Ryluk Shouja

"Hey, I'm a bounty hunter, not a poet."

- Ryluk Shouja to his fiancée, Lymie Chamna

Ryluk Shouja was a bounty hunter who lived through several eras, operating under the Galactic Republic, Galactic Empire, New Republic, and Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. He had no qualms about working against the governing authorities, when the price was right, but avoided blatantly ignoring the laws, lest he bring the wrath of the government-sanctioned security forces down on his head.

His career as an active bounty hunter spanned 45 years, truncated by his first eighteen years and his last 46 years. During this time, he learned many different styles of combat through his brief stint with the Chiss Ascendancy, his life as a street child, and various trainers on Corellia. All were honed to a fine edge with training droids purchased after he began building his fortune on investments in the Corellian Stock Market.

Ryluk lived to the age of 109, well past the normal lifespan of the average Human, especially one in his line of work. During that time he married Lymie Chamna, who gave birth to a son, Akak Shouja. His son's true identity was kept a close secret for many years in order to protect the young boy from assassination and kidnapping attempts made by those who wished to injure the famed bounty hunter in any way they could.

Shortly after his son turned seven, before the boy was old enough to realize that his father was a famed bounty hunter and assassin, Ryluk took his small family to the Outer Rim territories, where they adopted a false last name and lived a simple life. Ryluk left his stocks in the hands of his most trusted investors for the day that his son would emerge from the Outer Rim to claim what was left by his father. The bounty hunter finished out the remaining years of his life in the Rim, anonymous to all but his wife.

Early life
Ryluk Shouja was born on J't'p'tan to Karla and Skylkan Shouja in 57 BBY. Both Karla and Skylkan were born Corellian, so it followed that Ryluk would become a Corellian citizen as well. Skylkan, a smuggler and con artist, cared little about his family, and was often out in the galaxy while his wife and child scratched a living out of the J't'p'tan soil. He was killed in a firefight when Ryluk was still only a toddler of two, and Ryluk was brought up under the impression that his father's death was an unfortunate accident.

In an effort to provide the most for her son, Ryluk's mother tried to teach him Corellian culture, all the way down to the Corellian Gambit version of sabacc, which remained his preferred version of sabacc throughout his life. He was harassed for being a human by his peers and the locals of J't'p'tan, especially by a retired Trandoshan mercenary. The mercenary would beat Ryluk extensively whenever the boy crossed his path. When Ryluk was fourteen, the Trandoshan mercenary pulled a vibroblade on the boy and slit him from left hip to right shoulder, leaving the boy for dead and laughing as it walked away. The wound was not deep enough to cause instant death, only a slow, painful death as the young boy bled out.

By extreme fortune, a visitor to the planet, Lymie Chamna, the daughter of the honest Coruscanti trader, Akak Chamna found the dying boy and took him to her father. The trader treated Ryluk's wounds, then adopted the boy and took him offworld, to live with him and Lymie. Ryluk never forgot the attack nor the mercenary, and lived for the rest of his life with a thin white scar that ran from his hip to his shoulder.

Ryluk had four years of peace until Lymie's father died of a rare, untreatable heart disease. The two of them mourned her father's loss, Ryluk just as much as Lymie, as Akak had been just as much a father to him as to her in the last four years. Akak left a sizable amount of credits to the pair, who had fallen madly in love in the four years they had been together. Ryluk, a tall and strong young man, decided to pursue a career in bounty hunting. He bought a wreck of an old Pursuer-class enforcement ship and fixed it up with Lymie, adding his own modifications as he did so. He christened the ship the Lymie, embarassing his lover. The credits they had not spent on Ryluk's ship and equipment Ryluk invested in the Corellian Stock Market. Even at the age of eighteen, Ryluk had a fair knowledge of the ups and downs of the economic world, and invested well, reaping the benefits quickly.

The bounty hunter
"You're impossible." "I pride myself on it."

- Lymie to Ryluk



Ryluk started off as a small-time bounty hunter, and would have found it hard to survive had it not been for his business investments. By the time he turned nineteen, he had already purchased a small, little-known arms company called Parable Weapons. This company, which he converted from a mass producer of low-quality weapons to a supplier of high quality military and luxury arms, became the cornerstone of his fortune.

As Ryluk grew older, he grew more experienced. Even by the age of nineteen he had aquired above-average skills in the arts of both hand-to-hand and ranged combat. At this point in his life he left Corellia to explore the galaxy around him. He wound up with a group of smugglers that were captured by a Chiss patrol in the Unknown Regions, and wound up serving on a Chiss Cruiser for nearly two years. During this time he learned the Outer Rim trade languages of Sy Bisti and Taarja, as well as the Chiss trade language Minnisiat and Cheunh. Ryluk received much of his formal combat training and the equivalent to a military college education while he was with the Chiss.

His Chiss-trained mind and reflexes earned him a title as the one of most notorious bounty hunters in the galaxy at twenty-one, according to a HoloNet article written by Jos Syr'nath. Later that year he was also featured in an economics article on HoloNet, which glorified his decisions in the stock market and compared the profits of Parable Weapons from before and after Ryluk became the owner. Shortly after the release of the article, Ryluk purchased a small mining subsidary called Hybar Mining, which operated in the Corellian system, mining minerals in-system and turning a profit by selling them to out-of-system buyers. The Corellian Mining Corporation took note of this small company and very quickly bought it out, using all the threats available to the large corporation.

After the failed attempt at Hybar Mining, Ryluk bought a second mining company called Netronica Mining, which focused its operations on asteroid belts in the Outer Rim. Because asteroids are mainly rock, the mining company had been struggling to mine enough ore to be worthwhile. After Ryluk took over, Netronica expanded and began building mining facilities (backed by Ryluk's personal fortune) on several uninhabited planets.

Under his leadership, Netronica Mining became a lesser-known but still reliable mining company. To supplement this asset, Ryluk bought a refinery on Corellia, and sold Netronica's ore at a reduced price to the refinery, which in turn sold the refined minarals to Parable Weapons at cost, lowering the cost of Parable's weapons and allowing the company to sell more of them, raising overall profits.

At twenty-five, the bounty hunter bought a very expensive and nearly one-of-a-kind, custom made fireworm-scale armor suit, able to stop a direct shot from a heavy blaster bolt. An article was released named "The Invincible Man," speaking of Ryluk's prowess with a blaster and in the stock market.

Ryluk excelled at hand-to-hand and melee combat due to his extensive martial arts training given to him by masters of the arts. He was less proficient with the blaster pistols, but an expert marksman with his DXR-6 disruptor rifle. With his large arsenal of weapons and skills, backed up by his personal fortune, the hunter was named the most resourceful mercenary of his day by several journalists, which only added to his reputation.

During the early years of his career, Ryluk scored major bounties, solidifying his position at the top of the hunting field. His reputation preceeded him, and the hunter often used it to bluff his way out of situations or to get inside the heads of his targets.

With the Liberators
Ryluk first met the Liberators Pirate Organization in 36 BBY on Najiba while hunting Chin Chaldak, a wealthy Coruscanti Human for a Hutt named Delga. Ryluk later realized that he was duped and that Delga was secretly working for Chin, but it took the kidnapping of Lymie to bring him around. It was around that time that Tesh Vohore contacted the hunter and informed him of a plan to return Lymie to him. Ryluk agreed, but was later arrested by Chin and charged with treason, and sentenced to fight, weaponless, against a dozen armed Najib. He won the battle and the favor of the people and was allowed to move freely around the immigration compound before he was charged again.

The second execution was even less sporting than the first. Ryluk was weaponless against an Acklay. To top it off, Lymie was scheduled for execution in the same way at the same time, and was placed at the top of a large pole in the center of the arena. During the fight, Tesh put Ryluk's armor in a carriage pulled by a small beast of burden native to Najiba.

With the reinforcements of the fireworm-scale armor and eight-inch vibroblade tucked into it, Ryluk killed the Acklay and rescued Lymie from her captivity on the top of the pole. Ryluk swore to kill Chin for what he had done, as he had sworn to kill any who had attempted to kidnap or murder his fiancée. He renounced his claim on Chin's blood after Tesh lied that the real mastermind behind the plot was a Republic fleet admiral.

After the liberation of Najiba, Ryluk and Lymie were married in a double wedding with a Twi'lek couple by Tesh in a semi-legal ceremony. Ryluk appeared in full battle armor, having made the decision that one can never be too prepared long before. Shortly after the wedding, Lymie was kidnapped again, by the Republic admiral, who had by now earned a double death mark: Ryluk's and Tesh's.

The Liberators caught up to the Republic fleet above Druckenwell and Tesh organized a rescue party to penetrate the heart of the fleet, the modified Hammerhead-class capital ship, the Guidance. After landing in the hangar and fighting his way through the clones and closing blast doors, Ryluk managed to arrive just in time to see the admiral pull a blaster on his newly wed wife. Before the admiral could fire, Tesh shot him in the back from the other side of the bridge, earning Ryluk's eternal gratitude.

Ryluk's next mission with the Liberators was to track down and retrieve a Korun mercenary named Ethe Ertes. Ryluk found him on Clantaano III and brought him back to Kinyen, where Tesh was waiting. After retrieving Ethe, Ryluk was temporarily placed in charge of the Liberators as Tesh traveled back to Coruscant. Ryluk later journeyed with the pirate to Hjim, where he helped Tesh free his wife. Ryluk continued fighting alongside Tesh until shortly after the second Xian Uprising. After that Ryluk left with Lymie to return to Corellia.

Eventually, after -Chin turned on Tesh again, Ryluk was hired to kill him, spurred on by Tesh's admittance that the kidnapping of Lymie had been Chin's idea in the first place. Chin died at the end of Ryluk's blaster.

Notable bounties
Ryluk collected several notable bounties over the course of his career. The first was Lythe Kre'fey, a rogue Bothan who had used his contacts in the Bothan Spy Network for his own personal gain. Using his extensive network of contacts, Ryluk discovered that the Bothan had fled to J't'p'tan, his birthworld. Once he knew the planet, it was only a matter of finding the building the Bothan had occupied. Using armor-piercing charges and thermal detonators, Ryluk broke into the armored bunker in the middle of the capital city and extracted the Bothan from his location within the garrison.

He was interrupted from his mission when his wife, Lymie, was threatened by a ghost from his past, the Trandoshan mercenary that had left him for dead when he was fourteen. Lymie alerted Ryluk through the radio, who immediately responded, stunning his bounty before exiting the building to save his wife. He succeeded, leaving the Trandoshan for dead, claiming that he had repaid the debt owed.

While leaving J't'p'tan, after collecting Lythe, Ryluk destroyed the Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser the Chancellor's Will, which was attempting to intercept the bounty hunter so that the captain of the ship could collect the reward on the large bounty offered for the Bothan. Ryluk used his holoflage generator and sensor-stealth mode to confuse the Dreadnaught, and fired a missile on a line-of-sight track at the cruiser. The missile struck its target directly above one of the fuel lines, and since the Dreadnaught did not have its shields raised, the explosion ignited the fuel and blew the engines apart. The fuel in the lines caused a chain reaction that resulted in the destruction of the power cells and the ultimate destruction of the entire capital ship. Ryluk used the ensuing chaos to quickly escaped to hyperspace.

When he reached the capital to collect his bounty, landing coordinators instructed Ryluk to the wrong landing platform, and in an effort to save time, Ryluk hacked into the Senate building to collect his bounty. Security didn’t recognize the infraction at first, but the bounty hunter had to stun several security force officers on his way out in order to escape detention.

As a direct result of these two crimes, Ryluk was blackmailed into his next bounty: the assassination of Gibranna the Hutt, a notorious crime lord whose base of operation was the Hutt homeworld of Nal Hutta. Ryluk reluctantly accepted the mission and landed on the planet; his cover was to turn in a bounty the Hutt had asked for. Gibranna was suspicious of Ryluk’s actions, as the bounty was not, in the Hutt's eyes, worth enough for the fame of the hunter to pursue, and kidnapped Lymie as assurance that Ryluk would not attempt anything against him. However, the effect was the complete opposite: Ryluk was angered by this overt action against his wife and overcame all qualms about the job that he had previously held.

Gibranna was assassinated later that day, and five prisoners were liberated from the cells of the Hutt crimelord: Hojs Ceray, a wealthy Aar'aa and the bounty Ryluk had collected on, his wife, Lymie Chamna, and the three other prisoners in her cell: two Twi'lek dancers, Astan'alkar and Kyl'ta and a Selonian dancer, Karsimis.



Lymie had several more attempts on her life, assassination plots planned by the many enemies the bounty hunter had made in his career. One attempt on Lymie's life was foiled by Ryluk's personal Tac-Spec FIII Footman droid Erudite. The droid was able to kill the invaders before their mission could be completed, thus saving Lymie's life and foiling the plan of the Cathar Honor Guard of the late Gibranna the Hutt. This earned the droid the respect of Vakanem, a Wookiee who had declared a life debt to Ryluk, and solidified the droid's importance in the household. Despite the quick work on the part of Erudite, however, Lymie was shot in the back and in critical condition for nearly a week. After her recovery, Ryluk made a point of hunting down the Cathar Honor Guard and exterminating them permanently.

Hiding hunter
Ryluk was forced to give up large-scale bounty hunting during the Clone Wars when he took a job for the Confederacy of Independant Systems to sabotage the clone production facilities in 22.8 BBY. He succeeded in planting the detonators, but he enjoyed the freedom given to him by the Republic, so he removed the detonator pins from the bombs and returned to the CIS headquarters to collect his bounty. The CIS gladly paid him, as their sources in Tipoca City had told them that Ryluk had successfully contacted him and Ryluk left. The CIS found only after he had left that the detonators would not work, during the First Battle of Kamino. The CIS source was killed during this battle.

As for Ryluk, he escaped unharmed except for the massive bounty put on his head by the Separatists. When he returned to Corellia, he immediately sold his house to Lord Fenron, the alternate identity that Ryluk had created in case he ever had to hide out. The Lymie went into storage in a secret vault beneath the mansion and the Pilot's Delight, Ryluk's second ship, took its place on the landing pad.

Ryluk arranged for his disappearance to the Outer Rim regions of the galaxy, constructing an intricate wall of lies and deceptions cleverly mixed with truth and rumor, creating the impression that he was hiding from the Confederacy in the Rim, dodging from planet to planet. The locals unwittingly helped him; after hearing the reports of his disappearance, many sightings of the bounty hunter were reported to CIS sources, which invariably led to an investigation down the complete wrong trail. During the height of the war, the CIS eventually gave up their search for the hunter, preoccupied with internal matters and the complications of war. By this time, however, Ryluk was operating with the Mukhabarat.

During that time, Ryluk, Lymie, Vakanem, and several specialized droids dug a tunnel out of the Shouja Mansion to a small warehouse just outside the grounds of the mansion. The storehouse belonged to the company Parable Weapons, which was, of course, owned by Ryluk. If the bounty hunter needed to come and go, that was generally the path he chose, unless he was leaving as Fenron, which was an extremely rare occurence. The lord only left the mansion if he was going to his ship, or on a very rare occasion going into Coronet for various business meetings. His droids built a series of tunnels to various hangars and warehouses while Fenron ruled the Shouja Mansion, which allowed Ryluk to come and go as he pleased.

The Lord Fenron lived as a notorious hermit, and officially, it was only his droids and him that lived in the Mansion, which remained called the Shouja Mansion long after Ryluk "left." The lord remained indoors most of the time; when the hunter needed to come and go, he used secret passages under the mansion that led either to hangars unconnected with the mansion or to a Parable Weapons storehouse located outside the premesis of the mansion.



Being as rich and reclusive as he was, Fenron was the subject of much attention from news reporters. However, the best HoloNet News shot ever taken of the lord was a shot of his hooded figure entering a private covered speeder from behind, taken from nearly three kilometers away and digitally enhanced. Fenron became quite popular, and his entire life was speculated on and a book was even written about him. Ryluk bought the book just to see what his fictitious lord had done during his lifetime.

Under the guise of Lord Fenron, Ryluk was no less of a business operator. He managed his portfolio and communicated with the managers of his companies from his home, which had an untraceable transceiver. Parable Weapons continued functioning as normal, although several officers were questioned by the Confederacy of Independant Systems as to the whereabouts of the owner of the company. Netronica Mining, however, went public shortly after the hunter disappeared, a decision made by the board of directors.

The Mukhabarat
The Mukhabarat was a little-known but exceptionally efficient Assassin's Guild that operated out of the Happy Skies Casino and Yuhanna Arms, both owned by the leader of the guild, Justin Rettik. In 22.7 BBY, Ryluk tracked them down under the guise of Lord Fenron and asked if he could join. After the recruiter denied knowing anything about the guild, Ryluk knocked the assassin over and threatened him with his own vibroblade. The recruiter took him to Rettik, fearing more for his life at the hands of the skilled lord than the penalty for revealing the guild leader. Rettik immediately recognized the bounty hunter for who he really was and accepted his entrance to the guild.

The bounty hunter was quickly promoted to Captain due to his exceptional reputation that Rettik decided was too good to waste as a mere foot soldier, and he became the Chief of Security of both Yuhanna Arms and the Happy Skies Casino, which put him in a very powerful position in the organization. His official position named him Conrad Ineyra, a Human who had arrived onworld no more than two weeks previously. The real Ineyra was assassinated and the body dealt with by three Mukhabarat assassins when Ryluk assumed the name.

Despite the influence he had over the other six Captains, Ryluk refrained from abusing his power, securing his position in the guild by making decisions that earned him the respect of his peers. His official duties in Yuhanna and Happy Skies required his supervision of security procedures and approval of removal of security threats; his unofficial duties required his overseeing of the Honor Guard, an elite division of the Mukhabarat that handled many of the guild's dealings as well as provided protection for the Captains, Lieutenants, and of course Rettik himself. The Honor Guard was composed entirely of elite Corellian Humans, extensively trained to be the best of the best. Ryluk issued orders to the leaders of the guard direct from Rettik himself, whether they were assassination orders, security orders, or mere courier missions.

Assassinations
"Shouja reporting in. Clean kill."

- Ryluk Shouja

Aside from his paper-pushing job, Ryluk took on several assassination missions, although he restricted himself to only the ones he deemed justified. Each assassination Ryluk carried out had a well-researched reason behind it, and the assassinations generally followed the wishes (unofficial, of course), of the Republic and the justice that it stood for.

Each assassination was required to be carried out in a perfect fashion, with no evidence of the assassination left at the site except the body. Even though the bounty hunter turned assassin sometimes used his disruptor, officials investigating the crime scene chose to "overlook" the minor details, such as evidence pointing to a certain individual. No official notice of Ryluk's possible involvement was ever issued. The fact that Ryluk was supposedly somewhere in the Outer Rim reinforced their decision to take no notice.

Ryluk’s first mission was to assassinate a male Twi’lek who had been an instigator of violent riots on the core planet of Coruscant. The riots were generally limited to the non-Human dominated sectors, but affected several large factories on the planet, generally destructively, so a very informed (and wealthy) company executive ordered the assassination of this Twi’lek from the Mukhabarat. The Mukhabarat, knowing of Ryluk’s skill but wishing to see it proven through an assassination on the busiest planet in the galaxy, ordered the bounty hunter on the job.

Ryluk passed his test with flying colors, selecting a Verpine shatter gun from the arsenals of the Mukhabarat to do the job. He pulled the job from a roof two kilometers away, shooting the target while he was turning to face the crowd. The Twi’lek’s own momentum carried him in the opposite direction of the momentum provided by the shot, throwing all pursuers completely off the scent while Ryluk made his escape to report back to Corellia. Justin Rettik was so pleased that he immediately promoted Ryluk to Captain and gave him the position of Chief of Security over both Happy Skies Casino and Yuhanna Arms.

His second assassination was an easier assignment. A Republic governor had received a death threat, and an interested third party decided that the current governor was more profitable for him than the one that would be elected in his place, so he hired the Mukhabarat to eliminate the offender. However, the name was not supplied, nor was the general location, so the job fell to the token bounty hunter of the guild, who would find the job the closest to his previous line of work.

Ryluk backtracked the threat over the HoloNet network, using much of his extensive slicing knowledge to do so, and after much time and effort was able to extract the name of the offender. After consultation with his information sources and a bit of guesswork, Ryluk located the planet of origin of the threat. Because he had not expected to be traced as quickly as it had been, the target was still in-system when Ryluk arrived. Ryluk pulled the assassination off with a well-thrown unpowered blade and escaped the planet before the authorities could discover the deed.



The mission that most impressed Justin Rettik was Ryluk's third-to-last mission. The target, a former mercenary commando who had fallen into the wrong line of work had retreated to a literal fortress on a backwater planet with a small group of hired mercenaries. Ryluk was unable to approach by air, the land around the area was riddled with minefields, and his jetpack would be detected as he approached.

After two weeks of careful observing with powerful electrobinoculars, Ryluk formulated a plan. He approached as close as he could without running the risk of setting off a mine and alerting the fortress to his presence and began a systematic sensor sweep of the area. After locating all of the mines in the immediate area, Ryluk approached farther. His cover ran out three hundred meters from the fortress, so Ryluk waited for cover of night.

Night fell and Ryluk moved quickly to the wall of the fortress and cut two centimeters of duracrete from a small section of wall. After placing an EMP grenade in the hole to knock out any electronic sensors, he cut the rest of the way through. From there it was a quick locate-and-annihlate mission, resulting in the messy death of the target at the barrel of Ryluk's disruptor.

End of the assassin
In early 15 BBY, after a line of many successful assassinations, Ryluk decided to take some well-earned time off in the Happy Skies Casino. Rettik happily obliged and provided Ryluk with a room in the high-security area of the casino, which was restricted to high-ranking Mukhabarat personnel. However, it was not the luxurious night of rest and relaxation that the bounty hunter expected; instead, in the middle of the night, Ryluk was woken by an attempt on his life.

Somewhere in the line of assassinations carried out by Ryluk, a bounty hunter had caught on to who he was and tracked him back to Corellia, hoping to pull off the kill and collect the massive bounty put up by the Trade Federation. The bounty hunter entered Ryluk's room with a drawn slugthrower that was silenced and flash-dampened so his attack would be undetectable until the next morning when the body was found.

Things did not go to the hunter's plan, however, as Ryluk had jury-rigged the normal security system of the room so it was hooked up to a backup power supply that kept the security system activated even after the local blackout in that section of the casino. The security system silently alerted Ryluk using a vibrator sewn into the lining of his pillow, and a vibroblade was raised from a compartment on the far side of the bed. As Ryluk gripped the handle of the weapon, the bounty hunter stepped closer, so as to get a perfect shot at Ryluk.

After losing his left hand to Ryluk's vibroblade, the would-be assassin was chased down through the halls of the Happy Skies Casino and finally killed just inside of the doors leading out into the main casino floor, where he would have been home free from vibroblade attack. Ryluk, who had been unable to catch up to the fast mercenary stopped and threw his vibroblade at the bounty hunter, striking the Human square between the shoulder blades, severing his spinal cord and killing him instantly, painlessly.

Once Rettik found out about the attack, he apologized several times over and promised to step up security in the casino. However, Ryluk politely refused the offer of staying the rest of the night, insisting that he preferred the security systems of his own mansion over the openness of the casino rooms, even though they were restricted to Mukhabarat personnel only. Rettik conceded the point, not wishing to anger the Corellian he had come to know as his friend, and Ryluk returned home.

The next day, Ryluk returned to announce his intention to leave the Mukhabarat, and to disappear into the Outer Rim with his wife and young child. Rettik let him go after making the bounty hunter promise to notify him if he ever needed help with intelligence or a job, or needed anyone to conveniently dissapear from the face of the galaxy. Ryluk left with a smile, adding Rettik and the Mukhabarat to his mental list of emergency contacts.

The end of the lordship
After leaving the Mukhabarat, the hunter sold the Shouja Mansion to the Corellian local government as a museum and arranged for the disappearance of his alias, Lord Fenron, to an obscure system in the Unknown Regions. This planet was deduced by the media to be the lord's homeworld, where he had made most of his impressive fortune though less than legitimate dealings with traders and smugglers. This assumption was backed with the confirmation of trusted sources, most of whom had been paid by Ryluk to inform their customers.

The lord left as quickly has he had come, with almost no warning at all. However, he did not reach his destination, much to the chagrin of the news networks waiting for the lord to finally show his face. Along the way, the lord had an "accident" in a meteor shower, which destroyed the entire ship and all evidence that the lord never really existed. An asteroid was reported to have hit the engines of the drone ship that Ryluk had tasked with the job in exactly the right place to cause a chain explosion that transformed the ship and its contents into shards of metal, rock, and just enough biological matter to affirm the presence of an organic on the ship. The fake Fenron had supposedly brought his entire fortune with him on the ship, and details of a will were never needed to be figured out, as there was nothing left to give. The fact that no one knew if the lord even had a will or not contributed to that conclusion.

The preparations made, Ryluk simply left with his wife and child, disappearing into the Outer Rim.



Death of the hunter
After returning from the Unknown Regions in 94 ABY and purchasing a home on Coruscant, Ryluk became extremely involved in youth events, hosting them, organizing them, and basically becoming extremely involved in all of the grand plans and sly schemes of the youth in that area of Coruscant. This provided him the perfect cover to interact with his son and his son's friends; and besides, he loved hanging out with teenagers. Upon being questioned by his wife, Ryluk admitted that hanging out with teenagers made him feel younger, and since his reputation was what it was, they thought it was pretty cool to hang out with him, so he was fine with it. Despite being well over one hundred years of age by this time, Ryluk kept up well with the times, and was in amazing physical condition, contributing to his ability to hang out with the youth without their finding him embarrassing. His impressive reputation helped with that as well.

He thoroughly enjoyed life until 99 ABY, when Lymie died of old age. The loss of his loved one hit him hard, and he mourned that loss for two years. At the end of the second year, his son visited him and helped him realize that wasting the short time he had left mourning for someone that was not coming back was not the wisest choice he had made. After a long discussion with his son, remembering kind memories of Lymie and sharing stories about her, Ryluk felt much better about his life. As a result of his son's kind words, Ryluk became involved with the youth again, as much as, if not more than, he had in the past.

Ryluk finally died in 102 ABY at the age of 149, living nearly a normal lifespan and a half of the average Human. He secretly left his will in the care of a trusted priest, who saw that Akak was silently given the large inheritance left to him by his parents, including their fortune, vehicles, Ryluk's stocks, and the companies Ryluk managed. With the will, Ryluk attached a letter to his son, explaining the Shouja legacy and telling both his and Lymie's life stories, so that Akak could finally know the entire truth about his parents.

Ryluk's amazingly long life was attributed to a low-level Force-sensitivity, which also explained his success as a bounty hunter and assassin. His intelligence was amazingly high for a Human, especially one raised on a backwater planet as Ryluk was, which led some to believe that the hunter had biological implants that increased his intelligence capacity, storing knowledge about different aspects of the galaxy. The truth of this statement was never completely confirmed, but the fact that Ryluk had used implants never ruled out the possibility.

Postmortem
Ryluk was buried outside the Shouja Mansion on Corellia, next to his wife. His will was read by a trusted priest, and the possessions were divided among those mentioned in the will. Most of Ryluk's wealth went to his son, Akak, although some items were distributed amongst close friends. Ryluk's weapons and armor all went to his son, however.

Aside from Akak, the only family that was alive to grieve the hunter's death was a cousin of Lymie's, named Alema Chamna. The young woman was the daughter of Akak's brother, and had a close relationship with the Shoujas. She and Akak attended the funeral, although only Akak spoke. After their death she paid one last visit to the mansion and returned to her home on Coruscant. A small part of Ryluk's fortune was left to her.

A large ceremony was held, courtesy of the Corellian Historical Society, which owned the mansion and grounds after Ryluk's sale to them. It was a mostly formal funeral and very politically correct, but several of Ryluk's contacts in CorSec and various mercenary/smuggler groups attended, along with many of the youth Ryluk had befriended on Coruscant. Akak paid for these youth to attend the funeral, as he had inherited his father's wealth and had plenty to spare.

The stock Ryluk still owned was given to his son with the rest of the wealth of the Shouja name. Akak, who was not much of a businessman, sold the shares for a massive profit and used the money to pull the scattered pieces of Parable Weapons back together, consolidating all the stock of the company under the Shouja name in memory of his father.

After receiving permission to do so from the Historical Society, Akak had a monument built over the graves of his parents as a reminder that there was such a thing as an honorable mercenary in the galaxy. The reminder of the monument was amplified when the Corellian Historical Society set up an exhibit in the Shouja Mansion, which had been converted into a museum, in tribute to Ryluk because of the generosity of his price when selling the mansion and its elaborate security system.

Legacy
Ryluk remained held in memory as one of the last of a noble line of honorable mercenaries. His life served as an aspiration for many who had learned his name in classes and over HoloNet, and to the children of those, who had told stories about the great hunter. It was even thought that the famed bounty hunter Boba Fett studied Ryluk's tactics and learned from the great hunter.

After consolidating the shares of Parable and becoming the official owner of the company again, Akak set up a competent manager to keep the company afloat as he was not able to manage it around his mercenary schedule. After Akak's abbreviated life, ownership of the company was passed to Akak's closest living relative, Alema Chamna, his mother's cousin. Parable stayed in the Chamna family for the rest of its years.

Akak Shouja went on to become a successful mercenary, although he made his own name and did not trade off his father's. Most of his combat training came from Ryluk, however, and he learned it well, although he favored the use of rifles and carbines over pistols as his father had, and preferred a one-blade fighting style over Ryluk's two-blade fighting style. The FIII Footman droid Erudite that had served Ryluk so well for many years also served Akak, who did not know of his function until a foiled assassination attempt made by the Genoharadan. Erudite served Akak until the mercenary's death, when he fell back into the hands of the bounty hunters' guild.

The Corellian Historical Society benefitted greatly from Ryluk's generous sale price of the Shouja Mansion and the compilation of an instruction manual on the elaborate security system. The mansion was a veritable fortress, which itself was extremely difficult to break into. The 24-hour surveilance in nearly every room and anti-intruder defenses integrated into the building's structure ensured that nothing was ever stolen from the museum.

Personality and traits
Ryluk was a personable Human, for the most part. He made friends where he could, and generally stayed away from those who would turn into enemies. His philosophy was that if they were nice to him, he would be nice to them. If he had no quarrel with a sentient, he would have no reason to hurt them, unless, of course, they had a bounty on their heads.

Despite his generally agreeable personality, Ryluk could be deadly when the need called for it. Need only called for it a few times during his life, which was fortunate for the others around him. The lethal personality of the bounty hunter was kicked in most often when a sentient threatened his fiancée, Lymie, which happened several times over the span of his career. None of the offenders survived the encounter, and most of them were killed within the day.

Through the years he actively hunted, Ryluk became accustomed to having things his own way. He became quite adept at bargaining and was very stubborn when discussing his decisions, traits that many found annoying but few pointed out for fear of angering the hunter. He remained solid in his decisions, whether they were the easiest way to complete his objective or not, only changing his mind when he was proven wrong. This often got him into more trouble than the situation warranted, but he always managed to find a way out.

Ryluk worked hard to earn his reputation as the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy. Those who really knew him knew that he was kind and caring, but to the galaxy at large he was a solid rock, with no exploitable weaknesses and no patience for those who would try to cross him. Certain actions on his part solidified his reputation, killing certain sentients that purposely defied him, often messily and cruely. However, he kept his cold, hard demeanor to the workplace, and when he was at home or with his friends, he became a different person; many of his close friends described him as a normal person.

After becoming the reclusive Lord Fenron, Ryluk adopted many habits of the fictitious lord. He became somewhat of a hermit in his private life, reflecting the hermit's personality. No one ever saw him, at least as the lord, coming or leaving. Even after he dropped the alias and returned as himself, he shied away from the public eye and faded slowly into the background until his second disappearance into the Outer Rim.

Talents
Ryluk was a man of many talents. He was adept at slicing computer systems, enough that he was able to slice his way into the Senate chambers of the Galactic Republic on Coruscant, which later got him into trouble. The hunter was able to slice many different systems, military, civilian, and alien alike. He possessed the unique skill of being able to hack into Chiss military files, which he picked up during his two years serving under the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet.

Ryluk was also proficient in the use of many types of weapons but specialized in melee combat and pistol combat. He had adequate control of all types of heavy weapons, a feat learned courtesy of his time with the Chiss, and could handle most types of exotic weapons with relative ease, or at least learn how to use them quickly. His personalized blaster pistols were by far his most practical weapon, as they had been fine-tuned to fit his needs perfectly, and with the added bonus of having a natural knack for pistol combat, Ryluk managed to get a long fine with those weapons.

As far as melee combat went, Ryluk was an expert. He could handle one or two vibroblades at a time, and was proficient in the use of double-bladed and two-handed weapons, although he by far preferred a two-weapon fighting style. He was a force to be reckoned with unarmed as well, having learned street fighting when he was young, then had his skills honed by Chiss military training and later other martial arts instructors.

Ryluk had an unusual talent for being perceptive of people's thoughts and motives, which was attributed to his low-level Force sensitivity. This allowed him an advantage when dealing with his clients and his targets both, giving him even more of an edge than he already had from his extensive training.

Equipment/Accommodation
"You're well enough equipped to take on a Republic battle army from the Great Sith War."

- Lymie Chamna

Ryluk's equipment was his pride and joy. His ship, the Lymie, named after his lovely fiancé was equipped with many upgrades not available on the open market, including prototype weapons stolen from design manufacturers. His armor was the best money could buy, and the weapons were top-notch and modified to be even better.

Armor
Ryluk has a custom-made suit of fireworm-scale armor. The fireworm scales were made of a silicon crystal, and while on the worm were strong enough to block most of the power of a lightsaber. Off the fireworm, the scales were never tested against a lightsaber, as there were only a limited amount found on the dead fireworm that were still intact enough to use for armor.

The scales fit together perfectly, creating a nearly impenetrable suit of armor, even stronger than the legendary armor of the Mandalorian warriors. His helmet was plated with the same scales, giving it a squarish look. His jetpack was the only part of his armor that was not plated with the scales, as when he had the armor made, having a jetpack had not occurred to him. The jetpack itself was made of a red durasteel with a compressed hydrogen-fuel chamber that occupied the entire rocket, giving the bounty hunter enough fuel to boost himself two hundred feet vertically or one kilometer horizontally at a maximum speed of 120 km/hr. There were small maneuvering jets on the sides of the jetpack, but the only way to slow down was for him to run into something or to turn away from the direction he was going and fire the jets until he slowed.

Ryluk also had an alternate set of black battle armor that he used when performing incognito.



Weapons
Ryluk had a large selection of weapons, both ranged and melee.

Blaster weapons
Ryluk's main weapon of choice was his DXR-6 disruptor rifle, which was illegal on most worlds and got Ryluk into trouble more than once. It did, however, get him out of trouble more than it got him in trouble, so he kept it. He customized the disruptor to have a single-second recharge period instead of the average ten-second period, and was able to increase the power efficiency to get fifteen shots out of a clip instead of the normal ten.

His pistols were customized BlasTech Industries DP-12 heavy blaster pistols. The pistols had 100 shots per clip by modification and were capable of penetrating durasteel armor plating at high power. The recharge rate between shots was cut down to half of a second by major modifications by Ryluk, making them effective semi-automatic weapons, even if they cost 15,000 credits a piece, plus modification costs.

As a backup, Ryluk generally carried two 22T4 holdout blasters tucked away in his armor, in case his weapons were ever confiscated or if he was ever away from his weapons and needed a blaster. When in his alternate armor, Ryluk carried a Model Q4 holdout pistol.

Vibroweapons
Ryluk owned several vibroweapons of various sizes and functions. His main vibroblade that was almost always with him was an eight-inch vibroblade made by Ryluk himself while he was a boy growing up on J't'p'tan. Ryluk later modified it and made it much more efficient and powerful.

Ryluk also often used his wrist vibroblade, which was permanently attached to his armor. The blade was a mere three inches long, but it came in handy when Ryluk was unable to reach his other weapons in hand-to hand combat. The weapon extended when Ryluk closed his fist and sensors on his glove touched sensors on his hand. The blade retracted when the fist opened and the sensors lost contact.

One of Ryluk's more subtle vibroweapons was his three-inch vibrostiletto. When retracted, it was little more than a small handle tucked into a belt pocket in Ryluk's armor, worth little or no investigation. However, when activated, the blade would shoot out quickly, becoming a short but lethal weapon. The vibrostiletto was a perfectly-balanced throwing weapon, if Ryluk had misplaced or was unable to reach his blasters.

The last two vibroweapons Ryluk used regularly were gifts given to him by Hojs Ceray after Ryluk saved his life. The weapons were Krayt dragon pearlhandled and studded with Durindfire gems. Each blade was ten inches long, and the pair worked well together when used one in each hand.

A special modification to his armor was added in 24 BBY; a pair of vibroclaws that could be activated and used as extremely lethal close-combat weapons or deactivated and used as climbing aids. Ryluk saw little use out of these weapons, but their function made several contracts much easier to complete.

Explosives
The bounty hunter also carried either twelve custom-made A-grade thermal detonators or 6 custom-made A-grade thermal detonators, 3 EMP grenades, and 3 EC detonators. Ryluk was also equipped with 3 Baktoid AA-33Q armor-piercing charges.

The Shouja Mansion
Ryluk's property, the Shouja Mansion, as it was unofficially named on Corellia was an ancient house built in ages past. The architecture was so archaic that the manual doors had to be modified to allow for electronic entry and passcode confirmation locks.

The house itself was three stories high and filled with works of art, a testament to Ryluk's success as a businessman. The house had an extensive kitchen/cellar area as well as over a hundred bedrooms. There was a full droid staff, but only Ryluk, Lymie, and Vakanem lived there.

The house had a security system with cameras in nearly every room, all wireless. The system had a HoloNet transmitter that Ryluk could access from anywhere in the galaxy, and it also had a radionics transmitter that sent the information to a system in the house. Because radionics could not have a limited broadcast, like the HoloNet, the outside walls of the mansion had a lead core to prevent the transmissions from escaping.

Behind the Scenes

 * "Ryluk Shouja" is an anagram of "Kurly Joshua", Ryluk Shouja's nickname, followed by his given name.
 * Ryluk Shouja is the main character in the book series A Hunter's Tale, which is currently being written by the author of this article.
 * Ryluk expresses the author's interest in having a neutral/slightly bad (in some eyes) character as the main character, instead of having the main characters only good/bad guys.
 * Ryluk had two cameo appearances in Season 1 of The Fanon Menace and one in Season 2.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: A Hunter's Tale: The Legend
 * Star Wars: A Hunter's Tale: Only Man Standing
 * Star Wars: A Hunter's Tale: Clone Bounty
 * Star Wars: A Hunter's Tale: Assassins
 * Star Wars: Key of Deceptions
 * Star Wars: Liberations
 * Star Wars: Newfound Heir
 * The Fanon Menace Season 1: Part II - Attack of the Franks (Non-fanonical appearance)
 * The Fanon Menace Season 1: Part III - Revenge of the Bith (Non-fanonical appearance)