Bhaal Chronicles: The Rise of Ryder

Biography for Bhaal

~\*~Fate leads all those who follow it, and drags all those who resist~\*~

BIO: Once known simply as Ryder, Bhaal the Gatekeeper was born many eons ago. Before the Battle of Yavin and the clone wars, before Bane and before Vitiate. Back to the early days of colonisation and less than a few hundred years following the hundred year darkness. The force sensitive individual known as Ryder was a Human / Echani hybrid and his natural affinity for swordsmanship was the envy of many a warrior, and his dashing good looks the desire of many a fair maiden.

Orphaned in his early teens and being caught pickpocketing on the streets by a member of a traveling circus, the hybrid who identified himself only as Ryder was taken in rather than taken to a local prison, then taught to perform in the traveling circus. After years on the streets a family, a warm meal and a dry bed was a dream come true and the boy went willingly.

His “special abilities” however beyond his sleight of hand and parkour skills soon showed themselves and the boy was taught fencing and acrobatics. After only a few years Ryder would perform regularly for the masses including challenging the best swordsman of those who came to see his show, offering them to test themselves in friendly combat against his skill for coin. And time after time, no matter the opponent Ryder would continue beating each and every one of them.

Undefeated in his challenges for several straight years, it was only after he had defeated a monstrous white furred Wookie during a show in the middle of a winter snow fall that the circus ring announcer suddenly gave him the name “the White Wolf”. A name that stuck to him from there out.

The White Wolf's reputation soon spread far, and the now quite handsome young man had no shortage of fame or coin. Coin, which he would spend almost nightly on drink, gambling and the pleasurable company of women.

Dark Lady Manea Nepthys

One night sitting with a red headed well endowed barmaid, drinking mug after mug of ale by the fireplace in some back alley bar in a relatively unknown planet, a beautiful woman entered the establishment.. A woman with flowing dark brown hair, lily white skin, dressed in black leather and with the body of a goddess. A woman who immediately grabbed his full attention.. A woman who would change his life forever.. And wasted no time approaching her..

It was this woman after a night of raw unbridled passion that would be forever known to him as Mistress Manea Nephthys. Manea though unbeknown to Ryder, was in fact a follower of the dark side and a devout student of XoXaan and Sorzus Syn’s teachings.. She had heard of this Echani swordsman, and his “abilities.” and she had sought him out, planning on recruiting Ryder and his gifts to fight against her rivals.

Manea Nephthys bewitched the Echani male, seducing him away from life in the circus and for the next decade she kept him close as her general and man at arms in her personal war against the Jedi and her Sith rivals alike.

Ryder bewitched under the Dark womens spell was an unstoppable tornado in battle, and a willing and obedient servant in her bed-chamber. He brought her considerable status and security among the broken Sith empire, and also considerable pleasure whenever she wished for it. Although slowly over time Manea began to feel more deeply for her champion, more than she would like to admit.. He was becoming more than just convenience and profit.. She felt……… love.

Although by this time, Ryder's body had started to show the inevitable signs of aging and the ravages of waging constant war. The endless battles fought in her name over ten long years started to catch up with him. Although he would inevitably still win when sent to fight for Lady Manea, her champion would now often get wounded in the conflict. His beautiful hairless face was sporting a beard that had started to grey and his once unblemished smooth muscular body, although still aesthetically well shaped, was also now badly scarred and battered..

Manea on the other hand, over the last decade with her much improved wealth and status had also been given the opportunity to use her power and status to acquire more knowledge from both XoXaans and Sorzus Syns arcane teachings.

With her new found knowledge she fashioned for herself a sith amulet.. a dark blood-red stone set in an unusual metal that she wore around her neck at all times, and with that enchanted amulet she never again seemed to age even a single day. The dark lady now was as beautiful as the day she had walked into the tavern over a decade before.

Manea began to worry when Ryder left her side to wage war for her.. Worried she would lose him, and her status.. Something needed to be done.

And so, it was then the Dark Lady of the sith decided on her plan.. Her plan to allow her champion Echani to live forever through the dark powers of Sith magic, she decided she would make another amulet for her white wolf. And she would then keep him close.. One full moon several months later, Mistress Manea Nephthys suddenly up and left her fortress on Zoist, traveling for several months disappearing into the unknown regions of space.

On her eventual return she approached Ryder after summoning him, when he arrived she held out in her hand an amulet, one of a strange metal with the shape of a wolf's head etched onto it and a chain made of the same metal as the amulet the dark lady wore around her own neck. She gave the magical amulet to Ryder that night, placing it gently around his neck along with a long deep passionate kiss on his scarred mouth. And then, as she had done countless times in the past, led him once again to her chambers...

Over the next year's Maneas apprenticed Ryder and trained him, teaching him many sith sorcery secrets she had learnt. Sith illusions and necromancy being a standout focus of the dark lady during her lessons with the now apprentice Ryder. Lady Maneas soon after found herself challenged by another Sith Lord and so she sent Ryder once again to fight for her and kill her enemy. After all, what good was a weapon when only ever sheathed when it was truly needed.

One of the two Kronos Sabers.

Ryder obeyed and still fought with the vigour and skill of a middle aged man, he would eventually find himself injured again in a duel with the dark lord but to his surprise instead of the injuries hindering him, the Echani took on the mortal wounds without any registered pain. The numb sensation he felt allowed him to fight through the previous battle wound that should have killed him.. He defeated the lord and returned to his Mistress to report..

Over time, he also found that the aging process in his body had seemingly stalled in its tracks since receiving the amulet from his master and lover, but inside he felt he was changing...

Learning at Maneas feet Ryder eventually passed his apprenticeship over the next 2 decades, gaining himself the rank of knight and as his power grew so did his ability to command the dark side of the force and the undead creatures he was also now able to summon.

Not long after Ryder's knighthood Lady Maneas Nephthys intercepted a coded Jedi message from a Jedi exploration expedition and sent Ryder along with a small crew on a mission to investigate the coordinates of a newly located planet in the unknown regions. The planet that would be later known as Lehon and then as Rakata Prime.

The coded message said the world was a rich ancient source of technology and the dark side of the force was felt incredibly strong there. After 30 years of growing her influence and power, this unknown planet she now decided was to be Maneas next conquest.

Her plan, to make this new planet her staging post away from prying Sith eyes and using the found technology, her war champion Ryder leading her army of undead coupled with her superior Sith sorcery she would stage an all out assault on the Sith dominated planets of Zoist, Dromund Kaas and Korriban.. And then, to finally become the eternal God Empress of a new and undying Sith Empire.

Without question Ryder took a Marauder-class corvette known as “The Morningstar” with sixteen crewmen into the outer reaches of unknown space intent on finding this newly discovered planet for his former Master.

After several months' travel into the vast reaches of space The Morningstar corvette was stuck with a strange space illness that plagued the ship's crew, slowly… One by one the sixteen souls that ventured out with their commander Ryder started to become deathly ill. Several distress messages were sent from the Morningstar but none were replied to, whether they even made it to the Fortress of Lady Maneas Nephthys to this day remains unclear.

Lesions, madness, uncontrollably bleeding from the eyes, ears and all other Orpheus’s.. The victims were sent into wild and violent fits of uncontrollable rage, the sickness spared no one… Not even Ryder who one day woke up with a blood drenched pillow.. His eyes, nose and mouth were bleeding uncontrollably.... Well aware of the signs, the commander, who was one of only five left alive of the original sixteen crewmen, set the autopilot and locked himself in the ship's hold. There, over the coming days the Echani knight slipped into madness at the hands of space sickness and eventually, passed into death. Or so it seemed....

DC1C395E-6C36-48C0-9D46-5EED951520B4.jpg

~~\*~~

\*Several weeks later, the body of Ryder comes into consciousness at the site of the crashed Morningstar ship, the starship's hold mechanical lock was broken in the crash and the door now dislodged. The starship, with all its sixteen crew perished from the mysterious space illness, had been knocked drastically off course and crash-landed on the unknown region's rocky planet of Demir.

Ryder, unsure how much time has passed and experiencing the terrible truth that he is no longer alive in the common sense of the word for the first time, drags his body from the wreck of the light cruiser and into the deep underground cavern system the ship had crashed down into.. Unable to explain it any other way Ryder deduced that the power of the amulet was the only thing keeping him among the world of the living.

Over the next eons the now undead Ryder lived in the Demir cavernous underground. Practicing his dark Necromantic arts and blood magic on many a wayward Demirian traveler who would come to explore the planet's iron rich cavern's. Creating an ever growing undead army that he used to carve himself a stone keep into the very bedrock of the planet next to an underwater lake.

Rumours eventually grew among the local populace of Demir of a darkness in the depths below.. That those brave few who could find the lake could follow it to the gates of the underworld itself guarded by the dead, and of a white haired gatekeeper with black eyes… A gatekeeper with the power to bring back those from the other side.. The locals fashioned a name for him.. They called him Bhaal the undead.

Ryder who now commonly known as Bhaal never outwardly sought to surface however, learning through Sith blood magic that the local populace were actually quite an uncivilised and unadvanced civilisation. A culture most disappointingly without hyper travel technology or the means to repair the severely damaged Morningstar in order for him to return to his long lost Dark Lady Maneas.

Rumours came and went as Bhaal survived in the dark depths and several Demirians actually followed the lake and approached Ryder, hailing him as a God of death and pledging themselves to his service and living in a part of the keep among the undead. Many more would join the group as the years progressed and the servants to the undead Ryder thus founded the followers of Bhaal cult. Sworn to protect the Echani and dedicating themselves to preserving his dark secrets.

As Ryders strength grew in the dark as time continued to match through the ages and he developed and mastered various other skills. The art of teleportation, Pyrokinesis and Telepathy for example were greatly enhanced in the darkness.. And rumours started to spread once more as every dozen years or so a handsome stranger would be seen attending local bars and bedding barmaids… Many of whom were never seen again.

After several thousand years underground Bhaal became beyond tired of waiting for the Demir populace to develop the means to his escape and he summoned his acolytes to him in his stone throne room deep in the underground keep.

He tells them that he will soon go into a deep meditation, one that he may not come out of for several lifetimes and tasks them with watching over him and protecting the keep and to keep their eyes and ears open for any giant iron birds descending from the sky and gives the cultist a key to his keeps inner throne room and dismisses them. Without the need for food or water to sustain him Bhaal then locks himself into his throne room, guarded by an antechamber filled with the undead he finally slips into the deepest depths of Sith meditation removing his very mind from his body…And there he stays……. Waiting for the right time to awaken...

~~\*~~

32Aby ~ Bhaal the undead is finally awakened from his deep meditation by a very unfamiliar face in familiar robes.. He'd been left alone in his deep trance like meditation for thousands of years but now, finally he was brought promising news.. A flock of iron birds from the sky descended and from their innards came many warriors in white armour attacking a stronghold many miles away, led by a large warrior in shining armour.

It took several weeks for Bhaal to finally gather enough strength to be able to venture out with his remaining devout followers using the sith alter image power to return him how he would have looked as he did when he was fighting for coin in the circus. The world had changed much, the open dry rocky terrain had been replaced by cities and heavy industry. By the foundrys, mines and metal works it seems much of the planet's wealth lay in the ground itself.. “\*If only they knew what really lay beneath their feet all this time” he thinks to himself..

Getting to the stronghold Bhaal is deeply disappointed to see what starships there may have been already long gone and all that was left was a smoking battlefield of twisted metal, broken armoured bodies and an abandoned stronghold.

Over the next hundred years Bhaal converts the above ground fortress into a personal stronghold. Using his near perfected abilities of alter image, sith illusions and mind trick to convince the local population that he was indeed the new governor in the area, and his followers of Bhaal cultists who accompanied him the new officers of the law.

Walking the battlefield Bhaal used his Sith necromancy to raise the killed Final order troopers and Dimerian soldiers from the dead, the undead army walking the halls of the taken stronghold in it's defence. Bhaal, finding the control room of the fortress, then began the work of trying to send messages out into the expanse of space. His goal, trying to attract a starship to come to him so he can get off this world and find his old Master....

Circa 156BBy

A suit of white armour with KM-8713 labeled to it's chest shuffles slowly over to Bhaal who sits in meditation in the training hall, several stands of black hair hang loosely over it's skeletal face, jaw dislodged and permanently set in a wide lipless grin. Bhaals twin lightsabers sat on the floor next to him, the undead Echani hybrid had been practising again. Preparing himself and sharpening his skills that had been dulled gradually over several thousand years sitting alone in the darkness of the underground.

“errrhhhhhhh messsssageeeee…hhhuuhhhhh cooommeeeee.”

Bhaal opened his eyelids, there were no colored pupils or white outers.. Only black nightmarish eyes, dark like the void of space itself that bead into his surrounding eye socket skin. “Indeed KM” he replies softly then stands and walks past the risen undead First order trooper, who slowly shuffles in it's loose armour after him groaning.

Walking into the communications room Bhaal leans towards the message slip printed out next to the almost prehistoric communications station and tears it off reading it..

// Incoming Transmission //

“Greetings Ryder, we have heard your call for help and are now organising a rescue party to come and provide you with an emergency evacuation. Hang in there… we will arrive at your position in a standard galactic week. See you soon.”

Signed. Bridge Commander Sonya Gustav of The Saving Grace.

// end transmission //

To be continued….