Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
Image Source: Heron-mark blade from Fable Blades
Intent: A personal weapon for Ashin Varanin
Development Thread: Heavy Arms
Manufacturer: Ashin Varanin
Model: Not applicable
Affiliation: Personal
Modularity: No
Production: Unique
Material: Durasteel/adegan-based Force-imbued blade, Whiphid ivory handle (Velok Emblem, one of the four)
Classification: Sword
Size: Bastard
Length: 1.2m
Weight: 1.5kg
Special Features:
- Full lightsabre resistance (canon)
- High cutting power (canon)
- Faintly visible Force aura (canon)
- Able to destroy/dissipate Dark Side spirits (canon)
- Nonfunctional and lacks resistances while inside a ysalamir field (extrapolated from canon)
- Able to fill the functions of a Velok Emblem (already approved)
- Combination of Force-imbued blade function, Velok Emblem function, and creator's affinity for Force Drain allows Ravening to damage or sever Force bonds when used by its creator
Ravening's handle is a smoothed and altered Velok Emblem, one of four created by Rave Merrill. The handle's powers and limitations are thoroughly discussed elsewhere. Suffice it to say, the sword can partially or wholly negate nearby attempts to bend fate, connections to distant godlike entities, and so forth. These benefits are largely situational and rarely apply.
The important point, however, is when the Emblem's taste for distant Force bonds connects with the property which allows a Force-imbued weapon to sever a Dark Side spirit's bonds to its surroundings and to the material world. The combination is potent. In certain circumstances, Ravening is capable of damaging or severing Force bonds. This function requires a successful and significant hit against an individual or a Force-bond-related item, such as a soul anchor. The damage to the bond is likely to be proportional to the damage inflicted by the corporeal strike. Merely waving the sword between two Force-bonded persons and/or items is not likely to produce much of an effect.
If struck by the sword, a target may experience some or all of the following:
- Decreased Force connection to relatives, teachers, students and others with whom one shares a bond;
- Decreased or severed connection to any person or being who might be attempting to send the target strength/inspiration/Force power/coordination via Force techniques;
- Increased vulnerability to Force Drain via broken bonds;
- Serious difficulty finding and taking a new body after death, if Transfer Essence is within their skillset; if Ravening is used to kill such a character, it is possible that they may not be able to find a new body at all;
- Death (a little redundant).
A blade this powerful, if not made by a master alchemist, requires serious weaknesses. They include the following:
- Increased rate of Dark Side corruption/ageing for the wielder;
- Vastly increased difficulty of suppressing the wielder's Force presence;
- All of the significant limitations and specific requirements of a Velok Emblem;
- Acts as a beacon to all Sithspawn/alchemized beings within several kilometres, regardless of whether the wielder manages to hide herself and the sword in the Force;
- If left alone for too long, or in the hands of someone other than its maker, may begin to form a wound in the Force spontaneously, leading to awkward conversations;
- In rare cases, when a target's Force bonds have been severed, they may spontaneously and randomly re-form, sometimes producing consequences just as dangerous to the wielder as to the target.
