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{{Character
[[Image:Leonardis.jpg | Master Leonardis currently | thumb | ]]
 
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|type=jedi
:''"Pity the Jedi who has no experience of the Pull of the Dark Side; for they are more vulnerable to it"''
 
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|image=Leonardis.jpg
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|name=Leonardis Mission
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|homeworld=
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|born=[[60 ABY]]
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|dead=
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|species=[[starwars:Human|Human]]
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|gender=[[starwars:Sexes|Male]]
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|height={{size|f=6|i=7}}
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|age=74
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|eyes=Grey
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|hair=[[starwars:Color|Grey]]
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|skin=Fair
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|timeline=
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|affiliations=*[[starwars:Ysanna|Ysanna]]
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*[[Jedi Master (group)|Jedi Master]]
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*[[Jedi Guardians of the Peace]]
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|masters=*[[Praegorn Sachertorte]]
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*[[Pantera Asturias]]
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*[[Darth Aridian]]
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|apprentices=*[[Kizzy Troughton]]
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*[[Zoom Kilian]]
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*[[Odenviscar Knight]]
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*[[Hans Melnitz]]
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*[[Neliss Eldrich]]
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*[[Dwight Clutterbuck]]
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*[[drkpl2 Omegamu]]
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*[[Dash Fardel]]
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*[[Ash Quadrifoglio]]
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*[[Bobby Troughton]]
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*[[Kobra Stein]]
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*[[Hermet Enoch]]
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*[[Rowan Nieuport]]
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*[[Ter Watanabe]]
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*[[Caledvolc Watanabe]]
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*[[Bromo Ivory]]
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*[[Ptolemy Halcali]]
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|player=Leo Mission
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|created=
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}}
 
{{quote|Pity the Jedi who have no experience of the Pull of the Dark Side; for they are more vulnerable to it.|Master Leonardis}}
 
'''Leonardis Mission''' was a [[starwars:Sexes|male]] [[starwars:Human|Human]] [[starwars:Jedi Master|Jedi Master]] of imposing stature and with lupine grey hair and a deep grey gaze. He was a prominent Jedi Council Master in the (new era) Jedi Order called the [[Jedi Guardians of the Peace]], based on the Praxeum world of [[starwars:Ossus|Ossus]]. He is one of the oldest and most experienced Jedi currently alive and was also Senator for the world of Ossus in the Galactic Senate, and a former Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic.
   
 
He has had a long and distinguished career, but was originally trained by several Masters including Praegorn Sachertorte, Pantera Asturias and finally the ironically named [[Darth Aridian]] and also received specialized light saber training from Master Shaymar Sullivan in the venerable Jedi Master Order (which later became the Jedi Guardians of the Peace).
:- Master Leonardis
 
   
 
It has been said of Leonardis that he resembles in manner and abilities the legendary Jedi Master, [[starwars:Obi-Wan Kenobi|Obi-Wan Kenobi]], in that he prefers to negotiate and avoid conflict but when he needs to, he can be a dangerous swordsman and a gifted military tactician. Over time, his role has become that of Consular, but he has never forgotten his original path as Guardian or the subtleties of Sentinel, which he has also been between these two phases.
   
 
==Biography==
=Overview=
 
 
===Early Life===
 
{{quote|There goes a 'man' with a mission...|Smirking travellers, seeing a young Leo travelling alone}}
 
Not much is known of Leonardis' early days. He was much later determined by genetic analysis to be of Ysannan descent (therefore a native of Ossus) but where he was born and what family he was born to no-one knows, including himself. He has vague memories of playing as a young boy in a grassy meadow with silken gossamer lit by sunlight, and perhaps of an older sister and of two adults - perhaps his parents. One thing he does remember however is that something changed all that, something violent and sudden. He has memories of living shadows of hooded figures and red flashes of light, electrical energies, screaming and destruction. He was also hurt in this massacre but due to his small size, managed to escape before collapsing from his injuries and dehydration a few days later.
   
  +
Lying like a dead thing, the boy was found by a reclusive old man who took him back to his hut and who slowly nursed him back to health. The old man later took the boy in and taught him many things, including how to read. The old man was however ancient indeed, and the roles were reversed within a year, young Leo initially helping with the chores and eventually nursing the old man before he died of old age. Leonardis recalls being saddened but not distraught at the old man's death. He had seen his protector's suffering and pain from physical ailments and realised that he was now free of these.
Leonardis Mission ((SL Name: Leo Mission)) is a human (Ysannan) male Jedi of imposing stature and with lupine grey hair and a deep grey gaze. He is a prominent Jedi Council Master in the (new era) Jedi Order called the [[Jedi Guardians of the Peace]], based on the on the Praxeum world of [[Ossus]]. He is one of the oldest and most experienced Jedi currently alive and is also Senator for the world of Ossus in the Galactic Senante, and a former Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic.
 
   
 
Searching through the hut, Leo came across two very important artefacts, which were to change his life forever. One was a Jedi's lightsaber, old and battered beyond functioning but which he identified as one of the 'laser swords' which destroyed his original community, the other being an ancient cuboid object with arcane carvings on the outside and which, when touched, displayed a starmap of several planets around the Galaxy, showing great temples where brown-robed individuals wielded the laser swords with effortless ability and skill and none of the violence of his dark-robed attackers. Whether the old man was a Jedi himself or had happened to come across the possessions of a Jedi is unclear; but the objects were left in a way that was impossible for Leo to miss them - clearly he was meant to find them and to make use of them. A strange, almost horrified fascination with the lightsaber entered the boy's mind; again whether it was a subtle mind control or whether it was just seeing the images and being entranced by the whirling flashes of blue and green is unknown, but Leo firmly became obsessed with finding such a temple and learning the skills he could see in the holo-images.
He has had a long and distinguished career, but was originally trained by several Masters including Praegorn Sachertorte, Pantera Asturias and finally the ironically named 'Darth' Aridian and also received specialised light saber training from Master Shaymar Sullivan in the venerable Jedi Master Order (which later became the Jedi Guardians of the Peace).
 
   
 
And so it was that about the age of eight or nine Galactic Standard years, Leo ended up without a home and without family, a galactic waif who stowed aboard star freighters and who searched with determined single-mindedness for the places he found in the holocron. Legend has it that his surname is not his own but a moniker given to him by amused seasoned travellers, who saw the young boy travelling alone with focused intent and said: "There goes a 'man' with a mission" - and that Leo, hearing this on more than one occasion, adopted it as his surname, being unable to recall his own.
It has been said of Leonardis that he resembles in manner and abilities the legendary Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in that he prefers to negotiate and avoid conflict but when he needs to, he can be a dangerous swordsman and a gifted military tactician. Over time, his role has become that of Consular, but he has never forgotten his original path as Guardian or the subtlties of Sentinel, which he has also been between these two phases.
 
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<gallery>
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Leo_waif1.jpg|Leo nurses his hurt
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Leo_waif2.jpg|A wandering waif
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Leo_waif4.jpg|Hiding from slavers
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Leow_waif7.jpg|Resting exhausted
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Leo_waif8.jpg|Searching with determination
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</gallery>
   
 
The Force must have been with Leo even then, for despite being a rather vulnerable and naive child, he managed to avoid mishap (specifically the slavers who might have captured him to sell on) and arrived first at a great Temple amongst swirling desert sands, called The [[starwars:New Holstice|New Holstice]]. There, he beheld the Jedi of his holocron, twirling their sabers and performing dazzling feats of acrobatics. He was mesmerised, and decided to spend some time finding out about these strange people, the Jedi. No-one really noticed the ragged and slightly underweight urchin steal into the Great Archives and read from them, spending days there and reading as far as his command of written Basic would allow. Biographers and historians have postulated that even then Leo could unconsciously manipulate the Force - a skill he may have developed to avoid being noticed on his long and lonely space trips - for he was never disturbed in the Archives or challenged as to why he was there. After several days finding out about the Jedi Order and of observing the trainees there, Leo decided this was the life for him and he made his mind to join the Order. He filled out an application form with his unpractised childish scrawl on flimsi and was about to drop it into the application box when all about him suddenly were cries of distress and sounds of lightsabers echoing through halls of the great temple, shattering the sanctity of that place for good. Here and there were dark robed figures emerging as out of Leo's nightmares wield red lightsabers, but more striking to the shocked boy was the sight of Jedi fighting Jedi - not just sparring but actually fighting to the death, blue and green sabers clashing in fury and passion he had not seen before...in terror he ran from the Temple and it was a good thing that he did so, for a short while after, the mighty edifice crumbled from its foundations and crashed into the floor, becoming naught but smoking ruins. Leo remembered running into a padawan in his mid teens, injured and looking distressed and confused, saying over and over again: "I can't believe it, Masters Sion and Gorilla have fallen to the Dark Side... [[Marcus Moreau|Master Moreau]] has fled, it's over, we're finished, it's all over..." Leo still remembered years afterward the tears of betrayal and hurt on the older boy's face, for a moment before the padawan spotted a Dark Sider hewing down a friend and charged on, in desperate and futile courage, falling almost instantly to the Sith Master's twirling saber-staff.
=Biography=
 
   
  +
Leo fled as fast as the wings of fear could take him and when he had no more strength, sank to the ground and wept. Not only had he seen death and destruction reminiscent of that which had destroyed his family, but it seemed that his dream of becoming a Jedi was over, the Sith having put them all to the sword. The boy cried himself to sleep and even on waking, lay in a torpor of despair ready to lie give up and die. Idly, he played with the old man's holocron, viewing the images again and again. Suddenly, he sat up bolt upright...
   
  +
''The New Holstice Temple is not the only Jedi Temple in the Galaxy!!''
==Early Life==
 
   
 
It may seem like a strange thought to those coming later, but most of the Jedi in the Galaxy were trained at the New Holstice amongst the Jedi Alliance, and Leo had assumed that with their destruction, the Jedi Order was dead. In fact there were a couple other Temples briefly mentioned by the holocron, though their exact locations were not revealed. Leo recalled falling asleep and dreaming, perhaps Force-Seeing - which Sectors of the Galaxy to focus on in his continued search. And so it was, that Leo came eventually upon a place that was not a Jedi Temple, but which he recognized as a place of ancient duelling practice and heard for the first time in months, the thrum and clash of lightsabers. The Force must have been with him again, for that place lay deserted and abandoned for much of the time, the Jedi Knight and her student only happening to be visiting at that particular time, evidenced by their ship resting on a landing pad not far away.
:''"There goes a "man" with a Mission..."''
 
   
 
Leo sat down quietly and watched as the Jedi Knight instructed her young student - a brown-haired human boy a few years older than himself in the art of saber combat. But Leo only had eyes for the Knight, who was tall and statuesque, her almost-white blond hair rolled in a bun behind her head, and whose moves were fluid and swift. Though she made the student look clumsy in comparison, Leo was nonetheless impressed with the older boy's grasp of fairly complex moves. He quite clearly had talent.
:- Smirking travellers, seeing a young Leo travelling alone
 
   
 
After an hour or so of duelling, the Knight let the other boy rest for a while and strode over to Leo, noticing the ragged urchin watching from the sidelines. She asked him if she could help him, and he would remember his abashed words - after all this time not being able to find the right thing to say and being unable to meet her piercing gaze: "I'm lost, can you help me to find the way?", to which she smiled and replied: "Somehow I don't think you are lost anymore."
Not much is known of Leonardis' early days. He was much later determined by genetic analysis to be of Ysannan descent (therefore a native of Ossus) but where he was born and what family he was born to no-one knows, including himself. He has vague memories of playing as a young boy in a grassy meadow with silken gossamer lit by sunlight, and perhaps of an older sister and of two adults - perhaps his parents. One thing he does remember however is that something changed all that, something violent and sudden. He has memories of living shadows of hooded figures and red flashes of light, electrical energies, screaming and destruction. He was also hurt in this massacre but due to his small size, managed to escape before collapsing from his injuries and dehydration a few days later. Lying like a dead thing, the boy was found by a reclusive old man who took him back to his hut and who slowly nursed him back to health. The old man later took the boy in and taught him many things, including how to read. The old man was however ancient indeed, and the roles were reversed within a year, young Leo initially helping with the chores and eventually nursing the old man before he died of old age. Leonardis recalls being saddened but not distraught at the old man's death. He had seen his protector's suffering and pain from physical ailments and realised that he was now free of these.
 
   
  +
[[File:Leo_kid.jpg|thumb|200px]]
Searching through the hut, Leo came across two very important artifacts, which were to change his life forever. One was a Jedi's lightsaber, old and battered beyond functioning but which he identified as one of the 'laser swords' which destroyed his original community, the other being an ancient cuboid object with arcane carvings on the outside and which, when touched, displayed a starmap of several planets around the Galaxy, showing great temples where brown-robed individuals wielded the laser swords with effortles ability and skill and none of the violence of his dark-robed attackers. Whether the old man was a Jedi himself or had happened to come across the possessions of a Jedi is unclear; but the objects were left in a way that was impossible for Leo to miss them - clearly he was meant to find them and to make use of them. A strange, almost horrified fascination with the lightsaber entered the boy's mind; again whether it was a subtle mind control or whether it was just seeing the images and being entranced by the whirling flashes of blue and green is unknown, but Leo firmly became obsessed with finding such a temple and learning the skills he could see in the holo-images.
 
 
The Knight took him back with the other boy to the Temple of New Hope, washed and dressed him in the plain tunic and pants of a Jedi Youngling and presented him to a Council Master, Praegorn Sachertorte, for consideration to join the Jedi Order. Almost immediately the Master could see the potential of the boy and not only admitted him into the legendary Jedi Master Order but also within a couple of weeks petitioned for him to be raised to Padawan Learner and indeed his own Apprentice. Despite this, Leo kept close links with the Knight - Shaymar Sullivan - and her Padawan, Arciem Sillanpaa, with whom he became fast friends and room-mates and looked up to like an older brother. And so it was that Leo became a Jedi student; his teachers noticed the same intense focus that had given Leo his monikered surname and commented that great things might one day be expected from him.
   
 
===Padawan Learner===
And so it was that about the age of eight or nine Galactic Standard years, Leo ended up without a home and without family, a galactic waif who stowed aboard star freighters and who searched with determined singlemindedness for the places he found in the holocron. Legend has it that his surname is not his own but a moniker given to him by amused seasoned travellers, who saw the young boy travelling alone with focused intent and said: "There goes a man with a Mission" - and that Leo, hearing this on more than one occasion, adopted it as his surname, being unable to recall his own.
 
  +
[[File:Leo Padawan.jpg|thumb|200px]]
 
{{quote|You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!|Master Praegorn Sachertorte, to his Padawan Learner Leo Mission}}
 
Leo continued his previous obsession with the lightsaber, a fascination shared by Arciem, and the two boys would spend hours, sometimes even whole days in the duelling arena, until their clothes were soaked with sweat and attracting worried glances from the older Jedi. Sometimes Leo would be instructed by his own Master - the Order's Weapons Master - and other times he would join Shaymar and Arciem in their sessions. Shaymar was also particularly gifted in the saber and would still manage to best both boys together, and they learned much from these sessions. So much so in fact that within a short period of time, Leo had managed to best Shaymar's old Master, Pantera Asturias, in a duel - much to his surprise - and Leo's own Master joked with him after a being pushed particularly hard one day: "You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!" Arciem also improved rapidly under Shymar's guidance and the two boys developing a healthy rivalry, each wanting to out-do the other but each admitting the other was more gifted!
   
 
One terrible day, as the boy and his Master were at a Galactic fair on a nearby planet in the same Sector, they received a distress call from their base. They hastened back to the Temple, stopping in shock as they found it utterly destroyed as if exploded by a bomb and yet there was no trace of explosives but rather a deep wound in the Force. It came to light that the deed had been carried out by one of the Masters in the Order - Master Molly Morrison - who, having recently failed in a bid to unite the Jedi Orders and set herself up as the head of the Council, fell to the Dark Side. Being blocked from her relentless ambition, from within her own Order by Grand Master Aridian, she revenged herself on Jedi Master by using the Force to destroy the Temple and fled - a crime of almost unparalleled heinousness. The Order was devastated by the loss of what was after all a new and state-of-the-art facility which had not even been fully finished yet. Nonetheless, they were not without home, for the former base on the gas planet of Bespin had not yet been decommissioned; and the Order retreated there and Leo continued his learning in this 'new' setting.
The Force must have been with Leo even then, for despite being a rather vulnerable and naive child. he managed to avoid mishap (specifically the Slavers who might have captured him to sell on) and arrived first at a great Temple amonst swirling desert sands, called The New Holstice. There, he beheld the Jedi of his holocron, twirling their sabers and performing dazzling feats of acrobatics. He was mesmerised, and decided to spend some time finding out about these strange people, the Jedi. No-one really noticed the ragged and slightly underweight urchin steal into the Great Archives and read from them, spending days there and reading as far as his command of written Basic would allow. It is postulated that even then Leo could unconsciously manipulate the Force, a skill he may have developed to avoid being noticed on his long and lonely space trips, for he was never disturbed in the Archives or challenged as to why he was there. After several days finding out about the Jedi Order and of observing the trainees there, Leo decided this was the life for him and he made his mind to join the Order. He filled out an application form with his unpractised childish scrawl on flimsi and was about to drop it into the application box when all about him suddenly were cries of distress and sounds of lightsabers echoing throught halls of the great temple, shattering the sanctity of that place for good. Here adn there were dark robed figures emerging as out of Leo's nightmares wield red lightsabers, but more striking to the shocked boy was the sight of Jedi fighting Jedi - not just sparring but actually fighting to the death, blue and green sabers clashing in fury and passion he had not seen before...in terror he ran from the Tempople and it was a good thing that he did so, for a short while after, the mighty edifice crumbled from its foundations and crashed into the floor, becoming naught but old ruins. Leo remembered running into a padawan in his mid teens, injured and looking distressed and confused, saying over and over again: "I can't believe it, Masters Sion and Gorilla have fallen to the Dark Side...Master Moreau has fled, it's over, we're finished, it's all over..." Leo still remembered years afterwards the tears of betrayal and hurt on the older boy's face, for a moment before the padawan spotted a Dark Sider hewing down a friend and charged on, in desperate and futile courage, falling almost instantly to the Sith Master's twirling saber-staff.
 
   
  +
[[File:Leo_Tieton.jpg|thumb|200px]]
Leo fled as fas as his wings of fear could take him and when he had no more strength, sank to the ground and wept. Not only had he seen death and destruction reminiscent of that which had destroyed his family, but it seemed that his dream of becomng a Jedi was over, the Sith having put them all to the sword. The boy cried himself to sleep and even on waking, lay in a torpor of despair ready to lie give up and die. Idly, he played with the old man's holocron, viewing the images again and again. Suddenly, he sat up bolt upright...''The New Holstice Temple was not the only Jedi Temple in the Galaxy!!'' It may seem like a strange thought to those coming later, but most of the Jedi in the Galaxy were trained at the New Holstice amongst the Jedi Alliance, and Leo had assumed that with their destruction, the Jedi Order was dead. In fact there were a couple other Temples briefly mentioned by the holocron, though their exact locations were not revealed. Leo recalled falling asleep and dreaming, perhaps Force-Seeing - which Sectors of the Galaxy to focus on in his continued search. And so it was, that Leo came eventually upon a place that was not a Jedi Temple, but which he recognised as a place of ancient duelling practice and heard for the first time in months, the thrum and clash of lightsabers. The Force must have been with him again, for that place lay deserted and abandoned for much of the time, the Jedi Knight and her student only happening to be visiting at that particular time, evidenced by their ship resting on a landing pad not far away.
 
 
As he started to approach his Master's skill level with lightsabers, Leo realized that their relationship was somewhat flawed. His Master was young and similarly gifted with the lightsaber - he was more like an older brother or a favourite young uncle rather than a true Master to him. They had many good times together but once Leo stopped learning so much about lightsaber craft from Master Sachertorte, he realized he wasn't learning really very much at all, since his Master was mainly focused himself on sabercraft. The other real talent of Master Sachertorte was in flying starfighters and at that point Leo felt himself very inept and unable to even begin that. He also wanted to learn more history, lore, philosophy and about the Force, and Master Sachertorte began to struggle to 'feed' his gifted but insatiable student. Perhaps a little unfairly, Leo began to feel somewhat ignored and neglected, not realizing that his young Master was simply struggling to know what to do with him.
   
 
By now in his early teens, Leo entered a slightly rebellious phase where he spent less time with his Master and more with Arciem, honing his battle skills even more. He seemed set on the path of the Guardian, and did not want anyone to hold him back. Similarly impetuous, Arciem would be a willing companion on adventures including crossing sabers with Sith Master Darth Malice in defence of the Temple of the New Order of the Jedi - a defeat which taught them they still had much to learn but only fuelled them onwards. Struggling to control his wayward pupil, the young Master Sachertorte in the end resorted to a threat he had no intention of carrying out and which he would deeply regret uttering: to have Leo cast out of the Jedi Order. Utterly shocked by his Master's statement, Leo ran in a very distressed state to Grand Master Aridian who, calming down the almost hysterical boy, took only a few moments to realize that Master Sachertorte - a former Padawan of his - was out of his depth with this unusually gifted but headstrong student. He therefore relieved Master Sachertorte of the sole responsibility for Leo and placed him under the collective guardianship of all the Masters. While in time Leo and Master Sachertorte would become friends again, their Master/Padawan relationship was never the same again.
Leo sat down quietly and watched as the Jedi Knight instructed her young student - a brown-haired human boy a few years older than himself in the art of saber combat. But Leo only had eyes for the Knight, who was tall and statuesque, her almost-wite blond hair rolled in a bun behind her head, and whose moves were fluid and swift. Though she made the student look clumsy in comparison, Leo was nonethless impressed with the older boy's grasp of fairly complex moves. He quite clearly had Talent.
 
   
 
Under Master Aridian's firm but patient hand, Leo started to read more and spent less time with his lightsaber. Eventually Master Pantera Asturias took young Leo on trips around the Galaxy with him, and the boy learned much about diplomacy and about non-violent self-defence from the wise old Master and grew to love these trips. In a sense - though it was never formalized - Leo spent this middle part of his Padawanship as Master Asturias' apprentice. Meanwhile, Master Sachertorte struggled with feelings of low self-worth, having considered himself to have "failed" with Leo and seeing Master Asturias' relative success with the boy, began to doubt his own abilities and the conviction of his path. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he withdrew into himself and then one day announced that he and the Jedi Order were done and that he would now seek a Darker Path. On hearing of this, Leo went to argue with him, seeking to change his mind, to no avail. Begging, pleading and even tears failed to dissuade Sachertorte, who smiled sadly at Leo and lifted the boy's chin looking into his liquid eyes and told him gently to stay, not to follow him and to be a good Jedi. Saying this, he got into his starfighter and departed.
After an hour or so of duelling, the Knight let the other boy rest for a while and strode over to Leo, noticing the ragged urchin watching from the sidelines. She asked him if she could help him, and he would remember his abashed words - after all this time not being able to find the right thing to say and being unable to meet her piercing gaze: "I'm lost, can you help me to find the way?", to which she smiled and replied: "Somehow I don't think you are lost anymore."
 
   
 
===Struggle with the Dark Side===
The Knight took him back with the other boy to the Temple of New Hope, washed and dressed him in the plain brown tunic and pants of a Jedi Youngling and presented him to a Council Master, Praegorn Sachertorte, for consideration to join the Jedi Order. Almost immediately the Master could see the Potential of the boy and not only admitted hum into the legendary Jedi Master Order but also within a couple of weeks petitioned for him to be raised to Padawan Learner and indeed his own Apprentice. Despite this, Leo kept close links with the Knight - Shaymar Sullivan - and her Padawan, Arciem Sillanpaa, with whom he he became fast friends with and looked up to like an older brother. And so it was that Leo became a Jedi student; his teachers noticed the same intense focus that had given Leo his monikered surname and commented that great things might one day be expected from him.
 
  +
[[File:Leo_dark.jpg|thumb|200px]]
 
{{quote|I should leave, I don't deserve to be a Jedi...|Leo Mission to Master Kokiri Saarinen}}
 
The Fall of his former Master precipitated a real crisis in young Leo's mind. Coming up to Trials at the time, Leo found himself utterly unable to concentrate on his studies, blaming himself intensely for the state of his old friend and feeling an exorable pull to go to find him, but knowing that this would almost inevitably mean he fell also to the Dark Side. Realising this weakness in himself, Leo started to doubt his strength and talents and like a vicious circle this fuelled his despair; perhaps unsurprisingly, he refused to undergo Trials when it was offered to him by the Council. With Master Asturias away on a long trip, he was left to his own devices and had too much time to berate himself and to sink in a deeper misery. Added to which, the cunning Darth Malice, having crossed sabers and having been secretly impressed with the talent of the young Jedi, sensed Leo's mental weakness and began to whisper through the Force, complimenting and flattering him, saying that he was wasting himself away with the Jedi...
   
  +
One day Master Kokiri Saarinen came to visit Leo and offered him again to undergo Trials; the Order was in dire need of Knights, having lost several (including for the moment Lady Shaymar Sullivan, who had vanished). On speaking to the troubled youngster for a couple of hours, however, Master Saarinen became concerned that perhaps Leo was too unstable to deal with the increase in responsibility and that he was in danger from the Dark Side. Nonetheless, he offered a straight Knighthood (without Trials) to Leo to test whether the latter situation was the case. Leo wasted no time in refusing the honour, openly stating now that he feared for his grip on the Light and did not wish to fail as a Knight. Secretly impressed and pleased with the outcome, Master Saarinen agreed with Leo not to promote him and left him with his thoughts; in the interim, Leo's good friend Arciem was Knighted in his stead.
==Padawan Learner==
 
   
  +
Darth Malice's whisperings became more and more incessant over the days and Leo learned to detach his emotional self from the one that heard the whispers, in order to protect himself. In the end, perhaps the Sith Lord overplayed his hand. So obvious had the attempts to seduce young Leo become that he withdrew from them reflexly, realising his danger. With a deeply troubled spirit, Leo went to the one person who had managed to fully understand him thus far, Grand Master Aridian. In a long, tearful and fraught conversation in the Archives, Leo opened his heart to the great Master and revealed his fear that he was slowly, inexorably drowning in the Dark Side and that he was rapidly running out of strength to keep his head afloat in the Light. Master Aridian looked at the desperate boy with admiration at the fact he had not yet succumbed to the Dark Side and at the will that all but he himself saw, but he agreed with Leo that the danger from the Dark Side was imminent. Yet again showed decisive action and metaphorically threw Leo a lifeline, taking him on as his very own Padawan with the words: "as a son, you shall be to me...let me help you find yourself again." Leo accepted and clung to his aid, using Master Aridian's great strength and solidity as a base with which to pull himself out of the maelstrom of passion he had fallen into.
:''"You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!"''
 
   
  +
This was not achieved in a day, or even several. But step-by-step and day-by-day, Leo grew stronger, energised by the belief his Master had in him and in turn learning to belief in himself and his abilities. In truth, Master Aridian taught him little in the way of facts and skills; but on the other hand, he was a true role model of quiet strength and endurance, and compassion - everything that Leo needed to complete his education as a Padawan. Within weeks, Leo was able to take his Trials and pass, ascending to the rank of Jedi Knight of the Republic. Moreover he had learned through what effectively had been his Trial of Spirit and looking in the mirror that if he had not fallen to the Dark Side on this situation, that he could face the Dark Side in any situation confident in himself that he had the will to resist.
:- Master Praegorn Sachertorte, to his Padawan Learner Leo Mission
 
   
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===A Knight in difficult times===
Leo continued his previous obsession with the lightsaber, a fascination shared by Arciem, and the two boys would spend hours, sometimes even whole days in the duelling arena, until their clothes were soaked with sweat and attracting worried glances from the older Jedi. Sometimes Leo would be instructed by his own Master - the Order's Weapons Master - and other times he would join Shaymar and Arciem in their sessions. Shaymar was also particularly gifted in the saber and would still manage to best both boys together, and they learned much from these sessions. So much so infact that within a short period of time, Leo had managed to best Shaymar's old Master, Pantera Asturias, in a duel - much to his surprise - and Leo's own Master joked with him after a being pushed particularly hard one day: "You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!" Arciem also improved rapidly under Shymar's guidance and the two boys developing a healthy rivalry, each wanting to out-do the other but each admitting the other was more gifted!
 
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{{quote|It's my job to guide them and protect them; if I don't, they are lost!|Leo Mission to Master Pantera Asturias}}
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Whilst Leo had conquered his doubts to rise above the Dark Side and to take his place as a Jedi Knight, the situation of the Order was far worse. At one time in the past, it had 30 members, and was starting to recover when New Hope was destroyed by Master Morrison. By the time of Leo's Knighting, this number had atrophied to a mere handful: four Masters, a couple of Knights and a Padawan or two.
   
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Still reeling from the violent death of New Hope, the Council had appointed Lady Shaymar Sullivan to the position of Master when her Padawan Arciem was himself Knighted. She attempted to spearhead the revival of the Jedi by taking a more vigorous stance against the Sith, battling the ancient [[Dark Lords of the Sith]] led by the infamous [[Darth Padar]]. Her more aggressive movement - which including killing Sith on sight - caused her and Arciem to be slightly alienated from the rest of the Order, who favoured a less violent approach to dealing with them. On one particular occasion, she ordered an attack on a Sith delegation who had come to peacefully parley and Leo found himself striking down Sith who had no inkling they were to die. Thoroughly disgusted by this, the Order turned on Master Sullivan and criticised her roundly. She made little reaction at the time, but Master Sullivan came back later when the base was almost deserted and with the weapons on board her Naboo N1 Starfighter, started to methodically destroy the Bespin base. Only Leo was present at the time and he ran behind the ship, begging her to stop. She ignored and continued to fire on her own base until it was utterly destroyed, and then flew away. Whereas Master Morrison's actions may for all we know been a work of a moment's passion, those of Master Sullivan were cold and calculated, and the work of at least an hour. When the other Jedi returned, they found young Leo (still in his mid-teens at the time), sitting alone tearfully in the middle of the rubble of the base. Not only had he lost his home yet again, he had lost to the Dark Side the Jedi who had discovered him and who had taught him so much.
One terrible day, as the boy and his Master were at a Galactic fair on a nearby planet in the same Sector, they received a distress call from their base. They hastened back to the Temple, stopping in shock as they found it utterly destroyed as if exploded by a bomb and yet there was no trace of explosives but rather a deep wound in the Force. It came to light that the deed had been carried out by one of the Masters in the Order - Master Molly Morrison - who, having recently failed in a bid to unite the Jedi Orders and set herself up as the head of the Council, fell to the Dark Side. Being blocked, even from within her own Order by Grand Master Aridian, she revenged herself on Jedi Master by using the Force to destroy the Temple and fled - a crime of almost unparallelled heinousness. The Order was devastated by the loss of what was after all a new and state-of-the-art facility which had not even been fully finished yet. Nonetheless, they were not without home, for the former base on the gas planet of Bespin had not yet been decommissioned, and the Order retreated there and Leo continued his learning in this 'new' setting.
 
   
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Leo was stronger now, however, and after some comforting and when the initial shock had worn off, bounced back to assist what was left of the Order. It had never been in a worse state. Homeless, and now with only half a dozen members, it teetered on the verge of extinction. With just one medium-sized transporter left, the Order began a migration to a new location in the Galaxy, arriving a week or so later at the Outer Rim planet of Rhodes. This was tropical and balmy, and warm waves lapped on a sandy shore which Grand Master Aridian fell in love with. And so it was that he began the construction of a new base - a technological wonder amidst the natural beauty of the region.
As he started to approach the skill level with lightsabers of his Master, Leo realised that their relationship was somewhat flawed. His Master was young and similarly gifted with the lightsaber - he was more like an older brother or a favourite young uncle rather than a true Master to him. They had many good times together but once Leo stopped learning so much about lightsaber craft from Master Sachertorte, he realised he wasn't learning really very much at all, since his Master was mainly focused himself on sabercraft. The other real talent of Master Sachertorte was in flying starfighters and at that point Leo felt himself very inept and unable to even begin that. He also wanted to learn more history, lore, philosophy and about the Force, and Master Sachertorte began to struggle to 'feed' his gifted but insatiable student. Perhaps a little unfairly, Leo began to feel somewhat ignored and neglected, not realising that his young Master was simply struggling to know what to do with him.
 
   
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In time, it was completed and Leo made himself useful in what ways he could, welcoming visitors and helping those that wished to join to meet the Masters. Not so long afterwards, there were perhaps half a dozen or more new younglings and Leo made it his job to shepherd them. Not being much older than they were, he was a natural friend and guardian, even defending them from the occasional marauding Sith with his formidable saber skills. As the number of younglings and padawans grew, so did Leo's importance to the ageing Masters who, perhaps wilting finally under the strain of leading the Order through its moves, began to withdraw more from training the youngsters. Though he was run ragged by the ten or so students, Leo kept his head up and devoted much time to them; so that a talented 'class' of future Masters like Odenviscar Knight, Hans Melnitz, Dwight Clutterbuck and drkpl2 Omegamu looked up to him and came to regard him more like a young Master more than they did the actual Masters themselves. During this period of time, Leo also took his first Padawan, Kizzy Troughton and shortly afterwards his second, long-term friend Zoom Kilian.
By now in his early teens, Leo entered a slightly rebellious phase where he spent less time with his Master and more with Arciem, honing his battle skills even more. He seemed set on the path of the Guardian, and did not want anyone to hold him back. Similarly impetuous, Arciem would be a willing companion on adventures including crossing sabers with Sith Master Darth Malice in defence of the Temple of the New Order of the Jedi - a defeat which taught them they still had much to learn but only fuelled them onwards. Struggling to control his wayward pupil, the young Master Sachertorte in the end resorted to a threat he had no intention of carrying out and which he would deeply regret uttering: to have Leo cast out of the Jedi Order. Utterly shocked by his Master's statement, Leo ran in a very distressed state to Grand Master Aridian who, calming down the almost hysterical boy, took only a few moments to realise that Master Sachertorte - a former Padawn of his - was out of his depth with this unusually gifted but headstrong student. He therefore relieved Master Sachertorte of the sole responsibility for Leo and placed him under the collective guardianship of all the Masters. While in time Leo and Master Sachertorte would become friends again, their Master/Padawan relationship was never the same again.
 
   
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Gradually, imperceptibly, and due to the efforts of many, the Order climbed back to its feet. Small and remote from the politics of the wider Galaxy, Rhodes was the ideal cradle for the Order to be reborn into. By now, the Order had four or five knights, and Leo was chosen to be the Senior Knight, acting as a liaison with the Council and heading the efforts to revitalise the middle rank of the Order. He worked harder and harder, until his nerves were too frayed for sleep. His efforts, however, paid off and by the time he was nearly twenty, the Order had tripled in size and the grounds expanded to match.
Under Master Aridian's firm but patient hand, Leo started to read more and spent less time with his lightsaber. Eventually Master Pantera Asturias took young Leo on trips around the Galaxy with him, and the boy learned much about diplomacy and about non violent self-defence from the wise old Master and grew to love these trips. In a sense - though it was never formalised - Leo spent this middle part of his Padawanship as Master Asturias' Apprentice. Meanwhile, Master Sachertorte struggled with feelings of self worth, having considered himself to have "failed" with Leo and seeing Master Asturias' relative success with the boy, began to doubt his own abilities and the conviction of his path. Gradually, almost imperceptably, he withdrew into himself and then one day announced that he and the Jedi Order were done and that he would now seek a Darker Path. On hearing of this, Leo went to argue with him, seeking to change his mind, to no avail. Begging, pleading and even tears failed to dissuade Sachertorte, who smiled sadly at Leo and lifted the boy's chin looking into his tearful eyes and told him gently to stay, not to follow him and to be a good Jedi. Saying this, he got into his starfighter and departed.
 
   
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By this time, however, the Masters including Grand Master Aridian were nearly exhausted by the ravages of leadership and time, and were hardly seen beyond the occasion smile and hello. Leo's efforts to keep the Order together came at personal cost, and he began to look visibly worn and run-down. In the midst of this, the Masters suddenly announced en masse, that they were retiring, and that the Order was to be disbanded. Shocked by the decision to throw away everything they had fought for without at least trying to appoint successors, Leo went away and meditated for a couple of hours before deciding with great reluctance to set up his own Order and to claim the title of Jedi Master. His dream had always been to serve his Order and perhaps be awarded the title by his seniors, but now that dream had to be put aside to practical needs. He technically had the right, having trained Zoom Kilian to Knighthood, but he still felt woefully inexperienced and painfully young to take this step. At the eleventh hour, and to Leo's great relief, the youngest of the old Masters, Master Kokiri Saarinen arrived and announced that he would return to lead Jedi Master once more if people would still believe. Leo aborted his plans and gave up the self-appointed title he would have claimed, bringing all the padawans he had convinced to follow him back to Jedi Master to see if it could be rescued.
==Struggle with the Dark Side==
 
   
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With the strength of the old Masters (but not their goodwill) fading, Leo had bought a reprieve for his band of youngsters, took to journeying the Galaxy alone, looking for a place where he might bring the Order to recover and grow again. For he had seen, with a moment of foresight, that to grow fully as an Order, Jedi Master had to change its scenery and give itself a big project around which to unite, such as the building of a new base on a wild planet. And so it was one day that he stumbled on the planet of Ossus in the Adegan System (Auril Sector) and on landing on an island with two peaks suddenly felt a great connection to the Force and its power surging from the rocks and water. The Force was all around him and surged in his veins, singing like the moment in every Jedi's life when he or she realised that the Force was real and beautiful. Leo know, at that moment, that this place would be the saviour of the Order. Still, being young and inexperienced, he felt a need for advice, and invited Master Saarinen and even the old Masters to view this planet, valuing their opinion, which was entirely positive. One would have to have been dead to the Force to not see the potential of that place, where it permeated everything.
:''"I should leave, I don't deserve to be a Jedi..."''
 
   
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Now convinced that he had indeed been touched by the Force and that the future of the Order did lie on Ossus, Leo began assembling the team of builders to start construction of what would be a massive project. Initially, it was felt that bringing the old base from Rhodes over to the planet would be one way forwards, but a disastrous entry into the atmosphere by the ship carrying this lead to its complete distruction. The building team then began planning and construction of the new temple but ran into various difficulties due to the unusual terrain. Eventually, however, padawans Hans Melnitz and Odenviscar Knight were able to finish the construction of the temple and archives and former Grandmaster Aridian and his partner Bliss Darrow constructed the floating plaza and gardens, with Leo overseeing the construction and providing some additional building of his own. The result was the stunning Jedi Academy at Ossus Praxeum.
:- Leo Mission to Master Kokiri Saarinen
 
   
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===Master of the Force===
The Fall of his former Master precipitated a real crisis in young Leo's mind. Coming up to Trials at the time, Leo found himself utterly unable to concentrate on his studies, blaming himself intensely for the state of his old friend and feeling an exorable pull to go to find him, but knowing that this would almost inevitably mean he fell also to the Dark Side. Realising this weakness in him, Leo started to doubt his strength and talents and like a vicious circle this fuelled his despair. With Master Asturias away on a long trip, he was left to his own devices and had too much time to berate himself and to sink in a deeper miery. Added to which, the cunning Darth Malice, having crossed sabers and having been secretly impressed with the talent of the young Jedi, sensed Leo's mental weakness and began to whisper through the Force, complimenting and flattering him, saying that he was wasting himself away with the Jedi...
 
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[[File:Leonardis_YoungMaster.jpg|thumb|200px]]
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For their skills and contribution to the Order, Hans Melnitz and Odenviscar Knight were rewarded with Knighthood and similarly Leo (henceforth going by his full name of Leonardis) was granted Masterhood after successfully overseeing the transition from Rhodes to Ossus and keeping the younger Jedi's training going at the same time. The Academy of Ossus was unique in the Galaxy at marrying the themes of Realism and Roleplay, and continued for a long time, training scores of students in all aspects of Jediism. At the height of its numbers, Jedi Master had over sixty members and served the Galaxy in the manner that a Jedi Order should. Eventually, however, the strains of leading this great Order told on the Council, and first Master Dark and then Leonardis succumbed to the effects of this and retired, leaving the Order in the hands of Master Zoom Kilian and new Master Bliss Darrow. At this point, however, the strain was too great on these two individuals and the Order closed for a time, the Jedi scattering to the winds. Some of these young Jedi formed their own splinter to keep the ideals of the parent Order alive, and these became [[the Wandering Jedi]].
   
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Leonardis himself, exhausted by his toils, moved away from Ossus in this period, to the ice-world of Ilum, and spent some time in quiet reflection and meditation, regaining his strength and purpose. The tranquility and calm focus of the Force caves of Ilum helped to re-energise him and fill him again with the energy of the Force, and after some period in seclusion thus, he issued forth in the Galaxy once again to attempt to find an Apprentice to train as his own Padawan. Searching high and low for some time, however, he did not find the person he was looking for and retreated back to Ilum to reconsider his options. After some more meditation, he realised that the power of the Force in Ossus would be far more successful at drawing new potential Jedi than he alone, and he travelled to this abandoned world, and walked once more the now deserted halls which once rang with the sounds of a thriving Jedi Academy. A melancholy and lonely place it had become in its time as a lonely monument to Jedi Master, but it had lost none of its potency in the Force. Leonardis set about preparing the Academy for re-opening and together with his old friend and former padawan Master Zoom Kilian and former JM Padawan Ash Quadrifoglio, revived the Jedi Master Order under a new name of [[Jedi Guardians of the Peace]] (or JGP).
((To be continued....))
 
   
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Thus began the rennaissance of the Jedi of Ossus. The call went out in the Force across the Galaxy, and many who were once in the Jedi Master Order returned to join the new revived Academy. Importantly, Leonardis met with former JM Knight - now Master of the Wandering Jedi, Odenviscar Knight - and agreed with him that their Orders would be stronger united and given their common ancestry with JM, it would seem a sensible way to proceed. The Wandering Jedi therefore left their precarious existence under the shadow of the Dark Rose Station and returned home to Ossus and the new combined Jedi Guardians of the Peace thrived again under the combined efforts of a unified and Force-infused group of like minded people. And thus, it continued for many many years, and again many Jedi were trained in the new Academy, and the numerous achievements of Jedi Master were equalled and surpassed by the new Order of JGP. In time, under Leonardis' tenure as Grand Master of the Order, the lands of the Academy were expanded, and the Great Library was brought from its longtime location on Anoth by Master [[Marcus Moreau]] back to its original home on Ossus, and the planet of today was formed.
[[User:Leonardis|Leonardis]] 00:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 
   
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===Nearing Union with the Force?===
[[Category:Jedi]]
 
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Many, many years passed thus, and Leonardis remained at the helm of the Order for longer than any had expected and longer than others had done until date. His Padawans grew and were Knighted, then attained Masterhood, and they in turn trained other Jedi as Padawans and who then became Knights and even Masters. He was at a venerable age, when he finally realised that his energy and drive had once, again, run dry and that it was time to hand the reins to a new generation to lead the Order onwards once more. Retiring then ((in early 2009)) as Grandmaster of the Order, he annointed Master Zoom Kilian as his successor and departed, trusting in the Force that the Order he loved and had devoted his entire life to would remain true to itself and to its mission.
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What the future of Master Leonardis might be is unclear at this stage. He is still seen, sometimes on Ossus and sometimes on other planets, and though his step may be slighter and less firm than it once was, and his hair a lighter shade of grey, he may have enough of his renowned former strength to endure a little while longer and perhaps to re-emerge from his contemplations with renewed youth and vigour. Or, if it be the will of the Force, he will pass to union with it, completing this life cycle of this venerable servant of the Force.
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May the Force be with you all, always.
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==Behind the scenes==
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Leo Mission is an active member of the SWRP community since February 2006, a member (and group owner) of Jedi Master (now renamed Jedi Guardians of the Peace) since the start until his retirement in January 2009, and he remains the sim owner of the RP planet of Ossus (Brazos region). He is also the CEO of [[Ossus Engineering Corporation]], a firm which builds Star Wars items, especially ships, furniture and gadgets. Please feel free to contact him in world if you have any queries about any of these or any Jedi-related issues.
 
[[User:Leonardis|Leonardis]] 14:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 
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[[Category:Jedi Master]]

Revision as of 14:32, 12 July 2020

"Pity the Jedi who have no experience of the Pull of the Dark Side; for they are more vulnerable to it."

— Master Leonardis

Leonardis Mission was a male Human Jedi Master of imposing stature and with lupine grey hair and a deep grey gaze. He was a prominent Jedi Council Master in the (new era) Jedi Order called the Jedi Guardians of the Peace, based on the Praxeum world of Ossus. He is one of the oldest and most experienced Jedi currently alive and was also Senator for the world of Ossus in the Galactic Senate, and a former Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic.

He has had a long and distinguished career, but was originally trained by several Masters including Praegorn Sachertorte, Pantera Asturias and finally the ironically named Darth Aridian and also received specialized light saber training from Master Shaymar Sullivan in the venerable Jedi Master Order (which later became the Jedi Guardians of the Peace).

It has been said of Leonardis that he resembles in manner and abilities the legendary Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in that he prefers to negotiate and avoid conflict but when he needs to, he can be a dangerous swordsman and a gifted military tactician. Over time, his role has become that of Consular, but he has never forgotten his original path as Guardian or the subtleties of Sentinel, which he has also been between these two phases.

Biography

Early Life

"There goes a 'man' with a mission..."

— Smirking travellers, seeing a young Leo travelling alone

Not much is known of Leonardis' early days. He was much later determined by genetic analysis to be of Ysannan descent (therefore a native of Ossus) but where he was born and what family he was born to no-one knows, including himself. He has vague memories of playing as a young boy in a grassy meadow with silken gossamer lit by sunlight, and perhaps of an older sister and of two adults - perhaps his parents. One thing he does remember however is that something changed all that, something violent and sudden. He has memories of living shadows of hooded figures and red flashes of light, electrical energies, screaming and destruction. He was also hurt in this massacre but due to his small size, managed to escape before collapsing from his injuries and dehydration a few days later.

Lying like a dead thing, the boy was found by a reclusive old man who took him back to his hut and who slowly nursed him back to health. The old man later took the boy in and taught him many things, including how to read. The old man was however ancient indeed, and the roles were reversed within a year, young Leo initially helping with the chores and eventually nursing the old man before he died of old age. Leonardis recalls being saddened but not distraught at the old man's death. He had seen his protector's suffering and pain from physical ailments and realised that he was now free of these.

Searching through the hut, Leo came across two very important artefacts, which were to change his life forever. One was a Jedi's lightsaber, old and battered beyond functioning but which he identified as one of the 'laser swords' which destroyed his original community, the other being an ancient cuboid object with arcane carvings on the outside and which, when touched, displayed a starmap of several planets around the Galaxy, showing great temples where brown-robed individuals wielded the laser swords with effortless ability and skill and none of the violence of his dark-robed attackers. Whether the old man was a Jedi himself or had happened to come across the possessions of a Jedi is unclear; but the objects were left in a way that was impossible for Leo to miss them - clearly he was meant to find them and to make use of them. A strange, almost horrified fascination with the lightsaber entered the boy's mind; again whether it was a subtle mind control or whether it was just seeing the images and being entranced by the whirling flashes of blue and green is unknown, but Leo firmly became obsessed with finding such a temple and learning the skills he could see in the holo-images.

And so it was that about the age of eight or nine Galactic Standard years, Leo ended up without a home and without family, a galactic waif who stowed aboard star freighters and who searched with determined single-mindedness for the places he found in the holocron. Legend has it that his surname is not his own but a moniker given to him by amused seasoned travellers, who saw the young boy travelling alone with focused intent and said: "There goes a 'man' with a mission" - and that Leo, hearing this on more than one occasion, adopted it as his surname, being unable to recall his own.

The Force must have been with Leo even then, for despite being a rather vulnerable and naive child, he managed to avoid mishap (specifically the slavers who might have captured him to sell on) and arrived first at a great Temple amongst swirling desert sands, called The New Holstice. There, he beheld the Jedi of his holocron, twirling their sabers and performing dazzling feats of acrobatics. He was mesmerised, and decided to spend some time finding out about these strange people, the Jedi. No-one really noticed the ragged and slightly underweight urchin steal into the Great Archives and read from them, spending days there and reading as far as his command of written Basic would allow. Biographers and historians have postulated that even then Leo could unconsciously manipulate the Force - a skill he may have developed to avoid being noticed on his long and lonely space trips - for he was never disturbed in the Archives or challenged as to why he was there. After several days finding out about the Jedi Order and of observing the trainees there, Leo decided this was the life for him and he made his mind to join the Order. He filled out an application form with his unpractised childish scrawl on flimsi and was about to drop it into the application box when all about him suddenly were cries of distress and sounds of lightsabers echoing through halls of the great temple, shattering the sanctity of that place for good. Here and there were dark robed figures emerging as out of Leo's nightmares wield red lightsabers, but more striking to the shocked boy was the sight of Jedi fighting Jedi - not just sparring but actually fighting to the death, blue and green sabers clashing in fury and passion he had not seen before...in terror he ran from the Temple and it was a good thing that he did so, for a short while after, the mighty edifice crumbled from its foundations and crashed into the floor, becoming naught but smoking ruins. Leo remembered running into a padawan in his mid teens, injured and looking distressed and confused, saying over and over again: "I can't believe it, Masters Sion and Gorilla have fallen to the Dark Side... Master Moreau has fled, it's over, we're finished, it's all over..." Leo still remembered years afterward the tears of betrayal and hurt on the older boy's face, for a moment before the padawan spotted a Dark Sider hewing down a friend and charged on, in desperate and futile courage, falling almost instantly to the Sith Master's twirling saber-staff.

Leo fled as fast as the wings of fear could take him and when he had no more strength, sank to the ground and wept. Not only had he seen death and destruction reminiscent of that which had destroyed his family, but it seemed that his dream of becoming a Jedi was over, the Sith having put them all to the sword. The boy cried himself to sleep and even on waking, lay in a torpor of despair ready to lie give up and die. Idly, he played with the old man's holocron, viewing the images again and again. Suddenly, he sat up bolt upright...

The New Holstice Temple is not the only Jedi Temple in the Galaxy!!

It may seem like a strange thought to those coming later, but most of the Jedi in the Galaxy were trained at the New Holstice amongst the Jedi Alliance, and Leo had assumed that with their destruction, the Jedi Order was dead. In fact there were a couple other Temples briefly mentioned by the holocron, though their exact locations were not revealed. Leo recalled falling asleep and dreaming, perhaps Force-Seeing - which Sectors of the Galaxy to focus on in his continued search. And so it was, that Leo came eventually upon a place that was not a Jedi Temple, but which he recognized as a place of ancient duelling practice and heard for the first time in months, the thrum and clash of lightsabers. The Force must have been with him again, for that place lay deserted and abandoned for much of the time, the Jedi Knight and her student only happening to be visiting at that particular time, evidenced by their ship resting on a landing pad not far away.

Leo sat down quietly and watched as the Jedi Knight instructed her young student - a brown-haired human boy a few years older than himself in the art of saber combat. But Leo only had eyes for the Knight, who was tall and statuesque, her almost-white blond hair rolled in a bun behind her head, and whose moves were fluid and swift. Though she made the student look clumsy in comparison, Leo was nonetheless impressed with the older boy's grasp of fairly complex moves. He quite clearly had talent.

After an hour or so of duelling, the Knight let the other boy rest for a while and strode over to Leo, noticing the ragged urchin watching from the sidelines. She asked him if she could help him, and he would remember his abashed words - after all this time not being able to find the right thing to say and being unable to meet her piercing gaze: "I'm lost, can you help me to find the way?", to which she smiled and replied: "Somehow I don't think you are lost anymore."

Leo kid

The Knight took him back with the other boy to the Temple of New Hope, washed and dressed him in the plain tunic and pants of a Jedi Youngling and presented him to a Council Master, Praegorn Sachertorte, for consideration to join the Jedi Order. Almost immediately the Master could see the potential of the boy and not only admitted him into the legendary Jedi Master Order but also within a couple of weeks petitioned for him to be raised to Padawan Learner and indeed his own Apprentice. Despite this, Leo kept close links with the Knight - Shaymar Sullivan - and her Padawan, Arciem Sillanpaa, with whom he became fast friends and room-mates and looked up to like an older brother. And so it was that Leo became a Jedi student; his teachers noticed the same intense focus that had given Leo his monikered surname and commented that great things might one day be expected from him.

Padawan Learner

Leo Padawan

"You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!"

— Master Praegorn Sachertorte, to his Padawan Learner Leo Mission

Leo continued his previous obsession with the lightsaber, a fascination shared by Arciem, and the two boys would spend hours, sometimes even whole days in the duelling arena, until their clothes were soaked with sweat and attracting worried glances from the older Jedi. Sometimes Leo would be instructed by his own Master - the Order's Weapons Master - and other times he would join Shaymar and Arciem in their sessions. Shaymar was also particularly gifted in the saber and would still manage to best both boys together, and they learned much from these sessions. So much so in fact that within a short period of time, Leo had managed to best Shaymar's old Master, Pantera Asturias, in a duel - much to his surprise - and Leo's own Master joked with him after a being pushed particularly hard one day: "You've picked this up so quickly, you make me want to give up!" Arciem also improved rapidly under Shymar's guidance and the two boys developing a healthy rivalry, each wanting to out-do the other but each admitting the other was more gifted!

One terrible day, as the boy and his Master were at a Galactic fair on a nearby planet in the same Sector, they received a distress call from their base. They hastened back to the Temple, stopping in shock as they found it utterly destroyed as if exploded by a bomb and yet there was no trace of explosives but rather a deep wound in the Force. It came to light that the deed had been carried out by one of the Masters in the Order - Master Molly Morrison - who, having recently failed in a bid to unite the Jedi Orders and set herself up as the head of the Council, fell to the Dark Side. Being blocked from her relentless ambition, from within her own Order by Grand Master Aridian, she revenged herself on Jedi Master by using the Force to destroy the Temple and fled - a crime of almost unparalleled heinousness. The Order was devastated by the loss of what was after all a new and state-of-the-art facility which had not even been fully finished yet. Nonetheless, they were not without home, for the former base on the gas planet of Bespin had not yet been decommissioned; and the Order retreated there and Leo continued his learning in this 'new' setting.

Leo Tieton

As he started to approach his Master's skill level with lightsabers, Leo realized that their relationship was somewhat flawed. His Master was young and similarly gifted with the lightsaber - he was more like an older brother or a favourite young uncle rather than a true Master to him. They had many good times together but once Leo stopped learning so much about lightsaber craft from Master Sachertorte, he realized he wasn't learning really very much at all, since his Master was mainly focused himself on sabercraft. The other real talent of Master Sachertorte was in flying starfighters and at that point Leo felt himself very inept and unable to even begin that. He also wanted to learn more history, lore, philosophy and about the Force, and Master Sachertorte began to struggle to 'feed' his gifted but insatiable student. Perhaps a little unfairly, Leo began to feel somewhat ignored and neglected, not realizing that his young Master was simply struggling to know what to do with him.

By now in his early teens, Leo entered a slightly rebellious phase where he spent less time with his Master and more with Arciem, honing his battle skills even more. He seemed set on the path of the Guardian, and did not want anyone to hold him back. Similarly impetuous, Arciem would be a willing companion on adventures including crossing sabers with Sith Master Darth Malice in defence of the Temple of the New Order of the Jedi - a defeat which taught them they still had much to learn but only fuelled them onwards. Struggling to control his wayward pupil, the young Master Sachertorte in the end resorted to a threat he had no intention of carrying out and which he would deeply regret uttering: to have Leo cast out of the Jedi Order. Utterly shocked by his Master's statement, Leo ran in a very distressed state to Grand Master Aridian who, calming down the almost hysterical boy, took only a few moments to realize that Master Sachertorte - a former Padawan of his - was out of his depth with this unusually gifted but headstrong student. He therefore relieved Master Sachertorte of the sole responsibility for Leo and placed him under the collective guardianship of all the Masters. While in time Leo and Master Sachertorte would become friends again, their Master/Padawan relationship was never the same again.

Under Master Aridian's firm but patient hand, Leo started to read more and spent less time with his lightsaber. Eventually Master Pantera Asturias took young Leo on trips around the Galaxy with him, and the boy learned much about diplomacy and about non-violent self-defence from the wise old Master and grew to love these trips. In a sense - though it was never formalized - Leo spent this middle part of his Padawanship as Master Asturias' apprentice. Meanwhile, Master Sachertorte struggled with feelings of low self-worth, having considered himself to have "failed" with Leo and seeing Master Asturias' relative success with the boy, began to doubt his own abilities and the conviction of his path. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he withdrew into himself and then one day announced that he and the Jedi Order were done and that he would now seek a Darker Path. On hearing of this, Leo went to argue with him, seeking to change his mind, to no avail. Begging, pleading and even tears failed to dissuade Sachertorte, who smiled sadly at Leo and lifted the boy's chin looking into his liquid eyes and told him gently to stay, not to follow him and to be a good Jedi. Saying this, he got into his starfighter and departed.

Struggle with the Dark Side

Leo dark

"I should leave, I don't deserve to be a Jedi..."

— Leo Mission to Master Kokiri Saarinen

The Fall of his former Master precipitated a real crisis in young Leo's mind. Coming up to Trials at the time, Leo found himself utterly unable to concentrate on his studies, blaming himself intensely for the state of his old friend and feeling an exorable pull to go to find him, but knowing that this would almost inevitably mean he fell also to the Dark Side. Realising this weakness in himself, Leo started to doubt his strength and talents and like a vicious circle this fuelled his despair; perhaps unsurprisingly, he refused to undergo Trials when it was offered to him by the Council. With Master Asturias away on a long trip, he was left to his own devices and had too much time to berate himself and to sink in a deeper misery. Added to which, the cunning Darth Malice, having crossed sabers and having been secretly impressed with the talent of the young Jedi, sensed Leo's mental weakness and began to whisper through the Force, complimenting and flattering him, saying that he was wasting himself away with the Jedi...

One day Master Kokiri Saarinen came to visit Leo and offered him again to undergo Trials; the Order was in dire need of Knights, having lost several (including for the moment Lady Shaymar Sullivan, who had vanished). On speaking to the troubled youngster for a couple of hours, however, Master Saarinen became concerned that perhaps Leo was too unstable to deal with the increase in responsibility and that he was in danger from the Dark Side. Nonetheless, he offered a straight Knighthood (without Trials) to Leo to test whether the latter situation was the case. Leo wasted no time in refusing the honour, openly stating now that he feared for his grip on the Light and did not wish to fail as a Knight. Secretly impressed and pleased with the outcome, Master Saarinen agreed with Leo not to promote him and left him with his thoughts; in the interim, Leo's good friend Arciem was Knighted in his stead.

Darth Malice's whisperings became more and more incessant over the days and Leo learned to detach his emotional self from the one that heard the whispers, in order to protect himself. In the end, perhaps the Sith Lord overplayed his hand. So obvious had the attempts to seduce young Leo become that he withdrew from them reflexly, realising his danger. With a deeply troubled spirit, Leo went to the one person who had managed to fully understand him thus far, Grand Master Aridian. In a long, tearful and fraught conversation in the Archives, Leo opened his heart to the great Master and revealed his fear that he was slowly, inexorably drowning in the Dark Side and that he was rapidly running out of strength to keep his head afloat in the Light. Master Aridian looked at the desperate boy with admiration at the fact he had not yet succumbed to the Dark Side and at the will that all but he himself saw, but he agreed with Leo that the danger from the Dark Side was imminent. Yet again showed decisive action and metaphorically threw Leo a lifeline, taking him on as his very own Padawan with the words: "as a son, you shall be to me...let me help you find yourself again." Leo accepted and clung to his aid, using Master Aridian's great strength and solidity as a base with which to pull himself out of the maelstrom of passion he had fallen into.

This was not achieved in a day, or even several. But step-by-step and day-by-day, Leo grew stronger, energised by the belief his Master had in him and in turn learning to belief in himself and his abilities. In truth, Master Aridian taught him little in the way of facts and skills; but on the other hand, he was a true role model of quiet strength and endurance, and compassion - everything that Leo needed to complete his education as a Padawan. Within weeks, Leo was able to take his Trials and pass, ascending to the rank of Jedi Knight of the Republic. Moreover he had learned through what effectively had been his Trial of Spirit and looking in the mirror that if he had not fallen to the Dark Side on this situation, that he could face the Dark Side in any situation confident in himself that he had the will to resist.

A Knight in difficult times

"It's my job to guide them and protect them; if I don't, they are lost!"

— Leo Mission to Master Pantera Asturias

Whilst Leo had conquered his doubts to rise above the Dark Side and to take his place as a Jedi Knight, the situation of the Order was far worse. At one time in the past, it had 30 members, and was starting to recover when New Hope was destroyed by Master Morrison. By the time of Leo's Knighting, this number had atrophied to a mere handful: four Masters, a couple of Knights and a Padawan or two.

Still reeling from the violent death of New Hope, the Council had appointed Lady Shaymar Sullivan to the position of Master when her Padawan Arciem was himself Knighted. She attempted to spearhead the revival of the Jedi by taking a more vigorous stance against the Sith, battling the ancient Dark Lords of the Sith led by the infamous Darth Padar. Her more aggressive movement - which including killing Sith on sight - caused her and Arciem to be slightly alienated from the rest of the Order, who favoured a less violent approach to dealing with them. On one particular occasion, she ordered an attack on a Sith delegation who had come to peacefully parley and Leo found himself striking down Sith who had no inkling they were to die. Thoroughly disgusted by this, the Order turned on Master Sullivan and criticised her roundly. She made little reaction at the time, but Master Sullivan came back later when the base was almost deserted and with the weapons on board her Naboo N1 Starfighter, started to methodically destroy the Bespin base. Only Leo was present at the time and he ran behind the ship, begging her to stop. She ignored and continued to fire on her own base until it was utterly destroyed, and then flew away. Whereas Master Morrison's actions may for all we know been a work of a moment's passion, those of Master Sullivan were cold and calculated, and the work of at least an hour. When the other Jedi returned, they found young Leo (still in his mid-teens at the time), sitting alone tearfully in the middle of the rubble of the base. Not only had he lost his home yet again, he had lost to the Dark Side the Jedi who had discovered him and who had taught him so much.

Leo was stronger now, however, and after some comforting and when the initial shock had worn off, bounced back to assist what was left of the Order. It had never been in a worse state. Homeless, and now with only half a dozen members, it teetered on the verge of extinction. With just one medium-sized transporter left, the Order began a migration to a new location in the Galaxy, arriving a week or so later at the Outer Rim planet of Rhodes. This was tropical and balmy, and warm waves lapped on a sandy shore which Grand Master Aridian fell in love with. And so it was that he began the construction of a new base - a technological wonder amidst the natural beauty of the region.

In time, it was completed and Leo made himself useful in what ways he could, welcoming visitors and helping those that wished to join to meet the Masters. Not so long afterwards, there were perhaps half a dozen or more new younglings and Leo made it his job to shepherd them. Not being much older than they were, he was a natural friend and guardian, even defending them from the occasional marauding Sith with his formidable saber skills. As the number of younglings and padawans grew, so did Leo's importance to the ageing Masters who, perhaps wilting finally under the strain of leading the Order through its moves, began to withdraw more from training the youngsters. Though he was run ragged by the ten or so students, Leo kept his head up and devoted much time to them; so that a talented 'class' of future Masters like Odenviscar Knight, Hans Melnitz, Dwight Clutterbuck and drkpl2 Omegamu looked up to him and came to regard him more like a young Master more than they did the actual Masters themselves. During this period of time, Leo also took his first Padawan, Kizzy Troughton and shortly afterwards his second, long-term friend Zoom Kilian.

Gradually, imperceptibly, and due to the efforts of many, the Order climbed back to its feet. Small and remote from the politics of the wider Galaxy, Rhodes was the ideal cradle for the Order to be reborn into. By now, the Order had four or five knights, and Leo was chosen to be the Senior Knight, acting as a liaison with the Council and heading the efforts to revitalise the middle rank of the Order. He worked harder and harder, until his nerves were too frayed for sleep. His efforts, however, paid off and by the time he was nearly twenty, the Order had tripled in size and the grounds expanded to match.

By this time, however, the Masters including Grand Master Aridian were nearly exhausted by the ravages of leadership and time, and were hardly seen beyond the occasion smile and hello. Leo's efforts to keep the Order together came at personal cost, and he began to look visibly worn and run-down. In the midst of this, the Masters suddenly announced en masse, that they were retiring, and that the Order was to be disbanded. Shocked by the decision to throw away everything they had fought for without at least trying to appoint successors, Leo went away and meditated for a couple of hours before deciding with great reluctance to set up his own Order and to claim the title of Jedi Master. His dream had always been to serve his Order and perhaps be awarded the title by his seniors, but now that dream had to be put aside to practical needs. He technically had the right, having trained Zoom Kilian to Knighthood, but he still felt woefully inexperienced and painfully young to take this step. At the eleventh hour, and to Leo's great relief, the youngest of the old Masters, Master Kokiri Saarinen arrived and announced that he would return to lead Jedi Master once more if people would still believe. Leo aborted his plans and gave up the self-appointed title he would have claimed, bringing all the padawans he had convinced to follow him back to Jedi Master to see if it could be rescued.

With the strength of the old Masters (but not their goodwill) fading, Leo had bought a reprieve for his band of youngsters, took to journeying the Galaxy alone, looking for a place where he might bring the Order to recover and grow again. For he had seen, with a moment of foresight, that to grow fully as an Order, Jedi Master had to change its scenery and give itself a big project around which to unite, such as the building of a new base on a wild planet. And so it was one day that he stumbled on the planet of Ossus in the Adegan System (Auril Sector) and on landing on an island with two peaks suddenly felt a great connection to the Force and its power surging from the rocks and water. The Force was all around him and surged in his veins, singing like the moment in every Jedi's life when he or she realised that the Force was real and beautiful. Leo know, at that moment, that this place would be the saviour of the Order. Still, being young and inexperienced, he felt a need for advice, and invited Master Saarinen and even the old Masters to view this planet, valuing their opinion, which was entirely positive. One would have to have been dead to the Force to not see the potential of that place, where it permeated everything.

Now convinced that he had indeed been touched by the Force and that the future of the Order did lie on Ossus, Leo began assembling the team of builders to start construction of what would be a massive project. Initially, it was felt that bringing the old base from Rhodes over to the planet would be one way forwards, but a disastrous entry into the atmosphere by the ship carrying this lead to its complete distruction. The building team then began planning and construction of the new temple but ran into various difficulties due to the unusual terrain. Eventually, however, padawans Hans Melnitz and Odenviscar Knight were able to finish the construction of the temple and archives and former Grandmaster Aridian and his partner Bliss Darrow constructed the floating plaza and gardens, with Leo overseeing the construction and providing some additional building of his own. The result was the stunning Jedi Academy at Ossus Praxeum.

Master of the Force

Leonardis YoungMaster

For their skills and contribution to the Order, Hans Melnitz and Odenviscar Knight were rewarded with Knighthood and similarly Leo (henceforth going by his full name of Leonardis) was granted Masterhood after successfully overseeing the transition from Rhodes to Ossus and keeping the younger Jedi's training going at the same time. The Academy of Ossus was unique in the Galaxy at marrying the themes of Realism and Roleplay, and continued for a long time, training scores of students in all aspects of Jediism. At the height of its numbers, Jedi Master had over sixty members and served the Galaxy in the manner that a Jedi Order should. Eventually, however, the strains of leading this great Order told on the Council, and first Master Dark and then Leonardis succumbed to the effects of this and retired, leaving the Order in the hands of Master Zoom Kilian and new Master Bliss Darrow. At this point, however, the strain was too great on these two individuals and the Order closed for a time, the Jedi scattering to the winds. Some of these young Jedi formed their own splinter to keep the ideals of the parent Order alive, and these became the Wandering Jedi.

Leonardis himself, exhausted by his toils, moved away from Ossus in this period, to the ice-world of Ilum, and spent some time in quiet reflection and meditation, regaining his strength and purpose. The tranquility and calm focus of the Force caves of Ilum helped to re-energise him and fill him again with the energy of the Force, and after some period in seclusion thus, he issued forth in the Galaxy once again to attempt to find an Apprentice to train as his own Padawan. Searching high and low for some time, however, he did not find the person he was looking for and retreated back to Ilum to reconsider his options. After some more meditation, he realised that the power of the Force in Ossus would be far more successful at drawing new potential Jedi than he alone, and he travelled to this abandoned world, and walked once more the now deserted halls which once rang with the sounds of a thriving Jedi Academy. A melancholy and lonely place it had become in its time as a lonely monument to Jedi Master, but it had lost none of its potency in the Force. Leonardis set about preparing the Academy for re-opening and together with his old friend and former padawan Master Zoom Kilian and former JM Padawan Ash Quadrifoglio, revived the Jedi Master Order under a new name of Jedi Guardians of the Peace (or JGP).

Thus began the rennaissance of the Jedi of Ossus. The call went out in the Force across the Galaxy, and many who were once in the Jedi Master Order returned to join the new revived Academy. Importantly, Leonardis met with former JM Knight - now Master of the Wandering Jedi, Odenviscar Knight - and agreed with him that their Orders would be stronger united and given their common ancestry with JM, it would seem a sensible way to proceed. The Wandering Jedi therefore left their precarious existence under the shadow of the Dark Rose Station and returned home to Ossus and the new combined Jedi Guardians of the Peace thrived again under the combined efforts of a unified and Force-infused group of like minded people. And thus, it continued for many many years, and again many Jedi were trained in the new Academy, and the numerous achievements of Jedi Master were equalled and surpassed by the new Order of JGP. In time, under Leonardis' tenure as Grand Master of the Order, the lands of the Academy were expanded, and the Great Library was brought from its longtime location on Anoth by Master Marcus Moreau back to its original home on Ossus, and the planet of today was formed.

Nearing Union with the Force?

Many, many years passed thus, and Leonardis remained at the helm of the Order for longer than any had expected and longer than others had done until date. His Padawans grew and were Knighted, then attained Masterhood, and they in turn trained other Jedi as Padawans and who then became Knights and even Masters. He was at a venerable age, when he finally realised that his energy and drive had once, again, run dry and that it was time to hand the reins to a new generation to lead the Order onwards once more. Retiring then ((in early 2009)) as Grandmaster of the Order, he annointed Master Zoom Kilian as his successor and departed, trusting in the Force that the Order he loved and had devoted his entire life to would remain true to itself and to its mission.

What the future of Master Leonardis might be is unclear at this stage. He is still seen, sometimes on Ossus and sometimes on other planets, and though his step may be slighter and less firm than it once was, and his hair a lighter shade of grey, he may have enough of his renowned former strength to endure a little while longer and perhaps to re-emerge from his contemplations with renewed youth and vigour. Or, if it be the will of the Force, he will pass to union with it, completing this life cycle of this venerable servant of the Force.

May the Force be with you all, always.

Behind the scenes

Leo Mission is an active member of the SWRP community since February 2006, a member (and group owner) of Jedi Master (now renamed Jedi Guardians of the Peace) since the start until his retirement in January 2009, and he remains the sim owner of the RP planet of Ossus (Brazos region). He is also the CEO of Ossus Engineering Corporation, a firm which builds Star Wars items, especially ships, furniture and gadgets. Please feel free to contact him in world if you have any queries about any of these or any Jedi-related issues. Leonardis 14:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)