NOTE: I've had this character in the works for awhile. Don't be intimidated and think undisclosed is looking for this much out of everyone! The last thing I want to do is scare people off. 
Name: Pavel Dorogaia
Nickname: Rромадный (Mammoth)
Age: 34
Hair/Eye Color: Dark Brown / Ice Blue
Height: 6'11"
Weight: 288lbs
Orientation: Heterosexual
Appearance: The Russian "Mammoth" certainly lives up to his namesake, standing at nearly seven feet and sporting enough meat and muscle on his bones to put most men to shame. Though his face is mostly untouched, barring a few minor scars, the rest of his body is a tapestry of old wounds. The man's thick hide has clearly saved him on more than one occasion, though it's certainly come out the worse for wear because of it. What must be hundreds of similar shallow knife wounds adorn nearly every inch of his chest, back, and abdomen. Beneath them lie the occasional burn scar or telltale signs of shrapnel from far older days.
Talents: Sniping; Reconnaissance; Close-Quarters-Combat
Defects/Failures/Weaknesses:In addition to having to come to terms with life in a foreign country, Pavel has never quite been able to get past the horrors endured during the Chechen Wars. He has an extremely difficult time relating to other people due to the trauma eating away at him, and his time as a sniper taught him to distance himself from 'potential targets'. Unfortunately for Pavel,
everyone is considered a potential target. He can, and has, gone entire days without saying so much as a word. A conversationalist, Pavel is not. Because of this, many people mistake him for being slow or otherwise unintelligent.
He does not like those people.
He is also fiercely protective of women and children, perhaps in an attempt to atone for the atrocities he committed back in his homeland. He will shield them with his body without the slightest bit of hesitation, and threatening them while he is within earshot is considered extremely unwise. Pavel is extremely sensitive when it comes to the murder of innocents; it is one of the few things that can send the normally stolid man completely off the handle. Unless someone calms him down almost immediately it is highly likely that he will become violent.
Specialty/Position in the family: Pavel acts both as an Enforcer and a Hitman for the Family, guarding the high ranking members or covertly taking out rivals on their behalf.
Outside Perspective: As previously mentioned, most people consider Pavel to be nothing more than hired muscle. His outwardly brutish disposition and habit of speaking in fragmentary sentences leads others to take him for a simpleton. He does not speak of the Chechen War to anyone, though his skill with a rifle and blade has led some to become suspicious of his past.
Weapon of Choice:Close-Range: Ballistic Knife
Long-Range: MSG90SDN Sniper Rifle
Personality:Pavel is the very definition of the "strong silent type", wasting very few words and preferring to let his face or his actions do the talking for him. He isn't shy by any means, but has encountered far too many people in the past that could talk for hours and say absolutely nothing of consequence. As a sniper he is used to the silence, though he never lets his guard down for an instant. He knows full well that he makes for a conveniently large target, and has adopted a subtle manner of walking and maneuvering about spaces that makes it difficult for potential shooters to get a clear shot.
His former line of work required him to be entirely detached, lest he lose his resolve in the middle of lining up a shot. But Pavel is not a cold man, and he has devoted to memory the faces of every single man, woman, or child that has wound up on the other end of his scope. He remembers every shot flawlessly, down to the physical sensation of the kill, suggesting that he has an acute photographic memory. Speaking of the past seems to wear down upon him heavily, his voice exhausted and bitter. The present suits him more, and he prefers to focus on the moment rather than lose himself to the past.
For all the lives he has taken, at his heart he is a compassionate and moral human being. He does what he has to in order to survive, even if that means killing others, but he does not enjoy it in the slightest. Pavel does not torture or harm others indiscriminately unless absolutely necessary.
Bio:Born to hardy Russian stock in 1976, Pavel's mother could not possibly have guessed the irony of his name (meaning
Small). His family was not well off, his father a factory worker with a violent cough and his mother far too sickly to perform any physically taxing work. The boy grew surprisingly quickly, but for all his hardiness he remained lost in his own little world; even when he joined his father's side he had an unfortunate habit of losing focus and making mistakes. His younger years were largely a blur, and though the world was in an age of tension and paranoia he did not concern himself with current events.
Only one person seemed capable of needling their way in through the iron bubble that Pavel had erected around himself, a young woman named Tania. She was remarkably stubborn, even bull-headed at times, and from the moment they met she refused to let him continue his solitary, introverted lifestyle. The girl often ambushed him immediately after a long day of work, dragging the exhausted lad through sun or snow to a hill where they could watch the sky and talk or stay silent as they pleased. As Pavel grew taller and more ungainly he became all the more dependent on his friend for company, who never seemed to notice his abnormal height and, on more than one occasion, pelted rocks at the other boys that treated him as some sort of freak.
As adolescence set in, it became increasingly apparent that he was far from a freak. He had matured quickly into a handsome and sturdy young teenager while the other boys had become pockmarked or fat, and more than a few girls began to pay him a great deal of attention at school. He seemed absolutely blind to them, as beautiful as some of them were. Tania had blossomed into a fine young lady herself, and it became increasingly difficult to hide his newfound affections for her. She had become all the more blunt over the years, strong and proud and with a wide grin that she used on the other girls whenever they came near to scare them off. Most men would look at such a girl, dressing like a man and acting as one as well, and dismiss her immediately. But Pavel was not most men.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought with it a host of ethnic, religious, and political conflicts that would soon tear many of the newly formed nations apart at the seams. This event coincided with the death of Pavel's mother, who after nearly two decades of failing health finally succumbed to her illness. This tragedy consumed the boy with grief, though it had eaten away at him over the years to watch her wither away. All his muscle and strength seemed meaningless, for it had been unable to save her life.
But the world wouldn't wait for the death of a single old woman, and suddenly he was forced to confront the fact that he had become a stranger in his own homeland. Hostilities began to mount between Russia and Chechnya, Pavel's birthplace, finally reaching their peak in 1993 when the country declared its independence from Moscow and became the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Non-Chechen's began to leave in droves as reports of violent discrimination became increasingly common, but Pavel's father was adamant in remaining exactly where he was. He refused to leave the place where his wife was buried and to abandon the factory at which he and his family had worked for generations. Unfortunately, it would soon become apparent that he would no longer have a choice in the matter. Less than a month after the declaration, Pavel's father was attacked killed on his way home from work. Among the murderers were the neighbors that his family had lived beside for decades. Distraught and maddened by the news, the man broke his way into their home that very night and viciously beat its occupants to death in a blind rage before gathering what he could from his family's coffers and fleeing.
Before leaving the country he met with Tania one last time, beneath familiar stars. He begged for her to come with him, only to have his heart sink into his stomach as he realized the futility of the gesture; she was a native Chechen herself, and traveling to Russia would only place her in greater danger. Their words became heated, and though the man was not prejudiced by any means, the loss of his father brought him to utter foul and hateful things. He struck her, and such was the look of pain betrayal in her eyes that he ran from the hilltop and never looked back.
Determined to put his body to good use and tired of feeling useless and disconnected from the world at large, Pavel enlisted in the military despite knowing full well that he would likely be sent to fight against his former country. His first-hand knowledge of the geography made him a valuable commodity, as did his obvious physical prowess. His determination was unmatched, and he excelled spectacularly. It was as though he had been sleeping all his life until that very moment, forced to awaken under the weight of tragedy and an intense desire to do something important with his own two hands.
When the war exploded things did not go according to plan. The Chechen air force was decimated, but the initial land-based assault quickly became a disaster. Hundreds of soldiers resigned or refused to take part in the invasion, and those that remained were completely unprepared and ignorant of why they were being sent in the first place. Pavel's ability to navigate the terrain was apparently a rare skill, and the forward ranks were rife with disorganization, self-sabotage, and dereliction of duty.
Grozny became a bloodbath, with over 50,000 men, women, and children slaughtered within the first few weeks. All of this Pavel saw first-hand, shaking him to his core and further disillusioning him. This war was completely unlike anything he or anyone else could have possibly predicted, an out and out butchery that would permanently stain the hands of all who participated. The fall of Grozny was only the beginning, as Russian forces spread out over the lowlands and mountains, ruthlessly capturing territory and massacring civilians without pause. Though most of the Republic was taken with little effort, the ensuing Guerilla campaign would show Palev the true depravity of war.
Desperation. This is what he witnessed during the months in the faces of the Chechen Separatists. Improvised explosives, booby traps; every weapon that human ingenuity could invent and bring to bear with limited resources found its way into their hands. Anything to win. Anything to survive. Anything for independence. He still remembers the first time his finger hesitated on the trigger. The forced expression of determination on the face of a child no older than eleven as he trained an assault rifle on Russian soldiers, the primal fear welling up in the boy's eyes. Hesitation...the report of his rifle...then nothing. For the remainder of the war he can only recall one other time that he felt such hesitation. Just one time. But of that, he tells no one.
He does not dwell on that war, though it defined the soldier and the man that he would become. Twenty-one years old by the end, it somehow felt as though it had lasted far longer than the 19 years of life he had lived before it. But he would not allow the experience to break him. He would not wither and die as his mother had. If he went to his grave it would be on his feet, standing tall before his enemies and piercing them with an unwavering gaze. Such was his resolve to continue his training. He had nothing left, and so devoted himself to the country that gave him some measure of self-worth, though he harbored a simmering disgust for Russia's handling of the conflict.
But fate would not allow him to escape the past, and in 1999 the second Chechen War erupted. To him it was merely a continuation, the brief peace nothing more than a shallow breath before diving once more into the putrid mire of bloodshed. Destruction, civilian casualties, guerilla attacks, terrorism, bombardment, insurgents, suicide bombing; killing, killing, and more killing. It became preferable to view everything through a lens. Everything seemed farther away, though there was never a moment when his life wasn't in immediate danger. It was mindless and unending. Another four years passed, and though Chechya again came under Russian rule the fighting continued. The killing continued. But Pavel would not, and in 2002 he deserted both his unit and the country that seemed determined to keep him stationed in the land that had birthed him.
Wishing to put an ocean between him and the blood-tainted country, Pavel immigrated to America as soon as he was able. For a time he worked in various factories, finding some meager enjoyment in the mindless work of the assembly line. The nostalgia for better days soon overcame him however, and he found that factory work was beginning to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. This did not go unnoticed by certain shrewd individuals, who had heard word of the mighty "Mammoth" and his supposed skill with a rifle and blade.
At first Pavel was extremely resistant to the idea of becoming a criminal, and even now there is a part of him that feels some measure of disgust towards the lifestyle he has chosen. Like so many other immigrants he has fallen to a life of crime, and such is his disillusionment that the allure of money has clouded his judgment.
