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

What do we know about the faith/belief of Dathomir and how has it changed through their different incarnations?

 

may be of some interest
http://eleven-thirtyeight.com/2014/03/go-figure-force-sensitivity-and-population-growth/

 

I don't know how much it's changed, but Book of Sith gives an idea of the beliefs of the Nightsisters around TCW (from Mother Talzin).

 

I don't have the Book of Sith (is it true that it gives you Dark side points by just reading it like Unaussprechliche Kulte?) so can you tell me what it says?

Also if I remember my wookipedia right so were there some mention about their faith in SW:Galaxy, do anybody know if this is right?

 

I read Unaussprechliche Kulte but it's cool so long as you take anti-psychotics.

 

Endnotes for the Wild Power section (on the Nightsisters)

http://geekosity.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/endnotes-for-star-wars-book-of-sith.html

 

"Talzin believes in a spirit realm inhabited by the life-energies of animals and ruled by the universal manifestations of male and female energy"

Well there's the Son and the Daughter for you. Wish it could've been written after the latest season so they could've put some deeper explanation into her stealing of the Living Force from other beings, as silly as that was.

 

I'd love to read the Legions of Lettow code. I'm curious about how similar to or different from the Sith they were.

 

If Arden Lyn's word is to be believed, it's clear that the Jedi were the bad guys during the First Great Schism.

 

I can not see the image, what is it?

 

Now?

 

Yes, thanks

 

Do we know what abilities/techniques the Wardens of the Sky's have? How are they organized? Also am I alone to want to see them covered in the SW equivalence of old school seaman tattoos, yarr

 

So do we know anything about the Potentium beside their philosophy? How did they dress; what species were members; from where were they operating; how did they recruit?

 

I had hopped somebody had their hands on some non-standard (but still canon) reference sources

 

Some time ago I talked about the Seyugi Dervish and how they were presented in the book they appeared in, that I had.

I was thinking to continue along the same line with the Force traditions that are presented in the WotC books I have/can get my hands on and was wondering what tradition people would like for me to begin with?

The books I have/can get my hands are: the Revised Core Rulebook, Galactic Campaign Guide, Hero's Guide, Rebellion Era Sourcebook, Ultimate Alien Anthology and Coruscant and the Core Worlds.

I will, hopefully, begin with this project in the beginning of next week

 

So no suggestions or wishes of what traditions I should talk about. I hope I don’t speak to deaf ears, so to write

I said that I would talk about the Force traditions that are presented in the WotC books and I know that Force adepts, as they are presented in Star Wars: Revised Core Rulebook are not actually a Force tradition but I think that a review of it would be important to have a better understanding of what comes later.

Also I don’t actually play D20 RPG:s, I only read them for the fluff so there are probably things that I have missed because of this.

They give Teneniel Djo (Witches of Dathomir), Rokur Gepta (Sorcerer of Tund) and the Jensaarai as examples of Force adepts.

The Force adepts have some Class features that represented Force powers: Force Weapon; Comprehend Speech; Force Talisman and Force Secret.
Force Weapon: the adept imbue a nonpowered melee weapon with the Force, which for a short time increase the damage and make it possible to parry a lightsabre. I don’t understand why you cannot use it on a powered melee weapon; do anybody know?
Comprehend Speech: gives the adept the ability to comprehend any spoken language, if not speak it.
Force Talisman: the adept imbue an item of personal significance with the Force. Once imbued the new talisman gives a bonus when the adept try to defend against Force tricks or attacks.
Force Secret: this represent that the adept discover a secret Force technique that gives her a bonus in a Force skill of the player’s choice.

From an player perspective I have problem with the Force adept, mostly because it is rather restricting, the linear level system that D20 use make it impossible to play it in an different way than the one presented, so even if I play an peaceful ecological priests of Ithor I still get Force Weapon before any of the other Class features that I mentioned. I am also a bit disappointed/irritated that there are two Jedi classes – Jedi consular & Jedi guardian – for the player to choose from if she want to play more sage- or knight-like while the lesser traditions only have one. I think it would have been better to do it the other way: one Jedi class and two Force adept classes representing a sage and warrior path respectively. (Personally I think Spirit Warrior and Force Shaman would have been appropriate titles but I am open for suggestions )
There also exists no prestige class for the Force adept unless she wants to become a dark-sider – Dark side devotee & Dark side marauder – or multiclass as Jedi first, then there are three Jedi prestige classes to choose from. (B.t.w. do anybody know why Jedi Ace needed to be its own prestige class instead of having the PC multiclass as a Jedi and Starship Ace?)
And for all the talk about the Force adepts training being more haphazard and less formalized, to my untrained I they seem to pick up the Force as quick as the Jedi classes.

SW:RCR mention that a Force adept could be a wizard, shaman, witch, prophet and Force mage and mention four traditions by name – the Witches of Dathomir, Sorcerer of Tund, Jensaarai and the ecological priests of Ithor – but don’t seem to give any suggestion how to play them or any information of those named traditions: the chapter on the Force only talk about the Jedi tradition. Is it too much to ask for at least a five paragraphs summary of those traditions? I also find the list of Force based skills and feats rather lacking if you want your PC to have Force abilities that makes her something else then a lesser movie Jedi/Sith, but that is just me, and WotC do give you some things to customize your Force adept in later books.
Also: this is the first time I have heard about the ecological priests of Ithor. Does anybody know where there is more information about them? Wookipedia have some information but don’t give page number and I don’t trust ‘pedia-pages that don’t inform you were the information is from.

The Force adept class is illustrated with the human Force adept Valara Saar – this is the first time she appear and we are not given any history or states for her. In the ‘Allies and Opponents’ chapter they give the state and “background” for a generic Dark side adept, who’s built from a Force adept. I will use that information later when I talk about Dark side devotee and Dark side marauder.


Any thoughts or comments?
I was planning to continue with the Force adept path by review Spirit adept and Urban adept from Hero’s Guide. Do people have any wishes what I should continue with after that?

 

I forgot to ad: the skills, feats and weapons given to the Force adept class indicate that she comes from a less advanced world. This could be seen representing that Jedi have somehow have supplanted the other Force tradition that existed on one more advanced worlds or that only “primitive” cultures of some reason develop Force traditions.
I don't think I like either of those possibilities. Does somebody else have any alternative, preferably better, explanations?

Also urban adept from Hero’s Guide give us a bit more diversity but we will talk about that later.

 

Valara Saar at least gets a pretty interesting back story later on and even gets mentioned in the NJO. Also afaik many of the "Mages" we get to see on Endor properly would be considered Force Adepts.

 

I was wondering, should I post at what levels the classes get their Class features? I was originally thinking that I should try to stay away from SW20RPG's rolesystem but I come to realise that by writing at what level the Class features become available I show how hard it is for that class to get to that power or what that "tradition" is focusing on. What do people think?

I know about that, even if I did not look it up, since I am working with the material I have. If you want you can post her history, what tradition she belongs to and all that.

That is my understanding to and I think they do a lousy job representing the power those mages had.

 

Well most of them had special force artifacts to boost their power.

 

Book of Sith mentions that the Nightsisters have various "Talismans of Transformation" and that "one of our sisters has yet to return the Talisman of the Raven".

A good nod to Charal from the Ewoks spin-off movies.

 

I have decided that should show at what levels the classes get their Class features which will, hopefully, show how hard it is for that class to get to that power or what that the "tradition" is focusing on. As a reference a Jedi is knighted at Level 7
Also, I should probably mention that unless otherwise said so do all the Force “traditions” I go through have the same skill set that allow them and Jedi to feel and manipulate the Force in the way we se in the movies. Even if the Jedi have some more tricks the other don’t have.

A walkthrough of the Force adepts powers again now with information on what level they first gain/learn that technique/power.
Force Weapon/Level 5: the adept imbue a nonpowered melee weapon with the Force, which for a short time increase the damage and make it possible to parry a lightsabre. I don’t understand why you cannot use it on a powered melee weapon; do anybody know?
Comprehend Speech/Level 7: gives the adept the ability to comprehend any spoken language, if not speak it.
Force Talisman/Level 8: the adept imbue an item of personal significance with the Force. Once imbued the new talisman gives a bonus when the adept try to defend against Force tricks or attacks.
Force Secret/Level 11: this represent that the adept discover a secret Force technique that gives her a bonus in a Force skill of the player’s choice.


With that said lets begun to discuss Spirit Adept. The spirit adept is a combination of Force adept class and the fringer - “A jack-of-all-trades with little formal education who picks up skills and technical knowledge through life experience and improvisation.” - class.

The Class features that spirit adepts have represented Force powers/techniques are: Spellcaster; Spirit Counsel; Second Sight; Force Weapon; Comprehend Speech; Force Talisman and Force Secret.
Spellcaster/Level 1: “The spirit adept’s particular tradition involves a great deal of ritual.” This means that the spirit adept act as she is using spells when she is using the Force with all that that mean with chanting and gestures. For game balance purpose this also make the use of Force skills cheaper but they take time activate.
Spirit Counsel/Level 2: “The spirit adept has learned to draw upon the existence of the spirits to see the past or current events through their eyes.” This means that the adept are better at feeling the Force around her ad in other.
Second Sight/Level 7: The adept get a bonus when she is trying to use the Force to see into other places or times.
Force Weapon/Level 8: the adept imbue a nonpowered melee weapon with the Force, which for a short time increase the damage and make it possible to parry a lightsabre. I don’t understand why you cannot use it on a powered melee weapon; do anybody know?
Comprehend Speech/Level 10: gives the adept the ability to comprehend any spoken language, if not speak it.
Force Talisman/Level 13: the adept imbue an item of personal significance with the Force. Once imbued the new talisman gives a bonus when the adept try to defend against Force tricks or attacks.
Force secret/Level 20: this represent that the adept discover a secret Force technique that gives her a bonus in a Force skill of the player’s choice.

The spirit adept class was illustrated with an image by Chad Michael Ward but I can not find a copy of it to post here.

Thoughts
Over all I like spirit adept but I find that the way the class is described show some cultural bias from the writer (or at least that he/they have another idea of how cultures work in SW then me). To me it fells that sentences like “In primitive cultures where the accepted belief systems includes ancestor worship,[…]” combined with that spirit adepts lack many skills and abilities that focus on technology is saying that ancestor/spirit worship is something that don’t happen among more “advanced” cultures.

I like the Spellcaster feat but would have prefer if it had been an available opinion in the core book since it gives the adepts something that makes them different then the jedi and more like the wizard, shaman, witch and Force mage that they mention that a Force adept could be.

I don’t like that they used world reeducated in “[…]spirit adepts who found their ways into Republic space could be identified, introduced to the Jedi, and reeducated in the true ways of the Force.” since I associate ‘reeducated’ with the communist terror. Making it sound more sinister then it should be to me.

Also they say that “The arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong some two decades after the Battle of Endor heralds a new dark time for spirits adepts, who find themselves once again hunted.” and I was wondering why would the Vong hunt spirit adepts? Since to my understanding it was only Jedi that the Vong had a special interest in, or have I misunderstood?

Any thoughts or comments?


Next “tradition” will be the urban adept followed by dark side devotee. Do people have any wishes for what I should do after that?