Kyriaki
Dark Phoenix
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Codify an item established as a result of rp.
Image Source: Here.
Canon Link: N/A.
Permissions: N/A.
Primary Source: Has certain similarities with a Confessional...but is a lot nastier.
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Kyriaki
Affiliation: Kyriaki
Market Status: Closed-Market
Model: Ring of Lamentations
Modularity: No.
Production: Unique
Material: Alchemist amethyst, alchemised gold, magic runes.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Can force an individual to face and experience their sins and the pain they inflicted on others, as if it had happened to them.
- Alchemised.
- Contains a spirit that used to dwell inside a dark side nexus. The ring itself is not a nexus. The creation process simply involved a dark bargain and the spirit becoming one with the ring.
- Pay evil unto evil. Infused with a very small portion of the power of a nexus spawned by a brutal genocide, the device can confront individuals with their sins...by reliving them from the victim's perspective and experiencing it as they did as if was their own torment. It is, of course, all just happening on a mental level, but if successful they feel the pain, torment and fear of the victims. One can consider it a variation of memory walk. Effects are dependent on the individual, but amplified by prolonged exposure, which may lead to nightmares and hallucinations even after the individual is no longer in the object's presence.
- Alchemised, and thus very resilient against attempts to destroy it by conventional means. Of course the finger wearing can still be hurt.
- Limited by range. The Ring of Lamentations works on a small-scale, personal level. This device is not for crowd control or mentally assaulting groups of people.
- Facing one's sins, even the most horrible atrocities, is no guarantee for a change of heart. Effects are very dependent on the individual. Some people will be horrified, some will suffer mental breakdowns or feel suicidal impulses, others will double down on their actions or fall into a violent rage etc. Willpower also factors in, as does familiarity with and/or having an affinity for advanced mental techniques. Ironically, someone who is not just utterly morally bankrupt, but self-aware of it and doesn't care is likely to fare better than someone who has convinced themselves the evil acts they have been complicit in were 'for the greater good'.
- While strictly speaking the device is not a darkside artefact per se and is meant to be used on objectively evil people, Sith alchemy was utilised as part of its construction. As a result, Force Light can damage or disrupt it.
- Force null zones. The device's preternatural qualities will be inert in a Ysalamiri field, disrupting the mental connection. Voidstone will not deactivate it, but dampen its power, with the effect being dependent on proximity.
- Doesn't work on droids or the Force-Dead.
The Disciples of the Vader and the Greater Sith Imperium are a thoroughly vile regime. Built upon a foundation of slavery, human supremacism, genocide and Vader worship, they have brought nothing but misery. The regime is totalitarian, cleptocratic, and xenocidal. However...it is not without popular support. The average human citizen doesn't live in pure terror of the secret police...because it focuses its terror on groups that have been easily 'othered', especially non-humans.
Entire alien communities have been deported, annihilated or enslaved to make room for human settlement and exploitation. Humans who don't meet the Vaderites' standards of genetic purity are 'disappeared', too. More often than not, the ones doing the killing are not deviant psychopaths, but ordinary men and women who are of the belief they are doing the right thing, simply want to profit or a combination thereof. The typical murderer is the policeman or soldier rounding and shooting 'undesirables'; the nurse who administers lethal injections to prisoners; the doctor who determines that certain patients are 'superfluous eaters'; the government bureaucrat who reduces lives to numbers on a balance sheet; the teacher who teaches his pupils to hate and vilify the 'lesser beings and degenerates'; the fatherly general who gives the orders and assures his men that they are only doing their duty; the corporate magnate who works his forced labourers to death. They all do their 'job', then go home to their family and sleep soundly at night without feeling any remorse.
If confronted, they will make ideological excuses or claim they were just following orders. But the Imperium does not force human citizens to commit atrocities at gunpoint. Peer pressure, appeals to duty and patriotism as well as granting favours and promotions to the killers are far more efficient than Force choking anyone who experiences a crisis of conscience when ordered to murder 'xenos' women and children. Everyone knows what happens in the camps and what 'special treatment' really means. It is an open secret, but not talked about. Hear no evil, see no evil. Kyriaki hates the Imperium, she hates the Sith and she hates the 'good, ordinary Imperial' citizens. And she is on a mission to break their chains of ignorance and hypocrisy...whether they want it or not.
The Ring of Lamentations was inspired by a mission on the island Chios. Here, the alien population was subjected to a barbaric genocide. Sentinel's Rest, a town built upon the ruins of a Togruta town and a dismantled death camp, has been hit by a series of...psychic incidents. Human settlers turned catatonic, their faces contorted into expressions of agony; perpepetrators of the genocide committing suicide; settlers suddenly disappearing into the haunted forest, never to be seen again. Because this doesn't fit the narrative, Vaderites are inclined to downplay the problem or brutally lash out. Often by blaming vile xenos sorcery and rounding up the usual suspects for murder. The forest is a nexus spawned by the Vaderites' atrocities. The spirits of the dead form a gestalt entity of sorts. They remember the cruelties inflicted on them and their loved ones...and they want vengeance.
Witnessing and experiencing the nexus' power first-hand was...inspiring for Kyriaki. The device is an attempt at replicating its methods...on a small, personal scale. Of course, it is a device, not a nexus, and cannot match its power, but it is effective in its own way. She imbued it with her scorn, her hatred and self-loathing, binding it to herself through blood sorcery. The device is not purely Kyriaki's creation. The spirit of a victim of the Chios genocide who used to haunt the Bone Forest now dwells inside the device. This was part of the process that infused the artefact with a small portion of the nexus' power. The spirit agreed to this in return for a chance for revenge...but has a mind of their own, retaining a connection to the gestalt entity that forms the Bone Forest, and can communicate with Kyriaki.
Operating on the basis of a variant of memory walk, the device can confront individuals with their sins...by reliving them from the victim's perspective. It is, of course, all just happening on a mental level, but if successful they experience the pain, torment and fear of the victims. One can consider it a variation of memory walk. Of course, how individuals respond when subjected to the device varies. Kyriaki's more focused on terrorising and punishing the wicked than on guiding a sinner on the path of redemption, and the device reflects that.
The ring is not active all the time. Kyriaki must focus it to unleash its power. This allows her to carry it on her person in 'polite company' without arousing suspicion. Of course, it has a dark side aura, but the people she mingles with are Sith and their lackeys. Force-Sensitives will feel the darkness radiating from it, and perhaps sometimes hear disturbing whispers. When questioned by other Disciples, she says: "Oh, it's a tool meant to torment people using their past failures." What she says is true, from a certain point of view. Sometimes people may perceive vague feelings of torment emanating from the device. Kyriaki likes to say it's the pain of an inadequate soul trapped in the device. In truth, the pain of its victims leaves an imprint on it.
Sometimes she uses it for self-flagellation to remind herself of her sins. This is not a healthy life style choices, but then she also made a deal with a Shadow where she willingly sacrificed one of her few good memories. She first tested it on a KEC officer and an Amidala Corps woman who had murdered alien children during the 'cleansing operation' on Chios. They couldn't handle the revelation.
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