Technological Terror
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To codify the lore of the Helix Privateers' in-house assassins
- Image Credit: Generated by me via Chatgpt
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Organization Name: House of Mists and Shadows
- Classification: Religious Cult/Criminal Organization
- Affiliation: Helix Privateers/The Dzara
- Organization Symbol: A masked humanoid skull over two crossed shortswords.
- Description: A group of fanatical, semi-occultic assassins sworn to serve a particular master.
- Headquarters: Helix Privateers' Fleet
- Domain: The House holds no territory as such, but its operatives can be found nearly anywhere.
- Notable Assets: N/A
- Hierarchy: The House answers (for the moment) to Helix, who is its de facto owner and ruler. Otherwise, hierarchy is a matter of simple seniority and renown. An older, more experienced member carries more weight than a new initiate.
- Membership: The House is believed to include no more than a few hundred members, though their reticence towards discussion with outsiders makes any verification difficult. New members are very rarely accepted, and most often are picked from already-proven soldiers, spies, and assassins. Nonetheless, it is not unknown for the House to occasionally accept and train people from nearly all walks of life.
- Climate: House members are quite protective and warm to those within their own ranks, though disrespect of a senior is harshly punished. Overall, the climate is monastic, restrictive, and deadly serious.
- Reputation: Those few who are aware of the House's existence at all almost invariably view them with horror and revulsion.
- Curios: As a rule, House members try not to carry anything linking them back to the House. Nonetheless, there are no restrictions placed on individual members in the collection and carrying of trophies or personal items.
- Rules: The House views itself as a blade in the hand of a master. The Master's will is absolute, and to be obeyed without question. This individual may wield the House for good or evil reasons, though by their very nature, the House tends to be used for evil ends. House members otherwise observe few rules, save absolute obedience to any member senior to oneself. Members are (when not currently on contract) theoretically free to do as they please.
- Goals: The House's goals are the goals of whomever currently leads them. They are the definition of uncaring lethality, content to a blade in the hand of another. Under Helix's headship, their goals are simple targeted murder directed at whomever he sees fit.
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HISTORICAL INFORMATION
As the Helix Privateers waged war in nearly every corner of the galaxy, its troops were exposed to numerous new and exotic people, cultures, and belief systems.
The Privateers absorbed (willingly or otherwise) many new members from these far-flung places, gradually becoming a somewhat more culturally-diverse force, and from these emerged the House of Mists and Shadows.
The House's exact provenance is somewhat unclear. Some blame frequent socialization with Sith troops, others claim that the fleet picked up members of a previously-unknown cult at some barely-visited port.
In either case, the House's representatives soon approached Helix, offering loyalty in exchange for a place to lay their heads. The House, so they claimed, was an ancient and secretive order of monastic assassins. From time to time, the House attaches itself to great kings, warlords, and emperors. Most were only too pleased to add these artisan murderers to their ranks.
Helix was no exception. The House was granted two full decks aboard Helix's flagship as their private monastery, and were given hitherto-unheard-of privacy and privilege. In exchange, they would swear their lives and souls to the void-spawned warlord.
It didn't take long for the House to become widely feared amongst Helix's own forces. Numerous supernatural powers were attributed to them, as pirates are by nature both talkative and superstitious. House assassins are said to be able to walk through walls, fade in and out of visibility, and kill with but a whispered word.
The House's deeper beliefs and dogma are as mysterious as they are seemingly fluid. Those few pirates with the courage to inquire have reported back with a wide variety of mutually-conflicting claims about what they were told by the Shadowmen. Most likely, House members simply lie through their teeth about internal matters.
Mysterious too, are the House's exact numbers and capabilities. They are believed to number in the hundreds, and are usually dispatched as lone operatives. In rarer cases, they fight as duos or small teams.
The typical House member is lithe and athletic, clad in form-fitting garments and sporting a disturbing, unique mask. It is believed that, upon joining the House, a neophyte must shed his former identity entirely, and take up a new one for himself. That identity is reflected in the member's mask, which is never removed outside the monastery's walls. Only the House matters, not the individual.
Yet another mystery are the means by which the House inducts new members, and what criteria they select for. Induction is rumored to involve incredibly creative torture, brainwashing techniques, and mind-altering drug use, not unlike the practices of the long-extinct Bando Gora. This serves to warp the individuality of the prospective member, dooming them to a lifetime of murder and vile deeds under the House.
Members are a roughly equal split of males and females, and judging by what little can be gleaned from their concealed forms, mostly human or near-human. Each is a peerless killer, a master of numberless forms of death. Some of the House's members are Force-Sensitive, though they tend to regard the Force as just another means to take life. Those without are most often equipped with the means to even the playing field. In Helix's service, this usually means use of implanted Pygmy Ysalamiri.
House assassins have been seen to favor stealth and close-quarters weaponry, most often short, curved slashing blades. All, however, seem to have an almost innate understanding of how to kill with any object they lay hands on, from blasters to lightsabers to their own two hands. Indeed, to kill with no tool but one's bare hands is seen as the height of accomplishment, and House members tend to be excellent martial artists.
Nonetheless, individual members may vary wildly in their armament, and they may be found utilizing almost any sort of weapon that they can reasonably carry and conceal.
These practices have lead some to label the House as a Dark Side cult. While partially true, the House does not seem to favor Force-Sensitivity in its neophytes, nor does it attribute any significance to any previously-known Dark Side teaching. Only service seems to matter, the ritualized forgetting of oneself and becoming a pitiless, indiscriminate weapon.
As Helix is a founding member of the Dzara, Shadowmen may occasionally be found in the service of any senior Dzara member. They serve the Chain as pitilessly as anyone else, and are among the most lethal tools the coalition can field.
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