Post by Karma on Apr 25, 2014 14:04:00 GMT -5
Name: Aiso
Race: Rattataki
Age: 19
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 138lbs
Appearance: Aiso has a strong and athletic build, with pale gray skin like most of her clan, if not her entire species. Her skin is entirely one tone, including her lips, and she has no hair or eyebrows to break up that blank canvas. These evolutions once helped her people blend into the bleak gray backdrop of their homeworld. The reflective quality of her lightly colored irises are another; the rattataki winters boasted long, unforgiving night cycles, and being able to see in dim light was necessary both to avoid predators and compete for limited resources.
Her profile is not pronounced. She has a short nose, medium width, over a full but plain-shaped mouth. Her cheekbones are high above round, apple cheeks, removing any delicacy they might otherwise lend her appearance. Her jaw is strong, her chin rounded, and their set appears stubborn even before she utters a word. Her eyes are wide-set and almond-shaped, rimmed by dark tattoos that stretch back toward her temples.
Matching tattoos reach from her temples back along her head, converging at the back of her head pointing toward the nape of her neck. A lighter tattoo covers the bottom half of her face like a veil, all lines which serve to break up her expression when she is stoic, making her appear even more aloof and neutral than she already is. But when she bares her teeth and glares in fury, the tattoos also showcase the snarl of her lips and the pierce of her gaze. What the rattataki lack in the uniformity of their grayness, they long ago learned to make up for in the artistry of their tattoos, scarring, and piercing.
She bears a brand under her left eye, a code in basic that marks her as a prisoner, if not outright property. In accordance with clan tradition, the brand has been changed artistically into something decorative, and she wears it proudly the way others would wear rare gems or expensive robes for decoration. It is a symbol of her present survival rather than one of shame, as if to say ‘someone once tried to claim me, but even this I wove into the fabric of my strength.’
Personality:
Aiso is a warrior through and through. She believes that life is a struggle and that survival is the epitome of accomplishment. There is no greater dishonor in this life than to give up your hold on it before you absolutely must.
In the gladiator arena, Aiso’s latent force sensitivity made her a formidable opponent. It also made her childishly arrogant – not in the prideful way that a grown person believes themselves ‘the best’, but in the honest way a young person believes they are strong because they have simply never been tested to prove otherwise. This was true for her, and though her recent defeat at the hands of a sith lord certainly tempered that feeling, it is a shock that is still taking time to mature into wisdom.
The introduction of the Sith Order into her life has only confused rather than humbled her. All her life she believed the Sith Empire to be weak and shallow. They held battles for amusement and entertainment, without participating themselves. They ate extravagant meals while they watched slaves battle over scraps. They were untempered by starvation, destitution, and necessity, while she and the others in her clan were made stronger every day for it. Even the mercenaries that sometimes came to try their strength against the rattataki gladiators only did so for vanity – for credits or for reputation, and never because the very lifeblood that flowed through their veins depended on it. This, she felt, made them all weak, an empty people full of empty ideals. She, on the other hand, was a survivor.
By mere association she believed the Sith Order must be just as weak willed and vapid. She isn’t sure whether those beliefs have changed now that she has been introduced to them properly. Still, she cannot deny that they have skills she does not. The temptation of bettering her prowess in battle is a strong one, and now she must only ask herself whether she is willing or able to humble herself to receive such training.
She is still young, and there is a part of her that cannot abide submitting to the rule of anyone who has not yet earned her respect. Despite a sound defeat at their hands, the sith have not yet earned that respect from her; power for power's sake means nothing to her, particularly when it is used in the pursuit of shallow ends rather than something much more substantial: freedom, and survival. Until the Sith Order can prove to her that this is their goal, she is inclined to think them just as much vainglorious power-grabbing fools as the sith aristocracy that came before them.
But like the aristocracy, she is determined to glean what she can from them regardless of how much or how little she values them as warriors. They may be hollow rulers, but so long as they are her only link to learning the ways of the Force she is determined to be an apt pupil - if only she can keep her deepest doubts in check.
Birth place: Bastion* (Open to suggestions here, as this is so dependent on the current story, and you would know better!)
Faction: Sith Order
Rank: Initiate
Previous Faction: None
Previous Rank: Nada
Lightsaber: None yet
Color: Not applicable
Practiced Lightsaber forms:
Shii-Cho
Makashi
Soresu
Ataru
Shien / Djem So
>>Sub-form Backhanded
Niman
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or Dual Wield
Juyo
Double Bladed Combat
Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:
Telekinetic: 1
Telepathic: 1
Body: 1
Sense: 2
Protection: 1
Healing: 1
Destruction: 1
Specialized Skills:
Aiso is experienced in hand-to-hand combat or combat with a staff style weapon, but this experience is had through gladiatorial combat and not through formal training. She fights dirty and survival is all that matters. Elegance or finesse was not her point nor her study. She is able to attune herself to the force just enough to give her a slight edge over a non-force-user in battle. This combined with years of experience reading body language has made her slightly better at predicting movements than a non-force-user would be, but that’s all that she currently knows and she is not aware that this is augmented by the force in any way.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 5
Speed: 7
Leadership: 1
Unarmed: 7
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 1
(Also with the suggestions here, please! I just assumed that 5 was average and went from there, so I’d very much like some guidance. ^^ She is meant to be quite athletic, and I imagine even after her training with the force that her athleticism and saber training will be her primary skillset, sort of just using the force to boost her fighting talents rather than focusing deeply on force knowledge. She’s just such a scrapper. So, maybe that will help you help me decide what to do with stats, etc!)
Bio:
Background
Over a century ago, Rattatak was a world relatively isolated from the rest of the galaxy, only visited by occasional mercenaries who visited the harsh world to test their skills against the battle-hardened denizens of the planet. The inhabitants of the planet were in entrenched in constant warfare over the scarce natural resources and while relatively unknown, those who knew of them knew the world to be immersed in violence, and the rattataki species in particular had perfected the art.
This earned them the notice of Sith Lord Darth Vich, who, during the midst of the Great War, kidnapped hundreds of native clans for his own personal army. But Darth Vich’s fate was the same as all the other Sith Lords who defied the Dark Council and he was, eventually, vanquished, leaving his uprooted army to suffer the same fate. Those who were not killed for their allegiance were enslaved, becoming tools for the old Sith Empire. Now, a hundred years later, a makeshift clan made up of descendants of that war still lives on the Sith-controlled world of Bastion.
Bastion never had been friendly to non-humans, despite relying on the nearby world of Muun to provide for their stable economy. A Sith aristocrat who purchased the ragtag clan of rattataki slaves after the Great War found a haven on Bastion and relocated his wealth there. Here, the wealthy and like-minded aristocrats could continue to benefit from the trade routes that passed by so close to the planet and still maintain enough distance from the Republic to leave their hatred toward aliens uncontested. He intended to use the disenfranchised rattataki as slave labor to build his new palaces, but the lord in question did not account for the warlike spirit of the enslaved clans.
They were unendingly defiant of rule. Every order resulted in a battle, and their prowess was great enough to give his wranglers a great deal of trouble. He thought to use coercion by rewarding only those who surrendered to the will of the masters, but that was short-lived. Those who surrendered invariably ended up dead, and any goods given to one would merely be fought over by all the rest. At their best, the lords only learned to contain the rattataki, who continued to live as though they had never been taken from their homeworld, fighting over resources, honing their skills, and testing the strength and mettle of their guards.
But if the wild vermin insisted on fighting, their new master was inclined to put that to use, too. At first, the exhibition of rattataki battles was crude and meant only as punishment and degradation. If the rattataki meant to fight amongst themselves for food, he would simply gather people together to watch the mad dogs do it. But before long it became something more organized, opulent, and oppressive. ‘Like any animal, they must have their exercise,’ explained the lord, claiming that if the rattataki slaves were too busy fighting for their lives, then they could not rebel.
After a time, the fighting rattataki became an attraction. A reputation began to form among the seedier space lanes: a rich lord had an unstoppable force of rattataki gladiators. The Sith aristocrat turned the rattataki’s violent spirit to his profit, and into this world of survival-of-the-fittest, a new generation of the clan was born.
Childhood
Aiso has never known her species’ homeworld of Rattatak, but the harsh homeworld has formed the core of the mixed clan culture that sprung up on Bastion. Tales were handed down about the world’s harsh environment shaping the clan into the battle-hardened warriors they are now. Skills learned there for avoiding predators and killing humanoids were taught to each successive generation. Survival was the only aim, and it was the only one worth having.
A new kind of culture sprung up within the confines of enslavement. A hierarchy established itself. Those who survived longest earned a kind of respect, a place of honor among the others. It didn’t earn them any immunity. Simply, survival itself was seen as a mark of strength and power, power over one’s fate in spite of harsh circumstances. And that ability to survive was the height of achievement, more than any other.
Neither, however, was death a dishonor to anyone – excepting if it came at the hands of surrender. To not fight for life was the greatest dishonor of all. So long as one fought for every last breath, dying could never be anything but a release from the violent suffering of life. They held no beliefs for what came after death except that it meant a great ceasing of desperate battle, so if one surrendered to death before their final breath, they could only face their last moments with fear and shame, rather than relief.
These were the tenants she was raised with, a schema that made fighting for her place from a young age normal rather than traumatic. She respected strength, she respected survival, and she never thought to look beyond the sphere in which she grew up. After a century, and with generations for a culture of gladiators being quite short, notions of a different way of living were as distant as they were valueless. In the arena, one found strength, honor, and a meaningful death. That was all that mattered, and she never thought or needed to look beyond it.
And she was good at battle. She picked up a certain innate ability to predict how her opponents moved. As a child, it meant she could dart in, grab a morsel of food, and dart back out before anyone caught her up. As she got larger, it meant she could avoid a swift quick or backhand. By the time she was in her adolescence, that ability augmented the skills she honed daily honed in battle with her fellow warriors.
Introduction to the Sith Order
By the time she was fully grown, she had earned herself a reputation as a formidable opponent in the Arena – not because she was better than any other warrior, but because she could hold her own. She survived. Her relative youth earned her a following in the aristocratic audience, and that in turn earned her rewards like extra food or ointment (a way for rich nobles to ensure that bets for her victory were not made in vain.) But that notice would also end up putting her in the path of danger, as standing out so often does in a world pitted in war.
The establishment of the new Sith Order had been met with delight from Lord Pellus, the descendant of the original Sith aristocrat who had inherited the rattataki slaves. His family history was intertwined with the last war and he knew only too well that one would rather be on the good side of a Sith Order than not be thought of at all. Eager to ingratiate himself to the new order, he sent word of his rattataki warriors and begged the Order would make use of the aliens' skills to hone their own. The loyal citizens of the Sith Empire on Bastion would be only too eager to see the full might of the Sith Order (and the ticket sales would be enormous, too.)
To his delight, eventually a Sith Lord did come, with a handful of initiates whose worth needed proving. To increase the interest in the fight, the aristocrat assembled some of his finest crowd-pleasers for the event, and Aiso was among them.
She and some of the other top gladiators were prodded into their chute as usual, with no warning about what they would find on the other side. The usual, they expected: a mercenary with dozens of gadgets while they had sticks, a ferocious animal that had been terrorizing local farm lands, or merely another slave owner’s peck of fighters. Sometimes they were meant to lose, but never had they ever been as outmatched as they were that day.
The instant the initiate’s lightsabers ignited, they quickly realized this was nothing like ‘usual’. It was chaos. As the surprised and sometimes terrified cries of her brethren reached her, it was hard to believe that death could really be coming as such a relief to them. Perhaps there was no honor in fighting an enemy so pointedly overpowered. The betrayal made her blood burn.
She was blinded by her fury as she threw herself into battle with renewed ferocity. She used her fellow warriors and enemies alike to her advantage, darting between fighters to break the line of attacks focused her way, used injured bodies as shields or projectiles, and struck out as often as she could to wound her enemy. She didn't quite hope for survival but she fought for it tooth and nail, and if she must die, she would not do so without making her enemies regret the fight that took her life.
She was the last of the rattataki to fall. She thought, for a moment, that she might have earned her life. The sith backed away from her, but not to spare her, as she initially thought. No, they only made way for a bigger threat, as the sith lord who had ushered them there took to the battlefield. Slowly, the full-fledged sith cut her down to size, not in one fell swoop, but in tiny, biting strikes designed as much to break her spirit as her body. She was not just being beaten. She was being taught a lesson. Every tool in her arsenal, every weapon she could gain, every limb, was incapacitated. Even then, staring up into the face of certain death, she heeded the teachings of her people and made a last stitch effort at life, just before she was struck down for good.
Survival, Afterall
She awoke in a strange place, but still more surprising was waking up at all. She did not recognize the med bay in the Sith Academy, nor the strange scent of the Korriban atmosphere or the foreign cleanliness of the scrubbed air. The sith had spared her, if you could call it that. Every fiber in her body ached and her mind was fuzzy and uncertain. Still, she lived, though for what purpose she could not guess. She had been beaten soundly, no match at all for a sith. Were their roles reversed, she knew she would have had no use whatsoever for a creature like herself. Why, then, was she here? Why had she been spared? And what fresh battle could fate possibly have in store for her now?
RP Sample:
(Kind of got ridiculous with this length sorryyyyy. ^^ Here is a shorter one!)
The cramped stall she and the other fighters were ushered into was pitch black but for the sunlight that filtered through cracks in the wooden slats that separated them from the arena. The small room smelled of earth, sweat, and the waft of perfume from the better kept members of the audience overhead. If they bothered to look up, they might have seen the small eyes of children peeking through to get a look at the ‘rats,’ but it was best not to tempt oneself with the urge to poke them out.
There was no sense of nervousness among the fighters who awaited the gate's opening – only readiness. The spike of awareness during battle only lasts so long, and it is best to spare that moment until the very first strike. Any seasoned fighter knows that, and some not-so-seasoned, too.
She didn’t have quite so many seasons behind her as some of the other fighters here, she knew. Dekva was close in age, a young man who got his nickname from the massive lizards of the same name that roamed Rattatak. Hojji was a year older, but she had a talent with blades that looked otherworldly in motion. Aiso, by comparison, was simply an uncannily wary scrapper, but she could learn by example as well as anyone. She saved her adrenaline for when it mattered most.
The gates swung open and her heart kicked up a notch as she followed the other rattataki warriors at a jog. The crowds in the arena sent up a cry, notable only for its being louder than usual. The stands were unusually full, the audience unusually enthusiastic, but she deliberately tuned them out as her gaze swept the other gates around the arena. Knowing where danger was to come from meant far more than knowing how many people were to watch her fight it.
But there was no one at the gates. She spun full circle, checking the gate they had come through, but that was being drawn back to a close. She and her clansmen drew warily near to each other in the center of the arena, instinctively circling their wagons as they waited to find what new trick was in store for them this time. A hush fell over the crowd; they kept their eyes peeled.
They dropped from the audience one by one, black-robed assailants, seemingly nondescript but for their darkly colored uniforms and full face masks in the midday heat. The rattataki took a collective step backwards to draw their ranks closer still. Their enemy was spread out and surrounding them – they must watch each other’s backs.
The enemy strode toward them, seemingly unarmed, their steps altogether too confident for the opponent they were facing. This, more than anything, caught her attention as she watched their approach. She felt something come alive at their apparent arrogance, an instinct like that of a hunter that has just caught scent of prey. Here was a weakness to be exploited. She felt her excitement heightening in anticipation of a victory. She shouted a cry of intimidation, one echoed throughout the ranks of gladiators at her back.
Their enemy did not flinch. They stopped their forward march just outside of combat distance. The rattataki again took this to be a sign of cowardice. She could feel the collective ebb and flow of the group behind her as they rocked from back to forward foot, voices still clamoring. They were so assured of their victory in that moment. Their inferior position was nothing to the perceived inferiority of mind in the enemy that circled them.
Dekva was the first to move. He would break their line with his massive form. One sidestep and their formation would be broken for the rest of the rattataki to exploit. He knew his purpose. He barreled forward, and she shouted in unison with those soon to follow, bolstering his charge with the cacophonous lift of voices. None of them noticed then that the crowd had failed to join in.
The fearful sidestep did not come. Instead, the robed figure Dekva barreled toward reached across her body and pulled a concealed weapon from her belt. Half a moment before Dekva’s gargantuan shoulder planted in the enemy’s chest, his opponent ignited a searing red blade. In one quick motion she brought it down in a diagonal slash and Dekva’s enormous body simply veered uselessly to the side, brushing only the hood across the figure’s cheek. His body hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud, followed by the sickening sound of his lifeless head rolling past the feet of his killer.
“Vichas,” breathed the eldest of the rattataki warriors in their native tongue. Sith. A chill ran through the remaining gladiators. Aiso felt her heart pounding in her chest, doing what she had thought earlier never to do. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as red blades erupted around the arena. She no longer felt as though they had the numbers advantage. So no longer felt as though they had any advantage at all. She realized the crowd was not here to see a fight; they were here for a slaughter!
The first of the sith ran toward them, blade held aloft. He leapt, arcing gracefully through the air to land immediately in the midst of the gathered rattataki. They scattered, and just like that their numbers advantage was as broken as their ranks. Aiso instinctively turned to face the interloper, bringing her vibrostaff down in a quick strike she hoped might catch the sith off guard. He deflected it easily – not only easily, but with a force that cut through her vibroblade like butter. The bladed end careened ineffectively through the sky toward nothing.
She didn’t have time to start at the power of the sith blade. They would have been better prepared unarmed than to fight with weapons that did no good against their opponents! The sith turned and aimed a backwards stab at her abdomen – she jumped out of the way just in time. Her anger was growing every moment, nestled tightly alongside her stubborn defiance against such impossible odds.
Never had she ever had any respect for the aristocrats who enslaved her people, but never had they been so betrayed and abused as this. She felt rather than saw that one of her brethren fell – perhaps she knew because of the explosive cheers of the crowd – and her fury grew further. The sith continued to twirl and sweep at her with his blade, but she had learned her lesson. She dodged instead of blocked. With every swipe he gave a little more away about his fighting. He was not so skilled as he at first appeared. Even worse than offering them up as desert for real sith, she got the impression they were merely being used as fodder for their young. Her indignation reached a ferocious crescendo.
She found her opening and dug in with her vibroblade, feinting first at the sith’s side and then twirling the useful end instead at his exposed leg. The strike was a hit. With a howl, the untrained sith gave himself away, and she sneered at the child-like wail. But then, before she could capitalize, he recovered. Her breath stopped as she very nearly took his saber to her throat – she had counted her victory too soon – as the sith moved like he had never been hit at all. Heavier breathing was his only sign. She set her jaw in determination and switched targets. If she could not cut the beast’s legs out from underneath him, perhaps she would pull his teeth, instead.
They danced. She feinted, he parried. She struck, he moved, too wary to be caught out the same way again. She could not abide such tame exertions when all she wanted was blood! If she was to be a meal for a larger monster, she would not go without leaving a mark!
She struck with the cut end of her staff, which the sith had discounted, a blow that did just enough to break up the still unpracticed movements of his saber. He was not experienced enough to recover without a hiccup, and she exploited that weakness, lashing out with a furious kick that sent him windmilling into another rattataki. Hojji’s blade pinned into the middle of the young sith, and she gave a raucous cry of victory, as though she was every bit as motivated by bloodlust now as Aiso.
But Aiso was not yet satisfied. She picked up the discarded lightsaber at her feet and ignited the blade with the rudimentary switch on the hilt. She knew not what she intended when she approached the body of the still bleeding and terrified initiate, but within moments she held his dismembered head aloft by the hair, giving him the same dishonorable demise his sister had given to Dekva. She roared in defiance of the clamorous crowd. They wanted blood? She launched the sith’s mutilated head into the audience, sending them ducking. They would have it.
She did not know how much blood she drew after that, so thick was the haze of her battlelust. She wove between enemy and ally alike, forgetting alliances in focused attention to what occurred around her. She broke up attacks from her enemies by putting her allies between herself and their blades. She at one point used the falling body of a comrade as a shield. Nothing was sacred any longer. Nor did she think for a moment of honor. She thought of nothing, in fact, but felt the jagged edge of battle as she tiptoed along it, barely evading becoming a casualty herself and inflicting injuries as she went. By the time the battle grew still, she was the only rattataki still on her feet, encircled by the remaining sith students.
She breathed heavily and waited, eying them like an injured nexu. She was weary from exertion and blood loss. They outnumbered her and she had long ago lost her stolen weapon. But their final joint move never came. Just when she would have expected them to strike, their steps fell back. To exhausted to argue, her shoulders dropped wearily.
That’s when she was hit with a telekinetic burst from behind. She scrambled to relocate her stolen lightsaber, but it was just as easily slashed from her hand with the cold and undaunted purpose of the sith lord. She no longer wondered if the other sith she had fought were students; the master’s power so far and away outstripped the others that it could not be mistaken.
A kick connected with her jaw, sending her flying, her ears ringing and world spinning. Still she rolled and tried to push off the ground, grimacing as she realized the severed tendons in her saber hand would not respond. She stood, but only for half a second. She screamed in anguish as her hamstring was severed like her hand before it. Her leg buckled.
She understood the futility. She felt the punishment rolling off of the sith as they circled her, felt the abject humiliation of being picked apart piece by piece. The sith waited for her to try again, and she knew she would be corrected for the presumption of fighting the inevitable. She couldn’t help it. Everything within her screamed against the power of the sith over her, however impossible. She might be killed, but she would not submit to it.
She made to crawl, but the sith’s lightsaber stabbed ruthlessly through her calf, pinning her briefly to the ground. She spun awkwardly in the filth of the arena floor, chest heaving and skin muddied with blood. She stared up the length of the lightsaber that pointed at her throat to meet the burning eyes of her killer.
For a brief moment there was nothing between them but her hard breathing and the flash of fight that still had not left her eyes. The moment was all hushed expectation as the two squared off in But then she moved, because she knew – in that way she sometimes knew without knowing how – that the sith’s guard was down, that they thought the battle won, and if she could distract them half a moment she might earn herself another breath, she might run, she might survive.
In one quick motion she tossed a handful of bloodied dirt into the sith’s face, and when the blade of the lightsaber was moved, she lashed out with her only working leg at the back of one knee. It was her last conscious moment. In the next, a crack seared through her head, and after that…
Nothing.
Race: Rattataki
Age: 19
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 138lbs
Appearance: Aiso has a strong and athletic build, with pale gray skin like most of her clan, if not her entire species. Her skin is entirely one tone, including her lips, and she has no hair or eyebrows to break up that blank canvas. These evolutions once helped her people blend into the bleak gray backdrop of their homeworld. The reflective quality of her lightly colored irises are another; the rattataki winters boasted long, unforgiving night cycles, and being able to see in dim light was necessary both to avoid predators and compete for limited resources.
Her profile is not pronounced. She has a short nose, medium width, over a full but plain-shaped mouth. Her cheekbones are high above round, apple cheeks, removing any delicacy they might otherwise lend her appearance. Her jaw is strong, her chin rounded, and their set appears stubborn even before she utters a word. Her eyes are wide-set and almond-shaped, rimmed by dark tattoos that stretch back toward her temples.
Matching tattoos reach from her temples back along her head, converging at the back of her head pointing toward the nape of her neck. A lighter tattoo covers the bottom half of her face like a veil, all lines which serve to break up her expression when she is stoic, making her appear even more aloof and neutral than she already is. But when she bares her teeth and glares in fury, the tattoos also showcase the snarl of her lips and the pierce of her gaze. What the rattataki lack in the uniformity of their grayness, they long ago learned to make up for in the artistry of their tattoos, scarring, and piercing.
She bears a brand under her left eye, a code in basic that marks her as a prisoner, if not outright property. In accordance with clan tradition, the brand has been changed artistically into something decorative, and she wears it proudly the way others would wear rare gems or expensive robes for decoration. It is a symbol of her present survival rather than one of shame, as if to say ‘someone once tried to claim me, but even this I wove into the fabric of my strength.’
Personality:
Aiso is a warrior through and through. She believes that life is a struggle and that survival is the epitome of accomplishment. There is no greater dishonor in this life than to give up your hold on it before you absolutely must.
In the gladiator arena, Aiso’s latent force sensitivity made her a formidable opponent. It also made her childishly arrogant – not in the prideful way that a grown person believes themselves ‘the best’, but in the honest way a young person believes they are strong because they have simply never been tested to prove otherwise. This was true for her, and though her recent defeat at the hands of a sith lord certainly tempered that feeling, it is a shock that is still taking time to mature into wisdom.
The introduction of the Sith Order into her life has only confused rather than humbled her. All her life she believed the Sith Empire to be weak and shallow. They held battles for amusement and entertainment, without participating themselves. They ate extravagant meals while they watched slaves battle over scraps. They were untempered by starvation, destitution, and necessity, while she and the others in her clan were made stronger every day for it. Even the mercenaries that sometimes came to try their strength against the rattataki gladiators only did so for vanity – for credits or for reputation, and never because the very lifeblood that flowed through their veins depended on it. This, she felt, made them all weak, an empty people full of empty ideals. She, on the other hand, was a survivor.
By mere association she believed the Sith Order must be just as weak willed and vapid. She isn’t sure whether those beliefs have changed now that she has been introduced to them properly. Still, she cannot deny that they have skills she does not. The temptation of bettering her prowess in battle is a strong one, and now she must only ask herself whether she is willing or able to humble herself to receive such training.
She is still young, and there is a part of her that cannot abide submitting to the rule of anyone who has not yet earned her respect. Despite a sound defeat at their hands, the sith have not yet earned that respect from her; power for power's sake means nothing to her, particularly when it is used in the pursuit of shallow ends rather than something much more substantial: freedom, and survival. Until the Sith Order can prove to her that this is their goal, she is inclined to think them just as much vainglorious power-grabbing fools as the sith aristocracy that came before them.
But like the aristocracy, she is determined to glean what she can from them regardless of how much or how little she values them as warriors. They may be hollow rulers, but so long as they are her only link to learning the ways of the Force she is determined to be an apt pupil - if only she can keep her deepest doubts in check.
Birth place: Bastion* (Open to suggestions here, as this is so dependent on the current story, and you would know better!)
Faction: Sith Order
Rank: Initiate
Previous Faction: None
Previous Rank: Nada
Lightsaber: None yet
Color: Not applicable
Practiced Lightsaber forms:
Makashi
Soresu
Ataru
Shien / Djem So
>>Sub-form Backhanded
Niman
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or Dual Wield
Juyo
Double Bladed Combat
Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:
Telekinetic: 1
Telepathic: 1
Body: 1
Sense: 2
Protection: 1
Healing: 1
Destruction: 1
Specialized Skills:
Aiso is experienced in hand-to-hand combat or combat with a staff style weapon, but this experience is had through gladiatorial combat and not through formal training. She fights dirty and survival is all that matters. Elegance or finesse was not her point nor her study. She is able to attune herself to the force just enough to give her a slight edge over a non-force-user in battle. This combined with years of experience reading body language has made her slightly better at predicting movements than a non-force-user would be, but that’s all that she currently knows and she is not aware that this is augmented by the force in any way.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 5
Speed: 7
Leadership: 1
Unarmed: 7
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 1
(Also with the suggestions here, please! I just assumed that 5 was average and went from there, so I’d very much like some guidance. ^^ She is meant to be quite athletic, and I imagine even after her training with the force that her athleticism and saber training will be her primary skillset, sort of just using the force to boost her fighting talents rather than focusing deeply on force knowledge. She’s just such a scrapper. So, maybe that will help you help me decide what to do with stats, etc!)
Bio:
Background
Over a century ago, Rattatak was a world relatively isolated from the rest of the galaxy, only visited by occasional mercenaries who visited the harsh world to test their skills against the battle-hardened denizens of the planet. The inhabitants of the planet were in entrenched in constant warfare over the scarce natural resources and while relatively unknown, those who knew of them knew the world to be immersed in violence, and the rattataki species in particular had perfected the art.
This earned them the notice of Sith Lord Darth Vich, who, during the midst of the Great War, kidnapped hundreds of native clans for his own personal army. But Darth Vich’s fate was the same as all the other Sith Lords who defied the Dark Council and he was, eventually, vanquished, leaving his uprooted army to suffer the same fate. Those who were not killed for their allegiance were enslaved, becoming tools for the old Sith Empire. Now, a hundred years later, a makeshift clan made up of descendants of that war still lives on the Sith-controlled world of Bastion.
Bastion never had been friendly to non-humans, despite relying on the nearby world of Muun to provide for their stable economy. A Sith aristocrat who purchased the ragtag clan of rattataki slaves after the Great War found a haven on Bastion and relocated his wealth there. Here, the wealthy and like-minded aristocrats could continue to benefit from the trade routes that passed by so close to the planet and still maintain enough distance from the Republic to leave their hatred toward aliens uncontested. He intended to use the disenfranchised rattataki as slave labor to build his new palaces, but the lord in question did not account for the warlike spirit of the enslaved clans.
They were unendingly defiant of rule. Every order resulted in a battle, and their prowess was great enough to give his wranglers a great deal of trouble. He thought to use coercion by rewarding only those who surrendered to the will of the masters, but that was short-lived. Those who surrendered invariably ended up dead, and any goods given to one would merely be fought over by all the rest. At their best, the lords only learned to contain the rattataki, who continued to live as though they had never been taken from their homeworld, fighting over resources, honing their skills, and testing the strength and mettle of their guards.
But if the wild vermin insisted on fighting, their new master was inclined to put that to use, too. At first, the exhibition of rattataki battles was crude and meant only as punishment and degradation. If the rattataki meant to fight amongst themselves for food, he would simply gather people together to watch the mad dogs do it. But before long it became something more organized, opulent, and oppressive. ‘Like any animal, they must have their exercise,’ explained the lord, claiming that if the rattataki slaves were too busy fighting for their lives, then they could not rebel.
After a time, the fighting rattataki became an attraction. A reputation began to form among the seedier space lanes: a rich lord had an unstoppable force of rattataki gladiators. The Sith aristocrat turned the rattataki’s violent spirit to his profit, and into this world of survival-of-the-fittest, a new generation of the clan was born.
Childhood
Aiso has never known her species’ homeworld of Rattatak, but the harsh homeworld has formed the core of the mixed clan culture that sprung up on Bastion. Tales were handed down about the world’s harsh environment shaping the clan into the battle-hardened warriors they are now. Skills learned there for avoiding predators and killing humanoids were taught to each successive generation. Survival was the only aim, and it was the only one worth having.
A new kind of culture sprung up within the confines of enslavement. A hierarchy established itself. Those who survived longest earned a kind of respect, a place of honor among the others. It didn’t earn them any immunity. Simply, survival itself was seen as a mark of strength and power, power over one’s fate in spite of harsh circumstances. And that ability to survive was the height of achievement, more than any other.
Neither, however, was death a dishonor to anyone – excepting if it came at the hands of surrender. To not fight for life was the greatest dishonor of all. So long as one fought for every last breath, dying could never be anything but a release from the violent suffering of life. They held no beliefs for what came after death except that it meant a great ceasing of desperate battle, so if one surrendered to death before their final breath, they could only face their last moments with fear and shame, rather than relief.
These were the tenants she was raised with, a schema that made fighting for her place from a young age normal rather than traumatic. She respected strength, she respected survival, and she never thought to look beyond the sphere in which she grew up. After a century, and with generations for a culture of gladiators being quite short, notions of a different way of living were as distant as they were valueless. In the arena, one found strength, honor, and a meaningful death. That was all that mattered, and she never thought or needed to look beyond it.
And she was good at battle. She picked up a certain innate ability to predict how her opponents moved. As a child, it meant she could dart in, grab a morsel of food, and dart back out before anyone caught her up. As she got larger, it meant she could avoid a swift quick or backhand. By the time she was in her adolescence, that ability augmented the skills she honed daily honed in battle with her fellow warriors.
Introduction to the Sith Order
By the time she was fully grown, she had earned herself a reputation as a formidable opponent in the Arena – not because she was better than any other warrior, but because she could hold her own. She survived. Her relative youth earned her a following in the aristocratic audience, and that in turn earned her rewards like extra food or ointment (a way for rich nobles to ensure that bets for her victory were not made in vain.) But that notice would also end up putting her in the path of danger, as standing out so often does in a world pitted in war.
The establishment of the new Sith Order had been met with delight from Lord Pellus, the descendant of the original Sith aristocrat who had inherited the rattataki slaves. His family history was intertwined with the last war and he knew only too well that one would rather be on the good side of a Sith Order than not be thought of at all. Eager to ingratiate himself to the new order, he sent word of his rattataki warriors and begged the Order would make use of the aliens' skills to hone their own. The loyal citizens of the Sith Empire on Bastion would be only too eager to see the full might of the Sith Order (and the ticket sales would be enormous, too.)
To his delight, eventually a Sith Lord did come, with a handful of initiates whose worth needed proving. To increase the interest in the fight, the aristocrat assembled some of his finest crowd-pleasers for the event, and Aiso was among them.
She and some of the other top gladiators were prodded into their chute as usual, with no warning about what they would find on the other side. The usual, they expected: a mercenary with dozens of gadgets while they had sticks, a ferocious animal that had been terrorizing local farm lands, or merely another slave owner’s peck of fighters. Sometimes they were meant to lose, but never had they ever been as outmatched as they were that day.
The instant the initiate’s lightsabers ignited, they quickly realized this was nothing like ‘usual’. It was chaos. As the surprised and sometimes terrified cries of her brethren reached her, it was hard to believe that death could really be coming as such a relief to them. Perhaps there was no honor in fighting an enemy so pointedly overpowered. The betrayal made her blood burn.
She was blinded by her fury as she threw herself into battle with renewed ferocity. She used her fellow warriors and enemies alike to her advantage, darting between fighters to break the line of attacks focused her way, used injured bodies as shields or projectiles, and struck out as often as she could to wound her enemy. She didn't quite hope for survival but she fought for it tooth and nail, and if she must die, she would not do so without making her enemies regret the fight that took her life.
She was the last of the rattataki to fall. She thought, for a moment, that she might have earned her life. The sith backed away from her, but not to spare her, as she initially thought. No, they only made way for a bigger threat, as the sith lord who had ushered them there took to the battlefield. Slowly, the full-fledged sith cut her down to size, not in one fell swoop, but in tiny, biting strikes designed as much to break her spirit as her body. She was not just being beaten. She was being taught a lesson. Every tool in her arsenal, every weapon she could gain, every limb, was incapacitated. Even then, staring up into the face of certain death, she heeded the teachings of her people and made a last stitch effort at life, just before she was struck down for good.
Survival, Afterall
She awoke in a strange place, but still more surprising was waking up at all. She did not recognize the med bay in the Sith Academy, nor the strange scent of the Korriban atmosphere or the foreign cleanliness of the scrubbed air. The sith had spared her, if you could call it that. Every fiber in her body ached and her mind was fuzzy and uncertain. Still, she lived, though for what purpose she could not guess. She had been beaten soundly, no match at all for a sith. Were their roles reversed, she knew she would have had no use whatsoever for a creature like herself. Why, then, was she here? Why had she been spared? And what fresh battle could fate possibly have in store for her now?
RP Sample:
(Kind of got ridiculous with this length sorryyyyy. ^^ Here is a shorter one!)
The cramped stall she and the other fighters were ushered into was pitch black but for the sunlight that filtered through cracks in the wooden slats that separated them from the arena. The small room smelled of earth, sweat, and the waft of perfume from the better kept members of the audience overhead. If they bothered to look up, they might have seen the small eyes of children peeking through to get a look at the ‘rats,’ but it was best not to tempt oneself with the urge to poke them out.
There was no sense of nervousness among the fighters who awaited the gate's opening – only readiness. The spike of awareness during battle only lasts so long, and it is best to spare that moment until the very first strike. Any seasoned fighter knows that, and some not-so-seasoned, too.
She didn’t have quite so many seasons behind her as some of the other fighters here, she knew. Dekva was close in age, a young man who got his nickname from the massive lizards of the same name that roamed Rattatak. Hojji was a year older, but she had a talent with blades that looked otherworldly in motion. Aiso, by comparison, was simply an uncannily wary scrapper, but she could learn by example as well as anyone. She saved her adrenaline for when it mattered most.
The gates swung open and her heart kicked up a notch as she followed the other rattataki warriors at a jog. The crowds in the arena sent up a cry, notable only for its being louder than usual. The stands were unusually full, the audience unusually enthusiastic, but she deliberately tuned them out as her gaze swept the other gates around the arena. Knowing where danger was to come from meant far more than knowing how many people were to watch her fight it.
But there was no one at the gates. She spun full circle, checking the gate they had come through, but that was being drawn back to a close. She and her clansmen drew warily near to each other in the center of the arena, instinctively circling their wagons as they waited to find what new trick was in store for them this time. A hush fell over the crowd; they kept their eyes peeled.
They dropped from the audience one by one, black-robed assailants, seemingly nondescript but for their darkly colored uniforms and full face masks in the midday heat. The rattataki took a collective step backwards to draw their ranks closer still. Their enemy was spread out and surrounding them – they must watch each other’s backs.
The enemy strode toward them, seemingly unarmed, their steps altogether too confident for the opponent they were facing. This, more than anything, caught her attention as she watched their approach. She felt something come alive at their apparent arrogance, an instinct like that of a hunter that has just caught scent of prey. Here was a weakness to be exploited. She felt her excitement heightening in anticipation of a victory. She shouted a cry of intimidation, one echoed throughout the ranks of gladiators at her back.
Their enemy did not flinch. They stopped their forward march just outside of combat distance. The rattataki again took this to be a sign of cowardice. She could feel the collective ebb and flow of the group behind her as they rocked from back to forward foot, voices still clamoring. They were so assured of their victory in that moment. Their inferior position was nothing to the perceived inferiority of mind in the enemy that circled them.
Dekva was the first to move. He would break their line with his massive form. One sidestep and their formation would be broken for the rest of the rattataki to exploit. He knew his purpose. He barreled forward, and she shouted in unison with those soon to follow, bolstering his charge with the cacophonous lift of voices. None of them noticed then that the crowd had failed to join in.
The fearful sidestep did not come. Instead, the robed figure Dekva barreled toward reached across her body and pulled a concealed weapon from her belt. Half a moment before Dekva’s gargantuan shoulder planted in the enemy’s chest, his opponent ignited a searing red blade. In one quick motion she brought it down in a diagonal slash and Dekva’s enormous body simply veered uselessly to the side, brushing only the hood across the figure’s cheek. His body hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud, followed by the sickening sound of his lifeless head rolling past the feet of his killer.
“Vichas,” breathed the eldest of the rattataki warriors in their native tongue. Sith. A chill ran through the remaining gladiators. Aiso felt her heart pounding in her chest, doing what she had thought earlier never to do. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as red blades erupted around the arena. She no longer felt as though they had the numbers advantage. So no longer felt as though they had any advantage at all. She realized the crowd was not here to see a fight; they were here for a slaughter!
The first of the sith ran toward them, blade held aloft. He leapt, arcing gracefully through the air to land immediately in the midst of the gathered rattataki. They scattered, and just like that their numbers advantage was as broken as their ranks. Aiso instinctively turned to face the interloper, bringing her vibrostaff down in a quick strike she hoped might catch the sith off guard. He deflected it easily – not only easily, but with a force that cut through her vibroblade like butter. The bladed end careened ineffectively through the sky toward nothing.
She didn’t have time to start at the power of the sith blade. They would have been better prepared unarmed than to fight with weapons that did no good against their opponents! The sith turned and aimed a backwards stab at her abdomen – she jumped out of the way just in time. Her anger was growing every moment, nestled tightly alongside her stubborn defiance against such impossible odds.
Never had she ever had any respect for the aristocrats who enslaved her people, but never had they been so betrayed and abused as this. She felt rather than saw that one of her brethren fell – perhaps she knew because of the explosive cheers of the crowd – and her fury grew further. The sith continued to twirl and sweep at her with his blade, but she had learned her lesson. She dodged instead of blocked. With every swipe he gave a little more away about his fighting. He was not so skilled as he at first appeared. Even worse than offering them up as desert for real sith, she got the impression they were merely being used as fodder for their young. Her indignation reached a ferocious crescendo.
She found her opening and dug in with her vibroblade, feinting first at the sith’s side and then twirling the useful end instead at his exposed leg. The strike was a hit. With a howl, the untrained sith gave himself away, and she sneered at the child-like wail. But then, before she could capitalize, he recovered. Her breath stopped as she very nearly took his saber to her throat – she had counted her victory too soon – as the sith moved like he had never been hit at all. Heavier breathing was his only sign. She set her jaw in determination and switched targets. If she could not cut the beast’s legs out from underneath him, perhaps she would pull his teeth, instead.
They danced. She feinted, he parried. She struck, he moved, too wary to be caught out the same way again. She could not abide such tame exertions when all she wanted was blood! If she was to be a meal for a larger monster, she would not go without leaving a mark!
She struck with the cut end of her staff, which the sith had discounted, a blow that did just enough to break up the still unpracticed movements of his saber. He was not experienced enough to recover without a hiccup, and she exploited that weakness, lashing out with a furious kick that sent him windmilling into another rattataki. Hojji’s blade pinned into the middle of the young sith, and she gave a raucous cry of victory, as though she was every bit as motivated by bloodlust now as Aiso.
But Aiso was not yet satisfied. She picked up the discarded lightsaber at her feet and ignited the blade with the rudimentary switch on the hilt. She knew not what she intended when she approached the body of the still bleeding and terrified initiate, but within moments she held his dismembered head aloft by the hair, giving him the same dishonorable demise his sister had given to Dekva. She roared in defiance of the clamorous crowd. They wanted blood? She launched the sith’s mutilated head into the audience, sending them ducking. They would have it.
She did not know how much blood she drew after that, so thick was the haze of her battlelust. She wove between enemy and ally alike, forgetting alliances in focused attention to what occurred around her. She broke up attacks from her enemies by putting her allies between herself and their blades. She at one point used the falling body of a comrade as a shield. Nothing was sacred any longer. Nor did she think for a moment of honor. She thought of nothing, in fact, but felt the jagged edge of battle as she tiptoed along it, barely evading becoming a casualty herself and inflicting injuries as she went. By the time the battle grew still, she was the only rattataki still on her feet, encircled by the remaining sith students.
She breathed heavily and waited, eying them like an injured nexu. She was weary from exertion and blood loss. They outnumbered her and she had long ago lost her stolen weapon. But their final joint move never came. Just when she would have expected them to strike, their steps fell back. To exhausted to argue, her shoulders dropped wearily.
That’s when she was hit with a telekinetic burst from behind. She scrambled to relocate her stolen lightsaber, but it was just as easily slashed from her hand with the cold and undaunted purpose of the sith lord. She no longer wondered if the other sith she had fought were students; the master’s power so far and away outstripped the others that it could not be mistaken.
A kick connected with her jaw, sending her flying, her ears ringing and world spinning. Still she rolled and tried to push off the ground, grimacing as she realized the severed tendons in her saber hand would not respond. She stood, but only for half a second. She screamed in anguish as her hamstring was severed like her hand before it. Her leg buckled.
She understood the futility. She felt the punishment rolling off of the sith as they circled her, felt the abject humiliation of being picked apart piece by piece. The sith waited for her to try again, and she knew she would be corrected for the presumption of fighting the inevitable. She couldn’t help it. Everything within her screamed against the power of the sith over her, however impossible. She might be killed, but she would not submit to it.
She made to crawl, but the sith’s lightsaber stabbed ruthlessly through her calf, pinning her briefly to the ground. She spun awkwardly in the filth of the arena floor, chest heaving and skin muddied with blood. She stared up the length of the lightsaber that pointed at her throat to meet the burning eyes of her killer.
For a brief moment there was nothing between them but her hard breathing and the flash of fight that still had not left her eyes. The moment was all hushed expectation as the two squared off in But then she moved, because she knew – in that way she sometimes knew without knowing how – that the sith’s guard was down, that they thought the battle won, and if she could distract them half a moment she might earn herself another breath, she might run, she might survive.
In one quick motion she tossed a handful of bloodied dirt into the sith’s face, and when the blade of the lightsaber was moved, she lashed out with her only working leg at the back of one knee. It was her last conscious moment. In the next, a crack seared through her head, and after that…
Nothing.
