Life hasn’t always been easy for the Jedi Initiate Gunda Poot. The Dug, like most of his kin, was born on Malastere. He wasn’t old when he decided that there was no future for him on his impoverished homeworld and decided to do whatever it took to get someplace nicer. He showed great affinity for speeder races at an early age, competing in his first race on a speeder bike at the tender age of eleven.

As he moved up in the racing world, the young Dug finally managed to get noticed by Perilla the Hutt, a gangster who ran a large criminal empire and had business interests along the Hydian Way trade route and thus visited Malastere on occasion. He offered Gunda decent wages racing for him on Nar Shaddaa, a dream come true for the Dug.

Gunda said farewell to his parents and friends and traveled with the Hutt to the Smuggler’s moon, arriving just two days before his fourteenth birthday. Once there he joined a team of speeder bike and ground speeder racers and did fairly well for himself in the local drag racing.

He had just started to get settled into this new life when opportunity knocked. A fellow Dug racer, Repno Lemm, who specialized in airspeeder races had an accident and was unable to compete in an important upcoming race. As his speeder had been custom-built for a Dug, Gunda was offered a chance to do the race in his place. And, being rather confident in his own abilities, naturally he accepted.

Unbeknownst to him, he was being played by Repno and his friends. The older Dug was worried Gunda was getting too good, and that he would soon overshadow him. Never one to shirk away from doing what had to be done, Repno faked his injury and plotted to make the younger Dug fall out of favor with their powerful patron.

Like most keen racing enthusiasts, Perilla the Hutt bet heavily on the race. He had gotten word to Repno that he was to throw the race, which would allow the Hutt and his cronies to win large sums of credits betting on the underdog in this one-on-one race. Only Repno neglected to mention this to Gunda.

Fortunately for the younger Dug, Perilla himself visited the pits before the race, and made sure he knew that he was expected to lose. And he started the race full of good intentions. And then his enthusiasm and pride got the better of him. Instead of throwing the race, he managed to catch up to his opponent on the last leg of the race, winning by the smallest margin. He rejoiced in his victory. Right up until he was escorted off the track and into the pits again, where he met the furious Perilla the Hutt. Not only had the Hutt lost a lot of credits personally, his business associates had done the same, and Gunda had made him look like a fool.

The young Dug was thrown into a cell, since the Hutt’s pet Gundarks had just been fed and he wanted them hungry when the Dug’s time to join them came. By chance a suspected spy was thrown into the cell next to him, nearly dead from hours of brutal torture. Gunda passed the human some water through the bars when he woke up. The man told Gunda that he could escape from his cell, but he needed Gunda to help him get to the vehicle area three floors down, and to his spaceship.

Gunda didn’t really belief the man, who called himself Teryn Olbark, could stay awake for two more minutes, let alone escape his cell. It was, therefore, rather surprising when the tall man crawled to the cell door, dragged himself to his knees, and banged his cup against the bars. Gunda expected the Gammorean guard that arrived to beat the human senseless, but instead, the man spoke to the porcine alien for a moment and the Gammorean simply opened the doors to both Teryn’s and Gunda’s cells and then wandered off.

Not about to look a gift-gran in the mouth, Gunda heaved the human up and dragged him to a turbolift. He found a stun-baton and used it to a good effect on a Nikto guard he came across on the lower level. He then managed to drag his new human friend into a luxury shuttle that belonged to Perilla himself. He had picked up a blaster from the Nikto, and used it to good effect on the pilot and mechanic who were working on board the shuttle, stunning both and throwing them off the ship before taking off.

They had barely gotten the shuttle started when they were discovered, and the Hutt sent every vehicle able to move after them as they powered out of the airlock into the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa. As Gunda piloted in crazy maneuvers, trying to shake his pursuers and get up towards clear sky and escape, his passenger, who in reality was a freshly knighted Jedi, noticed that the Dug had skills even good reflexes couldn’t explain. He encouraged Gunda to trust his feelings as they fled for their lives, and as they finally broke through and got out into space he was positive his pilot was Force Sensitive.

Jedi Knight Teryn Olbark got Gunda to take him to Coruscant, and on the way told him who he was and explained to the young Dug that he shared this fantastical connection to the Force. At the end of the journey he offered to talk to the masters at the temple and see if they would agree to train Gunda. It wasn’t the career the Dug had been aiming for, but it was a new life away from vengeful Hutts, and Gunda accepted with open arms when he was accepted into the order as a youngling.

The first months were the hardest, but Gunda soon adjusted to life in the Jedi Temple. He always felt a bit out of place, often by far the oldest in the small groups of younglings, frequently outdone by clever six-year old’s who had been trained nearly from birth. He tried not to let his competitive nature get the best of him, and focused on his strengths, using his natural reflexes to dominate the others, working hard on learning the Ataru style, a style that allowed him to compensate for his small size with energetic jumps and maneuvers.

When, at the age of 21, he finally got told he was ready to seek out his very own lightsaber crystal he rejoiced, having seen so many pupils he considered less powerful than himself go on to find crystals and becoming Padawans. He felt that he was finally on the path he should be on, his mind already on the future.

Ambition: Glory

Gunda strives for perfection in the things he loves doing. And he loves doing anything that's both fast and furious. Piloting fast, maneuverable vehicles is his favorite things in the whole galaxy, followed closely by a friendly (or not-so friendly) brawl, or a good lightsaber battle. He approaches all those things with a determination to improve himself, throwing himself at his tasks with reckless abandon. While being good at the things he does comes natural to the prideful Dug, he secretly wants to be one of the feared Starfighter Aces everyone wants to fly into battle with, and nobody wants to face in a one-on-one dogfight.

Morality: 50

Emotional Strength: Pride
Emotional Weakness: Anger

Gunda knows he's a good pilot. No, a great pilot. And that his skills with the lightsaber are impressive indeed. And he is very proud of all those facts. He knows he should be more humble, but it is hard when you're as good as Gunda. Like many Dugs he is quick to anger, often getting frustrated over things other being would take in stride.

Gunda is a particularly handsome Dug with fair skin and perfectly shaped and very pronounced snout, which is considered an attractive feature in a male Dug. His skin is adorned with many blue tattoos, most in a spiraling geometric-pattern. The tattoos cover his face, shoulders, arms and legs and give him a rather distinctive appearance. He dresses in durable clothes and keeps his shoto lightsaber hidden under his jacket to avoid unnecessary attention.