Vosh Basai

Notorious Pirate Turned Legitimate Politician Overview= "Life never runs out of surprises."

Gaining renown as a privateer during the waning years of the Old Republic, Vosh Basai spent thirty years earning a reputation as a notorious scoundrel and pirate, if an honorable one. The creation of a new Republic led Basai to give up his life of crime to go respectable, parleying his way into service as the planetary senator for his homeworld, Morellia.

Vosh is captain of The Blue Spirit.

Tone Likes: Comedic, Dark, Gritty, Heroic, Romantic, Social, Weird

Music: Sonny Rhodes, "The Ballad of Serenity" (The spacer's themesong)



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Attributes & Skills

Gear

Cybernetics: Vosh compensates for his more severe injuries with cybernetic replacements. In role-play terms, these provide him with compensation for his flaws, though they suffer from the typical drawbacks of all electrical and mechanical components. Vosh's are very high-end and durable, but they are still technology with limits. The actual functions of these devices are covered by "gear" on his +tech sheet, such as macrobinos and a sensor pack for his cybernetic eye and a datapad, glow rod, knife, and grapnel to cover functions of his cybernetic arm.

The eye does allow enhanced vision, particularly telescoping sight and filtering through various sensor-enhanced modes, a HUD, etc. The hand and forearm unit does not appear human, but it features a grip that can either generally take the shape of a hand or reconfigure into a multi-pronged metallic claw. It has a datapad and comlink melded into the arm section, and the claw can retract and be replaced with various other tools, such as a grapnel with syntherope, a glow rod, a recording rod, a variety of small tools, a universal data connector, and a knife.

Advantages

Republic Senator: Vosh Basai holds the position of Republic Senator from Morellia, including all rights and responsibilities that come along with that position. This includes diplomatic privilege, a small dedicated staff, a measure of political influence, and a modest but comfortable salary for his services.

Long-Lived: This character's species, on average, has a significantly longer lifespan than is typical for most races. Due to this, it is very difficult to determine the character's physical age by appearance alone.

Flaws

One Eye: When Vosh was 34, he learned a hard lesson about identifying a client before making a deal. Hired to procure and deliver an ancient Sith artifact, it was only upon delivery that he discovered his client was a Night-sister of Dathomir--and she took not only the artifact, but for whatever dark ritual she had in mind, she also took his right eye, though she did leave him all the credits he was promised.

One Hand: As a young man, only 22, Vosh found himself in a duel with a rival. Young and cocksure, Basai flung himself into the fight--and won; however, his recklessness cost him his right hand. A wild thrust with his vibroblade left Vosh overextended, and his opponent neatly sliced away the young privateer's hand. Fortunately, the thrust had been a feint, and even with his injury Basai was able to slide his offhand knife up under his foe's guard for a killing blow.

History: Vosh has a long history. While he's generally not tried to make enemies, he's still run afoul of many memorable people in his time, and some of them certainly look on him with something less than fondness. He's wronged more than a few people for one reason or another, and there are those who might choose to come after him. There's also a Night-sister of Dathomir out there, somewhere, who did Maker-only-knows what with his right eye....

Languages: Basic, Binary, Bocce, Durese, High-Galactic, Huttese, and Shyriiwook

Background=

Born in 51 BBY on the Outer Rim world of Morellia to a respectable couple, Drago and Nara, young Vosh Basai grew up dreaming of the stars. His parents were simple farmers, and at the first opportunity that arose young Vosh got himself a job on a freighter and left his homeworld behind. The menial tasks available to him offered few opportunities until Vosh met a dashing young pirate named Eran Gunstar. Charmed by the allure of this exotic life, Vosh ended up signing on as a privateer for the Corporate Sector.

Young and brash, Basai soon began to take on bolder and bolder jobs, taking greater and greater risks. He and Gunstar became a highly successful duo, inseparable and making quite a name for themselves on the fringes of the Outer Rim, though they kept well out of larger Galactic conflicts, such as the brewing Clone Wars, except for occasional salvage jobs. For Vosh, this was a kind of golden era--romance and adventure amongst the stars, all set amongst the free living and camaraderie of the privateer crew.

However, while Vosh loved this life, it had begun to grate on the smooth-talking, ever-smiling Eran.

Gunstar grew tired of the pirate's life, though he still played to the image because he enjoyed the admiration of his friends and shipmates. He also enjoyed the notoriety of his lifestyle, but secretly he wished to settle down and retire into an easy life of wealth and luxury, feeling that the risks of his career had begun to outweigh the rewards. So it was that, after some wrestling with his conscience, Eran chose to betray his crew to a member of the Hutt Cartel whom they had outfoxed on a deal. The Hutt was happy enough to offer up a bounty, and Eran arranged to collect--even though it meant selling out the rest of the crew.

As close as Vosh was to Eran, he discovered the plot. Gunstar claimed that he'd never intended to sell out Vosh, but Vosh's sense of betrayal was far too great. The two drew swords, and a vibroblade duel raged across the starship, taking them from the crew quarters on through galley and across scaffoldings--eventually ending on the bridge, where in a desperate feint, Vosh lost his right hand but managed to slide a knife between Eran's ribs with the left. Eran Gunstar died in Vosh's arms, and the victor wept in spite of himself. In later years he would call this "the last step" he took in growing up, but at the time it was nothing but grief and panic. He was very fortunate not to die from blood loss.

Basai had killed someone he loved. Even with a good reason, even in defense of his life--that scarred him just as deeply as losing the hand. In the chaos that followed Vosh's duel with Eran, the privateer crew broke up, and Vosh found himself leading the smaller splinter group. They got their hands on a derelict heavy assault frigate and rounded up a skeleton crew, and they were in business for themselves--now with Basai as their captain. He chose to name his new ship the Gunstar, which his crew (and others who heard the name) took to be a warning, referencing what he had done to Eran Gunstar. Vosh let this rumor persist, though privately he considered the name symbolic of what he had lost.

Captain Vosh Basai and his crew engaged in many adventures over the years, even as the Empire rose to power around them. Basai avoided becoming such a great nuisance to the Imperial forces that his bounty would ever grow too large, though he and his crew did develop quite the reputation as notorious pirates. Basai embraced an increasingly theatrical persona as time wore on, wearing an obvious prosthetic hand instead of a more realistic replacement and dressing in flamboyant clothing. He came to covet his reputation more than any wealth or power, and he did gain a respectable measure of infamy as the years wore on.

As his career entered its third decade, though, events conspired to make Vosh Basai reconsider his life of crime.

It was only a few months before the Battle of Yavin that Vosh had his fateful encounter with a Night-sister of Dathomir. She hired him and his crew to steal a valuable collection of artifacts, an ancient tablet and the personal effects of a long-dead Sith Lord, that were being transferred into the keeping of a private collector. She provided all of the information for the heist, and while the crew disliked the idea, Basai was tempted by the audacity of the job--stealing Sith trinkets, he reasoned, was a low-risk way to add an impressive new line to his Galactic resume. So, despite the trepidations of his crew, Vosh accepted the job.

It went quite smoothly, really. They busted into the small space station where the transfer was to take place, all guns blazing, without even having to actually kill anyone--though a fair few security droids were scrapped beyond repair. They claimed their prize and returned, jubilant at their success, to complete the deal with the Night-sister. Yet, Vosh's ignorance of the Force witch cost him dearly. Whatever ritual she had planned, she needed not only the artifacts but a literal piece of the thief who had taken them. Why this was so, Vosh never learned--but as they made the exchange, she surprised him with her magics, holding him down while she plucked out his right eye.

She left him bleeding, screaming, and very well-paid. Once the job was done, he swore off ever dealing with a Dark Force user again.

Fitted with another obvious but, he felt, stylish and highly functional prosthetic eye, Vosh was only slightly poorer in credits than before he took the job--he'd paid his crew fairly, but his own portion didn't even pay for the cost of his replacement eye implant. He was soon adapting to his newfound array of vision abilities, as well as the occasional headaches that accompanied them, but even as he found himself back up to full mobility and health, Basai's love of the pirate's life had been shaken to its core. He was no longer the brash young privateer captain--indeed, he was no longer even formally sponsored as a privateer--but the scarred veteran of a life that had taught him many costly lessons.

Then came the news that the Emperor and his chief enforcer, Darth Vader, had died at the Battle of Endor. It became obvious to Vosh that times were changing, and he seized this chance to turn over a new leaf. He spent most of the vast fortune he had accrued over the years paying off bounties, settling debts, and otherwise squaring things with as many important people as he could. Now mainly free and clear, he bought leverage with Morellia, his seldom-visited homeworld, by donating his ship, the ever-faithful Gunstar, to the planet's government once his crew had been paid off and disbanded.

To his surprise, though, in making these contacts Vosh Basai learned that he was viewed as something of a folk hero by many of his fellow Morellians.

Feeling a resurgence of homeworld pride--or maybe it was just nostalgia-- Basai entered the senatorial election when his world chose to join the new Republic. He was as surprised as anybody when he won. Having made the somewhat shocking transition from notorious pirate of vast wealth and impressive personal resources to legitimate politician of modest wealth and curiously optimistic aspirations, he found himself poised on the cusp of a new era, both in the Galaxy and in his own life. From his former life, he kept only his personal effects and a YT-1930 freighter that had served as his personal transport for years. Vosh organized a small personal staff, and after a brief but pleasant stay on Morellia transferred operations to Dantooine, the functional seat of Republic power.

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