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Rickidi Yochemar Albolleri Zickem

Rickidi Yochemar Albolleri Zickem, or 'Rickidi' for short (pronounced like the work 'Rickety'), is a Silanbar who was a slave soldier in the Interstellar Kingdom Of Kuvexia. He is currently exploring the exciting career of space piracy. He is played by Hollander.

RICKIDI YOCHEMAR ALBOLLERI ZICKEM
Species & Gender: Silanbar Male
Date of Birth: YE 12
Organization: Thunder Lizards (WIP Plot)
Occupation: Pirate
Current Placement: An unnamed Kuvexian cargo transport

Physical Description

As a Silanbar of the swamps, Rickidi is long and lean. He would measure over eight feet in length if one could hold him down long enough to get an accurate measurement. His scales are a sloppy mess of ruddy brown with flecks of crystalline teal, and his belly coloration is that of a paste of rotten-egg mushed together with their shells. Rickidi's mane is a dull and unremarkable shade of brown. The horn above his nose is properly stubby, but his back-two horns grew about as long as his pointed ears; the left horn was snapped off in a fight, and has been shaved flat and capped with metal. His hazel eyes seem to flash wildly when he's telling his tales, but are otherwise just… a pair of regular old eyes. After his time fighting for the Kuvexians, Rickidi has earned a host of scars from enemy weapons, surgery, accidents, and attacks by his teammates. These add to the normal scars a Silanbar earns in their youth squabbling with others in dominance bouts and arguments.

Rickidi does have a nice voice, by Silanbar standards. He vocalizes clearly, and he speaks toward others so that he's more easily heard; not every Silanbar does these things, it should be pointed out.

Personality

Rickidi is a Silanbar capable of lying. This is unusual for his species, which tends to state things as they see it, and who struggle with being gullible. This ability to lie stemmed from a lack of self-confidence, and a fear that he was deeply and terribly uninteresting. As a youth, he frequently told stories and lied in order to earn the attention and esteem of others. After his enslavement as a fighting soldier of the Kuvexians, Rickidi's deceptive abilities took on a different form; he'd tell his comrades that they would be okay, that they would make it through the next battle, that maybe they'd be free someday. Those comforts were almost always temporary, at best.

Despite his internal issues, he does care about the efforts of a team or a House or a crew. He wants to matter in the grand scheme of things, and he wants to be of value to those others so that they'll notice him and care for him.

History

Rickidi squirmed out of a messy little egg pile hidden in the trunk of a long-dead tree. His home was a brackish coastal swamp known by a few names; the most common was 'Fat Worm Swamp'. The Silanbar Houses of Fat Worm Swamp were a tough lot; their turgid and mushy home was rife with decaying organic matter. Through its buggy depths squirmed millions of varieties of annelids, and the Fat Worm Houses became adept at wrestling and catching these monstrous beasts. These worms could then be traded to other Silanbar for useful things produced elsewhere on Skorlamech. The Fat Worm Silanbar also had to defend their territory from outsiders wanting to move in and hunt their own meals, so these Silanbar weren't just worm-squeezers and traders; they could fight as well. Young Rickidi got his start diving in the swamps and spotting worm clusters, and learning how to 'wrassle up' his own wormies. He was decent at the task, and when it came to trading, his work was acceptable. He could count in numbers higher than his own fingers and toes, and he could maintain an inventory and assess whether traded stuff was worth something to his House or not. Despite these skills, compared to his dozen brothers and sisters, Rickidi didn't stand out. He wasn't the biggest, or the fastest, or the wormiest. He wasn't too terribly attractive by Silanbar standards, nor was he ugly or intimidating. For years, among his family and his peers, Rickidi just could not manage to stand out.

Until… he started lying.

Silanbar, as a species, are capable of lying. It's rare for them, tremendously so, because they're a very empirical species who place value on what they personally see and experience. The idea of portraying the world differently from how they know it to be is an unusual concept, and foreign to their way of thinking. But Rickidi, whether by some random trick of genetics or one of the many blows to the head he received when he was a spawnling, was able to lie. And not only that, he felt a strange compulsion to do so. When he lied, other Silanbar paid attention to him. He could contrive stories that captured their interest, stories that were far more interesting than the dull truth of the worm-wrangling life he was living. He talked about worms he'd seen that were bigger than three Silanbar laying end to end. He told stories about swamp gases and witch-lights, and ghost ships. He talked about stars coming down to the swamps to dance on top of the water. It was a lot of fun, because so many of his fellow Silanbar quite readily believed him. Rickidi wasn't doing this maliciously, either. He only rarely used his talents to make any extra money, and he didn't take advantage of anyone beyond telling them things that were impossible or untrue.

A time came that a star really did land on Skorlamech. A Kuvexian 'recruitment' vessel landed in Fat Worm Swamp, and from its metal belly, a host of incredibly advanced beings from another world came forth. Rickidi, his adult family, most of the Silanbar who he'd consider his 'friends', and quite a few strangers were all picked up and shipped off-planet to serve these far more powerful beings. Young Rickidi wondered what kind of important job they'd give him. Would he be an Accountant? A Merchant? A Royal Scribe? A Teacher? He tried to get in touch with the big shots, to advertise how important he and his fellow Silanbar were, and what great and valuable things they could do for their new masters.

The masters didn't care.

The Kuvexians had computers that could crunch numbers and manage inventories. They thought of themselves as the finest and most noble of negotiators and business people. They didn't think much of the worms of Fat Worm Swamp. As far as the Interstellar Kingdom Of Kuvexia was concerned, value of the people of Skorlamech lay in their ability to catch bullets with their bodies, and to do whatever awful, grimy, unpleasant and violent tasks that the Kuvexians assigned. They were to be thrall-warriors and combat slaves of the lowest order. While the Kuvexians carefully selected a rare few Silanbar to become house servants, such a fate would not befall the swamp-dwellers from Fat Worm. They were too big, too loud, too awkward on land, and as a whole far too aggressive to bother taming for such a purpose. They were to be kitted out in cheap gear and treated as throw-away soldiers just like many others of their kind.

Rickidi spent years serving in this capacity, and the missions started to blend together after the first forty. He'd sit strapped into a dropship or a vehicular carrier, clutching his aether rifle while he waited for doors to open. What kind of place would he see this time? An alien space station? A desert ruin? A jungle fortress? A weapons factory? And who would he have to kill out there? What strange new being would he see down the sights of his rifle, fighting for their life just as passionately and fearfully as he fought for his? In between the shock and horror of the assault missions and raids the Kuvexians sent him on, Rickidi tried to keep his fellow Silanbar together but, mission after mission, he'd lose more and more of them. His dad, his two cousins, his sister Yulzua, one of his favorite former customers back at Fat Worm Swamp… Killed by a grenade, shot down in the hallways of a Yamataian starship, burned to death, eviscerated by an enemy sword. What use were lies and stories when… when your family and friends were… It didn't matter what any of them thought. You held a gun, and you pointed it at the enemy and pulled the trigger. After enough years, when Rickidi looked left and right on the drop-ship, all of his swamp-mates were gone. His family, his friends… He was fighting on a team of strangers. Some of them weren't even Silanbar. They were Elefirn and other strange, unknown species, some of whom Rickidi himself had been ordered to kill, and who were now slaves themselves. But… a soldier served…

Until the day came that he didn't. Things were getting worse for the Kuvexians as their war against Yamatai wore on, and Rickidi knew it. He could count. He had a sense for how many things other people had, and how much those other people needed things. And the Kuvexians had less and less as the months wore on, and they needed more and more stuff they simply didn't have. This series of weaknesses and failures flipped a primitive switch in Rickidi's psyche. He was standing in a line, and a low-ranking Kuvexian officer was deigning to address them. He talked about how well the war was going for the Kingdom, and that any rumors they'd heard about the losses at Glimmergold were mere propaganda. The Kuvexian economy was on the upswing, their military was recruiting record numbers of volunteer troops, and… And Rickidi knew it was all a bunch of lies. He knew a fib when he heard it, and this was a series of galactic-level fibs that the officer was repeating. The Kuvexians economy was collapsing, their military was in shambles, and the Glimmergold planets had been reduced to astral dust.

So Rickidi took a step forward and shot the officer.

After a series of vicious, ordered beatings by his former teammates, Rickidi was sent away to a labor camp on the desert planet Dynatt, located to the galactic northwest of UX-5. There, he encountered Igniy and Soronza, and the three effected a mad escape from the planet aboard a Kuvexian cargo ship.

Skills Learned

Rickidi has the following notable skills:

  • Kuvexian Military Skills that a conscript infantryman would have, as well as conscript-level knowledge of Kuvexian Military Equipment.
  • Interpersonal Communication: As far as most Silanbar go, Rickidi knows how to convey information effectively. The problem is, he'll do so falsely or with ulterior motives much of the time.
  • Dirty-Fighting: Rickidi does not fight fair. He cheats, he uses the environment, he feints and distracts and pulls tricks, and he's more than willing to run away.
  • Mercantile and Inventory: In his 'civilian' days, Rickidi traded worms for various goods and services, and he managed an 'inventory', which was really just a pile of stuff in a swamp.
  • Singing, Poetry: He knows a few good Fat Worm Swamp songs and stories, as well as songs he learned from travelers. His years as a conscript wore away the memories of many of the songs he used to know.
  • Worm-Wrestling: Rickidi used to be a pretty effective grub-grappler and worm-wrangler. Though it's been years, he's still in good physical shape.

Social Connections

All of the family and friends that were conscripted with Rickidi are deceased, or missing in action.

  • Igniy Pulzan Guthri - Igniy's big-brain was essential in their escape from Dynatt. Rickidi respects her ideas and her skills, and appreciates her maternal food-providing instincts.
  • Soronza - This deadly slayer frightens Rickidi as often as they enchant him. Soronza's fighting abilities and cleverness were also key in the escape from Dynatt.

Inventory & Finance

To be determined in-play!

OOC Information

  • Rickidi's introduction came as part of a JP1) with LavaLung.

In the case USERNAME becomes inactive:

  • Can this character be used as an NPC by a GM or FM? YES
  • Can this character be adopted after I've been gone for a year? YES
Character Data
Character NameRickidi Yochemar Albolleri Zickem
Character OwnerHollander
Character StatusActive Player Character
Character's Pronounshe/him

Quality:
characters/independent/rickidi.txt · Last modified: 2024/04/14 17:05 by hollander