Slow Saber Build Thread: A Sentinel Called Sorrow
TL;DR - I got the shipping email this morning for my first order of MHS parts, and it's strangely exciting. This order is comprised of:
- MHSV1 Blade Holder Style 7
- MPS8 MPS Pommel style 8
- Cclip MPS Clip
- MPSI12 MPS insert style 12
- MHSchokeRL MHS choke style
The main body will require some custom milling, so I put it off for next month. Pictures when I get the parts in a couple of days. This will likely be a slow build thread. Why? Well, if you want to know, read on.
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I'm an older geek. I'm also of mixed-race Japanese / European-American heritage. In 1977, my family was living in a very rural area of Arizona -- so rural, our town didn't even have its own grocery store, just a gas station / convenience store. So when my mother heard that there was a SciFi movie out that drew heavily on the influence of Akira Kurasawa, she tossed a ten-year-old me in the car and we drove the couple of hours to The City to see it. We both loved it, and I at once wanted to be a Jedi Knight. (And got in a lot of fights about whether or not a girl could be a Jedi). My first lightsaber was just a flashlight with an inflatable blade. (No foolin'. you can see the advertisement for it. Notice how all the kids playing with it are boys? My friends did).
Fast forward a number of years, until I was a grown up geek. I was in the Navy and attended a local SciFi con where I saw that they were play-testing a new role playing game based on Star Wars. Intrigued, I got in on the session, and played an Alien Force User because there were no Jedi in what would become West End Games' d6 game... or at least, that wasn't the part of the rules they were testing, and that option wasn't available to us. (My AFU, by the bye, was limited to touch range, and her big special attack? Touching people on the shoulder and putting them to sleep. Yes; I crossed the streams. But I digress).
A few years later, I got the chance to play the D20 version of Star Wars RPG, and this time, Jedi were included. So I rolled up a Consular, thinking that I'd make her a Jedi Healer. Just for kicks and giggles, though, I took a couple of skill ranks in pick lock, because you know... sometimes, evil hides behind locked doors. Thus Sorrow was born. She was a four-lekku blue Twi'lek who had been orphaned as a small child and taken to the Jedi Temple. She couldn't remember her name, and the Jedi who found her nicknamed her Sorrow because of her woeful countenance. Over time, it stopped being a nick-name and became her name. In honor of a great Jedi of the past, she eventually appropriated the family name Sunrider.
Well, the campaign went on, and at a key point, Sorrow saved the party by using the Force with her lock picking skill to open a door and an avenue of escape. (I rolled a natural 20, and the GM gave it to me). This led to joking that I should cross-class into a less upright profession, and I started thinking about Jedi Sentinel. Sorrow turned away from healing and toward investigation. The campaign ended before I could get the pre-reqs together, but I went on thinking about her, and in my mind, she went on to become a Sentinel. She retained her original lightsaber, though, so hers has a cyan blade (reflecting her path between Guardian and Consular) instead of the more common golden blade of the Sentinels. (Aside from which, if you light up a gold-blade lightsaber, you're pretty much flashing a badge, and Sorrow works more in the shadows than that).
So when I started building my own lightsaber, I decided I wanted to start with Sorrow's. Because it's a saber from the height of the Jedi Order's power and influence, it's more refined and finished than the later-era sabers.
Why did it take me so long to start working on building my own saber? Because I was a nurse, working 12-hour shifts and taking care of my Uncle's wife's parents on my days off, so I had no time. Then I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and couldn't work, so I had no money. But now, finally, I have some money and some time, so I'm starting work. I do, of course, still have Lupus, so I don't do very much at a time, and my income is based on disability, so it's not very much money. Both of which mean that this will probably be one of the slower build threads -- it may take me six months or a year to get everything together.
But it promises to be a heck of a ride, and I'd like to share it with my fellow saber enthusiasts as I learn things and approach my dream. I hope you'll find something of interest as we go forward.
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Originally Posted by NaasadTal
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