Mavus Kelleth

**Mavus Kelleth** was a turian soldier and slave, winning the Grand Tournament of Maji in the days before his death.

## Biography

Born upon the rolling plains of Oma Ker’s verdant southern continent, Mavus wasn’t from the stark militarist family that most are familiar with turians being. His father was injured in a skirmish with krogan mercenaries at just nineteen, putting him out of the service early on, and his mother was born with a genetic condition that made her exempt from training. As such, after meeting in their early twenties, the pair bonded over their perceived failures to society, and decided to establish a farm on Oma Ker to escape the judgement they were so often faced with on Palaven. Mavus was their firstborn child of four, and the only boy; he felt the desperation to repair his family’s reputation very early on.

Turning fifteen, Mavus impressed both his family and his commanders by flying through boot camp and securing a rank that few enlisted soldiers are able to achieve that early. He was a good man, and a good soldier, and was able to succeed by never setting his sights on anything less than the best.

As a result, though, Mavus ended up with far more responsibility than he’d ever had in his life - and though he tried his best, that kind of pressure was crushing for a young man with very little real life experience. He coped by turning to alcohol as a stress-reliever, which helped for a time, but rapidly developed into a debilitating habit that Mavus just couldn’t kick.

His alcoholism ended up costing him his career when just after his twenty-fourth birthday, while in temporary control of a ship, Mavus ordered an unknown vessel flying toward Palaven be shot down after multiple attempts to contact them were ignored. When the wreckage and debris were examined, it was discovered that it was a civilian cruiser whose communications equipment had malfunctioned - essentially blinding and deafening them to any incoming messages, and when Mavus had made the call to shoot he’d actually been intoxicated.

The political blow back and public outcry were felt immediately, and in a matter of weeks Mavus was placed on leave and, inevitably, dishonorably discharged from the fleet and placed under arrest. His family refused to help, too ashamed to have anything to do with him, and any friends he’d had vanished in the aftermath of the incident. Kelleth was left alone to suffer the consequences of his actions - but for some reason, luck seemed to be on his side.

Pirates attacked and raided his prison transport ship as it took a detour through Terminus space, killing the marines aboard and taking Mavus and several others as captives. It seemed a preposterously risky move, tempting war with the Turian Hierarchy over a handful of criminals - but it turned out that one of the female prisoners had friends in high places who didn’t want to see her behind bars. Mavus and the others were simply fortunate enough to be collateral damage - and though they didn’t rescue them, they did leave the transport ship in one piece.

After skipping around a handful of backwater ports and managing to stow away on an outbound ship, Mavus found himself on the worst backwater of all: Omega. With no money, no connections, and nowhere to go, he didn’t stand much of a chance on the lawless, unforgiving station. In trying to survive, he made many enemies and racked up many more debts - the kinds of debts that he could never hope to pay back, especially as he spent nearly every credit he earned satiating his thirst.

His carelessness finally caught up to him when those he owed demanded to be repaid and Kelleth had nothing to offer them aside from empty promises and pleas. But his luck had run out, along with his creditors’ patience; Mavus himself was taken as payment, and was subsequently sold to a batarian slaver for a surprisingly decent price. So began twenty long years of torture, abuse, and both mental and physical degradation as Mavus was forced to adjust to a lifestyle more rigid and unforgiving than even his time in the military had been. As before, though, he managed to make due - fighting off withdrawal, disease, and the constant threat of death, and surviving in spite of his circumstances.

In the end, however, his fortitude in the face of adversity may have been his undoing.

As a batarian crime lord geared up to organize the most twisted event of his lifetime, Mavus was volunteered by his own master as a candidate for Krawn Graskan’s great game: a fight to the death on the surface of Maji. He knew he had no choice in the matter - to refuse would ensure his death, but in fighting, the reward of freedom was dangled tantalizingly over his head. Whether Graskan ever planned on letting the winner survive remains to be seen today, but as Kelleth readied himself for the challenge, he found that for the first time in decades he had hope.

That hope was ultimately what carried him so far; rather than using brute strength, Mavus played smart, letting many of the other candidates kill one another rather than jumping into the fray, and using the harsh landscape of the planet to his advantage. As many fell, Mavus remained, and eventually it came down to him and an asari huntress, Syfine Evfora, who’d so far controlled the game. She’d eliminated nearly a quarter of the other combatants single-handedly, utilizing not only advanced weaponry but her impressive biotic abilities as well, and many favored her as the winning competitor.

What ultimately led to her fall, though, was her overconfidence. After ceaselessly hunting Mavus for two days across the desert, Syfine finally caught up to him and shot him at long range with a sniper rifle before going in to finish the job up close; what she didn’t know was that the bullet had only grazed him, and as she approached, he caught her by surprise. Even then, it was a tough fight; they had both been worn down by the heat and radiation that constantly baked the planet, and though Syfine had taken her share of injuries in her rush to dominate the arena, Mavus’ age and lack of combat experience worked against him.

He dealt the killing blow after Syfine yanked him forward in a desperate biotic pull intended to throw him off. Instead, Kelleth had been expecting the move, and was ready: the two collided, and he buried his blade in the asari’s chest - ending not only her life in the process, but his own as well. Because he, a slave, had won, Mavus Kelleth was left to perish on Maji, surrounded by sun-baked corpses and suffocated by sand.

## Personality

* Grizzled
* Softspoken
* Adaptable

## Physical Description

Tall and strong, Mavus is a broad, wide-shouldered man with the oversized build of a warrior. Had he not been captured and sold into slavery, he likely would have been one. The scars of abuse and retaliation riddle his body, most noticeably the large slashes across his carapace and rough callouses around his wrists and ankles from being shackled. His skin is a murky, uneven shade of blue, with browns and greys becoming more apparent along his fringes and crests as he aged. Despite his physical resilience, Mavus carries himself in such a way that one can see the toll the constant suffering and abuse has taken on his psyche - he is a survivor, but the man he once was is long gone.