Species: Human
Gender: Male
Appearance:Those who knew Varman Hale before he swore the Barash Vow would not soon recognize him now. For five years years he has been gone from the Jedi Temple, living out the majority of his self-imposed exile on the frozen planet of Ilum. Physically, Varman has not changed much: even when he was a young Padawan, he was a Jedi more inclined towards battle than towards scholarly pursuits, evident in his strong grip and knuckles calloused from decades of martial practice. Despite years in exile, he still retains much of his fighting prowess both in swordplay and the use of the Force. But to anyone who had known him previously, it is clear that his manner has changed entirely; where once was a man unafraid to rush into the unknown now is one who carries himself with an uneasy reticence he did not before, quiet and hesitant and careful beyond the point of prudence with every new step that he takes.
His newfound weariness is readily apparent from his appearance: though he once kept his black hair fastidiously short and his lightsaber impeccably well-maintained, his locks now have grown long, necessitating the high topknot he now wears, and his weapon is battered from careless use. He seems older than his years would warrant, a certain wounded haggardness in his gaze.
Despite his weariness, however, he has never abandoned his Jedi robes: upon his return from Ilum, he wears a ceremonial white-and-gold tabard over a tunic of pale green and a pair of sturdy trousers tucked into well-worn boots. The most curious part of his apparel is the red sash about his waist, seeming better suited for ceremonial wear or for a Padawan’s garb save its color—in truth, it resembles the vestments of other orders devoted to the Force far more than those of the Jedi.
Personal effects:Like most Jedi, Varman keeps few things on his person: a handful of spare credits, his lightsaber, and a datapad with a heavily-annotated copy of Kozem Pel’s Collected Poems, Prayers, and Meditations on the Force.
Varman’s lightsaber is the most valuable of his few possessions, though it has been ill-maintained in his exile: the dark wrapping about its grip has become tattered from regular use and its brass crossguard and decorations have tarnished in his years away from the Jedi Temple. At its heart, however, remains a flawless crystal of blue kyber, its potent energy thrumming pure and strong in the Force.
Personality:Varman is a cautious and wary Jedi, careful to the point of overcautiousness. Before his exile, he charged into battle without thinking, relying on the Force and his intuition to carry him through; in recent days, however, he has been changed, reticent and indecisive where once he would act without thought at all. He is warm and thoughtful but taciturn and slow to speak, readily letting others speak first before himself. Other Jedi would recognize the doubt gnawing at him, weakening his connection to the Force.
View of the Force:When he peers into the Force, he sees the world as a valley filled with endless cairns, each cairn of differing provenance and composition and each stone of the cairns teeming with a long memory stacked together to form a greater and magnificent whole.
Background:Varman Hale was sent to Coruscant as soon as he displayed his first signs of Force-sensitivity—the induction of a child into the Jedi Order was a high honor for his Gatalentan family and they were proud to serve the Republic’s defenders. At the Jedi Temple, Varman proved to be an athletic youngling skilled in lightsaber combat but less diligent by far in his studies. He was never the cleverest student or the strongest disciple of the Force, but he proved to be disciplined, courageous, and driven to do good in the galaxy.
When Varman became a Padawan, he apprenticed under Master Renara Dal, a proud warrior tempered by decades of experience. Under her influence, he became a skillful warrior, scoring numerous times at the top of the Jedi Order’s lightsaber duelist rankings. Theirs was a close relationship in which she would temper his straightforward nature with her thoughtfulness, urging the young Jedi to think before acting and attempting to reel in his
naïveté to little avail. Varman remained rash and trusting and boisterous to the end, running into trouble no small number of times when Master Renara would be forced to bail him out of jail after bar-fights in the cantinas of Coruscant. Still, given Varman’s readily-apparent devotion to justice (and aided in no small part by the recommendation of Master Renara), Varman soon passed his Jedi Trials and was made a Jedi Knight at the age of twenty-five.
In the year 220 BBY, Varman acquired a Padawan learner of his own, a young and spirited Rodian by the name of Yugo Tsothl. Though Varman had not initially desired a Padawan so soon after his knighting, he took the boy under his wing on the recommendation of his former master. It would be a learning experience for the Jedi Knight, Master Renara had said—and indeed it was. Varman was frustrated with the boy’s inability to fight at first, attempting to be supportive but unsure of how to actually offer a boy so unlike him any help. Before long, however, Varman grew fond of Yugo despite their differences. Though Yugo was always a Jedi more inclined towards study, dithering when it came time for actual lightsaber combat, Varman pushed the young Padawan towards a greater sense of assertiveness, urging him to trust in the will of the Force, to feel rather than think. Yugo grew more assertive and more relaxed under Varman’s tutelage over the next few years, arguing more easily in his written and oral exams and fighting more fluidly than he had before. The two grew as close as Varman and Master Renara had been in their past, and with their closeness, Yugo became deeply familiar with Varman’s mantra:
Trust in the Force.But this trust would prove dangerous in time. After three years together, the pair were sent to rectify a hostage situation high above the skyscrapers of Hosnian Prime: aboard the pirate vessel
The Black Blurrg, bandits held a young son of Alderaan’s House Alde for a billion-credit ransom.
Trust in the Force, Varman had told Yugo before they sneaked aboard the enemy ship, sure of his apprentice’s success. They easily dropped onto
The Black Blurrg, and made their way aboard, dismembering security droids and incapacitating bandit gunmen with precision only Jedi could muster. The master and apprentice made short work of the kidnappers and easily freed the son of House Alde—but their return journey proved treacherous. Varman let Yugo go on ahead, letting the Padawan trust his feelings and lead the freed prince to freedom while Varman secured their extraction point. But just as Varman was returning to Yugo, a cadre of security droids trapped the Padawan and the Alde boy and rained blasterfire upon them both—though the Padawan successfully defended his charge, he himself was blasted beyond recognition. After returning the prince to House Alde, Varman cremated what was left of Yugo in the traditional Jedi fashion and returned to Coruscant in sorrow.
Afterwards, a guilty Varman swore the Barash Vow, a penitent oath to refrain from involvement with the Jedi Order and close himself to things other than the Force. He journeyed to the holy sites of Lothal and Jedha, speaking with Jedi and with other orders of the Force—for a time he was a Disciple of the Whills, spending his time in solitude save when he spoke with pilgrims and priests. He remained restless, however, and continued to move from place to place until at last he settled at last on the isolated planet of Ilum and lived alone near its frozen Jedi temple. Being a source of the kyber crystals which power the Jedi’s lightsabers, Ilum was a powerful font of the Force—it was there, he decided, where he would recenter himself and find his path to come.
But months passed and then years, and still Varman found no answer when he reached out into the Force. He deliberated in solitude until Jedi on Coruscant decided that this period could not last: with the last group of Younglings who travelled to Ilum in search of their lightsabers’ crystals came Varman’s former master. Finding his abode in the snow, Master Renara spoke with him, telling him before she left with the next shuttle out:
“You knew this truth better as a Padawan learner than you do as a Jedi Knight, Varman: Justice is never achieved by endless navel-gazing, but through action. As you linger here in the lonesome kyber caves of Ilum, your gifts go to waste and you forget one of your earliest lessons as a Jedi: There is no death; there is the Force.”
Still ill-at-ease but mindful of his former master’s message, Varman prepared for the long journey back to Coruscant in the week after her departure, still unsure of himself after Yugo’s death but still ever devoted to the ideals of the Jedi Order.
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