Post by Ashi on Aug 26, 2009 5:07:21 GMT -5
Faction: Republic
Department: Intelligence
Rank: Captain
Name: Egill Þórgnýr (commonly using the alias Gunnarr [Gunny] Sindrulfr)
Race: Firrerreo [wiki link]
Age: 46
Height: 175 cm (~6' 1")
Weight: 86 kilos (~190 lbs)
Appearance:
Egill generally looks like the average civilian. From his clothes to his ship and even the speeders he drives, nothing about him stands out from the norm. Unless, of course, you try to kill him. That's when the Model 5 [SWU link] in his waistband by the small of his back, the SS5[SWU link] in a sleeve holster, and even an assortment of melee weapons, come into play. An old axiom in the spying industry states: 'if you're having to give up one weapon, keep two more hidden but accessible.' and few follow that code better than Egill.
To hide his large assortment of weapons, in all their various forms, he usually wears mildly formal, button down shirts. The specific coloring, cut, and material, whether it's the checkered flannel, or the navy blue satin cut after a semi-recent Coruscanti fad, depend on his cover and who he's with. These are almost never tucked into the loose-fitting cargo pants he favors. Interestingly, he always seems to have a belt, even tho he never seems to have a need for it. This is because the 3 cm wide belt hides a series of very thin tools. The first and arguably the most important, is a laser cauterizer. While painful to use, it is very effective in closing and disinfecting wounds. The two other tools are a hypodermic needle filled with a local anesthetic (also called a numbing agent), and a small laser scalpel.
As a result of his hard life, Egill has a semi-distinguished face. Despite being the human equivalent to about twenty years old (in terms of body, not mind/maturity level), he looks far closer to thirty. His theory is that it's the stress that caused the slight wrinkles, but however it happened the semi-wizened appearance helps more than most people might think. It gives him a bit of credibility when dealing with the criminal elements, as professional criminals are among the best appreciators of quality over quantity.
Another thing of note, is a number of scars. Everything from a couple of third degree burns on his back, to the occasional traces of blaster bolts and projectiles. A thin scar mars his left eyebrow and eyelid, the testament to a close call several years ago with a knife-wielding hit man. On his right, inner thigh, a rather large scar crosses diagonally from near the hip to about eight cm from the crook of his knee.
If someone is in the same spot for a while, is observant and happens to notice Egill, they might notice that he's very observant. His head might not always move, and he is certainly not looking over his shoulder every five minutes, but he is always watching, looking for the slightest threat or piece of information that might be helpful.
Birth place: The Depths of Space, on board the light freighter Maritan
Skills: Infiltration, Echani Combat Techniques, Information Gathering.
Other skills related to spying:
Lockpicking, moderate skill in psychology and criminal psychology, torture techniques, traps, combat piloting, combative speeder piloting, ability to interpret data from and fire ship-based weaponry, weapons handling, unarmed combat, moderate skill in mechanics, moderate skill in slicing, tactical and strategic planning, improvisation, ability to comprehend abstract ideas, ability to interpret data and it's effects on a plan, ability to act out a cover ID, ability to plan, fall into, and use differing cover ID's as the need arises, ability to speak and understand multiple languages (including underworld slang), ability to interpret signs and adjust appearance to fit, and, finally, the ability to push his conscious out of the way to prevent blowing his cover.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 6
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 6
Leadership: 4
Unarmed: 6
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 6
Alignment: -2
Bio: "Hey, Boy, you want to hear a story?" a grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with the unusual tattoo of a wolf on his forearm, asked a nearby farmhand. Being only sixteen hundred (four PM) they were very few people in the bar. The old man raised his hand, summoning the bartender. The "boy" sat down across from the man, his actions telling more than his words. "Lets hear it", he said in a somewhat nasally voice.
The bartender walked over then, and took the order of two pints of the local ale. "Well, tonight's story is about a man I knew a while back. We never learned his true name, but it didn't ever matter to us. We just called him Gunny." The bartender returned, bringing the ale with him. "Aah. Thanks Friend." the old man said to the bartender, passing him a credit chit. "Where was I?" The old man pondered for a moment and his eyes stared into the distance. He was completely lost in thought. With a start, he came back to the present and continued with his story.
"Now, Gunny is the first born son of Alfr and Brynhildr; as I mentioned earlier, none of us ever learned his real name, so I don't know what their surname was. Perhaps it's best to say was the first born, but I'm somewhat ahead of myself. His first years were like those of many young children who's parents are traders and call a starship home. His very existence was a burden as first, creating further hardship on two people already hard-pressed to survive." He paused, taking a long drought at the ale, before he continued. "If you've not done it yet, Boy, living on a starship is a lot different than your civilized life around here. There's no schools, no teacher but life itself. If you forget something, or if you didn't pay attention to whomever taught you to fly, you can quickly land yourself in trouble."
Another swig and the old man was warmed up. As long as the bartender kept the ale coming and he had an audience, he'd keep chatting away. "Now, even among us squadmates, he didn't like to talk about his family and early life; In that kind of life, it's not something you talk about much. What I did learn, after almost seventeen years of working with him, is that he grew up on that ship. His mom never let him forget the burden he was on their resources, resenting him even when he could pull some of his own weight. His dad was a drunkard, completely ignoring Brynhildr and Gunny whenever he could." Another swig from the half-empty mug. "I don't have to tell you that this environment was hard to live in for the boy. He taught himself to read and write so that he could read the tech manuals and help out. Math was learned the same way. Probably the only thing his mom did for him that mattered was give him a datapad so he could try and learn that much. When he was fifteen, after almost single handedly running their ship for a depressed mother and drunk father for four years, he finally had enough."
By now the bar was starting to fill and it was far harder to get the bartender's attention. A second bartender was coming onto shift at seventeen hundred, but that would still be a while. When they did catch the bartender's attention, it was fleeting, but shortly thereafter the bartender showed up, bringing with him a pitcher of ale. The old man again paid the bartender, then he filled his drink and continued with his story. "I don't rightly know what he did for the next several years, but I know he traveled. At one point, I remember ol' Gunny mentioning something about being a mechanic, offering his services to travel from one star system to the next, but then, he never was one to say much about himself." Once more, the old man's eyes stared off into the distance. This time it took him longer to recover, but he didn't jump this time as he came to the realization. If the boy were observant, he might have noticed the slight moisture in the man's eyes. Regardless, the old man continued.
"However it happened, I know he survived the next four years (now nineteen). He joined up with our band of mercenaries, the Timber Wolves, then. Looking back, I've no clue how he managed to get in. Poor boy barely knew which way to point a blaster. But, with some time and effort, he was soon considered one of us. I taught him how to shoot, a buddy of mine taught him how to fight in melee, and before long he could actually hold his own." The man took another long drought of ale, emptying the full pint and pouring himself another.
"Don't get me wrong, he was still green as hell. I remember the first battle he showed up at. We'd won, like we usually did, and I found him leaning up against a building, puking his guts out. He couldn't take the sight of death. Well, we soon cured him of that. A couple of months later we got called in to defend a pass on one of the major army's flanks. We dug in. I think we ended up with eight heavy repeater emplacements, twice that in lighter weapons, and even a couple of salvaged blaster cannon. By the time the enemy force hit us, we had virtually every advantage available. We weren't fighting a stupid enemy tho, they sent in a couple of repulsor scouts first. Now, I don't think you've ever seen what happens when a soldier with a proton torpedo launcher meets a barely armored vehicle, but I wouldn't want to be in the vehicle." He took another long swig, drinking almost half the ale in his mug. "Yeah, it wasn't pretty for them. When the main force arrived, mostly infantry, we mowed 'em down like you wouldn't believe. There must have been ten, fifteen thousand of 'em. Towards the end of the fight, soldiers were using the bodies of their fallen comrades like makeshift sandbags." The man put on a sad smile, "Yeah... That cured him of that fault.
"After that, we were all using military issue equipment, most of it salvaged off the bodies of those soldiers. Between it all, we probably made a hundred twenty thousand credits off that fight alone. Not bad at all for a group of a mere two thousand people. After that, you'd think that things would quiet down for us, but word of our deeds got out. Everything from assassinations and bounty hunts, to full scale wars. We usually only took the wars, they paid better.
About a year later we encountered some really terrifying stuff, the kind of stuff that shakes you to the core. We'd been tasked with destroying a testing facility for a new weapon that had the potential to change the face of warfare itself. They called the things Devastators; looking back, nothing would be more appropriate. That's what we were told. Poor boy, he wasn't that green anymore, but that kind of terror sent even hardened soldiers fleeing. The insertion was pretty normal. Couple of bumps from flak before we landed and cleared out of the bird. We charged into the facility, it's defenses barely even having a chance to warm up. By all accounts, it would have been the perfect raid, if it wasn't for that damned prototype.
"When they fired up the Devastator, we all felt it. Must've been nine, ten meters tall. A heavy heavy laser cannon and a rapid or continuous firing weapon of some sort in each massively armored arm. The infantry suppression weapons, we later found out, were intended to be modular. When that thing took a step, the ground seemed the shake in fear. The thing blew it's way out of the hangar, sending bodies and debris flying in all directions. I saw it wipe out an entire platoon (32 men) with one shot." By now, the man's hands were shaking. He even spilt some of the ale as he brought the mug to his lips. "That was terrifying." He paused for a minute, getting his wits about him and steadying his hands.
"Well, ol' Gunny was standing there, right beside me. He didn't even flinch at that. So while this massive, armored humanoid (Picture) thing thundered around, killing everything it saw, Gunny dropped his pack, hefted his repeater, and ran towards the Devastator full out. I've never seen anything like it.
"He climbed that thing like it was nothing. He tossed a pair of thermal detonators into a shoulder joint and jumped onto a nearby roof. When the detonators went off, they fried the fusion reactor's coolant system. While he was recovering on the rooftop, he started to notice a part of the armored plate starting to glow cherry red, a good sign something's going wrong. We all heard his frantic yelling to retreat, clearly overshouting most of the battlefield chatter.
"We were already falling back, trying to dig in and get some sort of defense against the blasted thing, but it was a real shock when it just blew up of it's own accord. I had little doubt that Gunny had hit something vital, but we were all retreating too quickly for me to notice what. After the fight, we cleared the debris away. After the reactor blew, most of it was radioactive to some extent, and we were all given shots to increase our resistance to the radiactivity. We found Gunny not long into the salvage run. He was torn up pretty bad, with radiation burns and a couple of shrapnel wounds. That run we lost almost three hundred men, all of whom were very well trained. We almost lost Gunny too, but I've never seen someone come back from injuries like that. He was barely inside the kolto tank for a week before he was up and running around again. I later learned that was one of the better attributes of the Firrerreo race."
The old man sighed, overwhelmed with the emotions of talking about this man named Gunny again. He finished off his pint and poured himself a fourth mug. It took him the better part of a minute after that to get a hold of himself again. He looked up and continued, telling the story that was painful, yet somehow important for him to share. "You don't know how relieved I was to learn he was alive. There's nothing like thinking the man you took under your wing was killed while protecting your own sorry ass.
"After that, we took it a bit slower and a bit more cautiously. The boss was a lot smarter in choosing where we went. If we weren't given a full set of intel, and intel that added up, we didn't go, no matter how many credits were offered. By then, we were all harder, colder, and a lot smarter. We were... more wise to the ways of the universe.
"The jobs after that went pretty smoothly for many years. Friends came and went, some left alive, bored with the work, and others left in body bags. But one thing remained, a constant we could live by, we were brothers. An emotional bond develops among people who are in combat together, who rely on one another to survive. This bond is far deeper even than the bonds of love and marriage. To describe it to someone who has never experienced it is virtually impossible, but it is best described as a sense of kinship, of brotherhood. Every one of the members of our squad, whether they'd fought one battle or a hundred, had this kinship. I can't speak for other squads in our mercenary group, but we did well.
"Eventually, like all good things, the mercenary group fell apart. We were working with the Republic, a strong and well-credited organization more than suited to our wants and desires," he took another drought, "but things didn't go well this time. We were fighting a particularly nasty group of pirates. We got a pretty thorough intel report, but they didn't know what their base was oriented like.
"We landed several klicks out from their base, concerned about potential AA and similar weapons. Our assault, however, certainly didn't go as planned. We went into the fight expecting just about anything, but even we weren't expecting entire arrays of plasma mortars. When we finally took control of their fortress, we found over three hundred in at least ten batteries. Closer in, they had a half-dozen heavy laser cannon, several dozen blaster cannon and repeater emplacements. Seventeen hundred infantry didn't have much of a chance against their defenses. If we hadn't brought some air support and heavier weapons, we would have been utterly defeated."
He paused, for once not bothering to drink, and fighting against his emotions, now even stronger than before. His every word was a challenge now, and more difficult than the last. "We won that fight, barely. In our initial charge, we lost over thirteen hundred men. It might have been worse, if our pilots weren't brave enough to cover our approach. You be surprised how effective proton bombs are at making enemy gunners duck. We lost two of the bombers to some smart ass who reoriented and entire battery of plasma mortars and fired them like flak cannon. But, after we made it to the gates and the bombers had retreated, we were alright. When they built their fortress, they hadn't anticipated people actually making it to the doors, and there weren't any emplacements in position to fire on them.
"A pair of breaching charges and we were inside. That part of the battle took far longer, but was far more effective. We only lost a hundred fifty more men fighting thru the hallways, and that only because they were almost as numerous as we had been when we first landed. They weren't particularly smart or well trained, nor were they well equipped, but there were a lot of them."
Tears started to build in the mans eyes, for reasons that he proceeded to tell. "In... in that last room, ol' Gunny fell. A lucky sword strike hit him in the inner thigh, where the femoral artery on a human is. I saw him fall, his blood spurting onto the ground, and I knew he was dead." Sobs racked the old man's heavy-set frame, and the emotion he'd fought against could be held back no longer. After a few minutes of crying, he started to regain his composure. He dried his eyes, wiping the tears from his cheeks, and steeled himself to finish the story with the rest of his pint.
"We didn't stick around for very long after that. We salvaged some important components and left, and we all seemed to go our own ways when we returned to our base. All of us were a whole lot richer, but we all felt a sense of loss. The Timber Wolves," he gestured to the tattoo on his forearm,"well, we faded from the knowledge of the galaxy at large. Me, I bought a ship, wandered the galaxy a bit more, and eventually settled here and told ya this story." Had the old man looked up right then, rather than staring into the unknown depths of his mug of ale, he would have noticed a slight blueish shimmering around the farmhand, and minor, but obvious changes. His nose thinned by two millimeters, his eyebrows grew shorter by four. His eyes, hazel in color, turned brown and seemed to fill with intelligence, and his brown, shoulder length hair shortened by three centimeters with black streaks slowly appearing. The skin around his eyes shifted, from a semi-slanted look (think half-asian) to the straight edged eyes most humans share. The biggest change, however, was in his voice and body language. The slight nasal tone in his tenor voice had faded, being replaced by a thinly veiled tone of command in a rich baritone. "Well then, Ivan," He said, mildly chiding in his tone, "Perhaps I should tell you the rest of that story."
The grizzled old man, who now had the name Ivan, started; jumped out of his skin was more like it, but let's give him some dignity. He looked up, and recognition filled his face. "Gunny!?! It is you!" Astonishment filled his face, as he came to realization that his friend hadn't died then. "Didn't I tell you, all those years ago, not to underestimate the healing abilities of the Firrerreo?" Gunnarr smiled, "We sure as hell can't fight when we get hit, but it's not like most hits will kill us either. And we both know I was luckier than most." He shook his head, still grinning, "But where are my manners? Let me fill you in on the last couple years." He took a big sip of his barely touched ale, and continued.
"Now, you remember that last fight pretty well. But what you don't know is that after the fight, the republic sent a jedi and a few hundred soldiers to clean the place up and repurpose it into a supply base and forward command base. It was a pirate base, after all, and you know how they like the be right on the edge of popular trade routes. But I digress, they cleaned it up, and noticed I was still alive. The jedi in command of the operation noticed something 'unusual' I think was the term he used. Somehow, I had entered a trance of some sort, the jedi said it was something akin to a healing trance. He told me after I was wakened, that it meant I was force sensitive.
"I couldn't relate to it, but I later found out that it explained my incredible luck. When I was awakened, I had some serious mental damage. I couldn't remember a thing about that fight. It wasn't a form of amnesia, but more like a part of my mind had shut down ( starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Flashburn ). They took me to a jedi healer, and my mind was repaired, but also changed. The healer later explained it to me, and taught me a few simple tricks to control the changes.
"As it happens, the means of shutting down my mind resulted in barriers placed within my mind. It's kind of like turning on a shield generator. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. When he repaired my mind, he had to turn every barrier off, even the barriers of perception, and then rebuild them the way they were supposed to be. I don't claim to know much of how it happened, or even what happened, but after he was done my senses felt sharper. My intuition and instincts felt more real. I can't say it was like the blinders came off, I still saw the same things I usually did, I still had the same senses and the same perceptions. It was more like having an extra sense, an ability to see and understand things beyond what you're normally able to perceive. After that, everything changed.
"The Jedi recommended I be given work in the Republic. I got a copy of the report they filed later, and it said 'To prevent him from unleashing undue harm on civilian targets, please provide a place where his destructive abilities can be put to a constructive use.' I got a kick out of reading that, but I got a job, working as a covert operative.
"Now this was the fun part. I... I got a chance to forget my past, to learn new things and methods. I worked with jedi almost daily during my training period, and I picked up a few things from them. Most of what they tried to teach was philosophy, but I'm no philosopher. I'm far too practical for that. But you eventually learn to use some things. I can use basic telekinesis and some telepathic tricks. It's certainly interesting watching people who just tied you up watch their knots fall apart.
"I've had a few assignments since then, but most of the stuff I have is just about me blending into the normal life of civilians punctuated by the occasional explosion and one dude trying to kill me." Gunnarr tapped the scar on his eye, "Almost got me too."
Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:
In this highly specific instance, I don't believe it is entirely appropriate to use the template. This is mostly because, in a lack of formalized training, virtually everything he has is sporadic. Save for sense and telekinetic skills, everything else is in the grey area where he really doesn't know much of anything about it, but it still has an effect on how he perceives things (I'd say between a .1 and maybe a .5, at best). To avoid potential confusion, the details of his piecemeal abilities follow:
Telekinetic: 1
He has very, very basic telekinetic skills. He can't move large objects, blow open doors, launch people around a room, or anything of the sort. He is limited to very small objects, such as pebbles and locking mechanisms, and he has difficulty moving anything at all more than twenty meters away from him.
Telepathic: <1
His telepathic skill is most easily related to a flickering screen or display. It's an intermittent empathic/telepathic spurt of information. These events seem to happen at random, and he has no control (significant or otherwise) over them. They rarely last more than a minute, with most being only a handful of seconds. Against any sort of shielding, a trained mind, or even the occasional strong-willed person, it gives him no information.
Body: <1
His skill at body has absolutely nothing to do with revitalizing himself, increasing his abilities, or anything of the sort. It is a mildly enhanced understanding of his body, it's senses, and what's happening within it. It isn't an ability to affect his body, merely an increased understanding of it and it's present circumstances.
Sense: 2.5
His skill at sense is the most developed of his force powers by a long shot. He can use it primarily to enhance his normal senses, get solid 'gut instincts' about things, and generally just make his way in the universe. From time to time he gets a danger sense or partial bits of battle precognition, but it's not consistent enough to rely upon.
Healing: <1
Finally his skill at healing is, quite simply, the occasional trance. He can't heal himself, he can't heal others, but he can pass out whenever he needs to and wake up on command or after a set period of time. This state is a very limited form of the hibernation trance [Wiki Link], and he can only reduce his rate of function to about half that of normal. To the average person, he appears to be sleeping.
Ship:
Ullrulfr (Glorious Wolf), a modified and updated Falcon-class scout [SWU link].
swrponline2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=imv&action=display&thread=10593
RP Sample: "So, let me get this straight: You let me think you were dead for almost Ten Years, then you pop up out of the blue like this? What's going on, Gunny, you owe me that much." Egill smiled at Ivan's outburst, "Damned right I do. Something big is going down. The Jedi are all worked up about something, I've heard mentioning that the Sith Empire is on the move, and there are even tales of Dark Jedi running rampant. Before now I was in a passive role, simply collecting passive information and sending it up the line. Now, all of a sudden, I'm recalled and assigned a mission deep into the heart of the Empire. I have no clue what awaits me, and I need someone nearby whom I can trust to have my back."
Ivan let out a low whistle. "So that's what this is all about, eh? Tell ya what. I never much cared for this place anyways. Come with me on back to my place, we'll get some of my gear and head on out." Ivan stood, setting a credit chit on the table. Where is all that anger?, Egill thought as he stood to join his old friend, He was so full of it a minute ago.... He wasn't quite sure what it was, but something didn't feel right about his old friend's actions. He had enough experience by now to trust his instincts, they'd saved him on more than one occasion.
As they walked to Ivan's house, a mere three quarters of a klick, Egill started to notice small things about Ivan's movements and how he acted. His back was stiffer than it was earlier, and his movements were taut and somewhat hesitant. His laughter seemed slightly forced, and even the way he talked seemed slightly different than before. Something is definitely going on, but what? What happened? He continued trying to find the answers to this dilemma while Ivan chatted as idly as he could manage. They turned into the lot of a small house, maybe three hundred fifty square meters in size, and Ivan walked up to the door.
Even more cautious now that they neared their destination, Egill slowed his walk slightly, ending up three paces behind Ivan as the door was opened. That space provided the time he needed to survive what happened next. Without warning, Ivan turned around, a blaster having suddenly appeared in his hand, and started firing unsteadily at Gunny. The distance gave him a chance for the spring-loaded sleeve holster to trigger at his command, releasing the SS5 he kept there. As he moved behind the nearest cover, the blaster was already in his hand and he was shooting almost as haphazardly as Ivan was to cover his retreat.
By sheer chance, one of his rounds hit the older man in the chest. Gunnarr peered around the corner of the house, glancing at Ivan's position by the door. Even with a round in him, Ivan wasn't about to give up. A spray of almost drunken blaster bolts peppered the side of the house, forcing Egill to take cover again. "You're getting rusty, Ivan!" he called, hoping to find out something about why the man was shooting at him. "Not so bad as a traitor!" Another blaster bolt thudded into the side of the house. "Traitor!?!" He retorted, angered at the prospect, "Since when and to what!?!"
This man he had called his brother was now insane. It was the only excuse Egill could come up with to describe his friend's actions. "I won't fall for your tricks, Jedi Scum! Gunny died!" Another series of blaster bolts peppered his thinning cover. "How dare you defile his memory!" By now, Egill was starting to sort out pieces and parts of this story. Pieces clicking into place as he studied the puzzle of his friends behavior.
He glanced at the SS5's selector switch and flicked the switch with his thumb. "You always were a pain in the ass, Ivan." he muttered under his breathe. "Hey, Ivan. You still want to know what my name is?" he paused, giving his words a bit more effect. "It's Egill. Egill Þórgnýr." He let the man mull that over for an instant, giving him just enough time for his mind to begin trying to process that information, before he popped out from cover and fired a trio of stun-bolts at Ivan. As usual, his aim was pretty good, the first bolt went wild, but the second two hit him in the chest.
The big man collapsed onto his porch. Egill sighed and moved forward, dragging the big man inside the house and setting him on the couch he found there. He helped himself to a glass of water and wrote a short note, apologizing to his friend for not contacting him sooner. A credit chit worth a couple thousand credits to cover damages sat next to the note on the kitchen counter. He closed the door and left, leaving his old friend to what was left of his life.
"I'm sorry, my friend." he spoke, when he boarded his ship. "I'm sorry." he had done a quarter turn, thinking about the man and the memories of the man he was now leaving behind. he slowly turned back around and stepped into the Ullrulfr. The airlock sealed behind him with more finality that it usually did, causing Gunny to jump slightly. But he soldiered on, for he had nothing else to do. His discipline took charge, pushing the bitter emotions from his mind. It was time to leave.
Department: Intelligence
Rank: Captain
Name: Egill Þórgnýr (commonly using the alias Gunnarr [Gunny] Sindrulfr)
Race: Firrerreo [wiki link]
Age: 46
Height: 175 cm (~6' 1")
Weight: 86 kilos (~190 lbs)
Appearance:
Egill generally looks like the average civilian. From his clothes to his ship and even the speeders he drives, nothing about him stands out from the norm. Unless, of course, you try to kill him. That's when the Model 5 [SWU link] in his waistband by the small of his back, the SS5[SWU link] in a sleeve holster, and even an assortment of melee weapons, come into play. An old axiom in the spying industry states: 'if you're having to give up one weapon, keep two more hidden but accessible.' and few follow that code better than Egill.
To hide his large assortment of weapons, in all their various forms, he usually wears mildly formal, button down shirts. The specific coloring, cut, and material, whether it's the checkered flannel, or the navy blue satin cut after a semi-recent Coruscanti fad, depend on his cover and who he's with. These are almost never tucked into the loose-fitting cargo pants he favors. Interestingly, he always seems to have a belt, even tho he never seems to have a need for it. This is because the 3 cm wide belt hides a series of very thin tools. The first and arguably the most important, is a laser cauterizer. While painful to use, it is very effective in closing and disinfecting wounds. The two other tools are a hypodermic needle filled with a local anesthetic (also called a numbing agent), and a small laser scalpel.
As a result of his hard life, Egill has a semi-distinguished face. Despite being the human equivalent to about twenty years old (in terms of body, not mind/maturity level), he looks far closer to thirty. His theory is that it's the stress that caused the slight wrinkles, but however it happened the semi-wizened appearance helps more than most people might think. It gives him a bit of credibility when dealing with the criminal elements, as professional criminals are among the best appreciators of quality over quantity.
Another thing of note, is a number of scars. Everything from a couple of third degree burns on his back, to the occasional traces of blaster bolts and projectiles. A thin scar mars his left eyebrow and eyelid, the testament to a close call several years ago with a knife-wielding hit man. On his right, inner thigh, a rather large scar crosses diagonally from near the hip to about eight cm from the crook of his knee.
If someone is in the same spot for a while, is observant and happens to notice Egill, they might notice that he's very observant. His head might not always move, and he is certainly not looking over his shoulder every five minutes, but he is always watching, looking for the slightest threat or piece of information that might be helpful.
Birth place: The Depths of Space, on board the light freighter Maritan
Skills: Infiltration, Echani Combat Techniques, Information Gathering.
Other skills related to spying:
Lockpicking, moderate skill in psychology and criminal psychology, torture techniques, traps, combat piloting, combative speeder piloting, ability to interpret data from and fire ship-based weaponry, weapons handling, unarmed combat, moderate skill in mechanics, moderate skill in slicing, tactical and strategic planning, improvisation, ability to comprehend abstract ideas, ability to interpret data and it's effects on a plan, ability to act out a cover ID, ability to plan, fall into, and use differing cover ID's as the need arises, ability to speak and understand multiple languages (including underworld slang), ability to interpret signs and adjust appearance to fit, and, finally, the ability to push his conscious out of the way to prevent blowing his cover.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 6
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 6
Leadership: 4
Unarmed: 6
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 6
Alignment: -2
Bio: "Hey, Boy, you want to hear a story?" a grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with the unusual tattoo of a wolf on his forearm, asked a nearby farmhand. Being only sixteen hundred (four PM) they were very few people in the bar. The old man raised his hand, summoning the bartender. The "boy" sat down across from the man, his actions telling more than his words. "Lets hear it", he said in a somewhat nasally voice.
The bartender walked over then, and took the order of two pints of the local ale. "Well, tonight's story is about a man I knew a while back. We never learned his true name, but it didn't ever matter to us. We just called him Gunny." The bartender returned, bringing the ale with him. "Aah. Thanks Friend." the old man said to the bartender, passing him a credit chit. "Where was I?" The old man pondered for a moment and his eyes stared into the distance. He was completely lost in thought. With a start, he came back to the present and continued with his story.
"Now, Gunny is the first born son of Alfr and Brynhildr; as I mentioned earlier, none of us ever learned his real name, so I don't know what their surname was. Perhaps it's best to say was the first born, but I'm somewhat ahead of myself. His first years were like those of many young children who's parents are traders and call a starship home. His very existence was a burden as first, creating further hardship on two people already hard-pressed to survive." He paused, taking a long drought at the ale, before he continued. "If you've not done it yet, Boy, living on a starship is a lot different than your civilized life around here. There's no schools, no teacher but life itself. If you forget something, or if you didn't pay attention to whomever taught you to fly, you can quickly land yourself in trouble."
Another swig and the old man was warmed up. As long as the bartender kept the ale coming and he had an audience, he'd keep chatting away. "Now, even among us squadmates, he didn't like to talk about his family and early life; In that kind of life, it's not something you talk about much. What I did learn, after almost seventeen years of working with him, is that he grew up on that ship. His mom never let him forget the burden he was on their resources, resenting him even when he could pull some of his own weight. His dad was a drunkard, completely ignoring Brynhildr and Gunny whenever he could." Another swig from the half-empty mug. "I don't have to tell you that this environment was hard to live in for the boy. He taught himself to read and write so that he could read the tech manuals and help out. Math was learned the same way. Probably the only thing his mom did for him that mattered was give him a datapad so he could try and learn that much. When he was fifteen, after almost single handedly running their ship for a depressed mother and drunk father for four years, he finally had enough."
By now the bar was starting to fill and it was far harder to get the bartender's attention. A second bartender was coming onto shift at seventeen hundred, but that would still be a while. When they did catch the bartender's attention, it was fleeting, but shortly thereafter the bartender showed up, bringing with him a pitcher of ale. The old man again paid the bartender, then he filled his drink and continued with his story. "I don't rightly know what he did for the next several years, but I know he traveled. At one point, I remember ol' Gunny mentioning something about being a mechanic, offering his services to travel from one star system to the next, but then, he never was one to say much about himself." Once more, the old man's eyes stared off into the distance. This time it took him longer to recover, but he didn't jump this time as he came to the realization. If the boy were observant, he might have noticed the slight moisture in the man's eyes. Regardless, the old man continued.
"However it happened, I know he survived the next four years (now nineteen). He joined up with our band of mercenaries, the Timber Wolves, then. Looking back, I've no clue how he managed to get in. Poor boy barely knew which way to point a blaster. But, with some time and effort, he was soon considered one of us. I taught him how to shoot, a buddy of mine taught him how to fight in melee, and before long he could actually hold his own." The man took another long drought of ale, emptying the full pint and pouring himself another.
"Don't get me wrong, he was still green as hell. I remember the first battle he showed up at. We'd won, like we usually did, and I found him leaning up against a building, puking his guts out. He couldn't take the sight of death. Well, we soon cured him of that. A couple of months later we got called in to defend a pass on one of the major army's flanks. We dug in. I think we ended up with eight heavy repeater emplacements, twice that in lighter weapons, and even a couple of salvaged blaster cannon. By the time the enemy force hit us, we had virtually every advantage available. We weren't fighting a stupid enemy tho, they sent in a couple of repulsor scouts first. Now, I don't think you've ever seen what happens when a soldier with a proton torpedo launcher meets a barely armored vehicle, but I wouldn't want to be in the vehicle." He took another long swig, drinking almost half the ale in his mug. "Yeah, it wasn't pretty for them. When the main force arrived, mostly infantry, we mowed 'em down like you wouldn't believe. There must have been ten, fifteen thousand of 'em. Towards the end of the fight, soldiers were using the bodies of their fallen comrades like makeshift sandbags." The man put on a sad smile, "Yeah... That cured him of that fault.
"After that, we were all using military issue equipment, most of it salvaged off the bodies of those soldiers. Between it all, we probably made a hundred twenty thousand credits off that fight alone. Not bad at all for a group of a mere two thousand people. After that, you'd think that things would quiet down for us, but word of our deeds got out. Everything from assassinations and bounty hunts, to full scale wars. We usually only took the wars, they paid better.
About a year later we encountered some really terrifying stuff, the kind of stuff that shakes you to the core. We'd been tasked with destroying a testing facility for a new weapon that had the potential to change the face of warfare itself. They called the things Devastators; looking back, nothing would be more appropriate. That's what we were told. Poor boy, he wasn't that green anymore, but that kind of terror sent even hardened soldiers fleeing. The insertion was pretty normal. Couple of bumps from flak before we landed and cleared out of the bird. We charged into the facility, it's defenses barely even having a chance to warm up. By all accounts, it would have been the perfect raid, if it wasn't for that damned prototype.
"When they fired up the Devastator, we all felt it. Must've been nine, ten meters tall. A heavy heavy laser cannon and a rapid or continuous firing weapon of some sort in each massively armored arm. The infantry suppression weapons, we later found out, were intended to be modular. When that thing took a step, the ground seemed the shake in fear. The thing blew it's way out of the hangar, sending bodies and debris flying in all directions. I saw it wipe out an entire platoon (32 men) with one shot." By now, the man's hands were shaking. He even spilt some of the ale as he brought the mug to his lips. "That was terrifying." He paused for a minute, getting his wits about him and steadying his hands.
"Well, ol' Gunny was standing there, right beside me. He didn't even flinch at that. So while this massive, armored humanoid (Picture) thing thundered around, killing everything it saw, Gunny dropped his pack, hefted his repeater, and ran towards the Devastator full out. I've never seen anything like it.
"He climbed that thing like it was nothing. He tossed a pair of thermal detonators into a shoulder joint and jumped onto a nearby roof. When the detonators went off, they fried the fusion reactor's coolant system. While he was recovering on the rooftop, he started to notice a part of the armored plate starting to glow cherry red, a good sign something's going wrong. We all heard his frantic yelling to retreat, clearly overshouting most of the battlefield chatter.
"We were already falling back, trying to dig in and get some sort of defense against the blasted thing, but it was a real shock when it just blew up of it's own accord. I had little doubt that Gunny had hit something vital, but we were all retreating too quickly for me to notice what. After the fight, we cleared the debris away. After the reactor blew, most of it was radioactive to some extent, and we were all given shots to increase our resistance to the radiactivity. We found Gunny not long into the salvage run. He was torn up pretty bad, with radiation burns and a couple of shrapnel wounds. That run we lost almost three hundred men, all of whom were very well trained. We almost lost Gunny too, but I've never seen someone come back from injuries like that. He was barely inside the kolto tank for a week before he was up and running around again. I later learned that was one of the better attributes of the Firrerreo race."
The old man sighed, overwhelmed with the emotions of talking about this man named Gunny again. He finished off his pint and poured himself a fourth mug. It took him the better part of a minute after that to get a hold of himself again. He looked up and continued, telling the story that was painful, yet somehow important for him to share. "You don't know how relieved I was to learn he was alive. There's nothing like thinking the man you took under your wing was killed while protecting your own sorry ass.
"After that, we took it a bit slower and a bit more cautiously. The boss was a lot smarter in choosing where we went. If we weren't given a full set of intel, and intel that added up, we didn't go, no matter how many credits were offered. By then, we were all harder, colder, and a lot smarter. We were... more wise to the ways of the universe.
"The jobs after that went pretty smoothly for many years. Friends came and went, some left alive, bored with the work, and others left in body bags. But one thing remained, a constant we could live by, we were brothers. An emotional bond develops among people who are in combat together, who rely on one another to survive. This bond is far deeper even than the bonds of love and marriage. To describe it to someone who has never experienced it is virtually impossible, but it is best described as a sense of kinship, of brotherhood. Every one of the members of our squad, whether they'd fought one battle or a hundred, had this kinship. I can't speak for other squads in our mercenary group, but we did well.
"Eventually, like all good things, the mercenary group fell apart. We were working with the Republic, a strong and well-credited organization more than suited to our wants and desires," he took another drought, "but things didn't go well this time. We were fighting a particularly nasty group of pirates. We got a pretty thorough intel report, but they didn't know what their base was oriented like.
"We landed several klicks out from their base, concerned about potential AA and similar weapons. Our assault, however, certainly didn't go as planned. We went into the fight expecting just about anything, but even we weren't expecting entire arrays of plasma mortars. When we finally took control of their fortress, we found over three hundred in at least ten batteries. Closer in, they had a half-dozen heavy laser cannon, several dozen blaster cannon and repeater emplacements. Seventeen hundred infantry didn't have much of a chance against their defenses. If we hadn't brought some air support and heavier weapons, we would have been utterly defeated."
He paused, for once not bothering to drink, and fighting against his emotions, now even stronger than before. His every word was a challenge now, and more difficult than the last. "We won that fight, barely. In our initial charge, we lost over thirteen hundred men. It might have been worse, if our pilots weren't brave enough to cover our approach. You be surprised how effective proton bombs are at making enemy gunners duck. We lost two of the bombers to some smart ass who reoriented and entire battery of plasma mortars and fired them like flak cannon. But, after we made it to the gates and the bombers had retreated, we were alright. When they built their fortress, they hadn't anticipated people actually making it to the doors, and there weren't any emplacements in position to fire on them.
"A pair of breaching charges and we were inside. That part of the battle took far longer, but was far more effective. We only lost a hundred fifty more men fighting thru the hallways, and that only because they were almost as numerous as we had been when we first landed. They weren't particularly smart or well trained, nor were they well equipped, but there were a lot of them."
Tears started to build in the mans eyes, for reasons that he proceeded to tell. "In... in that last room, ol' Gunny fell. A lucky sword strike hit him in the inner thigh, where the femoral artery on a human is. I saw him fall, his blood spurting onto the ground, and I knew he was dead." Sobs racked the old man's heavy-set frame, and the emotion he'd fought against could be held back no longer. After a few minutes of crying, he started to regain his composure. He dried his eyes, wiping the tears from his cheeks, and steeled himself to finish the story with the rest of his pint.
"We didn't stick around for very long after that. We salvaged some important components and left, and we all seemed to go our own ways when we returned to our base. All of us were a whole lot richer, but we all felt a sense of loss. The Timber Wolves," he gestured to the tattoo on his forearm,"well, we faded from the knowledge of the galaxy at large. Me, I bought a ship, wandered the galaxy a bit more, and eventually settled here and told ya this story." Had the old man looked up right then, rather than staring into the unknown depths of his mug of ale, he would have noticed a slight blueish shimmering around the farmhand, and minor, but obvious changes. His nose thinned by two millimeters, his eyebrows grew shorter by four. His eyes, hazel in color, turned brown and seemed to fill with intelligence, and his brown, shoulder length hair shortened by three centimeters with black streaks slowly appearing. The skin around his eyes shifted, from a semi-slanted look (think half-asian) to the straight edged eyes most humans share. The biggest change, however, was in his voice and body language. The slight nasal tone in his tenor voice had faded, being replaced by a thinly veiled tone of command in a rich baritone. "Well then, Ivan," He said, mildly chiding in his tone, "Perhaps I should tell you the rest of that story."
The grizzled old man, who now had the name Ivan, started; jumped out of his skin was more like it, but let's give him some dignity. He looked up, and recognition filled his face. "Gunny!?! It is you!" Astonishment filled his face, as he came to realization that his friend hadn't died then. "Didn't I tell you, all those years ago, not to underestimate the healing abilities of the Firrerreo?" Gunnarr smiled, "We sure as hell can't fight when we get hit, but it's not like most hits will kill us either. And we both know I was luckier than most." He shook his head, still grinning, "But where are my manners? Let me fill you in on the last couple years." He took a big sip of his barely touched ale, and continued.
"Now, you remember that last fight pretty well. But what you don't know is that after the fight, the republic sent a jedi and a few hundred soldiers to clean the place up and repurpose it into a supply base and forward command base. It was a pirate base, after all, and you know how they like the be right on the edge of popular trade routes. But I digress, they cleaned it up, and noticed I was still alive. The jedi in command of the operation noticed something 'unusual' I think was the term he used. Somehow, I had entered a trance of some sort, the jedi said it was something akin to a healing trance. He told me after I was wakened, that it meant I was force sensitive.
"I couldn't relate to it, but I later found out that it explained my incredible luck. When I was awakened, I had some serious mental damage. I couldn't remember a thing about that fight. It wasn't a form of amnesia, but more like a part of my mind had shut down ( starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Flashburn ). They took me to a jedi healer, and my mind was repaired, but also changed. The healer later explained it to me, and taught me a few simple tricks to control the changes.
"As it happens, the means of shutting down my mind resulted in barriers placed within my mind. It's kind of like turning on a shield generator. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. When he repaired my mind, he had to turn every barrier off, even the barriers of perception, and then rebuild them the way they were supposed to be. I don't claim to know much of how it happened, or even what happened, but after he was done my senses felt sharper. My intuition and instincts felt more real. I can't say it was like the blinders came off, I still saw the same things I usually did, I still had the same senses and the same perceptions. It was more like having an extra sense, an ability to see and understand things beyond what you're normally able to perceive. After that, everything changed.
"The Jedi recommended I be given work in the Republic. I got a copy of the report they filed later, and it said 'To prevent him from unleashing undue harm on civilian targets, please provide a place where his destructive abilities can be put to a constructive use.' I got a kick out of reading that, but I got a job, working as a covert operative.
"Now this was the fun part. I... I got a chance to forget my past, to learn new things and methods. I worked with jedi almost daily during my training period, and I picked up a few things from them. Most of what they tried to teach was philosophy, but I'm no philosopher. I'm far too practical for that. But you eventually learn to use some things. I can use basic telekinesis and some telepathic tricks. It's certainly interesting watching people who just tied you up watch their knots fall apart.
"I've had a few assignments since then, but most of the stuff I have is just about me blending into the normal life of civilians punctuated by the occasional explosion and one dude trying to kill me." Gunnarr tapped the scar on his eye, "Almost got me too."
Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:
In this highly specific instance, I don't believe it is entirely appropriate to use the template. This is mostly because, in a lack of formalized training, virtually everything he has is sporadic. Save for sense and telekinetic skills, everything else is in the grey area where he really doesn't know much of anything about it, but it still has an effect on how he perceives things (I'd say between a .1 and maybe a .5, at best). To avoid potential confusion, the details of his piecemeal abilities follow:
Telekinetic: 1
He has very, very basic telekinetic skills. He can't move large objects, blow open doors, launch people around a room, or anything of the sort. He is limited to very small objects, such as pebbles and locking mechanisms, and he has difficulty moving anything at all more than twenty meters away from him.
Telepathic: <1
His telepathic skill is most easily related to a flickering screen or display. It's an intermittent empathic/telepathic spurt of information. These events seem to happen at random, and he has no control (significant or otherwise) over them. They rarely last more than a minute, with most being only a handful of seconds. Against any sort of shielding, a trained mind, or even the occasional strong-willed person, it gives him no information.
Body: <1
His skill at body has absolutely nothing to do with revitalizing himself, increasing his abilities, or anything of the sort. It is a mildly enhanced understanding of his body, it's senses, and what's happening within it. It isn't an ability to affect his body, merely an increased understanding of it and it's present circumstances.
Sense: 2.5
His skill at sense is the most developed of his force powers by a long shot. He can use it primarily to enhance his normal senses, get solid 'gut instincts' about things, and generally just make his way in the universe. From time to time he gets a danger sense or partial bits of battle precognition, but it's not consistent enough to rely upon.
Healing: <1
Finally his skill at healing is, quite simply, the occasional trance. He can't heal himself, he can't heal others, but he can pass out whenever he needs to and wake up on command or after a set period of time. This state is a very limited form of the hibernation trance [Wiki Link], and he can only reduce his rate of function to about half that of normal. To the average person, he appears to be sleeping.
Ship:
Ullrulfr (Glorious Wolf), a modified and updated Falcon-class scout [SWU link].
swrponline2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=imv&action=display&thread=10593
RP Sample: "So, let me get this straight: You let me think you were dead for almost Ten Years, then you pop up out of the blue like this? What's going on, Gunny, you owe me that much." Egill smiled at Ivan's outburst, "Damned right I do. Something big is going down. The Jedi are all worked up about something, I've heard mentioning that the Sith Empire is on the move, and there are even tales of Dark Jedi running rampant. Before now I was in a passive role, simply collecting passive information and sending it up the line. Now, all of a sudden, I'm recalled and assigned a mission deep into the heart of the Empire. I have no clue what awaits me, and I need someone nearby whom I can trust to have my back."
Ivan let out a low whistle. "So that's what this is all about, eh? Tell ya what. I never much cared for this place anyways. Come with me on back to my place, we'll get some of my gear and head on out." Ivan stood, setting a credit chit on the table. Where is all that anger?, Egill thought as he stood to join his old friend, He was so full of it a minute ago.... He wasn't quite sure what it was, but something didn't feel right about his old friend's actions. He had enough experience by now to trust his instincts, they'd saved him on more than one occasion.
As they walked to Ivan's house, a mere three quarters of a klick, Egill started to notice small things about Ivan's movements and how he acted. His back was stiffer than it was earlier, and his movements were taut and somewhat hesitant. His laughter seemed slightly forced, and even the way he talked seemed slightly different than before. Something is definitely going on, but what? What happened? He continued trying to find the answers to this dilemma while Ivan chatted as idly as he could manage. They turned into the lot of a small house, maybe three hundred fifty square meters in size, and Ivan walked up to the door.
Even more cautious now that they neared their destination, Egill slowed his walk slightly, ending up three paces behind Ivan as the door was opened. That space provided the time he needed to survive what happened next. Without warning, Ivan turned around, a blaster having suddenly appeared in his hand, and started firing unsteadily at Gunny. The distance gave him a chance for the spring-loaded sleeve holster to trigger at his command, releasing the SS5 he kept there. As he moved behind the nearest cover, the blaster was already in his hand and he was shooting almost as haphazardly as Ivan was to cover his retreat.
By sheer chance, one of his rounds hit the older man in the chest. Gunnarr peered around the corner of the house, glancing at Ivan's position by the door. Even with a round in him, Ivan wasn't about to give up. A spray of almost drunken blaster bolts peppered the side of the house, forcing Egill to take cover again. "You're getting rusty, Ivan!" he called, hoping to find out something about why the man was shooting at him. "Not so bad as a traitor!" Another blaster bolt thudded into the side of the house. "Traitor!?!" He retorted, angered at the prospect, "Since when and to what!?!"
This man he had called his brother was now insane. It was the only excuse Egill could come up with to describe his friend's actions. "I won't fall for your tricks, Jedi Scum! Gunny died!" Another series of blaster bolts peppered his thinning cover. "How dare you defile his memory!" By now, Egill was starting to sort out pieces and parts of this story. Pieces clicking into place as he studied the puzzle of his friends behavior.
He glanced at the SS5's selector switch and flicked the switch with his thumb. "You always were a pain in the ass, Ivan." he muttered under his breathe. "Hey, Ivan. You still want to know what my name is?" he paused, giving his words a bit more effect. "It's Egill. Egill Þórgnýr." He let the man mull that over for an instant, giving him just enough time for his mind to begin trying to process that information, before he popped out from cover and fired a trio of stun-bolts at Ivan. As usual, his aim was pretty good, the first bolt went wild, but the second two hit him in the chest.
The big man collapsed onto his porch. Egill sighed and moved forward, dragging the big man inside the house and setting him on the couch he found there. He helped himself to a glass of water and wrote a short note, apologizing to his friend for not contacting him sooner. A credit chit worth a couple thousand credits to cover damages sat next to the note on the kitchen counter. He closed the door and left, leaving his old friend to what was left of his life.
"I'm sorry, my friend." he spoke, when he boarded his ship. "I'm sorry." he had done a quarter turn, thinking about the man and the memories of the man he was now leaving behind. he slowly turned back around and stepped into the Ullrulfr. The airlock sealed behind him with more finality that it usually did, causing Gunny to jump slightly. But he soldiered on, for he had nothing else to do. His discipline took charge, pushing the bitter emotions from his mind. It was time to leave.
