Hi sorry can I be a bother. Im like super duper invested in your ocs esp stryzh and like. Lore drop when?? What’s his story and what’s the world he lives in like?? Thanks!!!!!
Hiiii ! Omg you're NOT a bother, I'm actually really really happy people like my characters and are interested in them to begin with 😭
I'll give you this post for the introduction ! It covers the universe and basics. I also put #stryzhlore in a few lore related posts, if you want to read more !
NOW JUST KNOW I AM YAPPING A LOT AFTER THIS. Like a lot. I'm so sorry- Please don't feel pressured to read everything.
So.... Here's my main issue with Stryzh, I have NO idea where to begin, because there's a lot. I don't mean to make it a big thing, I just am really bad at this 💔
For the world he lives in, it's either the avian warfare au, or a more "regular" setting with no supernatural/shifting abilities. I usually say he's part of the Call of duty universe, but I didn't involve him in any of the canon campains or canon characters. His lore is the same, no matter the universe :>
Bird shifting aside, the world is meant to be "realistic", as in similar to ours but i'm not focusing on real IRL 2026 events. If that makes sense ? Overall same world, but it's still fiction. Ence why I say CoD, it just fits (and allows interactions/connections with other characters. He settles very well in the franchise)
Now, for the lore itself, I think I should start with the main inspiration, to help you make sense of this whole mess. Stryzh was born from my love of the Stalker franchise, which is centered around the Chornobyl exclusion Zone. Stalker 2 is my favorite game, and I fell in love with the exploration, the stillness, the environment and the "loneliness" (it's not entirely lonely, but at the end of the day... Kill or be killed, you're on your own). It's harsh, it's beautiful, there's a lot of life but there's such a strong sense of nostalgia (this is just my own experience of the game though ! ), and well, Stryzh is a bit like that.
Chornobyl and Prypiat are therefore key places for the bases of his backstory. Though, I wanna say something : this isn't about how cool it is, it's not about radioactivity and anything silly around it. It's about the severity of the incident, about how so many families lost their homes, how so much of this could have been avoided, how people were forced to leave their roots, without knowing they wouldn't ever be able to return. The secrecy, the hidden mistakes, the attempts to conceal it all, etc.
The other key point is the identity change. Yukhym Vovkodav is not his original identity, and his former one is declared dead. He's a living ghost, had to disappear because he pulled off something huge, it would have been dangerous for his own family. For their sake, he had to die, leave no trace, so no one would be tempted to harm his family in search for answers. His original identity is Yevhen Khyzhnyak :>
( yes, Yevhen is the name of Stalker 2's protagonist, yes I'm a little ashamed, but it wasn't supposed to become such a big thing.......... it was more supposed to be a little funny ahah detail, but now it fits him well and I can't find a better name IM SORRY ) ((Yes, I know Khyzhnyak looks like a keysmash if you don't know cyrilic to roman transliteration, no it's not keysmash- ))
Stryzh doesn't have a sad childhood, or an abusive family. It's the opposite. He was close to his family. They grew up close knitted, all lived in the same place, everyone knows everyone and takes care of each other. Not a perfect family, but a very real one, everyone had their own quirks and issues, yk ? This family has quite the generational trauma. Grandparents and parents/uncles/aunts had to suddenly completely leave their home in late April of 1986, which completely tore their roots apart. Great uncle died there, Grandpa followed pretty quickly after. The family never managed to move on, and stayed close to the place. They all worked around it, too. It's an obsession they all share, and Stryzh hated them for it, because he never understood why they couldn't just move on, until he stepped in the zone and fell into it as well. Truth is, it was home, something they felt like they weren't allowed to experience again, and they felt drawn to "take care" of the place after that. Think forest rangers, vets working on the animals of the zone, studying the effects of the incidents on the area, etc.
When they were younger, Stryzh hated the whole... obsession his family had over the area he grew up in. They all were invested, they all were so fixated on staying here and sticking together and his rebellious phase absolutely hated that. He didn't get it was about the sense of home, of belonging, to him, they were just stupid and stubborn and refused to move on and he promised himself he would never be like them. That he wouldn't fall for these stupid fixations and addictions. In the end, Stryzh ended up being worse than them all <3
I have whole texts written about her family, and how everyone had an influence on her. Skills, resilience, spite, survival, compassion, it all comes from them. Mouth shut, eyes open, keen ears. She was always a little weird, always somewhat of an outcast, and she quickly became really, really good at hiding it. In short, he was good at pretending to be a good son. He's hyposensitive, he's very detached from feelings, connections, he doesn't have that affect towards people. It's a little alien to him, he can't bring himself to care, it's odd.
They all think he is dead, now. All of his career, all these years of work and deployments and missions and digging went to ashes, for their safety. They were forced to move again, they even had to leave the country. In a way, Stryzh broke their curse, they had to leave the Zone behind, stick together. Home was never a place, but a feeling they can experience again.
Nooooow........ I know this covers SUCH a small amount of lore but as you see,,,,,, It's already a lot.........
Stryzh's turning point was discovering the Zone. The stillness, the traces of the past, the solitude, survival and the growing feeling of Home. Thing is, in this little story I made for them, the place was corrupted. People used the Zone for their own selfish needs, stole stuff, damaged things, there were shady organizations around, it was a mess. And teenage Stryzh felt a spark for what seemed to be the first time. It was his blood's homeland, his blood's root, they weren't allowed to cause a mess here.
That's where it all began. A thirst to discover the past, a passion for the mystery, an interest for his own history, and a burning determination to fix the issues. Think corrupted cops, traffic, you get the idea. Of course, a teenager can't do much in this situation, not without proofs... and that's where it all started. Dig, find something, find a lead, figure out who these people are, seek the truth.
Do you know the question : "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Stryzh believes you die twice. Once when you die, a second time when you're forgotten. Going there and finding his grandma and grandpa's appartment the exact same way it was left brought her in the Past. When she brought her grandma a picture of her deceased husband, she brought him back to life, because she kept the memory alive.
Since then, Stryzh bears a curse. He will remember everything, everyone who died by his side, all the forgotten places, all the abandonned basements, he will find them all. The present Past, the secrets behind all doors, the archives and hidden mistakes. That's his drive and addiction, and nothing, nothing can stop him, even if it means losing everything else. Quite ironic, for someone who doesn't exist anymore.
( this doesn't cover his military career AT ALL I'm so sorry. Please feel free to ask questions if you have any. I can't possibly cover everything in one post..... But I can tell you that he was the Captain of his own team at the end of his career in Ukraine. Now, he had to leave the country, but who knows what the future saves for them... Maybe they will go back, one day, even if they lost Home forever )
Also important note : All of this belongs to the past. This is his own story, but no one knows it. Right now, he's Yukhym. Yukhym has a different story, a different background, different skills, etc. Those who know he's not entirely who he claims to be don't know any of the details I said here, even his closest "relationships". The only thing that really stuck and stayed the same is his callsign, Stryzh 🤙
