The Pilgrim
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
MEMBERS
None at this time.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Slaine arose in the fringes of the galaxy during the Four Hundred Year Darkness. As surviving Dark Lords tore each other apart for scraps of civilization, the Slaine took another approach.
If a panicked, frustrated, resource-strapped Dark Lord considered every other powerful darksider a threat by default, the Slaine made themselves the exceptions. Throw in a keen instinct for the rare and vital moment to betray a host/master and move to a better one, and you come up with an unorthodox but effective survival strategy.
In the modern era, only thirty or forty years have passed since the return of galactic governments and galactic war. The impact of such developments take a long time to ripple through Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. The far-flung, obsessively self-effacing Slaine have not become power players in the slightest — and if they have their way, they never will.
- Intent: A point of reference for a strange dark side tradition that Quill has encountered in the Unknown Regions a couple of times — not quite antagonists but certainly complications. Unsettling followers for Forcers of any persuasion.
- Image Credit: N/A
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Tradition Name: The Slaine
- Tradition Type: Wandering
- Tradition Focus: Spiritual/cultural
- Influence: Interplanetary (sparse and broadly scattered)
- Orientation: Dark
- Influence Area: Can be encountered in Wild Space and the Unknown Regions.
- Symbol: A knotted chain.
- Description: The Slaine draw their power from submission rather than domination. They seek out servile, even parasitic relationships with other Force users of various kinds.
- Membership: Unique among Force traditions, most Slaine come to this path long past youth, sometimes well into middle age. Though they come from various trained and untrained backgrounds, the secret rituals that make an individual into a Slaine transform and standardize their relationship to the Force. The rituals involve experiencing a variant of the Sith 'mind shard' technique.
- Motives: The Slaine draw their power from submission — a common survival strategy in a universe full of Dark Lords, just amplified. Each Slaine attempts to establish a servile relationship with a stronger Force user of any tradition or orientation. The great prize is establishing such a relationship with a Jedi Master or someone comparable: the shame, judgment, and rejection involved can enhance the experience significantly. And of course, many lightsiders have come to grief — or to a new understanding — by trying to save/redeem/fix an anxious-to-please Slaine follower who simply can't function without someone to serve.
- Rules and Teachings: The Slaine teach that a conscious choice to submit, to attach oneself to something greater, is a viable survival strategy that produces potent (i.e. usable) emotions. They literally draw strength in the dark side from the powerful and conflicting feelings involved. (Some also draw power from their host/master through a mild Force drain effect.) The Slaine are not, per se, an organization and are uninterested in enforcement or strictures: they simply make more Slaine and turn them loose.
- Reputation: Most Slaine keep to the shadows in Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. They cultivate no power base. Both Jedi and Sith tend to view the Slaine as bizarre and insignificant parasites if they've heard of the Slaine at all. More than one Slaine encounter has become a folktale about an untrustworthy follower.
- Openness: The Slaine will happily introduce other Force users to the Slaine way. Their rituals, however, remain secret until the inductee is actually participating and is past the point of backing out. Inductees who are uncomfortable with making such uninformed and serious commitments under duress are encouraged to lean into the discomfort and lack of control. Or, on rare occasions, killed.
- Characteristic Equipment: Every Slaine owns (but might not carry) a fifty-centimeter length of thin, matte black, alchemical chain. The chain has various uses (blocking, binding, garotte, handwrap, etc.).
- Notable Force Skills: The Slaine have been known to develop Force bonds with their host/masters, and/or to pursue actual parasitism involving mild, long-term Force drain effects that may or may not be noticed. The Slaine skillset includes quasi-passive variants of Sith techniques that feed off others' willpower: the stronger the host/master at any given time, the stronger the Slaine. In terms of dealing out violence, while most Slaine favor poisoned knives in the dark and so forth, some find great power in being obedient marauders.
- Notable Force Limitations: The Slaine derive no serious power from seeking or achieving dominance, or indeed from being the centre of attention. A wide variety of dark side techniques focusing on mental and physical dominance just don't get the same traction from a Slaine practitioner as from a more traditional darksider. A Slaine can still use these kinds of techniques, but more weakly and with greater effort and risk. Examples might include becoming a Sith battlelord or crushing others' willpower — the mirror image of the submissive approach that gives the Slaine their paradoxical strength.
MEMBERS
None at this time.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Slaine arose in the fringes of the galaxy during the Four Hundred Year Darkness. As surviving Dark Lords tore each other apart for scraps of civilization, the Slaine took another approach.
If a panicked, frustrated, resource-strapped Dark Lord considered every other powerful darksider a threat by default, the Slaine made themselves the exceptions. Throw in a keen instinct for the rare and vital moment to betray a host/master and move to a better one, and you come up with an unorthodox but effective survival strategy.
In the modern era, only thirty or forty years have passed since the return of galactic governments and galactic war. The impact of such developments take a long time to ripple through Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. The far-flung, obsessively self-effacing Slaine have not become power players in the slightest — and if they have their way, they never will.
