Karrigan'Xalda
Daughter of the Karishzar
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Xioquo. Give Sio a group of totally sane, balanced darkside servitors she totally won't need to bring in line one day with a purge.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Assassins.
Permission: ARGH gear available per this thread. Permission for all ArmaTech gear and all other subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here. Firemane obtained a supply contract that allows it to use Fire for Effect gear here.
Links: Firemane, Order of Fire, Twilight of the Goddess, Liavondra, Xioquo, Daughters of the Destroyer.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Blades of the Blessed Dread
Affiliation: Themselves, House Kerrigan-Alcori, Siobhan Kerrigan, Xioquo.
Classification: Assassins.
Equipment:
Armour:
Rifles:
- Dart Rifle (variable chemical payload)
- ACS-207 Cryoban Gun
- DC-19 Stealth Carbine
- SR-1
- DXR-6.
- ACS-207 Acidthrower
Melee Weapons:
Misc:
- Neural Inhibitor
- Poisons such as Synox, Senflax, rock worrt venom, and Devaronian blood poison. Their bladed weapons often have a Devaronian edge.
- Cyanide suicide pills.
- Monofilament wire and net.
- ACS-208 Wrist Ion Beamer.
- ACS-207 Aerosolblaster.
- Concealed Dart Launcher
- Taozin amulet
- Vac blade
- Berserk.
- Grenades
Before her ascent, they served the Council of Matriarchs that governed the Xioquo race in the name of the slumbering creator goddess. Their skill as assassins and zealotry made them feared. The sect is a very small unit. The cultists specialise in stealth, poisons, fear-inducing powers and ice/water abilities. They are very skilled at using the Force to cloak themselves from detection and hiding their Force Signature from other Force-Sensitives. Vibrodaggers, garrottes, shatter guns, dart guns and disruptors are part of their arsenal. They have a bit of a rivalry with the Tecuanimeh, another sect of assassins that served the Council before transferring its allegiance to Siobhan. Like the Blades, the Tecuanimeh are death cultists, but more conventional in nature instead of driven by religious zealotry.
The Blades are loosely associated with the Daughters of the Destroyer, a Xioquo cult that reveres Siobhan as the Karishzar ('Destroyer' in the Xioquo language). However, even by the standards of the Daughters the Blades are considered extreme. Even a Daughter as fanatical as Xalda believes they go too far, which says quite a bit. The internal life of the Blades is characterised by blood rituals, terrifying initiations (literally), and a very tight grip on its members. Siobhan has decided to make use of them because she considers them useful tools to do wetwork for her. However, she is conscious of the fact that they could turn on her, and thus exercises tight controls. Time will tell whether this was a good idea or not.
Firemane keeps a very close eye on them, in case the Blades feel that their icon is 'going soft' and not inducing enough fear and terror. They also need tight control in combat in case they decide to 'hone their skills' on prisoners. They are monitored by the Truthseekers, a Firemane branch of mentalists who specialise in interrogation, espionage and counterintelligence. Only a select few of Siobhan's minions know about the Blades' existence. And Sio was warned when she took them on that they would be allies, even faithful ones...until she went against their interests or showed weakness.
The Blades are led by a powerful Dark Side adept called Xal'Atlaz. She has a rivalry with Naxal'Tikaz, the leader of the Tecuanimeh. Both assassins are in competition with each other. She is enough of a believer in the concept that she is willing to use Siobhan as the big scary boss to keep her underlings in line. That is until the right moment arises. She believes that fear is the pathway to power, and that you are either afraid or make others afraid. She may yet turn on her mistress of fear.
The cult leader is actually an outcast who was too extreme even for the 'wise mistresses'. To seem respectable to Firemane, she has assumed the identity of her sister. Among other things, she uses mask to conceal her true self. Atlaz never really believed in Myrou's omnipotence or omniscience. The Blades despise Lia, the lightsided Queen of the Xioquo. They revel in the concern she feels about them, and hope that it will split Siobhan from Lia so they can return the Xioquo to the proper ways. Lia for her part would prefer if they all just went away and never came back. If they ended up falling into a sun or a black hole she would not weep.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Medium
Unit Availability: Unique
Unit Experience: Elite.
Combat Function: The Blades of the Blessed Dread are a sect of fanatical, elite assassins. They excel at getting close to high-value targets and eliminating them before vanishing back into the darkness. They excel at stealth and are ideal for wetwork. The sect is composed solely of Force-Senstive Xioquo. The cultists focus on Cryomancy, Force Concealment, Force Cloak, Force Affliction, Consume Essence, Telekinesis and Force Horror. The assassins are very skilled in psychological warfare, using their mental powers to terrify their targets or drive them towards self-destructive acts. One of their favourite applications of their abilities is to make a target believe they are drowning.
However, they are trained for stealth, subversion and assassination, not frontline combat. They also do not carry lightsabres and lack strong defensive abilities. Xioquo are faster and able to see much further in the darkness than humans. They also have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Their dark skin makes them very good at blending into the shadows, enhancing their stealthiness. However, living in the darkness so long has made the sun and other very bright lights painful to Xioquo. In daylight they need to wear covering attire, including some form of eye protection, to shield themselves. Their skins can blister in the sun if left exposed. Their telekinetic powers are potent, but more geared towards fine manipulation than direct assault or employment against large numbers of enemies.
A member of the sect would use a surgical telekinetic pull to the knee joint to break an enemy's leg or try to mess with an internal organ, but not summon a huge telekinetic wave to break or ragdoll several enemies. They would also not be able to lift and throw very heavy objects in the manner that say Count Dooku did against Yoda during their duel on Geonosis. Given how strongly the Blades are attached to the Dark Side, they are vulnerable to Light-based offensive powers such as Force Light and feels weakened in areas strong in the Light, such as a Light Side nexus. Obviously areas strong in the Dark Side will have the opposite effect. They have an affinity for Consume Essence, which ties in with their mental abilities. This allows them to feed on the fear, hatred, or other negative emotions of other beings in order to make themselves more powerful. However, it leaves them at a disadvantage against droids and Force Dead beings.
They are stealthy operatives, spies and assassins, and thus not meant for pitched combat, frontal assaults, taking on tank platoons on an open battlefield and so on. If cornered by superior forces, they will be in trouble unless they can sneak away. They have no heavy weapons such as heavy repeating blasters, rotary cannons or anti-tank weapons. They are a scalpel or a rapier, not a broadsword. Moreover, they are not deployed in large numbers. They work alone or in small teams. Hence they are outnumbered easily if cornered. While they are trained in conventional combat, ysalamiri or Voidstone take away their biggest advantage, making them more vulnerable if exposed. Their armour is very stealthy and light, but not tough. It provides little in the way of protection against blaster or slugthrower salvoes. The Blades do not carry lightsabres and are not trained in their use. This is partly because lightsabres, even shotos, are not very stealthy weapons, but also because Siobhan has forbidden it. Thus they use more conventional, physical blades. These are often coated in poison, especially Devaronian blood poison.
Strengths:
- Highly skilled, stealthy assassins.
- Excel at mental, concealment and elemental ice/water abilities.
- Zealots.
- Glass cannons. Lightly armed and armoured, lack heavy weapons or tanky armour.
- Their powers are more geared towards finesse and surgical strikes than frontline combat. Lack strong defensive Force abilities.
- Zealots.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Xioquo society was built upon bloodshed, the Dark Side and slavery. A small clique of noble families used terror and propaganda to keep the under classes in line. Many Xioquo were kept as slaves. Xioquo society had always been steeped in the Dark Side. For centuries, the drows were governed by a ruthless mageocracy where only those who pursued the path of Darkness ended up on the top. Thousands laboured as slaves to serve the whims of the mistresses who sat on the top of the pyramid. The disobedient were brutally punished and often sacrificed in ghastly rituals to power war machines or be turned into abominations.
Generations of Xioquo were raised to worship and fear Mystra or, as the Xio knew her, Myrou. She was (correctly) regarded as the mother of their race. Though the dark oddess had slumbered in a tomb for millennia, it was believed that she would one day awaken to lead them to conquer Tygara...and judge her children. Believing that Tygara was theirs by right, the Xioquo warred against their neighbours and rivals, the Qadiri and Vashyada. While the technologically most advanced of Tygara's natives, their low population, incessant power struggles and the constant need to be on their guard against slave revolts kept them from fulfilling their potential.
The Blades of the Blessed Dread have long been a fixture of this brutal, oppressive society. They started as a radical cult employed and (barely) controlled by the despotic Council of Matriarchs. The Blades claim that their ancestors were servants of Myrou, spreading fear and terror in her name during her campaign of conquest. The Blades of old treated their vocation as a mandate from the Dread Goddess. The council purged them, but found them too useful to dispose of.
In the old days, the first initiates were taken to the throne of the sleeping Myrou and forced to commune with her dark spirit. Many were driven insane by the experience. Those who managed to retain their faculties were corrupted by her dark taint. With Myrou asleep in her sarcophagus, the Blades transferred their loyalty to the Xioquo's oligarchic council of matriarchs - officially, at any rate. Known for being notoriously disloyal and mercenary in attitude they were never stamped out because they were too useful. Moreover, they also possessed secrets and contacts which would have made this impossible.
To create a counter to them, the council create another sect of assassins, the Tecuanimeh. Both cults regarded the other with distaste and were in fierce competition with each other. The Blades regarded themselves as the chosen of the Blessed Dread and looked down on the Tecuanimeh as upstarts. For their part, the Tecuanimeh regarded the Blades' obsession with terror as something that made them poor assassins because they venerated fear rather than death. Ironically, the Tecuanimeh also turned out to be notoriously independent. The Blades proved themselves to be a capable weapon for anyone who could control them. They murdered Xioquo dissidents and council members who had gotten in the way of their patron at the time, Qadiri high priestesses, queens and kings. However, the Xioquo oligarchs who acted as their patrons had a tendency of dying of unnatural causes sooner or later.
Xioquo society and Tygara as a whole underwent a profound change as a result of the arrival of the sky people, Firemane and the Eldorai. The Xioquo went to war with the outsiders. The drows were able to win their share of skirmishes, using ruthlessness, guerilla tactics and mass use of Force-Users to compensate for their technological backwardness. But in the end the war was lost and the allied forces stormed the Underealm. Myrou was awakened in a bloody ritual, but slain by Siobhan Kerrigan and her allies. In the aftermath, Firemane put Lia on the throne as Queen of the Xioquo. Ironically, the new monarch was a devotee of the Light, who was determined to lead her people out of the darkness into a better future.
As was expected of them, the Blades of the Blessed Dread had fought against the invaders. Shortly before the downfall, some of the Blades tried to assassinate Siobhan Kerrigan. Their powers of concealment allowed them to slip through her security measures and ambush her. Though weakened by poison, Siobhan defeated them. Indeed, she overawed them to such a degree that when Myrou fell, they recognised her as the new dread mistress who had taken the old goddess' place.
They swore a blood oath to her. Siobhan was warned when she took them on that they would be allies, even faithful ones, until she went against their interests or showed weakness. Quas'Ziru, a dark Xioquo sorceress and the high priestess of the Daughters of the Destroyer told her: "The soluton is either to indulge them and use them as a resource...or utterly destroy them." Siobhan used Chesna, her Eldorai servant and secretly a powerful mentalist, to put the fear of the Karishzar in them. GRU and Chimaera Squad, an elite black ops unit, formulated contingency plans to deal with the dark cultists in case they went rogue or became too troublesome to keep around.
The Blades were not reconciled with the new order of things among the Xioquo. They referred to Lia as the 'White Queen' in a very patronising way and hoped that one day there would be a rupture between her and Siobhan, which would enable them to turn back the clock. However, they did their mistress' bidding. Siobhan used them for wetwork and when she needed to terrify her enemies. However, they required monitoring to make sure that they did become too enthusiastic while carrying out their bloody work. In the aftermath of the Tephrike campaign, Siobhan dispatched the Blades to the war-torn planet to exact retribution for the Dominion of Light's traitorous attack on a Firemane delegation and the abduction of her daughter.
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