Malinaya Tarven

Name: Malinaya “Mal” Tarven
Faction: The Jedi Order
Rank: Jedi Master, leader of the Jedi Sunriders
Species: Mirialan
Gender: Female
Birth Year: 163 ABY

Appearance: Now into her late thirties, Mal could pass for a much younger woman. Lithe and toned, she moves with an easy grace. In combat she flows like water, evading and outmaneuvering rather than overpowering; her assets are patience and flexibility, not brute strength. In daily life and tense moments alike, Mal is calm and serene, but not in an arrogant way; her messy hair and easy smile put people at ease, the traditional Mirialan achievement marks on her face crinkling slightly when she grins. Trilingual and adept at disarming situations across language barriers, she remains cool under pressure, and her tranquility is infectious. The Force surrounds her in a halo, but focused outward, bringing a sense of peace to those she walks among.

Personality: Having grown up during the time of the Galactic Inquisition, when she and people like her were hunted down for extermination, one might expect Mal to be bitter and suspicious. The experience did make her a self-sufficient survivor, but it also encouraged her to practice kindness and to seek first to understand. An avid student of galactic history and Jedi lore, Mal has strong opinions on the role of the order; she believes Jedi should be scholars, healers, and peacekeepers, never soldiers for any political cause. She is not afraid of combat, having seen plenty of it, but views taking a life as a very last resort. She does, however, push traditional Jedi boundaries when exploring the Force, delving into knowledge some see as dangerous.

Ship: Mal isn't much of a pilot and doesn't have a personal starship, relying on others for transportation.

Equipment: Mal dresses in simple, unassuming garb that allows her full range of movement. She carries a few standard items with her at all times: comlink, datapad, grappling hook, glow rod, rebreather, medpack. Beyond these, she brings whatever specific supplies a given mission calls for. Her most important possession, and yet the one she strives to use the least, is her lightsaber. She built its simple hilt out of the wreckage of her master's lightsaber, sheathed in wood from the sturdy swamp trees of Ord Janon and wrapped in synthetic leatheris. The crystal, an irradiated ingot of Barab ore, produces a brilliant orange blade that burns particularly hot and bright. Mal uses these properties of the blade to defrost, boil, and cauterize rather than kill.

Biography: Malinaya Tarven was born to a pair of doctors on the Outer Rim world of Feriae Junction, a major trading world along the Hydian Way. Although growing up far beyond the relative safety of Galactic Triumvirate territory, Mal had a good childhood, excelling in school and generally being a happy kid. At around the age of ten, however, her connection to the Force began to manifest. Unable to understand or control her sensitive abilities, Mal was plagued by visions and the thoughts and emotions of the people around her. She couldn't sleep, couldn't go to school, couldn't function. Her parents were gifted medical professionals, but nothing they tried seemed to help. Eventually they contacted the Jedi Order, who sent a representative to help.

That representative was Jedi Master Orysion Valari, who confirmed Mal's Force-sensitivity and took her under his wing. Although devastated to be leaving her parents, the young girl was in no condition to turn down any kind of help. Master Valari gradually taught her to center herself and shut out the noise of the galaxy, and they traveled together for the next two years as she began to learn the ways of the Jedi. Unfortunately, fate was not kind to the pair. When the Sith Legion invaded the Outer Rim, Master Valari stood with the Triumvirate to oppose the attack. He was killed at the Third Battle of Bakura, along with many other gifted Jedi, and twelve-year old Mal was one of the survivors left behind to pick up the pieces. But the mood of the galaxy was darkening.

Two years later, as the surviving Jedi struggled to train their remaining students and political order shattered, the Galactic Inquisition began. Trillions across known space blamed the deaths of their loved ones, over and over, on the struggles of the Jedi and Sith, and sought to wipe out these orders along with any others like them. Dozens of the few remaining Jedi died in the first attacks, and the survivors went to ground, severing all contact with one another as they sought to hide. Mal, at only fourteen, found herself alone and hunted. Concealing her Force-sensitivity, she drifted across the galaxy, earning her keep on freighters by serving as a laborer, a mechanic, a medic, or any of a dozen other odd jobs to keep her moving and difficult to pin down.

All the while, she maintained her connection to the Force in secret, studying Jedi texts she had smuggled along with her. For two decades she quietly grew in knowledge and skills, helping other Force-sensitives escaping the purge whenever she could. She learned about the Force, but she also learned about the common people of the galaxy, working alongside them on a hundred different worlds and all the space in between. As the fires of the Inquisition faded and war broke out between the Galactic Alliance and New Empire, Mal traveled to Bakura, seeking to understand what to do as violence again consumed the lives of all those decent people she had known. The Force guided her to where her old teacher had fallen, and she took up his ruined lightsaber.

Mal believed the Force was telling her to pass on her knowledge just as her former master had. She began to take students, guiding them to develop their Force abilities in order to safely serve and protect their communities. A year later, however, she had another vision: on a distant world, the Jedi Order was rising again. Guided by this vision, she discovered Zian and met Grandmaster Isolder and his fledgling Jedi. She pledged to help him train a new generation of peacekeepers and healers to protect the galaxy, and formed the Jedi Sunriders in order to guide her students along the path of knowledge and nonviolence. With the War of Ascension sweeping across known space and countless innocents caught in the crossfire, Mal was determined to help.

Roleplays:

• TBD