Taras Crozo

[Taras Crozo]

NAME: Taras Crozo
FACTION:
RANK:
SPECIES: Human
AGE: 22
SEX: Male
HEIGHT: 5’11
WEIGHT: 145
EYES: Green
HAIR: Dark Brown
SKIN: White
FORCE SENSITIVE: No

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TOOLS:
A single trusty blaster

STRENGTHS:
- Cold Hearted:
Taras finds it hard to become attached to people or things. Occasionally, someone will come into his life who Taras warms up to, but he can count the times this has happened on one hand. Some may call this a weakness, but for Taras, its a strength.

- Smooth Talker:
Taras' biggest strength is his silver tongue. Able to make the worst trade seem like a fair deal, Taras has excelled at manipulating clients, friends, and foes. He's a decent engineer, but the only way he's been able to make it this far is his ability to sell.

- Puppeteer:
Taras is more than willing to swallow his pride or do things that belittle him in order to get the upper hand in the future or to save his own skin. He cares little of personal honor and will degrade himself if it means a win in the future. He will befriend, execute, or plot against anyone in order to see himself at the top.

WEAKNESSES:
- Arrogant:
Taras thinks himself more intelligent than he really is. He thinks he's smarter, wittier, and better than anyone he meets. To him, the world is a game of chess, but he's too stubborn to realize that other's are playing against him.

- Weak:
With no formal combat training, Taras is a very weak opponent. He needs to resort to hiding and using others to fight his battles for him. While he carries a blaster, it wouldn't do him much good against a seasoned opponent.

BIOGRAPHY:

- Early Life:

• Taras' father was Singir Ralik, a human scrapper at an old Coruscant ship yard. His mother was Sindra Bralor. A Mandolorian engineer who left her home in search of adventure and found herself in the underbelly of Coruscant. His parents were never married. In fact they only saw each other a handful of times, but one of these encounters led to Taras.
• Born Taras Bralor to a single mother, he knew what it meant to be impoverished. Taras and his mother were often sick, causing the boy to grow up weak and frail, despite his Mandolorian ancestry.
• Taras had no formal schooling. He just learned his mother's trade. He was alright at putting things together to make useful items, but he lacked the creativity of an inventor. A skill one needed to make anything of themselves in that career path. Him and his mother ran a small shop that sold refurbished blasters, basic home appliances, and other common amenities, but they didn't make much. Only enough to keep food on the table and clothes on their back.
• Being frail and often sickly made Taras a common target of anyone looking to make a quick credit from a little kid's scrap. He was often the victim of violence. He quickly learned to give up his possessions without a fight after losing one too many and suffering the consequences.

- Teenage Years:

• As he began to age, Taras put it on himself to provide for his family. His mother was still young, but for some reason, she was losing her fine motor skills. At first she worked through it, working longer hours to fix things and put them together. Some days she wouldn't sleep so she could make things in time for clients, Taras helping as much he could, but eventually her fingers stiffened and she was simply unable to continue her work. At the mere age of 13, Taras became the sole provider for him and his mother.
• Taras was a worse mechanic than his mother by far. He was still young and was no prodigy. As the quality in products went down, so did the amount of credits the shop received. Soon they were making next to nothing, both of them starving.
• Stressed and with nowhere to run, Taras turned to petty crime. He would slip in, steal from someone, and turn around and sell the part to another. He became a haggler, selling parts for 3x their worth. Soon, they were able to live healthy lives again. By the time he turned 14, his mother was almost paralyzed, but he was willing to do anything to take care of her.
• It didn't take too long for his luck to run out. 8 months of stealing and selling, and Taras was caught. In the underbelly of Coruscant, most shops that could afford it paid for gang protection. He stole from one of those shops, and a group of gang members came to his tent. They beat him up, threw him in the gutter and let the authorities take him away. Taras was sentenced to 3 years in prison for his crimes. They connected him to some of his other thefts and to many more he had no part in.
• Taras' time in prison was a very formative time in his life. He felt helpless. He knew his mother stood no chance without him. She couldn't move to get her own water. It would be a very small amount of time before she passed.
• Taras joined a small gang inside the wall of the prison to increase his survivability. He thought the streets were rough, but at least they had some creature comforts. Here there were none. It was kill or be killed, and Taras was far from a killer as he could get. They were fed some days. Others, they were not. Food became a common commodity, and if you didn't join a gang to get some protection, every meal would be stripped from you. It was here that Taras learned the most important skill of all. How to manipulate others. He had no leverage in a survival of the fittest world, so he learned how to create some.
• Taras used his brain to control those around him until he was no longer at the bottom of the pack, but instead at the top. Eventually he was calling the shots and never had to raise a finger. They were his dogs, and he was the master.

- Adulthood:

• Taras left prison at the age of 17. He immediately returned to his home, only to find it taken over by a group of beggers. Nobody knew what happened to his mother. Nobody cared. It was obvious that she passed away, was eventually found dead, and they threw away her corpse and all of their stuff with it. There was nothing for Taras there anymore.
• Using his new skills, Taras convinced another mechanic named Farkas Greene to go into business with him. Farkas owned a fairly lucrative establishment in a fairly well developed section of the planet. Having taken out a small loan of credits, Taras convinced Farkas that he was a 24 year old merchant for another world looking to move to Coruscant. He had plenty of experience, but didn't have quite enough credits to open a shop of his own yet. Taras had observed that Farkas spent most nights in his shop, manning it, building new equipment, and selling it. Taras also noticed Farkas had a wife and kids. What a better deal for the both of them than to have Taras man the shop, sell the gear, and Farkas make it. Taras gave Farkas 250 credits from his small loan to buy a portion of his business and they were officially business partners.
• Taras worked the job for two years. Farkas was exceptional at crafting blasters, turrets, and defense droids. In his freetime, Taras tried to learn as much as he could. With Taras selling merchandise like crazy and Farkas' incredible craftmanship, the business had taken off. They were even being noticed by some small gangs looking to arm themselves with new, cheap weaponry. Farkas was completely against the idea of selling to them, however. He only wanted to sell to people looking to defend themselves, not harm others. Taras had other ideas.
• Taras began working with three different gangs. None of them knew that he was selling to others, and Farkas didn't know he was selling to any. He was getting suspicious by a severe influx in credits though. Taras lied, told him there was more travel through this part of the planet due to the new construction projects happening, and it seemed to get Farkas off his tail for a bit. Eventually though, the man caught Taras talking to one of the local gang leaders and exchanging currency. Once the deal was done, he confronted Taras. Farkas told him that he didn't want to work with him anymore and that he should leave. Taras did. He left enraged, and told all three gangs what happened. He told them where Farkas hid his cash, and he told them when would be the best time to hit the store and the man's house, but he told only one of them, the one with the most resources, that the other two gangs would be there as well, so they could ambush the others and win some turf. What resulted was a bloodbath. A massive shootout between the three gangs that would spark a gang war which spanned years. Taras simply looted the remains of the fight, accepted a generous amount of credits from the one gang for his help, and fled the planet, never to come back.

-Crozo Corps:

• Thinking it best to change his name and start again, Taras moved to a somewhat distant, bustling planet of Denon. He changed his last name from Bralor to Crozo, and developed the Crozo Corporation using the credits he saved, the credits he stole from Farkas and the credits given to him by his thug friends. He began to develop the same weapons and droids being made by Farkas, albeit not as good of quality, and sell them there.

SHIP:
None

KILLS:
None

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ROLE-PLAYS:
None