Shadow

Of the 6 Career Skills, choose 3 to get a free rank. Of the 4 Specialization Skills, choose 2 to get a free rank.

Sentinal Career Skills: Computers, Deception, Knowledge (Core Worlds), Perception, Skulduggery and Stealth

Shadow Specialization Skills: Knowledge (Underworld), Skulduggery, Stealth and Streetwise

A Sentinal begins play with a Force rating of 1

In the ancient days of the Jedi Order, Sentinels worked tirelessly to police the galaxy’s criminal underbelly. Flowever, a small subset of these enforcers focused their attentions on a far greater and more dangerous threat. They trained tirelessly to find and eliminate those who had fallen to the dark side of the Force and willingly embraced corruption. These Sentinels were called Shadows, and they hunted the Sith.

For many years, the Sith were thought destroyed, and the Jedi Shadows gave up their calling or pursued other dark side Force users. They never realized that the Sith had not been eliminated, and were hiding right under their noses.

Now, with the Jedi Order destroyed and a Dark Lord of the Sith ruling the Galactic Empire, those who would follow the path of the Shadow find their roles reversed. No longer the secret investigators of an established order who searched the shadows of civilization, they are now the ones who must stay hidden. Flowever, within these dark corners, Shadows still work tirelessly to bring justice to untouchable criminals and dark side Force users alike.

These characters recognize that stealth and deception are integral to finding the targets they hunt. Criminal organizations are often mired in secrecy, and uncovering these secrets requires underhanded methods. While their techniques are frequently of questionable moral character, Shadows firmly believe their ultimate accomplishments more than justify the tools that they must use.

Of course, an initiate who has turned to the dark side can prove a powerful opponent for a Shadow. Working against such an adversary can require all of an adept’s mundane and Force talents. A Shadow’s willingness to examine and utilize every tool and asset can play a major factor in overcoming such capable foes.

Potential Backgrounds

  • Activist: The activist Shadow senses corruption and is drawn to agents of the dark side. For every push toward justice, a countermovement forms to bolster the status quo, a mix of reactionaries and political conservatives. A Shadow discovers agents of the dark side manipulating the countermovement into increasing corruption, abuse of power, and violence. This character walks the Jedi path by first detecting, then defeating these insidious agents, allowing the movement to fight on more even ground.
  • Aristocrat: Bored with wealth, the Shadow aristocrat harbors a darker past, one spent collecting Sith artifacts and supporting agents of evil. Now, the Shadow instead funnels fierce energy into destroying such artifacts and agents. A desire for justice burns where the lust for novelty once thrived. No longer under the sway of the dark side but still seeking to remain hidden, this aristocrat uses rank and influence sparingly but selflessly. The Shadow is now dedicated to undoing damage done internally and on the galaxy as a whole while uprooting the influence of the Sith.
  • Gang Leader: Gang leaders who become Shadows delve deep into the criminal underbelly, seeking out the most corrupted individuals to neutralize. They tend to be either extremely righteous, to the point of fanaticism, or steeped in moral ambiguity. Their gangs may share their moralities, but most don’t, following these Shadows only because such leaders are strong and effective. These leaders might break away from their gang when some of its members become addicted to bloodlust and the hunt. In such cases, the Shadows emerge from the darkness tempered, while their gang members have become the new agents of evil.
  • Laborer: Shadows with a laborer background have seen their communities’ resentment, bitterness, and frustration turn to rage and hatred. Due to a variety of inequalities, those communities have had good reason to feel these negative emotions. Protests, strikes, and walkouts don’t occur because laborers are happy. The hatred means agents of the dark side can come from within the community, not just from its oppressors, pushing good people to do bad things. How can Shadows condemn someone for giving in to anger when they feel it themselves? The moment when these laborers judge their communities’ hatred in order to save them, they embrace their Shadow nature and the Force.
  • Official: Officials who become Shadows are governmental or corporate oversight experts frustrated by bureaucratic restrictions or hostile peers. Their greatest concern is that agents of the dark side are pulling the strings, corrupting souls, laws, and public confidence. These Shadows can literally and figuratively lose themselves in the shadows, breaking the governmental procedures, civic laws, or corporate bylaws they swore to protect. Perhaps when they defeat the real demons they can return to deal with the mundane ones.
  • Refugee: A Shadow has to pick the battles to fight and carefully decide who to save and who to strike down amid the overwhelming negative emotion on both sides. This character must also control personal emotions carefully, for sometimes a Shadow may be unable to both realize Justice and eliminate those who follow a darker path.