**Name:** Ihna Zhiss **Species:** Falleen **Age:** 25 **Rank/Title:** Jedi Knight **Planet of Origin/Birth:** Falleen **Force Sensitive Y/N:** Yes **Appearance:** Falleen are a species that look humanoid, though with a distinctly reptilian cast to their features. They sport claws on their four fingers and toes, though hers are trimmed back because, quite frankly, they are a pain in the ass and she likes having useful fingertips, and small scales all over their body, as well as hair. Zhiss has some facial ridges along the forehead, starting from the brow; five in all. She has no ears as a human might know them, but she wears her hair (yes, they have hair) to generally make it hard to figure that out. She is able to alter her skin pigmentation, but she generally keeps her skin green. Standing about 5'7", she comes off more like a diplomat or noble in manner than a warrior. **Skills/Abilities/Talents/Training:** - Telekinesis - The ability to push/pull, a basic of the Jedi, but Zhiss does it with a degree of style and integrates it very well into her combat. She has been known to disengage blaster packs and turn off light sabers, particularly after her time in Slooga the Hutt's barge as a prisoner. Beyond that, there is a question of brute strength; Zhiss is one of the most powerful telekinetics in her generation of Jedi, possibly in the Order, once she develops it.  - Battle Precognition - What makes Zhiss one of the best duelists of her generation are her reflexes -- in a one on one fight, she is deceptively skilled, able to instinctively predict the movements of her opponent through the force. While all Jedi are able to do this to a degree, Zhiss is even more deeply in touch with the force in this regard, perhaps because of the sort of esoteric training her master, a Consular, focused on. However, she has great difficulty seeing the future in other ways; her precognition is most potent in fighting, but much of her training was cutting off her instincts as part of trying to curb her impulses and she still suffers mental blockage in this regard. - Jedi Reflexes - All Jedi have this, but hers are a cut above the usual.  - Lightsaber Combat: Zhiss is extremely accomplished in Form V: Djem So. Most Form V practitioners are a little taller, a little more imposing, but Ihna Zhiss infuses a certain grace to her form; it is disconcerting to face her in a fight for the first time, because she is not tall, but this works to her advantage in the domination stages of any sort of duel and she is, admittedly, very strong, particularly given her size. She is far more elusive than the usual towering Form V practitioner, but still sticks to the fundamentals – she likes to say that she prefers to measure twice and cut once with wide, powerful strikes, waiting for the opening and then bringing down the attack into it, using her entire body in the movements. She has a familiarity with the other forms, though she devoted the most study, outside of Form V, to Forms VI and III. She acquired Form VI from her own master and worked to refine it, and she was drilled in Form III in her Praexum before it became apparent that she was strong enough, despite her average height, to be an effective Form V fighter. - Disable Droids - Learned on Nar Shaddaa, this is a sort of jolt of force power intended to disable droids, though it is possible, though she dared not explore it, that such a thing could be used against people if altered somewhat. Right now, she's able to stun a droid temporarily.  - Climber and jumper - Jedi are usually in good physical form, but Guardians take their conditioning even more seriously. Zhiss enjoys the challenge of climbing, including variations such as EVA movement on the hull of a ship or other challenging maneuvers. She is also passing familiar with dive equipment and parawing gliders. She's a bit of a fan of extreme sports. - Aquatic origins - She can hold her breath underwater for some time, it's a species trait. - Demolitions and Electronics - She is currently learning skills related to demolitions and electronics, realizing ever since Slooga's barge that such skills are necessary. She's at best an amateur. **Flaws/Limitations** - Impatience/Impetuousness - Never one for subtle or elegant solutions, Zhiss very much likes to cut the Gordian Knot. Sometimes this works, other times she ends up in a Hutt's barge as a prisoner, tortured. If she has time to think about it, she is capable of being diplomatic or planning things out, but she reverts to 'lightsaber first' as a natural state when startled. She fights from her instincts. Jedi discipline only manages to mute it rather than do away with it entirely. Sometimes aggression pays off, and sometimes snap decisions turn into disasters. - Not Warm and Fuzzy - if anyone epitomizes the reserve and hauteur of Jedi, Zhiss is it - but it's compounded with a manner that comes off as more arrogant than humble. She tends to set people's teeth on edge and isn't very good at being charming off the cuff or relating well to other people. The words 'stiff-necked' are the kindest often used to describe the phenomenon. It's mostly an overcompensation defense to hide self-doubts that exist under the facade.  - Broadcasts Feelings - Zhiss is no Jedi Shadow; she is easier than most to pick up by the force, and she sometimes feels as if there is no privacy in her life around other force users. It annoys her that she is so easy to read, and perhaps that is why she prefers her isolation -- she likes the idea of being around non-force users, people who can't sample her emotional content with impunity. This also tended to get her trouble in training; it was known when she was annoyed and used against her. While she can mask things, training to do that is an ongoing and only semi-successful experience.  **Equipment:** - Blue Dual-Phase Lightsaber; her hilt is longer than most because she likes the extra leverage; the metal is lined with small dimples to assist in gripping. She fights with her hands further apart on the hilt, and her lightsaber design reflects this. She prefers to keep the switches internal so as to present an enemy with no real opportunity to use the force to turn off the blade, a trick she likes to use on her opponents. The Dual-phase controls are also internal, though she has little difficulty tapping them with the force in the middle of a fight, drastically lengthening or shortening the lightsaber as she finds necessary and convenient.  - Disruptor Pistol - technically illegal, she has one anyway. It is even more random and imprecise than a blaster, but it's a dirty weapon for a dirty job and she keeps it tucked away quietly. It's a Nar Shaddaa holdout job with only a few blasts per charger, and she used some of her newfound interests in tech to smooth out the edges and make it a better conceal carry piece.  - Jedi utility belt - a comlink, a fibercord grappling hook and/or a grappling spike launcher, a holoprojector, such as an Imagecaster, a holomap, an aquata breather, a Jedi beacon transceiver, a glowrod, and lightsaber repair tools. Zhiss adds a multitool to this with a small powercell to power it, since a full sized hydrospanner and other mechanics tools simply aren't practical to always carry around. This utility belt is a type that all Jedi tend to have on them at any given time. - Robes; she modified hers so that the sleeves retract and hitch up on their own, baring her arms as she sees necessary. Otherwise, they are standard robes, though she prefers black. - A pair of tough, well-broken Iridonian field boots. - A pair of gripper gloves.  **Psych profile:** Zhiss is like many Falleen, in that she has an innate sense of superiority and self-confidence in her abilities that constantly get her reprimanded for her pride -- she has never quite mastered the art of getting along with people and manages, despite the advantages of Falleen pheromones, to rub people the wrong way. On the other hand, it is reassuring to those that she leads or works with that she generally seems to think 'out of the box', a legacy of her own master's rather unorthodox training methods and her time spent dealing with smugglers and the fringe -- she has a casual attitude toward the use of illegal weaponry and technology, such as disruptor weaponry, which perhaps is an outgrowth of a belief that the little laws don't really apply to her. Her master was a consular jedi, often tasked with negotiations, and that is why she spends time primping and preening somewhat. She has experience with diplomacy and infiltration, but when the mask slips, the claws come out. The downside of Zhiss, of course, is that while she often favors bold solutions, they can turn into self-made disasters. **History:** Born on Falleen, she was detected at an early age and brought to the Jedi Praxeum on H'ratth. Her powerful connection to the force was noted, but so too were her problems with some of the training; she was entirely too headstrong and required extra disciplining and lessons to try and bring her around; her instincts had to be curbed, and her raw strength tempered. Despite this, she was chosen to be a Padawan to Master Brevil Tal'rey, a Bothan Consular, perhaps to help her develop her potential in a balanced fashion; she was powerful, but impulsive. Little during her time as Padawan was as clear and simple as it seemed, because Master Tal'rey seemed to take on difficult and murky assignments involving the fringe, investigations of smuggling and slaving rings, political corruption and other things that took them into situations where force alone would fail or where the use of force would mark the failure of the entire mission, where knowing when and how to fight, if at all, was necessary. She learned hard lessons and was wrong often before she learned to use the force to help her see through things and cut to the heart of matters. It also took much patience on Master Tal'rey's part to steer the young Falleen away from the lightsaber first. While Zhiss would never be a consular, she was trained in ways that made her a more rounded out Jedi in the end. Despite this rounded out training, she is solidly a Jedi Guardian. When it was clear that she'd mastered her feelings to the satisfaction of her Master and the Council, she was given leave to attempt the trials and become a Jedi Knight. While she passed the trial of skill easily and with a certain feral elegance to her movements, the trial of Courage presented a more difficult problem -- she was assigned to infiltrate the Hutt cartels as a dancing girl in order to locate and extract their agent, Marto Zamiss, out of Nar Shadaa in an intricate operation that required her to fundamentally develop her own contacts and assets in order to perform the mission. Moreso than demonstrate her ability to fight in single combat, her trial of courage seemed to require more in the way of patience, and staying calm even during the hard part -- the waiting.  As it turned out, her trial of the flesh came out of her own foolhardiness. She was captured by Slooga the Hutt, who tortured her for information on the escaped Zamiss aboard his own yacht over Nal Hutta; she carries the scars of the heated needles that were inserted under her fingernails. The escape required her to work out the flaws in the containment system in her cell; she managed to expose wiring by focusing her telekinetic ability to the finest sort of details, what she likes to jokingly call 'force spanner,' and use it against the barrier that kept her cell closed. From there, she then managed to use the air duct systems to her advantage in retrieving her equipment, which she used to disable the ship's weapon systems. Fighting her way toward the escape pod system, she managed to sent a distress beacon and go into a state of suspended animation, waiting for a Jedi rescue. When the nature of the imprisonment and escape became obvious, the Council decided that the requirements of the Trial of Insight and the Trial of Flesh were satisfied, but there remained the trial of Spirit, where she nearly failed; she does not discuss much of it; she awoke from it sweating and gritting her teeth, obviously rattled by what she saw. For about a year and a half as a Knight, she spent time working with her old master still as a more senior partner in working the fringes, particularly around Nar Shaddaa; while she got into a few jams with bounty hunters and smugglers, she didn't get harrowed the way she had in her trials -- she'd learned to be more circumspect and started carrying a disruptor pistol just in case she needed to really blow someone away fast, but she generally worked under the direction of her old master, cultivating a network of informants and allies, though the Bothan did much of the talking here. Zhiss was security. When Revan made the call and others were flocking to the ranks of the Revanchists, she held out, influenced by her former master, Brevil Tal'rey, who warned that war was as much a harm to the warrior as to those that the warrior brought down and her own trial of Spirit, which showed her glimpses of a future where the Sith would return, and of her own fall. She felt the lure so strongly that she wanted nothing more than to avoid it. Nonetheless, others on the council sent her, deeming her loyal to them and not Revan as well as considering her experience in investigations, to build a case against them in the Council. Spying on fellow Jedi was not precisely a dangerous assignment, though others had an inkling of what Ihna Zhiss was about and why she was there, but it promised to be a morally exhausting assignment to deal with the resentment of fellow Jedi and her own doubts about the mission. Her attitudes were shaken considerably when she landed on Cathar with Revan and the others. Prompted by the visions of the genocide on that planet at the hands of the Mandalorians that all Jedi there shared when Revan picked up a piece of a Mandalorian helmet, she found that her own previous faith in the stance of the Masters was shaken, her own inner conflict intensified by what she experienced in that vision. Sticking with the Council's own mandate that she continue to observe, she stayed with the Revanchists as the plans were made for war, but found herself more torn than ever, particularly as she was surrounded with people who had more faith in the decision to go to war, less hesitancy. Perhaps influenced by what she has seen first hand of the devastation of the war, from places like Cathar, she is slowly coming around to the viewpoint of Revan and the others, moreso than that of the masters, detached as they are from the suffering of the people. Surely, wanting to help is part of the Jedi, as much as the rest of it, right? Compassion is a Jedi's mandate. She finally threw herself into the fight, where her skills placed her on IRSOG 37, where she intends to make herself very useful indeed. The other Jedi may yet suspect her motivations, but it is hard to deny that Zhiss is a fighter, and that's what the Republic needs right about now; while there are questions about where her ultimate loyalties lie, there are no questions about her capabilities once in the fight and she's at least signed up for the fight. The rest can come later. **Relationships and Acquaintances:** Jedi no doubt see her as a teacher's pet. She's not quite willingly here and still has a moral conflict going on even after the visions on Cathar. Despite being a formidable fighter, one of the few Guardians being trained anymore in an era of peace (the Great Sith War being a distant memory for most beings,) she has a reputation for being a loose cannon. The military probably see her as an arrogant tightass.  Elara Rahn - They attended the same Praexum on H'ratth but were in different groups of younglings as Knight Rahn is slightly older. Therefore, Zhiss is passing familiar with Rahn, though it's been many years and they weren't incredibly close anyway. Where Rahn set down roots in H'ratth, Zhiss moved around a lot with her Master and then operated, most of the time, in her couple years as a Knight, in Hutt Space around Nar Shaddaa. Valsil Malki - One of the other pro-Council knights sent on a delegation with Master Vrook Lamarr to negotiate with Revan and his followers, they both wound up converting over when they experienced the visions on Cathar. If anything, he's probably the most sympathetic figure among the group of Jedi in IRSOG-37, which isn't reassuring, since Knight Malki is not necessarily a reassuring person -- he seems to feel the guidance of the Force is enough, whereas the Force warns her of her fall but seems determined to put her on that path anyway.