A young girl from the remote village of Highrock on the planet Derra IV. Kara is a Force-adept who was hidden from the Jedi by her remote upbringing. The Force is strong in her family, but they do not recognize it for what it is. They refer to it instead as the Music, and relate to it as a song that is sung by the existence of life itself.
Kara is the only daughter of Sten and Mairi. They lived high in a mountain valley on a small farm that provided just enough food for the three of them. Her days were spent working in the fields, taking lessons from her mother and father in various disciplines and tending her flock of gliderwings, large winged creatures that live in the mountains.
The security-expert half of the Wanderer's crew, Renn is a opinionated cynic with a dim view of the motives of everyone around him. He's unabashedly mean, occasionally heartless, and inordinately proud of his own accomplishments. His chief loyalty is to his partner, Liana, who saved his life after a job gone bad five years ago. They've been business partners ever since, though the true friendship came a bit later. He trusts Liana's decisions as Captain; it's obvious that she is in charge, and he doesn't want to be, despite occasional objections to the contrary.
Renn is primarily the businessman aboard the ship, as Liana doesn't care what cargo they take on so long as it gets them some money and a destination. He talks big, but he can (usually) back it up. He is a tech-head and an expert slicer; a computer system or lock hasn't been made that he can't find his way into somehow, and he has contacts (and favors owed him) scattered across the galaxy. He's a decent shot with a blaster, but Liana doesn't trust him to fly the ship anymore after the incident when they first met.
At first, he doesn't seem to like their newfound passengers, and finds a way to vocalize his displeasure on a regular basis. In fact, he enjoys baiting Kara and Aeron, especially Aeron, to the point where Liana will often step in and tell him to back off.
Aeron is a scholar of the Force. He was trained at a satellite academy by Masters who looked to Jedi lore as the sole source of Force wisdom, and Aeron took this philosophy to heart. As a result, he has difficulty understanding the Force as a living thing; he sees it in terms of strict Jedi philosophy only. An academic at heart, Aeron is more comfortable with studies and archives than he is with a lightsaber.
This black and white viewpoint causes him no end of trouble in the real world. He can be stubborn and unbending, but he is not blind. He will admit when he is wrong and he has a razor-keen mind, but Aeron is more monk than warrior. His sense of moral outrage can at times get in the way of common sense and has even led him into trouble on a few occasions.
Aeron has trouble with the public standing of the Jedi in these troubled times. He is not a proud man, but he doesn't understand why the common man of the galaxy does not openly respect the Jedi for their service. He tends to think that reality should follow what he has been taught, and is slow to adapt to the realities he now faces.
Indeed, Aeron never would have left the archives had it not been for a troubling incident.
Aeron was in meditation when a vision burst upon him. A shockingly handsome man and a beautiful young girl were locked in lightsaber combat. The girl's skill was amazing, fighting with one blade that became two. Then the scene was sundered by the roar of a fearsome beast and the galaxy itself burning.
He discussed this vision with his Master, and then with the academy council. They agreed that the Jedi could only have been Selene Bladedancer, who disappeared after following Revan to the Mandalorian Wars. However, when he described her appearance, one Master disagreed, saying that it could not be her. They directed Aeron as his final trial to find this girl and unravel the meaning of his vision.
Liana is a Trianii, one of a race of insular, matriarchal feline humanoids with a homeworld and colonies on the outer rim. Her people keep themselves apart from the Republic, although they do have trade agreements with various Republic worlds. Liana stands about 2 meters tall and is covered in golden fur that is lightly dotted with small white spots along her back and shoulders.
Her hands have three digits and a thumb, all bearing vestigial claws. She also has a prehensile tail.
Like many of her species, Liana is an explorer. She left her home planet several years ago for reasons she will not discuss with anyone, not even her partner, Renn. She has never attempted or suggested they return to the colony world where she was born, nor does she mention her family.
She stumbled into the smuggling business six years ago, thanks to Renn and his myriad of contacts. Prior to that, she had simply been content with taking on cargo, usually for insanely cheap prices, just to see new worlds. It was Renn who started netting them a profit.
Although she is mostly a peaceful person, she can be fierce when something she considers "hers" is threatened, and is perfectly willing to come in with guns blazing if Renn or someone else she cares for is in trouble. Balancing that is the fact that she is a spiritual person as well. Though she does not call it "The Force", she believes in a goddess of life whose traits are vaguely reminiscent of the Jedi's great source of power. In fact, she sees Jedi as another branch or worshippers and treats them with some respect because of it.
A bipedal droid, B4 is the translator/counterpart to the highly irascible T5-E4. He was sold to his current mistress, Liana, along with his counterpart when she bought her ship, the Wanderer.
B4 is shorter than most droids of his type. He is also more flexible and his arms are rather somewhat longer than human norm. This allows him great access to the nooks and crannies of the ship, where he can better keep an eye on his counterpart.
B4 and T5's previous master was a bit of an odd duck. He took great delight in loading all sorts of bizarre simulation and philosophy software into B4's memory banks, the result of which is that B4 probably knows more about life than most organic beings.
An astromech droid responsible for most of the day-to-day maintenance aboard Liana's light freighter Wanderer. T5 is a squat little thing who is always one moment away from becoming a headline. Something along the lines of "Droid slaughters entire planet" would be right up his alley.
Like most astromechs, he can't speek Basic, only the zip-squeal language of his kind. This usually helps hide his truly homicidal tendencies. Only the fact that he has no internal weaponry has prevented many a tragedy.
So, you ask, why would a droid like this be allowed to endure? Well, the Wanderer has undergone a lot of modification since it was built, long before Liana bought it. T5 is the only droid with a hope of ever understanding all the bibs and bobs of the highly bastardized systems. Furthermore, when he was taken for a memory wipe, T5's efficiency in the role of ship mechanic fell so drastically that the entire operation was endangered. So T5 is allowed to plot the eventual demise of the crew, but not without his counterpart gently foiling his every scheme.
Kara's father. Sten is extremely protective of his daughter and her secret. Gruff and irritable, Sten is surprisingly tender toward Kara. Of course, that doesn't mean he won't tease her when the opportunity arises...
Kara's mother and teacher. While Mairi is Force-sensitive, she is not nearly as adept with it her daughter. It was Mairi who taught Kara to fight, to Sing, and to listen to the Music of all life as it wafts through the world around her.
Mairi is a quiet woman, used to living with her small family out on the fringes of the Derra IV wilderness. She is a fierce protector of her daughter and their family secret.
The first thing a person notices about Kirennan Venaar is the almost otherworldly allure of the man. He is tall and graceful, his smooth face is so handsome the word beautiful is nearly appropriate. His dark hair frames a chiseled face that needs no adornment, though his robes tend to the ornate, worked with gold and jewels.
The second thing is his utter civility. Dark Lord he may be, but Lord Venaar is also well-mannered, polite and seems almost incurably naive. He can usually be found in his chambers aboard the Dragon, which are lined floor to ceiling with books of all descriptions. How such a temperament survived the dark side of the force is a mystery. It is said that Sith look inward while Jedi look outward, to serve those around them rather than themselves. Perhaps this is the answer to riddle of Venaar. His anger is so focused at a single, burning instant that he has escaped the ravages of the darkness.
His former Master, Darth Signus, was not the sole claimant for the title of Dark Lord. On a day that still burns in Venaar's mind, his Master's enemies attacked, surrounding the pair of them with hundreds of dark Force warriors, blades gleaming crimson.
Darth Signus fell early, but not before leaving a swath of death behind him. Seeing his Master fall, Venaar screamed, hatred and anger flowing from him like rain from a storm-wracked mountain. When at last his voice trailed off and the haze cleared, his enemies were dead, hundreds lay charred and blackened by the sheer power Venaar had unleashed.
A weak movement off to his side drew Venaar's eye. His Master yet lived, though death was near him. Hurrying to his side, Venaar took his hand, trying desperately to save his life, but darkness is not a power of healing. He felt his master slipping away.
Weakly, Darth Signus told Venaar of a book, hidden in his chambers. The book detailed a Sith legend of ancient power, from which Venaar himself may be directly descended. Signus made the new Dark Lord swear by his blood and power to use the knowledge in the book to restore the Sith to glory, then he died.
Finding the book, Venaar became convinced that he had found his destiny. Taking the Sith military into his hands once again, Venaar has turned them from squabbling warlords, content with the scraps left them by the Republic, into a small but fearsome armada once again. With judicious use of his limited resources, Venaar has begun to expand the Sith influence in the galaxy once again.
An aging old guard of the Sith military, Gillard Hyridan is a barrel of a man. A bit overweight perhaps, but still built powerfully, with a still grim, scowling face and an iron hand of discipline.
Hyridan has served in the Sith navy for over thirty years. He followed Revan as a young officer in her betrayal of the Republic. He rose through the ranks and now commands the flagship of the Sith fleet, the Dragon.
Proud of his life and position, Hyridan is among the core of Sith officers with little or no respect for Lord Venaar. He sees the man as soft, not willing to do what is needed to return the Sith to glory. That said, Hyridan is fiercely loyal to the man who is, after all, his Lord and Master.
