Unidentified Gran (Rimmer's Rest)

"You'll never leave here alive. Nar Shaddaa will be your grave!"

- The Gran, threatening Kyle Katarn

A Gran male operated out of the moon Nar Shaddaa in the period following the Battle of Endor, working as a bounty hunter and a bodyguard. At some point, he had a run-in with Rebel Alliance agent Kyle Katarn, in which the Gran received a blaster injury to the leg. In 5 ABY, the droid information broker 8t88 hired the Gran to serve as backup during a meeting with Katarn at the Rimmer's Rest cantina on Nar Shaddaa, where 8t88 was going to divulge information regarding the death of Katarn's father. However, the droid double-crossed Katarn and left the Gran and another hireling to kill him. Katarn disarmed both hirelings before they could shoot him, however, with the agent making his escape soon after.

Biography
"Remember me? It took three months for that blaster burn to heal.''" "''Can't say that I do, but the streets are filled with trash&mdash;and it's hard to tell one piece from another."

- The Gran and Kyle Katarn

A Gran male worked as a bodyguard sometime before the year 4 ABY. The Gran eventually went in search of a weapons smuggler but encountered the Rebel Alliance agent Kyle Katarn instead. After a shootout between the two, the Gran sustained a blaster injury to the leg while Katarn took down the smuggling operation by himself. The wound took three months to heal, during which time the Gran built up a grudge against Katarn. By the year 5 ABY, the Gran had switched over into the career of bounty hunting, working out of the moon Nar Shaddaa.

Later during the same year, a droid information broker named 8t88, working for the Dark Jedi Jerec, obtained a datadisc on the moon Sulon from the home of Katarn's father, Morgan, whom Jerec had murdered previously. Unable to decipher the disc due to its layered encryption, 8t88 journeyed to Nar Shaddaa in search of Katarn, whom 8t88 believed could decipher the disk. In case Katarn would not comply, 8t88 searched for hired guns to provide backup and first contacted the bounty hunter Boba Fett to serve as a bodyguard. However, Fett declined, which forced 8t88 to find cheaper backup, including the Gran and a number of other mercenaries and bounty hunters.

Arriving at Katarn's table at the Rimmer's Rest cantina, 8t88 informed Katarn of Jerec's responsibility for Morgan's death as well as the Dark Jedi's plans to create a new Empire. While late to the confrontation, the Gran and a Rodian moved in around Katarn as 8t88 offered him one last chance to describe what his father's datadisc contained, rather than die at the hands of the hirelings. However, Katarn refused to comply, prompting 8t88 to leave and order his hirelings to kill Katarn. Instead of immediately shooting Katarn, the Gran asked him if he remembered him from their past encounter. While the former agent did not recognize the Gran, the exchange granted Katarn enough time to throw the Rodian over his shoulder while unconsciously calling on the Force to retrieve his own blaster to point at the Gran. Both of the hirelings were disarmed and were in awe of Katarn's sudden trick as the former agent slipped away, mockingly adding that they should go out for lunch sometime. Afterward, Katarn chased 8t88 through the streets of Nar Shaddaa, eventually shooting off one of the droid's arms on a landing platform as 8t88 escaped aboard an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle with the help of more hired guns, whom the shuttle's stormtroopers shot when they tried to board as well.

Personality and traits
"I was a bodyguard looking for a smuggler a few years back. He was running weapons into the Imperial sector, until you dumped his operation into a blackhole and gave me a laser shot in the leg doing it&hellip; and my leg still hurts sometimes."

- The Gran explains to Kyle Katarn their earlier encounter

The Gran was not above holding a grudge and carried one against Kyle Katarn ever since obtaining a long-lasting injury from him during a prior confrontation. The Gran was also cocky and somewhat eager during his subsequent confrontation with Katarn. He wished to know if Katarn remembered him at all from the previous engagement, though Katarn did not recognize the mercenary at all, claiming that the Gran was just a piece of street trash like numerous others with whom Katarn had dealt. However, the Gran was distracted by the exchange, which allowed Katarn to disarm him and slip away, leaving him seething in anger. At one point, 8t88 compared the Gran to Boba Fett, saying that while the Gran may not have been as skilled as Fett, he had been useful nonetheless.

The Gran had beige-colored skin and purple eyes that, at the time of his confrontation at the bar, were noticeably bloodshot. He had a voice that sounded like a gravel crusher and could speak both an alien language and Basic.

Equipment
The Gran carried an E-11 blaster rifle as his primary weapon during his second confrontation with Kyle Katarn. He also wore dark-blue fatigues around his torso as well as black pants with brown boots.

Behind the scenes
The Gran mercenary first appeared in the 1997 video game Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and later appeared, still unnamed, in the 1998 novella adaption Dark Forces: Rebel Agent, written by William C. Dietz and illustrated by Ezra Tucker. He also appeared in the Rebel Agent radio drama, which expanded briefly on the character's backstory. The Gran is one of three cutscene extras portrayed by actors in the game and is the only character with a spoken line. The line is then split up into two phrases that are reused as taunts for all other Gran enemies in the game, who speak one of the two lines upon sighting the player-character. One of the lines translates to a phrase containing Nar Shaddaa, and this phrase is still spoken by Gran during the game's Barons Hed mission on Sulon, despite them no longer being on Nar Shaddaa. Due to the costume's mask, the Gran's mouth does not move when he speaks. In addition, this Gran and others in Dark Forces II reused sound effects from Star Wars: Dark Forces.

Between the video game and the novella, the confrontation in the bar is somewhat different. While a Grave Tusken acts as the second thug during the game and gets flipped onto a table, the novella changes the thug to a Rodian. The weapon that Kyle Katarn uses against the Gran is also different in the translation. In the game, Katarn grabs a DH-17 blaster pistol from the Grave Tusken behind him, but in the novella Katarn uses the Force to grab his Bryar pistol, even though the weapon is never identified by name. However, the original art for the novella had the Bryar replaced with a DH-17. Between the game and novella, some dialogue is switched around and out of order. Also in the game, after the cutscene's closure, the Gran makes a run for it, and the player may choose to shoot and kill him or evade his followup attacks and escape. In the novella, Katarn disarms the thugs and leaves, though a page break is inserted shortly thereafter, which leaves the Gran's fate ambiguous. However, in the audio drama, Katarn leaves the Gran behind. In the game, the Gran speaks an alien dialect, though he speaks Basic in the novella and audio drama. Although this article was written with the assumption that Rebel Agent is the canonical telling of the events, it still assumes that the Gran could speak both Basic and another language.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
 * Dark Forces: Rebel Agent
 * Dark Forces: Rebel Agent audio drama