Traveller Vignette 045

“One of the new recruits was a guy called Connors, from the Matriarchy of Dulcene. His family had too many sons, and the family mothers decided three of them should seek their fortunes off-world. To be fair, they'd tried to find suitable jobs for them, and the guy was generally a pretty good fit.

He'd apparently been working as a driver / mechanic in his family's vehicle pool since he left school at 14, and he was way ahead of most recruits on mechanical skills. He could also iron and sew like a professional, and got good points for turnout. On the other hand, he'd only been taught the most basic maths, and he'd clearly never handled money beyond the “pocket money” level – the top sergeant had to step in several times in the early days to stop him getting ripped off.

Everybody made fun of the fact he'd taken “fashion” as a school subject, until we discovered he knew what'd look good on you better than you did, and could programme a clothesfab like the assistants at a top-end store.

Within a few months, the entire platoon had better off-duty wardrobes, and we'd acquired the “Dandy Fifth” nickname that'd stick with us through the entire war. Overall, he made a pretty good private, but would never make sergeant – he just lacked the drive and authority for the role, and seemed happy that way”


(Author's note - We've met the Matriarchy of Dulcene in one of the earlier vignettes, and this gives a little more flavour for that world. It also gives a useful NPC who can be assigned as one of the PC's subordinates in a mercenary or naval campaign)


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