- "I don't care if it's not sporting. My age, you can't afford 'sporting.'"
- ―Kant Lavar
Kant Lavar is an interesting puzzle - not only is he a member of the Obelisk Order, he is also a former member of the old Bounty Hunter's Guild. Additionally, years ago, he was a fully-fledged Dark Jedi Knight in the service of the old Emperor's Hammer and a member of their Krath House Gladius of Clan Tarentum. While some would consider the skill sets of a Dark Jedi Knight and a former bounty hunter impossible to reconcile, Lavar has instead been able to turn both sets of skills to complement the other.
Character History
The Bounty Hunter's Guild and the Emperor's Hammer
Kant Lavar's career (or careers, depending on how one looked at it) started in the Lyarna System as a member of the Bounty Hunter's Guild. His early years as a bounty hunter were unremarkable to the outside observer, but as time went on and he started completing more and more dangerous hunts, culminating with a successful one-man assault on a planet-based Rebel starfighter facility, assassinating one of the Rebellion's more prominent pilots and destroying a majority of the starfighters there, he came to the attention of the old Dark Jedi Brotherhood.
The Dark Brotherhood
Lavar was tested and accepted into the Order of the Krath as a member of House Marka Ragnos of Clan Naga Sadow. During his tenure there, he served as House Rollmaster and later was even selected by the Consul of Clan Naga Sadow to be the first Lord Primus of the Clan's multi-order elite battleteam known as the Black Guard. (This was before the Black Guard came to be in its current incarnation.) Lavar ascended the ranks to Dark Jedi Knight and there he would remain for that portion of his career. He attempted to take an apprentice several times, but each time the apprentice failed to remain in the order. After a year or so of service, both to the Clan and to the Guild, Lavar received a tip in regards to his parents' killer and took an extended leave of absence from the Guild and the Brotherhood to hunt him down.
Return to Corellia and the Schism
Lavar's parents had both been agents of the Corellian Security Force. When Lavar was 17, his parents were killed in the line of duty while in space, and their deaths set Lavar's course for the rest of his life. He traded and sold much of his inheritance to buy his own R-41 Starchaser, and went off to try and avenge his parents' murders. However, his chase ended when he tried to attack the criminal's Corellian Corvette, and only the intervention of a pair of CorSec X-wings kept him from being blown out of the sky. Lavar left the Corellian system after that, until he happened to jump into the Minos Cluster and heard about the Bounty Hunter's Guild.
He had, however, maintained contacts in the Corellian system and CorSec and, years later, one of them informed him that the criminal who had killed his parents had returned to the Corellian system. Lavar took immediate leaves of absence from both the Bounty Hunter's Guild and the Brotherhood to return to the Corellian system himself and eliminate the criminal. Lavar has never been forthcoming with the details of what had happened, but when he returned to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, he found himself in the middle of the schism between the Brotherhood and the Emperor's Hammer. Lavar absented himself from the battlefield, and for a lack of information, found himself enrolled with the schismatic Krath loyal to the Emperor's Hammer and a member of their House Gladius, in Clan Tarentum. Lavar continued his career there for a while, as well as returning to the Bounty Hunter's Guild, until he went on a mission to Dathomir.
Then-DJK Kant Lavar in field gear, circa 20 ABY.
Dathomir
Lavar was dispatched by the Emperor's Hammer Brotherhood to Dathomir. Rumors had said that the Dathomiri witches there had uncovered a storehouse of equipment left behind by the Empire, and left untouched by Warlord Zinj during his campaign against the New Republic. Lavar was instructed to find the cache, determine if there was anything of value left, and either retrieve it or ensure that no others could use it. Lavar accomplished his mission, but at a price - in a protracted battle with the Dathomiri witches, both those using the Light Side and, once Lavar was inside the storehouse, the Dark Side wielding Nightsisters, Lavar's Force abilities were sealed off somehow. The most knowledgeable members of the Brotherhood could not explain it, nor could they break or coach Lavar to touch the Force, and so he left the order entirely - leaving behind that portion of his life and throwing himself into his work as a bounty hunter.
Even then, Lavar faced difficulties. The Guild had openly split from the remnants of the Empire, returning to its roots as a mercenary organization. This lead to difficulties, as the loss of Imperial contracts made themselves felt, and the Republic was wary of the organization as a matter of principle. Members fell away, recruiting stopped, and, slowly, the Guild began to shrink and die. At the end, Lavar sold his ship and most of his equipment, took his life's earnings, and retired to a private house on Corellia.
Return to the Brotherhood and Retraining
Lavar remained in isolation on Corellia for five years. After the first year, he began to focus away from simply relaxing to a goal he had been pursuing off and on for a couple of years - he wanted to rejoin the Brotherhood. The true Brotherhood, not the castoffs left by the dying Imperial Remnant. Lavar spent the next four years performing exercises he had not done since he had been an apprentice himself, and when Sernpidal was destroyed, the backlash through the Force shattered whatever seal had been on Lavar's mind, and he felt the Force flowing in him again. Unfortunately, after buying and modifying an E-wing and finding the Brotherhood at Antei, testing showed that Lavar's powers had atrophied to the level of the rawest novice. And so Lavar began again, joining the Order of the Obelisk and House Qel-Droma of Clan Arcona as an apprentice.
Despite having been trained in the Force once already, prior to the Exodus, Lavar's progress proved slow. The intervening years between Lavar's initial training and the simple fact that he was getting older simply took time to overcome. Despite being older, Lavar was determined to slow down as little as possible, and he progressed through the Journeyman ranks despite any potential bias. In fact, Arconan leadership had great faith in him, and Lavar was assigned many sensitive tasks, including the leadership of his battleteam during a Grand Jedi War, and then turning around and molding that battleteam into a new one, better suited to the Shadow Clan's needs.
Shortly before the Tenth War, Lavar completed construction of his lightsaber and was promoted to the rank of Dark Jedi Knight.
Absences and Returns
Following a short leave of absence from the Brotherhood, Lavar has resurfaced again, this time in House Plagueis. He has not volunteered much information as to what spurred this decision. After some time there, he again disappeared and has only recently returned to Clan Arcona. Granted promotion to the ranks of the Equites, he has embraced his new role as a Force adept far more fully than he has in the past.
Personality
- "Been there, done that, got the karking novelty shirt."
- ―Kant Lavar
The upside of having been out in the galaxy and having done as much as he has is that there's little that can genuinely surprise Lavar anymore. He's almost always right about it, too, but it can lead to overconfidence. When not in combat, Lavar is laid back, willing to trade quips and jokes with his comrades, and more than willing to play the part of the guy two days from retirement... though the dread phrase never leaves his mouth, lest he tempt the universe to fulfill the trope. Once in combat, however, Lavar becomes reserved and professional, even cold, and can quickly lose patience with those who treat it as a joke or game.
Kant Lavar, circa 41 ABY.
In Combat
Lavar used to carry a small armory kit with him into combat - lightsaber, blaster(s), blade, and other gear that weighed him down. His attempts at being able to handle any situation meant that his skills with his weapons were middling at best. Of late, however, he has more fully taken on the trappings of a Force user - eschewing other weapons for his lightsaber and wearing lightly armored robes and similar outfits in place of heavy armor. While this new focus does mean he does not have the same flexibility in combat as he used to, he also gains the tradeoff of being much more competent with his weapon of choice - his lightsaber. Past that, he carries simple tools and equipment on his utility belt - breather, first aid kit, comlink, and the like.
Ranged Combat
As time has gone on, Lavar has abandoned his skills with a blaster in favor of studying lightsaber combat more fully. As a result, his ranged combat skills are limited now to Force-based attacks, primarily telekinetic strikes, but he also has started to study how to channel Force lightning.
Melee Combat
During his last extended absence from the Dark Brotherhood, Kant Lavar managed to find someone who put him through an intensive course of study of lightsaber combat, most especially in the Vapaad variant of Form VII. Lavar found the style to match his aggressive combat tendencies and his preference for wearing out his opponent via constant attacks, looking for the mistake that would let him end the fight with a lethal blow.
DJB Facts
Former Positions Held
Post-Exodus
Pre-Exodus
Outstanding Achievements
Trivia
Kant Lavar is the continuation of a character who was a part of the Bounty Hunter's Guild under the Emperor's Hammer, and later had a dual membership with that character in the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. The character's owner, coming back from a leave of absence, discovered the Dark Brotherhood in the midst of the Exodus from the Emperor's Hammer. The owner, without any idea of what was taking place, ended up remaining with the Emperor's Hammer, in order to continue with the Bounty Hunter's Guild - which would, ironically, leave the Emperor's Hammer itself about a year later.