[hider=Skidder Grace, Arms Dealer]
[b]Name:[/b] Skidder Grace

[b]Species:[/b] Human

[b]Age:[/b] 24

[b]Appearance:[/b] Skidder is a young man of inestimable, undeniable average-ness for a human, a median made flesh. He's neither short nor tall, neither fat nor skinny, of a middling complexion that could be a tanned whiteness or a very light darkness. He keeps his hair cropped short, practically buzzed to the scalp, to avoid the filth and parasites that came with a childhood homeless on Nar Shadda. Most notably Skidder has a face people tend to think they might've seen somewhere although they're rarely sure if it was just in passing in a crowd. 

Skidder tends to wear a medium length, brown coat because it keeps the muck and acid rain off, is easy to wash and helps him conceal his personal weapons and blaster-resistant vest. He also wears thick boots toe-capped with durasteel, mostly because of one too many accidents loading up heavy crates of blasters but also because of the occasional need to kick beings in their shin-equivalents and run. He has a set of goggles on his head more often than not. Magna-gloves usually complete his outfit, both preventing fingerprints and handy for a variety of tasks and tricks. It's all an ensemble designed to be distinctive enough while blending in and still being functional. 

Skidder's teeth are his one distinguishing feature, bright and shining white in spite of a life in a planet-wide slum. As a result skidder smiles easily and often, though as much because he's under the impression that life's playing a private joke on him at all times and he may as well roll with it as out of a sense of genuine friendliness. He smiles when he's nervous or afraid too, though then it looks closer to an animal baring its teeth.  

[b]Faction:[/b] Independent, but associated with The Golden Exchange

[b]Equipment:[/b]

[b]Skidder's Coat[/b]-A seemingly ordinary brown coat, it has a small number of hidden flaps and straps for hiding backup weapons and small tools including one up each sleeve for a knife or holdout pistol released with a twist and drop of the wrist.

[b]Blast Resistant Vest-[/b] usually kept hidden under his coat, it can lessen damage from blaster bolts to the chest from nonlethal to excruciating and prevent most physical, kinetic damage from getting through easily enough. However its light weight, concealed nature and lack of restriction to movement means his limbs and head are unprotected and it'll never stop blaster damage outright like most armor.

[b]DC-17 Hand Blaster-[/b] An old but well-maintained blaster pistol from the days of the Grand Army of the Republic and Skidder's main weapon. Powerful enough to outmatch some carbines in spite of its small size, Skidder got it as a reward for spotting an assassination attempt on his old boss and has carried it ever since.

[b]EC-17 Hold-Out Blaster-[/b]Skidder's primary backup pistol concealed up the sleeve of his jacket, it's mainly good for close range surprises and is concealed up the right sleeve of his jacket.

[b]Q2 Hold-Out Blaster-[/b] A pistol small enough to conceal in his palm and stashed in Skidder's right boot as a weapon of last resort or covert use. It holds enough of a charge to be used for six shots before the specialized battery needs to be swapped. 

[b]Stunstick-[/b]A smaller version of the typical stun baton, concealed up Skidder's left sleeve. He usually deploys it to give himself an advantage if things come to hand-to-hand fighting so he can quickly incapacitate whoever's about to pummel him with a quick smack or prod, or else uses it to knock out enemies from behind when a blaster set to stun is too loud.

[b]Vibroknife-[/b] a small blade in a concealed sheath in Skidder's right boot, used as much as a cutting tool as it is a weapon, but still a handy last ditch weapon if close-up fights seem imminent and he can't pull off a blaster shot or a hit with the stun-stick.

[b]Magna-Gloves-[/b]A pair of gloves capable of strongly adhering to and attracting metallic objects. They're useful for gripping and climbing but also stealing things from a distance or grabbing items that are out of reach among other things. As a bonus, they prevent his fingerprints from getting all over the merchandise.

[b]Durasteel-capped boots-[/b]Skidder's current boots, with toes reinforced by durasteel plating and a extra space in each for concealed weaponry. They're handy in case he happens to drop a crate full of blasters on his toe, or if he needs to get a weapon into a room without his jacket before kicking a thug hard enough to win a fight without breaking his foot

[b]Skidder's Goggles-[/b] Mostly there for eye protection and a zoom-and-enhance function good for examining his merchandise.

[b]Skills:[/b]

[b]Sharp Eyes-[/b]Skidder's got unusually good perception, especially when it comes to noticing things like the fine details of weaponry or what sort of weapons a person might reasonably be hiding on them. A life spent mostly on the street means he's also a decently good judge of when someone's bluffing or likely to actually draw weapons on him, and good eyesight makes him that much better of a shot when he decides he has no choice but to fire back in response.

[b]Good Hands-[/b]Skidder's always had both uncannily fast reflexes for a normal human and very steady, controlled hands. As a boy he first noticed it when trying to help his father perform custom modifications on guns in the family's workshop, but it's come in handy for everything from performing sleight-of-hand to picking pockets. It also means that he's very good at managing a fast and accurate quick-draw with his blaster pistols under pressure, a skill that's saved his life more than once and remains his primary strategy if there's an imminent fight he can't run away from.   

[b] Expert Athlete and Acrobat-[/b] Skidder often maintains that the most important part of being a coward is the ability to run away effectively. To that end he's not only a very good runner in terms of getting up to speed quickly and maintaining it, but also able to quickly leap, climb and tumble with skills akin to parkour when it comes to maneuvering through his environment. For all his lack of bodily strength in a fight he can pull off some fairly impressive feats of acrobatics and athletics, usually in the name of running away from a fight.

[b]Keen Businessman-[/b] Skidder's got a practically encyclopedic knowledge of common weapons and good knowledge of some rarer ones thanks to a childhood raised by a weapons engineer and blaster designer parents, followed by spending most of his teenage and young adult years working for a senior arms merchant and gun runner. In addition, he's got a fairly good sense of how to conduct business in the often morally hazy and dangerous world of arms dealing in Hutt Space along with the sort of people skills that entails.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b]

[b]Coward-[/b] Although Skidder would argue that this is in fact his greatest strength, he'll in no way dispute that he has nerves of plastoid and a heart to match. He'd much rather avoid unnecessary danger and negotiate or run with fighting as a last resort. Even then, he'll almost always try to end fights as quickly as possible whether that's through pragmatic winning or creating an opening to run. Skidder has his integrity and knows the value of loyalty and friendship in business and on the street, he just doesn't see why he should be killed or tortured over it all.

[b]No Hand-To-Hand Skill[/b]-Somewhat related to his attitude on fighting, Skidder has only one option when that comes to a close-in battle and that's to fight as dirty as possible. He has no real skill with his fists or any other part of his body and only average strength. In terms of blades or other close-in weapons he's only as 'skilled' as the average Nar Shadda street thug which is to say he prefers to hit people with them just once before anyone realizes what's in his hand, even better if they don't see him coming at all. If any of that isn't enough he's well-aware that he's finished. 

[b]Gloryhound[/b]- As much of an expert as he is on the Fine Art of Cowardice, Skidder has a certain longing for the spotlight at times that tends to push him into danger in spite of his more 'reasonable' nature. His goal is to become the finest arms dealer in all of Hutt Space and when he isn't honestly declaring himself 'The greatest coward in the Galaxy' instead, he has the braggadocio and casual swagger to match. 

[b]History:[/b]

Skidder Grace's parents Elden and Iris both worked as weapon designers for some of the shadier weapons development programs that hosted themselves in Nar Shadda due to the area's relatively lax standards on corporate ethics and regulations compared to the wider galaxy. As a result Skidder grew up fascinated by the world of weapons technology his family surrounded him in and would often watch his father perform custom adjustments for some of the higher profile bounty hunters and 'wealthy, upstanding residents' of the Smuggler's Moon for extra cash or family favors. It was a surprisingly happy childhood for a crime-ridden, polluted urban hell of a moon, and Skidder even dreamed of becoming a professional weapon designer himself someday and working for or even owning one of the big megacorporations that contracted out from Nar Shadda, or perhaps crafting individual weapons for persons of high standing in Nar Shadda's very public criminal underworld.

It wasn't until Skidder was fourteen years old that he experienced firsthand just what sort of pain his family's work brought other people.  one of Nar Shadda's many more local Hutt crime lords was able to trace a blaster pistol used in a failed assassination back to Skidder's father. Enraged enough not to care about the Grace family's corporate and underworld contacts, the Hutt had their home blown up and had Skidder and his parents brought to him to interrogate them about the identity of the assassin. His father Elden's brave refusal to give up any of his contacts to the Hutt, and the horror that followed, became Skidder's most vivid and painful memory. After his parents died he broke effortlessly and confessed every detail he could think up, and was rewarded by being tossed out into Nar Shadda's filthy and unforgiving streets to die rather than live as a slave. He decided then and there that he'd never be as stupid as his father was and that he'd rather live a coward than die for nothing.

Skidder spent about a year on the streets of Nar Shadda, often struggling against other homeless and orphaned beings for survival. He failed at simply picking through refuse and castoff from the more fortunate for food and supplies, as there was always someone bigger, stronger or meaner who could beat him away and get there first. Picking pockets was more viable for him but had even more risk, considering law on Nar Shadda was all-too-often entirely self-provided with deadly force at worst. To supplement his tiny income when he wasn't daring his way through snatch-and-grab operations, the young thief turned his hands and eyes toward running small games of skill and chance along with little showings of sleight of hand for often tense, drunk or bored mercenaries, smugglers and bounty hunters who passed through Nar Shadda's streets not to mention the more well-off street scum who'd managed to survive better than he did and needed distractions too. 

It was all simple stuff at first, guessing games between a mixed set of three Sabbac Cards, switching a bit of trash around under three cups and the like. Eventually as he got to know the passersby better by sight Skidder would see if he could guess how many weapons someone had hidden on their person or integrated into their armor and where. That trick happened to make him fairly popular, especially with his most frequent 'customer', a drunk Dug with a gambling problem who thought it was hilarious to see a human kid pulling off minor circus tricks and swindles for food and money on the street. 

He brought Skidder to his boss, the gun-runner and part-time legitimate arms dealer Quan Terrano and convinced him to take Skidder on as part-lookout, part gang mascot and general extra set of hands at 15. From there, he advanced slowly through the ranks over the course of the next eight years. He was still cowardly and pragmatic at best, but his growing skill with a gun and head for weapons meant he was nevertheless steadily promoted and integrated into Quan's deals, especially in matters of authenticating and pricing weapons. Nevertheless, he wanted more out of life and his many years as lieutenant in an arms dealer's organization inspired him towards ambitions of becoming the supplier for enough rich and powerful people to guarantee him a life of ease and security.

Skidder got his chance in the form of a shipment of rare Mandalorian weapons he was brought in to authenticate. He quickly realized that they were all absolutely exquisite knockoffs, of a quality that would pass inspection under all but the most careful eyes. He didn't reveal the deception to his boss, instead taking the information regarding the knockoff weapons and their source to The Golden Exchange, hoping to barter information on the existence of not only the cache of knockoff guns but their no doubt highly proficient creator for a ship and stock of his own to sell as an independent arms dealer.
[/hider]