Imperial Knights Executors Guide

[Darth Nyrys]

Imperial Knights Executor Guide

 

 

“I am not the sword of my family, nor am I the face. I am the executor of my family’s authority, I am the hand that wears both steel gauntlets and silk gloves. The Paladins protect the throne from enemies without, and the Falcons protect the throne from enemies within, but I am the one that gives the throne meaning.”

 

Executors are the epitome of knowledge in action, the application of learned understanding to solve problems. The Paladins are often considered the poster girls and boys of the Imperial Knights, but it is the Executors that are building the empires that arm, armor, fund, and legitimize them. Students of political science, the arts, civil engineering, history, and a number of other disciplines, the Executors are the minds that build and maintain the structure of noble claims, treaties, and political initiatives.

 

Executors are common choices to sit the throne or to serve as its closest advisor. Third or later born Executors, like Paladins, are often called Errants and given tasks of great import that require considerable focus and attention, or duties in distant lands or otherwise abroad. The first and foremost role of the Executor is to see to the foundations and inner mechanisms of their house, ensuring that each part is properly outfitted to do its job, and playing the roles intended for them.

 

Despite their role as keepers of the symbols of office and familial identity, the Executors can find themselves in combat just as readily as Paladins and Falcons, as their secondary role is the protection of the people, places, and heirlooms that the house views as important or sacrosanct. While at first glance it might be easy to view the Executors as knock off brand consulars, the focus and utility of these scholar protectors sets them apart. The frivolity and whimsy of academia is not a distraction that they can afford to indulge in.

 

An Executor must play many roles throughout their life, rarely having the luxury of being able to dedicate themselves to a single discipline or purpose. However, whatever they are tasked with becomes the center of their focus, study, and training. Because of the mercurial needs of power, Executors clad themselves in adornments and symbols that declare what their current function is. While the Executors have considerable capacity for flexibility, these shifts do require periods of training and study, so if an Executor should find themself in a conflict, they are considered “locked in” to their current Adornment. Adornments themselves often have little power beyond sentiment or symbolism, instead serving as signifiers of the training and study that largely happens behind the scenes.

 

Adornments:

 

Adornment of Legacy: While the Imperial Knights are relatively young in galactic terms, the noble houses that sponsored them have long and storied pasts. Heirlooms and relics from across the ages are scattered across the stars, waiting to be reclaimed by their rightful owners. An Executor that is trained in the preservation of their house’s legacy is a researcher and procurer of lost or stolen family artifacts. Upon recovery, they can use their understanding of the Force and the item’s history to imbue it with noble purpose and power. These scholars do not just recover treasures for themselves, instead they put these powerful objects into the hands of the Imperial Knights that need them the most. 

 

Because of the nature of their duties, Legacy Executors heavily cultivate their bonds to the Unifying Force, using it to both locate lost heirlooms and to evade and outmaneuver opponents. In combat, they infuse their weapons and regalia with the resonant power of their house’s greatest deeds. The stories that they have relived through the unity of the Force can empower blades and turn cloth into a bulwark against the darkness.

 

Adornment of Rule: The most common Adornment for those that sit the throne, but ultimately a tool for any that embody the role of the symbolic leader, Ruling Executors leverage the power of status, symbolism, and authority. Inspiring to allies and seemingly dauntless to enemies, they exude the reassurance of benevolent authority uncorrupted by tyranny or self interest. With quiet inner strength they can voice edicts wrought of steel or subdue attackers with an arresting stare.

 

Should these Executors find themselves in combat, their foremost goal is not survival, but embodying the role that they play. If they should fight and perish nobly, they will have served their legacy far better than succumbing to whispers of cowardice or self preservation, for to stand in service or sacrifice to the dream of liberty and justice is a far more important and necessary victory than walking away.

 

Adornment of Sanctity: The power of the Light is in its ability to protect and preserve that which matters. Sanctifier Executors are protectors of important people and places, making them both similar and different to Jedi Guardians in philosophy, with the Guardians seeking to protect all life while the Sanctifiers focus on protecting the people and places that can do the greatest good. Clad in ceremonial armor, trained in polearms, and possessing a natural affinity for Force barriers, the Sanctifiers are immovable objects on the battlefield.

 

Stealing away the focus of their enemies from more vulnerable targets, Sanctifiers use their defensive style to punish aggression and exhaust opponents. While lacking the prowess or strength of their Paladin cousins, Sanctifiers can still use the reach of their polearm to rebuke attempts to close in. Ranged attackers are equally thwarted by their power to conjure enduring barriers.

 

Adornment of Strategy: While the title might suggest that these are glorious leaders commanding great armies in resplendent armor, they are more accurately described as intelligence officers for the Imperial Knights. It is their job to know the capabilities of the enemy, and advise their allies on the best methods to secure victory. Sometimes this involves combing through combat recordings and intercepted comms, other times its interrogating captives and suspects.

 

In addition to knowing the training and kit of the enemy, Strategist Executors possess supernatural insight into the minds of their enemies. They do not meddle with the function of minds like their Falcon cousins, but they can react to an enemy’s attack the moment that they conceive of it. The Executor does not have full access to their opponent’s mind, but the neural messaging of attacks is generally urgent and less concealed, and therefore easier to intercept and decrypt.

 

Adornment of Esoterica: There is no hiding the dark history of the noble families and their compliance, if not outright collaboration with the Sith and other forces of darkness(Although efforts are still made anyway). The Esoteric Executors are the scholars and inquisitors that seek out the darkness and corruption hiding in the roots of the houses and drive it out with the serene light of the Force. They discern harmless tradition and occult curiosity from true corruption, and sever the tendrils of the latter from the persisting legacies of the past.

 

Esoteric Executors are some of the most likely Imperial Knights to interweave the folkloric traditions of their people into their understanding of the Force while still being recognizable as Imperial Knights, and excel at the application and manipulation of light, whether as a manifested force or dispersing their own light to conceal their power when walking amongst servants of darkness. 

 

Adornment of Arbitration: The ambassadors, liaisons, and tutors of the Imperial Knights, Arbitrators create and strengthen the bonds between all who fight for a just and good society. Through networking and power brokering, they uplift the virtuous and suppress the cruel, creating hierarchies that build a better galaxy. They also serve as instructors and advisors to families that have only recently secured Force sensitive bloodlines and haven’t the experience or qualified personnel to properly raise and educate them. Finally, they are responsible for negotiating marriage alliances between the noble houses and testing the caliber of Force sensitives that come from lowborn families but are candidates for breeding the next generation of Imperial Knights.

 

Arbitrators are not combatants and rarely invest the time and energy necessary to upkeep a combat training regimen, instead relying on personal champions provided by their families or earned through the respect that they have cultivated with allied factions.

 

Tools of Power

 

Lightsabers: The Executors have a complicated relationship with lightsabers. On the one hand, lightsabers are powerful weapons that can be deadly even in the hands of a novice Force user. On the other hand, they are heavily associated with the Jedi and Sith, and almost all historic lightsabers are tied to one of those two orders. For Executors that prefer alternatives, reforging heirloom weapons into Force blades, imbuing heirlooms with power drawn from their triumphs, or drawing upon ceremonies of early faiths are all options for creating implements that can compete on the field of battle.

 

Executors that do craft lightsabers tend to use crystals mined from their holdings, and handles often crafted by artisans. 

 

Heirloom weapons: Noble families often possess armories filled with the carefully maintained weapons by which they conquered and then defended their fiefdoms. With careful research and ceremony, Legacy Executors can transform these relics of history into Force-imbued weapons, whose true powers are accessible to those of blood or bond to the family. What those powers might be depend on the family and weapon’s legacy, but increased durability is almost so common that it’s a rule of the process. While Executors are limited in their own abilities to use heirloom weapons, they often restore them for Falcons and Paladins.

 

Dynastic weapons: A term particular to the Imperial Knights, dynastic weapons are weapons that were reforged from the pieces of a broken heirloom weapon. This allows for construction more suited to the channeling of Force energies, although the powers woven from the weapon’s legacy are somewhat diminished. In time, dynastic weapons can develop their own legends after taking many forms.

 

Scepters and staves: Traditional symbols of power and rule, many Executors use these symbolic objects as foci for their abilities. Like heirloom weapons, these implements can be imbued with greater power by Legacy Executors, and are often used to signify advancement in rank or title.

 

Imperial finery: Executors generally eschew armor, with the exception of the Sanctifiers, and prefer ceremonial or luxury dress that clearly states their status. Their clothes are often state of the art in design and technology, with data display integration and luxuries like powered climate control, privacy fields, and vocal amplifiers. Some even have built in repulsor technology, allowing the noble to eerily hover above the ground rather than walking from place to place.

 

Core powers

 

Executors are light side users that skew towards powers that involve directly touching, feeling, and manifesting the Force. They do not practice the conduit like approach of Guardians or Paladins in which the Force manifests through supernatural physical feats, or the sapient intuition for people that Sentinels and Falcons share, instead conjuring the Force in its rawest and most untailored form. While some Adornments benefit from additional focus on the skill set, all Executors have a natural inclination towards the various barrier powers, prioritizing it over powers that Jedi Consulars are typically known for such as healing, which Executors see as a response to failing to protect what must be protected.

 

Executors also highly prize the ability to protect one’s mental faculties and capacity to reliably perceive their surroundings, considering clarity a vital aspect of their role as leaders. For better or worse, the legacies and traditions of noble houses have contributed to a stalwart sense of identity that is difficult for others to undermine or warp, and mental warding is regularly trained and tested. Inability to adequately shield the mind can result in an Executor being put on leave or discharged if no improvement is shown.

 

As such, where other Force users emphasize and obsess over fighting styles, the Executors instead develop and define themselves through philosophies of defense. The measure of an Executor’s ability with the Force is often determined by their spiritual fortitude and tactical application which they display in trials of mock combat. Not all options in the following list are meant to be competitive, with some coming with severe drawbacks that are traded for narrative potential. Executors pick up one form at the rank of squire, a second at knight, and master one of the two at liege. Paladins and Falcons can learn the basics of one of these forms at knight rank.

 

Citadel Doctrine: The classical style of barrier defense as taught by the Jedi. The defensive style is seen as conservative and lacking a desire to adapt, but proponents of it point out that its application has been tested and refined for millenia. 

 

Herzboden: A barrier technique that is built upon the connection between lord and land, turning the ground into a malleable medium as clay to the sculptor’s hand. When upon natural ground the Executor can form earthen barriers that do not require focus to sustain, while turning the soil beneath their opponents’ feet into mirelike mud. Furthermore, they can staunch and stabilize light to moderate wounds by using Force infused mud, bidding the land to restore what they lost. Mentally, Herzboden has been described as calcifying the mind into unyielding stone when the user’s mind is assaulted.

 

Herzboden is regarded as primitive and shamanic by most Executors, a remnant of beliefs that they have long since moved past. Most often it is learned by Executors who are chafing against the traditional expectations that they are held to, meant as a mocking sort of protest that compares tradition to mud encrusted rituals. Alternatively, it is sometimes taught to the Executors of houses considered provincial or poor compared to more prestigious families as a cruel jab of contempt. 

 

Despite this, Herzboden has the advantage of mitigating some of the perceived distance between an Executor and the lowborn, and often casts them as being more in tune with the lands and people that they rule. Between its capacity for healing and the suggestion that practitioners of Herzboden are willing to get their hands dirty to get things done, executors who practice this form enjoy more willing and positive interaction with the working class. All that being said, even the most humble Executor will seek out additional defensive forms when able, due to the style’s dependence on natural earth or hewn stone to work. 

 

Cifre del Vuoto: Most people regard void and absolute absence as things of evil and destruction, but for the merchant princes and princesses that oversee the intersystem shipping lanes, vacuum is a day to day part of their daily lives. Citre del Vuoto is the understanding of void that allows its inherent traits to be used defensively, sapping the energy of attacks, tossing enemies about, and consuming projectiles. Often referred to as the Celestial Calculus, Cifre del Vuoto works by carefully applying generalized and concentrated nothingness to the path of oncoming threats, consuming, lessening, or redirecting them. Generalized application, or veiling, saps the power of energy attacks, exposes attackers to subzero temperatures, and can often stun opponents when they first enter into the perimeter of extreme cold. Mental attacks often find themselves lost in a vast and empty expanse, as if the Executor had conjured leagues of void in the space of a few meters distance between them and their attacker. As such, mental attacks are often delayed before taking effect, provided the attacker isn’t gutted and the attack pulled up at the root first. 

 

Advanced Cifre del Vuoto techniques are both incredibly powerful and incredibly draining, and require the same immense expenditure of energy regardless of how slight the attack is. Because of this, along with the utility of having something that can cut through a bulkhead on a ship, practitioners of this form tend to build and carry lightsabers that they can use to supplement their defenses with less draining options. Rather than creating a field of generalized protection, the practitioner creates a brief and tightly focused orb of vacuum with enough pull to reroute projectiles that move through its orbit or yank adjacent attackers off their feet as if the area had just suffered a hull breach in deep space. Masters of the form can plot slingshotting trajectories that redirect attacks into their enemies, but doing so adds additional strain to an already costly style.

 

The navigator nobles of House Corrado were the first to develop this defensive form, and it is considered by most Imperial Knights to be the first form truly unique to their organization. Corrado Executors were instrumental distributors of knowledge in the early days of the Imperial Knights, spreading knowledge of Force techniques to eager squires, and Cifre del Vuoto’s potent nature meant that it was a preferred go to for instructors putting arrogant students in their place. It was a massive powerplay that cemented House Corrado’s knights as a force to be respected, especially amongst those that didn’t understand the form’s limitations.

 

Jal Nrty: Developed in secret by Ishvaran nobles who resented their world being treated by the Sith as a planetary sacrificial altar, Jal Nrty is a discrete collection of defensive powers that are difficult to detect and function with minimal overt effort. Jal Nrty teases the Force around the Executor into roiling currents and swirling eddies, causing dark side energy to dissipate and bleed off of Force attacks, and to a lesser extent the energy of mundane ranged attacks. These unseen currents wrap around opponents, creating both resistance to their movements and applying disruptive force to any attempt to perform actions with precision. Sense perception fades as the energies in turmoil distort the feedback that the senses receive, blurring sight, eroding scent, and warping sound. Once the currents have bled off enough energy, the Executor can redirect the flow into a typhoon of the accumulated energy to shut down their opponent with a spiritual form of toxic shock.

 

Jal Nrty practitioners have a dreamlike way of moving while using the form, a dreamlike hybridization of dancing and swimming from which the name of it is derived. This form of mobility is not any faster than normal physical movement, but it can allow for evasive maneuvers that normally aren’t possible for the body. This carries over to Jal Nrty’s mental defense, which attackers have described as making the mind slippery and difficult to find purchase on.

 

Executors who use Jal Nrty are often mistrusted or seen as cowardly by other Imperial Knights, due to Ishvara never joining the rebellion in spite of the abuses delivered upon its people. That being said, they are often sought out by houses with family branches in places where the eyes of the Sith are firmly affixed. The form can rather easily be taught metaphorically over time without overtly revealing to others that what is being shared is light side teachings.

 

Tafki Mai Nunawa: The Force is a guiding power of benevolence that often wears the faces of fallen loved ones to deliver revelation. Tafki Mai Nunawa is an amalgamation of ancestor veneration and barrier techniques that wears the faces of ancient rulers and stalwart conquerors. This form excels at countering single threat damage, but struggles handling attacks from multiple directions at once or area of effect attacks. It works by embodying the protective energy of the Force in the visages of the executor’s ancestors, whose specters turn aside blows with shield and blade. Mental attacks on a practitioner of Tafki Mai Nunawa must contend not only the Executor’s resolve but also the guidance of their forebears. 

 

The “ghosts” that this form conjures are not in fact actual spirits of the dead, but rather manifestations of the Force that bear the likenesses of people that the Executor has imbued with great meaning. Since it is not the pale candle of sorcery that Sith use when performing necromancy, it brings about a fuller and truer imprint of who the person was, unclouded by misconceptions and incomplete understanding. This makes their champions consummate duelists that are not limited by an Executor’s grasp of melee combat, although the Force ghosts never attack, only intercepting and turning aside blows. 

 

Tafki Mai Nunawa training is often offered as a wedding gift to an Executor who is marrying into a new family, acting as a statement of the spouse now having access to the house’s legacy while also being required to study that very same legacy. Practitioners are seen as having an exceptional connection to the will of the Force, and also benefiting from the wisdom of great ancestors, and so are often highly respected as councilors and sages. Noble houses will often request the presence of a Tafki Mai Nunawa Executor at major ceremonies as a symbolic form of ancestral participation and blessing. 

 

Lóngzhū: Across the galaxy, many noble houses have come to be associated with a creature that for many is little more than myth or speculation. That creature is the dragon, the embodiment of elemental power manifested beyond the means for people to contain. Lóngzhū is the study and application of that power yoked by wisdom and compassion. To study this form is to study the duality of water, both a life giving necessity and an uncontrollable storm. Lóngzhū storm walkers accept that nature can be in turmoil but do not use it as an excuse to suffer others, instead using enlightenment to ride the storm to a greater and more noble purpose. These Executors can enshroud themselves in mist, rebuke attackers with mighty torrents of wind and rain, and shatter the poise of their foes with resonating thunderclaps. Any dark sider that tries to use a mental attack on a Lóngzhū practitioner is about to learn a valuable lesson about conductivity as their mind is spiritually flashbanged by the connection.

 

When Executors are researching defensive forms, Lóngzhū is often presented as a middle ground between the intense force of Cifre del Vuoto and the subtle manipulation of Jal Nrty, providing both direct answers and concealing ambiguities. Teachers of the form have likened it to the need for a sword to be both firm and flexible at the same time. As such, Lóngzhū provides the practitioner with a varied suite of options, including empowered telekintic pushes, access to concealment, and incredibly disruptive bursts of energy that can stumble and disorient enemies.

 

The compassion needed to temper the storm that this form calls upon causes most Lóngzhū practitioners to become enamored with philanthropy and humanitarianism, which doesn’t always mesh well with the big picture focus of other Imperial Knights. The Executor’s connection to the storm makes them more acutely aware of the suffering of others, and drives them to act against it. Left unattended, Lóngzhū practitioners will often lose themselves in performing small kindnesses while greater concerns are left unattended to. That being said, their compassion often makes them beloved by the commonfolk, for whom they regularly show great kindness to, and their connection to the Living Force can cause them to become a regenerative font of power that restores the natural world around them. 

 

Macayac Ixaci: This form takes a different approach to defensive philosophy, crippling and disabling opponents through precise vibrations applied to specific points on the body to affect the organs. Macayac Ixaci generates a vibrational field around the user through Force empowered chanting that disrupts bodily functions, potentially causing nausea, blindness, migraines, vomiting, loss of balance, and a host of other side effects. While neophytes project a general unwellness about them, more practiced hands can hone in on exacerbating specific conditions and maladies. Practitioners react to mental attacks by attempting to shake the opponent’s brain into a concussion.

 

Macayac Ixaci is efficient in use of the Force but requires heavy concentration. Its wide area of effect makes it excel at protecting against multiple attackers, but if an attacker does manage to pull off an attack the practitioner must rely on other forms of defense to protect themselves. Masters of the form can project the vibrations forward in a cone that has greater range and intensity than the traditional field.

 

Executors who study Macayac Ixaci must also study healing, a fact that they consider to be a source of shame and the mark of lesser users of the Force. While few Imperial Knights would actually display contempt for one of their own being well versed in healing if actually faced with it in the field, it remains a galling aspect of the form that its practitioners do their best to conceal out of embarrassment. Macayac Ixaci also has a peculiar side effect of making the practitioner hungry, but this is more of a nuisance than anything else that makes them prone to snacking.  

 

Zatyshna Pisnya: More modernly called the Jubilation or the Woe depending on which aspect of the form is being used, Zatyshna Pisnya is the art of using the Force to silence tempers, second guess the folly of violence, and if necessary, force would be attackers into submission bound by the power of the voice. This discipline of Force use enhances and builds upon the Jedi mind trick to ensnare even normally sound minds or to strike at the will as if wielding a massive sledgehammer. The Jubilation is a subtle technique that pacifies mental resistance and lulls the mind into willing obedience, generally for the purpose of preventing combat before it starts. The Woe, on the other hand, imbues the words of the Executor with tangible force that can still sword strikes and make barbarians bend the knee. Mental attacks on a Zatyshna Pisnya practitioner can cloud the mind with infatuation if they are using the Jubilation, or fog it with dimwittedness if they are using the Woe.

 

Prior victims of the Woe have described its commands as feeling similar to sleep paralysis or being pinned by inertia. Even those that could overcome the commands described it as extremely emotionally exhausting. That being said, the Woe requires the practitioner to be aware of the target’s presence. An opponent bested by the Woe can be convinced that they have been bound and captured, or spend the next three days in the full belief that they are a taun taun. The Jubilation, on the other hand, creates an enrapturing aura around the Executor that draws the interest of those around them and teases their curiosity. Befuddled Sith troopers will stumble out of a confrontation with the Executor having forgotten they were even in a battle to begin with, compulsively humming or singing a song that they have no memory of ever hearing. The Jubilation ensnares positive memories or seeds the mind with false ones to create a temporary manic delusion of being a friend or lover of the Executor, with greater understanding of the target making them more vulnerable to the practitioner. The Jubilation cannot make its victims fight for the Executor, and trying to use it as an interrogation tool can rapidly erode the fantasy away, leaving the Executor with no answers and a now most likely violent threat.

 

Zatyshna Pisnya has something of a sinister reputation amongst the Imperial Knights, both because of its tendency for practitioners to use it subconsciously, and because of rumors that the noble house that first used it was cursed in some way and subsequently fell into ruin. Fear of manipulation is a constant for those who know what these Executors are capable of, and paranoia leads to even the most natural of friendships being questioned. It would be pleasant to think that galactic leaders don’t believe in superstitions like curses, but none want to see their family become the next House Abryct, a tattered shell of a great line mumbling quiet and incoherent warnings. 

 

Legacy Powers

 

Remembrance: Infuses a weapon or set of armor with supernatural durability and power, and gives it characteristics that tie into its own legend. While the Executors lack the training to wield more advanced weapons or combat armor, they will readily perform this ceremony for the benefit of other Imperial Knights, especially Paladins. The results of this ritual should be in line with the power level of the Executor performing it, and best practice is to run ideas by a mod for pre-approval.

 

Sense Glory: Executors can intuit the power and quality of arms and armor through the Force, with knights and masters gaining even deeper insight into the capabilities of each piece. Force altered gear and talismans are especially susceptible to this power.

 

Embody Myth: Legacy Executors often wear symbolic faux armor tied to the roots of their noble house, lightweight facsimiles that favor form over function. There have been a number of recorded accounts of Executors that wear them surviving blows that only real armor should have been able to stop, as if for a fleeting moment a pale echo was transubstantiated into an unassailable bulwark. If a Legacy Executor takes the most powerful hit of an enemy attack while protecting others or refusing to give ground against the darkness, their garb momentarily becomes treated as heavy armor. The sudden weight makes melee combat or advanced mobility awkward and difficult, but it can be the difference between life and death. Knights can use this power to turn what would be a wounding blow into exhaustion instead, and masters can stand defiant against even the most mortal of blows, shrugging off rocket blasts and disruptor beams. The power is too exhausting to treat as a passive always on ability, but it can put an aggressor on the back foot to see their strongest blows fail to find any real purchase.

 

Worthy Inheritor: Legacy Executors can use the stories of their bloodline like armor for the mind and spirit, girding them against eroding forces like fear and doubt. Even in the darkest moments, these Imperial Knights can recall past triumphs and acts of defiance that encourage them to persist through hope alone, despite the odds.

 

Ruling Powers

 

Glaring Halo: Manifesting a crown of golden radiance, the Executor blinds those who would raise arms against them with scouring light. This light affects both physical and spiritual senses, and the intensity is dependent on the rank of the Executor

 

The Crown Stands: The Executor is a symbol of people standing united against the forces of evil and darkness, a symbol of hope and fortitude. Ruling Executors can remove mental barbs and steady resolve in others, tending to the mind and spirit in the same way that Jedi healers tend to the body.

 

Symbol of Triumph: The Executor can cow the weak willed and shake the resolve of the cruel with a draconic glare. This power can paralyze chaff soldiers and turn the attempts of more capable opponents to strike the Executor into a contest of wills.

 

Noble Edict: The Ruling Executor can align their commands with the will of the Force, bolstering allies who hold true to their shared path. The Executor issues an edict to their allies such as “Hold the line”, “Protect the innocent”, or “Drive out the darkness”. As long as allies hold to the path of light, they gain increased resistance to mental attacks and eroding morale from circumstance. At knight rank, this power persists beyond the Executor’s death(although at a reduced capacity), martyring them, and at Master rank, the resistance actually increases should the Executor fall.  

 

Sanctifier Powers

 

Always Standing: Sanctifier Executors are trained to always maintain their footing, even against the most brutal of strikes. A combination of physical training and telekinetic manipulation, this power counters attempts to knock the Sanctifier off their feet or out of their stance.

 

Coalescing Light: Calling upon the light that gathers in places held sacred, or coruscating around the Sanctifier as they defy the darkness, the Executor empowers the area around them. Dark sorceries struggle to persist in the area, and creatures conjured from the dark or imbued with power from its twisted energies find it difficult to enter or remain in the zone. Dark Side amulets and alchemically altered arms and armor, while not stopped or destroyed upon entry, suffer from reduced effectiveness and power. In cases of the Sanctifier anchoring the zone around themself, they symbolically draw a circle around them with the tip of their weapon, and the area within is considered the affected area.

 

Protector: The Sanctifiers are something of a hybrid between Executor and Paladin, wearing medium armor and possessing above average skills with polearms. Their application of the Force to their spear fighting is not on par with a paladin or guardian’s, but it does let them competently wield the spear one handed while leaving the other hand free to channel the Force into powers such as barriers.

 

Barrier Mastery: The Sanctifiers are exceptionally keen to train their ability to conjure barriers, and have a number of options available to them regarding barrier powers. Inviolable barriers focus entirely on keeping bad things out, and are the sturdiest form of barrier. Reflective barriers only counter Force powers, but send them back at the attacker. Diffused barriers don’t stop attacks but slow them down tremendously, giving the Executor greater leeway in reacting to them.

 

Strategist Powers

 

Intelligence Analyst: Strategist Executors hold information as the greatest weapon, a blade that they sharpen tirelessly. When allies report and document their battle experiences to the Strategist, used enemy equipment and powers becomes in-game knowledge for all allies in battles that the Strategist participates in. 

 

Psych Profile: Strategists review and extrapolate on documented conversations and verified histories of major players to build profiles that note strengths and highlight potential vulnerabilities. These profiles are considered in-game knowledge for all allies in battles that the Strategist participates in. This ability should not be treated as omniscience regarding enemy characters, it doesn’t magically provide insight into their psyches, but it does show the value of comparing notes.

 

Probability Web: The Strategist scans the weave of probabilities and senses tremors caused by intention and focus. This translates into preternatural reflexes and the ability for the Strategist to start reacting to attacks before their opponent even starts willing their muscles to move. This does not make the Strategist impossible to hit, but it does allow them prescient ability to prepare themself. 

 

Known Enemy: The Strategist uses their understanding of the enemy to disrupt their focus and undermine their concentration. Unlike a Jedi who might use this knowledge in an attempt to reconcile or redeem an opponent, the Strategist utilizes it to goad the enemy into making mistakes and acting rashly. 

 

Esoteric Powers

 

Light Diffusion: Esoteric Executors must often move amongst the forces of evil, both mortal and otherwise, and this power allows them to conceal anything that would make them notable. It is not invisibility, but rather a distortion that prevents others from detecting their connection to the Force or perceiving them as remarkable in any way. Using the Force or engaging in conflict ends the effect of this power immediately.

 

Transmutive Barrier: The origin of the Esoteric Executors began with the shadow purge of dark side adepts within the noble houses, a great number of whom practiced sorcery. The transmutive barrier was a natural adaptation, both providing protection and unbinding corrupted Force energy in a process that creates light as a byproduct. An inordinate amount of light that is a pleasant golden glow to light siders and excruciatingly blinding to dark siders.

 

Athame: A general term for a ritual blade that has been ceremonially infused with the Force, often according to pre-Jedi religious traditions. An athame cuts on both the physical and spiritual level, and exploits the connection between sorcery and sorcerer. If the Executor cuts a manifestation of the Dark Side, whether that be an item, creature, or power, the “owner” of that manifestation feels the edge of the blade in their mind. Additionally, when the athame is used in battle, each slash releases a burst of blinding light, as if the blade was cutting a veil concealing an unfathomable brightness. 

 

Esoteric knights have learned how to combine the traits of an athame blade with a lightsaber. Upon reaching mastery, the light projected by an athame lightsaber functions like the Sanctifier’s coalescing light power, with dark sorceries struggling to persist while exposed, and creatures conjured from the dark or imbued with power from its twisted energies recoiling in fear as they begin to erode away. Dark Side amulets and alchemically altered arms and armor, while not stopped or destroyed upon exposure, suffer from reduced effectiveness and power. The power of the light trails off over distance.

 

Aurora: Gathering light and color about themself like a cloak, the Esoteric moves in a riot of brightness and iridescence, soothing to allies and searing to enemies. Opponents who look upon them can easily find themselves disoriented, and the glaring luminosity leaves confusing after images in both the physical and spiritual senses. With great enough intensity, this power is known to cause seizures.

 

Privileges and Accouterments

 

Scholar princes and princesses, Executors hold ownership over the legacies and identities of their houses, both bearing and defining the crown. As such, they wield political power and assets

 

Halls of power, throne rooms, archives and holy places: The Executors have the greatest association with the historical roots of the noble houses, and the symbolic places of origin, so they can often be found in ancestral mansions, keeps, and citadels, but also modern political centers and capitals as their role demands.

 

Aides, Staff, and Scholars: The duties of an Executor are often exhausting and demanding of great focus, and so like all nobility, they maintain service contracts with servants, political aides, and scholars. Aides and scholars are generally selected with a priority on accuracy, reliability, and competency.

 

Reputation and Pedigree: As well respected members of the ruling elite, Executors have direct access to other nobility, and can request (or if hierarchically appropriate, demand) meetings with other power players, request sanctuary when under duress, and generally expect royal hospitality when traveling. 

 

Keys to the Ivory Tower: Executors also enjoy strong connections with galactic academia, allowing them access to university facilities, labs, and personnel.

 

Quality that defines an Empire: As symbols of power and success, Executors go out of their way to have the highest quality tools, fashion, and means. Luxury and survivability tend to take precedence over flash as the Falcons prefer, or combat performance as is the want of Paladins, when it comes to conveyances.

 

Shot Caller: On matters of state security, Executors are often the final authority that presses the button so to speak. It is within their authority and purview to order, authorize, and fund operations to contain threats to public safety and government function, either through elimination or capture.

 

Errata and Esoterica

 

Dark Origins and the Gravekeepers: Though they would never admit it, many of the defensive forms that the Executors now cherish as tools of the Light originated from questionable if not downright evil practices. Macayac Ixaci evolved from occult cannibal rituals by magi seeking hidden knowledge of the body. Citadel Doctrine was pieced together by reviewing records of imperial interrogations of Jedi. Herzboden used to involve blood sacrifices where hearts were removed from living sacrifices and buried on sacred ground. Lóngzhū came about by studying the notes of a mad noble, and later his daughter, who captured and dissected Duinuogwuin with the mad desire to become dragons themselves. 

 

Imperial Knight kill teams called Gravekeepers are tasked with wiping out any remaining traces of these historical scars, often led or advised by Esoteric Executors that purge corrupting relics and review texts for any knowledge that can be repurposed for the light. 

 

Lucky Bastards: With the Imperial Knights rising to prominence on the galactic stage, the need for potential recruits has never been higher. The Executors have the unenviable task of tracking down illegitimate heirs that might have potential Force sensitivity and bringing them into the fold. Resentment and the pride of the commons tends to wrap around their bearing like a cloak, but for those that stick around, these unlikely knights find a path to legitimacy and respect laid before them.

 

Most houses have discreet records of extramarital dalliances, usually so that silence can be bought, but are unwilling to let Executors have access to them. There is a growing trend however of the parents themselves quietly contacting Executors with leads. The recovery teams believe that increased connection to the Force, and therefore increased empathy, is the cause. Evidence is however beginning to mount that some nobles are using the increasing acceptance of bastards as a stepping stone to conduct their own little eugenics programs.

 

Seiwatari Commission: An academic organization dedicated to the discovery and research of cultures with alternative Light side understandings of the Force. Without the religious strictures that so heavily define the Jedi, the Imperial Knights are always on the lookout for teachings that could potentially enhance their champions. Seiwatari chroniclers do their best to record and preserve the practices of isolated cultures while deriving what new useful data they can. 

 

Artisan Guilds and Certification: The engineers, crafters, and artists that the Imperial Knights rely on for creating their gear are not selected at random or according to affordability. Instead, potential inclusion into the verified network of providers requires heavy vetting and evaluation, not to mention references before an application will be reviewed. While the process is not always above table, the consequences of bribing your way into certification so that you can sell substandard quality items at premium prices have become increasingly steep.

 

Artisan guilds offer a more reliable means to earning certification, sponsoring apprentices that can pass their own rigorous entrance exams, and giving them the training necessary to succeed in their chosen field. Executors often cultivate guild contacts to source the best work when projects arise, and to provide expert evaluation of the works of certification applicants.

 

Malmourral: A black ops task force with the secret mission of evaluating, and if necessary eliminating, noble heirs that are classified as a threat to the realm due to their moral failings or proclivity for the dark side. Malmourral is one of many such task forces, each named after a fairytale monster said to kill misbehaving children. Kill orders require extensive investigation and profiling to be approved, but once issued are considered beyond contest. The task forces do work with psychologists to see if potential threats respond to therapy and positive influences, but unfortunately not all do. Visions and prophecy are largely considered inadmissible as evidence, as the future is always in motion and prophecy can be falsified or misunderstood. 

 

The Deceived: Given the willingness of the Imperial Knights to incorporate the practices of smaller Force traditions into their own methods, and the scholarly nature of the Executors, it is not unheard of for well intentioned researchers to go native while researching other cultures, or be ensnared by hidden dark side elements of a culture’s rituals and ceremonies. Collectively called the Deceived, these obsessed nobles tend to drop off the grid to start cults centered around their own interpretations of a culture, or fall in with already existing mystic orders that trade truth and reason for sorcery and the occult. The Deceived tend to slip into isolation, and are considered more of an embarrassment than a threat, but if the opportunity arises the Imperial Knights will send a team to collect or eliminate the misguided would be magus.