Ryluk Shouja

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

- Ryluk Shouja to his fiance, Lymie Chamna

Early life
Ryluk Shouja was born on J't'p'tan to Karla and Skylkan Shouja in 47 BBY. Both Karla and Skylkan were born Corellian, so it followed that Ryluk would become a Corellian citizen as well. It turned out that Skylkan was not the greatest father figure, being a smuggler and con artist and keeping his true occupation hidden behind the job of a trader, even to his family. He was killed 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.

Life on J't'p'tan was hard for the boy. His mother tried to teach him Corellian culture, all the way down to the Corellian Gambit version of Sabacc, which remained his preferred system of Sabacc throughout his life. He was harassed for being a human by his peers and the locals of J't'p'tan, and especially by a retired Trandoshan mercenary. The merc would beat Ryluk extensively whenever the boy was unfortunate enough to cross his path. When Ryluk was fourteen, the Trando merc 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. Ten minutes later, a visitor to the planet, Lymie Chamna, the daughter of the honest Coruscanti trader, Akak Chanma found the unfortunate boy and took him to her father. The kindly trader adopted Ryluk and took him offworld, where he healed his wounds. The only mark that remained on Ryluk was a thin, white scar 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 the exciting career of bounty hunting. He bought a wreck of an old Pursuer-class enforcement ship and fixed it up, adding his own modifications as he did so. He named the ship the Lymie. He also invested his remaining credits in the Corellian Stock Market, making shrewd investments and becoming a powerful force in the economic world.

He started off as a small-time bounty hunter, and would have found it hard to survive had it not been for his business investments. But as he grew older, he grew more experienced. By the age of nineteen, he was a major force to be reckoned with. His sharp mind and lightning-quick reflexes served him well, and by twenty-one he was the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy. He bought a very expensive one-of-a-kind, custom made fireworm-scale armor suit, able to stop a heavy blaster bolt. While still attached to the fireworm, the silicon armor plates were rumored to be able to stop a lightsaber. However, when the fireworm died, its scales lost some of their strength, so if Ryluk's armor could really stop a lightsaber was never proven.

The Bounty Hunter
As a bounty hunter, Ryluk did very well. He scored several major bounties throughout his career, earning himself a strong name in the Hunting field. Many bounties trembled at the thought that Ryluk might be coming after them.

Aside from Hunting bounties, Ryluk also had to hunt Lymie. Being the love of his life, she was constantly threatened with kidnapping by some evil or another, and several times was captured by crimelords or exceptionally resourceful criminals in an attempt to gain some leverage with Ryluk. All they gained was death.

Ryluk was forced to give up large-scale bounty hunting during the Clone Wars when he took a job for the CIS to sabotage the Clone production facilities. 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. The result of this act was the First Battle of Kamino, in which the CIS source was killed.

As for Ryluk, he got away scott free, 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 made 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.

Lord Fenron was a notorious hermit, and officially, it was only him and his droids that lived in the Mansion, which remained called the Shouja Mansion long after Ryluk "left."

The Businessman
As well as a bounty hunter, Ryluk Shouja was a major businessman. He originally invested in the Corellian Stock Market, and made his first million in his early years, shortly after Akak died. This offset the grief of the death somewhat, giving both Ryluk and Lymie something to celebrate after the tragedy of Akak's death.

Ryluk owned quite a bit of stock in the Corellian Engineering Corps and several other large Corellian companies. This he bought early in his life and kept until he needed money, then sold. This contributed to his record as a shrewd businessman to go along with his record as a bounty hunter.

Ryluk was also the owner of several corporations in his later life. The first company he purchased was the Parable Corporation, once a major shipbuilding corporation. Once it was purchased, the bounty hunter started a new line of high-quality blaster weapons, although he preferred the BlasTech DP-12 himself. He also owned several smaller mining corporations and food industries, which supplemented his income considerably.

Equipment
"You're well enough equipped to take on a Republic battle army from the Great Sith War" ―Lymie Chamna

His equipment was Ryluk's 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.

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 DP-12 heavy blaster pistols. The pistols had 100 shots per clip by default and were capable of penetrating durasteel armor plating. The recharge rate between shots was cut down to a third 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.

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.

As a Lord
When Ryluk became the reclusive Lord Fenron, he adopted many habits of the ficticious lord. He did become somewhat of a hermit, in his private life. No one ever saw him coming or leaving, and in fact he didn't come or leave for the first month of his life as a lord.

During that month, Ryluk, Lymie, Vakanem, and several specialized droids dug a tunnel out of the Shouja Mansion and to a small warehouse just outside the grounds of the mansion. The storehouse belonged to the company Parable, a small weapons manufacturer that Ryluk owned.

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. Ryluk tracked them down under the guise of Lord Fenron and asked if he could join. At first the recruiter scoffed at him, but Ryluk knocked him flat and had the recruiter's vibroblade out in an instant. "Just to prove my skills to the unbeliever," Ryluk said.

The recruiter took him to Rettik, who recognized the bounty hunter for who he really was. Ryluk's life stopped being boring shortly after that.

The bounty hunter was quickly promoted to Captain due to exceptional reputation that was too good to waste as a mere foot soldier, and he became the Chief of Secuity of both Yuhanna Arms and Happy Skies Casino, which put him in a very powerful position in the organization.

Despite the influence he had over the other six Captains, Ryluk refrained from abusing his power, securing his position in the guild by making wise decisions in his position. He also took on several assassination missions, but only the ones he deemed justified.

He left the Mukhabarat about one year later to join the Liberators Pirate Organization, although he would eventually come back to take over leadership of the guild.