Trunk Diary: Horror Tropes

When my quest for revenge started with my picking up a Force-powered monster who wanted to eat people and kept threatening to eat me, I couldn’t help thinking that this was adding horror elements to an action/suspense story.  Then when I entered a number of tombs including ghosts and insane people soaking in Dark Side energy, and then was saved by my ghost ancestor, it just felt even more like that.  Given what happened here, I’m starting to think that the action and suspense elements are being added to a horror story.

Yeah, I finally found out what Zash’s big plan was.  She told me to come back to Dromund Kaas and to the tomb that she had prepared for the ritual, where she revealed the downside of being a Sith:  she had pretty much burned her body out with her dark rituals and needed a new one.  What that meant was that she wanted my body and had spent her time building me up so that she could step into my body and retain most of her power and influence.  Obviously, I didn’t want that, but she had been preparing this for a while and had more knowledge than me, so I had to realize that I was probably going to lose.  At least, until Khem intervened and broke up the ritual, despite not having any idea how to actually do that or what it meant to do that.  He’s so much like Hamr …

And that was important, because while Zash wanted to take over my body and kick me out, it didn’t work that way for Khem.  Instead, she moved into his body … and he stayed.  And so the two of them are now sharing his body, and of course are fighting for control.  And, of course, both of them want me to help them kick the other one out so that they can take control of the body.  And what a wonderful choice it is for me, as I can choose the monster who keeps talking about eating me and doesn’t really bring much to the table other than brute force, or someone who knows a lot of stuff that I might want to learn and knows how to work the politics of the Empire but who tried to betray me and probably would still rather have my body than Khem’s.  To be honest, if I ever have to directly choose which one to support I think I might just let them fight it out.

After this, Thanaton decided to take me under his wing, but gave me a task first.  When I went into the tomb he directed me to, I had to face an insane Sith ghost who killed everyone who came near him, and was going to kill me until my ancestor intervened.  He then criticized me for going into these things unprepared, but I think he’s forgotten what it’s like to be a Sith.  The main plan of a Sith dealing with a rival is to put them into a position where they don’t have a chance of getting out of it.  If I had said that I wanted to take some time to research the tomb and prepare, Thanaton probably would have just killed me, and certainly wouldn’t have let me do that.  So I had to do what I have been doing:  walk into the trap and hope that I’m powerful enough to fight through it.  Yes, my ancestor has had to save me too many times and I can’t keep relying on that, but in all of these cases I haven’t had any choice.

At any rate, I learned how to capture and harness Force ghosts from another, more sane, Force ghost, and managed to capture that Force ghost and fulfill my mission.  Thanaton was incredibly grateful, and showed that by trying to kill me.  He believed he succeeded, but I survived and Zash’s apprentices — who are now mine — spirited me away.

Which is a good way to put it, because it’s clear that my connection to the spirits kept me alive due to Thanaton going for a fancy Force ritual attack instead of just cutting my head off, and in order to defeat him I’m going to need more Force ghosts.  So I’m off to find some, and am adding Thanaton to the list of people I want revenge on.

Tags: TOR Diary