Welcome to your liberation, you slave to the prison of sanity. Your petty HoloNet Uplink shall be our herald of fear. It cannot be deactivated now. Submit to the whispers of terror gnawing from within. Embrace your salvation through madness.
Last year, voices in the darkness whispered the location of their dread fortress. This year, the Dread Masters return, ready to liberate your players from the shackles of rationality. Unleash the Dread Masters at your peril.
Dread Master [Nemesis]
A cabal of six powerful Sith Lords, the Dread Masters have served the Sith Emperor for centuries. Serving as prophets, generals, advisers, the Dread Masters are feared as living weapons. They used a devastating form of battle meditation during the Great Galactic War, destroying entire Republic fleets by sowing deadly terror into the minds of sentient crew. Capturing the Dread Masters took the efforts of elite special forces and a strike team of Jedi Knights. Fearing what would happen should they be slain, the Republic secreted the Dread Masters away, in suspended animation, to the prison world of Belsavis.
The Dread Master’s power over fear came from their study of the ancient phobis device, a Sith artifact of unknown origin. All who touched the device would go mad, with most dying of shock. Only the Dread Masters are known to have mastered the dark energies within, harnessing the terror as a powerful weapon. Once mere mortals, the Dread Masters have shed their identities over centuries of service to the Emperor. Only their Sith names remain: Raptus, Bestia, Brontes, Calphayus, Styrak, and Tyrans. Whatever lives they led previously have been utterly purged by their study of the phobis device.
Characteristics
Br 2, Ag 2, Int 3, Cun 4, WP 5, Pres 5
Soak 4, W. Threshold 20, S. Threshold 23, Def M/R 1/1
Skills: Coercion 4, Cool 2, Deception 3, Discipline 4, Knowledge (Lore) 5, Leadership 3, Lightsaber 3, Vigilance 2.
Talents: Adversary 3 (Upgrade difficulty of all combat checks against this target three times), Fearsome 3 (When an adversary becomes engaged with the character, may force the adversary to make a Hard (3 Purple) fear check), Force Rating 4, Parry 6 (When struck by a melee attack but before applying soak, suffer 3 strain to reduce damage by 8.), Reflect 4 (When struck by a ranged attack but before applying soak, suffer 3 strain to reduce damage by 6.),
Abilities: Dark Side Force User (uses Dark Side results instead of Light Side results, see page 281.), Dread Council (The Dread Masters may act in unison for the purposes of Force Powers. As an out of turn incidental when another Dread Master is making a Force Power check, a Dread Master may forgo his next action to add 1 Force Die to the pool. Multiple Dread Masters may contribute, to a maximum of 5 additional Force die. Two or more Dread Masters acting in unison may use Battle Meditation or Terrorize on the planetary scale without spending the 4 strain), Dread Mastery (Upgrade the difficulty of all fear checks caused by a Dread Master twice [already included in Terrorize]. Characters who suffer strain due to a fear check caused by a Dread Master suffer twice the amount of strain.), Force Powers: Battle Meditation, Move, Sense, Terrorize.
Battle Meditation: Force Power. A Dread Master may spend a Force Point to add one automatic Success to all checks made by up to 5 engaged allies. If any Dark Side points were used to generate Force Points, reduce each target’s Willpower by 1 (minimum 1) until the end of the encounter. May spend a Force Point to increase range by 4 bands. May make an Easy (1 Purple) Leadership check during the Battle Meditation power check to pass simple orders. May spend 2 Force Points to add one additional automatic Success, and may activate this multiple times. May spend a Force Point to affect 20 additional targets, and may activate this multiple times. May suffer 4 strain to change the range of the power and range upgrades to planetary scale.
Move: Force Power. A Dread Master may hurl objects by making a Move Force power check and rolling a ranged attack as part of the pool. The attack’s difficulty is equal to the silhouette of the object being thrown and only succeeds if he can also spend enough Force Points to the move the object. The attack deals damage equal to the silhouette of the object times 10 (silhouette 0 deals 5 damage) plus one per Success. To throw multiple objects, he must generate enough Force Points to move multiple objects, and must use rules for Auto-fire to determine difficulty and targeting. May spend a Force Point to increase the power’s range to medium. May spend a Force Point to increase the size of the object he can move to Silhouette 4.
Sense: Force Power. A Dread Master may spend a Force Point to sense all living things within medium range, and spend a Force Point to sense the current emotional state of one living target within short range.
Terrorize: Force Power. A Dread Master may spend a Force Point to target one character within short range, that target must immediately make an Average (2 Red) fear check, upgraded twice, as an out of turn incidental. May spend a Force Point to increase the power’s range twice (long range). May spend a Force Point to increase the difficulty of the fear check once, this power may be activated up to three times. May spend 2 Force Points to increase the number of targets affected by 5. May suffer 4 strain to change the range of the power and range upgrades to planetary scale. After a target fails a fear check caused by this power, may spend 2 Destiny Points to have the target perform one action as an out of turn incidental.
Equipment: Lightsaber (Lightsaber; Damage 10; Critical 1; Range [Engaged]; Breach 1, Sunder, Vicious 2), Dread Master alchemical armor (soak 2, defense 1, cortosis).
Christopher Hunt
Latest posts by Christopher Hunt (see all)
- Command School – Deterrence and Compellence - July 11, 2019
