Enyo Typhos
Control
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To flesh out Enyo's posse a bit - and lampshade species stereotypes.
- Image Credit: Here. 'First Mate - Victorian Chewbacca Steampunk Star Wars Art' by Greg Peltz.
- Role: One of Enyo's lieutenants. Grrowh runs a gang that's subordinate to her crime syndicate.
- Links: Wookiee, Iron Fist Consortium, Vashyada.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
- Age: 109.
- Force Sensitivity: Non-Force User.
- Species: A most sophisticated, honourless Wookiee.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
- Name: Ser Grrowh.
- Loyalties: Enyo Typhos. Being a Wookiee of intellect and cunning, his true allegiance lies with himself though.
- Wealth: High. His 'business ventures' have made him quite rich. However, Grrowh is pretty self-centred, so his wealth sometimes comes at the expense of the size and quality of his minions. His home is big, luxurious and a bit tacky, resembling the residence of a stereotypical nouveau riche who thinks cramming the place with expensive stuff makes it look classy. Growing up with no money on Kashyyyk has made him a bit of a hoard.
- A pair of Maalraas.
- A large collection of clothing, including coats, suits, monocles and golden watches.
- Memory package and insight implants. Surgically implanted.
- Box of rashallo leaf cigarras.
- A couple personal slaves.
- Desk made out of Wroshyr tree wood.
Skills:
- Good memory
- Demolitions
- Tactical acumen
- Marksmanship
- Business acumen
Personality: Wookiees are commonly stereotyped as being martial, tribalistic and honourbound. Strong enough to rip a grown man's arm off, they can easily succumb to a berserk fury if provoked, but outside of hostilities they are often gentle giants. Despite living in trees, they are surprisingly tech-savvy. Moreover, they value honour highly, to the point where they consider a life debt to be among their most sacred institutions. They are also the implacable enemies of slavers, as they have often been among their victims.
Of course, stereotypes are just that - stereotypes. This Wookiee in question is one of the members of his species who has done his best to defy them. Ser Grrwoh realised long ago that the Wookiees were held back by their archaic beliefs. To a man of intellect such as him, honour could be nothing more than a fancy word for stupidity, for time and again their generosity was exploited by those with more power. From an early age, he realised that life debts were just another word for slavery, for it forced a Wookiee to follow an outsider around like a trained dog. Refusing to heed his wisdom, his clan cast him out. However, Ser Grrwoh did not despair and instead turned his considerable intellect towards educating himself and improving his position.
He accomplished this by abandoning 'slave morality' and embracing the life style of a contractor, slaver and crime boss. He has learnt much from his travels in the Galaxy and his dealings with offworlders. Frustrated by the fact that his species is physiologically incapable of speaking Basic, he uses a translation device. Ser Grrwoh is a very prideful gentlebeing and insists on being addressed with his title by those he considers his lessers. He generally talks a calm, methodical approach to problem-solving, which also tends to be free of moral considerations. He values neatness, has an eye for detail and converses in a calm, logical manner. He believes in the value of education and is a voracious reader. Grrowh is a rather selfish being, though he would call himself 'enlightened'. If he has to choose between someone else's life and his own, he will always choose himself. Two of his main weaknesses are arrogance and greed.
Though he would deny it, Ser Grrwoh does derive some enjoyment from putting human or near-human beings in chains and forcing them into chattle slavery, as offworlders have so often done to his kind. While he has cut all his ties with his tribe and not returned to Kashyyyk for many years, he retains some vestiges of attachment to his people. For one, he refuses to enslave them and has sometimes made an attempt to free Wookiee slaves, though these efforts have become a rarity these days. He also feels some regret when the ignorance of his fellow Wookiees forces him to resort to violence against them. He would prefer it if they saw the light, so to speak, and learned from his example. Sadly, they are not making it easy for him! He blames it on centuries of cultural indoctrination and ignorance. On a more idiosyncratic level, Grrowh is fond of the opera. His favourite composer is Rikardo Waegner.
COMBAT INFORMATION
- Weapon of Choice: Most ranged weapons - blasters, slugthrowers. Grrowh favours ranged weapons over melee. He is rather fond of Disruptors, viewing them as precise but deadly, which sums up his combat philosophy. He has been known to utilise a rotary cannon or bowcaster when the situation calls for heavy firepower. He also likes Ion Paddle Beamers, as they allow him to paralyse opponents and thus keep the merchandise intact. He makes liberal use of explosives and gas.
- Physically robust and tenacious. Good marksman.
- Good tactician. This includes a willingness to sacrifice others without sentiment and to perform a tactical retreat when needed.
- Proficient sapper.
- Poor pilot.
- Ser Grrowh may have the strength of a Wookiee, but views melee combat as savage and brutal and tries to avoid it. As a result his training and experience lag behind of that of a more proficient combatant. He's quite clumsy at it.
- Grrowh is a non-Force-user. Thus he must rely on his cunning and conventional fighting skills. Lack of understanding of how the Force works can cause him to misjudge dangers, as he can only observe its effects.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Ser Grrowh was born in the final century of the Four Hundred Year Darkness that had been ushered in by the outbreak of the Gulag Virus. Like most worlds, Kashyyyk had been largely isolated from the rest of the Galaxy during this period, though contact with the outside world had been restored by the time he came into being - both good and bad. The tribe he was born in happened to be rather conservative.
Having once been stalwart supporters of the Galactic Alliance, his tribespeople had since reconsidered their chance. While not averse to trade with foreigners and resolute in their determination to honour the old tradition of Wookiee hospitality, they stressed the primacy of the old values. Too many times had offworlders descended upon Kashyyyk with malicious intent - especially to put Wookiees in chains and force them into chattle slavery. They were equally averse to campaigns of conquest. They greatly valued honour and loyalty.
Grrowh's parents were respected amongst his tribe, but he soon concluded that he was different from his peers. He came to chafe under how 'backwards' their culture was. Especially their insistence on honour, when the world around them evidently was not honourable. His perception was shaped by the slave raids that plagued his world. Indeed, some dishonourable Wookiees made common cause with the hereditary enemy. His people were great at tech, but did less with it than they could!
It also vexed him that his father, a respected hunter and warrior, was content to serve under the tribe's Chieftain, even though the man was an old man who had been around since the start of the Darkness. Evidently, younger blood was needed! At least this was what Grrowh thought. Grrowh did not show much desire to become a hunter. Instead, he took a keen interest in foreign technology and could often be found among the few foreign merchants allowed in the midst of his tribe's village. He displayed skills as a businessman and a negotiator, refusing to be awed by the trinkets they offered in the belief that a 'walking carpet' could be easily deceived. He also began studying military tactics, becoming a voracious reader.
When raiders assailed the settlement, he introduced 'innovations' such as the use of land mines and barbed wire. During an assault on a slaver outpost, he put his cunning to good use by leading a commando that removed enemy fortifications through the use of bulldozers, bangalores and baradium charges. In doing so he was able to clear a path for his fellows by demolishing fortifications that had been pinning them down. This helped his tribe achieve victory, though the arrogant Grrowh felt that his deeds were not being honoured sufficiently. Some of the warriors accused him of acting dishonourably, as he had shirked physical combat during the melee, for he preferred to pick off his enemies at range.
Using his connections, Grrowh was able to bribe a gang of human smugglers to loan him their ships and piloting abilities. Then he assembled a crew for a retaliatory raid on Trandosha. His goal was simple: To repay the debt. The Trandoshans made a sport out of hunting and enslaving Wookiees, so he would do the same to them. All members of the commando were sworn to secrecy. To fund his enterprise, he made a deal with foreign slavers who had use for Trandoshan labour. It was time for the lizardmen to experience the consequences of their actions and suffer the same fate as their victims.
At first everything went well. The commando landed undetected and infiltrated a Trandoshan village, ambushing the seemingly surprised lizardmen. All that pent-up anger and rage was unleashed in a shower of violence. The Trandoshans put up a good fight, but the Wookiees had the advantage. Cannily, the attackers had taken care to cut off the Trandoshans' communications and blow up their ships at the start of the assault. Their foreign allies performed strafing runs on the village. Lizardmen were slain or bound and collared. Only a few managed to escape into the jungle. Loaded with booty, Grrowh returned to his ship.
However, upon his return to Kashyyyk, he found that most of his tribe were horrified by his actions, for he had sunk to the level of the Trandoshans by taking slaves and making deals with slavers. One of the most accusatory was his own father, who was angered by his lack of honour. Enraged, Grrowh defend himself with an impassioned speech. However, worse was yet to come, for the Trandoshans had tracked his movements and soon descended upon the Wookiee settlement in great force. As it turned out, the same slaver he'd made deals with had been playing both sides. The trial was interrupted and the Wookiees had to defend themselves.
Grrowh threw himself into battle and fought ferociously, but ended up being beaten by Trandoshan warriors in a vicious melee. Realising that he was the instigator of the attack, they beat him savagely. He was saved from death or enslavement by the intervention of one of the smugglers he'd worked with. Eventually, the Trandoshans withdrew, though not before setting fire to a good portion of the village. In the aftermath of the battle, Grrowh learned that his father had perished. Needless to say his tribe was most unhappy with him. Moreover, the Chieftain declared that Grrowh owed the offworlder who'd saved him a life debt.
A cynic would say that this was a convenient way to get rid of someone who was considered to be an honourless troublemaker who'd violated his people's principles and put them in danger. Being an enterprising Grrowh had tried to repay the debt by simply paying the smuggler. This behaviour was considered most inappropriate. A furious Grrowh refused to honour his obligations, declaring it to be archaic and close to slavery. Declaring that the elders lacked vision, he said that he would rather go into exile and be considered honourless. So he was banished and left Kashyyyk, using his foreign connections to secure transport. A small number of his followers decided to join him. While deeply embittered by his exile, he eventually came to consider it a liberation.
Archaic traditions would no longer control him. He spent the next few years educating himself about the broader Galaxy and sought gainful employment in the private sector. Perhaps inevitably given the sort of people he associated with, his path led him to the underworld. He became a private contractor, working for a variety of bosses. Over time he also became a slaver, realising how lucratice the business was. Some of his fellows balked at this and left him. One of his Wookiee lieutenants protested a bit too loudly and was executed after setting a group of captives free. Grrowh explained to his remaining minions that the honour code of their homeworld had no meaning. They would be loyal to each other and no one else. The weak were nothing but fodder. Besides, they would not enslave Wookiees. From his point of view, he was repaying the debt the rest of the Galaxy owed Kashyyyk. However, as time passed his attachment to his people diminished and it simply became a way to fund his increasingly extravagant life style. Grrowh began to wear clothes and instructed his closest lieutenants to do the same, for it was the civilised thing to do. For a while he served as the henchman of a Black Sun bigwig, before he disposed of his boss and stole his resources.
He called his gang the Black Horn Buccaneers, recruiting aliens and humans to augment their ranks, though he refused to hire Trandoshans. Indeed, when a gang of Trandoshans crossed him, he took great joy in leading them into a trap and enslaving them. When the Sith Empire - the old one, though with the same emperor as the current - descended upon Togoria to butcher or enslave the native felines, he tagged along to profit. He wined and dined with Zygerrian slavers, led raids on worlds such as Kaeshana and Dahomey and mingled with bigwigs on Coruscant, who bought his slaves under the table. In short, he was an unscrupulous wardog and enjoyed his job. Those were good times - for him, at any rate. For some reason he started wearing a monocle. He also insisted on his minions addressing him as Ser after coming across the title during his studies.
As time passed, Grrowh looked for new hunting grounds. Dahomey and Kaeshana became extremely unsafe for his kind as the natives acquired the means to defend themselves against foreign raiders, thanks to the Omega Protectorate and Firemane. Besides, later on Kaeshana was devastated by an asteroid and became a war zone. Naturally the Wookiee preferred weak targets to those that could defend themselves, as criminals tend to do. A Hutt he did business with mentioned a world called Tygara. While the Eldorai had settled on it, the natives were still supposed to be primitives. What caught Grrowh's eye were stories of the Vashyada. These wood elves lived in trees and possessed no ranged weapons more advanced than bows and arrows. It was evident that they could not put up much of a fight. He could swoop in, grab a great many of them and then leave, without expending too much resources. So he gathered a small task force of less than one hundred men and three ships and set sail for Tygara, in the expectation of booty. Wood Elves were exotic and were bound to sell well on the slave market.
Perhaps if Brave Ser Grrowh had studied the defeat of Palpatine's 'finest legion' at the hands of the Ewoks centuries ago - or simply the battles his own people had fought against technologically superior aggressors who lacked their experience in the jungle - he would have been less certain of victory. However, he did not. Perhaps he'd removed himself from his origins too much. Success had made him complacent. Arrogance became his undoing. Suffice to say, almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. He thought his men were undetected, but in actual fact Vashyada rangers shadowed them the moment they entered the forest.
Rather than engage the raiders head-on, the wood elves resorted to guerilla tactics. They turned out to be rather ingenious when it came to laying traps. Striking from the shadows, they fired volleys at the raiders, then retreated. Many of their weapons lacked the punch to hurt the slavers' armour, but some were injured or killed. Adapting their tactics, their mages resorted to illusions to distract, confuse or frighten the raiders. Some raiders wandered off, distracted by promises of nearby booty and the call of sirens. Others, believing themselves to be under attack, opened fire wildly, shooting at phantoms.
Grrowh had to resort to harsh measures to keep his men in line. When they finally reached the settlement, they found it deserted. In this moment the Vashyada sprang their trap. Giant arachnids tore apart raiders who did not succumb to traps, get taken out by Force use or succumb to the rifles the Vashyada had acquired from Firemane. Badly injured by an arachnid's pincers, Grrowh was forced to call a tactical retreat. But where could they go? The entire forest was their enemy. The slavers' heavier firepower kept the Vashyada's at a distance, extracting a toll of blood from them when the wood elves made the mistake of attempting a frontal assault. But the raid had been turned into a debacle, for the raiders had been routed.
Furthermore, Eldorai reinforcements were on the way. Unlike their Vashyada cousins, they had starships. When Grrowh reached the landing zone, he discovered that one of the ships had been disabled. This meant he could not evacuate all his men. He sent a reassuring message to his rear guard, promising to pick them up. Then proceeded to abandon them to their fate. However, his remaining ships were hounded by Eldorai starfighters, which fell upon them like a horde of locusts. In desperation, he sent a distress signal. Perhaps to his own surprise, someone actually heeded it. His saviour turned out to be a nihilistic, amoral Cyborg. She brought a Phrik Corvette. Stuff blew up. The Wookiee lived to raid and pillage another day - and got an offer he could not refuse. Their first meeting was extremely awkward.
Unlike the crime lords he was used to dealing with, Enyo had an office instead of a grandiose throne room. The office had no chairs. Grrowh had to stand despite being injured. Perhaps she wanted to teach him a lesson. Possibly about brevity. In any case, Enyo was wise enough not to mention that he technically owed her a 'life debt'. Instead she proposed a partnership...one where she'd call the shots. To ensure 'efficient collaboration and integration', she took the liberty of attaching an 'adviser' to his staff. Said adviser would turn out to be an HRD. Grrowh was not happy about this, but swallowed his pride and accepted. Because he did not trust her, he declined her offer of having a medical droid look at his injuries. This was smart because otherwise she might have implanted him with a control chip. Grrowh had been in Enyo's services since then, participating in several raids or helping plan them, though he continues his own ventures. However, he chafes under the Cyborg's control. For her part, Enyo finds his materialism distasteful and considers it a sign of weakness, but presently sees him as useful.
