This is an experimental character sheet, testing a new format for possible implementation.
Jaren Jast, Captain of the Jackdaw
Name: Jaren Jast
Occupation: Free Trader, Independent Contractor & Captain of the Jackdaw
Species: Human
Homeworld: Corellia
Age: 35
Description
Physical
Jaren Jast stands at a hair over six feet in height and keeps in excellent shape, a habit he picked up during his military career and has carried with him into his post-war life. His athleticism has been exceptionally valuable across his highly varied occupational activities, which have left him with a number of scars from blade and blaster alike. He has further marked his body up with a few tattoos, some examples being a crossed vibroknife and blaster that was the symbol of his Republic Army company, and a Besadii clan symbol on his left forearm.
He sports mid-length, dirty blonde hair which he keeps swept to the side and back with the assistance of a bit of hair product, and a five o’clock shadow that frequently threatens to turn into a full, scraggly beard. He could stand to shave more often.
He dresses casually, mixing sleek Core World fashion with Outer Rim flair, typically wearing light armorweave, an oxblood leather jacket he marks among his favorite pieces of apparel, and slick matte leather boots. At his hip, he holsters a heavy blaster pistol, black and bulky but sophisticatedly patterned with gold trim and an ivory grip.
Visual Reference.
Psychological
Jaren Jast is a product of his time and his experiences. He spent ten years as a soldier fighting the most devastating conflict the galaxy has ever seen, first on the battlefield, and then behind enemy lines as a special forces operator. Cool, collected, and exceptionally efficient, Jaren was selected to take on a special forces role not only for his combat effectiveness and performance in the field, but for his capacity for ruthless efficacy in the prosecution of the war on the Sith Empire. He is disciplined, driven, and exceptionally strong willed in the pursuit of his objectives.
All the same, Jaren is likeable. He’s charismatic, even charming in a pinch, armed with roguish wit and a quick tongue that makes friends and acquaintances come easy. He’s daring, sometimes heroic, and possessed of a moral character and strong belief in those rights and freedoms enshrined in the Republic’s constitution that often puts him at philosophical odds with his seedier cast of clients and associates. Ultimately, he thinks of himself as a good person, but he’s never hesitated to draw his weapon when the situation calls for it, and he doesn’t shy away from the ugliest aspects of his work. Even in the tenuous peace established by the Treaty of Coruscant, the times and his experiences have left Jaren with a capacity for a violence that seems at odds with his personality.
Skills & Talents
Marksmanship [Advanced] – Jast has over two decades’ worth of experience handling blasters in all shapes and sizes, with a considerable amount of that experience coming in the form of military training and combat. A talented shot to begin with, years of practice with blaster rifles, carbines, and pistols has made him nothing short of deadly with all of them. Since the end of the war, his time working the Outer Rim as a gunslinger has made him well-practiced with lighter armament than the Republic Army’s standard, and he’s a masterful quick-draw artist. Rare is the opponent who can outduel Jast in a gunslinging shootout.
Warfare [Advanced] – Jast’s years of military experience has made him a skilled tactician on the battlefield. Cool and collected in the face of armed opposition, Jast has more than the experience and training necessary to lead a fireteam into battle and neutralize enemy combatants.
Close Quarters Combat [Advanced] – Rounding out his military skills is his intimate familiarity with the use of a vibroknife. While no master of Teras Kasi, Jast excels in quarters combat, armed or otherwise.
Intelligence [Intermediate] – A great deal of Jast’s work at the end of the war, through his time with the SIS, and into his adventures in the Outer Rim has revolved around the gathering of intelligence. Whether the job entailed debriefing an Imperial defector, interrogating a prisoner, or plying a confidante for more information than he’s willing to divulge, Jast is a dab enough hand at it all. Working as a less-than-licensed bounty hunter, enforcer, smuggler, and private intelligence operator has only made him sharper on this front.
Gunnery [Intermediate] – Jast is competent in the use of stationary weapons emplacements, particularly those laser turrets on the Jackdaw. While not a focus of his military career, the use of these weapons has been vital to his operations on the Outer Rim, and with his pilot, Telsa Jetstar, at the helm of the Jackdaw, Jast defaults to a gunnery position when it comes to ship-to-ship combat.
Demolitions [Intermediate] – Over the course of the war, Jast made enough use of explosives, be they grenades or plastics, that he has a decent enough understanding of their usage today. It’s not a skill that comes up frequently, but when it does, he knows how to direct a blast radius.
Piloting [Basic] – Before Telsa, Jast had to pilot the Jackdaw himself. Not much of a pilot, virtual sims and trial and error have made him decent enough at the helm of the freighter to fly it out of port and get himself out of a sticky situation from time to time. Outside of flying the Jackdaw and the standard swoop or landspeeder, though, he’s not much of a driver or pilot and can’t be expected to perform any fancy maneuvers in the field.
Mechanics [Basic] – Jast has a basic understanding of how to keep machines operating and is able to lend a competent hand when it comes to the maintenance of his ship.
Slicing [Basic] – Jast has a basic understanding of slicing, and with the right tools can get himself into a computer system. Without a good data breaker though, he’s not good for much on this end, and he’s certainly no replacement for a competent tech.
Obligations, Flaws & Weaknesses
Any Port in a Storm - Jaren Jast is an independent free trader without allegiances to any government, Republic or otherwise, beyond his status as a citizen. This lack of loyalty, however, runs both ways. While his independence affords him a great deal of freedom, his ability to fall back on a support network is never a sure thing, and he must take what opportunities he can get to purchase safe harbor in times of danger, or even just to resupply his ship and crew. Only through cultivating and maintaining his connections is he able to do this, which can mean trading favors he'd rather not trade, and associating with figures with whom he'd rather not associate. In blazing their own trail across the galaxy, Jast and his crew have to work with what they have.
Strength in Numbers - By any measure, Jaren Jast is a skilled special forces operator and a talented intelligence agent, and together these make him a valuable commodity in the mercenary business. However, the Jackdaw's operations involve much more than shooting blasters and tracking marks. Jast doesn't have the technical acumen to keep the keep the Jackdaw flying, the medical expertise to patch up injured crew, or the piloting experience to helm the Jackdaw at a level of expertise that warrants his fees. Without his ship or key members of his crew, Jast's operation falls apart, and he's little more than a particularly talented cartel enforcer on the Rim.
The Long Arm of the Empire - The Nar Shaddaa job was a disaster, no two ways about. A valuable Imperial scientist ready and willing to defect to the Republic with priceless information was assassinated, one of Jast's crew was gunned down in an alley, and the team was forced to split up in retreat. This fiasco culminated in the massacre of nearly a hundred passengers aboard a passenger freighter over Tatooine. This was all done on the orders of Cipher 12. This cipher agent, a counterintelligence specialist, is an exceptional intelligence offer whose mission directive is to root out and destroy the Strategic Intelligence Service's newly discovered connection to the Hutts. Jast is squarely in his sights, and Operation Blackwatch, Cipher 12's task force dedicated to identifying the Jackdaw and eliminating her crew, just might have the resources to do it.
One Man's Interest Payment is Another Man's Free Cash Flow - The Jackdaw may very well be the fastest and most powerful XS stock light freighter in the galaxy. Incredibly fast, exceptionally nimble, capable of changing its transponder signal on a whim, and armed and armored with milspec modifications, Jast has the good fortune to fly this powerful machine in the course of his operations. It also happened to cost a good fortune. interested in outfitting an elite team of criminal operators, Salvadda the Artful and a few similarly powerful crime lords on Nar Shaddaa provided the financing for the vessel's purchase and extensive modifications, and Jast owes them a sizable debt to be paid in credits, favors and blood.
Associates & Adversaries
Associates
Telsa Jetstar – Jaren’s closest friend and second in command. Telsa was a highly decorated ace fighter pilot with the Republic Navy during the war and retired from military service shortly after the Treaty of Coruscant. Jaren recruited Telsa for his crew by poaching her from Coronet Analytica; Jaren’s brother had her shortlisted as a strong prospective agent for the private intelligence organization. Visual Reference.
Valbra Syndulla – Jaren’s long-suffering engineer, Valbra Syndulla is the chief technician aboard Jaren’s ship. Between Telsa’s exceptionally high performance requirements and Jaren’s insistence on turning the machine into as flexible a base of operations as possible, by all rights the vessel should have a skilled engineering crew to tend to its maintenance. Unfortunately for Val, she’s the only one they’ve got. She is exceptionally skilled, however, and manages to keep the thing flying. Definitely a full-time job, though. Visual Reference.
Boqorro Enbara – Contrary to popular belief, Hutt Space and Nar Shaddaa do, in fact, have laws and criminals. Boqorro Enbara, the imposing six-foot-six gunman who serves as the crew’s muscle, was once a prosecutor on Nar Shaddaa. A tragic turn of events borne out of prosecuting the wrong criminal led Boqorro to the underworld, where he was swallowed up by the criminal underbelly of the Smuggler’s Moon. A decade later, by then a skilled and ruthless hitman for the Besadii Cartel, he sought to right his course, and found an opportunity to escape the Hutts and find redemption as a member of Jaren’s crew. Visual Reference.
Jacen Jast – Jaren’s brother, Jacen, is also a veteran of the Great War and now works as a director with Coronet Analytica, a Corellian private intelligence firm. Jacen is Jaren’s primary avenue of support, as part of Jaren’s compensation for his work with Coronet Analytica is the provisioning of his ship and crew with supplies. Jacen is a well-connected and powerful figure in the intelligence community, and has deep connections with the Strategic Intelligence Service, his largest client.
Salvadda the Artful – Jaren Jast’s extralegal operations in Hutt territory have allowed him to develop connections and relationships with contacts in the heart of the galaxy’s underworld. One such contact is Salvadda Besadii Vizago, better known as Salvadda the Artful, a Hutt crime lord who makes his home and base of power in Sector-City 47 on Nar Shaddaa. Salvadda is a crafty and cunning Hutt, and these traits, together with his status as criminal royalty, has made him a powerful player in Hutt Space. Salvadda is one of Jaren’s biggest clients, and the crew of the Jackdaw often finds themselves carrying out operations on behalf of the Hutt’s arm of the Besadii kajidic.
Drango – Drango is a Rodian fixer for the House of Samur-Tong, one of the premier houses of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Jaren is not a licensed bounty hunter, and does not carry out sanctioned contracts on behalf of Samur-Tong, but Drango does have work for the crew of the Jackdaw from time to time, and has proved a useful asset to Jaren and his associates in the past.
Adversaries
Cipher 12 – Jaren’s primary foil is one of his own making. While on a job for Coronet Analytica and the SIS, Jaren and his crew made a few critical mistakes covering their track and trusted the wrong people, and as a result the Empire has caught wind of his status as a Republic affiliate. Though the Empire has yet to discover his identity, counterintelligence specialist Cipher 12, an agent for the Ministry of Intelligence, has been assigned to investigate the job and has poured a great deal of effort and resources into hunting the crew of the Jackdaw. To this effect, he is assisted by Deklen Ordo.
Deklen Ordo – A Mandalorian mercenary with deep professional loyalty to his chief client, the Sith Empire and the Ministry of Intelligence, Deklen Ordo has faced down Jaren and his team on more than one occasion. In the depths of the Nar Shaddaa undercity, Deklen and the crew of the Jackdaw traded blaster fire and the Mandalorian foiled the mission by killing the target of Jaren’s operation, as well as one of Jaren’s crew to boot. The crew’s escape from Nar Shaddaa and Cipher-12’s agents culminated in a pitched gun battle aboard a passenger freighter over Tatooine, where Jaren only narrowly evaded the Mandalorian’s grasp. Incredibly dangerous and twice defied already, Deklen is hellbent on tracking down and eliminating Jast and his operation.
Assets & Equipment
The Jackdaw – Jast’s personal ship is a heavily modified XS Stock Light Freighter. With the assistance of his brother, Jacen, and the financing of some powerful and disreputable types out of Nar Shaddaa, the Jackdaw has been transformed from a standard all-purpose hauler to a nimble smuggling vessel. Telsa Jetstar, veteran interceptor pilot, demanded the best performance out of the vessel possible, and Jast obliged as best he could.
The Jackdaw is one of the fastest and most agile ships of its class to be found, and sports firepower beyond that of a standard armed freighter. In addition to the twin laser turrets and forward mounted cannons, the Jackdaw is equipped with a missile launcher capable of being fit with a variety of warheads. The Jackdaw most frequently carries a payload of cluster headed ion missiles capable of penetrating standard point defense measures and disabling smaller vessels.
The primary drawback of this impressive vessel is its exorbitant cost, both in terms of the debt incurred putting it together in the first place and the maintenance, fuel and resupply expenses involved in keeping it flying. It's also more than a little memorable, to those paying attention, as Jast and his crew have discovered with their intersections with Cipher 12 and his agents. All said, though, it keeps the crew alive, and that's something.
Arms & Armament – Jast’s heavy blaster pistol is only one of the tools of the trade he keeps handy. Jast has a collection of firearms that includes a variety of blaster pistols, a few carbines, and a pair of rifles. He also keeps a small complement of explosives, just in case. For personal protection, Jast has a respectable selection of armorweave to choose from, allowing him to adapt based on the needs of a given job, and for particularly dangerous operations he keeps a suit of ablative battle armor. It’s nothing to so heavy as the trooper armor he wore during the war, but it’s sufficient to protect him on the Jackdaw’s most dangerous operations.
Background
Jast frequently wonders how his life would have been different if he had been born twenty years earlier. As it were, though, he was born at the dawn of the Galactic War, which made all the difference to a man who joined the Republic Army as soon as he came of age.
Jast attended an accelerated training program at the Republic Defense Academy on Carida, where he immediately excelled. Funny, likeable, competent, and a team-oriented soldier, he made many friends at the Academy. Most of them were dead not too long after they deployed a year later. Jast spent the next few years wondering when he’d be the next to go, but he was good enough to keep from making fatal mistakes, and too lucky to die when his fate was out of his hands. The flak never caught his gunship, the orbital fire never targeted his position, the grenades were always a few meters or more away, and the guy next to him caught a blaster bolt more often than he could count.
The brutality ground down on him over time. As the war dragged on into its later years, Jast had become effective, efficient, and ruthless. His aptitude on the field, and his relationship with his brother at the SIS, made him a shortlisted pick for recruitment into the special activities arm of Republic Military Command. He was brought on to a force reconnaissance company, and the work of prosecuting the Great War only got worse, from his perspective. Shooting an enemy, that he could get used to. Slipping a vibroknife into the joint between the helmet and chest plating of a Sith trooper, well, he could get good at it, but never comfortable with it. There was a stark difference between metaphorical and literal blood on his hands, as far as he could reason.
And then the war ended. Coruscant had been devastated and a treaty had been signed, and Jast’s team packed up and went home, rocketing offworld from a forsaken swamp planet that had been heavily contested for no good reason and which had now been shunted off to the Empire’s swath of conquered territory for even less. In the time between the signing of the treaty and the communications reaching his command, he’d killed two people. Not even Sith troopers, local militia armed with crude rocket propelled ordinance, press ganged into the war, that he’d lined up with the scout rifle and put bolts through. Just because the holocomm hadn’t come through quick enough.
He came back to the Republic having killed a lot of people and having lost a lot of friends because, as far as he could tell, Coruscant had finally experienced the war. His transition to the post-war period was not graceful, to say the least.
He transitioned to the SIS with a plan to cut his teeth on intelligence work with the agency before moving to the private sector, where his brother, Jacen, was now an established leader with private intelligence firm Coronet Analytica. The work consisted of interrogations, debriefings, support for covert and clandestine activity across former Republic worlds now under Imperial control, among other tasks. It wasn’t enough for him, and sure enough, when an opportunity arose, he took it.
Three years into his career with the SIS, he led his first operation to Nar Shaddaa, Sector-City 47, where he would meet Salvadda the Artful, a Besadii kajidic clansmember and leader of a small but powerful cartel. The objective was to secure a supply line to the Corsin Resistance, the fledgling but fervent rebel movement in the now-Imperial controlled Corsin System. As he courted Salvadda’s assistance in establishing this connection, he gradually came to realize that he himself was being courted. In not so many words, Salvadda conveyed an understanding of Jast that few—even himself—had. Jast was a talented, intelligent, and exceptionally driven person who relished in the opportunity to tackle the most challenging, dangerous tasks and emerge successful.
A person like that, it was suggested, would be very valuable to a person like Salvadda the Artful. And that was all it took for Jast to leave the SIS, and the Republic, behind him.
Over time, and with the assistance of his connections, he acquired the Jackdaw and a crew, and began cultivating a long list of clients interested in hiring an exceptionally skilled mercenary. Today, Jast’s brand of client service runs the gamut from security services to smuggling to actual intelligence operations, whether for criminal syndicates or the Republic itself through the SIS’s shadowy backchannels.
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