Rask the Space Cowboy, Renegade, Rustler, Outlaw, and Regulator (retired/rehired)
Rask Coburn
| {Age} |45
| {Species} |Human
| {Gender} |Male
| {Force Sensitive/Alignment} |Yes, but no real alignment
| {Appearance} |Rask stands at 6'11 as a consequence of living on a low-gravity moon, with a relaxed and easy posture; he always finds something to casually lean on, as if standing normally was simply too much work. His body is lean and rangy, limbs long but muscled, skin weathered and scarred. Rask's clothes seem equally worn and lived-in, perhaps half a size too large and faded throughout. He has a broad smile that reveals forager teeth with a sizable gap between the front two. Rask's dark eyes are surrounded by wrinkles and set back deep in his head, two narrow wells of obsidian whose sharpness betray his easy going appearance. A thick scar runs over one eye and down his cheek. The scar severed some muscle in his forehead that left his eyebrow sagging and unmoving, leaving him with permanent expression of either amusement or curiosity. He has a prominent Roman nose, slightly crooked at the bridge from a headbutt long ago. Rask's hair has grown long and wild since his retirement, and a few streaks of white run through his beard. He favors dusters, wide-brimmed hats, heavy boots, and ponchos. The usual Out Rim attire. Armor isn't really his thing.
| {Equipment and Personal Belongings} |CW-64 Dragoon Blaster - A big ol' space revolver. Rask owns two, but generally only keeps one on his person. This simple weapon was designed for scouts on the Outer Rim during the Clone Wars who fought on speederbikes and needed a heavy, durable pistol they could hold in one hand which could also penetrate second-generation CIS droid’s heavy armor. Not only will this blaster shoot clear through the most droids, but also halfway through the one behind it too. Can't penetrate beskar, but it'll certainly bruise the person under it. To have such stopping power, the weapon uses a unique power cell and gas canister combination, wherein each cell contains only one shot and the weapon is chambered for seven shots per cylinder before it must be reloaded. The CW-64 is no longer in production, and ammo is becoming increasingly rare.
Czerka Adventurer slugthrower rifle - A big ol' sniper rifle. Not as powerful as the dragoon blasters, but still nothing to play around with. Rask doesn't carry this around unless he anticipates trouble, and if he wants to keep that trouble at a distance.
Neji Arms Flechette Launcher - Picture a pump action shotgun. Now add another barrel. Next, saw those barrels down to nearly nothing. Do the same to the stock. Now we're talkin'. Tears up lightly armored targets and good for clearing out entire rooms if you're not worried about accuracy. Rask doesn't use this much, but when it comes out, he means business.
Grenades - Of the concussion, ion, and flashbomb variety. Good party favors and great for taking bandits alive.
Boot Knife - A knife, sheathed in his boot.
YT-1800 armed freighter, The Patriarch - Rask's pride and joy. This ship is essentially a flying rectangular brick, but it can move when it needs to and packs a punch as well. The Patriarch is armed with two dual turbolasers, dual ion cannon turret beneath the cockpit, two triple blasters mounted on stubby wings, and four concussion missile launchers. It comfortably sits 4, uncomfortably 10. If he was real desperate, Rask could house passengers in the 150 metric-tonne cargo bay, though he might need to rearrange things to make room. Part of the cargo bay has been converted into three holding cells. They’re not very spacious.
74-Z speeder bike - Rask hates riding this death trap, and really doesn't even know why he keeps it on his ship. Nostalgia, maybe.
Five-string hallickset - A cutdown version of the popular Naboolian instrument commonly found in the Outer Rim. The resonator has been removed, giving the hallickset a warmer, softer twang. The instrument looks pretty expensive. On the back is engraved, “Play this when I’m sick of hearing you talk - Mina."
"Beskar" Armor - This battered and blaster-scorched tan cuirass, pauldrons, and helmet seem authentic upon first glance, as it did when Rask won the set in a card game, but when he tested the armor's protective properties, Rask's blaster left a dent so large in the helmet that it would have killed him had he been wearing it. He took it to a professional armorer who told him it wasn't real beskar, but a cheap knockoff both heavier and weaker than the real deal; barely a step up from plastoid, but it wouldn’t stop him from being bisected by a laser sword. He keeps it around because it looks nice, but never really wears it.
Regulator Badge - A small, instantly recognizable badge typically pinned to Rask's shirt. Pentagonal, but with a raised crescent on one side and a number of small circles representing the Outer Rim and its numerous planets. "REGULATOR" is debossed into the center with bold lettering.
Bits and pieces - Rask has an assortment of other useful tools, knick knacks, and assorted junk aboard The Patriarch. He’s a bit of a pack rat, and his wife forced him to keep this habit limited to his ship’s cargo bay. Otherwise they’d be swimming through junk in their tiny ranch home. Among these items are macrobinoculars, a mish-mash of rations, repair kits, spare parts, old clothes that should be thrown out, new clothes he doesn’t like, a distress beacon (never used), comm link, stuncuffs, restraining bolts, datapad, utility belt, a workbench, Wookie bow caster (for some reason), a pilot droid riddled with blaster holes, various mementos and trophies, a beat-up Pazaak table, and an assortment of other stuff that he keeps around because, “Hey, you never know.”
| {Physical Abilities} |Smooth Talker - Rask likes to talk things out in any situation; blasters tend to have irreversible outcomes for at least one party. As a Regulator, Rask learned how to deescalate crazed robbers, console grieving widows, convince guards to look the other way, and even managed to convince a woman to marry him once upon a time. His relaxed manner of speaking, easy demeanor, and Outer Rim accent tends to make people let down their guard and tell him things they normally wouldn't. He missed out on a career in talk therapy, to be sure.
Shootist - You won’t last long in the Outer Rim as a lawman without some skill with a blaster, and Rask thinks he’s a pretty good shot. Some call him legendary but Rask thinks this is just flattery. He’s deadly quick on the draw with sharp reflexes, has a set of keen eyes on him, is as either handed as a spider, and can shoot the ass off a womprat from 600 meters or whatever Luke said in Episode IV. Rask's more of a precision shooter than high-volume, so he doesn't carry any automatic weapons nor much ammunition on his person. He says if you're in a firefight longer than 10 seconds, you've already lost.
Regulator - Rask picked up quite a few tricks as a ranger of the Outer Rim. He can track suspects halfway across the galaxy on land or space and maintains various connections throughout the Rim, from low-ranking Hutt crime lords to fellow backwater rangers. He also made a name for himself in the Rim and beyond, especially as a boogeyman among no-good evil-doers, so his reputation often precedes him for good or ill. A couple semi-popular holobooks and subsequent poorly-received holodrama were supposedly based on his exploits (without mention of his actual name, of course), but Rask didn't get a red cent from them.
Force Sensitiveish - Son of two Jedi Padawans, it only makes sense their children would be Force sensitive as well. The “training” he received from his parents was rudimentary at best, since they instead encouraged him to explore the Force on his own and without the Jedi’s preconceived notions of what it meant. Without a rigorous training regiment, Rask’s potential far outweighs his actual skill, and his abilities have atrophied since his youth since he has little interest in the Force. He’s capable of a couple parlor tricks, but primarily his sensitivity manifests itself as what his friends call luck. Blasters bolts seem to stray away from him at the last minute, weaker-minded people open up to him, and he has frequent “gut feelings” that more often than not pan out. How much of this is the will of the Force and how much it is him manipulating it, Rask doesn’t like to think about. The whole thing gives him the heebie jeebies if he sits on it for too long.
Well-Travelled - Rask has travelled extensively throughout the Rim. He is familiar with most of the customs on the larger planets, can navigate through Outer Rim space with ease, and has picked up enough in several common Rim languages to be considered somewhat fluent. “Just enough to be dangerous,” as he says. He can manage well enough to be mostly understood in Huttese, Taarja, Rodian, and a smattering of others. That being said, he is largely unfamiliar with the Core Worlds, and feels like a stranger there.
Hobbyist - At the encouragement of his wife, Rask started a couple hobbies to keep him from going stir crazy in retirement. While far from a professional, he’s not too bad on the hallickset, and has even composed a song or two. Rask is also something of an amateur frontier naturalist, studying the behavior of wildlife and logging them on a Holonet database when he has the time or inclination, or making a crude sketch of flora or fauna for his own enjoyment. Those are notable skills, right?
| {Force Abilities} |Telekinesis - Rask can move small objects with some degree of control, but he mostly uses this ability to make sure the dice roll in his favor. Just don't ask him to stop a ship from taking off or anything like that.
Life detection - Rask is able to sense living presences within roughly a 50 foot radius if he focuses. Good for tracking down criminals or knowing when you’re walking into an ambush.
| {Limitations} |Bum leg - Rask took a slug to the right knee some years ago and it never seemed to heal right. Rask can mask the limp as a sort of cowboy swagger when walking, but isn't too fond of running these days.
Rusty - Rask retired from the Regulators four years ago, spending the time trying to carve out a little farm for himself. Until he breaks the rust off, Rask will be a little slower on the draw in nearly every aspect.
Moon Man - Born on a low-gravity moon, Rask is significantly taller than the average human. He moves with grace and ease in low to no gravity, but struggles some on higher gravity planets. He’s also not quite as strong as a standard human either, but don’t tell him that.
Isolated - Rask has spent the past four years on a backwater farm, and the last two in almost total seclusion. So, the Regulator is a little behind on current events. Even so, Rask has always paid very little attention to goings ons beyond his sector, so he remains ignorant of galactic politics and Jedi affairs that don’t directly impact him or the Outer Rim. Apparently there was a breakup of the Order? Who cares.
Robophobia - Like many veterans of the Clone Wars, Rask is already prejudiced against droids after he spent years killing them. The final nail in the coffin though was when 62-SO, Rask’s trusted droid companion of nearly ten years, one day went haywire and nearly strangled him to death in his pilot seat while he slept. Since then, Rask has had an unhealthy hatred of droids, treating them like household appliances at best, or scrapping them if they get a little too mouthy.
Gambler - Rask has always been a risk-taker, and when he discovered the beautiful game of Pazaak, it was love at first sight. While he certainly has an advantage in all games of chance or skill thanks to his Force sensitivity, he tends to push his luck too far and has a nasty habit of getting buried to his eyebrows in gambling debt. He has either a free stay or hefty tab at nearly every gambling establishment in the Rim, depending on his luck that week.
Recalcitrant - Like many in the Outer Rim, Rask has an instinctual disdain for big government, high-falutin' politicians, and military officials. He can barely get along with the Regulator's chief. This distrust for authority figures was amplified after his falling out with the Irregulars. Don't expect him to bow to or play nice with royalty and head honchos. His attitudes towards the various galactic governments range from indifference to seething hatred depending on which one we’re talking about and the time of day.
| {Personality} |There are two Rasks in the galaxy.
One he presents to the world. The open book, laid back, carefree and quick with a joke. Modest, a natural storyteller with many stories to tell. Perhaps a little reticent, but charmingly so; after all, no one likes a person who dumps all their woes on you. A just and righteous man who adheres to a noble, but sometimes murky moral code. He kills when he has to with compassion, but without mercy. The unlucky few who die by his hand probably had it coming, many think. They say he's a man who can’t help himself but help those in need. One imagines that he has few worries despite his storied life. He hangs his hat up when he gets home and sleeps soundly at night.
This is where the second Rask lives, one shared only with those closest to him in rare moments.
As he enters his second stage of life and the future grows shorter and the past’s shadow longer, Rask looks more and more behind him. Hounded by his history, haunted by regrets and failures. He rode with the Raiders longer than he should have, did things he knew even then were wrong, and couldn’t round up and kill those who betrayed him and the Rim. The loss of his wife eats away at him, her ghost following him everywhere he travels. Constantly second guessing his actions. Wondering if someone he killed could have been spared, a life lost saved if only he made the right move. Rask worries for the future too, though not his own. That died with his wife. He agonizes over the Rim, tormenting himself with what might happen to it as factions vie for control, and how little there is that one man can do. He's set in his mind now though, to try and right his wrongs as best he can.
| {Place of Origin} |Rask was born and raised on Tet V, a grassy moon orbiting a gas giant in the Outer Rim located in a swath of space none of the factions seem too interested in claiming for themselves. Rask spent most of his life traveling around the Rim, but retired to his homeworld.
| {Background} |TL;DR version: Rask was born to a pair of Jedi Padwans who left the Order and raised him on a backwater planet. He joined a militia called the 86th Rim Irregulars who fought the Confederacy in Outer Rim space, eventually became bandits and betrayed him. Then, he joined the Regulators, basically space marshals, solved crimes, and hunted down some of his former gang. Rask got married, left the lawman life behind to start farming, then a plague hit his town and his wife died. Now he’s a Regulator again set on finding the leader of his gang and hunting his ass down.
Rask was born on a backwater Outer Rim moon in the called Tet V in the small settlement of Greensprings, so named for the tall green grass that engulfed the moon and sulfuric hot springs nearby. His parents were a pair of Jedi Padawans who left the Order rather than subject their child to a life as a Jedi without choice. The startlingly naïve couple and newborn Rask were unofficially “adopted” by a pair of ranchers on their new homeworld, the ranchers knowing that these new arrivals would not last long on the harsh planet without guidance and protection.
Rask’s parents brought him up, and later his brothers and sisters, in a communal and free-spirited home, whereas his grandparents were much more traditional, rough-and-tumble Outer Rim denizens. Rask’s parents taught him and his siblings the ways of the Force, but free from the restrictions of the Jedi Order, encouraging them to explore the Force for themselves. Rask didn’t much care for this space magic stuff, though he did enjoy the rare lightsaber sparring sessions. Instead, he preferred the company of his grandparents, both of whom were veteran mercenaries. As a result of this mixed upbringing, Rask became something of a troublemaker. He ran off frequently with friends to explore the wild grasslands and mesas, skipped meditation to hunt wild game, and got into plenty of fist fights with other kids. Rask was young when the Clone Wars kicked off, too young to fight and too dumb not to know any better. He tried enlisting several times by crudely falsifying records about his age, but each time was rejected. Then the war came to him.
A scouting party of CIS droids dropped into their town and started ransacking it, suspecting the neutral planet of storing Republic supplies. The townspeople tried to route the CIS forces, but instead were pinned down in the town hall. As CIS droids closed in, they were rescued by a ragged brigade of unmarked fighters and a storm of speederbikes with rough-looking riders. Rask instantly recognized them as the legendary 86th Rim Irregulars, otherwise known as Jak’s Raiders, had arrived.
The name itself was a bit of a joke, as the number “86” had been chosen at random. In truth, there were no more than five groups of partisans in the entire Rim waging war against the Confederacy, all with no connection to eachother. They were a band of ragtag freedom fighters composed of former mercenaries, bounty hunters, smugglers, frontiersmen, rogue droids, and other scoundrels from throughout the Rim. They fought the Confederacy all over, striking when the droids least expected it and resisting CIS dominion any way they could. The Raiders were led by none other than Jak “Brassteeth” Cyone, a charismatic older reformed pirate fond of blasting droids and lost causes.
Rask slipped away from home and signed up with Jak’s group of renegades, bringing with him his grandmother’s old cycler rifle. Life among Jak’s Raiders was certainly exciting. The irregulars operated independently, but with some support from the Republic. They received intel and older gear in exchange for wreaking havoc on the Confederacy’s supply lines and operations within the Outer Rim. Additionally, the Republic offered them a unique exchange; 100 credits for each droid head they brought in. This deal proved lucrative at first, but as the Republic credit experienced hyperinflation later in the war, the Raiders took fewer and fewer heads, instead stealing CIS loot they could later sell. The Raiders themselves were an interesting bunch, some idealistic renegades and others just looking to make a buck. They all treated Rask fairly, though, as if he were the group’s mascot. Jak himself stuck out among the more cynical Raiders as a true believer in their cause. A free Rim, independent of both Republic and Confederacy, where every citizen is unbeholden to tyrannical governments. This was the promise of the Rim, and Rask was immediately under Jak’s spell.
Rask fought with the Raiders for years, growing more and more competent. Less mascot, more freedom fighter. The Irregulars pirated Confederacy ships in space, destroyed supply lines, stole weapons and vehicles, and in general were a pain in the Confederacy’s ass. These missions grew more and more difficult as the war dragged on and Republic support began to dwindle while the Confederacy found ways to counter the partisan’s actions. Towards the end, they were little more than bandits. They became indiscriminate with their targets, always on the run, robbing vessels “suspected” of collaborating with the Confederacy and dipping into CIS space to attack soft civilian targets. Some of these raids still haunt Rask. Finally, when the Irregulars were at a breaking point, Jak promised them one last score that would change their fortunes and put them back in the game.
Republic intelligence had learned of a hidden cache of beskar steel the CIS stole from Mandalore, and were intending on using it to create a brigade of nearly-indestructible droids. After months of searching, the Irregulars, now reduced to just a war-weary few, finally located the treasure deep in CIS space. They assaulted the compound and seized their ill-gotten goods. Rask demanded they sell the beskar to the Republic and use the money to repay the civilians they had stolen from, which earned him a blaster shot to the gut and a toss out the airlock, left for dead. He watched the ship dust off and narrowly escaped security forces, limping his way back to the only place he could think of over the course of months.
Back in Greensprings and with his family, Rask sunk into a deep depression. The galaxy burned around them, he’d been betrayed by his hero, and he'd been living a lie with bandits and thieves. His grandmother had become the de-facto lawkeeper in Greensprings, and she “deputized” him to assist her to help him out of his slump. It wasn’t much work, mostly hauling drunks home from the cantina or settling grazing rights disputes among ranchers, but he felt good doing something that actually helped people after years of misguided idealism. Wanting to atone for his sins, Rask sought out something more. The newly-formed Outer Rim Regulators.
The Regulators were established a few years after Knightfall, which engulfed the Outer Rim in chaos as any semblance of security and safety they previously enjoyed crumbled. The Regulators were a loose-knit group of legitimate law enforcement agents spread throughout much of the Outer Rim, funded by everyone from small mining settlements to wealthy moisture farmers, tasked with everything from breaking up smuggling rings to investigating disappearances. Missions that spanned multiple planets and that a bounty hunter might lack the finesse or profit motive to carry out. Most Outer Rim communities didn't have the means or the need for their own lawman, which is why they chipped in a meager amount to the Regulator’s funds. The organization operated through numerous sectors of the galaxy, independent of any government. Most governing bodies realized that the Regulators were at the very least an adequate stopgap in maintaining some order in the Rim, at least until they could re-civilize it. So the Regulators operated with impunity on these outback worlds regardless of whose authority they actually fell under, so long as they cooperated with local government. Even the Hutts would allow Regulators to work in their corner of the galaxy if it served their interests. The marshals had a high degree of flexibility and typically worked with little oversight. The pay was bad, the hours long, and the work dangerous. Rask loved it.
Rask's career as a Regulator lasted 20 years. He had his share of triumphs and failures, though the latter grew rare as he went on. Some of the highlights were breaking up a spice smuggling ring, rescuing a kidnapped water baron’s daughter from pirates, tracking down a band of Republic veterans turned outlaws who terrorized CIS civilians, and liberating a town from Confederacy droids that had gone rogue. Rask’s ultimate goal as a Regulator, though, was revenge. Shortly after his betrayal, the Irregulars were deemed outlaws, and a bounty was placed on them by both Republic and CIS governments. The remaining members disappeared from the face of the galaxy, though. He was constantly searching for the last dregs of the Irregulars, and he even captured or killed three of them. Still, many more remained, but he dead-set on getting Jak. Revenge threatened to consume him.
It wasn’t until Rask met his future wife that he started to let go of the past. They found eachother in a seedy Outer Rim spaceport cantina as he followed a lead on a member of the Irregulars, both looking for the same droid. She was a grizzled veteran of the Clone Wars, hot on the renegade Raider droid's trail. Mina, a tall, strong Mirialan still fighting the last war and ten years his junior. Both were running themselves ragged to right their wrongs, and both were nearly at their wit’s end. They teamed up and hunted down the rogue droid over the next six months, slowly falling in love as they scoured the galaxy. Once they scrapped Rask's former companion, they finally turned from the past and looked to the future together as a married couple.
The two moved back to Rask’s family home, much to the delight of his parents, grandparents, and numerous siblings. Greensprings had changed some, but not much. His parents had finally opened up their rehabilitation center for former Jedi and veterans of the Clone Wars, where they all worked hand-in-hand to farm, live, and forget the horrors of the past. Rask and Mina started a farm of their own. The work was hard but rewarding, and Rask felt himself finally relaxing, easing into the new lifestyle. Life on the Rim was still tough though, uncivilized and without many amenities. Two years into their marriage, a plague ran rampant through Greensprings. Mina, along with many other offworlders without any immunity to local diseases, died. Rask blamed himself for this, knowing that the planet was often burned through by diseases that Mina would be exposed to. He had wanted to go home, though, and now he paid the price.
Two more years passed as Rask sunk into a malaise. He threw himself into the farm to keep his mind numb. Decaying. It wasn’t until his Regulator boss reached out to him that he finally returned to the land of the living. Their network of informants heard rumors of another member of his old gang resurfacing, now under a new name and living it up on Mandalore. Without thinking, Rask put his badge back on to hunt the bastard down.
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