Playing With Fire
Tarin Kosh
| Age | 26 |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 6.2 ft |
| Weight | 71 kg |
| Force Sensitive | No. |
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Tarin Kosh cuts an unmistakable figure, standing at six foot two with a lean, athletic build that seems almost too light for his height. At seventy-one kilograms, he lacks the bulk of a soldier or enforcer, instead possessing the wiry frame of a man who relies upon speed, agility, and quick thinking to survive. Every movement appears deliberate, controlled, and economical, betraying years spent navigating situations where drawing attention could prove fatal. He carries himself with an easy confidence that borders on casual arrogance, the sort of demeanor often found among smugglers, gamblers, and men who somehow always seem to know more than they should.
His features are sharp and strikingly handsome, framed by dark, unruly hair that perpetually looks as though it has just survived a high-speed escape from trouble. Dark eyes sit beneath strong brows, constantly scanning his surroundings with quiet awareness even when he appears relaxed. There is an intelligence behind them that never quite switches off, evaluating exits, reading people, and measuring risks with instinctive precision. His face is youthful enough to appear approachable at first glance, though closer inspection reveals the harder edges of experience lurking beneath the surface.
Tarin favors practical civilian attire over anything resembling a uniform. Long coats, reinforced jackets, concealed holsters, and clothing designed to blend into crowds make up most of his wardrobe. He dresses like a man who expects to travel frequently and leave quickly if necessary. Expensive enough to avoid suspicion, modest enough to avoid attention. To most observers, he looks exactly what he wants them to see: a capable smuggler, trader, or freelance spacer trying to make his way through a dangerous galaxy.
INVENTORY
Please list all relevant possessions, factory submissions, and codex submissions here.
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Unlike many Intelligence operatives who cultivate an aura of mystery, Tarin prefers to be liked. He is quick with a smile, comfortable in conversation, and possesses an almost effortless ability to make people lower their guard around him. He enjoys stories, drinks, card games, and the countless small interactions that make up everyday life. People often leave conversations with him feeling as though they have made a friend.
That is usually when he learns the most.
Beneath the easygoing exterior lies a highly analytical mind constantly assessing the motivations, fears, and desires of those around him. Tarin rarely sees conversations as merely conversations. Every interaction is an opportunity to gather information, test assumptions, or build relationships that may prove useful later. This does not mean he is manipulative in every moment, only that he has spent so much of his life reading people that he often cannot stop himself from doing so.
Unlike many of his colleagues within Intelligence, Tarin genuinely enjoys being around people. He prefers field work to offices, informants to reports, and conversations to interrogations. He finds human behavior fascinating and believes most individuals are far more predictable than they realize. This makes him an excellent operative, though it occasionally causes him to become emotionally invested in people he should be viewing objectively.
He possesses a strong independent streak and dislikes unnecessary bureaucracy. Rules are useful when they accomplish something. When they do not, he is perfectly willing to bend or ignore them. This has occasionally brought him into conflict with more rigid superiors, though his consistent results have often protected him from serious consequences.
Tarin believes information is the single most valuable resource in the galaxy. Money can be stolen. Fleets can be destroyed. Governments can collapse. Information however, never goes away.
Throughout his career he has watched powerful individuals make catastrophic decisions because they lacked accurate information or surrounded themselves with people who only told them what they wanted to hear. As a result, Tarin has developed a deep respect for truth, even when that truth is inconvenient. He would rather work with an uncomfortable reality than a comforting lie.
He also believes that most conflicts are decided long before the first shot is fired.
While soldiers win battles and admirals win campaigns, Tarin views intelligence work as the art of shaping circumstances before either becomes necessary. The ideal operation is one where nobody realizes an operation occurred at all. A smuggling network redirected. A hostile official compromised. A pirate leader bribed. A rebellion quietly deprived of support. These outcomes interest him far more than dramatic firefights or public victories.
Unlike many Imperials, Tarin is not particularly ideological. He does not worship the Empire, nor does he romanticize its history. He serves because he believes civilization requires competent institutions to survive and because he has seen firsthand what happens when those institutions collapse. The Imperial Reclamation Authority appeals to him not because it promises conquest, but because it promises stability. To Tarin, governments are not valuable because they are perfect. They are valuable because the alternative is usually worse.
At his core, Tarin believes that people are neither inherently good nor evil.
They are simply people. Fearful, ambitious, selfish, generous, brave, cowardly, and contradictory all at once.
Understanding that truth has kept him alive longer than any blaster ever could.
Throughout his career he has watched powerful individuals make catastrophic decisions because they lacked accurate information or surrounded themselves with people who only told them what they wanted to hear. As a result, Tarin has developed a deep respect for truth, even when that truth is inconvenient. He would rather work with an uncomfortable reality than a comforting lie.
He also believes that most conflicts are decided long before the first shot is fired.
While soldiers win battles and admirals win campaigns, Tarin views intelligence work as the art of shaping circumstances before either becomes necessary. The ideal operation is one where nobody realizes an operation occurred at all. A smuggling network redirected. A hostile official compromised. A pirate leader bribed. A rebellion quietly deprived of support. These outcomes interest him far more than dramatic firefights or public victories.
Unlike many Imperials, Tarin is not particularly ideological. He does not worship the Empire, nor does he romanticize its history. He serves because he believes civilization requires competent institutions to survive and because he has seen firsthand what happens when those institutions collapse. The Imperial Reclamation Authority appeals to him not because it promises conquest, but because it promises stability. To Tarin, governments are not valuable because they are perfect. They are valuable because the alternative is usually worse.
At his core, Tarin believes that people are neither inherently good nor evil.
They are simply people. Fearful, ambitious, selfish, generous, brave, cowardly, and contradictory all at once.
Understanding that truth has kept him alive longer than any blaster ever could.
STRENGTHS
Natural People Reader
Tarin possesses an exceptional ability to read body language, tone, habits, and motivations. He quickly identifies what drives people and adapts his approach accordingly, making him highly effective at recruitment, interrogation, negotiation, and information gathering.
Deep Cover Operative
Years spent moving through criminal networks, trade routes, starports, and underworld circles have made Tarin extremely skilled at blending in. He can comfortably assume the role of smuggler, merchant, mercenary, or drifter, often gathering intelligence without drawing attention to himself.
Adaptable Problem Solver
Tarin thrives in uncertain environments. When plans fall apart, communications fail, or situations change unexpectedly, he is capable of improvising effective solutions with whatever resources are available. He rarely panics and is difficult to catch completely off guard.
Extensive Informant Networks
Rather than relying solely on official intelligence channels, Tarin cultivates relationships everywhere he goes. Criminals, merchants, dock workers, mechanics, local officials, and drifters often provide him with information that more traditional Intelligence officers would never receive.
WEAKNESSES
Too Independent
Tarin has spent so much of his career operating alone that he occasionally struggles with authority and oversight. He prefers flexibility and autonomy, sometimes frustrating superiors who expect strict adherence to procedures or reporting structures.
Emotionally Invested
Despite his training, Tarin occasionally becomes attached to informants, contacts, and people he works alongside. He understands the risks of doing so, but years spent building relationships have made it difficult for him to view everyone as disposable assets.
Not a Frontline Fighter
While competent with a blaster and capable of defending himself, Tarin is not a soldier. Extended firefights, direct assaults, and prolonged combat situations place him at a significant disadvantage compared to trained military personnel.
Questionable Loyalty to Individuals
Tarin is deeply loyal to the mission, the Authority, and the idea of maintaining civilization. He is far less loyal to specific leaders, officers, or political figures. If he believes someone is endangering the organization through incompetence or ambition, he has little hesitation in working around them—or quietly gathering evidence against them.
HISTORY
Tarin Kosh was born on the wrong side of respectability.
The son of a freighter captain and a cargo broker, he spent much of his childhood moving between ports, stations, and trade routes scattered across the Core and Inner Rim. He learned early that official records rarely reflected reality and that the galaxy truly operated through personal connections, favors, debts, and information. While some children learned history from textbooks, Tarin learned it from dockworkers, smugglers, customs officers, and merchants nursing drinks after long shifts.
By the time he reached adulthood, he had already developed a reputation as a capable pilot, courier, and occasional smuggler. Nothing particularly glamorous. Most of his work involved moving goods through bureaucratic obstacles, finding buyers for difficult cargo, and knowing who to talk to when official channels became inconvenient. He discovered he enjoyed the challenge. Moving information often proved more profitable than moving cargo, and he quickly learned that people would tell you almost anything if they believed you were listening.
His talents eventually attracted the attention of Imperial Intelligence.
Unlike many recruits, Tarin was never dragged into service, blackmailed, or coerced. He was approached because someone noticed a pattern. Valuable information seemed to follow him. Criminal operations were occasionally disrupted shortly after he visited a system. Smuggling routes became known to authorities. Corrupt officials found themselves unexpectedly exposed. Tarin had been feeding information to anyone willing to pay for years without ever realizing he was performing half the duties of an intelligence operative.
The Empire offered him something few organizations ever had: purpose.
Training transformed him from an opportunistic information broker into a professional intelligence asset. His background made him ideally suited for infiltration work, informant management, and deep-cover operations. Rather than forcing him into a rigid mold, his handlers refined the skills he already possessed. He learned surveillance, tradecraft, dead drops, counterintelligence procedures, and operational security. Most importantly, he learned patience.
Then the Empire fell.
Entire intelligence networks vanished almost overnight. Safehouses were abandoned. Agents disappeared. Communications collapsed. Many operatives chose to disappear into civilian life, taking their secrets with them. Tarin considered doing the same.
Instead, he stayed.
Over the following years he became one of the many unseen individuals responsible for helping Imperial survivors remain connected. While fleets fought battles and soldiers secured worlds, Tarin moved quietly through the shadows, identifying friendly contacts, locating surviving personnel, gathering intelligence, and maintaining the fragile web of information that kept isolated Imperial remnants alive. More than once, a convoy survived because Tarin learned where pirates intended to strike. More than once, a hidden cache of supplies was recovered because he found someone willing to talk.
It was this work that eventually brought him into contact with the survivors of the 9th Mechanized Corps.
As the Imperial Reclamation Authority began to take shape, Tarin found himself presented with something he had not seen in years: a future. Not a warlord kingdom. Not a dying remnant desperately clinging to the past. An actual attempt to build something stable.
Today, Tarin serves within the growing Intelligence apparatus of the Authority, operating as both agent and liaison between the worlds of law, crime, politics, and commerce. Officially, he is an Intelligence operative.
Unofficially, he remains exactly what he has always been.
A smuggler.