JEDI VS. SITH - ERENGARD - Sith Team

"... and so you see why I am not supporting the Republic in their need for my soldiers, but... I am afraid I cannot help you. Erengard seeks isolation from the grasping claws of the Senate, not liberation from them. Besides, the Voivode would not stand for it, and all of Tasker’s Crown would come down on us. Furthermore, your aims are no less than the Senate’s; you need more soldiers, and I have them. It is the very same argument that have used in their efforts to gain my allegiance, and I am having none of it."

"I feel that you misunderstand your situation, Castellan," the dark cloaked figure replied to the hologram, which was seated upon a small holographic throne that extended from the projector well of the comm unit. "You want neutrality in this infectious conflict that surrounds you. It is simply something you cannot have."

"And why is that, Dark Lord?" the Castellan asked, shifting in his throne.

"The Senate will not leave you be until you have signed over your limited independence to them and left yourself defenseless completely," the Dark Lord hissed. "And once that has happened, I will be there to watch its exploitation. The golden fields of your world will burn with the fires of my wrath! And even if the Senate does relent... I cannot allow so great a fighting force to remain untouched. Such things have potential... either for further my plans, or for altering them and coming into play later when they are least expected and least welcomed. I must possess it or remove it as a threat, Castellan Pinzot. One of those options will be activated very, very soon. Which will it be?"

"For now, I invite you to continue offering me your advances," the Castellan responded, obviously unhappy with the dealings taking place. "But Erengard is to remain neutral. If you come seeking battle, it will only prove that I was correct in keeping my armed forces local and not sending them out to fight the Republic’s war. You will promptly be thrashed and sent running from my world with your tail between your legs. How embarrassing that would be for you."

The Dark Lord did not respond with words, but with an action. His fist raised and clenched in the direction of the hologram, and lightyears away from his current location, the Castellan began to suffocate slowly.

"You WILL accept our bargain or you will DIE!" the Dark Lord rasped. For a moment he watched the esteemed ruler of a world squirm. Then he relented. "Your games tire me."

The Castellan gulped fresh air as the Dark Lord instead turned his rage upon the projector well itself, fragmenting the glass magnifier with a thought and causing the hologram to flicker and distort before going out entirely. The Dark Lord glared at the place where the Castellan of Erengard previously sat, before turning to stalk angrily through his Temple. In mid-stride, he retrieved something from his belt- a communication link- and raised it to his mouth.

"Lord Mengl, I have need of your services. Summon the others."

-

Welcome to 'Erengard,' a single episode featuring primarily the world from which the episode takes its name, and the full-scale planetary assault of it as the brave knights of the Republic and the dark agents of the Empire both seek to sway the world’s leader to their side, or prevent the other side from gaining the leader’s support. This is the first time I will be running a major team versus team role-playing game (that has been planned out and fully structured, at least) and, above all else, I hope you enjoy playing it almost as much as I enjoyed writing it... and not nearly as much as I will enjoy dragging you all through the hazards that Erengard holds for your characters.

I came up with the idea to put this together about two years ago. As most of you know, I started running a series of tale-telling short games concerning the histories of our characters under the RETROSPECTION label, when Ush announced that there would be some delay between the end of the OT game and the start of the newest PT game episode. Of the twelve episodes I have written, five have been completed, the rest remaining available for when their players have time. But there was one in particular that I wrote, called ‘Brothers,’ that is pertinent to this story. When designing Erengard, the homeworld of the dastardly Commissar Melkor Esgabath, I imagined it as a stubbornly patriotic world deeply mired in its traditions and events long since past, something that the young Esgabath would seek to change as a supporter of Palpatine’s Galactic Empire. But, in order to create a world stuck in its old ways and history, you have to give it that history. And so I envisioned for Erengard a brutal and epic history of driving the Sith off of their world... but now, I want to explore those events with you all.

As a reminder, ‘Erengard’ is set in 1980 BBY, nearly two thousand years before a specific fair-haired farm boy is told by a crazy old man that he has a great destiny before him. The Sith have lain dormant for centuries after yet another sound defeat at the hands of the Jedi, existing only as small cults and tribes scattered across the Galaxy. But in the recent decade, a man known as Darth Ruin has brought them back together under one banner to wage war on the Republic, who has grown lax in the absence of their mortal foe. The Jedi and the Sith clash once again in the ever-turbulent Galaxy where Star Wars takes place...

Happy hunting, Sith.

Sith Base, Korriban

It has been quite an experience from the beginning, this war. It has been over a thousand years since the Sith were united as a threatening force in the Galaxy, since they held enough power to nearly topple the Republic and assert themselves as the dominant power. In more recent centuries, Dark Side cults had sprung up as the Sith became bold once they realized that, without the support of the Republic, the Jedi could not extinguish their threat forever. The Senate deemed it as looking for trouble where there was none, and the Order had not the resources to be sending out Knights so carelessly. The Sith were not major problem to the Senate, just tasteless scraps of what they once were. There were a few isolated incidents- terrorist acts and criminal activities done in the name of the Dark Side and chaos and all that jargon- but nothing that threatened the security of Republic space.

Oh how very wrong they were.

It has been nearly a decade since the Senate received an ultimatum from the your mighty leader, the Dark Lord Ruin- surrender or be destroyed. Ruin appeared to think that the Senate’s fear of yet another open conflict would cause them to consider his demands... but you think he knew that they would not, for he had already assembled strike teams for beginning his mighty war on the Jedi and their fetid Republic, a military might that the Sith had never before possessed. One by one, the worlds began to fall...

And so this is what all of you have been doing- subjugating. The Sith Lords among you- the violent Tchai Wynest, the deceptive Sir Vincent Randolf Von Tremarke, the vengeful Lykro Sor, and the paralyzed Vilani Wynest- were former Jedi that found their way into the clutches of the Dark Side through one path or another, and realized that gains could be made from joining with the Sith. The Sith Warriors, on the other hand- the quiet Eldros Bayld, the arrogant Jarku, and the power-crazed Karzor- have grown in power since seeking guidance from the Sith, despite having been talented in their own right. In recent weeks the Dark Lord has called you back from the war in preparation for some special assignment that you know nothing of... except now you have all received summons to meet with Darth Ruin in his briefing room, set in the ruins of some long-demolished Sith fortress.

We begin play with our Sith villains waiting outside the briefing room...

-

REMINDER- Resist, if you can, the temptation to read the thread of the other team! Anyone using information from the other thread to play your actions here will be penalized.

As the Sith are wont to do, at this point you can choose to employ the use of any Predictive powers that you possess, to get a glimpse of the events to come. For the Sith, you have three choices- ‘Dreams’ if you have Master Intuition, ‘Foresight’ if you have Master Insight, and ‘Manifest Destiny’ if you have Master Corruption. Dreams is free to use unless you want to increase your chances of seeing something by spending a Force point, whereas Foresight and Manifest Destiny always work but cost a Force point. Remember that Force points need to last you the entire story!

‘Dreams’ are as they sound- unconscious images about the future that you receive in your sleep that are laden with obscured meanings and metaphors that you need to translate to get your clues.

‘Foresight’ is a representation of actively searching in the future for answers about things to come, getting images that are less obscure and contain directly useful information somewhere, sometimes about very important matters.

‘Manifest Destiny’ gives you particular clues and advice that do not help you directly with the main plotline at all... but with how you can gain more power! If you fulfill the challenge offered by your vision, you create in-game power for yourself and bonus experience!

Choose one and only one! As mistrustful beings of the Dark Side, you can choose to keep your vision private.

Play on.

Manifest Destiny and in private, please!

Vilani is pacing back and forth, simply because she can, while watching the others with distrust. She says nothing for the moment, curious as to what they're needed for, but not enough to listen to anyone else's ideas or assumptions.

I will use Dreams, in private.

Tchai sits impatiently at the table in the briefing room, drumming his clawed fingers on its surface. "If we must be gathered like this, the least our Lord could do is be prompt," he says to no one in particular, absently preening his vibrant plumage.

Jarku sits by the table of the waiting area, having dragged the chair a short distance from it and seated herself. She examines each of the Sith gathered here and begins to judge how capable they appear to be. She has draped her outer cloak over the back of the chair and sits with one legged crossed over the other, her arms folded.

"Our time is not a concern to him," Jarku comments on Tchai's impatience. "We do his bidding, he does not do ours."

"For now..." Vilani mutters quietly, as she continues her pacing in circles. She doesn't quite hide the fact that she believes that she should be the one in charge, not Darth Ruin nor Darth Mengl.

Jarku shifts her gaze to Vilani. She admires the powerful emotions that can be sensed radiating from the paralyzed woman, how every motion is forced and requires much concentration... but she finds the fact that Tchai and Vilani are married to be extremely distasteful. A hinderance in their pursuit of power.

"For now," Jarku repeats. "He is just one man, after all. A powerful man, but just one."

Tchai smirks at Vilani's comment. "Quite true..." he extends a hand to her. "Come, sit and rest your legs."

Jarku's minor annoyance fails to concern him. Yet another humble follower... at least they would know their place beneath him, in time. "If he is but one man, why do you consent to follow him?"

Foresight in private please!

Lykro remains silent, twitching continuously in his seat. He jerks his head to Jarku, curious to see her answer to Tchai's question.

Vilani glares briefly at Tchai's suggestion, before taking the seat next to his. "I don't need you to look out for me, you know that..." she says quietly in Ayrou while making herself comfortable.

"And yes...just one man," she says, flicking her gaze over to Jarku. "And many a powerful man has come to an...unfortunate end..."

"Power trickles downward," Jarku says. She thinks of the responsibilities that Darth Ruin has delegated to her in regards to her own people, marking her above all Vudans, but she does not speak it. "Powerful men allow others to share in that power, so long as it means that more power is made. Eventually Ruin will meet his end... but right now, I am rather comfortable with the situation."

"Those at the top only allow enough power to 'trickle down', as you put it, to be sure that those followers they pick up aren't quite so...rough about the edges, as they may have initially been," Vilani replies, a bit snidely. "They only seem to be allowing others to share in their power...but in reality, he cares very little for any of us here. Only advancing himself."

Tchai lets out a short warbling scream, his race's version of a derisive snort. "We saw much the same in the Jedi, you know. Anyone in power who claims to give power to others is simply lying." He clenches his thin fingers into a fist. "The only true power is that which you take by force."

"And just be careful," Vilani adds. "The moment you become a liability, you'll be tossed aside for someone better. Another thing that we also saw amongst the Jedi..."

Jarku catches Vilani's snide comment about her primitive nature but does not let it bother her. She reserves her anger for more important matters, and this is not something she deems important.

"Of course it will only advance their own power," Jarku says. "I'm not stupid. But where would I be if I didn't get a taste of that power? Stuck in a mindless war. Now I have aim and more power than I could have imagined. It will only grow from there."

"What's all this talk, then?" asks Eldros Bayld as he shows up late to the party, having received his summons while taking his starfighter for a test run after recent modifications. "Regular Sithy bickering, sounds like. How very uninteresting."

Wearing an outfit reminiscent of World War I fighter pilots, complete with flight jacket and goggles over his head, Eldros kicks up his boots and plants them on the table. His blaster is in a holster below his armpit, same with his lightsabers.

"What do we think the Darth wants us here for?" Eldros asks. "Ideas, anyone? Or would we prefer to keep nitpicking each other, just like we're stereotyped to?"

Tchai eyes Eldros with distaste, running fingers through his plumage again. "What does Darth Ruin usually want? We're pushing at the Republic, taking them world by world. This must be a particularly interesting world. If not... being here is pointless."

"And it had better not be pointless," Vilani adds, idly tapping her fingers on the arm of her chair.

Eldros catches Tchai eyeing him, then responds.

"Something interesting for someone talented, suits me just fine," Eldros says. "Now, see something you like?"