Chestibor Rochdale {D13} {*fin}

The first and last thing anyone who sees Chess Rochdale notices about him is his grin. It mesmerizes. In fact, the rest of his appearance is quite average and largely unremarkable — forgettable, even. He's 5'9" and around 140lbs, neither built nor twiggy, with brown hair and brown eyes. Very average, easily blending into a crowd.

As a little boy, Chess loved the jokes his father would tell him. "When is a door not a door? When it's ajar!" As he grew, he realized that if he left off the punchline, these jokes became riddles, and if he answered people with questions, he would seem much cleverer than he actually is — which is quite clever to begin with. He views the world through an engineer's lens, sees everything in an organized, systematic, objective fashion. He often grins knowingly to himself, which unsettles others who rarely know what he's thinking.

When Chess was five, his parents were found out to be making bombs in secret. His mother was caught and killed by the Capitol, and Cedomir Rochdale took his son and fled District Three, schematics in tow. Unfortunately, what they did not have was a map or much of a plan. After several years of wandering — brutal winters, harsh droughts, scrapes with mutts and bandits — they eventually made it to District 13 with half of their schematics. However, Cedomir died shortly after due to a bad case of trench foot that had rendered him practically unable to walk during the last few weeks of wandering. Presently, Chess Rochdale resides in Thirteen or occasionally in a nearby tree. A stealthy boy, Chess comes and goes as he pleases, as no one seems to pay him much mind.