Amarath Shades

From SW:TOR-RP-Wiki

"You pay me enough and I'll make things my cup of tea." - Amarath Shades

Amarath Shades is a notorious small time hood, merc, and information broker. She is the sister of Padawan Karina Shades of the Jedi Order and formerly the CEO of the Yinran Corporation.

Contents 1 Appearance 2 Biography 2.1 Carving Out A Living 2.2 Working for the Highest Bidder 2.3 A Conflict of Interests 2.4 Working for Mandalorians 3 Personality 4 Powers and Abilities 5 Comments from the Creator

Appearance

"You are pretty." - Cyare Ordo to Amarath Shades

Shades is a tall woman with some weight to her. Carrying around guns and explosives tends to put meat on a person. While she is organized in her gear and rooms, her appearance is lacking in care, likely due to her thinking that with cybernetics she's ugly enough anyway. Her hair is shaggy but always pushed out of her face and short to keep it from getting in the way. Shades also wears light armor usually, though she can wear heavier types as well.

Biography

"Don't get paid enough for this..." - Amarath on various occasions.

Carving Out A Living

Amarath was one of three kids born to the Shades family of Kiffu. The middle child, she was constantly the one getting into trouble. As a child she was always prone to violence with other kids. Specially when they made fun of her family or their financial state. Over time this helped Amarath develop a thick skin and a sharp tongue. At some point in her life before her mercenary years she worked in a cantina and a droid shop nearby the family homestead. Both lost due to Amarath's inability to handle customers.

When she and her brother Renmon were old enough they cut a deal and got themselves off Kiffu, learning the ropes off the mercenaries they traveled with. Eventually the siblings left that company. On Coruscant they started picking up odd jobs. Though Renmon had a habit of blowing credits on frivolous things while Amarath did all the work. Amarath hoarded her own and made sure to always send some back to her parents to help them out. She avoided the party scene Renmon favored and got a mild reputation among Ren's friends as being a cold heart schutta, as well as with her mother for Amarath never visiting home.

After an accident killed her father and crippled their mother Shades took to supporting most of the family. Constantly being hit up by Renmon for credits, and taking it upon herself to pay her parent's bills. The financial strain was bad to the point she took a second job to help pay for things. Information Brokering.

However, everything literally blew up when Renmon found out. Seeking quicker credits to pay off a gambling debt to the Exchange; he used Amarath's contacts to play double agent in a gang war, in spite of Amarath's protests. Eventually the two gangs found out and cornered the pair. In the fight that followed between the gangs and the Shades siblings attempting to escape, someone armed a thermal detonator. The resulting explosion left a gory mess and Amarath without her eye and arm.

Shades spent the next year in and out of hospitals. At some point she had her brother's corpse sent back to Kiffu and paid for his funeral, though she did not attend herself due to being in the hospital at the time.

Recently she managed to start working again. After a few odd jobs as a mercenary, she started hanging out at the Red Star Cantina in hopes of picking up new contacts to buy and sell information to.

Working for the Highest Bidder

Hanging around the Red Star lead to Amarath working for Zelkin Infinium and becoming temporary CEO of the Yinran Corporation. However she was not about to pass up an opportunity for more money. She sliced into the security feed in Zelkin's base and then dug up information.

However, during her dig a pair of sith workers also decided to capitalize on the situation. Leading to Amarath choking one and then having to hunt down the other. Her hunt for Defan Syril lead her to the Red Star and then into Coruscant. However after depriving Defan of the information he had, she was pursued by Vix, Defan, and Maria of clan Ordo. The case came to a mild stalemate at one point with Amarath holding a young boy hostage while waiting for a mine to blow the building.

The kiffar's luck held out though and she managed to escape to her ship, though she was highly unhappy at her new master ordering her to pick up some of his allies from Korriban. She also lost her cybernetic arm to Maria, along with her computer that had been installed in it.

After picking up Zelkin's lieutenants Shades decided to lay low on Nar Shaddaa and get herself a new mechanical arm. Unknown at the time one had been pre-ordered for her by Zelkin. Shades however was not about to question her good fortune over the matter though.

While on Nar Shaddaa Shades met with Drador and his apprentice. The abundant number of jedi around her though started to irritate her and Shades opted to stay planet side to relax in a cantina for awhile. Not expecting a few familiar faces to literally drop in on her. Namely Vix and her own sister Karina.

The pair attempted to convince Shades to use her new CEO status to pull Yinran support from Zelkin's crusade. Shades however reasoned that Zelkin was not suicidal and as such the pair's arguments were invalid. She also became angry and shot Karina in the kneecap when it looked like her sister was only there to play the family angle in the negotiations. Using Shades's loyalty to her family to make her do what the pair wanted.

In the fight that ensued Defan was captured by Zelkin's HK unit Shadow. While Vix, Karina, and a few new allies all escape (thanks to Karina reprogramming Shades's own assault droids) Amarath was left thinking and pondering what exactly she had signed up for.

A Conflict of Interests

After receiving orders, Shades rendezvoused with Zelkin and other supporters. Though the kiffar was very uneasy about things due to her sister's talk on Nar Shaddaa, Shades was to far in to suddenly pull herself out.

Using a mind shielding technique Aggadesh had taught her on Nar Shaddaa, Shades managed to keep most of the dark jedi around her out of her head. Though Zelkin suspected something and attempted to prod Shades into compliance, he was however notably distracted by other matters.

On her ship Shades kept her fleet oddly out of the fighting on the Blood Gate front of the conflict. Though she gave orders and occasionally reinforced the other fleets. When Vix sent a message taunting the kiffar, Shades oddly did not return the jeers and even addressed Vix by her name instead of the nickname as was habit for Shades. After the message she mainly she stayed to herself working on something on her computer...which proved explosive later on.

When Vix, The Traveller, Flick, and Rakio boarded the Blood Money they were met with moderately stiff resistance. Oddly a set of working assault droids suddenly self destructed, clearing way to the bridge for them at one point, and Kha Dek and his commandos were suspiciously ordered to pull back and stay away from the ship.

After a small scuffle and a hull breech it became apparent to most of the borders that Shades was not intend on killing them, or helping Zelkin. However before Shades could explain all of her plan Vix knocked her out. Leaving the group to figure out an odd message carved into a small oval piece of durasteel.

The message turned out to be a user name and password for a program embedded in the Blood Money that set it on autopilot with guns blazing and self destruct. The team of boards barely escaped with Shades and were picked up to be tended by Maria. With Shades still unconscious Maria cut a deal with Vix and took Shades onto her ship.

Working for Mandalorians

"Four fulled armed and armored mandos versus one crappily armed girl lacking an arm and eye. Overkill much?" - Shades to Maria after a failed escape attempt.

Personality

"She thinks the galaxy is hard, and she made herself hard in return." - Karina Shades about her sister.

Shades is a tough nut to crack when it comes to herself. She knows the universe sees her as a money grubbing, stone cold, schutta and seems to have no issues with this. She seems to have little loyalty to anyone though like any kiffar family is very important to her. Shades is blunt to the point of rudeness and that sometimes can rub people the wrong way.

Shades does not however have completely black heart and has shown charity on rare occasion to others. Usually kids who are trying to learn the ropes of mercenary business. She also respects her mother enough to support her even though the two do not get along. Though her and her sister are on different sides of a war, Amarath refuses to actually kill her sister, stating that she fears her mother more then any punishment from Zelkin himself.

Powers and Abilities

"I use thermal detonators and a big gun; you use whatever mojo and an overgrown glowstick. Only the tools you use are different, not the end results." - Shades to Aggadesh about their methods of destruction.

While Amarath is notably lacking in traditional military training, she makes up for it in dirty tricks and improvising. She uses the classic way of spraying bullets about but has taught herself to shoot fairly well herself. She isn't a marksmen though and usually resorts to hit and run after an initial ambush.

She also is not above using assumed morals against others. As seen when she took a kid hostage while running from a number of people on Coruscant.

Shades also is an accomplished slicer and demolitions expert. She has a better grip on mechanics then most people due to her years working in a droid shop and having a mechanical arm.

Shades's biggest combat problems are jedi and anything that damages mechanical things (ion and EMP). Her mind is an open book usually and without her arm she has a difficult time shooting her rifle, no matter how many modifications she's made to it.

Amarath is however highly adaptive and quick to modify the rest of her. Her gun is practically a swiss army rifle but requires Shades to find cover and take valuable time to take apart and reassemble. This leaves her wide open to shots from her enemies if they get around whatever cover.

Comments from the Creator

"There ain't no rest for the wicked. Money don't grow on trees. I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed and ain't nothing in this world for free." - Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant

Shades is somewhat modeled after Jayne Cobb of Firefly fame, with a touch of Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Like Jayne, Shades has obvious thick ties to family (though she lacks a hat knitting mother)and is one greedy little punk.

Shades habit of playing people's emotions and feelings, along with her inability to handle social situations without a gun, are definite traits of Azula. This is shown well in Streets of Coruscant (where she manipulated people into waiting) and the last part of the Blood Fleet (where she didn't know how to accept thanks).

Shades has a number of theme songs. Noteably "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant and Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace. The score for Transformers is also played a lot for Shades.

The picture of Shades is done by Mercy of S.W.A.G.