Velok the Younger
When I Was A Young Warthog
[SIZE=11pt]OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]GENERAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Introduction: The Five-Finger Problem[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...and why should the power of the universe care how many fingers are holding up, or what configuration they take? What of practitioners who lose digits, or who don’t have the humanocentric five digits per hand? What of the many ancient Sith who had only four? If Sith magic can work for them, then why are certain gestures considered inviolably necessary?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the only reasonable conclusion is that specific gestures and invocations and rituals are necessary mainly because the practitioner believes they are necessary to create the states of mind and detailed visualization that a given technique requires…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter One: The Predecessor Connection[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...however, as a corollary, incantations may be necessary because previous practitioners, either as aggregate echoes or as individual shades, believe they are necessary. The scholar Darth Atrexis, writing in the 53rd century BBY, states that Sith magic is unique in that it taps into the collective, if quiescent and vestigial, power of the Sith Lords who have gone before. One could understand Sith magic to access a pool of corruption, a specific type of energy inherent in the consequences of one’s forerunners’ power and actions. A Darksider uses the Force, and many things change in large or small ways: that much is inarguable. The collective, accumulated taint of those changes may be the true source of Sith magic’s power…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...this explains why Sith magic can only be used via the written and/or spoken Sith language…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...informal and formless efforts such as Warb Null were still overseen, secretly, by a Sith spirit...ritual was not necessary in this case because the attention and mantle of the predecessor were already involved…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“The question, then, is how to access the power of inheritance without the empty formalism that so many thousands of generations have viewed -- and, in a sense, still view, despite their vanished sentience and agency -- as indispensable…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Two: Circumvention through Magic and Alchemy[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“If some degree of attention or unconscious recognizance is necessary for valid inheritance, other mechanisms are viable. My father’s journals speak of an Oracle Stone in the possession of a nameless Archivist, a stone with the power to bring massed Sith Lord shades to bear upon a given question...”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...incantation itself can summon and compel spirits, perhaps to recognize and validate a different set of, for lack of a better word, administrative permissions over relatively minor sources of…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Three: Circumvention through Heritage[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...should consider, too, that many past Lords have placed great store in lineage, despite the mathematical silliness of ascribing any genetic value to descent from a being even a dozen generations past.” [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“A spirit, or a long line or broad tree of spirits -- and I speak of their collective animus, the aggregate of their non-sentient vestiges, the impressions and shades they left in the fabric of places and objects, not just the rare true-sentient spirit -- could be induced to recognize and support a descendant in a variety of circumstances. In theory, such accumulated lineages could allow a descendant to access a small portion of Sith magic with alternative measures, depending on what mattered to the ancestors in life and sentience…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...subject might be from Kesh, a world with a long, unbroken history of familial Sith…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the Calimondra line, of the territory controlled by the Galactic Alliance until recently…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the tradition of the Mecrosa, coupled with the noble houses of Mecetti and…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...unknown whether this line of thought may help explain the rare natural talent for Sith magic…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Four: Circumvention through Deception[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...and if the collective echo of conscious and unconscious powers responds only to the specific words and gestures, there may be ways to hoodwink the gestalt.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...blood of the last remaining descendant and so forth -- but with true risk attached if…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...static physical or artistic representations of key gestures, as perhaps demonstrated by certain fragmentary murals on Lothal…such representations could replace the need for the practitioner to make the gesture...”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Four: Meritocratic Worthiness[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...much as many of the Fallanassi are not what observation or tests would consider Force-sensitive, Sith magic has sometimes been bestowed on those most available and suitable, despite minimal aptitude and limited latent sensitivity…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the minor wizard Novar, whose qualifications to learn Sith magic seem to have been mainly ambition and intelligence, not to mention value to his expert masters…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...compare the tale of Cartariun and Dza’tey, the Jeswandi connection, and the reborn Palpatine’s strengthening of his Dark Side Elite based on…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...possible, then, that Sith magic can interact in profitable ways with abstract or concrete standards of fitness or worthiness. However, so far as can be determined, this angle still complies with the somatic requirements of…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Fifteen other chapters follow.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Conclusion: Managing Expectations[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...caution that any success will likely be partial, tapping only a fraction of the wellspring to which four hundred centuries of practitioners have unwittingly contributed, with rare (e.g. Nadd) exceptions…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...nevertheless, any success which allows surreptitious sorcery, or the casting of Sith spells while silenced or paralyzed, can only…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]HISTORICAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Sith magic irritates and fascinates Velok, who has three digits per hand instead of five, and who sees no reason why the Force should care what language you speak when commanding it. Therefore, he wrote this book, half as a thought experiment and half to impose his will on the problem. He shared it with the usual assortment of allies, interesting strangers, and Powers That Be. Known recipients included [member="Darth Saarai"], [member="Darth Carnifex"], [member="Darth Voracitos"], [member="Darth Imperia"], [member="Darth Tacitus"], [member="Seras Goto"], [member="Darth Animus"], [member="Calina Djo"], and [member="Kyrinov"]. Naturally, Velok kept one copy for himself, and a few to give away or trade.[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Intent: Velok’s next book[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Image Credit: N/A[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Links: [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Velok the Younger[/SIZE] - [SIZE=11pt]Girawn, Sion, Calypho: Pain as Guide and Servant[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]To Pass Unchallenged: The Legacy of Alema Rar[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]The Naddists and the Krath: A Retrospective[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]GENERAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Media Name: Sorcery Deconstructed: The Case for Clarity[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Format: Book[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Distribution: Rare (a limited number)[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Length: Short (~40,000 words)[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Description: This is a slim volume of Sith scholarship with a tikulini leather binding and a minor alchemical enchantment ([/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]short-term memory enhancement,[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] for ease of study). Its purpose is to question why Sith magic requires complex gestures, rituals, and incantations.[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Author: Velok of Toola, called Velok the Younger[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Publisher: Self[/SIZE]
- [SIZE=11pt]Reception: As with Velok’s three previous books, only a dozen or so copies are available. His books have attracted a small but invested following among certain circles (mostly Sith). Various Sith sorcerers have called the book pretentious for aiming to deconstruct forty thousand years of technique. As with many academic and pseudo-academic books, the text can verge on impenetrable, often by design. This is not an easy read.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Introduction: The Five-Finger Problem[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...and why should the power of the universe care how many fingers are holding up, or what configuration they take? What of practitioners who lose digits, or who don’t have the humanocentric five digits per hand? What of the many ancient Sith who had only four? If Sith magic can work for them, then why are certain gestures considered inviolably necessary?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the only reasonable conclusion is that specific gestures and invocations and rituals are necessary mainly because the practitioner believes they are necessary to create the states of mind and detailed visualization that a given technique requires…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter One: The Predecessor Connection[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...however, as a corollary, incantations may be necessary because previous practitioners, either as aggregate echoes or as individual shades, believe they are necessary. The scholar Darth Atrexis, writing in the 53rd century BBY, states that Sith magic is unique in that it taps into the collective, if quiescent and vestigial, power of the Sith Lords who have gone before. One could understand Sith magic to access a pool of corruption, a specific type of energy inherent in the consequences of one’s forerunners’ power and actions. A Darksider uses the Force, and many things change in large or small ways: that much is inarguable. The collective, accumulated taint of those changes may be the true source of Sith magic’s power…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...this explains why Sith magic can only be used via the written and/or spoken Sith language…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...informal and formless efforts such as Warb Null were still overseen, secretly, by a Sith spirit...ritual was not necessary in this case because the attention and mantle of the predecessor were already involved…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“The question, then, is how to access the power of inheritance without the empty formalism that so many thousands of generations have viewed -- and, in a sense, still view, despite their vanished sentience and agency -- as indispensable…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Two: Circumvention through Magic and Alchemy[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“If some degree of attention or unconscious recognizance is necessary for valid inheritance, other mechanisms are viable. My father’s journals speak of an Oracle Stone in the possession of a nameless Archivist, a stone with the power to bring massed Sith Lord shades to bear upon a given question...”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...incantation itself can summon and compel spirits, perhaps to recognize and validate a different set of, for lack of a better word, administrative permissions over relatively minor sources of…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Three: Circumvention through Heritage[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...should consider, too, that many past Lords have placed great store in lineage, despite the mathematical silliness of ascribing any genetic value to descent from a being even a dozen generations past.” [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“A spirit, or a long line or broad tree of spirits -- and I speak of their collective animus, the aggregate of their non-sentient vestiges, the impressions and shades they left in the fabric of places and objects, not just the rare true-sentient spirit -- could be induced to recognize and support a descendant in a variety of circumstances. In theory, such accumulated lineages could allow a descendant to access a small portion of Sith magic with alternative measures, depending on what mattered to the ancestors in life and sentience…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...subject might be from Kesh, a world with a long, unbroken history of familial Sith…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the Calimondra line, of the territory controlled by the Galactic Alliance until recently…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the tradition of the Mecrosa, coupled with the noble houses of Mecetti and…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...unknown whether this line of thought may help explain the rare natural talent for Sith magic…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Four: Circumvention through Deception[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...and if the collective echo of conscious and unconscious powers responds only to the specific words and gestures, there may be ways to hoodwink the gestalt.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...blood of the last remaining descendant and so forth -- but with true risk attached if…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...static physical or artistic representations of key gestures, as perhaps demonstrated by certain fragmentary murals on Lothal…such representations could replace the need for the practitioner to make the gesture...”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Chapter Four: Meritocratic Worthiness[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...much as many of the Fallanassi are not what observation or tests would consider Force-sensitive, Sith magic has sometimes been bestowed on those most available and suitable, despite minimal aptitude and limited latent sensitivity…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...the minor wizard Novar, whose qualifications to learn Sith magic seem to have been mainly ambition and intelligence, not to mention value to his expert masters…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...compare the tale of Cartariun and Dza’tey, the Jeswandi connection, and the reborn Palpatine’s strengthening of his Dark Side Elite based on…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...possible, then, that Sith magic can interact in profitable ways with abstract or concrete standards of fitness or worthiness. However, so far as can be determined, this angle still complies with the somatic requirements of…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Fifteen other chapters follow.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Conclusion: Managing Expectations[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...caution that any success will likely be partial, tapping only a fraction of the wellspring to which four hundred centuries of practitioners have unwittingly contributed, with rare (e.g. Nadd) exceptions…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]“...nevertheless, any success which allows surreptitious sorcery, or the casting of Sith spells while silenced or paralyzed, can only…”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]HISTORICAL INFORMATION[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Sith magic irritates and fascinates Velok, who has three digits per hand instead of five, and who sees no reason why the Force should care what language you speak when commanding it. Therefore, he wrote this book, half as a thought experiment and half to impose his will on the problem. He shared it with the usual assortment of allies, interesting strangers, and Powers That Be. Known recipients included [member="Darth Saarai"], [member="Darth Carnifex"], [member="Darth Voracitos"], [member="Darth Imperia"], [member="Darth Tacitus"], [member="Seras Goto"], [member="Darth Animus"], [member="Calina Djo"], and [member="Kyrinov"]. Naturally, Velok kept one copy for himself, and a few to give away or trade.[/SIZE]
