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Before the Republic eraOld Republic eraRise of the Empire era


The legend that brings balance to the Force. Could it be this... this entity of inorganic crystal and machine, never once touched by the spirit of life?
Valek Kotonn

Amara was a Force-sensitive being that endured many millennia, and became involved with many governments and Force organizations throughout its lifespan. It was 'born' on Orax over a period of over a century, stretching from approximately 36,600 to 36,480 BBY as a Force-Sensitive Shard, known as Bondar. After a time, the Rakatan Infinite Empire conquered Orax, and Amara acquired a Force-imbued droid body, and has since moved on to multiple new bodies, the most notable being that of a Xim Empire War Robot, which Amara utilized in a guise as a mercenary droid, THX-1138.

Throughout the many thousands of years, Amara studied the Force while serving as a slave for the Rakata, Legions of Lettow and the Jedi Order, before becoming one of the outcast fallen Jedi and an original Sith. Amara also lived long enough to see the complete development and destruction of numerous Force-based organizations, and even created several of his own, the most notable being his Bloodwalkers of the Bogan.

Amara also founded the organization known as the Shards of the Force, leading it for almost 12,000 years. Amara seemed to sport a dual purpose in life, as the early experiences with the Infinite Empire had caused Amara to become violently hateful of slavery in all forms, and so sought to prevent or end it wherever it was seen. The second purpose was related to the unique gift the Force had bestowed upon Amara, as the being was able to see the very nature of the Force within everything, and could tell with unerring ease whether it was light or dark side energy that flowed through anything. Amara sought to use this talent to spy imbalances in the Force and equalize them, but over the thousands of years it become twisted and warped into a true dark-side being, craving only power and eternal rule. Though the numerous droid bodies Amara possessed, alongside its crystalline nature, allowed it to effectively exist for eternity if careful, Amara nevertheless pushed the boundaries of its body, enhancing the droid chassis with the dark side talent of Mechu-deru repeatedly.

Over the millennia Amara took on a number of personae to hide from the galaxy at large, manipulating events from the shadows, but finally re-emerged after a long struggle along the path to redemption, becoming a Jedi once more, and rising to serve on the Jedi Council. Eventually, Amara became frustrated with the stagnant nature of the Council, having seen it happen repeatedly in the past, and became a rogue hunter of the Dark Side. Amara met with its effective end during the Clone Wars, as it tracked down the galactic imbalance of dark side power generated by Darth Sideous. During a furious battle, Amara was sucked up by one of Darth Sideous’ Force Storm portals and deposited in a pocket dimension, where its droid body and crystalline nature would doom it to a completely non-existent existence for all eternity.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Amara slowly developed over hundreds of years on the planet of Orax as a Shard, a sentient crystal who communicated through electromagnetic pulses. As a Shard, it took on the name Bondar, reaching out and sensing the names of other types of crystals from within the minds of non-Shard inhabitants of Orax. However, this was not a regular talent for most Shards, rather it was a sign of Bondar's Force sensitivity. Though Shards usually communicated with other Shards through electromagnetic pulses, they lacked any real senses. Not so for Bondar however. Its creation gifted it with the rare capacities for Force Sight and Farseeing, which allowed Bondar to comprehend the world around it.

These mysterious talents were new within the Shard society Bondar existed within at the time, and none were able to explain what these extra senses that Bondar possessed were. However, the Shard knew one thing for sure. Its Farseeing talents revealed what appeared to be almost a map, a spinning, churning disc which Bondar would later learn was the Galaxy. And across this disc Bondar visualized were churning masses of darkness, with occasional spots of glowing light. More concerning to Bondar was the fact that the disc appeared significantly tilted, weighted in one direction by the darkness. Bondar did not understand the concept of balance, being a crystal stuck to a wall, and yet for some reason these visions filled it with unease. In such a state of mind, Bondar would often attempt to discuss such matters with the elder Shards who had existed for thousands of years. Unfortunately, they were as much prisoners of their crystalline makeup as Bondar, and were unable to shed any light on the situation.

Bondar exhibited another strange talent, the capacity to read the thoughts of other beings, whether Shard or not, and even if they did not communicate with electromagnetic pulses, as was the case with the humanoid inhabitants of Orax, Bondar still found itself able to easily understand their thoughts no matter the language. Eventually Bondar honed its talent to the point where it was able to communicate with non-Shard beings, and soon began to learn rapidly of the galaxy outside its cave. With Bondar’s assistance, the knowledge base of the Shard society was accelerated by many millennia, as they caught up with the state of the universe around them. It seemed that Bondar would be a key to accelerating the Shard society into the galactic mainstream, and had Orax been left alone for another few thousand years, it is quite likely Bondar would certainly have fulfilled this role. However, it appeared that the Force had greater plans for this gifted crystal.

The Infinite Empire[]

Unfortunately, Bondar’s proud place as gatherer of knowledge for its Shard cluster would not last for too long, due to a rapidly expanding empire set on galactic conquest. This was the Infinite Empire of the Rakata, who used technology powered and controlled by the Force to subjugate lesser species. How the Infinite Empire ended up on Orax is somewhat of a mystery, given that their Force-navigated hyperdrive tended to lock onto planets with either significant life form populations or else significant concentrations of the Force, but regardless, the Empire did end up on Orax, and the Force-imbued technology lead the Rakata straight to Bondar. Utilizing its unique ability to communicate across species, Bondar spoke with the Rakata, and in doing so made them aware of the sentient nature of the Shards, dooming them to an era of slavery as the Shards were implanted into Rakatan droids and machinery to operate them with greater efficiency.

However, the Rakatan invaders sensed the different nature of Bondar, and it was inserted into a Rakatan intendant droid, before being sent back to the Rakatan capital to serve at the ancient temple. Serving as little more than a droid, Bondar found itself becoming frustrated and darkly angry at its situation, being a simple slave. For the first time in its life, Bondar had the opportunity to move and explore on its own, but was restricted by the whims of the masters who had provided the body. This repressed rage at the unfair situation Bondar found itself in eventually bubbled over after one of Bondar's Rakatan masters set it a task that quite simply could not be completed, and after weeks of aggravatingly slow progress, the anger overflowed from Bondar in a Force-powered wave, a momentary flash of destructive power that was amplified by the nature of the temple that Bondar resided within. The powerful wave collapsed the room around Bondar, nearly destroying the droid body, and accidentally killing two Rakata in the process. When Bondar was dug out of the mess, initial plans had been to terminate the droid body and smash the crystal core, however Bondar's excellent work record resulted in the Rakata treating it in a unique manner, attempting to rehabilitate rather than destroy Bondar. What followed were several sessions of attempted counseling and mental treatment. While this did little for Bondar, it helped the Rakata to understand the source of Bondar's anger, and so they devised a manner to keep Bondar satisfied whilst still making it work, unknowingly, as a slave.

Being a Force sensitive life form, Bondar found the nature of the Force-controlled machinations of the Infinite Empire to be rather appealing to it, and so was put to work under the priest caste of the temple, helping them work on their Force-fueled technologies and machinations. Additionally, all other Shards that served near the temple were removed, under the pretext of being returned to Orax, freed from slavery, as long as Bondar continued to assist with the Rakata's study of the Force. For almost a thousand years, Bondar served at the temple, its droid body sporting enough self-repairing systems to continue functioning well into the future, and Bondar's intuitive grasp of the Force helped the Rakata to push forward and forge ever greater technologies. Meanwhile, the Rakata educated Bondar as to the nature of the Galaxy at large, and soon Bondar began to understand that the visions it saw of the galaxy were in fact a glimpse at the balance of the Force, and how absolutely one side of it may outweigh the other. Although Bondar saw how the dark side was swamping the light side, just like all machinery of the Infinite Empire, Bondar’s droid body began to succumb to the dark side of the Force, and with it so did Bondar, failing to recognize the threat.

The Rakata Automata Rebellion[]

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Bondar’s Rakatan intendant automata body.

However, as Bondar descended into the dark side and continued to delve into the Force, it began to develop talents that the Rakata were unable to anticipate, such as post-cognition and a certain sense of clear sight, to see to the heart of things. It was this clear sight that struck Bondar one day, punching through the veil of deceptions that had been woven around it for the past two millennia. Fragments of conversations, off-hand data collected from various sources and a post-cognitive vision assembled together in Bondar's mind to reveal the truth; despite being educated by the Rakata in the Force, Bondar was still no more than a tool to them, a tool that they would never let go. With the crystalline nature of Bondar's body and self-repairing systems within the droid, the Rakata could potentially continue to utilize Bondar's talents for thousands more years. And what was worse was that Bondar had also received a vision, of hundreds of Shards being forced into mechanical bodies. Desperate to confirm this horrid vision, Bondar immediately set about establishing secret communications with other slaves, and started to harvest data in order to confirm it. Though it took many years, the efforts eventually paid off, and Bondar came upon the most loathsome secret of the Rakatan Infinite Empire, at least in its mind. Far from having freed the rest of the Shards that were taken from Orax, the Rakata had set about searching for other Shards with talents like Bondar, enslaving them en masse and experimenting, attempting to forcibly bestow Force sensitivity upon the hapless crystalline creatures. Further communications with contacts revealed the desperate condition of the Shard species. As they took so long to mature and tended to grow on other Shards, the native population of Shards on Orax had become decimated, reduced to scant handfuls, and as the passage of time progressed, it seemed likely that Shards would no longer become able to develop naturally, only within the Rakatan machinations, effectively enslaving the entire race.

Steeped in the dark side of the Force, Bondar began to plot against its captors, and began to utilize the automated systems it had access to in order to communicate with other Shards trapped in automata bodies, as well as subtly reprogramming various automata on Rakata Prime. It took almost a hundred years to get all the parts in place, but eventually everything was ready, and Bondar sent out the codes to the Shards across the Infinite Empire, triggering the hidden programming in the Rakata automaton, and causing the Rakata Automata Rebellion. Selected individual automata lashed out at their Rakata masters, an attempt at causing destabilization and a panic within the society, which was already beginning to suffer from the pressures of maintaining such an empire. The Shards from around the Empire fought back against their masters, returning to ships and fleeing back to Orax. On Rakata Prime, Bondar led the rebellion, coding several dozen automata to serve under it, and to fight through the Rakatan security to the ships, in order to escape to Orax. Once Bondar arrived on Orax it planned to serve as an overseer of its species’ reintegration into the caves of Orax, and to rally the remaining Shards against the Rakata who were sure to pursue them.

Unfortunately, although on many planets the Shards were allowed to return to Orax with a minimum of violence, on Rakata Prime such an indicator of weakness could not be allowed, not at the heart of the empire. Using their Force-imbued technologies, the Rakata carved through Bondar's automata minions, and apprehended the wayward slave, sending it to a facility to be destroyed and to recycle the droid body for the valuable data it contained. Bondar would not be taken so easily however, and whilst being transported, Bondar abused the Force significantly in order to escape the security around it during the transfer to an airspeeder that would take it to the data-recycling facility. This escape took place within a military docking complex, and Bondar was forced to stow away on board a scout ship that was setting out to establish contact with Kashi, which had been determined as a threat to the Infinite Empire due to the large number of Force-sensitives on the planet.

The Guardians of the Breath[]

When the Rakata scout ship arrived on Kashi, in approximately 29,300 BBY, Bondar quickly fled, utilizing its map to find its way to a monastery in the wilderness, where it discovered a group of mystics who were studying the basics of what they knew as the Breath, the energy that permeated all living beings. Though they had only a rudimentary idea of what the Breath was, these mystics made much progress, and Bondar hid within the monastery, keeping away from the sight of the mystics. It observed silently from hidden view-points, fascinated to watch the actual development of a Force-based organization that wasn't focused around imbuing technology. As it watched, Bondar learned, and added this knowledge to the stores it had already collected. Eventually however, once the society had become the fully fledged Guardians of Breath, Bondar approached the mystics, seeking to be allowed into the organization.

Bondar was refused entry, as it was believed not to possess the Breath as living beings did, and was cast into an underground prison, far from the Guardian monastery. However, some of the Guardians took interest in Bondar, having never seen droids before, and came to converse with it, feeling that its intelligence granted it at least that right. Over the course of a thousand years, Bondar eventually came to know small amounts of what went on within the Guardians of the Breath and befriended one particular Guardian, who often came to converse with Bondar because of his dissatisfaction with the laws of the Guardians. He believed that while the Breath was sacred, it was folly to record it only by oral tradition, as one tragic event could wipe out all knowledge of the Breath from the galaxy. In addition, he believed that oral traditions warped the learnings, eventually distorting them far beyond their original forms, which was both counter-productive to transferring knowledge and knowing where to expand their learnings.

Bondar knew of a way that the Guardian could record the teachings of the Breath, but offered only to reveal it if the guardian could get the cyborg off Kashi. The Guardian readily agreed, but informed Bondar that the only ships that were departing Kashi were Rakatan ships, which were being sent to a far-off planet where the slaves were rebelling. Having learned over the past millennia how to hide itself in the Force to a basic level, Bondar would be able to pass itself off as just another Rakatan automaton. In return for this assistance, Bondar instructed the Guardian in how to construct a Rakatan holocron, and provided a tiny sliver of its own crystal core to be the heart of the holocron and the gatekeeper. In this way, though the link that the piece of crystal would have with its Shard primary, Bondar would be able to learn all the knowledge recorded into the holocron. This holocron would become known as the Kashi Mer talisman.

Korriban and the Sith[]

As promised, the Guardian released Bondar from the dungeon and returned it to the small Rakata presence, reporting it as a lost automaton. With Bondar's basic abilities to hide in the Force able to trick the Force-sensing technology of the Rakata, it was loaded up onto one of the last ships. The Rakata were leaving Kashi to assist in the contested invasion of Korriban. Far outnumbered and relying on the fact that it was hidden to survive the trip at all, Bondar fled the ship once it arrived on Korriban, and determined that the best chance for survival was to side with the Sith. This suited Bondar just fine, as the past experiences had developed in Bondar a deep-seated anger at any and all forms of slavery, so for the Rakata to attempt to subjugate yet another species was abhorrent to Bondar. So Bondar fled to the nearest primitive Sith village and turned against the Rakata as the Sith rebellion grew in intensity, standing alongside the Sith as they chased the Rakata from the surface of Korriban, and that would be the last that Bondar would see of the mighty Infinite Empire as an established galactic force.

Bondar's time with the Sith was an enlightening one, for the Sith held a strong caste system, and the lowest caste was a race of slaves, which sorely tested Bondar's philosophies. Unfortunately, Bondar was stranded on Korriban, and had to learn to adapt to the culture, as it would end up stranded on Korriban for several hundred years. Although Bondar did make some attempts to broaden its views regarding slavery, the sour experiences it had suffered under the Rakata led Bondar to become something of a recluse, an oddity to the nearby Sith villages. Despite spending much of its time in isolation and unable to shake its firm distaste for the Sith caste systems, Bondar regularly mingled with the priest and thinker castes of the Sith, and together with them investigated the depths of the technology left behind by the Rakata. In exchange for helping the Sith to understand and operate the technology that Bondar was so familiar with, the priests taught Bondar their own skills, honed over generations of Sith. The globally Force-sensitive nature of the Sith provided a rich and informative pool for learning, and Bondar absorbed a significant amount of knowledge from the Sith. However, Bondar also noted the rapidly diminishing state of politics on Korriban after the death of Adas, their Sith’ari. Worried about how the Sith might fall into an even more primitive and feudal society if the wars continued with only the thinker caste able to access Rakatan technology, Bondar set about preparing itself to forge further into the wilderness of Korriban, to live a life of complete isolation.

Bondar established a small dwelling within a system of caves deep within a desolate valley, attracted to the nexus of Force energy that emanated from the canyon. Within the network of caves, Bondar spent lengthy periods of time meditating, musing on the nature of the Force. As another way to pass the time, Bondar set about collecting and collating tomes of knowledge and relics of the Force, creating numerous holocrons, filled with all the knowledge of the Force that Bondar had collected over thousands of years. Additionally, Bondar utilized the instability that was running rife through the Sith to raid villages and sacred sites, collecting together technology from the Infinite Empire, as well as artifacts imbued by Sith rituals with the energies of the Force. This collection became Bondar's primary hobby for almost a century, and several of the articles in particular were of great importance to Bondar. Prime among these jewels was an old Rakatan shuttle, which Bondar had found crashed in the valley. Over the hundreds of years since the Sith had chased the Infinite Empire from the surface of Korriban, the ship's automatic repair systems had been gradually restoring it to a semblance of functionality, and it was with this ship that Bondar planned to eventually leave Korriban, in order to continue to build on the knowledge already accumulated. By the time the shuttle was capable of space travel once more, Korriban itself had been abandoned by the Sith, who had separated, some eventually landing on Ziost, whilst others ventured further into the Unknown Regions. With the planet almost entirely bereft of sentient life, Bondar decided to spend another century or more hunting for further knowledge and artifacts that had been abandoned on Korriban. Much of what was collected became stored in the Korriban repository. Once Bondar was satisfied with the knowledge gleaned from Korriban, it left the planet using the Rakatan shuttle, and linked up with the Force-powered hyperdrive, utilizing the mental map of the galaxy it possessed to seek out a relatively nearby planet that was likely to have been untouched by the Infinite Empire, if it still existed.

Xim's Empire[]

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Bondar’s new war-robot body, courtesy of Xim the Despot.

Utilizing its galactic map, Bondar was able to locate far less noticeable planets, Force-wise, than the Rakata hyperdrives would normally be able to manage, and so the ship ended up traveling to several planets, with Bondar generally spending one to two hundred years on each of these small planets, collecting knowledge, meeting new species, and learning further about the galaxy at large. However, as most of the main planets on the galactic scale were involved with the Infinite Empire, the planets Bondar visited were mostly backwaters of little significance. Eventually, around 25,230 BBY, Bondar began to have recurring dreams, of a small watery planet. Though to Bondar it appeared to be uninspiring and primitive within the dreams, there was an insistence within the dream that the planet was important, a fragment of the future that Bondar must pursue. Soon enough Bondar found the dreams were imprinting themselves on the galactic map of the Force that it possessed, essentially providing the location of the planet.

As the dreams became more and more vivid, Bondar decided to journey to this planet, and ended up on Dellalt. Bondar spent almost two hundred years there, but during that time the Infinite Empire collapsed entirely due to plague and the Rakata being cut off from the Force. Bondar utilized its time there well enough, considering the nature of the universe, meditating and seeking greater knowledge about the balance of the Force that only it could see. However, Dellalt soon became a point of interest for the brutish Xim the Despot, who had grand plans for the planet. It became the treasure world of his empire, and it was while his slaves constructed the treasure vaults that he encountered Bondar and, seeing potential in the Force-sensitive ‘droid’, transferred the ‘crystal matrix core’ to one of his war-robots, granting Bondar a large and powerful new body to play with. Even more impressive was that the war-robot was a Crimson Condottiere, utilizing reverse-engineered Rakatan technology to enhance it with the Force. So, with the Infinite Empire falling into ruins, Bondar allied itself with Xim’s Empire publicly, though it also used the time to study the balance of the Force. It was during this time that Bondar began to utilize the name Amaranth, and it observed the budding cults that supported both the light and the dark side of the Force. For a time, Amaranth devised ideas to do with balancing the Force through careful and deliberate interplay and construction of both dark and light side cults, and was ready to go through with its plans when it decided remaining in the service of Xim was merely a setback.

However, Amaranth was forced into combat for Xim in 25,101 BBY, in the battle that routed Xim’s forces. Throughout the course of the battle, Amaranth performed far better than any of the regular War-Robots, proving superior even to the Crimson Condottiere forces. The battle took place both on the ground and in space, and Amaranth served in both areas, as for the first stages of the attack it was stationed aboard Xim’s treasure ship, defending its valuable cargo. However, when the battle began to turn, all the Crimson Condottiere forces were unloaded planetside for the ground battle, and for a time they held the upper hand, until the Hutts received reinforcements thanks to the Treay of Vontor. Being a sentient creature rather than a restricted droid, Amaranth fled the battle for greener pastures, intending to shape and assist a particular budding Force cult with the knowledge Amaranth had obtained from the Rakata. Amaranth would maintain the droid body it sported for the rest of its long life, and over the years continued to upgrade the War-Robot frame, installing hidden weapons, recreating the weapons on his arms as modular units, alchemically treating the armor and utilizing a budding dark side talent for modification of machines, which Amaranth titled mechanical alchemy. This talent would become one of the inspirations and knowledge bases for the later Sith talent of mechu-deru. This talent with mechanical alchemy proved vital to Amaranth, who continued to hone and develop the skill before the next big conflict it became involved in.

The Force Wars[]

Soon after Xim’s defeat and Amaranth’s subsequent move to the small Dark Side cult it led its followers into the Deep Core world of Tython utilizing one of the Rakata hyperdrives that operated through Force-sensitive instinctual astrogation. The world they found matched perfectly with the galactic imbalance Amaranth had seen on its inner map, for this was the galactic enclave for the greatest and brightest minds from the Order of Dai Bendu, Chatos Academy and the Followers of Palawa. It was here that the unknown Bogan cult engaged the great forces of the Ashla in furious combat, in a drawn-out battle that became known as the Force Wars. The battle was intense and drew heavily on the Force, and for a time the Bogan cult seemed strong, as it drew to its side the dissidents of the three great orders, those who had dabbled in the Bogan. Amaranth utilized these dissidents to begin to learn new talents and to strike at the heart of the followers of the Ashla. For a time, it even appeared that the numerically inferior dark siders would emerge victorious, as they either converted or slew all who stood in their way.

Amaranth was pleased by its followers, and served as the leader and rallying point for the Bogan followers, leading strikes against the enclave repeatedly and slaying the greatest leaders of the Ashla cults. By the time of the Force Wars, Amaranth had employed its mechanical alchemy so extensively that its body moved unlike a machine at all, with a reaction speed bordering on precognition, and with dense armor plating that protected against all but the strongest of attacks, as well as an inexhaustible supply of stamina. All in all, Amaranth killed hundreds, from the common followers of Ashla to the great leaders, the council members, the squires of the three Ashla cults. It amassed a significant collection of trophy weapons, and as the leader and currently almost the embodiment of the Bogan, Amaranth was seen by one Bendu monk to be the ‘focal point’ of the Force Wars. Relaying this to the remaining significant warriors of the Ashla cults, an attack force was formed that was intended to destroy Amaranth. Amaranth’s military camp was assaulted, overwhelmed by the followers of the Ashla, and they united to remove the danger of Amaranth once and for all. Even as Amaranth battled the most adept warrior from each of the three Ashla orders together, the others formed a ring around them and performed an experimental Force technique, developed specifically to destroy Amaranth. By connecting their Force talents, the Ashla forces managed to create a bubble within the ring, cutting off everyone within from the Force. The three light warriors were rendered powerless, and Amaranth overwhelmed them with the superior capacities of its robotic body, cutting them down and using the moment to breech the ring and escape deeper into the camp. Once out of sight of its foes, Amaranth shed the battle armor and regal cloth that disguised it as a Bogan leader, to reveal the body underneath, that of an old War-Robot, and hid itself in plain sight, appearing to all as a deactivated droid in the armory, dead to the Force.

Fearing now for its life, Amaranth fled the encampment as soon as the Ashla warriors had left, boarding its personal ship and setting off for another planet, a backwater world known as Shola. Without their illustrious and powerful leader to rally them, the Bogan warriors soon fell to the remnants of the Bendu, Palawa and Chatos knights, who banded together to form a new sect from their remnants, sharing their knowledge and becoming the Jedi Order.

The Legions of Lettow[]

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Amaranth clad in his body-disguising Lettow armor, with a captive Padawan.

Amaranth spent the next twenty or more years on the hostile volcanic planet of Shola, utilizing recon droids and contacting various shady dealers in order to gather information on the activities of the newly formed Jedi Order, as well as seek out any knowledge or artifacts that may have been of use to restoring the Force to Amaranth’s body. Soon enough news began to filter back to Amaranth about the instability of the Jedi Order and how a Jedi named Xendor had fallen, taking a significant number of Jedi with him. Realizing that an opportunity was at hand, Amaranth decided to leave Shola and return to Tython in order to track down this Xendor and seek his assistance in reversing Amaranth’s terrible plight.

When Amaranth met with Xendor, it was everything that could have been hoped for, and more. With dark-side Rakatan technology and the promise of tutelage under Amaranth to learn the secrets picked up from four millennia of experience, Xendor became keen to discover the technique to reconnect a being to the Force. Working together as partners, Amaranth educated Xendor with Rakatan holocrons and in return learned new talents as found by the Jedi Order. Eventually, working together, and with the assistance of some of the other Fallen Jedi they together created the technique known as Force Reforging, which allowed a selected individual who had been previously removed from the Force to be reconnected through the sacrifice of another Force-sensitive being. This sacrifice was Xendor’s own apprentice, slain by Amaranth in a blood-christening. The technique bonded Amaranth and Xendor at a mystical level, causing each to share the other’s pain. Since Amaranth felt no pain this wasn’t a worry for Xendor, but it was an entirely new experience for Amaranth, who discovered a great distaste for the debilitating sensation of pain.

Amaranth joined with Xendor’s Legions of Lettow in order to fight the Jedi Order and balance the Force within the galaxy. The conflict became known as the First Great Schism, and Amaranth participated fully for the majority of the Schism, slaying Jedi and coaxing those that were not killed to become fallen Dark Jedi. However, Amaranth’s reconnection to the Force almost proved to be its downfall, as soon enough the Jedi Order began to overwhelm the legions of Lettow and Xendor was struck down. Here, Amaranth’s Force bond with Xendor proved to be almost fatal, indeed, for any organic being it would have proven fatal. Amaranth’s inner core, the Shard crystal that was for all intents and purposes everything that was Amaranth, shattered, splitting into several pieces. The division of its very being into multiple disconnected parts ruined Amaranth, throwing the cyborg into a catatonic state and leaving it helpless until retreating Legions of Lettow collected the body and managed to load it onto a ship before escaping to a stronghold moon. There Amaranth’s body was disrobed and the truth discovered by the Lettow remnants. For the past fifty years or more, one of their greatest leaders, the second-in-command, had been a droid. The deactivated body was placed on a pedestal in the Inner Sanctum of the Lettow stronghold, a tribute to the warrior who touched the Force so strongly, despite the impossibility of Force-sensitive droids.

THX-1138 and the Criminal Empire of Malekis[]

Less than alive, but more than dead, my non-organic state saved me from a quick death and condemned me to an eternity of hellish and impotent catatonia. Or so I thought. I did not count on the Force to drag me back to this world.
—Amaranth

The Legions of Lettow did not last for long after the death of Xendor and within fifty years the organization had collapsed, abandoning the Inner Sanctum. For over a thousand years Amaranth's droid body stood on its pedestal at the heart of the Sanctum, its alchemically-treated components resisting the ravages of time. During the course of that millennium the various shattered pieces of the crystal that was once Amaranth each continued to pulse weakly with the Force, and slowly they began to draw upon each other to recreate the incomplete Force imprints that each piece possessed. Collectively, these pieces contained the entire essence of Amaranth and through its deep connection to the Force it was able to reassemble itself into a conscious state. When it awoke from its catatonia, Amaranth found itself suffering from illness, suffering blurring of vision, incoherent thoughts and jumbled hearing, amongst other minor symptoms. Amaranth deduced these to be due to the imperfections in the flow of electromagnetic pulses it used to control its droid body. However, more concerning to Amaranth was that the Force powers that it had been imbued with by the Force Forging and link with Xendor had mostly weakened after Xendor's death. With the Force link between the two broken, the artificial support system that had kept the Force strong within Amaranth's crystal core had collapsed and Amaranth was able to touch the Force only slightly, no longer able to use it to actively engage with the physical world.

Though perturbed at the significant loss of raw Force potential, Amaranth took the event in stride, thankful even to be alive. The loss of Force potential had weakened the grip of the dark side over Amaranth, and no as it was longer driven by this force Amaranth's personality had altered greatly, lessening its need for control and command.

Behind the scenes[]

Amara was originally used as a Game Master NPC known only as The Progenitor, and had been designed explicitly to be incredibly old, knowledgeable and primarily as a secret puppet master for the events of the campaign. In this original incarnation Amara was seemingly supernatural and beastly, acting as a primordial force of balance. However, the Progenitor proved popular enough amongst players that Vagrant decided to take another character being played, THX-1138, and secretly turn it into an agent of the Progenitor. This would eventually lead to the concept of an immortal Force-using droid who had existed for eons, using Rakatan self-repairing technology, but would evolve once more with the decision that a Shard would make an excellent Force-using character, given their natural longevity.

Amara first acted as a playable character during an RP in which Vagrant conceived of the idea of a Force-enhancing sentient lightsaber, utilizing a Tsil as the focusing crystal. This quickly turned into one of the pieces of Amara, having been established some time before the game that Amara was spread out across multiple personalities through broken pieces of the core crystal.

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