Darth Nyrys

“Belay that order on the explosives, I am in the palace. Also, conduct Delta up to me immediately.” As befit her status, Darth Nyrys had been using the palace as a residence and command center on Naboo. Its commanding perch gave her an excellent view of the consequences of the actions of the Sith, a vista of bitter ashes. The passions of her fellow Sith had brought her this feast of crows, and at the time she had stood by them, but in the aftermath she regretted her own part in all of this. She didn’t know if she could have stopped the Sith on the charge, most of them not even aware yet that she had ascended to the throne, but she couldn’t help but feel that earlier in her life she would have tried. Perhaps that was foolish youthful optimism and the innate yet flawed belief that right would triumph over might. She needed to make her position clear, to associate consequence with sloppy conquests like this. There were absolutely times when there would be a need for mass violence, her predecessor’s preference for maneuvers in the political arena over the battlefield perhaps played a part in emboldening resistance amongst the softer folk of the galaxy. The siren call of vague ideals like freedom and democracy constantly swindled safe and secure planets into armed revolt, which the firebrands and dissident ideologues would always try to turn into an excuse for why the revolt was necessary. They were kleptocrat vultures who sent the gullible to the slaughter while they filled their gullets with a feast of sympathy and praise. But while the Sith didn’t start this rebellion, they were responsible for the cost in life reaching the excessive toll that it did. There was a difference between cowing a populace with fear and outright exterminating them. Darth Mavanger’s prior military actions had been so much more methodical and smooth, this outlier was unfortunate. She needed to find out if this was the start of something new or a one time occurrence. Was this the truth of so many past troubled histories, stymied by the blunders of the prior administration before they could even establish their own legacy. The feeling that this was still Exodus’s empire was unavoidable, a pervasive and oily stain that seemed to cling to every aspect of the Sith. There was only one path forward, overgrown with thorny vines and concealed by mist. She might have doubted her ability to traverse that path in the past, but she had sharpened her blade on too many stones of trial and tribulation to question her strength anymore. She took out the comm that Darth Mavanger had given her, accessed its encrypted line. “We are reforming at Naboo, make haste there immediately.” She felt Ca’aran before she heard his approach, a wonderful storm whose downpour could wash away the funk that she was in. “It’s like watching a muscle finally releasing from a cramp. Please tell me that Mechis isn’t a smoldering slag heap. If you tell me that I will have a deep insertion mission for you. Very deep, much insertion.” She felt the presence of another Sith presumptuously demanding her immediate attention, but other things were about to come first. I will address the Sith in due time, but there are urgent matters to which I must attend.

Fleet Command (Flagship) Augmentation: Axial Weapon (MK-I), Ultra-Heavy Flak Cannons (MK-I) (One Extra Unspent Point) Xhendora-Class Dreadnought, Goliath |25/25| Battle Line Escort: Tradition of Excellence Task Force Experience: Veteran, 3XP Gladiator-Class Star Destroyer, Minotaur |35/25| Legendary Task Force: Project Apophis Task Force Experience: Veteran Prototype capital ship, Apep |25/25| Project Apophis (Capital ship): Lord of Chaos Green: A relic ship created to sow confusion and madness among the enemies of the Sith, the Apophis can turn brother upon brother through a torrent of illusions and saturated Dark Side illusions. The TF controller can either choose one enemy TF to attack another, or cause the crew to turn upon itself in frenzied violence for six points of damage. In both instances, the attacks ignore escorts. The frenzied violence is delivered with such urgency that the TF still has time to perform its intended attack that round. Veteran: Alternatively, the Apophis can manipulate one enemy non flagship TF into protecting it for a round. It can only do this to an enemy TF that is attacking it, which gains the Escort trait and immediately attaches to the Apophis. The manipulated task force still makes its attack against the Apophis, treating it as unescorted, but other attackers must contend with the escort as per normal rules. This ability resolves at normal speed, and cannot be used on artillery. Elite: Starfighter actions used to damage the Apophis are replicated in the same turn targeting their home carrier TF, or in the case of the free starfighter action, a TF of the Apophis’s choosing.

The air tasted bitter and ashen, suffocating in the smoke left behind by the fires of rage and bile. The blazing intensity of the moment was everything until it… wasn’t. These latent moments were the nature of the beast that they had all unleashed inside of themselves, but she did not relish them like the other times. They made her feel spent, used up, and hungry for the next rush, although that was an addiction that she did not feed lightly. Too many Sith burned themselves away too quickly by being dominated by the cycle of passion and burn out. The Dark Side was a part of her, but not all of her. She took the communicator from Darth Mavanger, losses were never easy for the Sith, but they were the crucible that either reforged a warrior into something stronger or broke them. This was the nature of the eternal war, ever pursuing greater strength and power. She took captures of the inside of the palace, a place of architectural beauty, and made her way into the city proper. The terrorists and dissidents were already melting away into the shadows, as they always did. She felt the half extinguished light of a solitary remaining Jedi in the city, and went in search of it out of curiosity. At the river that split the city, the Jedi lay paralyzed near a shattered bridge, with the kind of wound that would have been permanently crippling before the advancement of medical technology. Preternatural intuition told her that this was the Jedi that had defeated Darth Mavanger. “I’m not here to kill you, Jedi. You struck down Darth Mavanger, but that makes you the stone that sharpens my blade. It’s why conflict is such an integral part of the galaxy. If you ever grow disillusioned with the lie of peace that the Jedi and the Alliance continue to pander with, you have earned your place amongst our ranks through your skill and courage. Think it over.” Darth Nyrys took out her commlink and contacted command. Anyone with the courage to take up arms would be given medical aid and evac, regardless of colors. The civilians though, they belonged to the Sith now. “Medevac is on the way, Jedi. May you find ever greater glory in your journey.”

I am uncomfortable with the framework this provides for players to try and enforce what is a "proper Sith", and the potential for bullying players.

Photon torpedoes need to be corrected to proton torpedoes.

This reads too unique to be its own standard ship type, and is more plausible as a legendary task force or flagship.

“I would say that this qualifies as a sign.” Darth Nyrys said wryly, pulling the almost dead Sith Lord to his feet. Her muscles felt a little cramped, as if she had been holding the same position for days, but she dismissed it easily, she was no stranger to pain. Even in his armor she was able to lift Darth Mavanger to his feet with relative ease. The politics and mistrust of other Sith were far less present among the warriors, who put greater emphasis on utility than ambition. “I’ll get you to medevac so that they can have you back in the fight in no time.” When they reached the guards she had left at the door, she ordered them to call in a shuttle to rendezvous at the throne room, might as well kill two birds with one stone and see if the Naboo could provide any inspiration for her own eventual throne room. It was one of life’s great ironies that the creatively minded were so often opposed to the same institutions that were in the best positions to allow them to express their talents. The Naboo had a beautiful culture that was built upon the mass graves of many gungans, not that they ever mentioned that bit. The self righteous always wanted peace, after they had gotten their fill of conquest.

Warriors and Recurring Themes Some people use the Dark Side to pursue ambition and power amidst the elite upper class. Others use it to perceive and twist the fundamental fabric of reality and the laws of nature. Warriors looked at this godlike source of power and said to themselves, “What happens if I use this to cast stab?” It turns out the answer is considerable carnage and lots of trips to the dry cleaner to get all of that Jedi out of their robes. But shockingly, warriors are more than just hitting really hard, although that is something that they excel at. They are duelists, they are artisans, they are keepers of giant murder doggos, they are unstoppable, and they are not to be underestimated. Roleplaying a Warrior Power Structure and Dynamics: Due to a warrior’s straightforward mindset and blunt demeanor, they tend to highlight any power structure and evaluate it on sheer results. Could or should lead are irrelevant concepts to a warrior. Challenges to the structure should be made openly and based entirely on the merit of the two combatants, not prearranged circumstance. Warriors, being mechanically minded, understand the necessity of every gear turning when it is supposed to, and do their best to not let internal power struggles sabotage the order’s overarching goals. Some view their distaste for scheming as a lack of ambition, but the truth is that warriors believe in rule by the strong, and that if you can only win through treachery then you are unfit to lead. Better to ensure the strength of the order than undermine it for personal glory. Additionally, many warriors place personal development over political status, so their ambition is focused on improving their person rather than their place in the order. Directness: What takes an assassin twenty five words or a sorcerer fifty words and five intricately detailed diagrams can generally be expressed by a warrior in five words or less. That’s not to say that warriors are socially inept, just that they choose not to dress up their sentences with flourish or framing. Again this ties in with the objective nature of warriors, with the belief that words should stand on their own. Practicality: Warriors study the interaction between the Force and the physical realm, and this makes them the most grounded of the three types of Sith. Their focus requires that they understand physics, physiology, metal working, and other hard sciences and skill sets. It is through this understanding that warriors fight, applying leverage to existing natural forces to perform preternatural feats. Warriors reduce all things to how they work, and operate off of that basis, eschewing principles of misdirection and whimsical distractions. Honor: To fight unfairly is to deny oneself the learning experience of conquering your opponents through combat. To speak falsely is to diminish the value of your words. To falsely tolerate the weak is to welcome their weakness. To use proxies in an attempt to spare your own honor is only self deception. Growth: Warriors constantly seek to improve themselves through training, refining their weapons and armor, rigorous study, and seeking out and overcoming challenges. Warriors are perhaps the most inwardly focused of the Sith archetypes in how they accumulate power, as they define power on a personal and individual level. Discipline: The intent to grow can only be actualized through intense discipline through rigorous training and hardship. Only the warrior can achieve their own internal power, and the galaxy is full of temptations and distractions. Self Criticism and Objective Identity: Warriors tend to come across as incredibly self assured, mainly on account of identifying and facing down every criticism that they can think of. They are incredibly proud of the power that they have amassed, but in order for that power to be true and meaningful, they must hold themselves accountable to failings realized both by themselves and others. Sure, they might yeet the messenger off of the tower, but they still listen to the message. Respect: Because warriors focus so much on objectivity and evaluation, the notion that there are others that hold power and ability worthy of respect is an inevitable outcome. Warrior apprentices that cling to arrogance in training often have it beaten out of them by their masters to keep it from clouding their ability to size up their enemies. Warriors absolutely can respect people that they want to fight or kill, but off the battlefield they tend to regard those people with acknowledgement or even offers of kinship. People that the warrior respects are people that have lessons to offer the warrior, or traits that the warrior admires and wishes to cultivate, so they treat them as resources to be valued and hoarded. The Five Warrior Spiritual States The idea behind the five spiritual states is to expand upon the warrior tradition as being a spiritual and philosophical tradition, and not just a hound that Sith loose on the enemy. The five states are explorations of the Dark Side of the Force in the context of conflict and provide mental and spiritual training goals for the warrior to aspire to. They are not things to be mastered in a few posts, but rather ideas to pursue. For obvious reasons, a warrior can only be in one mental state at a time, and must be in the same mental state for the entirety of a duel. Predator Instinct: The warrior taps into the primal elements of the Dark Side, the predatory and cunning realm of nature’s hunters. In this state, the warrior dominates their surroundings and acts with full understanding of the world around him or her, and those in it. Predator Instinct focuses on using the Force for commanding and using the environment and beasts to overcome enemies, and find the constraints of heavy armor unbearable. Many warriors who become consumed by this path ultimately leave the teachings of armor and blade behind for cunning and stealth of the assassins. It is unwise to shift out of Predator Instinct when using it to control beasts, because Sithspawn absolutely will bite the hand that feeds them, given the chance. Even warriors that do continue to clad themselves in armor often are forced to wear light or medium armor in order to keep up with their bestial allies. While this loses them a great deal of the protection that most warriors are afforded, it also allows them to move far more acrobatically and suddenly than their kin. While they can’t match the versatility and fluidity of assassins, these warriors can close with their opponents with terrifying speed, while their hounds strike at the flanks. The practitioners of this mental state are the most likely to use non-traditional weapons, often emulating the claws of a beast, using a spear to keep themselves out of the way of their bloodthirsty pets, or other more exotic weapons. Cold Mind: The warrior taps into the most distant and isolated reaches of the mind, cold places that cannot be penetrated by light and compassion. Emotion and warmth are traded for heartless calculation and cold objectivity as the warrior maneuvers the pieces into place for the greatest gain. In this state, the warrior finds fortitude in internal distance, hardening his or her heart against loss and forgoing the usual emotional inferno of the Sith psyche. Cold minded warriors can shrug off emotional and physical wounds, and move with tireless mechanical efficiency as enemies struggle in the face of such icy certainty. The analytical logic of the Cold Mind breaks down the defenses and actions of the opponent into temporary obstacles to be crushed by the slow but devastating force of the warrior. With a touch they can freeze armor to brittle fragility, still the ground around them into treacherous patches of ice, or conjure simple weapons out of the moisture in the air. With distant malice these warriors can encase their limbs in ice to serve as heavy mauls that can send their opponents flying. Peculiarly, a warrior in Cold Mind still finds themself drawn to close quarters combat, and more than any other philosophy they are compelled to kill their enemies with their hands, or other direct applications of force. With the contrast of their demeanor, the final moments feel all the more intimate and gruesome. Treatises and scrolls on this philosophy are rife with disciplined armor drills, and Cold Mind warriors treat their armor like extensions of their body. Sundered Heart: The warrior plunges into their own pain and trauma to power their attacks with raw emotion and suffering. In this state, the warrior unleashes his or her inner turmoil in a torrent of powerful and never ending attacks with the intent to overwhelm enemies in a ceaseless storm. In Sundered Heart state a warrior hits harder and faster as long as they can maintain their rage or subsidize it with physical pain. This state is far more effective when combined with lightsabers than Sith steel weapons, on account of the weightlessness of the blades. Warriors of this philosophy burn with terrible intensity, often calling upon spells and techniques that risk harm to themselves so that they may harm others more grievously. Many claim that the ambition of this path is to immolate the galaxy as an expression of the pain within. Others say that these Sith are addicted to pain and the anguish that their actions cause in others, feasting on negativity like tender meat and well aged wine. Whether acting on nihilism or hedonism, the results are always the same, scores of blistered and ashy corpses. To the horror and confusion of their enemies, these warriors are known to sometimes set themselves on fire, entering a trancelike fever dream of seemingly unstoppable violence. Using their incredible will and focused hatred, they feed off of the pain and amp themselves up to act beyond the limits of their frame, pushing bruised and broken limbs to function with no care for the later consequences. Darkest Self: The warrior puts aside all distractions to focus on the Onyx Mirror, a mental construct that warriors use to reflect on past fights, current needs, and future paths to improvement. This allows the warrior to scour him or herself for weakness, quiet the inner spark so that he or she can learn from training, and commit themselves to long and difficult tasks such as weapon forging without succumbing to impatience and restlessness. This philosophy is not meant for combat, and does not carry with it any advantages to use on the battlefield. Wisdom of the Blade: A virtually forgotten fighting art exclusive to Sith warriors, this spiritual trance unifies warrior and weapon into a singular force of destruction. Using the Force to command obedience from the physical world, the warrior finds a perfect communion with his or her weapon, and uses it to demonstrate preternatural prowess. These blade arts can only be used with weapons possessing a physical blade, such as Sith swords, with the advent of the lightsaber largely being the reason why this collection of techniques died out. While this may seem like a case of the relentless march of progress towards more technologically advanced weaponry replacing inferior but traditional weapons, even the most pragmatic and forward thinking Sith warriors at the time regarded lightsabers as cheaply made, mass produced alternatives of inferior quality. A Saint of Blades would argue that because a lightsaber is deadly in spite of the wielder rather than because of the wielder, it propagates a mindset of relying on brute force to smash through an opponent’s guard, rather than competent bladework. Despite the protests of the warriors, the Sith Empire chose to embrace lightsabers and the ability to arm entire armies with an easy and cheap to build weapon. While this allowed them to mobilize greater numbers, it cost them the superior fighting skills that they had developed with Sith swords. Many Sith warriors went to their graves believing that this decision lost the war against the Jedi. A warrior who is in the Wisdom of the Blade state channels the Dark Side through their body and weapon as a unified circuit. The weapon almost gains a sense of buoyancy in the warrior’s hands, innately knowing its place in the galaxy, cutting lightly and falling down on enemies with meteoric force. The warrior also finds equilibrium, his or her balance becoming unbreakable and his or her weight fluctuating between airy insubstantiality and bone shattering heft. While this philosophy lacks the flashiness of conjuring great lances of energy or weaving illusions, it is no less Force intensive and effective. Another name for this mindset is the Eye of the Inner Storm, as its practitioners are known to weave elements of the storm into their attacks, and the relationship between warrior and weapon is said to cause an eerie calm within that deeply contrasts the chaos and slaughter that surrounds the warrior. The Three Circles The Warriors are trained to visualize three circles when in combat, each one analogous to the striking range of a weapon, to better understand the range of their abilities. The Circle of the Sword is used to communicate the most local and often most powerful techniques and abilities. The Circle of the Spear denotes attacks that have some measure of range, similar to a fully extended spear strike, but are still most potent when the distance is marginal. The Circle of the Lanvarok is associated with powers that are often tied to fear, battlefield dominance, and commanding troops; powers of this circle often affect the whole battlefield. Warrior Powers These are suggestions for some powers that expand the warrior’s toolkit and exemplify the warrior’s focus on direct and overwhelming power, and establishing dominance over everyone around them. Mantle of Warriors: Warriors can subconsciously use the Force to assert their dominance over others, subtly altering perceptions to appear taller, conceal wounds, darken the light around them, and make their voices sound more menacing. A Sith warrior inspires allies and terrifies enemies through sheer force of presence. Dominance: A blunt form of mental control, Dominance inspires blind faith and loyalty in the warrior’s soldier allies, and crushes the will of cowards into subservience. Allies affected by Dominance treat the Sith Warrior like something between a pack alpha and a war god, instinctively following his or her lead, and treating their orders like holy writ. Dominance turns a non combatant into a thrall whose life is dictated by mind shattering fear and a desperate hope that they can appease their master enough to not kill them. These thralls are too broken to serve as infiltrators, and generally serve their master performing simple tasks like cleaning weapons and seeing to his or her chambers. Rapacious Pursuit: The warrior uses the Force to enhance their mobility, allowing them to jump impossibly far, run on walls, fall lethal distances without harming themselves, and users of the Wisdom of the Blade philosophy can use this to traverse the surface of liquids and over snow instead of through it. Further training in this skill can make the pursued hallucinate the Sith around every corner they turn and blocking every doorway they try to walk through, as the prey’s imagination is turbocharged by fear. It is important to note that this power is based on interaction with physical objects, and does not allow the use of midair redirects like assassins can do. Blood Pack: Warriors who focus on the Predator Instinct state of mind often hunt their prey with the assistance of hunting hounds, such as Tuk’ata. The beasts are not mindless suicidal attackers, instead acting with bestial cunning and flanking their prey to limit its mobility and strike when its back is turned. An apprentice can bond with a single beast, and a lord can with two, while a master imparts a measure of improved strength and endurance through the Dark Side. Break the Balance: Alternatively, at Lord rank, a warrior using Predator Instinct can alter an animal to become an abomination so deadly and ravenous that if left to its own devices it would tear through its own ecosystem. Such creatures, with the patronage of master level warriors, can even develop primal expressions of the Force. A warrior can never control more than one of these creatures at a time, nor can they control both the abomination and the blood pack at the same time. Fetch: Sometimes enemies are no fun and don’t come out to play. When that happens, a Sith’s best friend from Blood Pack or Break the Balance can be counted on to find them, and drag them to the warrior for mandatory play time. They are the best boys and girls. Yes they are. Shatter: No physical barrier or obstacle can hold a master warrior back for long as they use raw blasts of the Force to obliterate walls and crumple doors like paper. Warriors can also channel this destructive power through gauntlets and physical weapons to sunder armor that would otherwise be impervious. In such situations blunt attacks serve as the best medium. When used as a blast attack, this power is considered part of the Circle of the Spear. This power specifically focuses its damage output on obstacles rather than the people behind them, as warriors have a distaste for striking down enemies through the Force alone. Reservoir of Rage: The warrior can imbue the crystal of his or her lightsaber with emotional energies, allowing them to call upon this hidden reserve should a cowardly enemy resort to mental or emotional attacks. Once called upon, the energy is spent until the warrior can renew it out of duel combat. Immolating Presence: During combat the warrior seems to superheat the air around him or herself, to the point that being near the warrior subjects enemies to sweltering heat that drains their endurance and makes armor and weapons start to burn uncomfortably with skin contact. Masters can outside of duels cook NPCs inside their armor by glaring at them until they succumb to the heat. This power’s area of effect is Circle of the Sword at Lord rank. Warriors of the Sundered Heart can focus this energy around the blade of their weapon so that even strikes that are blocked or near misses become taxing from the oppressive heat, and extend the range of the power to Circle of the Spear. This power cannot be used in conjunction with Frigid Demeanor for obvious reasons. (The actual damage from this power can be considered "nuisance damage", especially in small doses. Only if an opponent chooses to remain in range for the majority of the duel do they risk true physical damage. Instead, the true danger of this power is in depleting an opponent's stamina.) Frigid Demeanor: During combat the warrior seems to still the air around them causing the temperature to plummet. Limbs tremble, mechanisms seize, and hope dies with the arrival of the warrior. Enemy movement for both organic and mechanical creatures is slowed, and the armor of enemies grows brittle and weak as it loses its flexibility. Masters can outside of duels freeze NPCs from the inside out with a dismissive glance. Warriors using Cold Mind can focus this energy around the tread of their boots to freeze ground, making it more treacherous for their enemies, and extend the range of the power to Circle of the Spear. This power cannot be used in conjunction with Immolating Presence for obvious reasons. Awaken Weapon: The warrior uses a ritual involving a Sith victory crystal and a favored weapon to awaken a sentience within the object. It could be a hated enemy, valued teacher, challenging rival, or a loved one that the warrior failed to protect. Awakened weapons can channel the warrior’s power more effectively and serve as advisors or sources of rage and anguish, depending on who the warrior placed in the weapon. Sundered Heart and Cold Mind cause the weapon to burn or freeze enemies that make physical contact with it, Predator Instinct goads the warrior’s allies to attack with renewed vigor, and Wisdom of the Blade channels electricity through the weapon. Skin of Steel: The warrior ritually binds armor that he or she has made or killed the owner of to him or herself, allowing the warrior to channel energy into physical attacks like a Sith blade. Additionally, the armor no longer encumbers the Sith’s movements, although supremely heavy armor sets would still eventually tax the wearer on a spiritual level. Monstrous Bulwark: The warrior leverages the weight of his or her armor to resist external forces trying to move the warrior about. Upon using this power, the warrior’s armor becomes excessively heavy, allowing them to mitigate the effect of blasts that might otherwise toss them off of their feet. Cold Minded warriors can conjure ice to increase their bulk and temporarily affix themselves to surfaces. The Indifference of Titans: Cold Minded warriors can envelop their senses and pain receptors in a bitter numbness that bathes them in a chilling agony but makes them numb to all other sources of pain, instead feeling like a sense of pressure, if anything at all. Severe wounds are clotted with icy rime to stop the warrior from bleeding out, although this is by no means a form of healing, and even if the warrior does survive they suffer from massive scarring. Ecstasy of Fire: Sundered Heart warriors are known for their fever dream fighting style, and many seek to accelerate it further by lighting themselves on fire to feed their hunger for pain and rage. The flame persists beyond the need for fuel with this ritual, and allows the warrior to strike with amazing speed and strength, at the cost of being on fire. While in this ecstatic state, the pain of enemy strikes is blunted by sheer adrenaline, and severe wounds like dismemberment are stopped from bleeding out by cauterization. As with the Indifference of Titans, this is not in any way true healing, just the ability to act beyond what pain would normally allow. Apex Predator: Predator Instinct warriors use Sith alchemy, poisons, and natural drugs to enter a frenzied berserker state where they exist somewhere between sapient and beast. Pain supercharges their adrenaline, and their minds teeter between preternatural awareness and insane otherworldly visions. This makes these warriors a jittering ball of nerves and paranoia, which in turn makes them incredibly hard to pin down or strike directly. They have less at their disposal to deal with severe wounds, but are also less likely to receive them than their more enthusiastic philosophical cousins. Saint of Blades: Wisdom of the Blade warriors focus on precise bladework to prevent damage, rather than giving in to sloppy emotion fueled temptations or overextending in a pyrrhic trade of blows. By using their already ambiguous relationship with gravity, the warrior can ride the wave of momentum from enemy strikes until the strike’s power is exhausted, giving them an ethereal and otherworldly sense of motion. No momentum is challenged, it is all redirected in a surreal dance. That being said, even to a Sith the constant repositioning can be jarring, and doesn’t always result in the best footing or positioning. As eternal students of the duel, Wisdom of the Blade warriors take loss of limb as a lesson to be studied, and are more likely to withdraw than try to push through should they sustain such an injury. True Self/This is Who I Am: A Sith warrior and master is always prepared for war, and can call forth their bound weapons and armor in a grotesque manner similar to a werewolf transformation scene. The armor emerges underneath the flesh, tearing through violently and painfully as the man is replaced with a monster. The agony of the transformation can then be called upon to help power the Sith’s abilities. Use of this power leaves the Sith’s skin bloody and raw underneath the armor, so the Sith could not be undercover, use the power, remove the armor, and then go back to being undercover without some form of tricky explaining to do. Tear at the Wound: The warrior seizes a memory from the past and relives it with all of its emotional intensity as if it just happened. What others see as a Sith’s inability to move on is in fact the Sith renewing the hatred and suffering that fuels their powers. Extensive use of this power can however leave a Sith trapped in a hellish cycle of their own making. To the Bone: If a warrior seeks out tutelage from a sorcerer, or attains the services of one to assist in the ritual, the warrior can tap into the pain and suffering of events from the past that are tied by blood or creed to him or her. This is a more dangerous version of Tear at the Wound, because it is essentially tantamount to possession by a large number of angry Force echoes that can overtake the warrior’s will and leave them a puppet to the forces that they sought to control. If the warrior manages to ride the wave, they will have access to a wellspring of rage when fighting the persecutors of the dead, but straying from that path risks possession or the ghosts returning to their graves. Sawblade Strike: The name of the attack is more of a reference to the mental process used to fuel this power than any physical traits of the attack. The warrior begins a barrage of blows that builds in intensity the longer that the target remains not dead, the Sith’s rage and frustration creating a self sustaining loop of attacks fueled by the emotions of the previous attack failing to be lethal. To an outsider, this generally looks like a relentless series of hacking attacks where form is sacrificed for power. Even though this maneuver looks unskilled it should never be treated as easily defended against, as the attacks carry with them preternatural momentum and force, with each successive blow striking heavier. Chwit’Jen’Itsu: A collection of short ranged telekinetic grapples and throws that Sith warriors have developed in lieu of physically grabbing their opponents. As much fun as breaking an opponent’s body is, too many combatants these days possess powerful short range attacks that the warrior is vulnerable to by committing to a grapple. Unlike the infamous Force Choke, Chwit’Jen’Itsu is composed of rapid joint hyperextension and lightning fast TK throws, but the joint attacks require that the target is mentally vulnerable, whether by extreme pain, Dun Möch, overextension of their own efforts, or mental attacks. Fist of the Mountain: A Cold Minded power that allows the warrior to encase their fist and forearm in ice to increase its mass and protect their hand and finger bones from breaking too prematurely. It can also be used to help armor resilience when taking hits on the bracers. The ice tends to shatter and melt after a solid hit or two, but even the detached Cold Mind warriors draw great satisfaction from the visceral experience of delivering such a blow. Masters of the technique enhance the blows not just with the mass of the ice, but by also imbuing the attack with power from the Force itself. Such strikes can send the unprepared and sometimes even the prepared flying. Morbid Curiosity: A Cold Minded power that allows the warrior to slowly conjure weapons of ice. This technique came about from warriors of this philosophy constantly breaking their weapons or leaving them behind after dispatching opponents with their hands. There is nothing particularly special about these weapons, other than that they can be called upon when the warrior would otherwise be unarmed. They generally take the form of hammers, mauls, and cudgels, in keeping with the Cold Mind preference for blunt weapons. The power gets its name from warriors who used the power to experiment with various weapons on prisoners before forging their own pieces. Rise and Fall: Wisdom of the Blade warriors use verticality extensively to overwhelm and outmaneuver their opponents. This technique is one such example, in which they use a specialized form of Force Jump to gain height before crashing down with meteoric force. Blade Dance: With otherworldly grace, a Wisdom of the Blade warrior moves in circuitous patterns without losing their forward momentum. The steps of the warrior are counterintuitive and dreamlike to observers, bewildering their opponents before they strike with seemingly sourceless momentum. Masters almost seem untethered from gravity, drifting across the battlefield like a memory of sorrow and loss. Legacy Reborn: Technology is not the path to salvation, it’s a crutch, and Wisdom of the Blade warriors have no qualms about kicking out the crutch from underneath their opponents. The warrior can create an extremely localized burst of electrical energy that can damage or outright fry circuits. Masters can project the energy in a short range cone at Circle of the Spear range. Tremor Impact: Warriors from every path are taught to embrace this power, the use of a Force enhanced strike into the ground to shatter the earth beneath the feet of their enemies and interfere with their footing. Apprentices tend to be able to accomplish this at sword range, Lords at spear range, and masters can cleave a directed line at lanvarok range. The attack itself does not do physical damage, instead it should be used as a set up for other attacks. Shatter the World: A tool of the most powerful Sith masters or groups of Sith lords working in tandem that is often mistaken for Sith sorcery, a rupturing wave of destructive energy surges over the battlefield. On natural worlds, dust and debris fill the air across the field, limiting line of sight drastically, and great schisms score the ground like a spider web of trenches. In constructed locations, pipes rupture, lights fail, and internal fires spread smoke everywhere. People hit by the wave of devastation feel and look battered and bruised, but are otherwise unharmed, the point of this power is to give warriors cover as they advance, not to kill enemies at range. Advance of the Conquerors: Sometimes enemies that have no respect for the glory of melee combat use the totally unacceptable tactic of gunlines. The Sith warriors have invented and refined a very appropriate response to such cowardice, shouting so loud that their hated enemies’ eyes burst. Granted results may very, and most combatants feel more of an uncomfortable pressure on their eyes that distorts their vision temporarily(Or temporary ocular malfunctions in the case of droids), but the Sith certainly like to remember it as being super effective and gore inducing. This power is extremely taxing to maintain, and is generally reserved for charging entrenched gun lines rather than use for single combat, where ranged attacks can be overcome with deflecting weapons. Warchant of Glory: An aggressive and piercing warchant where each syllable pierces like a spear thrust, this Sith incantation penetrates resolve and courage with verbal lances of doubt and fear. The weak willed are more inclined to hide or run under this hex than stand and fight. Warchant of the Chain Breakers: A low and sonorous warchant that resonates with disruptive power. Concentration becomes increasingly difficult for nearby enemy Force users to maintain as the Dark Side clouds their minds. Jedi have described the warchant as feeling like a pressure probing their aura, looking for cracks to ensnare their will. At range they described it as more like a nuisance similar to a buzzing mosquito, but face to face it felt smothering. Warchant of Hatred: A loud and brief warchant, the Warchant of Hatred spits out each word like the fall of a hammer. Each line is meant to challenge a Jedi’s power directly, like a battering ram of will at the gates of the enemy’s resolve. Like Warchant of the Chain Breakers, this curse functions best at short range, but it targets a specific power rather than the Jedi’s focus. Bound By Blood: A ritual of binding between warriors, this power allows each bound warrior to share the pain of their wounds with each other to feed their powers. Outside of the spiritual effects of this ritual, it is generally treated as a recognition of respect and kinship between warriors. Warriors do not always fit well in the political machinations of the assassins or the academic vacuum chambers of the sorcerers, and so often tend to stick with others of their kind. It is, however, worth noting that the ritual is not in fact limited to warriors, and on very rare occasions assassins or sorcerers have been included. A Mind for Metal and Mirrors: Meditation and Sith Warriors Meditation is often considered a Jedi thing, a healthy act of mental cleaning and mindfulness, but I felt like we could take a healthy concept and apply it in the most unhealthy way possible that showed the sacrifice of humanity for power to get truly Sithy style meditations (methitations?). Forging the Way: Commonly tied to the action of forging (surprise, surprise) but also achievable through things like weapon and armor maintenance and katas, this form of meditation uses repeated simple actions to enter a disconnected mental state where the warrior can let their mind wander, or confront the Onyx Mirror. Forging the Way is always focused on achieving an end, pursuing the future. While in this meditative state the warrior, if sufficiently trained, can channel emotions or etch memories into whatever they are working on. Boundless Slaughter: Sometimes a warrior must deal with people that they hate, but for various reasons cannot kill. This meditation exercise allows them to subvert their homicidal inclinations by vividly imagining the graphic murders of everyone in the room. Underlings never know whether the warrior is smiling because they are pleased with their performance or because they just visualized popping the underling’s head like an overripe grape. Players using this meditative style should denote heavily what is fiction to avoid misunderstandings. The Onyx Mirror: The Onyx Mirror is a mental construct in which the Sith turns their eye inward to focus on every weakness and failure they can find. Young Sith hunt for weaknesses that keep them from achieving greatness, while powerful Sith search for vulnerabilities that could be exploited to bring about their downfall. No matter what form the Mirror takes, it loathes the Sith and takes great pleasure in pointing out his or her failures. The Hunt: The Sith abandons the madness of society and civility to run amuck as an apex predator devoid of higher reason. This cathartic “meditation in motion” allows the Sith to reconnect with the more primal aspects of the Dark Side, and is vital for learning Predator Mind. Sith entering this state can be lost to it for hours, days, weeks, or even months. The Obsidian Razor: The inverse of the Onyx Mirror, the Obsidian Razor is a meditation exercise where the Sith contemplates how everyone in his or her life could betray or fail them, to prepare him or herself for that eventuality. This concerted effort to see the worst in people leads to distrust and loneliness, but it helps keep the Sith from failing at a critical moment due to the weakness of lesser individuals. Profane Tryst: A means for which the warrior can learn the limits of the body, of other people, and of themselves, the Profane Tryst is a violently intimate form of physical exploration. The meditation requires at least one other person, willing or not, and the Sith needs to have dominance in some sense over them (Trying this on an unwilling Force user would essentially be the start of a mental duel, and while a great story arch, it’s not the purpose of this exercise). The Sith tears down the walls both on him or herself and the other participants, and then surges the Dark Side through everyone involved, heightening all emotions to a fever pitch and leaving no resistance to acting upon them. Fear, anger, lust, selfishness, every powerful emotion is magnified exponentially while an unnatural adrenaline surge rips through everyone’s veins. It’s the closest that a non Force user will ever get to feeling the Dark Side of the Force, and so for some it’s terrifying and others it’s addicting. Provided they survive. Since the Sith is also unbound by inhibition, the exercise can turn into a murder. An inferno minded Sith can tear apart the focus of their ire in a blind rage. A cold minded Sith might dissect someone that bores them to see how they tick. A hungry Sith in predator mind may consume the person raw. A deep minded Sith may confront the Onyx Mirror while using the Obsidian Blade for the most brutally honest and mind shattering heart to black heart ever. The risks are immense, and often not even voluntary. So why do it? Those who survive the Profane Tryst are often indelibly marked by the Sith, inextricably connected through a horrifying understanding of the Sith’s truest nature. And like watching a train wreck they can’t look away. The Sith becomes a fascination for the person, and they feel like they have an understanding of the monster behind the mask, as warped as it may be. In return, the Sith feels accepting of the person’s presence, perhaps because they sense some of their own nature infecting the person now. People that attain this dubious honor don’t register as targets during a Sith’s blind rages or during the primal mind state of the Hunt meditation, read as Sith to Sithspawn and artifacts, and are more easily altered through Sith alchemy. Seize the Wisdom of the Past: Half meditation, half invocation, this ritual allows the warrior to attempt to learn from long dead Sith warriors at their tombs. Theoretically this can be done at any rank, but unless an apprentice is invoking the warrior Bob’ert who tripped and accidentally stabbed a Jedi to death, the invocation will not go well, and even then, there’s little to gain from such a pathetic creature’s experience. The invoker must prove him or herself in a mental battle against the spirit where each combatant must fathom their next move at the speed of thought, and success is usually measured by survival rather than overcoming the spirit. After all, if you can already best them what do you have to learn from them? Should the warrior survive the spirit’s trial, the warrior will usually find them worthy of receiving instruction on fighting techniques. If a sorcerer is on hand or the warrior has training in necromancy, a Mors Lapis (Death Stone) can be created to invoke the spirit away from the tomb for further tutelage. Remember when writing this one out that attempts to make your character look super awesome by being the first to overcome some great warrior well beyond your skill range just mocks our shared heritage and makes your character look like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. In fact, the beatings these spirits can dish out should be a sobering experience that shows how far the Sith still has to go.

The Empire of old had been obsessed with super weapons, constructing obscene technological terrors the size of moons that could obliterate planets. Such force was unnecessary to send a message, and ended up being a monument to galactic inefficiency, as well as a symbol for the galaxy to unite against us. It was overkill, not in the sense of amusingly swatting aside an enemy, but the gross misuse of resources and power to clumsily bellow some measure of potency. Darth Nyrys believed in simple yet elegant statements, no need to rave a misbegotten manifesto when a singular potent word could get your word across. The spear that she had thrown was such a statement. Hopefully the galaxy was listening so that unnecessary bloodshed could be avoided. Submit. The spaceport was suddenly engulfed with dust and ash as the spear hit the planet with such force that it could have been mistaken for a nuclear bomb. A relativistic kill vehicle attack was actually far more merciful than an atomic strike or orbital bombardment, as it lacked the radiation or obscene extended thermal spike. Not that anyone suffering through it would feel particularly blessed. Her opening statement issued, she headed planetside with the troops aboard an assault shuttle. As her forces descended, she felt a disturbance in the Force, yet another sudden quietude. Darth Mavanger’s presence had been muted as it lay hazily in that twilit place between life and death. Flanked by elite soldiers, she made her way to where the last ghostly vapors of his presence remained. “Guard the perimeter, I need to conduct a ritual,” she commanded the troops that accompanied her. She waited until they withdrew out of earshot before she confessed to the mostly dead man, “I don’t have a ritual, or any kind of answer here.” “Everything is falling apart, and I wonder if maybe that’s why Exodus disappeared when he did, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the mess, with the blame, as everything crumbled into ruin. I thought that maybe with your talent for command that we could rally the Sith here and keep the rebels on the wrong foot enough to prevent them from capitalizing on our moment of weakness. However, it seems that the galactic wheel is turning with inevitable surety, and entropy is here to banish us all back into the shadows. You were one of the good ones though, Darth Mavanger, not rotted from within like so many of the others. A true warrior of the Sith, taken from us too early. But Sith are not beholden to the rules of the galaxy, so if you are truly one of our number, you will rage against this hand of stolen cards and legacy denied. Why are you so still at this betrayal by the stars to cut your story off at the knees? GET UP! BITE AND CLAW YOUR WAY BACK HERE BECAUSE I CAN’T DO THIS ALONE!” Her throat was raw and sore from the sudden outburst. Tears came to reflect the mournful storm within her soul. “You know what the secret power of the Sith is? It’s not the Dark Side, or the quality of our agents, or some secret spell or weapon. It’s failure. We are constantly failing, but unlike our enemies we learn from our mistakes. We fail constantly, but we always rise from the ashes as something more, evolved. Superior. The scars we bear are lessons, not marks of shame. I thought that you were the answer, but perhaps the true path lies with another. I will not let the Sith end here because of my own faulty expectations. If your fight ends here, then I will find another. But if there is still some measure of you that wants to conquer death and spit in the face of the light, give me a sign.

Mavanger vs Alcemene First of all, both of you did an amazing job with your writing here. Guardians and warriors have a reputation for being hard to write well, and both of you did admirably. This duel felt very much like lightsaber combat distilled, and placed on the forefront rather than a focus on powers. That being said, there is always room for improvement, so I have a couple of points to go over: -Darth Mavanger is on the warpath after the death of his lover, Xahl. I know this because we’ve discussed it over comms and because it’s the reason Mordecai went from conqueror to butcher at Naboo. That energy feels absent in the first and second posts, with the focus instead being on vague anti Jedi and rebel sentiment and technique. -Furthermore, I felt like the heavy armor that Mavanger was wearing was under utilized, being relegated to the role of damage mitigation rather than being leveraged to position more aggressively. Alcemene was able to use her shield both to respond to attacks and to have an impact on the landscape of the duel. Duel result: Alcemene wins

Duel ruling for Emma, Droids are underrated, and Inmortos: First of all, I would like to say that the posts themselves were very well written, and each of you should be proud of what you have contributed to the quality of our narrative on the site. I cannot understate the value of posts that are enjoyable to read rather than being focused on showing off or being intentionally misleading and ambiguous. That being said, there are some technical and tactical issues to address. Critical Analysis Droids are underrated, I wasn't able to find any reference to your flamethrower on your character sheet, or backreading three posts. We require that equipment used in duels is listed on the character sheet, and while we allow some leeway for recently acquired gear, being thorough is the best practice. Furthermore, for NFUs we do have progression systems, and a flamethrower is more than what a starting player would have access to. Currently NFUs can either run shooty grunts or have access to NPCs underneath them, and you kind of draw from both tracks, however the rules have some outdated references to multiclassing so I did not let that affect the ruling. Inmortos, the use of Implements of the Old Hatreds is supposed to reduce the caster's ability by a rank, but it read like if anything Inmortos's power level increased in the posts that he was using it. Failure to control the spirit in the sword would lead to a necromancer's soul be supplanted by the outsider, their body now under the control of the once bound spirit, and the PC wiped out completely. The level of mental focus and spiritual power did not in my opinion reflect someone who was simultaneously trying to keep a spirit imprisoned and casting and using augmented physical movement. I also felt like the pressure of DaU was so strong that Emma was able to act with very little in the way of attacks directed at her. 2v1s are always rough, but I felt like the tunnel vision here was critical to the outcome as there wasn't enough of a push against Emma to justify a victory on that front. Emma, very solid posting, both tactically and in terms of following rules and performing character level appropriate actions. Result: Emma wins, Inmortos and DaU are considered defeated, Emma gets first post. I will leave DaU's fate to Emma's discretion, whether he is too damaged to fight or completely destroyed (for three days) as Emma has won priority to lay out the narrative.

The Fair Lady of Iziz, a Harrower class destroyer that had served under Darth Nyrys's colors in the past was her chosen chariot to carry her to the campaign. Her captain was battle hardened and had displayed unyielding courage at Corellia, where the ship had nearly been lost entirely. The ship had returned to service with scars apparent but resolve undiminished. She had been waiting for the realspace breach in the hangar, and the blue green orb stood vast in front of her. It was a beautiful world, but beauty alone did not protect anyone from the ugliness of the galaxy. Luck and circumstance were the only arbiters of who got a free pass, and Naboo just didn't have the answer in its cards. There were Jedi here, because of course there were, and surely their would be idealistic lackeys were here as well, or at the very least en route. It would have been better if this had all been avoided, but these people were irreconcilably devoted to the principles of liberty and democracy. They put the burden of leadership on children and called their naivete purity, holding to such notions even after it put one of the most brutal dictators in centuries on a galactic throne. Sheev Palpatine, or more properly Darth Sidious had been a visionary in terms of plotting the domination of the galaxy, but once he had it he had seemed at a loss for what to do with it. Like the rest of his people, he suffered from focusing on the art of things while completely ignoring purpose. She missed the simplicity of being a warrior already, the simple binary of threats and nonthreats replaced with a dizzying web of potentials and probabilities. When she was a Sith warrior it was easy to only kill the people that needed to be killed. Now, every action was emboldened exponentially and every Sith under her command was trying to pull her in their direction. She could feel the pain and sorrow that Darth Mavanger was feeling, even though he was trying to mask it as rage. To try and stop his rampage would either end him or reduce him to the shadow of a man, and replacing him with lesser leadership would only draw the war out. Conflict was inevitable, only the cost was variable. Perhaps the next generation could be guided to a higher purpose, but these unfortunates had been cast in the role of warning to any that believed that grace and kindness were meaningful traits in a warzone. For whatever reason, the prior Dark Lord had been concealed in shadows for most of Mavanger's campaign. It was not unlike Exodus to move in such mercurial ways, but Darth Nyrys was not the man that came before her. She would be a symbol to her people and a unifier of the galaxy. But first the old ways needed to burn. A large number of imperial engineers shuffled towards her, struggling to carry the object that she had requested. It was not a remarkable piece of craftsmanship, neither cursed or crafted by Sith secrets. Plainly speaking, it was a metal spear, composed of a tungsten alloy, although peculiar in that it was too heavy to be wielded by a mortal soldier. Nyrys took it up with ease, and with preternatural strength and prowess, launched the weapon from the hangar towards Kwilaan space port, guiding the weapon's descent and goading it ever faster with the Force. "May the worthy emerge from the ashes to take their place among us, while the weak perish in the flame and the dust. I'll be going down with the first wave, captain, ready a shuttle accordingly."

The galaxy may have been holding its breath, but the well greased inner workings of the Sith Security Bureau continued to move with relentless efficiency. The department’s minister was already requesting a meeting with her before she had even arrived at the rendezvous location, and Darth Nyrys was inclined to honor that request in order to gain a better understanding of the situation at large. “-And we are currently pushing a media blitz regarding Naboo being used as a vital part of the refinement of biological weapons cultivated on Felucia. While the conflicts leading up to Naboo were mostly big stick diplomacy skirmishes, this is the first time that the campaign has launched, for lack of a better term, a sacking, and that gives us room to shape the narrative.” explained the minister, currently mid briefing. “One would think by now our history would make such actions unnecessary. Our nature has always been one of brutal honesty, when it came to diplomatic negotiation.” Nyrys said, almost wistfully. “Those who remember history are nearly always drowned out by those that are consumed by their anchorless and immediate perspectives. Individuals may at times be unpredictable, but groups of people are drearily banal. Take the rebels for example, always promising a better galaxy but never managing to deliver one that can survive beyond at most a decade or two. I can see how it might have been inspiring and hopeful the first time, but at this point they’re just stacking bodies for a jingoistic scam. This is not the last rebellion that we will have to put down, as softer hearted fools will inevitably delude themselves into thinking that they are heroes that will really actually bring a better era to the galaxy.” The minister waxed philosophically. “They have only the scars of the past and empty silences to account for those times. I’m not surprised that such abscesses fester and spoil into infection. Pain carries little context or wisdom, only the incessant call for action. When Darth Mavanger exhausts this new bloodlust or directs it elsewhere, we will rebuild amidst the ashes so that maybe the survivors might understand the why of our violence. Without the rebels, without disorder, there would be no need for such displays of barbarity. I want dossiers on worlds for after Naboo that would join willingly without a show of force so that we can show the galaxy that only the worlds that resist will suffer consequences.” She knew that it would be next to impossible to fully rein in the Sith now that blood was in the proverbial water, but the damage could be directed and limited with a careful hand.

"I would not call those savages "my men", they were agents of another's design, whose chapter in history has come to a close. Your own hounds are doing me a favor by cleansing them. The Spider thought that he could rule the galaxy through a quiet fear, just as your own people believe that hope can create a gentle kingdom encircled by spears. Or should I say Empire, your rebellion is led by an empress is it not? An empress whose throne world is known to the Empire and yet has somehow against all belief escaped reprisal from a Dark Lord known for making symbolic gestures? When people are afraid, dictators and despots are often recast in the eyes of the desperate as heroes and liberators. The Dark Lord mentioned having something planned for Nar Shaddaa through his agents, but I hold no quarrel with the populace of that planet, they've been through enough with the quiet purges that no one is talking about. Perhaps if you leave now you can save the ones that are left. Tick tock, Jedi, tick tock." The mist gathered around Nyrys in roiling clouds, dissipating to reveal nothing but the echo of her her words. ----------------------------- "Withdraw the remainder of our forces, commanders. The Dark Lord is gone, may the Dark Queen Nyrys reign as long as her blade remains sharp." There was going to be a moment of breathless vacuum that would feel like an eternity where the Sith would decide whether to accept or challenge Nyrys's claim. The most likely challenger in terms of raw power was her old master, the Krath sorcerer Sheog, but he struck her as beyond the political struggles of the Sith, his thoughts consumed almost entirely by his need to satiate his hunger. Even so, the hutt was wise and no stranger to battle, perhaps he would accept an offer of acting as her vizier. There had been much talk among the Sith of Darth Mavanger and the campaign that he was leading, but he had not yet been exalted to the rank of master, so a bid for Dark Lord now would be premature. Combining forces with him would give her a chance to demonstrate her abilities to the other Sith on the grand theater stage of military pomp and pageantry. His natural charisma and momentum would be valuable assets if he was willing to fall in line. She ordered encrypted communiques sent to Krath Sheog and Darth Mavanger. She also would need to quickly fill the ranks of the Sith armies with effective soldiers, so she sent another encrypted message to Delta. She didn't know if she had all of the words to express her feelings on the reality of becoming the ruler of the Sith Empire to someone who was a confidante and lover, nor did she want such information getting to the wrong hands, so she left it at they would talk in person soon. Finally, as her ship was leaving the planet's orbit she requested a special fabrication from one of the shipbound engineering teams, a tungsten spear the size of which made it impractical for any mortal warrior to wield.

Concept: Name: Type: Class: Length: Crew: Passengers: Armament: Description:

There’s a sensation tied to absence, to the sudden jolting realization that there is a void that was once occupied. Even for all of its subtlety, the absence of the Dark Lord’s presence was starkly apparent, the way that breathing was an action rarely noticed by the mind until it stopped. The full meaning of Exodus handing her his lightsaber crystalized rapidly, and she realized that she was even more without guidance than she had initially realized. That mother pfasker… She didn’t know if he had decided to slip away from it all, or if he was pursuing some power beyond the physical plane, rumors had been spreading of the Dark Lord experimenting with something that could have only been called abyssal. Perhaps his doom had been foretold in waking dreams by those gifted with the talent of prophecy. Regardless, if it had been a temporary thing he would not have expressed his intent by a literal passing of the torch, a simple order or directive would have sufficed. Further probes revealed that Qaela was noticeably absent as well. The troops that they had brought with them were well trained and armed, but not likely a match for the Jedi that were present. The light of the Jedi barely felt diminished and the Sith were down two masters. If every element of the force had struck at once then they should have been able to rupture the Jedi lines and mopped up the survivors, but piecemeal the assault would fail. She needed to preserve and withdraw what assets were left and rendezvous with the Sith forces in the south eastern quadrant, while delaying any pursuit. Darth Nyrys let the fear and uncertainty coil in her breast, only to be consumed by her as power. The girl that would have let such things rule her had been utterly obliterated on Onderon, the remnants ground to dust. With that power she strode across the surface of the glade wreathed in unnatural fog, like a waking nightmare. “Felucia, once a bastion of the Dark and known for its reservoirs of unnatural energies, an odd place to sequester refugees when the Sith are on the warpath. It almost seems as if someone amongst your own intended to invite bloodshed upon them.” There were Sith that could interweave spells and curses with words to befuddle and sway the mind, but Darth Nyrys was not one of them. Perhaps though her words would prove more effective without such tricks, as they were able to stand on their own validity and logic.

Things were not going according to plan. The former academy headmistress now turned glory hungry fool had jumped the gun and attacked… some middle of nowhere village with absolutely no military value. Apparently even villagers were too much for the fool to handle and she was fleeing into the jungle. Perhaps her antics might at least keep the enemy focused away from the real objectives. Darth Nyrys had only a squad with her, Wraith division sappers with explicit orders not to engage outside of self defense. Their role was to take out the planetary shield generator, anything else was not of concern. Reaching the generator meant moving through the hustle and chaos of evacuating refugees, but fear and the Dark turned glances aside as the team moved with purpose towards their objective. She felt the Jedi well before she saw her, a beacon of light that brought forth memories of her first time connecting to the Force with the aid of Master Sheog. This Jedi had been at Onderon when the Sith had liberated it, part of the response fleet that had wisely withdrew rather than face the superior Sith fleet. The Jedi would be able to detect her team, unlike the refugees and the weak minded rebel troops, and therefore could potentially compromise their vital mission. The Jedi needed to be drawn away. She bid her team move around the periphery while she engaged the Jedi. By wit or by strength her soldiers would have the distraction that they needed to complete their mission. When they were clear of her she reached out to the familiar being’s mind. Jedi, I am not here for wanton slaughter, would you meet me in the jungle away from the refugees? They have no part in the sordid history of our two religions, and I have no interest in collateral damage. I wish to make you an offer, but should things devolve as they so often do, I believe that both of us will feel better if things go down away from the refugees.

The balance of the room shifted, changing and contradicting itself in the way that the unknown tended to. The ambiguity and rudderlessness of the state of late stage lordship was replaced with the responsibilities and freedom that came with the rank and prestige of being a Sith master. She had a debt to repay to the Sith Empire for giving her a pathway to this power, but now she had a freer hand in how to repay that debt. She felt an odd sense of weightlessness in her very being, the opportunity to shape the worlds that she touched to her vision, rather than planting the flags of others after each bloody victory. But the Dark Lord also offered her his saber. This was not a part of the ceremony of becoming a master. This was singular. Had Corellia inflicted trauma on the Dark Lord as well? She had heard rumors that he had been grievously wounded during the fighting. Or perhaps he had been visited by some vision of umbral eventualities and shadowy possibilities. If anyone could unravel the puzzle that visions of the future presented, it was him, for the emperor was known for his wisdom and statecraft, his mind as razorsharp as the keenest blade. She took up the blade in trust, she had progressed too far to doubt the Dark Lord’s choice in custodianship. The weapon felt strangely soft, and she realized with a small degree of surprise that it was at least in part alive. She felt its gaze trying to strip her down and judge her measure, but it found no cracks in her armor. It seemed willing to at least tolerate her presence for the moment, but she could feel an unspoken threat in its demeanor that if she was ever found lacking, it would take its wage of flesh from her. Darth Nyrys rose a master, custodian to a legacy that she would fight to be a part of, and took her place at her emperor’s side as his burning blade. The challenges ahead would sharpen her edge and refine her balance as she moved ever closer to breaking her chains. Most importantly though, it was a chance to carve her own name into the annals of history as a hero of the empire and a master of the blade.

"I faced some manner of Jedi abomination on Correllia, and its strange sorceries brought me low. The defeat brought with it questions and doubts, and demons whispered in my ear that the only way to truly defeat the Jedi was to fully embrace the darkness through the absolute sacrifice of the self, but I will not become just another mask. I am Sith to live untethered, and I will not discard my goals at the goading of fear and doubt. I feel it though, in my blood, in the tension found in the words of my brothers and sisters, in the restlessness amongst the people. Something stirs in the Dark, my king, and it is growing hungry. Perhaps it is a momentum to be seized, but I am a warrior, and it is my nature to look at the full arc of where momentum will take the blade. Furthermore, I am a student of history and its cycles, and I wonder if the Darkness is posturing for another culling of its ranks. We have seen many times in records and lore eras defined by the Darkness reaching a critical mass, and collapsing in upon itself. The Jedi claim it to be the instability of our order, but I wonder if it serves a more profound purpose. When we are most abundant and profligate, obese with success and stature, does the Darkness remember fondly the days when it was a lean killer? After a great deal of reflection, I have realized that there are grand things that I desire to achieve, but they are more valuable to my growth as destinations on the horizon than as notches on my blade. I am a wanderer with a sword, I am headed nowhere in specific except where I have not been. I find the idea of ultimate victory distasteful, as such a state would promise no other resolution than decay and entropy." Darth Nyrys drew her blade as she took the knee before her king and the guards reacted as one would expect, after all, the Sith transferred the title of Dark Lord through that most sacred of trials. But the warrior's gesture of fealty was genuine, Exodus was still her king. He was not the charismatic statesman that she had seen at Dark Sun Station, he was... haunted, but she still recognized him as the best and most capable amongst the pack. "I do sincerely hope that you require me to kill your enemies on some distant shore that I have not yet been. My blade is sharpened on the rocks of civilization and adversity, and I have no desire for it to become dull."

Like spiders crawling over naked flesh, Darth Nyrys felt the will of her sable king spread across her. Never my lord, I simply had chains that needed breaking. I am at your disposal as always. The Dark Lord's message contained an implicit command, a summons for his bloodsoaked warrior. She was no longer the overwhelmed young girl or the sensual monster that she had been in the past when she had met him. There was still a fire in her eyes, but it was guided by cold wisdom and experience, by a need to exist beyond the moment. Despite having cut more of herself away, she somehow felt closer to being complete, more of who she was meant to be. Delta's troops had been deployed again, such was the nature of love in times of war, a cycle of not long enough and too long. She would attend to the Dark Lord alone. Darth Nyrys finally understood that she alone was enough. She took a shuttle back to Iziz, but did not have it land at the tower, instead she chose to walk among the city's populace. In the middle and upper class areas, the people were consumed by their own internal struggles and ambitions. Surely any normal person would be revealed to be rather lunatic if there thoughts were laid bare and the things they dwelt upon made known. Their minds were full of inane distractions and strange meanderings. In the abandoned and neglected places she found something more pure. There were still people that in a city of every convenience and necessity made available still struggled and fought for survival. Against the system, against each other, against their own flaws. Success could be its own poison, a bitter numbing agent, and failure a catalyst for growth. If not for her own loss at Corellia she would have continued to struggle against old misconceptions. Many had internalized the strife and suffering of their lot in life, but there were some that believed something more was within their grasp. She sought out those individuals and with the darkness that she held in her breast, she lit a flame in their hearts. In the bones of an abandoned factory she gathered them and consecrated her first church in pledge and song. They would be her Forlorn Saints, broken people that somehow still held potential like she had when the Sith had found her. Purpose would make them whole in time. With the ebon sacrament completed, she headed towards the dark tower of her master to learn of his bidding. ((Art by Adrian Półtorak))

"While the Empire has always striven to protect its soldiers from the enemy on a physical level, surprisingly little has been done to prepare them for mental attacks and manipulation. An idea was put forward to rectify that through controlled exposure to allow you to build up a resistance to Jedi sorcery and deceit. I'm going to perform a mental strike, such as conjuring a fear, issuing a command that you are compelled to obey, or deep diving into your head for information. You will do your best to resist it, or failing that, at least familiarize yourself with the feeling of the attack so that you can start to build a foundation to minimize its impact. Also, Sith Lady, because you know, all of the lady bits. If this training shows promise, Dark Hand may see some restructuring. In some ways more will be asked of you, but more in turn will also be given. Special privileges, increased salary, new toys, and access to resurrection protocols through cloning just like Sith and high ranking imperial officers. My father believed in the worth of the soldiers of the Empire, and that by cultivating their talents they would thrive together. He retired eventually from Dark Lording, so I'd say that it worked out pretty well for him. I know that the reputation of the Sith has often been one of ill portent for those that serve under them, but I assure you that your captain is no fun when he's all mopey, so I will be doing my best to keep you all alive and structurally sound. That being said, I'm going to start now." She looked over the troopers like an architect surveying a castle for flaws in its defenses. There was no sadistic edge to this, nor was it a game for her amusement. She wouldn't delude herself by claiming that she had no taste for such things, but it was far too easy to lose control when she was having fun. While Krath could conjure demons of smoke and fear from the darkness, Nyrys instead went a much more subtle route, breathing life into the demons that lurked in their minds, made of regret and sin. The older soldier had traces of poison clinging to his veins, a former slave to a violent romance with spice. It practically did half the work for her, whispering in his ear all of the things that might bring about the satisfaction of a broken promise. They would need to watch this one for relapse down the line. People liked to anthropomorphize everything, including their own darkness, but for Frostwin the darkness was naught but a thought and a craving. Just think about when you were high, it will help calm you for when the witch begins probing your mind. It's been... too long, but you need me to be your friend right now or she will tear through you. Perhaps even down the road you can use the real thing to keep it together, excel in the training beyond the others... The woman was harder to read, she suppressed her pain beneath layers and layers of scar tissue that would react reflexively to her probing. The face in front of the damage was pretty, Nyrys was starting to wonder if Ca'aran picked the majority of his unit from glamour shots. Frostwin being the exception to the rule. She knew that Ca'aran had occupied other shores within his unit, but Nyrys hadn't seen him with specifically this one, so there was no reason to be jealous. The wounds of the past often isolated their bearers, leaving some to distance themselves from anything that could cause pain, and others to seek out anyone that could understand a hurt that could not be comprehended. She seems different from the others, usually Sith just want to use and discard us, but she seems legitimately concerned about us and the captain. Maybe this isn't a death sentence after all. Maybe afterwards they could get drinks, shoot the shit so that she could get a better read on this new mystery the captain gotten wrapped up in. And then to cover her tracks with Sigrid she dumped a couple gallon buckets worth of illusory spiders on her. She wouldn't undermine the whole point of the training just to achieve her own agenda, she could multitask.

“I think that I would want another Sith to be the one doing the poking and prodding there, just so that I don’t become associated with any past trauma lurking in your brain. If you’re going to be terrified of me, it should at least be for something that I actually did.” Nyrys moved the copper basin onto a heating element and began mixing in various alchemical components. The blood began to bubble and hiss, and filled the room with the smell of burnt ozone. A somber lament began to emanate through the Force, the wailing of those left behind when tragedy claimed so many. As each piece of Sith steel armor was completed, she applied the crimson unguent to it, infusing them with the mystical concoction. If everything worked properly they would develop a burnt copper hue after she removed the treating compound. “I’ll push your troops, but I won’t break them, and I’ll make sure that whoever works with you understands that you are not to be permanently damaged.”

The working of steel and spell had a song to it, a universal rhythm found in every forge and on the lips of every smith. There was something truly sacred and intimate about taking a part of the universe and with hammer and flame rendering it down to be remade as an instrument of your will. Untouched the galaxy was just a jumble of purposeless mass and energy, existing simply to exist. It was capable of so much more under the right guidance. She had come into the Sith with untested beliefs and blind faith, too overwhelmed to find her own truth. But just like the metal that she was reshaping now, fire and fury had led her to new purpose, reformed into something beautiful. I mean seriously, her curves were jaw droppingly amazing. It was more than that though, it was a surety of direction, a guiding pyre of flame that called to her stronger and clearer than any of her chaotic impulses. Every fall of the hammer was another step on a path that she could see clearer than ever now. Before her a key to victory began to take shape, a creation of pure focus and intent. It showed its elegance through its lines and its refined clarity of design. The weapon could be divided into three measures of eighteen inches, the extended grip and flared root, the stem and slender of the blade, and the bloom and point at the tip. With her first blade, Nyrys had gone to extreme lengths to interlink blade, armor, and self into a singular tapestry. This time, such intricacies felt unnecessary as her prowess and command of the Force had grown beyond such aids. The connection between her and the blade felt more direct and less diffused than it had with Gwn Marwolaeth. Her old blade had been quenched in the blood of her most hated enemy, which due to a host of insecurities that she had been drowning in at the time had been herself. Those same insecurities had doomed her on Corellia, acting as a sinister poison that held her back from her full potential. With the clarity of confidence and ambition, her true enemy had been revealed at last. With ritual reverence she laid out the artifacts of her past self on the ground outside of the workshop. A crystalline heart that she thought would serve better than one that had been broken so many times before. A pair of crimson pearl eyes that revealed secrets but blinded her to so many truths. A sword that misled her into thinking that she couldn’t trust her own instincts. Honestly the armor had performed satisfactorily but it had so many ties to everything else that it needed to be a part of this too. However, she did carefully and gently extract the souls of her family from the armor, greatly relieved that the holy demon that she had fought did not steal them away as well. These things were parts of herself that she had moved beyond needing. They were paths to misfortune that promised no benefit other than their wretched familiarity. She raised her newly forged blade and in the moment of striking knew its name to be Drych Ysbrydion. Again and again she brought the blade down on her past bonds with storm and fury so great that others in passing might have mistaken the sound for errant peals of thunder, and great clouds of sundered soil exploded into the air. There was an incredible lightness of being when she finally stopped, her ecstatic trance having put a great furrow in the earth. She let loose a victory cry that resounded throughout the grounds and scattered the dust and debris of her old self to the winds. Within her chest, her heart pounded with the fury of war drums, exultant. Her chains were broken, and at last she was truly free. With a bounce in her step she returned to the workshop to begin work on her armor. The first pieces that she worked on were gauntlets, into which she worked lanvarok disc casters. Originally these traditional Sith weapons had been full-on polearms, but technological advances had refined them down to a much more practical size, and while they couldn’t penetrate modern high end battle armor, they could hit with enough force to unbalance an armored opponent. Ca’aran returned to her as she finished the gauntlets. She suppressed a vocal squeal at his response, keeping it from escaping by kissing him deeply. Her hands shamelessly gripped him in a way that locked him tightly against her, and with a good squeeze she truly appreciated the firm work of the Kaminoan genetic science division. “I don’t know how effective it will be, I couldn’t really find any past history of it, but I’d like to try training any candidates that you flag as having Darkwatch potential in resistance to mental attacks. If nothing else it will help prepare them for exposure in the field. I know that both of us understand and respect that we are going to be going into hazardous situations routinely, but I want to do what I can to keep you as intact as possible, both inside and out. What do you think about that?”

“When I was growing up I used to think that they were just security experts, my Dad always engaged their services whenever things were getting rough or we were gathering with high profile people, but what I’ve been reading since I’ve had an actual security clearance is that they were retrieval specialists who relied on martial excellence and top tier gear to act as first responders and evaluators of Force anomalies, and retrieval experts for unique items and individuals. Lots of covert ops shenanigans. Sheeenaaaanigaaaans. Such a fun word to say.” Nyrys was giddy with her newfound fount of vitality, and emotion, and energy. She still felt the blackened patches in her soul where the abomination had torched her, but they were starting to fill in again. Her relationship with hunger had changed, and while she could develop an appetite or know when her body needed sustenance, there wasn’t the insatiable undercurrent of desperate desire that was once her near constant companion. Instead, there was a wonderful clarity of focus on the people and things that mattered most to her. She had thwarted death through her power and knowledge, and was certain that she could do the same for the people that she cared about. She had friends before she became a Sith, only a handful admittedly, and she had kept them at arm’s length to protect them from herself. At least, only a handful if you didn’t count the rather long list of associates with benefits that she had ended up with over the years. No amount of wealth or family status could change that she had been the alien at the imperial academy, okay for guys to sleep with but not to ever bring home to their families, or even openly act as a couple. She had reacted as exactly as immaturely as one might have expected her to back then, using her own feelings of rejection and lack of self worth to fuel a raging storm of bad behavior that torpedoed any relationship caught in its path. She had been unable to find her own happiness, and anyone who had was somehow to blame. Amazingly, sleeping with bigots didn’t actually cure bigotry, no matter how often and hard she tried. Through it all though, she had a small circle of friends that had been there for her through her various stages of pfaskery. People who were there for her at her worst, well pre-Sith worst anyway. She wanted to see them again, and it was easy enough to make the arrangements to have them brought to her. Sith ordered people the same way that normal people ordered food delivery. There were times during her dry spells that she had considered taking advantage of that for her own satisfaction, but she wanted romance as much as she wanted to get laid. Romance promised fulfillment of her need to be needed, her desire to be desired. She felt like she had that now with Ca’aran. In the past she would have obsessed over the uncertainty until it bred paranoia, but she was growing up now. “I want us to be a thing beyond just the pfasking and the dark rituals, is that something you want too? Think it over and come find me in the workshop when you have an answer, I need to get started on repairing my kit.” No manipulation, no sorcery, and no seduction. Just genuine honesty and trust. This was the best thing she’d ever had and she would kill anyone that got in the way of it. She gave Ca’aran a kiss and left the room, grinning and humming a tune. ---------------------------------------- The original workshop tools were mostly an eroded mess of poor aging and obsolescence, but Nyrys had expected as much and requested replacements be brought in with the first wave of supplies. She just needed some alchemical staples to get started. She spotted an idle slave and gestured for him to come over. He was a physical laborer, they had started designating roles on the slaves so that the least valuable, most easily replaceable ones were sacrificed first should sacrifices be necessary. She had actually been raised pretty anti slavery despite her father’s Imperial past, both parents had taught her that all sentient life was to be valued. Not everyone found their worth however. The slaves knew better than anyone why their roles were marked, yet this one had failed to improve himself or increase his value to the empire, even for the sake of his own survival. “Did you know that inside of you is a measure of greatness and power? Not that same spark that lets me break the laws of reality, but certainly an echo of it. A raging inferno can be started with a simple naked flame, and I have a lot of fires to start.” Darth Nyrys led the slave over to a runed copper basin and handed him a knife. Even armed, the slave didn’t register in her mind as a threat. He knew what would happen if he raised a hand against her. “I could just slit your throat and take your blood by force, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to give it to me instead. Pretend this is like the ancient days and I am a goddess, and there is nothing more important in your existence than appeasing me. I would be so very happy if you did that for me.” The slave cast panicked glances to the left and the right. She had heard that she had a reputation as one of the nice Sith. The label didn’t bother her, and it certainly could have its advantages, but compassion offered nothing but phantom comfort without greatness. So this man would die so that Nyrys could nourish and protect the ones that had risen above their destinies. She grabbed his chin and locked eyes with him, forcing her will upon his. She let this grand love that she had subsume and replace his cowardice and unwillingness to contribute to greatness, until his eyes and veins bulged, and blood trickled from his nose. A rictus grin overtook his face and he drug the blade across his throat in a rough, deep gash. It felt good to be treated like a goddess. This new form, this new legacy that she would build, deserved nothing less. Out of idle curiosity she stuck her finger in the bowl and tasted his blood. Nothing. That part of her was definitely gone. A new chapter then. She ignited the forge. The words would be written in fire, blood, steel, and sorcery. A smile crept onto her face.

“I haven’t really looked at the kitchen setup here, but I doubt that it’s anything close to resembling modern, so if we ordered Bothan we wouldn’t be able to nuke it back to being warm again. We could always hunt something and cook it here, plenty of wildlife in the surrounding area. Or maybe the new apprentice can bring something down, you know, for training.” The world once again held an overwhelming bouquet of sensations, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures that could once again tantalize her. Her muscles surged with vitality that she had thought lost, and looking at her lover who had stood by her through some of her most pfasked up moments in her recent acid trip of a life made her heart beat faster. “I know that even with all of the sorcery and illusions, what you did for me was a big ask. I’m alive again, and I couldn’t have done it without you. You are my knight in special issue commando armor, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express to you how much that means to me, but I’ll certainly try. I’d kiss you, but right now I’m pretty sure we’re both covered in corpse sludge.” She still hugged him anyway, he deserved it after what he had just soldiered through. It was supposed to be a brief thing, but she found herself caught up in listening to his heartbeat. It reminded her of her own rhythm in the forge, powerful, yet consistent. “The mansion here is only part of the grounds, the family that once lived here were members of the cult of Freedon Nadd.” Nyrys giggled at the unfortunate surname a bit, because who wouldn’t. “There’s also a large workshop, stables for creatures of unusual size, servants’ quarters, and something that at one point used to be extensive gardens. The slaves can work on clearing everything out and restoring it to working order. Probably there is a temple or maybe a shrine in or near here, on account of the cult, cultists love their temples. I’m going to try and find some running water, utility or natural, and get cleaned up. The master bedroom is on the third floor if you want to stow your gear. Even before you told me who my father was, I had read up on Dagon. It’s said that he had sought out the best and most respected warriors in the Empire to serve as his Darkwatch, a fellowship of soldiers dedicated to loyalty, truth, and the preservation of knowledge. I think that you and I could rebuild them in the name of the Dark King, and solidify our place in his Empire. What do you say Ca’aran, do you want to be my full time hero?” ------------------------------------- Slaves and other servants of the Empire began arriving to restore the grounds to something resembling functionality. Just as Darth Nyrys had been reborn, so too was the mansion remade with new purpose and luster. And even more importantly, running water.