Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Sub Nyssa's sister for future rp.
Image Credit: Screenshot from The Old Republic. Tineye gives me zero results and google image sends me to Reddit.
Role: Half-sister and foil to Nyssa, Light Side Sith. Ghanima is not affiliated with any faction. Rather she is an independent investigator, sentinel and exorcist.
Links: Nyssa Vykaris, Athiss, Trouble in the Jungle, Metellos.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 24.
Force Sensitivity: Knight
Species: Sith Pureblood.
Appearance: Ghanima is a Sith Pureblood female with the typical features of her species, namely crimson skin, raven hair, bony tendrils in place of eyebrows and facial tentacles. These tendrils are less pronounced than those of her ancestors would have been. This is the result of inbreeding with humans. She has golden eyes and her hands have retractable claws. Her features are less sharp and predatory than those of Nyssa. Her skin is also a darker shade of red. She has a stern countenance, and a strong gaze. Ghanima prefers formal attire, though practical rather than showy. This is also reflected in her hair styling and taste in jewellery. She likes headbands and circlets, but keeps them practical. She dislikes heavy armour, prefering to wear things that give her room to manoeuvre and do not impede her mobility.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Ghanima Vykaris
Loyalties: Independent. Ghanima is a freelancer who offers her services to those in need.
Wealth: Ghanima has enough to get by, but is not wealthy. Her family was rich, but when it self-destructed she was left with very little and her nomadic life style has not been conducive to amassing a fortune. Unless their circumstances really do not allow it, she expects those she helps to compensate her for her services. They can do so with credits or items. Being a Light Sider might be good for the conscience, but she still needs to eat, pay her bills, perform repairs on her ship and have a bed to sleep in at the end of the day. Ghanima does like nice things such as jewellery, but keep things practical.
Notable Possessions: A holocron that was made by one of her ancestors, Darth Adrestia, who lived during the reign of Emperor Vitiate. It represents a link to her old life - and a warning. When she was still on the dark side, the holocron was one of her most cherished possessions because it was a repository of Sith lore and sorcery. She went through trials to prove herself worthy of it. The gatekeeper encouraged her lust for power and her resentment of her siblings. Now it is a reminder of what she could have become if she had allowed darkness to consume her. The holocron's gatekeeper is very disappointed in her, but still seeks to sway her to the dark side. Sometimes it tries to mentally torment her, at others it tries to tempt her with power and knowledge.
She carries a Force Imbued Blade, which is her weapon of choice. Ghanima forged it after departing Athiss and leaving her old life behind her. She still possesses a lightsabre, but has not used it for a long time. She owns a family portrait that was commissioned by her mother. It shows her and her family before everything fell apart. She has an extensive library. Many of the tomes are about Sith lore, history and arcana, but others are about more obscure cults she has encountered or taken an interest in over the years, such as the Witches of Dathomir, the Jal Shey and the Baran-Do.
Skills: Ghanima was raised by a noble family of Sith Purebloods that can trace back its lineage to the days of King Adas. Or so they claim at any rate. One imagines that a good portion of their genealogy is invented, as tends to be the case with blue bloods. Regardless, Ghanima was raised on the stories of her ancestors and is the most bookish of her siblings. Thus she has acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of Sith history, lore and arcana.
Other subjects of study include Force entities, the Netherworld and fringe Force groups. She is a voracious reader and a bit of a bookworm. Like her half-sister Nyssa, Ghanima has the gift to use Sith Sorcery. Indeed, her affinity for it is stronger than that of Nyssa, who is a warrior and prefers to participate in the fury of melee combat instead of cast spells. However, ever since her conversion to the Light, Ghanima refuses to use Sith Magic, fearing that it could corrupt her. Nonetheless, it cannot be unlearned, so she still knows it.
She has branched out into Light and Neutral abilities, with a focus on the cerebral aspects of the Force. She is skilled with Force Illusions, Force Stasis, Control Pain, Force Blinding and Telekinesis. Ghanima is very good at masking her Force aura. Not only can she conceal her Force presence from detection from other Force-Sensitives, she can project a false dark side aura. This has been vital for her survival, as she has often had to mask her true self from other Sith. For the same reason she is good at shielding her thoughts. Moreover, she can summon blasts of Force Light. This is her strongest power.
Ghanima has been trained in the use of a lightsabre, but prefers a Force-Imbued Blade. Her argument is that lightsabres make killing look deceptively clean, as any wound inflicted by them is immediately cauterised instead of bleeding. She sees the argument that it is a 'weapon of peace' as as self-deceptive. With her sword she can damage or destroy spirits, dark side apparitions and demons. She is a capable field operator and investigator with a good repertoire of secondary skills such as slicing, lockpicking and surveillance. Ghanima is no sharpshooter, but she is decent with a pistol and a rifle.
Personality: Is it better to be born good, or to overcome one's evil nature through diligence and effort? Ghanima was born into a society steeped in the dark side. Power belonged to those who could command the Force, slavery was a fact of life and oppression was institutionalised. The strong did what they would, and the weak suffered what they must. She was a part of the system, having been born into a noble family. In the early sages of her life she supported the sysem and committed crimes in its name. In short, she is not pure as white snow. However, she has worked to better herself and embraced a new path.
Her time in Sith society has shaped her. Ghanima is guarded, aloof and does not trust easily. She is polite, but reserved. Raised in a dark side society, she has been forced to create her own moral code, lacking clear role models to follow. Is caring for others really the right thing to do or does it make you weak? How far does one go in the pursuit of justice? These are questions she still wrestles with. Ghanima has turned away from mainstream Sith society, but has not turned towards the Jedi.
Indeed, she is quite critical of them and categorically rejects any notion of being a Jedi. Unable and unwilling to find a place among one of the many Light Side groups and not wanting to go corporate, she has instead adopted a nomadic life style. Unlike the old school Jedi, Ghanima does not adhere to a vow of poverty, finding it silly. Then again, she does not have a government-funded religious order with a huge temple and a fleet of starfighters paying her bills.
Thus she offers her services to those in need in return for payment. She is good at investigation, hunting Sithspawn, cleansing dark cults and putting spirits to rest. She is not fond of hotheads, preferring to act with prudence and deliberation. Fighting the good fight may be good and noble, but not thinking of what comes after will often only makes things worse. Ghanima is not out to change the Galaxy or force her ideology on it. The struggle between Light and Dark has been going on for millennia, leaving destruction in its wake, and will continue long after she has died. Where possible she will help out, but she is more focused on the micro rather than the macro-scale. This can rub crusader types the wrong way.
As far as Ghanima is concerned, good is not soft - or necessarily nice. Following the way of the Light does not mean giving a free pass to vile and horrific beings. In fact, it is antithetical to that. In her view, being nice does not always get things done, and doing good can require being harsh and stern, particularly if she has to teach someone a lesson. The Light is not the easy path, after all. She possesses a matter of fact attitude towards death that can strike others as lacking in empathy. It is not true that she is uncaring, but she does not see the point in sugarcoating unpleasant things.
However, she has a strict policy not to hurt innocents. She refuses to take an innocent life or murder a helpless opponent in cold blood. Ghanima opposes the use of torture. Her reasoning is that it is not only unethical, but ineffective. In her experience, interrogators do not use torture to find out the truth, but to force a prisoner to make a confession they have already written for him. Moreover, a captive will tell the interrogator whatever they want to hear in order to make the pain stop. She is less shy about employing mind tricks, mental probes, and psychological pressure, when she considers it to be absolutely necessary. This may strike others as hypocritical. The Pureblood admits that it is a bit of a moral grey zone and is conflicted about how far is too far.
She still bears a strong grudge against Nyssa, whom she holds responsible for the destruction of her family. There is a degree of irony, as the calamity also led to Ghanima embracing the Light Side. However, she regards her sister, an unreformed darksider, as a traitor and a murderer who escaped justice. As of late she has started keeping tabs on her sister, who has managed to get a job with Firemane. The self-destruction of her family still causes strong feelings of guilt inside Ghanima, as she was unable to stop it.
Politically Ghanima favours an oligarchy with regular changes in leadership to prevent unhealthy autocracy from taking root. She is not fond of galactic government, believing that it operates on too large a scale to be controlled effectively and held accountable. In her view, it will inevitably become corrupt and non-responsive to the concerns of its citizens. She sees the fall of the Old Republic as a perfect example of this. While Sith machinations played a significant role, in the end its problems were systemic instead of just being the doing of a few villains. Ghanima is sceptical of megacorporations for similar reasons.
Politically one could consider her a libertarian who dislikes big government and big business. She refuses to tie herself to any large organisation, no matter which ideology it claims to espouse. She firmly believes that people can be good, but governments cannot be. They are either neutral or malevolent. From her point of view, the concessions any ruler needs to make to run a government make it incompatible with the Light. Ghanima is a wanderer, never staying in one place for an extended period. Sooner or later, she will move on. This makes it difficult for her to form lasting bonds.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Force Imbued Blade | The Force.
Combat Function: Ghanima is a proficient combatant and a Force-User on the level of an Experienced Knight. Being a Light Sith, she is considered a heretic by the majority of her people, which means she has to know how to defend herself. Her job can often involve combat, so she has to be prepared.
The Pureblood has been trained in the use of a lightsabre, but uses a Force-Imbued Blade instead. In terms of skill set, one could consider her a hybrid between a Consular and a Sentinel. She is very skilled at masking her aura and her thoughts. Indeed, she can project a false dark side aura, enabling her to fool darksiders into thinking she is one of them. Furthermore, she is very good at mental defences.
She is good at telekinetic manipulation, makes use of Force Stun and Stasis to stun foes so that she can land a decisive blow, paralyse them or escape a dangerous situation where she is in over her head. It is also useful for crowd control purposes. Due her to strong dedication to the Light Side of the Force, Ghanima can summon blasts of Force Light, though utilising this power requires focus. Moreover, she is a potent illusionist. Her mental abilities range from simple mind tricks to summoning complex illusions to confuse and deceive opponents, force them to face their fears and make them experience their worst sins from the perspective of their victims and attacking them with illusory constructs.
The Pureblood tends to operate alone or as part of a small team. She lacks the experience and training to command large groups, especially in full-scale battles. All in all, she is more used to being a field agent than a soldier. She is decent at piloting small starships such as shuttles or freighters, but not a combat pilot.
Strengths:
- Strong Force adept. She is a good illusionist and has a solid repertoire of Light Side and Neutral Force abilities.
- Capable exorcist and field agent. She is a bit of a hybrid between a Consular and a Sentinel, giving her a good repertoire.
- Ghanima is brave, but prudent. She will not blindly throw herself into the jaws of death. Rather she acts with forethought and planning.
- While fit and tenacious, Ghanima is not exceptionally strong. Unable to overwhelm an opponent through sheer physical presence, she has to rely more on finesse and skill than brute force in melee combat. She is a mage, not a tank.
- Being a weapon with actual weight behind it, a Force Imbued Blade is slower than a generally near-weightless lightsabre. This can put her at a disadvantage in melee combat. Ghanima knows how to use a lightsabre, but has not employed one in combat for quite some time. Thus her skills are a bit rusty, which has implications if she were to pick one up and use it in a fight.
- Poor combat pilot.
Nyssa was born on Athiss, a haven for Purebloods, as the scion of an old Sith bloodline. Her mother Alia was a powerful Sith Master in her own right, with her own estate, slaves and minions. Her mother had three daughters, Alypia, Nyssa and Ghanima. Ghanima was the youngest, but considered illegitimate because she had been fathered by one of Alia's favourite slaves.
By contrast, Alypia and Nyssa were the daughters of Alia's husband, a Sith Master called Samazya. He had been a powerful Sith warrior in his prime, but grew indolent and fat as he aged. He was content to pursue the life style of a debauched hedonist. Thus he spent most of his time holding banquets and tournaments, siring bastards and going on hunting trips. To a degree Alia had gotten pregnant with Ghanima to get back at him.
Alia had grown tired of her husband and wanted sole control over her family. Thus she conspired to get rid of him. Especially after she heard rumours saying that one of his concubines was urging him to replace her. Samazya enjoyed forcing slaves to fight to the death in an arena. Sometimes to spice things up, he pit them against ferocious Sithspawn. His passion for gladiatorial combat was such that he sometimes entered the arena himself. It was a convenient way for him to relive his glory days without putting himself at risk. He also made a habit out of fighting exotic animals, such as Sithspawn. However, during one match he was unexpectedly injured when after being hewed down, his opponent struck him with a poisoned blade. It helped that his drink had been spiked.
While he lay in his sick bed, Alia made sure he left it as a dead man. Pinning the blame on his lackeys, she subsequently purged the court of his favourites. This included putting his illegitimate children to death. Ghanima was still a little girl then. The kangaroo courts, grisly executions, which involved alleged traitors being torn apart by wild beasts, and betrayals left their mark on her. She was not only a passive observer, for Alia expected her children to show their mettle by participating.
Having consolidated her power base, Alia pushed her children to excel. In her own twisted way, she cared for them. There was no room for the weak, and so they had to become strong, ruthless and cunning, if they wished to survive and carry on the bloodline. Sith society was a cutthroat environment and she wanted to prepare them or it. Thus she fostered a competitive spirit in all three. Alypia was undoubtedly her favourite. Strong, cunning, dashing and endowed with a strong connection to the Force, she seemed destined for great things.
In contrast to her older half-sisters, Ghanima was more of a bookish type. While they dreamed of becoming powerful Sith warriors and winning glory by crushing Jedi on the field of battle, she studied sorcery and Sith arcana. She did not excel at bladework or forced marches, but showed promise as a budding witch and alchemist. For a while she and Nyssa were close, as both resented Alypia. However, Ghanima was also mocked by her sisters because her skin was darker than theirs. This was treated as a sign of her blood being 'impure', as her father had been a mere slave. This stoked resentment in her.
She was taught the ways of the Sith at an academy. Ghanima distinguished herself when she was able to open an ancient Sith tomb and find the holocron of Darth Adrestia, one of her ancestors. It had been believed lost. However, she could not help wonder what lay beyond her homeworld. As it turned out, she would not have to wait for long, for the Purebloods had decided it was time to reclaim their rightful place in the Galaxy.
The council that ruled Athiss proclaimed the Resurgent Empire. The Vykaris sisters were among those Sith who set foot upon their ancestral homeworld of Korriban, conquering it in the name of the new empire. Ghanima used the chance to explore the ancestral homeworld and study all she could. Then the Sith set their eyes upon Dromund Kaas. Nyssa and Alypia won glory in the battle, fighting Silver Jedi.
However, they almost came to blows when Alypia claimed some of Nyssa's slaves as her own. Ghanima had been unable to participate in the battle, and was left with mundane tasks, such as logistics. However, she was responsible for capturing an undercover Jedi Shadow, who had been running a network of spies, including Sith who had secretly turned away from the dark side.
Ghanima interrogated the prisoner, hoping it would gain her credit. However, the Shadow had a strong will and did not break easily, even after being subjected to physical and psychological torture. Frustrated and yet intrigued, Ghanima tried to engage the agent in conversation. If she could erode her will, this would win her merit in the eyes of the Sith. However, the Shadow turned the tables on her, pointing out the obvious flaws in the Sith Code, namely their nihilistic obsession with power and the fact that their beliefs were self-defeating. Ghanima, the Jedi noted, was loyal to her family, but the very nature of the Sith Code forbid loyalty to anyone but oneself.
In turn, Ghanima pointed out the flaws of the Jedi, such as their passivity, blind obedience to the Light and hypocrisy. The Sith, the Shadow admitted, were strong in times of adversity. They could commit to a singular, namely the destruction of their enemies, and pursue it without doubt or remorse. But once that unifying factor had been removed, they fell into infighting. In the end, the Shadow refused to break and Ghanima gave her a clean death. But her words affected her more than the Pureblood was willing to admit. After Kaas, the siblings fought for the Resurgent Empire on Serenno, where they battled the Dominion. The three siblings worked together to suborn one of Serenno's many noble families. The three made a good team, with Alypia providing general leadership, Nyssa brawn and Ghanima using her sorcery bend a noble to their will.
They returned home with trophies and booty. However, the rivalries within the clan intensified. Ghanima observed from the sidelines. The clan had gained power and influence, but it was still not enough. Nihilistic pursuit of power seemed to be dividing the clan. A rift seemed to have developed between Alia and her mother, and it was regarded as only a matter of time until the eldest daughter challenged the matriarch. Meanwhile, Nyssa had gathered her own following. The clan also had to fend off an attack of Samazya's brother. He accused Alia of having murdered her husband and alleged that all her children were bastards. The family managed to prevail in battle, but the price was steep. Privately, Ghanima began to question Sith orthodoxy.
Alypia took her half-sister into her confidence. To Ghanima's surprise, Alypia apologised for her earlier treatment of her. Her older sister revealed that she had embraced a new path and turned away from the dark side. By harnessing both sides, they could make the family stronger and end the cycle of violence. For many years, she had kept up the act while subtly trying to do good in small ways and plot her own coup. Ghanima was sceptical, but willing to hear her out. It transpired that Alypia had been secretly plotting with Alia. The rift between the two had been a ruse to get the hardline darksiders to reveal themselves so that they could be converted, disposed of or exiles. Nyssa, who had been played by Alypia, was furious. Refusing to forsake her own beliefs, she fled.
Determined to avenge herself on her duplicitous family members, she gathered her remaining loyalists, but they were few in number. So she took the step of allying herself with her family's old rivals, House Karishax, which had long been publicly scorned by the Vykaris for having 'impure blood'. Alypia was determined to fight and Alia would not abandon her family. Ghanima tried to sway her sister and convince her to leave Athiss. However, Alypia refused to budge. She did not just want to fight, she wanted to pursue a crusade. The Resurgent Empire was dissolving, and this was a perfect opportunity. Unwilling to fight members of her family or bear witness to its nihilisic decimation, she left. However, then she felt her mother's death. Turning around, she hastened back. However, she was too late. Her family's estate was in flames. There were bodies everywhere.
No one had won. Both sides had been decimated. She fought her way through some of Karishaxi minions, and then saw Nyssa standing over Alypia's body. There was no triumph in her sister's eyes. Indeed, Nyssa looked defeated and guilt-stricken. Ghanima felt guilt and anger. Her rage was directed against herself and her half-sister. If she had been there, perhaps she could have saved her sisters. But she turned away. Further death would serve no one.
Nyssa did not pursue her. Ghanima acquired transport and left Athiss. Her family was gone, she had no resources and was now adrift in a Galaxy she knew little of. After plenty of thought and meditation, Ghanima decided to do something very unconventional. She would seek out the Jedi. Her Sith holocron mocked her, taunting her and calling her weak. There was a part of her that agreed with it, but she ignored it. So she travelled to a Jedi enclave. Ironically, it was one Nyssa had considered targeting for a raid. However, she did not get a warm reception. In retrospect, perhaps Ghanima should have been expected this. It was a highly conservative Jedi enclave that followed the old ways.
Seeing her as a Sith, the Jedi attacked her. In all fairness, she was a Sith, but not a darksider anymore. Regardless, she did not get the chance to say she had come in peace, as she was forced to defend herself. She was unwilling to kill, but when pressed she gave in to the dark side and unleashed her sorcerous powers. Fortunately for her, not all of the Jedi were eager to spill blood. A Jedi Master called Phylis Alince intervened. She had been there to teach them about Alkahest, but the Jedi had condemned all forms of alchemy, seeing it as inherently evil. Fortunately, she was able to defuse the situation. Unwilling to spend more time in the company of judgemental zealots, Ghanima left with Phylis.
While the Jedi was rather odd, she showed her kindness. While Phylis was a Jedi, she had stopped being affiliated with any Order or any government during the twilight of the Galactic Republic. Surprisingly, the two had quite a bit in common. Phylis taught her a bit about the Light and its techniques so that Ghanima would not have to draw upon the dark side. Eventually the two parted ways, though Ghanima kept Phylis' contact details.
Her Sith holocron grew even more contemptuous of her. Nonetheless, Ghanima kept it around, even when it tried to haunt and mentally torment her. She came to treat the holocron as a devil's advocate. It would challenge her reasoning and thus force her to develop her own moral code. Moreover, it would serve as a reminder for what she
could have become.
Ghanima had drawn similar conclusions as Alypia, but in different ways. In her opinion, power and holding power corrupted even those with noble goals. Her next destination was Dxun, the Demon Moon. It was a place soaked in blood and steeped in the dark side. Freedon Nadd had been entombed here; the Republic and the Mandalorians had fought a great battle here. This made it the perfect place for a Light Sith trying to develop her skills and prove to herself that she could follow the Light. She was hounded by beasts and the ghosts of the past that were trapped here on the cursed moon.
Her path led her to the tomb of Freedon Nadd. There she was haunted by visions of what could have been one. One vision showed her the final battle between Alypia and Nyssa. She saw the annihilation of her family in visceral, vivid detail. The ghosts of her deceased family members, guards and slaves seemed to rise up again, accusing her of cowardice and of deserting them. Moreover, the vision showed her a possible future, where if she had just given into emotion...it might have been different. She could have defeated Nyssa. She could have saved her family from itself.
The whispers spoke of how she could have saved them all, and claimed her rightful place, instead of being a coward and a vagabond. Facing the demons of the past was painful for Ghanima, but she forced herself to persevere. The visions created by the nexus were extremely tempting. Guilt gnawed at her. She faced an apparition of herself. That alternate Ghanima had given in to emotion and made the Force her beast of burden. She stood at the head of her family. Seemingly she had never lost them, yet she had lost herself. With great effort, Ghanima was able to overcome the apparition and fought off a possession attempt. The ghosts let her go, though not before telling her that the path she had chosen would be like crossing a chasm, on a bridge that could collapse any moment.
With these words of warning in mind, Ghanima departed Dxun. In the meantime, Nyssa had hooked up with a Sith cult that tried to carve out its own kingdom on a remote world called Anderahl. To this end they sought an artefact that could give them great power. However, deep down Nyssa half-hearted about it. The cult's machinations were thwarted by Firemane. Taryc Ap'Irae, an Inquisitor in the service of Firemane, killed their leader, causing the rest of the cult to chase her. Then her partner Elpsis and the Dathomiri witch Maiev came to her aid, slaying several cultists. Nyssa engaged Elpsis in a duel. At first she had the upper hand over the pyromancer, but Elpsis was able to defeat the Pureblood through a combination of pyromancy and illusions.
Defeated, Nyssa was taken prisoner. To her surprise, she was not tortured. Conflicted, she told the gang of three what she knew about the remnants of the cult - and the artefact they sought. Though she initially intended to simply manipulate her captors into getting rid of the competition so that she could claim the device for herself, in the end she decided to join them for real. Though she had trouble admitting it, their words and actions resonated with her, though she still clung to many of her old values.
For a while Ghanima hooked up with a gang of smugglers. Her path led her to a vast ecumenopolis called Metellos. The planet was commonly known as 'the Coruscant that wasn't'. With the exception of a few seas and desert wastelands, the entire surface was urbanised. Most of the population lived in shabby slums. Amidst the poverty, the vast stratablocks stood out. These structures reached dizzying heights as great as one kilometre above the planet's surface.
Many tracts, especially those situated far away from the stratablocks, were shabby, environmentally toxic, and occupied by diseased squatters. Floating cities, built to deal with overcrowding, drifted over a thousand metres above housing precincts. The gentry, as the upper class was called, ruled the floating cities and the upper levels of the stratablocks. Seeing this world with her own eyes was a huge culture shock for Ghanima as she was not used to cities or pollution on this scale.
By contrast, the rigid class disparities and oligarchic power structures were extremely familiar to her. On the bright side, it was easy to remain anonymous. In an ecumenopolis with nine hundred billion residents, one Pureblood did not stand out. Red Sith were quite rare in the galaxy, and so she was just another alien to many inhabitants. For a while she worked with a group of vigilantes who had resolved to make a difference and fight back against crime and corruption.
They called themselves the Protectors. However, oppression and poverty were systemic issues that could not be solved by getting rid of a few villains. In order to survive and gain power to terrorise the wicked, the Protectors had to adopt many of the methods of the criminals and corrupt officials they despised. Ghanima participated in a successful operation remove one of the petty warlords, but his death created a power vacuum that was filled by someone even worse. The warlord had been a cancer on the planet, but he had also kept many people employed and a with roof over their heads. Now they were out in the streets. Directly or indirectly, the blood of innocents was on the hands of Ghanima and the other vigilantes. Good intentions alone were not enough.
After another mission produced significant collateral damage and the Protectors started taking hostages from the population of a district, Ghanima clashed with their leader. It came to a fight and she struck him down. Entering his mind, she forced him to face his own reflection and confront his sins. She ensured the freedom of the hostages, and left. Some of the vigilantes targeted her as a traitor, but she stuck to her guns.
She would do good, even when it was difficult, but on her terms. It would be a long, slow road and perhaps not the most successful one, but it would be hers. She started offering her services to those in need. Obviously she could not work for free. She did not have a government-sponsored order of monks or a megacorporation funding her activities, after all. She took down a crime syndicate that was peddling alchemically enhanced drugs and exorcised a malevolent spirit that had clawed its way out of Chaos during the Netherworld Event and now spread chaos and madness.
She was able to banish the spirit and cleanse the cult, after using her powers of stealth to infiltrate it. However, the Pureblood refused to take an apprentice, not feeling confident enough to become a full-time teacher. Similarly, she refused an offer of employment from one of the big companies on the planet. The daughter of the CEO had gotten hooked on the mystical narcotics and fallen in with cults as a form of protest. The corporate executive was grateful for the Pureblood's aid, but also recognised her use.
However, Ghanima did not want to tie herself to any large organisation, notwithstanding the executive's claims that she was one of the better sorts and wanted to help clean up the mega-city. For a time she provided aid to a ramshackle children's shelter, protecting them against gangs and monsters. She taught some of the children to read and write. Eventually she had to leave. A bounty on her head made it too dangerous for her to stay on Metellos.
Ghanima became a wanderer, never lingering in one place for too long. She dedicated herself to learning and the pursuit of justice. She maintained irregular contact with Phylis. In the meantime, a new Sith Empire had arisen. Expanding from Bastion, it reclaimed the old Sith worlds in the Stygian Caldera and conquered many other planets along the Tingel Arm. The Galactic Alliance, long in decline, fell to the combined forces of the Imperial Bloc. Ghanima tried to provide aid on the micro-scale, working with refugees among others. The First Order did not outlive its rival for long, as it fell to a Ssi-Ruuvi invasion.
Ghanima ventured into formerly First Order controlled space to help out. She ended up on a far rim colony that was engulfed in civil war between the followers of an Imperial warlord and a group of freedom fighters. The situation seemed clear-cut. The rebels had a noble cause, and she was opposed to all things Imperial or dark side. She worked with them to fight off a Ssi-Ruuvi raid. However, she forced herself to temper her enthusiasm and found that both sides were equally abhorrent, for they differed little in their methods. Closer investigation revealed that the noble rebels were planning to betray her in order to advance their cause. Ironically, the holocron she had kept around was actually useful as a devil's advocate. So therefore she worked on a smaller scale to help the local settlements defend themselves and work together.
She would not let alone call her master or accept a formal position, but provide training and guidance so that they did not need either warlord to save them and were able to thwart them. Ghanima stayed on the colony for a while. It was a simple life, but it had its charms. She passed on some instruction to young Force-Sensitives in the settlements, passing on what she had learned about the Light. But in time she moved on. She was a wanderer by nature, and was concerned about getting used to accolades and authority. Around this time, she picked up Nyssa's trail again. Her half-sister was still alive, and apparently employed by Firemane Industries. Doubtless a reunion will occur at some point.
