Damned Soldier
Kellen Drake
| Age | 22 |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 6.3 ft |
| Weight | 94 kg |
| Force Sensitive | No. |
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Kellen Drake is a broad-shouldered young man who looks far older than he actually is. Though only twenty-two, years of relentless campaigning have left his face scarred and worn, with a thin burn mark stretching from his left cheekbone to his jawline. His dark hair remains youthful, but the exhaustion in his eyes often causes strangers to mistake him for a man a decade older.
When in uniform, Drake wears standard Imperial Army combat gear with meticulous attention to maintenance. His armor is rarely polished to parade standards but is always functional and immaculate. A faded unit patch from a long-destroyed regiment remains sewn inside his field jacket, hidden from view. He carries himself with the posture of a career soldier and speaks with the confidence of someone who has spent years giving orders under fire.
His most notable feature is a cybernetic replacement for two fingers on his right hand, lost during fighting against pirates in the battle on Quintus.
INVENTORY
Please list all relevant possessions, factory submissions, and codex submissions here.
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Sergeant Drake is the embodiment of the professional soldier. He does not fight for glory, personal wealth, or political advancement. He fights because soldiers depend on one another, because order must be maintained, and because he believes civilization survives only when strong men and women are willing to defend it. Duty is not merely a responsibility to Drake—it is the foundation upon which all stable societies are built.
Years of warfare have hardened him into a deeply disciplined and uncompromising individual. He values loyalty above nearly all else and judges others primarily by their reliability, courage, and willingness to fulfill their obligations. To Drake, promises matter, chains of command matter, and sacrifice matters. He has little respect for those who abandon their comrades when circumstances become difficult.
Unlike some Imperials whose prejudice stems from propaganda or political doctrine, Drake's hatred of aliens is intensely personal. During his early military career, several campaigns against alien insurgents and pirate coalitions resulted in the deaths of close friends and fellow soldiers under his command. In one particularly devastating engagement, an alien-led raiding force massacred an isolated Imperial garrison before reinforcements could arrive, leaving Drake among the few survivors. The experience left scars that never healed. Over the years, repeated conflicts against alien warbands, separatist movements, and criminal organizations reinforced his belief that many non-human societies were fundamentally hostile to Imperial order.
As a result, Drake harbors a deep resentment toward aliens and views them with suspicion even when they have done nothing personally to earn his distrust. While he remains disciplined enough to obey orders and work alongside non-humans when required, he rarely extends them the benefit of the doubt. He sees humanity as the backbone of galactic civilization and believes that the Empire's human-centric policies emerged from hard-earned lessons rather than simple prejudice. Though he rarely speaks openly about these views in formal settings, they influence many of his judgments and decisions.
Despite these convictions, Drake is not driven by blind hatred. He does not advocate needless cruelty, nor does he take pleasure in suffering. Rather, he believes that strength, vigilance, and firm control are necessary to prevent the chaos he witnessed throughout his career. In his mind, compassion without authority inevitably leads to disorder.
He despises corruption, cowardice, criminality, and officers who treat soldiers as expendable resources. While outwardly respectful toward authority, Drake has little patience for incompetence and quietly resents leaders who issue orders from safety while others bear the consequences. He believes leadership is earned through service and sacrifice, not rank alone.
The collapse of the Empire left him deeply cynical. He has watched governments rise and fall, worlds change allegiance, military heroes become fugitives, and entire fleets vanish into history. The promises of politicians mean little to him now. What remains is loyalty to his fellow soldiers and to the ideals he believes the Empire once represented. The Imperial Reclamation Authority represents perhaps the final cause he is willing to fight for, and one of the last institutions he believes can restore stability to a fractured galaxy.
His greatest fear is that the sacrifices of countless Imperial soldiers ultimately meant nothing—that the friends who died beside him were forgotten, their victories erased, and their loyalty discarded by history.
STRENGTHS
Veteran Combat Leader
Despite his age, Drake has spent nearly his entire adult life fighting across numerous worlds. He remains calm under pressure and excels at leading troops during chaotic engagements.
Exceptional Small Unit Tactician
He possesses a keen understanding of infantry combat, patrol operations, defensive actions, and urban warfare.
Respected by Enlisted Personnel
Soldiers trust Drake because he shares their hardships and never asks them to endure what he would not endure himself.
Discipline
Drake maintains composure even during disastrous situations, allowing him to make rational decisions where others might panic.
WEAKNESSES
Distrust of Politicians
Years of witnessing strategic blunders have left him skeptical of political leadership and high-ranking bureaucrats.
Difficulty Adapting
Drake is highly effective within traditional military structures but struggles with unconventional warfare and rapidly changing doctrines.
Survivor's Guilt
The loss of countless comrades weighs heavily upon him. He often carries responsibility for deaths that were beyond his control.
Stubborn
Once Drake commits to a course of action, convincing him otherwise can be difficult even when circumstances change.
HISTORY
Kellen Drake was born on an unremarkable Mid Rim world whose name barely appears in modern galactic records. Raised during the final years of Imperial rule, he enlisted in the Imperial military at the first opportunity available to him, barely old enough to wear the uniform.
War became his adulthood.
His early career was spent in some of the most unstable regions of the Outer Rim, where collapsing authority and constant conflict forced young soldiers to mature quickly or die. He learned discipline, marksmanship, and leadership through necessity rather than experience. What distinguished Drake was his consistency. While others sought promotion, prestige, or political influence, he focused on keeping his squad alive.
Over time he rose through the enlisted ranks at an unusually rapid pace, largely because so many of his superiors were killed, captured, or disappeared during the chaos following the Empire's collapse. He fought pirates, insurgents, criminal syndicates, and rival warlords. During one particularly brutal campaign against aliens, his regiment suffered over seventy percent casualties. Drake emerged as one of the few surviving non-commissioned officers.
When the Galactic Empire collapsed, many soldiers deserted, became mercenaries, or pledged themselves to local strongmen. Drake refused. He remained with the remnants of his command structure, helping evacuate personnel, secure equipment, and maintain order as the military disintegrated around him.
The years that followed hardened him beyond his age. Ships were lost. Bases were abandoned. Entire formations ceased to exist. Friends he had trained beside vanished one by one. The regiment Drake once served in eventually disappeared altogether, leaving him among its last surviving members.
By twenty-two, Drake had already outlived most of the soldiers he enlisted with.
When General Cerein Aron began gathering loyal Imperial personnel into what would become the Imperial Reclamation Authority, Drake answered immediately. Not because he believed victory was certain, but because he believed soldiers still needed a banner to stand beneath. Now serving as a senior sergeant within the growing IRA Army, Drake oversees the training of recruits and the discipline of frontline troops. New arrivals are often shocked to discover how young he is. Many assume he is at least thirty until they see his personnel file.
Drake has heard the reaction countless times. He stopped finding it amusing years ago.