San Edros (PC)

1. Please provide a brief (at least one short paragraph) backstory for your character.

Born in approximately 5 BBY, San (pronounced Sahn like Han Solo) was abandoned on Mina-Rau as an infant, where he was taken in by his adoptive parents, humans Kalni and Dolvar Edros. As a child, San often wondered who his birth parents were, daydreaming of their potential escapades as Rebel operatives or hyperspace pirates, rather than the facing the more likely reality of being victims of the war, the slave trade, or spice and glitterstim. In time this curiosity faded as San grew content with the loving care of his adoptive parents, though it never went extinct.

San’s parents worked as toolies during the harvest season and freelance mechanics in the capital city of Rau during the offseason. San began working with his parents from a young age, demonstrating an aptitude for mechanics with a natural curiosity and seemingly supernatural instinct for all things electromechanical and their failure modes.
Despite his loving family and technical skills, San’s upbringing was not free of hardship. Under Imperial, and later Bastion Remnant rule, the Edroses, and toolies as a class, were subject to harsh treatment by the Imps and harsher harvest quotas by the Councils. As a young child San was incensed by this treatment, but for his own wellbeing Dolvar taught him to bury these feelings and keep his head down. “Standing up for yourself and fighting back was only liable to get yourself and your loved ones in deep shit,” he said, and after witnessing enough examples be made of toolies who dared talk back to their foremen, San realized he was right. To get in trouble would be especially bad for San and his parents, as Kalni and Dolvar had to forge San’s papers to take legal guardianship of him after he was discovered abandoned.

By young adulthood, San was ready to leave Mina-Rau. As much as he loved his family and his community, looking out over the same sprawling grainfields and repairing the same old agri-droids and harvesters had already grown tiresome. As much as it pained him to imagine spending the rest of his days here, San was prepared to bury this desire deep down next to that childhood desire to find his birth parents, as there was no way he could foresee being able to afford leaving Mina-Rau. The life of a toolie meant being destined to make barely enough to pay your way through life, with little to spare. But this would soon change. During the most-recent offseason, San worked as a mechanic at the spaceport in Rau. One day, San was tasked with assisting a customer with repairs to their ship, a fairly typical request, however the customer was unlike anyone San had ever assisted before. They wore a concealing, though plain, brown cloak over simple tan robes. As San met them, he felt an innate connection he had never felt before and the stranger looked on at him with knowing, compassionate eyes. The stranger was much more personable than the typical customer and asked San about his process as he worked through the repair. After the repairs were complete, the stranger introduced themselves as Stedus Andrim, a knight of the New Jedi Order. Stedus believed San may be force sensitive and wanted him to come with him to train as a Jedi in the New Jedi Order. San was apprehensive at first. Kalni had told him fairy tales of the Jedi and the force growing up, but San believed them to be just that, myth, even with the stranger providing some tangible evidence to the otherwise. Still, San could not shake the unusual connection he felt to the stranger, nor his desire to get off Mina-Rau, and so he told Stedus he would need time to think the offer over. Returning home, he recounted the encounter to Kalni and Dolvar to mixed reactions. While Dolvar was dismissive of his child’s claims of the Force and the Jedi, Kalni wanted to believe in the mythical tales of the Jedi her parents had told her as a child. Still, both supported San in his endeavors to explore the galaxy, though not without Dolvar first thrusting a blaster pistol into his hands. With his parents’ blessing, San returned to the spaceport the next day to set off into the wider galaxy for the first time.

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

Joining the order is the first opportunity to leave Mina-Rau San has ever been presented with. He wants to explore the galaxy and learn more about new places, people, and cutting-edge technology. Subconsciously, whether San chooses to acknowledge it or not, San is also driven by the potential to fulfill his childhood quest to discover whoever his parents were.

3. Are there aspects of your character’s background (people, events, places) that were more formative to your character’s current personal development? 

San’s relationship to his parents are his most formative. From both of his parents, San learned his trade of and passion for mechanics. His father Dolvar impressed in him a strong sense of self-preservation and duty to his loved ones. It was Dolvar where San learned to keep his head down in the face of oppression to not put a target on his own back. From his mother, San learned his wanderlust. Kalni raised San on stories of the Jedi and the Old Republic, and of wonders of the galaxy.

4. Describe the kinds of personal relationships you might have had in your past? 

San grew up in a small community where everyone knows each other, for better or worse. In this community, San has been a quiet but helpful presence, not trying to give anyone any reason to dislike him besides being one of the few non-human toolies, of course. This has mostly been successful, though as a result few in Rau know much about him besides the fact that he’s a skilled mechanic. This reservation by San, as well as being one of the few xenos in the community, has meant he has no strong attachment to anyone but his parents.
San has a strong disdain for the foremen of the Councils of Mina-Rau, though he has never voiced this for fear of retaliation.

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

San’s most Jedi-like quality is his inquisitive nature. Having been raised with a spanner in his hand, he has learned all that he can about the electromechanical here on Mina-Rau, and now yearns to learn more about the exotic cultures and technologies the galaxy has to offer.
San’s least Jedi-like quality is his cowardice in the face of injustice and oppression.

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?
San has always had a strong intuition for electronics he could not explain, as if he could see current flowing through the circuitry, could anticipate which element of a system would fail next, but he could not identify this as “the Force”. His only familiarity with the Force prior to meeting The Jedi, came from fairy tales of the old republic Kalni told him as a youngling.

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? 

No.

8. What elements of your character are you most excited to explore, whether narrative or mechanical? 

Narratively, I am interested in exploring how a withdrawn, self-serving individual grows into a selfless protector, especially when their self-preservation has been so strongly ingrained in them from their upbringing. I expect to have some trouble with this, as I have a tendency to play my characters as boy scouts.
Mechanically, I have not played a mechanics/crafting character before so I expect this to be an interesting experience.

9. Does your character have a long-term plan, mechanically? 
No long term plan. In the near-term, I will likely rush the right tree of the Jedi Universal Spec as to not be a complete drag in combat.

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?
San feels the temptation of the dark side most strongly when witnessing acts of  injustice. San fears putting himself and those he cares about in danger by speaking out or intervening, so will stand idly by or turn a blind eye when the dark side gets the best of him.

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

San Erdos' Character sheet