Rha'Ko Celisee

Rha'Ko Celisee was a male Impar serial killer active in the Golden Empire from 152 ABY to early 154 ABY. Responsible for the torture and murder of numerous beings, ranging from a five-year-old Ossak girl to a sixty-one-year-old man, he terrorized the Empire until being captured by Luna Raquelsei.

Early exploits
Rha'Ko was born the second of three children. As a young boy on Vor'Dal, he got into trouble often in his early years, accused of picking on classmates or being insensitive to their feelings. As he grew older, however, these behaviors disappeared, and both his parents and his teachers felt he had learned his lesson. While Rha'Ko consistently tested high on all standardized examinations, his grades were often poor.

In reality, Rha'Ko had not reformed, but simply learned how not to get caught. Having identified the behaviors which would elicit a favorable response from others, he learned to mimic them, but never felt empathy for others. He had a youthful fascination with fire and plasma, and enjoyed shooting with his father. He also enjoyed setting fires and chose progressively larger targets, though he reined in the tendency after nearly killing himself with a fire that destroyed a tool shed. Rha'Ko also developed an early appreciation for the suffering of others, and privately enjoyed harming other creatures; he began with insects, and worked his way up to wild mammals and even the pets of acquaintances.

As far back as he could remember, Rha'Ko was capable of sensing the pain he caused. Though initially frightened by the feeling, he quickly came to appreciate it, and experimented with ways to cause the maximum amount of pain to a subject before it finally died. He had some appreciation for sorrow and emotional pain, but found it less satisfying. He also discovered that, with concentration, he could influence others to.

First kill
Rha'Ko went on to post-secondary education, but did poorly and left after his first trimester. He found a low-paying, blue collar job, in which his employers considered him likeable but difficult to read. At the same time, Rha'Ko was working up the nerve to kill a sentient being. He had initially intended to murder one of his coworkers—someone even less acquainted with others than Rha'Ko himself, who would likely not be missed—but the plan was derailed when another young Impar joined the crew.

In this man Rha'Ko instantly sensed something fascinating. His planned victim was forgotten, and the budding monster had to force himself to plan his crime rather than act impulsively. He made a point to have no contact with his intended victim, wanting no one to see them together or have any inclination either knew the other existed. Then, at the beginning of the weekend, Rha'Ko followed the young man home, drugged and kidnapped him, and took him to an isolated shack he had prepared.

Over the hours that followed, Rha'Ko tortured his victim extensively. He found he could sense the man's pain more sharply, and theorized it was because he was a sentient. Ignoring his victim's pleas, Rha'Ko finally cut the man's throat, buried his body five kilometers away, and burned the shed.

Refining his tastes
Over the next two years, Rha'Ko changed nothing about his habits, focused on nothing but avoiding all suspicion. When it was obvious he would never be caught for the first crime, he began to plot others. By the time he was thirty-five, he had killed four more people, three women and another man. Despite experimenting with a variety of torture techniques, he was unable to replicate the feeling of the first kill—and the sensations he could perceive—and grew increasingly frustrated.

When a chance to travel offworld presented itself, Rha'Ko took it, if only for the hope of finding victims who could arouse the sensations of that first one. He was unaware of the Nightmare War, but could sense the power of the dark side of the Force and felt called in that direction. Along with a group of radical Impari seeking to kidnap alien species and experiment on them, Rha'Ko found his way into the Golden Empire. From the Empire's public records, he learned of the Force, and began to suspect he had the gift. He was particularly intrigued by the Order of Keltrayu; though he knew better than to face them, the fact that undiscovered Force-sensitives existed in the Empire suggested he might at last find more of the victim profile he had unknowingly preferred.

The monster
After learning Orhyo, Rha'Ko set out through the Empire, visiting various worlds and using his ability to shapeshift to ensure he always blended in. When he found his first Force-sensitive (a male Jubill), he rejoiced in duplicating the experience of the first torture and murder, enhanced by his added knowledge of techniques. He also confirmed his theory that the Force was what drew him to his victims. He found that he could even sense it in them, and feel the presence of the midichlorians, though he did not know what they were. He called them simply "morsels", and Force-sensitive victims his "special ones".

Armed with his new knowledge, Rha'Ko carved a path of torture and ritual murder through the Empire over the next year. He experimented with draining blood from his victims into himself; he found the high it created was frustratingly brief, and his own body could sense the "intruders" instinctively. By 154 ABY, he had murdered a dozen Force-sensitives, as well as various others who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At some point, his alerted him to the fact that he was being hunted, though his pursuers were not close. Lingering after a murder on Katayl, he actually spotted Luna Raquelsei and Selish Anteran, though they were unaware of his presence.

In early 154, the Empire found Vor'Dal and brought it into the fold, initiating a hunt for the handful of Impari who had attacked, tortured, and murdered Royal citizens. Having distanced himself from the group, which he was using only for his own benefit, Rha'Ko escaped that first purge, but he was conscious that the Empire was aware of his species and made sure to always travel in alien guise.

Overreach
Searching the Royal HoloNet for mentions of the Force, Rha'Ko found suggestions that Shaydow Tynblade was Force-sensitive. The Tribune of Rykar was obviously well-protected, but other reports noted he had three-year-old twins. The lure of three Forceful victims was too great to resist, and Rha'Ko arranged his passage to Rykar. One of his former colleagues had gone to Rykar, but had been apprehended by Vos'elk'eetash and Kyriel Jynx Windrunner, so Rha'Ko had little to go on but the HoloNet reports.

Surveying the planet for a little over a day, Rha'Ko struck when Shaydow and his wife Gem Reytal were at work. He set fire to a hospital several blocks away to draw emergency responders, then approached the Tynblade residence, cutting the throat of one sentry and confusing the mind of a second with the Force before disemboweling him. He made it only a few steps inside, however, before he was confronted by Jadian Star. He managed to fire on her with a blaster he had stolen from one of the guards before Luna and Selish caught up with him at last. Diving through a window to escape Jade and Luna, he grappled briefly with Anteran; Selish disarmed and injured him, but Rha'Ko managed to shapeshift his hand into a hook-taloned claw and cut Anteran's throat.

He escaped into a crowd of Drakonus, pursued by Raquelsei; he shifted to Drakonus form and attempted to convince them he had just escaped her after she set the fire. Luna identified herself as a Centurion and arrested Celisee. Seeing the crowd turning against him and supporting Luna, the Impar played the part of the wrongly accused and surrendered to a surprised Raquelsei.

Arrest
Luna had told the crowd of Drakonus that Rha'Ko had attempted to kill Shaydow's sons. Seeing her crowd about to become an angry mob—which, given the Drakonus adulation of Shaydow, would quickly become a lynch mob—she transferred Rha'Ko to the custody of the Royal Corps of Gendarmes, who relocated their prisoner offworld. Reports of his arrest spread quickly, and the worlds on which he had claimed victims all clamored to have him extradited to face trial there.

Powers and abilites
Rha'Ko was never formally trained as a Force-sensitive, but developed some Force talents nonetheless. He had a finely honed, which enabled him to both fight with uncanny precision and to avoid situations which might place him in danger. He could confuse the minds of others, though it required great focus and effort. He also showed a gift for sensing the Force in others.

Like all Impari, Rha'Ko could shapeshift, and he had sufficient control over his abilities to change only parts of his body at a time. He could change his eye color, though like many of his fellows, this was usually the first thing to fail when he lost concentration. He was a master of disguise, having honed the ability while evading law enforcement in the Golden Empire.

Trained to use weapons by his father, Rha'Ko preferred knives but was capable with a blaster. He was sufficiently capable in hand-to-hand combat to escape from Selish Anteran.

Appearance and personality
Rha'Ko's true appearance was the gray skin of the Impari, with pale pink eyes. He was bald, and this trait followed him from one form to another. He was 1.85 meters (6'1"), and had wiry limbs with a potbelly.

A born sociopath, Rha'Ko had no ability to feel empathy for others. He enjoyed causing pain, though he savored it more with the Force than any evidence provided by his eyes or ears. He also liked starting fires; he occasionally burned victims to bring his interests together, and set a fire on Rykar as a distraction.

Rha'Ko became conversational in the difficult Orhyo language in only a few years, which many Royal citizens considered impossible. This, combined with his test scores, suggested that he possessed a high intellect despite his lack of positive achievement.