Rail spent the first seven years of his life traveling the Corellian Trade Spine and Rimma Trade Route aboard his parents’ rickety YT-900 small transport. His parents, Vahn and Carya Magnor, were free-spirit explorers and hobby archaelogists who accepted sub-contract delivery work to finance their exploration of the galaxy. In between deliveries, they visited every hospitable starport, and participated in numerous latter-stage archaelogical digs on dozens of worlds. Although the family kept a small apartment in Folsom Flats, a suburb of Coronet, Corellia, they rarely remained in residence for longer than a few days at a time. Rail’s birth certificate lists Folsom Flats as his official place of birth, but he was actually born aboard the family’s YT-900 in the Kessel Sector, while the family was fleeing local authorities with an illegal load of glitterstim spice.
Carya Magnor is quoted as having said to a family friend: “Actually, we think Rail was born in the Kessel System. We had just initiated a jump when he officially arrived. So, technically, he was born somewhere between Kessel and Kubindi.”
His first word was “jump,” referring to hyperdrive activation.
With the birth of the Magnors’ second child, a girl they named Katiara, the family decided its star-jumping lifestyle was too dangerous for two children. Returning to Corellia, the family sold its YT-900 for parts, the proceeds from which enabled the family to purchase a small but comfortable home in the middle class town of Helen’s End near Coronet.
By the time Rail was 15, Vahn had worked long enough for a local after-market ship customization shop to buy out the shop’s retiring owner. The shop quickly became the family business, with Rail working after school to sup-up intra- and extra-atmospheric, sub-light personal racing ships. While the skills he learned working in the garage would serve him well in his later endeavors, it was the values Rail learned working for his family that would truly shape his future.
When, in Rail’s 17th year, the four Magnors jointly applied their talents to develop a new sub-light engine manifold that increased short-term horsepower output by more than 15%, the family won a lucrative contract from Kuat Drive Yards to further develop the manifold cooperatively. Against his protestations that he should stay and help the family meet the new demand, Vahn and Carya used the contract advance to send Rail to Coruscant University, where he majored in Business Administration and minored in Military Strategy.
To earn spending cash in college, Rail raced skiffs, swoops, and, once, saddled under-classmen Trandoshans, in illegal but tolerated circuits. The experience gained with his family hotrod shop enabled Rail to build and enhance his racing vehicles better than most of his competitors. His better than average winnings brought with it a measure of celebrity among the microcosm of Coruscant college racers—and among the young ladies who valued success.
Formerly a self-described ship-geek with little time for the attentions of the fairer sex, Rail blossomed into an affable young man rarely lacking for female companionship. His relationships throughout college were invariably brief, due largely to the fact that he looked like a bad-boy racer but was a gentleman at heart.
During his third year of school, on the eve of a championship skyspeeder race that would have earned Rail a coveted, top-of-the-line repulsor system for a sub-light ship, he received word from Katiara, then 13, that his parents had been killed.
Rail booked passage and left Corscant for Corellia within two hours, telling only his roommate, Samm, a would-be race competitor. Years later Rail would learn that Samm had told schoolmates that Rail had fled in the night over fear that he might lose the following day’s race. The roommate subsequently stole Rail’s customized skyspeeder to compete in the race himself. Inexperienced with Rail’s customizations, Samm lost control of the vehicle during the race and crashed into an inbound intra-planetary transport shuttle, killing seven passengers, a flight attendant, and himself. Without Rail to defend himself, students at the school came to the conclusion that Rail had sabotaged his own ship and manufactured the circumstances that lead to Samm piloting it. Now, more than 10 years later, many of Rail’s contemporaries in the Coruscant college racing circuit continue to harbor animosity toward Rail for the event.
According to investigators (reference CorSec file: CC-001-3756d4380a47531e5a75d01832), Vahn and Carya Magnor had been testing a new prototype variant of their engine manifold design when a malfunction caused the device to leak fuel into the coolant line, which precipitated a catastrophic engine failure and subsequent explosion that consumed the trainer-style, two-seat Z-95. The Magnors were killed instantly. Monitoring the tests from a nearby sub-light shuttle, Katiara Magnor observed the accident and the death of her parents, though she claimed it was foul play. CorSec investigators found no evidence to support the teenager’s claims, though the official record does admit that the devastation was so total that little forensic evidence was recovered for investigators to scrutinize.
Under the terms of the agreement between the Magnors and Kuat Drive Yards, full ownership of all patents related to the manifold design bequethed to the surviving party. Because both Vahn and Carya were deceased, because Rail had not actively participated in development of the design in more than two years, and because Katiara was not yet of legal age, full ownership of the Magnor’s patents passed to KDY. Rail and Katiara suddenly found themselves in debt to KDY. Although KDY was now the sole owner of the Magnor’s manifold design, the agreement between the shipmaker and Magnors required any advances proffered to the Magnors be repaid from the Magnor estate should the project terminate prior to inception of mass manufacturing of the manifold. Thus, the estate of the Magnors was liquidated, which still left the Magnor children owing KDY more than a quarter million credits.
As the older surviving Magnor, with no other relatives known to the children, Rail was awarded uncontested legal guardianship of his younger sister.
Desperate for money, Rail broke into his parents’ hotrod shop, then in probate pending transfer of title to KDY. He and Katiara finished customizations on a local client’s skyskiff—including installation of a recent prototype of his parents’ engine manifold—and enrolled the stolen vehicle in an illegal race two days later. Rail bet the last of the money he had earned in college on himself to win. Although his ship was on fire and had lost half a wing and its entire dorsal stabilizer, and that, at the moment he crossed the finish line, he was in the process of ejecting from the ship, Rail was first to cross the finish line—with his skyskiff immediately following him.
The race winnings were sufficient to book the pair steerage-class transport from Corellia to Alderaan, and to enroll Rail in the Moldarn Freighter Pilot School.
Throughout the next few years Rail worked down his family’s debt to KDY while somehow also keeping Katiara and himself fed, first as a freight thrower under contract to Moldarn Freight Lines, the operator of the Moldarn Freighter Pilot School, then as a mechanic on Sullust, and through various odd jobs including signage designer, speeder mechanic, star system surveyor, ship washer, short-order cook, and collections agent. He quit the last after only 30 minutes on the job when he was ordered to collect a pharmacy debt from an Ithorian mother with a dying child.
By the time Rail was 28 and Katiara 21, the two had managed to pay off their debt to KDY, who had by then been shipping the “KDY Original FoxFire Engine Manifold” for four years. The FoxFire was the same design as the final prototype created by Vahn and Carya, the allegedly flawed prototype that had killed the senior Magnors.
Their debt paid, a still angry Katiara changed her last name to Onmihed, her mother’s maiden name, and set out to explore the ruins of ancient civilations around the galaxy and find her own calling. She and Rail have always remained close, visiting often, and speaking via comm link every day without fail.
Following his period of odd jobs to learn about the galaxy and its peoples, Rail once again took to space full-time with a popular commercial passenger starline, where he worked his way up from flight attendant to navigator. As with most things Rail has done in his life, the ostensibly mundane routine of crewing on a starliner yeilded a remarkable number of adventures, including: delivering a Twi’Lek woman’s baby; leading the survivors of a crash through nearly a month in the wilds of an unnamed planetoid in the Elrood Sector, and; assisting authorities in disrupting the transport of Devaronian slaves via the commercial passenger liner.
Having been born to space and inheriting his parents’ wanderlust, Rail acknowledged his life long desire to captain his own ship, and focused himself toward reaching that goal.
For three years, beginning the year during the build up to what would come to be called the Battle of Yavin, Rail piloted his own delivery ship for Mid Rim Express Deliveries, Corp. His route was primarily along the Perlemian Trade Route, but frequently took him throughout known space and as far as Seswenna Sector. During this time he expanded his knowledge of the beauty and diversity inherent in life throughout the galaxy, and learned many new lessons about the right and wrong ways to treat lifeforms. Although far less impulsive than in earlier years, Rail found himself compelled on numerous occassions to intervene on behalf of both sentient and non-sentient lifeforms being victimized by someone with more power.
Both his successful and failed interventions began to aggrandize Rail’s compassion, strong morality, and righteous but often impotent outrage into a conviction that would lead the free-spirited, entrepreneurial explorer to join the Rebel Alliance not too many years later. In the interim, it fueled his drive to earn his own ship. With a transport ship of his own, Rail was confident he could more effectively and directly help those who could not help themselves.
After learning everything he felt the delivery service could teach him about astronavigation, ship handling, and business, Rail decided it was time to teach himself to fly fighter craft.
Moving through the galaxy’s starports and cantinas, Rail had long known that an accomplished smuggler named Talon Karde had aspirations of masterminding an empire. So, immediately upon resigning from MidEx, he headed to Tatooine in the Outer Rim, to the smuggler’s haven, Mos Eisley.
Rail’s training was long, arduous, and risky. It included transportation of both legal and illegal goods for all the powers of the area. But the education enriched Rail’s mind and purse, teaching him ways to move invisibly through star systems and starports, and all the while allowing him to save for his YT-1300, which he christened the Long Road Home in recognition of his years of work to earn her.
In February two years ago, on a MidEx delivery run to Kachiro, Kashyyyk, Rail met a wide-eyed young Wookiee with black and purple-dyed fur. While Rail unloaded his shipment, the Wookiee, Firbacca, queried Rail in rapid-fire fashion about his travels, the places and beings he’d seen, and what it was like to fly. Firbacca, a novice droid engineer, had never left his homeworld despite an acute curiosity. Instantly Rail became enamored of Firbacca, and promised to help the Wookiee should he ever decide to follow his wanderlust.
Two months later, in April, Firbacca turned up in Mos Eisley, Rail’s then homeport while working for Talon Karde. Firbacca had by that point begun studying ship mechanics. Rail made good on his promise, renting a shop and equipment for Firbacca. Shortly afterward, the two founded the Rail Gunners, Limited License Partnership, which has thrived ever since. In spite of the cliché, the smuggler and the Wookiee remain best friends.
Earlier this year Rail and Firbacca took the Fool’s Gold into the Unknown Regions for an extended expedition in search of new trading partners. In their absence Katiara Onmihead was left to manage Rail Gunners, LLP. After seven months the entrepreneurs returned to Talus. The details of their trip are unknown, but the Fool’s Gold’s hold was filled to capacity with alien furniture, clothing, art, and artifacts now being sold by Rail Gunners, LLP to retail chains throughout the Core.
Immediately prior to the excursion into the Unknown Regions, Rail briefly dated retired smuggler turned innkeeper Toshoa Oha. Along with known associates Ficta and Devva, Rail was present during the birth of Toshoa’s daughter, Li’Andra Oha. There has been no apparent contact between Rail and Toshoa since the former’s return to Talus.
Imperial Investigative Services records imply a possible change in Rail’s political affiliations.
Although since his return he has been seen in the presence of known and suspected Rebel collaborators—including Naivak-Sun and others—Rail is confirmed to have assisted an Imperial Special Operations team during a mission to Beltraan wherein the SpecOps team came under attack by indigenous wildlife.
Shortly after the Beltraan incident, the Fool’s Gold rendered critical aid to an Imperial Lambda IV transport shuttle that had sustained massive damage and gone adrift in asteroid belt K93-AT621 near Commenor. The shuttle’s principal passenger, regional Lieutenant Moff Mellir Zyfkraff, nominated Rail for a civilian commendation as a result of the incident. In November of this year the commendation was bestowed upon Rail during a small ceremony at the Moff’s mansion on Commenor.