Revision as of 22:52, 8 June 2010

Baku, The Darkened Hound

Background: Sharia’s mother told no one, not even her husband, that she had been raped by a former legionnaire of Lookshy (a dark Exalt currently wanted by the Lookshy authorities for other war crimes and still at large in the Scavenger lands), but Sharia knew. Somehow, she knew. The guilt she felt for her mother’s suffering tormented the young girl nightly with dark dreams of self-hatred. The night she entered adolescence she exalted upon her bed, caught in the throes of a horrific nightmare. The energy of her Exaltation combined with the darkness of her dreams, and Baku sprung from her mind fully formed, a creature crafted of her own fear.

Few can elicit terror better than Baku. He stalks the Scavenger lands as a bogeyman, hunting the wicked and only reluctantly sparing the innocent. Those communities aware of him whisper cautionary tales to their children, using his name to frighten them into good behavior. Born in Creation, he seldom enters Rakshastan, for in while Creation he is unique, but in the Wyld he is just another dream-shaped monster.

However, Baku faces a crossroad, for his nature is divided. He is a monster, a creature of darkness that revels in fear and pain. He longs to ravage the innocent and steal away their hope. Yet Baku is also a creature of justice, for he inflicts punishment upon the wicked. His duality tears at him, and he finds himself evolving. He fears the day that he can no longer maintain his two sides, and that he must forever forsake one side or split in twain. Thus, Baku's travels have purpose: the find a solution to his unique dilemma.

Description: Baku is tall and slim, like most Raksha nobles. His skin is white and impossibly, beautifully smooth, almost painful to behold. His hair is black and textured, and those who see or touch it find peculiar comfort in it. Claws decorate his hands and emphasize his languid gestures. When an observer faces him, Baku’s eyes are dark and his features elegant, but seen from the corner of one’s eyes, his features twist to something beautifully horrific and indistinct. He favors the clothing of Creation, particularly leather and a voluminous cloak that hides the perfection of his physique.

Role-playing Tips: Baku enjoys his intimidating nature and revels in the fear he can cause. His nature is Bravo, and thus Baku gains willpower whenever he makes someone back down. This retreat need not always be one of fear, for he relishes the fact that he can prevent confrontations simply through force of will. Likewise, when aiding his comrades, he can become dimissive of those he perceives as weak, protecting them “despite themselves.”

Though he is a creature that protects the innocent, he longs to torment them. The sight of the wide-eyed beauty of an innocent village girl or the cocky ignorance of a peasant boy tugs at his heart, a temptation sometimes too strong for him to resist. Baku’s Conviction based Lure is the Harming of Innocents: Whenever he harms an innocent, he must channel Conviction. The definition of innocence is not legal. It doesn’t matter to Baku whether you are convicted of a crime or not, only your freedom from guilt and cynicism. His Lure cannot force him to channel his Conviction more than once per Scene. Should he succumb to his Lure too often, he will forget himself and suffer The Curse of Namelessness (+2 diff to all Lore checks or Conviction checks, +2 difficulty to all those who would interrogate him).

When feeding, Baku swallows fear, despair and innocence. Thus, he consumes Compassion or Valor. However, he prefers the taste of high morales, and thus favors victims with high Conviction and Temperance, particularly if they have violated their virtues recently. In general, he evokes despair and terror by literally running his targets into the ground in a hunt, or by stalking them. He forces them to consent to his ravaging by agreeing to leave them in peace.

Statistics

Features

Style: Just as a nightmare resists the minds attempt to control it, so can Baku resist the world’s desire to control him. He has a pool of seven(7) dice from which he may draw to increase the power of his stunts: He may add up to one die per stunt Creation, two dice in the Middlemarches or the Bordermarches, or 3 in the Deep Wyld. He regains this full pool at the end of each story and regains 1 die per scene.

Ally: Outcaste Sharia feels tremendous hatred for Baku and guilt for bringing him into the world. The lovely yet driven Water-Aspect Dragonblooded stalks the Scavenger Lands, hunting her nemesis and spreading his tale. However, she is bound to him in ways she does not understand. His existence and nature helps her, and likewise, hers helps him. When she warns others of his presence, she only heightens their fear of him and the nightmares inspired by her stories are the source of his gossamer. Her actions and hunts coincidentally aid him in unforeseen ways. In short, she serves as his ally not by intention, but by strange twists of fate that make her antagonistic actions helpful to him. Because Baku is the embodiment of her dreams, she cannot dream so long as he exists. To restore her dreams, she must swallow his Heart. This state is a mixed blessing, for while she cannot regain Conviction from sleeping, nor does she suffer nightmares any longer. When she comes near him, however, his presence torments her sleep with echoes of dreams. By this phenomenon, she knows when she draws close to him.

Affliction of the Inescapable Hunt:

Spell of the Waking Circle

Cost: 10 motes, 1 gossamer

Casting time: 1 Scene

Cup Shaping Weapon Statistics: Speed -5, Accuracy +1, Damage +4, Defense +4, Rate 1 (Piercing, Clinch Enhancer)

Mutations: Assumption of Terror, Abandoned by All Creatures Curse

Commitment: 3 motes

Description: Those pursued in a nightmare have no escape. None shall come to aid them. No path will lead them to safety. In the Wyld, this principle manifests as a quivering within the fabric of emotion. Even the Wyld seems to fear its use. Those Baku entangles with it find themselves trapped, their attempts to fascinate him blunted, the rest of the world fading into darkness as they flee in fear, unable to find escape, unable to find anyone but him.

In Creation, Baku summons this spell by performing a stalking ritual upon his prey. For a scene, he watches and follows his prey, invading her house and leaving signs of his presence as well as his dark intentions. The spell manifests as a seemingly ordinary yet strangely wrong object, significant to the target, which appears wherever she turns. For example, one prey discovered a mirror wherever she went hanging on walls or tree branches that always failed to show her reflection. When cast, Baku rolls Conviction + Larceny (six dice) and each success reduces the target’s Allies, Followers and Mentor backgrounds by one dot for the remainder of the story. Baku divides the successes as he wishes. Those characters lost to the target simply vanish from her life for the duration of the spell. They no longer communicate with her, nor can she perceive them.

This effect will not affect Allies, Followers, or Mentors with a Wits + Essence greater than Bakue’s Stealth of four(4). If the Target’s Wits + Essence exceeds Baku’s Stealth, she may use stunts or Charms to rediscover her lost comrades.

Predator-to-Prey Promise

Samhara Oath

Mutations: Inexhaustible

Staff Shaping Weapon Statistics: Speed +7, Accuracy +2, Damage +9, Defense +3, Rate 2 (Piercing)

Wording: “So long as the wicked continue to scourge the Scavenger Lands, I shall not rest.”

Commitment: 1 mote

Description: Baku cannot (and does not) sleep, meditate, or actively rest in any manner so long as anyone wicked remains in the Scavenger lands. He may engage in leisurely activity or relax, but he may not actively attempt to restore his energy in a restful manner. As a side effect, he always regains essence as though active while in the Wyld, and he never regains Willpower from sleep. However, he also need never sleep or rest, making him a formidable hunter. This mutation also adds +2 to his stamina and his Stamina stat to his running speed in yards. In the Wyld, this oath manifests as a shadowy, indistinct miasma of inevitability that defines Baku’s righteous cause and demands that others submit to his justice for their wickedness.

Other Notes: Because Baku favors Creation, he has no access to Raksha Freeholds or commoner retainers. Nothing prevents him from gaining these things except for his preference of the Primordials’ house over his rightful home. His gossamer comes from all the stories told of him, and many dark Dream Flies of the Scavenger lands are enamored of him, and bring him bright beads of gossamer.

Commentary

Baku was the first Fair Folk I created and the first I was inspired to create. I find him to be the simplest, least bizarre of my Fair Folk (though A Prince Among Blades is pretty close), so some might see him as "boring." I personally like him the best. He's delicious! I love how dark and horrific he is... yet on the side of "good." He's such a sensual anti-hero.

Anyway, he works really well for a Creation-based chronicle and is a fine example of what those sorts of Fae will look like. He's pretty capable of going toe to toe with a Celestial and holding his own. I certainly wouldn't want him hunting me! All of his Charms focus on impacting Creation. Those that don't lead up to Charms that do. Plus his style of Shaping combat is lovely too, inflicing nightmarish realities upon his foes, scattering their armies, and then breaking their hearts and minds with savage slashes of raw terror.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

~Mailanka