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Kol Seraph Not much is certain about the precise details surrounding Koltan Seraph’s early life. What is known for sure is that he was born on Day 234, Year -7, to Garran and Lasha Seraph, Human expatriates of the Outer Rim who had made their way to the galactic capital planet of Coruscant sometime before their son was born. The Seraphs lived in a small family home in the modest, middle-class district of Sah’c Town, and owned an equally small, but for the most part prosperous, business enterprise, involved in hauling freight from Imperial Center’s orbit to the surface, and vice-versa. Their new life in the Core Worlds seemed to be a story of success, at least until the troubles that came to the galactic capital in Year -4, which saw Coruscant plagued by ever-increasing taxes, power outages, food shortages, and the subsequent periods of civil unrest that lasted for weeks on end. The situation only deteriorated further when, shortly before Kol’s third birthday, his mother fell victim to the disastrous outbreak of the virulent Grey Plague, which claimed countless thousands of lives of those not native to the spires of the city-planet. Kol’s father Garran spent much of his family’s fortune, and sold off much of his business’ interests and his family’s home in a vain attempt to purchase vaccines and medicines with which to save the life of the mother of his child, first from the authorities, and then from less reputable sources, even moving to the infamously ramshackle tenement habs of Coruscant’s Undercity to cut his expenses. When the strong-willed Lasha Seraph finally succumbed to the ravages of the Plague, her heartbroken widower lost the will to keep the doors of his business open any longer, and had nowhere near the sum of credits with which to pay back his unscrupulous debtors. He refused to even gaze upon the face of his adolescent son, as the features of Kol’s maternal bloodline bore themselves prominently on his visage, painfully reminding Garran of the lover he had lost. Intent on collecting on the debts owed to him, the notorious man known only as ‘The Boss’, the leader of ‘the Syndicate’, the criminal organization which Garran had taken out his loan from, soon sent his agents to force Seraph to pay up. When Garran refused to pay (indeed, he did not possess the means nor the will to do so in the first place), The Boss made up his mind to make an example of him. When the gangster’s thugs stormed into Garran’s run-down apartment, they had discovered their target had committed suicide, having been driven mad with grief and despair (unknowingly having done so while his son watched on in horror under his bed, driven to that sanctuary by the terrible madness in his father’s eyes hours earlier). After The Boss’ men ransacked the dilapidated apartment in a vain search for the credits Garran had owed, the thugs found the boy, still in the embrace of shock inspired by the emotional trauma he had witnessed. They easily abducted the 3 year old, despite his struggles, bringing him before their employer as ‘collateral’. Forced into slavery to pay off his father’s debts, Kol suffered The Boss’ abuses until he was 8 years old, when he immediately seized the chance to kill his hated master in his sleep with a paring knife. After escaping the prison which had ensnared him for more than half of his young life, Kol, a bright lad with a razor-sharp wit, quickly learned to survive on his own on the unforgiving, ruthless streets of Coruscant's decaying, neglected Undercity, while the Syndicate's operations on Coruscant reeled from The Boss’ death for months to come, allowing his adolescent murderer to vanish into the shadows. On the merciless streets, Kol eventually joined a relatively unknown juvie gang, known as the 'Undercity Shades', as a petty thief and pick-pocket. With his ambitious nature and his affiliation with violence, however, it only took a couple of years for Kol to become the gang’s leader. His ruthless leadership eventually brought the Shades notoriety and recognition from rival gangs, not to mention the lethal, watchful eye of the Syndicate itself. (more...)