Star Wars Fading Lines - An AU Story

Fading Lines

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It has been a thousand years since the last iteration of Sith were defeated and exiled to the shadows. The Galactic Republic, built up by its Senate and the venerable Jedi Order, reigned over the galaxy like a bright light, after so many years of darkness. The Republic was created as a beacon of hope for the disenfranchised suffering at the hands of so many past oppressors. And as the Core flourished, the Republic began to steadily spread its influence outward. Unopposed, their reach seemed to stretch across the entire galaxy.

However, the original purpose of the Republic has been forgotten, and its leaders have begun to look only inward. Corruption and greed have driven economic growth at the expense of the people. Corporations, previously held in check by Republic law, became free to sap the life out of mining and logging worlds. The Republic has slowly become unable and unwilling to police the edges of Outer Rim.

In its wake, much of the region has been thrust into chaos. And from the disorder, a power long thought eradicated reemerged from the deep expanse of Wild Space. The many pirate bands that plagued the region fell in and were united under the ancient Sith banner. Each system they swept through was given the option to be destroyed or assimilate. While some planets resisted the yoke of this new tyrant, many more, disillusioned with the corruption in the Republic, joined willingly. Discontent with their new Empire, the Sith began branching out into the Unknown Regions and Hutt Space, aiming, ultimately, for the Core.

It seemed that for the first time in a millennia, the galaxy was on the edge of war.

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Welcome to Fading Lines! In this game we are going to attempt to explore the relationship between choice and consequence in the theater of war. While the story may seem uninspired at first, the true depths of our story will come from each player. This game will rely on each player becoming truly “in character.” As is true in real life, your characters will have their own preconceptions, opinion, and hang ups. This will result in a vastly different experience for each player. Through personal propaganda, each player will operate with their character’s distinct mindset and have a unique view of the war.

Continuity wise, this game is an alternative universe, but would roughly be set in the time of the clone wars. For technology and planet history, reference information between 32 BBY and 19 BBY.

Characters

This game will be heavily character driven, so take special care in creating your persona. Your options are nearly limitless and if you can sell an idea to me, we can give it a shot. For this reason, you may add to the character sheet if you feel it’s necessary. Please don’t skip any sections, however.

If you need help getting started, it might help to frame your character around their participation, or lack thereof, in the ensuing war. You can be an active participant, like a soldier or a spy, a passive participant, like a smuggler dealing to both sides or a senator, or a nonparticipant, like a civilian. While Jedi and Sith characters are available to play, this is not a game for superheroes, so any Galen Marek-esque clones or ancient re-awoken Sith monsters may need to be adjusted, nerfed, or discarded.

Because of the scope of the game, there is a chance that your character may need to be adjusted or relocated to facilitate storylines. These changes will most likely only be related to your location at the start of the game, but could cover all manner of sins.

Public Information
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Species:
Homeworld:
Current Location:
Appearance:
Equipment: Can include personal starships, if applicable.
Biography: Don’t share anything about your character that you wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with a stranger. This section may be as long or short as you feel appropriate.

Private Information
Political Leanings: Do you support either the Republic or the Sith? Are you a part of another organization or are you neutral? You may have several answers for this.
Motivations: Explain your character’s reasoning for his affiliations.
Personal Goals: What does your character hope to accomplish in his life and within the confines of the war?
Prejudices: This may be against species, gender, religion, political affiliation, or otherwise.


Guidelines

• Send all character information to me for approval.
• Questions are encouraged, but some things are purposefully vague. Your character should be operating only with what they learn in game.
• Start posts with your character’s name and end with a Tag to the user you are addressing.
• This game will operate with a certain level of realism. Whether you are playing as a Force-user or a civilian, reckless behavior will have consequences and they may be fatal.
• Feel free to discuss your character’s arc with me at any time. If you have ideas, I’d love to hear them. I can’t promise to accomplish all of your hopes and dreams, but I will cooperate with you to make this a positive experience.
• At first, I will only be accepting 8 players, for your benefit and my own.
• If you go more than a month without responding to tags, I will be forced to take control of your character as is necessary.
• Have fun!

 

GM Approved

Name: Roland Zadane
Gender: Male
Age: 55
Species: Human
Homeworld: Coruscant
Current Location: Nar Shaddaa
Appearance:

Equipment: Your typical bounty hunter's arsenal. A blaster, a rifle, a couple thermal detonators and such. Flies Nothing to Lose, a modified V-19 Torrent starfighter.
Biography: Roland Zadane led a rebellious childhood on Coruscant. His mother was kind and tender hearted, but he never knew his father. Hardly a day went by when he didn't get into some kind of fight at school, and oftentimes his actions would result in juvenile punishment from the law.

So really, Roland's choice in a career was relatively simple. A field where he could put his aggressiveness and natural strength to good use. He became a soldier for the Republic at the age of eighteen. And he was good. Not at the social aspect, mind you. He was still a rebel at heart, and got into scuffles with his peers more often than he should have. But he was a very good soldier, and it didn't take long for him to earn respect.

When he was 34, Roland received news while on a mission in the Outer Rim that his mother had fallen severely ill and didn't have much time left before she passed on. Roland wanted to rush home to be with her, but his commanding officer wouldn't allow it. He barely made it home for her burial service.

This created a strong rift between Roland and the Republic, but not strong enough to cause him to leave their ranks. Yet. Several years later, Roland fell madly in love with a woman from Naboo, and they married soon after discovering that she was with child. The distance was difficult for them. And it would become even more so a few months later.

Roland's wife and unborn child were slain by a mentally unstable citizen of Coruscant, who was released from jail weeks prior due to insufficient incriminating evidence in his case. The emotional turmoil for Roland was too much to bear. He left the Republic, the government he blamed for the death of his family, stealing the starfighter that would later become known as Nothing to Lose in the process.

That was seventeen years ago. Nowadays, Roland is a bounty hunter well known in the criminal circles of the galaxy, and is currently residing on Nar Shaddaa between assignments.

 

Name: Ka'rta

Gender: Female

Age: 20

Species: Human/Mando'ad (Mandalorian)

Homeworld: Tra (Space)

Current Location: Hettyc Osik (Her Ship)

Appearance: Short black hair with grey eyes, fair skin and facial features one could describe as pretty if they ever saw them, she usually wears her buy'ce (helmet), around 1.74 meters tall, though a slightly stockier build than most.

Equipment: Standard beskar'gam (Mandalorian armor) with a main color of dark red accented in gold, her family crest is on the right shoulder, three stars above a beskad (Mandalorian sword) with the family motto "Dar Solus" (No longer alone) written in the blade, has a white stripe that runs down the center of her chest. She has an assortment of weapons on her person, wrist mounted rocket launcher that can be fitted with different warheads, Jetpack with a concussion missile launcher in it, two Mandalorian style blaster pistols, one vibroblade in a sheath attached horizontally at the small of her back. Her ship is a TL-1800 called the “Hettyc Osik” (I’ll let you look that up)

Biography: Ka'tra was born to two proud Mando'ad vod (Mandalorian Warriors) and beroya (bounty hunters), Kot and Ka’ra. they were declared dar'manda (Not Mandalorian) shortly after their verd'goten (Mandalorian right of passage). Cast out and abandoned, they found comfort with each other, forming their own nameless clan. When Ka’rta was born it was the happiest day in their life, their little clan had grown by one.

She was raised as any Mando’ad would be, taught how to fight, and how to hunt. Even after her verd’goten Ka’tra stayed with her parents. One day they let her go on a mission alone, that’s when she killed her first being. When she commed her parents to pick her up, there was no answer, lost and alone on a foreign planet She did her best to survive, running into two former Republic Special Forces operators, that had become mercenaries. After a fight that ended in a draw they offered to help her search for her parents. After about a week they found their ship, empty, blood all over the deck. The scanners picked up several different DNA signatures, including her parents’. There was so much that the two mercenaries, Owen and Jerrod, said that her parents were dead. While not completely satisfied with that explanation, Ka’rta knew she couldn’t devote her whole life to the search, she needed money.

For the next few years she worked with Owen and Jerrod as a small merc company, until she decided to go her own way. She still looks for her parents but, has found it takes second place to her work as a freelance merc.

 

Nick approved! Super excited!

Name: Shia Bynar
Gender: Female
Age: 35
Species: Human
Homeworld: Coruscant
Current Location: Coruscant
Appearance:
Equipment: A variety of medical equipment, data pad, a few personal belongings such as a silver and emerald pendant and a small gold brooch with a ruby, and one military grade blaster
Biography: Shia grew up in a quiet district of Coruscant to a family of four: her parents and older brother. It was generally an unremarkable childhood and she did well enough in school. Although her father enlisted in the military shortly before her seventeenth birthday after the company he worked for went under. It was a tough transition from the life she knew so well to moving around and worrying about her father. It wasn't too much later when her brother followed his steps, taking up military life.

Shia felt a sense of duty to do as both her father and brother did, but one fateful accident changed her view. Her father passed away after receiving heavy wounds during a battle that had broken out on an outer rim planet. There hadn't been enough combat medics to provide aid.

And so thus, at twenty-one years old, Shia put the medical training she studied to good use and enlisted to the military in the medical squad. Each day, she does her damned hardest to keep as many people safe, trying to keep others from ever having to feel the pain from losing a loved one.

 

Approved.



Name: Ku'ar Dreadwar
Gender: Male
Age: 37
Species: Human-Echani hybrid
Homeworld: Nyssa
Current Location: Adumar
Appearance: Dark brown hair, straight and somewhat oily, worn long. Pale skin, angular face with thin lips. 6' 4" in height, Dreadwar is tall and broad-shouldered, with a long torso, but otherwise more of a slim if powerful build than particularly athletic.



Dreadwar typically wears personalised, armoured battle robes that blend Thyrsusian, ancient Korribani and Empress Tetan design. Overlapping straps of golden beskar, decorated as raptors' wings, form a flexible breastplate, complementing a short black kilt or breeches, trimmed with red, with associated armour and then kneepads and leg guards of the same material and colour. The helmet is a rustic, weathered silver, with a golden serpent with demonic red eyes trailing over the forehead. Vambraces and shoulder pads on the right arm contrast with a black and gold cybernetic left forelimb and shoulder. A long cloak flows from his helmet and shoulders, black and red. His utility belt sports a holster for his lightsaber and a sheath for a short sword.



Within his hood and helmet, Dreadwar wears a baroque mask in the style of an elaborate fencing mask of bronze polished into a reflective mirror.



If not wearing his usual apparel, Dreadwar prefers to opt for a simple Adumari toga of a rich burgundy.

Equipment: An Upsilon-class shuttle called the Golden Fleece. His weapons comprise a crossguard lightsaber, with an unstable, cracked crystal that is visible through a transparent, if golden-sheened hilt and provides a crimson blade, and a short sword of black durasteel.

Abilities & Skills: An intellectual, Dreadwar's proficiency in using his mostly ceremonial weapons is very minimal, based on childhood lightfoil duelling that would best translate to Form II Makashi. He is a voracious reader and well-versed in science in the broadest sense of the term, specialising in biology and physics among the natural sciences, as well as psychology, economics and finance in more social magisteria. He is a manipulative man, with noted skill in public speaking and persuasion. His Force powers are subtle, sensory and recondite, with knowledge of Mind Tricks, Memory Rubs, Sith Illusions, Art of the Small and Precognition.

Biography: Ku'ar Dreadwar was born on Nyssa to Lord Sallacine of House Mecetti and his mistress, an Echani artist called Porlaen. Raised in an auxiliary cult of the Mecrosa Order, Dreadwar was a prodigy raised in an intellectually oppressive household; while a prolific autodidact easily given over to the natural sciences, use of the traditional Tapani lightfoil and the arts, he spurned under the repressive parenting of his fanatical mother and distant father, emancipating himself at an early age. Striving to better his circumstances and gain an education he had been denied, Dreadwar read Biology and Palaeontology at the Shey Tapani University on Procopia, before leaving the Tapani Sector altogether upon graduating to intern at Adascorp on Arkania.

It was there Dreadwar's mind flourished, his exposure to Arkanian science stimulating his obsession with what he called the art of rationality, and immortality. In his experiments with quantum mechanics, he determined that he was impossibly influencing the outcomes of quantum phenomena, and resolved to discover how. It was thus that Dreadwar began to suspect he was Force-sensitive. He left Arkania in an attempt to enroll at a Jedi Academy, yet much to his humiliation, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant denied him, citing his age. He attempted to subvert their will by visting the Temple on Corellia, all but begging on hands and knees to be trained, yet his Force potential was deemed too weak, and his mind too polluted with thoughts of self-aggrandisement and an impersonal, empirical view of the Force. While once he had looked to cloning, cybernetics and memory-dumps to extend his life, now Dreadwar, having researched the legends and histories of Sith and Jedi alike, was determined to exploit his tenuous grasp on the Force to conquer his crippling, all-consuming fear of death.

Back on Arkania, he found answers. After a year of research and piecing together clues, he found the ruins of an ancient Sith library, and there he excavated an impossibly pristine, undamaged grimoire. For months he attempted to teach himself the ways of the Force through its barely decipherable contents, gaining skill in minor illusions and foresight, which allowed him to attain wealth he felt he deserved as the illegitimate son of a noble through cheating in a string of casinos. When the Sith returned to the known galaxy at the head of a pirate fleet to carve out their own polity across the Rim, Dreadwar absconded from Arkania with his prize, trading it for true training in the dark side and the ways of the Sith. Over ten years have passed, and now, despite losing his arm, Dreadwar has grown into a Sith Watcher, an infiltrator and agent with unknown masters and unknowable purpose; he is beginning to build his own stock brokerage on Adumar through Force-based intrigues and the notorious financial scheme of the 'pump and dump.'

 

GM Approved!

Public Information
Name: Mika Rakto
Gender: Female
Age: Mid-20s.
Species: Human
Homeworld: Somewhere in the Mid Rim. Has connections to Tegare, a massive mining world.
Current Location: Headed from an assignment on Burnin Konn, in Republic Space, towards Aphelion, a space station that wobbles between the orbits of Nar Shadaa and Nal Hutta.

Appearance: Wears a cloak and mask when on the job or when meeting with most clients. The mask is a dark, bronze-toned metal and sports large eyes, vaguely calling to mind an owl. Here are a couple images for reference – neither of these are it, obviously, but they’re along the lines of what I’m thinking:



If you’re looking for a sci-fi reference, the closest I can think of is Star Lord’s in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Her clothes are dark, form-fitting, and easy to move around in. A mix of leather, synthfabrics, and light armorweave. She’s 5’8”. Shoulder-length brown hair. Attractive but otherwise remarkable. Since we’re posting pics, here's one for if/when we see her without the mask:



Equipment: A TD-1900 blaster carbine, more effective at mid-long range than up close. A holdout blaster. Two concealed knives, plus a few more she keeps aboard her ship. Speaking of which, Mika flies an aging Starfighter. Bit of a beater but she’s been learning how to maintain it. More of a getaway vehicle than an assault craft: the front lasers are functional but the torpedo bay doesn’t work, leaving her fairly useless when it comes to taking on larger ships. Her mask has some advanced optics including rangevision and darkvision, though it’s prone to occasional glitches.

Biography: A young woman from the Mid Rim. Does corporate & criminal errands for cash: a mix of gigs including sabotage, espionage, infiltration and high-profile theft. Tends to keep her distance from people she doesn’t know.

 

GM Post: As of now, I am no longer accepting new character sheets. Unless you have already spoken to me, this game is closed to new characters.

 

GM APPROVED

Name: Zohar Gnosien
Gender: Male
Age: 47
Species: Miraluka
Homeworld: N/A (formerly Coruscant)
Current Location: Wanderer
Appearance:

Older humanoid male, mop of grey hair, blind fold and tattered jedi robes which are beyond recognition.
Equipment:

Blue bladed Lightsaber.

Biography: He claims to just be a wandering old man. A former Jedi Master, Zohar lost his way after he was forced to slay his very own apprentice, who had fallen so deep to the darkside, he’d become irredeemable. Unbeknownst to him at the time, a darksider had manipulated the young lad so completely, that he was literally blind to the fact until it was far too late.

The lad, now calling himself Fenrir, was determined to kill him. It appeared that this was his final rite of passage into darkness. Zohar slew his very own apprentice and was almost killed himself in that fateful encounter.

To compound matters, he also failed to protect several innocent bystanders his former apprentice had killed in the process. Zohar blamed himself for everything, and furthermore, felt an all consuming need to destroy the Darksider who had corrupted the young lad, but alas, he had nothing to go on. Not even a name.

The darkside eclipsed all the light within him, nearly robbing him of his soul as he plunged deeply into a dark place. Abandoning the Jedi Order, Zohar disappeared, broken.

How long did he wander, of that he is not sure. During his years of despair and desolation, he nearly went mad. He’d slain many who were suffused with darkness, but not for the sake of altruism. He simply could not get the image of his slain apprentice out of his mind. His guilt threatened to consume him completely.

On a fateful day, he’d followed a particular feeling. It lead him to a field, where a woman and her family worked.

The youngest girl played innocently and upon seeing him, ran to him and invited him to play. Instantly, the mother grew afraid and snatched up the child. Feeling affronted, Zohar felt a great rage come over him. He became swollen with evil intent, so much so, that not even the pleas of the mother and her daughters seemed to sway him…save for the little girl, who’s inner light seemed to sooth his pain.

Not only did it turn out that the child was force sensitive, but the mother revealed the young girl’s name to be Ashla. Clearly, this was a sign.

Zohar tarried a few years thence, and trained the young child in the ways of the force as an act of contrition and repayment for their forgiveness.

From that day forward, Zohar swore to do his part in bringing balance to the force wherever he went. He dedicated himself to Ashla, and set himself to be a candle in the dark. However, the challenges ahead would be far more formidable than he had imagined, for darkness was poised to consume the galaxy entire and snuff out all light from existence.

 

GM APPROVED!

Name: Kol Antares
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Species: Human
Homeworld: Corellia
Current Location: Aboard the Republic Fleet
Appearance:

Equipment: Almost always carries his WESTAR M-5 on a sling, a holstered blaster pistol, and his vibroknife. He maintains a set of military-spec battle armor with spare pieces stored inside his ship, a sturdy small capacity freighter used for little more than getting its occupants from point A to B.
Biography: Kol is not a bounty hunter or some hired thug, but a mercenary. He has built up a long record of deployments from one side of the galaxy to the other, starting out in service to the Republic. He was well suited to combat and special operations and even achieved the rank of Lt. Commander, but departed after a mission gone wrong left him questioning who he was.

After this he briefly wandered the galaxy, if only to put distance between him and the demons. He even tried his hand at university and learning. When none of these were able to satisfy what he knew his true calling was, he put his past behind him and sought the battlefield once more.


You can find him in the galaxy’s hot zones, never far from a fight. While preferring Republic contracts, his true desires lie elsewhere, elusive even to him. For now he is a professional soldier who refuses to be tied down like his former colleagues in the Republic military.