• Lance Corporal, United States Marine Corps
• Wizard, Academia Arcana Universalis

Sam was born on June 22nd, 2001, to parents Henry and Nancy Harrington, at the Rivervale Regional Medical Center in Rivervale, TX, near his hometown of Ardenwood. Henry was a student at the time, but would go onto become a relatively successful Petroleum Engineer for Exxon-BP-Mobilon. Nancy, his high school sweetheart, dropped out of college to become a homemaker.

First of his siblings, Sam would go on to be the eldest of seven: two sisters and five brothers.

Sam excelled at school, driven to ambition by his parents, who never settled for any level of achievement. He maintained an impeccable academic record throughout high school, even while rising to prominence as the football team's star quarterback. To his success, he credited his unswerving faith, reaffirmed every Sunday at the Host of Celestia Evangelical Church in Ardenwood, a massive megachurch boasting the largest auditorium in the city limits.

Despite many football scholarship offers, including from his favored school, the University of Texas, and even some serious inquiries from NFL Teams including the Dallas Cowboys, Sam's football career ended after graduation, when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.

As Sam's graduation date in June 2019 approached, the Iran Crisis broke out. Disturbed by images of the burning U.S. Embassy, and already a firm supporter of U.S. peacekeeping actions in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, Sam began to seriously consider serving, despite protestations from his family, friends, teammates, and prospectors. Then came the Bombing of Tel Aviv on 2019-04-20, and the subsequent declaration of war on Iran. Moved by horrific images, Sam enlisted with the Marine Corps that very day, with delayed entry to allow him to graduate high school.

Sam qualified for the Quality Enlistment Program, and exercised his choice to operate overseas. His ASVAB scores led to an assignment as a Chemical/Biological/Radiological/Nuclear (C-BURN) Defense Specialist (MOS 5711), a field that would be sorely needed in the developing conflict.

After completing basic training, Sam was rushed off to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for special training. Once armed with his training and security clearance, he was deployed to Bandar Abbas, Iran, where he would serve 3 tours.

Iran

From 2020 to 2023, as the United States and its allies worked to pacify the defeated Iran, Sam served in various capacities, usually attached to an EOD team, to combat terror threats to the military and the public inside occupied territory. As such, he was kept fairly busy on patrol routes, responding to reports of possible Hazardous Devices--9 times out of 10, the devices would be perfectly harmless, but plenty enough real threats were about to keep the team on their toes.

Sam himself usually operated various diagnostic tools to scan for various markers to determine the nature of a threat; said tools were usually mounted on a Bomb Disposal Unit (a robotic drone), but were sometimes handheld. While in the field, he trained unofficially in Arabic and Farsi; eventually, this earned him the not-so-glorious (but vitally important) task of dealing with public onlookers during EOD operations. His squad leader said he seemed to have a knack for dispelling the usual (and highly dangerous) air of fear and uncertainty surrounding public EOD ops.

The ability to converse with the locals would lead to some amount of trouble down the road...

Parisa

In February of 2023, Sam met a woman by the name of Parisa Ghaznavi, a student at the Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences. Two frequented the same kebab shop, and she was a willing and vital participant in his efforts to master the Persian language. Their acquaintance yielded to a closer relationship, which soon led to trouble.