Name: Silas Banamadter
Age: 46-ish;
History: Born on Loki V, a semiarid subisland of the fourth largest Island in the sky system of Signa Persei" , Silas was the son of Sigurd Skolfsson, a silkpalm planter and major local political figure. When the Island defied the empire in The Loki Affair, a dispute that predated the Independents' Rebellion by nearly twenty years, Loki was invaded, or "pacified" as the term went at the time. The Silkpalms were burned, the land used as an Imperial military spaceport and garrison fort, and all of the Skolfssons but Silas put to the sword. He escaped with his life (barely) when his father thrust him into a culvert that emptied into the Hekla River, in whose current he was carried out into the Volsung Sea, where he washed up on the shore of Skogmatterheim, an island freehold for vagabonds, rebels and career criminals. The particular talent that he came to use to support himself was as a gunman; literally, a mercenary gunslinger. In Time, he forgot his old surname, taking instead "Banamadterr," an old word adopted by Loki's denizens meaning "slayer" or "death dealer."
Later, In the Independents' Rebellion, he joined up with R-17, an inter-island raiding pack that raided both sides of The Border. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant despite his age, and served with the jacks-of-all-trades crew as both navigator, Pilot, and gunman for the Hadrian, a small repurposed cargoship refitted to be a strafer.
R-17 was ambushed by Imperial gunships off the third islamd of Ralston's Archipelago, the Hadrian damaged too seriously to continue, Her crew rescued and reassigned to the ships remaining. One by one the remaining ships of R-17 succumbed to battle damage or just plain bad engineering, until finally the Quinlan's Fancy, on which Silas and the remaining other remnants of R-17 took refuge along with many others, made their way through various misadventures to finally crash-land just outside the airharbor of the Island where Captain Dorian is holed up and looking for a crew. It is thus that Silas is in town, in the market, as it were, for a berth on a ship, preferably one of the Independents' guerilla vessels. His reputation as an assassin and a particularly bloodthirsty member of the old R-17 precedes him.
Gear: shoulder and crossdraw holsters (2 holsters) holding Lemat-type revolvers (Jayne's gun, sort of), chambered in the cylinder for .454 caliber magnum, and for 20-gauge shotgun slug in the underbarrel grapeshot barrel. The cylinders are modifed to be popped out and traded for a fresh loaded cylinder when exhausted. He typically carries four extra cylinders in his possibles bag. A Rebel-designed and made bolt-action infantry rifle in .454 caliber magnum, the same round as the LeMat, with sling and sword bayonet, which also doubles as a kind of makeshift bowie knife at Silas' side, worn on the hip opposite from the crossdraw-holstered LeMat. A boarding axe, worn tomahawk style at the rear of the right side of his belt.
Possibles bag with various items for personal use as well as the extra cylinders and a vial of gun oil, also a very abbreviated first aid kit and a flask of very high proof liquor. Brown-and-buff forage cap, matches greatcoat. knee-high boots, standard Inependents' Skyfleet uniform coverall pants and gray broadcloth shirt with button-down collar. All are kept as clean as can be expected, but show signs of battle and wear.
Is a dead shot with all of his firearms, and deadly in a knife fight or with the tomahawk, which he can throw accurately for a fair distance.
