<strong>Darth Simetra</strong><br/>Name: She no longer goes by her original name, and would not recognize it.<br/>Sex: Female<br/>Race: Twi'lek<br/>Apparent Age: 25<br/>Actual Age: 74<br/>Position: Teacher of the Malachor.<br/><br/>Basic Concept: Knowledge and power leech.<br/><br/>Sexuality: Bisexual, sadistic bent.<br/><br/>Description<br/>Hair: None.<br/>Eye: Venous blue<br/>Face: Calm, thoughtful, scarred along left eye.<br/>Body Type: Slender and tall.<br/>Skin Tone: Milky, with unhealthy looking shadow-tone along the 'edges' of her body (eyes, ears, joints, lekku, etc.).  It is presumed she was white skinned at one time.<br/>Voice: Soft and melodic.<br/>Other: She maintains her apparent youth though vitality leeching spells that she performs as punishment for those who fail her or for captured enemies.  This does not entirely prevent the Dark Side marring of her body entirely, so she looks unhealthy despite being perfectly fit.<br/><br/>Dislikes: Failure; ignorance; hesitation without reasoning; thoughtlessness.<br/>Desires: A proper apprentice; knowledge; a plaything to torment; supremacy.<br/>Habits: Sleeping in a warded area.<br/>Insecurities: Infirmity; she feels the weight of the Dark Side's toll on her body despite the rituals she uses to keep her vital.<br/>Deadly Sin: Pride; the knowledge and skills she possesses are not all her own, and some of it is dangerous even to the wielder without true experience.<br/><br/>Character Background:<br/><em>Once more, she sits at the side of a bed, watching the dying, emaciated figure of her current Master as he struggles in vain to clutch at an existence he is no longer worthy of.  It is unusual for such a creature to die quietly, but this death is not easy.  No, the synox leaching all moisture from his body and ravaging his internal organs was agony incarnate, and the knowledge that his apprentice, his beautiful, hateful monster of an apprentice had not only poisoned him but sat watching him die this agonizing death made him both proud and furious.  So one last gift he gave her.  Struggling onto his side, he propped himself up, and spoke, his voice bubbling as blood streamed into his lungs from a ruined throat.  "To you....Darth Siemtra, I be....bequeath my knowledge....and power...."  <br/><br/>With that, he spat, a black gout of blood that struck her right eye.  To her credit, she did not flinch, as Darth Hadra had expected....so when the acidic bile he'd conjured from his seething fury, his poisoned blood, and his malignant knowledge started to eat into her eye, she screamed, fresher, darker crimson running along her face.  She remains blind in that eye to this day, not bothering to have it cybernetically replaced; it is said that if she removes the eye patch, one can see the flickering blue-white fires of the Dark Side within the empty, burned socket.</em><br/><br/>Darth Simetra is a very pale, tall, and unusually slender member of the Twi'lek race.  She is not one of the oldest teachers, but she is one of the most knowledgeable.  Some of her knowledge was garnered from her studies under one master or another, but the largest amount of it was gained from her long relationship with one of the Malachorian Council members.  The stories say that she stole many of the secrets from him as he lay dying of poison.  Other say she received them as a final gift from the old master as a reward and curse to torment her with.  She does not answer impertinent questions on this subject directly.<br/><br/>In truth, Darth Simetra is less a Sith Lord than she is a Force Witch, and her skills with the Force demonstrate this.  While her basic skills with the Force closely resemble that of the Jedi and the Sith, and she does require her students to be at least conversant with such skills as they are inevitably required in battle, her true skills lie in the use of the Force as a weapon and a defense in more complex ways than the base and crude manipulation the warrior sects (as she calls them) use.  She is a thief of knowledge and something of a throwback; despite this Malachor's Dark Lords respect her, for in her travels to learn and garner the understanding she now has, she has stolen and absorbed knowledge that no Sith Lord would ever have imagined.<br/><br/>Her passions run deep and sinister; unlike many of her ilk, she teaches her students to maintain this simmering cauldron of hate, disgust, and arrogance deep inside to draw their strength from rather than depending on intense and constant passionate emotions to spur themselves forward.  Using this wellspring, she can craft complex areas where the Force does her will, rather than flows naturally.  Such places can become nightmarish traps of energy and emotions, causing those who simply manipulate the force to become disoriented and confused, and disrupting the delicate control and precision required to perform light saber combat.  Likewise, such areas can become intense channels for certain forms of the Force, creating avenues where Force Lightning becomes a cascade of raw, viscous energy that washes back and forth, destroying anything caught within.<br/><br/>She is also quite adept at internalizing her Force Spells, and is one of those dreadful few who can draw vitality, energy, health, and even knowledge from those around her.  Likewise, she can transmit her will and spirit through the Force to far away places, though such travel is dangerous at best, and suicidal at worse.  Doing so is exceedingly strenuous, and causes her a great deal of pain, even if when she is physically perfectly healthy.  However, all of these potent spells and mystic techniques require time and effort; using any spell too quickly can not only harm the wielder, but can actually damage the force itself, causing the dreadful Tears and Wounds in the force that make even the Sith wary.  The usual result of a spell failing so badly is death.<br/><br/>Darth Simetra does not seem to carry a light saber.  She does carry a staff of heavy crystal, the source of which she does not speak of.  The Twi'lek also caries what appears to be a short knife of the same material, but the staff is quite different - it is infused with her will and the power of the Dark Side.  She imbues it with and sheathes it in a constant layer of the Force, which makes it impervious to damage and light sabers alike.  It is as much an extension of her will and self as a Sith or Jedi's light saber, and by contracting it around the crystal and molding the shell of force into planes rather than a cylinder, it can be just as sharp and as deadly as a light saber.  Darth Simetra does not require her students to use the same techniques, but many, upon crafting their first light saber, are instructed by other teachers or their masters to demonstrate their skill to Darth Simetra.  They invariably return bruised.<br/><br/>She was chosen for this mission for two reasons:  first, she has a very solid grasp of force combat that is not simply reliant on the incantations of the Malachor.  She requires all of her students be conversant with force combat in the same manner, able to use the force to push, block, and coccon themselves, as well as sustain themselves in long term combats against those who use both light sabers and blasters.  Second, she has a powerful talent for seeing the the Unifying Force - both Dark and Light sides of the Force.  This made her ideal for seeking out the secrets that the abandoned station contains; and she is sure that it was abandoned, and not destroyed.  But what would make the Sith abandon such a place?<br/><br/>Darth Simetra is determined to find out.<br/><br/><br/>Brief Synopsis of Personality:  Seemingly as emotionless as a Jedi Master, Darth Simetra has an undercurrent of venomous hate and seething rage that gives her incredible power.  She is vicious and cruel in any situation where she is not teaching or learning.  She does not brook fools or hilarity in her presence without excellent reason - power and knowledge being the only reasons worth mentioning.  She maintains use of many archaic methods of using the Force, including her older, less potent light saber, which few see her use at all.<br/><br/>The Force<br/>Ranking of Masteries<br/><br/>1st: Sense; "One must understand the weave and warp of the Force to craft the rituals properly."<br/>2nd: Alter; "This is how the Force can be moved to your desire and passions."<br/>3rd: Control; "What occurs without, can be directed within."<br/><br/>Light saber:<br/>Type:  Single long blade; focusing material is unknown (believed to be a metal ore).<br/>Colour:  Searing and translucent deep blue, nearly ultraviolet.  It is not as powerful as most crystal-based blades and can be overpowered by even standard Jedi blades used by a master, but it is more destructive to inorganic material; unlike most light sabers hers will not short out in water.<br/>Style: Niman, with heavy reliance on the Tràkata techniques.  Unlike most Sith and Jedi, she cannot use her blade to block Force Lightning or Force Attacks; instead she is able to redirect the power, causing it to impact against things to the side or behind her.  This has the side effect of making combat as her ally exceedingly dangerous.<br/><br/>In combat, Darth Simetra is a strange mixture of foolhardy and cautious.  Her technique center on the oddly passive (for a Sith Lord) Niman techniques, but she has a very good understanding of all the techniques.  Her apparent age hides a wealth of knowledge, and the use of a force imbued staff rather than a light saber gives her a slight advantage in combat - most of the vaunted forms of light saber technique are designed for fighting other light sabers and allowing the combatant to use the force to guide and open up channels of attack.  Since her hands may be placed anywhere on the staff and she can use the entire staff to block with, this gives her options light saber wielders must consciously adapt to, rather than intuitively understand.  The other reason she prefers this is because she can use the staff, in combination with Force Sorcery, to infect the Universal Force in an area with the Dark Side energies within herself and that her opponent uses.  This is largely obvious yet seemingly meaningless when it is first done - an odd flourish here, a burst of Force sparks there, an particularly brutal thrust that damages a wall here, and pulses of her seething anger and contempt.<br/><br/>If she is in danger of being defeated, she will then discard her staff - usually in an advantageous manner - and switch to her light saber, which is disguised as the force imbued crystal knife an her side.  This is where her Tràkata techniques become evident.  If she can, she will try and coerce the enemy into their previous battleground, where her influence on the force has already been laid like a deadly minefield.  The opponent will have to deal with a light saber flicking on and off at unpredictable intervals, a dagger which is incredibly sharp and can block light sabers, and her attempts to deflect and redirect blows rather than simply parry and stop them; and all this is in addition to trying to work his way through a series of Force guided blows that cause his desires and hatred to flow into specific patters of destructive behavior.  Not the ones he desires to indulge in currently, but the ones Simetra and he have created in their previous battle - where she was using an entirely different weapon.  Note that this specialized technique will not be available to her if they do not fight in previously used battlegrounds - although any place where the force is present in great strength will be equally dangerous to her opponents.<br/><br/>Naturally, Darth Simetra does not like engaging in such battles: they are wasteful of time and energy, and she knows all too well how hatred and anger can be thieved from another and used against them; after all, she does it to others almsot constantly.  It is the basis of all Sith relationships.  If she can set up a battlefield before hand, she will make every effort to do so.  Fighting her on her own terms is suicidal, even for other Dark Lords of the Sith.  Her main weaknesses in combat are that she does not think anything of suffering a wound or injury - or even an arm or leg - in combat, leaving her open to foolhardy maneuvers.  She will also be unable to block or parry direct blows with her light saber without taking the risk of it shorting out - another reason she relies so heavily on the Tràkata techniques, because it takes several seconds before she can reignite the blade....seconds in which she has only her knife to defend herself with.  Her greatest weakness, however, is her reliance on her manipulation of the Universal Force; if she is in a situation where she cannot manipulate or control her opponent's movements at least some of the time, she is at a great disadvantage simply because her techniques are reliant on NOT using a weapon constantly AND influencing her opponents maneuvers as she needs them to go.<br/><br/>Essentially Darth Simetra suffers the same weakness as many Jedi do - her control must be absolute, so she cannot simply loose herself to the passion of warfare as other Sith do.<br/><br/><div align="center">(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp339/Mnemaxa/Twilek01.jpg)</div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 0.7em;">Edit for Spelling.</span>