Ashen Vespasian Hunter
From Flight From Darkness
Ashen Vespasian Hunter is a Talonlord in the External Defence Corps on the Dream of Sweat Rain. He is a Varangian Full Moon Lunar.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early Life
Ashen Vespasian Hunter was born as a middle child in family of 5 in the City-State of Jishal in Varang. The astrologer-priests determined that he would perform remarkably in the Military Caste. As such his life's path was set. Upon entering his apprenticeship at the age of ten, he showed a remarkable talent for bladework, with his weapon of choice being the spreads-the-water knife. He later developed his talents with the knife to the point he was considered one of the best a blade masters in Varang.
He was noted as having a talent for leadership and command at the age of 18 after a raid into Harbourhead went wrong. The raid was located by an overwhelming number of Harbourhead soldiers, and destroyed. During the disastrous route that followed, he was able to safely guide a fang of green cadets out. It was during this raid that he met Yithaki, the man who would become his best friend and long time second in command. He spent several years more performing raids along the Harbourhead border, before the Astrologers determined a need for new marines. The newly promoted Scalelord was shipped out to Talt, along with Yithaki, to join the Varang marines. He spent almost two decades in that position, eventually reaching Talonlord. During this time he Had several relationships, and a few marriages, none of which lasted. However one lead to the birth of his daughter, Chausiku, who was placed into the mechanist caste at her birth.
[edit] The Evacuation
By the time the Reclamation begun, Vespasian had just turned 36 years old. Chausiku was 11, and was one year into her apprenticeship. She sent him a small time piece to commemorate the occasion. He was at the time stationed on one of the triremes based in Talt. Tensions were high with the Empresses return, but it was assumed that current events would not unduly impact the Varangia Nation. Indeed, the trade brought in by the war footing of the Realm was proving quite advantageous to the Varangia.
Then the dark truth of the Empress became known. As a port city, Talt was one of the first to learn the truth. Thus, it was one of the first to burn. The Realm Garrison there turned on the city, and large numbers of mentally influenced Varangians joined them. Demons spread throughout the city, and in short order the city was in flames. The Admiral of the Varang Navy forces in Talt ordered them to support the Reclamation forces on the shore, an act which caused mutiny aboard the ships. Only a small number of ships followed his orders, those were swiftly sunk. The remainder of the ships gathered as many refugees as they could, and fled for Yane. Chausiku was not among the refugees.
The Navy Ships where successful in reaching Yane before the forces of the Reclamation. Acting ruthlessly, they led a sharp purge of much of the current Wizarat, with the aid of several elder (retired), younger, and out of favor pundits. A similar strike was sent against the Realm garrison, successfully killing the four Dragon-Bloods with it. Working as quickly as they could they began to organize a mass evacuation of the city. They did not work fast enough. Two days later demons began to boil out into the city, and brainwashed Varang forces from the other cities began to siege the city. It swiftly became a messy, bloody affair: demons stalked the streets, cultist rose from hiding, and Exalts rampaged. Somehow Yane's military kept control of the situation long enough to get the Evacuation well underway. Then the Solar Akuma Fehim arrived in the city. Calling on his sorcery, he was able to devastate Yane's defenses, calling on Second Circle Demons. Four Talons of marines, including Vespasian, were dispatched to attempt to hold the akuma and his forces off. During the hopeless battle, Vespasian crossed blades with Fehim,and was struck down. Dying from Yozi Venom that coated Fehim's blade, Vespasian still tried to rise. Then a voice, howling, baying and screeching in a thousand tones, spoke out to him. "FIGHT WITH ALL YOUR FURY, AND GIVE YOUR PEOPLE SURVIVAL!". And then blazing silver, surrounded by swarm of a thousand insects, Vespasian breathed again, and launched himself back at the Fehim.
Even with the aid of the newly Exalted Vespasian, three of the four talons died in that battle. It was only when the Second Circles fell back to cover the badly wounded Fehim where Varang forces able to retreat back to the rapidly leaving ships, dragging the broken, poisoned, but still alive, Vespasian with them. The Evacuation successfully departed shortly there after, but at a high cost: over half the Varang Navy that set out was sunk. Still they had a large, concentrated fleet, and approximately 35,000 people survived their flight.
[edit] The Flight
Following the evacuation, Vespasian was confined to his quarters while the new Pundit Council decided what to do with their newly Exalted Lunar. A few wanted to abandon him, while the rest noted without their allies in the Realm, he was the strongest essence user they had at their disposal, and the only person who could realistically fight against another Exalt without massive causalities. The issue quickly began to run in circles, and became deadlocked in short order. Vespasian was initially grateful for the chance to recover and heal from his wounds, but swiftly grew worried and alarmed when an end to his confinement did not materialize.
Meanwhile, the astrologers had cast a divination showing a safe haven waited in the Northeastern Inner Sea. They swiftly concealed exactly how far they had to go, and simply claiming they had divined a safe haven for then to recover at. Thus the evacuation fleet set off, confident that they would soon be safe.
Three weeks into the journey a Realm fleet with several First Age vessels located and attacked them.
The initial engagement resulted in a one sided slaughter of the Varagarian vessels. Acting unilaterally, the elderly Pundit Councillor Zareen Attar, a prominent member of the group advocating the removal of Vespasian, decided to release him from his confinement. “We're dead or enslaved if we don’t let you out. As opposed to possibly destroyed and then bent your will. I’ll take my chances with the later.” She stated upon releasing him. Her pragmatic decision proved vital to the survival of the Evacuation Fleet, as Vesp managed to disable the First Age vessels in the attacking fleet. This, combined with the sacrifice of a major portion of the fleets naval strength enabled the rest of the fleets escape. However, only thirteen thousand of the third five thousand of the Varangians escaped that battle.
The Pundit Council decided to keep Vespasian around after that. The general populace, and the military had made their position on the issue... explicit. They could only hope that Vespasian did not use the mind bending powers of the Exalted to try to take over the fleet, and shape their society to his will.
A bare two weeks later devastating wave of disease rolled through the fleet, wiping out a third of the fleet’s population. This occurred just in time the Realm to catch up again. Only through the quick use of corpse filled fire ships and Vespasian’s disruption of the Realms chain of command and communications allowed the fleet able to escape. Following a demon attack a few weeks later, Vespasian had achieved messianic status among much of the fleet, including a not insignificant portion of the Pundit Council. His supporters pushed and succeeded in naming him the replacement for the commander of the marines. The prior commanders had been killed during the prior disastors. The rest of the council, lead by Zareen, were worried by this development, but did little to block it. Some even hoped that he might suffer the same fate as his predecessors. Vespasian accepted the post with no small amount of trepidation, as he did not think he was ready to handle such responsibility, but noted “At least this way we won’t need to replace commanders after every fucking attack.” With his appointment Vespasian was informed of the final destination of the fleet. He agreed with the current need for secrecy, and kept quiet about how far they had to go. He was also assigned a liaison to the Pandit Council: Astrologer Pandit Sizwe Saqqaf. In time, they became good friends after Sizwe realized that the thought of having to rule the Varagarians featured prominently in Vespasian’s worst nightmares.
Despite the best efforts of the astrologers (indeed, without them the Varagarians would not have made it to The Dream) the rest of the journey continued on the same vein as the first month: storms wrecking and dividing the fleet, attacks by demons, Lintha pirates, Realm patrols they couldn’t quite dodge, and Yozi cultists and brainwashed victims causing internal trouble. In one notable case the last managed to blow up the Blank Mountain a large merchant ship, destroying 3 Triremes, a Brireme and the Blank itself. As the casualties mounted, Vespasian began to develop a greater and greater case of survivor’s guilt. He began to drive himself harder and harder to save as many of his people as he could, often never fully recovering from his injuries between disasters. If the fleet had not reached The Dream when it did, he likely would have killed himself through overwork. It was during this time he developed an intense dislike for Pundits and other civilians who meddled to deeply in military affairs without having a clue what they were doing. This lead to constant clashing with Council head Zareen Attar, who while a masterful politician, was a horrendous military planner. Unfortunately, Zareen was determined to do everything in her power to stop Vespasain from gaining more power than he had and thus constantly meddled in his plans.
Her fears where exasperated by growing civilian and military hatred and exasperation with the Pundits as the seemingly endless voyage dragged on. This, combined with the corrupt behavior exhibited by a few of the Pundits and their supporters led to many on the ships quietly speak of mutiny. The movement slowly gained momentum and Vespasian was a popular choice to replace the Council in leading. Eventually, the discontent was organized into a definitive movement by Yithaki, who had seen far too much loss as a result of the politics of the Pundit Council. He was careful to ensure word of the mutiny never reached Vespasian, lest the Lunar crush it himself. He Vespasian would never seek the reigns of power himself, but accept them if thrust upon him.
Events came to a head around five months into the voyage, when a Pundit countermanded Vespasian’s orders so he could flee to safety, leading to the sinking of the ship he was on, and formerly in charge of. When confronted, the pundits arrogant claims that his life was worth more than the rest of those 'worthless dung sweepers' caused Vespasian to finally lose his temper and decapitate him. This would have been enough to kick off the mutiny right then and there, if not for the blistering speech from Vespasian to the blood splattered Pundit council to stop messing around and costing their peoples lives. The most critical information he let slip in his triad however, was that astrologers had put them on the last week of their voyage to the safe haven. The revelation that they were close to their destination now was enough to (barely) avoid the coup being kicked off then and there. The frantic actions of the conspirators did alert Zareen, however, and startled at how close she had come to death, caused her to launch swift and ruthless purge of the most stupid and corrupt Pundits from her inner circle. In a one case when an individual refused to except his loss of power, she threw the man off the ship herself. This restored some measure of faith in the Pundit caste, and garnered a fair bit of respect for Zareen herself. Yithaki put the mutiny on hold until after they reached the location of the haven. If it was there all well and good, if not... then the lying bastards died.
By the time that the Evacuation Fleet neared the Dream, six months after the fleet launched, things where desperate. Most of the ships barely holding together, ammunition and medical supplies down to almost nothing, and food and water were running low. Despite this moral was at its highest in months (not that was saying much) as the end of their journey was in sight. Then the Realm found them again. In the last, desperate battle of the Flight, Vespasian’s led a desperate defense. Combined with the suicide run by the last Trireme in the fleet, The Black Jack, bought just enough time for the fleet to reach the location of the astrologers had been guiding them to for months. As the Black Jack sank, Vespasian received a mortal blow, knocking him from the sky. As the Realm Fleet regrouped to finish the Varang fleet, the refugees despaired... and then the Realm fleet was washed away in a storm of essence bolts. In less then a minute the Realm Fleet was splinters, with only a small number of Dragon-Blooded remaining. In another minute, not even those remained.
The Titan Direction Fortress, The Dreams of Sweet Rain, had arrived.
[edit] The Dream
Following the one sided slaughter of the Realm navy a collection of Bridge Crew, Lunar Elders, and Lookshian search and rescue forces descended on the Varang with a surprising small degree of confusion. They quickly gathered the shell shocked survivors, and evacuated them to the Dream. Of the 35,000 that were evacuated from Varang, less than 500 survived to reach the Dream.
Vespasian, beaten but still alive, was fished out of the sea by Silver Silhouette of the Pheonix. He was quickly rushed to the Medical Bay, where he was treated for the extensive injuries he sustained during the Battle of the Black Jack by Kyphus. Upon Vespasian regaining consciousness, he found that a series of silver tattoos had been implanted onto his body. After Kyphus managed to restrain the confused Full Moon (no small feat given Vespasian had both his warform and Relentless Lunar fury active) he was able to calm Vespasian down and explain the situation. This was Vespasian's first encounter with an Exalted that was not trying to kill him, and his first contact with a fellow chosen of Luna. After Kyphus explained several things about the Lunars, including the purpose of the tattoos he released Vespasian. Though suspicious at first, Vespasian calmed down considerably once he was shown to where his people were settling in on Deck 5. During the weeks that followed, Vespasian helped get the Varang settled in, often drawing on aid from the Lunar Elders to do so. It was during the course of this that Vespasian became caught up in the creation of what would become the EDC. He has served there distinction for the last four years as the Talonlord of the Deathswarm Talon, and has logged more EVA hours than almost anyone else on the Dream. He is currently considered 4th in command of the EDC.
[edit] Appearance
Ashen Vespasian Hunter is dark skinned, middle age man standing over six feet tall. He has his black hair is clipped into a short, military cut. This combined with his sharp moonsilver tattoos give him a fearsome visage. His silver eyes are sharp, but something seems just a little off about them. Those that can perceive his tell realize why: they are silver, insect-like compound eyes. He is most commonly seen on duty wearing his reinforced moonsilver breastplate, with silver vambraces and greaves covering a black EDC combat uniform. He typically leaves the armour off while off-duty, wearing only the EDC combat uniform. He only wears the EDC dress uniform to official ceremonies, or when argued into it by his superiors. He typically wears Talonlord rank talisman on his left shoulder, regardless of uniform. He always has The Memory of Kahless sheathed on his back, and a flamepiece in the holster on on his left leg. When on missions, he adds a quiver of cold iron arrows and a Lookshy Strongbow to his arsenal.
When Vespasian enters his Warform, his entire body covered in a black and silver exoskeleton, his tatoos inverting to black against the armour. A pair of silver veined insect wings project through his armour from his back. His eyes expand to cover half his face with glittering compound eyes, while the rest of his head is covered by his exoskeletal armour, forming a wasplike mask.
[edit] Personality
Vespasian is a Solider. He’s as hard headed and tough minded as they come, and prefers to straight combat to complicated diplomacy. He prefers to do things by the book, but has long since mellowed enough bend to get things done. Recently he has even started getting creative about it. But above all else the mission gets done.
Vespasian enjoys combat, but not the death that inevitably comes with it; but he has seen and ordered far to many people dead to muster more than faint regret at deaths these days. Despite this, he tries to avoid serious combat when other people are involved, so as to avoid sending more people to their deaths. Whenever he can handle the combat alone, he will try to do so. He also tries to avoid unfriendly fights among allied troops (sparing is fine) but has been known too snap if insulted to badly, or if people under his protection are threatened. The last person who tried, a knife wielder trying to stab Shamed Son Of The Shining Lion in the back, lost his knife wielding arm.
Vespasian tries to be respectful and proper at all time, but under stress he is prone to bouts of swearing and creative language. And when talking to hostile forces or people doing something he views as stupid he tends snark and become rather sarcastic.
His upbringing left him with a profound respect for astrologers, though it has been thoroughly tarnished and shaken by the Evacuation and the Flight. It left him not disrespectful of the position or of the astrologers abilities, but with a blazing hatred of incompetence, whether through greed or incapability. This is one of the main reasons he will never assume leadership of the Varang if he can help it: he knows he would be at best mediocre.
[edit] Hobbies and Quirks
Vespasian devote follower of the Maidens, particularly Mars. He is almost always at the War Shrine's prayer sessions and regularly attends services to the other Maidens to. After his Exaltation he began to pray to Luna as well, though this is done almost always on personal bias.
He enjoys gambling and can often be found playing games with his men or at one of the taverns. He is known to have a ridiculous alcohol tolerance, despite being only a light drinker. An Earth Aspected Lookshian Dragonblood that challenged him to a drinking contest accused him of using charms. Vespasian responded that he never activated any charms... which was true since Scorpion and Toad Absolution had long since given him passive immunity to alcohol poisoning, and he has never let it affect him since a bad night during The Flight.
He also has a berserk button about regarding punctuality as result of his training in the Varangian military. This has led to the Death Swarm Talon being the second highest purchasers of timepieces on the Dream, much to the rest of the EDC's amusement. Vespasian has a hobby of tinkering with timepieces, mostly in memory of his daughter Chausiku.
[edit] Past Life
See: Chupong
