Cara Simmone

Cara Simmone is a retired Sith Lord and master lightsaber artisan, residing in the Institute.  An aging Nautolan, Cara is equally comfortable underwater or on land, and is still a competant fighter in either environment.  She was adopted as a Sith apprentice at a young age, and has known no other life.
==Appearance==
Reasonably tall, Cara has a very upright posture, and moves at a dignified pace.  Despite her age, she has a full figure, and a well-preserved face, due to her strict dietry regime.  She usually wears elegant robes (though never skirts), sometimes quite severely cut - without exception, she is always covered up outside her chambers. The fabric is designed to stay very cool, and tolerates the moist conditions in her residence. Her work clothes include heat-proof gloves and an apron, but these are rarely required.  Occasionally she walks with a polished cane, but it is not nearly as necessary as she sometimes acts like it is.  Artwork found on Wookieepedia.
She has very large maroon eyes, and her head-tresses are decorated with both metal bands, and assymetrical tattoos the same colour as her eyes at the base of each tress.  She loves swampy, natural environments, and will happily go barefoot in such regions.
==Personality==
Cara was raised as the sole legacy of the Chagrian Sith Lord Sairran, who was a harsh, reticent mentor.  Before that, she lived in a Nogatan orphanage, in a slum; she was severely undernourished when Sairran picked her out for her Force sensitivity.  Cara was named for the orphanage's original benefactor, but it was Sairran who had the greatest influence on her development.  He taught her to excel, with no excuses, and also passed on his mercenary approach to food and nutrition (having no sense of taste, Chagrians eat out of physical necessity, focusing on an optimal diet).  The Sith Lord also helped to shape Cara's view of the Code; while she hated her master for his callousness, she respected his physical prowess and technical discipline.  She did not respect his racist, intolerant approach to others, nor the towering disdain he applied to almost everything.  When she became a Sith Lady in her own right, she sought to replicate his skill, and to improve on his philosophy, where it had been lacking.
Unlike Sairran, Cara has a very present sense of humour, which she is not always cautious in sharing.  She is capable of being very tactful, but is readily influenced by her prejudices against less sophisticated Sith.  She is a willing, experienced teacher, but her methods are very stern and uncompromising; easily interpreted as cruel, without the inside knowledge that she takes no pleasure in causing pain.
Though it has largely been a solitary life, Cara embraces every day, and is at least willing to find pleasure in the small things.  Her personal life has been largely nonexistent, outside of a close relationship with one of her apprentices, whom she admired mentally and physically.  While very pleasant, that relationship came to a violent end, when her student made a premature effort to overthrow her.  Cara took his failure very personally, and has avoided forming such an emotional bond with any of her students since.  For the last ten years, Cara has lived as a positive hermit, only emerging to instruct the odd hopeful in constructing a lightsaber; and to fight in defense of the Academy, her only known home.
==Biography==
Cara assumes she was born on Nogatan, but never found out if this was really the case. Until she was eight, she lived in a slum orphanage, raised among 'siblings' of varying origins. Under Lord Sairran's tutelage, she was introduced to the Sith, and has been a part of the Black Empire since its founding.thumb|left|Cara Simmone, Sith Apprentice (Aged 20)
She ascended to Lordship after slaying Sairrain in a sparring match that escalated, concluding in the public atrium of the old Academy building. The Chagrian was still a fierce opponent, but his will had been severely damaged by an ill-advised encounter with a holocron. Cara took his rank, and spent nearly twenty years serving the Empire as a fully fledged Sith Lady. After the death of her apprentice and lover Sirak, she began to pull back from the front lines, and spent more time building lightsabers than using them.
Throughout her life, she has sustained a keen interest in the iconic Force Sensitive's weapon. Even before withdrawing from the public eye, her excellent craftsmanship was recognized by several of the leading Sith in her time. In private, she honed those skills further, and though it is only recently that she has begun to share the fruits of her labours, she has created quite possibly a record breaking number of lightsabers over the years.
==Relationships==
===Lord Sairran===
Cara respected certain elements of her master's nature, but on the whole she hated the huge Chagrian. Sairran in turn hated his upstart Nautolan pupil, but ran out of time to train another in her place. While Cara was proud to earn a title at saber point, she was very bitter that Sairran had essentially doomed himself, so that he wasn't at his peak when she defeated him. Witnessing his downward spiral, after accessing an ancient holocron, Cara turned on him much sooner than she had planned, in order for her victory to mean anything.
===Sirak===
A pale-skinned Zabrak, Sirak was Cara's apprentice for eight long years, and the two became very close. When Sirak expressed a desire to have his skin dyed Sithly red, Cara laughed at him, but they both underwent Sith tattoos at the same time. Ultimately, though Sirak was physically powerful, skillful, and ambitious, his self-indulgent nature won out. He challenged Cara, turning their regular practice into a life or death struggle because she'd wounded his vanity once too often; despite her best efforts to violently put him back in his place, Sirak persisted until Cara saw the futility of it all, and slew him. She regards Sirak as her greatest failure, and thinks of him as a lesson against the subversive evils of wishful thinking - his betrayal was not a surprise, but it took eight years, and a climatic duel to make her abandon her delusions of his 'potential'.
==Skills and Equipment==
Since the destruction of the old Academy, Cara has been building up her collection of lightsabers and components, but a lifetime's hoarding cannot be easily replaced. She recovered a few cases of materials, and twelve of the weapons she had crafted. Her lightsabers can be divided into those that she keeps as momentos; gifts; and technological marvels.
Her principle weapon is a bright red single hilt, that is grossly overpowered. The cooling system can only keep up with the tremendous heat for perhaps fifteen minutes solid, though she is working extend this: during that time, however, the blade can cut through most anything with little resistance.
Her secondary lightsaber, used in duels and for training, has a pale red blade, and contains the biggest piece of Lord Sairran's Qixoni crystal. Undamaged, the gems provide a powerful dark side boost, but Cara finds the reminder of her triumph emotionally rewarding. The weapon is perfectly stable, and for all that Cara is an exceptionally economic fighter, the power cell could easily outlast her if she tried to run it down.
Cara is a master of the Makashi style, and is almost as adept with Soresu. She prides herself on being able to win a duel without moving a step; her especial love is fighting against Jedi, and driving them to temper in the face of her impassive defense.
==Timeline==
*Born 3686 BBY
* 3672BBY: No Excuses - Origin Story
*A Murky Excursion - Cara takes two initiates for an educational outing
*A Bleak Future - The Academy is laid low in a vicious assault