Bazille Skovran

Christian Schaller

Background

Bazille Skovran was born and raised amid the snowy slopes of Pioneer, the coldest and northernmost city-state on Terra Nova. At an early age, his parents noticed his creative side and fostered its development through plastic building blocks, coloring books, charcoal pencils and heavy paper, origami kits, and so forth. Around the age of 10 cycles, they gave young Bazille his two most prized childhood possessions. The first was a hand-crafted wooden desk full of writing and drawing supplies. The second was a small personal computer. Armed with his creative hardware, Bazille spent most of his childhood years alone, writing, drawing, or programming, rather than with his peers, skiing or playing hockey.

As a fledgling young adult, he decided to set aside compuing, writing, and drawing as hobbies, and started down the long path towards a career in science. He headed towards planetary science in particular, thanks to his fascination with the planet Ares and its enormous impact crater basin and long-chain organic molecules. These, after all, had been the stuff of countless great science fiction epics from his youth. About halfway through the PhD program at the University of Canterbury's prestigious Space and Planetary Laboratory, however, he realized actual professional science was not for him, and that what he really wanted to do with his life was program computers, write science fiction, and draw.

Profession

Today, Bazille is Chief Systems Analyst at Canterbury SoftTools, Inc., a software development company in Canterbury. CST specializes in scientific and educational software development and contracts with several departments at the University of Canterbury. He specializes in user interface design and network appliance programming.

In addition to his primary job at CST, Bazille has recently become editor for Asymptotic Designs, Inc., a small but highly successful publisher of roleplaying games. ADI, located in Bazille's hometown of Pioneer, has set him loose on one of their most popular game lines, Star Angels. Star Angels, in which humanity must deal with the consequences of uncontrolled genetic engineering, is set four thousand years in the future, in the year 10,000 AD. Bazille hates having to convert the dates from Earth-standard measurement to his more familiar Terranovan equivalents, but is otherwise terribly excited about the job.

Attitudes

Bazille has always been a loner. Although he knows perfectly well how to get along with others and can do so at the drop of a hat, he usually prefers to keep to himself. He truly enjoys the company of others, but it generally detracts from time he could spend writing, drawing, or programming, and that often leaves him in a sour mood. As a result, Bazille usually comes across as somewhat rude when he meets people and when he's in most social settings.

Combat Reactions

Plain and simple, Bazille avoids combat of all kinds. He's well aware of his rudeness and the fact that such behavior can often lead to conflict, so he generally stays away from strangers. If he should ever run into a real combat situation, he will probably freeze up.

Contacts

Ellen Kost (age 38, specialties: criminal psychology and criminal law), his sister and a probation officer with the Pioneer Police Department; Gekko Skovran (age 80, specialities: mechanical design and Heavy Gear architecture), his uncle and one of the most infamous residents of the Badlands town of Johar Ridge; Ben Castille (age 63, specialities: operating system design and philosophy), his boss and friend at Canterbury SoftTools, Inc.; Dru Greer (age 41, specialities: asteroid science and music), a close friend from his grad school days at the University of Canterbury; Jawn Gillphoil (age 43, specialties: computer science and archaeology), a close friend known to Bazille only through e-mail interaction via the H72 network.

Plot Hooks

As an Ally

Once a group of characters gets past Bazille's inherent distrust of strangers, they are likely to find in him a decent friend who is eager to help out in any way he can. He can provide extremely competent technical support for nearly any operating system running on nearly any modern computer. He can write custom software for a wide variety of purposes, ranging mostly from science to education, and will probably just give it away.

As an Opponent

Bazille will almost never become a group's opponent. He will likely avoid interacting directly at all, thus minimizing the chances at being at odds with them. If push comes to shove, he will try to make life a living hell for them through indirect means. He has a remarkable capacity for holding a grudge, and will remember the slightest insult for the rest of his life.

As a Background Resource

During his time as a graduate student, Bazille became close friends with several of the top planetary scientists of modern times (who were graduate students with him at the Space and Planetary Laboratory). Through that network, Bazille can put a group of characters in direct contact with nearly every leading physical scientist on Terra Nova -- even the ones that work under classified government projects.

As a Plot Device

Despite being quite rational and clear-headed about the nature of reality, Bazille has a secret spot in his heart for paranormal activity and government conspiracy. He doesn't believe any of it, but he's interested enough that he might easily drive such plots.

Vital Statistics

Attributes

Skills

^*specialization

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