Parella Jiramma Baco

"His name is Parella and he likes to hunt." "Hunt?" "Most Hutts are, well, slugs, inert invertebrates. This one likes the thrill of bringing down his own kills."

- Eddey Be'ray and Mander Zuma, on Parella

Parella Jiramma Baco, also known as Parella the Hunter, was a Hutt crime lord with a masculine persona who lived on the moon Nar Shaddaa during the era of the New Republic. Considered an oddity among the Hutts, Parella was athletic and had a passion for hunting, and he went on a number of big game expeditions. At some point, he journeyed to the planet Lowick on a quest to hunt a lone member of the Gorach species, a legendary race of warriors that were said to have conquered a number of worlds thousands of years earlier. After locating the being with the help of some droid drones and his Pa'lowick guide Kashina Furt, Parella pursued and eventually defeated the Gorach.

Later, Parella attended a party on Nar Shaddaa that was held in the penthouse of his rival and occasional business partner, Popara Anjiliac. However, during the event Popara was murdered and the Anjiliac patriarch's heir Zonnos declared that the Jedi archivist Mander Zuma and the spacers Eddey Be'ray and Reen Irana were responsible for the crime. Eager to endear himself to Zonnos, Parella set out to hunt down the purported assassins, and he confronted them on a bridge on Nar Shaddaa, where the Hutt engaged in a fight with Zuma and initially disorientated the Jedi. However, Zuma regained his composure and sliced through one of the bridge's support cables, which caused the structure to collapse and sent Parella tumbling into a chasm below.

Hunting the Gorach
"I will bring him to heel, and place his stuffed and preserved form in my hall. He will be a piece of art for my fellow Hutts to admire as I regale them with the tale of the hunt."

- Parella, on the Gorach

Parella Jiramma Baco was a Hutt crime lord with a masculine persona who was a member of the Jiramma kajidic during the reign of the New Republic. He owned a tower on the Hutt-controlled moon Nar Shaddaa, from where he oversaw a small business that he ran largely to maintain his personal power, and he also employed four Klatooinian mercenaries as bodyguards. Parella was a long term rival of Popara Anjiliac Diresto, the patriarch of the rival Anjiliac kajidic, and on occasion, Parella acted as a business partner of Popara.

A keen hunter, Parella participated in a number of big game safaris. At some point, the Hutt set out to the planet Lowick, on a quest to hunt down a surviving member of the legendary Gorach species. The Gorach were said to be savage warriors that had subjugated dozens of worlds millennia earlier, and Parella suspected that sightings of a "swamp ape" on Lowick were that of a Gorach. He sought to kill the Gorach, then to have it's remains stuffed and put on display in his residence, as a piece of art. On arrival on Lowick, Parella landed his starship in the world's swamps and logged his mission objectives with a holorecorder. He the donned a set of armor and after disembarking from the ship, he was greeted by Kashina Furt, a Pa'lowick from a nearby settlement who had been dispatched to act as Parella's official guide. Parella explained to Furt the legend of the Gorach, and he then commenced the hunt.

Parella sent out some droid drones to fire incendiary darts into surround swamps, believing that the carpet bombing would drive out the Gorach. He observed the various animals that ran from the flames, and as he had predicted, he sighted the Gorach fleeing among them. However, the being realized that it was being hunted and it bolted to Parella's right, along the line of flames. Parella and Furt set off in pursuit, and as they tracked the Gorach, the being ambushed them and briefly engaged Parella in combat, then fled. During the bout, the Gorach drove a spear into Parella's armor, which caused it to crack.

After continuing on, over a series of hills, Parella and Furt located the Gorach's lair, next to a cliff. Parella tossed his Pa'lowick guide inside, to test whether their were any traps inside the cavern, and before be could check to see Furt's fate, the Hutt was attacked by the Gorach once again. The being drove Parella off of a cliff and into a mud pool below, and after shedding his helmet to distract the Gorach, Parella stabbed the creature with the vibrobayonet affixed to his blaster and killed it. He pulled himself out of the pool and dressed the body of the Gorach, then dragged it back to his ship and placed the corpse into a stasis chamber. As Parella was about to detail the outcome of the hunt with his holorecorder, he was interrupted by the arrival of Furt, who had discovered in the Gorach's cave that the creature had been a skilled artist, not a warrior. Parella returned to his ship and after thinking about the artist and it's fate, he decided not to detail the outcome of the quest with the holorecorder.

The death of Popara
"Flee you cowards! Make this a good sport! For you are the prey of Parella the Hunter!"

- Parella, to Eddey Be'ray, Reen Irana and Mander Zuma

In 19 ABY, the Jedi archivist Mander Zuma and the spacers Reen Irana and Eddey Be'ray rescued Popara's youngest son Mika from the quarantined world Endregaad, and a banquet was held in their honor, in Popara's penthouse on Nar Shaddaa. Parella was invited to the party, and at the event he sought to forge a permanent union between himself and Mika, for the benefit of both their clans. During the meal, Parella shared a table with Be'ray and some Rodians, and he expressed a desire to test out Mander Zuma's Jedi lightsaber, because the Hutt had never wielded such a weapon before.

Mika secretly sought to overthrow Popara, and during the meal, the elder Hutt was fed food laced with the toxins Lithium Magna and Lucogen, which caused Popara to explode. Popara's eldest son and heir, Zonnos, blamed the death of his father on Zuma and the two spacers, and Parella decided to endear himself to the new Anjiliac leader by vowing to help hunt down the purported assassins.

Parella put on his set of Hutt battle armor and headed off to track down Be'ray, Irana and Zuma. After being informed of their location by the Sullustan information broker Min Gost, Parella cornered the trio next to a bridge. As he emerged onto the structure, the Hutt shouted at the threesome and urged them to flee, so as not to make the hunt too easy for him. However, Zuma rose to the Hutt's challenge and attacked Parella, and he attempted to slice through the Hutt's stun baton, but was unable to do so because the baton was constructed from Mandalorian iron, a lightsaber-resistant material. Zuma subsequently jumped on Parella and tried to stab the Hutt in the eye, but the Jedi was electrocuted by the defensive systems fitted to Parella's armor. When Zuma charged against Parella once more, the Hutt attempted to parry Zuma's lightsaber with his baton, but the Jedi evaded Parella's strike and severed one of the bridge's support cables. The other support cables started to snap and Parella attempted to grab onto Zuma, but he failed and the bridge collapsed, which sent Parella tumbling off into a canyon that lay between the surrounding buildings.

Personality and traits
"I am Kashina Furt, I assume you are Parella the Hutt?" "Parella the Hunter. When I am on the hunt, I prefer that sobriquet."

- Kashina Furt and Parella

Parella was a viperous and ill-tempered individual, who was viewed by those around him to be nasty and unpleasant. Considered an oddity among the Hutts, Parella was athletic and had a passion for hunting, and he was as excessive a hunter as most other Hutts were excessively lazy. He took pleasure from stalking and killing his prey, and he preferred to hunt whirlbats on the adopted Hutt homeworld Nal Hutta than to attend parties. Parella believed that easy kills were unworthy of his hunting efforts; and the longer that his quarry evaded him, the more tenacious he became, and he sometimes developed a genuine affection for his prey. He liked to regale other Hutts with stories of his hunting expeditions, and while most Hutts considered Parella's direct approach to combat to be distasteful, they accepted that his methods were effective, because Parella's rivals often ended up dead at his hands. When on hunting expeditions, Parella liked to be known by the sobriquet "Parella the Hunter."

While traveling, Parella journeyed alone and relied upon his own combat abilities to protect himself. He had few qualms about firing blasters into crowds or causing damage to buildings, and he believed in the superiority of Hutts over other sentient species. Despite being a business rival of Popara, Parella loved and respected the Anjiliac patriarch, due to Popara's honest nature. However, he also thought Popara to be old and weak, and thought that the elder Hutt should seek to discover the makers of the drug Tempest&mdash;a potent variety of spice that had became popular across Hutt Space&mdash;and to make a deal with them. Parella had brown-colored skin and orange eyes.

Equipment
"He likes weapons of all sorts. Oh, and he's probably going to corner you about your blade." My lightsaber? Why?" "New weapon for him. He'll want to try it out."

- Eddey Be'ray and Mander Zuma, on Parella

Parella was fascinated by weapons and he had access to a lot of technology. He was proficient in the use of both blasters and melee weapons, and he carried a variety of weapons aboard his starship, including pistols, carbines and blaster rifles. When hunting, he usually carried a force pike, and while pursuing Be'ray, Irana, and Zuma, he wielded a stun baton constructed from Mandalorian iron. In addition, he often used tracking droids to help him to locate his prey.

During his quest to hunt the Gorach, Parella wore a set of protective armor that was constructed from Ruusan copper, which included a heavy helmet that was fitted with a heads-up display system. However, he found the armor to be insufficient for his purposes during the expedition, because the Gorach was able to penetrate the helmet with a spear, so Parella planned to speak with the armor's manufacturer and considered obtained a set of battle armor, as a replacement. He subsequently acquired a suit of ancient Hutt battle armor, a relic from generations past, and Parella claimed that it was the last such set of armor in existence. The armor significantly enhanced Parella's combat abilities and it consisted of a woven undersuit and a series of ornate, overlapping Durasteel plates that were connected to the undersuit, to provide protection. Attached to the plates were a number of microrepulsors, which, in addition to some small wheels that were fitted to the edge of the suit, allowed Parella to move with speed. The plates could also change color, to blend into the surrounding environment. The armor was fitted with to built-in holdout blasters and a specially-designed E-Web heavy repeating blaster that was fitted to the right shoulder. An on-board computer controlled the armor's various electrical systems, which included a comlink, a datapad, a translation unit and a vocabulator, and the armor also possessed a defensive capability whereby it electrocuted any of Parella's opponents that touched it.

Behind the scenes
"Of the Hutts in the book, I would say I like Parella the best&mdash;if only because he seeks out new experiences, but never really learns from them."

- Jeff Grubb, in an interview regarding Scourge

Parella was created by Jeff Grubb and Owen K.C. Stephens, and he first appeared in the Wizards of the Coast role-playing adventure Tempest Feud, which was published in 2002. He later went on to feature in Scourge, a novelization of the events of Tempest Feud that was written by Grubb and released in 2012, and Parella also appeared in the short story Hunting the Gorach, a prequel to the novel that was included in the magazine Star Wars Insider 133. Grubb considers Parella to be his favorite out of all of the Hutt characters that appeared in Scourge, and he has also suggested that Parella would be victorious in a fight against Ziro the Hutt, a character from the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Tempest Feud had no exact setting and it was possible for the events of the adventure to take place during either the Rise of the Empire era, the Rebellion era, the New Republic era or the New Jedi Order era. However, Scourge established that the events of Tempest Feud took place in 19 ABY, thus making the New Republic era the canon setting in which Parella lived. Furthermore, in Tempest Feud there were a number of possible different outcomes relation to Parella, which were dependent upon the actions of the player characters, who filled the role that was represented by Be'ray, Irana and Zuma in the novel. However, Scourge established the canon series of events and thus rendered some of the possible role-playing outcomes from Tempest Feud as non-canon. In Tempest Feud, it was possible for Parella to block the doorway to Popara's penthouse in the aftermath of the elder Hutt's demise, and for him to attack the player characters there. It was also possible for the player characters to subsequently travel to Parella's tower, and it they did so, he greeted them in his full battle armor and attacked them alongside his Klatooinian bodyguards.

It was later possible in Tempest Feud for Parella to attack the players outside the Dark Melody tapcafe on Nar Shaddaa, and also for him to engage the players in combat for a second time later in the adventure, possibly by hiring the Rodians of the Bomu Clan to track the players down. A major plot point of Tempest hinged on Mika's production of the spice Tempest, and if the players killed Mika early in the adventure, it was advised that Parella could then seize control of Mika's Tempest manufacturing plant on the world Varl and fulfill Mika's role for the rest if the adventure. In addition, the adventure suggested that Parella could be involved in future role-playing adventures, whereby he sought revenge against the player characters. In Tempest Feud, it is possible for Parella to be killed by the player characters and in Scourge, Parella was last seen plummeting into a deep chasm, but the novel did not clarify whether he survived the fall.

Appearances

 * Scourge
 * Scourge