Dark Side Combat {*}

You are a Sith Lord, not merely a fighter who knows how to hold a blade. The Force has given you the tools to defeat your enemies. During combat, the dark side crawls beneath your skin and electrifies the air surrounding you. If you fail to channel it during these moments, you are unworthy of the Sith title.
There are three schools, or focuses, of Force combat that channel the dark side: Offense, Body, and Mind. Study all three, learn which apply during the fury of the fight, and pass on what you have learnt to your apprentice. None of this is to be kept for your own benefit. Remember, the Sith Order is more important than one Sith Lord.


Offense
Offense encompasses the Force skills with immediate, dynamic applications for lightsaber combat. All require relatively little exertion, so they can be easily applied at any moment. Think of Offense as a dagger saved in reserve for a fatal thrust. The skills of Offense include:

Push: A kinetic wave that emerges from your hands or head and can knock a single enemy off balance or scatter a group in all directions.
Choke: A telekinetic grip, which when centred on an enemy's neck can pinch off airflow and snap vertebrae. This requires more concentration than the Push, as well as a free hand to form the control fist. The neck is an easy target because of its soft vulnerability, but strong users of the Choke can crush an entire body, including armour.
Inertia: An amplification of your body's momentum that uses the Force to redirect what looks like a lumbering charge into a hooking lunge. This can surprise an enemy by making your moves unpredictable.
Blind: A burst of Force energy that can overwhelm an enemies optic nerves and render them momentarily blind.
Throw: A Force tactic in which you can control the path of your lightsaber when thrown. You can send it pinwheeling through clusters of ambushers before returning it to your grip. With refinement, the tactic can be used to aim and accelerate any thrown object, such as a stone or a thermal detonator.


Body
The second school, or focus, Body, encompasses those abilities that draw from the living Force. They emanate from your own cells and affect the physical structures of others. For this reason, any cyborg limb or enhancement will hinder your ability to conjure the effects of Body. This is not your failing; it is a law of the living Force. The demands of the dark side can ravage the flesh, but fortunately it is possible to balance the scales by siphoning life from another to bolster your own.

Lightning: A weapon that calls forth electrical bolts from your fingertips. It is an embodiment of your wrath that can strike at the heart of your enemy. The lightning crawls across the skin and sends surges of pain through internal organs. Sustained exposure will roast flesh, calcify the skeleton, and stop the heart.
Convection: A concentration of Force energy that can make your fists hot to the touch, even raise their temperature to a burning intensity, but will cause no lasting injury to you. Striking an enemy with these fists can raise blisters and set robes aflame.
Cryokinesis: A siphoning of essence that leaches life intensity from another, leaving behind a frost-shrouded corpse. Though this tactic usually causes the heat vitality of another being to haemorrhage, it is not possible to channel that vitality for your own use.
Drain life: A delicate procedure that saps the life energy of another and funnels it directly into your own essence. It is extremely difficult to employ in combat and is derived from the teachings of Zelashiel the Blasphemer in the Holocron of Darth Revan.
Death field: An unstoppable concentration of dark side energy projected from your physical animus in the shape of a sphere. Any living being entering the field will wither into a dry husk. It is sustained by your will, but it will try to consume you as well.


Mind
The third school, or focus, Mind, encompasses those abilities that draw from the unifying Force. These operate on a different plane than the physical - they exist in the realm of thought and memory.
The disciplines of Mind require intense concentration and are mentally taxing. Physical strength will not help you here, only psychic clarity.

Mind Shard: A sliver of psychic pain that is hurled from your own consciousness into your enemy's brain. If your attack succeeds, the intense agony will leave your opponent vulnerable to a lightsaber lunge. It can be difficult to establish a mental lock, but your success will improve in the ability is used in conjunction with the verbal taunts of dun möch.
Memory walk: A link that can open your enemy's mind and make it possible for you to compel them to relive tragic or humiliating recollections and bring forth layers of shame. Used for sustained periods, memory walk can be a sophisticated method of interrogation. The technique was stolen from the Guild of Vindicators, whose denizens are zealous about uncovering the sins of others.
Hatred: A method of focusing your inner fire so that it can be stoked with outrage, disgust, and fear until it burns with white-hot intensity. When smashed, this furnace will radiate hatred from you in palpable waves that can send another's mind into catatonia.
Horror: A simple mental manipulation that can raise fear in the mind of another. By amplifying this primal emotion you can trigger horror and eventually insanity. An afflicted target will be too haunted to raise any defence.
Crucitorn: A technique that makes it possible to detach one's mind from coarse sensations. The secret to overcoming physical pain lies in the nonphysical. A master of this technique can endure any torture and withstand any injury.