Freelance
Traveller“Swede” Tormundson
This article originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of the downloadable magazine.
“Swede” Tormundson 762985 Age 38 Cr 100,000
5 terms Pirate Sergeant
Engineering-2, Gunnery-2, Tactics-1, Brawling-1, Pilot-1, Shotgun-1,
Shotgun, Vacc Suit, Expandable Baton
Swede is a drunk with sunken eyes, and a somewhat haunted look. He cannot look a Scout or Free Trader captain in the eye without at least twitching. He is medium build, and wiry, despite looking rather unhealthy; he has dirty blond hair, with a touch of grey. He easily looks a decade older than he is. He is of Solomani stock, though there is an odd look to his eyes that betrays this is more mixed than might be immediately apparent. He bears significant scars on his entire body, evidencing small cuts and burns, and some low tech tattoos removals. He wears an old set of IISS scout coveralls with a pair of obviously repaired holes in the torso; he will be evasive or eventually hostile if questioned about these.
Swede worked on a series of pirate crews, some of which were really free traders which would “cross the line” on occasions. His longest stint was on Suicide Kings, one of a pair of mercenary cruisers that acted as a pirates, reavers, and unlicensed mercenary ships. There were only a few bad scrapes where massacres of entire crews occurred, though plenty of shooting occurred when Free Traders refused to heave to for boarding. At some level, he can distance himself from these casualties that occurred when some merchant got brave. More than anything, though, Swede bears gut-wrenching guilt for the massacres of crew and passengers (and Scouts killed before they could jump out) that Suicide Kings and its sister, Jack of Clubs were responsible for. There were other excesses, during boarding and reaving that he has not even admitted to himself.
He has converted to Catholicism, and attempted to enter a religious order, but has been rebuffed because of his heavy drinking. He has tried to quit, and will be sober anytime he ships as a gunner on a Free Trader. He has booked a couple of passages as an auxiliary for the Hospitallers, though their leadership is still discerning whether he can be trusted. He has a feeling that only by “switching sides” can he justify continuing to exist.
He will work an essentially unlimited number of working passages as a gunner on a Free Trader. If given the task of watching the ship as others go ashore, he will even likely stay sober. He has not been given the burden of a heavy-drinking crew, though, so that might cause him to either isolate completely in his cabin or fall off the wagon. When he falls, he usually falls hard.