Captain Fyodor Maksimovich Lyubchenko
54
Height/Weight: 5’9” -- 179lbs
Race: Varyan
Appearance:Lyubchenko bears all the scars of a long time soldier, the deepest of which stretches from his forehead to right check, ending below one milky white eye, staring back from its wan socket, but the other shines a light blue -- the mark of a Varyan -- with the exuberance of a younger man. For a long time, Captain Lyubchenko kept his beard shaved clean, trying to hide the strands of grey and white that were creeping in, but has left it to grow out during the expedition. His expression holds a hardness shared by most seasoned soldiers, but it belies the truth; when the Captain smiles, his smile shines, not just figuratively; from front incisor to molar he has a row of polished brass teeth.
In his youth, the Captain was built like an ox, a shorter, stocky and imposing figure, but often where muscle once bulged, only sinew remains, and years of command have seen his build shift from athletic to a more “healthy” frame, though his confident gait remains the same.
He wears the traditional garb of a captain in the Secular Army, but over it he wears a long black coat, adorned with myriad buckles and fur, not standard issue —something his superiors have reminded him of many times— but that had never worried him; ‘soldiers should be marked based on merit, not on their appearance’ he had always argued.
Personality:Captain Lyubchenko, for most, is a welcome break from the polished, presentable officer of the Secular Army. A once jocular man, he has been battered into cynicism by a system that he no longer truly believes in, yet also institutionalised to the point where he can no longer imagine a life outside of the ISA.
One might assume a man of his appearance would be hard, stoic and quick to anger, and while the latter is true in the right circumstances, the Captain is very patient with the young men and women who serve under and around him.
On the outside, he is loud, brash and always keen to hear a joke, and while this is not entirely a façade, it is a practiced element of his personality; he has seen war sculpt too many young people into unfeeling machines, capable of only the most meagre displays of emotion, and while some in the SA would encourage this, the Captain truly believed that people need to keep a hold of their humanity in order to be effective soldiers.
When he is alone, and with those he trusts most, he is a self-critical and introspective man, and is always deeply saddened by the deaths of those whom he commands.
Captain Lyubchenko is a man whose faith is waning. While in his youth, he was a devout follower of Varya, the last three decades have dulled his zeal.
Background:Fyodor counts himself extremely lucky to have been born in the shadow of the great industrial colossus of Magnagrad, to a long pure-blooded line of Varyans. He has seen many of those from outside the mighty state have much more difficult lives than the one he was blessed with.
In his youth, he had always hoped to be accepted into the Red Seminary, and was extremely jealous of his two brothers who had gone instead of him. Instead, he stayed with his mother and father, who he always thought had considered him the failure of the family. When his mother had fallen ill, and his father had fallen into alcoholism, it was he who had to take care of them. The Red Seminary was always known for its brutality, and in spite of this, Fyodor always felt he had been dealt the weaker hand than his two brothers. That was until his younger brother’s body had been returned to them, and then, a few years later, his elder brother’s arrived too. After that, he started to doubt Varya’s teachings, openly at first, but when his father beat him for questioning the Ravenous Lord, he started to keep his mouth shut.
When he was sixteen, after his mother had died, he had nothing tying him to his home anymore, and joined the Imperial Secular Army. He excelled at first, being given a field promotion after his first few forays. The young Sergeant threw his weight around in his company, drawing the ire of his commanding officers, but stopping just short of demotion.
When the Lanostran War broke out, he was offered the position of Lieutenant, and a platoon to command. Eager to prove himself again, he threw himself headfirst into officer training, and he was deployed to Lanostre soon after.
When the war was but a year old, while advancing through the tundra, the young Lieutenant and his platoon happened upon a Lanostran Inquisitor leading her own squad of knights. With the numbers advantage, they were able to hold their own against the far better trained Lanostrans long enough for another enemy to make itself known. From somewhere beneath the ice, a huge host of the vile demons of the Black Glacier emerged, each slathering at the jaws, ready to kill whatever humanity was in front of it, Varyan or Lanostran. The ensuing battle was carnage: Fyodor lost all but half a dozen of his men, and the Lanostran Inquisitor was the only survivor from her side, but the battle, eventually, was won.
Stranded, beaten, and without an Aegis to protect them from their near inevitable, icy death, Fyodor, his men, and the Inquisitor, whose name he learned was Mother Sirena, were kept alive only by the power of Mother Sirena’s ether. Without an Aegis, they could not move forward. All they could do was survive. It didn’t matter whose side they were on at that point, they were all simply human, fighting against the cold. More and more men perished in the cold, until it was only Fyodor and Mother Sirena left. Alone in the frozen tundra, Fyodor and Mother Sirena grew fond of each other, and eventually fell in love. Both of them were resigned to their fate, until in the fifth month of their isolation, a Varyan scout force came across the two. The soldiers moved to execute the weakened Inquisitor, but Fyodor, a higher ranking officer than any of them, commanded she be let go back to her own lines. The two promised to meet again.
Upon return to camp, Fyodor was promoted to Commander, for his ‘valiant efforts against the cold and its dangers’. When he had the chance, he wrote seven letters. Six to the family’s of the half a dozen men who had braved the cold with him, and one to Mother Sirena. Throughout the war, they kept up correspondence, meeting in secret to rekindle their passion.
Six months before the war ended, they met again. This time, Sirena handed him a swaddled bundle. “This is your son.” she said. “His name is Varo.” He implored her to come with him, to wait out the war somewhere safe and come back to Magnagrad. She tearfully declined, and said this was the last he would see of her. When the war was finished, Fyodor heard she had been killed in battle. He took Varo back to his family home. His father had since died, and he raised the boy alone.
He told Varo little of his mother, telling him only that she was from Lanostre, and that was where he was born.
He knew Varo was special; the boy was manipulating ether before he could walk. Fyodor hated the idea that one day he would be taken to the Red Seminary, but he knew better than to fight the Church. Eventually, inevitably, on the eve of Varo’s sixth birthday, the Inquisitors came calling, and Fyodor was alone in this world again. With nothing else to keep him going, he returned to the only place he knew, the ISA.
Things had changed since the Lanostran War, the Secular Army was a different beast; less of an invading force, and more a stunted step-child to the Red Seminary. Well, that’s what it had always been, but it was only now that he could see it.
His posting took him back to Lanostre, now a hot-bed of post-war insurrection, expansion, and political turmoil. In the back of his mind he hoped he’d hear some word of Sirena; that perhaps there had been a mistake, and she was alive, it was only a fool’s hope. Fyodor was assigned to Father Konstantin, an older Inquisitor, conducting experiments out in the tundra. It was easy work, the rest of the Red Seminary gave Konstantin a wide berth, as he was known for being almost dangerously eccentric. The assignment came with a healthy commission, and a promotion to Captain, but little else. Konstantin was reclusive, rarely letting any of the soldiers stationed with him to come near his experiments, even Fyodor.
When Fyodor’s posting was nearly coming to an end, Konstantin embarked on his most daring and dangerous experiment yet. He meant to, in his own words, “awaken” the Black Glacier, the conduit from which all the demonic evil spilled into the world. Having past experience with the demons of the Glacier, Fyodor implored Father Konstantin to relent, and leave the Glacier alone, for fear of what might happen. If anything were to go wrong, the men under his command would almost certainly bear the full brunt. He even beseeched the High Inquisitor, Father Creid to call for these experiments to end. The reply came: “Captain Lyubchenko, I know you have concerns, but I trust that should the worst arise, you will do what is necessary to ensure your men’s survival -- Creid”
As the experiment began, Fyodor made the decision that Father Konstantin’s plans needed to be stopped, by any means necessary, and he gave the order to take Konstantin into custody. Before his orders could be carried out, however, he received an unexpected visit. Father Antonin arrived at the laboratory. Fyodor thought he had arrived to put a stop to any violence against an Inquisitor, and arrest him. He was surprised when Antonin brought written orders from Bishop Aleksandre, the Supreme Commander:
“Captain. Your plan must go ahead. Father Antonin will assist you. Aid him however he commands. Your son’s well-being depends on it.”
Antonin took the host of soldiers Fyodor had stationed with him, and told him to follow. When things turned violent, Antonin and Konstantin engaged in a wicked duel. When Fyodor arrived on the scene, Konstantin’s laboratory was a gruesome sight: two dozen dead men, the rest wounded beyond help, and Konstantin himself, blood pouring from several open wounds, and almost completely drained of ether, was hunched over a workstation, still attempting to complete his experiment. Antonin, wounded himself, commanded the Captain to deal the final blow. The bullet Fyodor put in the back of the old Inquisitor’s head was a mercy, if anything.
He should have been executed. He had defied Konstantin’s commands, given his soldiers orders that led inexorably to their deaths, and killed his commanding officer, an Inquisitor, no less. He kept his mouth shut. He knew speaking up against the Bishop would do him more harm than good.
His former comrades, Commander Kiriyev, and Lieutenants Lycaon and Dragonov spoke in his defence, but it was only until the High Inquisitor Father Creid spoke in his defence, or, more correctly, condemned Konstantin, that his death sentence was commuted. A demotion to Commander, and a stationing out in the middle of the wastes of Muraad was his punishment. Cold, bored and out of the way, he thought death might have been preferable. Still, he managed to pick up the language, their customs, and experience life away from Magnagrad for the first time.
Every now and then he would write letters to Varo in the Red Seminary, hoping to hear back from his son, but no reply ever came. Eighteen years passed, and finally Varo graduated.
Fyodor was granted leave to return to Magnagrad to greet his returning son, but it was not what he had imagined. His son had been completely indoctrinated. Fyodor’s faith had long since been extinguished, but Varo’s was fully-fledged. It seemed every other phrase out of his son’s mouth was Varya vese, Varya enoth, Varya t'saris. Bullshit. He loved his son, but he hated what he had become. It was almost a relief when Varo left to take up active duty among the Inquisitors, and Fyodor was sent back to the back end of nowhere.
It was only when the Elurian Expedition was planned, and the SA realised they had too few officers in positions of command, that he was begrudgingly invited back into active service, begrudgingly re-promoted, and given command of a Steam Ark, the Kyselica, a small, old freighter with a threadbare crew. Though he saw the position as one last insult from High Command, he took on the position with aplomb, gaining respect from the men on his ship.
Talents/Abilities:— Savvy Veteran: Captain Lyubchenko is a veteran of the Lanostran War, and a long time member of the SA, and as such has a great deal of tactical experience and knowledge. These days, he is more use in the war room than he is in the field.
— Crack Shot: Lyubchenko was known to be able to hit a moving target at four-hundred yards nine times out of ten, in his youth. While his hands are a little shakier in his advanced years, one still wouldn't bet against him.
— Hard Times: Lyubchenko considers his most valuable skill to be his ability to keep his soldiers morale high. Even in the darkest times, Lyubchenko has a story or a song to lighten even the darkest moods.
Character Relations:In Progress
The tree of life, as he gives life to those whom he helps passed down to him for his talents as a healer.
