Darth Strelok
Intent: To create a background arch-enemy for my character Maple Harte, but one just out of reach
Image Credit: BusinessInsider.com http://www.businessinsider.com/scarlett-johansson-terminator-like-cyborg-ghost-in-the-shell-teaser-trailer-2016-11: Maple's search for the Mind-Binder is one frought with paranoia, psychological horror, and mind-screwish elements. This is a character Maple is not even certain she believes exists. As she journey, contradictory evidence both for and against the actual existence of this character will crop up, forcing Maple to journey ever deeper in pursuit of her own personal nightmare. Think a 'Richard Kimble pursuing the One-Armed Man' dynamic. She is a literal take on the idea of a 'Phantom Menace'.
Links: N/A
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: Unknown.
Force Sensitivity: Trained Force Sensitive Master (Believed to be, anyway.)
Species: Believed to be Shi'ido.
Appearance: Varies. The version of the Mind-Binder that haunts Maple's sleep is a grotesque abomination that resembles an thin, hissing, purple skinned Togrutan woman of middle age that is completely naked, with what looks to be ritual scars all over the body. The reports of the witch she believes to be the Mind-Binder is reported to be a fit woman with fair skin and short, jet black hair, clad in a off-white, leather bodysuit, wielding a purple bladed lightsaber-staff.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Mind-Binder (No other known alias)
Loyalties: Believed--ostensibly--to be a member of the Sith Empire
Wealth: If the Mind-Binder truly exists, than Maple suspects she has access to significant financial resources. Only someone like that would be able to hide in any meaningful way for such a skilled tracker as Maple.
Notable Possessions: Lightsaber staff
Skills: What few leads she managed to dig up over the years, corroborated by the scant reports of the travels of a known Dark Sider, as well as the very name of this individual suggests that Mind-Binder specializes in telepathy and mental assaults, as well as extremely realistic illusions. The one known duel believed to involve the woman carrying the staff suggests a Niman practitioner of considerable skill. Very good at cloaking her presence. Telekinesis also seems to be a strong suit.
Personality: The creature Maple has been forced to interact with in her dreams displays elements of sadism and playfullness, with an attitude toward Maple that is uncomfortably too personal and evocative almost of a dominatrix. The creature tries to tempt her to give into madness, and sometimes forces her to relieve certain moments of her life that were extremely painful for the ex-jedi. At times it will also act with affection perversely similar to that of a lover, though it exudes nothing but a writhing corruption to Harte, who is completely repelled by it no matter what. The Darksider that carries the saberstaff is said to exude a playfulness in combat, with an almost casual air about her as she interacts with people, and is said to delight in ripping information from people's minds, or using telepathy to drive people insane. Derives "extreme" pleasure from the act of Force draining.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: The description of the Darksider in the rumor that has led Maple out into the open one last time is an intelligent and vicious creature that seems to rely on wits, seduction, and surprise, backed up by a strong command of sheer plain social engineering. When Maple eventually encounters her, the witch is coy about just how much she knows about Maple, but clearly knows Maple is schizophrenic, taunting her with the very distinct possibility that her very interactions with her might be no more real than any other delusion Maple has had. As she is a Shi'ido, she can and will resort to disguise.
Combat Function: The Darksider Maple encounters in the real world, (or rather, as real as it gets for Maple) often avoids physical combat as long as possible, relying on powerful mental attacks that cause fear and terror in a target, or trying to rip information from peoples minds, often hiding her signature before engaging her target. She also seems to favor telekinetic strangulation but rarely uses it to throw heavy objects. But when pressed to lightsaber combat she seems to rely on a very defensively tuned Niman, always prefering to give ground when possible. But Harte isn't fooled for a second, recognizing creativity when she sees it, and knows better than some Jedi that Niman is no form to scoff at. The staff wielder will retreat until she sees an opening and then become extremely aggressive, borrowing from Ataru in her slashes and strikes, occasionally using Force Pull to draw the target into a fatal radius of strikes from left, right, and diagonal.
Strengths:
Talented Mentalist: The Witch in the real world is said to be able to penetrate the mental defenses of even experienced Jedi familiar with this sort of attack, having an extremely strong will that is difficult to suppress and keep away from one's inner mind. She can conjour illusions realistic enough that the target will believe what they are experiencing is real, even if its the most horrifying thing the witch can think of. Very good at stealing information from minds, leaving the victim a wreck. Very strong distance telepathy communication and Force persuasion
Extreme agility and reflexes: The witch in the actual physical reality displays even faster reflexes and mobility than Maple, easily dodging the attacks of others, and plays a defensive combat as long as possible, using taunts and innuendo to get under the skin of her opponents, before unleashing a frenzied, highly mobile counter attack that employs Force pulls.
Drain Expert: The Witch Maple actually comes across is said to be highly gifted at Force Drain, deriving pleasure from the hideous act. She needs time and a lot of will to Focus her power, but once she has the target must either break her concentration, somehow escape, or die. She cannot use it in active battle however.
Seductress: In both the nightmares and the real world, the Witch Maple believes to be the Mind-Binder displays a friendly, inviting, flirtatious attitude to those she encounters, using this to lull their defenses before dropping the act and displaying her latent viciousness. In Maple's case, she remains coy, trying to stoke anger in Harte by flirting or taunting her about her past. She seems to toy with the Bounty Hunter as much as genuinely fight her, constantly trying to throw Maple off her guard, trying to break whats left of Harte's will down, seemingly savoring the idea of simply turning her to the Dark Side. Maple's own disillusionment with the Jedi has made her far more susceptible to this approach then she cares to admit.
Weaknesses:
Highly vulnerable to parrying and power attacks: Maple has so far detected one glaring weakness in the actual witch's saber technique. Her focus on defensive dodging and parying while retreating means a fast and powerful attacker could batter down her defenses with ease. All it might take is one blow, delivered fast and hard enough and at just the right moment to end the whole thing. This weakness is inferred to be why the witch got so good at telepathic assault
Specialized Focus: the specialized nature of the actual witch's training is focused solely on bypassing the mental defenses of lone targets. This naturally requires a great deal of concentration and focus, during which she is highly vulnerable to external interference. Ambushing lone targets in isolated areas, or simply imprisoning them beforehand, are where she is most effective in her Force usage.
Dark flare: Despite her pretty looks in the real world, the witch exudes a high level of corruption, such that every Force user in the immediate vicinity will immediately know what kind of threat they are facing, and how dangerous she is. She often suppresses her signature because of this.
Dependant on Drain: She derives pleasure from draining, so much so she is addicted. As a result if she goes more than three weeks without draining, she starts to lose her volutious form and degrades into shriveled, sagging, rail thin creature with putrid yellow skin, losing the ability to maintain human features, or any other features as a Shi'ido, until she drains someone again, preferably a Force user. She is extremely physically weak in this state, unable to do combat except through the Force, the strain of doing so without feeding running the risk of killing her.
Extremely weak near light side nexuses: The actual witch cannot enter a place strong in the light without weakening herself, and compromising her focus. She will feel sick and nauseated until she leaves.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Of all the enemies Maple slew when she was a Shadow, there was one she would have gladly traded an arm for to track down and destroy: The Mind-Binder. She first heard this name from a dying seer who she comforted in his last days, who warned the young Jedi Shadow that she would eventually become the apprentice to a hideously evil Sith bearing this moniker. Consumed by a secret dread of her own future, Maple hunted for any trace of this Sith, interrogating countless other Sith as to any possible whereabouts for this individual. But the answer was always the same, no matter what: they had never heard of her. The Mind-Binder does not exist, they would always say. Even an imperial intelligence officer said the same: No such Sith bearing this moniker exists within the empire. Frustrated, she eventually was forced to conclude much the same until the events on Mimban. In light of her later onset of schizophrenia, and her own uncertainty as to when the symptoms really started to first manifest, as well as her uncertainty as to the witch herself whose rumor she is chasing, Maple has formulated multiple theories, all of which are deeply conflicting to one another:
Theory One: The dying seer was incorrect. The future is always in motion, as the Jedi say, and the event he predicted simply won't occur. Thus the only foe she has been chasing is one she created in her own head through fear of the old mans prediction coming to pass, and is now mistakenly associating this irrational fear with her hunt for a witch that she has conflated with a non-existant foe in her delusional state. While her discovery on mimban might seem to contradict this theory, it should be noted Maple has regularly questioned the accuracy of her recall of those events.
Theory Two: The seer was correct, but whatever Maple did in the process has at least delayed the Mind-Binder's emergence until now. This is in line with the statement made to Harte on Mimban: The Mind-Binder doesn't exist 'yet'. This is contradicted by the cultists claim that despite not yet existing, the Mind-Binder seems to personally favor Maple as her most desirable apprentice, as well as the fact that the witch she eventually encounters seems to have a passing familiarity with her.
Theory Three: The whole thing with the dying seer never actually happened, and is in fact the earliest schizoid episode Maple Harte suffered, which drove all her actions from the moment she believed it happened, and beyond. Thus, her 'encounters' with the saber staff wielding witch are no more real than her earlier versions of belief in the Mind-Binder's existance.
Theory Four: In trying to avert the seers prediction, she somehow created the Mind-Binder by unknowingly setting off a metaphorical chain of dominoes in her quest to rid herself of her foe's existance.
Theory five: Maple herself is the Mind-Binder, and the creature she encounters in her dreams sometimes is actually her own id, trying to convince the rest of her to embrace the Dark Side and give into madness, thus, the staff wielder is actually a manifestation of her own evil. This is supported by the fact that they seem to have uncannily similar methods of melee combat, and like the witch, Maple once had more esoteric specialties in the Force that did not lend themselves easily to open battle. This is contradicted by the fact that Maple IS coming across the aftermath of a darksider's wicked acts against innocent people, often with no survivors. 'Someone' is engaging in all this depravity, and whoever is posseses skills Maple herself knows she never trained in.
Theory Six: Maple is actually dead and this entire experience is her personal hell. While this would easily clear up quite a lot of confusion, Maple gets the feeling that actual hell would be a lot worse than the slog she finds herself in.
Whatever the case, the earliest real feeling Maple had that something was amiss was a dark, seductive voice that spoke to her in her sleep, promising her power. The words of a dying seer actually gave voice to a fear she had possesed for months: That a darksider was somehow in contact with her mind, this voice spurred her to journey on, desperate to silence the threat she believed it represented. After she left the Order and changed her name, Maple was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Desperate to make money, she took up bounty hunting to eat, even as her delusions grew more pronounced. The voice at this point began to manifest more fully as a nightmarish abomination that stalked her through her memories in her sleep, trying to make Harte go into the Dark Side, seemingly fancying itself as the devil on Maple's shoulder, alternating between regular cruelty by plunging her into her worst memories, and a perverse, sinister, and, Maple believes, false affection. The abomination in her sleep has only grown more intense in its efforts however.
As for the witch she encounters the earliest known encounter of anyone that would fit what Maple believes to be the real Mind-Binder was an incident on an isolated trade outpost, where a powerful Jedi had been found as a psychotic wreck after what was later confirmed to be telepathic torture, the outpost had several dozen other inhabitants, all defenseless civilians, half found dead, and the other half just as mentally broken as the Jedi. Force Sensitive children were taken, presumably for training or worse. There are no coherent witnesses. Only carnage. Only twisted victims driven feral. Those who have encountered the woman matching the description of the witch Maple is chasing, have found her charming and seductive. This is only a mask however, as she is said to always have ulterior motives for interacting with anyone. The charm drops and the sadism comes out once someone is at her mercy however, and a string of dead intelligence agents, Force Adepts, and mentally destroyed people either by the Force or by sheer cunning, are so far the only things Maple has to convince herself that the witch she is chasing is the one she has always feared.The only thing scarier to Maple is that the Mind-Binder, in dream or reality, seems to have an unusual fixation on turning Maple in particular to the Dark Side, willing to go to great lengths to get Maple to succumb to temptation anyway she can think of. The actual darksider seems to work to some terrible purpose only she comprehends, and is powerful enough that Maple knows her best chance may be to simply kill the witch from afar. In Maple's nightmares, the witch controls all the ex-jedi experiences
SKILLS (Alleged)
Force Sense (***)
Force Speed (**)
Force Insanity (**********)
Force Suppression (****)
Tear Knowledge (**********)
Force Persuasion (*****)
Force Illusion (**************)
Force Choke (****)
Force Pull/Push (*******)
Force Drain (********************)
Force Stealth (******)
Force Lightning (**)
Piloting (*****)
Disguise (****************)
Saberstaff (***)
Shii-Cho (*)
Niman (***)