The Shrike
Scourge
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES:
Pain Tolerance- Years of torture and training has left his body nearly destroyed from the Dark Side. He has faced pains many people would never be able to. He can take most injuries and keep pushing without a second thought.
Knowledge of Tatooine- Having hunted through the dunes on the planet throughout his entire life, The Shrike has been able to practically memorize the planet's layout. He can find himself in the middle of the dunes and be able to find his way out. He can also use this to his advantage in combat, able to slip between the dunes with ease and gain his footing in the sand while most enemies are trapped and confused.
Shrike-He has become somewhat of a cryptid on Tatooine. There have been stories told of his brutality from spaceport to spaceport, warnings that if you go too far out into the desert never answer the call of The Wounded Tusken.
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Dark Side Affliction- The Shrike is a living vessel of the Dark Side. He is unable to be healed through the Force, and prolonged exposure to the Light Side causes him physical pain and nausea.
Technology- Being limited to Tatooine his entire life, The Shrike hasn't ever learned to use technology or even been on a starship. He has shot a blaster a couple of times, but has awful aim. He prefers close combat with his gaffi sticks or lightsaber.
The Wounded Tusken- After years of torture and countless tests done on him by his Sith Master on Tatooine, Karesh is the shell of a man. His vocal cords have been burnt and damaged beyond repair. If he were to try to speak it comes out distorted and is very painful for him. He is able to move fully with his body, but if he were unable to access the Force, the pain and damage his body has experienced would make it almost impossible for him to move or do anything. He is also very susceptible to disease due to him not being around many other species.
Psychosis-Years of torment and abuse have fractured his psyche, he is not really Karesh anymore. It would be near impossible for him to turn to the Light Side or to be able to let go of his violent tendencies or his trauma.
BIOGRAPHY:
Creatures like The Shrike aren't born, they're created. Years of torment and abuse lead to unspeakable harm to the psyche- and every boy, no matter how brave, has their breaking point.From his birth, Karesh had been held captive by a Sith Lord. He was never allowed to learn the man's name. Instead, he was to be given training to become a weapon, to be used and bent to the will of the Sith. They used Karesh because he was a blank slate, his mother was a Tusken woman who had been kidnapped by a Sith trooper and assaulted, leaving her pregnant. The Sith found out about this, and wanting to keep it a dirty little secret, and had the soldier killed. They were going to kill Karesh's mother too, until the Sith Lord felt her connection to the Force.
That's when the plan started formulating in the Sith's head. He had Karesh held prisoner well into his pre-teens, and then he started training him to be a tool. He was never given an education, but instead he was forced to train. He was given enough food to sustain him, but never more. They gave him training to build his strength, but never his mind. He was taught to use the Force, but only the teachings of the Dark Side. These would be the building blocks to creating the monster Karesh would turn out to be.
By his early twenties, Karesh had been tested on and mutilated for years. His training had turned into bloodsport. His entire life had been shaped by the Sith. The weapons of his people, gaffi sticks, and Tusken religious garb were the only tie he had to the Raiders he had only heard about in tales from the Sith. Even those were perverted by the Sith's influence, however. The weapon was traditionally made by the Tusken Raiders themselves out of scraps and materials around them, and their robes sacred to them. Karesh's weapons were crafted with the finest metals money had to buy, a perversion of the bond a Tusken had with their weapon. His 'robes' were worse, what should have been thick fabric was tubing and metal, a testament to the plasteel prison he had been raised in.
It wasn't long until the continuous trauma split Karesh's mind. This pivotal moment was when The Shrike was born. The Shrike was able to take the abuse and dish out the punishments to those the Sith saw fit. The Shrike was able to protect Karesh, because if Karesh had to endure any more torment, he likely would have killed himself. The Shrike, however, was a survivor. For the next ten years, The Shrike would do the bidding of the Sith Lord without hesitation, mercilessly killing anyone that got in the way of the Sith's psychotic ideas he had for Tatooine. In exchange for these brutalities, the Sith Lord taught The Shrike to use the Force and even a lightsaber, honing his skill and earning him the title of Sith Knight. Starting slowly over the decade, Karesh got smaller and smaller as the Shrike loomed over more of his mind.
There was a breaking point about a year ago, when Karesh had his last view of the world before his light was completely snuffed out. It was a moment of revenge, of pure rage, it was the moment he killed the Sith Lord and destroyed the prison he had been a slave to for over thirty years. The Shrike allowed Karesh this sweet revenge in exchange for control over his entire psyche. Karesh died in that moment, and The Shrike was set free from his chains. Over the last year, The Shrike has been living in a cave deep within Tusken territory. They were wary of him at first, but they understood he was one of them. When going on his missions, the Sith were very careful to not have Karesh kill any Tuskens, using his fascination and relation to them against him. He was desperate to relate to them. Over the years, The Shrike's vocal cords had been severely damaged, so speaking was painful. He had powered through and learned basic words from them, enough to get around.
The locals had found out about the Sith Knight as well. His hellish howls could be heard as he attacked anyone who got too close to his cave. They started referring to him as "The Wounded Tusken" and tread lightly anytime they came near his territory.