Telperiën Ar-Pharazon

“Hunting is a two sided adventure Sir Sarlacc. And it is one the girls have to learn. Must learn. Life is not kind on Dathomir. And even less kind in the galactic disk.” 

 

Her pink purple eyes met his and she sighed. 

 

“In a way this is a simpler hunt than offworld. On Coruscant you are hunted by corporations for the contents of your wallet, on Nar Shaddaa you are hunted for the content of your character. Especially if you have the nature of darkness as my people do. But though it may be far more obvious here on Dathomir, you are hunted no less in the galaxy.” 

 

She laughed, her dark voice embodying bitterness. 

 

“So yes we will hunt these girls. Perhaps even hurt them if you wished, but it is for their own good. For they will learn lessons here that a child at the Rebel Base on Nar Shaddaa will never learn until a Sith Lord kills their family in front of them. They will learn to persist. To fight through pain, and to fight fiercely.” She pointed at a scar that crossed her neck. “It is how my people will survive. To turn from the hunted to the hunter. But to learn how to be a predator, you must first become prey.” 

 

She gave him a serious look. 

 

“We do not derive strength from schools or learning like the Jedi do. For a moment spent in study is a moment not preparing for a fight." 

As the three girls ran off into the underbrush, Telperiën wiped her bloody hand on her tunic and looked at the three force users. Her amethyst eyes glanced across their alien features in a look that was partway between disgust and reservation. The question was on her mind of course, could they even attempt the blood magic her people had perfected for so many generations? Or would they dismiss it as useless knowledge that served little better than a high powered ship scanning array? 

 

“Now sit and close your eyes.” 

 

When they had done so she knelt upon the decking at her feet. She looked down to her bleeding hand and then made a fist, squeezing more blood up and out of the open wound. 

 

“Those of us with weak lineage, using totems or traditional runes to fully access the force, what I will do is one such way, you may follow along but as you do not suffer from our curse it is not likely that it will do you very much more good.” 

 

She wiped the bloody hand across the decking in a arching circle in front of her, leaving a crimson smear that she dotted with a few other markings. Runic letters from the nightsisters unpublished grimoire, they were a stylized old basic, dating back to the first settlements of sisters during the old republic. 

 

“Let your mind focus on the wound, on each drop of blood that leaves your body. Feel the aching pain. Concentrate on it. Let the pain fill you. Harnessing the power you can feel from it. Now reach out and find the source of that pain. It will naturally draw you first to the knife that cut you but you must ignore the wounds desires and assert your own.” 

 

She took a breath and the blood arrayed before her began to glow with a faint luminescence. 

 

“Let your senses expand about you until you find the pains connection. Its missing piece.” 

 

A half mile away the girl who had received the first does of blood screamed as the blood that spattered her face began to smoke. Etching into her skin in permanent façade. 

 

“And when you find it. Mark it. Make the blood stay a part of you forever. Bind it to you and submit it to your will.” 

 

She let her eyes flutter open.

 

“And you will be able to track your mark for lightyears.” 

Telperiën waited for the rest of the girls and sisters to board as well as her Sith Apprentice before she followed them up the ramp. They lined the interior of the ship, hungry looking and dirty, their leather and hide armour seeming barbaric against the smooth interior hull of the ship. The various weapons they clutched in small hands also looked equally bizarre. Weapons of a time harkening humanity before spaceflight. Bows, quivers, spears. The weapons of savages. 

 

The girls did make an orderly line and gratefully accepted the food and drink the two spacers offered, though they waited until Telperiën had began to eat before they ate. WHen she had finished her meal she watched the holo presentation with a stoic expression placed across her face. 

 

Her voice was soft when she finally spoke. “Dathomir was never a beautiful world, and it certainly could never have been described as a gaia world like Naboo. We do not wish the life of city dwellers or farmers for that is the path of weakness and democracy. We are hunters. A restoration of the world to allow that lifestyle to return is all that we need.” 

 

She reached forward and tapped the planetary map where large swaths of the planet remained burned and barren. 

 

“A return of the forests and its fauna is all that we need. Though if you wish to bring settlers in for sport we would not be opposed. That sort of hunting we have not done in an age.” 

 

The girls said nothing but simply nodded and Telperiën grasped the scab of her earlier cut. She ripped it open and blood yet again purged forth, slowly at first then it began to cup in her hand. 

 

“Annah.” The young woman stood and closed her eyes fearfully. Telperiën flung the handful of blood onto her face causing the other woman to grimace for a moment beforeshe ran down the landing ramp into the underbrush. The eyes of the other girls followed her then looked back to the Nightsister. 

 

“The first lesson is the lesson of blood. Kaila and Liana and Jess.” The three girls stood as Telperiën tossed her knife to Camik. 

 

“Now do the same.” She said to Camik and the offworlders. “Draw your blood and the life that goes with it. I will teach you how to track.”

The force moved. Safely at first, like a breeze against the back of her neck that stiffened into a wind when the duros caught the gently tossed blade. She inclined her head in agreement and turned back to the girls and her apprentice around the fire. They finished their food and pitched their tents, leaving a good amount of food out to eat should more join them during the long night. 

 

When Telperiën awoke she let the force flow through her, the crystals at her wrists softly glowing in the dawn light. She breathed in and caught the scent. Her blood. On the Duros’ palm. It did not take her long to find the ship after she roused the rest of the camp. 

 

She knocked on the landing ramp. The cluster of girls crouching in the low shrubbery beside her. The dawn showing their dirty faces. 

Telperiën’s eyes glanced between her apprentice and the Ryn. She opened her mouth for a moment then quickly shut it, grinding whatever fast retort she had to dust between her clenched jaws. Who were these men? But she would answer them each in turn. 

 

“Camik, while true they are tools to be used, I am merely suggesting that using them constantly is not only detrimental, but completely destructive to your journey and your goals. That Sister who left and brought destruction to the homeworld was my Mother. Though I am a product of her endeavours, it is also because of her that millions died. My sire and her lover was a great lord of Darkness. One that kept the galaxy firmly within his grasp before he too was cut down. Who now remembers him? Only bitter enemies and childless mothers. It is because of him and my mother that this galaxy now lies in ruins. They undermined the peace and security of that great Galactic Alliance.” 

 

She cocked her head to the side and looked deeply into the fire. As if to watch the spirits that danced there. 

 

“She died dissatisfied and alone and no one buried her bones in the crypts of our mothers.” The girls around the fire looked shocked and spit a hurried incantation towards the fire. “Yes, her spirit wanders far from the world she destroyed. So what is the lesson, is it never to use hate? Never to touch anger? To be besotten fools without emotions like the Jedi? No.” She looked back towards her apprentice. “But they must only be used when they have their utmost effect. They are not a table to constantly sup at. For in doing so you will mark your own destruction. That is the lesson, though I must warn you if you seek to destroy slavery, that the path you are on will not satisfy you.”

 

She let her gaze wander to the others around the fire before resettling on the Sith Apprentice. 

 

“Will your blade stop at the neck of the Dark Lord? Will you crumble the Empire? For they all bring and benefit from slavery.  Or is your purpose to bring enough power to enslave those that were cruel to you as a child?” 

 

She looked to the Duros who went by the tatooine sand creatures name. 

 

“Kindness is a doorway in which weakness can enter and is not our way. For does the Sarlaac ever let its prey go out of kindness of heart? Kindness is not the way of nature. Nature is brutal and unrelenting. Can a sister live and not hunt for herself? No, the pack is weaker when you freely provide for all.” The girls who had eaten the freely offered rancor meat glanced quickly at each other before Telperiën held out a calming hand. “But we will not turn away strangers at the door. For they can be useful.” 

 

She looked back at the Rynn and Duros. 

 

“So you too are force users, then you are more than welcome at our table. Such as it is.  Our knowledge is yours to do with what you will. should you heal our world." She retrieved a knife from her side and plunged it freely into her palm, the blood spashing and bubbling from the wound to fill her palm. Dripping between her shaking fingers to disappear into the dark loamy earth. "A deal is struck.” And she tossed the knife to the duros. 

The young women and girls at the fire looked at each other quizzically and Telperiën finally spoke. Her voice reflecting the general mood of the nightsisters and witches. 

 

“Why would an entire organization help us? We are nothing to the galaxy.” 

 

It was not a self defeating prophecy, it was simply the truth as far as the dirt streaked girls could think. What was there on this world that attracted the attention of the galaxy? Did they want to export mud, or extort some yet unmined mineral. 

 

“Help is not given freely, and deed carries a debt. This is the law of nature. This is the law of the predator. This is the law of Dathomir. To accept help without debt is to accept weakness. We are a broken people. But not a helpless one.” Her voice lowered and the embers began to die down, now a dark orange that barely shone above the starlight. “If there is a deal to be made we would make it. But we are no charity.” 

 

She cocked her head to the side and held out a hand. The fire jumping back up to full brightness. She asked a probing question that hinted at her lack of ignorance. 

 

“Are you working with the survivors foundation?” That jedi aligned group that had restored old Naboo. “It does not matter of course, for if you can return life to the world we would give you many slaves. And gladly for it.” 

 

She sat back down indicating that they should eat, and break out the rations. 

 

“The coven is all that remains of the sisters of the night. Those the Jedi would call ‘darksiders,’ though i would spit at that definition. All animals must have pack leaders, and Dathomiri are no different.” She snapped her finger and one of the girls brought out a jug of alcohol that they passed around. “The coven, like  the sisters before them, are merely the alpha pack.”

Thin eyebrows raised suspiciously 
 

Despite their purely alien features, Telperiën was not repulsed by the blue skinned duros or the hook nosed ryn. Their voices were pleasant and did not carry the stuttering halter of Dathomiri ‘basic.’ Their presence at the fire was wholly unexpected, for Dathomir held no tourism, save for the downed or lost spacer trying to make a fortune from the mystical remains of the Chu'unthor. But those had been men of greed and passion, neither of which Telperiën could sense. A quick glance over showed no suspicious equipment or even means of defense and she suddenly found herself cursing the weakness of her blood. 

 

She could not easily rip into the minds of these men like the Sith Lords could. But then they were of no danger, for what could they be? Not rebels or Jedi, for they would have never just simply come to Dathmir. 

 

“Hate is a power that few can control before it eats them whole. Yes.” She cocked her head to the side, the tiny crystals that were tied into the braids beside her ears making an almost musical tone as they touched each other and collided. 

 

“Savata and Sarlaac.” She spoke the names like she was tasting them. The syllables difficult to pronounce with the heavily accented basic. “I must apologize that we have little lodging to offer other than hide tents.” Then her eyes widened a little, the amethyst purple-pink iris’s catching the firelight. “But I must introduce myself as well before I accept your assistance.” 

 

She stood and offered a bow that shook the crystals again. The lightsaber showing itself for but a moment at the edge of her belt. 

 

“I am Telperiën Ar-Pharazon of the High Coven Myrkengodi.” Would they know the name Ar-Pharazon? The surname of a once famous Dark Lord? Or like all things from decades ago, had it been lost in a trillion more crimes and genocides conducted by the Sith that had followed Ar-Pharazon. So she continued. “And these are scattered sisters and witches of our burned world. If you have the means to restore our fountains and streams, I would be most grateful.” And the girls around the campfire stood awe of whatever the two spacers could bring. Their eyes were and their faces expectant, their food momentarily forgotten. 

“Slavery is a powerful trauma. It plants the deep spike of anger and injustice into your heart something you can draw on for a very long time.” Speckled amethyst eyes narrowed as she glanced across the fire to Camik, her voice turning to dark reproach. “Until it turns to poison in your veins. Would you really let your defining moments revolve around such emotions? Would you turn this inner angst against the galaxy until every good thing tastes of salt and ashes in your mouth?” She let her eyes travel across the impromptu gathering of young women and now two spacers. “There is a saying in our clans that every pain left untended bites worse than a rockstang. For just as you need to but the wounded flesh from yourself so too should you cut this trauma from you before it consumes your very soul. Tasmeria,  Anathia! Get these young men something to eat as I tell you all a story.” 

 

The two youngest of the girls rushed to gather some cooked Rancor, offering it to Sevarta and Sarlacc. They did not know them, but the Nightsister had commanded it, so they would obey.

 

Telperiën extended her hand and summoned the force through the clear crystal that lay nestled against her wrist. Whispering a word of power. “Thandrim.” The young Witches gasped in awe and settled down on their haunches, eagerly eating the cooked rancor they held in their hands as the fire began to morph and change. 

 

It was nothing like a holoprojector of course, but the girls would not have that comparison. It was only the two spacers and Camik that would likely be unimpressed. The fire jumped in a flash of white and orange then settled into a blue flame. And within the flame there was a face. A face much akin to Telperiën’s though older and more regal. 

 

“The Nightsongs were once a mighty clan.” The name drove a shiver of fear through the youngest of the witches gathered around the fire, and a look of stern resolve over the older faces. “They believed that their strength could contend with the very stars of heaven.” The scene in the fire shifted again to a large group of alike looking women, who were beating several young girls. Blood like lava dripped into the burning logs at the base of the fire. “But to find that strength they believed that they must purify their lineage. They would change their bloodline by force and terror.” Telperiën gave a sidelong glance to the spacers then back at the awestruck girls. “And they succeeded. Through their terror they produced a sister of frightening power.” The fire morphed again to that original face. 

 

“They say She could summon magiks without words of power. Through harnessing hate and lust she could command even the strongest of this world to her bidding. But like all creations of violence this golem could not be controlled.” The fire showed a village in flames. “And she nearly destroyed the Nightsongs before they exiled her to the stars. She found a new coven there. Of Men and women who harnessed their hate and violence, she even found lovers among the stars. Great Kings of Men with powers Devine” The fire showed a man with a dark face, eyes of coals and the girls cowered before the hate in his eyes. “The Sith Lords they named themselves and begat much evil among the stars.” Depictions of a city in the clouds bursting asunder in fire and death wove themselves through the minds of all those around the fire. “But the sister did not forget the hate. She did not forget the beatings. She carried it with her through the stars. Like a coal carried in ashes to start another fire she carried it. Sleeping and dangerous.” 

 

The woman's face now reappeared, but with the burning eyes of the Sith Lord. “You see she desired to come back to Dathomir. Even as she bed kings and men alike she desired to come home. As even the Rancor does when it needs to sire its pups.” The girls nodded. “And so she came home to bring forth the spawn of her lovers. And when she came to the Nightsong camp, she could not control that coal she had tended for so long.” The fire surged into a column that lit the night and bushes around them. “The fire raged out of control. Consuming all that she had once loved and hated. And instead of conquest or reconciliation she brought death and doom. And so her home burned and with it all of our homes.” She looked to Camik, then the spacers, and finally to the girls. “And that is why our villages are dispersed and the ground gives up no life. It is because of hate. So do not let yourself harbour such things. For it kindles outside of your control. Now eat, there is much left on that haunch.”

 

Telperien raised an eyebrow, an expression that was very likely lost in the firelight, as she looked into Camik’s pale face. When she spoke it was a question, a genuine one, and not the cutting question of a Sith trying to make a point. “Do those emotions make you happy Camik?” It was a leader to her next question, one that followed as easily as the Dathomiri nightsisters would have eaten the cooked rancor. “Does any of this journey make you happy?” 

 

Could power and the lust for it really make anyone happy? Her father, in his golden esteem, had burned the galaxy to find a legacy. He had taken everything from everyone he knew to establish a dynasty, but now no one spoke his name. Would Camik be the same? A great lord who is easily eclipsed by the legacies of stronger men and the cruel erosion of time? Would he sit enthroned in the tombs of Korriban another weather beaten statue with inscriptions of Ozymandian horrors? Would he too lie in state in a husk of a once great empire? 

 

She could not know. She could not see the future. That had never been her gifting. 

 

“Tasmeria. Anathia.” 

 

She pointed to the huddled women who looked hungrily at the roasting flesh before them. Their grey-gold eyes looked up expectantly to Telperiens. 

 

“They are remnants of a great house of this world.” She pointed to the girl beside the pair, a redheaded girl several years younger than Camik himself. “Kailya. Of the Whiteriver clan. They are the remnants of a once mighty society. Refugees of the destruction of the Black Sun and the Sith Lords. There are many like them in these wilds.” 

 

She gestured again and the girls carved slices of the rancor meat with small knives and bowed in turn to both Camik and Telperien before retreating back to where they sat. Eating as quickly as they could while being polite. 

 

“Do you think me weak Camik? Giving the young and destitute a home? Should I have enslaved them? What would have your old master have said?” She turned a soft smile on the girls who sheepishly returned it before looking back to their meal. Another few gaunt faces appeared at the edges of the firelight, two pale orbs that showed the horrors of the burned world. They looked desperate and hungry as well. Two young girls surviving through luck and shear determination. "What do you say Camik? What should we do with them? Feed and clothe them?" The delicious smell of the meat would no doubt attract more. 

Anger was a constant in the young man’s heart, the roiling emotions that buffeted him in every direction keeping him barely in control. Could a man live for long in such a fashion? Telperien had known many men, and had watched many more fall to the blades of the Jedi Order. That passionless cult of reason and sexlessness. The Sith in their ‘wisdom’ rejected such methods, instead seeking to dominate through pure will of anger and emotion alone. 

 

In such things they rejected the natural order. They killed for fun and for pleasure. They did not hunt, they did not kill to survive, they killed for the joy of killing. She had seen wild rancors do much the same, and always the mothers of clan darksong had put them down. For it had been better to snuff out the wild brutality than to wait for it to turn its jaws upon their friends and allies. 

 

Perhaps in time the Sith would learn the lesson of nature. But for now they would run rampant, killing millions if not trillions like at coruscant. She was grateful to her former master for his strength to keep the Sith in check, and at the same time dreaded when the galactic leash would slip. 

 

They were sitting in the aftermath of one of those rampages after all. And though the low brush had grown back, the charred remains of trees could still be seen toppled here and there like discarded children’s toys. The remnant of wrath. 

 

The fire started with a splash of yellow orange flame that quickly fed into a roaring blaze. She smiled up at Camik and quickly fashioned a skewer that she placed near the fire so that the rancor meat could roast. 

 

“You did well Camik. Now meditate and tell me of the source of your emotions. What brought you the anger or hate or lust that drove this fire?” 

 

A giggle sounded from the edges of the brush as a few young women pushed their way through the scrawny branches. They were Sisters of her clan and they spoke no further words but sat silently, hungry eyes watching the meat roast against the golden flames.

The great beast stooped its neck in obeyance of its new master and Telperien let out a laugh as she unstrung her bow. She recollected her arrows from where she had stuck them and motioned back to Camik. 

 

“It is a good time to rest now and to meditate. Make us a fire to warm us using only the force. While I prepare our meal.” 

 

She crouched at the side of the dead young Rancor and began to quickly skin and degut the beast as she kept her amethyst eyes on the Sith across from her and his now very large companion. 

 

“Focus your emotions into explosive energy, but first find us timber and kindling.” 

The Beast stopped dead in its tracks. It’s thin, beady eyes staring at Camik with a mix of straight hostility and hunger. Its thick claws stretched and clasped at the air, as if it was grasping the man himself, to bring him to a bitter end in a toothy maw. 

 

“Camik.” Spoke Telperien, her fingers tracing the edges of the black fletching of one of the arrows. “You have stopped it, you have begun the process but you must find another approach. Brute force does not control a mind.” 

 

Her voice was a stern whisper. 

 

“You must come alongside it, guide it. Manipulate its feral emotions. Use its anger, use its rage. Use its hunger!” 

“That.” Telperien whispered as she set her pack down beside her and withdrew a long wicked arrow from the bag at her hip. She placed it point down in the mud beside her. “Is a Rancor. It looks to be just shy of its mid twenties, and look at that.” She pointed to the smaller rock like form that huddled against the large creature. “It has a cub to protect.” 

 

She leaned down and withdrew a long stave of yew from her pack and set one horn tipped end against the side of her boot. Her amethyst eyes watched the two forms as the mother rancor considered its own approach. Then she dipped her hand into her pouch to take out a long cord of waxed hemp. 

 

“So.” She grunted as she bent the yew stave cross her thigh, connecting both ends with the hemp cord. “I will kill the cub, then you deal with the mother. Its hungry now, but after the cub dies, it will be angry as well.” She talked as if murdering a defenseless animal was nothing at all. She leveled the longbow and pulled the arrow from its resting place. “You need to exploit these emotions. Use them as you fight with her until you can grasp her mind. Then subdue. Bring her under your will completely” 

 

She bent the bow, her muscles bulging along her arms and back as the grey feathered arrow came to rest along her chin. She loosed a second later and the long thing blade of the bodkin punched through the small rancor cub’s brain stem. Dropping it with silent precision that was broken by a horrendous roar from the mother rancor. 

 

“Now show me how a Sith subdues his prey.”

The Nightsisters of Dathomir: Coven Myrkengodi

Inspiration: Old Norse / Paganism

||Writers Note: These are not the Nightsisters of the Clone Wars/Rebels TV Show but a reimagining of the EU nightsisters||

 

“...To become fear you must first overcome yours.” 

- High Priestess Kaiseng, Dathomir 148 ABY

 

With most of the older clans of the Nightsisters and witches murdered by the Black Sun in the cleansing of Dathomir, the clanless remnants of the witches labelled as nightsisters from their affinity for the darkside have once again come out of hiding. Realizing the failings of the old clans, they have abandoned the clan structure and replaced it with ‘leadership through strength.’ They are led by the strongest and most able in the force. They seek to control their home planet Dathomir, manipulating the currents of the force on the planet to bend it to their will. Though they once existed in only shadows and nightmares of the population of Dathomir, now they prey openly upon the weaker willed, descending in the dead of night to murder and kidnap the daughters of the clans of unaligned witches, to grow their numbers. The clan of Myrkengodi has grown large enough to send its most daring sisters into the galaxy.

 

Bending nature to their will through profane works of magik, spells, and totems, the nightsisters can only touch and use the force through such things. This is their handicap. They cannot easily touch the force otherwise. They are a perversion of the force and though some Nightsisters have mastered the art of the ‘silent spell cast’, most nightsisters, cannot perform powerful spells without the assistance of chants, totems, or the tracing of runes and symbols. They use these items as focal points in which they can touch and manipulate the force. Some may consider the Nightsisters or witches weak for these handicaps, but they are a proud people because of it. They thrive in the dark of night and in the wilderness where they control Rancors and other beasts.  

 

Unlike past iterations of the Witches of Dathomir, the nightsisters of Coven Myrkengodi have deliberate limits on their abilities. They are a matriarchal society, in which the quest for power is paramount, and men are slaves. 

 

Leadership Structure: 

 

High Priestess:

The thirteenth member of a coven of priestesses and the most powerful witch within the nightsisters. She has the final say on raids and is answerable to only the coven of priestesses. She may only be challenged for her position by a member of the Coven of priestesses. 

 

Priestess:

The 12 most powerful force wielders of the nightsisters of dathomir, they advise the high priestess and are strong and respected leaders. A witch may only join the Coven through challenging a Priestess to a ‘Trial of Magik’. (See Below for Trial of Magik) 

 

Witch:

A force user within the group of nightsisters, considered above lowly warriors without innate force ability, and above men with force abilities who are called shamens. 

 

Acolyte:

A young woman/child who is manifesting her powers. She will be under the guide of a Witch who will train her to 

 

Shamen:

A male user of the force. Though the Nightsisters discriminate against men, those that show talent in the force are elevated above the slave ranks. They are taught and instructed in the arts of magik but cannot join the leadership ranks of the coven. 

 

Non force using ranks:

 

Warrior:

A non force using member of the nightsisters, very competent in the use of weapons, though they normally shun the use of blasters and modern technology. Preferring to use more traditional weapons that compliment their raiding/stealth mentality. Such as knives, bows, spears, and garrotes.  

Slave:

A man within the Nightsister ranks, or a woman who has not shown proficiency in warrioring, martial skill, or force use. 

 

____________________________________________

 

The ‘Trial of Magik’ 

A duel to the death between nightsisters to achieve a higher rank in which they only use the power of the force and no physical weapons. It is done under the supervision of the coven.

 

The 'Trial of Fear’

A defining test that is used to bring an acolyte into the witch ranks. The girl is sent into a cave system, fed psychedelic drugs and sealed in for 72 hours. There she must confront every fear that her mind may produce while navigating total darkness.

____________________________________________

 

Force Powers

 

Examples of Force Powers using Circles of Magik:

Using runes and symbols spread on the ground with paint, nightsisters concentrate their power.

 

Illusion :  (This is an Assassin Trait)

|Required: Blood| 

Using the blood of a captured or willing victim, the nightsister can assume their form and likeness. 

 

Vampyrism :  (This is a Sorcerer Trait)

|Required: Open Wound| 

Drawing the very essence of a living being, the Nightsister draws the force from a person dragging both life and restoration from them. This is a corrupted form of healing and while it may heal the Sister, it will often kill or permanently scar the captive or slave. It will not staunch a mortal wound.  

 

Storm : (This is a Sorcerer Trait)

|Required: A coven or High Priestess| 

Drawing on the force, the Sister(s) summon an electrical storm which can disrupt electronics and small starships. This is often used as a defensive measure in the mountaintops of Dathomir. 

 

Animal Submission : (This is a Sorcerer Trait)

|Required: An predator| 

Utilizing the hunter mentality taught to nightsisters from an early age, the nightsister can force a predator to submit to their will. Though mainly used on Rancors, this can extend to any predatory animal. 

 

Examples of Force Powers using Totems:

A totem is an object that the Nightsister concentrates and accesses the force through. This may be a crystal around their neck, or an object like a Voodoo doll. Each one is unique. 

 

Mind Reading (This is an Assassin Trait)

|Required: A subject| 

Through the use of torture mixed with mental application, many nightsisters are able to prize away information from unwilling subjects.

 

Elemental Manipulation (This is a Sorcerer Trait)

The bread and butter of nightsister powers. Simple tricks of telekinesis that may be easy for a Jedi are exhaustive for the nightsister, examples of elemental manipulation would be, producing a heavy, concealing fog in order to trap or confuse their prey into an ambush. Throwing up a barrier of mud/rock, or to harden mud into stone. 

 

Examples of Force Powers using Runes:

The nightsisters maintain an ancient runic alphabet that represents their words of power, using certain runes and imbuing them with the force to assist their armour. 

 

Imbue (This is a Warrior Trait)

Added to an object of protection and meditated on for many hours, a nightsister can assist herself in protection from elements with runes carved or painted onto armour or shields. These are not durable, and should they exceed the protection afforded them, the rune may break or be destroyed. 

 

Examples of Force Powers using Blood Magic 

Some of the most forbidden magik of the nightsisters. 

 

Tracking (This is an Assassin Trait)

A nightsister, using her own blood makes a runic mark on the slave, enemy, unsuspecting victim. This trail of blood cannot be easily washed off and allows the nightsister to track the marked person through the force. 

 

Projection (This is an Assassin Trait)

Marking her arrows with her blood, a nightsister can accurately control and guide them to their target. 

 

Playing a Nightsister of Coven Myrkengodi 

 

Mykenheimr - Set in the high mountains of Dathomir, the entire range is covered in a ward of protection established by the Coven. It is patrolled daily by witches and warriors and is heavily steeped in the darkside. Unlike their sisters along the plains and rivers, these Nightsisters do not live in huts of straw and mud, but instead in houses of carved stone, or in elaborately carved cave houses. Knowing of the fate of many of their sisters, their houses and tunnels are protected from orbital bombardment by the high mountain ranges themselves. 

 

Becoming a nightsister of Coven Myrkengodi is an experience of confronting fears on every level. Witches of Dathomir are naturally afraid of technology and see it as an infringement on their culture and way of life. A nightsister is not expected to embrace technology with open arms, but instead confront that fear, familiarize herself with it, and if necessary use it to assist her sisters. They embrace and use older weapons such as bows and Spears alongside lightsabres. Their entire culture is a predatory one, and they look on those weaker then them with disdain, and those more powerful with distrust.  

“Indeed.” 

 

Her rough voice fell flatly against the dank air and the light drizzle of pale rain. There was little wind in the marsh plains, so the air tasted stale and dark. She took a deep breath and sighed. It was home, and she loved it. They continued their walk in silence as they waded through the muck and mire until she spoke again after an hour. 

 

“Find me hunger Camik. Reach into the force. The hunger is here stalking us.” 

 

For a rancor had smelled them several miles back and had begun its long stalk.

Telperien smiled ruefully as she looked out of the viewport towards the distant and descending marshes and jungle which stained the planet with dark splotches. 

 

“My full name is Telperiën Tar-Myken Darksong Ar-Pharazôn.” She let her hand absentmindedly run across the leather armour she wore until it found the sheath of a knife, where the nervous fingers found purchase and ceased their wandering. “My Father was the great Dark Lord Ar-Pharazôn the golden, of which there are many tales that I will not tell. He is dead and destroyed now, laid low by the Jedi order and their exorcists.” Her fingers twitched again and then were still. “My mother was the matriarch of the Nightsong Clan of nightsisters. A clan that now lies also buried and destroyed.” She looked back to Camik and smiled.

 

“I am a Nightsister, and I restored the covens from their despair. But there is much work yet to be done.” She pointed to the rocky mountains that they were slowly approaching. “Welcome to Dathomir Camik. My home, as bleak as it is.” 

 

The bundle of other nightsisters who had served Telperiën gathered eagerly around the viewport so that the pair of Sith were pushed back. 

 

“Then we will make you a mighty lord of the Sith.” She looked up as the ship settled on its landing struts. “Do you have any further questions? Or should we let them come in their due time as we go?” She shrugged on a heavy pack from one of the compartments and gestured to Camik to take the other that stood beside it. 

The lone shuttle slipped out of hyperspace over the dark planet of Dathomir. Once a thriving society of light side witches, now in the dark ruin that remained, the Nightsisters prowled. In the years since the massacre and subsequent planetwide forestfires, the wetland jungle had returned. Dark plateaus of ash still jutted out of the bright green of the wetland, and no trees older than Telperien stood except on the isolated southern continent. But to Telperien it was home, and the bumpy ride towards the surface gave her and the apprentice time to talk. 

 

“So tell me Camik, what do you still have left to learn?”

“We go to the planet of my ancestors, and from there we can finish your journey into Lordship.”

 

Telperien clapped her hands and one of the sisters jumped to attention, making a firm bow and then ran to the cockpit. Telperien’s eyes flashed as she looked back to the Apprentice. 

 

“Of course, the gaudy representation we see in the holos of the Sith Lords, like Ar-Pharazon the Golden, or even the majesty of the Old Sith, hurt the eyes. They do not carry with them the Gravity of our struggle, they only carry with them pride. And a pride for what? What did they accomplish?”

 

She took a long drink from her cup. Letting the wine flow across her tastebuds. “They accomplished nothing. They were a failure that only brought an untold suffering to the galaxy for no gain.” She shook her head so that her plait of hair bounced from should to shoulder. “We must move beyond that infantile approach.” She caught hold of her seat with one strong hand as the sudden acceleration pushed against her as they disappeared into hyperspace. 

 

“Now we go to the jungle.”

Telperien shrugged as she took a bite of food.

 

“The Sith Lords rule an empire that has yet to reach its final expanse. Our master has begun an assault on the planet of Corellia and Mon calamari, in an effort to shut down the pitiful rebel alliance once and for all.” She took another bite. “Cut them off from their centres of industry, of production, and the resistance will fall apart.” 

 

She pondered another bite, but placed the food back onto the plate in front of her. 

 

“There is plenty of opportunity for glory should you desire it.” She glanced up. “Do you desire it Camik?”

Telperien scowled as the rest of the nightsisters came aboard after her. 

 

“This is neither of our starship, it belongs to the Sith Empire. Perhaps if you live out the next couple months you can have one just like it.”

 

The decking rocked underfoot as the ship began to journey from the atmosphere of the sand planet. She gestured to the dining table as one of the very young Dathomiri laid a small plate of hors d’oeuvres on the table. It was some meat and cheese faire, not overly delicious, but it wet the appetite. 

 

“Tell me of your journeys since we last met Camik.”

Telperien shrugged as the man turned and left the Cantina at a slow even pace. She reached to her waist and pulled the ancient lightsaber that was hanging from a loose corde of bound leather from her waist. Its red hue overpowering the soft lights of the dim cantina. A few patrons were knocked out of their bloodlust from the very sight of a lightsabre, but not many, and in a cacophony of ‘snap-hisses’ the hue of the bar turned a bright, stunning, red. 

 

This was too short a range for the bows of the sisters, so they would make due with the weapons of the Sith Lords in their stead. Her first blow, carried by the quick struck fury in her heart dashed a rodian across the bartop, and her sisters made the work of the rest of them as quick, and as bloody. In the space of just several seconds over a dozen deaths occurred, satiating the bloodlust of the Dathomir Witches, and bringing a fierce grin to the face of their leader. 

 

She strode through the still twitching bodies and walked easily to catch up with the erstwhile apprentice. 

 

“Camik, your ship awaits you. Though if you would prefer another demonstration of useless killing, I am sure we would be more than happy to oblige.” 

 

She indicated the Sith warship with a sweep of her arm, and smirked as she walked towards the starship at a brisk pace.

“You have been called. So you will come.” 

 

Telperien let her eyes travel from one patron to the next assessing the room full of muscled men and women like a predator would a flock of nerfs. They were strong, full bodied, men and women of the dirt. And it would be so easy. She licked her lips. Letting saliva fill the broken cracks on her lips from the lack of humidity. She did not answer the man’s question, instead she reached out her left hand the talisman on her wrist glowing a bright red.

 

One of the patrons jumped at her with a fist flying for her high boned face. 

 

She shouted a dark word of command and the force fell to her will. Billowing in its triumph through her talisman where it began its terrible work. Her hand twitched up, catching the man under the jaw, and as her hand grasped his throat his blood began to boil. 

 

Viens opened with an explosion of red steam and the man collapsed in a welter of gore. 

 

And so the fight was on.

A grin pecked at the side of Telperien’s face until she finally let it spread across her pale face. She reached back and let bot the Bow and bag of arrows at her belt fall to the sand encrusted floor. One of the pale girls behind her faithfully catching the leather wrapped bow before it could fall completely. Telperien took a pace towards the cloaked and cowled man and flicked her hand towards the band which had faithfully kept their tune. 

 

The electronic harpist cartwheeled into the wall behind his instrument and the drummer followed suit. Hurled as if lifted by an invisible hand. The charm at her wrist glowed a faint turquoise, the yellowed diamond emitting off a scant green light that disappeared as quickly as the music did. Her voice now carried like a silver wind, booming thorugh the establishment like a thunder stroke.  

 

“The King of the Stars, he who sits on a throne of blood and bone. The Dark Lord in his high hall. The unnamed bane of the Jedi Order and Galactic Alliance. Fret not for the Sith Lords of Korriban bid Camik to return to their service.” 

 

She maintained the grin as a few of the bar patrons reached for hidden weapons.

 

The starship emerged from hyperspace over the lonely sandy planet of Tatooine, and with little effort from its pilot or crew, succeeded in acquiring docking clearance at Mos Eisley spaceport. Perhaps the ease came from the loud declaration that this was a ship belonging to one of the illusive Sith Lords, or perhaps it was because of the promise of such a ship bringing some much needed credits to the lonely casinos and bars of a mostly deserted planet. 

 

Either way, the once apprentice to the Dark Lord, Telperien Ar-Pharazon in all her stature came most willingly to the barren world. 

 

The force had willed such a thing, and so Telperien would answer. Some of the local spies had told of a sith apprentice left abandoned, and the Dark Lord in all his grace, had dispatched the nightsisters. Nightsisters, who through no fault of their own but blood, could not access the force but through talismans and chalk summoning circles. The people of the weak blood, the Myrkengodi, the priestesses of the Sith Lords. And Telperien was their leader. And on the desert world of Tatooine, the Nightsisters of Coven Myrkengodi stood out like a Corusca gem in a coal pit. 

 

Their heavily tattooed skin, dark leather, and pale skin set them willingly apart, and in their company came the tall Telperien. She carried little save her yew bow and a quiver of arrows that was slung at her belt. The yew boy remained in its soft leather cover on a strap that crossed her muscled shoulders. 

 

She ducked to enter the Cantina and as her eyes adjusted they narrowed against the smoke of deathsticks. 

 

“I am looking for the one called Camik Rhonik.” 

 

Her voice was soft but it carried throughout the entire cantina, carried by the will of the force, which cut through the music of the band like a knife. 

A breath hissed from her clenched teeth as Telperien observed Darth Awenyyd’s desire. A quest was coming to its end, a cup of bitterness dranken to its gritty draught. Her semi permanent frown twisted itself unnaturally to a smile that looked more like a grimace, but her eyes made up for it as they looked softly upon her friend. Even in failure, the adventure had been a success, allies had been made, and perhaps, if luck held, a friend had been made. 

 

“I need no blood of such weak lineage, but my sisters will collect it none the less...There are rituals that may purify it fr use in the future. I look forward to our next meeting.” Her gruff voice took on its forced smile. “Friend.”

 

Her gaze hardened as she looked dismissively at Shiro, then with a military click of her heels, she turned and with a gesture, her sisters and her departed for the shuttlecraft. Then towards Korriban.