Shien Expert

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

Shien Expert Specialization Skills: Athletics, Lightsaber, Resilience and Skulduggery

A Sentinal begins play with a Force rating of 1

A lightsaber is a potent weapon. When wielded forcefully, it can even overpower an opponent who has a weapon capable of parrying it. Further, its ability to deflect blaster bolts can make it an effective ranged weapon as well. Those who consider themselves Shien Experts—masters of the Shien lightsaber form—embrace the seeming contradiction between those two uses. They know that true lightsaber masters must possess the cunning to use such weapons to their full potential. It takes clever precision to reflect a ranged attack back toward an adversary, but just as much shrewd brilliance to recognize the right time to overpower adversaries through raw force.

In order to effectively follow this path, a character needs to be flexible and to recognize the best approaches for different types of physical conflicts. Resilience and Athletics are critical tools for engaging in and enduring a prolonged battle, while Skulduggery enables the character to case out and prepare possible combat locations ahead of time to exploit the environment against an opponent.

Whenever possible, a Shien Expert prepares a battleground well in advance of a conflict. Often, these individuals take the time to study a range of different locations soon after they arrive in a city. Once combat begins, they can carefully exploit the environment and trigger any traps they may have prepared to unleash upon their opponents.

During combat, Shien Experts continue to constantly analyze the situation. While they take advantage of the terrain throughout a battle, they are also selective in choosing the best way to use their training as well as their lightsaber. This can change with each passing instant, in reaction to the armament, position, and stance of their enemies. For these individuals, an extended conflict is a sure route to victory as they react to every move their opponents make with a clever counter or powerful strike.

Potential Backgrounds

  • Activist: A Shien Expert activist improves a community with lateral thinking and unusual methods. For example, a city might lower the tax on goods sold in much larger quantities, rewarding larger, possibly more government-friendly merchant groups and effectively punishing smaller sellers. The activist instead arranges collective bulk purchasing for many small-scale merchants, thereby allowing them to continue to compete fairly with the larger organizations. Alternatively, when a city shuts down the flow of public water to drive out the poorer citizens, the budding Shien Expert might set up trade with neighboring districts. By tackling dysfunctional and oppressive systems lengthwise, undercutting their effectiveness, and then breaking them with raw force, the activist unwittingly mimics the Jedi Order’s Shien training by using cunning to deal with a conflict in an unorthodox fashion.
  • Aristocrat: To a Shien Expert aristocrat, money and rank are systems to be understood and utilized; they are a means to an end. This aristocrat has no qualms against using either to advance personal goals; why not bribe a person or use a title to avoid needless conflict? In many ways, manipulating social status and economics might be considered the first front in warfare. The aristocrat realizes that this cunning has no meaning without a higher purpose; therefore, imbued with righteousness, the Shien Expert crafts plans and schemes that become dangerous and powerful.
  • Gang Leader: Shien Expert gang leaders understand that soft power provides many more opportunities to overwhelm an opponent. These leaders run their gangs via intimidation; verbal confrontations are common, and their gangs often revel in mystery, symbolism, and reputation. For example, instead of beating up a rival, a gang might leave something personal on the target's doorstep: a holoprojector of a loved one or images of the rival’s day-to-day activities. The Force helps these gang leaders have a change of heart by revealing the terror and misery they have inflicted on others, yet they never manage to abandon their tendency to see weaknesses and exploit them.
  • Laborer: Laborers who become Shien Experts often started off identifying a dysfunctional system. Being a laborer working as a cog in a machine offers a special kind of perspective on systems. Shien Experts know that sometimes all it takes is a tiny bit of sand in a gear to cause things to come a grinding halt. Immediately perceiving a problem person or even a broken physical system, such as a factory’s manufacturing line, Shien Experts seek out ways to fix or patch the flaw. Once they have fixed that system, the Shien Experts move on to new flaws and weaknesses elsewhere: people, systems, machines, laws, societies, and cultures.
  • Official: Shien Experts who worked as officials understand the patterns of bureaucracies and economic systems. In many ways, a corporate takeover mirrors the language and tactics of warfare. Diplomacy becomes contract negotiations; cutting off supply lines is similar to buying out or bankrupting vendors; and training and squad tactics can be compared to skills education and team-building exercises. Where before they destroyed careers, ruined lives, caused unnecessary damage, and inflicted suffering, Shien Experts now devote their skills to repairing the broken game.
  • Refugee: As a refugee, a Shien Expert has a firsthand experience of struggling in a position of weakness. This is a classic case of asymmetrical warfare, with no resources, a demoralized people, no weapons, a poor strategic position (because refugees are given the worst land to occupy}, and a lack of communication (or outright antirefugee propaganda). The opponents being faced are the unfair laws, prejudices, and lack of support of the host planet. When the Shien Expert leaves the refugee camp, whether triumphant or defeated, the character learns valuable lessons not only of resource management, but of empathy, insight, and moral fortitude.