Richard Stroquer's Questionnaire

1. What town or city do you live in? Why do you live there instead of anywhere else? Describe your home.

Link Answered before Richard Stroquer's first Contract.

Richard is a Baltimore Native, and lives in a Condo-Style apartment about a mile from his childhood home. The apartment has a basement he converted into a sizable workshop, an open plan kitchen/dining/kiving area on the ground floor, and the second floor consists of a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, a guest room and a utility room he has made into a home gym. He worked in the area at Southrop Grumman Aerospace, prior to losing his job.  He is a lifelong Ravens fan, having attended every home game since his 16th birthday. He has been watching the Orioles season with a heavy heart this year. Richard loves the city, despite its less than stellar reputation, as its home to him. 

2. How do you get your money right now? What do you spend it on?

Link Answered before Richard Stroquer's first Contract.

Richard has sizable savings from several years as a well paid design engineer at Southrop Grumman. He now makes money as a freelance design consultant, doing contract engineering work for various firms. Rich is the kind of guy that always has seven different projects in various states of completion, so most of his spare income goes towards improving his basement workshop. He currently has eyes on a Tsugami 5-axis cnc machine that a manufacturing firm down the road has listed for sale, as well as a CNC waterjet machine. He also enjoys gardening, and has a large windowsill collection of exotic plants.

3. Describe your Ambition. What are you striving for? How far would you go to achieve this? Would you kill for it? How close to death would you come for it?

Link Answered before Richard Stroquer's first Contract.

Richards primary objective in life is retribution against his former employers, Southrup Grumman Aerospace and Defense. After discovering that his company was engaging in illicit arms deals and embezzling government funds, he attempted to report it to the relevant authorities. Unfortunately for him, this is was the kind of corruption that goes all the way up, and he was promptly met with orders to clean out his desk and a thinly veiled threat upon his life should he open his mouth again. Richard has taken this deeply to heart, and has made it his life's purpose to "burn these fuckers to the ground." Given his access to explosives, that could prove to be a VERY literal statement. 

4. What was the most defining event of your life (before signing The Contract), and how did it change you?

Link Answered after Contract 1, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

The most defining moment in Richard Stroquer’s life occurred the day he uncovered the internal server logs at Southrup Grumman. A routine audit of encrypted design records led him down a digital rabbit hole—one that revealed a vast web of illicit weapons contracts, diverted black-budget funds, and falsified test results for military prototypes. He wasn’t supposed to see it. And once he did, he wasn’t supposed to leave.

Richard reported the breach to internal compliance first, naïvely believing the company would want to rectify it. Within twenty-four hours, his badge was deactivated, his terminal wiped, and he was escorted out of the building under the guise of downsizing. That same night, an unmarked sedan sat idle across the street from his condo for six hours. The message was clear.

This betrayal shattered the idealistic engineer who once believed in the meritocratic promise of aerospace innovation. The man who once spent his nights prototyping clean propulsion systems and tending to exotic plants in his windowsill now found himself dismantling warheads in his basement, mapping out every node in the defense contractor’s supply chain.

That day didn’t just change Richard’s life—it killed the version of him that still believed in systems. What emerged was a man consumed by purpose, one who would risk his life not for glory or gain, but for retribution. The scarring on his face—remnants of a failed sabotage attempt—serves as a daily reminder: he got too close once. Next time, he’ll finish the job.

5. Name and briefly describe three people in your life. One must be the person you are closest to.

Link Answered after Contract 2, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

1. Maeve Stroquer – Richard’s older sister and the person he’s closest to. Maeve is a trauma nurse at Johns Hopkins and the only family member Richard still speaks to. She’s fiercely protective of her little brother, even if she disapproves of the dangerous path he's taken since the Southrup incident. Maeve serves as Richard’s moral compass, reminding him of the good still worth fighting for. Though he keeps her at arm’s length to protect her from retaliation, she’s one of the few people who truly understands what he gave up when he blew the whistle.

2. Ryan Brand – A former colleague and Richard’s only real friend at Southrup. Eli was a quiet, brilliant systems analyst who shared Richard’s suspicions about the company. When Richard went to report the corruption, Eli warned him not to. Eli now serves as Richards contact at the company, and is more thank happy to sneak a couple things off the factory floor.

3. Desmond Kaltz – Richard’s former supervisor and one of the many names buried in the corruption he tried to expose. Kaltz was the man who gave Richard his first big break—and the one who later threatened him with those chilling words: “You’ve seen too much. Stay quiet, or you won’t see anything ever again.” Richard dreams of one day dragging Kaltz into the light.

6. How was your childhood? Who were your parents? What were they like? Did you attend school? If so, did you fit in? If not, why not?

Link Answered after Contract 2, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

Richard Stroquer grew up in a working-class neighborhood in East Baltimore, the kind of place where you learned to keep your head down and your fists ready. His father, Thomas, was a welder who put in long hours at the shipyards and didn’t say much unless it needed saying. His mother, Elena, was sharp-tongued and sharper-minded—a public school teacher with no patience for excuses and a deep love for gritty determination. Richard inherited both their toughness.

From an early age, he was mechanically inclined. While other kids were getting into trouble, Richard was rebuilding dirt bikes in his neighbor’s garage or wiring together homemade security systems for pocket change. He wasn’t the loudest kid in the room, but he earned respect for being competent—and for never backing down when challenged.

School was fine. He got decent grades, mostly because he could do the work in half the time. He wasn’t a loner, but he wasn’t chasing popularity either. He had a tight circle of friends, most of them gearheads, troublemakers, or both. Teachers either liked him or left him alone, and he was smart enough to keep his head down when it counted.

Looking back, that mix of hands-on skill, street-level problem-solving, and a no-bullshit attitude was the foundation of everything he’d become.

 
 

7. Have you ever been in love? With who? What happened? If not, why not?

Link Answered after Contract 2, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

Yeah, Richard’s been in love—once. Her name was Dana Trujillo, a fellow engineer he met during a joint R&D contract in Huntsville. She was brilliant, sharp-witted, and never let him get away with half-assed answers or emotional deflection. They clicked fast—two people who lived in the details but somehow found quiet in each other’s chaos. For a while, he thought she might be the one thing in his life untouched by the rot around him.

But when he started digging into Southrup’s dirty secrets, Dana warned him—told him to walk away, begged him not to get involved. When he didn’t listen, she left. Not out of anger, but fear. She didn’t want to watch him burn.

He doesn’t blame her. If anything, he’s glad she got out clean. But since then? Love isn’t something he lets himself want. There’s no room for it in a life like his—not until the war’s over.

8. What are your worst fears? Why?

Link Answered after Contract 2, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

Richard doesn’t scare easy. He’s walked through blast zones, stared down federal agents, and wired explosives in places where one wrong breath could mean curtains. But fear isn’t always loud. His worst ones creep in quiet, like smoke through cracked concrete.

What really gets him? Irrelevance. The idea that everything he’s sacrificed—his job, his safety, his future—might amount to nothing. That the machine he’s trying to dismantle is too big, too entrenched, and he’s just another name on a long list of failed martyrs. That’s what keeps him up some nights. Not death. Failure.

He also fears becoming the thing he hates. He's lost friends to obsession before—people who believed they were doing good but ended up no different than the bastards they were fighting. He checks himself constantly, trying to make sure he's still fighting for the right reasons, still pulling wires for justice, not vengeance.

And then there’s Maeve. He doesn’t talk about it, but the thought of his sister getting dragged into his war terrifies him. She’s his anchor, his conscience, and the only family he still has. If they ever used her to get to him—or worse—he knows he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. Or stop what he’d become after.

9. What is (are) your most prized possession(s)? What makes it (them) so special?

Link Answered after Contract 2, (0-3) Hello Vietnam!

Richard’s most prized possession is a beat-up, black canvas duffle bag that, at a glance, looks like it’s been through hell—and probably has. Torn seams have been patched by hand, the zipper’s been replaced twice, and one strap is stitched with dental floss and determination. But the bag is far more than it appears. Gifted—or perhaps cursed—during one of his earliest Contracts, it functions as a supernatural container, something like a bag of holding. But with a twist: it only stores explosives. Dynamite, plastique, blasting caps, powder charges, homemade satchel bombs—it accepts and organizes them like an armory from another dimension.

What makes it special isn’t just its utility (though Richard won’t deny how useful it is to carry a dozen charges and a detonator grid through airport security unnoticed). It’s what the bag represents: commitment. Purpose. It was the first tool that proved his war wasn’t just personal rage—it was something real. Something sanctioned. And while he’s not foolish enough to think the bag is a gift from something benevolent, it’s saved his life more than once, and helped end others who deserved what they got. In a world of shifting loyalties and supernatural madness, it’s the one constant he trusts to always have his back—literally.