The Mother of All Psy-Pires
Intent: To provide Nine with a loyal clan of NPC's as well as a Noble house for other player characters interested in joining said house for the Atrisian Commonwealth.
Image Credit:
Ancient Roman Mosaic, Capitolene Museum, Rome, Italy.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Museums)
Wikimedia Commons. (Image Source, listed Capitolene in the link also.)
(https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger_calf_Musei_Capitolini_MC1222.jpg)
Role: As a Noble Atrisian House that welcomes humans but is under the control of Nine and her Psy-Pires. They serve [member="Shoma Ike"] as both scientists, spies, and, when needed, assassins.
Links
http://starwarsrp.net/topic/128054-arch-psy-pire/)
(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/126341-psy-pire/)
GENERAL INFORMATION
Group Name: Clan Li-Ves.
Classification: Noble Family
Headquarters: Atrisia, Castle Morpheus(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/129671-castle-morpheus-the-leviathan-tantive/#entry1788101), any stronghold built by the house.
Loyalties: @Nine Lives, The Atrisian Commonwealth(http://starwarsrp.net/forum/4433-the-atrisian-commonwealth/), [member="Shoma Ike"].
Group Sigil:
Description:
An ancient Noble House looking to reassert its weight in the Future by taking advantage of what Nine considers largely a curse in private. But with her home being threatened possibly by the First Order, Nine has no choice but to wake the ancient members of those she first turned from their slumber and lead any who would still follow her to secure a peaceful future for Atrisia.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Hierarchy: Nine Lives, addressed (to her inner annoyance) as "Mother". All Non-Psy-Pires refer to her as "Lady No."
Below her are her inner circle of advisors. Nine's lawyer is in this circle, as are the Knights of Castle Morpheus.
Below that are the retainers and those who see to the day to day affairs of the House. They are also heading up what research and field ops Nine can muster.
Below that are those who serve as the agents of the clan. They carry out many of the tasks assigned by the top down. This is the largest section of Nine's house, where both Psy-Pire and Non Psy-Pire may mingle freely. As the actual noble blood of House Li-Ves vanished millenia ago, Nine and the psy-pires she created are the closest thing to serve in place. Psy-Pires are in the very important positions but non Psy-Pires may easily advance without prejudice. All members of House Li-Ves are equal. Other than that the culture of House Li-Ves bares all the traits of the nascent Psy-Pire Culture Nine created in her fugue state.
Membership: House Li-Ves requires absolute proof of ones allegiance. New members are bitten by a Psy-Pire to get a look at their memories. If allegiance to the First order or imperials is found in the thoughts, the spy is not killed but dragged off to the dungeons of the Li-Ves estate to be fed on by her and her Psy-Pires indefinitely. New members, depending on their skillsets, are given very difficult tasks to solve using those skills to benefit the commonwealth, provided they pass the bite test, which Nine likens to the ancient practice of biting a coin to determine its authenticity.
Families wishing to marry into this house are welcome to do so. Families with little connection to @Mythos(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/64149-mythos-amul/) rule are preferred, but exceptions will be made on a case by case basis.
Dogma/Doctrines:
The tenents of the ancient House are inseperable from the Sword Style associated with it.
They are as follows:
Five Rings Philosophy
The Philosophy of the House at the death of the last patriarch focused on five core tenents. This philisophy was developed during the last years of Shimada Li-Ves life, in a desperate (and perhaps, ultimately futile) attempt to move the Li-Ves family away from its bloody past and the vicious way it clawed out a place of fear among the other ancient houses of Atrisia, despite being smaller...much smaller...than most of them. They were famous for their loyalty to the emperors of Atrisia, and were accorded much land and title.
The tenents of the modern house are Intelligence, Practice, Charity, Empathy, Opportunity. House Li-Ves must be honorable, wise, gracious, charitable, and have an excellent work ethic and sense of adventure. At the time of its debut, Shimada was privately mocked by many families for his attempt to rebrand and reinvent the family going into the future. Not because they disagreed necessarily with the ideas themselves (though there more than a few genuine detractors of them among the dismissive nobles) but because they considered the attempt disingenuous...generation after generation before Shimada had spilt blood famously and viciously. How could he possibly change his family's nature at this point, especially when they had already made their riches and thus an attempt to change now would not only be pointless, but hypocritical. The soldiers among them especially noted how each tenent could also be applied to sword fighting and suspected Shimada was simply pursuing intimidation by other means. The Li-Ves were never saints. Nine however hopes that with the passage of time this philosophy can become the genuine foundation for a fresh, reborn House Li-Ves. Nine was the first person to be taught this philosophy.
Five Rings Sword Style
A Katana style that focuses on practical technique derived from battlefield experience, taking into account actual encounter scenarios over pure theory. An easy to learn style, but hard to apply its core concepts. All House Li-Ves members may learn this style.
Intelligence: Being able to properly guage your abilities and those of your opponent, when to fight and when not to, when to attack and defend and how to attack and defend
Practice: Constantly practicing on the ideas of the first tenent, learning from every encounter and mistake.
Charity: When to show mercy primarily and when to kill everything secondarily.
Empathy: You must remember your enemies are people too and never commit dishonor.
Opportunity: Seeing a chance to win or end a fight before it is begun. Taking advantage of everything during a duel.
Dark Five Rings Philosophy.
The "Original" ancient guiding tenents of Nine's house. This school of thought produced generations of bloodthirsty warriors renowned and feared for their brutality. Hardened men and women who once hunted and lived in the snowy parts of ancient Atrisia. The Dark Five Rings Philosophy emphasizes looking out for ones family and the honor of the house, and showing zero tolerance or pity towards even potential enemies. Some alliances with the family were based solely on fear...better to be friends with the devil than not, they reasoned. Once allied however, they found no protector more nightmarishly savage and effective. Some were so bloodthirsty they were accused of being vampires, but when tested never turned out to be. Sometimes, only the horror of the house's assured retaliation against them prevented angry, disgusted mobs from burning some of the more infamous ones at the stake. While House Li-Ves recognized it could not purge all weakness from its family, it strove to make each member practice to reduce as much of their weakness as possible through meditation and rigorous, cruel, unrelenting practice. Famous for participating in multiple last stands in the name of the empire. The ancient Li-Ves ancestors never retreated, and never showed mercy, and fought to inflict maximum pain and bloodshed against foes of the empire, which their members did with a nearly religious zeal. A true member of House Li-Ves in very ancient times was a berzerker, and it was noted that whenever a corpse of one was on the battlefield, it was surrounded by piles of fallen enemies. This was considered an honorable death for Li-Ves members. Shimada was the last of the family to be taught in this manner before trying to break from it and create his own philosophy. Its core tenents were Cunning, Enjoyment, Wrath, Emptiness, and Cheating. This philosophy produced very evil and sadistic warriors and even those that were not like that were still very lacking in mercy towards others. The ancient version of the Sword Style is known only to Ni-Ne.
Dark Five Rings Sword Style
A twisted and wicked variant crafted by generations of evil men and women within Ni-Ne's lineage. Focuses on not only killing the opponent quickly, but doing so in vicious ways, turning the sword into an instrument of torture, inflicting wounds that seem to be more painful due to the specific ways cuts are inflicted with the sword, targeting weak and sensitive areas, or striking in such a way with the back of the blade as to cause subdermal hematomas and eventual brain swelling.
The "rings" or tenents of this school are along the lines of the "surface" style, but twisted to evil purpose
Cunning: Knowing how to manipulate the emotions of an enemy to lower his effectiveness, how to enrage an enemy's friends into attacking you, how to destroy a persons life simply for the sake of it. (A similar concept to Dun Moch)
Enjoyment: To truly become one with the style, you must on some level enjoy the pain you inflict with the sword. This will make you more willing, eager, and able to inflict it, which in turn causes even far away enemies to fear attacking you...what if they lose? This tenent is part of the styles psychological warfare doctrine in battle...win by terrifying your enemies into submission with your brutal nature
Wrath: When the sword is drawn, you must be ready, willing, and happy to kill everything in your line of sight, in the bloodiest manner possible. This tenent is a factor in the extremely aggressive bladework sequences, either dedicated to getting around guards or maiming wounds.
Emptiness: Show no mercy. Only one who feels nothing for who they kill will master this style. Also plays a part in more critical evasion concepts in combat.
Cheating: Show no honor. You must be a force of nature, there only to annihilate. If a quicker, preferably more painful method of killing one's enemies presents itself, take it.
On family:
During her Fugue state when she was first turned, Nine gathered those Psy-Pires she turned (In this state she thought of herself as "The Lovely Nine") and passed down laws and traditions inspired by the original House Li-Ves and the laws of Nine's "children".
All members must protect each other with their lives. Enemies of the house are to be dealt with through negotiations always as a first recourse, brutality resorted to only as a final option.
Abuse of any sort between members is punished harshly, and depending on the severity, a few memories might be drank as punishment. Especially severe and vicious acts are punished with death, often by personal decapitation at Nine's hands.
Curios: All members of the house are given a ceremonial hooded lavender kimono upon entry. It is the color of Nine's blood.
Goals:
House Li-Ves intends to turn its unique traits into an advantage for the Commonwealth, using their memory eating abilities to hopefully detect spies, using Nine's research as a Force multiplier to create deadly assassin biots for the commonwealth. They also seek to increase their stature in commonwealth society by contributing to the benefit of the citizenry. While it is not public knowledge that many members of the house are pyschic based vampires capable of eating food and drink in an emergency, it is known that many members of House Li-Ves serve in judicial and espionage matters, and that when they are assigned to deal with spies and criminals, said spies and criminals often do not come back intact mentally wise, giving the House something of that same edge of fear to its reputation that it once had, despite new focuses for the most part.
MEMBERS
Nine Lives (Lady No)
Vera Mina (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/129765-saotome-biot-vera-mina/)
Castle Morpheus
Knights(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/130418-castle-morpheus-knights/)
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Founded by Kain Li, a notoriously vicious warrior from the coldest most inhospitable lands of Atrisia, his bloodthirst and skill won him great fear and accord among Atrisians, and he was the proverbial "Oni with an iron club". Finding kindred spirits in a clan of equally skilled but more quiet assassins known as the Ves Clan, Kain fought to prove himself, eventually seizing control of the clan through a combination of primitive cunning, overt aggressive behavior, and the sheer force of his personality. Merging his name with that of his lover, a fierce former Yovshin known as Luci Ves, Kain's legacy of bloodshed and aggression would be tought to each of his children, boy or girl, and all vice and weakness of the mind and body was purged as much as possible through rigorous, often cruel practice and training, to leave them mentally focused, dedicated, fierce, and lethal. The Li-Ves family would become tied to the emperors for their tireless service and one of the most feared families on Atrisia despite their small size. As generations passed and their numbers began to whittle down through battle, one of their most deadly, Shimada, had a change of heart and attempted to change his family philosophy, teaching a new way that left them strong but not so horribly violent. Though he made progress, at the time of his death Nine was one of his new philosophy's truest recipients. After the events leading to Shimada's death and Nine's departure from Atrisia, the Li-Ves family was effectively finished as a major family for millenia until Nine restored it to a present, working state in an effort to protect her homeworld from The First Order. While not all occupants of Castle Morpheus's stasis chambers swore unconditional loyalty. One thousand still did so, in addition to the knights of Castle Morpheus.
In the wake of the death of the Sith Lord Mythos, the One Sith appointed ruler of Atrisia who was killed during an incident that saturated a significant area of the planet with the Dark Side, and with Prince Shoma Ike moving to strengthen his hold as ruler in the violent political and social upheaval that ensued, Nine has offered the help of her reconstituted House to help identify out dangerous individuals and if necessary, carry out a purge of the more intractable of the nobility of other houses that may, or may not be sympathetic still to One Sith having an influence over Atrisia's future, or worse, that of the First Order, which borders Atrisian space, and have proven, especially after the atrocities of Coruscant, that few lows are too low for the classic tyrant to stoop to, especially if they have willing collaborators. Nine is deeply conscious and profoundly worried at the idea however, that in her zeal to protect Atrisia, she may become a mechanism of enforcement rather than protection of her beloved world, and is filled with severe doubts, but presses onward due to the precarious position of the Commonwealth.
Image Credit:
Ancient Roman Mosaic, Capitolene Museum, Rome, Italy.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Museums)
Wikimedia Commons. (Image Source, listed Capitolene in the link also.)
(https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger_calf_Musei_Capitolini_MC1222.jpg)
Role: As a Noble Atrisian House that welcomes humans but is under the control of Nine and her Psy-Pires. They serve [member="Shoma Ike"] as both scientists, spies, and, when needed, assassins.
Links
http://starwarsrp.net/topic/128054-arch-psy-pire/)(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/126341-psy-pire/)
GENERAL INFORMATION
Group Name: Clan Li-Ves.
Classification: Noble Family
Headquarters: Atrisia, Castle Morpheus(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/129671-castle-morpheus-the-leviathan-tantive/#entry1788101), any stronghold built by the house.
Loyalties: @Nine Lives, The Atrisian Commonwealth(http://starwarsrp.net/forum/4433-the-atrisian-commonwealth/), [member="Shoma Ike"].
Group Sigil:
Description:
An ancient Noble House looking to reassert its weight in the Future by taking advantage of what Nine considers largely a curse in private. But with her home being threatened possibly by the First Order, Nine has no choice but to wake the ancient members of those she first turned from their slumber and lead any who would still follow her to secure a peaceful future for Atrisia.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Hierarchy: Nine Lives, addressed (to her inner annoyance) as "Mother". All Non-Psy-Pires refer to her as "Lady No."
Below her are her inner circle of advisors. Nine's lawyer is in this circle, as are the Knights of Castle Morpheus.
Below that are the retainers and those who see to the day to day affairs of the House. They are also heading up what research and field ops Nine can muster.
Below that are those who serve as the agents of the clan. They carry out many of the tasks assigned by the top down. This is the largest section of Nine's house, where both Psy-Pire and Non Psy-Pire may mingle freely. As the actual noble blood of House Li-Ves vanished millenia ago, Nine and the psy-pires she created are the closest thing to serve in place. Psy-Pires are in the very important positions but non Psy-Pires may easily advance without prejudice. All members of House Li-Ves are equal. Other than that the culture of House Li-Ves bares all the traits of the nascent Psy-Pire Culture Nine created in her fugue state.
Membership: House Li-Ves requires absolute proof of ones allegiance. New members are bitten by a Psy-Pire to get a look at their memories. If allegiance to the First order or imperials is found in the thoughts, the spy is not killed but dragged off to the dungeons of the Li-Ves estate to be fed on by her and her Psy-Pires indefinitely. New members, depending on their skillsets, are given very difficult tasks to solve using those skills to benefit the commonwealth, provided they pass the bite test, which Nine likens to the ancient practice of biting a coin to determine its authenticity.
Families wishing to marry into this house are welcome to do so. Families with little connection to @Mythos(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/64149-mythos-amul/) rule are preferred, but exceptions will be made on a case by case basis.
Dogma/Doctrines:
The tenents of the ancient House are inseperable from the Sword Style associated with it.
They are as follows:
Five Rings Philosophy
The Philosophy of the House at the death of the last patriarch focused on five core tenents. This philisophy was developed during the last years of Shimada Li-Ves life, in a desperate (and perhaps, ultimately futile) attempt to move the Li-Ves family away from its bloody past and the vicious way it clawed out a place of fear among the other ancient houses of Atrisia, despite being smaller...much smaller...than most of them. They were famous for their loyalty to the emperors of Atrisia, and were accorded much land and title.
The tenents of the modern house are Intelligence, Practice, Charity, Empathy, Opportunity. House Li-Ves must be honorable, wise, gracious, charitable, and have an excellent work ethic and sense of adventure. At the time of its debut, Shimada was privately mocked by many families for his attempt to rebrand and reinvent the family going into the future. Not because they disagreed necessarily with the ideas themselves (though there more than a few genuine detractors of them among the dismissive nobles) but because they considered the attempt disingenuous...generation after generation before Shimada had spilt blood famously and viciously. How could he possibly change his family's nature at this point, especially when they had already made their riches and thus an attempt to change now would not only be pointless, but hypocritical. The soldiers among them especially noted how each tenent could also be applied to sword fighting and suspected Shimada was simply pursuing intimidation by other means. The Li-Ves were never saints. Nine however hopes that with the passage of time this philosophy can become the genuine foundation for a fresh, reborn House Li-Ves. Nine was the first person to be taught this philosophy.
Five Rings Sword Style
A Katana style that focuses on practical technique derived from battlefield experience, taking into account actual encounter scenarios over pure theory. An easy to learn style, but hard to apply its core concepts. All House Li-Ves members may learn this style.
Intelligence: Being able to properly guage your abilities and those of your opponent, when to fight and when not to, when to attack and defend and how to attack and defend
Practice: Constantly practicing on the ideas of the first tenent, learning from every encounter and mistake.
Charity: When to show mercy primarily and when to kill everything secondarily.
Empathy: You must remember your enemies are people too and never commit dishonor.
Opportunity: Seeing a chance to win or end a fight before it is begun. Taking advantage of everything during a duel.
Dark Five Rings Philosophy.
The "Original" ancient guiding tenents of Nine's house. This school of thought produced generations of bloodthirsty warriors renowned and feared for their brutality. Hardened men and women who once hunted and lived in the snowy parts of ancient Atrisia. The Dark Five Rings Philosophy emphasizes looking out for ones family and the honor of the house, and showing zero tolerance or pity towards even potential enemies. Some alliances with the family were based solely on fear...better to be friends with the devil than not, they reasoned. Once allied however, they found no protector more nightmarishly savage and effective. Some were so bloodthirsty they were accused of being vampires, but when tested never turned out to be. Sometimes, only the horror of the house's assured retaliation against them prevented angry, disgusted mobs from burning some of the more infamous ones at the stake. While House Li-Ves recognized it could not purge all weakness from its family, it strove to make each member practice to reduce as much of their weakness as possible through meditation and rigorous, cruel, unrelenting practice. Famous for participating in multiple last stands in the name of the empire. The ancient Li-Ves ancestors never retreated, and never showed mercy, and fought to inflict maximum pain and bloodshed against foes of the empire, which their members did with a nearly religious zeal. A true member of House Li-Ves in very ancient times was a berzerker, and it was noted that whenever a corpse of one was on the battlefield, it was surrounded by piles of fallen enemies. This was considered an honorable death for Li-Ves members. Shimada was the last of the family to be taught in this manner before trying to break from it and create his own philosophy. Its core tenents were Cunning, Enjoyment, Wrath, Emptiness, and Cheating. This philosophy produced very evil and sadistic warriors and even those that were not like that were still very lacking in mercy towards others. The ancient version of the Sword Style is known only to Ni-Ne.
Dark Five Rings Sword Style
A twisted and wicked variant crafted by generations of evil men and women within Ni-Ne's lineage. Focuses on not only killing the opponent quickly, but doing so in vicious ways, turning the sword into an instrument of torture, inflicting wounds that seem to be more painful due to the specific ways cuts are inflicted with the sword, targeting weak and sensitive areas, or striking in such a way with the back of the blade as to cause subdermal hematomas and eventual brain swelling.
The "rings" or tenents of this school are along the lines of the "surface" style, but twisted to evil purpose
Cunning: Knowing how to manipulate the emotions of an enemy to lower his effectiveness, how to enrage an enemy's friends into attacking you, how to destroy a persons life simply for the sake of it. (A similar concept to Dun Moch)
Enjoyment: To truly become one with the style, you must on some level enjoy the pain you inflict with the sword. This will make you more willing, eager, and able to inflict it, which in turn causes even far away enemies to fear attacking you...what if they lose? This tenent is part of the styles psychological warfare doctrine in battle...win by terrifying your enemies into submission with your brutal nature
Wrath: When the sword is drawn, you must be ready, willing, and happy to kill everything in your line of sight, in the bloodiest manner possible. This tenent is a factor in the extremely aggressive bladework sequences, either dedicated to getting around guards or maiming wounds.
Emptiness: Show no mercy. Only one who feels nothing for who they kill will master this style. Also plays a part in more critical evasion concepts in combat.
Cheating: Show no honor. You must be a force of nature, there only to annihilate. If a quicker, preferably more painful method of killing one's enemies presents itself, take it.
On family:
During her Fugue state when she was first turned, Nine gathered those Psy-Pires she turned (In this state she thought of herself as "The Lovely Nine") and passed down laws and traditions inspired by the original House Li-Ves and the laws of Nine's "children".
All members must protect each other with their lives. Enemies of the house are to be dealt with through negotiations always as a first recourse, brutality resorted to only as a final option.
Abuse of any sort between members is punished harshly, and depending on the severity, a few memories might be drank as punishment. Especially severe and vicious acts are punished with death, often by personal decapitation at Nine's hands.
Curios: All members of the house are given a ceremonial hooded lavender kimono upon entry. It is the color of Nine's blood.
Goals:
House Li-Ves intends to turn its unique traits into an advantage for the Commonwealth, using their memory eating abilities to hopefully detect spies, using Nine's research as a Force multiplier to create deadly assassin biots for the commonwealth. They also seek to increase their stature in commonwealth society by contributing to the benefit of the citizenry. While it is not public knowledge that many members of the house are pyschic based vampires capable of eating food and drink in an emergency, it is known that many members of House Li-Ves serve in judicial and espionage matters, and that when they are assigned to deal with spies and criminals, said spies and criminals often do not come back intact mentally wise, giving the House something of that same edge of fear to its reputation that it once had, despite new focuses for the most part.
MEMBERS
Nine Lives (Lady No)
Vera Mina (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/129765-saotome-biot-vera-mina/)
Castle Morpheus
Knights(http://starwarsrp.net/topic/130418-castle-morpheus-knights/)
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Founded by Kain Li, a notoriously vicious warrior from the coldest most inhospitable lands of Atrisia, his bloodthirst and skill won him great fear and accord among Atrisians, and he was the proverbial "Oni with an iron club". Finding kindred spirits in a clan of equally skilled but more quiet assassins known as the Ves Clan, Kain fought to prove himself, eventually seizing control of the clan through a combination of primitive cunning, overt aggressive behavior, and the sheer force of his personality. Merging his name with that of his lover, a fierce former Yovshin known as Luci Ves, Kain's legacy of bloodshed and aggression would be tought to each of his children, boy or girl, and all vice and weakness of the mind and body was purged as much as possible through rigorous, often cruel practice and training, to leave them mentally focused, dedicated, fierce, and lethal. The Li-Ves family would become tied to the emperors for their tireless service and one of the most feared families on Atrisia despite their small size. As generations passed and their numbers began to whittle down through battle, one of their most deadly, Shimada, had a change of heart and attempted to change his family philosophy, teaching a new way that left them strong but not so horribly violent. Though he made progress, at the time of his death Nine was one of his new philosophy's truest recipients. After the events leading to Shimada's death and Nine's departure from Atrisia, the Li-Ves family was effectively finished as a major family for millenia until Nine restored it to a present, working state in an effort to protect her homeworld from The First Order. While not all occupants of Castle Morpheus's stasis chambers swore unconditional loyalty. One thousand still did so, in addition to the knights of Castle Morpheus.
In the wake of the death of the Sith Lord Mythos, the One Sith appointed ruler of Atrisia who was killed during an incident that saturated a significant area of the planet with the Dark Side, and with Prince Shoma Ike moving to strengthen his hold as ruler in the violent political and social upheaval that ensued, Nine has offered the help of her reconstituted House to help identify out dangerous individuals and if necessary, carry out a purge of the more intractable of the nobility of other houses that may, or may not be sympathetic still to One Sith having an influence over Atrisia's future, or worse, that of the First Order, which borders Atrisian space, and have proven, especially after the atrocities of Coruscant, that few lows are too low for the classic tyrant to stoop to, especially if they have willing collaborators. Nine is deeply conscious and profoundly worried at the idea however, that in her zeal to protect Atrisia, she may become a mechanism of enforcement rather than protection of her beloved world, and is filled with severe doubts, but presses onward due to the precarious position of the Commonwealth.
