Sahren OraiAppearance: Sahren routinely wears simple brown worker's pants, a plain white shirt and a leather jacket. Her belt is wide and from it hangs a specially designed, speed holster.
Age: 26
Race: Human
Faction: Independent
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 124 lbs.
Skills: Pilot, Gunplay,
Gun Dancer Abilities: Force Leap, Force Draw, Curved Shot, Bounce Bolt,
Starship: YT-1300 transport named "Heart of the Fire"
Biography
Sahren was born on Centerpoint station, an ancient space station created long ago by an extinct race in the Corellian System. It is a central hub for trade and nearly all products in the shining worlds move through them. Sahren's father was a pirate, her mother worked tables in a tavern. She grew up with all the other street rats, moving through conduits, ducts, and watching the ships come and go.
Her father was fairly abusive, coming home from time to time only to get drunk and beat upon her and her mother. Finally, her father got a position with a different pirate captain, one with more grandoise goals then raiding granary ships. Unfortunately, this also meant more danger and he was killed in the line of duty.
It was at this point she met captain Mallarch, The Harbinger, who informed them of his crewman's death. He was a cyborg, half machine and many found his appearance unsettling. Surprisingly, he took interest in the young Sahren and checked on her each time he made for port.
Sahren also found herself enjoying the perils of swoop racing and Harbinger gifted her with a fine, if purloined, example of the machine. With it she began to win a number of purses, further encouraging the captain's interest in her. Finally, he purchased for her "first" blaster only to find she already had one and then began to instruct her in its use and asked her to join his crew.
She was part of that crew for some months but found she wasn't particularly fond of the violence. In addition there was the high mortality rate involved in rushing through airlocks storm trooper style. She took her earnings, coupled them with her won purses and purchased her first ship. A beat up old rust bucket.
Over the next few years, she still met up with Captain Harbinger who not only respected her decision to leave his crew but, to her surprise, heartedly approved. He taught her advanced shooting techniques, how to bend her blaster bolts, how to bank shots off of objects and a number of other tricks. He simply said they were a Mandalorian thing. Never once did he mention that he was teaching her techniques of the last surviving member of the Mandalorian Gun Dancers nor did he ever mention the force. She merely thought that anyone, given training, could do the things he instructed.
When he felt she was ready he gave her a special pair of pistols and a mask she could wear that symbolized her acceptance into his clan.
Later, after several adventures she encountered a co-pilot, an interesting computer slicer she rescued from a Hutt's clutches. She also managed to steal herself a virtually new YT-1300 transport ship from the Black Sun which she has renamed the "Heart of the Fire".
Now she just needs a pair of gunners... and someone with more knowledge than herself in Starship engineering. Sahren can get by with routine maintenance and can swap parts but knowing what a particular vibration in the deck plates means is something of an Engineer's skill
Gun Dancers
Mandalorian Gun Dancers were created long ago, sponsored by the Duchess Satine of Mandalore. She had previously been highly impressed with the actions of one Obi Wan Kenobi who had saved her life and wanted her people to have their own similar resource. Indeed, such a force would be quite useful against the forced of the Death Watch.
The Jedi were disturbed and upset by this, creating a rift between them. They insisted that only the Jedi were capable of using the force without succumbing to the power of the Dark Side. As a result the Mandalorians had to investigate other cultures like the Dathomiri, Baran-Do and the Voss Mystics to build this force.
In time they began to develop their own force abilities, with weaknesses and strengths far different from those of the Jedi. They were gifted with enhanced senses, started receiving visions and then managed to use their force abilities to perform remarkable feats of gunplay. They never, however, learned to use the telekinetic arts of the Jedi and they eschewed the lightsaber, refusing to have anything to with with a Jedi weapon. (Actually, this isn't entirely correct. Not surprisingly, the only telekinetic ability the Gun Dancers have developed, sheerly by accident, is an aid to fast drawing where the pistol jumps up slightly out of the holster)
Unfortunately, the heavy armour of the Mandalorian super commandos hampered many of their abilities so they discontinued using them. This led to two developments. The first was an interesting arrangement where one Gun Dancer would be teamed with one or two typical Protectors in heavy armour. As a result, it was a blending of two styles. The heavy and powerful Protector mingled well with the faster moving, dodging dancer. The second was the inclusion of a slip on face mask that a Gun Dancer put on when interacting with other Mandalorians or when they chose to begin killing.
At first they were coddled by the Mandalorian Protectors but in time they became a force to be reckoned with and together they were deemed nearly unstoppable. Unfortunately, the Gun Dancers still lacked the experience of the Jedi and the Protectors, Gun Dancers included, were still vastly outnumbered.
It was this budding force that frightened Darth Sidious. The Jedi he had spent decades, possibly even centuries manipulating, but this new force was impossible to predict and difficult to infiltrate in order to keep his plans on track in the timeline he had planned. Thus they needed to be destroyed. Turning the Jedi and the Mandalorian Protectors against one another wasn't particularly difficult with the bad history between the two organizations. Simply spreading rumours caused both sides to believe the other had ill intent towards the other. Then, a single agent at the proper time firing a blaster into their midst had them at each other's throats. The Mandalorians were quite simply outmatched.
Riot
Age: 19
Race: Human
Faction: Independent
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 111 lbs.
Skills: Computer Slicing
Unique Equipment: Riot has somehow managed to acquire or clone or otherwise manage herself a cloaking harness, one of the lost technologies of the Old Republic. She refuses to share this technology with anyone, not even Sahren!
Appearance: Riot is a small woman with short pink and purple bangs who wears baggy pants and colourful humourous shirts of her own design or downloaded from the Holonet.
History: Sahren knows little of Riot's true history, only that she is a great hacker who regularly seems to get into more than enough trouble for the both of them. Riot, for that is her only name after having her name scrubbed from all public records, was rescued by Sahren from a nefarious Hutt who was using her abilities to stay one step ahead of the local authorities. Once again, much to her dismay, Sahren gave up her cargo and earnings to rescue an innocent.
Now Riot serves as Sahren's companion and slicer. Normally she stays aboard the ship, conversing with Sahren via an ear piece and using her connection to the holonet to look up information on contacts, call up street maps and otherwise advise Sahren.
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As for Mandalorian Gun Dancer's abilities in general:
-Force Sensing: The ability to sense other force users, danger, disturbances and destinies.
-Force Quick Draw: The Gun Dancers pistol leaps out of it's holster into their hands. This only applies to a bonded weapon.
-Blaster Bolt Bending: By throwing the pistol out to the side a Gun Dancer can alter the trajectory. (Like in the movie "Wanted")
-Bolt Clipping: A Gun Dancer can shoot other blaster bolts out of the air. This, causes the two blaster bolts to veer off randomly. Not as effective as a lightsaber parrying bolts but is able to be used at a distance. This is often used to protect their Knight Protector as he or she advances.
-Bolt Bounce: A Gun Dancer can bounce a bolt of blaster fire off of a hard substance like a ship's hull. The bolt after bouncing has greatly diminished power
-Force Leap and parkour: Gun Dancers are much better at silently traversing terrain than their knight protector companions. They can leap prodigious distances.
Restrictions:
Gun Dancers have no Telekinetic Ability beyond a bonded weapon