Mongo Thomas

Mongo is the thirty-five year-old ship's cook aboard the Cloud Dancer a temporal displacement-capable airship under the command of Captain Petrius.

Skills

Mongo is an excellent, if curious, cook. While he knows better than to foist his culinary concoctions on strangers, those who know him also know of his penchant for experimenting with new flavor combinations. Usually, his experiments go pretty much as planned, or at least taste better than you'd expect. If you happen to be the recipient of an experiment gone wrong, he'll be happy to fix your favorite meal or dessert as an apology the next time he's able.

He isn't as adapt at hunting and combat as he was in his African tribe, but Mongo's mind still runs the old paths, and it wouldn't take his body long to follow. His days as an acrobatic entertainer taught him how to train himself physically, even when there isn't a gazelle to hunt. He works out regularly in his spare time to maintain his skills, loathe to become like the soft civilized people around him.

The combination between his cooking skill and combat prowess means that Mongo can fight with anything resembling a cooking implement, especially knives. He also is comfortable with a spear, and will seek out an opportunity to procure or create one if the need to hunt ever arises.

Mongo is fair at English, but not adept, and his tribal language lends itself to confrontation. If there's something to be said, Mongo is happy to let someone else step up and say it, though his observational tendencies sometimes allow him to come up with gems.

Personality

Ever curious, Mongo finds that there's more learning to be done by watching than by speaking. He tends to silently observe new situations, forming judgments and questions that evolve with future observations. In familiar circumstances with familiar friends, however, Mongo can be as rowdy and boisterous as any, and is well capable of enjoying a good time. He has a food-related nickname for almost everyone he meets. If you've really earned his respect, he may name you after some form of African wildlife. Of the Cloud Dancer's current crew, he calls Benicio del Toro "Beef," and Bartholomew Heeley either "Brat" or "Wurst," depending on how annoyed Mongo is with him at the moment.

Mongo's religion is very important to him. Though raised in an African tribe, he's converted to Christianity. These two parts of his history temper each other: his Christianity encouraging him to refine his tribal habits, and his previous experience with polytheism granting him an understanding of those who don't believe what he does today.

His history with the tribe has given Mongo very firm ideas about what it is to be a man. When first encountering missionaries, he had to adjust to the idea that a man doesn't need to be able to hunt or fight. However, Mongo firmly believes that a man needs to be able to stand in the face of danger without showing fear. In a fight or flight situation, his first instinct is fight, and Mongo has little respect for any man who would respond otherwise.

History

Mongo's given name means "In days of no rain, crops grew," recalling when his African tribe discovered underground springs near their village. The tribe had only recently been discovered by civilization. When Mongo was fourteen years old, a couple years after he attained manhood, a missionary named John Thomas and his wife Barbara arrived and began working with the tribe. It was John who took to first shortening Mongo's long and difficult-to-pronounce name to the form it is today.

The Thomases met with mixed reception at the tribe, but Mongo, always curious, assisted them in learning the language and translating their Scriptures to his native tongue. When John Thomas discovered he was dying of cancer, Mongo desired to return to the United States with them. Once there, Mongo was introduced to the world of forms with required surnames. Whenever he's been required to use a surname, he's chosen the name Thomas.

At twenty-four years old, Mongo needed to find employment. After a long, hard search, hindered both by his unfamiliarity with English and his race, Mongo finally discovered a restaurant that entertained its diners with music and acrobatic performances. The manager decided to hire him as an acrobat in a production that played off his tribal roots in a culturally insensitive way. To Mongo, it was only a job, and the production only highlighted American's ignorance of his tribe's culture, but he chaffed under the way his trainers and employers treated him. At day's end, he would go to the kitchen to assist with washing the dishes, looking forward to a share of the leftovers to be thrown out every evening. The chef took a shine to him, and taught him everything he knew about cooking. When the chef finally retired, Mongo stepped into his place to escape the poor treatment he received from his trainers.

One day, Captain Petrius stopped in at the restaurant. He was currently outfitting his air ship, the Cloud Dancer for an expedition. Whether he'd been looking for a cook already, or whether Mongo's fare made him realize a critical gap in his workforce, Mongo doesn't know. All the ship's cook knows is that Petrius burst into the kitchen and offered him a job aboard his time-travelling airship. Mongo's curiosity was piqued, and the rest is history.