Lucky Knight

Star Wars: Forged By Fire (KOTOR)

Also, forgot to mention: great song choice. LOVE The Bravery.

@Dark Wind

That song's been on my playlist off and on for years. The band had some serious talent, to be sure! Too bad they've gone their separate ways. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Star Wars: Forged By Fire (KOTOR)

@Dark Wind -- I sent you a PM (I think, though the system on this site seems different than I'm used to) for you to peruse and answer at your leisure. Just a couple of questions I had.

Star Wars: Forged By Fire (KOTOR)

I really like the idea of spinning out the Mandalorian War like this, with the potential to carry it forward should we ever reach that point. It carries echoes of the Trojan cycle to me … a familiar tale told by others, but reinvented by a new teller for a different audience, a reflection on the subject matter that itself carries a reflection of those who seek to find something within it. Or maybe I'm just exhausted and waxing far too philosophic? Probably! It's been a long week and it's still only Monday!

So. I've played the Old Republic games and used to read quite a lot in the extended universe, though I'm over a decade out of date at this point (I'm sure that'll show!) and probably have forgotten much. Still, I have a deep fondness for Star Wars and would absolutely love a chance to do some writing in the universe, and specifically within such a rich time period.

I also want to say up front that my free time is usually kinda limited so if we get to a point where you're comfortable accepting my character, I likely can't commit to much more than a post a week. Less of a rapid-fire hotseat barrage of posts and more of a slow burn, with time to think and write and collaborate and act upon the result. If that ain't gonna work, let me know and I'll bow out! :)

Anyway, enough rambling. Here's my character sheet.

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"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?"

---

Kujata vil Turazi

Basic Information

Name: Kujata vil Turazi
Age: 38
Sex: Male
Jedi Rank: Padawan/-Knight-/Master
Lightsaber Type: Single bladed lightsaber, red crystal.
Theme Song (first time I've done one of these!): youtube.com/watch?v=-sSbkA-xd7M

Appearance

Kujata is on the taller side of the human average but not monstrously so. He bears the heavy muscles of a man who keeps in shape and is no stranger to combat; his skin bears the marks of many battles narrowly won to back up the suggestion of his frame. He is dark-skinned and of amber eye, with little in the way of hair. Young though he is, there are faint glimmers of grey at the temples of his ill-kempt raven hair, and it dots the scraggly black beard that engulfs his jaw as well.

He often eschews the “humble” attire of the Jedi Order and instead dresses in accordance with whichever world he's recently spent the most time on. More often than not that ensemble comes with some manner of cloak, but failing that then his attire leans towards open and breezy outfits that would not interfere with his range of mobility. He possesses very few personal items, and limits the ones he carries on him to an old, weathered datapad and a trio of lightsabers that hang from the thick, worn belt at his waist.

One of these lightsabers is a thing of midnight hue and deadly, elegant grace – his personal lightsaber. The other two show signs of great care but general disuse, and they almost never leave his side. The last of his personal items is a belt pouch full of scraps of cloth traced with curving script. These, he does not share.

History

Born to a family of adequate means, Kujata never wanted for much in his childhood. The world he called home – Rith – was an old one, buried in vast, ancient stone buildings and aggressive vegetation that would see all that moulding history claimed beneath its embrace. A place of calm and meditation with little in the way of interaction with the galaxy at large. Some would consider the world well-suited to study and reflection, but others would look past the surface to see a humble truth – only a handful of cities support life amidst the endless ruins and jungle, whilst the rest serves as the tomb of a civilization lost to time.

It was only pure happenstance that Rajak's life would ever veer from the slow march towards a death upon the planet of his birth. A Jedi Knight – pulled far off course and seeking refuge from a band of wayward pirates – called upon the port of Rith and was welcomed grudgingly to the surface. There she spent time amidst the locals and toured their flickering libraries and crumbling ruins, fascinated by a glimpse at a history and distance impossible to fathom in a galaxy increasingly interconnected and drawing ever smaller around her.

This Knight, a twi'lek named Terzeh'halam, took to using young Kujata's father as a guide in and around the city. It was not long before she realized that her guide's son was strong in the Force and a good candidate for tutelage. After long discussions that went far above Kujata's head it was agreed that he would be trained, and Kujata's ties to his old life summarily severed.

Life was as life is amongst the halls of Coruscant. Never making a name for himself nor socializing much with his peers, Kujata nevertheless proved himself a willing and capable student. When the time came for a Knight to claim him as a Padawan it was Terzeh who came calling, thinking of herself more a mother to the young boy than anything else. The pair of them spent a great deal of time engaged in exploration and Outer Rim diplomacy and young Kujata grew up quickly in that environment.

But the true test came during his eighteenth year, when the galaxy was consumed by the grasp of darkness and the horror of a war of deep ideologies and truly impossible proportion. The Great Sith War was one he and his master could not avoid, and so were drawn inexorably in to a scale of conflict that Kujata had never dreamt of encountering beyond the books that filled his datapad. Before the final curtain fell on the brutal play he lost not just his master, but most of those he'd ever cared about. Where once he'd had a buoyancy to him, a lightness of being, there was left instead a dark thing, a hateful thing possessed of memories no child that young should see. Of deeds that stained his hands red.

His survival and subsequent damage was a vexation to those in the higher offices of the Temple. With care and patience he was led back from the brink of the madness that gripped him and – for lack of a better task suited to his skills in war and violence – was assigned the task of assisting in the purge of Exar Kun's faithful, wherever they hid. Gradually the hunt was set aside and Kujata – along with those like him – were reassigned to other places, far from one another and from the places of learning at which they might influence the young Jedi within.

And so for a great deal of time Kujata has wandered the Outer Rim, living again the life he once had with his old master. Serving the Temple through words and striving to keep to the ways of peace, to the ways of balance. But scars never fully heal, and the damage done will never fade. It is a living thing, a constant reminder, a memory that aches in him and one he cannot bear to part with … for to part with the memory of the darkness is to part with the memory of the light within it, and the sacrificed made by those he loved.

Very soon the edge he walks will grow thinner. Soon he will once again be faced with a conflict of unimaginable scale, and all that he was will vie with all that he is, and who he will become remains to be seen.

Personality

Kujata is a man defined by a time in history, and has lived the course of his years in reaction to it. War has an immense impact on the young who live through it (or fight within it), and Kujata is no exception. As such he can sometimes be withdrawn though rarely cruel or abrasive. He works best in a situation without much oversight and is inclined more towards violent solutions than peaceful, despite his fervent wish for it to be otherwise.

He was trained in and walks the path of the Sentinel, and tries his best to embody that balance. Despite this lofty calling and his quest towards the perfection of the self, he rarely succeeds in controlling his inclinations towards isolation and disdain towards those unwilling to think and listen.

It should also be said of him that despite his service record and the deeds he has done for the Temple, he has been asked to recuse himself from the selection of a padawan, cut off from the natural progression and growth that is inherent in the structure of the Jedi Order. It does not outwardly bother him, but feeds the darker thoughts that he wrestles with in the depths of his mind. Merely one more flaw laid upon him, and he has yet to determine how to take it.

The isolation afforded by his remote postings do serve as something of a balm to him, however, so he takes the good with the ill. In being so far from home and rarely in direct personal contact with those of his Order, he often finds himself slipping here and there from the rigid precepts of the Temple, and often allows himself vices that a Jedi Knight ought not to indulge. Amongst these is an affection for fine wines and the various intoxicants supplied by the galaxy's less civilized worlds.

Likes: Quiet, flutes, the color pink, rain on a summer morning, the hum of a ship in motion, the taste of mulled wine, the scent of places long lost to the passage of civilization, thoughts below the surface, victory.

Dislikes: Pretension, the faithful, those who cannot embrace contradiction, wool, being the focus of attention, closed minds, swimming, ranged combat.

Skills / Abilities

Kujata is fairly strong in the Force but weighs its use heavily, having seen first-hand what reliance upon it can unleash. There is a great deal of fear in him for the temptation of power that surges with connecting one's self to the world, and even the Light carries a risk in his heart of hearts. As such he is technically skilled in the use of most of the generic forms and patterns of the Force, but not particularly comfortable using them. Only those he can rely on in battle are those he can summon at a moment's notice.

Beyond the Force as a tool, he also has a great deal of practice in mortal combat using lightsabers (and occasionally other edged weaponry). He whetted his blade on the battlefield has has triumphed over many capable warriors in his time, both during the war and in the decades since. He disdains ranged weaponry in most of its forms and is thus barely competent with them, though bowcasters do bring him some manner of joy that he can't properly express.

One use of the Force that Kujata cannot properly control is that which comes into play in conversations. He is not the most diplomatically minded individual but his words carry the weight of his connection to the world around him, and others tend to listen when he speaks. Though that depends a great deal on him having something of worth to say.

Strengths: Lightsaber swordsmanship, combat applications of the Force, preventing himself from getting dead-ed from social ineptness. He is a very aggressive duelist, and shows a complete willingness to go for the kill. He is also fairly well versed in stealth techniques and field repairs on simple to more complex devices.

Weaknesses: Sometimes overly self-reliant and wary of the Force, which slows his reactions when the Force is required. Cynical to the point of social aggression at times, which can bleed through into a quickness of action and the unleashing of violence when it's nowhere near the best solution. Very skilled with a blade but not very gifted in ranged combat, and he rarely wears any sort of armor.

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Whew. I swear I used to be able to draft up characters way faster than this. I'm getting old, methinks. Or out of practice.

Starsong

Was waiting on you to reply to Lucky Knight's question...

@TheLoneDrifter

Lucky Knight was also waiting on a reply to Lucky Knight's question!

Starsong

"...if you don't get more variety into your gene pool well you end up becoming just as stagnant..."

@Hexaflexagon

As true for writers as it must be for the Houses!

I'm also interested in signing on for this -- I have a character sheet in the works, hopefully to be posted by this evening -- but I wanted to ask something before I throw myself upon the mercy of a review. Well, a question that's also kind of a statement? I dunno. Hah. I have a pretty rough work schedule and my free time is sometimes quite scarce as a result; I won't be able to maintain an intense pace of hourly posts or anything like that, but I can usually belt one out every week of a fair length and quality. So less of a rapid-fire hotseat and more of a slow burn, with time to think and write and collaborate and act upon the result. Does that sound like it would work for your game?

The Wolven Storm

Sir your prose is just..... Damn good show.

@Hexaflexagon

Thanks. I've had a bit of practice over the years! Haha. Still struggling to find Kae's voice though. :(

My excuse is that I became completely engrossed in a new, particularly long book.

@Terminal

Nice! What book are you reading?

The Wolven Storm

Posted! Sorry it took so long.

The Wolven Storm

The Captain spoke, and Kaerun did not listen.

It was not out of malice, nor any sense of disloyalty; rather he'd had his fill of imperious speeches and the justifications that commanders made to their soldiers. Those around him might allow themselves to be convinced or cajoled into believing that what they did mattered, or that their actions might somehow tip the scales or bring some good to the Company, or whatever it was the Captain needed them to believe.

Kaerun only anticipated the coin. Or perhaps the grave, at long last.

What else was there?

Around him the others paid varying degrees of attention to their leader. He knew them all by sight and by reputation, though he could not always remember one or the other in any given moment. He knew that one of them reminded him of a lover who'd spurned him in his youth, and that another had the same grimace as a man he'd killed in the alley of a city long since fallen to ruin.

His attention caught for a moment on the elves, for he could remember their faces more clearly: Triala, the foul one with a savage temper. Colette, the toddler who by all rights should not be wandering unaccompanied. Despite himself he grinned; he had no right to decide such things, nor even think them. Some habits, some beliefs, were engraved too deeply in the mind to be worn away even after so much time.

And a very long time had passed since he'd felt himself worthy to make such judgments. A very long time indeed.

But then his attention fell to the crimson-haired sorceress in their midst, bearing a staff of dragonbone and an aura of command equal to that of the Captain himself. She was swathed in the clothes of a traveler and would have blended in with the Company's … finest … had it not been for the way she carried herself. The way she commanded the attention of the space around her, daring any to refuse their obedience on pain of her terrible wrath.

His first thought was that she was older than she appeared, and that tricking the world into believing her lie showed a degree of animal cunning that bordered on vanity.

Vanity, or a brazen and irresponsible display of power.

A desperate bid to show the world that she was a master, that in her hand was the beating heart of mortality itself. Arrogance rode her like a storm; thunder and lightning scarce-restrained, a force that pushed her forward and might one day claim her life. He'd met many like her. Served with some, fought against others; seen them rise and fall and sometimes rise again, and never once did it end well.

Kaerun knew her by reputation. Knew that she was considered a serious player in the games of the court, that she had a grip on the beating heart of the Vorstagian Emperor … and by extension the heart of the Empire itself. How she'd ensnared the Empire's master Kaerun could only guess, but the power she wielded – physical and arcane – couldn't be denied.

A bloodhound? Perhaps. But he felt it was something more. She would not be the one held to heel; she'd be the one with the leash in her hand. And it would only mean trouble for them. People like this were temperamental. They were used to being in charge and obeying no order but their own. Should worse come to worse it would be difficult to protect her, and doing so might cost many of the Wolves their lives.

It wasn't a fair thought. He didn't really know her. But he knew others like her, knew what they were capable of, and awoke some nights to nightmares born of their works and deeds. Better a cynic than a fool, he mused.

Yet for all of this, for all the thoughts that swam in him and the distant, echoing concern he held for how badly she might screw this up for the Company, he couldn't help but be drawn in by the crimson of her hair and the blue of her eyes.

Once, long ago, he'd seen a forest set aflame and wandered into its heat, drunk on the smoke and the sweat and the fear that pounded in his chest. All around him burned the world, the air itself carrying the licking flame from branch to branch in great sweeping arcs. As death stole upon him and the strength fled his body he'd stumbled, tripping blind through the chaos that consumed his mind, and found himself plunging deep into a river that cut through the ancient wood.

From beneath the water he'd looked up at the sky and saw a clear, cutting blue so deep it made his heart ache, framed in roiling flame, soon lost in a howling blast of smoke that ate the sun and doused the world in darkness.

She was that moment.

That fear, that power, that crystal-clear thunder of beauty in the midst of terror. Crimson and azure in counter balance, placidity and tumult in a dance against one another, caged in mortal flesh.

A ray of candlelight upon rough waters … but she's the stone that's been cast. She is the heart of the water's ripples.

Was there a stirring of attraction there? Did an ember smolder in him for this sorceress?

Or was it just the whiskey settling in, bringing warmth to the ice in his bones?

Time would tell. Or he would soon forget, or lose interest. Perhaps. Would that he could claim to know himself well enough to predict his future, or read his own mind. How long ago had he given up the arrogant claim to self-knowledge? He was well rid of it, whatever the answer.

Kaerun's attention snapped back to the world at once, his thoughts catching and stopping dead on something the Captain had said. What was it?

...the one thing that will end a man before he even marches his army off to war is predictability...

It struck a nerve. He could hear the Captain's words in his own voice, a younger voice than the one he now possessed. A voice that would tell all who heard it that it knew all the answers. That it spoke the truth – immutable truth – and that any who would seek wisdom would do well to listen.

Not that the Captain was wrong. There was something to be said for cleverness and craftiness on the field of battle. Some wars were won and lost on tactics too unique and eclectic for the enemy to counter.

Yet, another immutable truth was often thus: The largest army usually won. The superior force under a competent commander stood a better chance at victory than the small, clever band of rebels. Though it might slaughter the innocent vision that some held of heroic warfare, though it might crush the dreams of those who dreamt of impossible victories, the truth was often cruel that way.

Without thinking Kae's hand fell to one of the pouches at his belt, and he fished about until his fingers closed on one of the precious items within. A quick debate began on the propriety of using it here, or if he should wait until it really became necessary. Perhaps the whiskey would suffice for the time being … better to wait and see.

The Captain's voice had deepened into a growl, the weight of his words told Kaerun that their briefing was at an end.

“So any questions before you all set out? Or are you all just gonna stare at me like a doe that just came out of its mother's womb? No?”

None of his soldiers answered, naturally. Would it not be a gesture of disrespect to speak out in the midst of a monologue? “Good, then, because you don’t get paid to ask questions and talk back; you get paid to do your bloody job. Dismissed.”

They gave their perfunctory (or heartfelt) salutes.

As they began to filter towards the entrance of the Captain's tent the sorceress spoke up, her voice like smoke and embers: “Well I know you mercenary types are slow and all – getting hit in the head enough times will do that to you – but shouldn't we be heading out? Time's a-wasting after all. And the sooner we get the northern barbarians to open the gates for us, the sooner we all get the pleasure of not having to deal with one another again.”

Oh, he liked the sound of her voice alright. She'd be trouble, yeah, but sometimes trouble was more fun.

Unpredictable, the Captain had said, and that echo came back to Kaerun as he finally pulled the smoke out from the pouch at his side. He sniffed it briefly before putting it between his lips, making sure it was one of the strong ones. It was, and it hadn't yet gone bad. Harder and harder to find the right herbs as they traveled further north – would be a pain to replace his supply, but ultimately this whole endeavor called for at least a little relief before the proverbial boulder started rolling downhill.

One way or another this whole mess would shake out in strange and unusual ways, and he found he was actually looking forward to seeing how it all wound up. A smile took him in full force as he struck a match and set flame to his smoke.

Though even as he steeled himself to make smalltalk with his fellow soldiers and tried to remember who all of them were, one small nagging thought rose up in the shadows of his mind. Was there something else he was forgetting? Something he wanted to talk to the Captain about?

Well, whatever it was, it would probably keep. It fell back into the darkness and was forgotten again.

He took a deep breath.

And exhaled.

The Wolven Storm

Also still here! Caught up in a few things this week and can't seem to catch a break, though I anticipate having another post in the next few days.

The Wolven Storm

Oof. Always weird to start writing a new character, isn't it? Logically I know it'll get easier and easier until they just flow from the mind to the keyboard to the forum ... but jeez, it's like blood from a stone that very first time. Or is that just me? Haha.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, what is everyone's process for writing a post? I tend to just write non-stop, even if it doesn't make sense, before going back and editing the crap out of it. Editing is like my drug, though. I tend to edit constantly.

@Lexicon

Our GM here mentioned he'd been doing this for a decade -- I'm in the same boat (I started RPing in 2003), and my process has pretty much boiled down to this: I usually spend a while thinking about all the notes I need to hit in my post, then I just sit down and work it all out in as close to a single session as I can in as close to final order as I can, allowing for things to change and grow as I write. Usually give one or two quick passes for editing so I don't embarrass myself. I never know exactly how a scene will play out until it's done because sometimes my best laid plans don't bear fruit (or, you know, end up being super crappy prose), but I often have a decent idea of what I want to have happen before I try writing it.