Calo Nord

Calo Nord, a Human male, was an infamous bounty hunter who lived during the Jedi Civil War, a galaxy-spanning conflict initiated by the Sith Lords Darth Revan and Darth Malak. Nord was sold into slavery by his mother and father at a young age. On his sixteenth birthday, Nord killed his slave masters and then tracked down his parents, murdering them as well. A bounty was placed on Nord, but he eliminated every mercenary that came after him. After the attempts on his life ended, Nord murdered those who had placed the bounty on his head and then became a bounty hunter by trade, taking assignments from any party, so long as he was paid. Nord worked on occasion for the Exchange criminal syndicate boss Davik Kang, but was also contracted by the Galactic Republic for operations in the Core.

During the final year of the Jedi Civil War, Nord was on the planet Taris while Malak, who had betrayed Revan and usurped control of the Sith Empire, had the planet quarantined in order to search for the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan. Malak eventually ordered the planet's destruction in an attempt to kill Shan. When the Sith began to bombard Taris, Nord and Kang attempted to flee aboard Kang's freighter Ebon Hawk and caught Shan, the amnesiac Revan, the Republic commander Carth Onasi, and the Mandalorian Canderous Ordo, during their attempt to steal Kang's ship. A firefight ensued, which ended when Nord was caught under falling debris and trapped. Shan and her companions escaped aboard the Ebon Hawk. The bounty hunter was able to flee Taris and evade the devastation wrought by the Sith and was subsequently hired by Darth Malak to track down Shan and capture her alive. Nord located Shan's companion, Revan, now a partially retrained Jedi Padawan, in the Eastern Dune Sea on the desert planet of Tatooine. The bounty hunter confronted Revan, who was searching for the Star Forge, an ancient Rakatan space station under Malak's control. Nord was overmatched by Revan and his companions, resulting in his death.

Early life and bounty hunter
"Calo Nord's one of the most famous bounty hunters in the galaxy. He's killed more people than the Iridian Plague!"

- Mission Vao

When the Human male known as Calo Nord was a young boy, he was sold into slavery by his mother and father. During his time as a slave, Nord learned to be ruthless and cold-hearted. After turning sixteen years of age, Nord butchered his slave masters and located his parents, murdering them. A bounty was placed on Nord's head, and the young man was pursued by many bounty hunters. Nord observed the means and methodologies of the bounty hunters who tracked him, learning and acquiring trade skills. He used his newfound skills to eliminate each one that was in pursuit of him. Eventually, the attempts on his life ceased; Nord, however, found and killed the people that had placed the bounty on his head. Nord became a bounty hunter himself, taking contracts from whoever paid him. At some point during his lifetime, he was hired by the Galactic Republic for operations in the Core.

He often worked for Davik Kang, a crime lord of the Exchange crime syndicate, who was based on the Outer Rim ecumenopolis of Taris. Kang periodically hired Nord to kill and bring back the heads of rancors so that the crime lord could mount the heads in his trophy room. While on Taris, Nord could occasionally be found in the Hutt Zax's bounty office, which was housed in the Lower City locale of Javyar's Cantina. By the time of the Jedi Civil War, a galaxy-spanning conflict initiated by Jedi Knights–turned–Sith Lords Darth Revan and Darth Malak and their Sith Empire, it was rumored that Nord had killed more people than the Iridian Plague.

Battle of Taris
"A Jedi and a war hero&mdash;it's a wonder you survived the encounter.''" "''I am hard to kill, Lord Malak."

- Nord, to Darth Malak

In 3,957 BBY, Darth Malak usurped the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith when he betrayed his Sith Master Revan as the Jedi and Republic forces tried to capture them both. One year later, Malak conquered Taris and ordered his fleet to blockade the planet so that the Sith forces could search for Jedi Knight Bastila Shan.



During the Sith's quarantine of Taris, Nord, who was on the planet for business with Davik Kang, encountered the Republic soldier Revan&mdash;the former Dark Lord's original identity been wiped by the Jedi Council&mdash;twice while the soldier and the Republic commander Carth Onasi were searching for Shan. Nord first met Revan in Javyar's Cantina in the Tarisian Lower City, where the bounty hunter killed three Black Vulkars for disturbing him. Revan tried to engage Nord in conversation, but Nord, who was leaving the cantina, wanted to be left alone. Revan complied, not wanting to provoke the bounty hunter into attacking him. Nord later encountered Revan when the soldier was exploring the Lower City's apartments. There, Nord killed two Rodians so that he could collect the bounties on their heads.

After Revan located and rescued Shan, he joined forces with Canderous Ordo, a Mandalorian that worked as Kang's enforcer. Revan broke into the local Sith base and acquired the launch codes necessary to leave Taris. Ordo then took Revan, Shan, and Onasi to Kang's estate and introduced Revan to the crime lord as an individual interested in joining the Exchange. Nord, who was also present, told the Mandalorian that it was not like him to take on partners and taunted Ordo. After Ordo retorted, Kang told the two mercenaries to stop their bickering. Nord accompanied Kang while the crime lord treated Revan and his companions to a tour of his estate, showing them his freighter, the Ebon Hawk. After the tour, Nord and Kang took Ordo, Revan, Shan, and Onasi to a guest room and warned Revan to stay in the guest wing of the estate. Kang left to look into Revan's background, as a standard precaution, and told Nord to come with him.

Aboard his flagship Leviathan, Darth Malak colcluded that the search for Shan was taking too long and ordered the Sith Admiral Saul Karath to have the Sith fleet destroy Taris in order to kill the Jedi. Nord and Kang attempted to reach the Ebon Hawk, but discovered that Revan and his companions had left their quarters after catching the group in their attempt to steal the ship. Nord revealed his intent to kill the group to Kang, stating that he had looked forward to doing so for a long time. Kang told the bounty hunter to hurry, saying that if they did not escape, the Sith's lasers would kill them all. In the ensuing fight, Nord realized that himself and Kang were outmatched. Nord tried to use a thermal detonator to kill everyone, including himself, but was buried underneath rubble when the Sith's lasers partially destroyed the hangar. Leaving Nord and Kang, the latter of whom had perished during the fighting, Revan's group boarded the Ebon Hawk. They picked up the rest of their companions and fled Taris as the Sith bombarded the planet.

Death
Nord survived the attack and manged to escape Taris before the Sith completely destroyed the surface of the planet. When Nord had sufficiently recovered, he was granted an audience with Darth Malak aboard the Leviathan. Admiral Karath brought Nord in as an eyewitness of Bastila Shan's survival, and when the bounty hunter entered, Malak expressed his surprise that Nord had managed to survive his encounter with Shan and Onasi, to which Nord replied that he was hard to kill. Karath told Malak that while Nord had been hired to capture Shan for a hefty fee, Nord's services were worth the price. Malak informed Nord that he desired Shan taken alive, if it was possible, but that the Jedi's other companions meant nothing to him. Before Nord left to locate Shan, he and Karath privately met with Malak away from the crew on the Leviathan bridge, during which Nord revealed to Malak that his former Sith Master, Revan, still survived and had been involved in Shan's escape.

Nord set out to find Revan and his companions. Nord hired two Rodian and two Aqualish henchmen and located Revan&mdash;who had been retrained in the Jedi ways as a Padawan and tasked with finding the Star Forge, an ancient Rakatan space station under Malak's control, by the Jedi Council of Dantooine&mdash;in the Eastern Dune Sea on the desert world Tatooine. Nord confronted Revan after the Jedi found a second Rakatan Star Map, which was necessary to locate the Star Forge, in the cave of a krayt dragon, a creature native to Tatooine. Nord gave Revan credit for evading him, but stated that no one could escape him in the end. When Revan asked Nord if they could work out a deal so as to avoid fighting, Nord refused and attacked Revan. However, Nord and his accomplices were killed by the former Sith Lord and his companions.

Legacy
The leaders of the secret bounty hunter guild known as the GenoHaradan considered admitting Nord in their organization, although he had not yet proven himself worthy of joining. However, due to Nord's death at Revan's hands, the GenoHaradan's overseers decided to instead approach Revan with an invitation to join them. Shortly after Nord's death, Admiral Karath informed Darth Malak of Nord's failure. Malak told Karath that the penalty for failure was death, but that the failure belonged to Nord, not Karath himself. Following the bounty hunter's defeat, Malak dispatched his Shadow Hand, Darth Bandon, to kill Revan and capture Shan, but Bandon was also killed by Malak's former Sith Master.

Personality and traits


Calo Nord was a diminutive Human male who seemed harmless at first glance. He moved with a careful, deliberate precision, and he possessed an expressionless face. He took contracts from anyone who paid him well, but his ultimate loyalty was to whoever offered him the most credits. Nord stated that he also worked for the thrill of the hunt at times. He spoke and comprehended Basic, the Republic trade language, as well as Huttese. Nord had a reputation of lacking fear for anyone and being cold, menacing, and unapproachable. He possessed innate instincts for survival and killing. Many people dismissed Nord's story as a myth that was created to scare aspiring criminals. No name was more feared among the criminals in the Outer Rim than Calo Nord's.

If someone disturbed Nord, he would count to three&mdash;with a number after each phrase from the person&mdash;and only fire at the speaker after the third phrase, giving them a chance to stop bothering him and escape his anger. Occasionally, people who disturbed Nord were not aware that the bounty hunter was giving them a chance to leave before he would attack. Even so, Nord would not give them a second chance and killed those who bothered him without much effort. Nord would always find his prey, and he showed them no mercy, ignoring pleas and bribes. Nord recorded his trophy kills on his personal datapad. He also recorded his aspirations to claim a pearl from a krayt dragon on Tatooine. Nord considered one of these pearls to be the greatest hunting trophy. Nord disliked the Mandalorian Canderous Ordo, who was also an employee of Davik Kang's, and would taunt him on occasion. Darth Malak's Sith apprentice, Darth Bandon, disliked Nord, viewing him as pathetic. Bandon expressed this opinion to Revan when the Sith confronted the Jedi. Bandon also said that even though Revan defeated Nord, the Jedi would be no match for the Shadow Hand.

Equipment
Nord was a man of many possessions. He used two Mandalorian heavy blasters as his primary weapons, but he could also fight with a vibroblade when pressed. Nord also carried four stun grenades and two thermal detonators in his arsenal. He possessed a pair of goggles that granted him low-light vision when he wore them and used a prototype energy shield of Verpine design for extra protection during battle. Nord carried 2,000 credits on his person and employed a datapad, on which he kept a record of his thoughts and trophy kills. After Nord ordered a custom suit of battle armor that was based on heavily modified Mandalorian designs, Nord murdered the armorer to ensure his suit would remain unique.

Behind the scenes
Calo Nord was created by the developers at BioWare as a villain for the 2003 Xbox and PC video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. A miniature of Nord was released in the Star Wars Miniatures: Bounty Hunters, an expansion set of Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Miniatures role-playing game. The set was released on September 23, 2006. In The Sith Lords, the sequel to Knights of the Old Republic, there was a suit of battle armor called "Verpine Zal Alloy Mesh". In-game, this armor appears similar to the armor that Revan could acquire from Nord after killing him. Nord's entry in the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide incorrectly states that he died in the Sith bombardment of Taris. His entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia also incorrectly states that Nord was killed near Rakata Prime during the final battle of the Jedi Civil War.

The planet on which Revan battles Nord is determined by the order in which the second of the five Star Maps that lead to the Star Forge's location is obtained. Nord may appear either on Tatooine, the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, the Selkath homeworld of Manaan, or the ancient Sith tombworld of Korriban. On Tatooine, Nord is accompanied by Rodian and Aqualish henchmen; on Kashyyyk, Nord is accompanied by Wookiees loyal to Chieftain Chuundar. On Manaan, Nord is accompanied by two Twi'leks, and on Korriban he is accompanied by two Sith students from the Sith Academy. Should Revan encounter Nord in the Hrakert Station on Manaan, Nord explains that he used an underwater vessel to reach the station.

The first time Revan meets Nord is in Javyar's Cantina in the Tarisian Lower City. If Revan attempts to speak to Nord, the bounty hunter tells Revan to go away. If Revan keeps speaking to Nord, he counts to three. Should Revan continue to converse with Nord after reaching his three-count, Nord attacks and kills Revan. It is possible for Revan to escape death by quickly leaving and re-entering the cantina. Should Canderous Ordo accompany Revan when Nord confronts the Jedi, Ordo will make note of the fact that Nord brought backup and taunt the bounty hunter.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic