Unreviewed Hand of the Expanse

[Mercy]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a reward for Sith participants in the invasion of Abregado-Rae
• Image Source: Link
• Canon Link: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source:
  • DOUBLE TAP | TSC Invasion of COV-held Abregado-Rae

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: The Sith Covenant
• Affiliation: The Sith Covenant | Sith participants of the Invasion of Abregado-Rae
• Market Status: Closed-Market
• Model: Hand of the Expanse
• Modularity: No
• Production: Semi-unique
• Material: Armorweave, durasteel, crystallized Netherworld residue

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Rift-Shard: Embedded within the back of the glove is a sliver of crystallized Force energy recovered from the Netherworld Expanse created during the Battle of Abregado-Rae. Though removed from the original breach, the shard retains a connection to the Netherworld.
• Personal Passage: The glove can create a rift large enough to accommodate the wearer and whatever equipment they are personally wearing or carrying. It cannot be expanded into a gateway for vehicles, formations or whole armies. This is meant as a personal travel and exploration tool rather than rearrange battles and wars.
• Blood or Will: Force-sensitive users can activate the artifact by channeling their own power through the Rift-Shard. Those without the Force may instead awaken the shard through a small offering of their own blood and life energy.
• Fleeting Wound: Rifts created by the glove remain open long enough for personal travel, but cannot create permanent gates.

STRENGTHS

• A Door Where There Was None: The glove allows its bearer to physically enter the Netherworld from locations where no natural rift exists and, provided they survive the journey, create another opening through which to return to Realspace.
• Beyond Walls and Distance: Conventional walls, sealed doors, terrain, borders, and other purely physical obstacles mean little to someone willing to travel through another plane to circumvent them. A bearer familiar with distant locations may even use the Netherworld as an unconventional means of traveling great distances.
• No Sorcerer Required: The Rift-Shard performs much of the dimensional manipulation normally associated with considerably more complicated rituals. While experience with the Netherworld remains extremely useful, the glove allows its fundamental function to be performed by those without extensive knowledge of that realm.

WEAKNESSES

• You Still Have To Walk: The glove is not teleportation. Opening a rift merely places the wearer within the Netherworld. Reaching another location requires navigating the realm and opening another passage out. Distance and time within the Netherworld do not reliably correspond with their Realspace equivalents.
• Here Be Monsters: The glove offers absolutely no protection from the Netherworld itself. Spirits, monsters, hostile entities, warped environments, supernatural phenomena, and whatever else might be waiting on the other side remain the wearer's problem.
• The Door Opens Both Ways: Creating a rift is neither subtle nor consequence-free. Force-sensitive individuals and creatures capable of perceiving dimensional disturbances may notice the breach, while things within the Netherworld may notice someone opening a door into their domain. Particularly unfortunate users may discover that they have become an object of interest to whatever lies behind the newly-opened rift.
• Only What You Carry: The opening cannot be enlarged beyond what is necessary for the bearer and their equipment. This cannot be used to transport large armies, big vehicles or other assets that can rearrange a battlefield. This is meant as a personal transportation tool rather than a strategic device to change the fate of wars.
• Nullification: The Rift-Shard still relies upon the Force to maintain its connection with the Netherworld. Ysalamiri, Force-nullification fields and similar phenomena sever that connection entirely. Blood can substitute for the wearer's own Force sensitivity, but it cannot overcome an environment in which the Force itself has been suppressed.

DESCRIPTION
The Sith Covenant have had a long history of influencing and weaponizing the Netherworld for their own gains. From the very beginning they have utilized starships that use the Netherworld as a passage to their raiding destination, paying a heavy price, as every usage costs the sanity of its ship crew and elaborate rituals to stabilize these efforts. Abregado-rae was the culmination of this philosophy.

First it began with the Tyranny's first appearance over the doomed world. It opened up a large rift that destabilized hyperspace, causing issues for any of the ships present in the sector, but eventually after the meddling of the Mandalorians this controlled rift was ripped open and became a wound in space. From out of it spilled forward ancient Mandalorian spirits and warships to assault the Sith Covenant in space.

While unexpected, several Sith had been already observing the manipulations being done, and eventually through sacrificing their own vitality and strength completely ripped open to wound into a true Expanse of the Netherworld. A carve through space that unleashed hordes of ancient Sith spirits on the world of Abregado-rae, changing the tide and allowing the Sith Covenant to win the day.

The Covenant discovered soon after crystals on the surface of Abregado-rae with a strange connection to the Netherworld.

Even when taken out of the Abregado system, their connection to the Nether persisted. Eventually, after much experimentation, they were combined into an artifact in the shape of a glove, which could open up rifts to the Netherworld in a controlled and personal fashion.

While it had nothing of the awesome power of the Tyranny, it could still serve as a personal gateway towards the Netherworld, continuing the Covenant's machinations to turn the Netherworld into their domain of control.

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