Vaskr Koz

A depiction of Vaskr Koz in the form of pyrography.

Cult of M'dweshuu

Republic Mercenaries

Pyke Family

Azure Order

> *"You will die here. I've heard that many times; from my father, my enslaver, my brethren, even a lover. The difference between you and I is that I won't listen. No matter how far I fall, I shall crawl out. No matter how much I bleed, my heart will beat. No matter how blind my eyes will become, I will find you. You will die here... It's funny. After all this time, I've merely taken their place."*
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> ― Vaskr Koz
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## Summary

Vaskr Koz is a reputable mercenary whose made a career from religious uproar on planets and causing chaos to make profits. He's served several agencies and organizations doing a number of tasks, from delivery to assassination. He is a part of the mercenary group called the Sun Guard, known for their rivalry with the Mandalorians and feared for their effectiveness as a mercenary group. While having his own agendas, he serves Thull Wulain and the orders of Darth Sidious first and foremost. Among the other Sun Guard within [City Name], he represents the group that directly serves Sidious; the Disciples of Thull.

#### *Personality*

Vaskr Koz is monotone and cold, lacking a sense of empathy for others. He takes first impressions personally, and often dislikes others who forward themselves abrasively or do not regard him with an air of respect. He is often quiet but prone to speaking when he finds a moment 'poetic'. He respects self confidence and the ability of others to be determined, but himself feels threatened when another admits to wanting to be in his way. His trust is difficult to gain, but it is possible. Intimacy is however beyond consideration. He has very little interest in such things. Business is everything.

## **Biography**

### **Early Life**

#### ***A Bad Start***

Vaskr was born on a ship during a dogfight. His mother gave birth to him alone, while his father piloted the ship and escaped certain death. Three lives saved that day; a mercenary, a captive, and a baby. Vaskr's mother was a prisoner to his father, a reknown bounty hunter that wished to settle down on his own terms. While also avoiding returning said prisoner along with a small fortune. In this start of his life, Vaskr's world was this small ship. Where he and his mother were kept in a storage compartment, sometimes Vaskr would be taken so his father could look at him. Vaskr's father had his sights on a single planet that no one would ever tread; Malachor.

#### ***Living on Malachor***

Malachor was the sight of a great tragedy between the Sith and the Jedi. A monument to world destroying weapons. Also multiple digsite ruins that still had structures from long ago archaeologists. No one would seek Vaskr's father and his mother here, on this hellish world. The air choked, the wind scarred; a horrid place to raise a child. Vaskr's childhood consisted of scavenging for his father, fed barely enough to keep working, and what little his mother could do to soothe the boy. Vaskr's father left his wife and son alone often, traveling to do jobs and bring back supplies. Sometimes months he would be away with just the minimum left for his family. Vaskr's father would finally end his career, only when his wife died. The captive woman that he had for years died from starvation, what supply was meant for her given to her only child. Vaskr's father stayed on Malachor, housing the boy back in his ship and often having to now scavenge and hunt for what little twisted life was on Malachor. Vaskr's father was not charitable, nor passionate for his son. Who was thin and short, barely above a runt. His father delved deeper into a depressive, although no less aggressive stupor past the months. From time to time, the man would abuse his son. Remind him, that this was all he had. An awful world, no other home. That he would die there. Even as a child though, Vaskr protested. He would go to the sky. He would leave. He would still be alive. His father never responded well.

#### ***Leaving Malachor***

Some time had passed and Vaskr was a teen when his father seemed to change. His father had left his son for a few days and returned with equipment. Training ensued. The frail boy was taught how to fight, with a spears, blaster pistols. Vaskr did not know why his father was teaching him all this. It was strange to spend so much time with the man, his father. He could feel his body shake when he was congratulated. He could feel himself become stronger. A warmth in his stomach. It would be months into his training when finally his father told the boy that he would come with him off of Malachor. Vaskr was beyond happy. Seeing the gray sand of Malachor rise under his father's ship, how it all seemed to get smaller. When the stars showed themselves, he knew that there was more to his life. More beyond the hellscape he lived on.

#### ***Reunion on Nar Shaddaa***

It had been more than a decade since Vaskr's father had been in Hutt space. Landing on Nar Shaddaa was something nostalgic for the man, and an exciting experience for the boy Vaskr. The city was massive, beyond massive even. Instead of giant spiky mountains it was giant neon skyscrapers. Ships flew in lanes and not, going through in such dangerous lines. He could see dancing buildings, people he never knew existed. Colors of all sorts that were foreign, alien, and he welcomed it all. Even though his body didn't when the boy was first exposed to the smells of the new world, which made him empty his bowels. Despite it, he laughed. It felt too good to be somewhere else, to feel the air smoggy instead of spiteful. His father didn't understand, and would kick the boy back into reality. He had a job for him, and they were both to go to a market. A slave one. Vaskr's father was looking for someone to clean the ship, he told his son. He wanted Vaskr to pick who. So Vaskr would pridefully pick for his father... It didn't cross him as to why his father wanted him to choose. Vaskr saw a young Togrutan woman, not too far from his own age it looked like. He felt maybe he could have a friend. So he picked her. She was taken, brought to a booth with Vaskr and his father. A droid spoke to Vaskr's father in some sort of strange language. That's when the droid approached Vaskr. His father told him to hold still. A line of light passes over Vaskr, and then the droid holds up its hands in front of Vaskr's chest, then his stomach. Vaskr's father spoke to the droid again, and he looked down at his son. Vaskr didn't know what his father was doing, staring down at the boy. Suddenly he felt a prick. He looked down at his arm, and found the droid's hand had returned and now injected Vaskr with something. Confused, he looked up at his father. He had the Togrutan girl under his arm. The last thing he heard from his father was, *"You will die here."*

### **A New Life**

#### ***The Pyke Family***

Vaskr awoke to his new life as a slave. His teen years were spent entertaining the Pyke Family's younger members in a small arena that was supplied ample slaves and creatures. Vaskr was pitted against mostly those of his age, where he was forced to batter or be battered by those who were also sold into slavery. It was here that Vaskr learned about his father, what he was wanted for at Vaskr's very birth. Vaskr's father had kidnapped a slave from a powerful Hutt, this slave a Thyrsian, the same species as the bounty hunter. Having a child and raising it to the minimal necessities of the Pyke Family's criteria of slaves had a bit of profit to be made out of it. Vaskr was told he was cattle his entire life, and now he was sold.

Life enslaved by the Pyke Family only seemed to grow darker, as conditions for those slaves that fought became worse and worse. Less slaves were being put into the arena, and now a mix of beasts were taking their place. Fyrnocks, Nexu, Swamp Wampas and even Akk Dogs were used in the arena. However there was one beast that the slaves were not to be told about. Vaskr would face this beast, battered already for the time he was in the Pyke Family's personal arena. For how long he had though, he took advantage of his surroundings. He was stronger, tougher, scarred and mangled. Fingers were lost from his hand and his jaw had been dislocated for an unhealthily long period of time. A young man now, he was challenged to face a beast. A banner would come down to show Vaskr his predator. A Gundark titled 'Skik'. Vaskr was to be armed with a vibro blade, but in order to get the battery for it, he would need to take it straight from the Gundark's chest where it was stuck to. When finally Vaskr was pitted against the monster, he managed to get the battery and gut the red beast. For years of entertaining the Pyke Family and even killing this creature, he would be awarded freedom... As a servant to the Pyke Family's whims. A personal guard, hitman, whatever they wished. A different choice was left for Vaskr however. There were many weaker slaves left in the Arena, and, Skik was not the only Gundark they had. All the others would have to fight their Gundarks, be all killed. Unless Vaskr wished to continue entertaining the Pyke Family's audience. and kill all the rest of the Gundarks. Risk his life to free the rest. It was Vaskr's choice.

#### ***"Indentured Employment"***

Rising out from the Arena alone, Vaskr chose his own personal survival over saving the other slaves. One gundark was risky, and he did not know if the battery of the vibro blade would even offer him a second strike against one of the beasts. His introduction into the Pyke Family's household was slow, being processed into a proper guard that the Pyke Family required not in just body but training. Vaskr Koz would undergo a slave's training, fed plenty of horrible food that would expose the growing warrior to nearly an overdose of protein and steroids. Vaskr's own will though returned to resist his urges when they did rise, and soon enough he was a new and young guard for the Pyke Family. He was appointed to Seei Iof, a Pyke woman who would show kindness to her slave bodyguard. Allowing him meals alongside her, accompany her to every meeting or activity she attended, even entrance to her private wing in her father's manor. Vaskr was drawn to the strange, alien woman offering him far more than what even has family could, but found mistrust in her offerings.

That she did what she did to gain his loyalty. An affair in the Pyke Family, the Iof Quarrel as it was called, occured when a daughter of one of the major Pyke Family capos nearly killed her guard for reasons unspoken. That night her advances leaped expectation, and Vaskr refused her still. She became enraged at him, and cursed him for his stubbornness. She told him, "If you do not accept me, you will die here." Vaskr was taken from Seei Iof, and was instead appointed to a mission that was being organized for the planet Sriluur.

### ***What happened on Sriluur***

The Pyke Family wanted to expand its grounds, and Sriluur was an untouched ground that the Pyke Family wanted to take advantage of. The problem was the cult that was there, that seemed to be predators that couldn't be extinguished by the Hutts who ruled over the planet from their palaces on Nal Hutta. The Pyke Family had to keep their operations low and could not risk their own being spotted. So personal guards and mercenaries were selected or hired to smuggle spice into several cities and trade posts across its expanse,. The Pyke Family only promised pay if the mercenaries weren't caught, and any attempts at giving away the Pyke Family's involvement if the worst was to occur would equal no possible way of redeeming themselves to the Pyke Family and many other criminal organizations. A mission to leave the Pyke Family clean of their activities, save some lower profit margins from a loss of spice... Of course, this was just for the worst scenario. Always just in case.

Vaskr was assigned to a group of body guards and enslaved soldiers for the Pyke Family, but were supposed to cooperate with a group of mercenaries that the Pyke Family hired outside of their own ranks. Vaskr and the other bodyguards were greeted with a drop ship of a stranger design, with imagery of a star on its hull. Out came heavily armored mercenaries with T-shaped visor masks that went over their heads like hoods. They had guns and force pikes, intimidating in presentation. Their equipment looked far better than what the Pyke Family provided, although worn and well used. One individual, taller than the rest, marched forward from the ship, adorned in more goldish-yellow armor while the rest wore variations of red or black. They explained themselves to be the Sun Guard, the mercs that the Pyke Family hired. They would help with smuggling the spice into the small Pyke hideouts waiting to operate with a supply.

The crew of mercenaries advanced with their supplies, splitting off their groups through multiple settlements, but certainly one of the planet's capitals. It had plenty of eyes from the Hutts, but if they spread out they could cover more ground while minigating suspicion. Shipments would be disguised as normal wares and packages. Vaskr was to move with the yellow-armored Sun Guard, who appeared to be the leader of their crew. Vaskr and the Sun Guard with him aimed to deliver the first shipment to a hideout posing as a beggar's home, but it appeared to be getting hustled. Vaskr hadn't handled a real fight or confrontation since he had been in the arena, in truth he was not the most effective bodyguard. The Sun Guard with him though did not let his hesitation stop them. They pressed forward and not only disarmed the pair, but murdered them. A quick brutality, with use of the Sun Guard's force pike. He found it admirable, even graceful. The two finished with their current task, but there was far more to do.

Vaskr and the crew of hired guns spent some weeks making sure the spice hideouts for the Pyke family would rise up smoothly, trying to keep the eyes of the Hutts off of themselves and these hideouts. However, there were other problems that the Hutts themselves couldn't totally eliminate. A local radical group, that had somehow survived repeated purges from generations of Hutts, attacked the mercenary group's biggest hideout. One where Vaskr and the yellow-armored Sun Guard were holding. The crazed