- "Every lesson costs something. Every scar is interest paid on what you didn't know yet."
- ―Vael
Vael is a young warrior of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, serving as one of the elite Royal Guards assigned to the protection of Grand Master Thane. An Arkanian Offshoot born into a genetically engineered servant caste, Vael came to the Brotherhood through the direct intervention of Uji Tameike, who identified him, arranged his transport to Arx, and took him on as an apprentice. Vael continues his training under Rahjin and Barafu - Warlord and Praetor of the Fist, respectively - both figures elevated to their positions by Uji himself.
Where his master was defined by patience, precision, and the authority of long experience, Vael leads with intensity, raw physical force, and forward momentum. The tension between those instincts and the discipline his training demands is the central challenge of his development. He is not reckless - but he is always on the edge of it.
Biography
Origins
Vael's early life was defined entirely by his function. As an Arkanian Offshoot, he belonged to a genetically modified caste bred over generations for physical labor and compliant service - stronger and more durable than baseline humans, but granted little else. The world he was born into offered no path forward and no expectation of one. He was property before he was a person, and the distinction was never made clear to him until it was made for him by someone else.
That someone was Uji Tameike.
The precise circumstances under which Uji encountered Vael have not been publicly documented, but the outcome is well established: Uji arranged for Vael's extraction from Arkania and his transport to Arx, the seat of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood's power. Whether this was an act of genuine recognition, a calculated investment in a future asset, or something of both, only Uji knew - and Uji rarely explained himself.
Training Under Uji
Upon arriving on Arx, Vael was formally taken on as Uji's apprentice. The dynamic between them was shaped by contrast from the beginning. Uji was deliberate, controlled, and methodical - a veteran tactician who had spent decades learning to win without waste. Vael was twenty-two years old, built like a weapon, and ran on intensity before he ran on anything else.
Uji did not try to extinguish that. He tried to aim it.
The training Uji imposed was structured and demanding, focused on building foundations that Vael's instincts would always be trying to outrun. He drilled control, patience, and the value of waiting - not because he expected Vael to become him, but because he understood that power without discipline is a liability. Vael absorbed the framework, even when he strained against it, and the marks Uji left on his approach to combat and conduct have not faded.
Beyond personal instruction, Uji also ensured that Vael was positioned within the Brotherhood's institutional structure. When Uji appointed Rahjin as Warlord and Barafu as his Praetor during his tenure as Fist, he saw to it that Vael was connected to both - not as a favor, but as continuation. Should Uji step back, the training would not stop. It would simply have new hands.
Uji also oversaw Vael's selection as one of the candidates for the Grand Master's Royal Guard - placing him in proximity to Grand Master Thane and the Brotherhood's inner circle before Uji himself was no longer present to navigate it alongside him.
Service Under Rahjin and Barafu
Following Uji's death in the final stages of the conflict against the Collective, Vael's ongoing development fell to Rahjin and Barafu - a transition Uji had anticipated and arranged for. Both Togorians had known Vael during Uji's tenure and were aware of what he was, what he had been shaped toward, and what it would take to keep shaping him.
Vael continues to serve as a Royal Guard to Grand Master Thane. The role demands exactly the qualities his training has been trying to cultivate: precision under pressure, control in close quarters, and the ability to subordinate momentum to judgment. For someone who runs on intensity by nature, the Guard is not a comfortable assignment - it is a demanding one. That, in Uji's estimation, was the point.
His work with the Fist continues alongside his Guard duties. How Vael navigates the authority of his two current mentors, and what he builds from the foundation Uji left him, remains the open question of his story.
Physical Description
Vael is tall and broad-shouldered, with a muscular build that reflects both his genetic origins as a labor-optimized Arkanian Offshoot and the conditioning he has undergone since his arrival in the Brotherhood. He stands out in any room - not through effort, but through presence. His pale skin, black hair, and silver-gray eyes mark him unmistakably as an Offshoot rather than a pureblood Arkanian, the latter of whom would carry all-white eyes and the four-fingered hands of the unmodified strain.
At twenty-two, he is young for the proximity to power he now occupies. The contrast between his age and his physicality creates a particular kind of first impression: he looks like authority before he has finished earning it. Those who know what he was before he arrived on Arx tend to find that contrast more interesting than those who don't.
Personality and Traits
Vael's defining qualities are intensity, ambition, raw force, and forward momentum. He approaches problems the way he approaches opponents - head-on, with full commitment, and with a preference for resolution over process. Left to his own instincts, he moves fast and hits hard and trusts that the details will follow.
His training has not removed those instincts. It has given them edges.
Uji spent considerable effort teaching Vael to slow down without stopping - to read a situation before responding to it, to recognize when patience was not weakness but advantage. The lesson took, though imperfectly. Vael now operates with more deliberation than he once did, but the pressure of his natural temperament is always present beneath it, and those who know him well can see the difference between when he is exercising control and when control is costing him something.
He is not reckless. He is someone who understands recklessness well enough to resist it, which is a different thing, and harder.
His ambition is real and unsuppressed. He knows where he came from, and he knows what it means to have been extracted from it rather than remaining there. He does not waste that. Whether that drive will serve the Brotherhood or eventually complicate his place within it is a question still being answered.
Powers and Abilities
Physical Capability
Vael's natural physical capabilities are exceptional, a product of his Arkanian Offshoot heritage and the genetic modifications of the caste he was born into. He is stronger, faster, and more physically durable than baseline humans, and his conditioning since joining the Brotherhood has developed those advantages further. He has cultivated an unusually high degree of mastery over his own body through Force Amplification and Control Self, allowing him to push his physical limits and maintain composure in circumstances that would overwhelm most practitioners. In terms of raw self-discipline, he ranks among the more capable members of the Brotherhood.
That talent is worth understanding correctly. Control does not come easily, It means he is capable of maintaining it despite the fact that it is always, without exception, a struggle. The discipline is real. So is the cost of sustaining it.
The Force
Vael demonstrates significant Force potential, with particular strength in Telekinesis and Force Lightning. Both abilities are capable of manifesting at high intensity - and therein lies his most significant weakness. When his emotional state is sufficiently elevated, particularly under anger or frustration, his control over these abilities degrades sharply. Telekinesis and Lightning have been known to manifest without his intention, physically expressing what he has not been able to suppress internally. It is an involuntary tell: those who know what to look for can read his emotional state from the air around him before he says a word.
This is not a flaw he has hidden. His trainers are aware of it, and the nature of his ongoing instruction reflects it. Managing the relationship between his emotional state and his Force output is a central part of what Rahjin and Barafu are working on with him.
Combat
Vael fights with a dual-bladed lightsaber, a weapon choice that was not made to suit his instincts but to correct them. A dual-blade demands constant awareness of both ends, disciplined footwork, and deliberate management of momentum - it punishes the kind of forward-charging aggression that comes naturally to him. The assignment was intentional: the weapon forces him to slow down and calculate in the moments when his instinct is to accelerate. Progress has been real, if uneven.
His foundational combat training combines Djem So with Mandalorian Core. Djem So's emphasis on powerful, aggressive counterattacks suits his physical strength and natural drive, while Mandalorian Core grounds him in unarmed practical combat. The combination gives him a versatile and forceful fighting style, though one that remains most effective when he is in sufficient control of himself to apply it with precision rather than pressure.