Branel “Bran” Volzen is the son of Frosnik Volzen and a child living in an Eisgait raider encampment.
¶ A Deadly Little Crisis
Branel is initially delighted when his father brings him a Holographic Entertainment Arts Device for Christmas. When the device requests a password and Frosnik admits that it was stolen, Branel returns it in tears. He understands that the gift came at the expense of another person and refuses to accept theft as an expression of love.
Branel asks Frosnik to apologize to the colonists and stop raiding. His moral clarity creates the story's central challenge for his father: surviving hardship does not automatically make every act committed for survival right. Branel later watches the stolen goods returned and receives an anonymous Christmas visit whose gifts do not require another child to go without.
¶ Appearance
¶ See Also
- Frosnik Volzen — An Eisgait raider called Krampus whose love for his son Branel brings him into conflict with the survival economy of his colony.
- Eisgait — Eisgait has a biological eye and a cybernetic ocular implant, severe trauma, migraines, and medication-sensitive hypotension.
- Holographic Entertainment Arts Device — The Holographic Entertainment Arts Device, commonly abbreviated H.E.A.D., is a head-worn entertainment console designed to recognize input from multiple species.
- Christmas — A surviving Earth holiday tied to gifts and family, but also to Jack Kaiden's grief and the Eisgait crisis.
- A Deadly Little Crisis — A canonical Christmas story in which Jack and the Dominatrix II crew recover stolen supplies and confront grief, desperation, mercy, and second chances.
- Branel Volzen Defends Frosnik — Branel stands between Jack and his surrendered father, Frosnik.
- Eisgait Raiders — A desperate raider group that steals BioGel and winter supplies from an Eisgait colony.
- Cookie — A disabled raider whose fatalistic survival philosophy influences Frosnik Volzen.
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