Vidar Horne, Of House Varad (PC)

1. Please provide a brief (at least one short paragraph) backstory for your character. If you wish to write more, feel free, but please provide at least enough for the leadership team to understand the context from which your character is emerging. Please note that if you desire a narratively weighty backstory, it may warrant additional review from the leadership team and additional workshopping to ensure that your narrative fits into the overarching lore of the setting.

Born before the Battle of Yavin, he grew up far from the currents of grand politics, raised instead among the Clans. His world was smaller then, structured by honor, tradition, and a code that gave meaning to every hunt. For years, life was simple. He took contracts, followed the Creed, and carved his way through a fractured galaxy as a bounty hunter, content in the clarity of that existence.

Everything unraveled with a single mission, one that now exists in his mind as a hollow void. Whether the memory was lost to trauma or deliberately buried, he cannot say. The job had sounded routine: retrieve a missing archaeologist from ancient ruins and leave without complication. At first, it went exactly as planned. He and several other hunters reached the site and began their search.

Then the ruins turned against them.

Electronics failed without warning. Corridors repeated themselves, looping back no matter how carefully they were marked. And then the creatures came, things that crawled out of the dark, relentless and alien. They attacked in waves, each more brutal than the last. For sixteen hours they fought without rest. Two hunters died. Five more were wounded. A team of nine became seven: exhausted, injured, and fraying at the edges. Paranoia set in. Tempers flared. Violence loomed.

Virad was the first to break. The usually reserved gunslinger found himself leveling his weapon at another hunter, the team splitting into hostile factions. Time lost its meaning in that place: days, perhaps weeks. Supplies dwindled. Food ran out. Some tried to cook the creatures they killed; they died soon after, poisoned from within. The monsters grew smarter, stronger. Injuries slowed them. Desperation hollowed them out.

Somehow, Virad reached the source of the archaeologist’s beacon with two others. The rest were presumed dead: lost in the maze, torn apart, or mercy-killed when they could no longer go on. What happened in that chamber remains a blank space in his mind. He remembers only waking as the entrance collapsed, all three of them outside, alive, and utterly unable to recall what they had seen.

Search teams later recovered just two bodies. Both were cold, unnaturally so as if they had died long ago, preserved by something unseen. The mission was declared a failure.

Afterward, the nightmares began. Visions. His senses sharpened beyond reason. He started to feel danger before it revealed itself, his awareness edging into something uncanny. His dreams filled with fragments: faces, ruins, echoes of that place, yet never the truth of what lay in the chamber. The ruins never left him.

That was why he came to the Jedi, why he imposed exile upon himself. He had seen them in his visions, the Temple, the Order, figures robed in calm and light. They welcomed him, but the visions did not stop. One, in particular, haunted him: a monster clad in Mandalorian armor, stripped of crest and clan, hunting and slaughtering Mandalorians without mercy. The image felt ancient, tied to a distant past older even than the Crusades.

And beneath it all was a warning. Or perhaps a threat.

That he would one day bear the title of that monster in this era.

He would be lying if he claimed he was not afraid. That fear drove him to the Jedi, though he would never admit the truth, that he had seen a prophecy of what he might become.

2. Why does your character want to be a jedi?

To understand what happened to him. To Vidar force is curse and he either needs to find cure or way to live with it

3. Are there aspects of your character’s background (people, events, places) that were more formative to your character’s current personal development? Alt version: What was the most formative event/person/place from your backstory that you would like GMs to know or focus on?
The most formative force in his life was not a single battle or revelation, but the place he came from and the people who shaped him there. His clan and home were the foundation of everything he is. Through his family, he absorbed the culture, the code, and the history of his people, stories passed down with pride and, inevitably, bias. From them he inherited a deep mistrust of the Force and the Jedi, not as abstract evils, but as ancestral threats that had once sought to erase Mandalorians from the galaxy.

Above all others, it was his older brother who defined the course of his life. When Vidar had barely reached his tenth year, his brother took him away from home and into the wider galaxy, believing that survival could not be learned behind walls. His brother was a bounty hunter: efficient, ruthless when necessary, but governed by a personal code. He refused certain contracts, drew lines others would not, and lived by a harsh but consistent sense of honor.

Under his brother’s guidance, Vidar learned to fight, to hunt, and to endure. He learned how to read people as threats or assets, how to move through a hostile galaxy without hesitation, and how to rely on himself above all else. Those years were not gentle, but they were instructive. They forged his independence and anchored him firmly in the legacy of their ancestors.

About six years ago, he began traveling on his own, taking contracts and building a name separate from his family, though he still crossed paths with his brother, Sion Horne, from time to time. By then, many lessons had already taken root, some more troubling than others. From his brother, he learned to strip humanity from his targets, to see them as obstacles rather than people, because it made killing easier. He learned to rationalize violence, to frame it as necessity or tradition, and to bind it tightly to the honor of his house.

Those teachings remain with him still, both as a source of strength and as a shadow he has yet to fully confront.

4. Describe the kinds of personal relationships you might have had in your past? Be as general or as specific as you’d like. What do the kinds of friends and enemies you have made say about your character?
They were bounty hunters, he made various connections through their work in the Bounty Hunters guild. To work as Hunter well, he had to form connections in the underworld, knowing Fences, Fixers, slicers, smugglers and similar to make his life easier with finding targets and getting jobs. He mostly took bounties on pirates or slavers so he made fair share of enemies with Pirates and slavers

The best paying jobs were many Imperials so he took several bounties from them and even made friends with a few lower ranked officers, Which Factions? He doesn’t care really, he needed credits and tracking deserters or criminals wasn’t so bad. Imperial knight, Imperial bastion, Domain of Anaxis, those are all Imps in his mind, different names, same people. 

Before Imposing self exile he kept close relationships with members of his clan and other clans, even trying to meet with them from time to time. Trying to learn and grow from his wisdom of his people.

So bounty hunters, mandalorians, some members of underworld or some imperial faction members 

5. What is most Jedi-like about your character?  What is least Jedi-like about your character?

Most Jedi-like: Clarity Under Pressure, Acceptance of Moral Injury ( acknowledges that some acts: though necessary, will wound the soul), Acceptance of Loss, Refusal to abuse force for his benefit

Least Jedi-like: Dehumanization of Targets/Enemies (‘He had a bounty on his head, killing him was doing my job”, “Pirates? Just kill them, less of scum the better”), Resisting Change ( He is mando and he cannot be Jedi ) , Obsession with Legacy/Appearance (“ I am Mandalorian and I will not dishonour my ancestors”), Rationalizing Violence/ Harm as Necessary, Prioritizing Rules Over Wisdom ( Following the Code or tradition blindly rather than discerning the proper action), Prioritizing Reputation Over Action

6. Does your character have a strong idea of the Force? Do they experience it in a certain way or is it a mystery to them?
He was raised in Mandalorian culture, where the Force was never a mystery, only an enemy. From the stories he was told, Jedi were not sages or guardians, but ancient rivals, wielders of an inhuman power that stood in opposition to steel, will, and earned strength. That belief took root early, and it never truly left him.

To him, the Force is not wonder or enlightenment. It is a curse. Something alien, something that does not belong in a Mandalorian body or soul. He understands its principles well enough. because understanding one’s enemy is the first step to surviving them, but knowledge has not brought acceptance. Instead, it has sharpened his rejection.

He experiences the Force as intrusion rather than guidance. Nightmares bleed into waking visions: fragments of futures not yet lived, places he has never seen yet somehow knows. His senses sharpen beyond what feels natural, reflexes bending toward something faster, colder, and wrong. Even his skills feel tainted by it, uncanny in a way that strips them of their honesty. What others might call a gift, he experiences as theft, power taken from who he is meant to be.

So he names it a sickness, a corruption, anything that allows him to believe it can be cured. If it can be cured, then it can be removed. And if it can be removed, he can return to where he belongs: whole, untainted, and Mandalorian once more.

7. Some characters have dark (or great) secrets that they keep locked away from even their dearest friends. Does your character harbor a great regret or a secret aspiration that is central to their character? This answer will be kept as private as possible. (No is a valid response)

Through fractured visions of the Force, he has seen a monster that should not exist: a being twisted by the dark side and sustained by machines, a relentless hunter clad in Mandalorian armor stripped of crest, name, and honor. It stalked its own people without mercy, erasing clans and leaving nothing behind but silence and fear. 

What terrifies him is not merely the existence of this creature, but the certainty that these visions were not echoes of legend or myth. They felt inevitable. The Force did not show him a warning, it showed him a path. He came to understand that such monsters are not born; they are made, shaped by choice, loss, and surrender. And buried within those visions was the most damning truth of all: he was meant to become one of them in this era, to wear that mantle of terror and carry it forward into a new age.This knowledge is the core of his regret and the root of his fear. It is why he recoils from the Force rather than embracing it, why he refuses its guidance even when it brushes against his senses. To touch it too deeply would be to walk closer to that fate, to risk becoming the very thing he despises.

So he keeps the secret locked away, unspoken and unresolved. He does not seek power, prophecy, or destiny, only distance. Distance from the Force, from those visions, and from the monster he believes waits within him, should he ever stop resisting.

8. What elements of your character are you most excited to explore, whether narrative or mechanical? What aspect of your character do you think will be most challenging to play? We also encourage you to think about how your character does/will interact with the Force and how you may also want that to change mechanically/narratively as your character grows.

What draws him most is the collision of two worlds that were never meant to coexist. He was shaped by Mandalorian culture, by self-reliance, survival, and a code that prizes strength and honor above all else. The Jedi path, by contrast, asks for empathy, restraint, and service to something greater than the self. Walking between these philosophies is not merely difficult; it cuts at the core of who he believes himself to be. Exploring that tension, between the warrior he was raised to become and the protector he is being asked to grow into is the heart of his story.

Complicating this struggle is his deep distrust of the Force. To him, it was always something distant, unnatural, and inhuman an echo of legends and monsters best left buried. Now it lives within him, undeniable and intrusive. His greatest challenge will be deciding whether this is a curse to be purged or a truth to be accepted. One path leads back to the life he understands, the other toward a destiny he never asked for. Both demand sacrifice, and neither offers certainty.

Equally compelling is his attempt to understand the Jedi themselves. For most of his life, they were ghosts, figures erased by history, spoken of in whispers, if at all. Seeing them not as enemies but as people burdened by duty, loss, and impossible choices forces him to confront his own inherited hatred. He begins to question whether Mandalorians and Jedi were ever truly destined to be enemies, or if both were simply following their codes as best they could in a cruel galaxy.

Perhaps the most difficult question he faces is one of identity. A Force-sensitive Mandalorian is a contradiction, even a taboo. His people value strength earned through will and steel, not through unseen powers. He must ask himself and eventually others whether a Mandalorian who walks the Jedi path can still be considered truly Mandalorian, or whether embracing the Force means surrendering his heritage entirely.

Mechanically, this struggle is reflected in his path as well. He is drawn to the role of a Warleader, someone who inspires and directs others through presence and action rather than mysticism. A gunslinger at heart, he will seek duels and moments that forge reputation, testing his skill against worthy foes. Balancing that with a combat-support role, I have long favored will mirror his narrative journey: a warrior who leads from the front, yet learns that victory is not achieved by strength alone.

9. Does your character have a long-term plan, mechanically? If so, what is it? No is an acceptable answer - we're just interested in the sorts of niches people want to fill and builds people are interested in. We also encourage you to think about how your character does/will interact with the Force and how you may also want that to change mechanically/narratively as your character grows

Above all, he seeks to walk the road of his ancestors: a Mandalorian warrior, a gunslinger whose name carries weight. His family’s legacy reaches back to the days of the Old Republic, a line defined by precision, duels, and reputation earned shot by shot. He intends to uphold that tradition, proving that his skill alone: his reflexes, his leadership, his mastery of combat are enough to place him among the greats, Force or no Force.

Equally important is the slow, deliberate reclaiming of his armor. To him, armor is not equipment but identity. When he chose self-imposed exile, he left it behind as one leaves a name, until the curse within him could be cured. What he wears now is only a fragment of that past: greaves, sabatons, and poleyns (Tadun’bure, Cetar’bure, Bes’lovike) pieces of his old harness reforged into something incomplete. They are not beskar, only alloy, and that absence weighs on him more than he admits.

Beskar is the final symbol of what he has lost and what he hopes to reclaim. In this era, it is scarce. By his own reckoning, finding it may prove harder than curing the Force that haunts him, but that only strengthens its meaning. Each piece recovered would mark not just progress in power, but a step closer to being whole again.

As his story unfolds, he does not seek to master it quickly, if at all.. Whether he eventually learns to temper it, suppress it, or integrate it into his martial discipline is a question for the future. For now, his focus remains clear: earn his name, reclaim his armor, and prove that a Mandalorian’s worth is forged by choice, not destiny.

10. The Dark Side tempts each Jedi differently. How does it prey upon your character's emotional weakness and what makes them susceptible to it?

He was born Mandalorian, raised to be a warrior long before he learned his letters. Combat was his first language, discipline his inheritance. He knows his skill, his reflexes, his precision, and he measures himself against his peers with a confidence that borders on certainty. His house was known for gunslingers and sharpshooters, and he believes without hesitation that he has earned the right to bear that legacy. In his mind, he is not merely capable; he is meant to be among the best.

The dark side feeds on that belief. It nurtures his arrogance and sharpens his overconfidence, telling him that restraint is weakness and doubt a flaw unworthy of a true Mandalorian. He was taught independence, taught that the galaxy is hostile and mercy is a luxury. Compared to the Jedi, he sees himself as honest in his darkness. He does not kill without cause, but when survival is at stake, he will carve a path forward even through the innocent or the helpless if that is what it takes to endure. The dark side does not need to corrupt this instinct; it merely needs to justify it.

Worse still is his obsession with purity of house, of identity. To him, being wrong is more than failure; it is stain. Discovering the Force within himself feels like a betrayal written into his own flesh. Power that comes unearned, unseen, and unnatural clashes violently with everything he was raised to value. He does not see the Force as a gift, but as proof that something in him is broken. That shame curdles into anger, anger at the Jedi for embodying what he despises, anger at fate for choosing him, and anger at himself for lacking the resolve to end it before it could bring further dishonor to his name.

That anger is where the dark side waits. It tells him he is right to hate this weakness, that his rage is justified, that power taken in anger is still power. It tempts him with the promise that he can prove himself: prove his worth, his purity, his superiority by force of will alone.

At his core lies the most dangerous truth: he cares more about being seen as right in the eyes of his people than about doing what is right. Honor, to him, is perception as much as principle. This belief drives his recklessness. Death does not frighten him; in many ways, it comforts him. To die in battle would end the shame he believes he carries and preserve his family’s name untainted.

And so the dark side finds easy purchase in him not by offering survival, but by offering absolution through destruction.

11. Would you rather start your character as an Initiate or as a Padawan? While most characters will have 2-5 sessions to become familiar with the Order before becoming a Padwan, there is the option to start as one immediately. This is typically reserved for characters who were born or raised within the Order and their backstory should reflect as such. More details on being a Padawan can be found here.

Initiate, as they are born and raised mandalorian

Vidar Horne's Character Sheet