Kyriaki
Dark Phoenix
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Flesh out a location for future rp.
Image Credit: Here.
Canon: N/A.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: The Valkyrie's Diary, Dominion of Light, Republican Guard, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Glorious Conflict, Darth Eisen, Firemane, Amidala Corps, Adlerberg, Humanist People's Party, Disciples of the Vader, Darth Lachesis, KEC, Sibylla Laskaris, Thrakesion Jungle Devil, Hellwasps, Blood Fiends, Crimson Orb Trees.
SETTING INFORMATION
Nexus Name: Bone Forest.
Nexus Alignment: Dark
Location: Tephrike. Near Sentinel's Rest.
Affiliation: Tephrike. The town near the nexus is ruled by the Disciples of the Vader, but while they control access to the Bone Forest, they don't control the nexus itself, though not for lack of trying. They'd like to harness it, but it really, really hates them.
Size: Small
Strength: Strong
Accessibility: Located on an island on a very isolated, remote planet. The island of Chios is ruled by hardline human supremacists. However, the nexus itself is not unknown, as it lies not far from Sentinel's Rest, a town populated the Vaderites' chosen, humanist, yeoman farmers. The 'settlers' are aware of the forest - they created it after all by planting trees to hide their crimes and because they wanted a forest after murdering tons of innocent people.
The normal settlers also vaguely know that it is a bad, cursed place. Locals are advised to stay out of it. But no one talks about it openly because that would mean facing their crimes. It's the dirty little secret of the town. It is to be noted that aliens may have serious difficulty getting there because the island is controlled by genocidal human supremacists. On the other hand, the nexus may be more helpful to them and even protect them from pursuers to an extent. Imperial settlers tell their children to stay out of the forest. Of course, kids being kids, not knowing what evil their parents were part of, may disregard these warnings.
Description: On the surface it is just a normal thick forest located near a rural town inhabited by Imperial veterans. Large trees the size of Endor's arbors (though nowhere near Kashyyyk's) abound, but do so smaller ones. Mushrooms grow to an unusual size. On the surface it would seem like a good place to set up a simple log cabin or to procure wood for construction purposes, even though many insects are parasitic and dangerous fungi abound. The nights may come early and be rather...gloomy, but that is surely nothing unusual. But no one ever goes into the Bone Forest - especially not at night. No one who dwells in Sentinel's Rest ever talks about what happened there. Because absolutely nothing important ever happened there. Indeed, it is wrong to even say the name. The entire topic is treated as a big taboo.
There is a good reason for this. This used to be a large part of the extermination camp that was built upon the ruins of the Togruta town of Gorkana. After dismantling it, the Vaderites planted trees to hide their crimes and because they wanted a forest. The Imperial Youth Corps used to go on holiday trips here, and Vaderite landowners liked to hunt game. The wood industry wanted to harvest the abundant timber.
But this has all abruptly stopped when people started disappearing...or came back changed, rambling about nigh-indescribable horrors. But said horrors had not been wrought by phantoms, demons or monsters, but by ordinary human men and women. The forest is haunted by the ghosts of the people who were murdered to build Sentinel's Rest because the Vaderites wanted to 'make room' for human settlers. Their corpses were incinerated in crematoria, their home is gone, their names have been wiped from history and the humans have built their own town on their ashes. But many of the ghosts still linger. And they are very angry at the humans who murdered their people. And there are rumours of even worse things.
Darth Lachesis, the patron of Sentinel's Rest and the orchestrator of the horrible genocide, is aware of the curse, but does not consider it a bad thing per se. In her view, it will ensure the locals do not grow soft and forget that existence is defined by constant struggle in which only the 'strong' can prevail. Sometimes a Sith acolyte or knight from the Disciples of the Vader ventures into the Bone Forest to study the nexus or test themselves against its hazards. Those who return come back changed, and often insane. All manners of dangers abound in the forest. Among them are trees that devour the unworthy and appear to be mentally linked in some manner, all manners of parasites, and plants that can cause hallucinations if consumed. Above all, the forest itself has a will of its own. It is very angry.
The Republican Guard, which backed the Chiosian natives in their doomed, but heroic struggle against imperialist genocidaires, knows about the nexus, and is horrified by it. Some fugitives who survived the massacres have found sanctuary in its ranks. They are a prominent pressure group for giving the dead peace by tearing down the Vaderite state and making the Sith, the imperialists and profiteers pay - in blood. Manifold beasts dwell in the Bone Forest, such as Hellwasps, Thrakesion Jungle Devils and Blood Fiends and prey on the careless...especially humans.
NEXUS EFFECTS
The Bone Forest is the site of a horrible atrocity. Before Sentinel's Rest was built as a settlement for Vaderite military and police veterans, it was an extermination facility built upon the ruins of a Togruta settlement called Gorkana. The original residents were slaughtered. So were many other aliens upon the island of Chios, including Gungans and Nautolans. Then the Vaderites planted trees upon the ruins to hide their crimes. But the evil they wrought has left its mark. Many ghosts of the dead still linger...and they are angry. Their anger and sorrow informs the nature of the nexus. The forest is dark and foreboding. Commlinks do not work properly inside it. Or rather sometimes they do, but the user will receive false messages. A ghost may contact them in the voice of a friend or loved one to deceive them. The nexus remembers the butchers...and it seeks to punish them. A strong feeling of terror and despair permeates this cursed place. Drawing upon the light, while not impossible, is difficult within the nexus.
Trees are able to shift, blocking paths that seemed open a while ago and trapping intruders. Engines mysteriously break down. Building a road through the forest will be sabotaged. Trees will shift to block paths or mysteriously grow to a huge size, torrential rainfalls will suddenly turn roads into mud, ghosts and mirage will afflict construction crews or it will suddenly become dark even though night-time is many hours away. Chronos and datapads inexplicibly run out of power. If a visitor has brought food with them, it will rot and grow mouldy incredibly fast, even if it is fresh. The nexus has promoted the growth of all manners of plant life. One plant is an innocent looking leaf covered in fine hairs. However, if they contact exposed skin they inject a mind altering substance, which causes irrational fears, hallucinations and flight reactions. That type of plant is quite common on Tephrike, but the nexus has significantly amplified the effects. Crimson Orb Trees grow to an even larger size, and the psychedelic properites of the drug that can be harvested from them are significantly enhanced.
Some of the trees in the forest are carnivorous. Roots rise from the ground to suddenly ensnare those the nexus deems guilty and pull them into the earth to be devoured. One may see blood appear on the tree bark. Sometimes one sees faces in the trees, and hears the cries of trapped souls. Some say the spirits of the damned murdered by the Vaderites dwell inside them and use them to observe the world and communicate with one another. In effect, they act as a gestalt entity. They also seem to be able to communicate with beasts that dwell in the Bone Forest. If one manages to chop down a tree for practical uses, it inevitably rots or gets infested with termites. It is very difficult to find one's path in the trackless woodlands and to avoid becoming hopelessly lost. Trees and bushes may shift to block paths; incredibly thick fog may suddenly appear. The nexus may actually do this to protect fugitives fleeing from the targets of its wroth - humans, Sith and their collaborators.
People have claimed to see all kinds of eerie apparitions. An example would be a floating Togruta woman dressed in a blood-soaked white dress, apparations of crying children, a cloaked spirit riding a black Orbask, mysterious footprints or of a tall, horribly disfigured being with bulging eyes, tentacles, and many arms who compels people to follow him into the darkness, confess their sins, and never come back. And there are stories of ghostly apparations resembling Togruta and Gungan warriors of yore, led by the shades of their queens, hunting down human intruders. Once divided, the shades stand unite now...and judge the living. People who enter the nexus will often feel intense feelings of anxiety or nausea, and feel like they are being constantly watched. Some say that they see eyes staring at them when it gets dark, as well as hearing the sound of creaking trees and rustling branches. Or they may have a vision of a tree devouring a human body. This is a warning. There is a clearing deep in the forest where nothing grows and nothing has ever grown. Furthermore, the trees that do grow in the forest grow in odd patterns — zig zags and spirals that seemingly have no explanation.
Moreover, the nexus will afflict intruders with visions of the atrocities that took place here, showing the industrialised horror followed by the Vaderite efforts to cover it up. Bones upon bones may suddenly poke out of the earth. The nexus reserves its greatest wroth for humans and Sith. Spectral apparitions of the dead haunt them. Sleep can become incredibly difficult, to say the least, as even their dreams are haunted by ghosts and nightmares, and they may be terrorised disturbing or threatening noises. Or wake because it feels like a multitude of insects is crawling across or underneath their skin, biting, stinging and burrowing into them. A visitor may be awakened by the sudden sound of gunfire or inexplicably feel the touch of a random, cold hand. As far as the nexus is concerned, they should never rest while they are here. Notably, the nexus, while dark, doesn't grant darksiders power-ups or the like. It doesn't like Jedi either though, for as it sees it, abandoning the island's people to be slaughtered. A dark aura of fear and despair permeates the forest.
The nexus doesn't just want perpetrators, profiteers and their kin to suffer, it attempts to psychologically break them. The 'settlers' of Sentinel's Rest have whitewashed their horrible crimes into a glorious, heroic crusade. But the nexus it remembers. It carries the collective memories of the dead and their pain.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The Glade of Woe - A clearing deep in the forest where nothing grows and nothing has ever grown. Try as one might, no plant life will bloom here. Apparitions abound, manifold eyes watching intruders in the darkness.
The Bloodwater - Once named the Clearwater, this foetid stream flows beneath the broken bridge and through the ruins of the old town. Through the dim and filtered light of the forest it appears to be as dark as blood. Indeed it seems to flow sluggishly and thickened as though it is filled with gore. The water, if drunk, tastes foul and induces nightmares and hallucinations. Sometimes one can see bodies floating in the stream.
Camp Freedom Ruins - The old death camp at the centre of the misery was a series of buildings. When the 'cleansing operation' was complete, the camp was dismantled. Some of the ruins lie here. They are a place where one can see and hear echoes of the crimes which occurred here. However, a more strange phenomena is that many of the ruins have strange bone-like growths of fungus or dead tree stems emerging from the ground. These growths smell foul like rotted meat. Apparitions of Gungans, Nautolans and Togruta are prevalent.
Cairn of the Lost King - The Togruta who lived in Gorkana had a series of monarchs, and many were buried in mounds just outside the town. These sites were venerated by the locals for generations. To show their respect for their fallen heroes, they buried items alongside the bodies that could aid the deceased's journey into the afterlife or serve as offerings to spirit guides and gods. The practice of retainer sacrifice was also not unknown. A trusted servant, bodyguard or in rare cases the spouse might volunteer to be buried alongside the dead hero. To this end they were given an intoxicating drink, stabbed to death by a priestess, ritually cleaned and buried.
When the Vaderites came one of their first acts was to blow up the cairns, steal the trinkets and scatter the bones, declaring it 'xenos supersition'. However, when the town was abandoned a new mound appeared one night. It was bigger than all the others and in the centre was a spear driven into it. A close examination shows what seems dried blood on it. It is claimed by survivors that at night a near skeletal figure of a Togruta stalks the woods to find and kill the living, returning each day to his cairn.
The Lichetree - An unusually large and spectacularly gnarled tree standing not far from the old town. Once it was the object of pride and adoration due to its size and age, and it had been carefully preserved for generations. Until the Vaderites came. During their hateful purge many individuals were lynched, and this tree was the perfect place to do so. Many were hung from nooses from its boughs, but some were taken a step further and nailed to the trunk to painfully expire in full view of the community and prisoners of war before Gorkana was destroyed. Death and suffering leaves a mark and the tree twisted and warped. Now it spitefully tries to grasp and crush the the living who pass it by. The spirits of the slain still cling to it and twist it further to the darkness.
The Shifting Way - also known as the Hungry Path. The Vaderites tried to build a road through the forest here. But nature swallowed the path and scattered the terrified construction workers. An ill fate befell the Sith who owned the business and his coterie. His face can be seen in one of the trees. If one gets close, one can hear screams. Carnivorous trees can also be found elsewhere in the forest, but they are prevalent here. One may see blood appear on the tree barks. Some say the spirits of the damned who were murdered by the Vaderites dwell in trees such as these, and use them to observe and communicate. Hellwasps and Thrakesion Jungle Devils prey on the careless.
The Boneswallow Morass - A deadly morass of quicksand which looks like normal ground and tries to pull the living down into the bog and bury them alive. Before the Vaderites switched to more 'industrialised' methods of murder, they used this place as one of their execution sites. Victims were stripped of their possessions, forced to dig their own graves and shot en masse. Not all victims were immediately dead...but were buried alive and crushed beneath the bodies.
The Pool of Despair - Where the Bloodwater passes near to the exit of the Bone Woods it meanders into a small swampy area. Here one might think they see the bodies of people; human, aliens, animals, all seemingly sleeping peacefully. However, the phantoms cannot be reached, but it seems that something inside the water tries to drag down those who enter and drown them. The swamp itself is like the Bloodwater in its disturbing tinge and poisonous taste. Apparitions of Gungans and Nautolans abound. It is their will that guides...whatever lurks in the deep. If they judge someone not to be a sinner...they will let them out. If not...Most who are ensnared by it are sinners, especially humans. Blood Fiends dwell here as well. Better be wary about big leeches that want to crawl inside you and drink your blood. Some have been mutated by the nexus.
The Black Bridge - Once the main crossing over the Clearwater, this bridge was made of stone with a wooden coverage. Inside this wide area market carts could even set up to sell to travelers. Gungan merchants came here to trade with the Togruta or, in the case of vassals, provide tribute. No more. On their way out of town after destroying it the Vaderites burnt down the wooden cover and blew holes in the bridge. Now the bridge is blackened and encrusted with mould. More interestingly, helmets and human skulls appear on the parapets and arch, all staring towards Camp Freedom's remains. Many of the skulls and helmets display signs of trauma. Eventually wind or some other force causes the trophies to fall...but they are soon replaced by more from the brave and foolish who enter the forest....
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
"I wish all the good people of the Imperium could home here. The noble, brave soldiers waging a criminal war and committing atrocities; the businessmen profiting from slave labour, armaments miracles and death camps; the intellectuals who devised the concepts of racial warfare and put them into action; the doctors who carried out the experiments; everyone who ever insisted they were just following orders; the 'ordinary' men and women cheering at the Supreme Leader, denouncing 'enemies of the race' and insisting they know nothing, while they build their homes on the blood and bones of the damned- But it's not feasible to bring them all to the Bone Forest...so I must bring its echo to them. And force them to listen, to feel, to suffer. The truth will set them free from their lies...whether they want it or not." - Kyriaki
Once Gorkana was a Togruta town and the capital of a small kingdom governed by that species. When Chios was conquered by the Vaderites, the Togruta were forced into a subservient role, but given token autonomy and used as auxiliaries to police other species such as Gungans and Nautolans. Divide and rule made it easier for the Vaderites to rule their new acquisition. The imperialists established a class of human landowners, who used aliens as labourers on their plantations. However, their hunger for land was insatiable. As time went by, the settlers' demand for land and labourers grew more and more rapacious. Feeling cornered, bands of rebels attacked settler families and their homesteads, leading to Vaderite 'reprisals'.
When Isidora Manatos, the future Darth Lachesis, assumed a managerial role for her clan's sprawling estates, the oppressive quotas imposed by her as well as the Sith's cruel treatment of prominent Togruta triggered a mass revolt. The war lasted for over a year, and was characterised by vile Vaderite atrocities. At the end of it, Gorkana was levelled and the inhabitants were forced into a so-called reservation. But the Vaderite settlers continued to tighten the noose. Many years later Isidora, now called Darth Lachesis, returned, having helped her cousin become Supreme Leader. With the aid of the settler class, rich junkers and the military, she initiated an operation to 'pacify' Chios - and 'reclaim' it for human colonists, especially poor veterans. The Vaderites initiated the 'Extraordinary Pacification Operation'. It was a cover for a campaign of xenocide. Chios would be 'cleansed' by outright murdering the natives or working them to death. The natives fought bravely, receiving some support from the Republican Guard, but the Vaderites blockaded the island and used chemical weapons to flush them out of their hideouts.
Moreover, the Vaderites took advantage of the outbreak of a pandemic. A mass detention facility was set up near Gorkana's ruins. The ironically named Camp Freedom was an industrialised killing centre. The inmates were starved and given backbreaking labour to whittle down their numbers. Mass killing facilities were constructed to murder large numbers of people in an assembly line fashion so that it would be less stressful for the perpetrators. For the bloody genocide took a psychological toll on the killers, some of whom broke.
But though some requested reassignment because they could not handle what they were doing, none of them rebelled and tried to stop this injustice. The last to die were groups of inmates who had been forced to incinerate the bodies of those who had already been murdered. There were prison revolts and multiple breakout attempts. Some inmates succeeded in escaping, and spread word of the horrors that took place here. But most were murdered. Vaderites began building Sentinel's Rest while Camp Freedom was still operating. This was supposed to be the living space for the 'bravest' and most 'loyal' who had proved their commitment to Humanism.
To the Vaderites, it made perfect sense to discuss the plan the construction of playgrounds, schools and homesteads in the same breath as the annihilation of those they deemed 'unworthy of life'. Sentinel's Rest started out as a small settlement for the families of officers and soldiers engaged in the 'reordering' of Chios. When at long last, Lachesis could report that Chios had been 'cleared', the camp was dismantled. All records were burnt. Of course, one could not conceal a mass killing operation of this magnitude. But total secrecy had never been the Vaderites' intention. The settlers who were brought in to build homes upon the ashes of the innocent would know that if the 'xenos' returned, they would want vengeance. The Ministry of Propaganda's broadcasts and brochures painted a reassuring image to attract settlers and investors. They showed blooming fields, and happy families - naturally all were traditional, nuclear families, for anything else was un-Humanist.
See no evil, hear no evil.
After dismantling Camp Freedom, the KEC built a museum and a recruitment centre on part of its premises and planted trees over the rest. The place where they planted the forest had once been a holy site for the Togruta, where they buried their rulers and heroes. The remains of their fallen heroes were interred with weapons, trophies and sometimes slaves or warriors who'd chosen to follow their liege into the great beyond. Until the Vaderite destroyed the cemeteries with bulldozers and demolitions. Graveyards and tombs were destroyed, bones scattered and items and artefacts that had been buried with the dead for their journey in the beyond stolen. Some of the skeletons were sent to an Imperial medical university for study. The holy site was destroyed.
And grow the forest did. Its rapid growth took the settlers by surprise, for they'd intended something more like a park. Indeed, it grew larger than anticipated. It seemed an unseen, invisible hand was guiding it. Clearly it had to be the Dark Father guiding it. There could be no other explanation. For a while all went well. The Humanist Party's official youth movement liked to organise camping trips and KEC bigshots and local luminaries often went on hunting trips into the forest. But then people started...disappearing in the depths of the forest. Or they came back changed.
A senior stormtrooper commander who had been responsible for mass killings on Chios had to be institutionalised after he started ranting about the wickedness they had done. He could not stop hallucinating after going on a hunting trip. He eventually gourged his eyes out and jumped out of a window to his death. Before he committed suicide, he left disturbing, increasingly incoherent and rambling messages written in his own blood in his diary and on the walls of his room. The homicide detectives from the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations who were brought in to investigate concluded that he had committed suicide. However, this was politically inconvenient, so it was declared a murder. He was not the last casualty. Some traumatised children started asking their parents and teachers awkward questions. One teenager from the Imperial Youth Corps got lost in the forest, and was catatonic when he was found.
A logging operation had to be abruptly aborted when the loggers were beset by a series of disasters, and refused to continue working. A Sith who used the logging business as a cash cow chose to investigate the matter personally because the disruption upset the stream of revenue. Typically, he believed the workers were just being lazy. But his attempt to motivate them went poorly, and an ill fate befell him and his coterie. An unseen force compelled many to turn on each other as they were trapped inside the forest. Others were swallowed by the Pool of Despair. Later it was reported that the faces of the Sith and a few of his minions could be seen in the trees. If one got close, one could hear screams. Families were soon discouraged by the city administration and the security forces from visiting the forest. The Vaderites set up patrols to block access...and keep any of the spirits and other beings inside the forest from venturing into Sentinel's Rest. None of the news reports and documentaries about the 'reordering' of Chios ever mentioned the strange rumours about the forest.
Nonetheless, certain Sith took an interest in it. Some viewed it as a proving ground to demonstrate their toughness, others were drawn to it for more...esoteric reasons. Many don't return, but still they are drawn to it like moth to a flame. One of them is a young Sith called Sibylla Laskaris, apprentice of the butcher of Chios. Where some Vaderites see a dirty little secret or an affront to their power, she sees...an opportunity for knowledge. Another is a young Disciple called Kyriaki. She too views it as an opportunity...but for very different reasons because she hates the Vaderites as much as the nexus does...
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