CHARACTERS OF KALANDAR:

LUBENN

Kalandar, isolated and forgotten by the rest of the planet, does not live as the rest of hyper-civilized Coruscant. Those facilities which are taken for granted in the rest of the Empire, such as electricity, computer and communication lines and travelling facilities must be purchased personally. In order to live it is necessary to fit the old buildings and fallen palaces with electric generators, food supplies, connecting cables, security systems and all things that a Coruscant citizens would never think of.

That's why, either legally or not, many have opened sale centers within the villages. Some are old and tired shops that flourished in the golden days of Kalandar and are now on the verge of bankruptcy. Others, on the contrary, more energetic, have been put up by refugees with an eye for the money who saw an opportunity to earn some quick money. They are thought by evacuees for the evacuees and offer precisely what is needed.

Among these retails a particular place is occupied by Lubenn's emporium. The sale center, a huge stone palace whose halls have been filled to the top with crates, tanks, food packs and portable generators, is possibly the most complete in Ghastal and even the cheapest one. Yet, unexplainably, the emporium is always in precarious conditions: it is the target of thefts, sabotages and accidents that force the owner to spend most of his earnings to take care of the losses and the damage.

Years ago Lubenn was not an unfortunate and good hearted merchant, though. He had arrived in Kalandar together with the mass of nobles and rich who invaded the region and was one of the first to benefit from the fashion the Imperial Court had imposed. Combining a good ability in the field of commerce along with the energy of the youth, Lubenn was soon successful in his business and found himself at the center of a fair-sized network of sales in Ghastal: many other retail points started relying upon him as a reference point and a stock retailer.

But young Lubenn barely noticed people around him. It was the rich customers and the show of luxury and grandeur they displayed every day in his shop that charmed him. He dreamed of leaving his world of invoices, credit notes and annoying shopkeepers and entering the world of high society. Soon this became an obsession: he started working without a pause, to raise his prices and to maneuver his network of retailers in an unscrupulous way in order to accumulate more and more riches. As owner of the most complete and trendy emporium in the region he soon found out he could double his prices and have the rich customers of Kalandar paying without even flinching, in order to have the luxuries and the commodities of the court in the middle of Kalandar. The market was so lucrative that Lubenn soon became a pretty rich and powerful merchant of his own in the region. Soon his dream became reality: he started, with great pleasure, to attend parties and private circles at the highest levels: the nobles and the other merchants happily accepted him as a pet they had grown and educated according to their whims and Lubenn, blinded by his own scent, did not realized he was part of that golden world only until he played by their rules.

As it often happens, with welfare and luxury often comes arrogance and indifference. Lubenn was so lost in contemplation of himself and his quick fortune that he did not even notice he had abandoned every link with the rest of his world: debtors were immediately denounced to Imperial authorities after their first day of insolvency , no matter if they were friends or acquaintances that had done much for him in the past: what mattered was to prove himself a an inflexible and cool businessman before his new "friends". For some time, things worked: life for Lubenn and his family was a long sequence of exclusive parties evening galas and enjoyable time with the rich and powerful, alternated with further demolition, exploitation and mistreatment of fellow merchants, contacts and friends of his old world. Then the wheel span. During one of the many meetings and parties Lubenn had a quarrel with an Admiral of the Imperial Navy visiting Kalandar. Certain that he could rely on the support if his many "friends", instead of bowing his head he replied at the provocation and snapped back at the Admiral. A chilling silence came over the grand hall. The hypocrite and accusing glances of all the other guests converged on the disturbing "parvenu" that had dared too much. After a few seconds, the whole company exploded in a long sequence of apologies to the Admiral and accusations to the "salesman". The party was interrupted, Lubenn was dismissed. The following day every noble in Kalandar was ready to take the distance from the merchant and took care to add that "personally, he had never trusted that man". The short permanence of Lubenn among the nobility was over.

His contacts lost, all the projects and the investments he had started with his noble friends cancelled, the old ones he had with his old world of little retailers willingly forgotten, Lubenn soon was on the edge of financial ruin. He was soon a despaired man and went very close to putting an end to his own life.

The, swallowing his pride, not much for himself but mostly to ensure a future to his family, he decided to return to his old activity of small retailer. He tracked down his old contacts, customers and small shops he had abandoned when he had started his grand ascent. Ready to suffer their retribution, to pay inflated prices and to endure the unavoidable payback they would certainly demand, Lubenn was quickly surprised when he saw that his old colleagues received him without even mentioning what was happened. Someone cracked a joke now and the, others smiled knowingly as if they had known from the beginning what would become of his projects of grandeur, but then the matter was quickly forgotten as if it had never happened. In the space of a few months Lubenn was once again the satisfied retailer of his town emporium and his small network, as if nothing had ever happened.

But actually many things had changed. The court of Kalandar was about to abandon the region and return to the Imperial City, as per Palpatine's orders, but even the few who remained were very careful to ignore the merchant. And Lubenn himself was a very different man. Not only he was happy with his situation this time, but after the experience of his failure and isolation, he also saw things around him under a very different light. He was suddenly aware of how many stranded and derelicts populated Ghastal's alleys. Of how the most basic goods were becoming scarce in the region. Of how many retailers declared bankruptcy one after another and closed their activities.

Moved by a sense of mercy he had never experienced before and from an uncanny need to do something, he dedicated all his efforts to alleviate the needs of the people around him: his goods were granted in credit, the prices were recharged only the minimum fare, his commercial contacts were used to bring to Kalandar all those goods that were becoming more and more difficult to obtain. The money he had accumulated in past disappeared almost entirely, and since then the emporium keeps satisfying and helping the needs of the citizens at his best, while Lubenn and his family are happy with the minimum necessary to live.

Needless to say, Lubenn is almost an institution in Ghastal now. People appreciates him and have an high esteem of him, and just as he would do anything to sustain the city, many in the city would give an arm for him in his moment of need. From this point of view, it is very difficult to explain the acts of vandalism and the thefts the emporium keeps enduring, The common opinion of people says that, no matter how good you are, worst criminals ready to rob from even the most charitable men come always in great numbers, especially now that Kalandar is starting to host refugees and criminals in great quantities, who do not care about the history of the city and his inhabitants.

But there are also those who think that there's something more behind the emporium's sabotages, and that one of the nobles the merchant insulted has long memory and is enjoying inflicting wicked jokers to his old rival...

Lubenn
Type: Trader

DEX 3D
Blaster 4D
Dodge 4D+2

KNO 4D
Bureaucracy 5D
Business 6D+2
Languages 5D
Value 6D
Willpower 5D

MEC 3D
Beast riding 4D
Repulsorlift operation 5D+2

PER 4D
Bargain 6D+1
Con 5D
Persuasion 5D+1

STR 2D
Stamina 4D

TEC 2D+2
First Aid 5D

Force Sensitive? No
Force Points: 1
Character Points: 5
A Quote: "Don't worry, you'll pay me when you have the money... But don't you think you'll have to give up drinking sooner or later?"

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