Karrigan'Xalda
Daughter of the Karishzar
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Xioquo.
Image Credit: Here. Here.
Role: Assassins and cultists.
Permissions: Blanket permission for anything made by Val here. Can use Archangel and Firemane stuff because I own the companies. Blanket permission for subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here.
Links: Twilight of the Goddess, Xioquo, Seekers of the Sky, Liavondra, Vashyada, Qadiri, Order of Fire, Quas'Ziru, Kaylah Danton, Teaching Resilience, Tylania, Firemane, Tlaxqui, Tygara, Firedawn, Shrine of the Karishzar and Her Blessed Daughters, Caverns of the Overealm, Tecuanimeh, Freya Solveig.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: The Tecpatli - the knives or daggers in Xio. They are nicknamed the Dagger-Women.
Affiliation: Daughters of the Destroyer, Siobhan Kerrigan, Xioquo, House Kerrigan, Quas'Ziru, Benefactors of the Karishzar's Mercy, Elpsis Kerrigan, Karrigan'Xalda.
Classification: Assassins.
Description: A radical militant wing of the Daughters of the Destroyer, the Tecpatli are Xioquo assassins who strike at those they consider foes of the Karishzar. Fittingly, their name means knives or daggers in the Xio language. The Tecpatli operate in small groups that generally carry out their assignments independently, but can come together if need be. True to their vocation, they rely on surprise, secrecy and cunning rather than brute force to complete their mission. To this end they employ ambush, abductions, assassination and subterfuge to achieve their goals. As well as assassinating slavers, criminals and so on. Their philosophy is not a forgiving one. It views the death of one to prevent the death or suffering of many as necessary. They see themselves as cleansers, removing cells of disease. The Tecpatli offer no mercy to those they have judged to be evil, only execution, and the death may not be swift. With the aid of disguises, they can gather information on enemy terrain, movements and strongholds, as well as obtain passwords and other classified intelligence.
Tecpatli are grouped in individual teams that can be as small as two or as large as twelve. When two teams work together, one may be responsible for executing the action, such as an assassination or abduction, while the other screens the strike team, procures safehouses, false IDs or getaway vehicles, keeps an eye on enemy movements and provides advanced warning, arranges diversions or sabotages enemy communications etc. The Tecpatli follow a principle of achieving maximum impact at minimal cost to the group or harm to uninvolved bystanders. For the knife-women, acts of political murder are part of a calculated strategy of intimidation. A poet who belonged to the cult summed it up as follows: 'By a single warrior on foot, a queen may be struck with terror, though she may own more than ten thousand mamluks.'
The Tecpatli draw upon a long tradition of Xioquo assassin cults that stretches back to the dark reign of Myrou. Essentially, they are cult, concealing their identities with dark grey robes, hoods and ceremonial masks. They are a secretive presence among their fellow Daughters. The assassins revere the spirits of fire, water, earth, sky, and darkness. Darkness has negative connotations in many cultures, but sunlight burns Xio, who dwell in a subterranean realm. To the Tecpatli, the light hides the wicked, but there is wisdom and protection in darkness. The spirits of darkness shield the innocent and drag the wicked out of the cursed light into the shadows, where they can be judged for their foul deeds. The spirits of murdered innocent cannot rest and find peace until the perpetrators have been brought to justice. At the same time the assassins view each soul slain as being freed from evil and thus they are doing a mercy to their targets.
This sanctifies the killings carried out by the Tecpatli. They are not only punishing evil, they are serving the cause of cosmic balance. Fittingly, their unofficial emblem is a dagger and scales. They believe that those who live worthy lives go into the earth (heaven is down) and reunite with the spirits of their ancestors. The wicked will be adjudged by those they wronged and cast out into the uneding light and heat, where they will suffer eternal torment. To the Tecpatli, serving the Destroyer and slaying the wicked is their ticket to a good 'interview' with the spirits assembled, and entitles them to a good place in paradise. They don't, however, believe that the Karishzar rules heaven itself, though she is regarded as blessed and as a higher being. Myrou was an evil tyrant who tormented her people, so the spirits endowed the Karishzar with their power and gave her the sacred quest to destroy the false queen. Applying traditional Xioquo beliefs rather than Jedi or Sith dogma, the Tecpatli do not believe in the duality of the Force. Emotions such as anger or outrage are not rejected as the path to corruption, but channelled into what can be described as 'tranquil fury'.
The Tecpatli restrict their membership to female Xioquo, but they are not the type of group one can easily join. Prospective recruits do not apply. Rather they are approached by a recruiter after a long period of observation, and put through a gruelling series of psychological and physical trials to assess their aptitude and suitability. This includes being exposed to a battery of mental assaults in order to build resilience and test the candidate's limits. It involves harrowing, simulated interrogation sessions to test a candidate's commitment and resilience. This also includes simulated executions or use of illusions. For instance, an interrogator may use an illusion to make a recruit believe that the food she was just given for breakfast was actually broken glass. This happens at the final stage of their training, when recruits have had to spend several days in inhospitable territory on the run from hunters charged with capturing them. To be captured is not considered mission failure, because it's supposed to happen. Even those who successfully evade capture must endure the interrogation.
But while very harsh, the training is not pointlessly cruel because there is no logic in permanently ruining a recruit. Moreover, they are taught survival, surveillance and reconnaissance skills, use of poisons and explosives, disguising themselves as the enemy or passing as civilians and blending in among normal society. Physical training encompasses climbing, scaling mountains, swimming, diving, sneaking and long-distance runs. They also train heavily in fighting at nightime without the aid of sophisticated gadgets, as this takes advantage of the Xioquo's inherent darkvision. Xio can, after all, see much further in the darkness than say Eldorai or humans.
One of the trials each Tecpatli is expected to undergo is the trial of fealty. Essentially, a recruit is issued a gun and confronted by an enemy agent, who is committing a crime or putting the life of a fellow acolyte or an innocent at risk. But there is a catch: the supposed enemy agent looks like a family member or loved one. Nonetheless, the recruit is expected to shoot them without hesitation. In truth, the enemy is a fellow Tecpatli who used drugs to shapeshift, and the gun fires blanks. But the recruit does not know this. The person targeted by the trial is never someone the recruit is close to. The purpose of the trial is to show that an initiate is willing to place their duty above their personal feelings, even in defence of a total stranger.
A failed applicant is liable to be mind-wiped so that they cannot divulge details that could put the group in jeopardy. There is no shame in failing the trials, for those who succeed must dedicate themselves to service and abide by codes of secrecy. A recruit who doesn't pass the trials can still be used in a less prominent but still important support role. Those who succeed are welcomed into the sect and issued a ceremonial dagger. Operatives are routinely issued suicide pills when they go on a mission to make sure they cannot divulge secrets if they are captured and have no means of escaping.
But the Tecpatli take care of their own, including those who can no longer serve due to age or injury. The same applies to the loved ones of operatives who perished or sustained injuries that are too severe for them to continue serving as assassins. Those in their group who are killed in action are memorialised with their names on a wall. By the same token, the Tecpatli are relentless and unforgiving in punishing betrayal. Both Non-Force-Users and Force-Users can be found among their ranks, though most of the leadership positions are occupied by those who have been 'blessed by the spirits'. Though much has changed in Xioquo society, there is still a strong bias towards Force-Sensitives.
Significantly, while the Tecpatli are devoted to the Karishzar, her family and what they perceive as the greater good of the Xioquo people, they are not loyal to Firemane, though they have managed to acquire some of its hardware. They distinguish quite strongly between the 'Skyqueen' on the one hand and the corporate executives, military officers and bureaucratic mandarins that 'take her name in vain' on the other. This is not an unusual stance among the Daughters though. Recent events have made them even more inclined to adopt this viewpoint and view Firemane with intense suspicion, even to the point of hostility. Many, though not all, Tecpatli have taken the surname Karrigan.
With the Karishzar in coma, the Tecpatli cannot look to her for guidance, though some mystics among the Daughters have made attempts to commune with her spirit. For the time being they answer to Quas'Ziru, who as high priestess serves as overall commander of the Daughters. However, they have also been watching the 'Heir of the Destroyer', Elpsis Kerrigan. Their evaluation of her will determine whether they recognise her as their mistress. For while she is Siobhan's daughter, the knife-women do not regard it as set in stone that they will swear allegiance to her. First they must test the 'Heir' and she must prove herself in various trials. To that end they have planted agents in her vicinity to observe her. The trial period has already begun; she just doesn't know it yet.
Anai'Zaras serves as overall leader of the Tecpatli, though she will usually not lead field teams in person. A former assassin who was chosen to serve one of the members of the Council of Ten, she converted to the cause of the Daughters and founded the Tecpatli. She rose to this position after breaking the mental conditioning her mistress had forced on her to keep her in line after she started to become too independent. She is not afraid to make cold, brutal and harsh decisions in the pursuit of a larger goal, but is protective of her agents. She played a key role in writing their doctrine and methods, as well as codifying acceptable targets. She says little, and has a low tolerance for failure or excuses.
Karrigan'Xamas is a transgender woman and one of the leading assassins of the Tecpatli. Her membership in the group is controversial because she was assigned male at birth, but has a female gender identity. Unfortunately, Xioquo society is still very regressive and discrimination is widespread. This applies especially to the Daughters. But she is highly competent and a friend of Karrigan'Xalda, a very martially minded Daughter who spoke out in her favour. Xamas has low class origins, and was abandoned by her family. They were poor, and decided they could do without the 'deviant' child. She used to serve as an indentured assassin. Her temple mistress was more cold than cruel, but used her servitor's so called 'deviant tendencies' to blackmail her and keep her under her thumb. Her background gave her the necessary training, and made her a good recruit for the Tecpatli when the downfall occured. She is one of those Dagger-Women who has been assigned to keep an eye on the Heir, and test her. Xamas is rather serious, mission-oriented and reserved, only showing a lighter personality with trusted friends. This is a product of her upbringing. In her spare time, she helps Xhal'Zayo, a fellow trans woman who is known to her friends as Sidhe, with her perfume creation.
Karrigan'Kalou is another one of their agents, and a close friend of Xalda. Both used to be slave-soldiers. The mistresses used to train their martial servitors in the so called March of the Mamluks and made them put on a show for them. The two first met as dance partners. They later worked together to kill their mistresses. Among some of her friends she is known as Mistress Viper. This is both a reference to her affinity for poisons as well as her ability to pass as one of the highborn of society. Moreover, she has an affinity for snakes. She is talented in covert operations and espionage, able to switch from playing the part of the cold, haughty to mistress to militant warrior or friendly sister near seamlessly. She is also very good at music.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Small
Unit Availability: Rare
Unit Experience: Veteran
Equipment: This is a list of what's available in general, rather than something every member would carry on their person, as that would be impractical.
Armour:
- MN-B Infiltrator bodyglove with civilian clothes. OR AE-AS1 Ghostsuit
- Verpine Shattergun
- Sonic Stunner
- Holdout Bolter
- A280-CFE
- Velocity-7 Dart Shooter
- Model MSD-32 Disruptor Pistol
- Verpine Shatter Rifle for sharpshooter/sniper.
- DC-19 Stealth Carbine
- Nightstinger Sporting Blaster Rifle
Support Weapons:
- Model MGL-1. Used by specialist, commonly mounted on another rifle as an under-barrel grenade launcher.
Drugs:
- Polymorphax, mission-specific.
- Berserk. For use on others, not self.
- Morpheus Sedatives
- Chuba Poison, Senflax, Skin Buster, Neurotoxin Darts.
Droids:
Combat Function: The Tecpatli are the hidden dagger of the Karishzar, employing assassination, abductions, and espionage. Operating in small teams that can be as small as two or as large as twelve, they strike from the shadows. They are trained in skills such as marksmanship, martial arts, poisons, use of explosives, interrogation and knife fighting. They also have access to exotic drugs that enable them to alter their outward appearance.
They excel at sneaking, blending in with their environment, hiding in plain sight and disguising themselves as enemy soldiers or civilians. Due to the nature of their task, the Tecpatli will have to operate with little external support. They may be able to draw upon the aid of a support team that helps them acquire resources, safehouses and information and cultivate local allies in the area of operations. But they will not have large forces of soldiers backing them up. When two teams of Tecpatli work together, one typically acts as a strike team, while the other serves in a support role to ensure the action goes off without a hitch and the strike team is able to evacuate safely. They are meant to be able to operate in enemy territory with little support, using resourcefulness, stealth and cunning. The individual methodology varies from team to team. Some prefer utilising poisonous toxins, others specialise in marksmanship or place their trust in the dagger that gives the sect their name. However, no matter the method, they operate as ghosts.
Avoiding all-out combat, the Tecpatli seek to eliminate high-value targets such as enemy officers, political or religious figures and so on. They may also stage abductions for the purpose of blackmail, interrogation and so on. The goal is not merely to kill the intended target, it is to send a message and psychologically break the foes of the Karishzar. The level of fear one action inspires might be even more potent than the act of violence itself.
True to form, they are assassins, not assault troops. Lacking heavy armaments or tanky armour and having focused their training on subterfuge and assassination, they are a poor fit for pitched, frontline combat. Operating in small teams, they are easily outnumbered by rapidly mobilised quick reaction forces should their cover be blown. In such a situation a tactical retreat is their only prudent course of action. While the Tecpatli do not limit themselves to Force-Sensitives, they have a strong Force-Sensitive contingent. But their Force-Sensitive operatives focus on precision and cerebral skills other brute force.
Force Abilities (Force User Units Only): While not all Tecpatli are Force-Users, many are. These focus heavily on Sense and concealment abilities, making them both highly alert and able to scatter their Force signature and conceal themselves from sight. Moreover, they they are skilled in utilising telekinesis and its various sub-applications. Their use of telekinetic abilities focuses on precision, and subterfuge rather than brute force.
For example, a Tecpatli assassin is more likely to use telekinesis to surgically break an opponent's knee or take them out with a blood-choke than summon a massive Force wave that could cause needless collateral damage, not to mention alert enemies further away They are also fond of using it to make a death look like an accident. In addition, they are gifted in using Force Slow, Darkshear and elemental water shaping abilities. Water is a versatile element since it can be used to, for example, ice or drown someone.
Strengths:
- Silent, deadly and cunning, they are crack assassins and spies who excel at striking from the shadows and then vanishing.
- The Force abilities of Force-Sensitive members increase their ability to pass unseen, infiltrate and swiftly strike to assassinate their targets.
- They are assassins, not assault troops. Lacking heavy armaments or tanky armour and having focused their training on subterfuge and assassination, they are a poor fit for pitched, frontline combat. Operating in small teams, they are easily outnumbered.
- Force abilities focus more on cerebral skills and finesse than raw power, which puts Force-Sensitive Tecpatli at a disadvantage in direct engagements with heavily combat-orientated Force-Users.
History and popular culture remember the epic battles - though often with embellishments and inaccuaries. The great tank and walker battles, the dramatic duels between Force-users, the dogfights and and so on and so forth. Some battles are not decided by the clash of armies. But by a dagger through the ribs, a poisoned dinner, or a well-placed speeder bomb. Such methods are often considered 'dishonourable'. For some reason, it is perfectly acceptable for civilised beings to let hundreds of thousands march to their deaths, but many regard it as unseemly to cut to the heart of the problem by murdering a few dozen.
Such perplexing moral double standards aside, assassination has long been tool of statecraft. The efficacy of it obviously varies. It is probably no surprise that a specialised guild of assassins had its place at the Byzantine courts of the Xioquo. For their dark matriarchs were not lacking in enemies - both within and without. In the absence of the 'God-Queen' Myrou, a Council composed of the leaders of the most influential families ruled over the Queendom of Tlaxqui. Oftentimes, they were divided against each other and vied for power. At the same time, they waged a continuous war against their racial rivals, the Vashyada and the Qadiri, while keeping the underclasses of their people in line. Especially the massive slave population. Sometimes a scalpel was more useful than a hammer.
In this toxic environment, assassin temples have a long tradition. Some such as the Tecuanimeh were created to do the bidding of the Council of Ten. Chosen at an early age by the temple, they were indoctrinated to serve their highborn mistresses. Formally they were servitors and could not rule. Indeed the punishments for defiance were draconian. But they could sometimes be queenmakers in times of interregnum. Other assassins served a specific noble house.
Anzai'Zaras was one such agent. The daughter of outcasts and delinquent debtors who lived in crippling poverty, she was recruited by the temple at an early age and trained to be a ruthless assassin. As a personal favour, she was put at the disposal of Taal'Xioas. Officially the temple was supposed to be neutral, but corruption left no institution untouched and Xioas was just a bit more equal than the other mistresses of the Council. Zaras was given privileges and access beyond that of a common slave, but kept in line through her lowborn status and remorseless indoctrination. Force rituals, and drugs were used to keep her and others under control.
She successfully eliminated political and religious dissidents, Qadiri generals and rival mistresses. Indeed she even eliminated one of the generals of the humans of Firemane. She was a bit too successful and independent. Thus she was subjected to a rigorous form of conditioning to keep her in line. However, Zaras was able to break her conditioning during the downfall. She offered her services to the sky people after killing her former handler and providing crucial intelligence on alchemised weapons of the Xioquo that were intended to be unleashed on the invaders after the occupation.
Zaras was drawn to the Daughters, a militant Xioquo cult that venerated Siobhan Kerrigan as having been sent by the spirits to punish the False Queen Myrou for her tyrannous rules. In their judgement, this made her eligible to become queen. Though Siobhan preferred to install a rogue Xio aristocrat and Light Side adept called Vondra'Lia as a vassal queen, the Daughters regarded as the Karishzar and thus as their overlord. Some Daughters took their fervent desire to strike at those they considered foes of the Karishzar further than others.
Zaras was one of them, but she had very worldly motivations, too. The devastating war had left many assassins like her without a clear purpose. Some assassin temples were folded into the new power structure, joining the Queendom of Tlaxqui's nascent, reformed intelligence service. Others offered their services to Firemane. She wanted something different, and began to organise former agents like her under the umbrella of the Daughters. Zaras had a stomach of steel, an iron will and a ruthless drive to excel and turn her vision into a reality. It was neither a smooth nor a flawless process, but the mistakes made during that period were a learning experience.
She offered their services to the Karishzar after thwarting an assassination attempt on a pro-Siobhan Xioquo politician...and delivering her the heads of both the would-be assassin and of a racist Firemane official who had secretly enabled the attack in order to have a pretext to justify harsher crackdowns. The official had died after being tortured into confessing. His tongue had been cut out. The Karishzar was impressed by this gesture. Word is that she named Zaras her dagger and offered her an alchemised blade and an enchanted robe. These devices can indeed be found in their temple. Whether the scene actually transpired the way the Tecpatli claim is besides the point. In any event, they derive their name from this incident, and treat it as their mandate to do the Karishzar's will.
Siobhan wanted a good and strong group capable of dealing with enemies so she set them up with some skilled trainers from Firemane to help them grasp new tech. One of them was Sergeant Freya Solveig, one of Firemane's most capable soldiers. She also happened to be a frightening torturer. Later when they went on their first mission they had Firemane observers to assess their performance and supervise them, but they did so well they weren't even needed. Heeding their requests, Siobhan kept them separate from the Firemane chain of command. This was bound to have unexpected repercussions down the line. Their relationship with Firemane itself remained strained.
The extra-legal authority possessed by the Tecpatli came with a major caveat. The Dagger-Women could not just go rogue and do whatever they liked without consequence. Though some rumours said otherwise, they could not just tell their patron the bare minimum. Siobhan did not have a problem with them skirting or breaking the law to serve her ends, but she had a big problem with being kept in the dark. If a slaving ring had to be maintained for the purpose of taking down a larger trafficking ring, then so be bit. But the Daggers could not act on their lonesome. More often than not one of the 'Daggers' was disposed of not because she had done something that was worse than what her blade sisters had done, but because she had committed these deeds without keeping her handlers abreast about the scope of her mission. For her part, Siobhan was not above muddying the waters by acting like she was conveniently ignorant of what the Tecpatli were doing. There was also a lot of deliberate ambiguity about who the Tecpatli actually answered to. All this created plausible deniability.
The Dagger-Women would serve as cleansers, removing cells of disease with surgical precision and without mercy. They would offer no mercy to those they judged to be evil and beyond redemption, only execution. The targets of the Dagger-Women were many, and their assignments would take them beyond the confines of the Underealm the Xioquo called home. Their targets included a corsair from the stars who led a corsair fleet that preyed on Tygarans. After many of his minions had been poisoned, he was tossed into a black hole, with enough air in the tank to be alive when he was sucked in. Moreover, the Tecpatli assassinated a Sith warlord who was found dead inside her locked meditation chamber. Her eyes had been gourged out. The Sith's apprentices blamed each other and a pointless squabble ended that annoyance. They also assassinated a prominent Xioquo priestess believed to have ties to seditious forces and to have covered up her participation in atrocities under the old regime. She was stabbed with a poisoned dagger. A note was pinned to her body, detailing the reasons for her termination.
However, the world of assassins and espionage is a grey business at the best of times. One of their targets was a Qadiri knight and warlord called Azara Jai Nazala. A proud and stalwart leader, she had refused to bend the knee to the sky people. Nawab Bharria Jai Ahquala used this as a pretext to attempt to seize her lands. Popular among her warriors and the clergy, Azara holed up in the mountains and jungles, from where she was extremely hard to dislodge. A Firemane drone strike failed to kill her, but instead killed dozens of civilians and injured many more at a wedding.
Firemane's military leadership denied that civilians were killed in the incident and insisted it had been going after a target of opportunity. The Cataphract was becoming a popular figurehead for an uprising, preaching rebellion against the sky people and managed to get some Sepoy units to defect and turn on their foreign officers. In her name, rebels carried out terrorist attacks against foreigners and their sympathisers. Assassination was seen as the most effective method to get rid of her, though it required a lengthy infiltration.
The team dispatched consisted of Kalou and Xamas. As their target and her followers were Qadiri, pretending to join them didn't really work. So they went for long range assassination. Waiting for days in a position ready to take the decisive shot was a true test of endurance for a Xioquo. Kalou caused a distraction which caused the warlord to go to the balcony so that Xamas could take the shot.
Events would eventually cause a rift with their human backers. Siobhan fell into a coma as a result of injuries sustained in a duel with Darth Soteria. A 'regency' was imposed, but Firemane oligarchs soon squabbled over power. A cell of Tecpatli was ordered to look into Soteria, and deal with a lieutenant of hers who had helped cause interference during the battle. They followed the lead, but it seemed like the enemy was always just one step ahead. Kalou was ordered with the group to return to a safehouse by the leader. They'd been compromised and had to lay low. However, she was delayed getting back and arrived just in time to see the whole safehouse get obliterated, supposedly killing everyone there.
Kalou found herself suspected of doing the strike and certain planted evidence suggests they're an agent for the Sith. She was forced to break her way out and go dark to find the truth. Finally, the leader of the cell, Karrigan'Metztli was revealed to behind the strike. She'd faked her own death and after Kalou survived leaked evidence to pin it on them. With the help of Xamas, Kalou was able to track down and fight Metztli and kill her, recovering evidence to clear her name. But a Firemane black ops squad was there to 'neutralise' her, and would stand down. Thus the Xio were forced to defend themselves, killing or disabling several agents of the sky people. When she returned with the evidence Kalou hailed as a hero and the black ops were disavowed 'rogue' elements. The Tecpatli were not inclined to believe this and thought there was more to it. While taking care to avoid accusations of disloyalty, the sect began to distance itself from Firemane, and remove agents who were too close to them.
As rumours abounded of machines with the faces of Xioquo roaming in Tlaxqui, and of betrayers and false-women who sought to lure the unwary into servitude, the Tecpatli began to clandestinely prepare for a new campaign. And they began to watch the 'Heir of the Destroyer'. In the course of her visit to Tlaxqui, the 'Heir' started investigating allegations of Firemane officials engaging in corrupt practices and luring Tygaran natives into indentured servitude in company towns. The high priestess assigned a select number of Tecpatli were assigned by the high priestess to clandestinely aid her in her quest.
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