[hider=Jonnie][center][hr] [color=Silver][IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/2re0fop.jpg[/IMG][/color][hr][/center] [color=fff79a][b]Name[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Jovan "Jonnie" Katz[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Gender[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Male[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Age[/b][/color] [color=Silver]17 (January 14, 1897)[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Sexuality[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Fancies women[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Race[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Fhiraldian expatriate, resident of Deventer.[/color] [hr] [color=fff79a][b]Appearance[/b][/color] [color=Silver]A young Fhiraldian with a fresh, bright look, and that dark complexion common with other Fhiraldians. Jonnie stands at a solid 6' with a build lean from work, but still boyish. Until very recently he had the face of a newborn babe, but now he regularly sports the stubble of trench beard, at least until he has a chance to get under a razor. Presently, his general demeanor is casual, happy-to-be-here, and it shows. He has an easy smile and relaxed posture that makes him look friendly and approachable. Jonnie wears the standard dress and battle dress uniforms of the Atlantic Federation army. He's currently rather proud of his soldiery, so he keeps his uniform scrupulously maintained whenever he can. He pays particular attention to his cap. Apart from that, he wears a small hunting dagger, the handle simple and wrapped in black leather, that is a memento from his father. [/color] [color=fff79a][b]Height[/b][/color] [color=Silver]6'[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Personality[/b][/color] [color=Silver]The first thing about Jonnie is that he is eager. Eager to see the world, eager to do what's right. He's never fired a shot in malice, but he reckons he can do it, especially for the cause. And his cause is for Fhirald as much as it is for the Federation. His memories of Fhirald are from his early childhood, but the love of country has been kept alive in the expatriate community he lived in. Jonnie has joined up with the Federation to give the Imperials a black nose, to beat them back so Fhirald can have a chance to be free again. He's an easygoing sort that values loyalty and fairness, and he himself is honest to the point of being almost guileless. An affable guy, he goes out of his way to make friends. He especially likes hard workers and isn't much for idleness, for himself or others. That said, while he is not especially given to introspection, the right thing can leave him dwelling on it for hours. [/color] [hr] [color=fff79a][b]Rank[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Private[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Role[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Shocktrooper[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Equipment[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Short-Magazine Longfield Rifle Sword bayonet Shrapnel-Ragnite bombs Memento knife [/color] [color=fff79a][b]Potentials[/b][/color] [color=Silver] Still earning his bones - a Fhiraldian man isn't a real man until he earns his bones, Jonnie believes. It's a sore spot of his that he hasn't had the chance to do so yet, and until he does so it will hobble his confidence as a soldier. Solidarity - having trusted friends at his side keeps Jonnie motivated, and he's always willing to give a helping hand to a friend in need. Fhiraldian Pride - Jonnie closely identifies with his childhood homeland, and wanting to live up to it gives him a boost of energy when under fire.[/color] [hr] [color=fff79a][b]Biography[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Jovan was born in Fhirald and lived the first five years of his life there in a rural region of the country near the Imperial-Fhirald border. His father Goran and mother Zora were agricultural laborers; Fhirald, a small country, was still only beginning to reap the gains of ragnite-fueled industry. Jovan's memories of this early childhood are only faint impressions, but, as a child does, he remembers them fondly. Though rural, his hometown was no idyll pasture. Border areas were where Darcsens tried to escape from Imperial pogroms, meaning that the Empire would send their Darcsen hunting squads to scour the region, the territorial sovereignty of other nations notwithstanding. The not infrequent skirmishes between the Empire and Fhirald--which, in hindsight, could have been as much for the purpose of probing Fhiraldian border defense as it was about capturing Darcsens fleeing from persecution--convinced the Katzes to migrate to Federation lands. In any case, the Katzes were not alone, as many Fhiraldians were migrating to the Federation while the prospect of a looming war was on everyone's lips. The Katz family settled into a neighborhood of other Fhiraldian expats in the city of Deventer, close enough to be feasible and just far enough away from the Imperial border to feel safe. The expats as a group encountered the complicated tensions that tend to accompany migrants: acceptance and resentment, friends and prejudices. They were not, however, Imperials, and that was mollifying enough. That, and that the Federation was rapidly industrializing and was hungry for labor to mine, refine, and process ragnite. Goran and Zora had to adjust, but eventually Goran found work in a ragnoline processing plant while Zora became a domestic worker. Jovan, though, took to the city well, as a child does. He began calling himself Jonnie, modeling himself after his schoolmates--an education was another thing the move from a rural Fhirald village to a Federation city provided. In short order it was natural to him to think of himself as an Atlantic. But he didn't forget Fhirald, either, not in the close-knit expat community. Men and women would tell stories of the old country. And they would tell their worries, too, as news trickled from home with each new expatriate to arrive to the neighborhood. Still, not all Fhiraldian practices could keep going in the city. The Katz family had a boar skull on the mantle, the skull of the animal Goran had killed to earn his bones, as Fhiraldian men do. That Jonnie couldn't earn his weighed heavily on his young mind. His father told him not to worry, that it was just an old practice, not suited for the times. That didn't stop Jonnie from trying to beg the local butcher for a chance to earn his bones, but the old Fhiraldian just wrinkled his nose, heartily patted the boy's back, and laughed him out of the store. In time, Jonnie became a man, bones or not, and started to work in the same ragnoline plant as his father when he became fifteen. The Imperial declaration of war against the Federation the previous year meant the plant was scrambling for workers to fulfill the government contracts for more ragnoline. Jonnie did his work well, casting the solid billets of semi-refined ragnite crystal into the furnace, where it would soon become a fuel that could be used for any number of applications. The work was physical, demanding, and honest, something a Fhiraldian could respect. More and more migrants from Fhirald had been arriving at the time, in the midst of the war; the plant was mostly Fhiraldian by the time Jonnie started. And every break, everyone talked about the same thing: the Imperial invasion of Fhirald. That the Imperial Alliance would want to occupy Fhirald while they had the chance in the middle of the war with the Federation was of no surprise to anyone, but the anxiety was palpable. At this point, some of the expats in the community went back home. They didn't return. There was some talk about whether Goran would go, too, but he was one of those that elected to stay. Jonnie respected his father too much to think worse of him for his decision, but still Jonnie wondered why his father wouldn't go to protect his homeland. Then, seemingly as quick as it had started, the war in Fhirald was over. Though the Fhiraldian crown army had put up a stalwart defense, there was little hope they could succeed against the Imperial war machine. The king elected to quit the fight rather than draw it out. A young general officer named Jaeger read out the statement of surrender to an audience and the expat community read that statement in the papers the next day, among the angry debates and silent resignation and everything in between. But Fhirald was gone--that was undebatable. And the war between the Federation and the Alliance continued. The tenor in the Federation changed, too, with the fall of Fhirald. Suddenly a whole front of the war had closed off and the Imperial army was shifting units to the fight with the Federation, the newspapers would breathlessly report. The plant got more contracts. The migrants from Fhirald continued to arrive, but much fewer than there had been even just a few months before. The situation was urgent and the Federation issued another call for soldiers, the most recent in a series of such calls. This time, however, Jonnie decided that he would go. Jonnie went to his parents for their blessings. His mother Zora agreed with a nod. She had been one of those in silent resignation, but the women in the community would talk about the country whenever they met, and she remembered Fhirald and hurt for it. His father Goran, however, was anxious. He would send his only son to be a soldier, and they needed the income from Jonnie's job, and Jonnie was still just a boy, and this and that. Jonnie was adamant, though, and for a time it looked like the two of them were at a crossroads, and Jonnie would leave no matter what. But one day Jonnie saw his father looking at that boar skull, the sun-bleached bones, for hours. Then, reluctantly, Goran gave Jonnie his Fhiraldian knife. If Jonnie was to be a soldier, Goran said, then he needed to earn his bones, and this knife is how he would do it. Jonnie enlisted the next day. [/color] [color=fff79a][b]Affiliations[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Goran Katz - Jonnie's father. For personal reasons, he initially opposed Jonnie enlisting with the Federation army. Zora Katz - Jonnie's mother. Someone who dearly remembers the old country.[/color] [color=fff79a][b]Relationships[/b][/color] [color=Silver]~N/A~[/color] [/hider]