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Lair of the Duinuogwuin: Ashla and Bogans
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vanir
Jedi


Joined: 11 May 2011
Posts: 793

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 3:13 am    Post subject: Lair of the Duinuogwuin: Ashla and Bogans Reply with quote

Discussion and questions specific to the planet Tython, the Ashla and Bogans as PCs can be posted here for greater detail. Information maybe limited to exclude things that must be discovered through gameplay, but some basic knowledge for players wishing to play Ashla PCs will be fine.

This thread is for discussion specific to the proto-Jedi of the era, what is known about the Force and these figures by the galaxy at large or specific groups, things like that.

Quote:
There is what you may have heard, what others have written and there is how things actually were.

You are within the mountain passes of Tython upon a personal quest among the Jed'aii. An exotic, man-sized alien humanoid seemingly composed of a silvery, dense, liquid metal and weighing in at an easy half a ton regards you with luminous, blue glowing eyes.

"Our Master was reluctant about instructing the mortal species of the galaxy in the ways of the Force," he tells you casually. His metallic voice echoes among the surrounding rock and throughout the very corners of your conscious mind.

"The alternative is that your colonies here would have perished without understanding the nature of the environment which surrounds you. Even as you became no more you would finally gain the wisdom you required and this would have sent echoes unpleasant to our Master's ears. Entire galaxies have been undone by such things.

"Peace, knowledge, serenity and the Force are our ways. Let me tell you this: one can flawlessly deliver themselves to antithesis and destruction. Your earnest will and devotion are required. Do not befall the path of my twin. I was born in the heart of a star and am indestructable as long as there will be supernovae. My twin was produced in the heart of a supernovae and remains as long as stars exist to die. Do you understand?

"Already now, as my Master's wisdom has filtered among you the Ashla of Tython have splintered. Some of you have rewritten history presuming to become gods. Your wars have ravaged this world but some of you have sought only peace. Some of you are wise enough to defend yourselves without aggression, to seek resolution with finality, yet absent of violence. Some of you know what it is to be Ashla.

"Our Master will tear the surface from this world. We do not think like you do. Can you accept this? I send you not back to the habitable locations of this galaxy but you must run from our presence. Does this frighten you? Inspire yourselves, what you have seen here is the fate of all civilisations and its meantime maybe yours to decide."


For the purposes of our game the wookieepedia entry and other sources regarding colonisation of Tython and the early history of the Jedi are variously misconceived, romanticised, erroneously recorded, misrepresented and intentionally deceiving. At best study of this history is pieced together and assumed from records rediscovered and investigated in the era of the 4th millennium BBY and again in the ABY period, referring to events and locations dating between 36,000 and 25,000BBY.

Their version is like speculating upon life of the neanderthals based upon scant fossils. Our game is analoguous to jumping in a time machine and actually going there to look.

As GM one issue with SWU is that the wide variety of provisionally canonical EU sources, the sheer number and variation in points of view of contributing authors of EU and sourcebooks, plus Lucas' tendency to change his own point of view can and do conflict at the macro scale of campaign organisation because the various independent contributors had imagined completely different forces and agendas at work behind the scenes amid their plot twists. One author might understand a little about clinical psychology and draw realistic sith motivations for example, whilst another one may fail to comprehend aberrant behaviour as a clinician. In one author's story the sith villain maybe an enigmatic force with visible influence upon galactic affairs; in another the sith villains may amount to little more than toddlers throwing tantrums over things that would never bother a psychopath.

As GM, in order for me to keep my head screwed on about an SWU campaign and maintain logical consistency I must rule a personalised breadth of canon above and beyond the total sum of available material wherever it may contradict the themes and plot points of a campaign. Some of it will invariably be my own creative canon or judgement calls on inclusion/disclusion and modification of canon.

So for our purposes this campaign maybe thought of by players as an alternate timeline/history in a multiverse of simultaneous SW universes, based upon my personal interpretation of the most inspiring SWU themes and atmosphere. Much canon will be adhered, but it may also readily depart certain EU.
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vanir
Jedi


Joined: 11 May 2011
Posts: 793

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jed'aii Longsword
The Ashla and Bogan use Force tempered longswords which always glow with an incandescant hue to those with Force sensitive eyes. The blade is a silvery lightweight crystalline-alloy, long and slender (sized to the user) of the straight, double-edged type similar to a Tai Chi longsword. The hilt is long for use as a one-handed or two-handed weapon, comfortably wrapped and weighted for balance, similar to a katana hilt.

Ashla Longsword
type: force tempered longsword
scale: character
skill: melee combat and melee parry
cost: n/a
availability: 4
difficulty: moderate (if self crafted), difficult (if crafted by someone else)
damage: Str+2D+2
notes: these weapons are indestructible by any normal means. They can be used to parry energy and projectile weapons alike (redirecting attacks requires the Ashla Swordsmanship power activated). Ashla which craft and forge their own weapon permanently gain a once only Force point award, it is however a complicated process similar to constructing a lightsabre. A PC can only craft their own weapon through gameplay.

New Force powers
ASHLA SWORDSMANSHIP
Control difficulty: moderate
Sense difficulty: easy
This power can be kept up.
Effect: this power works very similarly to Lightsabre combat, with the same guidelines except Sense dice is pooled with melee combat or melee parry with the Ashla Longsword and damage is handled differently. If the Control difficulty is successful the normal damage of the Ashla Longsword is increased to Str+3D+2. Due to the physical nature of the weapon damage is not pooled with Control dice in quite the way a lightsabre is but some benefit is still gained. When this power is activated the sword glows with incandescant light to normal vision and damages as both energy and physical attack, whichever for which the target's resistance is lower.
This power can be used with any sword but unless it is a Force-tempered weapon the only benefit is Sense skill pooling with Melee skills. Note that if used with a non-Ashla sword and attempting to parry ranged attacks, item damage is rolled for the sword normally.


BURST OF SPEED
Control Difficulty: Moderate
Required Powers: Enhanced Attribute
Effect: A Jedi can use this power to enhance his Move rating, increasing his running and walking speeds dramatically for a short period of time. Both the duration and Move increase are determined by the amount the Jedi’s Control roll exceeds the difficulty. The duration can be increased by spending character points – for each character point spent, the duration is increased by one round. These points can be spent at any time before the power fades.

Control Roll > Difficulty By:

0-8
+5 Move
4 Rounds duration

9-20
+10 Move
3 Rounds duration

21+
+15 Move
2 Rounds duration


Last edited by vanir on Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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vanir
Jedi


Joined: 11 May 2011
Posts: 793

PostPosted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 6:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Special rules for construction of Ashla Longswords
Characters whom wish to construct their own Ashla sword, tailored to their own physique and use of the Force (players may select their own colour hue in this case, otherwise they glow blue), have a little process to accomplish during gameplay.

At the formal start of the process you must spend one Force Point which is not returned until the process is completed. It does not apply to any rolls, it is simply hung in suspension until the weapon is either completed or it is not.

You must contemplate some Ashla philosophies in preparation. This requires a moderate Scholar: Ashla Philosophy roll (difficulty increased by one level for general scholar skill or base knowledge attribute). Character points or the Force power Concentration may be used to enhance this roll.
One month is spent doing this (roll once) in personal retreat and meditation, which can be performed upon a starship or any other location but requires strict discipline and periods of fasting and spiritual cleansing. During this process an easy Sense roll is made under the same conditions.
Afterwards materials and tools deemed appropriate are gathered.

You will need: melee construction tools including a small forge and tools for tempering, shaping, mounting, sharpening and polishing a blade. You need minerals and metallic ores of the finest quality available, you need crushed and powdered crystal found in regions strong with the Force (ie. Force imbued crystals like kathracite). The quality of these items can affect the construction difficulty roll.
Think of how Samurai forge their own katana, it is very much like this only supercharged for effect.

Melee Weapon Repair is then used under the Technical attribute in the same way Lightsabre Repair is used for Jedi Lightsabre construction (due to the special RP conditions involved substituting need for an advanced engineering skill roll in this special case), difficulty lowered one level if specialised for Ashla Longsword repair, halved if using the engineering skill (A) Melee Weapon Construction, and very easy if specialised (A) Melee Weapon Construction: Weaponsmithing. It is a difficult task at base difficulty using the repair skill (modified by quality of construction items) and takes another month but can be lowered with skill specialisation or "take five" rules whereby an additional month can be used to reduce difficulty one level, or both.
The Ashla weaponsmith can reduce time taken for construction by one week for each CP spent to a minimum of 1 week. These do not add to rolls. During this forging process a moderate Control roll is required which maybe modified using CP.

At the end the PC rolls once for construction difficulty total and if all rolls are successful he creates the weapon, receives the Force Point spent for construction back, and receives a one time only additional Force Point.
Any roll failed means the weapon is flawed and an additional Force Point is not gained. If rolls are failed in both preparation and during construction the weapon breaks during initial testing and the original Force Point spent is lost.

If the forging fails the PC may try again at any time, assuming he has a spare Force Point to start the process.

Note: f the Ashla has the Force power Force Weapon all difficulties involved in the construction are halved and/or in minimum difficulty range. With both this power and (A) Melee Weapon Construction: Weaponsmithing advanced skill, the entire process becomes greatly simplified, comparatively uncomplicated and less time consuming.


Last edited by vanir on Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:23 am; edited 7 times in total
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vanir
Jedi


Joined: 11 May 2011
Posts: 793

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 6:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

New skill
Scholar: Ashla Philosophies


This specialisation functions similarly to scholar: jedi lore, containing the accumulation of academia, meditation, instruction, practise and self discovery which are used to formulate the perspective of the Ashla. It includes elements necessary for the construction of Force tempered Ashla swords, as well as a code of ethics central to the Ashla lifestyle, which essentially result in PC-Ashla guidelines regarding the obtainment of Force Points, Character Points and Dark Side Points during gameplay.

A short, simple history.
Force sensitive (mild Force using) colonists were drawn to Tython upon a collective personal quest. Met a mighty Star Dragon the size of their starship who had been instructing some powerful and exotic alien beings, native to the Deep Core in advanced study of the Force upon this world. After much convincing the Star Dragon agreed to also instruct the colonists. The Jed'aii were born, named after the being which taught them. In the duinuogwuin dialect it means "enlightened one."
Fairly early on, as sentients are prone to personal agendas and dividing into subcultures, the Jed'aii split into two groups, naming themselves for each of Tython's two geostationary moons: Bogan, the dark moon and Ashla, the bright one. In fact as the duinuogwuin Jed'aii originally instructed there was no differentiation between the darkness and light within individuals as they comprise a duality and two parts of a whole, but this is an alien concept perhaps not well suited to common mortal perspectives.
Put simply, whilst sentients of the galaxy can certainly become advanced with knowledge of the Force, they frequently struggle to comprehend the nature of themselves. This matter had concerned the duinuogwuin deeply and caused his withdrawl from further direct contact with the colonists more than 5,000 years past. He is mere legend now and some believe, a myth created by the early colonists themselves to excite their children, like a christmas tale.
Like a popular myth however, occasionally individual Ashla claim to have encountered direct agents of the ancient duinuogwuin Jed'aii. Exotic aliens so powerful they are immortal and virtually indestructible, living among the whirling stars of the Deep Core. These Ashla typically return from their quest with some mission or prophecy, hence the Tython enclaves in general tend to believe their experience was imagined through the power of "farseeing" rather than actually encountered as they perceived, although in either case whatever they have to report is certainly taken seriously.
Thus Ashla have evolved into a curious mixture of pragmatism and spiritualism, skeptical and yet accounting for the fantastic, rarely dismissive. This describes their point of view aptly.


The Ashla Code
This is the Ashla interpretation of the original duinuogwuin Jed'aii code of conduct, which was effectively modified to make more distinction between dark and light sides of the Force. The duinuogwuin did not believe there was a dark side and light side as such, only a duality within a whole which he felt galactic citizens would eventually discover on their own, to their peril.
He prophesised to them that in the distant future, when the Bogan Moon eclipses Ashla a Convergence will bring balance to their knowledge of the Force, and then he left them to their own devices.
The Ashla therefore believed they must walk this path to fulfill the prophecy, and continued their refinement of separating the dark and light. In fact they assumed this Convergence would be a powerful Force-artefact and they must be of pure spirit, absent of the dark side to wield it and finally achieve oneness with the Force.

The Ashla thus developed the Code as the following, Bogan have their own interpretations.

Defend the weak, advocate among the strong, protect the innocent.
Seek wisdom through the Force,
Preserve justice with your actions,
Find knowledge with your efforts,
Do not be petty or aggressive.
Be pure in heart, mind and purpose to become one with the Force,
As the Prophecy has foretold.
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