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Talak Rand
NAME TALAK RAND AGE 27 RANK KNIGHT FACTION JEDI ALIAS (FORMER) THE ARCANIST
CHARACTERISTICS
Human
FORCE SENSITIVE:
Affirmative
RANK EQUIVALENT:
Councilor
SABER FORM:
Form X
HEIGHT:
6'0"
BUILD:
Athletic
"Great advances require great sacrifices."
Can you really summarize an entire person in a few paragraphs? All the complexities and intricacies that make them who they are can only be discovered slowly and carefully as you spend time around them.
That’s no less the case with Talak than with anyone else. On the surface people will first notice that he is quiet and determined. Although his goals may not be at first clear to those who don’t know him, people are quickly able to tell that he is a person who will go to nearly any length to accomplish his goal.
As a student of the dark side, he can often appear cold and distant toward the average person. He doesn’t appear to care about the negative impact that his actions have on other people, but this doesn’t mean he enjoys cruelty just for its own sake. It serves a purpose, and Talak’s loyalty comes first toward his duties.
While Talak isn’t likely to openly share his short term goals with others, people might be surprised that he is typically more than willing to discuss his philosophical views and goals. Although this stems partially from wanting to recruit others to his cause, it’s also because he recognizes his own limitations. The galaxy is far larger than any one person, and to be fully prepared for whatever may come requires examining the galaxy from all angles, not just a single, dogmatic view.
If you want to know more about the internal workings of who he is as a person: what he loves and hates or what drives him to do great and terrible things, then you’ll have to sit down with him. Reading the profile alone isn’t any fun.
- B I O G R A P H Y
-
Talak was born and raised by dark siders, and that came with a great deal of associated baggage. Brutal, scarring training was a part of his childhood almost immediately. Trained to be warriors for the Legion, Talak had a lightsaber in his hand almost as soon as he could walk.
Communing with the Force became a routine that he took for granted, and the idea of being separated from it is both shocking and saddening to him. It wasn’t until he had grown older that he even realized that he was special in the galaxy and most individuals didn’t have the capacity to reach out and touch the energy that connected all living things.
While he revels in his Force-sensitivity, his childhood was far from comfortable. The expectation that he would facilitate the galaxy’s natural cycle was ingrained in him from his earliest days.
From the outset of his training, Talak was paired up with another trainee by the name of Zatara. With the two doing nearly everything together, it didn’t take long for the two to become friends and then more than friends. Throughout their teen years, the two were inseparable.
But you guessed it: these happy times weren’t to last. The life of a Legionnaire is about sacrifice, and that was expected of Talak as well. To become what the galaxy needed him to be he needed to embrace the dark side, and in order to do that, he needed to learn to hate.
The day that Talak and Zatara were supposed to graduate from their training, they were given a final test to duel against one another. This was nothing new or anything they hadn’t done a thousand times before. They fought and Talak won. He didn’t know what his victory would mean.
Their master turned on Zatara and unleashed a blast of lightning that slowly tore her down. When Talak tried to step in to defend her, he found himself tossed casually aside as she was murdered by their master.
With the deed finished, he turned to Talak and told him that he now understood what it meant to hate, and he would carry that with him into the future. “Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is die.”
His second attempt to kill his master was as much an utter failure as the first, and that hatred boiled and grew. He swore he would kill his master, but before he could, his opportunity for vengeance was stolen. A rival slew his master, and while Talak felt a relief over the death, it ate him up that he hadn’t been able to strike the killing blow.
And so Talak entered the galaxy. Ready to complete his mission, and filled with as much hatred as he’d ever felt before. He swore he would justify Zatara’s death and fulfill both of their purposes in the galaxy.
There, how was that for an edgy backstory? It had all the high points except killing his own parents.
Talak's story hasn't been any more simple in the days since his training. His first explorations in the galaxy weren't particularly successful as a Jedi actually managed to catch sight of the lightsabers of Ender and him, and they failed to capture the artifacts they were pursuing. He met a Force-sensitive woman who he deemed to be an assassin - perhaps irrationally - and the two parted ways with a threat and a scuffle. Shortly thereafter, Talak set about building up the Sith Eternal. He worked to establish a base on Korriban and began planting seeds of corruption in the mind of a young, unaffiliated Force-sensitive while remaining careful to conceal his true affiliations from the Jedi.
He accepted the request of a fellow Sith Eternal and headed to Kashyyyk to help her tap into the power of the dark side. In the process of the corruption, she was subjected to many dangers and atrocities, and Talak questioned his role in becoming like the man he hated: his deceased master.
Things became much more complicated after this. Taking a keen interest in the death of a caf shop owner on Coruscant, Talak launched into a series of perilous adventures alongside the Sector Ranger Trys Aran. They pursued the killer to Gamorr where they destroyed a pair of slaving rings and killed the son of Durr the Hutt. Badly wounded and now practically leading a slave rebellion, the two shared an intense moment before parting ways and leaving Talak more confused than ever.
Talak decided his efforts could best be served by pursuing ancient, lost knowledge for the Sith Eternal, so he set out to find the secret of the ancient Sith Alchemies. He tracked a Sith holocron from its location in the possession of Crimson Dawn to the gladiator pits on Nar Shaddaa. He was pursued by a bounty hunter and a Sector Ranger and struck a deal with a local, Force-sensitive slicer. After convincing the Sector Ranger to work with them, the three found the holocron, killed Gurrba the Hutt, started a small slave rebellion, and escaped.
Realizing that he needed not only the holocron, but also a memory crystal, he tracked the crystal to a palace on Nal Hutta that he worked with Ender to infiltrate. Finding the crystal inside as well as an old Jedi mask, he decided to take the mask with him.
Once again reconnecting to the Sith Eternal, Talak extended help to another fellow Sith Eternal and helped her put a sympathetic politician in power before returning home for the first time in nearly five years to heed the call of the Eternal.
From there, he headed to Tattooine, where he and Ana investigated the rumors of Darth Vader's origin there. They were unsuccessful in their endeavor and found themselves captured and dropped in the empty desert to be hunted for sport, only narrowly surviving, and Talak watched Ana succumb deeper to the corruption he had introduced to her soul.
Talak's actions against the Five Syndicates drew notice from the Durr the Hutt, who placed a bounty on his head and on the sabers of Force-users. Although they couldn't identify the killer who had mounted the attacks, the dangers prompted Talak to take on a public identity and claim credit for the the masked killings on surveillance video under the alias "The Arcanist." Although not specifically naming the Jedi, the blue lightsaber, Jedi robes, and the not-so-subtle implication in his declaration point the finger toward the Jedi Order.
After news of the criminal known as the Arcanist spread like wildfire, the Legionnaire set to work trying to find a lost Gree hypergate. Although things hardly went to plan, and his partner was wounded, they found information that led the Arcanist to the archives on Gree along side his apprentice.
Promoted to a Warden of the Dark Side and still searching for answers, Talak returned to Trys and nearly left the Sith Eternal. However, instead the pair worked to track down the Flower Killer only for him to wound Talak and flee once again.
The Arcanist continued his strikes, repeatedly running into a Jedi Knight through the will of the Force. His curiosity surrounding the Jedi grew and he went out of his way to meet with multiple Jedi while also beginning to cultivate relationships with potential allies in order to consider the reformation of an Empire.
During the meeting to discuss the Empire, he received a warning that the Eternal wanted Trys dead, and he immediately warned her before rushing to meet her. After a tense end to their meeting, he vented his frustration with violence against a local crime group and nearly harmed the woman he loved.
His time was spent searching for arcane secrets and working to form the new Empire. After weeks of not seeing one another, Talak received a distress call from Trys and traveled to Tund where the two were nearly killed by the darkness. After traveling to Mon Cala to blow off steam, the news of the attack on a Sector Ranger station reached the pair and they once again parted ways with mounting tension.
Combined with growing pressure surrounding Trys's investigation and the eventual arrest of Talak's long time friend and student, Talak's confusion and frustration only grew.
When news of Trys's serious injuries reached him, he traveled to meet her only to discover a major attack on the prison where Ender was being held. After confessing his love for her, he rushed to the battle and officially decided to leave the Sith behind. Aided by the Jedi Knight Hannibal Grayza, they slew a Champion of the Sith Eternal. Having lost an arm in the duel and without a faction any longer, Talak has put aside the mantle of the Arcanist and now looks to redirect his path toward redemption.
- A R M O R Y
-
- Lightsaber
- Short phrik vibrosword (when specified)
- Phrik vibroknife
- Utility belt (with associated content)
- Comlink earpiece
- Datapad
- Medpack
- A R C A N I S T
-
The Arcanist is Talak's public alias and is known to be a Force-sensitive vigilante. At present, it is not public knowledge that Talak is the Arcanist, and Talak can be assumed to only be wearing his mask when specified. The Arcanist has been seen wielding both blue and red lightsabers and has heavily implied, but not directly claimed, to be either a Jedi or former-Jedi.
The Arcanist Disguise (when specified)
- Mask
- Blue lightsaber
- Shoulder satchel for concealing both lightsabers and the mask
- O T H E R
- T H R E A D S
-
- Sanguine Paradise
- Hot Gems
- New Beginnings
- Midnight Stroll
- Beneath an Amber Moon
- Payback
- Trouble in the Streets
- Criminal Ties
- The Pit
- Another Exchange
- What Do They Eat When They Can't Get Hobbit
- Prison Call
- The First Steps
- The Great Disease
- Public Safety
- Medicine Man
- The Forest for the Trees
- In the Desert, You Can Remember Your Name
- Sending the Wrong Message
- The Final Nail
-
Dead Civilizations
Promotion to Warden of the Dark Side - The Road Less Traveled
- Jedi Master Arrested
- The Night Market
- Everything is Permitted
- Man in the Mirror
- A Time for Everything
- Awkwardness and Desperation
- Healthy Coping Mechanisms
- The Second Leg
- Well It's Worth a Shot
- Full Circle
- Wild Hunt
- Questionable Return
- Greedy Little Pigs
- Red Saber Terrorist Caught
-
The End of All Things
Defection from the Sith Eternal - Attack on Coruscant Prison
- Cin Vhetin
- Ship Confirmed
- Honoring the Dead
- First Communion
- We Walk a Fine Line
- It's a Metaphor, Fool
- Völuspá
- Binding Ties
- Salvaged Memories
- A Total Frenzy
- The Aftermath of Chaos
- Trunk Space
- Insert Information Here
- Trouble with Temples
- Back in Black
- First for Everything
- Raiders of the Lost Vault
- Too Loud to Talk
- The Battle of Ryloth
- Metal Carrion
- Choices
- Galaxy in Crisis
- Explosive
- Revelation
- The Impossible Dream
- On the Trail
- Unrelenting Pursuit
- Only Mad if it Doesn't Work
- Springing Lieutenant Aran
- Frog Flies Squatters
- The Cycle Repeats
- Another One
- On Fire
- Building Up
- To Reaching Out
- Whatever it Takes
- Pyke on a Pike
- Enough is Enough
- The Jedi Lie
- What Lies Beneath
- Unanswered
- We are Jedi?
- Three Quite Bitter Beings
- A Time to Laugh, A Time to Weep
- Protectors
- Recovery
- Breakthrough
- The World Keeps Spinning
-
Invasion of Denon