Hidden 5 yrs ago 5 yrs ago Post by Jorick
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Hidden 5 yrs ago Post by Sini
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'Go' from me. One more.
Hidden 5 yrs ago Post by Ellri
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Ellri Lord of Eat / Relic

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Here's an initial review.

Unusual to see a Mirialan high-level Sith. Interesting.

We had to look up some comparative materials to give a proper review of the section on the Force. The initial impression, however, was “that’s a lot of known techniques.

The description for mastery of a talent reads as follows:
There is little more to be known about the technique. Not only does the user have intimate knowledge and understanding of this, but he or she knows practically every use and exactly how to teach most others.
There are hardly any who reach this level of skill.
Guide to the Force, on talent mastery

Additionally, the relevant part of the description for a regular master (no innate talent) reads as follows:
This level of skill is such that few ever reach it, as it requires several decades of dedicated study and practice to attain, as well as study of more esoteric and rare sources of knowledge.
Guide to the Force, on Learned Mastery

With that in mind, we can continue. Your character hasn’t only mastered an innate talent, which would be impressive on its own for someone of his age, but he has mastered five innate talents. And he has reached the well-trained talent level for another five, and advanced training on five more.
Usually takes at least a decade with a teacher who has mastered it to reach this level, if it is ever reached.
Guide to the Force, on advanced talents

So, even ignoring the other abilities, he has spent five decades studying the advanced techniques, at least as much again studying to become well-trained with five talents, and he’s spent the equivalent of a century or more to master five talents. All before reaching the age of fifty.
Considering that he is part of the Sphere of Military Offense, his level of studies doesn’t make sense. If he spent every waking moment of his life, both in his academy years and afterwards, he would not reach these levels of skill in that many fields. Innately talented masters are extremely rare individuals. The difference between a “regular” mastery and an “innate” mastery is that the latter goes several steps further, studying every single nuance of it. It is highly unlikely that there is anything that can be done with a technique that an innate master cannot do.
For comparison, Darth Theya Katherion, who has spent decades in exploring the nuances of the Force and the Dark Side, has mastered telekinesis and one or two closely linked sub-branches. While we haven’t defined whether it was an innate talent or not (we should fix things like that), the feeling we have of her is that it is not an innate talent. Darth Theya has about 120 years of life more than Darth Embrus, yet she is clearly vastly less powerful in the Force than you’ve made Embrus. See the issue.
We also compared with another character built in the same era and using much of the same material (Sundered Echo’s Darth Nyiss), and she was, with her lower age (59-65) even weaker, even though she too is older than Embrus.
By the age he is at, if he’s spent especially much of his time using that, perhaps in battle considering his Primary Sphere of Influence, he could perhaps have reached mastery in one technique, with near-mastery in something closely related.

Remember, creating a Darth is not just about pumping in power and skill in all sorts of fields until you have something that can defeat pretty much anything else. It is creating a character with a complete story, with everything built around it. While darths generally do have a “favorite” field, in order to deserve the rank the Sith in question has to have a wide-reaching power base, so that they can be sure that others will not easily outmaneuver them.
As described in the Sith Guide, there are a number of requirements for the Dark Council to grant someone the rank of Darth. While not all must be present, some are mandatory and most must be present.
  • The Dark Council must see the need for a new Darth.
  • The prospective Darth must have a vast power base, with influence at the highest levels of the Empire.
  • Good relations with at least one member of the Dark Council
  • No enemies on the Dark Council
  • The Sith’s numerous underlings should include some that help balance out most of the prospective Darth’s major flaws
  • He or she must have sufficient prominence in the Empire to be of use to the Dark Council as a Darth.
  • His or her grasp of the Force must be vast, significant enough to stand out from the rest, though it need not cover all aspects possible. A warrior won’t need to delve deeply into alchemy, the field of telepathy or such
  • He or she must, in addition to a power base and underlings, have significant resources at his or her disposal.
  • The Dark Council will not promote someone who cannot keep his/her enemies in check, either through careful manipulation, or elimination.


We think you have a good start on this sheet, but there are many gears that aren’t connected to any other gears in what should have been a well-working machinery.
Later parts of the sheet describe him as a Sith with interests primarily in two fields:
Everything to do with lightsabers and their use, especially in combat.
Tinkering with technology and improving it.
We’re not counting the hedonistic hobbies, as those are just casual entertainment.

Other than in the Force Power section, there is nothing in the sheet to explain his extreme level of study of the Force. He would make a powerful combat/war-focused Sith Lord, but without heavy modifications, he doesn’t even remotely have the background to work out as a Darth. His climb through the ranks is a bit too meteoric. Remember, a Sith Lord is equivalent in power to a Jedi Master, but has political power and resources far beyond those of a Jedi Master. As stated in the Jedi Guide, a most Knights undergoing Master trials are at least 45 years of age.
As such, we would recommend you adjust the character to a Sith Lord, cut heavily down upon the Force knowledge, adjusting it to fit better in with his specialization as a warrior with a bit of technological tinkering as flavor.
There is nothing in the sheet that we could see justifying his deep-delve into telepathy.
You could either have his master adjusted to a Sith Lord and keep the inheritance stuff (adjusted to lord levels, of course), or you could designate that his master is still alive and that he is the favored heir, possibly with his elderly master already preparing him to eventually take over.
There’s a lot of great stuff in your sheet, but it is not a functional Darth.

In any case you should expand considerably upon his flaws and failures, as well as include creative punishments for failures. When punishing an underling, a Sith Lord or Darth will generally pick something he or she knows will feel as punishment to the underling, even as it educates them and is generally related to the failure.
Plain torture, for example, wouldn’t be the “wise” punishment for military or diplomatic mistakes. It would, however, be the sort of punishment a sadistic Sith might use to teach how to properly interrogate a prisoner without killing it.
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Essential translation of Ellrisms: "Darth" is too fancy a title for this guy.
Hidden 5 yrs ago 5 yrs ago Post by Sini
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Having read your review again @Ellri I felt the need to point out a few objections. Yes, Jorick's Embrus has a lot of force and warrior skills, but is that really a deal breaker? Having such skills is something I'd expect from a Darth character. It's when I feel as if a PC approaches invicibility or "OP-ness" my alarms go off. Granted, I've know Jorjor Binks for quite some time and my trust in him as an RPer might influence this. He kills his own chars more often than not if it helps the story. Brutal.

Usually takes at least a decade with a teacher who has mastered it to reach this level, if it is ever reached.
Guide to the Force, on advanced talents

So, even ignoring the other abilities, he has spent five decades studying the advanced techniques, at least as much again studying to become well-trained with five talents, and he’s spent the equivalent of a century or more to master five talents. All before reaching the age of fifty.

For comparison, Darth Theya Katherion, who has spent decades in exploring the nuances of the Force and the Dark Side, has mastered telekinesis and one or two closely linked sub-branches. While we haven’t defined whether it was an innate talent or not (we should fix things like that), the feeling we have of her is that it is not an innate talent. Darth Theya has about 120 years of life more than Darth Embrus, yet she is clearly vastly less powerful in the Force than you’ve made Embrus. See the issue.

We also compared with another character built in the same era and using much of the same material (Sundered Echo’s Darth Nyiss), and she was, with her lower age (59-65) even weaker, even though she too is older than Embrus.

By the age he is at, if he’s spent especially much of his time using that, perhaps in battle considering his Primary Sphere of Influence, he could perhaps have reached mastery in one technique, with near-mastery in something closely related.


I agree he put in a lot of powers/skills but there's a flaw in the criticism here. By your logic only longevitous beings will ever be Darths, something which is fundamentally untrue in Star Wars. Though not era-specific, Anakin was in his early twenties when he became Darth Vader. There are other examples, but this one was easiest. It's also stated in our own PG material that for the rank of Sith Lord the "guesstimate" is 40 years of age. Having Embrus be a Darth at age 45-46 isn't a stretch.

As described in the Sith Guide, there are a number of requirements for the Dark Council to grant someone the rank of Darth. While not all must be present, some are mandatory and most must be present.
  • The Dark Council must see the need for a new Darth.
  • Good relations with at least one member of the Dark Council
  • No enemies on the Dark Council
  • The Dark Council will not promote someone who cannot keep his/her enemies in check, either through careful manipulation, or elimination.


In regards to the points I retained above:
  • The GMs decide that need, and given the dearth of Sith chars I'd say why not have a Darth? Looking at the source material it of course states that Darths are rare, but what is rare? Plausibly everyone in the PG could pick up a Darth character and we still can classify it as a 'rare' title because it's a setting of galactic proportions.
  • Having good relations with one member of the council is fine, but that shouldn't exclude having enemies!
  • This can not be a hard requirement. Having rivals and enemies is intrinsically part of Sith (and maybe even Imperial) society. It is not as if the Council has a thing like a 'veto'. I bet a lot of Darths would have enemies on the Dark Council. Personal advancement is often tied in with elimination of the one standing in your way.
  • "Keeping enemies in check". Kinda seems like this is where all those fancy force powers and warrior skills could come in handy.
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Ellri Lord of Eat / Relic

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We'll not start a back-and-forth discussion with another GM here.
Power growth in the Empire is a slow process, even with the assistance of those more powerful. It is quicker than in the Jedi Order, but it is still a slow process.

If you have any questions about our criticism, @Jorick, don't hesitate to ask us. We're more than willing to help. There were, as mentioned, many parts of your sheet we liked and we see great potential in it.
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Alright, I've updated to address some of those concerns, but I strongly disagree with the rationale for others as I'll explain below in the summary of changes made. I'm keeping him as a Darth while making other adjustments.

Age bumped up ten years to 56 and altered places where age was specifically noted to match. I'm still having him picked up at ~12 years old since the exact time of Ruuria being taken over by a Sith puppet government was uncertain anyway and the info in the wiki implies it could have started as early as ~3700 BBY anyway.

Info in the bio and interests portions expanded and clarified to note that the training under Darth Korrus was a holistic approach to combat training, not a matter of training things one by one. Frankly the idea that time required for mastery of a set of skills ought to be counted sequentially rather than concurrently makes no sense to me, because that's not how learning works in reality. A quick look at the curriculum of any school from the elementary to post-graduate level would show students learning multiple things in the same time frame. Even so, I've knocked down the power level of a lot of things make his prowess with the Force less intense.

Force Speed and Force Lightning down to well-trained talent from talented master.
Droid Disable down to trained talent from talented master.
Force Sense down to intermediate training from well-trained talent.
Telekinesis, Force Throw, and Force Choke down to intermediate training from advanced training.
Telepathy down to basic training from intermediate training.

This leaves 2 mastered talents (Precognition and Force Rage). It also leaves 6 as well-trained talents: Force Speed, Force Sight, Force Bellow, Force Scream, Force Lightning, and Chain Lightning, though I'd argue that the bellow at least is actually just a side effect of training up the scream rather than something that was specifically focused on. There are only two at advanced training now, Telekinetic Defense and Force Stun. All of these things are directly relevant to combat, long with the lightsaber skills, so they were all being trained in tandem by the holistic practical approach rather than in a one by one fashion.

The political influence and associates section was greatly expanded, and the bio has additions to note this as well. Of major note, he now has a whole fleet of subordinates rather than me hand-waving them away as all unimportant stooges shunted off to military postings.

Expanded the flaws section a lot as well.

Added some more failures and changed up the punishments explained in the bio.

General tweaks to the bio, lots of additions, but the basic thrust of the narrative is the same.
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Alright, I've updated to address some of those concerns, but I strongly disagree with the rationale for others as I'll explain below in the summary of changes made. I'm keeping him as a Darth while making other adjustments.

Age bumped up ten years to 56 and altered places where age was specifically noted to match. I'm still having him picked up at ~12 years old since the exact time of Ruuria being taken over by a Sith puppet government was uncertain anyway and the info in the wiki implies it could have started as early as ~3700 BBY anyway.

Info in the bio and interests portions expanded and clarified to note that the training under Darth Korrus was a holistic approach to combat training, not a matter of training things one by one. Frankly the idea that time required for mastery of a set of skills ought to be counted sequentially rather than concurrently makes no sense to me, because that's not how learning works in reality. A quick look at the curriculum of any school from the elementary to post-graduate level would show students learning multiple things in the same time frame. Even so, I've knocked down the power level of a lot of things make his prowess with the Force less intense.

Force Speed and Force Lightning down to well-trained talent from talented master.
Droid Disable down to trained talent from talented master.
Force Sense down to intermediate training from well-trained talent.
Telekinesis, Force Throw, and Force Choke down to intermediate training from advanced training.
Telepathy down to basic training from intermediate training.

This leaves 2 mastered talents (Precognition and Force Rage). It also leaves 6 as well-trained talents: Force Speed, Force Sight, Force Bellow, Force Scream, Force Lightning, and Chain Lightning, though I'd argue that the bellow at least is actually just a side effect of training up the scream rather than something that was specifically focused on. There are only two at advanced training now, Telekinetic Defense and Force Stun. All of these things are directly relevant to combat, long with the lightsaber skills, so they were all being trained in tandem by the holistic practical approach rather than in a one by one fashion.

The political influence and associates section was greatly expanded, and the bio has additions to note this as well. Of major note, he now has a whole fleet of subordinates rather than me hand-waving them away as all unimportant stooges shunted off to military postings.

Expanded the flaws section a lot as well.

Added some more failures and changed up the punishments explained in the bio.

General tweaks to the bio, lots of additions, but the basic thrust of the narrative is the same.


Given changes made...I'll approve it.
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I made a hefty addition to the sheet in order to add Almalthia's Tishombra Ferro as one of Darth Embrus's Apprentices (a little preemptively since she's not approved yet, I know) and to give a little detail to the others mentioned as being part of his favored circle of underlings. The newly updated section of the sheet is in the hider below for GM convenience, lemme know if anything needs tweaking and I'll get to it ASAP.

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Force powers updated to conform to new guide nomenclature. Since it went from having 5 steps to 6 steps of experience/talent levels noted, making a simple one to one translation impossible, I've nudged some things up and down a bit to make sense. The main thing of note is that I've listed Precognition as a Grandmaster level talent while Force Rage remains a Mastered Talent, because basically all of Embrus' training and solo practice/study from day one has honed his talent for Precognition in one way or another whereas the Force Rage is newer to him. I've also tweaked the bio and list of accomplishments a bit to note his great talent for Precognition, which I should have done before but I overlooked that in my focus on getting the Force Rage stuff right. All changes are noted in the hider below for ease of reference.

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Another quick addition because I realized I forgot to do it a few days ago: added Kutar Zema as a listed Apprentice with a paragraph in the underlings listing section to explain his current status.

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