Darth Deceptious

* Sith
* Physical
* Erosion

> Philosophy gives structure to our carefully ordered Empire. Tradition, principles, and history━the threads that compose our society. Without them, we are no less than the misguided masses beyond our borders.
>
> ━Darth Deceptious

**Darth Deceptious**, commonly referred to as **the Emperor**, was a demon male Dark Lord of the Sith who ruled as the second emperor of the Old Empire and the first emperor of the resurgent Sith Empire. He was the informal apprentice of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Victus and the lover of Alice Karsten. An existence shrouded in mystery and an unknown past, the origins surrounding Darth Deceptious’ birth and early childhood have been largely left to speculation. When the Sith discovered him, they found the remains of those who were presumably his family but were too desecrated to match the genetics, and he was shown to be nameless, instead calling himself **Astral Trinity**. In his earliest years known as the Sith Lord Astral Trinity, he confined himself to Arkanis, using his transactional friendship with his informal master to further his research. Despite his indifference and inability to comprehend human emotions, he eventually informed Darth Vicus of his unclear attachment to an individual known as Alice. The attachment had led to a romantic relationship between the two as Alice’s polar opposite personality had intrigued him to the point he had taken such an interest in her that he, in turn, wanted to understand the very emotions he once could not discern. The relationship however meant that he had become emotionally dependent on her, as she linked him to his humanity. Fearful of the prospect of Astral Trinity’s power becoming stronger and wary of his unpredictable nature, the Dark Council, without the knowledge of Darth Victus, acted in secret to organize an event that required the presence of all high-ranking Sith Lords on Dromund Kaas. In his absence, the Dark Council sent a handful of Sith who murdered Alice, in the belief that her death would demoralize him and make him susceptible to their control. This would prove to be fatal, as her death served as the catalyst for the symbolical death of his own identity, murdering the Sith behind her death in a cold-blooded frenzy, and becoming the Sith Lord **Darth Deceptious**. Vengeful as a result of her loss and seemingly having lost any sense of reason, his friendship with Victus came to an abrupt end, as Darth Deceptious killed his former friend in honorable combat to claim his position as one of the twelve Dark Lords of the Sith and was directly responsible for a decade-long genocide, a mass uprising of rebel cells across the Empire that resulted in the death of the remaining members of the Dark Council. By the final year of the genocide, he came to view the identity of Darth Deceptious as his true self and Astral Trinity was but a false existence. His vengefulness faded, as his darkened personality no longer sought to directly avenge Alice, but used her death as a pretext to lure out and destroy the Sith Emperor **Darth Vitiate**, after the annihilation of the council. In the end, he would emerge as the victor and proclaim himself the absolute ruler of the Sith.

As the Emperor, his power over the dark side had been saturated by his decade-long feelings of regret, revenge, and guilt. He had become completely absorbed by an insatiable hunger for knowledge and power. Even when his power ultimately began to take a great toll on his physical health and his body began to decay as a result of rapid dark side degradation, he used a ritual that turned the lives of an entire world into ash, allowing him to make his soul immortal. Further, albeit unintentionally, his attempt to create a new body suitable for resisting the effects of the dark side resulted in his change into a “true demon”, forfeiting his humanity if it meant no longer suffering from the erosion caused by the dark side. Well after having lived for centuries, his goals and perspectives had drastically changed, as his memories of Alice had been all but a foggy memory as the cost of immortality, but also as a subconscious attempt to remove any remaining remorse or sympathy to better detach himself from the emotions he believed were of no use to him. Throughout his rule, he concluded that traditional Sith teachings were outdated and costing the Empire its rule over the galaxy, making reforms to slowly weed out any contradictory doctrines that would bring harm to the Empire and order itself. In his personal pursuits, he became obsessed with his field of alchemy, creating and altering life at will in his belief that a superior being could replace the races he viewed as inferior, outright treating his own creations━whether human in appearance, monster, or beast━as pseudo-children. This obsession led to the creation of some of his most powerful servants and not long after sired a Sith legacy of his own blood. Near the final days of the Old Empire, he gained the moniker of the **Immortal** **Emperor** and earned the distinction of the **ultimate** **Sith** and later the **Bloody** **Emperor**, a distinction mirrored by the nickname given to his crimson-armored legion and warships. The Old Empire would ultimately meet its end, as Darth Deceptious became disillusioned with the state of the Empire, as he was never able to truly destroy the influence of the Sith traditions that had been dominant during Vitiate’s reign. Viewing such traditions as a fatal flaw for the legacy and stability of the Sith and the Empire itself, he deemed the entire Empire unworthy of being the governing authority within the galaxy as it was and created a Contingency that would bring about the complete destruction of the Empire. During the Old Empire’s second invasion of Coruscant, Darth Deceptious positioned himself into a face-off with the Grand Jedi Master Quinn Maru, who managed to fatally wound him during the battle, seemingly destroying the Immortal Emperor. Even though he had separated his immortal soul from his vessel, he never returned to the Empire and had cut himself off from the Force as to deceive both the Jedi and Sith into believing his death was absolute. He had taken a vessel in the depths of Wild Space, building a new empire from the prying eyes of a galaxy that believed he perished once and for all.

In the aftermath of his presumed death, Darth Acedia followed the final orders of the Emperor and attempted to carry out the Contingency, however with Emperor no longer present to control the power-hungry nature of the Sith, the innate infighting over the throne led to his death, as well as the death of several other servants, the disappearance of Darth Revulsion, and the death of the Emperor’s Wrath in battle, left the Contingency in a state of uncertainty. It was ultimately carried out by Allegiant General Pyre Kinall, who formed the Imperial Remnant using discontent factions of the Imperial military and the remaining warships and soldiers that combined the Crimson Armada and Legion. In the end, the Remnant failed to defeat the Empire but greatly weakened its strength, and years later, it was defeated by the Galactic Republic. Sith history had labeled Darth Deceptious as the **Great Deceiver**, and an immensely powerful Sith Lord that nearly brought the galaxy to heel.  Unbeknownst to the galaxy, he still lived. For the foreseeable centuries, he had watched from afar as galactic history played out until the eventual Clone Wars that saw its end after the execution of Order 66 by Darth Sidious left the Jedi near-extinct and the Republic becoming the first Galactic Empire and the Galactic Civil War that followed after.

In the wake of the deaths of Sidious and Vader, the final remnants of the Sith tradition that Darth Deceptious had long deemed ineffective, he returned once more, revealing the resurgent Sith Empire he had formed in the unexplored regions of Wild Space, and introduced a new generation of Sith created by the Rule of Order, a doctrine he had written. He brought the remnants of the crippling Galactic Empire into the resurgent Empire and quickly retook most of the Old Empire’s original territories before the Rebel Alliance-turned-New Republic could act against them. Alongside him, he revealed the resurrection of his oldest and most powerful servants, once more seeking to bring about galactic order under his eternal rule.

## Personality

> How does it end? After you kill me, when does this game end?*"
> "*When there are none left to oppose me and the Empire is firmly under my control, for the sake of the galactic order that I’ve long dreamt of.'"
> "*Then deliver the death blow. The legacy of the Sith lies with you, Darth Deceptious━Dark Lord of the Sith.*
>
> *━Darth Deceptious sought total control, turning against his old friend Darth Victus*

Cold and calculated, Darth Deceptious demonstrated a talent for political and social manipulation, capable of using the truth to weave his deception and turning the truth into a lie, should it prove advantageous to his narrative. A talented actor, on the outside he feigned childish mannerisms and incompetence to conceal his true intentions and was able to quickly adopt new facades as if second nature. That said, he will not lie merely on a whim, but rather he carefully considers the possible outcomes if he were to be completely honest, and even when conversing with his closest advisors, while he may not outright mislead them, he tended to respond cryptically unless he believes it would benefit him by providing the details. Even so, he was not plagued by the distrust and outward hostility that most Sith develop, rather his cautiousness when conversing with others allows him to gauge their honesty, and using his experience as a manipulator himself, could see through the attempted deceptions of those around him. If one were to conceal their true nature with the Force, he would become increasingly cautious, however, if he believed he could undermine another’s manipulations with power alone, he likely opted for such an approach. His trust was not easily earned, and if it was, it was easily lost, resulting in only his closest subordinates being truly trusted. He had a sharp intellect for military strategies and tactics, and unless his presence was otherwise not necessary, would frequently participate in numerous skirmishes and battles as an on-field commander. Whenever faced with opposition, he preferred to sow seeds of distrust among his enemies, even when he could simply overwhelm his opponents with sheer numbers. Early into his life, he was disinterested in the pursuit of power even as a fully-fledged Sith Lord at the time, the loss of his first love made him become a recluse, isolating himself from people and his own emotions, and becoming a more vengeful, spiteful person, as that hatred for the Dark Council and Vitiate fueled his desire to pursue and hoard forbidden knowledge and information, much so that he became obsessed with the prospect of discovering and unraveling the mysteries of not only the Force but the very things that could not be perceived or explained through logical or rational means. Even after becoming the next emperor, he spent countless millennia continuing his research and personal projects and had even earned the reverence of seekers of knowledge as debatably the greatest scholar and alchemist of all time, cemented by his creation of new species on a whim and later learning to preserve, replicate, and even reconstruct the very soul. He was capable of remembering minor details that happened several centuries in the past and was well-versed in history, both ancient and modern. If for no other reason, many feared the possible knowledge and unforeseeable questions that he may have been able to discover yet kept to himself. To Darth Deceptious, knowledge, and power were synonymous, and took it upon himself to collect and unravel their mysteries. He believed firmly in the idea that while rulers can wield power, without the proper wisdom and knowledge to truly govern then they would ultimately be the downfall of their regime. To that end, he believed that the Sith themselves were misguided and foolish and that the idea of attempting to become a god, in the same manner his predecessor did, was the height of arrogance. To him, to become a god meant one must first become eternal and all-knowing, or rather, omniscient. Since then, this belief has been one of the few motivations that have driven him━to the very concept of eternity and all-knowingness. As he assimilated knowledge, he developed a sense of superiority over those he viewed as beneath him. Even with centuries of experience and perspectives, he retained an almost childish arrogance when he secluded himself in his research, leading to neglecting his health while pursuing the results he desired. As he grew older, so did his perception of time, showing his willingness to patiently wait for centuries for his plans to bear fruit. This later led to him ultimately seeing the galaxy as nothing less than a galactic chessboard where he perceived his allies and enemies as little more than disposable pawns, referring to war itself as just another game. Not just war, but he viewed politics as an extension of the game, noting that government officials were no less than political actors, performing their roles in government as true actors perform on the stage.

During his youth, while he has shown some level of compassion and love, Alice’s death would leave an emotional wound, solidifying his dark nature and twisted mentality. His initial lack of ambition became a seemingly bottomless desire to indulge himself with the secrets of the dark side and pursue greater knowledge even at the cost of his own life, furthered by his drastic abandonment of emotions, denying himself any emotional attachment and distancing himself from others, feeling happiness and comfort when left to his experiments which would later become more of an obsession. His detachment resulted in many loveless relationships, even when he had sired children with numerous women solely out of curiosity rather than a desire for companionship. He was distrustful of the original Dark Council after learning of their involvement with Alice’s murder, which shaped his lack of remorse or guilt, as he felt nothing when inflicting pain or psychological torment on those around him, justifying his cruel actions by believing everything he did was for the greater benefit of him and his empire. However even after he had sworn to avenge his lost love, his underlying darkness warped his reasoning, and her death became nothing more than a pretext to justify his usurpation of the throne, and not long after she would become nothing more than a foggy memory. While hurt by grief, his inner darkness led him to a mass genocide that resulted in the death of his final friend and those who stood between him and the throne. Even as a memory though, Alice’s impact would continue to affect his emotions, well after submerging himself in his quest for omniscience and eternity, even after having been long stripped of his humanity since the perceived failure when creating a new vessel to contain his unstable power. With what many perceived as an evil person, he had desired to create life, not with his knowledge within the alchemical field, but by the union between two individuals. He was not only willing to manipulate the mother of his child into believing he would kill their child after deeming his existence of inconsequential value but rather he had been so confident in his child’s eventual fate that he allowed her to escape with him, leaving her in a state of paranoia and insanity. In reality, his former identity (Astral Trinity) had convinced him that individuals born of his blood would be useful to his plans and Empire, even if they had a chance not truly to inherit the full potential of his legacy. Even when momentarily convinced by his former persona to permit the infant to live, Darth Deceptious had demonstrated how far he would go to ensure that even his children existed beneath him, instilling a hereditary curse for the trait of insanity, in turn warping their darkest trait into a crippling weakness that he could exploit. Despite his apparent love for his children, he contradicted himself by subjecting them to cruel and life-threatening situations and trials, as his pride and ego had deemed those born of his blood to perfectly meet his expectations or be killed off. He even went as far as to abandon his children, forcing them to live in hostile environments with no record of their lineage, to better draw them toward the dark side through stress and the fear of having been neglected by who they saw as a nameless, faceless father. Among that, he would at times sacrifice his children by having them grow up in the Republic and be discovered by the Jedi, all for his amusement, knowing that even with the assistance of the Jedi, they would ultimately succumb to their lineage through the cursed placed upon them, and sometimes he would put them in a middle of a planetary invasion to bring them into a life-or-death situation, with no concern for their young age or physical and mental condition. Even while subjecting his children to such sinister events and scenarios, his former persona and the remnants of Alice’s compassion had affected him, as he developed an underlying protectiveness of those who he viewed as worthy and necessary to his plans, and secretly overshadowed them, much to the point that their accomplishments were expedited by his outside assistance. In his eyes, if they obediently and loyally adhered to his orders, his Sith persona had permitted them to live. This created a split personality, one representing the little compassion of his former identity as Astral Trinity, and the dominant, ever-present personality of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

As seen during the age of the Old Empire, Darth Deceptious was a stalwart believer in law and order. However, Darth Revulsion stated not long after his revival, that his dedication to order became less of a governability perspective and more of a religious belief. From his view, the galaxy was in a perpetual and inescapable cycle of chaos and self-destruction and had convinced himself that only through his rule could order truly be secured and justice restored to the galaxy. Unlike his predecessor, Darth Deceptious was more hands-on with his rule and typically participated in much of the inner workings of the Empire and even subject himself to the harsh dangers of the battlefield, and even secretly engineered the creation of a personal legion of fanatical soldiers and commissioned a personal fleet to better involve himself in the overarching war effort. Contrary to many Sith beliefs, Darth Deceptious was more favorable of those of non-Sith lineage, as he rarely ever elevated Sith to positions of power, instead, he opted to create the position of Allegiant General, who he effectively bestowed powers far exceeding even the authority of the Dark Lords who sat on his council. However, while he remained hands-on, there were times when he completely removed himself from the public eye, leaving the Empire to run on auto-pilot, this was typically when he felt his presence was not necessary. Though it was possibly because he had viewed many affairs as dull and tedious, showing slight irresponsibility as he would neglect the things and people he viewed as boring. Worst case, his abandonment would be the result of being severely weakened either by overexerting his strength or suffering a mortal wound, thus requiring his spirit to separate from its physical vessel. To an extent, he creates an air of benevolence and wisdom in the Empire’s population, but beneath the facade, he shows a more terrifying presence toward his enemies and the Sith themselves. While he does not concern himself too much with the enemies outside the Empire, he views his fellow Sith as potential adversaries, knowing that despite being created under the new doctrine, they were products of the dark side, which was ultimately betrayal and treachery in nature, requiring him to keep countless agents among their ranks to monitor them, much to the point he may be quasi-omnipresent within the Empire’s territory. He was strongly against hereditary ascension, viewing those who benefitted from family prestige alone as leeches and unfit for their positions, therefore enforcing a more meritocratic society where only those with merit and ambition were able to rise to positions of influence, creating a society that had embraced the idea of natural selection based purely on one's talent. This allowed him to maintain a stronger leadership and cull the unworthy from the ranks without requiring his constant interference. Away from the prying eyes of the average person, he was an adept torturer and interrogator, willing to use the full extent of his abilities to mentally and physically torture his victims, or outright dominate their minds into divulging all that they knew. He took pride in his ability to torment individuals for prolonged periods and even greater pride in knowing that if they died, he could simply give them new life to repeat the process, causing them to suffer from irreversible psychological trauma and torment. At times, he would even make use of his knowledge regarding biology and alchemy, subjecting them to cruel experiments, or even doing something as savage as replacing their limbs with that of another species entirely. It was also not uncommon for him to gather all the Empire’s captives and feed them one by one to the monsters and beasts he had created until one of them gave him what he wanted, revealing a far more sadistic and evil mentality toward those acting against either the Empire’s interests or against his agenda. Even so, even when he appeared to lack any concept of mercy, he was very much capable of sparing those he genuinely believed were deserving of it or he considered them to have a potential use.

Even if his intentions of sustaining order were genuine, he was aware of the consequences and even viewed not just his actions━but his very existence━as a necessary evil to correct a galaxy of flaws. He witnessed history play out, seeing the constant despair caused by both Sith and Jedi alike. He knew fear, and he knew that fear itself could only go so far. Still, even he possessed well-hidden fears. Indeed, he may have felt nothing when faced with death or failure and even remained unphased by the idea of pure evil and the existence of the unknown. It was disorder, more specifically, uncontrollable chaos that he feared. Some viewed immortality as a gift, but Darth Deceptious considered it just another necessary evil, a curse, willingly placed upon himself to fulfill his goal. He despised the idea of fate and destiny, doing everything in his power to defy such a thing, to the point that he had willfully given up his humanity to become a demon to reject the natural course of fate. His change led to a change in his view of humanity and those he came to label as lesser species. This sudden change even affected his use of his scientific and alchemical knowledge, leading him to pursue the creation of “greater life” and forcibly evolve the limitations of currently existing and new species through his knowledge and experiments.

He was a talented mentor and teacher, being rather patient and thorough with his methods of training, albeit such methods were life-threatening as most of his Sith disciples typically had a high mortality rate. Despite such methods, he justified them as necessary from his experiences during his time as a young Sith, lamenting his belief that natural selection will not hesitate to pluck away the “withered feathers”. Recently, he has shown he is capable of experiencing other emotions, slowly showing signs of empathy, however, it is not certain if these are genuine feelings or if they were false to lead others to lower their guard around him. It has been implied that he still retains some small remnant of love, or simply some memories, of Alice, as he had secretly constructed her grave beneath the great tree in the gardens of his family estate, which he had forbidden from being removed or altered.

## Appearance

> A demon wearing the skin of a human?*"
> "*That’s right. Despite his youthful looks and his friendly smile, he’s not an oblivious child. He’s just…someone who knows exactly what to say to get what he wants."
>
> ━After her betrayal, Kurumi Asano reveals the Emperor's "inhumanity" to Quinn Maru

Darth Deceptious was a tall young man with porcelain white skin and a relatively slim body type, which appeared rather androgynous. Originally possessing raven black hair and yellow eyes (the direct outcome of excessive dark side corruption), the result of his experimental ritual backfiring onto him caused his body to overly-stress itself while he attempted to shield himself from its most severe effects causing his hair to change to its snowy white color and his eyes becoming crimson red with a slightly faded or transparent look. The soft shade of his crimson eyes made many believe he was uninterested or unimpressed with anyone or anything, as others believed whenever he glared at them he was peering into their soul. Retaining his human form, he was in reality no longer human but a demon as the ritual had warped his genetics into something else entirely. Albeit barely noticeable unless unmasked and up close, he also possessed two vampiric-like teeth on his upper teeth (possibly an alteration he did not foresee during his stressful change).

His attire consists mainly of a customized suit of armor and a mechanical mask with an installed voice modulator to distort his already shallow and cold voice. The armor was primarily black fitted with a long cape. He also utilized shoulder pads and gloves. His armor was outfitted with a flexible but protective coating of metals that could hold its own against a few light blaster shots before being pierced, yet was unable to stop heavy blaster bolts. As of more recently, however, he has been seen to not wear his armor as much. Thus, he also preferred a more regal attire consisting of a combination of a black coat and black undershirt, followed by a black cape that had red markings near the edges and a raised white collar.

Many speculated he was simply hiding his old age with alchemy, but in actuality as a result of his immorality, his bodily functions regarding physical growth had completely ceased (i.e. where a newborn grows into a child, teenager, adult, and finally an elder, he did not experience this transition as his body had ceased functioning at early adulthood around the time he had become immortal).

## Powers and abilities

> Few know this but…my master was human at one point in time. He wasn’t always what he is now.*"
> "*If that’s true, why did he change?*"
> "*His power was tearing him apart, every day he was decaying. The raw power became unstable━and self-destructive. So he turned himself into a demon to fully control his strength in the dark side.
>
> ━Kurumi Asano and Quinn Maru regarding Darth Deceptious' power

Regardless of his true nature, Darth Deceptious was irrefutably powerful in Force to the point that his power was enough for Darth Abyss and Darth Revulsion, the two most powerful Sith beneath him, to admit that even if the two were to join forces, the likelihood of their survival was uncertain. He displayed a form of quasi-omniscience, as he intrinsically knew of the existence of Quinn Maru despite never personally encountering him before and, according to Pyre Kinall, he could sense “another power” rising in regions of the galaxy that were left unexplored and uncharted. His ability to sense an outside power meant that he was sensitive and felt oddities and unnatural movements in the Force from across the galaxy. As he was sensitive to such things, he was also sensitive in a way that allowed him to easily sense the feelings and emotions of those around him, either identifying their happiness or being able to decipher well-hidden malice and other emotions. In addition to his quasi-omniscience, he held near-absolute command over the dark side and had grown so powerful that his human vessel began to destroy itself, leading him to perform the ritual that would ultimately backfire and strip him of his humanity in a spiritual and genetical capacity, turning him into a demon which he came to accept as it had virtually granted him immunity to the ravaging effects of the dark side, allowing him to excessively employ the use of the most dangerous powers manifested by the dark side without any consequences on his physical, mental, or spiritual state. He possessed enough raw strength in the Force to single-handily perform the planet-devouring ritual he used once before to make himself immortal. This immortality extended not just spiritually, but biologically as his bodily functions had all but ceased, and he remained eternally youthful and no longer affected by the concept of aging which prevented him from dying of the most deadly of diseases. He could even subject other individuals to the same ritual, although that was rare, as he never made their spirits immortal, but rather made them biologically immortal, preventing them from death caused by disease or age. He did this as a way to keep his most favored servants alive, but to prevent them from being truly able to stand against him. When he abandoned the Old Empire to its fated destruction, he showed he could not only grant immortality but also strip away their immortality at will without even needing to be anywhere near them, leaving them exposed to their inevitable deaths as he did just moments before his presumed death. Among his immortality, he also demonstrated the ability to possess the bodies of others. However, his strength in the dark side was so great that unless he restrained his power, the host's body would rapidly destroy itself and rupture. Those who were compatible were typically born of his blood or were created by his hand, however, it was later stated that individuals such as Darth Abyss could undergo a gene alteration that allowed them to safely become vessels without the disastrous effects of decay. This gene alteration on the other hand possessed a critical flaw, as an unnerved/unbalanced individual or someone critically injured would still suffer from the decay albeit at a slower rate than usual (leaving a possibility to survive). When possessed, he could suppress his presence within his host, and manifest himself as the equivalent of a Force ghost in front of his host, as well as choose who could and could not see him, in addition to this, he could also share his power and allow his host to use either a fraction or the full extent of his strength, but could also deny his power from them at will. At the same time, he could take complete control over his hosts' bodies against their desires provided his will is stronger than theirs. Aside from simple possession, he possessed immense willpower and could dominate the minds of those weaker than him without taking over their bodies and was more than able to use the Force to invade another’s mind to pull information from them against their will and torment them by forcing them to recall events from their past they kept locked away. As a result of his powerful mind, he was unphased by almost all forms of mental attacks, and could entirely block outside attempts to sense his true thoughts and intentions as if second nature. In combat, he’s shown a preference for utilizing Force lightning and was talented enough to produce red lightning, the purest representation of the dark side, and was strong enough to infuse his lightsaber and other weapons with lightning, as well as firing them from arced angles, launching them from blind spots, and also chain lightning onto multiple opponents at once. He had enough mastery over the ability to create streams of lightning that weren’t just lethal but would inflict as little damage as possible to torment his victims. He could create Force barriers that were strong enough to temporarily hold against a full-scale orbital bombardment for a few seconds and demonstrated enough strength in telekinesis to hold a fully armed dreadnought in stasis and crash it into the surface. In addition, he was talented enough to utilize tutaminis, absorbing the energy of blaster bolts and reflecting lightsaber strikes with his bare hands, and could use the ability to absorb another’s Force lightning and redirect it back at them with ease. He could easily mask his presence in the Force and further demonstrated his control with his ability to make himself appear far weaker in the Force, and vice versa, he could also manifest an aura of pure dark side energy around himself that was visible to even the most inexperience Force-users, while those unattuned to the Force felt thin, cold air around them. Even as a child, he possessed the unnatural ability to feed off the fears, regrets, and other negative emotions of those in a large vicinity, as he had used this power against his original family until he brutally murdered them. Furthermore, he not only fed on emotions but he could slowly leech the life force and Force energy of living beings, including plants, insects, and animals. However, this power wasn't passive, as he had a level of control over it, utilizing it to recover power mid-battle when needed. The downside was that his ability to leech life had almost no effect on those with sufficient training in the Force or who were innately immune to certain Force-based attacks, however in terms of the geography of land, it left behind grey, lifeless plants that would not regrow without the assistance of another Force-user, implying that his leeching ability destroys the very concept of "life" and causes ruin to land.

His greatest feat, on the other hand, was his unmatched skill in alchemy. Though he demonstrated the capability to enhance weapons and items with alchemy, he specialized in warping/enhancing and/or creating new life. Dangerously so, he was capable of raising the dead to do his bidding, turning either fresh corpses or skeletal remains into servants to fight in his stead. To that end, he could even create bodies without souls, which he used as vessels or experimental subjects, however, he referred to the bodies he created as "tailor-made vessels", signifying that they met the requirements to be compatible with his soul and power. He held the knowledge of manipulating midi-chlorians to create life, first demonstrated when he sired Caedus. Eventually, his knowledge of alchemy and the dark side led to his discovery of a way to not only ensnare souls, but to create, replicate, and warp them in numerous ways. Such knowledge of ensnarement was shown when he murdered Darth Canus and eight other individuals who were considerably powerful Dark Lords and Jedi Masters of their time, tethering their souls to his and turning them into wraiths, obedient slaves to his will. As such, a tethered soul left the individual entirely dependent on its captor, as the wraiths became stronger or weaker based upon Darth Deceptious’ strength at the time. In addition, even when his old servants and children had all ended up dying by the time the Old Empire met its end, he prevented their souls from passing over to the afterlife, binding them to the place of their death, and used the remains of that fractured spirit to recreate their souls, transplanting their soul into a new body. The only negative to the ability was that it took a great deal of power to fully resurrect the soul of those strong in the Force, and an even greater amount of power to resurrect a soul that retained its sense of identity and previous memories, requiring Darth Deceptious to sacrifice a great many lives to provide additional energy or be left in a lethargic, weakened state. Beyond this, he later began using the power to subvert the sole weakness of his immortality━the destruction of his spirit. He began creating duplicates of his soul, leaving them in comatose states and linking them to his consciousness to feed them the memories he continued to create. He was limited in the number of duplicates, however, as it took an even greater toll to replicate himself due to his unique traits and abilities, with the added fear that in the event a comatose soul became self-aware, it could either view him as an enemy or destroy itself, the reason behind its self-destruction is entirely unknown, but Darth Deceptious theorized that the existence of two individuals within the same galaxy could not be possible, and led to the soul having something akin to a nervous breakdown.

In terms of physical abilities, Darth Deceptious was self-admittedly average without using the Force as an enhancement. However, his lightsaber proficiency and centuries of studying the lightsaber forms made him an extremely deadly opponent even if he lacked the physical demeanor to overwhelm physically stronger opponents, as he made no effort to avoid using his powers to give himself an edge. As a user of the Niman form, he demonstrated a near-complete mastery over fluidly switching between all the forms at his disposal and his manipulative nature affected his dueling style, preferring to use deceptive movements and feints to his advantage.

## Trivia

* "Deceptious" means "relating to deception or inclined to deceive". In full Sith terms, Darth Deceptious could be translated to "Dark Deceiver". A symbol of his manipulative and deceptive nature.
* His eventual loss of memories relating to Alice was a result of a subconscious desire to remove anything that could be used again him. He believed that Alice and his past was unnecessary "noise" that prevented his full devotion to the dark side. Despite this, only the very powerful memories remained, keeping him bound to his last fragment of humanity.
	+ Alice's death was the tipping factor for the symbolical death of "Astral Trinity" and the birth of Darth Deceptious, as he had already been tethering on the edge of the dark side's corruption. The details behind her death paved the way for a downward spiral into his near-universal indifference and sudden obsession's with preserving order, hoarding knowledge, and gaining more power for himself.
* Deceptious slowly suffers from the consequences of immorality. He was actually on the verge of losing all three of five senses (touch, sight, and taste). Only after unintentionally sacrificing his humanity did his senses return.
	+ Though not noticeable by those who don't fully grasp the price of immortality, the only physical sign of losing his senses was the faded color in his eyes; a result of originally and slowly becoming blind. His later transformation reverted his dulling senses, but the faded tint remained (mostly as a result of his now-inhuman genetics).