Nomi Sunrider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ridesthesun) wrote2000-06-05 10:05 pm
ridesthesun) wrote2000-06-05 10:05 pm
Entry tags:
Application to Ataraxion
P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Axiom
OOC Journal:voidbearer
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope, I’m 27
Email + IM: Godeslas@gmail.com, AIM: Tuldawen
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Toooootal newbie here!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Nomi Sunrider
Canon: Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi
Original or Alternate Universe: Original Universe
Canon Point: A few months after the defeat of Exar Kun and the end of the Great Sith War.
Number: 989
Setting: The ubiquitous Galaxy. This is a very different Galaxy than portrayed in the Star Wars films, as the year is 3,996 BBY, so nearly four thousand years before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. The Galaxy has just entered a period of peace as the Jedi Order has defeated the Dark Lord of the Sith Exar Kun and begun rebuilding after the Sith War. This period is referred to as the Restoration. Generally, the period is lower tech than the movie Galaxy, and has a more medieval style to it, a more wild and unexplored place. At present Nomi is the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.
History:
Very little about Nomi’s early life is known before she married Andur Sunrider, a young Jedi Knight. She refused Jedi training early in life despite having been tested and found to have enormous potential but no reason is ever given why. According to the Tales of the Jedi RPG companion she was born into a fairly well to do family somewhere on the edge of the Core Worlds and met Andur when the pair was in their early twenties. They were married and lived happily for a time. At the age of 27 or 28, Nomi had a daughter with her husband named Vima. Shortly after Vima’s 3rd birthday Andur was sent to Ambria to train with the legendary Tchuukthai Jedi Master Thon, and he brought his family with him. During this trip, Nomi’s life was changed forever.
While stopping at a small hyperspace terminal in the Stenness system, Andur was ambushed and murdered by thugs working for the crime lord Bogga the Hutt. The thugs attempted to rob Nomi and her daughter but in her grief she was guided by the Force (through the ghost of Andur) to take up his lightsaber and defend herself. She killed one and drove the others away. Andur’s ghost told her he wished for her to continue his journey and go to Ambria to become a Jedi and so she agreed, albeit reluctantly. Feelings of guilt wracked her and she swore against ever using a lightsaber again.
Guided by the Force, Nomi made her way to Ambria where she began training under the quadruped Master after an encounter with Bogga’s men. During that encounter Nomi and Thon’s apprentice Oss Willum, who had been masquerading as Thon at his request, were placed in danger and Thon forced to step in. Nomi’s training with the Tchuukthai took several years, two or three based on accounts of Vima’s age but as with many Star Wars comics time is not so clear. During the training she has another encounter with Bogga’s raiders during which her refusal to wield a lightsaber was teste and that mental barrier broken down. As a result she was able to use one but still preferred to avoid it. At the end of the training, now a full fledged Knight Nomi was sent to Ossus to study under Vodo-Siosk Baas.
During her time with Baas she was asked to participate in putting down a revolt on Onderon where a group of Dark Side cultists following the ancient Sith Lord Freedon Nadd’s spirit were causing trouble. During this revolt she became friends with Uliq and Cay Qel-Droma and worked alongside Master Arca Jeth, receiving further instruction in the Jedi arts from him. During the revolt, a Sith warrior hit her with a psychic attack that knocked her out, though she was recovered by Uliq and led the Jedi forces to victory with her Battle Meditation and the strength of the Force behind her, the first example of a Force trance she undergoes.
Following this, Nomi participated in rooting out the Krath, a secret society of Dark Side adepts that had taken control of the Empress Teta system. Arca Jeth kept her out of the early stages of the conflict to train her personally, and when she entered the conflict she helped break through a number of Sith illusions and led the Republic to recover some of their people before ordering a retreat. During a followup conclave on Deneba, Nomi and other Jedi were attacked and Arca Jeth killed. In the aftermath, Nomi and Uliq admitted they had feelings for one another and shared a kiss before Uliq went off on a dangerous infiltration mission. That mission was an utter failure and Nomi and Cay were forced to mount a rescue with the aid of Tott Doneeta. The rescue ended with a horrible realization: Uliq had fallen to the Dark Side. The trio escaped just barely.
Shortly after this, the Sith Lord Exar Kun confronted Qel-Droma and recruited both him and the Krath, beginning the Great Sith War. The war raged across the entire galaxy for several years, the Sith always one step ahead of the Republic. During this time, many thousands, likely even millions were killed and worlds bombarded with bio-weapons, invaded, or turned to glass from orbit. Nomi participated in many battles and campaigns as a leader, eventually being raised to the rank of Master and placed on the Council. Additionally she continued her studies under the venerated Grandmaster Odan Urr. Urr revealed many secrets of the Force to her, including a way to stop a Dark Sider from wielding the Force in battle. Following that, she found herself on Coruscant when Uliq, Exar Kun, and the Mandalorian mercenary tribes attacked the Senate chamber. Master Baas was slain by Kun, but Nomi and the others drove away the Sith.
Eventually, Nomi and Cay Qel-Droma confronted Uliq on Kemplex IX. Cay proceeded to engage his brother in a lightsaber duel that cost him his life, and drove Nomi into a second Force trance. Overcome with grief she lashed out at him with all of her strength and severed him from the Force permanently. Despairing, Uliq accepted his punishment and eventually led Nomi and the Jedi Order to Exar Kun’s hidden base.
Kun’s hidden fortress, the temple complex on Yavin IV (the same ones used by the Rebel Alliance during Episode IV and by Luke Skywalker in the post movie EU), was a monument to the Dark Side constructed by the ancient Sith Lords and steeped in Dark Side energy. In a grand convocation, the entire Jedi Order channeled their powers through Nomi so that they could erect a singularly massive Wall of Light across the entire moon. The results devastated the jungle, the fire turning it into a blazing inferno that they believed nothing could survive. After this the Sith remnants were driven back, scattered and destroyed and the Great Sith War came to a close with the (supposed) death of Exar Kun. Kun’s spirit had been bound to the temple by Dark Side sorcery and would return to trouble Luke Skywalker four thousand years later, but for the moment Nomi and the Order had won.
Shortly following these events Nomi was voted to lead the Order, Vima Sunrider entered training to be a Jedi, and the Restoration began, repairing a galaxy shattered by war. An effort that would…pretty much never be finished because it’s Star Wars and there are always more wars.
Personality:
Something worth noting about Nomi is that she is not very good at following the Jedi Code as defined by Yoda and the more modern Order. Really, she’s quite bad at it, though canonically she seems to have a rather interesting relationship with the Force and a very liberal view on how the Code should be applied, given her propensity to find attachments and get really emotional. So, that’s something to bear in mind.
Now, onward. Nomi is a person with a lot of strong emotions. She has a lot of love, and she shows it with family and friends, and it’s a huge part of her life. She is a very passionate person, and kind to people who’ve earned it almost to a fault. She is warm and open, her generosity regularly apparent in her dealings with people she’d consider herself close to. She’s fairly accepting, and seems to be open minded about quite a lot. A common theme in some parts of her canon is a mistrust for non-human sentient life that Nomi has no trouble with at all. Her first teacher was a quadruped, and she easily makes friends with several other alien species, given that it does come up rather frequently in Tales of the Jedi. She is stubbornly loyal to those friends as well, to the point of being somewhat impractical. Despite this, she still doesn’t talk a lot, generally preferring a listen-and-react approach to conversation rather than blithering on like some people. She speaks when she has something to say, and is quiet when she has nothing to say.
Nomi displays a great deal of stoic confidence in the face of great odds during the Sith War. She doesn’t like to fight, and seeks to avoid causing harm to others. She even goes so far as to refuse to touch a lightsaber for years after her husband’s murder, the trauma of that particular incident haunting her for a long time. She’s not quite a pacifist, because she is entirely willing to fight, but she definitely prefers to avoid conflict directly, instead using her powers to undermine the enemy morale or even directly turn them against one another in a bid to end the fight without danger to her loved ones. When she does finally take her lightsaber back up, she does so to save her daughter and her teacher from pirates who would surely have murdered them in cold blood. It was a test, to see if she was truly willing to fight or not, according to her teacher. This showed that she’s quite capable of being strong for people when they need her.
Conversely to her positive qualities, Nomi grows quite a lot harder over the course of the Sith War. She is not as forgiving as she once was, and she shows that when pressed or in a state of emotional flux she is all too willing to kill or use her powers to strip away an enemy’s power permanently. An example of this would be when she comes across a fallen Uliq Qel-Droma, who’d murdered his brother Cay. She curses him forever in a fit of blind, emotional rage and permanently cuts him off from the Force. She typically reserves such temperamental outbursts for people who threaten her family and close friends, almost like a mother bear. During such times, she gets rather reckless and prone to outbursts and displays of extreme power. But she isn’t the type to regret her decisions. She’s made some rash ones, but she looks forward without hesitation. Nomi’s strong sense of right and wrong helps her get into trouble, since she’s not entirely willing to act without cause. Hurting people is wrong, and in some ways she blames herself for not stopping Uliq before he killed Cay, though she could’ve intervened. This does, of course, result in Uliq being cut off from the Force as mentioned above, an act that she does not regret in the slightest, despite having loved him.
Nomi has a great deal of faith in the Force. Throughout the Sith War she is touched over and over again by it, and develops an unshakable trust that the Force will guide her. She feels it keenly, and it helps her in ways that often baffle her elder Jedi. Because of this, she lets the Force flow through her more naturally than most, and as a result is compared to an Avatar of the Light Side by Master Odan Urr, and referred to as a luminous being by several other Masters.
Nomi has a pragmatic side that others lack as well, when it comes to combat. She often reminds the more impulsive Jedi she knows that avoiding trouble is generally a wiser approach than seeking out trouble. In fact, it was her idea to avoid a direct confrontation with Exar Kun at the conclusion of the Sith War, instead choosing to combine the powers of hundreds of Jedi together to seal away his power and avoid a massive conflict. In essence, she ends the Sith War from orbit, without the need for a lightsaber to even be ignited. That said, she’s a bit of a hypocrite in this regard, because she has a sense of adventure and a keen interest in going out and being active that many other Jedi seem to have trouble keeping up with. She’s excited to see some of the wilder places in the Galaxy, curious about what mysteries they might hold, and wondering what marvels of the Force might be found.
Finally, Nomi has an incredible sense of self, great charisma, and a strong strength of spirit. She is someone who learned how to make her presence known in a crowd. When she speaks, such as when she addressed the Republic Senate, people do listen because she’s generally fairly quiet and rarely speaks without reason. She’s considered a luminary with reason. She has an incredible force of will, strong enough to unite the Jedi and the ailing Republic senate to the cause of defeating the Sith when there is dissension in the ranks. Her bearing is regal and noble, and her sense of self so strong that she was able to focus the will of hundreds of Jedi into a single Wall of Light to defeat Exar Kun. She addressed the other Jedi and faced them with no fear, even though the Masters thought that perhaps it was impossible, including her own masters. She managed it, and managed to keep her sanity in the process, a fear that the Masters had for her. Not that it would have stopped her, thanks to her conviction to her cause and faith in the Force.
Focusing on flaws and weaknesses, the first thing to note is that she has an impulsive streak. There are numerous examples of her undergoing dangerous missions against the advice of the Jedi Council, at least twice outright defying orders to the contrary. In part this is due to her faith that the Force will guide her, but something others do chide her on is that she will often rush into things. This is especially true if there are people she likes in danger, such as Uliq Qel-Droma’s disastrous infiltration of the Krath.
Another flaw is her emotions getting the better of her at times. Nomi is not the calm, collected Jedi Master all the time. She is most of the time, but when she snaps she really, really snaps. A prime example (aside from Andur’s death) is when she dealt with Uliq after he murdered Cay. Another good one is after Odan Urr was attacked and murdered by Exar Kun. She was overcome with grief at the loss of her then master and swore that she would see Kun brought to justice for his crimes. That became a driving force in her life that propelled her forward for years to come.
Another weakness is Nomi’s reliance on the Force. She has incredible faith in it after her ordeals and training, and to find herself cut off from it or somehow set apart from it would shake her greatly. She identifies herself as a Jedi, and being one means so much to her. Her (admittedly after my canon point) interactions with Uliq after he was severed from the Force, and her daughter, and Master Thon in some later comics point to this, as she states that “If I wasn’t a Jedi, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I was called, and now it is who I am.”
Another “potential” weakness is the importance Nomi places on family and friends. She will do nearly anything to protect and help her friends, even if it’s foolish. It goes along with her impulsive nature, but this is particularly brought out by the presence of loved ones. As for family, or people she sees as family? Nomi will do anything. Friends she’ll go very far for. Family, particularly Vima? A few years after my canon point there is a storyline where she pursues a mercenary group that attempts to kidnap Vima across most of the galaxy, rooting them out and dealing with them with extreme force. It’s a trait she doesn’t exhibit early, but Vima is kept in the sidelines in the early canon.
Yet another flaw with Nomi is that she has grown harder throughout the course of the Sith War. Early on she’s a lot more naïve and gullible, almost a pacifist but by the end of her training and the war she’s actually a tough battlefield commander and a merciless combatant. She won’t kill if she can avoid it, but forcing her into a battle is something that will result in her taking violent action. She often laments that she has to, and after hurting an enemy she feels guilty but not to the extent that she did early on. She’s seen war and it’s made her colder, and she does not like it. It’s something other Jedi comment on, most notably Tott Doneeta and Oss Willum. Both of them state that she’s changed. Not necessarily for the worst, but she’s definitely not as easygoing as she once was.
Finally, Nomi isn’t someone who can set aside things easily. She holds onto emotions, quite contrary to the Jedi code. She feels things keenly and has some difficulty with letting anything go. Some Jedi, such as Thon, note that she often seems troubled by events in her life and dwells on them. Coping with and coming to terms with things just takes her a long time. It takes her nearly twenty years to come to accept Uliq in a positive light again, even after he’s repented and helped her daughter become a Jedi (Again, after my canon point), and it takes her several years to move past Andur’s murder. She doesn’t ever fully come to grips with it, carrying mementos of him with her throughout the course of her life.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
The Force
Nomi Sunrider, according to Jedi historians and contemporaries, is a Jedi who's strength in the Force is legendary. The Hutt Jedi Beldorian once compared her connection to the Force to Masters Thon and Yoda. She is the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and has trained under four great masters, and as such possesses an enormous variety of Force powers. Some examples of her feats include enhancing her own speed, strength and stamina, blocking blasters and lightsabers with her bare hands, absorbing energy, mastery over mental powers like the Mind Trick, and several rarer ones such as Flight, Illusion, and Cloaking. The most noteworthy of her rare talents are known as the Wall of Light and Battle Meditation. The Wall allows Nomi to seal an area against evil and immolate it in the something akin to sacred flame. If focused on a single person the Wall can seal the ability to touch the Force from them, though this takes prodigious amounts of strain and the aid of Jedi working together or extreme emotion to give her the strength to do it permanently, otherwise the effect is temporary. Battle Meditation is the ability to influence the outcome of a massive battle by boosting morale and helping allies work together while undermining the enemies will to fight. She’s accounted quite good at Force Healing as well.
It’s worth noting that Nomi’s prodigious strength in the Force is a double edged sword. She is weak to Psychic attacks that come at her when she’s unprepared, even simple ones causing her great pain. Not that she has a weak will, but many Dark-Siders use powers that attack the psyche and she finds herself vulnerable to them. Additionally, there are times when the Force simply overrides Nomi’s will, using her body as a conduit for it’s own end. I do not anticipate this happening in the game unless a plot called for it, but I’d like to keep it as an option if possible.
Lightsabers
Outside of her talents with the Force, and in spite of her dislike of them, Nomi is a prodigious lightsaber duelist. Both Master Thon and Master Vodo-Baas believed that the Force spoke to Nomi and guided her hands with a blade. On several occasions she defeats dozens of enemies single-handedly, including a squad of Mandalorian Elites during Uliq Qel-Droma’s assault on Coruscant. She’s a natural with one, though she hates using them and prefers instead to use her strength with Force powers to overwhelm an opponent when diplomacy fails.
Other Skills
Nomi is a passable pilot, shown being able to fly various starships alone, but she is never shown in ship to ship combat.
She’s able to speak Basic and Huttese without difficulty, though she’s cited as being a terrible cook and a poor dancer by her husband. For this reason, her family kept a droid to do the cooking.
Other than that, it’s shown that she was educated well, and has some knowledge of early Galactic hyperspace routes, through dangerous spaceways. Moreover, her studies under Odan Urr included more than just the Force, but also early Jedi history, Republic history, and biology. She’s no scientist, but she’s not stupid.
Limitations
After talking with some of the other Jedi in the game, I’d like to keep Nomi’s abilities mostly as is, and simply keep track of them via a permissions post. The exceptions being the Wall of Light not working without permission, and mental powers not working on NPCs and things of that nature. And if requested, I can tone down her general level of ability given the sheer variety of powers that she knows.
Inventory: A green lightsaber made with an Adegan crystal and a rather distinctive, almost clawed hilt, a blue-green Jedi robe, and a small datacron with images of her husband Andur, her daughter Vima, and her lover Uliq Qel-Droma on it, as well as some of the writings/teachings of her four mentors: Arca Jeth, Odan Urr, Vodo Baas and Thon. Perhaps some light reading for entertainment as well. Also a dark green cloak.
Appearance: Nomi is a tall, physically fit woman with longish red hair. She has green eyes and is noted for having a gentle but stern look to her. I use a PB for her as the art in the Tales of the Jedi comics varies wildly from issue to issue. The PB is Bryce Dallas Howard.
Age: 35 years old
AU Clarification: N/A, she’s an OU character
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
A cold wind blew out of the musty old tomb, a very physical reminder of what had been laid to rest beneath Ambria centuries before. Nomi Sunrider stepped forward into the entrance without a hint of fear, turned to the young apprentices behind her and offered a reassuring smile. It was a fairly routine task, they were to enter the ruin and recover some relics that'd been stolen by renegade Jedi, and return them to Coruscant. She'd elected to take the apprentices along for extra hands, but something was stirring in the Ambrian soil.
"Alright everyone, please pay attention. I'm going to go in first to make sure there aren't any creatures still lurking about, and I want you to wait for me to give you a signal to go in. I'm not sure what we'll find, but the reports do indicate that this is where those tablets were hidden. Anyone who disobeys is going to be stuck on cleaning duty for the remainder of the year. Understood?"
"Yes, Master Sunrider," the trio of young women answered in unison, knowing that she meant it.
With a curt nod, Nomi stepped into the barrow and slipped into the darkness. She drew deeply on the Force, heightening her senses to help overcome the oppressive darkness that welled up all around her. This was a place truly invested with the Dark Side, and it's taint was apparent. An acrid stench hung in the air, and a hideous, stomach-churning gust of foul air reached out for her stomach. She fought back the urge to vomit and pressed on, one hand resting against the rough stone of the wall. A hissing sound echoed through the dark corridor, causing the Jedi's eyes to slide warily around, but spotting nothing she pressed on.
Several dozen meters of wall later, Nomi found herself inside an enormous, circular room. In the dimness she could just barely see the outline of a humanoid figure, and flanking it were two lizard-like creatures. The beasts slithered and hissed, looking from her to the other figure as if waiting for the command to attack. Nomi leveled her gaze on the man and stopped, beginning to still her mind and breathing. The figure turned, and the Jedi drew back in surprise. Before her stood a twisted shade of a very familiar figure. Cay Qel-Droma, his eyes sunken in death, surged forward with a howl.
"YOU! YOU LET HIM KILL ME!" Cay's shade bellowed as it collided with a hastily conjured shield of Force energy. Blue sparks flew away from the glowing Force construct as the malignant spirit was driven back. Not Cay, she knew, but a booby-trap designed to unnerve her, or some manner of ghost that was drawing on her own regrets and fears, hoping to feed on her.
"Specter, get out of my head. You are not welcome there. Begone!" Nomi answered back, her hand flicking out in a warding gesture that sent her assailant flying backwards.
The old ghost shrieked again, and Cay's features changed, replaced with those of his brother Uliq. That got the reaction that it wanted. Nomi's face turned pallid, her lip curling upward in a scowl. She reached for the Force again, her mind touched with pure anger. This creature's face twisted into a mocking little scowl as it rushed forth again, slamming against her shield and scattering it in her distraction. She reeled backwards, taking a few steps, and then surged forward into the spirit, making a slashing motion with her wrist. A wall of solid blue light engulfed it, swallowing it in the purifying flames of the Light Side, and nearly instantly it lost it's ability to touch her mind, reverting to a blob of floating inky blackness.
The creature's wail echoed through the cavern as it passed into oblivion, cut off from the Dark Side power that animated it's form. Dark ichor dripped down onto the stone floor, an oily smoke hissing as it's essence faded away. The reptiles that had kept back during the confrontation charged at her, eyes filled with hunger. Nomi pointedly did not draw her lightsaber, instead focusing inward and creating a ripple in the creature's minds. She remembered them from before, Hississ, or Dark Side Dragons as they were sometimes called. Dangerous, dangerous enough to want to avoid fighting directly, but also stupid and fearful. They skittered to a stop as she filled their minds with doubt, and turned to flee deeper into the tomb.
Nomi's eyes tracked them as they ran, her heartbeat still high from the specter, a rhythmic cadence beating against her inner ear. She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate, letting go of the anger she'd felt at the creature taking the form of her old lover and his dead brother. Only a fool would've taken that particular shape, she mused as she began to look around. It didn't take her long to locate the tablets that'd gone missing, and put in a call to the apprentices waiting outside. And even less time for them to hop back in the speeder and head for the spaceport, hoping to put the mildly disturbing tomb behind them.
Comms Sample:
[Video]
[For a moment Nomi just looked at the camera, sharp eyes seeming to size it up. A curious thing, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Some new Czerka model, maybe?]
Hello, to anyone able to see this broadcast. This is Nomi Sunrider, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and…embarrassingly enough I seem to have completely lost my way or someone was foolish enough to have abducted me in my sleep. [She smiles wryly, but there’s a dark glitter in her eyes that promises a kidnapper will not find her so compliant awake.] I have absolutely no idea where I am or how I got here, but if anyone is willing to provide some answers I’d be more than grateful. Any information at all would be appreciated.
[She pauses, scrubbing her face with her hand]
Even if it’s just information on where to find something to eat, honestly.
Your Name: Axiom
OOC Journal:
voidbearerUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope, I’m 27
Email + IM: Godeslas@gmail.com, AIM: Tuldawen
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Toooootal newbie here!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Nomi Sunrider
Canon: Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi
Original or Alternate Universe: Original Universe
Canon Point: A few months after the defeat of Exar Kun and the end of the Great Sith War.
Number: 989
Setting: The ubiquitous Galaxy. This is a very different Galaxy than portrayed in the Star Wars films, as the year is 3,996 BBY, so nearly four thousand years before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. The Galaxy has just entered a period of peace as the Jedi Order has defeated the Dark Lord of the Sith Exar Kun and begun rebuilding after the Sith War. This period is referred to as the Restoration. Generally, the period is lower tech than the movie Galaxy, and has a more medieval style to it, a more wild and unexplored place. At present Nomi is the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.
History:
Very little about Nomi’s early life is known before she married Andur Sunrider, a young Jedi Knight. She refused Jedi training early in life despite having been tested and found to have enormous potential but no reason is ever given why. According to the Tales of the Jedi RPG companion she was born into a fairly well to do family somewhere on the edge of the Core Worlds and met Andur when the pair was in their early twenties. They were married and lived happily for a time. At the age of 27 or 28, Nomi had a daughter with her husband named Vima. Shortly after Vima’s 3rd birthday Andur was sent to Ambria to train with the legendary Tchuukthai Jedi Master Thon, and he brought his family with him. During this trip, Nomi’s life was changed forever.
While stopping at a small hyperspace terminal in the Stenness system, Andur was ambushed and murdered by thugs working for the crime lord Bogga the Hutt. The thugs attempted to rob Nomi and her daughter but in her grief she was guided by the Force (through the ghost of Andur) to take up his lightsaber and defend herself. She killed one and drove the others away. Andur’s ghost told her he wished for her to continue his journey and go to Ambria to become a Jedi and so she agreed, albeit reluctantly. Feelings of guilt wracked her and she swore against ever using a lightsaber again.
Guided by the Force, Nomi made her way to Ambria where she began training under the quadruped Master after an encounter with Bogga’s men. During that encounter Nomi and Thon’s apprentice Oss Willum, who had been masquerading as Thon at his request, were placed in danger and Thon forced to step in. Nomi’s training with the Tchuukthai took several years, two or three based on accounts of Vima’s age but as with many Star Wars comics time is not so clear. During the training she has another encounter with Bogga’s raiders during which her refusal to wield a lightsaber was teste and that mental barrier broken down. As a result she was able to use one but still preferred to avoid it. At the end of the training, now a full fledged Knight Nomi was sent to Ossus to study under Vodo-Siosk Baas.
During her time with Baas she was asked to participate in putting down a revolt on Onderon where a group of Dark Side cultists following the ancient Sith Lord Freedon Nadd’s spirit were causing trouble. During this revolt she became friends with Uliq and Cay Qel-Droma and worked alongside Master Arca Jeth, receiving further instruction in the Jedi arts from him. During the revolt, a Sith warrior hit her with a psychic attack that knocked her out, though she was recovered by Uliq and led the Jedi forces to victory with her Battle Meditation and the strength of the Force behind her, the first example of a Force trance she undergoes.
Following this, Nomi participated in rooting out the Krath, a secret society of Dark Side adepts that had taken control of the Empress Teta system. Arca Jeth kept her out of the early stages of the conflict to train her personally, and when she entered the conflict she helped break through a number of Sith illusions and led the Republic to recover some of their people before ordering a retreat. During a followup conclave on Deneba, Nomi and other Jedi were attacked and Arca Jeth killed. In the aftermath, Nomi and Uliq admitted they had feelings for one another and shared a kiss before Uliq went off on a dangerous infiltration mission. That mission was an utter failure and Nomi and Cay were forced to mount a rescue with the aid of Tott Doneeta. The rescue ended with a horrible realization: Uliq had fallen to the Dark Side. The trio escaped just barely.
Shortly after this, the Sith Lord Exar Kun confronted Qel-Droma and recruited both him and the Krath, beginning the Great Sith War. The war raged across the entire galaxy for several years, the Sith always one step ahead of the Republic. During this time, many thousands, likely even millions were killed and worlds bombarded with bio-weapons, invaded, or turned to glass from orbit. Nomi participated in many battles and campaigns as a leader, eventually being raised to the rank of Master and placed on the Council. Additionally she continued her studies under the venerated Grandmaster Odan Urr. Urr revealed many secrets of the Force to her, including a way to stop a Dark Sider from wielding the Force in battle. Following that, she found herself on Coruscant when Uliq, Exar Kun, and the Mandalorian mercenary tribes attacked the Senate chamber. Master Baas was slain by Kun, but Nomi and the others drove away the Sith.
Eventually, Nomi and Cay Qel-Droma confronted Uliq on Kemplex IX. Cay proceeded to engage his brother in a lightsaber duel that cost him his life, and drove Nomi into a second Force trance. Overcome with grief she lashed out at him with all of her strength and severed him from the Force permanently. Despairing, Uliq accepted his punishment and eventually led Nomi and the Jedi Order to Exar Kun’s hidden base.
Kun’s hidden fortress, the temple complex on Yavin IV (the same ones used by the Rebel Alliance during Episode IV and by Luke Skywalker in the post movie EU), was a monument to the Dark Side constructed by the ancient Sith Lords and steeped in Dark Side energy. In a grand convocation, the entire Jedi Order channeled their powers through Nomi so that they could erect a singularly massive Wall of Light across the entire moon. The results devastated the jungle, the fire turning it into a blazing inferno that they believed nothing could survive. After this the Sith remnants were driven back, scattered and destroyed and the Great Sith War came to a close with the (supposed) death of Exar Kun. Kun’s spirit had been bound to the temple by Dark Side sorcery and would return to trouble Luke Skywalker four thousand years later, but for the moment Nomi and the Order had won.
Shortly following these events Nomi was voted to lead the Order, Vima Sunrider entered training to be a Jedi, and the Restoration began, repairing a galaxy shattered by war. An effort that would…pretty much never be finished because it’s Star Wars and there are always more wars.
Personality:
Something worth noting about Nomi is that she is not very good at following the Jedi Code as defined by Yoda and the more modern Order. Really, she’s quite bad at it, though canonically she seems to have a rather interesting relationship with the Force and a very liberal view on how the Code should be applied, given her propensity to find attachments and get really emotional. So, that’s something to bear in mind.
Now, onward. Nomi is a person with a lot of strong emotions. She has a lot of love, and she shows it with family and friends, and it’s a huge part of her life. She is a very passionate person, and kind to people who’ve earned it almost to a fault. She is warm and open, her generosity regularly apparent in her dealings with people she’d consider herself close to. She’s fairly accepting, and seems to be open minded about quite a lot. A common theme in some parts of her canon is a mistrust for non-human sentient life that Nomi has no trouble with at all. Her first teacher was a quadruped, and she easily makes friends with several other alien species, given that it does come up rather frequently in Tales of the Jedi. She is stubbornly loyal to those friends as well, to the point of being somewhat impractical. Despite this, she still doesn’t talk a lot, generally preferring a listen-and-react approach to conversation rather than blithering on like some people. She speaks when she has something to say, and is quiet when she has nothing to say.
Nomi displays a great deal of stoic confidence in the face of great odds during the Sith War. She doesn’t like to fight, and seeks to avoid causing harm to others. She even goes so far as to refuse to touch a lightsaber for years after her husband’s murder, the trauma of that particular incident haunting her for a long time. She’s not quite a pacifist, because she is entirely willing to fight, but she definitely prefers to avoid conflict directly, instead using her powers to undermine the enemy morale or even directly turn them against one another in a bid to end the fight without danger to her loved ones. When she does finally take her lightsaber back up, she does so to save her daughter and her teacher from pirates who would surely have murdered them in cold blood. It was a test, to see if she was truly willing to fight or not, according to her teacher. This showed that she’s quite capable of being strong for people when they need her.
Conversely to her positive qualities, Nomi grows quite a lot harder over the course of the Sith War. She is not as forgiving as she once was, and she shows that when pressed or in a state of emotional flux she is all too willing to kill or use her powers to strip away an enemy’s power permanently. An example of this would be when she comes across a fallen Uliq Qel-Droma, who’d murdered his brother Cay. She curses him forever in a fit of blind, emotional rage and permanently cuts him off from the Force. She typically reserves such temperamental outbursts for people who threaten her family and close friends, almost like a mother bear. During such times, she gets rather reckless and prone to outbursts and displays of extreme power. But she isn’t the type to regret her decisions. She’s made some rash ones, but she looks forward without hesitation. Nomi’s strong sense of right and wrong helps her get into trouble, since she’s not entirely willing to act without cause. Hurting people is wrong, and in some ways she blames herself for not stopping Uliq before he killed Cay, though she could’ve intervened. This does, of course, result in Uliq being cut off from the Force as mentioned above, an act that she does not regret in the slightest, despite having loved him.
Nomi has a great deal of faith in the Force. Throughout the Sith War she is touched over and over again by it, and develops an unshakable trust that the Force will guide her. She feels it keenly, and it helps her in ways that often baffle her elder Jedi. Because of this, she lets the Force flow through her more naturally than most, and as a result is compared to an Avatar of the Light Side by Master Odan Urr, and referred to as a luminous being by several other Masters.
Nomi has a pragmatic side that others lack as well, when it comes to combat. She often reminds the more impulsive Jedi she knows that avoiding trouble is generally a wiser approach than seeking out trouble. In fact, it was her idea to avoid a direct confrontation with Exar Kun at the conclusion of the Sith War, instead choosing to combine the powers of hundreds of Jedi together to seal away his power and avoid a massive conflict. In essence, she ends the Sith War from orbit, without the need for a lightsaber to even be ignited. That said, she’s a bit of a hypocrite in this regard, because she has a sense of adventure and a keen interest in going out and being active that many other Jedi seem to have trouble keeping up with. She’s excited to see some of the wilder places in the Galaxy, curious about what mysteries they might hold, and wondering what marvels of the Force might be found.
Finally, Nomi has an incredible sense of self, great charisma, and a strong strength of spirit. She is someone who learned how to make her presence known in a crowd. When she speaks, such as when she addressed the Republic Senate, people do listen because she’s generally fairly quiet and rarely speaks without reason. She’s considered a luminary with reason. She has an incredible force of will, strong enough to unite the Jedi and the ailing Republic senate to the cause of defeating the Sith when there is dissension in the ranks. Her bearing is regal and noble, and her sense of self so strong that she was able to focus the will of hundreds of Jedi into a single Wall of Light to defeat Exar Kun. She addressed the other Jedi and faced them with no fear, even though the Masters thought that perhaps it was impossible, including her own masters. She managed it, and managed to keep her sanity in the process, a fear that the Masters had for her. Not that it would have stopped her, thanks to her conviction to her cause and faith in the Force.
Focusing on flaws and weaknesses, the first thing to note is that she has an impulsive streak. There are numerous examples of her undergoing dangerous missions against the advice of the Jedi Council, at least twice outright defying orders to the contrary. In part this is due to her faith that the Force will guide her, but something others do chide her on is that she will often rush into things. This is especially true if there are people she likes in danger, such as Uliq Qel-Droma’s disastrous infiltration of the Krath.
Another flaw is her emotions getting the better of her at times. Nomi is not the calm, collected Jedi Master all the time. She is most of the time, but when she snaps she really, really snaps. A prime example (aside from Andur’s death) is when she dealt with Uliq after he murdered Cay. Another good one is after Odan Urr was attacked and murdered by Exar Kun. She was overcome with grief at the loss of her then master and swore that she would see Kun brought to justice for his crimes. That became a driving force in her life that propelled her forward for years to come.
Another weakness is Nomi’s reliance on the Force. She has incredible faith in it after her ordeals and training, and to find herself cut off from it or somehow set apart from it would shake her greatly. She identifies herself as a Jedi, and being one means so much to her. Her (admittedly after my canon point) interactions with Uliq after he was severed from the Force, and her daughter, and Master Thon in some later comics point to this, as she states that “If I wasn’t a Jedi, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I was called, and now it is who I am.”
Another “potential” weakness is the importance Nomi places on family and friends. She will do nearly anything to protect and help her friends, even if it’s foolish. It goes along with her impulsive nature, but this is particularly brought out by the presence of loved ones. As for family, or people she sees as family? Nomi will do anything. Friends she’ll go very far for. Family, particularly Vima? A few years after my canon point there is a storyline where she pursues a mercenary group that attempts to kidnap Vima across most of the galaxy, rooting them out and dealing with them with extreme force. It’s a trait she doesn’t exhibit early, but Vima is kept in the sidelines in the early canon.
Yet another flaw with Nomi is that she has grown harder throughout the course of the Sith War. Early on she’s a lot more naïve and gullible, almost a pacifist but by the end of her training and the war she’s actually a tough battlefield commander and a merciless combatant. She won’t kill if she can avoid it, but forcing her into a battle is something that will result in her taking violent action. She often laments that she has to, and after hurting an enemy she feels guilty but not to the extent that she did early on. She’s seen war and it’s made her colder, and she does not like it. It’s something other Jedi comment on, most notably Tott Doneeta and Oss Willum. Both of them state that she’s changed. Not necessarily for the worst, but she’s definitely not as easygoing as she once was.
Finally, Nomi isn’t someone who can set aside things easily. She holds onto emotions, quite contrary to the Jedi code. She feels things keenly and has some difficulty with letting anything go. Some Jedi, such as Thon, note that she often seems troubled by events in her life and dwells on them. Coping with and coming to terms with things just takes her a long time. It takes her nearly twenty years to come to accept Uliq in a positive light again, even after he’s repented and helped her daughter become a Jedi (Again, after my canon point), and it takes her several years to move past Andur’s murder. She doesn’t ever fully come to grips with it, carrying mementos of him with her throughout the course of her life.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
The Force
Nomi Sunrider, according to Jedi historians and contemporaries, is a Jedi who's strength in the Force is legendary. The Hutt Jedi Beldorian once compared her connection to the Force to Masters Thon and Yoda. She is the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and has trained under four great masters, and as such possesses an enormous variety of Force powers. Some examples of her feats include enhancing her own speed, strength and stamina, blocking blasters and lightsabers with her bare hands, absorbing energy, mastery over mental powers like the Mind Trick, and several rarer ones such as Flight, Illusion, and Cloaking. The most noteworthy of her rare talents are known as the Wall of Light and Battle Meditation. The Wall allows Nomi to seal an area against evil and immolate it in the something akin to sacred flame. If focused on a single person the Wall can seal the ability to touch the Force from them, though this takes prodigious amounts of strain and the aid of Jedi working together or extreme emotion to give her the strength to do it permanently, otherwise the effect is temporary. Battle Meditation is the ability to influence the outcome of a massive battle by boosting morale and helping allies work together while undermining the enemies will to fight. She’s accounted quite good at Force Healing as well.
It’s worth noting that Nomi’s prodigious strength in the Force is a double edged sword. She is weak to Psychic attacks that come at her when she’s unprepared, even simple ones causing her great pain. Not that she has a weak will, but many Dark-Siders use powers that attack the psyche and she finds herself vulnerable to them. Additionally, there are times when the Force simply overrides Nomi’s will, using her body as a conduit for it’s own end. I do not anticipate this happening in the game unless a plot called for it, but I’d like to keep it as an option if possible.
Lightsabers
Outside of her talents with the Force, and in spite of her dislike of them, Nomi is a prodigious lightsaber duelist. Both Master Thon and Master Vodo-Baas believed that the Force spoke to Nomi and guided her hands with a blade. On several occasions she defeats dozens of enemies single-handedly, including a squad of Mandalorian Elites during Uliq Qel-Droma’s assault on Coruscant. She’s a natural with one, though she hates using them and prefers instead to use her strength with Force powers to overwhelm an opponent when diplomacy fails.
Other Skills
Nomi is a passable pilot, shown being able to fly various starships alone, but she is never shown in ship to ship combat.
She’s able to speak Basic and Huttese without difficulty, though she’s cited as being a terrible cook and a poor dancer by her husband. For this reason, her family kept a droid to do the cooking.
Other than that, it’s shown that she was educated well, and has some knowledge of early Galactic hyperspace routes, through dangerous spaceways. Moreover, her studies under Odan Urr included more than just the Force, but also early Jedi history, Republic history, and biology. She’s no scientist, but she’s not stupid.
Limitations
After talking with some of the other Jedi in the game, I’d like to keep Nomi’s abilities mostly as is, and simply keep track of them via a permissions post. The exceptions being the Wall of Light not working without permission, and mental powers not working on NPCs and things of that nature. And if requested, I can tone down her general level of ability given the sheer variety of powers that she knows.
Inventory: A green lightsaber made with an Adegan crystal and a rather distinctive, almost clawed hilt, a blue-green Jedi robe, and a small datacron with images of her husband Andur, her daughter Vima, and her lover Uliq Qel-Droma on it, as well as some of the writings/teachings of her four mentors: Arca Jeth, Odan Urr, Vodo Baas and Thon. Perhaps some light reading for entertainment as well. Also a dark green cloak.
Appearance: Nomi is a tall, physically fit woman with longish red hair. She has green eyes and is noted for having a gentle but stern look to her. I use a PB for her as the art in the Tales of the Jedi comics varies wildly from issue to issue. The PB is Bryce Dallas Howard.
Age: 35 years old
AU Clarification: N/A, she’s an OU character
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
A cold wind blew out of the musty old tomb, a very physical reminder of what had been laid to rest beneath Ambria centuries before. Nomi Sunrider stepped forward into the entrance without a hint of fear, turned to the young apprentices behind her and offered a reassuring smile. It was a fairly routine task, they were to enter the ruin and recover some relics that'd been stolen by renegade Jedi, and return them to Coruscant. She'd elected to take the apprentices along for extra hands, but something was stirring in the Ambrian soil.
"Alright everyone, please pay attention. I'm going to go in first to make sure there aren't any creatures still lurking about, and I want you to wait for me to give you a signal to go in. I'm not sure what we'll find, but the reports do indicate that this is where those tablets were hidden. Anyone who disobeys is going to be stuck on cleaning duty for the remainder of the year. Understood?"
"Yes, Master Sunrider," the trio of young women answered in unison, knowing that she meant it.
With a curt nod, Nomi stepped into the barrow and slipped into the darkness. She drew deeply on the Force, heightening her senses to help overcome the oppressive darkness that welled up all around her. This was a place truly invested with the Dark Side, and it's taint was apparent. An acrid stench hung in the air, and a hideous, stomach-churning gust of foul air reached out for her stomach. She fought back the urge to vomit and pressed on, one hand resting against the rough stone of the wall. A hissing sound echoed through the dark corridor, causing the Jedi's eyes to slide warily around, but spotting nothing she pressed on.
Several dozen meters of wall later, Nomi found herself inside an enormous, circular room. In the dimness she could just barely see the outline of a humanoid figure, and flanking it were two lizard-like creatures. The beasts slithered and hissed, looking from her to the other figure as if waiting for the command to attack. Nomi leveled her gaze on the man and stopped, beginning to still her mind and breathing. The figure turned, and the Jedi drew back in surprise. Before her stood a twisted shade of a very familiar figure. Cay Qel-Droma, his eyes sunken in death, surged forward with a howl.
"YOU! YOU LET HIM KILL ME!" Cay's shade bellowed as it collided with a hastily conjured shield of Force energy. Blue sparks flew away from the glowing Force construct as the malignant spirit was driven back. Not Cay, she knew, but a booby-trap designed to unnerve her, or some manner of ghost that was drawing on her own regrets and fears, hoping to feed on her.
"Specter, get out of my head. You are not welcome there. Begone!" Nomi answered back, her hand flicking out in a warding gesture that sent her assailant flying backwards.
The old ghost shrieked again, and Cay's features changed, replaced with those of his brother Uliq. That got the reaction that it wanted. Nomi's face turned pallid, her lip curling upward in a scowl. She reached for the Force again, her mind touched with pure anger. This creature's face twisted into a mocking little scowl as it rushed forth again, slamming against her shield and scattering it in her distraction. She reeled backwards, taking a few steps, and then surged forward into the spirit, making a slashing motion with her wrist. A wall of solid blue light engulfed it, swallowing it in the purifying flames of the Light Side, and nearly instantly it lost it's ability to touch her mind, reverting to a blob of floating inky blackness.
The creature's wail echoed through the cavern as it passed into oblivion, cut off from the Dark Side power that animated it's form. Dark ichor dripped down onto the stone floor, an oily smoke hissing as it's essence faded away. The reptiles that had kept back during the confrontation charged at her, eyes filled with hunger. Nomi pointedly did not draw her lightsaber, instead focusing inward and creating a ripple in the creature's minds. She remembered them from before, Hississ, or Dark Side Dragons as they were sometimes called. Dangerous, dangerous enough to want to avoid fighting directly, but also stupid and fearful. They skittered to a stop as she filled their minds with doubt, and turned to flee deeper into the tomb.
Nomi's eyes tracked them as they ran, her heartbeat still high from the specter, a rhythmic cadence beating against her inner ear. She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate, letting go of the anger she'd felt at the creature taking the form of her old lover and his dead brother. Only a fool would've taken that particular shape, she mused as she began to look around. It didn't take her long to locate the tablets that'd gone missing, and put in a call to the apprentices waiting outside. And even less time for them to hop back in the speeder and head for the spaceport, hoping to put the mildly disturbing tomb behind them.
Comms Sample:
[Video]
[For a moment Nomi just looked at the camera, sharp eyes seeming to size it up. A curious thing, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Some new Czerka model, maybe?]
Hello, to anyone able to see this broadcast. This is Nomi Sunrider, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and…embarrassingly enough I seem to have completely lost my way or someone was foolish enough to have abducted me in my sleep. [She smiles wryly, but there’s a dark glitter in her eyes that promises a kidnapper will not find her so compliant awake.] I have absolutely no idea where I am or how I got here, but if anyone is willing to provide some answers I’d be more than grateful. Any information at all would be appreciated.
[She pauses, scrubbing her face with her hand]
Even if it’s just information on where to find something to eat, honestly.