Mara D'Lessio Merrill
The Lesser D'Lessio
Image Source: Here
Intent: A large-scale nonlethal weapon for horde dispersal.
Development Thread:
- Everything Needs A Hostile Force (62 posts, all relevant) - Rave and her friends build the staff to resist an assault on Dromund Kaas; Mara arrives too late to save her aunt, and gathers her effects.
Model: NA
Affiliation: Select associates
Modularity: No
Production: Semi-unique (7 + prototype)
Material: Durasteel, modified Kasha crystals, various imbuements, nullification resin
Classification: Mental effect weapon
Size: Handheld (staff)
Length: 1.6m
Weight: 2.5kg
Ammunition Type: None. Projects an invisible, intangible Force effect with a sound like rushing wind.
Ammunition Capacity: Can be used half a dozen times before recharge, which requires half an hour of solo meditation, or less with a group of Masters providing energy.
Effective Range: Battlefield (around 2km, with full effectiveness before the threshold and zero effectiveness after it)
Rate of Fire: Single action (each discharge requires focus).
Special Features:
- Saps fighting spirit.
- Induces crippling despair and guilt.
- When aimed at a group (of company size, for example, or the crew of a targeted starship), the staff saps fighting spirit and induces guilt and despair, comparable to the ‘negative’ side of traditional Jedi battle meditation. This effect does not disperse with distance, but the staff cannot target or appropriately focus on a group beyond standard battlefield ranges (in this case, around 2km). For example, pointing it out the window of a Star Destroyer at a distant fleet would accomplish nothing. A targeted group within 2km will feel the full effect; a targeted group beyond that will feel little or nothing.
- Especially effective against groups or crews who are in the wrong, aggressors, partaking in morally dubious operations, etc.
Weaknesses:
- Can only be used six times without a recharge, which requires half an hour of solo meditation, or less with a group, or less with a group of Masters providing energy. Specifically, each additional Master providing energy reduces the recharge time by around six minutes, to a minimum of twelve minutes (three additional Masters).
- Can only be used to its full potential by a Master of the Force.
- No special physical resistances. A couple of blaster shots or a really good vibroblade in the right place might wreck it.
Description: Some years ago, the moderately reformed alchemist Rave Merrill was visiting Dromund Kaas when an alien fleet attacked. The fleet broadcasted a twelve-hour timer, counting down to the assault. Summoning any nearby friends, Rave set out to save the few remaining settlements of Dromund Kaas, such as Hythe Park and Dinora. Being an alchemist, she decided that her best bet was to craft a tool or weapon out of whatever materials might be available.
Fortunately, the ruins of Kaas City provided her with a suitable amount of Force crystals, and the planet’s uniquely potent Dark Side nexus offered a source of raw energy. A Lightsider by this point, Rave spent considerable effort setting up a ritual that would allow her to use the nexus’ energy in an undifferentiated, unaligned form. Between that and the combined strength of several Masters -- [member="Seydon of Arda"], his wife [member="Rosa Gunn"], and [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] -- Rave felt confident she could empower her ad hoc creation to a high degree.
She was determined to make this tool or weapon a vergence of the Light Side of the Force, rather than compromise her new and tenuously held principles in service of need. Thus, rather than resorting to Sith alchemy or Nightsister crafting, she turned to other crafting traditions, Light Side in origin, which she’d been studying exclusively for some time.
Rave’s first ingredient was Kasha crystals. Cerean Kasha crystals, properly made and etched with a complex pattern, are noted for improving focus. She etched a powerful variant of the Kasha pattern onto the local crystals.
Throughout the Kasha etching and later stages, she used Gesaril techniques, which imbue a crafted item with the creator’s emotions. She focused the Gesaril ritual elements on her own sense of despair, which was under control but healthy given the insurmountable odds of the situation. She also injected her intense guilt for a lifetime of atrocities.
Together, these elements might have created a short-range omnidirectional effect which compelled people to focus on a source of despair. Such a thing would be utterly useless. For directionality, she turned to the sidearm she carried. A Yrkaa, it was called. It had been forged from the anti-electronic quality of the Dromund Kaas nexus itself, and she’d worked certain runes into it to make the effect directional. Skirting close to true alchemy, Rave adapted the directionality spells and applied them to a length of discarded metal pipe, the case for the etched crystals. She bolstered the makeshift aiming spells with effects derived from the Mirr, a powerful farsight artifact that she’d excavated not far from that spot. The Yrkaa derivation and the Mirr effects combined to focus her creation’s directionality and improve its ability to target enemies at range.
The end result of the above components and processes, empowered by a circle of Masters and a major Force nexus, came together under the hands of a highly skilled alchemist. By the time the alien assault force defaulted on their own timeline and began their attack, the makeshift staff was ready. Rave and her associates trained it on a frigate that was setting up a bombardment of the surviving Kaas City communities, including the packed slum of Hythe Park. Despair and doubt overwhelmed the crew, and they left at once.
Events escalated, leading to Rave’s death. Not long after, but far too late to save her, Mara Merrill arrived at Dromund Kaas. Among other tasks, she gathered her aunt’s effects, including the staff.
Mara was growing as a Force crafter, Light-oriented, with a strong specialization in crystallurgy. As her expertise improved in the aftermath of Rave’s death, Mara began to understand more and more about her aunt’s final mastercraft creation. After surviving the Ilum Enclave Massacre, Mara threw herself into numerous projects, including the completion of her aunt’s unfinished work. The staff dovetailed nicely with Mara’s skills and interests. Every time she examined the prototype, she considered how useful it would have been to point the staff at the Mandalorian raiders outside the Ilum Enclave and make them run.
Mara took the staff from prototype stage to a finished product. Mara’s versions of the staff are every bit as powerful as the prototype. She made a handful of them, each time using Gesaril carving to cathartically release her own terrors and traumas. The project took her close to the edge of the Dark Side in a way comparable to Vaapad, using principles she’d learned from Darron Wraith. The Gesaril aspects of the project also served as a decompression valve for her PTSD and other unresolved issues. Ethically, apart from the Vaapad similarity, Mara considered the staves comparable to Jedi battle meditation, or rather half of it. Traditional, ancient Jedi battle meditation bolsters one’s own side while sapping the enemy’s morale. The staves proved functionally identical to the ‘negative’ half of traditional Jedi battle meditation, albeit in a directional and concentrated form.
However, ethical concerns remain. It’s not hard to draw parallels between the staves and a Phobis Device.
The staves must be aimed with extreme care, though the jury-rigged directionality and targeting runes allow the effect to be released in a narrow cone of invisible Force disturbance, rather than a focused stream. Rave’s prototype fired along the staff’s axis. Mara’s versions refined the design to project the effect at an acute angle to the axis for more comfortable handling, if less precise aim. The end is swept slightly for practicality and to provide a frame of reference for aiming.
Rave’s prototype used leftover Force crystals from Dromund Kaas, the only available material. Mara, an expert on Force-related crystals, selected and fine-tuned true Kasha crystals, modifying them to draw attention and focus in a more profound way. Mara’s staves thus produce a subtler but more pervasive mental effect than the prototype.
Visually, the prototype was a simple thing, a length of repurposed pipe scratched with runes. Mara’s versions have a modern aesthetic. Transparisteel sections cover the crystals, allowing a gentle blue glow to spill out when the staff is being used. Mara did the crystal work, all necessary imbuements, and the rune engraving personally. The metalwork was done by some of her employees at Stargo Forge Works on Dathomir. The guts of the staff proved beyond them, though the experience was educational for all concerned.
Mara and her team refined the design by coating the bulk of the staff in a nullification resin derivative. This process served to focus the directionality of the effect and prevent spillage, much as she’d done for the Lifeweb Spyglass. In other words, the staves will not demoralize their wielder or surrounding persons.
After creating her versions, Mara returned the prototype to Seydon, one of its makers and the closest thing Rave ever had to a friend.
Primary Source: Not influenced by any Chaos submissions. Precedents for items of mass emotional manipulation: Phobis Device, Seeds of Rage, Hurlothrumbic Generator, Helm of Ieldis. Comparable to a longer-range, wide-angle Periculum.
