Vokun'zar

(A First-Person Account by Darth Vokun’zar)   I chose the outpost because it meant nothing. A forgotten listening station at the edge of mapped space—durasteel ribs exposed to vacuum, gravity unreliable, corridors narrow enough to punish excess motion. No banners. No history. No witnesses worth remembering. A place where form would have no excuses. I seeded rumors carefully: relic fragments, lost data, a convergence of Force echoes. Each lie was tuned to a different hunger. Predictable ones. They came exactly as expected. Three combatants. Three traditions. Three errors waiting to be corrected. I intended none of them to leave.   I. The First Duel —   He arrived first. A Soresu practitioner—defensive to the marrow. Tight guard, circular footwork, blade always between us like a ritual ward. He believed survival was proof of righteousness. He believed patience was invincibility. We faced each other in the central corridor—long, narrow, flanked by fractured conduits that hummed with dying power. The floor plates vibrated beneath our feet, a subtle instability that punished hesitation. I assumed the Predetermined Stance. Left foot forward. Weight biased. Torso upright. Both sabers held in Obscura grip, trailing behind my forearms, blades ignited but denied declaration. He felt it immediately. Soresu fighters always do. Their entire philosophy depends on reading threat vectors. Mine refused to exist where he looked. He advanced cautiously, shielded by a tight rotational guard. When he committed, it was correct: a centerline thrust designed to force a bind and reset distance. I stepped forward into the attack. At the same moment, I wrapped the Force around his nervous system—not violently, not outwardly…slowing him…. Not time stopping—but intention arriving late. His muscles obeyed him. They simply did so a fraction behind schedule. The thrust lagged. My left wrist rotated upward. The blade rose from beneath my forearm along a precise diagonal, severing his weapon hand cleanly at the wrist. No swing. No telegraph. Just alignment and pressure. Soresu doctrine demanded retreat. His mind issued the command. His body answered too late. I advanced again, collapsing distance with a short, decisive step. The second blade entered beneath his guard in a direct thrust to the sternum, driven by hip alignment rather than arm extension. He died without understanding why defense had failed him. I released the Force. The corridor returned to its natural rhythm.   II. The Second Duel —   She came through the upper gantry—fast, coiled, kinetic. Ataru. Always Ataru. Motion as faith. Speed as truth. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, blade spinning just enough to signal readiness. She believed unpredictability was freedom. I let her see me. Same stance. Same geometry. No adjustment. The blades trailed behind my forearms, partially occluded, their vectors unreadable. My gaze did not follow her movement. That unsettled her more than aggression ever could. When she launched, it was explosive—vaulting off a support strut, blade arcing downward in a textbook aerial strike meant to overwhelm guard and timing simultaneously. I shaped the Force—not as pressure, but as… illusion. To her perception, my right-hand blade appeared to cant forward slightly—just enough to imply an imminent intercept on that side. Not a false image. A nudge. She adjusted mid-air. That was her mistake. I stepped forward as she committed to the illusion. The blade she tracked did nothing. The other rose. From beneath my left forearm, the saber snapped upward in a tight oblique cut that opened her abdomen along the muscle line. The motion was biomechanically clean: front foot drive, hip rotation, wrist articulation, immediate recovery. She landed badly, breath gone, blade coming down to parry a strike that did not exist. I dispelled the illusion. Her eyes widened—not in fear, but realization. The second blade reactivated fully inside her guard as I advanced once more, the thrust short and terminal, angled upward beneath the ribs into the heart. Ataru failed her not because she moved too much—but because she trusted motion more than consequence.   III. The Third Duel —   The last arrived last—of course. Juyo always does. He entered the command nexus like a storm, blade alive with violent intention. His stance was aggressive, asymmetrical, constantly shifting. Emotion poured off him in waves—anger sharpened into purpose by belief. He spoke. They always speak. Conviction masquerading as inevitability. I let him finish. Then I assumed the stance. Left foot forward. Weight settled. Both blades obscured. Gaze lowered—not submissive, but final. I reached into the Force not as power—but as structure. And I twisted his mind. Not madness. Not confusion. I simply reordered his internal hierarchy of certainty. Suddenly, the thing he trusted most—his conviction—felt misaligned. Not wrong. Incorrect. His breath caught. Juyo demands commitment. Without it, it devours itself. He attacked explosively, trying to overwhelm the sensation with motion—wide arcs, violent transitions, power fed by desperation. I stepped diagonally forward, stealing the angle as his blade passed centimeters from my shoulder. My right wrist snapped.The blade rose from obscurity and cut across his throat in a clean lateral line, severing carotid and spine function in one controlled motion. No flourish. No excess. He fell mid-thought. I released the Force. The nexus went quiet.   Final Realization   Three forms. Three philosophies. All corrected. Makashi Obscura did not overpower them. It invalidated their assumptions. Soresu trusted time. I collapsed it. Ataru trusted perception. I bent it. Juyo trusted belief. I ended it. The Force did not dominate the blade. The blade did not channel the Force. They converged into inevitability. I stood alone in the outpost, sabers still held in Obscura grip, trailing behind my forearms like truths too late to matter. Makashi was judgment. Makashi Obscura is conclusion. And I had proven it where no one could pretend otherwise.

I found Tulak Hord in fragments.   Not in holocrons that preached, nor in tombs that threatened—those are for aspirants who need theater to believe. I found him in the residue of decisions: margins of vellum, the dry arithmetic of duel logs, the obsessive notes of archivists who tried to describe an outcome without understanding the cause. The first scroll was a ledger of names. The second was a sequence of diagrams—arcs, angles, foot placements drawn with the indifference of a surgeon. The third was the only one that mattered: a commentary written by a student who had watched Hord fight and failed to imitate him.   He does not strike. He edits.   I read that line until it stopped being metaphor.   Makashi was never “elegant.” That was the lie told by those who only saw its surface. Makashi is economy weaponized—pressure reduced to a line so thin it becomes fate. It is not flourish. It is refusal: refusal to waste motion, refusal to admit uncertainty, refusal to grant an opponent even one unnecessary breath. Tulak Hord understood this. He brought dueling to the edge of inevitability. But he still dueled within the assumption that form - Form II - was whole.   And I do not.   I do not seek mastery of a system. I seek transcendence of the system that claims it can contain me. The Force loops. The Jedi and Sith circle each other like moths around a lamp. Makashi, at its peak, becomes a loop too—predictable to those who know the grammar.   So I took his grammar. And I broke the sentence.   The First Discovery: The Line is Not the Weapon   The scrolls described his footwork with reverence: narrow stance, centered weight, minimal shifts. Hord cut the duel down to a corridor and forced his opponent to suffocate inside it. I tried it at first as written. The training chamber on Vel’korr Station is silent by design—no banners, no audience, no hymns. Only space, light, and consequence. I stepped into classical Makashi and let the first drill begin: measured thrusts, parries that ride the opponent’s blade rather than colliding, footwork that steals half-steps until the other fighter cannot tell when the distance changed.   It worked. Too well….that…. was the problem.   There is a satisfaction in Makashi that is too clean. It ends questions quickly. It corrects the body and then the body collapses and the mind follows. It is judgment, executed with grace. But my doctrine is not judgment. My doctrine is Fear.   I need the opponent to feel the moment their certainty fails—not after, but during. I need fear to bloom as an instrument, not a byproduct. I need the duel to become a threshold where reality stutters.   So I began listening for what Makashi did not say.   It speaks of lines. It does not speak of angles that cannot be read. It speaks of timing. It does not speak of timing that cannot be located. It speaks of control. It does not speak of control that denies the opponent a stable reference for control at all.   I returned to Hord’s diagrams and noticed something the copyists did not: the places where he didn’t draw the blade. The blade, to him, was assumed. Always visible. Always declared.   That assumption would be my fracture point.   The Second Discovery: Obscura   I began with the hands.   A reverse grip is crude when used as a declaration—an assassin’s posture, a statement of unorthodoxy. It abandons the thrust, it collapses reach, it violates the very thing Makashi venerates. So I did not reverse the blade.I inverted the assumption of front.   I rotated the hilts inward and turned my wrists so the blades emerged beneath the knuckles, canted behind the forearms at a shallow upward angle—fifteen degrees, then twenty, then back to fifteen. Not aligned with the arm like a dagger; not pointing at the floor like a guard. The blades existed in a place the eye did not want to track, partially occluded by bone and tendon and the simple fact that a forearm can hide what a mind expects to see.   The first time I held both sabers like this, the chamber felt colder. Not because the stance was dramatic, but because it was wrong in the way a broken law is wrong—quietly, inexorably, without asking permission.   I stood in the mirror and watched my silhouette fail to resolve. A duelist’s blade announces itself. Mine refused.   Good. Now I had to prove it could kill.   I began slowly, because biomechanics are not philosophy—they are physics.   The Obscura grip demanded a new relationship between wrist and elbow. In classical Makashi, the blade points where the knuckles point. The wrist aligns the edge with the thrust. In Obscura, the wrist is a hinge that hides intent until the last possible moment, then snaps the blade into relevance with a rotation so small it feels like a thought.   A strike from Obscura is not thrown…It is revealed.   At first, my forearms burned. The muscles that stabilize the wrist—flexors and extensors—had to work harder to hold the angle without tremor. I adjusted. Elbows closer to the ribs. Shoulders neutral. The spine upright. The weight shifted slightly forward onto my lead foot, not for speed, but for inevitability: every movement collapsing distance rather than testing it. I refined the opening stance until it became a predatory stillness.   Left foot forward. Right foot back. Stance wider than orthodox Makashi, but not wide enough to be brute. Weight slightly biased to the front foot, the rear foot angled to drive diagonals. Torso upright. Shoulders neutral. Head slightly lowered. The blades trailed behind my forearms, partially hidden, humming where the opponent’s eye could not easily measure them.   I was no longer “waiting.” I was compressing.   Third-Person: What the Chamber Saw From the far end of the room, the cameras recorded an image that did not match any form in the archives. Vokun’zar stood angled, left foot forward, the line of his body calm as a statue. Both violet blades extended behind him, canted upward, their lengths broken by the silhouette of his own forearms. His hands hung at his sides, elbows close, as if the sabers were incidental—yet the air around him vibrated with contained violence. When the training droid advanced, its sensors hesitated—unable to resolve the primary threat vector. It chose the centerline. It died for that choice. He did not swing. His front foot pressed into the deck and he stepped forward as though closing a door. His right wrist rotated a few degrees inward and upward, and the blade—previously hidden—rose along a diagonal line that cut through the droid’s weapon arm at the elbow joint. The sever was clean, driven by wrist rotation and forearm stability rather than shoulder torque. Before the arm hit the floor, his rear foot pivoted. The second saber—also in Obscura grip—snapped forward in a short thrust that traveled barely the length of his forearm, the point landing precisely at the center of the droid’s chassis. The thrust was not a lunge; it was a step-and-insert, powered by hip alignment and a forward-weighted stance. The droid split and fell. Vokun’zar’s shoulders never rose. His posture never “fought.” Only the outcome moved.   The Third Discovery: Makashi Without Telegraph   The scrolls spoke of Makashi’s conversation: attack, response, counter-response. A language between duelists. I disliked that. Conversation implies equivalence. I do not grant equivalence.   So I began altering Makashi’s most sacred element: its readability.   Classic Makashi announces its intent through perfect form. A trained opponent can “read” the line of attack as it forms—knowing not only where the blade will go, but when. Obscura had already denied them clear orientation. Now I needed to deny them preview.   That required discipline. No shoulder roll before a cut. No elbow flare before a thrust. No weight shift that signals “now.” I drilled in front of a timing sensor array—light points that tracked micro-movements. Every tell was punished with a shriek of feedback. I learned to generate force from the feet and hips while keeping the upper body still, letting the wrists and forearms do the final articulation.   The stance became a lie: calm on the surface, predatory beneath. Then I layered Trakata—not as spectacle, but as punctuation.   The first time I extinguished a blade during a bind, I understood why lesser minds call it dishonorable. Their pride needs continuity. Their defense needs predictable resistance. A bind is comfort. Trakata turns comfort into void.   I practiced the “vanishing” at contact: deactivate at the instant of pressure, allow the opponent’s blade to pass through empty space where resistance should be, then reactivate inside their guard before their nervous system can revise its prediction.   It required precision so severe it bordered on spiritual discipline. Too early and the opponent notices the absence. Too late and you are cut. Perfect timing feels like the universe blinking. That became the doctrine.   Third-Person: The Refinement Becomes Visible   Weeks later, the sparring partner was no longer a droid. It was a living duelist in training armor—fast, competent, trained in orthodox Makashi. They circled at a respectful distance, searching for the line. Vokun’zar did not circle. He held the Predetermined Stance: angled body, left foot forward, weight biased front. Both sabers in Obscura grip, trailing behind his forearms like violet shadows that could not be measured. The duelist stepped in with a precise thrust—classic Makashi, centerline claim. Vokun’zar’s response was almost invisible: a fractional diagonal step forward, not away. His lead foot crossed the opponent’s line rather than yielding to it. The opponent’s thrust slid past his shoulder, missing by a margin so small it looked like luck. It was not luck. As the thrust passed, Vokun’zar’s left wrist rotated upward. The hidden blade rose beneath the opponent’s guard and severed the tendons of the weapon wrist with a surgical cut—upward, controlled, powered by the feet and stabilized by the elbow close to the ribs. The opponent tried to recover—instinctively seeking a bind, seeking contact, seeking something real. Vokun’zar offered it for half a heartbeat. Blades met. Pressure. Then the violet blade vanished. The opponent’s saber passed through nothing. Their balance lurched forward—brain expecting resistance, body committing to it. A second later the blade returned—not outside the guard, not in an arc, but inside. The violet line appeared at the opponent’s throat level with no visible wind-up, driven by a small forward step and a short wrist extension. The duel ended as quickly as a thought completes. Vokun’zar did not hold a finishing pose. He simply lowered his hands again, blades trailing behind the forearms, and the opponent fell into the Truth of what had happened: they had been fighting a form that refused to exist in the place they were looking.   My Final Refinement: Expedience as Doctrine   There is a temptation, once you learn to make opponents hesitate, to luxuriate in it—to extend the fear, to savor the unraveling. That temptation is for tyrants who need applause from their victims.   I do not need applause. Fear is not entertainment.   Fear is revelation.   So I refined Makashi Obscura toward expedience: the art of ending the fight at the first point the opponent becomes vulnerable—psychologically, structurally, temporally. I kept the stance. I tightened the first movement. I made the openings fewer, cleaner, more lethal. The Predetermined Stance now serves a single purpose: compress the duel until the opponent commits, then terminate the commit.   Every strike is biomechanically honest: Cuts driven by foot pressure and hip alignment, not shoulder flailing Thrusts inserted by step timing, not lunges that gamble balance Wrist rotations small enough to evade telegraph, strong enough to control the blade plane Elbows kept close to protect the shoulder line and preserve speed of recovery Diagonal advances that steal angles rather than chase distance   Makashi Obscura is not acrobatics. It is not intimidation by posture. It is the surgical denial of options.   Tulak Hord turned dueling into a ritual of judgment. I took his ritual and made it a threshold.   Now, when I assume the stance—angled, weight forward, gaze lowered—the duel has already begun. Not because I invited it. Because I have already chosen the only ending I will allow.   And when the blades rise from beneath the forearms—hidden vectors made manifest—the opponent learns the central truth of Makashi Obscura: Form was never the weapon. The weapon is the moment they realize they cannot find the rules. And by the time they realize it, The Truth has already judged them.

Program: SHADE HARROW Project Codename: OBSCURA-9 Line Name: VANTARI Soldier ID: VNT-### Known to HVA: Operational Codename They are tacticians and weapons in equal measure—each one a self-contained phalanx, able to operate in total silence or lead a squadron of terror.   Purpose & Doctrine: They are tacticians and weapons in equal measure—each one a self-contained phalanx, able to operate in total silence or lead a squadron of terror.   Each VANTARI is trained in: Direct action Medical stabilization and field surgery Communications and psychological ops Demolition, hacking, and sabotage Urban, void, and all environmental warfare and survival Advanced reconnaissance and stealth Close-quarters combat, Visit Board Search Seizure and battlefield leadership   Genomic Evolution Protocols “They are no longer human. They are vessels of engineered judgment.” 1. Birth from the Womb of War (Origin Intensity) All Vantari are vat-grown from genetic martyr-stock, composed of: Captured Force-sensitives / Sith Martyrs Devout warriors of House Veritas Atra who willingly gave their genetic legacy to “the Womb” Dread-priests whose memories and combat instincts are imprinted into their spawn 2. Psychic Null-Zone Mindwarding (Anti-Force & Anti-Psionic Defense) Introduce Neuro-Anathema Nodes in the cranium. These: Project localized psychic “dead zones” (15m radius) that scramble Force precognition and dull empathic abilities Make Vantarii mentally unreadable and immune to suggestion, hallucination, or fear-based illusions 3. The Black Trivium defines all Vantari training: Silence (infiltration, psychological warfare, neuro-linguistics) Judgment (lethal efficiency, logic engines, zero-waste engagements) Sacrament (faith-encoded rituals, indoctrination, and unshakable loyalty to Vokun’zar) Each Vantarii is both a ghost, a blade, and a priest.   Core Genetic Enhancements 1. Hyperdense Musculature Yielding 3–4x baseline human strength. Resists piercing/slashing trauma; crushes bones in melee. 2. Reinforced Skeletal Lattice (Tetrastructure Osteo-Weave) Bone fiber reinforced with synthetic carbon strands. Fracture-proof under high-velocity impacts. 3. Pain Immuno-Inhibition Cluster Complete suppression of pain receptors except as diagnostic input. Allows combat through compound fractures, internal bleeding, dismemberment. 4. Redundant Organ Mesh Secondary heart-lung-liver system. Maintains function after catastrophic injury; can survive minutes decapitated. 5. Echolytic Lungs Allows breathing in a thin atmosphere or underwater. Filters toxins can survive in vacuum for ~120 seconds. 6. Neuro Conductive Reflex Sheath Reaction time: 0.05 seconds. Neural shielding from strobing, sonic, or psychic interference. 7. Ocular Quad-Spectrum Vision Infrared, ultraviolet, low-light, and EM-detection overlays. Ocular HUD uplinked to battlenet and squad sensors. 8. Auto-Regenerative Clot Matrix Seals wounds within seconds. Self-producing nanofibrins woven into the bloodstream. 9. Synaptic Logic Engine (SLE) Augmented pattern recognition. Predictive movement modeling for melee and ranged engagements. 10. Fear Conversion Cortex (FCC) Converts fear stimuli into biochemical boosts: adrenal spikes, micro-motor finesse, temporal slowdown. Makes them faster and stronger the more danger they perceive. 11. Thermal Regulation Gel Nodes Allows extended operation in arctic or desert environments without fatigue. 12. Neural Ritual Encoding Memory fusion with sacred texts and mission data via bio-symbolic mnemonics. Indoctrination via chemical-linguistic stimulation tied to Vokun’zar’s doctrine.   Standardized Gear: “Black V Mantle” Armor Designation: Aegis-V Mantle Streamlined. Symbolic. Supernatural.   Armor Profile Color Palette: Matte black primary, with faint, almost iridescent secondary markings in the House Veritas Atra color scheme (dark violet + blood bronze highlights). Marking: The Barbed V etched subtly into the breastplate or helm, reactive to stress (glows faintly in high-stakes combat). Material: Fleximetal + bone-carbon weave for durability and flexibility. Blaster-resistant Ballistic and kinetic dampening Adaptive thermal diffusion Weight: Lighter than traditional power armor; designed for silence, speed, and endurance.   Integrated Armor Systems Biofeedback Suit Lining: Maintains vitals, administers combat stims, suppresses pain further, and stabilizes injuries. Reactive Threat Mesh: Generates situational HUD based on auditory and movement cues. Mag-Seal Undersuit: Protects against environmental exposure; seals automatically in void or chemical assault. Vox Nullifier: Encrypts squad communication with religious overtones and prayer-code algorithms. Cloak of Silence: Optional semi-opaque mantle; renders them ghostlike on visual and auditory sensors when still. Auto-Morph Structure: Mantle auto-shifts shape and tension based on environment (becomes rigid in vacuum, softens in stealth ops) Kinetic Reversal Field: Absorbs up to one high-velocity kinetic impact every 10 seconds and redirects it outward in a directed force pulse Tactical Phantasms: Subdermal projectors generate after-image ghosts during movement to confuse enemy optics and targeting systems   VANTARI LINE ROSTER (OBSCURA-9)   Designation Operational Codename VNT-014 Chasm VNT-103 Penance VNT-087 Xero VNT-066 Frost VNT-199 Nocturne VNT-008 Scourge VNT-122 Reaper VNT-050 Hallow VNT-187 Sepulchre VNT-029 Whisp VNT-142 Draven VNT-003 Morrow VNT-091 Specter VNT-173 Sable VNT-006 Crimson VNT-198 Nadir VNT-039 Mire VNT-060 Wraith VNT-127 Ghost VNT-184 Vestige                

“Fear is the breath of truth, and those who inhale it are reborn beyond death.”   A militant priesthood of dread, House Veritas Atra serves as the enforcers, inquisitors, and living sermons of Darth Vokun’zar’s transcendent philosophy of fear.   ✠ Overview Type: Theocratic-Militaristic House Leader: Darth Vokun’zar Doctrine: Dominion through Fear, Erasure of the Unworthy Status: Autonomous Parallel Authority under the Sovereign Empire Symbols: Barbed V with inlaid A Seat of Power: The Sanctum Obscura Size: House Major Primary Domain: Military Workers - Soldiers (HVA Sable Wraiths) Secondary Domain: Religion - Understanding (new religious philosophies) Secondary Domain: Science - Produce (genetically adapted humans)   The Ascension of House Veritas Atra "Let fear be the first and final truth."   House Veritas Atra was forged not from the ruins of Sith or Jedi legacies, but from the revelation that fear itself is the ultimate and transcendent force. Darth Vokun’zar’s vision rejected fractured ambition and empty dominion, instead embracing fear as the foundation of true power—a force to be wielded through devotion, ritual, and absolute obedience.   Vokun'zar recognized that power, when wielded by the unworthy, becomes entropy—a destructive force that consumes everything it touches. The Sith had long clung to empire and ego, building cathedrals to power they could neither control nor preserve. Their failure was not in their ambition, but in their fragmentation. Power without clarity. Authority without dogma. Dominion without doctrine.   In the vast emptiness of space and spirit, Vokun'zar uncovered the key to true dominion—not through brute force, but through fear as a transcendent, divine force. Fear is not weakness; it is the truth. It is a reality to which all minds must bend. Through this revelation, he saw that the true path to power lay in the shaping of will, not just through conflict, but through devotion, ritual, and absolute obedience.   Thus, House Veritas Atra was born—the militant priesthood of the Dark Truth. This was not a mere military order, nor a zealot’s cult. It was a fusion of the sacred and the deadly, a synthesis of war and worship that transcended conventional Sith thinking. At its heart, House Veritas Atra is a religious order of warriors, where fear is not simply a weapon but the core of their faith. This militant priesthood is neither mere soldiers nor fanatics; they are a sacred synthesis of war and worship, enforcers of the Black Truth. They worship fear not as a tool, but as an eternal, divine force embodied in Darth Vokun’zar.     A Theocratic-Militaristic House – A New Order “Fear is the breath of truth. All who refuse to inhale it must choke on silence.”   Unlike traditional Sith legions, House Veritas Atra is an autonomous institution blending political and military power under the Sovereign Empire. It is a weaponized theocracy designed not just to conquer but to fundamentally reorder the galaxy according to the Dark Truth known only to Vokun’zar and his elect.   Vokun'zar’s insight was simple, yet profound. The Sith, in their endless cycles of ambition, had always fallen to their own vices. Theirs was an Empire of factions, competing visions, and internal decay. Military force, in their hands, was always a tool of expansion—a means to impose dominance, but never to reshape the very fabric of society. The House of Veritas Atra is different. It does not seek mere victories on the battlefield; it seeks the totality of dominion—a complete reordering of the galaxy to reflect the Dark Truth, a truth that only Vokun'zar and his chosen few can fully grasp.   At the core of the House lies its theocratic nature. The warriors of House Veritas Atra are not mere soldiers. They are priests of fear, bearing an unshakable loyalty to the sovereign will of Darth Vokun'zar, their divine master. They serve not just a leader, but a living embodiment of power, one whose authority transcends traditional politics or military hierarchy. To join House Veritas Atra is to submit completely to the doctrine of fear, to become both an executioner and a vessel of divine judgment. Submission is absolute; defiance is annihilation.   The Philosophy of the House – The Black Truth   House Veritas Atra is rooted in the belief that fear is the most sacred and absolute force in the universe—the only true constant, and the divine purifier of weakness. To its members, fear is not a weapon to be wielded lightly, but a holy mantle to be earned, mastered, and personified. Their creed holds that through the surgical application of terror, a new order may rise—one where false ideologies are dissolved, and the weak are forced to confront the truth of their powerlessness.   Service within the House is an initiation into deathless purpose. Warriors forsake identity and ego to become instruments of Vokun’zar’s will. They believe that domination without fear is hollow, and conquest without psychological annihilation is impermanent. Thus, they wage war as liturgy, assassinate as ritual, and manipulate as divine scripture.   Identity & Function “Only through the crucible of dread does the soul shed illusion and become eternal.”   House Veritas Atra (HVA) is not a military battalion in the traditional sense. They are a zealot priesthood of annihilation, an elite order whose very appearance signals the final phase of resistance. Where they walk, defiance dies. Their presence is an act of divine judgment. To see the Black Truth is to see the end. They are more than assassins or warriors—they are liturgical executioners, harbingers of fear, and converters of the soul. Every act they commit is ritual. Every death, a sermon. Every conversion, a sacrifice.   Pre-Battle Rite: Obex Tenebris (The Barrier of Darkness)   Before engagement, members perform a silent anointing. A smear of black ichor (made from alchemized ash, bone, and blood) is painted across the brow in the shape of the House’s glyph—a V inlaid with an A on their forehead.   Black banners soaked in ink and blood are raised. A dirge plays—tuned to psychologically disorient. Enemy combatants who refuse the Rite of Awakening are offered as sacrifice in the sacred judgment.   A whispered chant echoes: "Veritas Atra. Voluntas Atra. Judicium Atra." (“Dark truth. Dark will. Dark judgment.”)   Their appearance signals not battle, but judgment. Surrender is demanded in hushed tones. If refused, obliteration follows.   Battle Doctrine: The Sermon of Silence   Combat is not merely war—it is sacred liturgy. HVA warriors fight in complete silence, striking with clean and absolute efficiency as avatars of inevitable judgment.   Post-Battle Rite: Scales of the Unseen   After each conflict, Veritas Atra warriors hold a solemn review. The battlefield is silently reviewed. Only those who died in terror bear the mark of true judgment, receiving a sacred touch of ash and blood. Those who died without fear are burned, their ignorance erased.   Conversion Rite: The Veil Rend   Survivors face a stark choice: accept the Rite of Awakening and be reborn as Shadowed Converts, or be executed without mercy. There is no middle path—only submission or oblivion.   The Rite of Awakening is the pivotal spiritual and psychological ceremony offered by House Veritas Atra to all enemy combatants or captives who survive an encounter with their forces. It is both a sacred rite and a brutal ultimatum, designed to strip away illusion and transform the initiate into a living vessel of the Black Truth. The Rite of Awakening is both a spiritual rebirth and a method of control. It transforms fear from a paralyzing force into a weaponized tool of power and loyalty. By submitting to the Rite, captives become part of an eternal order, transcending mortality through fear’s unyielding embrace.   The Ceremony   Isolation: The captive is removed from the battlefield and placed within a sealed chamber known as the Obscura Sanctum, a space suffused with shadows, low chanting, and faint, unnerving whispers of the Black Truth.   Symbolic Anointment: The captive’s brow is marked with black ichor—a mixture of ash, blood, and sacred oils—bearing the House glyph. This mark is both a brand and a spiritual seal, symbolizing the start of rebirth through fear.   Trial of Terror: The captive is subjected to a series of psychologically intense trials, including sensory deprivation, whispered horrors, and visions of mortality. These trials expose the initiate to the ultimate reality: death is the only truth, and fear is the path to transcendence.   The Oath: After the trials, the initiate is presented with the stark choice. They must swear the Oath of the Black Truth, pledging obedience, faith, and the eternal pursuit of fear as divine illumination.   “I embrace the shadow that reveals all. I serve the Vokun’zar’s will without question. Fear is my salvation and my dominion.”   Transformation: Those who accept the oath are inducted as Shadowed Converts—warrior acolytes trained and enhanced to serve as the living embodiment of House Veritas Atra’s doctrine. Their minds are reshaped, their bodies strengthened, and their souls bound to Vokun’zar’s command.     The Black Fleet of the House “You are seen. You are judged. Kneel, and be remade. Resist, and be erased. Conversion or Silence.”\   The Black FLeet is the sword and shadow of House Veritas Atra, a divine instrument of terror and judgment. Forged in secrecy and cloaked in the doctrine of fear-as-faith, this elite naval force exists for one purpose: to deliver conversion or annihilation. It does not wage war in the conventional sense—it performs sacred purges. When the Fleet arrives, it signals that diplomacy has failed, that the unworthy have resisted the truth of fear, and that Vokun’zar has decreed a reckoning.   The dreadnoughts serve as divine cathedrals of war, each led by high-ranking Wraithlords who serve as both admirals and dark apostles of the Black Truth. The stealth wings infiltrate systems long before battle is joined, spreading whispers, terror, and sabotage to prepare the way. The fleet’s destroyers and corvettes perform surgical annihilation of resistance, supported by interdictors and electronic warfare ships that trap and silence any fleeing heretics.   This is not a fleet of conquest. It is a holy procession of extinction, arriving only when it is time to cleanse a system of disbelief and carve the Barbed V into the stars.   The Black Fleet Order of Battle:   Harrower-Class Dreadnoughts (3) ISV Vraath (Qazûth – “Ruin”) ISV Sharûk (Sharûk – “Barb”) ISV Karûn (Karûn – “Final Psalm”)   Terminus-Class Destroyers (5) ISV Nahkaras (Nah’karas – “Nightwound”) ISV Zûrnath (Zûrnath – “Dreadtoll”) ISV Trakûl (Trakûl – “Unseen Chains”) ISV Draleth (Draleth – “Veilborne”) ISV Vahrûl (Vahrûl – “Funeral Flame”)   Gage-Class Transport Frigates (10) (Names not listed as they are primarily logistical vessels)   Stealth and Infiltration Division X-70B Phantom-Class Prototypes (4) ISV Niraas (Niraas – “Ashwhisper”) ISV Dravos (Dravos – “Relic”) ISV Xavass (Xavass – “Wraithfang”) ISV Vaxarûm (Vaxarûm – “Mercyless”)   Custom-Built Stealth Corvettes (6) (Names not listed as they are covert vessels)   Interdictor-Class Cruisers (4) (Names not listed as they serve support roles)   Gage-Class Light Carriers (Modified for Stealth Deployment) (2) ISV Rekkûth (Rekkûth – “Vault”) ISV Zarnak (Zarnak – “Benediction”)   Munificent-Class Frigates (Modified for Electronic Warfare & Support) (8) (Names not listed as they serve support roles)        

I run my gloved fingers over the armor’s surface, tracing the intricate veins of crimson filigree that pulse beneath the dark metal. The plating is unlike durasteel or beskar—something deeper, something… alive. It does not merely sit idle, awaiting a wearer. It broods. I feel its hunger, a whispered longing in the Force, subtle yet insistent, curling at the edges of my perception like a beast prowling in the shadows of my mind.   Isatri’s gift. But gifts from Sith are never without their price.   I set the armor upon the obsidian dais before me, narrowing my gaze. Subjugation Armor, she called it. An instrument of some form of alchemy… sorcery… both perhaps, imbued with purpose beyond mere defense. No Sith forges such a thing without intent. It is a means to an end, a tool—a chain.   I will not be bound.   The Force settles within me as I breathe, wrapping around my thoughts like a shroud of darkness. Study. Deconstruct. Understand. Knowledge is the path to mastery, and mastery is the path to dominion.   A whisper of motion in the dim chamber—not from the physical, but from the armor itself. A ripple in the Force. A subtle push back.   I extend my will, peeling back the layers of the metal’s resonance, seeking its design. It resists. Not as a solid thing resists force, but as a mind resists intrusion. It is aware.   Interesting.   Alchemy is not merely the shaping of metal, but the shaping of will. Sith Lords of old did not simply forge armor or weapons—they breathed life into them, binding flesh, spirit, and steel into singular purpose. True Sith alchemy is not passive craftsmanship. It is subjugation.   If this armor is truly subjugation given form, then somewhere within it, there must be a core—a fulcrum upon which its power hinges.   I turn toward the holocron.   The device sits upon its pedestal, its rhomboid frame blackened with age, etched with the sigils of the ancient Sith. Its power is unmistakable, thrumming in the air like the silent resonance of a storm before the first strike of lightning. The holocron of Karness Muur. One of the first Lords of the Sith. A master of alchemy. A forger of will. The architect of the Muur Talisman, a relic of unparalleled control—not merely of flesh, but of obedience.   I place my hand upon the surface, feeling the resonance within. A thread of power reaches back toward me, ancient and insidious, seeking not just to be opened, but understood.   I channel my will into the device.   The holocron awakens. The chamber darkens as the air thrums with the whisper of the Dark Side. The flickering glow of runes casts shifting shadows upon the walls, coalescing into a spectral figure wreathed in shifting darkness.   Karness Muur.   His ember-like eyes pierce through the veil of time, burning with something both knowing and expectant. His presence is not some passive imprint, bound to mere recitation of knowledge. He is aware.   "What would you take from me, Lord of the present?"   His voice is neither greeting nor challenge. It slides through the air like a scalpel’s edge—sharp, precise, weighted with intent.   I do not answer immediately. Instead, I observe him as he does me. We are both predators. He seeks to measure my worth before he chooses what to reveal.   But I am not here to seek. I am here to take.   "The Muur Talisman," I state, not as a request, but a demand. "A device of absolute control. You did not simply enslave the flesh—you bound the will."   Muur’s head tilts slightly. Amused. Intrigued.   "Most come to me in search of immortality. You, however… you would shape power into chains."   His form flickers as he steps forward, the ghost of movement more than movement itself.   "Tell me, Sith Lord—what do you believe control to be?"   I let silence stretch between us for a moment, then answer with certainty.   “Control is an illusion of the weak. Subjugation is its true form. A will crushed so completely that it ceases to resist—not by fear, nor force, but by design. A prison so absolute that the prisoner believes it to be his own mind.”   Muur watches me, his gaze narrowing slightly. A flicker of satisfaction. A recognition of kinship.   "Then you already grasp the nature of my work," he says. "But knowing the principle is not the same as wielding the mechanism."   His ember eyes shift toward the armor before me. The implication is clear.   I already know.   This armor is more than alchemized steel. It is subjugation given form. But what binds it? What makes it a vessel of will—not mine, but Isatri’s?   "She has bound the armor as I bound my talisman," Muur intones, reading my thoughts. "A tether of essence woven into the weave of the metal. It is not the steel that obeys, but the will within."   My gaze darkens as I turn back to the armor. Subjugation. Not of an object. Of a mind. A conduit for control, a vessel to ensnare the one who wears it. A chain, hidden beneath the guise of strength.   Clever.   I rest my hand upon the plating once more, fingers pressing into the filigree. The pulse of life—if it can be called that—quivers beneath my touch. If this armor is to be a chain, then the question is not whether I can wear it, but whether I will wear it on my terms.   Muur’s voice is a whisper of dark amusement.Muur’s voice is a whisper of dark amusement.   "You will either break it… or it will break you."   I smile coldly. "Then let us see who is the master… and who is the slave."