Characters/Seven Rent Veils

From Greenthings

Revision as of 00:45, 18 December 2009

Introduction

(Draft)
1) Talents, being given to old woman 2) Relatively decent time, financial difficulties, sold 3) assassin-type stuff

Veils has always loved dancing. When he was little, he used to sneak out into the hallways when his mother's lady was entertaining and practice moving to the sounds he heard. He remembers somes pieces of those times- taking off his shoes so they wouldn't make noise on the carpet, the smell of roasted venison, flutes for entertaining and bells for funerals- more easily than he remembers his mother.

He knows that she was a servant of someone in House Ferem, and that her mistress' guests caught him one day when he was about five. He remembers a very long ride with an old woman, the same old woman who was his mistress for the next ten years of his life, given as a gift and kept as an amusement. She loved him, and though he learned quickly to pretend otherwise, he loathed her. She gave him quarters with the musicians and had him taught to sing and play, though for the most part he kept with dancing and the occasional monkey-trick. They treated him cordially but without warmth, and with no one remotely near his age, he grew up for the most part alone, until the old woman died.

Under increasing pressure from debtors and without a clear heir, her property was auctioned off and the servants were sent off to find work elsewhere. Sadly, his talents were recognized once more, and as he was young and without any recognized family, an exchange was made without his knowledge to lump him into the former category.

I can feel the violence
Spill across the floor
My eyes have grown too clouded
To see it anymore

Character Sheet

Seven Rent Veils
Day Caste
Motivation: Use the secrets of the powerful to destroy them.
Anima:

Attributes:

Str ** Dex ***** Sta **
Cha *** Man ***** App ***
Per *** Int ** Wits **

Abilities:

(Day)
Athletics *****
Awareness **
Dodge ***
Larceny **
Stealth ****

(Favored)
Investigation *
Martial Arts *
Melee **
Performance *****
Presence ***

(Other)
Resistance *

Integrity **
Linguistics * (Airtongue- Native, Riverspeak)
Socialize *

Lore *
Medicine *
Occult *

(Specialties)
Athletics (Grace) ***
Performance (Dancing) ***
Melee (Small Pointy Things) *
Investigation (Shameful Things) **


Virtues- Cmp ** Con ** Val ** Tem *** | Resonance: 0/10
Intimacies: Idealism (Contempt), Exposing Skeletons-in-Closets (Glee)
Essence- *** Personal (14/14) | Peripheral (25/35) | Committed- &5(Swordmask) &4(Bracers) &1(Amulet) = 10
HL - 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 4 I | Exp: 66 Spent: 66 | Willpower- *****
DDV: | PDV: | MDV:
Statbar: Sp4 Acc+6 +4L Def+1 Rate2 &att5.

Merits/Flaws:

Charms:
Entertainer:
2nd Athletics (2m/per)
Raiton's Nimble Perch (3m)
Effortless Unnatural Grace (- (1m))
2nd Performance (2m/per)
Morbid Fascination Style (5m)
Soul-Dessicating Style (6m)
--
Assassin:
3rd Stealth (4m/per)
Shadow Cloak Technique (-)
Atrocity Without Witness (5m,1w)
--
Pragmatic:
Ox-Body x1
Flitting Shadow Form (1m)

Violet Bier of Sorrows:
Secrets of Future Strife (-)

Backgrounds:
Liege ***
Artifact **
Artifact *
Contacts **
Manse **
Resources **
Underworld Manse *

Descriptions and Elaborations

I'm not ready to return yet
I just need a moment more
So I can try to remember
What it is I came here for

Basic Description:
Personality:
Goals: Regarding his Motivation, he's currently going after more local examples, but he would *love* to screw over the Bull of the North at some point...or the Realm, or possibly the Deathlords later on...

Backgrounds

Liege 3:
The Walker in Darkness. He's probably irritated at Veils' disinterest in anything martial, particularly after allowing him to train in Violet Bier Style, but Veils loves his "job" enough not to make too much noise about being a slave (again), and therefore is pretty useful. The idea of using a Day Caste as a diplomatic envoy is probably a very strange one to him.
(1) Husband to the Green Lady, it's rumored he keeps her close for reasons that date back significantly further than her journey into the Underworld, or at least that he married her for reasons more occult than perverse. Despite his supposed amnesia, this may also explain some of his rivalry with the Mask of Winters- as if rivalry between Deathlords needed explanation.
(2) Daybreaks mumble on occasion that removing the Princess Magnificent's curse on the Ebon Spires is relatively simple, and merely requires rebuilding the citadel. If that's so, why the Walker chooses not to have this done is a very interesting question; perhaps the Princess' curse is more complicated than it seems, or perhaps it's less what she did and more what managed to run her off... scaring Princess Birdhat with a story is one thing, but a Deathlord with actual power?
(3) Those closely in touch with the Neverborn have mentioned- rather incoherently, as that group tends to- their growing discontent at the schemes of a certain lord of the Shadowland at Cold House. Acting on an order/suggestion/riddle/gibber from his masters, the Walker is considering taking steps to secure it, perhaps beginning with the extraction of several crazed Deathknights who could be put to far better use elsewhere. Of course, if the Neverborn are so fed up as to set the other Deathlords on Eye, the Walker's probably not the only one.
(4) There are rumors that the Walker has given Sijan its own Monstrance. Some also wonder if this is not in defiance of the will of the Neverborn, but part of their inscrutable plans. On the other hand, there were a couple of folks rumored to be Solars sneaking around there at about the same time, and if that *is* what they were...

Artifact 2:

The End of Peace. One of Veils' more recent missions from his Deathlord was to monitor the progress of a growing Crane Style dojo that had been recruiting more actively than usual in the area. Thinking it pretentious and its members arrogant in their serenity, Veils decided to take matters into his own hands; after studying it for several weeks and interacting with some of the students in disguise, he murdered its three best students in their sleep, desecrated their corpses, and then set fire to the place before returning with the information he had gathered. For the most part the dojo shut down, and for whatever reason the Walker decided to reward him by having what ghosts could be gathered forged into this artifact.

In mask form, it appears to casual inspection as a feathered costume mask, a basic black-and-silver metal frame covering one half of the face with artfully-arranged white feathers; looking more closely, the frame is shaped like the wing of a crane, bent backwards and broken, three tiny ruby chips dangling from the break. It gives the wearer +2 dice on Stealth rolls to look innocuous or unimportant rather than actively hiding.

As a Soulsteel Short Daiklaive, it appears as a foot-long black knife, its handle etched with silver and bearing a thin ornamental handguard decked with white feathers. Statbar: Sp4 Acc+6 +4L Def+1 Rate2 &att3.

In addition, the artifact itself looks completely innocent in either form (an Illusion effect? mental influence?), foiling mundane attempts to identify it as an Artifact or weapon. (Actually attacking someone with the thing breaks this effect automatically, and foiling the effect gives the viewer a vague sense of threatening unease about the thing.) Switching between forms is a Miscellaneous action.

Artifact 1:
Soulsteel Hearthstone Amulet, bearing Crystal of the Frozen North.

Contacts 2:
Guy who was his old boss' rival and is probably rather pleased that oldboss is dead. Apparently part of a larger organization called the Midnight Smoke Syndicate (SotM).

Someone he met after Exalting. Possibly a better-connected Abyssal.

Resources 2:
Various professions, including but not limited to playing music for coin, blackmail, and good ol' spying-and-murder.

Underworld Manse 1:
Chained Silence, Lv. 2 Abyssal Manse (Ghostwalker Crystal, **)

A hundred-foot-or-so natural formation of obsidian carved carefully and subtly into the statue of a person of unknown gender writhing in agony. The statue is wrapped head-to-toe in a cable made from thin wires of soulsteel and starmetal wrapped around a core made of the congealed screams of the dying. The Hearthstone forms in a hidden slot where the mouth would be.

Manse 2:
Fortress of the Mist Glade, Lv. 2 Air Manse (Crystal of the Frozen North, **)

A three-story building seemingly made of colored mist, the walls, floors and ceiling seeping from and shaped by an intricate glyph carved into the cold rock of the ground. The center of the third floor is devoted to a spectacular hanging garden, a strange combination of hothouse plants and several "species" of growing ice.

Veils came upon this Manse in his free time, stalking an Outcaste he was interested in who had come quite a ways to find and claim it from its then-owners. While he had little interest in the Manse for its own sake and even less knowledge of its properties, it seemed like a fitting prize to steal away and, nearly as much, he liked the idea of keeping an unimportant little secret from his 'master'. He snuck in ahead and bided his time as the Outcaste and their crew negotiated with the enlightened mortal savant who lived there, playing eerie music in the night, playing pranks and sowing dissension, implying to each that the other was somehow responsible and plotting against them.

Eventually, with the power of Charms, the negotiations ended in violence. As the savant was murdered, Veils dashed ahead of the Dragon-Blooded to claim the Manse, driving him away with paranoia and frustration, and left satisfied.

NPCs:
Enemy ??. Na Ouras, the mysterious sifu of the Kakita Crane school, who has an understandable personal grudge against Veils.
Enemy ??. His Lunar Mate, who- while they haven't met yet- has been searching for him for reasons that Veils is quite unlikely to take well to. Whether they're crazy, hate Abyssals, oppose his interests, or simply have more light-hearted plans for him than he'd enjoy at the moment is largely up to what the ST thinks would manage to fit.

Notes

Current Liege stuff:
Hearthstone Bracers **
and very basic access to his Spies * in Sijan.

XP expenditures:
Base 60+6:
basic concept/Charm requirements: Essence 3 = 16
Athletics 4,5; Performance 4,5; Stealth 4; = 12+12+5 = 29
Larceny 2, Melee 2, Awareness 2 = 3
Artifact 1, Manse 2, Artifact 1 = 12
Specialties = 9