Written by: Sneeker134
Those Who Walk Among The Stars
Legend holds that Those Who Walk Among the Stars are among the most ancient Sunblade orders in the galaxy, founded during those early days when Mankind raced across the cosmos to claim the stars. Tradition says that the founder was the first to visit a system held in great reverence to all of humanity, and created a set of techniques that would help all those who came after them walk among the stars as they had. In an age of exploration, they were the greatest explorer of them all. The explorer’s name has long since been forgotten, now only referred to by an epithet in honor of the system they found; Polaris.
Even before the Scream, Those Who Walk Among the Stars had begun a long decline since the end of the First Wave of human colonization. Many of the practical routes throughout space had been trod a hundred times over; the initial spark of discovery that once burned in the hearts of men had long since begun to smolder. Sunblades of the order still exist throughout the Iron Stars, but they are fragmented and scattered. However, in the devastating aftermath of the Scream Those Who Walk Among the Stars have found a new purpose. With much of the sector’s information on distant systems lost or forgotten, explorers are needed now more than ever. Filled with purpose, the survivors do their best to pick up the pieces and uphold their storied legacy.
Appearance
The traditional colors of the sunblade order are red, black, and yellow. Members typically wear long, bright robes. While many members wear the order’s traditional colors, many eschew them in favor of other colorful combinations instead. There isn’t a set pattern on what these robes should look like; each robe is crafted individually for the user so that no two sets are exactly the same. Students are expected to share the same colors as their masters, though they are free to change their colors upon graduating. Sunblades who frequent more dangerous territories might supplement this attire with armor, though certain Sunblade techniques often make such defenses moot. When visiting planets, Those Who Walk Among the Stars typically wear blank featureless helmets, especially its more senior members. Sunblades of the order are typically human, though members of other races are known to have existed in the past.
Doctrine
If a tree falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Sunblades of Those Who Walk Among the Stars would unequivocally say no. Members of the order see it as their duty to travel the galaxy, seeing all the wonder they can. It is the act of experiencing something that makes it real; otherwise, who is to say it ever existed at all? It is for this reason they are sometimes called “The Order of the Witness”.
Different members often specialize in discovering different things, though many prefer to be more generalist in what they seek out as well. Some Sunblades prefer to spend much of their time discovering places of great natural phenomena and terrain, reveling in the light of a trinary system or delving into the depths of a titanic mountain range. Others prefer to spend their time cataloging the flora and fauna of the universe, intrigued by life no matter its form. Others still long to discover strange cultures and novel architecture, considering themselves witnesses to humanity itself. All pursuits are seen as equally valid, no matter how narrow or strange.
Those Who Walk Among the Stars use nearly every Sunblade technique common among the Iron Stars, and some say they even invented a few of them. Their signature technique is Self-Sustenance, which they use to explore and experience different systems without the need of a vacc suit. The sunblade order is typically nonviolent, though most learn some self-defense techniques in order to protect themselves and others from harm. So ancient is the order that its members employ all manner of strange sacred weapons, though they favor unarmored combat above all else. Those Who Walk Among the Stars suffuse these unarmed blows with great energy, showering the air with a light rain of colorful sparks.
The sunblade order doesn’t have much in the way of ceremony, but has a fairly uniform set of burial practices. Member’s bodies are either sent into orbit in a space burial, or cremated in their ship’s engine. Those attending give a eulogy to the fallen, outlining the most notable things they had seen during their travels through the cosmos. Their robes are saved, torn into strips, and fashioned into banners that are hung in the order’s ships or waystations. All of these witness-tatters were once held at their headquarters on Polaris, but the location had been long lost even before the Scream. At the ceremony’s conclusion, members affirm that they knew the deceased to affirm to the universe that the dead truly existed.
Organization
As an organization, Those Who Walk Among the Stars barely still exist. There is no recognized leader among them, and separate enclaves of sunblades often have little to no contact with each other. Even in their heyday, the order didn’t tend to gather in very high numbers; it is more practical for them to uphold their duty by spreading out to cover more ground. Today, members of the order typically travel in small groups. Duos and trios are the most common arrangement, though solo travelers and slightly larger groups aren’t unheard of. Some of Those Who Walk Among the Stars choose to eschew travel in favor of witnessing all there is to see within a particular system or planet to staff one of their waystations, though such sunblades are the exception rather than the norm.
There isn’t much of a hierarchy between Those Who Walk Among the Stars. There are students, and everyone else. There is no established curriculum in the order; students accompany their teacher on their travels, receiving whatever instruction their master deems appropriate. Blurring the lines of what little hierarchy that exists in the order, a pupil graduates to a full member whenever the student feels they are ready to do so. These apprenticeships typically last a few years, though some sunblades go their entire lives never considering themselves more than a student. Those who pick up the arts quickly might only learn for a few months.
Members of Those Who Walk Among the Stars once maintained large cruisers and waystations throughout the Iron Stars, though most have fallen into disrepair. Recovering these ships and rediscovering these lost havens is the goal of many of the order’s members, though expanding their roster to be able to station them is a high priority as well. A longstanding dream of Those Who Walk Among the Stars is to rediscover a route to the Polaris system where they began, though members of the order don’t know if a viable route to the system exists in the Iron Stars sector.
Current Members
Those Who Walk Among the Stars have a fragmentary presence throughout the Iron Stars, though only a single gathering of them is recorded with any certainty. A trio of surviving order members call the cruiser Sun-Kissed Memory their home. A Sunblade named Xiloco captains the vessel, mostly keeping to the space around the Inheritor Alliance. An enigmatic member nicknamed Sunny is known to travel around the Iron Stars, though his location is currently unknown. Other reports of sunblades with covered faces and colorful robes have sprung up throughout civilized space, though none have yet been followed up on or substantiated.
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