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Description
He’s one of the side characters in my graphic novel Theory of Mind.

Although Rustem may not be the most handsome siderian I've seen, but he's been with me since 2002 and I have quite a soft spot for him. See here:

Siderians throughout time

Names:. Rustem Kraznjev
Species: siderian (a northern, horse-sized tiger-oriental cat-lynx like feline)
Gender: male

Birth place: around the metacluster Notochord, north in the Ural mountains
Birth year/date (relative to Stian’s birth year): - 42
Death year (relative to Stian’s birth year): +56 (98 which corresponds to 70 in human years)

Family
Mother: unknown
Father: Nigras Kraznjev
Half-sister: Sasha Kraznjeva
Half-brother: Tsjaiko Kraznjev
Half-brother: Thaldo Kraznjev
Half-brother: Ferrus Kraznjev
Nigras had many mates, so he may have had more half-siblings.
Rustem may have some offspring with several females
APPEARANCE
Appearance & reputation: many siderians know that he’s one of Nigras’ (the cluster coordinator) kids and that he has a role in the cluster coordination team. He’s known as rather silent, quiet, friendly and yet serious.
Shoulder height: around 1.60 (which is average for a male). Maybe slightly above it.
Physical description:Body: a bit crooked and bony although still on a rather healthy weight. Average bodybuilt with a tiger-like back. His spine and pelvis don’t look entirely straight. Pelvic bones stick out. Average paw-size and average to short tail. His movements are a little stiff and he’s not as supple as most siderians.
Head: quite a lion-like heavy profile with a rather protruding rostrum. Heavy, wide chin and lion-like muzzle and nose from the front. High placed upright pointy ears. Rather big, yellow eyes and pronounced ‘eyebrows’ (the ‘circles’ above his eyes from which his eye-whiskers originate).
Fur and coat colour: quite dense, layered yet smooth fur. Much longer, lion-like mane that also covers his forehead. Solid gray with sublte agouti ticking. Black stripe that goes form neck to tail tip. Light gray, nearly white muzzle, cheeks belly and underside of his tail. Light markings around his eyes, typical for a tabby. Some subtle tabby markings in his face, on his legs and chest. Darker mane with black hair tips and a lighter hairbase.
Jewelry & accessories: Nothing that I know of, except the ecals that he needs to work with.
PERSONALITY & CHARACTER
Personality and mannerisms:He’s serious, calm and quiet. He’s rather cautious and defensive and yet quite confident. Mostly on his own but has some good bonds with his half-siblings, mostly Thaldo, Tsjaiko and Sasha. He’s loyal and focused on his duties. Yet, he’s quite passive and doesn’t really question what his father asks him to do. He doesn’t really criticize and takes the situation how it is. That makes him quite adaptive and given his stable, calm personality; he’s difficult to stress out or make upset. Quite emotionally detached and difficult to excite.
Yet he has quite a sense of responsibility and takes care of those he cares about, when needed. He likes simplicity and overview and gets annoyed when things get overly complicated.
Quite closed about his own feelings and worries, although he doesn’t seem to get worried quickly.
Overall humble and kind. He doesn’t ‘use’ his status to bluf like his half-brother Thaldo sometimes does.
He’s very honest and would never lie or betray anyone.

Type of humor: he doesn’t come across as very humouristic himself but he can enjoy Thaldo’s goofiness quite a bit.
Voice, manner of speaking: a bit low and scratchy. Not very clear and rather rough-edged.
Sexuality: heterosexual for as far as I know. However, he doesn’t seem very occupied with sex and only mated occasionally with some females. He never had a relation or permanent mate.
Spirituality and philosophy: not so occupied with spirituality. I think he has the mentality “simple is good” on many fronts.
Fears: to be chased away from his homeland.
Dreams: more like a goal though; to maintain his position in the cluster coordinator team.
Interest, hobbies, occupation:
He doesn’t have many private interests other than being involved in cluster coordination tasks. The tasks that he has vary a lot, but he’s mostly involved in patrolling, rapporting incidents and checking ecal functions in and around the cluster. He has been active in the coordination team alongside several cluster coordinators; his father Nigras, his half-brother Ferrus and his half-cousin Adler.
Special skills: his emotional stability and honesty.
STORY
Raised with two adopted half-siblings
Rustem was one of Nigras’s offspring and was mostly raised by his mother. His father had several other mates and was often busy in his role as cluster coordinator, so Rustem rarely saw him. A metacluster is a place where metaphysical crystals – ecals- form an underground node, which attracts siderians who work with them, so a metacluster is a bit of a siderian ‘town’, For the first years of his life, he thought that he had two elder siblings; Sasha and Tsjaiko. Later he learned that they were his half-siblings and that their mother had died when they were only a few years old. At the learning ground (a place were parents bring their cubs together to play and learn) he met another one of his half-siblings; Thaldo. They got along very well and became quite close friends. However, when they became adolescents, they mostly went separate ways.

Conflict with hyeanas
When Rustem was in his early adult years, his father approached him with the question whether he was interested in joining the cluster coordination team. That brought him back to his old friend Thaldo, who had also joined the team. Rustem still often worked on his own (patrolling, marking, reporting incidents, checking ecals) but also regularly teamed up with Thaldo. The conflicts with the neighbouring northern hyena clan became more problematic and he took his job to report conflicts very serious. The fact that Thaldo sometimes made fun out of the situation annoyed him mildly. He got a bit puzzled when his half-sister Sasha fell in love with a strange white male who seemed to work for the hyenas. He didn’t really know what to do since she was rather close to him; yet her lover had potentially dangerous relations with the hyenas. Instead he relied on his father’s judgement when they had caught the white guy. He felt again a bit conflicted when she just disappeared, together with this stranger and later heard that the hyenas were after them.
His half-sister’s life in danger, loss of his half-brother
Several years passed and the hyena conflict became intense. His thoughts occasionally went to his half-sister, who was living in another metacluster, according to his father. He didn’t have much time to think about her, since there were constantly conflicts. Rustem and his other half-brother Tsjaiko (who also joined the team) didn’t engage in frontal conflicts, unlike Thaldo. Once Nigras had gathered them and brought the news that Sasha’s live was in danger; hyenas from several clans were after her and her mate. He asked Rustem and Tsjaiko to search for her. They travelled as fast as they could, but it was a long way and exhaustion blurred their judgement of the severe weather. They stayed closely together, but the sound of a thundering avalanche startled them and they went separate ways in the raging blizzard. Rustem searched for days but couldn’t find any sign of Tsjaiko. Even when the storm calmed, he couldn’t find his brother. Defeated, he travelled back with the heavy thought of having lost both of his half-siblings. He hardly took the time to eat and wanted to reach his homeland as fast as possible. He collapsed of exhaustion when he finally found Thaldo and brought the news. He quickly figured that the hyena conflicts had excalated here too, since Thaldo was limping on three paws after a intense battle. It got even worse when not much later, the news reached them that Sasha and her mate had been killed by hyenas in the cluster Zilval Summits. Rustem felt partly responsible and that feeling kept following him for a while. Thaldo had also become a lot more clingy to him now that he couldn’t hunt much on his own. Rustem felt the responsibility to take care of his friend and half-sibling but it costed him a lot of energy to hunt for two adults. Thaldo’s foot improved a bit after several months and they found a way to hunt better as a team.

The hard reign of Ferrus
Hyena conflicts had been minimal for a while, but they weren’t quiet. Several clans had gathered again to strike back. Nigras was getting older and was no longer able to keep the conflicts under control. Rustem stayed loyal to his father but heard that several siderians didn’t agree with Nigras’s actions anymore and that they needed another coordinator. Indeed, Ferrus, Rustem’s much younger half-brother, chased Nigras away and took the position as coordinator. Ferrus dealt with the conflicts the hard way and for a moment, Notochord (the metacluster) was safe again. Rustem and Thaldo stayed in the coordination team and mostly did what Ferrus wanted. However, Ferrus’ violence was escalating and Rustem felt under threat from Ferrus. He and Thaldo silently retreated themselves, away from Ferrus’ other followers and spend most time with their elderly father. One day, he spotted an oddly familiar siderian who reminded him of Tsjaiko. He was absolutely astonished to see that this was indeed Tsjaiko. For 50 years, he had lived in the perception that his half-brother was dead and now he suddenly returned, with a mate and with two of Sasha’s children; Noiro and Nuca. Rustem was delighted to see that his father got the chance to see his son back before he passed away, only a year later.
The last peaceful years
Rustem’s own health was also falling back as well and he felt very vulnerable for Ferrus’ violence. Ferrus had zero tolerance for cripples and weaklings like him and Thaldo. However, Ferrus got unexpectly killed in a fight with a visiting siderian from the Fjordlands. A few Fjordlanders had come to ask Ferrus to join their fighting force, but somehow it ended up in a deadly conflict. With Ferrus gone, they felt a wave of relief. Ferrus’ noble son Adler took over the position as cluster coordinator and resolved the tension with the hyeanas as well. Finally, there was a more peaceful atmosphere in the cluster. It was good that Tsjaiko and Tuva stayed close with them as well because Rustem struggled with his own health and was no longer able to hunt successfully with Thaldo. He tried as much as he could but eventually surrendered to his rapidly weakening body…

-------Don't copy/use without my permission.-----------

Description
He’s one of the side characters in my graphic novel Theory of Mind.

Although Rustem may not be the most handsome siderian I've seen, but he's been with me since 2002 and I have quite a soft spot for him. See here:

Siderians throughout time

Names:. Rustem Kraznjev
Species: siderian (a northern, horse-sized tiger-oriental cat-lynx like feline)
Gender: male

Birth place: around the metacluster Notochord, north in the Ural mountains
Birth year/date (relative to Stian’s birth year): - 42
Death year (relative to Stian’s birth year): +56 (98 which corresponds to 70 in human years)

Family
Mother: unknown
Father: Nigras Kraznjev
Half-sister: Sasha Kraznjeva
Half-brother: Tsjaiko Kraznjev
Half-brother: Thaldo Kraznjev
Half-brother: Ferrus Kraznjev
Nigras had many mates, so he may have had more half-siblings.
Rustem may have some offspring with several females
APPEARANCE
Appearance & reputation: many siderians know that he’s one of Nigras’ (the cluster coordinator) kids and that he has a role in the cluster coordination team. He’s known as rather silent, quiet, friendly and yet serious.
Shoulder height: around 1.60 (which is average for a male). Maybe slightly above it.
Physical description:Body: a bit crooked and bony although still on a rather healthy weight. Average bodybuilt with a tiger-like back. His spine and pelvis don’t look entirely straight. Pelvic bones stick out. Average paw-size and average to short tail. His movements are a little stiff and he’s not as supple as most siderians.
Head: quite a lion-like heavy profile with a rather protruding rostrum. Heavy, wide chin and lion-like muzzle and nose from the front. High placed upright pointy ears. Rather big, yellow eyes and pronounced ‘eyebrows’ (the ‘circles’ above his eyes from which his eye-whiskers originate).
Fur and coat colour: quite dense, layered yet smooth fur. Much longer, lion-like mane that also covers his forehead. Solid gray with sublte agouti ticking. Black stripe that goes form neck to tail tip. Light gray, nearly white muzzle, cheeks belly and underside of his tail. Light markings around his eyes, typical for a tabby. Some subtle tabby markings in his face, on his legs and chest. Darker mane with black hair tips and a lighter hairbase.
Jewelry & accessories: Nothing that I know of, except the ecals that he needs to work with.
PERSONALITY & CHARACTER
Personality and mannerisms:He’s serious, calm and quiet. He’s rather cautious and defensive and yet quite confident. Mostly on his own but has some good bonds with his half-siblings, mostly Thaldo, Tsjaiko and Sasha. He’s loyal and focused on his duties. Yet, he’s quite passive and doesn’t really question what his father asks him to do. He doesn’t really criticize and takes the situation how it is. That makes him quite adaptive and given his stable, calm personality; he’s difficult to stress out or make upset. Quite emotionally detached and difficult to excite.
Yet he has quite a sense of responsibility and takes care of those he cares about, when needed. He likes simplicity and overview and gets annoyed when things get overly complicated.
Quite closed about his own feelings and worries, although he doesn’t seem to get worried quickly.
Overall humble and kind. He doesn’t ‘use’ his status to bluf like his half-brother Thaldo sometimes does.
He’s very honest and would never lie or betray anyone.

Type of humor: he doesn’t come across as very humouristic himself but he can enjoy Thaldo’s goofiness quite a bit.
Voice, manner of speaking: a bit low and scratchy. Not very clear and rather rough-edged.
Sexuality: heterosexual for as far as I know. However, he doesn’t seem very occupied with sex and only mated occasionally with some females. He never had a relation or permanent mate.
Spirituality and philosophy: not so occupied with spirituality. I think he has the mentality “simple is good” on many fronts.
Fears: to be chased away from his homeland.
Dreams: more like a goal though; to maintain his position in the cluster coordinator team.
Interest, hobbies, occupation:
He doesn’t have many private interests other than being involved in cluster coordination tasks. The tasks that he has vary a lot, but he’s mostly involved in patrolling, rapporting incidents and checking ecal functions in and around the cluster. He has been active in the coordination team alongside several cluster coordinators; his father Nigras, his half-brother Ferrus and his half-cousin Adler.
Special skills: his emotional stability and honesty.
STORY
Raised with two adopted half-siblings
Rustem was one of Nigras’s offspring and was mostly raised by his mother. His father had several other mates and was often busy in his role as cluster coordinator, so Rustem rarely saw him. A metacluster is a place where metaphysical crystals – ecals- form an underground node, which attracts siderians who work with them, so a metacluster is a bit of a siderian ‘town’, For the first years of his life, he thought that he had two elder siblings; Sasha and Tsjaiko. Later he learned that they were his half-siblings and that their mother had died when they were only a few years old. At the learning ground (a place were parents bring their cubs together to play and learn) he met another one of his half-siblings; Thaldo. They got along very well and became quite close friends. However, when they became adolescents, they mostly went separate ways.

Conflict with hyeanas
When Rustem was in his early adult years, his father approached him with the question whether he was interested in joining the cluster coordination team. That brought him back to his old friend Thaldo, who had also joined the team. Rustem still often worked on his own (patrolling, marking, reporting incidents, checking ecals) but also regularly teamed up with Thaldo. The conflicts with the neighbouring northern hyena clan became more problematic and he took his job to report conflicts very serious. The fact that Thaldo sometimes made fun out of the situation annoyed him mildly. He got a bit puzzled when his half-sister Sasha fell in love with a strange white male who seemed to work for the hyenas. He didn’t really know what to do since she was rather close to him; yet her lover had potentially dangerous relations with the hyenas. Instead he relied on his father’s judgement when they had caught the white guy. He felt again a bit conflicted when she just disappeared, together with this stranger and later heard that the hyenas were after them.
His half-sister’s life in danger, loss of his half-brother
Several years passed and the hyena conflict became intense. His thoughts occasionally went to his half-sister, who was living in another metacluster, according to his father. He didn’t have much time to think about her, since there were constantly conflicts. Rustem and his other half-brother Tsjaiko (who also joined the team) didn’t engage in frontal conflicts, unlike Thaldo. Once Nigras had gathered them and brought the news that Sasha’s live was in danger; hyenas from several clans were after her and her mate. He asked Rustem and Tsjaiko to search for her. They travelled as fast as they could, but it was a long way and exhaustion blurred their judgement of the severe weather. They stayed closely together, but the sound of a thundering avalanche startled them and they went separate ways in the raging blizzard. Rustem searched for days but couldn’t find any sign of Tsjaiko. Even when the storm calmed, he couldn’t find his brother. Defeated, he travelled back with the heavy thought of having lost both of his half-siblings. He hardly took the time to eat and wanted to reach his homeland as fast as possible. He collapsed of exhaustion when he finally found Thaldo and brought the news. He quickly figured that the hyena conflicts had excalated here too, since Thaldo was limping on three paws after a intense battle. It got even worse when not much later, the news reached them that Sasha and her mate had been killed by hyenas in the cluster Zilval Summits. Rustem felt partly responsible and that feeling kept following him for a while. Thaldo had also become a lot more clingy to him now that he couldn’t hunt much on his own. Rustem felt the responsibility to take care of his friend and half-sibling but it costed him a lot of energy to hunt for two adults. Thaldo’s foot improved a bit after several months and they found a way to hunt better as a team.

The hard reign of Ferrus
Hyena conflicts had been minimal for a while, but they weren’t quiet. Several clans had gathered again to strike back. Nigras was getting older and was no longer able to keep the conflicts under control. Rustem stayed loyal to his father but heard that several siderians didn’t agree with Nigras’s actions anymore and that they needed another coordinator. Indeed, Ferrus, Rustem’s much younger half-brother, chased Nigras away and took the position as coordinator. Ferrus dealt with the conflicts the hard way and for a moment, Notochord (the metacluster) was safe again. Rustem and Thaldo stayed in the coordination team and mostly did what Ferrus wanted. However, Ferrus’ violence was escalating and Rustem felt under threat from Ferrus. He and Thaldo silently retreated themselves, away from Ferrus’ other followers and spend most time with their elderly father. One day, he spotted an oddly familiar siderian who reminded him of Tsjaiko. He was absolutely astonished to see that this was indeed Tsjaiko. For 50 years, he had lived in the perception that his half-brother was dead and now he suddenly returned, with a mate and with two of Sasha’s children; Noiro and Nuca. Rustem was delighted to see that his father got the chance to see his son back before he passed away, only a year later.
The last peaceful years
Rustem’s own health was also falling back as well and he felt very vulnerable for Ferrus’ violence. Ferrus had zero tolerance for cripples and weaklings like him and Thaldo. However, Ferrus got unexpectly killed in a fight with a visiting siderian from the Fjordlands. A few Fjordlanders had come to ask Ferrus to join their fighting force, but somehow it ended up in a deadly conflict. With Ferrus gone, they felt a wave of relief. Ferrus’ noble son Adler took over the position as cluster coordinator and resolved the tension with the hyeanas as well. Finally, there was a more peaceful atmosphere in the cluster. It was good that Tsjaiko and Tuva stayed close with them as well because Rustem struggled with his own health and was no longer able to hunt successfully with Thaldo. He tried as much as he could but eventually surrendered to his rapidly weakening body…

-------Don't copy/use without my permission.-----------