#and then my sith toon aesthetic will be complete

[the-overanalyzer]

the dark side hssiss is on cartel market, and at this point i might as well just get a lower back tattoo that says “whale” because we all know how this is gonna end

[dragonheart-swtor]

Imperial Agent Storyline: Drunk History Version

Since people really seemed to like the last one! Y’all’s collective wish is my command. Spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline, obviously. Enjoy!

- so you start out with your agent on Hutta, a little polluted slimeball of a world that literally everyone but the Hutts canonically hates. there's lore but we're going to ignore it. the important thing is that you're here to con a Hutt, always a dangerous gambit, into working with/for the Empire.

- you sneak into a corner to space facetime your boss, a guy we only ever know as Keeper because Intelligence is weird about names. sneaking into corners to facetime people is a repeating theme throughout the story.

- you are informed that you've already got a cover story set up, and you'll be posing as an infamous pirate called the Red Blade who'll be able to get in close to the Hutt in question, whose name I've forgotten. Nethro or Nefro or something.

- "wait, what about the actual Red Blade," you ask your boss, probably

- "he's halfway across the galaxy, you don't need to worry about him," your boss replies, in a textbook example of what we in the writing business call “foreshadowing”

- (spoiler alert: you need to worry about him)

- but we won't worry about that for now. bada bing bada boom, you stroll on into the Hutt's place. you are immediately confronted by a guy who, shock and horror, actually knows the real Red Blade and knows you ain't him. (one would think that all-seeing Intelligence would have known about him, but nuance.) this is a problem for a number of obvious reasons.

- your options are as follows: bribe him, kill him, or sleep with him. (this is also something of a recurring theme throughout the story.) whatever option you take, he's dealt with. (yes, this is the man eris fucked five minutes into her storyline.)

- (I didn’t want to pay him money, leave me alone.)

- anyway, the mission progresses smoothly. meet the Hutt, do some jobs for the Hutt, betray the Hutt's right hand and stab him in the back right after convincing him you were friends, invade the Hutt's rival's palace, McMurder the Hutt's rival, you know. your average day at the office

- most of the way through, the Hutt's other right hand starts to be suspicious about you. this is Kaliyo Djannis, and she will be Plot Relevant™.

- by which I mean she shortly thereafter walks in on you facetiming your boss and gets hired by Intelligence to help out for gods know what reason. welcome to your first companion

- (or possibly you walk in on her facetiming your boss in your room, I.. don't remember, honestly. something like that.)

- anyway one Hutt is dead the other is working with us bada bing bada boom this is going great and hey remember when I said you needed to worry about that guy you're impersonating this whole time? yeah, about that,

- so the real actual Red Blade comes sailing in to Hutta and Intelligence immediately calls you up like "hey, hate to bother you, but your cover's about to get blown in a big way and we need you to murder the guy whose identity you've stolen before he can expose you.” 

- "so, just like that training mission last week. gotcha, boss, no problem."

- murder time™

- congration you done it! go home to Dromund Kaas.

- "You're on Imperial soil now, agent. Welcome home." [nonhuman Agent immediately experiences 27492738957 microaggressions] (this joke isn’t mine, for the record)

- first off, Intelligence HQ has a bomb aesthetic, as does the entire Empire in general

- second off, you do walk in on your boss talking to - by which I mean "being given a speech by" - a Dark Lord, which is less than optimal for a number of reasons, first and foremost that speeches by Dark Lords of the Sith quite often immediately precede someone getting killed

- said Dark Lord is one Darth Jadus, who will proceed to be a thorn in your side for approximately the next three hours of gameplay

- (don't worry, after that three hours you'll get a worse thorn)

- Darth Jadus decides he likes you and declares you "his" agent, which you immediately get the gist is about the worst thing that can happen to an Intelligence agent from the way everyone around you treats you like you've just had a ticking bomb strapped to your back for the rest of this meeting

- you're sent on a handful of missions, including one to the Dark Temple which, you know, Force-deaf people aren't supposed to be in, but Jadus Does Not Care

- Jadus calls you into his office at one point and tells you he's going to do some ritual to bind you to his service or something, it's not really clear, but it's clearly Not Optional and also terrifying in concept

- now, quick sidebar. there are basically two paths to take here: one where you suck up to the Sith and treat them with the utmost care and respect and fear like you're kind of supposed to, and one where you mouth off at every opportunity. Eris is mortally terrified of Sith, so she just kind of.. submitted knowing she was going to die if she didn't.

- my second run, however, was just a "hey how bad can I fuck this up" character because I already knew the story.

- I decided to mouth off to Jadus at every opportunity, including adamantly refusing this ritual.

- "What can he do to me?" I asked the person I was playing with. "I'm the protagonist! It's not like he can kill me!"

- Jadus: *kills me*

- me:

- (mechanically, anyway; story-wise I'm sure he just. put her on the brink of death. but mechanically speaking he literally actually did kill my toon)

- (this should be a warning for exactly how much this storyline is willing to put its usually-heavily-plot-armored protagonist through.)

- anyway.

-  do some missions, blah blah blah, Sith possession in the Dark Temple, blah blah blah, you know the drill

-  well, turns out Jadus is going on tour with several hundred Imperial civilians, military, and Sith, allegedly all hand chosen, to share his ~vision for the Empire~. that's all well and good, whatever I gue-

- sorry what do you mean his ship exploded

- what do you mean a member of the Dark Council just blew up in orbit

- cue Kill Bill sirens

- Panic! At The Intelligence HQ

- this throws everything into chaos; not only was Jadus more directly involved in Intelligence, but he was a Dark Councilor so now there's a massive power vacuum

- the Sith who ends up filling this power vacuum? Jadus's daughter, Darth Zhorrid.

- remember when I said you'd have a bigger thorn in your side after Jadus?

- so yeah. so Zhorrid is, for lack of a better word, fucking terrifying

- she's sadistic and completely careless of others' lives or wellbeing and oh yeah she also instantly latches onto you even harder than her father did and demands you find his killer

- a lot of your meetings with her aren't really plot-relevant so I'll sum them all up here:

- Zhorrid was horribly abused by Jadus, completely broken. She tells you a story about how she used to sing, and her father hired a tutor, then had her sing at a Kaas City performance until her throat was so damaged she could never sing again. He tore every scrap of joy out of her life, completely failed to teach her what she needed to know to survive the rigors of the Dark Council, and instilled every ounce of hatred, sadism, and complete lack of pity he could in her.

- She kills people for no reason other than a whim, because she was listening to a Sith opera and the aria was "very moving" (an actual literal thing that happens).

- She acts like a complete spoiled brat child. At one point the other Dark Councilors literally beat and torture her, presumably for this reason because she's insufferable and arrogant and way out of her depth, and she cries to you about it

- If you’re like me, your response to all this is basically “cool motive, still murder”

- I have sidetracked  very hard. where was I

- so you spend a while trying to hunt down the people who blew up Jadus's ship. There's a bunch of rebels, you hunt them down, they've got biotech weapons called Eradicators set up to destroy cities on multiple planets, skippity skip to the big reveal

- Jadus is alive, and he organized the whole thing so he'd be able to remake the Empire into the image he wanted. He tortured and enslaved the survivors of the Dominator's destruction

- Jadus gives you a whole speech about how fear is a gift to be shared and "Through victory my chains are broken" but there must be chains to break and blah blah blah holy shit this man is genocidal

- you have three choices: join him for real, pretend to join him so you can sabotage his ship and then kill him (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Imperial lives), or refuse outright and save those hundreds of thousands of lives but Jadus escapes (and you know he's allegedly likely to return and do even worse damage later).

- (Quick sidebar again, for those who haven’t played it: Eris chose the second option and has nightmares about it for the rest of her life. It's actually extremely haunting in-game - as you're running through Jadus's ship to sabotage it as fast as possible, you can hear the distress calls from various colonies and planets being attacked, the screams of the dying that you doomed. It's horrifying.)

- so yeah there’s really no winning that situation but hey! at least Chapter One’s over. surely in Chapter Two things can’t get worse.

- Chapter Two: Things Get Worse

- there's this guy, Ardun Kothe, an SIS agent. he's a huge threat for some reason I don't remember. you're supposed to infiltrate the SIS to get close to and eventually kill him. not an easy job, but okay, we can do this.

- Intelligence sets up the meeting; months ago they sent the first word to Kothe that there was an Intelligence agent ready to turn and they've been building up from there, sending him a steady stream of information

- enter Hunter, aka the worst bastard in this entire storyline and that is an achievement. He's the one you meet first on Nar Shaddaa.

- you do some missions for the SIS, whatever, it's not important. You finally get to meet the rest of the team - and Ardun Kothe.

- Kothe wants to speak alone, which is p typical tbh. He expresses some doubts, which you assuage as best you can; he gives you your code name: Legate. It's from a form of sabbac, he explains, you'll have to play with him sometime.

- (It is difficult for me to make what happens next funny instead of horrifying, so forgive me if the tone changes a bit here.)

- Everything is going fine.

- "I'm sorry about this, Legate."

- What?

- "Keyword: onomatophobia. Engage Thesh protocols, phase one."

- Everything is not fine.

- You black out and have an extremely rude awakening.

- So it turns out whatever happened with Jadus, the Dark Council decided you were too dangerous (usually for doing your job too fuckin well) and that you needed to be leashed. So not you have mind control programming in your brain, and anyone who has your keyword can take complete and unequivocal control of your body. this is, in a word, not great.

- (This is, as I mentioned, actually extremely horrifying. You have dialogue options and they don’t change what you actually say. You have an opportunity to shoot Kothe and even if you try to select it nothing happens. But we’re not here for the horror take (not today, anyway) so let’s just This Is Fine that and move on)

- Tl;dr you can’t harm Kothe or any members of his team, you’re forced to obey anyone who has your keyword, and this wouldn’t be that much of a problem because we’ll just tell Watcher Two what’s happened and oh wait you can’t tell anyone about your programming either. well, shit.

- You go on to work double agent, like it was planned, with this new, uh. twist

- about a third of the way through the chapter, your mind kind of cracks and you start having hallucinations - seeing things you know can't be real during a holocall, passing out in the middle of your ship and waking up in medbay.

- After that, a new voice lives in your head! Watcher X, someone you either killed or let flee on Nar Shaddaa, has sort of joined the party. Is he an AI in the spinal implant the real Watcher X gave you? is he a figment of your broken mind trying to process its situation? Who knows! Not you! either way, this is not optimal but at least he seems to be being helpful this time

- so anyway we should probably try and figure out how to undo this programming bc Intelligence is being Wholly Unhelpful

- (ASAP, please, especially with how horrible Hunter acts toward you - let’s go with “uncomfortably leery,” which I promise is generous.)

- by the way, your companions still have no idea what’s going on during all this, although they try to be varying levels of supportive (thank you vector I love you bug husband)

- Good news! The Intelligence Archive almost definitely has information on what they did to you and how to fix it. Bad news! You’re definitely not authorized to look that up and crashing the power mainframe to make sure they don’t see you do it sends the security droids after you. whoops.

- Good news! There’s a way to fix you. Bad news! You have to make and inject yourself with a still-kinda-experimental cocktail of chemicals and it may or may not give you permanent brain damage. it’s fine. this is fine.

- also it takes a while to kick in which is Less Than Optimal and by the time it finally does you’ve just been left with a binding order to stay and guard the door on what is, for you, a suicide mission. there’s some incentive to “break your chains” for ya.

- You fight and kill Kothe. Who, shock and awe! is an ex-Jedi! this was in no way painfully obvious by how he kept talking about “sensing” things, I’m sure. definitely not.

- Hunter escapes, because of fuckin course he does. Hunter, who suddenly seems far more in control of everything than he had before. Hunter, who knows far more than he should. Hunter, who ends up leading you to a much, much larger conspiracy.

- End Chapter 2.

- Hate to disappoint, but Chapter 3 is honestly the least interesting to me personally, so this’ll be brief compared to the previous chapters

- You spend a lot of time hunting down this much larger conspiracy, including Hunter specifically. There's a lot of betrayal and secret reveals. (It's not tedious by any stretch of the imagination, but the story beats definitely don't stick in my head as well as the first two chapters, even after two playthroughs.)

- you go to Voss and, in order to get into a Voss-only archive, get married to a person you just met before almost immediately leaving the planet (and your new spouse) behind. this is never mentioned again.

- you get hold of a holorecording from the Star Cabal, the big conspiracy. problem: the holorecording contains a trap for the brain-enhanced Watchers, and now half of Intelligence is in a vegetative state. this is not optimal.

- partially as a result of this, Intelligence basically gets dissolved, which is Not Great because it puts you right under the thumb of yet another asshole Sith lord

- the Watchers are recovering, though, so that’s something. Watcher Two, now Keeper (the old Keeper got promoted), contacts you so you can keep working on this Star Cabal thing.

- you get intentionally captured so the Star Cabal can torture you and you can “break” and give them false information to lead them into a trap. you are immediately afterward expected to get back to work like nothing happened. this is never mentioned again.

- You track the Star Cabal to their base, way out in the Unknown Regions iirc, and infiltrate it during a meeting of the top agents.

- murder time 2: electric boogaloo (well, more like murder time 45, to be honest, but shh it’s fine)

- You fight the Star Cabal guys, chase Hunter through the whole place, and finally corner him.

- (Salt warning ahead on my part for the next story beat, if you can call it that.)

- Hunter, when beaten, reveals what I personally think is the most bullshit stupid reveal in the entire game: he is actually a she, and has been using a stealth field generator (or something similar) to change his/her appearance the entire time. There are multiple interpretations of this - "he's trans" is my least favorite, sorry-not-sorry, because a) it's pretty clear she still considers herself a woman and Hunter is just a convenient persona, and also b) a clearly predatory man is absolutely horrid representation as far as playing into harmful stereotypes about trans people, thanks. Personally, my rather cynical interpretation is that they wanted one more shock value reveal at the end of the storyline and I guess couldn't come up with anything better. It's my least favorite thing in the whole IA storyline.

- anyway, that's not really important. I just needed to be mad about it for a minute. ignore me. moving on

- The important part is this: what you gain from the Star Cabal's base is an item called the Black Codex, an ancient piece of technology with the power to erase all records of a person's existence.

- Unless you are very stubborn about it the Agent’s reaction to this is basically “oh thank fuck I’m freeeeeeeeee” and you fly off into the hyperspace sunset with your crew, giving middle fingers to the Sith whose grip you’re escaping all the way. which, really, who can blame you.

And that’s the Imperial Agent storyline, folks. Roll credits. I’ll probably do the Bounty Hunter storyline next while it’s still fresh in my mind, but I could also do the Sith Warrior storyline probably if y’all’re more interested, vote now on your phones.

[gothwarlocks]

OC?

Thank you!! Sorry for the delay, but I made up for it with writing way too much about my oldest character. Hope that makes up for it! Under cut for length.

Sorry but it's visual appearance headcanon time. Darth Atrox is probably my only toon that really doesn't look like their in-game model. I've always headcanonned them as a little taller than average and of a willowy-but-tone build, as someone who was an underweight child and grew up to train in swordsmanship. They have an "aquiline" nose, prominent bone spurs and ridges, and a silvery, notably masculine voice. Some of this is because they’ve medically transitioned, having been on Star Wars HRT and had top surgery, but Bioware won't let me change characters' gender sooo...they're stuck with this form for now. (Btw, they're my oldest character! I made them about a half-year after SWTOR's launch and have since had like 5 iterations of them ldkjfs)

Atrox is fluent in spoken and written forms of the Sith language. Regarding it's written form, they've had to master High Sith (Kittât?) to be able to interpret ancient Sith relics and recordings. It took them many years to be able to near-flawlessly interpret the language, but their mother lorded over them until they rivaled her own ability.

They are very minimalist in their style and have retired a lot of piercings. Currently, they only wear silver jewelry in their septum, tongue, left upper helix and right daith and lower helix. That sounds like a lot for most people anyway, but I imagine it's in the lower range for Sith Purebloods lol.

Without getting too much into reasoning and backstory, Atrox loses a portion of their left arm (about halfway between elbow and wrist) in a pivotal point in their life and the severed end on their forearm is damaged beyond any hopes for reattachment for the hand. They instead opt for a customized cybernetic limb with the capacity to conduct and withstand their use of Force lightning. It comes with retractable claw tips (an aesthetic choice that doubles as an interrogation tool lol).

To help process the trauma of aforementioned event and loss of limb, Atrox has the section of skin connecting to their cybernetic blacked out with tattoo ink. The solid color breaks up into a sleeve design as it stretches above their elbow, the details of which I've yet to completely determine. There's definitely a large Pureblood skull and some incantations in High Sith. (Examples: X , X)

In the first year of their time as a Darth, some Sith felt their claim to power was illegitimate. Their mother had a fairly high reputation as someone who had worked their way from "nothing" to rubbing elbows with Dark Council members over cafs at brunch, so to claim they murdered her in true Sith tradition and claimed her assets and powerbase was...contested. While there is a lie in that claim, the fact stands that Atrox an undeniably formidable Sith; they proved that much by doing away with their would-be assassins and challengers in violent, public displays of power.

Atrox is known by their closest colleagues to be avid fan of Imperial operas, their music in particular. In true villain-y fashion, they enjoy having famous arias play in the background as they conduct their archaeological research or read up on the newest publications of other Sith and the Imperial Reclamation Service. They also love dusk music (I'm headcanonning that it's just Star Wars goth rock or whatever), but they only really get to talk about or enjoy it by themselves or when relaxing with Darth Verentis (one of my warriors, and their ex lol). They definitely still go to goth dusk clubs together regularly lol.

On that note, Verentis and Atrox have known one another for nearly a couple decades and remain very close friends. They dated briefly upon Atrox's departure from the Sith academy, though it wasn't serious. Nowadays they often spend time together and aid one another in their respective endeavors when possible. Verentis helps Atrox find both of their apprentices!

They have a pet tuk'ata named Zayin that doubles as their laboratory guard on Dromund Kaas when they're dealing with business elsewhere. Atrox likes to take him hunting on Korriban or let him tag along to planets with wildlife. He was originally bred by Verentis’ family and presented to them as a gift when they dated Verentis.

"Canon" Atrox romances Andronikos for a while but drifts apart from him the closer they get to their seat on the Dark Council. The power difference between them makes Atrox feel uncomfortable, having once been on that end of the dynamic with their mother, and so they feel their breakup is a healthy choice. Andronikos has to swallow his misery and settle for being their good friend and confidant. Once they get through the ordeal on Ossus, Atrox reunites with Khem Val and they get Dashade-engaged. Funnies aside, I think Khem is an excellent romance for dark side-leaning inquisitors. His attraction to them is a little spooky, but that fits with the class's theme and overall I am stoked for it! It's like his undying honor-love for Tulak Hord is renewed in the canon inquisitor, but like, more romantic lol. Even more so because the canon inq doesn't enslave Khem and worked to grant him true independence the entire way through (at least, mine did). Bro I just love Khem Val a lot.

[a-master-procrastinator]

SWTOR player asks, all of them!

All of them?!? Crazy, crazy I say. But hell yeah, I’ll do it! Prepare yourselves, because that’s gonna be a long post.

1-6, 16 and 26 are already answered, so we go to the rest.

7. Which player voice actor is your favorite and your least favorite?

Why? I’m a sucker for voices in games, I can’t choose one. Female Inquisitor is great. Female smuggler is great. Female and male bounty hunter and sith warrior are great. Female agent is great. The rest are good, too. There is only one voice acting I don’t like that much - male consular. Idk, he doesn’t sound right to me.

8. Name your top favorite companions (feel free to include reasons why).

Have I said I can’t choose one alrea… wait, top? I’ll try.

1) all of BH crew (not u Skadge)

2) all of Smuggler crew

3) Kira

4) Scourge

5) Vector

6) Vette

7) Elara

8) Andronikos

9) Khem Val

10) M1-4X

9. How about your least favorite companions?

Skadge, lol (it’s even in my description). Also, Broonmark (I don’t find him interesting), Xalek and Tharan Cedrax (though they are better than the rest in this list).

10. Favorite love interest?

Apparently, someone who has so many toons haven’t gone through even the half of all romances in this game. Of all I’ve tried already, Lana, Theron, Torian and Vette are my faves. Arcann is sweet too, but we get, like, only two cutscenes, so I’m disappointed. DS!Jaesa doesn’t speak to me (it was.. something to explore, but it doesn’t hit my soul). Corso and Andronikos aren’t fully romanced yet, but so far so nice. Also I get the feeling that I’m gonna love Kira, Doc, Akaavi and Vector romances.

11. Which expansions did you like the most, and which ones did you dislike?

KotFE is definitely my favorite expansion. The way the cutscenes are made, great new (and not so new) characters, returning companions, confrontation with Valkorion in your mind, discussions about fate and the Force, family drama in space, chapter 14 (yes, the whole chapter is a separate reason), MUSIC (I’m a big fan of Star Wars music) - I love it! As for the expansion i dislike, I don’t think I have one. I may dislike the specific part of expansion (looking at you, 4 flashpoints that you need to complete to get to SoR (I know there is a way ti skip them, but I didn’t know this for a long time)), but not the whole expansion.

12. Do you have a preferred mount/speeder? Is there one you want, but don’t own yet?

I have only one speeder that is accessible for all my toons. Dunno, never felt a need for a special mount yet.

13. Which planet’s aesthetic/atmosphere do you enjoy the most?

Again, more than just one. Dromund Kaas, Alderaan, Voss, Corellia and Makeb are atmospheric as hell.

14. Favorite planet story arc?

Taris on Rep Side, Dromund Kaas, Balmorra, Belsavis on Imp side and Corellia on both.

15. Show us your main(s)!

Oh, but you already know them!

Jett (doesn’t have much of content yet, despite being my personal fave)

Airistan (DS!Jedi Knight)

Vintu (aka Pain in Barass)

So basically, my Outlanders are my mains.

17. If you participate in warzones, which is your favorite map?

Haven’t tried warzones and not sure if I will.

18. Which achievement(s) are you most proud of?

Finishing all class stories! I was so glad to finally get this one! (but honestly, I don’t remember most of achievements)

19. Where can other players most commonly find you in game?

Mostly I’m running story quests, heroics, sometimes hang out on the fleet (you got it right, in GTN sector), so this is where you could spot me.

20. What do you most often do while playing? (ex. PVP, FPs, quests, crafting, RP, etc.)

As I said, story quests and heroics. Sometimes I try something new, like flashpoints I never played before, maybe events.

21. Which player ship is your favorite?

The smuggler’s one. Maybe because it kinda reminds me of the Ebon Hawk.

22. Of all the in-game events (Relics of the Gree, Rakghoul, Life Day, so on) which do you like the most, and which do you dislike?

So far I did only Life Day, Bounty Contract Week, Rakghoul event on Alderaan, so can’t say for sure. For now it’s Life Day, coz hugging Wookiees? Gimme more!

23. Share some of your favorite quotes/dialogue with us!

I don’t want to take too much place in your dash, so here

And that’s only some of them.

(hope you’re glad. I’ve spent too much time scrolling through screenshots to find these)

24. Do you have a primary/preferred stronghold?

I have only three strongholds, and two of them are just for Legacy cargo hold for those characters who can’t yet travel to the fleet. The one I actually try to decorate is on Nar Shadaa, and it’s story wise: one of my characters eventually opens a cantina on Nar Shadaa, so I want to decorate this stronghold as cantina type, though I’m poor and can’t get enough required decorations.

25. Mind sharing some screenshots of your stronghold(s)?

I don’t! I said I wanted to make this stronghold as cantina type, but I didn’t say I had much of success there, so don’t expect anything extraordinary.

The entrance

The most “cantina type” places

Of course, I haven’t unlocked every room in the stronghold, but I’m working on it!

27. If you could make any current NPC a player companion, who would you pick?

Jonas Balkar. Tora. Watcher Two. Thana Vesh. Shae Vizla (oh wait, she is a companion, I just can’t have her. My mistake). Also it would be nice to make Holiday a companion on her own.