Maximillian Brookovich

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Name: Maximillian “Max” Brookovich
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Blacksmithing, welding, anything medieval, tabletop games, jewelry-making, going on adventures, reading survivalist books and zombie/knight related media.

Appearance: Maximillian is a 6’4” 201 lbs. Ukrainian-American with a mix of some Scandinavian descent, reflected in his body by his full and healthy muscles, in addition to some minor pudge here and there. His skin tone is standard Northern Caucasian, with a cool undertone that sunburns easily. Three features that appear more Ukrainian on his frame are his sturdy build, adding to his giant-like physique, a rounder face, and the ability to squat on his heels, something his brother does not possess. Max has a standard eyebrow shape, a flat-bridged nose, grey-blue eyes, and dirty-blonde hair. His hair is short, naturally spiking up somewhat but assisted further by the use of gel. He has two scars, a burn mark on his right cheekbone from a welding accident, and a mark from a dog bite on his right calf that’s barely visible. He’s much more distinctly Scandinavian than his brother, visible in his tall and lanky build.

Max’s attire is heavily inspired by Gopnik culture in Eastern European countries, an aesthetic he took a liking to in his middle school years while exploring his heritage. Max is most likely to be seen wearing a meme t-shirt depicting something from the early-mid 2010s, a red tracksuit with black stripes with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, plus standard blue jeans and Adidas trainers. He tends to accessorize by wearing a collection of rings on both of his hands that he’d acquired from friends, renaissance fairs, and thrift stores, a byzantine-style copper chain-mail necklace he made himself, a matching bracelet, and a set of mirrored aviator glasses. While not wearing his glasses, be it a cloudy day or he’s just indoors, he typically hangs his glasses on his necklace. On colder days he’s typically seen wearing a vintage brown leather jacket over his usual attire.

Biography: Maximillian is the eldest of the Brookovich brothers, two third-generation Scandi-Ukrainian immigrants. He’s the son of his fully Scandi mother, Nina, and his Ukrainian father, Winston. The two had met at a record store on campus grounds of their University, and got married 6 years later, having two kids shortly thereafter, the first being Maximillian, and the second being his brother Andor, born half-a-year younger than him down to the exact day. The two were raised in a fringe suburb on the border of Chicago, Illinois, and went to both elementary and middle school there.

Maximillian was raised in a very loosely Christian household. Nina was raised in a judgemental Lutheran family and Winston in a broken Mormon one. The two of them decided to let their children come to their own conclusions about God by raising them non-denominationally, answering their questions surrounding the faith but never forcing them to go to church or read the Bible. The parents didn’t demand much from their kids, but they laid out important ground rules that they urged their children to abide by, the first being how the most important thing in the world is your relationship with God, followed by your family. All else is case-by-case; the second being to not be a slave to anyone, live free or die, and lastly; Question authority.

Since the boys were being raised in the era of the SotF games, the parents told them how to act in the event of being captured by terrorists, which they referred to as the Ice Cream Test. It boiled down to the fundamental principle of not obeying evil commands, even if it costs you greatly.

This would lay the foundation for Maximillian’s core belief system moving all the way through his formative years to his high school career. Unlike Andor, he never felt any feelings of existential dread as a child, instead choosing to hone in on making himself a better person through philosophy and religious deductions that he found to be mostly trivial and self-evident in comparison to his brother’s constant struggle with doubt and re-evaluation.

An important detail about Max is that he’s quick to make friends, or failing that, cronies. This trait of his is something that he would apply to every facet of his life, starting with his lifelong companion Dimitri being the first, a neighbor kid in the suburb. At a very young age, the two of them constantly talked about battle strategies, tactics, survivalism, and zombies. This obsession with combat would follow Max into his adult years. At first, they would carve sticks into makeshift spears and coat the edges in nightshade, which then evolved into banging metal pipes into a shape that resembled a knife or a sword, which then evolved into the full scale production of weapons and armor, which Max ultimately decided was his greatest passion. He would read books on how to build a lean-to, filter and sterilize water, how to make fire, and books on Roman, Scottish, Japanese, Mongol, and other battle formations.

Unfortunately, his success in leadership would lead to him clashing with two kinds of people: authority figures in his life–namely his parents–or other people of strong character who would seek to remove his control. His belief that he’s always in the right in regards to his wants made him starkly opposed to any kinds of opposition, restrictions, chores, or punishments that others would impose on him, and he would refuse to obey or compromise. This led to some domestic troubles, as Nina and Winston tried their best to enforce ground rules in the house, but it only encouraged Max to act out even more. This resulted in stricter rules from the parents, which emboldened Max to the point where he wouldn’t obey instruction from his parents even within direct observation. Any punishment that was administered to him either meant nothing to him, or it was something he could easily skirt around. Ultimately, it resulted in a diminished relationship between Max and his parents, especially between himself and Winston, who resented his son’s snarkiness most of all. His relationship with his brother also had a rocky start because of this, as during the two’s formative years Max would try to use his brother to do things he didn’t want to do without offering any kind of compensation. Andy would refuse, but Max would use his superior strength and size to coerce him into doing his bidding. Andy, unable to physically resist, would be forced to comply.

Max continued to make friends, expanding his social circle more and more with each new social sphere he entered. He quickly found lunch tables coalescing around him as the focal point in elementary school, and later middle school. He wasn’t a popular kid in the traditional sense, as other groups that surrounded extracurriculars like sports or theater had no central leader. Each member was as relevant to the group as anyone else involved. On the contrary, most of the people that gravitated towards Max were usually considered antisocial by typical standards, and latched onto the most outspoken and charismatic person who shared their interests. Max took notice of his cult of personality and used it to live his best life, always organizing functions and taking charge of situations in his circle to maximize his influence and prevent himself from having to do an activity he didn’t want to. Despite being seemingly manipulative on the surface, he did take care of the people he associated with, and tried his best to cater to the needs of his friends, but whenever he left a circle, it usually dissolved in his absence. This happened multiple times throughout his life, but he was always able to hold onto his most loyal friends between circles. That was all about to change very abruptly.

Max had mostly enjoyed his life in elementary school, but middle school was an entirely different beast. Max had always performed relatively well academically, usually getting B’s and C’s, with the occasional A, but middle school brought his grades down in a massive slump. At first, his parents thought that he wasn’t applying himself enough, but they soon learned that it was actually the result of a small collection of politically like-minded teachers. The superintendent of the district was negligent and self-centered, and hired people based solely on how much she liked them and not on their merit as teachers. Max, who disagreed with their beliefs, was being punished in his grades for doing so, and the higher administration refused to acknowledge the problem. As a result of this, Max looked to increase his own understanding of morality and philosophy so that he may better defend himself in the classroom, and discovered two things that fit his ideology perfectly: a book titled The Moon Through the Lonely Window, and the philosophical studies of stoicism. Both of which vocalized his worldview in a cohesive way that he could explain to others, and clung to their principles closely. Tensions between Max and his superiors led to the Brookovich’s attempting to fight their agenda in any way they could, assembling parents, collecting evidence, trying to come up with a legal way to stop it, but after three years of no luck, they had decided to cut their losses and move away from the drama. The final straw was the COVID-19 pandemic, which was so poorly handled by administration that it resulted in the lowest grades and mental state Max had ever seen, so the Brookovich’s decided that enough was enough.

It was also around this time where Andy’s resentment toward his brother would reach its breaking point. It all culminated in an emotional verbal argument involving everyone in the family about his actions. He ultimately decided that manipulating his relatives wasn’t worth the hassle it brought him, and slowly faded out his behavior until his relationship with his family had healed, at least for the most part. It was a long process, and fights persisted, but gradually Max and Andy were able to repair their fractured brotherhood, and found mutual respect in each other’s worldviews and philosophies.

With both school troubles and family troubles left behind in Illinois, this landed them in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Brookovich brothers were going to get a fresh start at Southwest Red Rock High. As soon as the first day of Freshman year rolled around, Max began to work his magic. In the span of two weeks, he’d managed to create his own posse of 10 from scratch, which only continued to grow, centered around card and board games. They weren’t quite the same as smashing people with blunt weapons, but the medieval connotations of YuGiOh, Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons & Dragons were enough to scratch the itch until he could find an armored combat league in the state. He also began to thrive beyond his social life, grades shooting back up and even participating in science fairs. His project was testing the hardness of various ratios of aluminum-bronze alloy using his home foundry, winning him first in the state science fair and eighth in the nation. It was also around this time that Max began to learn some level of diplomacy and understand that compromise is the heart of business, which greatly increased his personability both in his usual crowd, and in dealing with (or in some cases, allying with) other charismatic figures in his new environment to meet mutually beneficial ends. Now, as he approaches graduation, he wishes to pursue a career in welding, a skill that he can apply to both the workforce and his own hobbies, and after four years of Max and Andy growing to get along, the bond between him and his brother is stronger than ever.

Advantages: Max is well versed in melee combat strategy and technique, making him a force to be reckoned with with anything even closely resembling a medieval weapon. His survival knowledge is also a paramount advantage, as he can survive off the spoils of the land much longer than most. In addition, his leadership skills, and agreeable nature make him a valuable ally and could quickly lead to him amassing a following or alliance on the island.
Disadvantages: Maximillian’s moral absolutism and resilience against authority figures could result in numerous issues, ranging from as small as not being able to cooperate with other students who want to give him orders well to as extreme as punishment for defying Danya’s will. His desire to always be at the top of the chain of command and do things his way or not at all could result in him making enemies with more students than he would otherwise, but this is lessened somewhat by Max’s desire for compromise to prevent unnecessary squabble. Lessened, but not removed.