Tym Crawford
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Author: Jim Vassilakos
Homepage:
System: Traveller RPG
Type: NPC
Category: Science Fiction
Requirements:

Background:

"Put your hands against the wall... pretty please?"

While Tym was a fetus, his mother, a textiles worker on Vili, was taking drugs during her pregnancy, one of which goes by the name of Cyrspasium-hydrilexate, also called "Spaz" or "Curse" in the streetslang depending upon its form. The drug was a popular hallucinogen for the times, and is still produced and distributed in vast quantities by the underworld. Its effects on the unborn, however, have proven fatal in most cases due to a complete collapse of the immune system. Tym was found to be dependent on the drug at birth, and on the brink of death due to the unchecked symptoms of the common cold.

Through state-supplied biotherapy, the addiction in both mother and child was cured. However, as a result of early complications, Tym retains a very unstable immune system. In fact, the cold that he was born with has never subsided, and he has lived with it and a number of other minor afflictions throughout his life.

Tym's mother committed suicide only a year after his birth, and his father was never discovered as the pregnancy was a result of rape. Tym was placed in an orphan home until the age of seven when he was adopted by a 1st cousin, Steev Crawford. Although Steev was only ten years older than Tym, he was allowed to assume the role of a foster parent on the grounds of blood-relation.

Tym stayed with Steev Crawford and three other friends in a small urban apartment of Ridgecrest's poor district on Vili for four years until the group broke up after Steev was killed in a gangland war. Tym abruptly dropped out of primary school, but he tested into and attended Ridgecrest secondary. The experience was marked by violence and feuding with rival gang members, yet despite the distractions, he did manage to stay in school, and for his senior year he ranked in the top five percent of his class.

After graduation from Ridgecrest, he applied for admission to the Imperial Academy of Science and Medicine, and to Columbus College of Vili with the idealistic notion that if accepted to either school, he would be able to find a way to restore his immune system to full functioning order. His applications were refused on both counts. Through connections, however, he managed to secure a spot in the work-training program at Ridgecrest Scientific Labs. There he studied computers and gravitics, but was offered no opportunities for advancement. After four years he reapplied for admission to IASM and Columbus, and applied to Indi College of Biological Science and the Vili Spaceport Authority for a job interview. Again, on all counts, he was denied acceptance.

That same year he was jailed for unlawful resistance of arrest which constituted the running from two watch officers for no apparent reason when called over to be questioned. The maximum sentence of a year was imposed by the court.

At an age of twenty-three years, Tym enlisted and was accepted into the Indi Armed Forces. He was placed in Infantry Recon at the request of his Recruiting Department and served a full four years of training which encompassed primarily Mechanics and Recon. In 650SI he started his second term of service as an advisor for the planetary watch on Vili in the chaotic districts of Ridgecrest.

Personality: Tym is a bit on the dreamy side, his grey eyes often taking on a distant and stormy veil when he becomes engaged in tasks he considers boring. His job, however, which entails keeping on the constant lookout and making fairly consistent arrests, often conflicts with this aspect of his personality. Thus, he's been known to get into trouble for not being on his toes. Tym is also very polite, almost to a fault, having learned long ago that it doesn't pay to make enemies. Likewise, he is shy of gun spray, once having been found hiding under a vehicle shaking with terror after a short skirmish with the Skulls, one of the more prominent Ridgecrest gangs.

Stats:

Possessions: Cr500
One Advanced Combat Rifle with eighty rounds of
ammunition.
An old but still usable vacc-suit previously
owned by an uncle (Steev's father).

Adventure Seeds:

1. Outside the starport on Vili, the party gets attacked by the Trogs, one of the more xenophobic gangs in the Ridgecrest district. During the skirmish, the local police arrive, and one of the party members is wounded and captured by the Trogs in the crossfire. The Vili police halt the party's pursuit, as only one of them (a lowly advisor on lease from the Army) speaks even a smattering of the interstellar tongue. After some heated words, they decide to haul the party into the station for questioning. The police later make a disgruntled apology about letting the Trogs get away with their friend and bluntly advise the party that the individual is as good as dead. Tym, however, tells the party that the Trogs have recently gained a new leader who has connections with the off-world slave market and that their friend probably isn't dead. He also tells the party that he may be able to aid in finding the friend provided he doesn't have to enter combat. Of course, there will be a certain price involved if they are interested.

2. The party is attacked as before, however, nobody is captured. Instead, their medic is hit in the chest and goes down. When Tym arrives on the scene with the police, he administers drugs to immobilize the character's metabolism long enough to get him to surgery. Afterward, while answering questions in the hospital, the character realizes that Tym is a close relative. Due to cut-backs in the IAF (Indi Armed Forces), Tym has the option of mustering out early; that is if their captain wants to offer him a position on the crew.

3. The party is attacked as before, however, over the course of the initial investigation, it is determined that the attack was not xenophobic in origin, but merely painted as such. The police believe the attack was a contracted hit, perhaps by somebody off- world whom the party has somehow managed to piss-off, perhaps even by somebody in subsector government. Due to the strange nature of the case, Tym is quietly transferred to the investigative division and told to apply for a position on the crew so as to keep an eye on the party while they are inside the subsector. Thus, regardless of his skills, his resume will be impeccable.