ʜᴄ sᴠɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇs
Source: "Ancient Tomb", by Colin MacNeil
Name: The Tomb of Brahk Eer Halgh
Planet: Kalee
Nexus Alignment: Dark
Nexus Effects: The nexus in question has a subtle effect on the surrounding scrublands due to its association with the alchemy of the Sith. This has no immediate impact on wildlife brought there, but has twisted the life to become harsher and more predatory over the course of several thousand years. Within the tomb itself, the nexus effects an illusion as one grows closer to where the coffin lies: the stones appear freshly sculpted, sounds echo as though life fills the halls, and apparitions of ancient Kaleesh warriors guide the visitors through the tomb while explaining the history of the locale, oblivious of death traps that dot the site.
Those who attempt to draw on the power of the Nexus must impress the phantasms of Brahk Eer Halgh and his servants as they hold their eternal court in some sort of twisted puppet show. These shades can, closest to the tomb itself, inflict harm through spectral weapons that seem to cut as sharp as steel, or the sorceries of the dead king.
Those who see through the illusion by making their way, successfully, to the coffin and looking upon the corpse in confirmation that it is just a dusty skeleton, are individually free of the tomb's effects. It then becomes simply a place strong with the Dark Side. To destroy the nexus itself, one must annihilate and desecrate the remains of the ancient king -- which would unleash a horrible, vengeful shade that must be defeated to disperse or absorb the power of the Nexus once and for all -- or convince the shades to cease this puppetry, make them aware and believing of their own deaths, and to let go of this life. Such would heal the wound on Kalee.
Size: Small -- the effects of the tomb are limited to a subtle influence in the area around it, and any other residual effects are highly localized, trickling into being as the central burial chamber is gradually approach.
Development Threads: See No Evil (Discovery Thread, In Progress)
Description: The Nexus is located not too far from [member="Corin Zanith"]'s Shadow Academy, which was built over and inside the ancient structures that made up the burial complex. The most grand were not the tomb, which was never intended to be built (as the Old King wished to live forever), but rather temples to glorify the regime, arenas for warriors to slake their bloodlust and whet their prowess, and numerous other buildings created, not for death, but for endless life.
This structure was built by the jealous son that slew his father. The beginning of the Kaleesh tradition of deifying the dead, it was believed by his most loyal warriors that proper reverence and observance was what gave the tomb its power. Practically glorifying death, the small stone outcropping from the mountainside has its largest part sculpted into the shape of a skull. It travels inwards, branching into a series of winding tunnels. When one has found the true path, one comes upon a well-appointed burial chamber, the heavy coffin flanked by statues to guard their master in the afterlife.
Origins/History: To call Brahk Eer Halgh a king is to understate the impact of his actions. For a brief time, for the first time, he had unified the warring tribes of Kalee under one banner. A powerful wild adept, in tune with the Force but untrained, he rejected the path of the shaman that so many primitives choose to take, instead bending the power around him to the ends of conquest and destruction. Wielding a sword with proficiency like no other, he would take in war what he could not in duels.
Yet among the Kaleesh, for wielding such unparalleled earthly power, he found little to be held in the final horizon of death. The Kaleesh are lead to believe that after dying, the greatest and most loyal warriors ascend to become gods in the afterlife. Brahk was like a god in life, however, what was there to be gained by dying?
In secret, he pursued a path so dishonorable that it had no name in the tongue of the warrior-race -- alchemy. For two hundred years he reveled in his wives and his riches, seeming to die but passing on his consciousness to his eldest son each time, claiming to have been 'reborn'. Only a courageous son, strong in the Force, ended the reign of the living god -- after a duel, he buried his father alive in the tomb and barred him and all his alchemical knowledge behind the prison.
Over the centuries, the energies inside festered into an endless, farcical repetition of the King's greatest moments, a sign of the refusal of someone to let go -- ironically, a smaller glory than the reverence he receives outside as one of Kalee's most beloved warrior-gods of the dead.
Intent: To add local color and a location for trials to Corin's Shadow Academy, to provide an ancient ruin to investigate for a private thread, to give acolytes in the Academy a trial to investigate and offer an opportunity for beings in the Resurgent Empire to seek lost lore.
Links: Sith Shadow Academy
Note: Corin Zanith approved this addition to his creation. If you wish, he can post in this thread to provide confirmation.
