, he bought all the equipment he’d thought to be necessary and became a freelancer.

Desmond's first major bounty at first didn't look so major, but instead rather trivial although the payoff was tremendous for it. The job consisted of assassinating an individual name John McRenar, who would present in a Starliner during a routine commercial flight. Armed with only his sidearm and no protection, the bounty hunter was surprised and outgunned when a group of pirates suddenly announced themselves and attempted to take over the Starliner. However, this changed as the crew and other bounty hunters within the spacecraft fought back the pirates, giving him enough room to fight as well and retrieve his gear.

After grouping up with Kendra "Boa" Galanis, Nicholas Clarke, Helric Johnson and Fuller, Jacob, who turned out to be bounty hunters themselves, the group took the fight back to the pirates, who had sabotaged the Starliner's main generators to blow. The fight carried over from the upper deck of the Starliner all the way to the maintenance and engineering deck, freeing some flight attendants on the way while Desmond acquired a new pet as well, a komodo dragon named Haures. As the group reached the engineering section, and located the bomb, they were attacked by a much larger group of pirates, forcing them on a last stand with their backs against the wall.

The battle that ensued was short and brutal, but Desmond successfully separated the bomb from the Starliner's main generator once the pirates had been dealt with, which ended up neutralizing it's main purpose. Following that, the group set on finding the pirate captain who was behind the Starliner's raid and McRenar, who unbeknownst to them was with the pirates as well. They eventually stumbled upon amanozako, another bounty hunter who had infiltrated the pirate group and attempted a munity during the raid. After discovering that Amazonako had killed both the captain and McRenar, Desmond tagged along with Kendra to capture the pirate ship.

The new group proceeded to take on the pirate ship by hijacking the pirate shuttle used to board the Starliner. Upon spotting the Ge-L5-1A - Issoku-Class Cargo Runner used by the pirates as their base of operation, they landed on a modified cargo bay, using Amanozako to trick the remaining crew into thinking the shuttle was containing prisoners, and then killing the remaining pirates and taking one prisoner.

Upon clearing the cargo bay, Desmond, Nicholas and Kendra went about making sure that the rest of the ship was clear of them, boarding the bridge and discovering that Lapas Vejo, another former member of the crew, had also turned on them and killed the two pilots. While the group cleared out the mess, Desmond proceeded to check on the ship engines and the cargo bay, meeting both the ship's original -but friendly- mechanic and doctor. Upon discovering that the engine was on its last legs, the bounty hunter put it back in a barely workable condition for one last jump to get clear of the area before the authorities arrived, leading them to the planet Delsauria.

After safely landing on a small hangar and getting ready for some fresh air, the new crew of the ISS Iron Ferret was ambushed by members of an unknown gang who had assumed they were still the original owners of the ship, resulting in a firefight. During the shootout, both Kendra and Lapas ended up being injured (and Desmond slightly grazed), but each of the ambushers were killed, leaving the crew to pick up the pieces and find out who they were. And how to make some extra money on their heads.

After the last 'event' upon landing on the planet, Desmond soon took up the 'free time' to make some money on the side, going after a relatively small bounty that consisted on bringing back a serial killer to justice alive.

Deciding to start looking on the last place that the fugitive had been seen, which was in one of the worst parts of Maharombi, Desmond was ambushed by two locals who tried to steal his possessions at gunpoint. Thankfully for the bounty hunter, though, Haures quickly took out one of the would-be ambushers while he himself disarmed and subdued the other, then interrogating him on the whereabouts of the serial killer.

After acquiring the information that led to the possible location of his bounty -an abandoned warehouse- and heading there, Desmond found himself in a game of hide and seek, leaving Haures to stay on the entrance and cut the killer off should he escape while he took the higher ground to look. Much to his dismay, however, the serial killer had the upper hand and managed to sneak up on Haures, knocking him out but alerting the bounty hunter with the noise, making Desmond rush out of the higher ground.

During the rush Desmond managed to bruise his head and scratch himself as he jumped onto a junk pile, but kept moving towards the noise nonetheless, eventually finding a wounded and uncounscious Haures. Shortly after finding his wounded pet, however, Desmond was surprised by the serial killer, who subdued him and put a knife to his throat, butt was interrupted by Haures when he was about to the bounty hunter, giving Desmond a chance to finally fight back and subdue the killer.

Shortly after collecting the bounty for bringing in the serial killer alive, Desmond found himself in a pinch again as three members from the same gang who had ambushed the crew of the ISS Iron Ferret at the spaceport found him while he was in a bar. As the three of them tried to rough the bounty hunter up, they were interrupted by Raven (Samuel Connors), who knocked one of them out and scared the second thug away when he drew his sidearm, forcing the two of them to flee and leave the third gang member behind to be interrogated by the two.

Upon interrogating the remaining thug, the duo learned about the location of one of the gang's captains, who operated on a two-story apartment block, and managed the gang's 'financial issues'. After a short talk and the prospect of sharing a bounty, Raven joined up with Desmond to take on the gang's base and hopefully find out more clues on the gang.

As they started their raid on the apartment, the duo attempted to do it covertly on the initial phase before going loud. They took out one of the thugs standing guard on a alley behind the apartment before cutting the apartment's power and then invading with flashlights attached to their weapons. Executing the second phase of their plan, however, proved to be easier said than done, after taking the first few thugs with ease the duo found themselves outnumbered by the thugs inside who had the time to arm themselves as the first group of gangers bought them time, resulting in a deadlock to take out the occupants of the basement level of the apartment, which included the gang captain.

Pulling up a hasty retreat after acquiring a laptop and setting up the apartment on fire, the two bounty hunters were faced not only with the survivors of the initial assault, but with more gangers who rushed in the scene after hearing the shootout. Desmond was shot in the back as the duo crossed a street to flee, and although the shot was barely being by the ballistic mesh of his vest after penetrating the durandium ballistic plate, it was still enough to knock down the bounty hunter, slowing down their escape and forcing both Raven and him to make a last stand against the ganger. Luck, however, was on their side as the thugs found that to be a good opportunity to rush the duo, only to be cut down by Raven's automatic fire and have their position protected by the thickening smoke that came out of the fire.

After recovering from the shot, Desmond attempted to flank the remaining gang member's while Raven suppressed them from where he was. During the fight, one of the remaining gang member's managed to play dead among the corpses in the street, making the jump on Raven as Desmond started to engage the other two remaining thugs, which included the gang's captain- who was an ID-SOL.h

Suddenly finding himself without any support from his partner and frantically trying to reload his shotgun, Desmond was pinned down by the ID-SOL who slowly moved to flank the bounty hunter and finish hims off. Just as the luck seemed to have run out for him, however, Raven finally showed up from the thick smoke from the fire and got off a shot at the ID-SOL, grazing the side of his head and turning his attention away from Desmond, which gave the bounty hunter enough time to load a shell on his shotgun and shoot the gang's captain head.

With that particular group of the gang eliminated and the apartment raided, the group grabbed the laptop which contained intel on the gang as well as some weapons they managed to loot from the dead and returned to the Iron Ferret, now with a new member to the crew.

Soon after acquiring the data from the gang's safehouse, Desmond was involved in a job to escort a caravan through the Delsaurian desert. What seemed like a simple protection job was, however, intended to lure out a pack of bandits that had been constantly preying on the caravans that roamed that particular area of Delsauria. The bounty hunters of the Iron Ferret were airdropped next to the caravan, and had to work along with another band of mercenaries commanded by a Nepleslian woman named Jaina. They walked along the slow-moving caravans under the scorching sun until sun-down, where the bounty hunters set up on a small hill overwatching the caravan during the night.

Not soon after they had set down that the caravan was attacked by the bandits. Using what looked like genetically enhanced lizards as a vanguard to assault the overwatch, while foot-soldiers stormed the caravan's perimeter, the outlaws quickly had the upper hand in the battle. During the fight, Desmond engaged the leader of the lizard's pack, which oddly had the ability to speak, but ultimately overcame it, cutting one of its hind legs off with his powered blade, while taking a bite to his leg.

After quickly patching himself up, the bounty hunter rallied the group on top of the hill, which had just then repelled its attackers, and went into a counter-attack to support Jaina's mercenaries who were still embattled near the caravan. During this battle, the desert bandit's secret as to how they quickly appeared and vanished was revealed when a large vehicle burst from under the sand, drilling its way to the surface. After fighting a bandit wearing a rudimentary suit of power armor, Desmond hurried to deliver the ammo to the rocket launcher Lapas was carrying, which allowed the Iroma to wreck the bandits armored vehicle and break their backs, just as the marine support that they had been promised arrived.

As soon as the job in the desert was done and he had recovered from his minor injuries, Desmond was up and running again; this time, the bounty hunter focused his efforts on bringing down the gang that had ambushed the crew of the Iron Ferret as soon as they had docked on Delsauria. Using the intel acquired from the raid on their safehouse, he and Amanozako raided one of the gang's warehouse, dispatching the crew occupying it and stealing a large cache of weapons and ammo, then subsequently torching the place. The ammo and weapons acquired then would later be used for a much bigger purpose.

On the subsequent day, after logging all that they had 'borrowed' from the gang, Desmond and Raven went into Maharombi's abandoned industrial district, where the gang's headquarters was located. The duo approached during the quiet of the night, fighting through a small group of thugs on their way there and finally taking position in a nearby smokestack. Once they had taken enough pictures of the place, they moved closer to the complex's perimeter, making their way through a large drainage ditch meant for the industrial waste to be discarded to; after evading the robotic sentries placed there, they found an entrance to the facility. After enough intel had been gathered, as well as a second way in secured, the duo pulled out.

A couple days after, Desmond contacted Jaina's mercenaries once again, bringing them along for the subsequent raid on the gang's HQ, as well as hired the services of a rather weird bounty hunter and a not so weird bounty hunter for the next job. During this time, he also pulled some strings with the NPF contact that had offered him the job on the desert for the extra firepower they would need to bring the gang down.

A couple days after hiring the last hands for the job, the group consisted of bounty hunters and mercenaries gathered on a abandoned warehouse, where the briefing for the job was explained and the preparations were performed. As soon as the briefing was done, Desmond took off with a small group of bounty hunters and mercenaries in an Outrider, while the largest number of them went in an AFV and two more outriders, all of them flashing the NPF's colors.

Since his vehicle was fater, the bounty hunter and his group managed to arrive next to the drainage ditch first, giving them some time to take down the sentry and get into position under the industrial complex, inside of a large drainage pipe, while the main group got into position to act as a decoy.

As soon as the opening shots were fired and the main entrance to the complex was breached with a rocket launcher, the group hiding underneath started to infiltrate the complex. While the mercenaries and boutny hunters fought ever increasing numbers of automated combat droids, Desmond's group slowly made way inside the building which appeared to be controlling them. When it looked like his group had gone undetected, one of the bounty hunters was detected, drawing the attention of the defenders to the second group.

In a frantic, but brief fight, Desmond's group was separated, with the bounty hunter taking cover inside one of the many empty and abandoned buildings of the complex, while Danny managed to evade his pursuers and the rest of the group still kept being pinned down by wave after wave of combat bots. On the other side of the complex, Jaina's mercenaries were slowly being pushed down, despite the heavier firepower and vehicles they possessed; the overwhelming number of enemies had stopped their progress and then began to slowly push her group back.

After it seemed that their attack had lost its momentum, the first trick up their sleeves was used, calling an airstrike with the single Viper gunship that they had waiting for that very reason, stunning the gang's counter attack. This gave time for the second group to disperse inside the facility, as well as give Danny the opportunity to take down the crew inside the building coordinating the combat robots, effectively cutting off the head of the gang's cohesion.

After regrouping with Danny, Desmond headed to where the mercenaries were laying siege to the main building of the complex, the last occuppied one. After revising the plan of action with Jaina for one last time, Desmond and the remaining bounty hunters and mercenaries prepared to assault the building, laying down a curtain of smoke and suppressing the upper floors with the heavy fire from the vehicles, moving in a bounding overwatch. Being in the first group, Desmond arrived first to the cover right outside the breach that the Viper's airstrike had created, laying down more covering fire for the second group to approach. As soon as the second group arrived, Desmond and the attackers went into a frenzied melee in the small confines of the factory, gradually pushing the defenders back. Eventually, when they were preparing to breach into the next room, the leader of the gang, a pure blood ID-SOL, made a counter attack, momentarily breaking the momentum of the attacks, and giving room for a good portion of the survivors to run away. During the counter-attack, Desmond was thrown against a wall by the ID-SOL, briefly blacking out from the fight; as soon as the bounty hunter regained his bearings, he and Danny took off against the gangers who were fleeing, leaving the rest of the bounty hunters and mercenaries to deal with the gang's leader.

Seeing that the AFV had been trashed by the fleeing gangers and one of the Outriders stolen as soon as the duo got back out of the building, Desmond made his way to the last remaining vehicle, bringing it back into action as Danny patched up one of the bounty hunters who had been injured in the fight. The two of them quickly took after the gangs in a high-speed chase along the abandoned industrial district, eventually making their Outrider veer off course and crash into a building, but ultimately totaling their vehicle in the process. Once the kills were confirmed, the two of them were approached by their contact from the NPF, Bob Burdo, who gave them a couple of hours for the crew to clear the industrial complex before the NPF arrived on scene, leaving the two of them back to their devices, and also without a ride in the middle of nowhere.

The very night after the raid on the industrial complex, after the mercenaries and bounty hunters had hauled as much as they could out of the place, including the server farm secured by Danny in the command building, Desmond was approached by Amanozako, who had sat out of the previous job. The neko explained to the bounty hunter that the reason for doing so had been because she had received the location of a derelict, but operational, NMX escort ship, and needed help to bring it back to an decent condition.

The two of them set out towards the location of the ship with the Iron Ferret's shuttle, where Desmond worked to jury rig it into working again, while the neko plotted the course to the nearest independent system. After some more travel time, as well as a few romantic intercourses, the duo finally arrived on Bastia, where they arranged for the repairs of Amanozako's ship. For the next three days, they enjoyed each other's companies while the ship was being repaired.

Upon getting back on Delsauria, more than enough time had passed for the heat from the last job to disappear, allowing the bounty hunters and the mercenaries to be paid a hefty sum for their jobs, which also included selling the intel contained within the gang's server farm to the IPG for a hefty sum. Since taking down one of the, if not the, major gang in the planet had curbed the related activities to an all-time low, the Iron Ferret soon left the planet and made its way to Dawn Station, where Desmond hired Kira Denere to the crew, as well started to go after any bounties that presented themselves while he was in the station, even one as secure as Dawn.

Having been a great deal of his free time tinkering with all sorts of things, Desmond has a talent for taking things down and replacing them on a better way, or fixing things in some unorthodox way. This comes primarily from his talent of repurposing components and parts seemingly beyond repair or use in a creative way, whether it is repairing something that has taken extensive damage or doing modifications in the field.

This also extend to weapons, where he is able to better tune the weapon to his needs, or make one from scratch with his creativity and what he has.

Having spent four years into the engineering program, Desmond not only learned how to maintain starships but also learned some other things during his free time. Among these were how to physically hack the doors into places he didn’t have clearance to go into. He can ‘hack’ a doors open by exposing its circuitry and deactivating parts of it that allow him to simply pull or pry open the door without having motors to prevent him from doing so. He also knows how to take down a wall given the right tools.

Having grown into a Nepleslian family, Desmond speaks and writes it fluently. It is his natural language.

During the engineering program he had enrolled, Desmond knows how to repair a starship or sabotage it altogether. He has worked on different kind of spaceships and has a general idea of how their layout is and how –despite their differences- their general operation is.

Due to this, he has knowledge of how to push a ship's performance past its safety level based on intuition of the system's behavior. Some of the more common things includes knowing how to remove the safety margins on a ship's engines to get a higher performance out of it, or how to perform on-the-fly adjustments to get more out of a ship's power grid.

During the time spent working aboard the private military cutter, Desmond picked up on learning how to handle firearms, and due to the nature of the vessel he was in, he frequently practiced with pistols and shotguns, which are the weapons he prefers the most, although lately he has been becoming proficient with rifles.\

Although being a spacer, Desmond was a very active individual his whole life. He periodically exercised as part of the engineer program and has only increased his exercise load since he became a bounty hunter. He also constantly got himself into fights after enrolling the program, and knows how to react to one.

Having lived most of his life in spaceships and space stations, Desmond knows his way inside either. He can find places to hide and stowaway inside most of the ships or how to get around a space station.

Desmond Stroud has the following items:

* AwesomeCorp DataJockey

*Styrling Everyday Armor Set (With Plating)

* Full body Styrling Muur Armor

* Custom-made Armor

*Toolbelt

• EM-G17-1a Basic Tool Kit

*Personal clothing

* Kneepads

* Black insulated gloves

* Matte black Styrling Muur Armor

* Room Cleaner Shotgun

• Spare ammo
  • 80 12 gauge rounds
  • 20 4 gauge rounds

*PIMP

• 320 rounds ammo box
• and 5 Spare Magazines
• Pistol belt with magazine pouches

*Ehbr

• Heavy Nemirium lined barrel

*Talon TSP

• Trigger job
• Flashlight
• Suppressor
• Tactical Laser
• Flash Suppressor

* Durandium Machete (Powered and molecular knitted)

• 1 Scimitar Starfighter
• 1 Base Model Impulse Armor
• 1 ODM 10mm "Raygun"
• 1 Black Advent A2

• Mattress from starship bunk (Halloween, TC: 85-92, IC: 7877-1621-167)
• Starship-grade sensor array (Halloween, TC: 51-11, IC: 618-255-56)
• “Mobile Spanner” Drone (Halloween, TC: 27-53, IC: 1488-1064-77)
• Fighter-grade sensor array (Halloween, TC: 4-11, IC: 97-277-15)
• Fighter-grade sensor array (Halloween, TC: 19-11, IC: 247-288-28)
• New EM-K1 Emrys Industries Hydrogen Car| (S Halloween, TC: 98-37, IC: 3683-34319-134)
• A bottle of excellent rum - Yamataian (S Halloween, TC: 10-64, IC: 697-59641-74)
• 1 ceramic Qaktoro skeleton - glows in the dark (S Halloween, TC: 9-83, IC: 804-77081-92)
• 1 plastic Lorath male skeleton - glows in the dark (S Halloween, TC: 6-73, IC: 495-67874-79)
• Used EM-J1-1a "Ernie" Protection Robot (S Halloween, TC: 97-85, IC: 8302-78682-181)
• 4 16 oz Buvory (Lizard) steaks (S HiddenSun, TC: 98-95, IC: 7015-12217-191)

• Electronic chip, part of a bomb rigged on a Starliner.
• Gang token with a 'DK' engraved on it.
• Knife belonging to one Black Johnson.
• Bent and deformed .45 H-NAM bullet.
• Servomotor from a rudimentary Power Armor
• Picture from a industrial complex in Maharombi
• Component from an ammunition press
• Broken actuator from a Ze-J1

Desmond Stroud is currently an Independent bounty hunter.

Not up for adoption