Lit Beyond the big two: lesser Force traditions in the GFFA

The Zeison Sha adepts has some class features that represented Force powers/technique: Discblade Affinity, Second Nature and Intercept Projectile
Discblade Affinity/Level 1: "The Zeison Sha Warrior can imbue her discblade (a discblade the Zeison Sha wields personally) with the Force" which increase the damage of discblade for a short time and make it possible for them to be hit by a lightsabre without being split in twain. So it is the Force weapon feat but for throwing weapons.
Second Nature/Level 3: "the Zeison Sha Warrior’s ability to use telekinetic powers has become a natural process." This means that it take less concentration to do feats of telekinesis.
Intercept Projectile/Level 5: "a Zeison Sha Warrior becomes so quick with his skills that he can intercept projectile weapons with objects that are available in the immediate area."

The Zeison Sha adepts are also associated with the Recover Weapon and Force Shield feats -
Recover Weapon: “Choose a specific thrown weapon of Medium-size or smaller, such as a discblade or knife. You can use the Force to direct the path of the weapon so that it returns to your hand if it misses its target.”
Force Shield: "You are able to create a bubble of the Force around yourself that protects you from damage.”


The zeison sha was illustrated by Wayne Reynolds.


Thoughts
You know it would have been nice if WotC had actually created any Force tradition that is just plain bad in combat instead of all those martial traditions, oh well it is a D20 system so I guess that is just too much to ask for

Over all do I find the zeison sha interesting but a bit to much like the jedi to really deserve their own prestige class, they could just as easy have used the Force adept class and given it some unique Force feats. Also, I find it surprising that the zeison sha don’t have the Force Target feat, or something similar, like the urban adept archetype and I am missing feats that are not combat oriented but instead are good for surviving on Yanibar

When it comes to the zeison sha’s dislike against the jedi so would I have liked to see how the ‘discussion’ went when –
“[they] began to see their isolation as abandonment by the Jedi. Over the generations, the Jedi came to be viewed not as protective but as uncaring. Having already become rugged and self-sufficient in their life’s trials, the Zeison Sha developed a philosophy of self-reliance and rejection of the Jedi. What was once a colony full of Jedi descendants became the roots of a philosophy that rejected the Jedi as protectors and took it upon themselves to provide strength and solidarity for the inhabitants of the refuge.”
– given that they had no contact with the jedi since they had been left on Yanibar until after they had become the zeison sha.

Because their home planet, Yanibar, had such an important roll in shaping the zeison sha and most of them still live there so would it been nice if they had made a longer description of the planet, its civilisation and technology level. Also seeing as family seems to be important for the zeison sha so would I have liked to know how their family structure looks like – nuclear family; extended family; multiply partners for one or both genders; something else?

“Some Zeison Sha, […], returned to the galaxy at large. They found, however, that the Jedi were all-too-eager to snatch their Force-sensitive children and turn them into disciples at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.” I am a bit confused by this since the jedi had no jurisdiction on Yanibar so how could they be able to “snatch their Force-sensitive children”?

I find the discblades rather stupid looking, with all the nice/cool looking throwing weapons out there (just google ‘african throwing knife’), they had to create something so un-aerodynamic looking.

I will see what I can find.

 

WEG at least gave us the Tyia:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tyia

 

And most of their Force abilities were non-combat oriented

 

I like the Aing-Tii belief system. If all this were real, I would have enjoyed traveling with Luke and Ben Skywalker to meet the Aing-Tii.

 

I think the Aing-Tii of Kathol and Witches of Dathomir were none too dissimilar in their utilisation of the Force. Specific manifestations of powers and philosophy were different, sure, but with the former tapping into the localised Ta-Ree, and the Witches drawing upon spirit ichor, both, through the Precursors and the Ones, seem to be drawing upon the essence of the Celestials. I would imagine the Mind Drinkers were similarly channelling the power of Abeloth.

Perhaps the effulgence of such vastly powerful entities essentially constitutes a powerful but localised aura of Living Force which can be captured, distilled and utilised? I wouldn't be surprised if the mechanics are similar to how Palpatine, when becomng a rather deific nexus of pure dark side energy himself by the time of Dark Empire, was able to empower his disciples, and how Sith sorcerers gave voice to those who went before them when they used Sith spells (which seem very similar to Dathomir shadow magicks).

 

We see the cult followers of Talzin (the Great Mother) 'capturing' the living Force from various beings for her use / consumption, but we don't truly know what became of the contents of that sphere when it was broken - did it simply dissipate or was it returned to the greater Force? The same can be asked of Talzin herself, when she was stabbed, spirit ichor left her body, and her physical self turned to apparent stone. Did the essence / ichor return to the netherworld between the physical and spirit realms where she can control it and manifest, or did it return to the greater Force where she'd have limited ability to be not much more than a ghost...

 

I wouldn't even assume she would be a ghost; I believe what we saw in Son of Dathomir was the dissolution of her identity, so a death as total and irreversible as Palpatine's in Empire's End at the least.

But my thinking would be the captured Living Force would dissipate, but in the sense that it dissipates into the surrounding and greater whole. And that Talzin was capturing Living Force on Bardotta only because she was away from Dathomir, in which the Living Force 'aura' of the Fanged God and Winged Goddess was already pervasive (perhaps due to the wounds in the Force and spacetime the Kwa tore open in ancient times, which, I speculate, would have allowed the power and essence of 'Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil' to 'seep' through in that weakened 'soft spot' of reality, much like the Ta-Ree of Kathol, which can be understood to be the Living Force of the Precursors, who are clearly of a similar order of being and origin to The Ones).

 

Earlier in this thread I wrote:

and after some thinking so have I come to the realisation that I want to re-formulate my statement into a question:

Why in the name of Waru don't the zeison sha have any class feats and/or feats associated with them that is good for surviving on Yanibar?!

I mean the text state that "If there ever was a sect of Force-users built for survival under harsh conditions, it is the Zieson Sha" but you don't really see that in the game stats. Yes, they are masters of telekinesis but what help is that when you are dehydrated and close to heat stroke in the summer, trying to evade pneumonia in the winter or are trying to tell when and from where the next storm is going to hit. Where are feats that could help a player against that? Would not some kind of animal friendship or control be a good idea also? Since they do mention packs "of wild Voorcats". I would say that who ever made the crunch part of the zeison sha did just scum trough the fluff part and only remembered that they were good at telekinesis.

 

I don' think this have been posted jet: http://www.starwars.com/news/the-nightsisters-from-dathomir-a-history

 

It seems like FFG's Force and Destiny will have nightsisters or at least make a reference to them since they have a image of them on the webpage discussing the games Moral system https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/7/10/between-dark-and-light/

 

The Sorcerers of Rand are presented not as an class but as a species. “The Sorcerers of Rhand are united by a common condition rather than a shared genetic code. Although they retain a semblance of their original forms, they are twisted beyond the natural abilities of their native species. They are transformed over time and adapt to take on the following traits:”, “Sorcerers lose their physical attributes in exchange for increased mental abilities”.

A Sorcerer begin with Force training but as I understand it so most half of the Force powers the Sorcerer chose most be from the dark side and they can not chose any “light side” powers.

The Unknown Regions gives one Sorcerer of Rhand as example, Blessed Toxmalb, who is an Noble 7/Force adept 5/Force disciple 4.

Thoughts
I like the Sorceress of Rhand, they feel very fantasy which is rather unusual since many SW authors focus more on the science fiction part of the mythology. That the information we get on them is not presented as facts but second-hand information is also something that I like

I think I would like to see Clive Barker illustrate a meeting of Sorceress of Rhand.

I like that the Sorceress evolved from three different schools of thought, all to often in SW’s RPG material so do it seems like the Force traditions just spring up more or less exactly like they are, teaching and power, in the movies era without any changes along the way.

Something I wonder about the Warriors of the Shadow-Taung is that how/why did they end up in the Unknown Regions? I mean if the were originally from Coruscant so are the Unknown Regions very, very far away, especially in pre-historical times before the Galaxy was even half-mapped and hyperdrives were very primitive. And there are countless of living, fertile planets without any sentient life along the way that they could have taken over.

In a way so do the Sorceress feel a bit overpowered and I find it a bit… stupid, I guess, that there seems to exist so many powerful threats in the Unknown Regions. If they are so powerful, why have they not expanded more or are in constant war with each other?

Personally so would I forbid that a Sorcerer learns any Force ability/skill/Feat that are used for healing* or mending since that is just against their way of thought. For the same reason so would I impose a minus on skill roles when a Sorcerer uses the Force to help with things that falls in the category of creating, mending and healing, f.ex. trying to make it easier to do repairs by using the Force to see the weaknesses in the item. I would also say that Sorcerers can buy so much they want of extra Health Points** to represent their unnatural constitution.

* Except for things that heals you by draining the life/Force from others since that is not true healing.
** There is probably a feat for this but I don’t know its name.

It would have been nice if we could get some small information on the worlds the Sorceress control, not much just a name and a one/two sentence description.

Have anybody else here read the Hawkmoon book series by Michael Moorcook? Because the Sorceress of Rhand makes me think of the Granbretan and if I ever used the Sorceress of Rhand in a game or fanfic so would I have them use Granbretan technology. I think that many of the charms that belong to the Abyssals, from the RPG Exalted, would be good inspiration for the Sorcerers abilities, or at least how to represent them.

 

from https://www.facebook.com/StarWarsSo...8191488897633/989220801128027/?type=1&theater

Thanks to Gorefiend

 

Stolen from https://www.facebook.com/TCW.Series.Art/photos_stream
Some of it have already been poster here

 

Great to see so much Dathomir / Nightsister art - its equally nice to hear that the survival of the Nightsisters / Dathomir Witches is being discussed and put into a publication. Not only are there other Nightsisters across the galaxy, but Dathomir is a large planet - and only a single clan was wiped out. The ultimate fate of the Nightbrothers is unknown though, as they were never shown being killed in the last SOD issue. The Dark Disciple ending also leads me to believe that once Ventress was put into the pool, and it reinvigorated the Water of Life, that stories of other sisters returning would be forthcoming in new media. I don't believe the Force tradition of the Nightsisters / Nightbrothers will ever truly die unless the planet itself is destroyed (perish the thought).

 

Just wondering do people think the Force and Destinies witch design is based on any of the earlier depictions of the Dathomir witches or can we ad a new one to the ever incising list of Dathomir witches' look?

 

Looks like the old WEG/WOTC Design for them actually, which also showed up in other places.
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121006163336/starwars/images/1/18/Luke_Teneniel-ERC.jpg

 

What WEG/WOTC depictions are you referring to? Because neither the F&D pic or the one you post really remind me of any of the WEG/WOTC images that I remember.

 

Pretty sure I had already posted them before in this thread, but I will dig them up tomorrow once I am home.

 

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080927140823/starwars/images/3/34/SingingMountainClan.JPG
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb...mb/a/ac/Augwynnedjo.jpg/357px-Augwynnedjo.jpg
Upper legs free, long boots, the leather west thing, with the semi cloak down the back, only the headdress is really different and that actually matches the style of what we see on the WEG witches. So yeah I think it is pretty close in design

 

I would agree that F&D witch do look similar to the Singing Mountain clan member in the front but I disagree that her headdress matches Augwynne Djo's headdress.

The F&D witch have something that is more of a large and ornamented Alice band while Augwynne have something that is more of a cap. I would say that the only thing that they have together is that they are sweeping backward [is that how you say it?] but even then there are differences, for example is Augwynne's cap doing it through those quills that go from the brow part of the cap to beyond her head while the F&D witch's Alice band get the swept back feeling through something that looks like wave or scale design that only go beyond the band by a fraction.

 

After having leafed through my copy of Fantasy Flight Games' Force and Destiny do I have both good and bad new.

The good are that other Force traditions then the jedi and the sith are mentioned; the bad are that they are not given any real space beyond the presentation and together they take up around three - four pages.
* what I have seen, as I wrote: I have only leafed through the book and can have missed things.

The book divide the non-jed/sith Force traditions into 'Early traditions' and 'Other Force traditions'.

The 'Early traditions' are the Je'daii, the Krath, the Sorcerers of Tund and the Jal Shey.

The 'Other Force traditions' are the Baran Do sages, the Dagoyan masters and the Witches of Dathomir with the taking up half of the space Nightsisters.

There seems to no suggestions* on how to roleplay a member of any of the other traditions or how to represent how they use the Force.
* once again: what I have seen.

I am a bit disappointed that all the traditions presented in 'Other Force traditions' are of the "one planet only" kind, I hade hopped for some of the more interplanetary traditions to appear. Like Wardens of the Sky, the Matukai or the Tyia.

---------------------

On a completely different point, am I alone in imaging the sorcerer of Tund Rokur Gepta, from the Lando adventures, to look a bit like Agahnim from Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past?

 

It does have some more generic force ideas with the character creation, also you don’t actually play Jedi, sure your character might try to emulate the Jedi, but he or she will not start out as one.