Raan Jodus

Raan Jodus
Biographical Information
Race	Kalidonnian
Homeworld	Kalidonn
Father	Olaan Jodus
Siblings	Vin Jodus (brother)
Physical Description
Gender	Male
Height	1.83 meters
Coloring	Brown hair
Political Information
Affiliation	Unknown
Rank	Triumvir, Council of Blood (formerly)
Prior Affiliation	Bounty Hunter Alliance

Raan Jodus was born on the planet of Kalidonn to a warrior family. His family were forced to leave their planet around the time of the Clone Wars. Mandalorian raiders had attacked the planet, and a war between the Raiders and the Kalidonnians blossomed to the point where the planet was destroyed by a Mandalore fleet. The surviving members of Kalidonnian society fled to the stars.

Over the years of space faring, the final population of Kalidonnian warriors dwindled from conflicts with pirates and other such groups. The House of Jodus was of the few remaining warriors: Raan, several brothers, uncles, his mother and his father. On a run past the Outer Rim, his mother was flying supplies to the recent home of the Kalidonn survivors. The vessel and convoy of crafts were attacked, looted, and destroyed by a band of renegade Mandalorians. News spread to the colony, and the House of Jodus, along with several other warriors, tracked the raiders to an uninhabited jungle planet in the Unknown Regions. The combat that ensued left no survivors except young Raan Jodus, who returned to his colony planet to find it abandoned.

After hunting pirates in the Far Rim, Raan continued his search for revenge as a guild member of the Bounty Hunter Alliance circa Year 2. When Icarus stepped down as ruler of the Bounty Hunter Alliance, he placed Raan Jodus, Licky Len, and Shaolin Longfist in command as the first triumvirate; thus, the Council of Blood was born. The Council proved so successful that it became the subsequent standard for governing the nefarious organization.

Biography

The Bounty Hunter

The man who would become the bounty hunter Raan Jodus began his life in the harsh upbringing of Kalidon society. From birth he was trained as a warrior for his small clan, which massed no more than 150 members. They lived their relatively peaceful lives in the foothills and wooded regions of the northern continent. His immediate family consisting of his mother, his father, two brothers, two uncles and three aunts. His father, who lead the clan of their own name, was a wise man, strong and capable. He was known for his compassion for family and friends, and also for his ferocity against his enemies.

When he was three, Raan's father took him to a band of four travelling wise men. Men who were respected the world over as they wandered from village to village. These were the Old Stryders, men who had survived their years of war and battle, yet had no place to call home. Some would say these men were truly gifted, with a magic all their own. They could see into the future, and look into men's hearts to see what was truly within them.

As his father presented Raan to the old men, they each took their turn speaking with him, chanting and moving in and out of trances. For he was the only one of Olaan's three sons to be selected by the old men. Once every five years, the elders would come to the villages, and take a long hard look at a selected child. This child carried within them the potential for greatness, the most promising qualities for leadership, strength of character and compassion.

For two days they spent with Raan, testing him, telling him great stories of old, teaching him tidbits of tactics and inner strength and resolve, of will. In the end, they found his greatest trait to be his compassion of all living things. His family was pleased with the opinions of the elders. The future they predicted, "He will stand above all of the lands of Kalidon. The last of the great warriors."

This encouraged his father, as he thanked the old men for their service to his family. After which they told him they had not completed their services, they felt a kindred spirit not far off to the west. They promised Raan's father they knew of a girl for the boy. A girl that would unite families, and would steer the young boy along the path of virtue. Raan's father, trusting the words of the seers, still kept his skepticism of the possible strangers this would bring. Few allies did the Jodus clan have to the west, rivalries ran bitter in that direction. But the elders were not dismayed by such concerns, and promised to return in two weeks with the girl.

Once the Old Styders left, Olaan began instructing his sons more in the arts of war, and the history of their people. For the lands of Kalidon were a near feudal society, war was common, and combat was most frequent solution to many problems. The mountain homes of the Jodus clan kept them secluded from much of the large scale warfare that swept the lands every few years. Olaan's people and warriors offered their services to whomever needed it most, or whoever could pay the most.

Their adept nature of commando style warfare was near legendary, and Olaan was determined to pass his skills to his children, so they in turn could pass them down to their children. As their training continued, the elders returned, two weeks and a few days as promised. With them from the west, they had brought three people. Ritig Valn and his wife Maelin, with their daughter Saraa, though they came from the west, they came with smiles and open arms. As they were received, Olaans skepticism lessened until he too thought of them as family.

When the elders presented Raan to Saraa, the two simply stood and looked into one another's eyes. For several long minutes, they attempted to piece together what all the old people had being telling them about their future. All the older members of the family were anxious to see how Raan and his future bride would react to each other. To some's dismay and to others delight, the two children began to giggle as children do, and ran off to play in the woods near the mountains...

Return to Aant'baii

Away from the busy trade routes, outside the boundaries of galactic laws and beyond the boarders of the Known Galaxy, an old system patrol class ship reaches its destination. Its scarred grey hull, battered and scuffed, long gone its original luster; as worn and dangerous as its owner. The 'Firespray class freighter sits in orbit around the 4th moon of a pinkish orange gas giant. The system; hardly traveled and considered worthless to anyone who had ever come across it, lacking any real materials or deposits to warrant colonizing. Worthless as it seems, to one individual it holds great value.

After several long silent hours orbiting the green brown sphere, watching peacefully the mass of clouds below swirl and change, the rustic craft begins a long slow decent planet ward. From far away it appears no different than any other habitable moon, but to the pilot, no moon could have more significance. The memories from time past on this celestial object still as crisp and painful as any suffered mere minutes ago. Watching from the cockpit section as the blackness of space gives way to a dark cobalt hue of approaching atmosphere. Flying down, the shades of blue lighten as light reflects off air particles present in the sky. Clouds part and spread, move and enclose as the vessel slices through them. Sunlight becomes blocked out as the aging craft becomes surrounded by overcast skies.

Raan Jodus remembers a day like this, long ago, when he first landed here. The tumultuous skies above what he had called AantBaii, always had a cloud in them. Rain was a constant, sprinkling over the wide hilly plains. His love would have adored such a place, especially the plains. He remembers the day vividly in his mind, as his dreams so often had reminded him of its place, after the end of his family, the end of his happiness, and the final end to his world.

Heavens Reach would forever be with him now as are the memories of those that reside there. As the landing coordinates came closer and closer, emotions flooded back, some feelings the grim warrior had not felt for a long time. Sadness and emptiness he felt often, though here he felt as he truly belonged, a spot where nothing else mattered.

With the sensation of a completed landing, a landing Raan had little recollection of actually performing, he kept his place in his seat, staring out the view port towards the sky. A thick feeling formed in his throat, almost choking him, memories and feelings which he had buried and also incorporated into his life. Rodents chittered, scurrying about beneath the ship as it cooled from its landing. Small furry bodies scampered upon the elliptical hull of the ships lower hull, marveling at this new metallic presence on their world.

With a hiss of hydraulics and a grinding of metal plates, the hatchway of Stryder I opened the ship to the misty air of a planet it has not seen in a long time. The crisp aroma of an unpolluted atmosphere wafted through the ship, crawling around the dark form of the only man on the moon. A forceful breeze rushed more fresh air into the durasteel confines of the hunters vessel, as the winds blow more and more around the shape of the hull. From the hatchway, grim eyes look upon the plains of Aantbaii through a visor of blood.

Clad in the armor of his homeworld, a pitted, scarred and worn series of grey plating over which rested a cloak of darker grey. A step down the gang plank the hunter goes, slowly and surely, as one would tread upon the holy soil of the dead. Careful and purposefully he strode off his ship, a vision of fear on a world with no awareness for such things. Looking ahead into the horizon, step by step away from the ship with no looking back Raan Jodus walks off into the plains. With him come only that what was with him the first time he came to this place.

Five kilometers distance from his ship he walks, over the rolling hills, across flats and past a small river bend, away from any distraction of the universe except his own personal thoughts. Nothing could part him from those thoughts, those memories of times before the blood, the death, the unrelenting hunt. That time where there was happiness for the survivors of Kalidonn, and always following those happy thoughts were the bleak and tormenting memories of finding the wreck of the Whispy Wing. The fires that still burned aboard her into space continued to blaze as brilliantly now in his mind as the moments after they ignited. The gathering of what remains and personal effects of his mother and two aunts that was aboard various parts of the Wing, and the look of sorrow upon his own fathers face.

Though his feelings were shredded at the loss of his mother and aunts, his heart was torn and broken as he had found the floating remains of his loves small fighter. He could still see his face reflecting in the transparasteel of her cockpit, torn and yelling inside his space suit. Looking inside the tiny ship at the deathly face of his love Saraa, seeing her alabaster skin now lacking the vibrance that had always been present but was now gone. Her lips cold and forever lacking the warmth they once contained, never again to whisper words to him at night. Satiny red hair afloat in the zero-gravity of space around her inside the tiny enclosed area, and eyelids closed. The most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen, and ever will see in all his days, would never again open.

Into space he had screamed, tears rolling down his face as his hands had pounded against the floating coffin of his love. A total loss he felt, as he tried to talk to Saraa through his suit, through space, and through the glass. Weeping even more as the stark realization that she would never respond grew in him, his heart sinking, and slowly breaking. At last being pulled away from the craft by his brothers, unable to move on his own in the vacuum he felt.

Looking back now Raan felt he in no way would have been able to tell Saraa's parents what had happened. Unfortunately they were on the Whispy Wing at the same time, and were found floating in space among the wreckage. There were only two things he felt then, and still even now: sadness and anger. A sadness as such written in the great tragedies of the galaxy, mixing with a seething anger of a brilliance matched only by the love he shared with this woman.

Now away from the ship, in the middle of the plains of Aantbaii, the hunter finally stopped. Directly in front of him stood a small stone slab, one of the last remnants to a past which could have been different. Beneath this slab is where he had laid the body of his beloved Saraa, in a place where she would have loved to live in, but instead will lay in peace with the memory that she would like to be here. She had always loved the wide open areas, space was no different, she loved the endless void.

More memories would come back as Raan sat cross legged in front of the stone slab, how she loved to fly for one. She could fly just about anything, always impeccable with the controls. He had never seen such a good pilot before; no one on the Wing could ever touch her in the simulator trials. It was when he had seen the wreck of her fighter that day his heart sank so low for the first time. It wasn't until he saw her inside the ship that his life totally changed. The trauma he had felt at that age left him different than he was a few days before. It had changed his family as well; his father angered at the loss of his wife; his brothers saddened over the loss of a mother, and his uncles determined to avenge a sister. He felt all that pain and more, the anger was there but swallowed in a pit of despair, unable to express any feelings except his sadness. For over two weeks he felt as though he was only an empty shell, devoid of anything but a sense of loss. The day they found the Mandalores, would change how he felt.

After weeks sitting in the back seat of the Vagabonds cockpit, staring blankly out of a viewport and barely moving. His thoughts still focused solely on the glimpse he had of his love Saraa through the forward viewport of her ship. Her deathly face framed in red locks, peacefully slumped into her seat, head forward and eyes closed. That image had haunted his days and nights for several weeks afterwards with no pause. Commotion around the sensor screen at the front drew his remaining family. His father Olaan sternly flew their small courier ship in their desperate search for vengeance. Following clues left from the wreckage of their family freighter, they easily determined it was what was left of a Mandalorian raiding group. For over two weeks they had bought, threatened and beat information out of various sources in the Outer Rim to track down the raiders.

The blinking on the sensor board was drawing the crews attention; three ships were sitting just outside the rocky rings of a terrestrial planet. A little known planet on the fringe that spacers suspected was a staging point of these raiders, but never dared to find out. Old data files on the ships used by the Mandalorians from the wars years before were able to determine they were the prey the avengers sought. Two were moderately damaged, while the third larger vessel was indicated as being ninety-percent operational. Vin, the raven haired brother of Raan, locked a proton torpedo onto the larger craft. All on board watched in anticipation as the projectile flew towards its target, everyone watched outside except Raan. He kept watching the sensor screen in a hollow trance; on the screen he saw the detonation.

With that impact, he jerked his head up to watch the luminous expanse of gases and debris from the other ship. Something slight sparked in him, a feeling other than sadness, not akin to emptiness, he felt satisfaction. The image in his mind of his love was changing, her lips had moved slightly upward. The fire in space had elated the Vagabonds crew, and when the two remaining ships made their way downwards towards the planet through the belt of stones in orbit, the Kalidonnians threw all power to their engines to pursue. The chase through the planets ring had been eventful, ending with one ship destroyed in the cluster and both the hunter and the prey damaged from their encounters. Forcing the Mandalorians to the ground near the jungle, the Kalidonnians readied themselves for combat with the rogue warriors. The family of six was to be outnumbered by three as a squad of the Mandalorian commandos exited their damaged ship and headed in separate directions.

Staring down at the engraved name upon the marbled stone, Raan could still call upon the pleasant memories he had shared with Saraa. The months and years on the Whispy Wings, the week on the moon of Linno IV, and every various trip they had together. Even several times when they had went corewards with his father to places like Corellia and even Coruscant. The doors behind which these memories existed was often closed, even though they were close and hand and his love was always on his mind, these thoughts were for personal times. They had little place in his everyday life now, in fact, if she were to appear before him now, Raan feared she would not approve of the man she had become. She would not love him any less, or doubt why he had become so, but he would not have been the same man she had loved.

Vengeful he had become with her loss and the loss of the rest of his family as well. After the long battles on that jungle moon, Raan was saddened once more to find he was alone in the galaxy. The combat and the jungle itself had claimed the remains of his family. Everywhere he would turn to look for his kin, he would only find the remains of those he loved once again.

Running headlong through the foliage of a large red leaved plant, Raan had raised his blaster and fired consecutive shots into the chest of the blue armored raider. The armor encasing the warrior reddened, started turning white with the succession of laser blasts and eventually parts came away. The sheer heat under the armor alone incapacitated the Mandalore, until bolts sheared through the unarmored portions of his body. Rolling in his death on the brown foliage, smoking and twitching, the air around the trees stunk with the smell of burnt flesh and vegetation. The young Kalidonnian turned from the dying rogue and ran off through another apparent game trail.

Once he had seen one of the Mandalores up close, one of the fiends that had taken his love, and his family from him, Raan Jodus had felt a tremendous flare of anger and hate swell up. His focus had gone from his feeling of loss to the simple urge to kill what he saw in front of him. If he could not have his Saraa back, there was no way in hell he would allow these men to return to anything that meant something to them. Clashing with one after another, he felt more and more embroiled in the turmoil, finding gratification as those killers died at his hand. He ran on to find others as he was able to dispatch two. Running along and holding a hand over his right eye, Raan took a moment for himself, setting down his helmet. Blood ran into his vision, as sweat poured into the two gaping wounds around his eye. The knives of the enemy were sharp, and able to clear some of the red fluid from his eye, found the blade had not damaged his eye as he feared.

Collecting himself and his helmet, Raan found his way to a faint cry for help in the jungle around him. He found his aging father Olaan, lying hurt upon a riverbed. A mortal wound had been inflicted along his neck and back, a lance like weapon was lying a foot away from the old warrior. As the young man rushed to his fathers aid, he spotted lying face down in the shallow water the corpse of an armored Mandalorian commando.

His father spoke quickly, knowing his time was very short in this world, he reassured his son of his faith in him, as every father would have. From a pocket he withdrew a small datacard, upon which contained the passcodes to access all his planets remaining records that had been stored in their ships databases. He was passing on his legacy to the one son he was sure to be alive. Grief was once again clutching Raan as he sat with his father in his arms and watched him die. Listening to the old man in his final moments was almost as painful as the loss of the rest of his family, though after his prior ordeals was more able to cope with the loss.

Before he died, Olaan Jodus, head of the Clan Jodus, told his son; Son, carry on as you see fit. Our world is in your hands now, right what wrongs you can, fear not the death of us all, as we share that same fate in the end. You make me proud today, as every son does for his father. Keep your honor, keep your word, and keep your way. Fair well my boy; I feel my time has come. I pray the time of many others will come before yours.

As the final breath escaped Olaan, Raan clutched him tight, all pain ignored and he once again felt the grief of lost family. Standing, he left his father to find others of his kin, hoping they too would live to hear his fathers last words. Trekking through the jungle, all the young warrior came across were the bodies of those he was most close too. Fallen bodies of the enemy were scattered close to those of his family members, each slaying the other in their attempts to better one another. Finally, with a blood washed eye, rain soaked clothes and scarred armor, Raan made his way back to the Vagabond to settle himself. Upon arrival back at the small ship, fury burned in the soul of Raan when he spotted the last of the Mandalorians attempting to break into his way off the planet. He ran towards the armored figure, swinging a blade from behind towards his target. Blood soaked vision did not deter him from his attack, as first blow hindered his enemy, the next several an exchange between the two, and the final three becoming the preliminary to the Mandalores death blow. Over the grass rolled the severed helmet, while the falling body was kicked away from the ship.

The last sad memories the bounty hunter has of his family, was after gathering up the bodies of his brothers, uncles and father, and burying them each in a grove. Leaving them on a wild world which was their last stand in a war that may never cease to end. The remains of their enemy were left where it died, to be picked clean by whatever creature inhabited that world. He said his final good-byes to his kin, swearing to keep the records of his world safe to his father so as they would continue to live on even after his own death.

Once gone, Raan had never returned to that world, his promises made and his good-byes said, he never felt they would want him to return needlessly. Saraa deserved more from him, they all would have said that and so he would visit her on the occasions he could spare the trip. So he was now sitting with his love, the only woman to ever mean something to him. His helmet upon the grass beside him, the brisk wind of Aantbaii blew and ruffled his short red hair in the wind. Green eyes looked at the grass on the ground where Saraa laid, able to imagine the brilliant smile she would have when he came back from a trip. The embrace they had shared every night for years on end, and the twinkle in her eyes as they dreamed of a place to raise children and carry on the lineage of their people. A tear rolled down along the scar over his right eye, down into the scruff of unshaven facial hair that had accumulated over several days. On this day he was able to reunite with his feelings and lost thoughts. Dearly did he wish to see that twinkle in her eyes again, for he had found places exactly as they had dreamed of. Had she been with him, the killing would never have started, and without her, he felt it would never end until his turn came. His word of vengeance upon those Mandalorians had stuck for all these years. This being the tenth anniversary of those words, and the beginning of his long hunt which had shaped him into the man he is today.

As he had the first day he laid her to rest on this field, Raan knelt, took a knife from his belt and pulled it through his palm. A long slice from one side of his palm to the other oozed blood, the sensation of pain present and immediate, though controlled. Up he took a stone in the blood soaked hand, rolling it around in the blood. Standing, he hurled the stone towards the sky, as though he had an intended target in the heavens to which the stone was thrown at, swearing aloud his vow of vengeance in his native tongue. Up went the stone, reaching its apex far above the ground, then down it came, falling until it landed heavily in the grass.

For two years he had been meaning to visit his loves grave again, never able to find the time in between hunts and administrating the BHA. Finally with the approach of the tenth anniversary, Raan had just up and left for his visit. Life would continue on without him, as his had carried on without his family. Kneeling once again, he retrieved his helmet, touching his fingers to his lips, then those fingers to the head of the stone as a show of affection that still burned in him.

Picking up his helmet, and replacing it back over his head, Raan Jodus made his way back towards his ship. Away from the gravesite, once more comforted by a part of his past he would never wish to forget. Hours later he arrived back to his ship for a long departure and equally long voyage to Cona. Overhead the clouds had partially cleared to allow rays of sunlight to drop to the planets surface. Once flying overhead, he made a detour over the grave from above. A pillar of light had settled right over Saraa's grave, illuminating the area. Smiling his true smile, Raan Jodus, bounty hunter, made his way back to the heavens to find those the bloody stone was meant for.

Holographics

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Holonet links

• Raan Jodus - Bounty Hunter (Archived)
• Raan Jodus - Profile (Archived)
• Raan Jodus - Holosite (Archived)