Amoral adventurer who has turned from the quest for gold to the quest for Ascension
The Unaligned.
Acceptance The World is ending but she will survive, through skill, tenacity and, if necessary, betrayal.
Illustria seeks to escape the fate of the lesser people, the blind and stupid masses! She will accept nothings less than Godhood. She will not die like the sheep.
The Death of her old adventuring group; noble fools! She betrayed them once and should have killed them then.
Remain respected and feared in equal measure. Though she would never admit it she loves the brief look of fear in peoples' eyes when they realise who she is.
Might Makes Right: Kill or be killed.
Talent 2 (Dirty Fighter) (4pts): They'd better have a sturdy Codpiece.
Talent 3 (Scholar) (6pts): The best adventurers know all about deciphering those runes on the ancient temple, it is through knowledge that power is gained.
Influence 1 (Wealth) (2pts): In the days before the breaking she acquired a great deal of gold; of course its worth less now but still useful.
Survivor (1pt): She's spent a long time in the wilderness.
Artefact (2pts): The Black Blade of Disemboweling…cuts through flesh like water.
Supernatural (0pts): Unnatural beauty. There is something not quite right about her beauty, she is almost too perfect.
Arch-nemesis (-3pts): Her old adventuring party who she horribly betrayed at the ruins of the Equinox temple. She ledt them for dead but now they hunt her across the remains of the World.
Hated (Unaligned) (-1pts): The list of those she's killed is very long. So much so that the other unaligned will have little to do with her.
Infamous (-1pts): She's known and feared throughout Anicca.
Illustria was a quick and intelligent young woman who craved more than the simple life and yearned for excitement. So she became an adventurer; her quick mind and deep learning highly prized by the greatest questers of the World before.
As she became richer and more well known so her arrogance and desire for more grew until at last, within the ruins of the Equinox temple, she betrayed her companions in order to seize the legendary Black Blade of Disemboweling a legendary artefact of no small power. Since then she has been held in a mix of respect and fear by those of the Unaligned, though she has heard irritating rumours that some of her ex-allies survived the collapse of the ruins and have been hunting her.
As the world has begun to crumble around her she has realised that all the wealth and learning she acquired throughout her life means increasingly little. She has heard rumours of the power of the Gods; a treasure she would dearly love to own no matter who she must betray.
A stark raving mad hermitess, considered weird even by the other Watchers of the Rafts
The Watchers (from the Rafts).
Bonkers The Warden is quite mad. She is completely oblivious to the impending end of the world, even though it's what drove her over the edge, and to her having to shift her barge ever more inland is just a minor annoyance. As far she's concerned the Disjunction's just there, and she won't let it bother her as long as it doesn't try to eat her.
The Warden of Squids sees the protection of what marine life remains as paramount. She will do anything to protect her beloved animals. The fact that everyone else considers her far too weird to have a conversation with hasn't stopped her yet.
Might Makes Right: Eco terrorism is a dangerous business.
Sorcerer (10pts): Sometimes, tentacles appear from nowhere around her. Lately it's been getting worse. Her Aesthetic is writhing azure tentacles.
Supernatural (2pts): The Warden has gills and webbed toes. This allows her to swim faster and breathe underwater. So far nobody has noticed, probably because nobody looks very closely at a smelly nearly-homeless woman shouting about dolphins.
Pet (2pts): A sea-cucumber that breathes fire but that, cruellest of ironies, cannot survive above the waves.
Arch-Nemesis (-3pts): The Duke of Nookham, wretched cultist and polluter of the waters around the Rafts. The Duke hates the Warden with a passion ever since he lost 112 men to a colossal shark attack he believes was summoned by the warden.
Incompetent Ally (-1pts) That damn sea-cucumber has a knack for lighting floating driftwood on fire. Considering the entire city is just floating driftwood held together with little more than ropes and spit, it was probably not a good idea to pluck it from the sea bed.
Unfulfilled Destiny (0pts): In the dead of night some years past the warden found a message floating a bottle. Inexplicably on the bottle was etched her name…his secret name only the whales know. Has she been chosen as the saviour of the world beneath the waves?
Total:
Positive: 10+2+2 = 14.
Negative: -3-1 = -4.
Total: 14-4 = 10.
It was when the last of the Great Crested Southern Nudibranchs was consumed by the Disjunction that the Warden finally lost her mind. To see such a proud and noble creature unmade was too much for her delicate psyche and she swore to never again allow another sea creature be driven to extinction.
Forced to retreat to the Rafts when her island home was consigned to oblivion she has since spent her time herding the creatures of the sea away from the void and taking brutal revenge on those who dare to harm her aquatic charges. It is only recently that those around her have noticed the strangeness. There was that man who stamped on the herring who was later found drowned fifty foot up a mast and that time that rigging collapsed pushing the whalers beneath it into the shark infested waters.
The Warden is as yet unaware of her awakening power but as it begins to affect the world around her more and more she is unlikely to be so for long.
Monseigneur de Dourapomp is the ultimate courtesan, a decorative magnificent young man of great intellect and influence in a dying world.
Unaligned (effective ruler of the nation of Cefran).
Acceptance Monseigneur de Dourapomp is, by force of circumstances, a realist. He therefore accepts the inevitable death of the world, and will do all he can to prepare for this with culture and dignity.
He genuinely loves the king, but the king has not been able to awaken much in term of passion and sexual pleasure within Dourapomp. Therefore he wants to experience the ultimate orgasm, with him or with another, before the end.
Monseigneur de Dourapomp has always wanted to become a father. He has always chosen the most beautiful and appropriate women to offer to the king as mistresses and potential surrogates, but the king remains utterly disinterested. Dourapomp has therefore begun to dally with them himself, in the hope that one will conceive. He does not feel that this is cruel, as the child will never grow old enough to realise what is happening: but he does worry what will happen when the king inevitably finds out…
In any case, he will do anything to provide his lover the king with a pleasant end, in whatever way he feels - watching a play, in the throes of orgasm, finishing a fine meal, or whatever he desires. Ideally, he and his child would die along with the king, as a kind of family.
Violence is not the answer: Monseigneur de Dourapomp's player wants to play a game rich in intrigue and political cut and thrust, and little actual violence. Thus, they have selected the non-PC death trait, and cannot take any -3 quirks.
Influence 3 (Effective Ruler of Cefran)(6pts): The nation is small and shrinking, and though he makes most of the political decisions, his choices are constrained in a way that a king's would not be. Hence this influence is worth 6 points.
Talent 4 (Ultimate Courtesan) (8pts): Both alluring and skilled in the arts of manipulation and temptation, talents he has found as useful in court as in the bedroom.
Famous (1pt): Monseigneur de Dourapomp used to be one of the most famous courtesans of the world. Now, he is the most famous courtesan in what's left of the world.
Close to the Edge (-2pts): Cefran is starting to be eaten by the Disjunction, but it is a nation, so the palace is not on the verge of getting devoured just yet.
Incompetent Ally (the king of Cefran) (-1pt): There is a reason that Monseigneur de Dourapomp is running the nation; the king really isn't good at any of this.
Terrible secret (-2pts): The king is a very average sexual performer, and Dourapomp has had occasionally to look elsewhere to find more enjoyable embraces - not to mention his dalliances with the harem. This is, obviously, not an ideal situation for the royal companion should it ever come out.
Hated (the Church) (-1pts) He is a courtesan, a skeptic, and leading his entire nation into facing the Disjunction with art rather than with prayer. No surprise the Church hates his guts.
Total:
Positive: 6+8+1 = 15.
Negative: -2-1-2-1 = -6, rounded to the limit of -5.
Total: 15 -5 = 10.
Monseigneur de Dourapomp is not the ruler of the nation of Cefran. No, he just sleeps with him. And entertains him. And creates plays and operas for him, sings on stage for him, builds his castles, decorates his rooms, organises his sports, and designs his gardens. Oh, and he also helps him with all those pesky political and patronage decisions that are so tiring for him to make.
This leaves him little time and energy to actually do the duty of the companion: sleeping with his royal lover. He loves him, but the king is a rather indifferent sexual performer; though this has not curbed his appetites. To address this issue, he runs (in addition to the harem) a tiny bordello on palace ground specially designed for his use.
Now the Disjunction comes, and Cefran is starting to get devoured. So far, he has kept the nation together, far more effectively than those of its neighbours. Rapidly accepting the inevitable doom, he has spread this message to the whole kingdom, shifting the citizens attentions towards a new goal: how to confront the Disjunction with style, culture, and decorum. The balls and the plays continue, and the paintings and musics of Cefran has reached dramatic peaks of innovation and drama unlike any before. The Cefraners used to be convinced that it was their burden to show the world the proper way to live; now they are convinced that they must show the world the proper way to die.
As the very first character submitted, Monseigneur de Dourapomp has the Oddly Lucky trait for free.
An Exarch-Investigator working to keep justice alive, even in the face of oblivion.
The Church.
Acceptance: Jeremiah mouths the Church Dogma that the Disjunction is merely a test sent by the Three, but in his heart he knows that the world is ending. In the face of the death of all things, Jeremiah nonetheless retains a purpose, and his greatest worry that the worst criminals might escape justice when they are consumed by the Disjunction.
Jeremiah Carcharias seeks to track down, try and hang the raiders who razed to the ground the monastary where he was born and raised. He has spent twenty years tracking down those responsible, one by one.
Once he has accomplished this goal, Carcharias intends to ensure that the last criminal is hung from the last gallows on the last hill so that all remaining people can see that even at the end of the world justice still matters. With the criminal still dangling, he will then turn and face oblivion as the Disjunction washes over both of them.
Might Makes Right: Chasing down the worst criminals left in this dying world is an inherently dangerous life, and anyone taking up such an existence must accept the possibility of receiving a knife in the back or finding their attachment to all their limbs is less strong than their limbs attachment to their bodies.
Talent 3 (Investigator) (6pts): Carcharias has spent years honing his investigative skills, both in training from the Church and from grim experience in the field. He is adept at finding clues, interrogating suspects and researching potential leads. More generally he is not a bad judge of character and can, when it is called for, slip quietly into the shadows or break into a well-protected home.
Talent 2 (Dirty Fighter) (4pts): Jeremiah has been through his fair share of scrapes, bar room brawls and desperate back alley knife fights. Whilst he might not be happy on a battlefield, he can probably hold his own, and he is quite lethal when it comes to making fair fights entirely one-sided with a mixture of improvised weaponry, dirty tricks and viciousness.
Influence 1 (Junior Exarch-Investigators) (2pts): Carcharias has command over a small group of Exarch-Investigators-in-Ordinary who help him make arrests and enacy summary judgements upon the wrong-doers of this world. Whilst officially they are responsible to the Church as a whole, in practice many, if not most, follow Jeremiah's commands out of a strong sense of personal loyalty.
Secret Base (1pt): Carcharias has always been mindful of the fact that the criminals of this world do not tend to play fair and may, in fact, try to co-opt higher ups in the Church. To counter this Jeremiah has taken over an old abandoned Chapel, hidden in the midsts of a forest. When he wants to do something away from prying eyes, he and a few of his closest followers know the secret routes through the dense underbrush and can easily lose any trackers.
Patron (2pts): Arch-Metropole Anatole Grav Selucis, an important figure within the Hallowed Metropolis, recognised Jeremiah's drive and nature whilst he was still just a boy. Taking Carcharias under his wing, the Arch-Metropole supports Jeremiah in his goal and can offer some level of political protection from the fallout of some of his rule-breaking.
Incompetent Ally (-1pt): Cleric-in-Ordinary Abel McNonarty is a by-the-book administrator who is more interested in Carcharias' exceeding of his arrow quota than getting results. His heart may be in the right place, but his insistence on following the rules all the time can get in the way.
Arch-Nemesis (-3pts): After many years of tracking down those responsible for the burning of his Monastary, Jeremiah discovered the identities of the leaders of the raiders; the Grey Twins. Undaunted by the magnitude of the task that lay before him, Carcharias began the task of chasing down the Twins and their lieutenants. Three months ago, the Grey Twins first heard about Jeremiah and his vendetta, when a favoured follower, Leia Shield-Breaker was found hung from a tree. Now they are looking for the Exarch-Investigator and have put a price upon his head.
Vice (-1pt): Life on the edge of the law, dealing with the criminal scum of the world is hard and to survive it, Jeremiah has taken to rough liquor and loose men.
As a baby Jeremiah was deposited, by parents unknown, outside the Monastary of the Threefold Walls of Solitude. In keeping with the Pieties, the Father-Superior-in-the-Second adopted Jeremiah as an acolyte and he was raised by the various Churchmen and women.
In his fifth year, the Will War began and in the years that followed the Monastary began to take on more and more refugees and orphans, until eventually it had to start turning people away.
When Jeremiah was seven, the raiders came. Dozens of men and women, on horseback, in chariots and with scores of slaves on foot behind. They set up an enourmous Grey Tent and sent out Emissaries to demand that the Father-Superior-in-the-Second hand over the refugees. When he refused, they stormed the walls.
How Jeremiah survived is unclear, but the torture of the Monastary's inhabitants lasted several days. When reinforcements finally came, they found a scene of terrible destruction and Jeremiah hiding amongst the dead.
In the years that followed, Jeremiah began the long and arduous route to becoming an Exarch-Inveistgator, where Devotees are given the responsibility of tracking down those who break the Church's laws and, when necessary, acting as judge and executioner. His competence and dedication in this role were what drew the attention of Arch-Metropole Anatole Grav Selucis, and in this powerful patron Jeremiah found someone who would shield him from the worst of the storms surrounding Jeremiah's sometimes unorthodox methods.
About a decade ago, as the great fleets began to flee the old continents, Carcharias heard rumours of a raiding band bearing the hallmarks of the group which sacked his Monastary. Tracking it down, Jeremiah learnt that the original band had grown to such a size that it had split into many different raiding groups. In the years that followed, Jeremiah has been following the differnt bands, and brining justice to the mercenaries responsible for the sack of his Monastary.
In the last few months, Carcharias has finally begun hitting the big-time villains. The Lieutenants and Captains. It was from his last target that he learnt that those ultimately responsible for the razing to the ground of his Monastary were the brothers Marco & Luther, who now travel under the moniker of “The Grey Twins”.
Noted commander of the city's military forces, one of the Lord Protector's right hand men.
The City, from a Noble family
Unaffected The City will endure, must endure, as it always has. Nothing else matters.
The survival of the City whatever the cost.
Keeping the Lord Protector's favour, not just for himself but also for House Knox and his cadre of relatives and hangers-on.
Have a son. The General is currently engaged to a rather stern mistress of House Gelna, one the oldest families in the City, however for a long time he has been conducting a secret liaison with the beautiful daughter of Jonas Hightower. A choice must be made for the general must continue the family line for that is the way of things.
Might Makes Right: Warmongery is for the brave.
Influence 3 (City Watch) (6pts): A large portion of the City's military forces, at least the human portion.
Talent 3 (General) (6pts): Kindral is a very competent military leader, not a tactical genius but someone the Lord Protector can rely on to get the Job done swiftly and efficiently.
Horological Artefact (2pts) The Lord Protector, in a rare gesture of particular favour, gifted Kindral with a guardian Horologulus that will defend Kindral with the fury only a mindless thing can muster.
Famous (1pt) The City's impregnable defences are renowned throughout the World as is one of its most renowned commander.
Vassal (-3pts) Kindral's forces and influence stem from his favour with the Lord Protector who has placed a great deal of responsibility in Kindral. A situation that will continue unless the Lord Protector, ever fickle, should rescind his favour.
Hated (Watchers) (-1pt): Kindral has increasingly been forced to make examples of the bands of Watchers who venture too close to the City and his name is hissed in many of the settlements on the rim.
Indebted (-1pt): Much to his chagrin Kindral owes a favour to the guildmaster of the Atikytherans, for repairing his Horologuli, a debt the guildmaster has yet to call in.
Missing Person (0pts): Recently Kindral's beautiful love interest has gone missing and her family is refusing to divulge her whereabouts.
Total:
Positive: 6+6+2+1 = 15.
Negative: -3-1-1= -5
Total: 15 -5 = 10.
The heir apparent of House Knox and renowned military leader Kindral Knox has earned his place among the most favoured of the Lord Protector's advisers, though even he rarely sees the reclusive Lord Protector in person. He has been nominally in charge of the City's first line defences for the last five years and has proven both decisive and effective at keeping away those who dare to approach too close to the City's walls.
His position is delicate however; his need to continue the family line, upstart underlings seeking to usurp favour with the Lord Protector and the uncooperative Atikytheran guild and their damn automata all weigh heavily on his mind. Combined with the increasing number of refugees approaching the walls Kindral's life is becoming ever more hectic.
He has heard rumours of the end of the World, the Watchers always rave about it as he butchers them, but its no concern of his. Frankly having never ventured beyond sight of the City Walls he has no interested in what may lie elsewhere. The City endures for its foundations are strong. They will remain strong so the City shall always be.
Overlady of the Shield wastes, Dark Lady of the East and bane of justice.
The Unaligned.
Broken “I will not be ended! My power shall endure for Godhood will be mine!”
Become a God and escape the ultimate death of the Disjunction.
Indulge many perversions using captured virgins.
Might Makes Right: “I shall lay the world to waste!”
Influence 4 (The Crimson Kingdom) (8pts): A nation consisting primarily of a vast army of mercenaries, enslaved warriors and terrified minions. Ruled from Castle Blood and the Throne of Gore.
Influence 1 (Agents) (2pts): In her quest to seek out the godsherds she has created a network of capable spies and infiltrators trained to discover and hint of the whereabouts of the remains of the Trinity.
Talent 2 (Overlady) (4pts): Lady Gauche rules with fear using her soldiers as expendable pawns to crush her enemies and when the need arises she is capable of picking up a sword and fighting.
Pet (1pt) Zackarus, Lady Gauche's mighty steed and the pinnacle of the horse breeders art.
Close to the Edge (-2pts) The Crimson Kingdom is perilously close to unmaking if Lady Gauche cannot annex more land her nation shall end.
No! My only Weakness! (-3pts) Lady Gauche loves taunting her victims so much so that if she begins a monologue she is pathologically unable to stop until it is completed.
Appalling Irony (-3pts): Dark Lady, nuff said.
Total:
Positive: 8+6+1 = 15.
Negative: -2-3-3= -8 (rounded to -5)
Total: 15 -5 = 10.
Self anointed Overlady of the Shield wastes, though many would debate her claim to rule the entire expanse of the wastes, and mistress of Castle Blood.
Before the end she was a young mercenary who in the dark times after the breaking found her skills so in demand that she quickly rose through the mercenary ranks until she murdered her commanders and seized power; anointing herself a Queen.
Her reign has been bloody and brutal, cities and villages scourged and young men and women taken back to Castle Blood there to indulge the pleasure of Lady Gauche. As the Disjunction has crept closer so her monstrous rule has become ever more terrible as she sees her doom approach. More recently she has sent out her agents to hunt for the mythical sources of the fallen Gods' power for Godhood may allow her to escape oblivion and the cost matters not…at least if others pay it.