Tivran Velai

Youth

Tivran Velai was born to Araden and Nomari Velai in 18 ABY on the Nagai home world of Nagi. His parents were harsh, valuing their reputation and honor in military combat. His older brother Toran was the favored son who could do no wrong. Tivran on the other hand was smaller, slower to mature, and was considered the runt of the family. To earn any merit or praise from his family, young Tivran was forced to work twice as hard at everything he did. Every small victory was hard won and often only made them push him harder.

Young Adulthood

By the age of ten, Tivran was pushing himself to study survival skills and various martial arts techniques to strengthen and hone his body. His mother, Nomari, was killed in combat with raiders when he was fourteen, after which his father, Araden, grew even more distant. Any interaction with his younger son was cold and harsh, driving him even harder to excel and make something of himself. By the time he was eighteen, his body finally got a decent growth spurt and his hard training had helped his once lanky figure fill out. Still he kept a leaner look than many of his peers including his own brother, Toran, who was much taller and heavier than Tivran.

The Secret Search

Tivran had one thing he never dared to discuss with his family. It was a search that he had begun at the age of twelve deep in the archives where he first found the rumors and whispers of a distant relative with a fascinating reputation. Whenever he had time to devote to his studies, he was searching for details, any scrap of records that he could find and he began to compile them in an encrypted datapad. This distant relative intrigued him and puzzled him, and he wanted very much to unravel fact from fiction and track down what happened to the enigmatic Sanguis Caldiren.

Discovering The Force

On one of his many survival training missions, Tivran was ambushed by raiders. Knowing that such rabble had been responsible for his mother’s death filled him with a deep hatred, but also cautious fear. He was outnumbered and outmatched, but he was determined that he would not die there. As he fought he began feeling a strange power filling him, and he was able to push the raider’s back. He even succeeded in killing four of them before they retreated. He took back proof of his deeds. Seeing that and the condition his son was in impressed Tivran’s father enough that he actually praised him for the first time since his mother’s death. After that, Tivran began to study and research what he had experienced, realizing after some time that it had been a connection with the Force that he had felt. Force sensitivity wasn’t unheard of in his family but had grown less frequent in more recent generations as more focused on physical combat, not mental or Force-aided combat. Thus he never really got any training to understand the Force beyond what he found in the records.

Tragedy Strikes

While spending a few days engrossed in his studies of the archives, tragedy struck the Velai family hard. Out on a supposedly routine patrol, Araden and Toran were both killed along with the rest of their unit by raiders. Stricken with grief, despite the harshness he had endured from his father, he took some time off to deal with the loss. Then, having no further ties to bind him to Nagi, Tivran would pour himself fully into his study and search for more about the mysterious Sanguis. In the midst of his sorrow, he finally had a break in the search. He found records of Sanguis and a young lady named Elena eloping off world much to the anger of Elena’s family, and what he found pointed him toward Coruscant.

Leaving Home

At the age of twenty, Tivran bid farewell to his home world. Leaving Nagi was bittersweet, having been the only home he had ever known, but it was also filled with so many painful memories. He looked forward to this new chapter of his life as he finally found the freedom to be himself, not what everyone else wanted or expected him to be. He followed what he had determined to be the most likely trail the shuttle would have taken. Being a smaller commercial ship, it would have a shorter range than the small freighter he had purchased for himself. Tivran carefully plotted out all the best stops along the route where Sanguis’ ship would have needed to stop to refuel. With that, and a trusty astromech droid, he began his first foray into the larger galaxy.

First Big Break

Stopping at each location, he would begin spending some time researching local archives and scouring for any hint of the ship the other Nagai had been on. Finally, at one run-down space station, he found another really big break. There was actual proof that Sanguis had been there, but also evidence of a disaster that happened soon after. The accounts told of an attack by Sith raiders who badly damaged the station and led to the apparent capture of Sanguis, and Elena’s murder. Taking copies of every scrap and trace accounts of the events back to his ship, he started looking for clues that would lead him to his next step.

Entering Dangerous Waters

After much time analyzing what he had recovered from the space station, one thing was certain. The Sith connection could not be ignored. And if they captured Sanguis, where would they have taken him? That was the next question that he had to answer if he was going to have any chance of solving this mystery that had engrossed him for so long. That meant he now had to branch out his research to include the Sith. And the more he read and learned, the more he realized things could be dangerous, despite the centuries that separated him and his relative. Sith were still known to appear in isolated places, along with those of similar mindsets. Going in search of such old ghosts tended to be far more complicated and he had moments where he contemplated giving up. But he couldn’t bring himself to so easily abandon a search he’d spent half his life on. So he decided to start with the most obvious first option, the Sith home world of Moraband.

First Encounter With True Darkness

Once Tivran arrived at Moraband, he was hit by the overwhelming Force energy emanating from the planet, as if the very ground surrounding him was saturated in a powerful darkness. It was unlike anything he had ever felt. He shook it off with difficulty, focusing his mind on his search. He spent several days exploring before he finally found the hidden entrance to what appeared to be an academy or research center. Despite the constant push of the dark side against his mind wearing at his reserves, he pushed forward and began searching the building. On the third day after finding the academy, he found a treasure of information and the chamber where the captured Nagai must have been held. But he was also struck by a powerful wave of darkness that caused him to collapse. While unconscious, his mind was assaulted by long gone ghosts and spirits that lurked in the ancient hall.

The unconscious Nagai was subjected to a barrage of increasingly brutal dreamworlds where the dark spirits dredged up all of Tivran’s sufferings, his losses, his failures and weaknesses. He was hunted and attacked by vicious shadow beasts, taunted and tormented by ghostly whispers and laughter that drove him further into his agonizing nightmare. Then the whole world seemed to pitch on its side as his vision blurred and he found himself reeling from torrential waves of raging fury, blinding pain, heart-wrenching sorrow, and a tumultuous gamut of raw emotions. He could feel the burning bloodlust, the taste and scent of blood choked him.

Finally, Tivran jerked awake with a start, unconsciously wiping his mouth and coughing, expecting to still find blood there. He sat up, head throbbing and eyes glazed as he struggled to shake himself free of his nightmare and find some thread of reality to cling to. Thankfully, Tivran’s worried astromech droid had come to look for him, informing him that he had been out of contact for nearly four days.

Profit From Pain

Tivran returned to his ship, still very shaken, but in possession of a pile of datapads, data crystals, books, and a couple of holocrons that he had been able to find within the academy before his nightmare ordeal. He stumbled onboard the ship and locked the ramp again as soon as he and his droid were both inside. He dropped his backpack in his quarters, then took a long shower, changed clothes, and fixed himself a meal.

He spent the next two weeks studying the data he had collected and even managed to learn to shield himself from the worst of the oppressive energy of the planet. The biggest treasure he had found, aside from the holocrons, was a half scrawled entry in a journal about Sanguis’ bloodlust and another datapad that mentioned that the Nagai turned Sith would also travel to Seraph on occasion once he had been ‘tamed’. Though he doubted any such thing were possible if what he’d seen had been Sanguis in his nightmares. The holocrons, once he learned how to open them, taught him far more of the basics of the Force and the Dark Side, along with some techniques that he knew he wasn’t ready for yet, but it put him on the path to use the Force, rather than just be subject to it. The information he gained also gave him the next stop on his long journey. Once he’d rested a bit more, he would set off for Seraph.

Coming Face To Face With A Ghost

Tivan reached the planet of Seraph and started his search at the library and archive in one of the larger cities. There he found more concrete proof of his distant relative’s presence on the world, including one mention of a Republic strike against a conclave of Sith found on the planet. He tracked the coordinates of the attack to a remote area in the wilderness. Taking two more days in the city, he wanted to ensure that he had uncovered all that he could. Once he was ready, he made way to the coordinates that he had found. There he found the ruins of what appeared to be a large estate. The Republic attack had been devastating, but he pressed on, hoping to find something, anything that would further his search.

What he never could have expected was to run into the object of his search, literally and in the flesh. Somehow, Sanguis Caldiren was still alive, and clearly not happy to find a stranger in the remains of his estate.

Under Attack

Sanguis attacked Tivran in anger, rapidly forcing the younger Nagai to scramble and defend himself. He shouted, trying to reason with the angry Sith, yelping in pain when he couldn’t dodge a blow. The two fought for several minutes until Sanguis finally accepted that the young intruder didn’t pose a serious threat and was unarmed aside from a worn vibrosword. Standing down, Sanguis narrowed his golden eyes at Tivran and demanded his name and intentions.

Tivran took several deep breaths and sheathed his sword. Introducing himself, he outlined his nearly lifelong search and desire to learn more, both about Sanguis himself and the Force.

An Extended Invitation

Convinced that the younger Nagai did show promise and potential, Sanguis finally offered him the invitation to the Dark Brotherhood. There, Tivran would gain the opportunity to meet Sanguis’ family and begin the longer journey to train in the Force and grow in strength and power.

Currently he resides within Clan Scholae Palatinae and has achieved the rank of Warlord.