Rogozhin
 | |
| Discord | @jit |
|---|---|
| jit_SR5 | |
| Metatype | Human |
| Street Cred | 0 |
| Notoriety | 0 |
| Public Awareness | 0 |
| Titles and Awards | Accomplice of Pain |
| CDP | 17 |
| D.O.B. | January 17, 2063 |
| Age | 23 |
| Folder | Roro's Soul Jar |
| Priority | Metatype - E Attributes - B Magic - A Skills - E Resources - B |
| Initiation Counter | 2 |
| Initiation Grade | 1 |
| Initiation Ordeals | TBA |
| Theme Song | Baby - Iggy Pop |
Character Information
CONTENT WARNING: ANIMAL ABUSE, DEATH, AND ENSLAVEMENT
Summary
The smell of death is all around |
Goals
- Remove the Kink Bomb From His Head
- Tear Down the Dark Star and Jewel of Pyotr Volkovi, Zhizn Volkovi
- Transcend the Role of Tool, and Bring Others Under His Boot Before They Can Do So to Him
Background
Before Vakhrov Fyodorovich's father was face down and charred black in a shallow, unmarked grave, he was a good person, or so Rogozhin was told. In those days, nobody in that remote Saskatchewan town yet knew the name Pyotr Volkovi, the man who would one day bring hell and prosperity to their frosted wastes. It was then only a waiting grave where slighted Vory went to rot in shameful reassignment, a town of fleeting ghosts with fleeting profit.
Ivan Fyodorovich, a man of principle, prided himself on such things. The White Vory, unlike their bootlicker cousins of the Red, adhere to principle. Pride and people. To that end, such methods that cater exclusively to the rich and powerful of the ruling caste are distasteful - at least to those who remember the time of Boris Kropunin and the purge of their ranks. For a new and rising White however, the old ways are inadequate. Gambling dens and smuggling rings only go so far, the Peoples' vices though they are.
So it was that he was reassigned, isolated, and forgotten in Saskatchewan along the border of Athabaska. He was nonetheless content. A meager cabin that freezes in the Winter, his son, Vakhrov, growing equally cold, and his pride were all he needed to keep warm.
So it was that this was the world that gave rise to Pyotr Volkovi's ambitious and treacherous bid toward power. With a knife in his sovetnik's back, Ivan suddenly found himself on the losing side of a swift and brutal power struggle. His son, a growing young boy entering the sunrise of his adolescence, watched with cold and desperate calculation, and Ivan, the self-assured light of his life, promised to show him how a man with principle objects.
He gathered what few loyalists to the previous sovetnik remained, and went to Pyotr. The smuggling ring, they told him, catered exclusively to the bourgeoisie. The circus a trite and ostentatious bid toward only those with influence and allegiance to the power of the state. His methods brusque and without humanity, disgusting, abominable. These are the methods of the Red. Though they operate with ruthless efficiency, they do so without bending their knees to make kissing ass that much easier. They give him a chance to reconsider his direction, or else there may yet be more trouble.
Each of them are killed in their sleep.
A wind like ice cuts through young Vakhrov Fyodorovich's hair. Whatever tears he might have shed freeze and are whisked away as swiftly as they might be formed. The two enforcers share a cigarette outside the front door as his father's warm blood trickles down bed posts - they share only mildly concerned glances as his child stares lightlessly at his corpse.
Vakhrov only wonders how he might ever have been related to such an idiot.
The two enforcers trade words in Russian - one tells the other to fetch a shovel, who insists the ground is too frozen for such a thing tonight. The body won't spoil in weather like this. They can come back in the light and warmth, the morning after, with everything they need to bag the popsicle. The other, an ork who glances sympathetically to the young boy he still assumes must be in shock, tells him that it's cruel to leave his kid like that. Killing him too, he punctuates with a vindictive flick against his forehead, is not the mercy they will deal tonight. Drive back and get a post hole digger. The kid's fending for himself now, at the very least don't let his dad watch.
Vakhrov coldly watches them leave, turns to their closet, and drags a shovel outside. By the time the two return, his father is alight in orange flame and black smoke, swallowed in a shallow ditch. An empty gasoline can lies tossed to the side.
"[I burned him,]" he tells the two as they return, eyes bound to the flame. "[Like you do at the carnival. With the creatures who misbehave.]"
He turns to them, and the only light inside is that which is reflected from his father's remains.
"[Tell Pyotr Volkovi that I will be a sharper knife than my father, one that will cut and stab when it is told, if he will keep me fed and warm tonight. If I will not be discarded like him.]"
Mercifully, if spitefully, Pyotr Volovi deigns to grant him clemency, though what use for a boy but what his idle hands might grasp? If he is so fond of digging graves, they have use for him yet amongst the woods, messy business that poaching and smuggling are. Six feet deep, they tell him, and charred to a crisp. While only some believe in superstition, all follow the folk practice of cremation. When he asks why, they tell him only that it is so the bodies do not come back.
He digs. He buries beasts of all sizes, the occasional man included, first light to last. He reads by flickering lamplight hours into the evening, and he wakes up at dawn to do it again. He will, occasionally, gopher letters or small goods to lesser mobsters, and though his rations are cold and his accommodations harsh, he is a useful enough tool to be kept in Pyotr Volkovi's shed.
The man himself does not address him. When he is out and entertaining his high class clientele, young Vakhrov watches his daughter, a glimmering jewel amidst ruin, a fallen snowflake among dirt. She is captivating in unspeakable ways, on a spectrum he is only beginning to grasp - and she is sublime, and artistry, and sad, and it is this that lights some dark flame in his heart. He does not understand the misery of a tool kept pristine while his hands blister and bleed. A tool meant only to bury other, broken tools cannot sympathize with one so decorative and meant to spark joy. He watches her from below - he admires her, and he hates her, and he loves her, and he admonishes her, and these emotions he swallows, for none of them make him sharp. Even on those days he is permitted to watch the performance, he is banished to the woods when they are through to dig their holes and burn their dead.
Pyotr Volkovi, innovator, one day seeks to create more unique and impossible acts to draw his clientele. He schemes to smuggle CAST and STIRRUP systems, and to source reputable veterinarians and cyberware surgeons to install them into his more exotic beasts. The minds of beasts can only comprehend so much by traditional means, and only so quickly - for the fastest, most dramatic results, a human mind must be present behind bestial eyes.
It is a disgusting and abhorrent thing, and none so quickly volunteer to be its steward as Vakhrov Fyodorovich, now fifteen summers old.
He takes his implant, and finds his vision dimmed, as though a nerve has been pinched, and he does not quite yet know why. Volkovi's jewel dims like a sun behind clouds, and those clouds that gather above his mass graves become the fuzzy greys of overcast drizzles. He does not mind, whatever that means. He is more valuable now, and will not be discarded so easily.
He learns to rig, and jumps into these creatures, and sees from behind their eyes. Each performance Zhizn Volkovi attends, she is regarded sharply, distantly, by those beasts leaping through hoops, walking on tightrope, and flipping into handstands. Their eyes are cold and intelligent, moreso than trained beasts' usually are. Whether she knows the truth or not, Vakhrov Fyodorovich cannot help but regard her with mirthless jealousy.
When he is not performing, he is again digging graves. He forces animals whose bodies he experiences as his own into cages, bleeding and hungry, and burying eyes he had himself seen through when they fall. Sometimes, as he waits for more fuel, or finds his hands raw and unwilling to work, he waits by their carcasses. He imagines himself in their place, behind their eyes once more, stinking and stiff.
With time, he eventually comes to know that he is not alone in contemplating their shared and inevitable fates. Horrible and rotting clouds lay claim to that cloyingly spoiled meat alongside him. He is barely afraid. Commiserating with those phantoms, he tells them he too has seen the world from behind those now dead eyes, and in this, they are bonded on pleasant terms. Occasionally, he intentionally leaves those bodies uncharred long enough for those phantoms to join him in flesh - in exchange, he asks only that they come when they are called, should he ever have need of them.
He studies the tenants of binding those ancient philosophers of before have laid out for him to find, in the fleeting light before he is himself interred in his lukewarm cubby. These specters of death and life remade too might be forged as tools to be used. He does not question why only he may see these phantoms. To question his fortune does not cross his mind.
[Neznayka escapes the circus by tipping off TerraFirst and enabling a raid. He helps in the efforts to fight them off, rigging into creatures, binding and bargaining with spirits, experimenting with those few spells his reading has given to him. It is enough to make him marked by the ecoterrorists, and to rise to a position beyond the needs of the circus in the White Vory as Pyotr Volkovi seeks to regain his stolen daughter and re-establish himself in bigger places with bigger opportunity.]
[Now seeks Zhizn Volkovi in Seattle, after receiving several tips about her whereabouts Spray, Pray, and Co-Pay, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Bear and The Bear and the Nightingale, along with her other various runs building street cred.]
Narrative Significant Qualities
Positive
- Everything is a Tool - (Spectral Warden / Restricted Gear [CAST]) - When you are born into the lesser caste of a brutal syndicate, you very swiftly learn the value of your life, and especially the lives of those around you. All creatures, Man, Beast, and Spirit alike, are tools to be honed and used in the climb toward freedom. The only way to not be used is to use in turn.
- White Vory, Same Story - (Made Man [ White Vory]) - He has clawed his way from shameful beginnings to a position of moderate respect in the eyes of Pyotr Volkovi. His climb toward control continues unabated.
- Astrally Anomalous - (Spirit Whisperer) - Many spirits fall away from him whenever his aura comes near, be it from fear, disgust, or both. Others, however, find him inexplicably fascinating, and they are often of a type just a step above the usual fare. He does not know why, nor does he question his luck. See plot hooks below for potential story beats.
Negative
- Sort of a Mess - (Disheveled) - He's not very well put together, having spent a childhood cold, alone, and hopping various bodies with only snarls, spirits, and the distant glimmer of a dark and taunting star to guide him. Law of the wild, and the style of it too.
- Astrally Dull - (Reduced Sense [Astral Sight]) - The cold numbs all senses, and it clings to him wherever he goes. For a mage with such potential, he is not in touch with the world beyond. Whether this is unfortunate genetics, a spiritual failure, or depression clouding his sight, who can say. See plot hooks below for potential beats.
- Winning the Rat Race - (Driven [Rise to Power, Escape the Role of "Tool"]) - He will wield others as they have wielded him, as it's the only way to seize his destiny for himself. For practical purposes in the short term, this means turning Neznayka over to Pyotr Volkovi for the boost in rank in the White Vory.
- The Eco Terrorist's Terrorist - (Wanted [ TerraFirst!, 25,000]) - He has done unspeakable things to animals in the name of Pyotr Volkovi and the White Vory, and unspeakable things to their own eco warriors as well, during the extraction of Zhizn Volkovi.
- Prideful - (Poor Self Control [Vindictive]) - He tries to be calm, but there is only so much abuse his pride can take.
Run History
| Name | GM | Metaplot | Threat | Date of Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crashing Footfalls | sleevey | High | 7 November 2085 | |
| Broken Vow | Asmodeus | Hail to the Pumpking | Medium | 12 October 2085 |
| Purity At Any Cost | Asmodeus | Hail to the Pumpking | Medium | 5 October 2085 |
| Midnight Disappearance | LHOG | The Midnight Hands | High | 24 September 2085 |
Affiliations
Contacts
| Contact | Connection | Loyalty | Archetype | Profession | Aspects | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akilina Mikhailov | 4 | 3 | Fixer | Chrome Enthusiast Fixer | Eccentric Equipment Enthusiast, Cyber-Fashionista, Kovert Ops, The Drug Trade, Tattoo Artist | Even |
| Father Midnight | 5 | 3 | Fixer(G,N,K,A) | Underworld, Undead, Undertaker, Underground, Reaper's Harvest, Forensics | Even | |
| Blair Allen | 1 | 1 | Service | Forger | Fake Credentials, Former Corporate Paper-pusher | Even |
| Ghaz | 2 | 2 | Legwork | Skraacha Sheriff | Cavalry's Here, Skraacha Sheriff, Coffin House | Even |
Organizations
| Contact | Position | Connection | Faction Rep | Archetype | Health | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White Vory | Bojevik | 3 | 5 | Organized Crime Syndicate | Maintaining | see Major Location |
Relationships with NPCs
- Akilina Mikhailov: Grateful for the help, although extraordinarily wary. Whispered rumors call him a mage, though he insists he only knows superstitious tinctures. Rising sovetnik Pyotr Volkovi vouches for him too, and his eclectic talents and unorthodox knowledge make him suitable for strange and esoteric needs of the Vory. Believes Pyotr Volkovi should keep him on a tighter leash, but plays along for the sake of the organization. He's not so bad either, once you get past the initial gut reaction screaming that he is rotten like spoiled meat.
- Father Midnight: A useful hookup for parts of bodies and corpses, as well as necromantic reagents. Father Midnight holds out hope for the young spectral warden to see the error in his ways and become a steward of death, rather than make a doomed effort toward becoming its would-be master.
- Blair Allen: No special connection. A convenient name he has picked out of a hat for various needs on the brighter side of the law.
- Ghaz: After helping to solve the problem of some missing people and some roaming Grand Zombies, Ghaz is thankful enough to keep in touch on a professional basis, despite creepy reservations he has about the man.
Organizations and Reputation
Allies
| Faction | Reputation | Related Run(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Comanche Mob | 4 | Crashing Footfalls |
| Dogmen | 3 | Crashing Footfalls |
| Skraacha | 4 | Midnight Disappearance |
| White Vory | 4 | TBD |
Enemies
| Faction | Reputation | Related Run(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Red Vory | 0 | TBD |
| TerraFirst! | 0 | TBD |
Street Cred
- N/A
Notoriety
- N/A
In Character Information
Symbols and Signatures
Matrix Search Table
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Junk [0]: As you search for the man named Rogozhin, you're immediately assailed with paid Spark Notes and Study Guides dissecting the characters and themes in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot. One such character, Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, is often cited as a symbol of permanent death, irredeemability, and moral decay, in contrast to the Christ-like Prince Myshkin.
Threshold [1]: Once you've realized the junk is, in fact, junk, you move on to local community groups on P2.1 mentioning this Rogozhin character. Several posts from concerned citizens and neighborhood watch associations warn about a strange cloaked figure driving a suspicious van, often seen in areas with missing pet populations. His dog, though calm, holds an eerie and uncanny intelligence behind its blank eyes. If the man is confronted, he smiles and only introduces himself as Rostya Romanov. When hard pressed, he will raise his hands as if in defeat, and admit that they can call him 'Rogozhin,' if they prefer. |
| 3 | Deep in the Gizoogle search results, as you chase other key words like 'man with weird dog,' a few images display that have been automatically tagged in their metadata with the name 'Rostya Romanov,' among others, automatic facial recognition on those archive sites apparently hooked into the international SIN registry via API. These images are of a circus in the territory of Saskatchewan boasting death defying stunts and the animal kingdom's most talented beasts. Brief trids of Siberian Tigers leaping through flaming hoops and bears balancing on balls astound and delight any who view them. On each of the creatures' dim faces, however, no joy resides. In fact, their cold stares seem mirrored in the gloomy expression of a boy consistently in the background, in some cases just a few pixels wide. The facial recognition software has hooked onto that gaze. This depressing teenager was your Rostya Romanov, it would seem. |
| 6 | With the knowledge that he was present at a cold, Saskatchewan circus where trained animals performed, you broaden your search to the dark side of the 'trix on a hunch. TerraFirst!'s radical online presence lists "Enemies of the Earth" - a spreadsheet of notorious poachers, smugglers, polluters, and other animal rights violators with in-house bounties on their heads. Skimming long enough through their catalog, past the corporate executives and politicians on their payroll with ambitious seven digit paydays attached, you spot an outstanding bounty for an animal abuser, smuggler, and suspected mind mage within the White Vory's ranks.
In lieu of a name as identification, video and simsense exist of the snowy Saskatchewan wilderness and a burning circus tent. Among those in the violent chaos, a dark man with Rogozhin's fashion sense and complexion stares balefully at creatures who immediately become berserk and attack TerraFirst! soldiers, and barks orders to strange and uncanny beasts with hollow little holes for eyes. A man calls out to someone named Vakhrov that Zhizn is missing, and Rogozhin glares toward the lens. His eyes like will-o'wisps glow with pale and sickly flame. His hand sinks into the snow and emerges as a terrible and icy claw. He advances, a tiger snarls just behind your right ear, and the feed cuts short. |
Shadow Community Table
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | "Rogo- what? These fuckin' street guys gotta pick names you can actually pronounce, cripes. Anyway, nah, if he hasn't made a lot of noise, I haven't heard of 'em." |
| 3 | "Creepy fragger. Creepier dog. The bird's not as bad. Not really scary, just kinda unsettling, y'know? Except the tiger, that's actually scary, thing looks like it could snap a rib just by stepping on you. I guess he's a rigger, but I haven't seen him use any drones. Might just have it to drive around with. Some kinda syndie backs him up - Vory, apparently? It ain't the Red at least, I know that for sure." |
| 5 | "I hear he adopts animals - and before you go getting all gooey about it, know that he does it every couple of weeks, and doesn't ever seem to have the old ones in tow. You follow? Good, 'cause he also hits this Auburn place, huge skyscraper of a morgue, ghouls at the bottom. You can put the dots together on that. Real sick fuck, if you ask me." |
Assensing Table
Rogozhin's aura smells of freshly turned soil. Smoke engulfs him, making the thin and skeletal body beneath difficult to fully glean. Does he have fangs? Claws? The slit of a tiger's eye? The heft of a bear's weight? These features collapse and reform like lava in flow, never stationary, never quite concrete, and never quite fully human in those moments they can be seen through crematory smoke.
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | He is reasonably healthy. The lingering benefits of a life of exercise strengthen his heart and lungs, but his body has atrophied for long now. You might assume his vocation has changed in recent years. He holds muted contempt for you behind the faint smile on his lips, for the place he is in, for the people he is with. He watches you watching him. His eyes are open and wide on the astral as are yours, if hollowed into their eyesockets and blind to the full truth of what you see. The blood of the world flows through him as well. |
| 2 | A little chunk behind his neck seems not to burn so well as the rest of him. A dull little hole drilled into his spine. Something small, and mental - a data jack, or a control rig, or something along those lines. If he has changed vocations, this might be evidence to support the idea. Your nose tingles as his smoke stretches to greet you. You choke on his smog, and find his aura dense. He is a Mage, he must be. |
| 3 | Essence and Magic are both around five. He smiles. He asks if he can provide any answers for you, since you seem keen to find them. His contempt grows. |
| 4 | Essence 5.200, MAG 5. He likely has alchemical signatures that cling to him like perfume on a corpse - beneath, that cold and ancient rot points only toward necromancy. His aura is troubled, and flickers like flame on a windy day. Wayward spirits steer away like startled wildlife, while large and looming shadows hover far, far above. |
| 5 | His hands are marred in little callouses. These are tools he has been using his entire life, for work rough and delicate both. He is a laborer, or an artisan, or both. He is not a technomancer - no wisp of the Resonance clings to his aura.
He tells you that you've had quite enough. It's rude to stare, after all. He'll call your mother and have her pluck your eyes from your head. It's a joke, he explains after a tense moment. He barks a sharp and uncomfortable laugh, though no smile reaches his eyes. |
SINs
Rostya Romanov (Fake Rating 4, UCAS)
- Driver's License (R4)
- Pet License (R4)
- Private Investigator License (R4)
Appearance
Clothing
A long winter coat, and thick, black gloves in the Winter. A wrinkled black T-shirt and high-waisted black jeans in the Summer, held in place by a dark black synthleather belt. Carries a dark, briefcase-sized device in one hand, an RCC to those in the know, and a cat carrier filled with loose satchels of something in the other, presumably other gear or reagents. He stores both of them in his van when not in use.
Matrix Persona
A distressingly tall, impossibly thin figure in immaculate and silken black robes, not so unlike a fantasy novel's depiction of a necromancer. Under a heavy, orichalcum-studded hood, a skull gleams with pale and purple firey eye-sockets. In one hand, a raven and a bird cage swing pendulously, as though he holds a lantern for light. In the other, a heavy chain leads a great and demonic cat. He wears rings of Tiger's Eye gemstones on both hands.
Tokens
| In The Flesh | In Tiger Flesh (Myshkin) | Nastasya | Carcass Spirit | Rats | Raccoons |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Character Plot Hooks
Here are characteristics of the character that GMs may take advantage of to add complications to runs, or to otherwise use when in use. If you want to use them in unrelated to runs, please ask first.
| Aspect | Information | Related Run(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Spirits Speak in Hushed Tones | While some spirits find him abhorrent, others, often more potent, feel strangely drawn in by his presence. His attunement with the other world falls flat, clouded, and dim. For a mage gifted with such potential, his astral anomalies are confusing, to others and to himself. What noise drowns out his connection to the astral plane? What quirk of fate entices such spirits to answer his calls? Is it some outside Other to be befriended or defeated, or some failing within himself? | Qualities: Spirit Whisperer / Spectral Warden / Reduced Sense (Astral Sight) |
| The Disappearance of Zhizn Volkovi | Pyotr Volkovi wants her. Vakhrov doesn't really care about that beyond the fact that it will make a powerful man very pleased with him, and better Vakhrov's own position within the syndicate. It's the entire reason he's been permitted to run the shadows semi-autonomously, after all. He will follow leads toward this end with vigor. | Qualities: Driven / Made Man |
Media Mentions
Note
I am completely fine with long term consequences for my characters, as long as it doesn't feel unannounced or forced. Long term changes to a character make more opportunities for interesting roleplay, and so don't be afraid to give them out if they are deserved.