Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: This is a Codex Contest reward for Darth Carnifex. It's a secret hideout of sorts on the homeworld of the Acklays.
- Image Credit: "Heterodoxy_Eagle's Keep" by Wei Guan, found at https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6Vd26
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
SETTING INFORMATION
- Structure Name: Pinnacle Base
- Classification: Ruined military base
- Location: Vendaxa
- Affiliation: [member="Darth Carnifex"]
- Accessibility: Pinnacle Base has been forgotten for centuries, and it's on a cliff. It's virtually impossible to find unless you happen to be tromping around a specific part of Vendaxa's jungle and see a bizarre stone formation.
- Security: Pinnacle Base's primary defense is isolation. Sheer stone faces above and below make incursion challenging. The Sith have installed hidden man traps and repulsors on the cliffs to snare or repel enemies who use the Force, jetpacks, or repulsors to tackle the cliffs. A few defensive autoturrets and sonic fences keep acklays at bay - not because acklays would survive the climb or the fall, but because cleaning up after them is a real pain.
- Description: Pinnacle Base is an ancient, ruined facility dug into a cliff above a jungle full of acklays. The Sith have cleaned it up and made it into a secret redoubt.
POINTS OF INTEREST
- Landing Pad: Under a gigantic stone projection stylized like a bird of prey - and duly reinforced with tensor fields and emergency repulsors, in case of Jedi - sits the landing pad. It's large enough for a handful of small freighters or even a light corvette. Pinnacle Base can fill simple resupply functions (fuel, generic ammunition, and food).
- Cells: It just wouldn't be Carnifex without elaborate ways of confining people against their will. Down through stygian stairways, beneath a hundred metres of stone, one finds several Universal Energy Cages and a couple of generic torture droids - the comforts of home.
- Alchemical Forge: This is a new and fairly basic alchemy site, focused on materials alchemy rather than biological manipulation. It's good enough to analyze artifacts, hammer out swords, and make repairs, but you wouldn't want to make masterwork here unless you had plenty of time and blood available.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Pinnacle Base's creators are unknown. They built the temple-slash-redoubt shortly before the Gulag Plague. The virus wiped them out, and the chaos of the Dark Age ruined the site down to bare stone. The Sith rediscovered the location in the modern era quite by chance, when an acklay hunt went ridiculously wrong. They wound up fleeing grumpy apex predators and spotting an unusual rock formation. A running battle up a cliff face ended when acklay climbing capabilities proved insufficient to the task of matching basic Force-jumps. In short, the Sith ran away, used unfair advantage, and hid. Nobody was surprised. Nobody spoke of it after.
Finding that the ruin retained a pleasing echo of despair and a gorgeous view of the sunset, the Sith cleared out the debris. Sensibly, Darth Carnifex killed everyone who knew about the site, apart from his trusted retainers. It's a far cry from a home away from home, but as secret boltholes go, it's a pretty solid choice.
