Othis Balpiene

Phases

1. Growing up: Life was tough in the vacuum yards of Hammerhead, but Othis learned his way around a ship. While not wealthy, his parents fixed spaceships, and didn't ask how they got broken - they got by. When he was old enough, as expected in Hammerhead, he was sent out on his own to make his own way.

• Know my way around a ship
• Grew up around space pirates

2. Starting out: Othis signed on as a techie with a well-known interstellar pirate crew, with a Topiary-constructed, knockoff Galliard pinnacle, the Ijolte Indy. It was pretty dull, except for the extremely exciting bits. He learned to keep his head in a crisis, and by virtue of being the low man on the totem pole assigned to grunt duty, made friends with ransomed hostages from various systems before and after they were returned.

• Cool head in a crisis
• Contacts in every port

3. Moment of crisis: The Ijolte Indy was damaged in a, truth be told, accidental fight with Galliard slavers in Green Sun system. Repairs were so expensive that the captain said he had to lay off many crew in the Green Sun system. But a lot of the other crew weren't laid off. Othis lost his arm in the fight. Maybe that was the reason? Through good luck, it eventually got replaced with bionics, but the captain might not have expected that. For a while, Othis wasn't sure what to do with himself. But Shine Arcadian helped: Othis even managed to get a job at their university.

• Bionic arm
• Shine helped me when I was down

4. Sidetracked: Phadrea Brandishgun, the famous artist, was once a ransomee on the Ijolte Indy. Othis made friends with her during her captivity. She introduced him to the world of literature.

• There's more to life than space piracy
• Galliard politics is complex

5. On your own: Othis has recovered from his injury, and after taking courses at Green Sun's university, he's looking for more ship work.

• Eclectic education
• Planets are dull, but restful