Pavel Rostropovich is a Player Character played by CatoTheElder and is currently involved in the NSS Banning plot.

Height: 5'6'' Mass: 195 Measurements: Wide Bra Size: . . . He's not quite THAT fat.

Build and Skin Colour: Noticeably overweight, pale skin.

Facial Features and Eye Colour: Wide, ruddy face, blue eyes. Large black mustache.

Hair Colour and Style: Black hair, cropped close, but longer than the standard military buzz.

Distinguishing Features: Cybernetic hands, steel, with some ceramic plating to reduce the weight, starting about half-way down the forearm. Basic tactile sense from the wrist down. Pavel has modified the outside of the arm casings to hold a wide variety of tools, which automatically snap back onto his forearm when he puts them down. The added weight of the tools and the hardness of the hands can be used to land powerful blows in hand-to-hand combat. Cybernetic leg, steel, starting from about six inches below the right knee. Has some pressure sensitivity. It goes “clank” when he steps on a hard surface, but has no other special abilities. All cybernetics are from discontinued lines, and can take large amounts of abuse, and are easy to repair. For Pavel, the metaphor “to crash to attention” isn't.

He speaks with a light but detectable accent.

Personality: Pavel is not exactly a gentle soul. He is often loud, profane, aggressive, and sometimes drunk. He despises the Yamatai, especially Nekovalkyrja, who he views as oppressors of his homeland as well as cheaters of the natural order and, worst of all, users of flowery and impractical technology. He is relatively easy to work with, so long as his coworkers work hard and do things his way. Pavel has also never hesitated to pull a trigger or depress a contact in defense of what is his, although this category now encompasses his crew mates, ship, and friends. Despite his faults, he is also very much aware of the world around him, and is something of a “people person”; so he is almost never TOO pugnacious, obscene, or inebriated. He is also flexible in his dealings with others, generously allowing almost everyone a chance to prove that they aren't completely without worth. In addition Pavel is competent, hard working, curious, dedicated to his shipmates and patriotic to a fault, even though it might be hard to tell when listening to him talking about his old home.

Pavel is a lover of the finer things in life, including good food, soft beds, and hundred-proof-plus alcohol. Due to the extremely limited number of females on Nepleslia, Pavel never developed the social skills for interaction with the fairer sex, but this has never hurt him too deeply, because he never developed much of an interest in romance of any kind either. Since he has escaped his old home, is serving his beloved motherland, and has all the social interaction he wants aboard even small spaceships, his obsession with all things mechanical and his antique weapon collection are by far his largest drives.

His love of food, drink, and sitting around all day tinkering has left Pavel straining at the very edges of the Nepleslian Star Army's standard uniform sizes and body fat standards. However, he is not in the least bit sensitive about his weight and wears it as something of a badge of pride. In fact, given the amount of room his personality sometime takes up, it is often agreed that it is fitting that his body should fill a substantial volume as well. It is also useful to him for making people think he's stupid, lazy, or physically slow. To make up for his uniforms not fitting very well, Pavel keeps his in immaculate condition at all times, which allows him to deflect most criticism.

Likes: Simple designs, card games, Aethersperm, potato derived spirits, a good fight, industrial scenery Dislikes: All Yamatai, especially Nekovalkyrja, genetic modifications, Black Faction, gangs, paying protection money, unstable software, frilly technology, walks on the beach Goals: Hopes to repopularize more simple and reliable technology. More immediately, dreams of running his own engineering section on board a Nepleslia warship.

Pavel's father was a small-time crook who worked for the Black Faction, his mother a stay at home mom. Because he had five brothers and his father was often in and out of jail, and so Pavel was left mostly to his own devices. Pavel was never close to his parents, despised the mob that used his father, and dreamed of leaving the slums in which he was born. While his brothers invariably got caught up in gang violence, Pavel avoided membership by steadfastly refusing to take sides and making himself too valuable to kill. Everything eventually needs repair, and when the gang's vehicles or weapon's broke, they took them to Pavel, who would always fix them with a smile and wish them all good luck in wiping each other out.

However, in the years before the Mishhuvurthyar invasion, violence eventually reached a fever pitch in Pavel's slum. His brothers started getting killed, and after a Black Faction enforcer took his hands (which Pavel viewed as no great loss), he decided it was time to leave. He served for several years as an engineer on various freighters, where he eventually the lower part of his right leg fighting off a pirate attack. When Nepleslia became independent, he joined the newly formed Nepleslian Star Army. Although a bit old for a new recruit, he completed his tech sentry training with a minimum of fuss, and, having served his first tour on a small collier serving the home fleet, he has just been transferred to the NSS Banning to serve as assistant engineer.

Assistant Engineer

Green faction offensive against Red Faction controlled assets.

While other children developed healthy interests in academics, sports, or seeking out life mates, Pavel became obsessed with all things machine. He has a wide knowledge of ships, weapons and vehicles, both civilian and those available on Nepleslia's extensive black market. He considers himself something of a mechanical connoisseur.

Pavel's forte is definitely his skill in maintenance and repair. Although he received almost no formal training outside of that provided by the Nepleslian Star Army's limited schools, he has years of experience in repairing simple weapons and vehicles, as well as a certain flare for simplification. As a lifelong devotee to the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid; not the band), Pavel's fixes tend to be solid, brutal, and painfully to the point. He has an unfortunate habit of simply removing parts of a system he deems spurious or overly complex and welding in much more elementary and reliable technology. His creative repair methods occasionally work very well, but tend to cause complete failure in more advanced systems. The Star Army's technical training has largely broken him of this habit, and these days he does things by the book. However, he will not hesitate to complain loudly and at length about the inefficiencies of modern technology to anyone who will listen.

Much to his chagrin, modern hardware almost always comes bundled with pesky, buggy software. Pavel has learned to navigate most user interfaces, and has an elementary knowledge of machine languages. While he dislikes most computer programs, he has a certain respect for AIs.

While he seems to have a certain spark for engineering, and has done some minor modifications to his own prosthetics, Pavel is largely a novice at true design. To date, most of his creations are simple machines that made his workshops more convenient or new parts he's fabricated for one of his creative simplifications. He is competent and welding, drilling, bolting, and all manner of assembly and has some skill with drafting and other basic engineering techniques. He is constantly working to expand his skills in this area.

Pavel has never studied any martial arts, but learned quite a bit in the Dojo of Hard Knocks. Pavel fights like he works- simply, energetically, and brutally, making use of whatever happens to be at hand. He makes good use of his prosthetics, which give his punches extra weight and make a right foot applied to the groin debilitatingly painful. He also knows how to reload, fire, and repair a wide range of legal and illegal weapons, but is feared by friend and foe alike for his terrifying inaccuracy, especially with his antique pump-action shotgun “Anastasia”, which is currently locked away with several boxes of ammunition in the ship's armory.

While not physically fit per se, Pavel is stronger than the average Nepleslian due to the heavy lifting involved in his work, as well as the constant effort of lugging around his antiquated prosthetics and his own ample weight. He is also surprisingly fast over short distances, a trait he has made often exploited to land the first (and often final) blow in many fights.

Due to his family's ties to the Nepleslian mob and his own more limited dealings with the underworld, Pavel has developed a finely-tuned instinct for self-preservation. He knows how much money is appropriate for a bribe, although he has made a habit of never paying protection money. Pavel is good at judging intentions, and has a knack for knowing when to push an issue, when to let it drop, and when to dive for cover. He is no stranger to lying, and can do so quite smoothly. This gives him an edge at flattery, intimidation, and certain gambling games, which he is only just beginning to enjoy again after bad experiences playing with members of the Black Faction.

• Electronic Money Card: 3000 KS

One antique, pump action shotgun (in working order, engraved with the name “Anastasia.”)

Five boxes of shotgun shells (BBs), 20 rounds each.

One box of playing cards (heavily worn).

One small hip flask.

One Starlight Bolt, a talisman consecrated to Fabricator, the god of starship engineering, given to him by dream_zero_zero_00-0018-2475.

Pavel Rostropovich is currently a Soldier Third Class in the Nepleslian Star Army. He receives a weekly salary of -salary- per week.