Zelt Vudo
SpeciesGenderAgeAppearance Standing a 5’6’’, Zelt is a little bit smaller than the average Sephi or Nagai. While slender, his build is quite athletic as he was a pro athlete. This athletics also led to Zelt having many scars across his body from sport. Feature wise, Zelt is a mix of both parents’ species. His silky skin is somewhere between the pale white of a Nagai and the pink of a Sephi. Both species possess pointed ears, the length of Zelt’s being somewhere in between the two species. Zelt’s hair is the length and texture of a Nagai, but its stark white color comes from his Sephi lineage. What is unusual about Zelt is his eye color, a light violet, much different than what is usually seen in his two species.
Attire wise, Zelt plays into the androgyny of how his physical features are. He tends to wear bright colors and close fitting clothing. This allowed him to have an unique image when he was an athlete. Now as a Jedi, Zelt bucks against the dress code. He still tries to be creative, hiding bright colored clothing beneath his plain brown Jedi robe.
RankPersonality Zelt has always been very active, both physically and mentally. This overabundance of energy makes Zelt an outspoken and impulsive individual. Sometimes this means he’s fun to be around, while other times he is insensitive and doesn’t anticipate the results of his actions. As such many people find Zelt a mixed bag, a very unpredictable being.
What is consistent about Zelt is his competitive nature. Since a young age, Zelt has always tried to outdo his peers. Whether this meant being the strongest, fastest, or wisest, Zelt felt that he always needed to come up on top. This led directly into Zelt’s athletic career. He always pushed himself to improve, to become better than all the competition. As such he is quite a poor sport and has trouble accepting defeat. This is when the worst of Zelt’s personality can come out.
Zelt is also a lot more amoral than his Jedi peers, having grown up on a moon filled with criminals. Even now Zelt still skirts a few laws and has a history of dabbling mind altering drugs mind altering drugs. He also has several other bad habits including an eating disorder, one caused by being in the spotlight.
But underneath all that self focus and disregard, Zelt can truly feel for others. He was known to send some of his credits made by playing Sarlaac Ball to those impoverished in his old neighborhood. Zelt also will rarely turn down a request, being one of the first people those in need would turn to. To Zelt this can also feel like a game, wanting to see how many people he could help.
Lightsaber Zelt wields a single-bladed lightsaber of standard hilt size. It is comprised of a silver, metal cylinder, with two prongs sticking out past the blade emitter. Zelt has customized the hilt by attaching a key chain to the hilt, one with a little figure of a small Rancor, a piece that used to be on his Sarlaac Ball bat. The crystal contained within the hilt emits a very faint blue blade, almost bordering on white in color.
Skills Form VI - Niman: Not really sure what to specialize in, Zelt has begun training in Form VI, the balanced form. Teaching a wide range of skills, Zelt has become more comfortable with his lightsaber and has begun working in Force techniques.
Athlete: Zelt is in great shape and can move very fast and for great periods. He also has training in several sports, most notably Sarlaac Ball. The Force subtly aids Zelt when he is active, improving his speed and reflexes, as well as guiding him to stay out of danger.
Mechanics: Growing up with a mechanic for a mother, Zelt was of course going to learn some of the basics. Zelt has a pretty decent understanding of how starship engines work and can diagnose a few simple problems. Unfortunately he didn’t pay a lot of attention as a child and as such only has basic knowledge.
Equipment Besides his lightsaber, Zelt keeps a wrist mounted comm link on his left wrist, as well as a small bag with some credits and rations. Attached to Zelt’s right hip is a holster with a Nagai knife in it. This is more for connecting with his heritage than actually using it to fight.
Weakness Anger: Perhaps it is the Nagai blood in him, but Zelt has a short fuse. He can get riled up easily and gets into a lot of fights. While this anger can empower the Force, it is routed in fear so that its hard to control. Even with Jedi training, Zelt still has a fiery temper which has earned him a bad reputation at the Academy.
Eating Disorder: As more of a spotlight was put on the young Zelt, he felt that he had to maintain a certain image. Known for his small and lithe body, Zelt thought that he needed to maintain that physique by limiting what he ate. This quickly spiraled into periods of not eating and gorging himself before purging. Even at the Academy Zelt still struggles with this and he hopes that knights and master of the Academy never discover his secret.
Injured Leg: While he won’t admit it to anyone, Zelt sustained a bad injury to his right leg during a Sarlaac Ball game. It never healed properly and it has given him a slight limp. However he unknowingly masked it with the Force, willing the pain away and allowing him to remain active. But with every passing year, the damage to his leg seems to get worse as his mobility is incrementally reduced.
Background Born on Nar Shaddaa, also known as the Smuggler’s Moon, Zelt would be the love child of two different groups of criminals. Zelt’s mother was a Sephi, a long lived race of artists. In her case she was a starship customizer, making alterations for some big name clients. But Zelt’s father was a Nagai, a mysterious race of warriors from beyond this galaxy. The two had met at a gladiator event on the moon, both guests of a Hutt. From there they would leave and go bar hopping, eventually spending the night together. The next day, Zelt’s father would leave Nar Shaddaa, off on some mission for his Hutt employer. Zelt’s mother would never see him again, left to raise Zelt alone.
As a child, Zelt would be raised in the back of his mother’s mechanical garage which was located in a slightly nicer part of the Smuggler’s Moon. Zelt’s mother would attempt to teach him about mechanics but Zelt had little interest. Instead he would explore his neighborhood, quickly learning what parts were best to avoid if you wanted to remain alive. In doing this, Zelt would meet the other children who lived nearby. Most were bastards or otherwise unwanted, yet Zelt felt a kinship with them.
The youths would play simple sports in the street, Zelt quickly becoming the best out of the locals. With the aggressiveness that came with having Nagai blood, Zelt was fierce on the field. His speed and fiery attitude caught the attention of a local Twi’lek “businessman”, who recruited Zelt as a package deliverer. As there were no child labor laws on Nar Shaddaa, Zelt accepted the job and began to ferry items all around his local part of the moon.
About a year into this job, Zelt’s family would be shaken up when his mother had an accident at work. Left disabled, her garage would eventually sold off. To help his ailing mother, Zelt looked for more employment opportunities. Recalling the sports of his youth, Zelt would sign up for a Sarlaac Ball league. The sport was fairly new, having been created during the reign of the Galactic Empire, and was notably very deadly. While allowed to play, no team wanted to recruit the small Zelt. However, one team would lose a player to a broken neck, and needing a quick replacement would take Zelt on.
During his first match, Zelt would excel at the brutal sport, dodging others easily and being proficient with the duel bat. It was almost as if he could sense what the other players were going to do before they did it. This intuition in the back of his mind helped Zelt to quickly ramp up in the rankings. After less than a year of playing, Zelt would jump teams into a bigger league, one that took him off the Smuggler’s Moon.
Now planet hopping as he played other pro teams, Zelt would begin to make serious money. While tempted to spend it frivolously, instead he used it to send his mother to a proper home for the disabled on the Sephi home world of Thustra. Now no longer needing to worry about his mother, Zelt threw himself fully into Sarlaac Ball. Hailed as a young prodigy, Zelt would begin to be offered sponsorships.
However, this increased attention would lead to Zelt’s downfall. While playing a championship match on Nal Hutta, Zelt would be watched by an old Force mystic, one who advised many Hutts, using his connection to the Force to detect gamblers manipulating the odds through the Force. The mystic just happened to be at Zelt’s game when he could quickly detect the player’s use of the Force. Seeing this as cheating, he informed his Hutt employer. Within a day of that game, the information of Zelt’s apparent cheating was posted all over the Holo Net, his fans quickly jumping ship.
In less than a week, all off the sponsorships went away and Zelt was kicked off his team. Things only got worse when the Hutt who owned said team had to refund all bets involving Zelt’s playing. Angry at the young man, the Hutt would put out a hit on Zelt, to make an example for all potential cheaters. After an initial attempt on Zelt’s life, he would flee Hutt space.
Zelt would bounce around from planet to planet, trying to plot his next move. His name had been blacklisted on the Holo Net, so no sports team would hire him. Feeling dejected, Zelt would go to Thustra to visit his mother. However he would be ambushed by bounty hunters who figured he would eventually show up there. The hunters would track Zelt through the capital city, Zelt using the Force to speed up his step. But this would lead to Zelt being cornered in a dead end alley.
Faced with the possibly of being killed, Zelt gave into his fear and unleashed a massive Force push, sending the bounty hunters skidding away hundreds of feet. Zelt attempted to escape in the confusion only to run into a Jedi Knight. The man was able to scare off the bounty hunters with his lightsaber. He then revealed that he too had been looking for Zelt after his public outing as a Force user, and figured he would come to Thustra eventually. The Jedi Knight then offered Zelt an option besides being on the run for the rest of his life, joining the Jedi Academy.
It only took a few minutes for Zelt to consider his options, but would ultimately decided to go with the Jedi Knight. As Zelt sat on the starship traveling through hyperspace to the far off planet of D’Qar, he tried to view this as a second chance, one which he wouldn’t screw up.