ʜᴄ sᴠɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇs
Out of Character Information
- Intent: A personal secondary weapon for usage in close combat by Antherion.
- Image Source: Metal Serpent (Jason Felix)
- Canon Link: Amphistaff; Mechu-Deru Vitae
- Restricted Missions: N/A (Force Alchemy; Unique Submission)
- Primary Sources: N/A
- Manufacturer: Antherion
- Model: N/A
- Affiliation: Antherion
- Modularity: N/A
- Production: Unique
- Material: Amphistaff; Interface Wiring; Nylasteel
- Classification: Varies - whip, short-swoord, spear. Multi-purpose melee weapon.
- Size: One-handed
- Length: 3 meters
- Weight: 3 kilograms
- Non-Sentient Living Weapon
- Atomic Cutting Edge
- Infra-red vision
- Blaster and Lightsaber Resistant
- Artificial Toxin Deployment
- Variable-Purpose: Due to the presence of the power cells like that which exist within the Amphistaffs of the Yuuzhan Vong, attuned with the Force to specially-treated alchemic steel, the weapon can shift freely on command from fluid to rigid. As such, it functions as sword, staff, and spear to varying degrees.
- Measured in Molecules: Rare is the armor that can stand against the cyberstaff. Rather than constantly maintaining a singular edge, the weapon itself reconstitutes when called upon to do battle, reshaping itself at the lowest level into a razor that can cleave through skin, bone, and steel.
- Alchemical: The Cyberstaff can reflect energy with its metal plating, much in the manner that a lightsaber can. It resists blaster bolts and saber strikes.
- Envenomed: The cyberstaff has a small chamber within it that can be filled with poison - generally, three doses of a standard toxin for a standard humanoid. If prepared in this manner, it can deliver this toxin through its fangs.
- Disruption: Because its Power Glands are enhanced by artificial machinery, and it was modeled after, first, an electrostaff's functions, the Cyberstaff can deliver a potent electric shock.
- Multivulnerability: The Cyberstaff is both a machine and a living creature that has been connected to the Force. It is vulnerable to the Force, mind control, Mechu-Deru, and Ion attacks. Force Light causes the creature to recoil and ruptures its organs and the delicate connection between flesh and metal. It also is subservient to the Master Amphistaff of the Yuuzhan Vong, and cannot attack the wielder of that weapon.
- Life Hungers: In order to obtain nutrients and continue functioning, the creature needs to feast on the blood and neural impulses of living creatures. In absence of anything to feed on, it will turn on its Master.
- No Armor is Invincible: The Cyberstaff, when in its coiled or whip forms, has small openings in its plating that would permit a sufficiently skilled warrior to destroy or disable it with a precise strike to the back of its neck.
- Disrupted: When using its electric shock functions, the Cyberstaff cannot be manipulated and remains stationary, albeit tensing such that it does not immediately collapse. It can sustain this ability, but doing so taxes its energy and exhausts the creature, requiring it to feed immediately afterwards.
Despite the current Dark Lord of the Sith ordering the complete demolition of the Jedi Temple, and fulfilling that promise with characteristic zeal, there was knowledge within that first needed to be liberated, and before they left Antherion's soldiers were under strict orders to copy files and plunder printed texts which reference certain topics. Among one of the topics that the Jedi had unique knowledge of which drew the fallen Sith's attention was the so-called Ossus Project, an ancient initiative to deploy Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology to restore the ecosystems of ruined planets. This initiative was perverted by the Sith Lord Darth Maladi, who herself discovered a way to tap into the Force to manipulate the once Force-dead creatures and corrupt them with Alchemy.
After concerted study of these mysteries, and with the securing of the Genesis Pools as a base of operations, Antherion saw replication of Maladi's act as the perfect experiment to christen his laboratory.
Interweaving the Force, machinery, and genetic material, the weapon he created is "The Cyberstaff," a shimmering worm that crawled out of its spawning sludge no larger than its creator's little finger.
Fed on a diet of blood, writhing in the pain of the nonstop surgeries that twisted the being into form, the Cyberstaff developed into a fully grown creature in an unnaturally short period of time. It responds to commands spoken in the tongue of the Sith, and likewise to those issued mentally through the Force.
Normally, it spends its days close to its master, slithering about underneath his robes, coiling around his waist like a sash, or slipping out through his sleeve. However, it is allowed to roam independently at least once each day, where it hunts and slakes its bloodthirst on whatever unlucky victim crosses its path.
