Podrace Serolonis Riot Racing 5000

[Rathmar Praji]

The acrid tang of exhaust fumes and the roar of a thousand bloodthirsty fans choked the air above the Safa Toma Speedway, a notorious track carved into the heart of Serolonis a known criminal haven beneath the notice of the galactic powers such as the Sith Order or the recently emerged Galactic Empire.

This wasn't your run-of-the-mill podrace with rules and regulations, no this was Riot Racing, a brutal contest of speed and treachery where victory demanded not just unparalleled piloting skill but a cunning mind for sabotage. Racers didn't merely navigate through the perilous, obstacle ridden tunnels they outmaneuvered, outsmarted, and outright destroyed their competition.

As the tension reached a fever pitch, a single, piercing blaster shot from the viewing stand signaled the start, fired by none other than the Vigo of Ruusan Rathmar Praji himself, with a single opening line.

"Under the authority of the Underlord of the Black Sun, I pronounce the Serolonis Riot Racing 5000 officially open!" He hardly had sufficient time for the words to escape his mouth, as the thunderous roar of engines and frantic maneuvers overwhelmed his distinctly upper Corsucanti accent, as the podracers zoomed to the first section of the race.

A gentle smile appeared on his lips as he reclined back into his private booth, preparing himself for some well-deserved entertainment.

Section 1: The Grinder's Gullet

Collapsing Support Beams: Sections of the tunnel roof are unstable. Pilots must navigate around or blast through falling debris that rains down unpredictably. Hitting a large piece can damage engines or even cause an immediate explosion.

Junk Piles: Randomly scattered heaps of scrap metal, old droid parts, and discarded machinery litter the track, creating narrow chokepoints and forcing tight maneuvers. Some piles might even conceal explosive charges planted by the track's creators or rival teams.

The Riot Race will follow the Hoth Rules as seen below:

Spoiler

Spoiler: Racer Information

CONFIRMED PAIRINGS

Team 1: Damien Dooku with mechanic Morrow

Team 2: Tansu Treicolt with Talin Treicolt

Team 3: Braze and Zee Caromed

Team 4: Davik Haize and Kyric

Team 5: Koda Fett with secret support of Razmir Tezhyn

RACERS

Koda Fett
Nala
Klar
Dani Stellaris
Braze
Ronhar Tane
Hilal Vizsla
Damien Dooku
Davik Haize
Tansu Treicolt

SUPPORTS

• Zee Caromed
• Morrow
  Talsin Lota
• Kyric
• Talin Treicolt

SPONSORS

• Rathmar Praji
• Razmir Tezhyn

PRIZE SPONSORS

• Rathmar Praji - Providing 100,000 UCs through a Trade Federation Account and Black Crown.
• Kyric - Providing 50,000 Credits and a force imbued blade in any style.
• Razmir Tezhyn - providing an additional 250,000 " credits to the prize pool. Further, the winner will be granted one favour from Razmir as a Black Sun Vigo to be called in shortly after the race's conclusion.

 

[Davik Haize]

No one goes to Serolonis of their own volition. You just end up there. One way or the other. And in Davik Haize's case, it was in pursuit of a pirate crew terrorizing a quadrant of the Western Reaches, leaving half a dozen worlds without food, water, medicine - everything they needed to survive. The crew had likely sniffed him out and made quick work of grounding the Duchess indefinitely on this arid, wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Without enough credits or spare parts to patch up his ship, Davik was forced to fall back on an old craft: podracing.

And so here he was - under the scorching heat of a ruthless sun, sandwiched in between a pair of blazing, salvaged turbine engines, boiling in his own sweat. Blue eyes stared ahead into the dark maw of the tunnel of section one, burning with pure resentment for his surroundings filled with scum.

The crack of the blaster shot was deafened by the loud sound of his engines, but its red bolt was as clear as the skies above. He yanked a lever in the blink of an eye and the sudden release of built-up thrust catapulted him forward.

The coolness of the tunnel, shielding him from the brutal rays outside, was a welcome reprieve. But it came with a price. As he deftly maneuvered through discarded machinery and scattered scrap from who-knows-what era, a section of the tunnel collapsed just before Davik could guide his podracer into the perfect apex for the turn, forcing him to decelerate and overshoot it as other podracers shot past him with a mocking laughter.

—​

Round 1 roll:

((Posting it for posterity - will be rerolled by my sentinel mr. Kyric ))​

 

[Braze]

★ Serolonis Riot Racing 5000 ★​

---

Braze didn't go to the junkyard with the intention of buying a podracer.

He went for the auction, the spectacle, and—let's be perfectly honest—the free drinks didn't hurt either. It was all part of a casual side mission: look hot, and maybe score a discount on a performance-built Z-95 Headhunter hot-rod that could get him off-world in style. But somewhere between the third cocktail and a dare to 'sweet-talk the old guy with the oil stains,' things took a turn.

The old guy, Retu, was a retired mechanic who hadn't been sober since the last Maw War. He was immediately charmed by the snowy-haired half-Echani, or perhaps just deluded.

"You got that reckless glint lad," Retu muttered, eyeing him sideways. "You ever kick a twin-core thruster into drift mode without flipping the whole rig?" His gaze was hazy and hungry, searching for someone who got it, someone who still had the guts to burn hot and stupid.

Braze grinned. "Only every time I want to show off."

Retu let out a wheezing laugh that turned into a coughing fit. He slapped Braze on the back like they were old war buddies. "Knew it. You're one of the real ones. Not like these starport poseurs flying with stabilizers." He leaned in, voice dropping to a gravelly whisper.

"Tell you what, pretty-boy. I've got a real rig stashed out back. A machine with bite. Built for speed, danger, and glory."

Braze arched an eyebrow. "You talking about a speeder, or…?"

"You'll see," Retu grinned. "She ain't for the faint of heart."

Minutes later, Braze found himself in front of a tarp-covered monstrosity in the back lot. The auctioneer was already rattling off bids on nearby scrap. Retu whom was fueled by moonshine emboldened nostalgia was waving his arms like a madman.

"Opening bid! Right here! For this fine piece of racing history!"

Braze, having thought it was all just junkyard theater, raised his hand to play along. Unfortunately, no one else bid. And even more unfortunately, the auctioneer mistook Braze's smug shrug as a confirmed offer.

"Sold to the pretty-boy in the half-shirt!"

The tarp came off, revealing baked-on glitter, faded flower decals, scorch marks, and a pair of mismatched engines that looked like they'd been duct-taped into cooperation.

Braze blinked. "Wait. That's what I just-?"

Before he could finish the thought, Retu triumphantly slapped the rusted podracer frame with a proud, "She's got one more run in her!" declaration. "Built her back in the good ol' days. Named her Cherry Vengeance."

Braze tried to back out, but Retu, however, wrapped him in a teary bear hug, sobbing something incoherent about 'legacy' and 'the spirit of the track,' before shoving a box of parts into his arms. Most were mismatched. Several were labeled 'experimental.' All of them were sticky, and the box smelled like a tragic mixture of glitter glue and warm Spotchka.

Desperate, Braze roped in Zee Caromed to help stabilize the glitter-coated deathtrap before the cockpit canopy gave out to a slightly too strong sneeze...

Signing up for the Serolonis Riot Racing 5000 felt like the only logical next step, because what else do you do after accidentally acquiring a thruster-powered death wish from a drunk mechanic with abandonment issues? He had to recoup the losses somehow before Okuma Milogen killed him.

At least Zee was on board and assisted him in doing the best they could with cobbled together parts from the odd junk yard here and there.

The monstrosity once known as Cherry Vengeance had been cobbled together from a collection of barely-functional, and highly-questionable parts; and it showed. Slathered in uneven black paint, she now sported haphazard splatters of violet, neon pink, and electric blue flames across the sides in a last-ditch effort to 'gussy her up' and make her look less like a scrapyard tragedy and more like a rebellious statement piece of a rat-rod.


Section 1: The Grinder's Gullet
Having appropriately re-christened the glitter-coated deathtrap as The Hot Mess Express, Braze climbed into the cockpit, gave the dash a reassuring pat, and fired up the engines with a grin that said he absolutely wasn't thinking about how recently it had caught fire in the work shop. He was ready for the opening shot...more or less.

The initial launch off the line was... promising...for all of thirty feet. Then the engines sputtered, coughed, and whined like dying banthas before the whole podracer shuddered to a humiliating stop.

Braze slammed the ignition, jiggled a few toggles, and flicked the side lights on and off as if that might encourage it. For a moment, the cockpit lights just blinked in protest.

Then, with a sudden roar and a backfire loud enough to scare a womp rat into early retirement, the engines kicked back to life, this time properly.

The moment Hot Mess Express screamed into The Grinder's Gullet, Braze regretted everything.

The tunnel screeched like a beast from the sounds of engines of better conditioned pod racers up ahead, swallowing light and replacing it with flickering shadows and the screech of stressed metal. The podracer rattled violently as the unstable terrain bounced the entire cockpit as if it sat on an industrial concrete vibrator. The left engine dipped low with a sickening clunk, clipping a jutting stone, and something in the back made a noise that sounded like a coughing sputter as it putted along, back firing loud enough to echo throughout the caverns.

Then the ceiling started coming down from all the commotion!

"Force! I never though this is how I'd die!"

The first support beam crashed ahead of him bringing down crumbling ceiling with it. Braze yelped, just a little surprised by the jarring auditory hell, as he yanked hard on the throttle, scraping through the narrowest gap with a spray of sparks and a shower of dust. The canopy cracked open just a head of his chosen path as a few flakes of never ending glitter shook loose from the top panel and floated back trailing behind the podracer.

Another beam groaned overhead but Braze didn't have time to dodge this one!

"Sorry, old girl!" he shouted, slamming the auxiliary vent line open and blasting the crumbling slab into powdered rubble sputtered away from him with a surge of hot exhaust. The move had miraculously worked, but the maneuver destabilized the right engine, which let out a WHOMPF and began trailing thick plumes of blackened smoke.

"Totally fine!" Braze lied, mostly to himself as he hands worked in junction to all the small warning sirens of self-preservation instinct screamed at him to bail out.

He suppressed the fear and rode the anxiety of the adrenaline high enthusiastically taking to the next set of obstacles up a head coughing and sputtering as he tried to regain sight rubbing his goggles against his fur collar to try and clean off some of the soot from the smoke that blew back in to his face.

The track narrowed fast, walls closing in like jaws poised to snap shut around him. Scrap littered the path in broken towers of rubble and he weaved by junk piles. Braze wove between jagged mounds of old droid parts and discarded starfighter panels, dodging with all the grace of someone who had no business still being alive. The podracer clipped a bent repulsorlift plate and lurched sideways, but Braze yanked the stabilizer fins back in line just before the Hot Mess Express could do a full pirouette into a pile of mystery wire.

One of the heaps just ahead glowed faintly.

He shifted gears, gunned the throttle, and jumped the glowing mound, landing with a bone-rattling slam that dislodged the glove compartment door and made every warning light on the dash flicker red. The navcomp began screaming in binary as sounds chirped to life.

Somehow, impossibly, he burst out of the tunnel on the other side, one engine coughing, both hands sweaty but clamped on the wheel, and his hair covered in glitter, dust, and carbon soot.

 

[Ronhar Tane]

A great starting roll!

Spoiler: Roll log

Rolled once on July 30th, got a very lucky 17 to start.

The hum of Ronhar's TIE Podracer drowned out any other noise around him, as he settled in for the beginning of the race. Though Mahporeem had been an Imperial controlled world for centuries, any attempts to squash enthusiasm for podracing had only had the opposite effect on the planet's population. As such, the Mahporeem Imperial Remnant had decided to take the unusual step of legalizing podracing, despite the major reservations that they held about the sport.

However, their decision to do so would pay dividends later on, as the Imperial Government began raking in credits from both spectators and gamblers alike. It quickly became apparent that their was a small fortune to be made in the sport, and so the Imperial Remnant began looking into the creation of their own, unique podracing designs.

The resulting TIE Podracer, piloted by Captain Ronhar Tane , was one the most advanced and powerful podracers ever constructed. It was hoped that the vehicle's design, and the pilot's skill, would allow the Remnant to win huge sums of credits in competitions across the galaxy.

Today, that theory would be put to the test as the TIE Podracer made its debut.

Ronhar waited for the staring blaster, and upon hearing it, shot off ahead. He immediately activated the vehicle's booster system, as he wanted to get as much of a head start as possible. His gamble seemed to pay off, at least initially, as the TIE Podracer began pulling ahead of his competitors.

Of course, for how long he would maintain his lead would have to be seen. Nonetheless, Ronhar forged ahead, priming his vehicle's many weapons for eventual use against his opponents. At least for now, the various piles of junk that had been scattered across the track were not really slowing him down. After all, growing up on a planet like Mahporeem gave Ronhar unique insight into the obstacles blocking his way, and even at a distance, he was able to easily figure out how much space he would need to avoid whatever was in his path..

​

 

[Klar]

✦ Serolonis Riot 5000 ✦

Being on the road for a few weeks had taught Klar a few things about how the world worked outside of the established frameworks she'd live in. She'd been a Jedi, she'd been a slave, she'd been a child - she'd never had to buy her own groceries. Learning that the galaxy couldn't care less about you unless you gave it a reason to had been a little harrowing. It had not tampered her idealism, though. It'd tempered it.

That said, she DID need to buy groceries, aside from 'historical trivia' and 'hit things with a lightsaber', Klar's only other marketable skill was 'going fast on things'. It was a talent she'd only begun developing on Tython on swoops and speeders, and she hadn't had much time to explore it before Coruscant had come under Empire control. Even so, this background was enough to get her in the (garage) door of a man who owed a considerable debt to a threatening man. A large sum of money was his only chance at winning back the son they'd taken for collateral. His son had been the one who knew how to pilot a podracer, and finding a substitute pilot who could both pilot a racer designed for an Ardennian and wouldn't begrudge the old man his ransom money was seemingly impossible.

It'd just been a happy coincidence that Klar had walked through the door with four arms and a need for speed. And a grocery bill. And a repair bill for the ship she and Xuko Pagoi were living off of. She really wanted to win that pot.

---

The old podracer - tentatively named Goon Squad for the detached satellite engines controlled by the four separate control sticks - fired up quickly enough but stalled once Klar made it to the engine line. Klar pushed her goggles up and gave her old Adrennian 'sponsor' a dubious look. He made a kicking motion from the pit. Klar nodded, then slammed one of her boots against the core engine. Like a tired old lawn mower, Goon Squad fired right up, sputtering and belching out a small cloud of noxious black fumes.

Luckily, Klar didn't need to worry too long about idling in that cloud. Goon Squad jumped out of the gate like a squid fleeing a cloud of ink, the four engines giving throaty growls of complaint. Klar leaned into the first pair of turns, her seat swinging wildly behind the four engine pods pulling it forward like a team of dogs hauling a sleigh.

Nice and steady. No risks. She needed to feel out the controls, figure out what Goon Squad could do before she started getting brave. Klar gave a whoop and cranked the throttle, watching her dials and indicators rise.



Rolled a 10!

◈ Total Speed: 10 ◈ Position: Starting ◈

 

[Kyric]

Drawn to Serolonis by rumors of a one of the Black Sun Syndicate's Vigos operating planetside, Kyric sat in the stands with an eye turned toward the display screens.

Pods exploded into motion following the single-shot fired by none-other-than Rathmar Praji and the race began in earnest. The screen displayed dozens of risks in the form of debris, collapsing tunnels, and of course, the other races. Sentients throughout the stands shouted excitedly. Bookies took bets and moved credits about by the handful as the planet's denizens offered up what little they had for an opportunity at something more.

His attention shifted from the screen to Praji's private booth, taking in the Vigo's security with a measured breath. Kyric suspected more hidden around the outside facility. Only a fool would organize such an event without proper assurances, and no one who climbed their way through the underworld to such a rank could be called a fool.

Kyric stood from his seat and trailed up the duracrete steps to the uppermost level of his section of seats. It still wasn't quite high enough to get a full view of Praji's booth, but it provided the Jedi Knight a much better view of the race in the form of a nearby screen.

The racers arced around a wide bend and shot into the collapsing tunnels.

One of them—a man with the hardened expression of a down-on-his luck spacer—rocketed toward fallen debris and decelerated to avoid an explosive end to the first leg. The pod shot around the debris and accelerated back to top-speed as the blue-eyed pilot wove through falling stone.

The screen shifted to a point further up the track where a pair of Syndicate lackeys buried a sparking IED. They yelped at the sound of approaching pods and hurried into a nearby switchback, out of range of both danger and the racers.

With a faint smile, Kyric focused on Davik and projected the image to him through the Force. It revealed not only the hidden explosive, but the mouth of the tunnel which housed it. With such information, Kyric hoped Haize would avoid the trap altogether and make up ground.

The kiffar paused at that, unsure why he interjected on the race at all. His mission was capturing the Vigo.

Meh.

Kyric had a good feeling about the guy, and that was as good a reason as any.

---

Tags: Davik Haize | Rathmar Praji
Reroll Result: 6 -> 11 for Round 1

Spoiler

 

[Koda Fett]

Fett was hardly a racer, and hardly seemed to do much of what one could consider to be 'fun'.

Low on credits, maybe. Someone that expended as much ammunition, fuel, and paid for information was doubtless forced to spend their share of them. But worth more than credits, the Mandalorian needed a Black Crown - in the ever-expanding shade of the Black Sun, a small token of immunity was what one needed most. He chafed against rules and restrictions, and Fett knew there would no doubt come a time when he needed to make good on a score that required a certain level of being untouchable.

Just a shame that he needed to jump through hoops to get one.

Sat on the podracer that seemed more akin to an advanced swoop, he blasted off from the beginning albeit not fast enough. He seemed to be lacking behind.

Razmir Tezhyn

Roll: 6