OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Shadow Knights and the Vashyada. Give Kaida a battle sister.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Dark Vashyada druidess, warrior, companion for Kaida and Eyrecae.
Permission: N/A.
Links: Tygara, Tylania, Behelian Canyon, Eyrecae, Nova Bank, Shadow Knights (lore submission), Elpsis, Eldorai.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 65.
Force Sensitivity: Knight.
Species: Vashyada.
Appearance: Sabatay is a tall Vashyada female with pale skin, pointed ears and long, wild red hair. In her early days she lived a sheltered existence, but life in the forest was still very dangerous, forcing her to build up some muscle. Then she was raptured and her life turned into a vicious struggle for survival. Compared to the other Eldorai races, Vashyada are quite tough.
Her build is lean rather than overly imposing, but Sabatay has built up muscle on her arms, legs and abdomen. However, her pale skin is also marred by numerous scars. Even advanced medical technology has been unable to fully heal them. She has blue eyes, an intense gaze and a fierce countenance. She likes to wear a silver, dragong earring. It looks like it is climbing round her ear. Sabatay will commonly wear a suit of light armour when in combat. Outside of it she gravitates to robes or spacer clothes.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Sabtay. This means 'Forgotten' in Prosbia, the common Vashyada language. Her original name was Rashana Karesh. She gave up her birth name when she consciously decided to forsake her old beliefs, even if it meant exile and being forgotten. Hence the name.
Loyalties: Shadow Knights, Vashyada outcasts, Circle of Izlechivat, Kaida.
Wealth: Sabatay has some loot stashed away. She also receives remuneration from the Shadow Knights. The pay is on a sliding scale based on experience, rank, reward and so on. She supplements her salary by creating potions, poisons or talismans and selling them to customers or teaching others about herbology. Sabatay has some loot stashed away from her bounty-hunter days. However, she is not rich.
Notable Possessions:
- Lightbow
- Bowcaster
- Taozin Amulet.
- Talisman of Transformation
- Dagger with a Devaronian Edge.
- Villip with Oggzil attachment.
- Force Imbued sword and tomahawk. Both have the standard attributes of a Force imbued weapon: Higher cutting power than conventional melee weapons, lightsabre resistance and the ability to damage and destroy dark side spirits.
- Sabatay is the proud rider of a Partuz called Night-Runner. Kaida is unsettled by the big spider. Not frightened per se but uncomfortable with it being there. Sabatay even made a joke about that at her expense.
With the Force, she is skilled in Plant Surge, Earth Shaping, Force Affliction, telekinesis and Animal Friendship. Moreover, she can use Force Weapon to imbue a normal weapon (or even a walking stick) with the Force for a short while. By channeling energy into the weapon, it allows her to strike and do more damage than the weapon's simple appearance would suggest. As a useful side effect, a Force-imbued weapon can be used to block a lightsabre without damaging the weapon in the process. Moreover, she is proficient in Control Pain, a technique that enables her to suppress the effects of a pain-inflicting injury, allowing her to transcend normal pain thresholds. Obviously the injury still remains and needs to be treated. It also permits negation of stun blasts and allows her to ignore pain affecting her that is not from an injury. Finally, she can use Crucitorn. Sabatay has a knack for stealth and is good at sneaking.
Sabatay was trained how to forage and hunt beasts. She is good at climbing and a talented shot. She has replaced her old long bow with high-tech equivalents that are actually effective against opponents who wear modern armour, such as a bowcaster or an energy bow. She is capable of using a Talisman of Transformation. Aside from Prosabia, the common Vashyada language, Sabatay knows Basic, Eldarai and has a rough understanding of Huttese. She speaks Galactic Basic and Eldarai with a strong accent, but is understandable. Sometimes she exaggerates it or slips into Prosabia to annoy Eldorai Shadow Knights who have vexed her for some reason.
Personality: Vashyada are a peaceful people who live in harmony with and revere nature. They are dedicated followers of the Light who abhorr the Dark. Unlike their Xioquo and Qadiri cousins, the isolationist Vashyada do not wage wars of aggression. However, they are fierce and unyielding in defence. Nature is to be venerated, but the forest they inhabit are also dangerous, making them skilled hunters and guerilla fighters. Many an invader who trespassed on their land has discovered that their technological backwardness does make them meek. But their technology has remained static, leaving them at what could be considered a medieval tech level. Their culture is decentralised, tribalistic and isolationist.
This is the common stereotype at any rate. There are always people who swim against the stream. For instance, there are a few Light Side Xioquo, even though the drows are steeped in the Dark Side. Likewise, there are Vashyada who have defied the norms of their people. Sabtay might say that she grew tired of flowers and pacifism. Ironically, she was once a model Vashyada. Indeed, she was more dedicated to the old ways than most of her people. Her clan lived close to the core of Ysarkul. In these dark forests and mountains life was a careful balance of venerating, respecting and fearing nature. Her clan had never seen a Qadiri or a Xioquo, the hereditary enemies of her race. As a result, she is not prejudiced against them.
Then one day this sheltered druidess found herself in the maelstorm of the Netherworld. At first, she tried to resist temptation. Light Side did not mean meek after all. Then she emerged on Corellia, forged by the traumatic events she had endured. Here she found a myriad people from all over the Galaxy. However, what she did not find was kindness and understanding, but greed, malice and opportunity. It did not help that the Netherworld Event had devastated Corellia. She dedicated herself to one thing: survival by any means necessary.
Her fall from grace was a gradual one. The best kind of fall is the imperceptible one, after all. The one you do not even realise until you do not care and it is too late. Events have forged her into a militant survivalist. She is tough, cynical and self-reliant. She has not fully given up on the nature-worshipping ways, but her experiences have twisted them. The forest is not kind, after all. It is full of dangers and life in it is jungle. This reflects the struggle between the myriad sentient beings that populate the Galaxy, each of them out for themselves. She still dislikes the sprawling, 'artificial' cities that have no green in them, though she has grown adept at hunting in them.
Her experiences in the Netherworld have convinced her that higher beings exist, but they are not merciful and loving. One prays to them to avoid being toyed with. The gods are not good - that is why they are gods. They do not help those who do not help themselves. Her spiritual nature and her experiences in the Netherworld have left her with a connection of sorts to the realm of the dead. She can sense death, nether energies and other aspects related to the Netherworld. This also allows her to see and converse with ghosts. Others find these traits creepy or morbid. The druidess did all she could to escape the Netherworld. Yet at the same time she finds herself drawn towards eldritch entities, ghosts and the mockery they make of reality.
Above all else, Sabatay is a survivor. She looks down on those among her people who cling to the old ways or, from her point of view, are keeping the Vashyada from progressing and seeing the world for what it really is. Her moral compass is definitely warped, but she has some positive traits. She has a good work ethic and is always seeking out new information. She is also brave in combat, often to the point of ferocity. She has a rather dark sense of humour. Sabatay is fierce in battle, but rather than lose herself in a berserk rage, she is like a predator on a hunt.
Sabatay has fallen in with the Shadow Knights because they are outcasts, renegades and survivalists like her. They are also kin and have teachers she can learn from and acolytes she can teach. The mainstream Vashyada actively persecute followers of the dark side, though they do not let this degenerate into killing. Thus she could not return to them unless she disavowed her beliefs and repented. She finds this hypocritical because the Vashyada recently entered an alliance of necessity with Firemane, whose warriors include Dark Jedi. She sees this as a validation of her beliefs.
Unsurprisingly, Tryana and Sabatay have a poor relationship. Like Sabatay, Tryana has become an outcast among her people, who were disturbed by her aggression, seeing it as a step towards the dark side. However, her exile was less traumatic. While Tryana thinks her people are too passive and superstitious, she still tries to uphold the traditions she sees as important and follows a moral code close to that of the Vashyada Rangers. Moreover, she holds Tylania in high regard. Sabatay sees her as naive and reacts poorly when Tryana tries to convert her.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Melee weapons | Bowcaster, Bolt-thrower or Lightbow | The Force.
Combat Function: The life she has lived has shaped Sabatay into a skilled fighter. Unlike their Eldorai cousins, Vashyada are strong and hardy. This makes her tough in combat. She is fond of using a bowcaster or a high-tech bow at range and melee weapons imbued with the Force up close. Bowcasters are more powerful and accurate than blaster weapons, but also heavier and have a lower rate of fire. If she needs to take out an opponent at range without making noise, she favours a dart rifle or a bolt-thrower. The latter weapon is silent, while having the same range and stopping power as a bowcaster, but is only able to fire one bolt at a time before a timely reloading sequence. Her elemental Earth powers give her potent defensive and offensive abilities. She can also use her powers to poison or debilitate opponents and is skilled in plant surge. She is quick on her feet and has very keen senses.
However, Sabatay is uncomfortable in conditions of extreme heat and will tire more easily in such environments. Living in the cold temperate forests and chill mountains of Yarkul, the Vashyada rarely encountered temperatures over the bare minimum of tropical realms. She also suffers from agoraphobia and finds wide open areas unsettling. Her advanced senses in these cases can even be a hindrance as she finds it more difficult to focus. This is something a particularly canny mentalist might be able to exploit. Her sensitive hearing allows her to pick up on things others might miss. But at the same time it makes her more susceptible to high-pitched frequencies such as those emitted by sonic weapons. Sabatay still bears the scars of her time in the Netherworld. The trauma she suffered represents a significant vulnerability that a capable mentalist could exploit to disorientate, confuse or mentally torture and hurt her.
Sabatay is used to melee weapons with actual weight behind them and is not proficient in the use of a lightsabre. Lacking the necessary training, she would be rather clumsy if she say found a lightsabre on the battlefield and tried to use it. A Force imbued weapon can resist a lightsabre and has superior cutting power than a conventional melee weapon. But its cutting power is inferior to that of a lightsabre, meaning it cannot cut through a blast door like Qui-Gon did nor can it be used to melt through a solid wall or vehicle plating.
The direct elemental counter to earth abilities is air. Earth is about defence and grounded priorities. By contrast, air is more flexible and outflanks earth. Sabatay hast lost her Force healing abilities due to straying from the Light. This means that she must rely on her ability to evade or tank attacks or suppress her pain. She is not skilled as a pilot and as limited skill with galactic tech. Sabatay is more used to agility. Hence she wears more lightweight armour that gives her room to manoeuvre and does not impede sneaking. This obviously leaves her more vulnerable to heavy attacks, which ties in with the aforementioned weakness.
Strengths:
- Talented druid, poisoner and earth shaper.
- Experienced bounty-hunter and stealthy operator. Strong and hardy due to Vashyada heritage and training.
- Lacks training in the use of a lightsabre.
- Sensitive hearing makes her susceptible to high-pitch frequencies such as sonic weapons.
Sabatay was born a few decades before Tygara was opened up to the outside Galaxy - and later abandoned by its people in a mass exodus to the stars. Sabatay means Forgotten in the tongue of the Vashyada, but it was not her birth name. Rather it is the one she chose for herself after she had remoulded herself into something different and abandoned the ways of her people. Her birth name was Rashana Karesh. Her father was a druid, while her mother was a huntress. Vashyada are a heavily clan-based society, divided into dozens of petty chiefdoms, monarchies, oligarchies, tribal democracies and theocracies. The small population, difficulties of supply and movement meant that no united nation had ever emerged. Sometimes the clans fought over territory or resources, though these clashes tended to be small and localised. Most battles were resolved by skirmishes or duels between champions.
In principle all Vashyada acknowledged the authority of the dual monarchy of the High King and High Queen, a rather unique creation as each monarch was symbolically married to each other, but maintained completely separate households and families. The reason for this rather odd partnership dated back to the distant past when two factions of the Vashyada made peace after a period of strife. However, though being theoretical lieges of all Vashyada, the dual monarchs held little real power. Occasionally a strong-willed leader would attempt to enforce central authority, but be countered by a coalition. A being known as Tylania, regarded as a demigoddess and prophetess, was a unifying factor among the Vashyada.
Though she refrained from taking the reins of power due to her Light Side beliefs, she acted as an oracle, informal adviser and more often than not tiebreaker in disputes. The tribe of Rashana lived far away from Vastyro, the largest and most populous city of the wood elves. Indeed, her people seldom interacted with Vashyada from other clans because their location was so remote. Centuries ago her clan had settled in the very core of Yarkul, where the landscape was defined by mountains and dark forests. These lands were rather dangerous, wild and untamed.
The Dark Heart of the forest was regarded as cursed and it fell to the tribespeople who lived here to guard it. Here and there, Vashyada from other clans came to this place. These tended to be wood elves going on a pilgrimage to the Dark Heart, either to test their resolve against the dangers that lurked there or acquire some of the precious herbs that could cure diseases their medicine and sorcery had no answer for. Sometimes Vashyada who had committed a wrong or whose purity in the Light was in doubt also undertook a mission to redeem themselves. The Void Stalkers, a a group of warriors recruited from several tribes, guarded the barrier between the Dark Heart and the rest of the forest. However, contacts with other Vashyada clans were fleeting and most of her clan had never even seen a Qadiri or Xioquo, the hereditary enemies of her people. As a result, other Vashyada tended to regard her people as ignorant and ill-informed of the rest of the world.
By contrast, Rashana's kin tended to regard themselves as the purest Vashyada, who held true to the old ways. It was unthinkable for one of them to turn their back on tradition and embrace the Dark. Here life was a delicate balance between respecting, worshipping and fearing nature. This was the world Rashana grew up in. From an early age, she learned to hunt, forage and track, but also be respectful of nature's gifts. Her mother taugh the art of the hunt, her father instructed her to how to worship the Mother Sun and be respectul of the game she slew to sustain herself and the tribe.
Once her Force-Sensitivity manifested, she received instruction in the ways of the Light. First it was her father who taught her, then a priestess who was part of Tylania's circle of adepts. Young Rashana was a kind, gregarious and compassionate girl who was easy to like. She showed a strong affinity for healing powers and animals. When a member of her clan was menaced by a huge spider she was able to use her affinity to calm and drive off the beast ere it could strike the killing blow. Her healing powers helped hold the poison her friend had been infected with at bay until a more experienced druid could provide a lasting cure. She was also adept at creating potions and often took care of the younger children of the clan.
However, as time passed, the girl was increasingly troubled by dark visions that were filled with doom and tragedy. Disturbed by these dreams, she consulted the priestesses. She was advised to venture to a dark cave in the core of the forest. Rashana went on this quest and after overcoming the hazards that sought to block her path, entered it. At first the cave was so dark that she could not see, forcing her to rely on her other senses and the Force to navigate.
Then she finally reached a lake inside the cave, where there was light. She found herself facing a dark warrior, a being corrupted by Darkness. Unused to fighting sentient beings, she tried to reason with her opponent, but the entity assaulted her. Though she wielded her staff with skill and courage, she was backed into a corner and beaten by the stranger's dark sorcery. Fear, no doubt enhanced by the dark presence of the cave, gripped her heart and she lashed out with the Force to smite her opponent. The mask the entity was wearing vanished and she found herself staring at a mirror image, except it was one tainted by the Dark Side. The shock she felt was profound.
Staring down at the lake where her dark mirror had fallen into, she found herself looking at a myriad of possible futures for herself. In one, she became a priestess and healer; in another she was forced to leave the deep core and become a war leader to protect her people; in another she ended up as a slave of foreign elves she didn't recognise; in another again she became an outcast, one of the Forgotten. She also saw herself as an evil sorceress. As she was locked in what seemed like trance, entities suddenly reached out and tried to pull her down. The apparitions attempted to drag her down deeper and deeper. While she struggled in vain to resist, the apparitions kept repeating one word over and over again: Sabatay. The chorus of voices invaded her mind, threatening to drown out thought just as they sought to drown her bodily. Fear and panic threatened to overtake her, but she was able to snap out of it and free herself from their grip before she could drown. Emerging from the cold waters, shaken by what she had seen and done, she fled the cave.
After she had made her way back to her tribe, the priestess told her that the spirits had been offering her a choice and she should reflect on her path. Deeply troubled by what she had seen, Rashana medidated and intensified her studies. She tried to move on from the visions and forget them, believing that she must become more dedicated to the Light. For a while her life returned to normal. Then her life was turned upside down by the mass raptures that heralded the start of Akala's return.
The Netherworld Event led to mass disappearances of trillions of sentient beings across the Galaxy. Even Tygara was not untouched. In Rashana's case, she was raptured while on a hunt with some of her kin. Plucked from the forest she'd called home, the poor wood elf awoke in a cold, lifeless abyss. Around her the spirits and shades of the lost materialised. Wherever she went, they seemed to follow. The spirits could sense that she could see them and were drawn to her. Some begged to escape, some were unaware that they were dead, some vented their fury on her. At first the confused wood elf tried to help the ghosts, but being trapped in the abyss took a toll on her. She passed a river of blood. More blood rained down from the dark sky. It was so hot that it burnt her skin.
Others spirits tried to possess her, seeing this as a way to return to flesh. One of those was a spirit who appeared in the guise of an aunt of hers, who had been lost in the Dark Heart of Yarkul. The apparition claimed that she could lead Rashana out of the abyss, but actually sought to lead her into a trap. At almost the last moment, Rashana could resist the possession attempt as the spirit sought to take control of her. However, the spirit cursed her. Rashana was stranded in the Behelian Canyon, a nightmarish place in the realm of Chaos. The path to the depth of the chasm was eerily silent. Skulls covered by hoods stared down at her. The footing was so flat and smooth she had to watch her step, lest she slip. She found herself in a wide, seemingly endless plain rolling outwards to a horizon that logically could not be there. The plain confused and frightened her. A crushing weight bore down on her, seeking to swallow her. Skeletons of every species known to the Galaxy, some ivory and new, but most marred, dirty and ancient - looked up from the earth at her. Even the sparse trees were made of twisted skeletons.
There was no wind, no rain, no voices. She would have preferred any of those to the dirt and silence. At one point, she saw her own body lying on the ground, rotting away before her eyes. Madness threatened to seize her. The Vashyada called the Force the spirits but here she was trapped in their realm, and it was hell. Rashana prayed to the goddesses and gods of her people, but there was naught but silence. She repeated one word over and over again in her mind. Sabatay. She would not be forgotten. She would not be trapped. This determination eventually helped her find her way out of the canyon.
Emerging through a portal, she found herself in a strange land called Corellia. This world had suffered greatly during the events associated with the Netherworld Crisis. Akala's actions had caused the netherworld rifts to sunder Corellia and the former Vong world of Lashtu. This separated sections of the two planets, only to mash them together. The cities crumbled under the weight of the burst of the Force, incinerated in a violent wave of light. This caused the deaths of millions, as the worlds crumbled apart. Private corporations and the planet's new One Sith overlords would initiate reconstruction efforts, but the devastation was cataclysmic.
This was the world Rashana found herself on. Confused and alone, in a wasteland far away from home, inhabited by strange people whose language she did not even understand. When she wandered through the wasteland, she had to protect herself from bandits. Her attackers were just refugees like her, but they had been driven to desperation by the poor conditions. However, it was they or her. She chose herself. She could not help see herself as cursed. At first she feared that she had not escaped the Nether realm and this was just another trick to torment her. But she realised that this was an alien world. But there was no green and no lakes. She could hear the song of the forest. All she saw were ruined cities that had the mark of death upon them.
Eventually she found herself in an overcrowded refugee camp, alongside thousands of humans and aliens from all walks of life. Here, life was harsh. Humanitarian organisations donated aid in form of food, clothes and medical supplies, but these were still scarce. The unscrupulous took advantage of the weak. Hunger, sickness and fear drove people to do desperate things. A plethora of apocalyptic cults tried to proselytise among the forsaken, many of whom had lost friends and loved ones.
The cultural and linguistic barriers Rashana faced were daunting. Nonetheless, she found work as a healer, applying her knowledge of traditional medicine. It was difficult to get the necessary herbs though, so she had to improvise. When one of the patients under her care died she was shaken. Her basic knowledge of imbuement helped her create talismans. She joined a band of salvagers, who scavenged the ruins for items and pieces of tech that could be sold for profit. Inevitably they clashed with other groups that had the same in mind. At first Rashana was hesitant to kill, but soon became easier, especially after a gang of smugglers tried to cheat her. Sometimes she had to steal in order to survive. The lost elf replaced her archaic longbow with a bowcaster she was able to buy from an arms dealer. She found that it was a most effective weapon. She learned to keep a dagger or a pistol close by whenever she slept.
Her druid skills could not only be applied to creating healing potions, but also poisons. She was initially hesitant to use them. A gang leader wanted to get rid of a cult boss, whose activities were threatening his interests. The cult guru had menaced her, but it was still a departure from her oath. However, Rashana eventually relented and produced a poison that was secretly administered to the guru. She made sure that his death was relatively painless. However, after his demise fighting broke out, for the gang boss tried to muscle his way into running the camp and others opposed his takeover attempt. Rashana tried to shield innocents, but was targeted herself since some targeted the 'elf witch', forcing her to defend herself.
Around this time supposed aid workers showed up. They presented themselves as talent agents who wanted to help suitable talents among the refugees get a leg up and find jobs offworld. Rashana was one of those approached by the talents agency. The elf really wanted to get off this rock, but after her experiences it seemed to good to be true. She made enquiries, but heard that some young teenagers had accepted the offer of the agency. However, they had ever sent any holomails or money back to their families. Thus she decided to make her own investigations. Stalking one of the agents, she found him meeting with suspicious characters in a bar.
So she broke into his apartment. There she found some documents. Her command of Basic was limited, but the documents seemed to be about the refugees and looked suspicious. She proceeded to look at the strange talking machine that the humans called a holocom and found some messages had been saved on it. One was from a person who called herself a Sith Lord. It did not sound like a 'let's find a job for these talents' conversation. When the talent agent returned to his apartment, she overpowered his bodyguard and cornered him. Not used to interrogation, the agent broke easily and confessed that the agency was a scam. The people it recruited would not be given a job. Instead they would be sold into slavery. The man begged for mercy and offered her money in return for her silence. Overcome by anger and disgust, she killed him right on the spot.
She knew that a new batch of 'talents' would depart the planet soon. So she made haste. The elf was able to sneak onto the starship without being detected. Anxiety seized her when the planet vanished before her eyes and she found herself in the void. Her fear soon turned to anger. The 'recruits' had been given a meal, but the food contained a very strong sedative. When the unconscious youths were being herded, Rashana struck. All the pent-up anger inside her was unleashed in a methodical, calculated outburst of violence. On the ship, there was nowhere for the slavers to run while she set about killing them.
She hunted the slavers across the ship, using her stealthy skills to pursue and slay them before hiding again. It was, as she learned, similar to hunting game in the forest. She was able to rouse some of the captives, who took up arms to help her and get revenge on their captors. She killed with her blade, bowcaster, poison and the Force. When the slavers tried to vent a section of the vessel she was in, she was able to use her terramancy to anchor herself to the ground and then quickly get to safety.
The captain of the ship hid behind a human shield. The slave was injured during her attempt to take down his captor, but survived. She smote the captain with the Force. Then Rashana forced her to swallow poison. Unlike the one that had killed the guru, this one was not painless in the least. While Rashana tended to the slave's injuries, the captain started coughing. Her coughs became more violent and quickly became so severe that her throat closed and she lost the capacity to breathe. The captain desperately gasped for breath and experienced convulsions so violent that it caused her to vomit. Blood ran out of her nose and her face turned purple. The whites of her eyes turned red. Wheezing out her last breath, she died. The captives were free - but also without jobs. The ship - apparently on auto-pilot - had reached its destination: Nar Shaddaa. Moreover, one of the agents had been able to send a distress call. Thus Rashana and the captives were soon pursued by criminals associated with the faux talent agency.
However, an unexpected ally soon appeared on the scene. Ironically, it was the Sith Lord whose voice Rashana had heard on the comm. Her name was Darth Libertas. The Twi'lek was one of the individuals who backed the agency. However, she was not interested in pleasure slaves or labourers. Instead she wanted to see if one of the talents would show real talent by freeing themselves. Thus she forced the goons to back off when Rashana and the captives who had participated in the uprising were cornered.
Pleased with their actions, Libertas offered them a chance to use their real talents and join her group. A number of fugitive captives agreed to join her Sith cult. However, Rashana declined. She would make her own path and not bow to anyone, certainly not someone so manipulative. Much her surprise, the Sith was impressed by her resolution and let her go after giving her some cryptic advice about how freedom was never free and she had to liberate herself from her past in order to truly attain it.
The loot she had been able to acquire during her raid gave Rashana some funds, but once again she was a stranger in a strange land. The polluted, gang-infested, squalid ecumenopolis repulsed her. She realised soon that it was a lawless cesspit. Everyone was out for themselves. The strong trampled on the weak and violently competed with each other for power. After climbing a strange tower, she looked upon this wild jungle of concrete, metal and blood. She reflected upon what she had endured and Libertas' parting words. It was in this moment that Rashana decided to break with the past. The old beliefs of her people had not helped her. Her will to survive had allowed her to endure the tribulations of the spirit realm. She was no longer one of the tribe, so she would reforge herself into something new - stronger and better. Even if it meant becoming forgotten. From this moment on, her name would be Sabatay.
To survive in the hostile environment of Nar Shaddaa, she became a bounty-hunter. As it turned out, hunting sentient prey was not that different from hunting beasts in the forest. You stalked them, analysed their behaviour, strengths and weaknesses, laid traps and ambushed them. The Smuggler's Moon was a cesspit, but not the worst place for a huntress and druidess to be stranded on. Initially the young elf was not taken seriously. One bounty-hunter mocked her aspirations. "Oh great, it's bad enough they're letting non-Mandos in, but now we have a forestling. Yeah, I know your kind. Some hippie leaf merchant tried to persuade me with the power of harmony, but only credits work on me. Just business. Go back to hugging trees, girl, and let the pros do the job." She taught him a lesson by punching him with a fist wrapped in stone. His helmet did not protect him from the concussive force.
At first her targets were low-level criminals and debt evaders, but she soon moved on to more lucrative and thus dangerous contracts. She accepted contracts from the Cartels and corporate entities, earning a reputation for reliability and ruthless competence. Some of her marks were brought in alive, others in bodybags. One of targets was a Jedi called Nabrina Doneeta, who had come to Nar Shaddaa to pursue criminals who had escaped justice. This was noble and perhaps naive. Sabatay stalked the Jedi, learning all she could about her.
Finally, Sabatay ambushed her in the slums, using a dart rifle and traps that released gas. She was able to weaken and momentarily stun the Jedi. But then Nabrina got a second wind and deceived her by summoning an illusionary copy, causing her to fire on it. This enabled the Jedi to trace her position through the Force. Cloaking herself, she snuck up on Sabatay. When the elf realised her error, she was upon her. A mental attack disorientated Sabatay, but she regained her bearings, channelling her fury from having her mind tampered with in the Netherworld.
The two crossed blades. Sabatay was a ferocious fighter, able to inflict injury on her opponent by combining swordplay and Force use. Her own sword was imbued with the Force through Force Weapon, preventing the Jedi from cutting it in half. However, her sword was slower than Nabrina's lightsabre and the Jedi was more experienced in fighting Force-user. After Nabrina hammered her with telekinesis, Sabatay's concentration slipped and her opponent could disarm her. The Jedi demanded she tell her who had hired her and gave her a chance to live, if she surrendered. Reaching into her mind, she felt the trauma from the Netherworld inside her and tried to use the Force to sway her.
However, her words and the mental invasion steeled her determination. Drawing upon her elemental gift, she caused the ground beneath Nabrina to tremble and quake. This knocked her off-balance and she hit the ground hard. Sabatay quickly grabbed her poisoned dagger, scoring a cut on the Jedi's leg. The Devaronian blood poison caused Nabrina excruciating pain. Crucitorn helped intensify it. In spite of the agony she resisted. The two wrestled, but Sabatay managed to overpower her. The Jedi needed treatment to keep her from dying. She was delivered to Sabatay's employer, Zujo the Hutt. In the best tradition of Hutt gangsters, Zujo had his minions freeze Nabrina in carbonite and hung her on the wall of his throne room. Sabatay used her earnings to commission an alchemist to create an imbued sword and tomahawk for her. The elf opted to remain an independent bounty-hunter rather than join the Bounty Hunters' Guild. It was an ancient institution she had no connection to.
She was part of the hit squad that abducted Mani, the prophet of the Covenant of Uriel. Like her, he had been raptured, but drawn an entirely different conclusion. Prior to being raptured, Mani had been a cruel Sith Knight called Darth Occidus. However, what he endured in the Netherworld caused him to turn a new leaf. He became convinced that he must atone for his sins. Attributing his escape from Chaos to an entity he called Uriel, he considered his deity to be an Angel of the Light. His sect drew most of its members from the downtrodden of the moon. His attempt to rally the poor and impoverished in a fiery crusade offended the powers that be. His abduction was aided by one of his disciples, Brother Marcion, an unprincipled, venal con artist who had wormed his way into the cult, but feared that his leader's fire and brimstone rhetoric would undo it - and thus deprive him of power. So he fed information about Mani's plans to the bounty-hunter.
Sabatay found the Bando Gora mercenaries she had to work with on the operation deeply repulsive, considering them depraved, chaotic scum. Indeed, she killed one of the cultists for his lack of discipline and pointless cruelty, then fed his remains to a kath hound to make a point. Another lost her tongue for torturing a captured Covenanter against Sabatay's orders. The rest fell in line after that. Mani himself was executed at the behest of the Hutts. Sabatay found herself respecting the man more than she did her supposed allies. So she gave him a clean death after letting him finish his prayers, though she doubted his god was listening. Ironically, his death would later allow Sumiko Tanaka to briefly become leader of the Covenant and wipe out the dark cultists after using them as stooges.
Sabatay was also sent after one of Zujo's lawyers, who had absconded with a treasure trove of the Hutt's secrets after a falling out with his increasingly paranoid, arbitrary boss. The huntress pursued him and managed to infiltrate his hideout, after discovering its location by interrogating his lover. But once she had caught up with him and taken out his bodyguards, the lawyer swallowed cyanide rather than face capture. The lawyer had been savvy enough to anticipate the eventuality of his death. Thus he had created a dead man's switch. Upon the cessation of his life functions, all the secrets he had stolen went public. Angered by this, the Hutt refused to pay her and dared her to try and do something about it. However, Sabatay was quite insistent about getting paid. As it turned out, she was not the only who had issues with Zujo. For one, many who had been wronged or cheated by him wanted his head, especially after his dirty laundry had been aired. He retreated to his heavily guarded space yacht.
Sabatay teamed up with a young human called Elpsis Kallikora. The somewhat angsty, fiery teenager was a pyromancer, smuggler and itinerant mercenary. She had gotten on Zujo's bad side by losing one of his shipments to a Galactic Alliance patrol. They were able to infiltrate the Hutt's yacht using stolen codes. Elpsis impersonated a crew member while the Vashyada stowed away on her ship. Once aboard, they tore through the ship. It helped that the Hutt's assets were also under assault by his rivals. Sabatay's terramancy and Elpsis' fire bending proved to be a lethal combination, though the elf found the human to be dangerously reckless and too eager to impress her. After a lot of violence, one-liners and extremely cheesy attempts at flirtation on Elpsis' part, they finally confronted the Hutt.
Contrary to the usual stereotype, Zujo was no coward. Instead he faced them in a shell of heavy powered armour that was resistant to Elpsis' lightsabre. It came equipped with heavy weapons and a shield generator. During the course of the battle, which devastated throne room, Sabatay was able to crush the shell on the Hutt while Elpsis cooked him inside it. Killing the slug earned them a significant payout. The two had a brief fling, but nothing came of it. Elpsis accompanied her on a few jobs, but they soon parted ways. Sabatay left Nar Shaddaa, reasoning that it was best to disappear after taking down a crime boss.
For a while she hunted down delinquent debtors for Nova Bank. Lady Varisanthra Lycaeni, the boss of the bank, was an Eldorai. These 'high elves' were cousins of the Vashyada. Sabatay had encountered Eldorai slaves here and there on Nar Shaddaa, but had little interaction with them. This changed now, as the bank employed a fair number of Eldorai. It made her realise that her kind were not as alone as she had thought. She soon learned that these Eldorai were very fractious. Some of her targets were Eldorai radicals who had tried to rob her client for obscure political reasons. The Eldorai homeworld, Kaeshana, had been destroyed by an asteroid shortly after the Netherworld Event and most of the survivors had settled on Tygara. Ironically, the Eldorai and the natives would eventually move into space to go off and colonise.
What intrigued Sabatay in particular were rumours about Vashyada outcasts who had walked a similar path to hers. She decided to track them down. Her search eventually paid off when she made contact with the Circle of Izlechivat, a sect of dark Vashyada druids. Like her, they had been raptured, forced to find their own way out and embarked on a darker path. Though not a particularly sociable person, Sabatay felt kinship with them. Their leader Sasaef introduced her to the Shadow Knights, a group of Eldorai renegades and exiles opposed to the ancien régime. After some hesitation, Sabatay joined them, though she remained on call for Nova Bank since their contracts paid well. After proving herself on a mission, she was accepted as a full member. She soon met the taciturn Kaida Taldir and Eyrecae Alzari, a primeval Eldorai who had recently been awakened from her slumber, and was an active participant in the Shadow Knights' war against the Archangel machine cult.
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