Out of Character Information
General Information
Physical Information
[*]Weaknesses:
Culture
Historical Information
From the humble Korriban Zombie to the insidious Technovirus, the Sith have a long, proud history of repurposing corpses to suit their needs. Simultaneously, few groups in galactic history have matched the Sith in their flair for vengeance and retribution, in their depraved creativity when it comes to making an example of those who slight them.
It was only a matter of time, then, before some ambitious Sith combined the two practices.
In the early days of the Saaraishash, a young Necromancer of that order noticed a problem with the way they performed their sacred duty of safeguarding the Empire's future. Political dissent was quashed and dissidents were reeducated where possible, which was all fine and good, but where reeducation was not viable, criminals were simply disposed of. This, decided this young Sorceress, was a problem. Any assassin or guerrilla commander capable of avoiding authorities for long enough that Inquisitorial intervention was required would make a valuable (if often disposable) asset, but quite often these were the very individuals incapable of being converted to the Sith-Imperial cause.
Disgusted by this inefficiency and determined to correct it, the Sorceress took to studying the work of those who came before. Of particular interest, she found, was the work of Darth Mekhis, who had achieved something in a similar vein; the forcible conversion of Jedi. These 'Sith Knights,' as they had been called, were powerful, perfectly obedient...and near-mindless, which made them useless for the purposes of the Saaraishash. Still, there was much to be learned from such a feat, and so the Sorceress paid careful attention to the methods - both sorcerous and mundane - by which Mekhis had achieved such total submission.
The next leg of research required less book study, more field work. After, ah, borrowing the corpses of a few criminals slated for incineration, our determined heroine began experimenting.
Simply reanimating the corpses was unsatisfactory. They would be under Sith control, true, but they'd also be completely useless - lacking both the skills that make them desirable pawns and the agency to use them. But simply resurrecting them wouldn't do much good either, as they'd already proven to be exceptionally mentally resilient. What the Sorceress settled on was, in her opinion, ingenious.
The body would first be animated by Sith Magic, given dread impulses and killing instinct by the dark forces that powered them. At the same time, or soon after, the victim's spirit would be ripped from the Netherworld and forcibly shackled to their old body. Now, a dead body is not, typically speaking, a suitable vessel for the spirit, and as such, the spirit would likely be confused and traumatized by its return. This confusion was essential to the process, as it was what made the creature malleable enough to be shaped into a useful tool. The first two weeks of these creatures' existences would be an endless barrage of indoctrination, both mundane and supernaturally amplified, all designed to imprint upon them their purpose as slaves of the Sith, both damned and blessed to spend an eternity in servitude to the greatest beings in the Galaxy. They would be the Penitent, and they would know no rest.
The Sorceress spent months upon months perfecting the theory behind these creatures, adjusting the ritual time after time so that she might one day develop the perfect servant.
Unfortunately, such was never to be her legacy. This sorceress died during the battle against the Silver Jedi on Mirial, her name forgotten by all but the record keepers of the Saaraishash and her work unknown for all of time.
That is, until a certain Khil Inquisitor by the name of [member="Tsisaar Taral"] moved into her office space and found her notes tucked beneath a pet rock and a book of poorly written slam poetry.
- Intent: To edgify the Sith Empire, just a little bit more. On a serious note, the intent is to provide something new for those of us who enjoy making their characters suffer.
- Image Credit: N/A
- Canon: N/A
- Links: Darth Mekhis' Sith Knights
General Information
- Name: The Penitent
- Designation: Sentient
- Homeworld: Bastion
- Languages: A Penitent is fluent in whatever languages they spoke in their previous existence.
- Average Lifespan: Potentially Indefinite (But See Weaknesses)
- Estimated Population: Rare
- Description: The Penitent are walking, dark-side infused corpses, and there is no way that one could mistake them for anything else after more than a moment of observation. Their pallor is unnatural, their eyes simmer with Dark-Side corruption, and their behavior is often bizarre and erratic.
Physical Information
- Breathes: N/A
- Average Height of Adults: Varies by Base Species
- Average Length of Adults: N/A
- Skin Color: Varies by Base Species, but always pallid or otherwise discolored.
- Hair Color: Varies by Base Species
- Distinctions: The Penitent are corpses. They produce no identifiable signs of life (at least in the medical sense), and appear to the outside observer as ambulatory corpses in varying states of preservation.
- Races: N/A
- Strengths:
Force Attuned - As beings which are at least partly made of the Force, all Penitent are more attuned to the Force than the average Non-Force User. Like a certain infamous smuggler, they often get bad feelings about things, and more importantly, they are innately able to sense when they are about to enter a Force Dead area (characterized by a creeping dread, a chill on their skin, or some other suitably melodramatic indicator), which, as detailed below, is very important for their survival. Note that this does not mean that someone who was unable to manipulate the Force in life will be able to do so as a Penitent, nor will someone who was Force Sensitive in life no longer be as a Pentitent. - Unliving - The Penitent are not alive - they are souls shackled to dead bodies which have been reanimated and kept in stasis by the Dark Side. Nothing which chemically attacks the body (neurotoxins, poisons, most diseases) or is only a concern for living matter (like radiation) affects them. In addition, they do not require sleep, nor do they breathe or eat, making them ideal sentries and agents to be sent to planets with toxic atmospheres.
- Relentless - As a corpse reanimated by the Dark Side, most parts of the Penitents' bodies are more or less useless to them; they don't need a heart or lungs, for instance, and injuring those organs does little more than cause pain. Note that this trait doesn't make the Penitent any more resistant to damage - you can slice through an unarmored Penitent just as easy as when they were alive - nor does it make them specially resistant to pain. Some individuals may be more or less sensitive to pain than others, but that's true for all creatures.
[*]Weaknesses:
- Dead Flesh - The bodies of the Penitent are inert. While they still feel sensation, thanks to the Dark Side Sorcery which animates their forms, all other functions of the body have ceased. Nothing which affects living flesh or bodily chemistry affects them - this includes Bacta, Kolto, combat drugs, painkillers, all recreational drugs, and anything else designed to assist or enhance living creatures. Cybernetics don't work for them, as their nervous systems aren't functional - to replace severed limbs, they need to either get a 'transplant,' or reattach the original - usually crudely, since most medical services won't work with them. Broken bones are a particular problem, as you can't simply stitch that back together, and may require such grim procedures as replacing segments of broken bone with metal or composite replacements. Again, cybernetics are not an option.
- Children of the Dark - The Penitent are creatures of the Dark Side of the Force, and, as such, are especially vulnerable to things like Force Light - brief contact with such an effect causes intense pain and severe damage to the Penitent's body, burning away chunks of flesh and bone. Sustained exposure will, naturally, completely destroy the Penitent.
- Force Dependency - The spell which sustains the Penitent is not self-perpetuating. As they are not living, the Force does not flow through them naturally. To counter this, the spell feeds on the ambient Force that persists in the Galaxy. This effect isn't noticeable to most people, even Force Users, and won't create a wound in the Force or anything similar. However, should a Penitent enter a Force Dead area, the effect is rapid decomposition. Time scale varies by individual, but most Penitents can survive roughly five minutes in a Force Dead area, with the longest on record surviving for a half hour.
- Some Maintenance Required - Although the ritual which resurrects them temporarily halts the decomposition of their bodies, the Penitent were not designed for longevity. They are, by and large, considered disposable, and without monthly spells to strengthen the rituals which animate them, the Penitent begin to decompose slowly. This will be primarily aesthetic at first, but after a few months, muscle and bone will begin to decompose to the point that the Dark Side power with which they are infused can no longer compensate, and they will begin to fail. Note that this doesn't necessarily "kill" them - even a Penitent completely incapable of moving under their own weight is still perfectly conscious.
- The Failsafe - As part of the creation ritual, the Penitent is made vulnerable to a Dark Side Poison, the composition of which is slightly different for every Penitent. Each mixture is only effective against the Penitent for which it was designed, but against that individual it is incredibly potent - contact with this poison temporarily disrupts the connection between Corpse and Force, rendering the Penitent little more than a spirit trapped inside an insensate lump of meat. The length of this hellish paralysis varies based on how much of the poison one is exposed to, but lasts for a minimum of one hour. The Saaraishash keeps a sample of each of these poisons in a secure facility, along with a recipe for the production of more of it, should the need arise.
- What Once Was Living - Is living no longer. Aside from things like size and strength, the Penitent do not have any of the biological advantages or disadvantages of their former species. A Zeltron Penitent does not produce pheromones, for example, nor does a Falleen Penitent.
Culture
- Diet: The Penitent do not need to eat, although they may do so if they wish. The food will, however, simply sit and rot in their stomach cavity if not removed in some fashion.
- Communication: The Penitent communicate by whatever methods are used by the species they were a member of before death - in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is speech. Those who are Force Sensitive may communicate telepathically, assuming they have the aptitude.
- Technology Level: The Penitent are property of the Sith Empire, and as such are neither more or less advanced than the rest of the Galaxy.
- Religion and Beliefs: The Penitent, being a slave caste, by-and-large lack a unified culture independent of the Sith Empire. Still, there are a few common threads. As creatures animated by the Dark Side, almost all Penitent hold a deep respect for - or fear of - the Force and those who wield it. In terms of actual religious belief, however, the Penitent vary widely. Some cling to whatever beliefs they held in life, if any, while others become or remain apathetic, convinced of the ultimately uncaring nature of the Galaxy. But a small number of Penitent, often those who were particularly traumatized by their partial return to the world of living, find a new faith: the worship of the Sith. It makes a certain amount of sense, of course; they are people capable of bending and breaking the laws of physics, returning the dead to life, and all manner of other dark miracles. In the presence of such beings, and, existing under their direct control, it would seem only natural to revere them.
- General Behavior: The Penitent are fundamentally broken beings. Their last memory of life - sometimes their only memory of life - is a painful death. Their bodies are animated by a dark power, not any actual life, and are ill-suited vessels for the thinking, feeling spirits they house. The Penitent are as varied as individuals of any group, but the thing they all have in common is that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Some are obsessive, some morose, some sadistic or masochistic. Some may be emotionally unstable, flying into fits of rage at the slightest inconvenience or going into bouts of grief and self-condemnation over the smallest failing. Beyond their shared proclivity for mental instability, the Penitent (almost) all share another trait: loyalty to the Sith. For further elaboration, please see below.
Historical Information
From the humble Korriban Zombie to the insidious Technovirus, the Sith have a long, proud history of repurposing corpses to suit their needs. Simultaneously, few groups in galactic history have matched the Sith in their flair for vengeance and retribution, in their depraved creativity when it comes to making an example of those who slight them.
It was only a matter of time, then, before some ambitious Sith combined the two practices.
In the early days of the Saaraishash, a young Necromancer of that order noticed a problem with the way they performed their sacred duty of safeguarding the Empire's future. Political dissent was quashed and dissidents were reeducated where possible, which was all fine and good, but where reeducation was not viable, criminals were simply disposed of. This, decided this young Sorceress, was a problem. Any assassin or guerrilla commander capable of avoiding authorities for long enough that Inquisitorial intervention was required would make a valuable (if often disposable) asset, but quite often these were the very individuals incapable of being converted to the Sith-Imperial cause.
Disgusted by this inefficiency and determined to correct it, the Sorceress took to studying the work of those who came before. Of particular interest, she found, was the work of Darth Mekhis, who had achieved something in a similar vein; the forcible conversion of Jedi. These 'Sith Knights,' as they had been called, were powerful, perfectly obedient...and near-mindless, which made them useless for the purposes of the Saaraishash. Still, there was much to be learned from such a feat, and so the Sorceress paid careful attention to the methods - both sorcerous and mundane - by which Mekhis had achieved such total submission.
The next leg of research required less book study, more field work. After, ah, borrowing the corpses of a few criminals slated for incineration, our determined heroine began experimenting.
Simply reanimating the corpses was unsatisfactory. They would be under Sith control, true, but they'd also be completely useless - lacking both the skills that make them desirable pawns and the agency to use them. But simply resurrecting them wouldn't do much good either, as they'd already proven to be exceptionally mentally resilient. What the Sorceress settled on was, in her opinion, ingenious.
The body would first be animated by Sith Magic, given dread impulses and killing instinct by the dark forces that powered them. At the same time, or soon after, the victim's spirit would be ripped from the Netherworld and forcibly shackled to their old body. Now, a dead body is not, typically speaking, a suitable vessel for the spirit, and as such, the spirit would likely be confused and traumatized by its return. This confusion was essential to the process, as it was what made the creature malleable enough to be shaped into a useful tool. The first two weeks of these creatures' existences would be an endless barrage of indoctrination, both mundane and supernaturally amplified, all designed to imprint upon them their purpose as slaves of the Sith, both damned and blessed to spend an eternity in servitude to the greatest beings in the Galaxy. They would be the Penitent, and they would know no rest.
The Sorceress spent months upon months perfecting the theory behind these creatures, adjusting the ritual time after time so that she might one day develop the perfect servant.
Unfortunately, such was never to be her legacy. This sorceress died during the battle against the Silver Jedi on Mirial, her name forgotten by all but the record keepers of the Saaraishash and her work unknown for all of time.
That is, until a certain Khil Inquisitor by the name of [member="Tsisaar Taral"] moved into her office space and found her notes tucked beneath a pet rock and a book of poorly written slam poetry.
