Character Sheet: Lenny "Weps" Ramis

Lenny "Weps" Ramis

Lenny is a 23 year old spaceship gunner, spacer, planet-side adventurer, a Regina Rally race winner, and now co-owner of a trading company, Red Dwarf, LIC.  His experience in the Navy had given him valuable skills, but left him with a general distaste for Navy Officers. He had very little regard for his CO, whom he saw as complete tool.  She just couldn’t see the humor in Lenny’s jokes.  Reversing the flow of the latrine vac is hilarious!  Lenny was quickly booted planet-side, where he was placed in the Security Group where he manned and maintained the base missile and gun batteries. On his off-duty time, he thoroughly enjoyed piloting grav sleds, generally as fast as he possibly could get them to go, or skydiving off of them.

Lenny grew up in a seedy suburb in a Mountainous region of Regina in the Spinward Marches with his aging mother, Despenia, and fiery little sister Griz (short for Griselda).  Regina is a Terran Prime, rich world; a capital of this sub-sector -- though they saw none of the wealth.  He was never really that envious of those better off than he.  His entertainment as a child was taking his sister climbing and survivalist camping, when he wasn’t trying to cut classes from public schooling.

From a young age, Lenny suspected he was different.  He could hear the thoughts of others, particularly that of a strange man that used to hang out at a local coffee shop.  Everyone called him “The Old Bastard”, a man who would often stare unblinkingly off into the distance for minutes on end.  On occasion, he seemed to be speaking to himself.  People simply thought he was crazy, but Lenny knew otherwise.  He had a found a friend in The Old Bastard, someone who understood him, someone he could talk to, without talking at all - literally.  This knowledge he kept secret from all but the Old Bastard himself.

Just before leaving for the Navy, The Old Bastard was discovered as a psi, and arrested. According to the official reports, he 'committed suicide' to prevent his revealing other psionics to the authorities, but Lenny just knew that they - obviously Imperial Authorities - executed him.  He intends on finding the people responsible for the Old Bastard’s death and bringing them to justice, legal or otherwise.  In order to do this, he believes that he must improve his psionic skills and strengths.  Whether that means he is willing to go undercover remains to be seen.

• Lenny "Weps" Ramis Character Sheet (GURPS 4e - Google Docs)
• Traveller: Red Dwarf, LIC. Collection (Google Docs)

[Edit: Added in the Collection of documents for this campaign.]

Moderator Comments and Background #1

Greetings from the Moderator!
Well, life has surely been interesting, so far, for this adventurous duo.
Their actions to date have covered the following activities:

[Session One]
No sooner had the pair met (in a bar, of all places; where else?!) than they were accosted by the proverbial 'roving gang of hooligans', who were actually employees of the Imperial Megacorporation Dagudashag. These misfits accused the duo of being 'Oberlindes scum' [employees of a regional trading and shipping firm, Oberlindes Lines, LIC; OL]. Of course, they aren't, but when has that ever stopped drunk spacehands? The pair escaped serious injury, even though outnumbered at least six-to-one, and were soon hired by OL to do some 'side work'.
Oberlindes and Dagudashag were at the beginnings of a regional Trade War, contesting over the Imperial Navy's awarding supply shipping contracts to OL after Dagudashag failed to meet obligations...
Their first mission was scouting a local warehouse used by Dagu to process local cargoes. After several days of observation (and nearly been spotted and blowing the entire mission at least once...) the two managed to 'sneak' into the warehouse and determine its layout, security, etc.
Two days after this, 'commando' raiders from OL looted and torched the facility in the overnight hours.

[Session Two]
Soon after this, the duo and the nearly-famous JBT [Johnathon B. Templeton, a Scout who lost almost his entire body, and is now essentially a starship...] to scout out a Dagudashag refueling facity in the outskirts of the nearby Forboldn system. The group faked a fuel leak, got the Dagu facility to send out a repair crew to assist.
While the repair crew was aboard, Lenny used his unique observation skills to ascertain important data from the local Dagu head (who was foolish enough to work on critical data when Lenny could see his computer; I guess he was too busy and confident...), which included the layout of the refueling facility.
The group was also able, through observation of Jump coordinates and vectors, to determine the relative destinations of various Dagu raider groups, which were setting off to raid/interdict OL shipping assets...

[Sessions Three and Four]
During these sessions, the group, using a ship with improved weaponry supplied by OL, and with a larger fleet of raiders and cargo ships, went to the Dagu refueling facility they had scouted previously (in the Forboldn system). In that system, they interdicted all Dagudashag shipping that entered the system. This was a normal refueling spot for Dagudashag (a shortcut, bypassing numerous local systems of nominal trade value to that company). In a three week or so time span, they intercepted approximately 30 ships, seriously hurting Dagu's bottom line in this region of space.
In one memorable action the pair's ship (the modified fat trader "Pride of Regina" managed to intercept a yacht, which was carrying the local head of Dagudashag for this region. This pair of actions (intercepting Dagu shipping and capturing their local leader) effectively ended this Trade War, and Dagudashag has been slowly removing assets from the local systems.

[Sessions Five and Six]
THE REGINA RALLY!
Soon after the Trade War sessions were complete, Taezon finally received his scout/courier (a benefit of dedicated service to the scouts). Not only did he receive a ship, he received a Ship. It had longer legs (Jump 3, not Jump 2) than other scout/couriers, and it was FAST: 6G acceleration.
They took the ship a few parsecs away on a trading/test run, making a little money in the process.
Then they immediately entered their newly named ship, the Red Dwarf, in the prestigeous Category Three level of the Regina Rally.
To make a long story short the ship had no serious problems with the Rally. It was easily faster than any other ship in its category; apparently speed kills. ;)
However they did run into a few problems...
First, an Imperial Baron, Tran Elsinore, was to be the final participant in the Rally. However, the pair of Taezon and Lenny beat him in final registration by a mere hour. The Baron was outraged, and first attempted to buy them out of the race (against the rules, but heard of none-the-less). When that failed, he threatened them with various Imperial problems, which of course failed (and probably wouldn't have worked, regardless).
The real kicker was when the Baron, using his racing ship, Fireball, attacked the Red Dwarf while refueling at a gas giant in the Knorbes system. After a three hour combat, the smaller Red Dwarf managed to get away from the larger ship and make its escape. More on this in a bit...

After this, there were no other problems for the Red Dwarf and crew in the actual race. This ship was just too fast for the other participants. There was one serious issue remaining, however...
The Red Dwarf (the fifth ship of its class off the construction lines) began developing CRACKS in its main keel sometime during the Rally. The crew finally discovered them just over half-way through, and this made refueling (and potential combat) difficult, to say the least...
[You should have seen the looks on the crew's faces when they found the cracks; it was priceless!]
And of course, soon after his development, there were reports of Vargr Corsairs in the next system... which they managed to avoid (as they had enough fuel to essentially bypass the system entirely).
Using local geography (i.e., bypassing systems where they would need to refuel at a gas giant and/or enter a planetary atmosphere), they were able to prevent the Red Dwarf from developing any more serious cracks in the keel, and won the Rally handily.

They are now completing their Rally-required obligations for the next game-month.

Soon after the Rally was won, they had a private meeting with a Noble, who explained that the Baron (Elsinore) had recently developed terminal brain cancer, and this caused him to 'snap' when he couldn't enter the Rally, then attacked the players. Soon after being beaten in combat, he realized the stupidity of his actions and made amends for them.
He gave the Red Dwarf crew Traveller's Aid Society memberships (Cr 1,000,000 each in value), as well as giving them ownership of his racing ship, the Fireball, newly rebuilt and restored to original specifications. (Not as good or fast as the Red Dwarf, but still a nice ship.)

What is in store for the now-famous crew of the Red Dwarf? How will they make money to pay for the construction of their 'dream ship'? How will they deal with crew (and other) changes?

Tune in for more developments!

After the Rally

Hello from Captain Taezon Bhaasch. As Lenny has said things are real chaotic following the finish of the race. We are currently shaking down a new vessel to ensure we can provide prompt and reliable services. She's no Red Dwarf but she'll do just fine. Let me be the first to say that although the Red Dwarf suffered an unrepairable failure of the keel, the design is sound and once the materials issues and structural engineering is sorted out, vessels of her class will go on to even more amazing feats beyond winning races.

Welcome, from Weps!

Hello, racing fans! Life has been amazingly busy in the last few weeks since the completion of the race.  We are have mixed feelings about the Red Dwarf and its grounded status.  As many of you know, Captain Taezon had been waiting a long time for his first commission as an independent scout, and when the opportunity to captain the newest, fasted ship off the scout line, he obviously jumped at the chance.  Our first run with this rare ship was a short hop across the galaxy from Regina, enough to demonstrate its amazing qualities.

Timing was incredible in that the Regina Rally was right around the corner.  The experience of the race will be remembered for a lifetime and more.  It is unfortunate that the Red Dwarf did not survive past the finish of the race, but the knowledge that the safety of our men and women in service will be spared from unspeakable fate is worth it.

We have some exciting news to share.  Red Dwarf Racing, LIC (Limited Imperial Charter) has officially changed its name to Red Dwarf, LIC.  We will bring the same success we had in racing to the you, the traveler, the businessmen and women.  Stay tuned, and watch this site for more news.

Lenny "Weps" Ramis