EliteCommander

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy

Name: Sirka'ith

Species: Ssi-ruu

Gender: Female

Appearance: (with brown scales, instead of red)

Ssi-ruu

Age: 17 (this is an adult, as Ssi-ruu mature more quickly than humans)

Height: 2.15 meters

Skills/Abilities:

• Close to medium range combat specialist
• Strength equivalent to an adult wookiee
• Thick, blaster resistant hide
• Very keen sense of smell (able to detect changes in the emotional state of species with which she is familiar)
• Triple eyelids resist sudden bursts of light
• Surprising speed and grace for a creature of her size

Weaknesses:

• Long-range combat
• Eyesight poorer than that of a human
• No notable non-combat skills
• Young age compared to adults of other species limits her practical experience
• Stands out in a crowd, or any other situation
• Little to no stealth capabilities

Equipment: Like most Ssi-ruu, Sirka wears only bandoliers across her chest to carry her belongings, along with whatever holsters she needs. Her primary weapon is a Mark II medium repeating blaster cannon. While normally a mounted weapon, the cannon can be carried by the heightened strength of a Ssi-ruu. She has modified it with a proper stock and grip, and powers it through a power cell which she wears as a backpack that, compared to her size, is reasonably compact. As a sidearm, she carries an E-11 blaster rifle, and a one-handed variant of a vibro-ax as a backup weapon. She also carries a small belt of fragmentation grenades.

Background: Sirka'ith had somewhat of a unique childhood among the Ssi-ruu. She was hatched a year after the attack by the Chiss which devastated her people's military. As xenophobic of a species as the Ssi-ruu are, they were forced to engage in some measure of diplomacy with the rest of the galaxy. Sirka's father was a black Ssi-ruu spy, ostensibly serving as a diplomat off-world, while her mother was a red Ssi-ruu bodyguard. This forbidden union made her a brown-scaled Ssi-ruu, and a member of the lowest caste of Ssi-ruuvi society. Normally, her egg would have been destroyed by her parents, but being outside their home system, her parents could not as easily get away with the murder, so they simply passed her off as the child of one of their brown-scaled Ssi-ruu servants.

In the first few years of her life, Sirka was in the position of being mostly ignored by the parents who had disowned her, and the servants who were meant to care for her. As such, no one bothered to stop her when she started to interact with the local populations of the worlds they were assigned to, something that would normally be forbidden for any Ssi-ruu hatchlings that, for whatever reason, found themselves outside Sii-ruuvi space. Her adoptive parents did teach her some of the Ssi-ruu, but she was more heavily influenced by the cultures of the worlds around her.

It was years before Sirka's father and his entourage returned to Lwhekk, and by that point, Sirka was too old, and had been outside Ssi-ruuvi space for too long to ever be able to accept what her life there would be like. The brown-scaled caste of Ssi-ruu were treated terribly. She did not care about the Imperium, nor about the religion they started to force on her. After a few beatings, she played along, but she resolved to escape as soon as possible. Luckily, the fact that she was raised outside Lwhekk also meant she was one of the few Ssi-ruu who could actually speak Basic, so it was not long before she was assigned to be a translator for a real diplomat. As soon as they reached a relatively large city, Sirka made her escape into the city's crowded underworld.

Despite only being a child at the time, Sirka found that there was one kind of work that such a large and intimidating being as herself could find quite readily. As a mercenary, she earned enough credits performing simple jobs to get offworld, and from there, she decided to continue honing her skills in combat. After all, it wasn't as if she had the skills to do anything else.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

"I understand." Tarentek said, nodding to Onyx as he continued with his meal at a relatively slow pace. "My parents were no one special in my city. They were simply warriors, like myself. They taught me what they knew and prepared me for my training, after which I became a scout for my people. My father died in battle about five years ago, and my mother was wounded last year. She lost the ability to use her leg as...effectively as before, so she was no longer able to serve as a warrior after that. As for my role, I have more knowledge than the average person about old Human technology. It was the task of myself and my scouting team to identify and recover useful materials and machines."

After giving his brief explanation of his own past, Tarentek moved on to the next point about which he was curious. "At any rate, perhaps I could know a bit more about your kind. The ability to fly is...not something I could imagine myself. Having been something you've had your whole life, I would guess it is fairly mundane to you, but for someone who has been bound to the Earth for all his years, it seems amazing, and frightening, to think about. Although, I do wonder in what ways we are different that are not so obvious."

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy

Not quite sure how much is appropriate for a CS. I think I want to give a bit of backstory simply because Ssi-ruu outside their homeworld are a bit of a rarity.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Tarentek was quick to move to the main room once he heard his name. He still had a good amount of water in his cup, and the meal, in his eyes, looked greatly appetizing. Of course, with as long as it had been since he had eaten, just about anything edible would seem quite appealing.

Tarentek had not been expecting medicine, though he supposed Onyx was assigned to be his nurse. She had done nothing to harm him so far, so he saw no reason not to trust what she was giving him. "Thank you." He said with a polite nod before taking the medicine, then starting on his meal. As much as he wanted to wolf down the meat as quickly as he could, Tarentek had to force himself to take his time and not overeat. His malnourishment was hardly as bad as it could have been, but he still needed to pace himself to be safe. Hopefully, the medicine would help in that regard.

"I have told you some about my life, but perhaps I could ask a few questions about yours?" Tarentek commented after a minute or so of silence. "I got the sense that you are related to your leader. Is that true?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Although Kaleeth's penmanship of the Cyrodilic letters was perfectly readable, she did not think she was much closer to committing them all to memory. The letters were drastically different in form from those in Jel, and they seemed to form words differently from Jel lettering.

"Oh, no, I haven't learned to write Cyrodilic before. My father taught me some Cyrodilic, but I did not know too much when the pack visited my village. It was hard talking to them at first, but it has gotten a lot easier. Janius gave me some lessons, and speaking it all the time made me get better. Sometimes it is hard for me to think of the right word still, and I mess up sometimes, but I can speak well now." Kaleeth explained, pausing a moment to look down at her tablet with a slightly disappointed expression. "But I need to practice a lot if I want to learn to write it. Children learn so quickly. I think it would take me a lot longer than them to learn it."

"An otherworldly poison? I had a suspicion that could be the case." Meesei commented as she stood up from her chair and walked over to Sabine and Carana. It would have been preferred to have their answer quickly, of course, but Meesei could wait until the end of the day for the results. As long as the clan as a whole did not know what had transpired, they did not need to rush the investigation too quickly. Carana did ask the question Meesei had been worrying about, but for as long as Meesei had been waiting for their initial tests to finish, she certainly had enough time to come up with a satisfactory answer.

"As for where we found it, I mentioned to the clan yesterday that we have been working against Vile's followers for some time. We believe that followers of Vile are the ones most likely to have created this concoction. That, or they were gifted it from Vile's realm itself. In either case, the ingredients to make the poison could come from Oblivion. I hope that a clearer understanding of the poison could help us better understand our enemy's capabilities." Meesei explained.

Lorag did not say any more, as he had made his point, though he still didn't agree with Harriet. To him, practicing bad habits would just end up reinforcing bad habits. Harriet was far too stubborn to have her mind changed, but Lorag didn't care that much, at least not yet. If they ended up staying with the clan for any decent amount of time, he would probably make sure the recruits were being trained properly

Lorag was starting to debate on whether or not it would be too risky for him to get involved in some lessons as well when Harriet started questioning him again. "All of it? Nah. Legion's definitely tough, more than people give it credit for, but they got nothin' on an Orcish mother. Especially one whose the Master of the Cheydinhal Fighter's Guild. Father taught me some too. He was a retired Legion soldier, but he was usually busy with the forge. Learned more about smithing than fightin' from him."

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Hmm, the earliest reference to them I can find is in the Roman Empire. That is a few thousand years after the formation of civilization, and I was worried they might be a specialty think that would take more time to recover, but I suppose some of the recovered knowledge could lead to the point that they could be made again.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

I don't really think they would have access to pills in this setting. Medicines like that would be pretty advanced, and likely take longer to rediscover than other devices.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Tarentek felt strange being shepherded around in secret to Onyx's den, but he supposed it was necessary. At least it finally seemed like he was going to be able to stop moving and relax. For almost the entire day, he had been wandering the desert and was close to exhaustion. Luckily, the pair made it to the den without being spotted, after which Onyx was quick to dash around the rooms lighting lanterns for visibility.

After a few minutes, Onyx led Tarentek to a small room in the back. It had little else other than a bed, but he was not someone who required much in the way of accommodations. It was already a more comfortable room than the barracks he was used to. He sat down on the bed and leaned his back against the wall as Onyx left the room. Letting down his hood, he gave a fatigued sigh, but did his best to stay awake and alert. Although he was tired, he was far hungrier than he was exhausted, and he was anxiously looking forward to a much-needed meal. When Onyx brought him his water, he was tempted to down it all in one gulp again, but paced himself on her recommendation. Despite all he had to worry about at the moment, the small room in a nice, peaceful den was enough to at least mitigate some of the stress he had accumulated throughout the day while he waited for Onyx to call him into the other room.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

"I suppose that makes sense, especially for a people who fly, though it seems somewhat dangerous to me. In Amman, we kept stores of beer for emergencies. Water is hard to keep clean, and can be filled with diseases to begin with, but you can store alcohol for as long as you want and it will always be safe to drink. Plus, it lets us use the alcohol for drink, and the water to grow food during a drought." Tarentek commented, though he stopped and paid attention once they reached the bridge. Although he was in the city with permission from their leader, it would likely be easier on everyone if he was not discovered that night. He assumed their leader would give word about his presence before leaving on his scouting mission, so he would be relatively safe soon enough. Until then, he readily followed close to Onyx.

Tarentek was quickly discovering that he was not fond of heights, so he kept his eyes ahead as he walked along. Luckily, he was a relatively coordinated individual, so he did not have much of an issue crossing the bridge. A brief glance down caused him to nearly stumble once, but he recovered and moved to the other side without incident. He decided he would keep himself quiet until they reached her den, so he remained silent as he looked to Onyx expectantly, waiting for her next instruction.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Tarentek gave a reassuring nod to Onyx. His people were most well-suited to eating meat, but they were still omnivorous, so unless they had a diet of poisons, he would likely not have an issue. "I would not worry too much; I can likely eat whatever you have. Meat is preferred, but I can eat plants if needed. In Amman, we raised livestock when we could, but grew our food in bad years, when water could not be found as reliably. As for drinks, I would really prefer water at the moment, but if you only store alcohol, I will be fine with it."

Now that they were outside the den, Tarentek had a chance to get a better look at their city. It was dark, but he could see well enough to notice that the structures were...different. They were not quite like any Human ruins he had seen before, which struck him as especially odd. As well, he could not remember seeing any cities in this area on the old Human maps. It was something to think about, but there were more important matters for him to worry about at the moment.