Naga Sadow-Week3

I see the contestants are making their way out onto the starting grid. This article was originally created as an entry for a Tenth Great Jedi War competition and is not official DJB canon content. It is preserved here for historical purposes only.

TBD
Artifact Information
Name:	TBD
Material:	TBD
Length:	TBD
Width:	TBD
Constructed:	TBD
Ownership
Creator:	TBD
Previous Owners:	TBD
Current Location:	TBD
[Source]

The Staff of Howling Gales is an artifact unearthed on New Tython due to the recent activity of Jedi and Dark Jedi there. It was originally created hundreds of years ago by the native population. As time went on, the knowledge of how to use the staff was lost and it was cast aside until recent times.

Description

Physical Appearance

The Staff looks like a long, crooked, wooden staff. It is pockmarked with tiny blue gems, which shimmer when it is used. The wood itself is worn from year after year of use. Strangely, it is only chipped in a few places, indicating that it is made with a strong material.

Function

The Staff has a limited ability to control the weather. When the Force is channeled into it in the correct way, it can cause fluctuations in the local weather system. It has always been used to generate beneficial weather, such as rain during a dry time. Thus when a Force Sensitive touches it, they feel a peaceful warmth emanating from it.

History

One of the earliest shamans to use the staff.

Creation

Originally simply a sacred staff used in rituals to summon rain to feed crops, continued use by Force-Sensitive shamans gradually gave the Staff its weather-affecting properties. After over a hundred years of use, it reached its full potency. The crystals were added near this point by a particularly adept shaman. They were carefully inlaid in the wood via the Force, and continued use gradually led to their glimmering whenever the Staff was used for its purpose.

Original Use

The Staff was originally used to summon rain in times of drought. Its first users had no idea of its potential. It began life as a simple wooden staff. After bringing rain three years in a row, the tribe that possessed it began to worship its abilities, and in times of need it was brought out and the chief tribal shaman would preform a ritual that heavily involved the Staff. Almost every single time, rain came each year and the staff was used more and more. As each shaman that used it labored tirelessly day and night to bring their people rain, the staff began to absorb their goodwill and Force residue, gaining its power. It was handed down from shaman to shaman until at last it gained its full power, bringing rain without fail. Shamans who used it spoke of being able to "feel" the weather around them.

At this time, it developed a following. This following developed into a primitive religion surrounding and worshipping the Staff. Only the most powerful shamans were allowed to use it, greatly amplifying its power.

Loss of knowledge and Abandonment

After a few hundred years of the Staff's use, the shamans began to forget their Force abilities. In time, the Staff was shunned as it failed to work repeatedly. This was not because the artifact itself had lost any power, but because shamans who were not Force Sensitive attempted to use it. The Staff still had a few dedicated followers. These followers sealed the Staff in a remote cave, hoping one day to find another shaman who could use it, but that day never came.

The cave in which the staff was found.

Rediscovery

After the Knights of Odan-Urr arrived at New Tython, they heard rumors of the Staff. These rumors were mere stories handed down by the Harakoan population through oral tradition, and the Knights dismissed them as such, nevertheless recording them along with any other stories they heard. As the Jedi began to accept redeemed Dark Jedi into their ranks, including spies, the massive influx of Force presence caused the artifact to stir, causing unnatural snowstorms in the Honunom Desert on New Tython's largest continent of Owyhyee. The Jedi noticed these, and sent a team to investigate. They discovered the artifact deep in a cave there. Deciding it was best not to bring it back to civilization, they briefly studied it, but were summoned away as tensions began to mount between the Knights of Odan-Urr and the Dark Brotherhood.

Rediscovery by Dark Jedi during invasion of New Tython

During the Invasion of New Tython, Dark Jedi of the Dark Brotherhood sensed the presence of the artifact and a team was dispatched to retrieve it, hoping to curry favor with the Dark Council. It was found, and after a short battle secured by the Dark Jedi, but they were ordered not to bring it back to the ships waiting above. Instead, a camp was established within its cavern and the Dark Jedi began to study it, wondering how they could use its powers for the dark side.

Modern Knowledge

Below is a summary of what the modern Jedi and Dark Jedi have discovered of the artifact. Since it was lost hundreds of years ago and only recently rediscovered, all that is known about it is taken from the Harakoan's oral tradition and what little time the Jedi and Dark Jedi have spent studying it.

Using the staff for a ritual.

Known Attributes

It is known that the artifact has something to do with the weather. It is most likely designed to control the weather in some way. Whether it is to pacify the weather around it or create new weather is unknown. The gems inlaid in its shaft seem to glimmer at random. It is unknown if they have any specific purpose.

The Journal of Master Balbuda

Our recent expedition to the Honunom Desert was more successful than I could have hoped. Reports of snowstorms in the middle of the desert from travelling Harakoans suggested that some kind of Force artifact was affecting the local climate, but to actually discover that artifact... I only wish our team could have spent more time in that cave with the staff.

Alas, I am getting ahead of myself. To begin: in a cave partially submerged by unnatural snow we located a strange crozier, seemingly carved out of wood, but as hard as stone and studded with thousands upon thousands of miniscule blue gems. Upon entering the chamber in which it stood, I could sense the build-up of Force energy around it, and discerned that the staff was causing the atmospheric changes which had produced snow outside.

We do not yet know exactly how the staff works- it seems to be a native Harakoan artifact which has slowly gained the potential to focus the Force over time- but it seems to respond favourably to our particular talents. With careful application of the Force, we were able to stop the snowstorm and replace the clouded skies above with bright sunshine, as they should be. However, this did not provide a great challenge- it seems likely from the cave paintings scattered around the walls of the chamber that the staff can control and manipulate the weather to produce anything from rain to great winds, but we could not find out (in our short time there) how to create rain with the staff.

If, once these tensions with the off-worlders have eased, we can retrieve the staff and study it in greater depth, think of the potential benefits; we could ensure prosperity for the Harakoan farms all year round with the correct application of sunshine and rain to grow their crops. We could also use the staff to prevent any potential natural disasters that might strike the planet and better safeguard the people from harm.

I am getting excited just writing and thinking about the potential of this artifact... I only hope it will still be there once the current troubles are over.

Balbuda.

Sadowan Field Report

--35ABY, New Tython--

--Begin recording--

My lords. We have been studying this staff for several days now, with little progress. It seems almost without doubt that the staff affects the weather in some way- the cave in which it was discovered was surrounded by an almost perpetual snowstorm, which seems to have abated now that we have removed and begun studying the artifact. In addition, the cave paintings which we discovered along with the artifact show clear signs of humanoid figures gathered together for some kind of ritual using the staff, with signs of weather phenomena over their heads. Without more prolonged study and my usual equipment, I cannot form a conclusive theory on how to make use of this device- in the field, I can offer only mere suppositions on how it should be operated.

Without doubt, the staff responds to the Force. We have experimented by funnelling our powers into it, and the sensors outside the cave have picked up wild fluctuations in the local climate in response. On one occasion, my Apprentice got a little too excited and pushed too much energy into the staff- the response was a sudden and very loud thunderstorm, complete with lightning bolts which almost incinerated several of the workers.

Think, my lords, of the potential uses of this weapon. If we can discern how to control it accurately, it could be used to bring devastating thunderstorms down on enemy forces before engage them, or to summon dreadful hurricanes to destroy them without any artillery expenditure. The elemental might of nature, while clearly not as powerful as the Dark Side, gives us an excellent weapon to turn against the Jedi.

I wish to counsel further study in a controlled environment, preferably back on Sepros, before the staff is used in this way- if we do not master every aspect of this device before utilising it, it could work against us.

I will report again in a few days, my lords. To-sha Amosk, Librarian of Sadow.

--End recording--