Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys spends the war period doing a lot of Jedi Consular Things--evacuating and resettling civilians, negotiating supplies and support, investigating Zakuul infiltrators and quislings, and generally working to make sure the Republic member worlds and the Jedi don't lose their humanistic principles while fighting to defend themselves.
Role: Support
Result: Survival

I also asked Dapper to roll for Shelzais Sek (my one-off Ziost character). Obviously not a brave galactic hero. If there's a neutral resort planet left standing, then you'll find her there, at the Space Café Américain in the Casablanca sector.
Role: Uninvolved/hiding behind the nearest large furniture
Result: Survival

Jedi Fun Fact: Tethys finishes the game with Morality 100 (a little over, actually), which is partly owing to decent conflict rolls, but it also became sort of a point of pride that she did not flip a single Dark Side pip all game. Paragon avatar update courtesy of Kat, who made this much prettier version of the original silly KotOR character screen photoshop I did as a joke.

[Katarzyna Panteer]

Oh wow, Tethys so shiny on her Morality. (#TethysForGrandMaster)

Glad to see them both surviving! Shel living her best life in being uninvolved, because she is selfish and terrible. Makes perfect sense for her to choose the selfish option. xD

What do you see for Tethys after the war?

[Tethys Carrack]

Yes, Shelzais is unapologetically terrible. Here is how I proposed her epilogue to Dapper Dog:

Shelzais will roam the galaxy trading on minor stardom and family money until she gets marooned on a desert planet by a jealous ex,or gets old somewhere writing snarky memoirs about her scandalous past in the golden age of Hydro-Hollywood and ghostwriting screenplays, or reaches apotheosis in the form of a Paris-Hilton-style documentary film about her own vapid celebrity and becomes one with the Force. Something like that

Tethys is a little harder to predict without knowing how the war goes, because she... actually cares about the outcome?

All else being equal, I imagine her just Consular-ing around, training an uninterrupted sequence of apprentices, trying to redeem occasional doubting Sith and Zakuul Knights, maybe on the Council at some point (but that's much more of a GM decision now). She's Auntie Tethys to an awful lot of orphans and semi-orphans at this point, so I think that side of her personality will be increasingly ascendant. She has a stake in the future tone/direction of the Jedi Order and steering it in the humanistic, peace-oriented (but practical) direction she prefers, and that also will push her toward teaching and setting an example for the next generation(s).

Quite honestly, Dapper told me that my Tethys epilogue plans sounded like either Support or Involved, and I only came down on Support in the end because I was a little afraid there'd be no Jedi surrogate parent types left at this rate. And then I think the roll was good enough that she might have survived at Involved anyway, so shame on my cowardice.

[Nudimsu]

You were by far the most stereotypical Jedi in this whole game, and I mean that in a complimentary way. Sometimes the classics work, and you made it work.

Wish I had more scenes with you.

[Tethys Carrack]

You were by far the most stereotypical Jedi in this whole game, and I mean that in a complimentary way. Sometimes the classics work, and you made it work.

Wish I had more scenes with you.

Thank you! I really enjoyed RPing our interrupted poker (err, I mean Pazaak) game--that did give me the feeling the two of them could have had entertaining chemistry given more time. A real pazaak game could have been hilarious. (Tethys can see through a bluff, Nudi can calculate the odds... neither of them can actually bluff themselves? )

I was indeed trying to play the classic tune with Tethys, as honestly and realistically as I could. I'm glad it worked for you. It was interesting seeing how the tune shifted keys over time as the character matured, too.

[Luth Khalan]

Tethys was neat. She was a very Jedi classic type of character, but it felt like you made it unique to her. Was there ever a time you found yourself surprised by her thought process? Were there any moments she was tempted to be less than Jedi-ish about something in any of her games?

[Sylvain Torsin]

Others have said it but really good Jedi depiction.

Been a joy to read.

[Breela Po]

I only have one question. Did Tethys ACTUALLY like Draahg?? Didn't see that little blirb coming back in the domestic disturbance thread

[Cynella Alde]

Impressive not taking ANY Dark Side. It's so easy to do it. Tethys really was the best Jedi and I continue to love how "stereotypical" she is.

I do regret slightly that Cynella's interactions with her are mainly Cynella's derp side...

But of course, the greatest interaction I had with Tethys is her nemesis, Evilynn. Someone so horrifically cruel to test a Jedi's patience, resolve... And Tethys obviously passed! Like she said in her recollection, she never let Evilynn win in the mind games.

While Eralynn Varad may never step outside of prison, she's had a lot of time to reflect. I like to think she can at least die in peace. Her sister will probably have to make amends on her part.

Reminds me also of her unlikely alliance with Zanebry. Ha!

But how could I forget the greatest Sith of us all? I don't think I actually ever brought it out but Shelzais represented one thing Dayana loathed about Sith society. Hedonism is not very orderly, you know!

[Remmington Balmung]

Did you enjoy the yellow veritcals and purple vertices?

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys was neat. She was a very Jedi classic type of character, but it felt like you made it unique to her. Was there ever a time you found yourself surprised by her thought process? Were there any moments she was tempted to be less than Jedi-ish about something in any of her games?

I will absolutely die on the hill of 'classic Jedi are interesting!' Everyone loves Obi-wan, and you can't get more classic than that!

But thanks, though.

The emergence of Aunt Tethys was one character thought process that took me by surprise this game. I'm sure there were others in past games as well, hmm... but that's what comes to mind, since it's the most recent.

As for 'times she was tempted to be less than Jedi-ish,' definitely. In Alderaan, she made a snap judgement about the Blackguards and had to walk it back. And Cynella/Nekoinu brought up Eralynn Varad from Bankor, upthread--that, and the Bankor villains in general, really pushed Tethys's buttons and she had some moments with darker potential there. I had fun recounting that from the perspective of an older Tethys in a scene with Riss this game. Her Strength/Weakness pair is Determination and Obsession and she started Bankor with the Personnel duty (protect people, leave no one behind), so danger to other people is something she'll go out on a limb for. Sometimes that challenged the character's balance, especially the younger versions of her. This time she mostly found constructive outlets for it, which makes sense in a few ways--it was a survival-oriented game, the character is older and more mature, etc.

I was also trying to play a character who could be doing a pretty good job of Jedi-ing without being practically, interchangeably perfect in every way. There were lots of times Tethys felt a certain way, or did a certain thing, that could have been done differently and still be Jedi-ish--just a different Jedi. She wasn't angelically serene about being stuck on Hoth, for example. She recognized that there was life out there on the ice, the Force is everywhere, yadda yadda, but... it was also freaking cold all the time, the air was drying out her skin, there wasn't a single body of open water or patch of green on the whole planet, and all in all if she never sees Hoth again after this it will be too soon.

[Tethys Carrack]

Others have said it but really good Jedi depiction.

Been a joy to read.

Yay, thanks!

More people should play vanilla Jedi. It's a complex and interesting flavor, I swear!

[Tethys Carrack]

I only have one question. Did Tethys ACTUALLY like Draahg?? Didn't see that little blirb coming back in the domestic disturbance thread

Oh, haha, that goes back to the first game Tethys appeared in. She originally met Draagh ten years earlier, during the Mandalorian invasion of Bankor (a planet inexplicably lousy with undercover Sith Lords at the time). They kept running into one another, and they had an odd but definitely real and interesting chemistry. She suspected there was something up with him, but didn't know he was a Sith, let alone Baras's man, until after he'd already fled with Luth.

(And also people made a bunch of jokes about the mysterious soulful guy with the abs asking the Jedi nerd to the Sith prom. )

So, yeah, she felt a strange connection with him at the time and was a bit saddened to see he'd become (or always had been?) more of a basic B Sith in the intervening decade.

By Alderaan, Tethys was pretty firmly settled into being aromantic-by-choice, a direction she'd already been going since the beginning. So it's not like she's going to run off and proposition Draagh. But she also doesn't easily let go of people she connects with.

[Tethys Carrack]

[snip]

Aww, Eralynn so terrible. Nemesis!!! <3

It was really fun getting to look back in-character on how formative that was for Tethys. I'm glad you got a kick out of it too.

But how could I forget the greatest Sith of us all? I don't think I actually ever brought it out but Shelzais represented one thing Dayana loathed about Sith society. Hedonism is not very orderly, you know!

Hah, but that's the whole point! What fun is order?

Meanwhile, Shelzais thought the fundamental poison in Sith society was ambition, which is why she was so determined to have absolutely none of that whatsoever. Of course she also had plenty of privilege to get by without it.

Come to think of it, now that we've met Valkorion, she wasn't exactly wrong about the original sin at the center of the Sith Empire being ambition. Hmm.

[Tethys Carrack]

Did you enjoy the yellow veritcals and purple vertices?

I actually really did, yes!

I had a lot of fun with the Gree-speak puzzle. I was happy to have serendipitously brought a character with the right temperament/educational background/etc. to want to engage with it IC. That meant I could poke at the puzzle without holding back much, or otherwise having to filter my guesses heavily through the character's viewpoint.

[Remmington Balmung]

I was having fun with it too but unfortunately missed out of some important threads so there were major gaps in my knowledge there