[table][row][cell][color=Gainsboro] [hr][h2][color=#0080ff]Gravel[/color][/h2][hr] [color=ff3838][sub][b]History[/b][/sub][/color] [justify]Garran “Gravel” Voith was born on Callisto in 2120, at the heart of Jovian industry. He grew up amid the black-market boom of stimulants, the lifeblood of independence during the Jovian Secession. Factories needed their workers awake around the clock to fuel economic freedom from Sol and Garran quickly learned that selling what the corporations needed was worth far more than their own rules. By his twenties, he was moving contraband in bulk, not just stims but anything that was worth slipping past tariffs and duties. He bribed officials to scrub names from blacklists, compensated inspectors enough to forget their jobs and turned a decent portion of Callisto’s streets into his personal marketplace. By the 2140s, Garran had been folded into a Jovian outlaw guild, The Syndic Eight, one of the most powerful networks that dominated piracy, smuggling and contraband across Jovian space. His success earned him a strong seat at the council table, where his voice carried real weight. The guild gave him protection, legitimacy and the resources to expand. When one of his corporate allies was posted to a pivotal Transit Anchor, Garran leveraged that connection to build a smuggling fleet, stretching his influence far beyond Callisto. For decades, he was indispensable, the man who could move all kinds of cargo, hush up a scandal and make your shipment appear in the right hands. Yet his reputation wasn’t only forged in boardrooms and back alleys. Garran was a duelist, infamous for settling disputes at gunpoint. The nickname “Gravel” came from a throat wound that left his voice ruined, wearing it as a badge of survival. For years, he balanced his roles, guild elder, smuggler-king and the last man you wanted to face across ten paces. But power has a half-life. Over time, his senior contacts aged out of their positions and were replaced by younger, sharper faces. The guild itself began to change, corporatised, polished, no longer built for bruisers and gunmen like Garran. Rivals muscled into his markets while he refused to split his attention between planet and space, losing ground in both. Jovian's corporate overlords shifted their stance, legalising and taxing stimulants that had once made him rich. And finally, the Bloc Crisis slammed Sol blocspace into lockdown, severing Anchor routes that his trade depended on. His empire didn’t collapse in a blaze; it withered. Contracts dried up, favours went unreturned and younger guild members adapted where he could not. For a man who always imagined he’d go out in a blaze of glory, the quiet erosion of his legacy was unbearable. Garran turned to the very substances he once sold, drowning his bitterness in drink and stimulants. It was inevitable he’d pick a fight. Half-drunk, half-spun, he challenged a rival duelist to prove he wasn’t finished. Instead, he lost, [i]badly[/i]. An ironically cruel bit mercy kept him alive, forcing him to walk away with broken pride and shoddy implants that barely held him together. Now, in 2178, Garran is no longer a guild elder, kingpin, or feared gunslinger. Instead, he's a consigliere. A relic of another era, too dangerous to dismiss, too ruined to lead. His hands are unsteady, his contacts are old but his tongue is still sharp and his mind still knows every trick of the Anchor lanes.[/justify] [color=ff3838][sub][b]Personality & Reputation[/b][/sub][/color] [justify]Cynical survivor. Garran has seen syndicates rise and fall and corporate masters shuffle in and out. It’s left him pragmatic, sardonic and slow to trust idealists. Bravado masking bitterness. He clings to swagger and sharp wit but the shine is gone. Sometimes it seems as if he’s trying to convince himself he’s still dangerous. Respected… but pitied. Older spacers remember him as a ruthless smuggler and quick-draw duelist. Younger ones see only the bottle, the tremor and the man who lost the duel that broke him. Addictive personality. He doesn’t just drink and stim, he chases risk, arguments and conflict. Garran is addicted to being important and spirals when he isn’t. Despite all this, he’s still invaluable in the right role. The consigliere who knows when to cut a deal, when to stall and when to pull the trigger.[/justify] [color=ff3838][sub][b]Appearance[/b][/sub][/color] [justify]Age: 58. Build: Broad but slouched, the frame of a man who once commanded presence. Softened by age, stimulants, and drink. Cybernetics: Left arm replaced with outdated Callisto-made augments. Plating worn smooth, servos sometimes glitch. Facial subdermal patches from the final duel, one eye slightly offset, leaving him with a permanent squint. Style: Wears outdated Solar syndicate fashion long high-collared coats, battered jewellery, boots with old-world flair. Notable detail: His voice is his most recognisable feature, gravelly, broken, like every word costs effort. It’s equal parts unsettling and iconic. Aura: The smell of smoke, old liquor and ozone from overworked implants. The kind of presence that enters a room before he speaks.[/justify] [color=ff3838][sub][b]Strengths & Limitations[/b][/sub][/color] [justify][b]Strengths[/b] Connections: Decades of favours, bribes and deals mean he still knows people across Sol and Jovian blocs. Negotiator: Reads people fast, knows what they want and how to twist it. Half threats, half persuasion. Street wisdom: Can smell a setup, spot a mark and tell when someone’s lying. Instincts honed by surviving long after he should’ve been dead. Still dangerous. Though slower now, if given time to steady his hands, he can still put a shot exactly where it needs to go. [b]Limitations[/b] Declining body: Tremors, dulled reflexes and fading stamina. He’s not built for long firefights anymore. Addiction: Dependent on drink and stimulants. Sharp when dosed right, unstable when he isn’t. Paranoia: Convinced everyone’s working an angle. Sure, he's often right but it makes him abrasive. Relic mentality: Stuck in old ways of doing business. Resistant to new methods or tech, which could frustrate other crew.[/justify] [color=ff3838][sub][b]Miscellaneous[/b][/sub][/color] [justify]Criminal record: Long list of smuggling, racketeering, Anchor fraud and bodily harm charges across Federation space. Cybernetics: Callisto arm, patchwork implants from his duel loss, out-of-date and prone to malfunctions. Belongings: - A battered, customised hand-cannon he still carries (symbol of pride, even if his hand shakes). - A deck of old-fashioned playing cards, yellowed with age. Reputation nicknames: “Gravel” for his ruined voice but also “The Old Dog” in some circles, usually muttered with a mix of mockery and respect. Fun fact: Carries around an empty stim-vial on a chain like a talisman. Supposedly the first batch he ever sold, though more likely it’s just a reminder of when he mattered.[/justify] [/color][/cell][cell][sub][sup][color=2e2c2c]____________________________________________________________________________[/color][/sup][/sub][hr][color=Gainsboro][h3]◤ [sub]“I ain't dead yet.”[/sub][/h3][/color] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/SszmvzYJ/Gravel.png[/img] [hr][color=ff3838][b]Full Name:[/b][/color] Garran “Gravel” Voith [color=ff3838][b]Age:[/b][/color] 58 [color=ff3838][b]Homeworld:[/b][/color] Callisto (Jovian Commonwealth) [color=ff3838][b]Occupation:[/b][/color] Consigliere, former crime boss [color=ff3838][b]Affiliation(s):[/b][/color] Former Jovian crime syndicates, The Syndic Eight, currently serving aboard the Dullahan [hr][/cell][/row][/table] [hider=Crew Opinions] [hider=Everest] [i]Met the kid in a bar - where else. Walked in like fresh meat, barely knew which way was up, and already had half the room sizing him for a coffin. Would’ve been a short story if I hadn’t stepped in. Don’t know why I did. Habit, maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see how he’d spin it. He talked to me straight. No polish, no act. Spilled the whole rotten truth about how he got his ship, and it weren’t clean. Underhanded, some would say. Smart, I’d say. Shows a streak of grit under the green, and that caught me. World don’t reward honesty, but there he was, laying it all out on the table like he thought someone might care. I almost sent him packing anyway. Kid didn’t know what he was asking for, not really. But I was already a few drinks deep and wallowing in my own ghosts, and damned if it didn’t sound like something worth stickin’ around to see. Might be he burns out fast, might be he learns to swim. Either way, it’s a story I ain’t heard before, and that counts for somethin’ these days.[/i][/hider] [hider=Vĩnh] [i]Too clean. First day aboard I pegged her for the type that irons her socks, if she wears any. Straight back, straight words, everything in order. Which begs the question: what the hell’s she doin’ here? Nobody signs on with this crew for the pension. So I dug. On the surface she reads just like she wants it to, law school, clerk work, résumé polished bright as a badge. Nothing under the nails. But Callisto’s small, and I’ve got friends in smaller places. Turns out our little steward’s been knockin’ on basement doors after all. Not for chrome or edge, just carbon-fibre sticks, blacked-out eyes, and meds. Not the fun kind either. Folk remembered her ‘cause she was boring. Boring, [b]and[/b] desperate. Now she’s here, pouring coffee and pretending she ain’t knee-deep in the muck with the rest of us. Can hear it in the way she talks at me, polite, careful, like I’m poison she don’t wanna breathe. Calls me ‘Mr. Gravel.’ Cute. She don’t like me, not a bit. That’s fine. What grinds is the hypocrisy. Wants to believe she’s still clean, but you don’t swim with sharks and act surprised when you spot one. I’ll keep what I found close. No sense showin’ a whole hand. Maybe she’s useful, maybe she ain’t. Time’ll tell. But I’ll be watchin’. Always do.[/i][/hider] [hider=KC] [i]Can’t look at her too long. Not ‘cause of the scars or the shakes, I’ve seen worse, been worse, but because it’s like starin’ in a busted mirror. Not your face comin’ back, but everything you’ve done, bent out of shape. I don’t want it shoved in front of me. She’s sittin’ there with that crooked grin, jitter in her shoulders, eyes too wide, and all I see is the echo of choices. My choices. Things I pushed, things I let slide. And maybe that’s just the liquor talkin’, maybe I’m seein’ ghosts where there ain’t any, but it bites. Don’t wanna think on it too long. So I turn away. Order another. Let the burn do its work. Easier than askin’ the questions I already know the answers to.[/i] [/hider] [hider=Laughtrack] [i][b]Another[/b] kid, and this one don’t shut up. Sit with him a few minutes and you’ll hear his life story five times in five different ways, swearing on his own bones each one’s the truth. Scrap-rat grin, voice bouncing, laughs like he’s got a detonator wired to his lungs. Some folk find it infectious. Me? I figure all that chatter, all those stories, ain’t for us at all. It’s for him. A way to drown out the quiet. Better than hittin’ the bottle, I guess. Can’t deny the nerve, though. Treats the black like it’s his second skin. Crawls into wrecks no sane soul would touch, straps charges to bulkheads like he’s stringin’ up party streamers. And somehow, [b]somehow[/b], he always comes back with something worth the trouble. Scrap, gear, even a body if it’s worth the drag. That kind of consistency, I can respect.[/i] [/hider] [hider=Chef] [i]Chef. Straightforward name, straightforward job. Every ship needs someone to keep the crew fed, keep the edge off the grind. First look at him online, he’s plain as dust. Job logs, rental slips, the kind of paper trail that says ‘average man.’ But I don’t shake an itch easy. Scratch deeper and you find talk of a restaurant on Ganymede that went under. Depending on who you ask, he was either the mastermind running a front or just another sap strung along. Truth’s probably somewhere in the middle. Figure that’s how he washed up here. Still, credit where it’s due. Man works hard, no fuss, no drama, and a hot meal can go far in this life. Crew eats better than most ships I’ve been on. I’ll keep that story of his in my back pocket for now. He’s useful, steady. Not a problem, unless he decides to be one.[/i] [/hider] [hider=Ringworm] [i]Centaurian blocspace, where they don’t just raise men, they grow ’em like crops. Hard to run a smuggling line in a place like that; ain’t just the patrols, it’s the people. When the dockworker’s bred to load crates and the clerk’s bred to tally ‘em, there ain’t much appetite for what you’re selling. Not that I was scared of trying, just knew there's no profit in bangin’ your head against a wall with no seams. Not to mention the stories that came back from the few pirates who tried. Squads that never bent or broke? Enough to make even the boldest of men think twice. And now I’m lookin’ at Ringworm, product of all that. Muscle stitched with steel, eyes like a drill bit, steady as a gun mount. Funny thing, that kid Laughtrack keeps whisperin’ I’m the robot, but this one? Closest thing I've seen to it. Makes me wonder: is he here ‘cause he chose to be, or is he just a leashed Centaurian? A quiet reminder the Triarchy’s still got their hand on our reins.[/i][/hider] [hider=NPC's] [b]Big Mo[/b] [i]Every man in this line of work’s got a “guy.” The one you call when the heat’s on and the goods need to walk themselves into clean hands. Big Mo was mine. Reliable as the sun rising. Didn’t matter if it was guns, chems, or scrap stamped with the wrong seal, Mo could make it vanish into the system and come out the other end lookin’ like it belonged there. He was easy to shape, too. Burned by the Feds, unable to chew through the bullshit of Jovian boardrooms, but still hungry enough for fast helios. Perfect mix. Of course, didn’t hurt that he looked like he could crush a skull without setting down his clipboard. Half the time, folks saw him coming and assumed muscle; never realised the real danger was the paperwork he carried. Mo wasn’t one for the thick of it, and I never asked him to be. Better off behind the crates than in front. I kept him out of trouble, let him do what he did best. And now? Couldn’t imagine shipping out without him. Would feel like I’d lost another arm.[/i] [b]Brenko[/b] [i]Some folk you don’t need to talk to in order to understand them. Brenko’s one of ’em. First day aboard, we traded a nod and that was all. Haven’t needed more since. Man’s got the same weight in his stare I’ve carried half my life. We got common ground: corps are a stain upon the 'verse. Difference is, he don’t dress it up. No talk of crusades or futures, just helios on the table. He’s pure pragmatist, colder than me in that way. I still cling to the idea there’s more to it than coin. Brenko? Man’s honest enough not to bother. I respect it. And I respect the silence. Could sit across a table from him for hours without a word and it wouldn’t be awkward, just steady. But part of me, the part that still itches for old thrills, can’t help but wonder what’d happen if steel cleared leather. He’s one of the few that I think could've walked ten paces with me. The thought makes me smile. A duel worth the blood.[/i] [b]Doc[/b] [i]The Doc. Every ship’s got one, ‘cause bullets and blades don’t care if you’ve got a good cook or a sharp pilot. This one though, he ain’t your usual back-alley sawbones. Too much skill in the hands, too much calm in the eyes. Don’t fit the shit he works in. I’ve heard the stories back on Callisto - malpractice, theft, experiments, corruption. Take your pick, everyone’s got a version. I keep that dirt to myself. No sense spreading it, not yet. What matters is he’s here now, and he works cheap. But I don’t miss how his scalpel lingers. Man enjoys his work a little too much, looks at a wound like it’s a Rubik's Cube. And that kind of curiosity? Don’t sit right. Makes me feel like I’m the specimen under glass. I’ve lived too long in this life to take kindly to that.[/i] [/hider] [/hider]