Caal’Caazu

**Caal'Caazu** is a quarian casino expert and operative of the Council Recovery Corps.

## Biography

Caal’Caazu’s parents were Hal’Caazu vas Moreh and Shar’Caazu nar Moreh. Their story begins during the dual pilgrimage of Hal and Shar. Growing up together as kids, Hal and Shar decided to leave for their pilgrimage at the same time, traveling in pairs they figured it would be safer and, well, the chemistry between the two had been around for years. It didn’t surprise anyone on the Moreh, where they had been born, and so the two had set out to see the galaxy, stars in their eyes and the fleet at their back.

The journey would be filled with adventure and more than a few hijinks. They hit many planets in council space, and their fair share of ports out in the Terminus. It was in the terminus that the two found the pinnacle of adventure. The risk/reward of poorly governed space allowed the two to really pursue whatever it was they wanted, and more often than not what they wanted was each other. Long story short it wasn’t a surprise when Shar discovered she was pregnant. While not the first time this had happened on a pilgrimage, it was definitely a rare occasion, and something that was not in her original plan. Still, the pair wouldn’t let a pregnancy stop them from going off on wild escapades. Unfortunately one of these escapades would lead to tragedy.

While stationed on a less than legal vessel, Hal and Shar’s ship was embroiled in a violent conflict between competing ships. The results of the battle would leave their ship harried, the drive core in meltdown and explosions riddled the hobbled ship. On their way to the escape pods, an explosion ripped through the ship, throwing Shar a fair distance, suit breached and eezo dust flooding her system. Hal, attending to his love, did his best to seal the breaches, patch Shar up and flee the remnants of their vessel.

The next few weeks would be utter hell on the couple. It was touch and go for days, Shar reeling from exposure, sickness wracking her body, and Hal quite honestly thought she wouldn’t pull through. Knowing there was no other choice but to return to specialized medical treatment on the Flotilla, the two had to end their pilgrimage and return home. While under the care of the specialists, Shar demanded that her child be the first priority, her wellbeing secondary. Doing everything they could, they did their best to preserve the unborn child. The resulting long term complications would eventually leave Shar crippled and weakened for the rest of her life, but her child would survive.

With the birth of his son Caal, and the survival of his wife, Hal would return to the galaxy to finish off his pilgrimage. Shar on the other hand focused her life on mothering. Without a completed pilgrimage, Shar would be forced to return to the Moreh, and although they understood her situation, she would not be welcomed in as a contributing member of the ship, a stigma that would stick with her. Still, determined to not be a burden on the ship and crew, Shar would devote her life to raising not only her son, but the other children in their cramped quarters. Though crippled, she would become a valued teacher and caretaker on the Moreh, her stories of the terminus and her adventures serving as both inspiration and a warning.

As a child Caal would love hearing his mother’s stories, and these would directly inspire his sense of adventure. Growing up was rough for him however, as his slowly developing biotic powers would turn out to be much more of a hindrance than a boon. With a much weaker immune system due to the exposure and the higher required nutritional intake, Caal would be very isolated in his experiences on the Moreh. Other kids were sick less often and they didn’t have to be as careful as Caal’s mother instructed him to be. Caal was kept to a very rigid nutritional structure and training regiment. Shar was hard on her son, determined to make sure he survived strong, but very often being quite restrictive on his freedoms. Though she didn’t know this, this would end up building in Caal as a need to break free from his mother’s ideals and responsibilities.

Reaching his teenage years Caal had taken all those emotions and feelings of his youth and poured them into a rebelliousness. He attracted friends to him by being the loud, adventurous, rebel. He broke free from responsibilities by not doing them, by telling his mother and other teachers no, and doing the opposite of what they were asked. When he was told that getting an implant could unnecessarily risk his life, he jumped at the chance to prove everyone wrong and applied for one anyway. The surgery left Caal critical for days and weakened for far longer, his mother was furious.

The higher ups of the Moreh on the other hand relished the idea of a biotic quarian. Rare enough as it was, Caal was also one that had survived implantation. The quarian militia took extra steps to make sure that Caal’s youth was filled with additional lessons and classes in biotic control, instilling the basics and giving him a foundation to become something greater than he was. Caal’s response? To screw off during most of those classes, figure out how he could best use his biotics to mess with the other students his age and overall show zero interest in joining the more offensive side of quarian life.

When it finally came time for his pilgrimage, Caal couldn’t be more excited. His father had returned from his pilgrimage about a year after Caal had been born, his contributions enough to make him respectable on most ships in the Flotilla. However, knowing his wife and son were on the Moreh, he made special provisions to be allowed to join his birth ship, instead of seeking a new residence. Now his father and mother stood ready to give him tips and advice from their own pilgrimages, and even shared some of their favorite haunts in the terminus. With all the gear and advice he could carry, Caal’Caazu set out to explore the galaxy.

What a mistake it was to send Caal out into the galaxy. From his first steps on the Citadel the quarian already knew he was going to cause a mountain of trouble. It all started with his visit to Flux. Caal discovered he was kind of a pro at quasar. In fact, Caal won his first thousand credits playing nothing but quasar on Flux. After a few weeks, Caal was so good at Quasar that he was accosted by the bouncer at Flux and nearly killed for “cheating” at the games. Thankfully C-Sec intervened and let Caal off with a warning, but it was already too late. Caal was hooked on gambling.

The next stop on Caal’s journey was Omega. If there was anywhere in the galaxy he could learn how to be a better gambler, it was the original den of sin itself. Using the small fortune he had made playing Quasar, Caal got a modest apartment and began hunting down as many gambling games as he could find. When he wasn’t learning how to shuffle physical cards with three fingers, he was on the extranet looking up the rules to Texas Hold’Em or Thessian Three Ladies. Nothing compared to the thrills of *Vorcha, Vorcha, Varren, KROGAN!* a high intensity game where the loser typically got shot, vorcha and krogan could regen from that, but it added extra risk playing that as a quarian.

However, in what would soon become Caal’s typical timeline, Caal would learn a bunch of local games, get rich becoming very good at them, and be chased off the station/planet/ship when he was inevitably accused of cheating. No matter how many times this happened, Caal never lost love for seeing the galaxy as a whole and enjoying the cultures of everyone he met. Despite winning several guns in games of chance, Caal rarely if ever had to use them, or his biotics. That didn’t stop him from training with his biotics every day, there wasn’t anything more fun than freaking people out with magic quarian surprise. It was a good bar trick that was good enough to earn him a few credits.

As time would go on, Caal would realize years had passed and he hadn’t come up with anything to bring back to the Flotilla. But it was starting to become more than just sheer forgetfulness, Caal… didn’t want to bring anything back to the Flotilla. He didn’t want to go home ever again. Out here in the open space he could make a living just playing games, running from station to station, making his cardshark skills infamous. If he went back to the Flotilla he’d have to contribute, he’d have to become a working member of the populace. He’d… he’d have to live on the Flotilla again. Having experienced wide open space, the luxury of expensive lodgings, he never wanted to be confined in a small space again, he was too big to be just another member of the Flotilla.

Then it happened. The quarian joined up with the batarian and created the Terminus Confederacy. It was an act that Caal just couldn’t get behind. He loved the Terminus, he’d made plenty of money here, but he couldn’t forget all the time and friends he’d made in Council space either. He didn’t understand the need for such violent wars. Becoming the final nail in the coffin so to speak, Caal contacted his family and finally made the decision never to return. He removed the Nar Moreh of his name and simply became Caal’Caazu. He didn’t care if his people could ever understand, but all he knew was that this decision was entirely his own to make and he was happy with it. He had found his purpose, and it was to be the best at cards.

Not all was fun and games during his time out in the Terminus System however. The Reaper War would strike, and it would strike the hardest on the fringe of the galaxy. Still, even galactic conflict was not enough to send him barreling home to the arms of the Flotilla. Instead, Caal would use this time of intense danger and strife to profit off a few schemes of his own. The high flow of Terminus refugees proved to be an excellent group of individuals to scam into games of chance and fortune, offering life changing deals and sums of credits over a few games of chance. This proved to be as scummy as it sounded, and yet again Caal would find himself running from spaceport to spaceport both in an attempt to avoid the fighting, and also to avoid those who he had wronged. Eventually his travels would take him to the gas giant of Tefnut and the various casino and gambling ships in that area. He would find a more permanent home here, eventually coming to work at one of the more prominent casinos on the Flaustin Paradise Station. There he would meet all manner of wealthy individuals and he surely gambled them out of all things he couldn’t afford. It was here his taste for the elegant side of life really skyrocketed and he started to make bigger and more dangerous bets.

During his time at the casino, Caal would have several run-ins with a ship captain named Yastra'Solum vas Avan'Tica. The two would form a competitive type nature with most of their nights ending in the two betting way more than they probably should. Typically these games could go either way, which is what brought the two back again and again, eventually leading to a night that would change Caal’s life forever. On this fateful night, the betting would get so wild that it would culminate in Caal betting his life for a night with Yastra. Intrigued, but also extremely sure she couldn’t possibly lose, Yastra accepted the bet. Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for Caal, Yastra was a pro at blackjack. Not actually looking to cash in on taking Caal’s life, instead Yastra wrote up a contract for indentured servitude, tying Caal to the Avan’Tica.

Caal however, was a pro at getting his way. Only a month into his stay on the Avan’Tica, and Yastra was already over it. Choosing to instead amend the nature of their agreement, Yastra reduced the life sentence to a paltry few years and changed who Caal would be forced to work with. Instead of being indentured to Yastra, she ordered Caal to spend out his remaining years on the contract helping people with the CRC. The CRC would be unaware of Caal’s contract, instead just seeing it as Caal volunteering to sign up, both Caal and Yastra would know the real reason behind his sudden altruistic enlistment with the CRC. Now aboard the Resurgence, it was only a matter of time before Caal found a new way to get kicked off this ship, like all the others.

### Exceptional Skills

* *Three-Fingered Monte:* Caal is, was, and will always be a cardshark first, quarian second. From his first moments seeing a game of poker dealt, Caal made it his life’s goal to learn any and every card game he could possibly wrap his head around. Now, there isn’t a card game in the galaxy Caal doesn’t know the ins and outs to, and he most likely could swindle a man out of house and home.
* *PhD in Retail Therapy:* Either Caal has an immense void that can only be filled temporarily with the purchasing of things, or he just has to burn every credit that touches his accounts; whatever the reason, Caal’s ability to spend money is unparalleled. The part about this that amazes most people he meets, is that there is no particular rhyme or reason to the items that he purchases. It seems that just the act of spending credits is what draws Caal to the various shops across the galaxy. This has, in the past and to this day, been more of a problem than true therapy, as Caal often does not actually have the credits to spend as he pleases.
* *Resource Management:* Being crafty can save a life when poor, and Caal has very often had to use his skills to make do for weeks on end. Having to scrounge around for those extra bits of credits, create something that could be sold, or weasel his way into somewhere or something he shouldn’t, Caal has used his collection of skills to basically survive outside of the Flotilla. While not necessarily one specific skill or hobby, this grouping of talents has lended themselves to Caal’s natural grit and charm, and without them he probably wouldn’t have gotten as far in the galaxy as he has.

## Physical Description

Caal’Caazu is about as average as can be in terms of height and weight. Standing roughly the same height as the average male and weighing not that much, Caal represents the more lanky of quarian. The caloric demands of his biotic nature coupled with his irregular diet have kept Caal from putting on much weight, this has proved to be a boon when scavenging or fleeing as he’s been able to squeeze into smaller spaces and move slightly faster than most larger individuals.

As for Caal’s suit, the current iteration is a highly valued designer piece that he once won off the very designer themselves in a game of poker. The rich fabrics and reliable suit material have proven to be a huge asset to Caal’s personal life by not only keeping him safe, but also allowing him to pose as a more prominent individual. Therefore maintaining its cleanliness and capabilities has become a huge part of Caal’s routine. One of the most impressive aspects of the suit is that the yellow fabrics are actually hue adjustable allowing him to modify the color of his suit whenever it behooves him to do so.

### Armament

* M-22 Eviscerator
* M-6 Carnifex

### Abilities

* Warp
* Overload
* Tech Armor