Team Shift Happens
Notes: Ages given in native years (Earth years). All ages are rounded to the nearest whole number. For reference, all characters, despite their age, are middle-aged for their kind. These guys haven’t aged since the 2016 challenge because of three reasons: One, I forgot to make them younger for 2016, and Two, they have a ship capable of faster-than-light travel, and Three, Rukari can walk the Rift (a gateway between worlds and universes, in layman’s terms), which means he can technically time-travel the team anywhere and any-when he wants.
Driver / Mechanic:
Rukari Khakrin-Veldrothan
-Race: Aetheriian Tiger Valraadi
-Age: 97 (148)
-Appearance: 7 feet, 9 inches tall (top of his head, 8 feet flat to the top of his horns), 450 pounds of muscle, has a tail as long as he is tall tipped with black, venomous quills, dark gray fur, black stripes, black lion’s mane, black ear-tufts, demon-like rearward-curved horns on his head, orange feline eyes, and the general appearance of a bipedal walking tiger demon.
-Past experience: An offroad junkyard rally (2016 Krongrad or Bust), A junkyard circuit race (24 hours of clunkers) and his time as Grundzahiri Vyrzadoburi (literally translated: “ground warriors” and “Violent Walkers of Death” in his native language. Think of them as special forces.)
The one responsible for picking out the car again, Rukari ended up earning his role as driver again for picking yet another stick-shift vehicle. As the literal son of the Valraadi Empress and as a member of the Grundzahiri Vyrzadoburi, he knows Crugandr almost as much as his homeland of Valraad.
With a little experience off-roading in Earth cars, he’s as comfortable as he’s going to get with the half-van, half-truck Bricksley Highwayman. He took a few lessons in preventative maintenance from Kaylie, so he’s hoping that this time, he won’t break the car.
Mechanic / Radio Operator:
Kaylie Lynn Grayson
-Race: Panthirian Tigrilan
-Age: 69 (102)
-Appearance: 6 feet, 5 inches tall, 175 pounds, athletic, with snow white fur and black stripes, a shiny chrome mechanical left arm with black painted stripes matching her natural pattern, and blue eyes, with the general appearance of a bipedal walking tigress.
-Past Experience: An off-road junkyard rally (2016 Krongrad or Bust), junkyard circuit race (24 hours of clunkers) and a junkyard road rally (Once More), alongside her time as a starship mechanic.
Kaylie’s had a few crash courses in maintaining internal-combustion cars, and she’s more confident than she used to be about fixing them. She doesn’t let her injury hold her back, having adapted remarkably well to her mechanical left arm, so much so that she’s nearly ambidextrous at this point.
While she’s not exactly glad that Rukari picked something the size of a cargo shuttle, she is glad that it’s something simple again. A nice Bricksley 427ci V8 with twin 4-barrel carburetors, and a 5 speed manual gearbox. The transfer case, however, is something new to her. Her well-worn copy of Carburetors for Dummies will likely get plenty of use again. She’s the one who insisted on having 4 CB radios installed so she could listen to several different drivers at once, even though only one of the team is capable of holding two conversations at once.
Field Medic / Radio Operator:
Kayden John Grayson
-Race: Panthirian Tigrilan
-Age: 69 (102)
-Appearance: 7 feet, 8 inches tall, 415 pounds of muscle, snow white fur and black stripes, blue eyes, and the general appearance of a bipedal walking tiger.
-Past Experience: A junkyard off-road rally, a junkyard circuit race and a junkyard road rally, plus his training as a Panthirian Warrior.
Kayden got a crash course in healing during the Krongrad or Bust rally, keeping up with not just Rukari’s surprisingly-destructive blood, but also several other minor injuries along the way. Rukari’s dark blue blood eats through chrome plated steel in a matter of seconds (technically, it rusts it very quickly), and as Kayden found out, it stains everything else a particularly hard-to-hide shade of cobalt blue. Of course, he also learned a bit about healing humans along the way, so if he can help it, there will be no deaths.
When he’s not busy trying to keep Rukari from rusting holes in their car or dealing with any other minor injuries, Kayden is going to be helping his sister with the radios.
Navigator / Driver:
Kivenaal Khakrin-Marinseien
-Race: Aetheriian Valraadi Mutant (Post Fall-of-Aetherii)
-Age: 40 (61)
-Appearance: 8 feet, 3 inches tall, 500 pounds of muscle, with two tails as long as he is tall, tipped with black, non-venomous quills, black fur, dark red stripes, black lion’s mane, no ear-tufts, demon-like rearward-curved horns on his head, vivid purple feline eyes, four arms, and the general appearance of a bipedal walking tiger demon.
-Past Experience: Survived his ship crashing to Earth in Alaska, three-time pistol champion with single-action revolvers, drives a lifted, off-road-converted muscle car with a 4-speed manual gearbox.
Kivenaal is Rukari’s adopted brother. As the Valraadii share no belief in half-siblings, you either are or you are not related, the span of years between them matters little. As far as Rukari is concerned, Kivenaal shares the bloodline of their father, even if he is quite far removed from said bloodline. Kivenaal witnessed the Fall-of-Aetherii during the Third (and final) War of Magic, and was actually captured by others of his kind to save his bloodline. To preserve him until the Valraadii had a new homeworld, Kivenaal was put into cryogenic suspension. Unfortunately, the ship he was on suffered a malfunction and crashed into Alaska, where it was found many years later. Kivenaal was revived, and quickly adapted to Earth society.
He’s very fond of revolvers, and because of his four arms, he can wield four of them at once. Amusingly enough, he’s trained at doing this enough that he can, in fact, fire all four of them rather accurately.
Like Rukari, Kivenaal has twin hearts and blue blood that rapidly oxidizes metals. He’s here because he won a challenge against Malavera regarding how many rattles they could each shoot off of rattlesnakes in one day. Malavera managed five. Kivenaal, on the other hand, managed 13.
Warlock / Field Repair Specialist:
Jayde Malradi
-Race: Aetheriian Leoni
-Age: 35 (53)
-Appearance: 8 feet, 5 inches tall, 375 pounds, heavy athletic, with dark brown fur, black mane, tail tuft, and ‘beard’, calm green feline eyes, a mechanical left leg starting mid thigh made from blackened boiler steel, brass, and wood accents, with the general appearance of a bipedal walking lion. Walks with a black walnut staff both for magic use and support. Has a really nasty looking bite scar on his left shoulder and a rather rough and ragged looking scar from his right cheek to his right temple, crossing his eye but not blinding him.
-Past Experience: Trained in magic at Tendragon Academy in Altherys, also trained with a Vipiri Storm-Rattler to focus his very-strong lightning magic. Went through Crugandr not long ago. Trained a little at Kamwerth Academy of the Arcane in Crugandr. Fought in the airship battle at Aray Bay, where he lost his left leg and got the nasty scar over his right eye.
Jayde stepped through the portal during the starting party before Rukari could get it open, and upon seeing the adventure unfolding in front of him, decided to join in. If he knew where they were going, however, he wouldn’t have joined them, as Crugandr was not a fun experience for him. He’s skilled with magic, and he’s been through quite a lot, so not much bothers him.
Navigator / Driver / Event Organizer:
Malavera Caller-of-the-Moons
-Race: Orthrian Khalan
-Age: 51 (357)
-Appearance: 7 feet, 11 inches tall (8 feet, 1 inch to the top of his ears), 500 pounds of broad-shouldered, twin-headed muscle, with pure white fur, cold amber eyes, and the general appearance of a two-headed, bipedal werewolf.
-Past Experience: Not crashing his moon-sized starship, “Forsaken Sky,” on the way to Earth, the 2016 Krongrad-or-Bust offroad rally
Malavera returns as Team Shift Happens’ two-headed navigator, having gained some practical experience in reading maps and using the GPS from the last run. However, where they’re going, there is no GPS. Only maps. And another world with, in his opinion, not enough gravity.
This time, Malavera has learned enough about driving a manual gearbox that he can manage as a driver if (when) Rukari or Kivenaal needs a break. And, much like before, he is an exile from his home planet, not generally friendly or outgoing, though he found out it’s not in his nature to leave someone stranded should they require help. He dislikes having his name shortened, but generally, it’s far safer to call him “Mal” than it is to call him “Vera.” The last person who called him Vera found out what it’s like to be kicked by someone who normally lives on a world with 3.5x Earth Gravity.
As the Event Organizer, however, he’s also the one responsible for making sure all teams are following the rules leading up to the event, and he’s also there to help last-minute arrivals with their registration forms. In the event that teams need legal forms filled out, Malavera will see to it that all of the appropriate paperwork has been filled and dated two weeks ago and passed the review.
As for where his cat, Spots is? Well, he’s being watched by the twins’ older brother, Jaden, who owed Malavera a big favor. Everyone agreed that while he was great for morale, they just didn’t want that much cat lounging around near the van. Truck. Whatever you call this thing.
The Car:
A 1970 Bricksley Highwayman Custom 427ci
In the 1970’s, Bricksley had noticed a growing trend of people buying pickup trucks, and also a trend of people buying vans. Naturally, they wanted in on that market, like any good American company would. They started with the Highwayman van, cut it just behind the rear set of passenger doors, and welded up a new cab end to close it all back up. Then, a pickup bed was bolted onto the rest of the van’s frame, giving it a rather… unique look.
They sold well at first, being one of the first examples of what we know today as a luxury pickup truck. Luxurious leather seats, powerful engine, good AM radio with a 45 RPM record player, plenty of room in the back seat, 4x4 as standard equipment from the factory, and power windows.
Unfortunately, it became painfully obvious that while the Highwayman certainly could do the job of a proper truck, the looks were a problem. It was a classic, “Either you love it, or you hate it” situation, and unfortunately, most people didn’t really love it.
It faced a strong opposition from people who wanted luxury vans, partially because of the lack of a back row, partially because the rear bench seat wasn’t quite big enough for some people, and partially because not having a large, enclosed back end meant it wasn’t quite the perfect shag van.
Likewise, it faced strong opposition from the truck guys as well, as people who wanted a work truck didn’t want the leather seats, as that was one more thing to worry about getting torn up or filthy. The plush carpeting absorbed mud and oil like nothing else, turning horrible in a matter of a few days at the job site. And, of course, it was built as a van first, which meant all the things that make a truck good came second to the things that make vans good.
This particular example was purchased for the cost of three bottles of high-proof moonshine. Where did it come from? The local trailer park.
The interior smells terrible. Someone clearly lived the party life in it, as there are many stains in the carpet. The driver’s seat is a little bit worn out, and the engine barely ran when Rukari showed up with it.
Modifications done:
Roof Rack (loaded with 20 5-gallon jugs of water)
Toolbox (Contains Metric and American wrenches, sockets, extensions, a breaker bar, a battery-powered reciprocating saw, and a battery powered angle grinder. Also, 12-volt cigarette-lighter-powered battery charger for the tools. Plus, one lunchbox full of miscellaneous license plates, one high-power railgun owned by Malavera, and 4 MP5-K submachine guns owned by Kivenaal)
Small push bar in front of bumper (For helping our friends?)
Off-road light bar with loudspeakers (To help us see in the dark, and to yell at other people in languages they don’t understand.)
Exhaust pipes in front of rear axle (because burning mud smells terrible, and the van already stinks.)
Twin four-barrel carburetors for proper fuel delivery.
Retuned the engine for kerosene because it had been tuned by an idiot before.
Ceiling pod with speakers and Kaylie’s custom-built Communications Center. (Contains: Public Address system, 4 CB radios, Signal Booster, Aux In jack, Microphone selector switch (PA, Radio A/B/C/D, Broadcast on ABCD), Equalizer, Phonograph pass-through to PA, Aux In pass-through to PA, Status Light Panel, Retracting cable for microphone.)
Air fresheners (because the truck reeks!)
Cargo:
Five leather tents in round containers
Two spare tires (One in bed, one in traditional mount under truck bed)
Two wooden cases carrying 6 bottles each of 190-proof lemon moonshine (12 bottles of the good stuff)
24 5-gallon cans of kerosene (because our fuel efficiency SUCKS!)
(Yeah, the interior shot I took with the revised one came out blurry. Not sure why that’s happening. Seriously, this wasn’t a problem a few updates ago.)
The Story:
Unlike my usual ones where reading it is optional, this will contain some information regarding the backstory of how this event was setup. Reading is still 100% optional, but recommended so that you get all the back-story behind this little bundle of mayhem.
Also unlike my usual introductions, I’m going to have to put the team’s background story in another post. Who else knew the forum had a 32,000 character limit? I’m nearly a thousand over that without breaking this up a bit!
