- Joined
- Jun 20, 2013
- Messages
- 2,391
- Reaction score
- 838
[beebox3=100%]
Ben "Tusken" Melein
[/beebox3]
"The desert is a thief - it steals everything from you. Your water, your family, your happiness, and eventually - no matter what you do to prevent it - your life."
[beebox3=100%]Appearance[/beebox3]
| Species | Gender | Age | Height | Weight | Hair | Eyes | Skin | Force Sensitive |
| Human | Male | 20 years | 6'3.5'' | 143 pounds | Short, coppery brown/auburn. | Deep blue | Caucasian, Pale | No |
A young man from Tatooine, Ben Melein is relatively tall - taller than most people his age - and has a wiry sort of musculature, that is easily noticed when he's wearing anything other than the Sand People robes he has worn most of his life. Despite living on a world like Tatooine, his skin is very pale - in large part due to how he has kept it under wraps most of his life - and numerous scars can be seen across body from various fights, as well as one prominent scar on his upper right arm from an angry Hulak Wraid.
Despite all that, his face is relatively attractive, with a serious look to it. His eyes are a very deep blue colour, while the hair that frames his face and constitutes his close-cropped mustache and beard is a coppery brown colour, almost auburn. His face is also rather animated, despite how little he's ever showed it to anybody - or perhaps because of it - and he can often using nothing other than his expressions to communicate, if he wants.
[beebox3=100%]Attributes[/beebox3]
[beebox3=75%]
Physical
[/beebox3]Ben is wiry but strong, and can hold his own in a contest of pure strength alone, at least against most people who are about his size or some who are larger - he generally uses his strength for his defence. However, he can pack quite a punch if he wants to, as well. Look out if you're fighting him in melee combat. He is also slim, fast, and isn't clumsy at all - in fact, he is rather dextrous, as the desert of Tatooine rewards clumsiness, fatness, and slowness with death. His movements are graceful, his reflexes are quick, and his accuracy in battle is phenomenal. Lastly, years of living in the desert have given Ben a natural endurance and hardy constitution, able to take the extremes of heat and thrive in them, while the extremes of cold (for him, air conditioning) are wonderfully comfortable and he can work easily in them. As well, that endurance lends itself to battle as well as to other physical acts, because he can take most hits and keep moving, providing they aren't crippling / life threatening.
[beebox3=75%]
Mental
[/beebox3]Based on the standards of most beings in the average galaxy, Ben doesn't necessarily seem very intelligent. He has an amazing propensity for learning, but what he does know relates to life in the desert and the various Sand People tribes, and he's shown some disinterest in learning much else. However, should one find something that interests him, his natural intelligence will shine forth in a way that can't be denied. Although he's young, Ben is relatively wise, if a bit cynical. He is cautious, and takes care to learn from every situation he can, applying those personal experiences and the knowledge he has to most situations. However, like any young man, there are still times that he can be a bit reckless, those are just few and far between - recklessness is rewarded the same way by the desert as is any other sort of stupidity. Lastly, Ben is not a particularly charismatic man. Even among the Sand People he was quiet and reserved, and he is even more so among people who are a part of the galactic culture; part of this is due to the simple fact that he is unfamiliar with that culture, and after spending so many years fighting against it and now being forced to integrate into it, he's having trouble adapting.
[beebox3=100%]Personality[/beebox3]
Ben is a quiet man, and reserved. He doesn't make friends quickly, and he doesn't speak much unless he's spoken to and can't convey the meaning he needs with a simple gesture. This made him seem odd, even among the Tusken Raiders, where gestures had to be quite exaggerated for them to be understood, and facial expressions would never be seen, but he still managed to make it work, mainly because he rarely placed himself in a position where he would be required to speak. He is also patient - rashness is not rewarded in the Dune Sea - and will very rarely act without careful consideration as to the repercussions of that action or thought on just how to act.
He is also somewhat cynical, and slightly depressed. Life among the Sand People led him to develop this particular temperament, as watching the desert steal friends and loved ones away from him - and the shock that led to his leaving their culture, and depression that developed from it afterwards - have had quite an effect on the still young man. However, he doesn't let it affect his actions, and has managed to learn from those instances in his life, making him far wiser than his years would suggest.
He isn't unfriendly or standoffish in any way, though he isn't quick to make friends either - he's polite to most everybody. He still feels emotions like every being among the galaxy, though he generally makes an attempt to stop them from affecting his decisions, and approaches almost every problem with the outlook of one for whom every major problem could mean death. Also, he considers wasting water to be a horrible, horrible thing to do.
[beebox3=100%]Skills[/beebox3]
Ben is a relatively skilled individual, though in different ways from most citizens of the galaxy. He is proficient with a number of weapons, ranging from melee weapons to blasters and slugthrowers, having had to use quite a few of them when in the Tusken tribes. He is fluent in both Basic and the language of the Sand People, and knows well how to survive in the deserts of Tatooine. However, he has no skills with computers or most of the technology used by denizens of the wider galaxy, and he has yet to make an effort to learn how to use them.
[beebox3=100%]Strengths and Weaknesses[/beebox3]
Ben is proficient with numerous weapons, and is a skilled fighter - one has to be, living in a nomadic war band. His hunting skills are almost unparalleled, and his desert survival skills are far more developed than even most survivalists can claim. His knowledge of Tusken culture is a valuable asset to the people of Tatooine, and his knowledge of both Basic and the Tusken language can make him a valuable translator. His propensity for learning is astounding, and his wisdom goes far beyond the average for humans of his age.
However, he has little drive to do much with his life since leaving his tribe of Sand People, and has generally shown a lack of caring for everything around him. After he learned to communicate and do some basic work he essentially locked down, the culture shock from his transition finally hitting him, and he seems almost afraid to come out of his shell.
[beebox3=100%]Inventory[/beebox3]
[beebox3=75%]
Weapons and Armour
[/beebox3]Ben owns several sets of 'normal' clothes, while still possessing a few sets of the robes he wore when among the Sand People. He still owns the gaderffii he made, and the much higher quality one he was given by his Chieftan - as well as both an ACP Breakaway Scattergun (obtained in a raid on a moisture farmer's settlement) and a Tusken Cycler rifle, though he doesn't use the rifle much.
[beebox3=75%]
Ship
[/beebox3]Ben's ship is an old YT-7130, formerly owned by his parents (specifically, his father) before they were killed in an attack by Tusken Raiders near their moisture farm. It had already been written into Ben's father's will that, should he die, his ship was to be held onto by his brother, until his son was old enough to claim it. After the elder Meleins were killed, that brother took possession of the ship; knowing that the son was never found, and knowing that Sand People would often adopt children of those they killed (depending on the age of the child), that brother held onto the ship faithfully, with the intent to pass it on through his family should his expectations come to pass and Ben never came to claim it.
However, Ben did, eventually, come to claim it, his identity proven and the documents in his hand. After his uncle informed him of the custom, Ben did decide to name the ship - Big Krayt, in honour of the name he had held among the Sand People, Little Krayt.
Now he just has to learn how to fly it.
[beebox3=75%]
General
[/beebox3]He also has a rather standard datapad (though he doesn't know how to use it), one thousand credits (that he doubts he'll ever really need to use beyond getting food), and various documents proving his identity.
[beebox3=100%]Biography[/beebox3]
"I wasn't very old when the Sand People took me, so I thought I was one of them. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned I was born to a pair of humans here on Tatooine."
Ben Melein was born to a pair of human moisture farmers - recently emigrated to Tatooine to escape from the turmoil that seemed to be on the verge of embroiling the galaxy - in the year 1,003 ABY. The family lived far away from the nearest city, Anchorhead, in a small farm that was right on the border of Sand People territory. It wasn't long at all before the family was made to heed the warnings they'd been given by the various others in the area, not the least of which was the warning of danger given by Ben's very uncle, who had been living on Tatooine far longer than Ben's parents, and had the scars to prove it.
As it was, a band of roving Tusken Raiders, searching for water and other supplies, came upon the barely-guarded Melein homestead in the deep night, and just as quickly as their raid had begun it had ended. The parents hadn't been able to put up much of a fight, only being awoken as the raiders threw them from their bed, and it was in the process of looting the settlement that one of the raiders found a child. He brought the child before the Chieftain of the war band, who said that if anybody would claim the child he would be raised as a Tusken. One of the older warriors - who was a human himself, having been taken in by the Sand People on account of his combat prowess years before - stepped forwards, offering to take the child. To the Chieftain and the other raiders, that was enough, and so they took the child with them along with their spoils of war. That, and the man who adopted him brought along records of who the child was that he had seen before the whole band had set fire to the settlement, unsure whether to destroy them or give them to the boy when he was older.
Back at the camp, the nomadic tribe waited for the elders to name the child, as was their tribe's custom. The elders took a long time of doing it, but after seeing how the boy acted when around the other children - quiet, staying aloof from them, but surprisingly energetic in his reaction should they attempt to scare him or surprise him - they named him Little Krayt, after the Krayt Dragons that they both hunted and revered. Afterwards the boy was given the robes he was to wear as a child, and he was raised as a Tusken Raider underneath the hand of the older warrior who had adopted him. However, Little Krayt, as Ben was known among them, was still young when his adoptive father passed away, and he was transferred directly into the care of the tribe itself...meaning, beyond making sure he had food, water, and was healthy, he was left to fend for himself. But by that time he was already ahead of the other boys his age, and had already constructed his own gaderffii, overlarge in anticipation of the size he would reach as an adult, but he still wielded it with skill enough to fend off those who would come to him without his permission. Later he learned to shoot among the other boys, and was eventually invited by the Chieftain of the tribe, now growing old himself, to go on a raid among the moisture farmers nearby. Eagerly, Little Krayt accepted.
It was during this raid that Little Krayt took himself the scattergun that he used well among the Sand People, as well as large amounts of ammunition for it; it was also here that he proved himself worthy of being given a rifle hand-built by one of the elder warriors of the tribe. And, lastly, it was here that he took a man older than himself as part of the ritual whereby he would gain his manhood and be fully recognized in the tribe. He was successful in the endeavor, and his accomplishment was well celebrated in the tribe, and his bantha well fed. Some few years passed, and he sustained numerous scars from hunts and battles (and one particularly bad one from the claws of an angry Hulak Wraid), before eventually he was married.
It was on his wedding night was when things changed for him, forever, and not quite in the way that's normally meant.
"As I'm sure you've noticed, I'm no Sand Person. I learned that the hard way one night - what better place to learn that you aren't what species you think you are than in bed with your wife, right?"
It was when he was disrobing his wife, and she him, in preparation for sealing the blood bond that would mark them as husband and wife within their culture, that Little Krayt noticed there were quite a few differences between himself and the woman who was before him. In shock - with his head coverings and shirt off - he stumbled out of the tent, into the waiting view of the tribal elders and chieftain. Agitated and depressed, as none of them wished to remove the young man from the tribe, they still had to fulfill the bounds of tradition set among them years before. Little Krayt, for baring his skin outside where it was proper to do so, was to be banished from the tribe.
But not before the chieftain gave him a few valuables. The items that his adopted father had set aside for him to inherit when the chieftain decided he was ready - most of them were trinkets, one more gaderffii, and then the important part: the records of who Little Krayt actually was, that would give him place amongst the humans and other citizens of the galaxy, far beyond the tribe. At first light, Little Krayt left, all his items on his person or in a backpack, his food and water in the saddlebags of the bantha, as he set out for Anchorhead. The tribe, however, lived far from Anchorhead, and Little Krayt's bantha couldn't make the journey...and Little Krayt barely made it as well, stumbling to the outer wall of the city multiple days after his bantha had died, delirious from dehydration - he had run out of his water the day before. He was rushed to the hospital, his robes and those spares he kept with him, all of his items that he had set aside so that he could claim them once healed. Soon he was healed, no longer sick, and he was eventually taught basic, taught more of who he was - and given the nickname of Tusken by some few of those in the city, and soon enough there were more who used it as an insult than as a method of address for him. He was given an apartment with all the trappings of modern life, all of his items were sent to it with him, alongside more 'normal' clothing for a citizen of Anchorhead - clothing he was recommended to wear, lest he get into an unnecessary conflict - and he was given one thousand credits at first to help him make his way, and a datapad to use for work and recreation both. He soon came to claim his ship, and began to teach some few of the citizens who he was on speaking terms with how to hunt, and he did some odd jobs...but overall, he stayed mostly to himself after all that, trying to cope with the changes that had been thrust upon him, and he still does so.
Last edited:
