Kar Vastor

"Kar Vastor is not the most dangerous man in the Korunnal Highlands." "You only say that because you don't really know him." "I say that because he doesn't really know me."

- Mace Windu and Nick Rostu

Kar Vastor was a leader in the Upland Liberation Front on Haruun Kal in the decade before the outbreak of the Clone Wars. He was the lor pelek of the Korunnai, and the military leader of them during the local Summertime War. Kar and his people sided with the Republic during the Clone Wars, but his actions were judged as "crimes against civilization" and he was ultimately defeated and arrested by Jedi Master Mace Windu. He was an immensely tall, extremely muscular bald man with dark skin and needle-sharp teeth.

Early life
Born a Korun, Kar Vastor's early life seemed ordinary, despite that he was more in touch with pelekotan (The Force in Korun language, the literal translation as "jungle mind") than most. It was the Summertime War which forever changed Kar's destiny, as well as the destiny of Haruun Kal. At the age of fourteen, Kar Vastor saw his whole family massacred by jungle prospectors. How Kar Vastor escaped was a mystery, the stories among the Korunnai were contradictory, and Kar would not discuss it.

Kar Vastor was abandoned in the jungle: without weapons, without grassers, without akks or people, food or supplies of any kind. For most being, it was death sentence. However Kar alone survived for more than a standard year.

In the jungle, he learned all his impressive Force-powers but lost the ability to form normal languages like other sentient beings. Mace Windu later suspected that it was the price Kar paid for his survival: Pelekotan traded him power for his humanity.

In the jungle, Kar probably discovered the Jedi spaceship that carried the Korun ancestors to Haruun Kal. Kar Vastor used the starship armor to build his weapon of choice: vibroshields. A weapon of Kar's own design, they were shield-shaped vibro-axes, since the sonic generators that power the shields are fully sealed, they were resistant to the metal-eating molds and fungi in the jungle. And because the starship armor was a superconductor, not even a lightsaber blade could cut through the shields.

lor pelek in the Summertime War
Kar Vastor grew to become a lor pelek, a "jungle master": shaman, witch doctor, wizard, demon. In Korun legend, the lor pelek was a person of great power, and great peril. Kar Vastor lived up with his title, he was as unpredictable as the jungle, he brought life or death, a gift or a wound. In some Korun stories, a lor pelek was not a being at all, but was rather pelekotan incarnate: the avatar of the "jungle mind". Kar Vastor, although a human, still became the avatar of the jungle's darkness.

During the Summertime War, Kar Vastor formed a clan named Akk Guards. Kar and the Guards were mastery fighters in both unarmed and melee combat, as well as using the Force. Without proper training, their usage of the Force was without grace, they relied on instincts, their Force powers aggressive and wild.

Thirty-five years before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Jedi Master Mace Windu visited the Koruns and shared with them tales of the Jedi. Kar Vastor possibly heard those tales, thus he and the Akk Guards started mirroring Jedi Knights. When Kar accepted a man as his Akk Guard, the man would build his own shields, resembling the Jedi building their own lightsabers. Besided this ritual, their whole selves were a dark mirror image of the Jedi as well: they relied on instinct while the Jedi relied on training; they used anger and aggression as sources of power, while the Jedi based their power upon serenity and defense; Kar and the Guards used their shields as swords, and the Jedi used their swords as shields.

With the vibroshields, Kar and the Akk Guards deflected blaster bolts and projectiles as well as a Jedi. This skill may have been the result of tales of Jedi training Mace Windu told his friends when he spent a brief period of his youth on Haruun Kal.

Vastor's experience in the jungle determined his view on tan pel'trokal: Jungle Justice, a penalty devised by Korun culture, to punish crimes deserving death. Kar Vastor sent all his captives in the Summertime War into the jungle without any kind of supply. Because no captives could survive the jungle to tell the tale, the Balawai thought Kar and the Koruns had always killed all of the captives, further darkening the war.

Kar was a member of the Gösh Windu, its last surviving one&mdash;before this dỏshalo (clan brother) Mace Windu revisited the planet - as the Summertime War slowly killing the whole clan.

Despite the fact that every Korun could use the Force, and that Kar Vastor with the Akk Guards could defeat almost anyone in individual combat, the Korunnai did not win the war for two reasons. First, Koruns lived in the jungle, and because the jungle's fungi would eat almost every kind of metal, it made it impossible for the Korunnai impossible to use technological weapons and equipment in the jungle. They fought with slug rifles, while Balawai used blasters. Second, the Summertime War was a war of extermination. Enemies were killed at first sight, regardless of age and conditions. While the Balawai could hide non-combatants in the city, the Koruns had no place to hide their owns. However as the name hinted, the Summertime War would halt during seasons like autumn and winter, and so the Korunnai still had time to recover.

The Clone Wars
With the outbreak of the Clone Wars, the Balawai had sided with the Confederacy of Independent Systems, thus gaining even more supplies and technological advantages: battle droids, droid starfighters, De-Orbiting Kinetic Anti-emplacement Weapons and gunships. Despite Kar's abilities and leadership, the Korun were losing badly, facing extinction.

The arrival of Jedi Master Depa Billaba changed everything. Assigned by the Jedi Council to liberate the system, Depa fought with Kar Vastor, his Akk Guards, and the Koruns. With her mastery in the Force and the seventh lightsaber combat form known as Vaapad, the tide started to change. The Koruns considered Depa a goddess and their only hope. However with each victory, with each killing, the darkness of the jungle and the terror of warfare started to corrupt, torture, and kill Depa slowly. Depa's mastery in Vaapad furthered the corruption as she channeled her inner darkness to be the weapon of light.

As a result, the actions of Korun combatants darkened, both in reality and in tales, and the Balawai responded with their darkness. Working together, Kar and Depa made up the name of "Upland Liberation Front" for their fighting force. This proved to be a successful tactic to confuse the enemy: the Balawai kept trying to figure out the tatics and pattern of the Front's attack, which was always futile because there was no Upland Liberation Front. The Front was just merely a name to blame every attack on, the Korun fighting force was just a group of barely surviving humans seeking for any kind of supply.

Finally, the Confederacy of Independent Systems fell back and abandon the planet to the Balawai themselves, but continued to supply them with weapons and equipment. The winning yet dying Koruns were not able to celebrate as long as the Balawai existed. As a result Depa stayed with the Koruns and fought with them, neglecting any order from the Council. Determined to teach her Master a lesson of war and its darkness, Depa and Kar set up a terrifying scene to draw Mace Windu to the planet.

Appearances

 * Shatterpoint