Post by hugo on Oct 16, 2018 13:54:21 GMT -5
Visarion
 Loose concept Full Name • Taryn Lemayne Nickname • Visarion (Sith name) Race • Hapan Birthplace • Olmando, Ruusan Age • 27 Gender • Male Sexuality • Heterosexual Faction • Sith Order Concept • Rank 2 Knight of Mysteries Languages • Basic, Hapan, Zabraki, Ancient Sith, High Galactic and Huttese (understood) Assets • 1x single hilt, red lightsaber, incidentals, 1x Sabre-class transport,,Cult of Mysteries line of credit and a rather impressive library Appearance Height & Weight • 5'11 155 lbs Overall Looks • Subtle Hapan graces fail to conceal the darkness of Visarion's sallow countenance. He is a gaunt and whispy figure, but of average to tall height for a near-Human. Like most Hapans, he is attractive by Human standards, his visage marred only by a thin white scar that runs from his temple to the right corner of his lips. He is very pale, with bright blue eyes speckled sickly yellow. A shock of generally unkempt, black hair frames his pale face and falls to the back of his neck. Visarion is not one for flair, and dresses practically. He dons the hooded, black robes typical of his station almost invariably, but maintains a modest wardrobe of civilian and recreational attire should he have to travel under cover. For formal Sith events, he wears the featureless silver mask of the Cult of Mysteries, occasionally even wearing it in battle. Personality Profile Visarion is an introvert in every meaning of the word. He is usually rather short and cool in his interactions with strangers and colleagues alike, though he is looser and even occasionally laughs or smiles when among his closer acquaintances. Bookish and reserved from his earliest days, Visarion prefers the company of ideas and studies to that of people, and often retreats to his small study to take refuge in his library. Shyness, however, should not be mistaken for weakness. The Hapan sees himself as destined for greatness, and wants to achieve that by mastery of the Force through the Dark Side. His resentment and anger fuel this, and he is prone to sudden outbursts of emotion when he is severely frustrated. Visarion is also very independently minded and operates as such throughout Sith and neutral space. The Hapan Knight also fancies himself a scholar and mystic of Dark energies, and spends considerable time in contemplation or labor towards these ends. A fruit of his comprehensive review of Sith history and thought, Visarion is enthusiastically supportive of Renata's efforts to recontruct and reform the Order into a viable organization by re-examining its values re hierarchy and internal strife. He is also something of an unlikely patriot, having penned several articles and scholarly pieces offering historical and theological support for the new order. As far as Sith philosophy as a whole, Visarion is more orthodox, even if his more outlandish theories draw some ire and suspicion from traditionalist elements within the Cult of Mysteries. . Background Father • Haran Qu'tai, spice addict, deceased (32 at time of death) Mother • Mira Lemayne, 49, Nurse Practitioner, political activist Siblings • Two half-brothers, Thal and Ren, by his mother, though he is unaware of them. Other Important Connections • Master Sharla Banu/Lady Eltrixa, 48, mentor and Sith Lady Overall History • Taryn's conception was an explosive thing, and led his mother to leave her wealthy family, who were uncomfortable with the boy's more or less good-for-nothing father, who'd earned that title by virtue of a poorly thought out tryst. In any event, Mira Lemayne was determined to love the young life, and give it a half-decent life. Once she had completed her education, about halfway through the pregnancy, in nursing, she unceremoniously quit the Hapan Consortium for greener pastures in the Core. It was on Ruusan where she found this new life, and while she struggled everyday to provide adequately and adjust to the foreign socierty in which she found herself. When the Jedi found Taryn, it was a painful but easy decision for her to make. She did not fear that she couldn't eventually provide a good life for him, but rather, could not bring herself to deny her toddler son the opportunity of his life. Growing up in the Temple on Coruscant was odd. Sure, Taryn was cared for. He was slight and shy. Taryn had a hard time making friends, and spentmost of his time alone. He consoled himself by reading. As his youngling years passed on, he poured over books about culture, language, literature, and history. This eased him through his studies, and he was recognized by his instructors as particularly bright. He also did well in his force studies, receiving good marks across the board. Despite his success in these fields, Taryn struggled to build a strong sense of self. He had few friends by the time he was ten. Among the padawans were bullies. He was sulky and lacked self-confidence. He feared his shortcomings in the physical and social aspects of his training were going to cripple his chances of being taken on as a padawan. As his all important twelfth birthday loomed, Taryn still hadn’t been chosen. Most of his classmates had at least a lead or two on a prospective master a year from their deadline, but the Hapan youngling felt as isolated and insufficient as ever. Several months passed. He spent virtually all of his spare time getting lost in the countless volumes of the Jedi Temple, trying not to think about the looming deadline, when he was sure he'd be shuttled off to the Jedi Service Corps, unwanted and cast away like before. In what seemed like a miracle to him, he was chosen two months before his 13th birthday by none other than Jedi Knight Sharla Banu, a Togruta who had been renowned as a powerful practitioner of the Force, but was more recently famous due to the sudden, unexplained disappearance of her 19-year-old apprentice. “Why would she want him?” He wondered incessantly. His training was pure torture from the beginning. He was bookish, idle, and meek. Banu woke him at 0600 daily to begin a strict regimen of physical exercise. He needed to toughen up if he wanted to make it through training, she would tell him. She pretended not to be able to hear him when he spoke too softly. “Speak up. If you have something to say, say it, and say it loud enough for me to hear it.” Taryn hated it. She was severe, unreasonable, and rude. But, he didn’t have any other prospects. He stuck to it, though not without frustration. One day his consternation came to a head and he asked her suddenly and angrily just why she chose him if he obviously didn’t add up to her standards. To his great surprise, she smiled. He was different from the others. He had great potential. The others simply didn't see how great that potential was. She told him all this, and as unsettling as it was, it helped Taryn. He felt validated for the first time. He even began to view Banu in a more sympathetic light. From then, his training accelerated dramatically. She began pushing him to new disciplines of the Force, encouraged his already voracious reading, and demanded that he addressed his weaknesses. The latter came in the form of daily sparring lessons. She wanted him to be stronger, quicker on his feet, and more aggressive. Eventually, she began teaching him the rudiments of lightsaber combat, and sensing that his strengths were elsewhere, settled on Form VI: Niman as the most suitable fit for the young man. Force training became more physical, and along with his sparring and lightsaber lessons, Master Banu introduced Force combat techniques in the form of telekinesis and force barriers. He gradually began to excel in this field, though he remained thin and a only barely passable swordsman. Taryn’s Master also recognized that he needed to work on his interpersonal skills, as he had spent most of his life rather isolated from his contemporaries. At first she often forced him to explore Coruscant at night. Then he found it wasn’t so bad, and began to go on his own accord. He grew more amiable and, if only slightly, more adventurous. She also set up joint missions with other padawans his age, and hand-picked a new sparring partner. Shalene Amiral, an Iridonian Padawan a year his senior, would beat his ass daily for almost a month before he started to hold his own in the ring. She was his opposite: direct, gregarious, light-hearted, and a very good swordsman. The two became friends over time, eventually becoming close confidants. At sixteen, Master Banu took Taryn to Ilum to build his lightsaber. It took the better part of three days, but he eventually selected a yellow crystal and assembled a lightsaber. He was proud, but mostly relieved he had completed the important milestone. For the first time, he actually felt like he could become a real Jedi Knight. That would never happen. Banu had always been unorthodox, but in the late years of his apprenticeship, she began acting strange. She was often away. She quarreled with the Council and her peers constantly. She vented her frustrations to Taryn while they were off on various missions. The Order was holding them back. The Order did not realize his or her true potential. They blamed her for the disappearance of her former Padawan. Taryn had been blackballed by his fellow Padawans because they were afraid of his power. One day, her demeanor changed entirely. She spoke to him calmly after their afternoon meditation. “I’m leaving. You can come with me, and realize your true potential as my apprentice, or stay here with those that have alienated you from the beginning.” He had to admit he'd almost seen this coming. As ludicrous as it was, Taryn knew he had to go with her. His training was incomplete. He had never felt like he was truly one of them anyway. Master Banu obviously believed in him, and he believed in her. She was the only one that had ever shown any genuine concern for his future, and he’d be damned if he let her trot off and leave her with the very ones that had been holding him back this whole time. Twenty-year old Taryn and his master fled Coruscant in the night, flying second-class to the neutral world of Iridonia. They settled into a run-down ranch in the remote countryside. It was modest, but it was private. Over the next year, Taryn’s training accelerated. He felt his power growing as he began to explore the limits of the Force without the hypocritical, backward constraints of the Jedi. He practiced force combat techniques on the fearsome beasts and unamiable Zabrak he encountered on Iridonia. He incorporated telekinesis and force barriers, two of his greatest strengths, into the passive Niman style he had adopted early in his Padawan days. Banu also began experimenting with the darker aspects of the Force, particularly after the two spent weeks exploring the ruins of an ancient Sith outpost where they recovered several ancient Sith writings. Both Banu and Taryn began practicing the rudiments of the Dark Side. Taryn excelled past her expectations in this field and soon surpassed even her mastery of Dark Side powers, even manifesting weak force lightning near the end of his training. It was only natural. Taryn had become comfortable with wielding the force, and by channeling all the loathing and insecurities he had harbored and abided his whole life into raw passion, he felt he could do anything. Banu encouraged her apprentice’s delve into darkness, believing it would amplify his powers. She was right, but with great power came sweltering ambition. He began to frequent the surrounding settlements. He began speaking with local chieftains, and discovered that a band of raiders had been harassing local commerce and ransoming hostages. In truth, they should have defended themselves adequately before hand, he thought. On the other hand, he knew what it was like to be weak. He remembered all too well the bullies that had tormented him in his youngling days. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to prove himself to Banu. In truth the raiders were a slovenly, boozy lot. But they were heavily armed, so Taryn didn’t take his chances. He set up camp on top of a nearby mesa and observed the raiders for days. Like all Hapans, he was blind in the dark and would have to attack in the day. As the sun rose and the drunken marauders slept in their tents, he descended on the encampment and slaughtered a half dozen of them before they could fighting back. The survivors tried to gun him down, but he deflected or blocked most of their shots, cutting two of them down before facing down their leader, a massive vibro-sword wielding Rodian. They engaged in a duel, and for the first time that day, Taryn was afraid. He began losing ground, and all seemed lost when the brute disarmed him completely, and slashed his face wide open. Blood soaked and terrified, he watched as the Rodian made to strike the killing blow. His fear, his pain, his weakness, it made him angry. In a surge of passion, he unleashed a storm of lightning from his quivering fingertips, catching the ruffian by surprise and causing him to falter. Pressing the advantage, he got to his feet and summoned more lightning, disabling his opponent, whom he promptly decapitated. As the Rodian's last few minutes passed by in agony, Taryn was positively sanguine. He had never felt so powerful. He took the severed, toasted head of the Rodian raider to the nearest settlement. He felt the fear and respect of the local Zabrak, who named him Oucoa, fearless one and held a feast in his honor. Taryn felt their fear and their respect, and he relished it. It was his first taste of real power. Despite the opportunities he saw on Iridonia among the tribes and settlements, he and Banu would soon leave the planet. As their power and ambition grew, master and apprentice, now more like Mother and Son, agreed they had outgrown their surroundings. Iridonia was also about to join the Republic, and the last thing they wanted was to be under the thumb of the Jedi all over again. They boarded at the nearest spaceport, fleeing to Hutt Space. Taryn was 23, and as far as either he or his master was concerned, complete with his training. Their stay on Iridonia had hardened him, and as his power in the Force grew, so too did his confidence and resolve. He began to act independently as they temporarily settled on Nar Shadaa. Running low on resources and badly in need of an updated and less holey wardrobe, Taryn began seeking out contract work for Nar Shadaa’s criminal enterprises. Wary of exposing himself as a Dark Jedi, Taryn mostly stuck to light work, such as running blue spice from the manufacturers to the dealers. He felt the work was beneath someone who had dedicated his life to learning and mastery of the force, but they needed the money. He soon longed to leave the grimy Smuggler’s Moon, and his master agreed to leave with him. They resolved to join the Sith Order. While neither Taryn or Banu were overjoyed to be subject to yet another hierarchy, they realized their options were swiftly narrowing. Master Banu had spent decades in the Jedi Order, so she understood they would be discovered and ultimately hunted down. Taking what money they had cobbled together over the last six months, the Dark Jedi fled to the Sith Temple on Dromund Kaas. . Banu was made a Dark Lady of the Sith and assumed the role of Praetor within the Cult of Strife. For his part, Taryn was accepted into the order as a Knight. His initial assessment was glowing. The Sith recognized him as a powerful force user, if his combat experience and bladework left something to be desired. At his knighting ceremony, Lady Eltrixa, as Banu was now known, christened him Visarion, and he chose to join the Cult of Mysteries, where his focus on growing in the force was fostered by more knowledgeable practitioners of the dark arts. For the first time in ten years, Taryn was separated from his master. She had carefully molded him from a craven depressive to an ambitious and talented force user, and for that he would be forever grateful. But now, he had outgrown her instruction. The masters in the Cult of Mysteries would help him refine his force lightning techniques and further develop his knowledge of his Sith forebears and the lessons they taught. He hated many of his colleagues from the beginning. Snide, entitled, and arrogant, just like his Jedi classmates. That said, he grew to respect a great many of them as well. They were younger, and better trained in the Dark Side in many cases, but he began to make a few acquaintances, if only for educational reasons at first. He spent the next several years on Korriban, exploring the Sith temples of old and learning their secrets. On the ageless Sith homeworld, Visarion learned to draw power from the life force of other beings, practicing on the Temple’s prisoners and on Korriban’s wildlife. He also found a synthetic red crystal deep in the recesses of on of the more secluded tombs. Feeling a strong connection within it and seeking to complete his transformation as Sith, he replaced the yellow crystal he had chosen years before with the new one. Visarion at first feared that life in the Sith Order would suite him as poorly as life in the Jedi Order had. In fact, he was surprised at how free he felt. The Sith did not shroud themselves in restraint and hypocrisy as the Jedi did. He was free to pursue his studies and his own ambitions, so long as he continued to perform and show his worth to the Order. The silver mask came not only with new opportunities, but great responsibilities. He was tasked, as a long-term goal, with recovering as many Massassi artifacts as possible and bringing them to Dromund Kaas. The newly minted Knight of Mysteries was eager to start his mission and prove his worth, to himself, to his old Master, to the Order, to everyone. ~ The ensuing years were a period of trial and growth. Visarion grew deeply interested in the stranger, esoteric aspect of the Force. As desolate and depressing as Korriban could be, it offered answers and opportunities. He developed a fascination with the Ancient Sith and their mystical understanding and relationship with the Bogan. This turned out to be a fruitful interest, as Visarion one day uncovered a manuscript, written in the ancient Sith tongue, detailing a prototypical technique akin to what the Sith understood as Drain Knowledge. Pouring over the harsh lettering of the fragile and applying its principles experimentally on what adequate subjects he could acquire, the Knight slowly but surely mastered the art, which he discovered to require immense focus and mental fortitude. Visarion literally limped out of the Archeri Crisis, but did so in one piece, going on to continue his duties in service of the cult of silver and its radiant Heart. |
