B I O G R A P H Y
MANDALORE
Before the great hyperspace war - or rather, before the
Red Coronation, where Mandalore became the shattered husk of a world it is now known as - the planet was once considered a gem within the Outer Rim. The proud home of a warrior culture nearly as ancient and formidable as the Jedi, the surface was altogether a terrestrial mix of dense forestry full of animals both predatory and gentle, alpine mountainous regions prone to dense snow coverage during the winter seasons, to sprawling flatlands divided by rivers both great and small. Such a setting served as the backdrop of Faison’s childhood. The firstborn son of a chieftain of Clan Kelborn, Faison was taught from an early age what it meant to live the life of one born into the Mandalorian culture. From the moment he could walk, the lessons began - from learning how to hold and safely handle a blaster, how to grapple and wrestle amongst his siblings and cousins, how to track and hunt, and how to survive off of the land.
It was a happy childhood to be sure, with many memories of both father and son striking out into the wilds with nothing but the rifles in their hands, the clothes on their back, and knives on their thighs. This happy time - one of the few in Faison’s life - would soon be tragically cut short. Near his tenth birthday, a wave of Mandalorian-centric nationalism began to rise to the fore, wherein the promises offered by the rising Sith Empire to restore the Mandalorian people to greatness, along with the opportunities afforded to more independent minded ones within Mandalorian society, became too hard to ignore by the vast majority of the Mandalorian people. Clan Kelborn was among the few notable clans wherein dissension arose, namely due to uncertainty that the Sith were needed to give the Mandalorian people anything they could not take themselves, as well as those who questioned the wisdom of involving themselves in a war against the Galactic Republic.
Faison’s father, known to history as Chieftain Vardek Ro’tall Kelborn, was among the elder members of the clan advising such caution. This made Vardek a prime target for the purges that soon preceded the Mandalorian people’s near-wholesale alignment with the Sith Empire. Assassinations and skirmishes erupted between the two factions across the planet, with Faison and his Corellian-born mother narrowly surviving the purges by being spirited away by one of Vardek’s most loyal friends - a kinsman by the name of D’aryc Kelborn. Ever since that fateful day, Faison has not again set foot upon his ancestral homeworld.
DUTY & HONOR
As the Sith Empire’s power waxed evermore until the eventual outbreak of the Great Hyperspace War, the small contingent of men and women loyal to Vardek Kelborn arrived upon the planet of Corellia along with the surviving members of his family - namely Faison, his mother, and his sister Liara. Shortly after their arrival, news came forth of Vardek’s death during the purges, along with nearly all of the other chieftains and prominent elders within the clan who opposed aligning themselves with the Sith. The news of this nearly devastated Faison and his family, but he found strength in the man who would become his adoptive father during this time, namely D’aryc himself. Eventually, as Faison came of age and D’aryc took over as a ‘father figure’ in his life, war broke out between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. As young men are oft to do when the drums of war bellow, Faison enlisted alongside other young Mandalorian refugees within a mercenary company that styled itself as ‘Krayt Company’, intent on avenging his father’s death. Knowing that he could not dissuade the young Faison from this decision, and knowing that Faison’s mother would never forgive him otherwise, D’aryc enlisted alongside his adopted son and promised to bring him back alive.
The following months were rife with a mixture of routine maneuvers, with a few action-packed skirmishes laced throughout. But the most impactful moment of this war in Faison’s life would take place near the end of the war, on a backwater world hardly important enough to recall the name of. Faison’s unit, comprised of some fifty soldiers - half of which Mandalorian youths who were previously full of ‘piss and vinegar’ at the prospect of war - were deployed to assist in the retreat of the staff stationed within a forward outpost. The Galactic Republic was engaged in a full retreat from the Sith onslaught, and they were doing all they could to prevent the line from completely crumbling as the Empire steadily continued their advance. As they arrived and proceeded in aiding the frantic staff of the outpost in loading both themselves and what necessary equipment they needed to bring along with them, the Empire struck. Artillery rounds descended upon their position, ripping apart some of the lightly armored sections of the outpost. Imperial soldiers clad in camo-tinted plasteel armor surged from the treelines around them, with what Republic soldiers who remained frantically trying to push them back as the last of the staff members loaded into the transport. It all happened so fast, that all Faison could recall was being bodily pushed from his position by D’aryc before a massive explosion tore through where he previously had stood - and where D’aryc did not have enough time to leave himself. D’aryc’s charred remains were all that Faison could see, his armor scorched beyond recognition and hardly a limb attached to each other.
His surroundings grew numb, and it was only after the whole ordeal that his companions told Faison that he was screaming at the top of his voice while pushing forward to reach his adoptive father’s dead body. It took three of his fellow
vode to pull him back and onto the ship so that he would not join his adoptive father in death. Faison entered the war a boy eager for glory, but he left the war a broken man who had lost not one; but two fathers in his life. Soon thereafter, the war ended with the dissolution of the Galactic Republic as it had then existed, and with Faison returning to his mother on Corellia. The strength his mother exhibited when he told her of D’aryc’s fate was indicative of a true Mandalorian woman, even though from what he knew she was not one by blood, but rather one adopted into the culture as is oft the custom. It was that strength which helped carry him through yet another dark period in his life.
CORELLIAN NIGHTS
In the months that followed, Faison tried to find some purpose in his life again. The only thing that saved him from becoming a complete liability to society was when he linked up with another soldier who served alongside him during the war - a Mandalorian woman named Jyn Ordo, whose family also fled the purges and took refuge in Coronet City, within a district known for housing refugees. Despite the loss he suffered and the grief which tormented him, Jyn had proven to be a loyal friend through it all. Soon, they fell in love. While the pain would never fully go away, Faison came to see that life with Jyn was worth living, and that both of his late fathers would want him to lead a full life.
It was during this time that Faison enlisted as a cadet within Cor--Sec’s academy, and soon thereafter graduated to become a full member of their ranks. He spent several years as a uniformed officer on the streets of the city’s more upscale districts, but eventually distinguished himself enough to become a detective. There, he mastered skills that he continues to use today, namely criminal investigative work, interrogation, and navigating the criminal underworld. Eventually, this new chapter in his life began to afford him a level of comfort and purpose, enough so for him to propose marriage to Jyn so they could move even further onward. Fate, the force, some cruel god, or whatever other entity one believes in was not quite done with Faison’s life at this point, however. What would befall him next would lead him down a very dark path indeed.
Large cities such as Coronet are rife with all manner of crime, whether it be gang violence, domestic disturbances, theft, or even murder. During the waning years of Faison’s career as an investigator within Cor-Sec, he was assigned a particularly disturbing murder case that would dominate his life for the remainder of his career. What at first appeared to be the gruesome murder of a waitress from a local Cantina, and was assumed to be gang related, eventually developed into the beginnings of a prolific serial killer whose
modus operandi was to stalk single, nubile woman to their homes, determine their routine, then silently break into their homes during the day and wait for them to return in the evenings. He was known as the ‘Nexu Killer’, primarily because he had a talent for avoiding detection, and because of the particularly grizzled state he would leave his victims in. As the bodies piled up, the Nexu Killer became more methodical with each killing. Evidence was scarce to begin with, and while they had little and less to go on, Cor-Sec eventually stumbled across a single, blurry image of the top half of his face in security footage. Although it was blurry, the image revealed that the killer was indeed male, and had light colored hair, fair complected skin, and what appeared to be either blue or hazel eyes. The few witnesses around each of his victims claim they saw a hooded and masked man lurking around their buildings a few nights prior to each killing, with one witness swearing the person was a human (which matched with the killer’s proclivity for human females as his victims).
The case would remain ongoing until it grew far closer to home than Faison ever would expect - namely, with his fiance’ being one of the killer’s penultimate victims. Faison could still remember the night he found her body, and even more importantly - bumping into a hooded man leaving her building when he was arriving. When he bumped into him, he got a passing look at the man’s face, and only realized the potential importance of the chance encounter when he entered her apartment and found her corpse mangled and bloody. He rushed out of the apartment to find the man, but by that time the suspected killer was long gone. Needless to say, this loss devastated Faison on a level few men experience and even fewer wish to happen to even their worst enemy. His supervisors in Cor-Sec cleared his name from the investigation soon enough given the camera feeds verifying he wasn’t home during the murder, but also decided to remove him from the case given his proximity to the killer’s latest victim. They of course took his testimony and made a holo-sketch of the killer’s likeness, but proceeded on the investigation without him.
This enraged Faison, and pushed him into a very dark place in his mind. He soon developed a drinking habit, and was reported to frequent cantinas of ill repute asking questions along the lines of trying to find a man that matched the one he encountered. He eventually encountered a man matching the description, a man who worked as a repairman within the district both he and Jyn had lived in. It was then that he crossed a line that no law enforcement officer should ever cross. He stalked the man home, forced himself into the man’s apartment, and beat him senseless while rummaging through his belongings. He found little by way of evidence, but did find a mask that appeared to match the one the killer reportedly wore based on witness testimony. When word got back to the precinct though, it wasn’t to obtain a warrant for the man’s arrest so as to perform a more thorough investigation, but rather due to a police misconduct suit filed by the man himself while Faison slept off his drunken stupor at home.
It was only due to the connections he had made in Cor-Sec that he avoided jail time, and instead was dishonorably discharged from Cor-Sec. This resulted in him diving even deeper into his drinking and into his life of crawling around the city’s most ill-known cantinas and clubs. Eventually, Faison ran into contacts he formerly only knew as a police officer, but who in turn saw an opportunity to utilize the expertise of a
former officer to expand their criminal enterprises. The place in which this path led Faison was into a life of crime and mercenary work. He donned his armor, pieces of which belonged to his father Vardek, and took his blaster up as a hired gun. It was in this profession that Faison spent several years thereafter, until he found himself on Kestri during the Solstice of Remembrance.
THE ENCLAVE
After nearly stumbling across the location of the secret Mandalorian Enclave homeworld via contacts he maintained from his years within Krayt Company, Faison emerged on the world during the Festival commemorating the renewal and remembrance of the Mandalorian people. At first, Faison thought it a convenient opportunity to acquire new armor and weapons, but being on the world during this time had resulted in the fateful meeting of key individuals in Faison’s life today, such as Vren Rook, Siv Draugr, & Thonn Rokal. While he was still a scoundrel and hired gun of ill repute, them and others on Kestri had awoken something inside of him which he had slowly started to repress upon the death of D’aryc, and ever moreso after the death of his fiance’.
Purpose. Meaning.
He had a small amount of it on Corellia as a member of Cor-Sec, but being amongst his
vode on Kestri had helped him to see the effect such a thing could have upon a man like him. It was but a first step on a personal journey he began on that day, a journey which would take him across the galaxy on worlds the Enclave conducted operations upon, and others. The mission?
To purge his life of those who would keep him from moving on. To forge himself anew.
To be the man his fathers wanted him to be.
