Schlock Grunder is a player character played by Gardner in the Dark and is currently involved in the NSN 4th Fleet roleplay plot.

Height: Mass: Measurements: Bra Size:

Build and Skin Color: His skin is painted black, with white star like speckles, his build is blocky and tank-like. He's also painted with Mishhu rank and military symbols

Facial Features and Eye Color: N/A

Hair Color and Style: N/A

Distinguishing Features: He frequently will go around with a particularly favored pet or two riding on his back, and in combat she will serve as a tail gunner. To facilitate this he wears straps with tie-downs attached to them that his pets can tie themselves into.

He also has decorated himself with his personal symbol: A red heart with a white crack down the center. The two halves are held together with a black chain and lock.

He will often possess other decorations, lavishly painted upon him by those of his happy pets who possess the ability to paint.

Personality: Grunder is a very Thorough Mishhu, most known for clever use of diversionary tactics and attacks directed against civilian populations. He has a distinct preference for avoiding military presences, and prefers staging raids to conquest. He also enjoys luring ships away from fleets to capture them and bring them home as prizes.

Despite his sadistic and deceitful tactics, he's a surprisingly pleasant and charismatic Mishhu. He will occasionally invite enemy commanders he found particularly difficult foes onto his ship for tea. He will call enemy ships with subtle communication as he attempts to learn as much about them as possible while giving away as little about himself as possible.

He's even kind, in a bizarre way, his personal slaves live relatively pleasant lives compared to more sadistic Mishhu. He treats them like well loved pets, and mourns their injury, death, or loss. This is probably related to the viscous pleasure he takes in creating sleeper cells and internal revolts within an enemy's populace. Any prisoners or slaves he's released are likely brainwashed to serve him quite thoroughly.

Further he's something of a collector. He likes unique people, with either unique personalities, or unique physical attributes and will work extra hard to make them his own. Pets he is particularly proud of he will often brag about, or show off. He rewards his pets depending on his complex scale of ranking, and he will often request that Pets with performance skills (Singing, storytelling, dancing, instrument performance) perform for him. If they're really good at it, he'll ask them to perform for guests too.

Similarly the interior and exterior of the ships he's in charge of are often decorated with his symbol, and a great deal of artwork produced by his favored pets, many of which get something close to free reign to produce their art. Sculptress are often bolted down in mess halls, on the bridge, or in other inspiring locations, hulls and corridors are painted or decorated by hung materials. His pets produce their own clothing using provided supplies.

Those serving him who are not pets tend to be indulgent towards his pets, as they realize that harming his pets is a good way to get selected for a suicide mission a few times.

He likes his pets to be enthusiastic and happy. He also enjoys it when they play with his tentacles. The veneer of happiness and enthusiasm belies the techniques used to draw that out of more stubborn subjects: The training involves breaking the subject emotionally, intellectually, and physically. Once they're broken he can afford to slowly rebuild them, offering kindness and sympathy. Most of his pets would gladly die for him, and they compete for the honor of bearing his eggs.

The slaves who do not make the cut to be his pets are handed out to his crews for their pleasure. Many of his subordinates imitate his style, and select their own pets, but many others do not. He limits the brutalities that can be performed upon the slaves in his fleet slightly, and the brutalities upon his personal ship somewhat more strictly.

Grunder is much more philosophical then many of race, which is part of why he is such a unique individual. he is untrained in philosophy, but has developed his own sophisticated philosophical style. He's only a talented amateur, any professional philosopher could knock his arguments flat.

His biggest weakness is his greed, it makes him manipulable, and it pisses off some of his subordinates who dislike the way he takes the best of the slaves as his own pets, and the death-grip he has on his pets, even when/if he gets bored of them they still get better treatment then any other slave, at the very worst being handed out like party favors to loyal subordinates he trusts to treat them as he would.

Likes: Challenges. Obedience. Creativity. His Pets. Uniqueness. Subtly. Art. Beauty. Dislikes: Threats to him. Damage to his Pets. Stupidity. Uncivilized behavior. Goals: His goal is to collect many great leaders and interesting people in the universe to be his pets and keep him entertained for the remainder of his life. He would really like to have the empress as his pet.

• Pets of particular importance to him
• James D'Accord: Former Nepleslian ID-Sol with cybernetic arms, legs and one cybernetic eye. Transformed into a woman, serves as a bodyguard. She pretends to be a stoic, but in truth she loves showing off.
• Kasha: Former Patrician youth she was blinded, partly by brain damage, in the attack on her ship. Grunder decided not to give her new eyes. She serves as an entertainment slave. Due to the trauma she's a bit childish, and she doesn't remember much from before Grunder started caring for her. It's questionable if she knows what he is.
• Dionysodoros: Former Caelisolan bio-engineer, has been helping to modify the Mishhu ships. Also former male.
• Tessa: Nekovaljara, Tessa often serves as one of Grunder's bodyguards. She's highly suspicious of outsiders, especialy other nekos.
• CJ-47: A freespacer who's mostly valued for her rarity. Grunder's having a hard time keeping her alive.
• Lacquer: An artist. Has been instrumental in redecorating Grunder's fleet.
• Sholam: A plebician cook who is quite skilled.
• Kyia: A Lorath dancer, mostly kept around for her rarity value
• Zetsu: A Helashio slave with embedded collar. She was found in a drifting cold sleep storage pod, and seemed to enjoy being a slave, plus she came with a control device. She mostly cleans, and she also serves as a caretaker for slaves who are under breeding age, and some young Mishhu.

Grunder has served on the Mishhu YMX war's front. Several times during invasions he has shown impressive amounts of skill and ingenuity, and is rapidly raising in rank. Recently he's been promoted to a full commander of his own fleet, and he's been on something of a power-trip since. He started gaining rank, skills, and becoming more and more bunny ears insane, in mushhu terms, ever since he captured a book on psychology and read through it. The information contained within the book made him greedy for more, and he began watching mishhu, captured prisoners, and others trying to apply the psychology he learned and learn more.

This gave him many predictive skills, but also gave him something most Mishhu lack: Empathy. Due to his empathy the slaves that he is directly responsible for live a relatively good life. However his views and beliefs are still rather warped. He, for example, believes that the universe would be a better place if most of it's residents were his slaves. The construction of his pleasure palace was one of his many quirks that have been developing recently.

Grunder is familiar with basic radio operation and procedures and can make transmissions to and receive transmissions from other characters through telepathy, headsets, starships, power armor, and shuttles in both combat and non-combat conditions. He is fluent in Nepleslian, Yamataian, Mishhu, and Elysian. He can speak and write both all efficiently and can write reports, fill forms, issue orders under fire, etc.

Grunder is capable of operating any computer system that uses the Mishhu OS, found on all NMX starships. He is proficient in entering and/or searching for information.

Grunder character received hand-to-hand combat training, followed up with a rigorous training program. He is skilled and experienced in combat both in planetary conditions and in zero-gravity, with and without weapons. Weapons she is trained in include energy pistols, knives, and power armor.

Grunder is trained in tactics and command. The command part allows him to acquire personal loyalty from his closer troops. The tactics part allows him to develop plans, tactics, and stratifies for combat, raiding, and conquest. He is also capable of modifying a plan in the heat of battle should something go wrong. He's very fond of ambush and harrying tactics, and is less fond of siege.

He's also trained in analysis, correlation, and interpretation of Military Intelligence. This keeps him well informed and abreast of most situations.

Grunder understands Psychology and Sociology well enough to use them to predict his opponent's actions in combat, as well as using the things he has learned to his advantage when training and preparing his pets. For one thing it allows him to realize what situations his foes are predictable in. This makes him a difficult foe to fight, as he tries to turn his foe's strengths into weaknesses and his weaknesses into strengths. To make matters worse he uses it to secure enthusiastic loyalty from his pets, who he often puts to work subtly improving his fleet.

Grunder is trained in basic mathematics, up to calculus and he is also trained in statistics and probability prediction.

Grunder is very skilled at reading people and detecting when they are lying. He makes regular use of this skill with his volunteer pets, and with other commanders with whom he is negotiating. He also has a terrific poker-face, and is a consummate haggler during diplomatic deals. He enjoys little wagers and games of chance, and will often try to stack the odds in his favor by, for example, counting cards. (I'm not sure if this falls under rogue category)

Schlock Grunder is currently a Commander in the NMX. She receives a weekly salary of -salary- per week.

• 1 custom built Starbase/Starfort Communion Base
• 1 custom built command ship “Eyeblink”
• 1 NMX Flagship
• 2 NMX Line Battleships
• 1 NMX Battle Carrier
• 4 NMX Escort/Destroyer
• 8 NMX Scouts
• 24 NMX Listening Post
• 16 NMX landing-ships
• 3 NMX hands of terror
• 1 NMX light shipyard
• 6 Tugs/freighters
• 30-40 NMX decoy-ships
• 6 NMX Starship Killers
• 3 NMX Asteroid Miners
• 5 phase ships

Captured ships

• 3 yui class scouts
• 1 Nougaku-Class Agriculture Vessel
• 1 Firefly class
• 2 Evangalist cruisers
• 1 Avenger Class Carrier
• 12 Concordia class scouts
• 2 Thantos class destroyers
• 1 Nepleslian C3E

It might be possible to bribe him into leaving alone, or even assisting a non-mishhu fleet with the offer of pets. Especially if the pets are volunteers.

Getting him to actively undermine the Mishhu would be much more difficult, and require bribing him with very special pets.

For RP with Uso