Shadow Hand
- Intent: To expand the lore of Dromund Kaas with a native, Dark Side reactive vine that the ancient Sith used as living surge control, ritual grounding, and non-lethal restraint, that can be used in structures, ships, alchemy, scene dressing, and more.
- Image Credit:
- Click - ChatGPT by Me
- Headers -
Teresa Zambrano | Darth Pellax
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
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- Name: Umbra-Tether Ivy (a.k.a. "Stormbind Vine")
- Origins:
- Dromund Kaas - Storm facing temple terraces, basaltic fortress escarpments, and dark stone ritual courts where lightning strikes are common.
- Other Locations:
- Cultivated in Kainate fortresses, shipboard charge bays, and electrostatic nurseries
- Survives offworld only in artificial storm chambers / high-humidity dark gardens
- Feral growth offworld is rare due to lack of regular charge events
- Classification: Climbing Vine (Parasitic / Electro-Phytic)
- Average Growth Cycle:
- Electro-germination during storm season or in static-primed nursery trays
- Cuttings root in 2-3 weeks
- Node-bearing maturity in 10-12 weeks
- Perennial thereafter, with 1–3 month discharge cycles depending on storm access
- Viability:
- Thrives in humid, warm, low-to-moderate light environments
- Requires periodic electrical stimulation (natural storms or artificial electrostatic beds)
- Prefers mineral-rich areas such as blackstone/basalt rubble, Sith worked masonry
- Managed trellises: 6-10 standard years
- Harvested nodal capsules: 10-14 days of reliable charge if sealed in dark, non-conductive ceramic
- Description: Umbra-Tether Ivy is a matte-black, iron-gray climber whose leaves carry hair-fine cobalt veins that begin to flicker minutes to hours before a storm, making it a natural "weather tell" around Kaasian temples. Mature runners develop obsidian-black, banded nodal capsules that act as living capacitors, taking in and slowly metering out low-amp electrical current. The vine anchors with barbed rootlets to sarrassian iron, blackstone, bloodsteel, and other Sith favored materials, often seen crawling over gate crowns, conductor spires, and ritual balconies like a living lightning arrester.
- Average Height: 0.2-0.4 m canopy thickness when trellised
- Average Length: 3–20 m of new run per season per vine; stems 0.5–2.0 cm thick
- Color:
- Leaves: Matte Black with Cobalt Veining
- Stems: Iron-Gray
- Nodes: Obsidian-Black with Faint Blue Orient when Charged
- Nutritional Value: Negligible / Inedible
- Toxicity:
- Electrical: Live, charged nodes can arc with stun-level shock on contact
- Contact/Ingestion: The sap is caustic and irritates eyes, nose, and mouth; rinse with clean water if exposed and avoid ingestion.
- Repeated shocks can cause minor burns and temporary arrhythmia in baseline humanoids
- Other Effects:
- Controlled discharge induces brief neuromuscular inhibition (clean "taser" effect)
- Chronic handlers can develop transient paresthesia ("storm fingers")
- Distinctions: Umbra-Tether Ivy is a living surge protector and taser-vine. Along its length it grows hard, bead-like nodes that store small amounts of electricity, almost like tiny rechargeable batteries spaced along the vine. When its touched, squeezed, or given it a trained command, those nodes will let the charge out in a controlled burst: gentle for grounding static, stronger for a stun-level zap. On Dromund Kaas and other sites steeped in the Dark Side, the plant grows more of these nodes, faster, because it feeds on that environment.
In places where rituals are performed, the ivy does something eerie but useful: it falls into the same rhythm as the rite, pulsing when the chant or drumbeat would pulse. That keeps random static from popping off at the wrong time, a large reason why the ancient Sith planted it around terraces and gatehouses. It also clings cleanly to Sith materials, blackstone, bloodsteel, sarrassian iron, and more without corroding them, so it can be trained over doors, spires, and trellises as a permanent, self-maintaining "lightning hair."
There are two main types:
- Crown: Grows big, "storm-fat" nodes that soak up and dump lightning safely, perfect for arrester webs, gate crowns, and conductor spires.
- Thread: Grows thinner, flexible strands that can be braided into shock-weave cord, grounding mats, or restraint laces that stun instead of maim.
- It stores charge, bleeds it off on command, stabilizes rituals, and doubles as non-lethal restraint, a very practical, bit of "living hardware" when utilized.
- Living Surge Baffle: Designed to drink and bleed low-amp energy, making it ideal for Dromund Kaas fortresses, storm-battered citadels, and shipboard isolation grids. Pairs especially well with engineered systems.
- Ritual Grounding: Its tendency to entrain to nearby Dark Side workings makes it excellent for stabilizing sith rites, reducing sympathetic feedback, "tool ghosting," and accidental discharge into surrounding masonry.
- Non-Lethal Security Tool: Thread-cultivar laces can be woven into binders, cuffs, or gate curtains that deliver repeatable stun-taps on struggling targets without killing them, perfect for interrogations, Sith academies, or "present them to the Dark Lord alive" scenes.
- Storm Prognostic: Leaf-vein flicker before incoming weather gives Dromund Kaas sites a low-tech early warning for electrical events.
- Light & Sanctified Environments: Prolonged bright light, consecrated temples, Force Light, and Force Nullification fields cause the vine to dump its charge, depolarize, and behave like inert black rope.
- Charge-Dependent: Offworld or in low-storm climates, the plant must be put through a charge cycle every 5–10 days or it becomes brittle, low-capacity, and unreliable.
- Conductive Hazard: If planted too close to high-voltage rails or unshielded Sith machinery, it can ladder arcing in ways the original infrastructure didn't intend. Poor trellising will mean more risk.
- Narrow Ecology: Performs best on Dromund Kaas' humid, ion-rich air and dark, mineral-heavy stone, desert, cold, or very dry worlds see stunted growth and fewer nodes.
The oldest notes, mere scribbles in the margins of ledgers and ancient tablets, already mention a "tether ivy" or "storm-mane" that temple gardeners coaxed along gate crowns, balcony rails, and sacrificial courts. Dromund Kaas punishes exposed stone, and the ancient Sith learned that this vine could help the stone survive the dark sky. They found that when it was laid over stone cornices and iron guide lines, the season's first lightning would take the building, run through the ivy, and be swallowed. After several strikes the runners thickened into banded, hard nodes and, crucially, stopped throwing wild static back into ritual spaces. That single trait made it a quiet staple of Kaasian architecture: rites demanded exact cadence, and stray discharge could blur inscriptions, crack crystal, or drop a novice to a knee. A living arrester that tolerated the Dark Side was reason enough to trellis it wherever rites were held.
Over generations this practicality hardened into tradition. Masons would lay the stone, set the conductor rails, then braid the Umbra-Tether in three courses: the Keep, a stout braid that took the sky's first anger; the Knot, a holding pattern that metered charge across the facade; and the Leash, a fine lace that bled the remainder into courtyard grounds or bound offerings during oaths. In storm season the terraces hummed with a steady, even pulse rather than a spiteful crackle. Gardeners swore the ivy learned the rhythm of the rites; ritual masters swore it simply obeyed the same gravity as power and pain. Either way, the trellises spread from temple crowns to fortress escarpments, cliff-side shrines, and even the long rain-stairs where acolytes recited litanies under cold water and distant thunder.
While over time technology developed to harness the storms power, use of the Ivy remained. When Dromund Kaas slipped from Sith hands and later endured the Ashlan Crusade's occupation, those trellises suffered. Some were burned back as "witch-growth" others were neglected until they went feral, retreating to storm-facing cliffs and the fissures of darkened stone. The vine didn't vanish, it is Kaasian, and Kaasian things endure where the storms still touch, but the old terrace craft withered, and with it the disciplined braids that made rites feel like a measured heartbeat instead of a duel with the weather.
When Kainate returned and reclaimed Dromund Kaas, the vine's second age began. Survey teams walked the storm runs, clipping specimens and mapping node thickness to years of strike history; biotics compared cliff colonies to the few trellises that had survived in temple shadows. From that work came standardized stock and two dependable cultivars: Crown, bred for heavy surge control on walls, gate crowns, and conductor spires; and Thread, bred for fine fiber, shock-weave cordage, grounding mats, and responsive restraint laces for non-lethal captures. The old braidwork returned, too, this time layered into modern defenses an elegant stack that let the world rage while everything remained steady. Offworld nurseries learned to raise it in artificial environments, but Dromund Kaas remains its heart; only here does it grow with the same dark patience and even pulse.
A small superstition survived the centuries and needs no manual. Before an oath or difficult working, an acolyte clips a live leaf and watches the faint cobalt veins. If they refuse to flicker in the hour before the rite, elders say the ivy will not take part today, and on Kaas, when both stone and sky decline to help, the wise postpone their ambition. Thus the vine that once merely protected terraces has become part of the memory of the world: a living, storm-bred tether that ties stone to the sky and keeps the cadence of Sith work unbroken. The Kainate has cultivated many uses of the ivy, ensuring its prominence returned once more.
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