Assallya

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

So far, these force users are interested only in hiding and that means that they're not really visible to the Emperor yet. Once they get out into the galaxy and start doing things that would interfere in the Emperor's designs he will know.

Think back on the Darth Maul and Oppress Savage's taking of Mangalore. Senator Palatine had no idea that Darth Maul was alive or what he was up to until suddenly there was this huge disturbance in his plans. Then he immediately hops aboard a shuttle and kicks some serious arse.

Alternatively, unless this is a jungle or swamp world like Dagobah and rich in life and the force, that many force users in one place are going to be noticeable to an Inquisitor if one happens to be passing through the sector.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

The old man moved through the ancient fortress, his brown and cream coloured robes swishing around his ankles and an old ornate metal staff clacking against the worn stone. He moved deliberately, silver eyes scanning the walls, the ceiling, the floor, even the very mortar between the ancient stones. Each resonating ring of his etched metal staff upon the stones serving almost like echolocation for some keen otherworldly sense.

Finally he came into a wide open expanse, the motley collection of starships tucked away inside what was originally some sort of great gathering place for those that once called this home and led into the twisting collection of tunnels beneath the tower. The place was already full to bursting and the odd assortment of ships reached out even into the exterior of the complex where they were set upon by the elements.

The ships were a striking metaphor to the old man who stroked his long white beard and equally long moustaches, patting them down against his dark brown robes. Each of those that had arrived were as different as the strange assortment of ships before him. Some of them used solar sails, some ion engines, others still used means of propulsion he did not understand. So it was with the people here that used the force.

It was here he spied a young woman cleaning her weapons and he stopped clicking his staff upon the cobble so that he could approach softly on his skippered feet and not disturb her. He could feel her connection to the force, tenuous, unsteady. She wasn't quite yet one with the force. She was a young woman with chestnut hair, a soft pale complexion and a small frail looking physique but there was something to her demeanour, a gentle strength that said she was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish her goals. He considered reaching out with the force to get a better sense of her inner being but some of those here considered such a thing rude.

"Greetings child," he said simply, as he approached for he deemed it rather unwise to sneak up on those cleaning or bearing weapons.

"Hello," the young woman said cautiously, her eyes skirting the entire area and not just the old man as if seeking hidden accomplices, "Who are you?"

The old man bowed, staff held crossways across his chest so as to ensure it wouldn't be mistaken as being combative. He then straightened and petted his long white beard flat again across his torso.

"My name is Raksha of the Jedi," he introduced himself, neglecting to include is title or anything else, "I like the others am a refugee of the devastation that has befallen all our kind, Jedi and others."

"Sahren," she introduced herself, not uttering any other affectation before continuing with a small quip, "Just along for the ride."

Going back to cleaning her strange looking blaster the old man, Raksha, watched her for some moments cleaning her strange looking blaster while noting the other slung low on her hip in a classic speed draw holster. Being patient the old Echani just watched her for several long minutes.

"You planning on taking a holo-pic?" Sahren finally said.

"No. I am merely wondering why you are still here and why you are not attending the ceremonies belonging to the others."

"Not my place I figure. I'm not one of these groups. I don't really have a master to teach me. Don't really need one."

"What is the minimum number of people required to be a group: seven, thirty five, nine or maybe three?"

"I don't know but I think it's more than one. I mean, it's a plural, after all"

The old man nodded, as if this was the expected answer. He stroked his beard and looked back at her.

"and yet in mathematics we have groups of one and even of zero. These things are just words. Words are the tools of men to quantify, deceive and discriminate. All life is equal in the eyes of the force."

"So you're effectively saying I should be representative on this council of theirs since I'm the only member of my order?"

The old Echani coughed and flicked his long white bear up into the air, giving himself an excuse to smooth it out again and chuckled.

"I would agree to this but while we may all be equal in the eyes of the force the council's eyes, any council, are very human."

"Well, the others all have mentors, and the entire thing is some rite of passage, proving to their masters that they are ready to go out and do... whatever it is you people do."

"Yes, a rite based on combat," Raksha replied, "The way of the Jedi is one of peace. Something the order has long since forgotten. It disturbs me that so much attention should be paid to these trials but these are dark times. In times past a Jedi's strength lay not in his lightsaber but in his mind and his ties to the force. I can sense much violence on you already child and I suspect you are ready for such eventualities. You would likely pass whatever trials put before you."

"Oh no. They'd probably put me up against another one of you, either a Jedi, Ginsu-guy or even that super wookie. The first thing my captain taught me was run from anyone waving around a glowstick. There's never any profit in dealing with Jedi."

Raksha chuckled. "There is wisdom in that statement. I would not presume to debate him."

"So that it," she added, returning to polishing her weapon that she'd forgotten, "You just came down here to ask me to play in your little arena games?"

"To be precise my child, I am here because the Force brought me to you. I do not know why. I only know that I trust the force and that the why of my being brought to you will reveal itself in time."

"It... led you to me?" Sahren replied cynically, "Look glowstick. If you were any younger I'd respect you for the come-on line but seriously, the force pointed me out?"

"No. The force does not work that way. You may direct your senses towards a goal, a course of action, or another simple concept and the force may give you an indication in response. I merely opened myself to the force and let it take me where it wished to go."

"You can do that?"

"I will not lie to you," he replied, "The last is not easy. It requires one to shed themselves of desire, of connections to others. Even the most fleeting desire for anything can interfere with such a request."

"Can you teach me to do that?" Sahren asked, "My mentor, the man who trained me, he was focused on-"

Sahren set aside her larger weapon and pulled out the shapely blaster pistol on her side, the black and gold weapon spun easily in her hands, becoming a blur as it moved back and forth dancing in her hands, pointing first in one direction, then beneath her shoulder as if firing behind her and then again spinning about her finger as she displayed a dazzling display of manual dexterity.

"-how to use a blaster, not on the feeling stuff. I mean, I can feel where someone is in a fight, especially if someone turns the lights out on me but what you're talking about is something else like getting bad vibes from people. I get them sometimes but only sometimes."

"Ah... yes," Raksha said as he nodded, "I can definitely help with such things. You should also learn what you can from your fellow apprentices. There is much you can learn and not from just Jedi. After all, if we knew all there was to know of the force then how did my brothers and I fall?"

"In other words," she reiterated in her own fashion, "maybe I should get off my ass and meet some of the others?"

"I would not be so terse but yes my child. You should attend the ceremony above. Even if it does not mean anything to you it means much to those who may be your colleagues in the future."

"Okay," she said, rising up from her seat, slamming two plasma cartridges into the caster in her hands, "but I'm not calling you Master Raksha. Deal?"

"My child we are all but students in the ways of the force. There are no masters."

Star Wars: The War of Attrition.

I like the idea of a role play about rebel pilots.

-except you don't have any pilots.

I'll keep an eye out to see if this changes.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

Ah, I was thinking since the Jedi crush or absorb other orders and were the most numerous there would be more of them. If you're not Jedi you are Sith and there are a lot of "Sith" here on this moon currently. There's also the unfortunate problem that most of the other force groups, with little reason to leave their own planets, do not have access to space flight of their own.

However, those Jedi that survive would be support personnel, those too old to fight, those that had no talent for it, or were performing administrative, humanitarian or other non-combative efforts for the Republic and far removed from the clones.

In any event, I'll go back and edit.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

Well, Dayumn...

Time to bring out the Republic's greatest heroes, the Revengers!

--Captain Republic who uses his Jedi powers to sling around an impenetrable shield!
--The Iron Mando who using his advance battle suit can fly and blast people!
--The Black Bantha who uses his acrobatic fighting skills and vibroblades to terrifying extent
--The Rancor who seemingly says simply things like, "Rancor smash puny Stormtroopers!"

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

I can't help it... when I look at Zeref, the Inquisitor I keep wanting to call him Darth Loki. *lol*

There's just something about him that reminds me of Hiddleston's iconic villain from Avengers.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

Sahren, quite simply, had no idea why she was still here. Sure the Jedi, the Jinsu-guys, and just about every witch doctor in half the galaxy had told her that she was here because it was where she was meant to be. As far as she was concerned, all she'd done was accept payment to bring a few fools in robes to this remote and out of the way planet -correction, technically it was a moon, whatever... Still, despite that she wasn't in any major hurry to climb up the ramp of her ship and blast out of this closet of a moon.

The others here all had masters or had holocrons or even scrolls to study. Her own mentor, Captain Harbinger, had admitted that his order had no masters. They were still nascent when the Jedi wiped them out and yet here she was, surrounded by the very same Jedi that had wiped out her order amongst many others of every form imaginable. She could practically feel them crawling around in the back of her skull in what the others had called "feeling through the force".

Leaning back the small woman swept back her long chestnut curls and adjusted her position, propping up one old leather boot up against a plastered crate. Above her, the Heart of the Fire, her ship, a YT-2000 transport, cast her in shadow. Laying the peculiar weapon in her hands across her leg. Silently she cleaned the twin barrels of her plasma caster with a long probe. It was fairly unique. For all she knew, one of only a dozen left in the galaxy. The caster was two hands long and possessed a blade that went up from the pommel beyond the tip in a makeshift bayonet creating something like a gun sword. It was break action and had only the two barrels, each containing a number of electromagnetic accelerators that confined and propelled the plasma charges that had to be loaded individually by hand. In many ways it was similar to a bow caster and that is where Sahren thought the Gun Dancers got the idea for the weapon.

The last of her kind. Should she be training someone like the masters trained their path-wans or whatever they called them? Should she be learning from the others here? Hell, should she just sell the location to the Empire for a quadrillion credits! No, she'd never do that. She hated the Empire as much as anyone. The bastard Empire was everything the Black Suns or the Hutts would be if they ever managed to become the dominant power in the galaxy.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

<Snipped quote by Assallya>
I politely disagree. A lot of the wookieepedia misses much coverage you would only know by reading every book entry they list as the system is fallible due to needing the human input. This often leads players to read between the lines and make their own conclusions about races and racial interaction. Not all Twi'lek are sexy as hell, Bib Fortuna was rather fugly in my opinion and we never see another twi'lek after him with the sharpened teeth he had. Was he an anomaly or the male standard for his species?

Many species are near-human, such as the Mirialan or zeltron, and close enough for cross-breeding. So I believe the romantic notions of interspecies is not so unbelivable as that. Not to mention much more off-topic factors such as bedroom proclivities and the 'exotic' of new species as is proven by peoples preference either for or against those of their own race. I could imagine the joy of a real life 'furry' meting a farghul or shistaven for the first time.

Also as an aside, I think a lot of the notions to being a role player is to break the norm, be a little more than the societal accetance. And if that is to include being a wholly different species than what you are used to, then chalk them up to 'elves in space'.

@knighthawk

We're discussing similar but non-related aspects of the same thing. I don't disagree with you on any given point.

I should point out that I wasn't saying you "can't" or "shouldn't" play an alien. I was saying that one should think about it first.

In point form, my points were:
--The Galactic Empire is a xenophobic human supremacist club. Playing something other than human can result in being left behind in certain storylines. Poor Zeb from Star Wars Rebels has been left behind on a number of occasions.
--While many of the aliens from Star Wars are capable of breeding together, many aren't.
--That one needn't be an alien just to be interesting. Being an alien can provide some story hooks but isn't in any way necessary.

I should add that sometimes being a "plain jane" or "boring" character can actually be really great for roleplaying. I call them "tourists" but their need to explore, understand and ask questions can serve to bring out the details of other characters. Further, the character as a boring, blank slate is fascinating to play as you don't even know which way the character is going.

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

I should add that an while an exotic race may appear interesting in the short term it can result in significant limitations in the long term.

For one, the empire isn't fond of non-humans which makes sneaking about under their noses very difficult. Secondly, there'a the interspecies romance angle. Very few romances exist outside of their ethnicities let alone species.

Really, all you need for an interesting character is an interesting background. Humans have been interesting going for a thousand years without a new coat of paint. So what if you have a red skinned Twi'lek? The very fact people expect hwe to act like Darth Talon is only going to shock them when she doesn't

Star Wars: Last of the Force (Order 66 variant)

Darth Vader is cramping our style and keeping us trapped in our sanctuary.

What we need is the greatest warrior the Galaxy has ever seen... the Almighty Picard!