- Joined
- Jun 17, 2018
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Nolan Kodd
Age
Part-time mechanic, part-time smuggler, full-time adventurer. Nar Shaddaa upbringing has hardened him and given him a broader view on life.
Age
► 22
SPECIES ► Human
HEIGHT ► 186 cm
WEIGHT ► 86 kg
EYE COLOR ► Blue
HAIR COLOR ► Brown
HOMEWORLD ► Nar Shaddaa
GENDER ► Male
FACTION ► Independent
RANK ► None
FORCE SENSITIVITY ► Yes (unaware)
Summary
Part-time mechanic, part-time smuggler, full-time adventurer. Nar Shaddaa upbringing has hardened him and given him a broader view on life.
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The only child in the family, Nolan doesn't know what world he was born on. His parents moved to Nar Shaddaa early in his life to seek refuge from the war between the Jedi Exiles and the Republic. Since then, the Smuggler's Moon is the only home Nolan has ever known. That home proved to be less than welcoming: the family had to go extreme lengths just to survive. Even Nolan had to start working at the age of 7.
Luckily, his employer Shiri Vrei (a member of a Twi'lek spacer family who ended up grounded on Nar Shaddaa and started a tech repair shop) was no tyrant. In fact, it was thanks to her that Nolan learned how things worked on the moon. As months went on, Nolan came to think of her like the elder sister he never had, and a friend of his family.
Despite all their efforts, the Kodds couldn't earn their living and eventually got into debt. And if you can't keep yourself afloat without borrowing money, Nar Shaddaa takes you down the all-familiar path: slavery. Even worse, nobody cares if the family gets split in the process.
Nolan too would've ended up off-world, if it weren't for his parents' request to Shiri and her family for help. The Twi'leks couldn't afford freeing the Kodds or repaying their debt, but they could at least free Nolan from this fate. Shiri expressed sympathy to the boy (in large part due to her own people's history as targets for slavers) and convinced her relatives to take Nolan in.
Naturally, these events affected the boy greatly, making him reconsider his life on Nar Shaddaa and see the universe for as evil. In anger he would see the Hutts, moneylenders, and half of the Smuggler's Moon as the parasites who deceived people with false promises and made use of them when they were exposed. Only later would Nolan see the bigger picture from a different angle.
A few years later Shiri inherited the repair shop from her parents and became its sole proprietor, as Shiri's siblings moved on elsewhere. The Twi'lek did a good job at running the shop, but she always wanted to get herself a freighter and be able to go where she wanted, like her family once had. To reach that goal, Shiri herself got indebted to the Hutt Cartel in order to get herself a freighter. She even sold her repair shop.
Unlike the Kodds many years ago, the Twi'lek managed to repay her debts, showing Nolan that the Hutts were no more evil than the universe itself. They just offered the means, and it was up to the person taking these means to use them properly and come out on top. However, the newly-purchased freighter didn't give Shiri all the freedom she wanted: she still had a few errands to run and the interest to repay.
With no other options, Nolan flew with the Twi'lek as an occasional pilot, co-pilot, and gunner, experiencing the life aboard the ship for the first time. It didn't matter that they were working for Hutts, they were free! The few following years seemed like a dream: travels, profits, cantinas, gambling, a healthy amount of risk and danger to hone one's experience... All of this made Nolan feel truly alive.
Shiri didn't share Nolan's happiness. With one of her life-long dreams achieved, a smuggler's life eventually became a routine. The Twi'lek set sights on something else. After a few years in space she returned to the Smuggler's Moon, reopened her repair shop aboard her new freighter and continued business as usual. Nolan would only notice that she started practicing with her blasters and fixing up weapons more often.
Eventually she started disappearing from the ship, only to return a few days later, leaving Nolan to run the business alone. The Twi'lek never told Nolan the details, but she always returned with credits, more than the repair shop could generate. Nolan suspected that his old friend might've gone hunting bounties, as her father had in his youth, but the Twi'lek was reluctant to speak about it, so her protege dropped the topic.
One day Shiri disappeared and never returned after weeks of waiting. Nolan's first thought was to go search for his "elder sister". However, he didn't know where to start and had problems of his own: the rent for the landing pad and the Hutts' monthly share still had to be paid. Now on his own, it was Nolan's turn to make use of the opportunities that the galaxy had for him. -
Despite the harsh conditions on his "homeworld" (caused by the inhabitants rather than the environment), Nolan ended up developing his own "code of conduct", which is based on conscience rather than the letter of the law.
Having grown up on the Smuggler's Moon, Nolan saw how people do anything to survive, the strong prey upon the weak, and how everyone thinks that this is normal. Yet, having been among the weak himself, he also sees the situation from their angle.
As a result, Nolan tolerates smuggling and trying to stay afloat by any means necessary, but dislikes slavery. He has seen more than enough violence and can pull a trigger to defend himself or those he cares for, but he wouldn't take pleasure in it.
Nolan only lets himself be openly-friendly with the people he knows and trusts (otherwise it could be seen as a sign of weakness). He enjoys bickering with his MR-73 astromech, which has developed a habit of telling Nolan off in Droidspeak for various reasons. -
The youth spent on Nar Shaddaa had a mixed effect on Nolan. On the one hand, he experienced loss, contempt, and unfairness. On the other hand, the Smuggler's Moon has hardened him and taught him how to overcome these obstacles. A lot of his knowledge comes from Shiri Vrei, his Twi'lek "elder sister", but some of it is just luck and intuition, which Nolan takes for granted.
SKILL PRACTICE DESCRIPTION Mechanics ■■■ Nolan spent the majority of his time helping Shiri with her repair shop business. Droids, ship parts, and broken (yet totally safe!) blasters replaced the toys that Nolan never had as a kid. That's where his knowledge of Binary (Droidspeak) comes from. Languages ■■■ Not all of Siri's clients spoke Basic. Nolan had to deal with many unfamiliar languages, and soon discovered that he took to them. A few weeks of relaxed learning was enough for tolerable understanding. Nolan's ability is by no means perfect: it resulted in quite a few embarassing situations, especially when he tried to speak. Still, he somewhat understands Huttese, Dosh, Durese, Gamorrese, Rodese, Ryl, and Shyriiwook. Melee ■■■ Nar Shaddaa gave Nolan his share of fighting, both armed and unarmed, so he is not a pushover. As a teenager, he practiced a lot with the stun baton that Shiri gifted him for defense. Later he gave up the habit in favour of blasters, but with time and effort Nolan could regain his old skills and surpass them. Shooting ■■■ Shiri always said that "as strong as you may be, you ain't stronger than a blaster." Nolan took that to heart when the Twi'lek gunned down a Gamorrean gangster who tried to extort "protection money" from her. Nolan is still grateful for the blaster pistol he received when he grew up, and for the rare-but-cherished blaster practice sessions that Shiri set up for him. Driving ■■■ Some customers wanted their items to be delivered, rather than coming to Shiri's shop themselves. When Nolan grew old enough, he started using Shiri's swoop bike for that purpose, and he enjoyed such distractions. Despite occasional reckless driving and a few close calls, Nolan managed to avoid permanent damage on a few occasions. The swoop bike, however, wasn't so lucky. Piloting ■■■ When Shiri got herself a freighter and diversified into smuggling for the Hutt Cartel, she took Nolan along as a crew member. Flying a spaceship was even more fun than riding a speeder bike. Nolan feels he made the most of the little practice he had. Astrogation ■■■ Shiri would always preach that "if you're in space, you need to find your way and not get lost." Nolan liked space, but hated the chore of substituting for thei MR-73 astromech and plot the hyperspace route manually. Although Nolan can be an astrogator, he prefers leaving it to droids and computers. His route-plotting is painfully slow, and he's always looking for "shortcuts" in calculations. MR-73 always rechecked Nolan's calculations, and sometimes the "guesswork" even turned out to be correct.
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ITEM DESCRIPTION 2L Blaster Rifle (normally stored aboard the ship)When Shiri went for her last job, she took the best weapons with her, leaving her old blaster rifle behind. Nolan is still somewhat reluctant to use it, hoping to return it to the rightful owner one day. Shiri gifted this pistol to Nolan when he came of age. It holds sentimental value, reminding Nolan of Shiri's shooting lessons. That's why he hasn't replaced this old blaster pistol with something newer and more powerful. Yet another gift of Shiri, but this time to a teenage Nolan who couldn't be trusted with guns yet. This stun baton was enough to fend off unarmed thugs, as demonstrated by Nolan a few months after he received the weapon. Spare power packs (normally 5 are carried, with 10 more aboard the ship)There's never too much ammo, except when you're bending down under its weight. Nolan tries to restock his supplies on the ship whenever and wherever he can, just in case. -
ITEM DESCRIPTION The Trailblazer, Fathier-class light freighter
Shiri always dreamed of accumulating enough money to buy a ship and get off-world again. When the Hutt Cartel offered her "a loan" to help in exchange for a few errands and an interest rate bordering on robbery, she agreed to the terms. The debt has since then been repaid, Shiri took up another lucrative job for the Hutt Cartel and never returned. That's how the ship ended up in Nolan's possession.The last of the two speeder bikes that Shiri owned. The first one bit the dust when Nolan tried to deliver an item to the client of Shiri's repair shop ahead of schedule. Normally the bike is stored aboard the Trailblazer, sacrificing the space for 1 passenger or 2 tons of cargo. -
ITEM DESCRIPTION MR-series MR-73 astromech
When Shiri got the Trailblazer, she also needed an astromech droid. The MR series were the easiest to acquire and did the job quite well. Being more successful at astrogation than Nolan, the droid has developed a habit of "verbally chastising" the owner for mistakes. With Shiri gone, Nolan couldn't find it in himself to wipe the droid's memory. That, and he needs an experienced astrogator as a co-pilot.
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