[@He Who Walks Behind]

[hider=Wookiee Lady]
Name: Liak'ykam (it means Autumn Dancer in Shyriiwook)
Age: 330 (comparable to a human in their early sixties)
Class: Jedi Consular
Home Planet: Kashyyyk

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Appearance:

Liak’ykam certainly lives up to her name – she has aged gracefully, with her brown fur giving way to streaks of grey and chestnut. Her fur is more grey than brown, now. She is quite tall, standing at 7 feet, 2 inches (she claims she was even taller back in the day, but Wookiees are known to shrink a little in their elder years. This difference is not appreciable to most), with soft brown eyes. Liak’ykam has beautiful fur, and it is evident she has taken good care of herself – there are numerous braids in the mane around her head, and they appear to have some kind of religious or cultural significance. She frequently wears a hood of some kind that drapes like a shawl over her shoulders and upper torso. She also wears a garment around her waist that’s not quite comparable to a skirt, but offers some degree of modesty – an unnecessary one, as her fur prevents her from being “naked” in the traditional sense. Both garments are made of old, worn leather, and have designs and sigils etched into them. They smell sweet, with the preserving oils of wroshyr trees rubbed into them frequently to keep them soft and flexible. She has leather hand wraps around her wrist and the lower half of her forearm that keep her hands relatively free of fur and able to interact with things more easily. They, too, bear the signs of age and use. Liak’ykam moves softly for such a large creature, walking slowly and with gentle footsteps. Aside from her domineering presence, it’s easy to imagine she could walk around silently, particularly if it were a forest floor and not the cold steel of a starship.	
Liak’ykam wears a little jewelry, but not much. It’s mostly simple flowers – greens and bright blues – adorning her hood or woven into some of her braids. She has a single necklace made of carved wooden pieces, tied together with leather straps. Her claws are near-always retracted, and only used for tasks she deems necessary – climbing or perhaps carving something. Liak’ykam speaks softly, for a Wookiee – to an outsider, the difference isn’t really there, as it’s all grunts and groans, but to someone who speaks Shryiiwook, they would recognize a sing-songy, rhythmic nature to her voice, melodic and soothing. She does not frequently yell or raise her tone – by her standards. Wookiees are not known for whispering. Liak’ykam does not need the assistance of her walking stick, but she uses it regardless – a large, well-polished piece of wood carved from a wroshyr tree, her staff is a little over six feet tall and likely is too dense and heavy for most non-Wookiees to pick up and swing around. She uses it easily. From the top of the staff, a few ornamental decorations hang, and she can shake the staff to make noise – it would seem the purpose is to rattle it and warn off animals if necessary, or perhaps to make noise in some kind of dance.

Personality:

Liak’ykam is the sort of person who stops to smell the roses for so long she forgets where she’s going.

Having lived a reclusive live in the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk for many years, she is leaving her planet for the first time for this trip. Liak’ykam is more comfortable in the forests and trees, smelling the wroshyr tree sap and hearing the cries of animals hunting one another. The roar of hyperdrives and the grime of city life overwhelms and confuses her. She cannot feel the life, the subtle rush of survival. She is powerful with the Force, but untrained in any formal sense – what Liak’ykam knows of the Force, she knows as her connection with her ancestors and the spirits of Kashyyyk, not thinking of it as any extension of the Jedi or Sith, as light side or dark side. In this regar she is closer to a nightsister of Dathomir than a trained Jedi Consular. She views the Force as – well, a force of nature, and can’t really begin to consider its applications to technology or things like that. 

Liak’ykam is gentle and introspective. Having spent many years as a hermit, she is humble and unassuming. She has no need for a lot of modern “luxuries”, not fully seeing the purpose in them. She has absolutely no financial skills and does not really understand the concept of a modern economy. That being said, she has traditional wisdom and is quite resilient, having survived more or less on her own for a century or two. She is easygoing and not prone to losing her temper – Liak’ykam is very patient, and is the sort of person who likes to consider something deeply before making a choice. This can be infuriating at times, as she’s always dragging her feet to make decisions. It also makes Liak’ykam a poor leader, as – for all her kindness and empathy, she lacks decisiveness and moves at a much slower pace than most. Liak'ykam does have a strong sense of morality and is not susceptible to most senses of corruption. There is next to nothing one could blackmail her with, and there is truly nothing you could bribe her with. 

Liak’ykam has many positive traits as well. She’s very compassionate and a skilled healer, having patched up her own wounds for years and taken care of her clan for many years before that. She is vigilant and alert, if seemingly unassuming – having survived for many years in the dangerous under-forests of Kashyyyk, Liak'ykam has tussled with some nasty predators (sentient and otherwise) in her day. Liak’ykam is not a fighter by nature, but she is a fierce combatant. She is ferociously powerful, even as she ages, and supplements that strength with grace and the Force. Liak'ykam would be a strength disadvantage amongst her own species or similarly powerful ones, but she has quickly realized that she does not require that same finesse to leave a regular old human with a nasty headache for a few days. Liak’ykam, while not formally educated, is intelligent and very perceptive. She is the sort of person who could spot someone's true intentions in a conversation but not ever be able to navigate through a metro station. A true huntress, she would prefer to watch her prey for some time, learning its movements and patterns, before trying to make a move. Liak’ykam is also resolute in her morality – she has a fierce opposition to slavery, having seen many of her people taken as slaves, and this is one of the few ways to truly enrage her. Her connection to the Force, in her mind, connects her to all living things. She does not enjoy violence against others, as she in some way directly experiences their suffering, and prefers other methods of resolving problems. Liak’ykam is not prideful, and is the sort of person who is content to sit and watch out the window on a long trip. She enjoys music and storytelling a great deal. Having never travelled away from Kashyyyk before, she is fairly ignorant about most proceedings of the galaxy, but is eager to learn. At her heart, she’d enjoy returning to Kashyyyk, or at least spending a little more time somewhere green with trees than inside a cold spaceship. Liak’ykam has respect for all people but does not believe in deference to authority – she views it as an extension of slavery. Liak’ykam does not see the value in credits and, as a result, is pretty frequently broke. She also has little grasp on how economics work, and has been taken on by a few scams in her brief time on the crew (“Oh, this person needs our help! He has medical bills he needs money for!”). Liak’ykam has very strong maternal – or perhaps grandmaternal – instincts, and in the best kind of condescending, will frequently groom other crew members if they’re sitting near her, or make sure they have enough food. Liak’ykam believes in saying more by saying less, and will go silent in a room with someone for hours and consider it a wonderful conversation. Relying equally on scent and the Force, she does not think conversation necessary to get to know someone.

History:

Liak'ykam's backstory, like most Wookiees' in recent years, is a troubled one. Her younger years were happy and free of any real conflict - her tribe's elders and shamans correctly picked up on her sensitivity to "nature and the spirits" and began grooming her as a successor. This, however, would not come to pass exactly as they had envisioned. Given that Liak'ykam was born whenever Revan was still running around, galactic conflict was at a premium, meaning that construction efforts were at a premium, meaning that raw physical labor was at a premium. Whether impressed into fighting or used for hard labor, Wookiee slaves were a profitable commodity for corporations such as Czerka or even freelance slavers looking to turn a profit. Kashyyyk, lacking strong affiliations to help them out, were preyed upon frequently by their Trandoshan neighbors. Liak'ykam spent her early years relatively naive of this phenomena, but quickly sobered up to the brutal truth. 

As the years passed, Liak'ykam became more of a fighter for her tribe, by necessity than choice. She never was a fighter at heart, but when the freedom of one's family and clan is on the line, most get in touch with their violent instincts pretty easily. Liak'ykam learned the ways of fighting these off-worlders, who were too weak to wield bowcasters, who cursed the darkness of the Shadowlands, who tried to cut down wroshyyr branches for firewood. She grew wiser, older, and stronger, and all the while her tribe's leadership slowly deteriorated. Liak'ykam was never the de facto leader of her tribe, but her experience and spirituality made her a valuable counsel. Even moreso than previous elders, she was at one with the forest around them - when Liak'ykam was focusing their efforts, the Wookiees found themselves free of fear, fear of doubt, all aware of one another's presence in the forests, striking as one unit. Liak'ykam was able to heal wounds that the others deemed fatal, hear the footsteps of slavers in her mind, feel the tension of a sniper's finger upon his trigger. When scouts went missing, Liak'ykam alone could find them in the darkest reaches of the shadowlands - and calm the beasts that were circling around the wounded, waiting to prey.

Still, her abilities do not a one woman army make. For each victory Liak'ykam and her tribe seized over the outsiders, they found a few less friends returning to their village. Eventually they had to abandon their tree homes entirely and flee into the Shadowlands. It was a smart maneuver, but a futile one. Czerka was relentless, and eventually brokered a deal to get Sith forces to augment their forces. Liak'ykam found these outsiders even more difficult - she bested them, but her people fell more quickly than before. Liak'ykam sat and watched from the shadows, unseen and unheard, learning their dances with light swords. She was always a good dancer. She learned quickly, her body mirroring theirs unconsciously. She saw patterns her comrades could not in their footwork, their stances. Even in the hunger and dark of the Shadowlands, Liak'ykam could smell their fury and rage, these Sith, and sense when they were coming. They were more difficult - but not unbeatable. Poisons. Beasts. Bowcaster quarrels in the dark. Liak'ykam even faced them in direct combat and won, breaking their lightsabers with her staff before she broke them. Liak'ykam learned to wait until they grew weary, to strike when the in-fighting of the Sith and the disloyalty of the mercenaries were at a peak. No matter how many she struck down, more took their place, and there were fewer Wookiees fighting at her back.

Liak'ykam was not alone in these efforts - she had a mate, Wrrl'arra. Liak'ykam became pregnant, and quite understandably was hindered in her efforts. She, in the last days of her term, was unable to sense an attack coming, and the lack of her presence on the Wookiees' side had made the Sith and slavers confident. They struck and utterly wiped out her village. Wrrl'arra arranged for the brunt of the forces to be drawn away from his mate and child, but a few Czerka scouts stumbled across her. They took the recently-born child and left her for dead - to avoid being needlessly graphic, suffice to say a Wookiee birthing could very easily convince an off-worlder that they were on the cusp of death.

Liak'ykam survived, as she always head. The consummate healer, she was able to nurse herself back to health, drawing upon the strength of the forest around her. At times she felt she slipped in-between life and death. She cried out for Wrrl'arra with voice and spirit alike. She hungered and burned with fever. At times, the various beasts that walked the Shadowlands brought her food, having heard her pull through the Force. Eventually, she grew strong enough to walk again, and recovered from there - in body, at least. 

Her spirit was broken. 

She walked the floor of the Shadowlands and found it all so quiet. Her people's homes were ransacked and empty. At night, she did not have Wrrl'arra's hands around her, and she could hear, when she closed her eyes - the cries of her daughter, distantly, echoing as if from across the galaxy.

Liak'ykam became bitter and vengeful for many years. She, in essence, became a terrorist against foreign presence on Kashyyyk, torn between total hermitage and striking out against anyone carrying the insignia she'd seen on the uniforms in the forest. It brought her no peace. After many years, she came more to terms with it - as much as one can - and stopped her campaign of violence. She retreated into the forest and lived a life of solitude, occasionally visited by neighboring tribes who needed her help for severe illnesses, the lost mates of chieftains, things such as that. A few times her abilities were needed to strike at the more dangerous beasts that lurked within the Shadowlands.

One day, she awoke from frightful dreams. She had seen her daughter. Heard Wrrl'arra. She had thought those dreams were done - she had thought [i]she[/i] was done - but it did not seem the case. By pure coincidence, a neighboring tribe came to request her aid, telling her that they had seen a slaver strike once more - one who had come many years before. Liak'ykam, while not entirely aware of what the Force entailed, recognized this as a sign. She got the name of the slaver saved on a datapad (despite being illiterate in Basic) and gathered her meager possessions. She sold most of her war trophies to afford passage off-world. The Force guided her to this group, and she trusts that it will lead her to the truth. 
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Equipment: 

Liak'ykam carries her mate's bowcaster, although she only uses it for hunting these days. She is a decent shot but no sniper. It's really more for sentimental reasons.
She also has her wroshyr tree walking stick. Wroshyr trees are used by the Wookiees to make hulls for starships. It has given many people rather severe headaches.
She carries a small pouch of medicinal herbs and plants that she uses. 
Liak'ykam also has a small bag of war trophies from fighting Czerka and the Sith for so many years. She does not draw attention to it and does not revel in trophies - however, even she recognizes the need for credits, and intends to pawn them off for starship fare home to Kashyyyk once her journey is done. Apart from a few blasters, a Mandalorian tribe helmet, and a cortosis weave vibro-knife, she has two Sith lightsabers in there that she has never uesd. She doesn't see the point of them. Something that bright and loud would only give your presence away in the woods. Foolish.

Other than what she has on her person, Liak'ykam literally owns nothing.

Skills: 

Liak'ykam is a skilled healer and herbalist. She is an outdoorswoman, and is proficient at survivalist techniques and foraging. She was groomed as a shaman and has some experience working in a diplomatic capacity. Her many years of life have given her good experience for resolving conflict and keeping a cool head under pressure. Liak'ykam, were she born in a more populated part of Kashyyyk, would have made for a good diplomat. She is a skilled combatant, largely due to her intelligence. She will wait and strike when it is most advantageous, and contrary to most Wookiees, does not rush in with reckless abandon. Liak'ykam is powerful with the Force, though she lacks formal training. Her abilities are generally centered around connecting her to life around her. Something like a Force push or choke would seem crude and unnatural to Liak'ykam. She is utterly incompetent with technology and modern life, but excels in more natural settings. While this may not be as sexy of a skill, she is a good listener and friend. She often helps people find peace and serenity with a simple conversation or merely by listening. She waits and listens, and seldom acts.

She also is one hell of a cook, and is used to cooking Wookiee-sized portions. Everyone on this ship will gain weight.

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[/hider]


Great sheet! I really get a sense of this character from what you've written. I do have one or two things to pick at. Maybe remove that she is a Jedi Consular as she has had no formal training. I prefer the idea of her being this big old hippie Wookie lady with a staff healing people as a force sensitive! I love that in a universe like Star Wars she has got no idea of technology! I think this will add a great point of difference within the roleplay. She is definitely going to be the granny of the ship, and in the cast of characters we have - we definitely need that old soul warmth. 

Also this bit reminds me of that one scene from Blackfish ;_;
"Her people's homes were ransacked and empty. At night, she did not have Wrrl'arra's hands around her, and she could hear, when she closed her eyes - the cries of her daughter, distantly, echoing as if from across the galaxy."

Now a question for myself... what the hell does this Wookie know about a missing Jedi Knight and his Padawan... hahaha. 

You're in! I'd maybe go through and tone down some of the Sith fighting, it seems almost a bit much, with snapping lightsabers etc. Maybe take that out and then post up your CS! :)