Post by Darth Kairos on May 26, 2016 3:34:10 GMT
Welcome to New Sith Brotherhood!
Hello. What's this place about?
New Sith Brotherhood is a Star Wars roleplay set in the Legends continuity (the old Expanded Universe) and focusing on the actions of an incarnation of the villainous Sith known as, you guessed it, the New Sith Brotherhood. Unlike many other roleplays, we run a blend of common freeform roleplay with some traditional pen-and-paper mechanics, using ranked levels, skills, and abilities to provide a sense of achievement and advancement.
I don't know much about the Expanded Universe - can I still play here?
Absolutely! A knowledge of the expanded universe is not at all required, although we guarantee you'll pick up a good knowledge of it through your time here. Everyone will be more than happy to share what knowledge they have to help bring you up to speed on the vibrancy of the old Star Wars canon. But if you're after more in-depth knowledge, or just want to read around and explore 20 years of novels, comics, and games, we highly recommend Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Encyclopedia.
Alright, so, what's the story then? Just what is the New Sith Brotherhood?
Well, a quick little bit of backstory first! After the events of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the Rebel Alliance (now the New Republic) slowly but surely took the galaxy back from the Empire. The Empire fragmented into warring states ruled by Admirals and Warlords - it never truly recovered from the chaos Palpatine's death brought about. Nineteen years after the first film, the Empire signed a peace accord with the New Republic to preserve what little it had left. Luke Skywalker, meanwhile, founded the New Jedi Order and trained a new generation of Jedi Knights.
But since this is Star Wars and not Star Peace so it was not to last - some six years later, the galaxy was invaded by an extra-galactic race known as the Yuuzhan Vong. Brutal and merciless, the Yuuzhan Vong decimated the galaxy, destroyed the New Republic, and hunted Luke Skywalker's Jedi Knights over five years of bloody war. By war's end, hundreds of trillions of people were dead. Entire planets, including Coruscant, had been nightmarishly terraformed by the invaders - if not outright wiped clean of life. Dozens of heroes - among them the Wookiee Chewbacca, and Han and Leia Organa Solo's youngest son Anakin - had fallen in battle. But there were some small silver linings to the conflict - the New Republic, utterly helpless against the Yuuzhan Vong onslaught, reformed into the Galactic Alliance; the Imperial Remnant united with the Alliance against a common foe as old hatreds fell away and the Jedi Order emerged with a keen new view on the nature of the Force.
But the newly-minted Galactic Alliance faced a galaxy utterly destroyed by war. Nearly every sector, from the Outer Rim to the Core, had been devastated by the conflict, and all they could do was begin to rebuild.
It is here that New Sith Brotherhood's plotline diverges from that of the Legends canon. A little over a year after the end of the war, a new power emerged in the Outer Rim. Calling itself the Obsidian Union, it rallied the disenfranchised planets and groups of the Rim to its banner and formed a seperate government lead by the New Sith Brotherhood and its Dark Lord, Darth Xaos. The Galactic Alliance, though it declared the Union an illegal insurrection and pledged to squash it, was weary of war and focused on reconstruction - the Obsidian Union won many battles against its weakened power, culminating in a final, shocking raid on Coruscant itself! Scared and confused, the Alliance elected a new Chief-of-State - former Imperial admiral Natasi Daala, a hardliner pledging to destroy the Union and its Sith.
Now, after years of war, the Alliance is a shadow of its once-hopeful former self, while the Union continues to grow, a potent tool of its dark masters.
That sounds awesome! How do I sign up?
Glad you're interested! The first thing you're going to want is to develop your character's bio. This is where you'll determine their backstory, species and character direction, as well as chart their story and abilities as they progress. One of our members very kindly wrote a Beginner's Guide to Bio Creation, which will walk you through making your character step-by-step. Everything else can be found in the Bio Creation forum.
There's a lot there - you mind running me through the basics?
Certainly! Bio creation is split up into eight steps - the first three cover your character's core aspects, while the remaining five list and describe the various abilities you can take to build your character.
Core Stats represent your character's major strengths and weaknesses - no overexplaining necessary, they're exactly what they sound like. Your species, aside from narrative effects, can modify your Core Stats as well as provide bonus abilities depending on the species. Your Basic Path is how your character will progress throughout your first four levels, what unique abilities (such as the ability to use a lightsaber or certain kinds of Force Powers) they gain, and when they gain them.
Combat Proficiencies represent abilities directly tied to fighting and martial prowess, such as weapons and lightsaber forms, while Skills are a very broad category of generic physical and mental abilities ranging from Acrobatics, to Computer Use, to the Speaking other languages. Perks are powerful but focused abilities; unlike Skills, which are flexible enough to be applied to many situations, Perks can usually only be applied to one or two, but can easily swing situations in your favour. Assets, meanwhile, represent various resources and connections your character can call on - these include ties to various groups, sources of credits (money in Star Wars), and weird but useful items and abilities they may have learned in their travels. Force Powers, I should hope, are self-explanatory!
Hold up a bit - what's this about Paths? There's Basic Paths, but I can also see Advanced and Master paths as well?
As I mentioned towards the start, we make strong use of a leveling system on NSB. The main purpose of this leveling system is to move you along your Paths and unlock new and more powerful abilities. While this includes letting you learn new types of Force Powers and Perks, Paths contain special, highly effective abilities unique to each Path. For instance, Sith Lords, who focus on command and diplomacy, gain access to the Minions ability, giving them underlings they can order about as they please. Conversely, Assassins, who focus on covert action, gain the Silence of the Wind ability, which gives them hefty bonuses to the stealth-related Skills.
Your character begins on their Basic Path and remains on it until level 5, where they enter their Advanced Path. By moving from Basic to Advanced the character has ceased to be merely a Dark Jedi and has become a true Sith. When they hit level 15, they'll enter then their Master Path, which represent ancient ways known only by Sith Masters. While Basic Paths share many similarities to each other, Advanced Paths are where your character begins to truly specialize, and Master Paths are further specializations based on the abilities you develop in your Advanced Path.
Alright, so, which ones should I pick?
That's entirely up to you! While you don't need to pick your Advanced Path until level 5, it often helps to choose your Advanced Path first and work backwards from it - this can give you ideas to build your character around, and will also let us tailor your training in that direction. Have a readthrough of the Advanced Paths and their associated Master Paths, and decide which one you think'll work best for you.
Your Basic Path doesn't have as much impact on your character in the long-run - it determines when you can use certain types of Force Powers, as well as when you receive training in how to use a Lightsaber. However, it shouldn't be dismissed outright, as each Basic Path has special abilities that emphasize the philosophical nature of the Path. For instance, Guardians focus on combat and aggression, receiving an ability which removes Combat Proficiency restrictions normally placed on apprentices. Meanwhile, the Dark Force Adept focuses on unique and unusual Force abilities, and learns how to imbue regular weapons with the Force so they can stand against a lightsaber without being destroyed.
While you can freely change your Advanced and Master paths at any point until you enter them, choose wisely - once you enter them, there's no turning back!
Alright, my bio is done! Now what?
Now, my young apprentice, you begin your journey into the Dark Side. First your character will go through a Prologue Mission which will narrate their journey to joining the Sith Brotherhood. Then we'll assign you a Master as soon as possible - they'll be responsible for training your character in new abilities until your character becomes a Sith Knight at level 7. They'll also be primarily in charge of running missions for you. But this is far from your only avenue of roleplay! Any GM can run a mission for you if you ask and you can sign up for missions with other players to roleplay in a group. We strongly encourage you to sign up for site-wides - these are galaxy changing events which progress our metaplot, where you'll typically be fighting alongside the entire New Sith Brotherhood!
Beyond missions, we have an expansive galaxy section where you can roleplay freely with other players. A huge amount of interaction takes place on New Bethrezen, an advanced space-station which serves as the Union's hidden capital.
New Bethrezen, metaplot, this Darth Depitus guy - there's lots going on! How can I get on top of it all?
Well, if you'd like a summary of the story since the Union's foundation, as well as some teasers at the Brotherhood's history, we have a Story So Far that might help you out. But the best resource to learn about our metaplot is the site's central fanon, which covers everything from past events to the current astropolitical landscape to unique starships the Union has developed in its war against the Alliance.
In particular, Rise of the New Sith Brotherhood will introduce you to the Brotherhood's history and philosophy, while The Obsidian Union is a sprawling treatise on the Union, its history, customs, politics, and everything else you can think of. Finally, the Journal of the Whills chronicles the most important past events in the site's metaplot, linking to the topics where they went down for you to read through. It's worth noting though, the Journal is just a fraction of the site's history - New Sith Brotherhood has been going, across various websites and forms, since about 2005 - we don't even have access to most of our history anymore!
And, of course, if at any point you're unsure about something, or want more details or clarification, just ask anyone - we'll do the best we can to help!
What about changing my name?
While you're stuck with your account name, your display name can be anything you like. To change it, go back to Edit Profile, and this time select the "Personal" tab. This will let you change your display name, as well as other information that will be displayed below your avatar. You can also change your signature (displayed below your post) and what information will be displayed beneath your avatar when you post.
Great! Okay, last thing - how can I get an avatar? It keeps coming out really small
Proboards normally only allows small avatars - anything you upload will be resized to its maximum size. To get around this, instead you'll need to upload your avatar to an external host (such as imgur or photobucket) and link to it. To do this, go to Profile -> Edit Profile -> Avatar -> Uploaded/Linked, paste in a link to your avatar, and then select "Use only the uploaded/linked" and save the changes. Linked avatars can be up to 200px × 350px in size.
That's just about everything. Welcome to the Dark Side, apprentice. Are you ready to conquer the galaxy?
Hello. What's this place about?
New Sith Brotherhood is a Star Wars roleplay set in the Legends continuity (the old Expanded Universe) and focusing on the actions of an incarnation of the villainous Sith known as, you guessed it, the New Sith Brotherhood. Unlike many other roleplays, we run a blend of common freeform roleplay with some traditional pen-and-paper mechanics, using ranked levels, skills, and abilities to provide a sense of achievement and advancement.
I don't know much about the Expanded Universe - can I still play here?
Absolutely! A knowledge of the expanded universe is not at all required, although we guarantee you'll pick up a good knowledge of it through your time here. Everyone will be more than happy to share what knowledge they have to help bring you up to speed on the vibrancy of the old Star Wars canon. But if you're after more in-depth knowledge, or just want to read around and explore 20 years of novels, comics, and games, we highly recommend Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Encyclopedia.
Alright, so, what's the story then? Just what is the New Sith Brotherhood?
Well, a quick little bit of backstory first! After the events of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the Rebel Alliance (now the New Republic) slowly but surely took the galaxy back from the Empire. The Empire fragmented into warring states ruled by Admirals and Warlords - it never truly recovered from the chaos Palpatine's death brought about. Nineteen years after the first film, the Empire signed a peace accord with the New Republic to preserve what little it had left. Luke Skywalker, meanwhile, founded the New Jedi Order and trained a new generation of Jedi Knights.
But since this is Star Wars and not Star Peace so it was not to last - some six years later, the galaxy was invaded by an extra-galactic race known as the Yuuzhan Vong. Brutal and merciless, the Yuuzhan Vong decimated the galaxy, destroyed the New Republic, and hunted Luke Skywalker's Jedi Knights over five years of bloody war. By war's end, hundreds of trillions of people were dead. Entire planets, including Coruscant, had been nightmarishly terraformed by the invaders - if not outright wiped clean of life. Dozens of heroes - among them the Wookiee Chewbacca, and Han and Leia Organa Solo's youngest son Anakin - had fallen in battle. But there were some small silver linings to the conflict - the New Republic, utterly helpless against the Yuuzhan Vong onslaught, reformed into the Galactic Alliance; the Imperial Remnant united with the Alliance against a common foe as old hatreds fell away and the Jedi Order emerged with a keen new view on the nature of the Force.
But the newly-minted Galactic Alliance faced a galaxy utterly destroyed by war. Nearly every sector, from the Outer Rim to the Core, had been devastated by the conflict, and all they could do was begin to rebuild.
It is here that New Sith Brotherhood's plotline diverges from that of the Legends canon. A little over a year after the end of the war, a new power emerged in the Outer Rim. Calling itself the Obsidian Union, it rallied the disenfranchised planets and groups of the Rim to its banner and formed a seperate government lead by the New Sith Brotherhood and its Dark Lord, Darth Xaos. The Galactic Alliance, though it declared the Union an illegal insurrection and pledged to squash it, was weary of war and focused on reconstruction - the Obsidian Union won many battles against its weakened power, culminating in a final, shocking raid on Coruscant itself! Scared and confused, the Alliance elected a new Chief-of-State - former Imperial admiral Natasi Daala, a hardliner pledging to destroy the Union and its Sith.
Now, after years of war, the Alliance is a shadow of its once-hopeful former self, while the Union continues to grow, a potent tool of its dark masters.
That sounds awesome! How do I sign up?
Glad you're interested! The first thing you're going to want is to develop your character's bio. This is where you'll determine their backstory, species and character direction, as well as chart their story and abilities as they progress. One of our members very kindly wrote a Beginner's Guide to Bio Creation, which will walk you through making your character step-by-step. Everything else can be found in the Bio Creation forum.
There's a lot there - you mind running me through the basics?
Certainly! Bio creation is split up into eight steps - the first three cover your character's core aspects, while the remaining five list and describe the various abilities you can take to build your character.
Core Stats represent your character's major strengths and weaknesses - no overexplaining necessary, they're exactly what they sound like. Your species, aside from narrative effects, can modify your Core Stats as well as provide bonus abilities depending on the species. Your Basic Path is how your character will progress throughout your first four levels, what unique abilities (such as the ability to use a lightsaber or certain kinds of Force Powers) they gain, and when they gain them.
Combat Proficiencies represent abilities directly tied to fighting and martial prowess, such as weapons and lightsaber forms, while Skills are a very broad category of generic physical and mental abilities ranging from Acrobatics, to Computer Use, to the Speaking other languages. Perks are powerful but focused abilities; unlike Skills, which are flexible enough to be applied to many situations, Perks can usually only be applied to one or two, but can easily swing situations in your favour. Assets, meanwhile, represent various resources and connections your character can call on - these include ties to various groups, sources of credits (money in Star Wars), and weird but useful items and abilities they may have learned in their travels. Force Powers, I should hope, are self-explanatory!
Hold up a bit - what's this about Paths? There's Basic Paths, but I can also see Advanced and Master paths as well?
As I mentioned towards the start, we make strong use of a leveling system on NSB. The main purpose of this leveling system is to move you along your Paths and unlock new and more powerful abilities. While this includes letting you learn new types of Force Powers and Perks, Paths contain special, highly effective abilities unique to each Path. For instance, Sith Lords, who focus on command and diplomacy, gain access to the Minions ability, giving them underlings they can order about as they please. Conversely, Assassins, who focus on covert action, gain the Silence of the Wind ability, which gives them hefty bonuses to the stealth-related Skills.
Your character begins on their Basic Path and remains on it until level 5, where they enter their Advanced Path. By moving from Basic to Advanced the character has ceased to be merely a Dark Jedi and has become a true Sith. When they hit level 15, they'll enter then their Master Path, which represent ancient ways known only by Sith Masters. While Basic Paths share many similarities to each other, Advanced Paths are where your character begins to truly specialize, and Master Paths are further specializations based on the abilities you develop in your Advanced Path.
Alright, so, which ones should I pick?
That's entirely up to you! While you don't need to pick your Advanced Path until level 5, it often helps to choose your Advanced Path first and work backwards from it - this can give you ideas to build your character around, and will also let us tailor your training in that direction. Have a readthrough of the Advanced Paths and their associated Master Paths, and decide which one you think'll work best for you.
Your Basic Path doesn't have as much impact on your character in the long-run - it determines when you can use certain types of Force Powers, as well as when you receive training in how to use a Lightsaber. However, it shouldn't be dismissed outright, as each Basic Path has special abilities that emphasize the philosophical nature of the Path. For instance, Guardians focus on combat and aggression, receiving an ability which removes Combat Proficiency restrictions normally placed on apprentices. Meanwhile, the Dark Force Adept focuses on unique and unusual Force abilities, and learns how to imbue regular weapons with the Force so they can stand against a lightsaber without being destroyed.
While you can freely change your Advanced and Master paths at any point until you enter them, choose wisely - once you enter them, there's no turning back!
Alright, my bio is done! Now what?
Now, my young apprentice, you begin your journey into the Dark Side. First your character will go through a Prologue Mission which will narrate their journey to joining the Sith Brotherhood. Then we'll assign you a Master as soon as possible - they'll be responsible for training your character in new abilities until your character becomes a Sith Knight at level 7. They'll also be primarily in charge of running missions for you. But this is far from your only avenue of roleplay! Any GM can run a mission for you if you ask and you can sign up for missions with other players to roleplay in a group. We strongly encourage you to sign up for site-wides - these are galaxy changing events which progress our metaplot, where you'll typically be fighting alongside the entire New Sith Brotherhood!
Beyond missions, we have an expansive galaxy section where you can roleplay freely with other players. A huge amount of interaction takes place on New Bethrezen, an advanced space-station which serves as the Union's hidden capital.
New Bethrezen, metaplot, this Darth Depitus guy - there's lots going on! How can I get on top of it all?
Well, if you'd like a summary of the story since the Union's foundation, as well as some teasers at the Brotherhood's history, we have a Story So Far that might help you out. But the best resource to learn about our metaplot is the site's central fanon, which covers everything from past events to the current astropolitical landscape to unique starships the Union has developed in its war against the Alliance.
In particular, Rise of the New Sith Brotherhood will introduce you to the Brotherhood's history and philosophy, while The Obsidian Union is a sprawling treatise on the Union, its history, customs, politics, and everything else you can think of. Finally, the Journal of the Whills chronicles the most important past events in the site's metaplot, linking to the topics where they went down for you to read through. It's worth noting though, the Journal is just a fraction of the site's history - New Sith Brotherhood has been going, across various websites and forms, since about 2005 - we don't even have access to most of our history anymore!
And, of course, if at any point you're unsure about something, or want more details or clarification, just ask anyone - we'll do the best we can to help!
What about changing my name?
While you're stuck with your account name, your display name can be anything you like. To change it, go back to Edit Profile, and this time select the "Personal" tab. This will let you change your display name, as well as other information that will be displayed below your avatar. You can also change your signature (displayed below your post) and what information will be displayed beneath your avatar when you post.
Great! Okay, last thing - how can I get an avatar? It keeps coming out really small
Proboards normally only allows small avatars - anything you upload will be resized to its maximum size. To get around this, instead you'll need to upload your avatar to an external host (such as imgur or photobucket) and link to it. To do this, go to Profile -> Edit Profile -> Avatar -> Uploaded/Linked, paste in a link to your avatar, and then select "Use only the uploaded/linked" and save the changes. Linked avatars can be up to 200px × 350px in size.
That's just about everything. Welcome to the Dark Side, apprentice. Are you ready to conquer the galaxy?