Call of Chernobyl CC

NAME: Sid 'The Kid' Mormon & 'Blondie'
RANK: Novices
REPUTATION: Neutral
FACTION: Loners

BIOGRAPHY
An inseparable pair of two-bit criminals, famous only for their exceptionally poor luck and life decisions.

Sid is a moneyman in low demand, possessing more than a passing resemblance to Steve Buscemi. He is middle-aged, balding, sweaty, and thin. He stutters when nervous, which is much of the time, and his negotiation skills are more on par with evoking pity than the skillful balance of interests. Blondie is what one would call a mystery if asked for an example at gunpoint. Nobody knows or cares about his real name - only one thing's for sure, and it's that this blonde-haired booze hound flunked out of the Air Force for a damn good reason.

Their story is simple: their boss, a particularly poor judge of character, took a shining to the dysfunctional friends. Charmed by their bumbling escapades and entertaining failures, he presented to them an opportunity to make some major paper for themselves - for Blondie to fly a shipment of weapons to a Kiev airport, and Sid negotiate the terms of a major arms deal. Things took a turn for the worse when Blondie diverted from the flight plan for a 'shortcut' - it wasn't long before military fighters were in the air, demanding they clear the airspace and land immediately for a search. Blondie's ensuing evasive action unknowingly cut a hard swath directly into the Zone of Alienation, causing the fighters to peel off. The celebration was short-lived, however, as the cargo plane soon collided with an airborne anomaly. Stalkers watched in befuddlement as an airplane twisted out of the sky, and rushed to see what all the fuss was about.

One such curious party of Loners stumbled upon the pair hiding in the branches of a tree as wild dogs circled below. It was only a simple matter to rescue them. To their great amusement, the friends burst at the seams with naive questions - why were there cancerous dogs everywhere? Why did everyone have a gun around here? And where was the nearest bus stop outta this damn place?

Now Sid and Blondie are trapped within the Zone of Alienation; Inseparable! Indomitable! Incompetent! They work every single day in hopes of buying a guide out of the Zone - but the stories of the Zone and its great riches have seduced the pair in that way that all stalkers know too well. What better way to make up for losing an entire plane of guns to their boss, than to bring him the nigh-magical bounties of this mysterious place?

So it is that Sid and Blondie walk the Zone, braving the anomalies with scapejack luck, fettering from day to day. And all the while, repeating a familiar mantra in the face of bizzare horrors and strange oddities for sanity's sake,

"You know how it is."