Karam Ildens

Early life
Karam’s story is an old one, told many times before. The kind that would make the upper class of Coruscant weep a tear and sign a check for an humanitarian association. She’ll probably never know why, but at age 5 she ended up as a slave to a man that owned fighting pits on a borderline illegal station of the outer rim. Living there as a kid wasn’t really dreadful per se, she learnt to dodge the usual kick and punch, make her way in the shadows and hide in the corner while she wasn’t needed as much as she did get to serve her owner when he called her name.

The girl was small, nimble, and almost never spoke unless ordered to. So although far from ideal by most standards, she passed through childhood without too much of a hassle, up until she was 12. As she was bringing in drinks to her owner during a formal meeting with fellow businessmen, one of them remarked it’d be pretty fun to see how a slave like her would fare up against a pit dog. Next thing she knew, she was in the arena with a man wielding a mass in front of her trying to crush her down.

It didn’t take long for her hidden survival instinct to kick in, but although she was a natural, she wasn’t trained in any way and had to resort to messy ways to end the fight. Such ways were to dodge, dodge, and dodge again until the man in front of her was tired enough so that he was slow. Only then did she look around for any kind of weapon, her eyes settling down on one of the small rocks littering the sand of the arena. Rushing under one of the man’s swings she caught it in her hand, the low weight of the stone giving her a bit more confidence than it should have. The fight devolved at that point in a skirmish, with the girl rushing the man, dodging the mass and inflicting small cuts and bruises with her improvised weapons. At some point she failed to dodge though, and the fighter managed to land a devastating blow on her left leg, breaking the bone and sending her to the ground. But she wouldn’t go done like that, no. As he caught his breath and prepared to give her the final blow, she rolled and stabbed his legs, biting and kicking, drawing him down where his weapon wouldn’t help him. The man was tired, she was enraged, and the fight stopped only when his brain splattered out of his head.

Her owner, out of good will for his fellow slave traders, had placed a bet on her, way to let the other gain some credit and ease the negotiations ahead. So when he won, and a rather hefty sum at that, he asked for her to be tended to instead of put down as was usual. Her wound took a long time to heal, but she was still busy. She was now apparently a fighter too, and as such needed to learn all about it. Even though she couldn’t stand for weeks, she was pushed into a physical training routine that hardened her body as much as her mind, and taught some tricks by other fighters. Not a year later, she was back in the pit.

Somehow, and against all odds, she won all her fights. Surely enough, she barely died once, her throat being sliced by a dying opposant, which earned her a tattoo when it became clear she’d live thanks to the bacta and quick intervention of the medical team. Still, she fought not even to win, but more so to kill the adversary, which the public seemed to like very much. Seeing her hacking various people to pieces became a hobby for some category of individuals, and when the arena was expanded and blasters were introduced, the show only got better.

At age 18, after making her owner richer than he’d ever had thought, she was granted a one chance to gain her freedom. Pit fights weren’t gaining all that much money anymore, especially considering the investment in them, and instead someone had proposed a new type of games. A fighter would be sent alone, with few weapons and gear, onto a specific area of a jungle planet and would have to rally a point 200 miles from there alone, without help but while being followed by recording droids all along. The area was designed so that the owners could freely send new threats, creatures and obstacles towards their fighter, thus creating more difficulty and a better spectacle.

The deal offered to Karam was simple. If she did make it, she’d earn her freedom in due time. If she didn’t, she’d be dead or sent back to slavery for the rest of her life. Since there wasn’t much of a choice, she packed what gear she could get her hands onto and boarded the shuttles towards her destiny.

The show made a pretty decent money with that first season, but she never got any hold of it at all. For her it was rainforest, leeches and wild creatures all along the way. She almost met her fate twice, at the hands of mercenaries sent specifically to hunt her down and the other time while trying to cross a wild stream during a thunderstorm. But she somehow made it to the end.

It was annoying, as she should have died according to the plannings, but with the stream of the droids and a lot of people watching her, her owner and the game’s director were very much forced to grant her her freedom. Not a day after the show was broadcasted she left the station and enlisted in a pirate crew passing by, eager to operate for herself, or at least more so than she was used to. The year she passed with them was not a wasted one, teaching her a few life’s lessons and to better handle blasters, but her lack of education and social skills was blatant in there. It was at that point she earned her second tattoos, the second eyes, for being a great shot in many battles. Still after a series of raids on independent traders, the crew was ambushed and the ship almost taken down by a rival captain. They barely managed to limp back to port and from there disbanded, everyone trying to save its own life before more trouble came their way.

Thus started the next chapter in Karam’s life. Far from any known space, unknown to most people and possessing only the gear she had on her back, she roamed the cantinas and bar of the station to try and find some work, but found nothing. By sheer luck, she got into a fight with a wanted Rodian and killed him. The next morning, she had a hangover but had found a new way to make credits.

Since there she’d been roaming around from ports to ports, taking down small targets, preferably dead, and making just enough money to get to the next station or planet. But Karram has ambitions and projects. Nothing foolish like trying to correct the way she was wronged or make sure it wouldn’t happen again, no more like making enough money to set up her own little empire somewhere calm and trade with other people's lives for a profit. If she can get her hands bloodied in the process then it’s all the better. Maybe in the end no one should shed a tear for her...

Personality and traits
Vindictive, bloodthirsty when in combat and generally lacking tacts, Karam is in no way a nice person to try and befriend, nor to mess with. But apart from the ruthless efficiency she often asks and uses, she is a reliable merc and will try her damned best to never let a contract or someone working for her down. Once the deal is settled though, that’s another story.

Family and relationships
Karam never quite knew her parents, not that she’d care about them anyways considering what they probably did to her. She doesn’t have any kind of family proper, but still entertains some contacts with her old owner and some of the pirates she served with.

Appearance
Standing at almost 6 feet 5 inches, Karam is no small woman, although her thin appearance shows her as more vulnerable than she really is, almost like a glass canon of sorts. As any member of her species, she has chalk white skin and is bald, but unlike some her tattoos have an actual significance, be it only for her.

A second set of eyes is depicted alongside her own actual eyes, only the contour of them inked in a deep, almost black, red on the left and right side of her head. The three bands running from her upper lip to her chin, and dividing from there in a V with a centerpiece are the same color, but they plunge deeper and continue under her clothing, dying off on the rear side of her neck for the two lateral ones and at the birth of her chest for the vertical one.

Speaking of clothing, her usual attire is a simple but practical suit. A dark green vest, blood red scarf and form fitting pants plunging under a pair of reinforced boots are the usual, topped with a webbing made to carry her gear securely and silently when required.