Name(s): Sre'vkk'lak (Sre), Mrak, “One Eye”
Age: 24
Species: Human
Appearance:
Mrak stands at a solid 6’1, with lean muscle from strenuous labor and combat on Tatooine. While not overly bulky, his physique shows through his almost total lack of body fat. His right eye is a scarred and ruined mess, permanently shut after a krayt dragon ripped it open with its deadly claws. Mrak keeps this concealed with a simple tan cloth wrapped at an angle around his head. Two more scars from the same incident dig into his left cheek. Mrak’s hands are coarse and callused, his right missing its pinkie finger from the first knuckle up. Most of Mrak’s body is coated in an ugly layer of scars, burns, and blaster marks.
Occupation: Former Tusken Raider, Guard
Skills: Mrak is a fierce melee combatant, his experience as both a Tusken Raider and partial training as a Force user giving him a competitive edge. Mrak favors a more aggressive style of fighting, despite the urging of Thul for a more neutral form, like Soresu, as opposed to Mrak’s favorite, Ataru. Despite his heavy-handed approach, Mrak is quite capable of moving in silence, a skill acquired from raiding colonists in the midst of night. Scavenging in the harsh desert forced Mrak to use every single resource available, so his repairing skills are quite impressive, although due to the archaic nature of Tattooine he is familiar mostly with older technology. The Tusken is an excellent tracker and hunter, and these abilities often translate from animals to sentient beings. Mrak speaks Tusken, Basic, Jawaese, and Huttese.
Personality: Mrak is a reserved man, saving his words for when he is spoken to. His grammar is fine, but the Tusken’s Basic vocabulary is somewhat lacking. This relative silence is typical of Sand People, a culture where words are generally reserved for important occasions, like stories and rituals, and body language is often substituted for real speech. Because of this, Mrak is very poor at concealing his emotions, and since his face was always covered by rags, facial expressions were never noticed. Mrak is wary of strangers, another characteristic from living among Tusken Raiders. His trust is hard to gain, having lived in a tight knit community for almost his entire life, but once his loyalty is acquired Mrak will die for his allies. Despite his origins as a raider, Mrak is a very honor-bound man. He keeps any promises he makes, stands fast by his friends, and upholds a strict moral code, much of which is from his origins on Tatooine. Some of his tribal side has been erased through Thul’s guidance, but it is very difficult to change so late in life. His social skills are limited, but he enjoys listening to the stories of others, as if they are a shaman from his tribe telling tales. Mrak is uncomfortable being seen or seeing others without being totally covered in clothing, physical contact with someone who isn’t his mate strikes him as uncomfortable, and many other issues bother him. The culture shock is still hitting him. His pride often gets the best of him, as he often denies or refuses to seek assistance to avoid appearing weak; weakness would mean death within his tribe. Mrak strives to control his anger, but sometimes he simply can’t help but engulf himself in rage as he once did while on raiding parties. He never has qualms about ending a life, especially when they threaten him, loved ones, but he tries to avoid killing the defenseless and innocent, a trait acquired from Thul’s guidance. While he doesn’t show it, Mrak is deeply religious, following the gods and rituals all Tuskens do. The man believes that he was found by Thul after wandering the desert because his mate, Jrr, wanted him to live, and become a greater man.
History: Mrak was born on Tatooine to a pair of young moisture farmers, but then, his name was Ilkea Jhoren. When he was barely a year old, the farm was attacked by Tusken Raiders, and his entire family was killed by the desperate Tuskens, whose water supply was depleted. Luckily, Ilkea was adopted by a female Tusken on the raid, Ora'jss'ask, who had just lost a young child of her own. Ora substituted her deceased babe with Ilkea, ensuring that none of their tribe knew the true identity of the human amongst their ranks. She named the adopted child Sre’skk’lak and raised him as her own with her mate.
Sre lived with the Tuskens in perfect, brutal harmony. As a child, or uli-ah, he proved himself as an exceptional combatant with a gaderfii, even besting a few adults. His skills with a blaster were sub-par, though marksmanship was not a vital part of their culture anyway. At 7, Sre was paired with a bantha cub of the same age and formed the mystical bond that existed between the Raiders and banthas. Life as a Tusken, however, was never easy. He was constantly exposed to pain, violence, and death, not exactly the ideal environment for a child, but it was typical for Tusken Raiders. By the age of 13, Sre had participated in three raids, killing a colonist on each. They did what they must to survive, and Sre never found it to disturb him much. After eight birthing seasons, or sixteen years, Sre, like all Tuskens, was required to prove himself in order to become a full member of the tribe. He set out into the desert on his bantha mount and into the Jundland Wastes, the breeding grounds of the vicious krayt dragon. It was here that Sre earned his place within the tribe by slaying one of these beasts with his gaderfii club, though the dragon badly damaged his right eye. Sre retrieved the precious dragon pearl from the animal’s gullet and returned to his tribe, hailed as a hero. Sre was given adult robes, a proper gaderfii staff, his own tent, and a mate. Sre and the female Tusken, Jrr'ssk'iis, married, slicing their hands open and allowing their blood to mingle, along with the blood of their bantha mounts. The newly married couple then returned to Sre’s tent, and for the first time since their birth, shed their clothes in the view of another. In Tusken culture, it is strictly forbidden to remove their protective clothing in front of others, except during childbirth and in the privacy of a tent with a mate. Breaking this rule would result in banishment, so no Tusken truly knew what the opposite sex looked like until their marriage night. Although Sre was a human, and Jrr a true Tusken, neither knew what to expect, so they simply assumed that male and female Tuskens looked radically different. Regardless, the couple still did what most do on the night of their marriage.
The years passed, with Sre becoming an even more important figure in the Tusken tribe. He was a fierce warrior and smart salvager, ranking him high in his tribe. Sadly, Jrr never bore any children, since the two were biologically incompatible, though neither were overly heartbroken. The two bonded beautifully, caring more for the other than themselves. This life, while hard, was perfect to Sre. At the age of 23, however, the tribe was attacked by angry colonists in retaliation for the constant raiding parties that destroyed their towns. The colonists were fended off, but Jrr was slain in the midst of the battle, despite Sre’s attempts to defend her. In his shame and sorrow, Sre banished himself from the tribe without his bantha, like many Tuskens do after the death of their mate. He wandered the scorching desert, believing if Jrr’s spirit wanted him to live, she would allow him.
The weakened Sre was found face-down in the burning sand by Mythus Thul, an older Force-sensitive human living in a small village. Thul, sensing the Tusken was Force-sensitive too, dragged Sre to his home and cared for him, surprised to find a human face beneath the rags. Sre was equally shocked to discover that he was human. Though Sre spoke no Basic, the two communicated by projecting images into eachother’s minds using the Force. Thul dubbed Sre “Mrak” since Sre’vkk’lak didn’t roll off the tongue too well, and slowly taught Mrak both Basic and subtly began grooming him as a Force user, testing his strength. Thul also began conditioning Mrak to become more human, showing him how colonists live. Thul, who was a guardian of sorts for the community, recruited Mrak to assist him in his work fending off bandits and beasts. The members of the town took to calling their new guardian “One Eye” in a scathing tone at first, but after he warded off numerous savage beasts and became closer to the colonists, the nickname became more affectionate.
Thul continued to groom Mrak into a more civilized being, and moved into more advanced training. The older man took Mrak into his hut and revealed to him a lightsaber, which he stated he found on the corpse of a robed man in Mos Eisley. Thul began to teach his apprentice how to wield the weapon in the event he had to defend the village against any foes, though he never got any practical use from it, just sparring. The old man also taught Mrak how to use the Force to sense his surroundings, which helped to compensate for his missing eye. His attempts to train Mrak Force powers, however, proved to be fruitless, as the stubborn Tusken believed them to be evil. After months of working with his newfound friend, Thul finally explained to Mrak why he was doing all of this for a stranger, though the two came to be extremely close. Thul revealed that he had once been a member of an ancient peacekeeping guild known as the Jedi Order. the Jedi were almost completely wiped out, and rather than die at their service, Thul chose to return to his homeworld to defend it against the Sith menace. After several years, the aging Jedi heard rumors the Order was back and recruiting both children and adults. When he found Mrak in the desert, sensing both his strength in the Force and his anger, the Jedi knew he had to lure him away from the dark side. After introducing Mrak to the Force and reintroducing him to humanity, the Jedi was confident he could survive in training. He knew, however, that his shame from abandoning the Order would not allow him to return, so he sent Mrak off alone to Mos Eisley to find his own way into Jedi ranks.
Equipment/Possession: Mrak wears a combination of durasteel armor and his Tusken Raider attire. The metallic durasteel has been salvaged from various suits of armor, rarely matching. What the armor doesn’t conceal is wrapped in tan rags, and Mrak’s entire frame is usually obscured by a flowing earth-colored robe. The Tusken’s face is usually exposed, unless his hood shrouds his head in darkness. He keeps his old mask with him as a relic of his past, knowing that it likely won’t have any purpose anywhere else in the galaxy.
Gaderfii
Mrak reinforced his Gaderfii with a low-grade beskar alloy, allowing the deadly staff to withstand a vibroweapon equipped with a similar metal, though it would give way to the striking force of a lightsaber.
S-5 Heavy Blaster
Small leather backpack containing: Hydrospanner, F-187 fusioncutter, macro welder, RW-80 welding goggles, syntherope, force bar
Leather bandolier containing: Krayt dragon pearl, 2x thermal detonators, 5x ammo cartridges, sharpening stone, canteen
Force Powers: Mrak knows no true Force powers, but he is able to tune in to the Force around him in order to compensate for his lost eye, though he has yet to perfect this ability.
Strengths: Mrak’s midi-chlorian count is that of an average Jedi Knight, enabling him to tune into the Force and react faster in situations where a non-Force user could not. He was taught to meditate on the Force as well, but this is where his training was ended. Mrak’s pain tolerance is certainly higher than most, evident from his numerous scars and burns, and he is more than willing to sustain injuries to defeat his foes. Mrak’s physical endurance is quite a feat in itself; he is capable of fighting and running for hours on end without stopping. He is an excellent close-quarters combatant, years of sparring with other raiders and Thul honing his reaction time and form, though he likes to rely on his strength when possible. While it may also be seen as a disadvantage, Mrak is firm in his own beliefs, and a few instilled in him by Thul, and as a result he has a very strong will.
Weaknesses: Mrak’s right eye has been blinded, so his right side serves as a major weak spot in combat. He tries to make up for the lack of vision by probing his surroundings with the Force, but it is not as effective as true vision. Mrak’s aim is also quite poor, and he is usually restricted to close-range blaster fights where he would use his club anyway. His body, familiar only with the scorching Tatooine climate, is very susceptible to cold environments, and as a result his reaction time is much slower. Mrak is totally unable to swim, rarely having seen a pool of water deeper than that in his canteen, and has a general fear of water. The Tusken’s skills as a pilot are also nonexistent, forcing him to rely on others during space flight. Despite his conditioning to human nature by Thul, Mrak is still far from a social butterfly, his tribal nature still a huge part of his being. He is stubborn, reclusive, and all around a very difficult man to talk to. His emotions are extraordinarily easy to read through his facial expressions, though Mrak can conceal his body language. Steeped in his tribal tradition, he is very reluctant to learn any form of Force powers, favoring what he sees as honorable lightsaber duels to trading Force lighting or any other sort of combat. While he isn't naive, Mrak has never left Tatooine, and as a result is very unfamiliar with almost everything outside of his home planet, like different species, planets, politics, technology, and so on. His reading and writing skills are poor as well, since Tuskens don’t believe in a written language.
