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Endor
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27 ABY (age 17)
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Ewok
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Male
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0.9 m / 2'11"
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47.0 kg / 104 lbs
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Russet brown and sandy cream
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Amber
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- Wooden spear carved from an Endorian tree
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7918
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Chikma is a male Ewok Mandalorian currently employed by Magda Venn of Venn-Voss Colonial Supply Solutions. Raised as part of a small cargo cult on the forest moon of Endor before departing his homeworld to complete his clan's final coming-of-age rite, he believes Ewoks are the only true heirs of Mandalorian tradition.
Character History
Beneath the Shrine (27–39 ABY)
Endor, Chikma's home planet
Born to a small clan on Endor, Chikma was raised on stories of "sky warriors." His earliest play was imitating gestures passed down through the generations of his ancestors who met the first sky warrior who crashed in the forest and running through the stack of crates at the center of his village others called sacred.
As a wokling he climbed higher and wandered further from the village than the elders preferred, drawn by a curiosity toward another holy site, the wreckage of a Firespray gunship, grown over and rusted out with the years. During one such excursion, he fell from atop the shrine, earning a jagged scar below his left eye.
Perhaps due to his physical build, stockier than his peers and notably shorter than the clan average, he gravitated toward the scavengers and hunters rather than his clan's storytellers. Eager to prove himself, he showed an early aptitude for tracking, trap-spotting, and crafting.
The Rite of the Sky Warrior (39–44 ABY)
As he approached adolescence, Chikma began to undergo his clan's traditional initiation trials. He harvested wood from the forest and created a wooden spear, which he would carry with him throughout adulthood. He survived alone in the wilderness for months, sourcing his own food and communing with nature. And at the conclusion of the standard rites, clan elders cut three notches into his right ear, branding him an adult and allowing him to inherit his family's beskar pendant recovered from first contact with the sky warriors.
Few among his clan pursued the rite's rarer final stage: departing Endor itself to walk in the sky warriors' footsteps. At seventeen, Chikma elected to take on the challenge. He secured passage offworld, leaving behind the only home he'd ever known in order to qualify as a chieftain upon his return. Before his departure, Chikma was presented with a wooden flute as a reminder of his home.
Among the Stars (44 ABY–Present)
Off Endor, Chikma was thrust into the galaxy's criminal underworld. He quickly picked up Basic; although he spoke only in pantomime and exaggerated Ewokese, everyone always seemed to understand the ideas he sought to communicate. (Whether he spoke this way on principle or for lack of ability, no one knew.)
Magda Venn, Chikma's employer
Somewhat naive and quite green in the ways of the wider galaxy, Chikma found himself on the wrong side of Mekka the Hutt's attention. To work off a debt, he found himself assigned to Venn-Voss Colonial Supply Solutions in the employ of Magda Venn. It wasn't long before he endeared himself to the smuggler, who found plenty of use in a tenacious Ewok with a genuine talent for spotting danger and handling himself in a fight. Life in her crew has offered him a wealth of opportunities to test himself as a sky warrior through salvage, survival, and combat.
Whether Chikma intends to return to Endor, when he would do so, and how he might do so without invoking the Hutt Cartel's ire remains to be seen.
Ewok Mandalorian Cargo Cult
Origins
Generations before Chikma's birth, the wreck of a Mandalorian's ship gave rise to an enduring mythology among a small Ewok clan on Endor. A simple scavenging encounter morphed over decades into religious devotion.
In 4 ABY, Firespray gunship lost course in the chaos surrounding the Battle of Endor. It crashed, scattering wreckage through a remote stretch of forest. While most of the vessel's crew perished, one human survived, albeit grievously wounded and without any hope of rescue. Found and taken in by Chikma's ancestors, the human lived out his remaining years among the Ewoks, dependent upon hem for care, food, and shelter.
Upon his recovery, the prototypical sky warrior repaid the hospitality the only way available to him: teaching. He taught the Ewoks rudimentary Mando'a, drilled the clan warriors in Mandalorian Core and blaster combat, and recounted stories of his deceased compatriots and legends of Mandalore.
The original sky warrior crashed his ship during the Battle of Endor.
When he eventually died, the clan interred his remains beside his fallen spacecraft. His teachings became doctrine, scripture, and the basis for religious practice.
Beliefs
The clan holds that the sky warriors—the surviving Mandalorian, his partners, and others figuring into his campfire stories—were not merely stranded visitors but spiritually kin to the Ewoks themselves. Any Ewok who follows their example, and masters their ways and tools, continues that line of sky warriors.
Central to this belief is the convictions that Ewoks are the only true Mandalorians. This claim traces to the lone survivor's isolation; in a lifetime spent among the clan, no other Mandalorian came looking for him or his partners, and his own accounts of his people grew vaguer and more mythical by the year. Now generations removed from the reality of the contact, the clan has never encountered any information to contradict that belief. Each retelling of the sky warrior myth reinforces the same conclusion that the sky warriors' line ended with the one who fell among the Ewoks and only continues through the Ewoks who carry on his teachings.
This belief of course places the clan—and especially Chikma as its sole envoy—at odds with the broader galaxy's understanding of the Mandalorians as a distinct, populous, and varied culture.
Practices
Salvaged durasteel supply crates bearing Mandalorian iconography have been built into a shrine at the heart of the clan's village. The council of elders tend to the shrine, interpreting their markings as scripture. Woklings are raised hearing this interpretations from an early age, even receiving predictions regarding their character and future.
Coming of age within the clan is marked by a series of trials known as the Rite of the Sky Warrior. Ewoks are expected to demonstrate skill with a weapon, endure a season of isolation in the wilderness to learn self-sufficiency, and receive ritual body modification in a public ceremony.
A rare, final stage of the rite reserved for renowned warriors and future chieftains involves leaving Endor. Few members of the clan have even attempted this final stage; none have returned.
Families within the clan are known to pass down sentimental heirlooms, usually crafted from fragments of the original wreck or other recovered supplies from first contact.
Physical Description
Chikma stands a shade shorter than most Ewoks of his clan, his frame stocky and dense. Across his back and shoulders his fur is a deep russet brown, fading to a sandy cream at his chest and around his face. His amber eyes have an air of curiosity and directness. A jagged scar cuts through the fur below is left eye, a pale and hairless line earned in a fall from atop the downed Mandalorian supply crate his cargo cult family used as a shrine. His right ear bears three small notches, cut in a coming-of-age rite.
Potpourri
- During his drifting period, Chikma met several Wookiees. He instantly felt a connection to the much taller furry species, learning their language as best he could and voraciously reading Shyriiwook poetry. He even picked up some Wrruushi martial arts moves.
- After a lifetime of eating venison and foraged plants, Chikma was fascinated to discover the food of the wider galaxy. He is a surprisingly skilled chef, able to produce a gourmet meal even with just a campfire and primitive tools.
- He knows what buttons you should press and which you shouldn't. It's an unexplainable knack, really.