GoldenCat/Vorpal

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The Pale Angel

Name: The Pale Angel, Vorpal deFay
Exalted Type: Abyssal
Caste: Dusk
Nature: Survivor
Demeanor: Leader

Concept: Ex-War Commander

Themes
Baldur’s Gate II – Main Theme – The Pale Angel Theme
Warcraft III – Night Elf Loss – Trudging Through the Fields of the Dead
Berserk – Forces (God-Hand Mix) – Pale Angel Brigade

Age, Apparent Age: 28/23
Sex: Very Much Female
Height: 174cm
Weight: Some secrets even the Deathlords dare not uncover.

Description

The cold distance of an ice-goddess combined with the smouldering allure of a succubus, all of it packed into a single woman.

A true albino with all the disadvantages in sunlight such a state includes, Vorpal deFay had to cope with her unusual appearance ever since her birth, and she turned it into a weapon to control those around her. A woman of generous curves and an ample bosom, she would be a striking figure to behold even without the milk-white color of her skin and the blood-red gleam of her eyes. Her features smooth and regal, her forehead high, her snow-white hair falling straight and true onto her shoulders and down her back, her cold beauty matches perfectly the image of a she-devil she strives to project.

At the height of 174cm, people are often surprised to see how short Vorpal’s stature actually is. The woman simply seems to radiate such a powerful aura of presence that the mental image she gives to those around her tends to swell into looming proportions. Her stamina honed by years of physical training, Vorpal’s build is robust – not stocky, but strong and durable like that of a lion. The smooth manner by which she moves contributes to this image further.

Anima

Banner:</b> Vorpal’s Ghost-Blooded heritage mixes together with her Dusk Caste Essence, resulting in a unique anima banner which burns with pale, cold light, like frozen sun shining over the land of the dead. Her anima banner is that of a crucified angel, vast, transparent wings unfurling towards the sky and long, white hair whipping in soundless wind against alabaster skin.

<b>Power:</b> 10 motes to appear dark and terrible for a scene, Valor check or -2 to rolls.

<b>Inheritance:</b> Spend 1 Willpower or 3 motes to perceive Shadowland borders and immaterial ghosts for a scene.

Merits

Deathwalker

Vorpal can touch and be touched by ghosts at all times.

Tactical Instincts

Wits + Lore pool for all tactical feats.

Born to Rule

+1 to all Social rolls when interacting with an inferior person.

Signature Style

'Pale Angel Attittude'

Flaws

Unusual Appearance

A true albino, with milk-white skin and hair, and blood-red eyes.

Sun-Seared

-1 to dice rolls in bright light, one bashing damage per hour of direct exposure.

Secrets

An Abyssal posing as a Ghost-Blooded mercenary.

Enemies

When Vorpal “died” for the second time, her numerous enemies and betrayers lived on. These jealous nobles and commanders have already begun to hear rumors of an albino Ghost-Blooded warrior making an appearance here and there, and have begun to very much fear that Vorpal might not be dead after all.

Easily Possessed

Vorpal’s connection with the dead make it easier for them to try and possess her…

Spectre Meat

Ghosts just <b>love</b> her!

Attributes

<b>Attributes:
Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Stamina 4
Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 4
Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 4

Abilities:
Archery 1, Athletics 5 (Feats of strength +3), Awareness 2, Brawl 3, Bureaucracy 1, Craft (Armourer) 1, Dodge 3, Endurance 3, Larceny 1, Linguistics 2, Lore 3 (Strategy & Tactics +2), Medicine 1, Melee 5 (Daiklave +3), Occult 1 (Ghosts and the Dead +2), Performance 5, Presence 5 (Intimidation +2, Leadership +1), Resistance 3, Ride 4, Socialize 2, Stealth 2, Survival 5, Thrown 1

Charms

• Athletics
  • Increasing Strength Discipline
• Awareness
  • Fivefold Sensory Exercise
• Brawl
  • Ravaging Strike
• Endurance
  • Ox-Body Technique x 2 ( - 1, -1, -2, -2, -2, -2, )
  • Pain-Eating Focus
  • Insensible Corpse Technique
• Medicine
  • Flesh-Mending Discipline
• Performance
  • Morbid Fascination Style
  • Haunting Inflection Trick
  • Withering Dirge
  • Heart-Sculpting Oration
  • Morale-Shattering Method
• Presence
  • Elegant Tyrant's Majesty
  • Command the Dead
• Survival
  • Enduring Huntsman Method
  • Superior Predator Style
  • Fetter the Beast
  • Darkshine Familiar (Magnificent Creature Method)
  • Kindling the Bestial Essence x2 (Companion-Empowering Method)

(Ice's Charms: Raiton's Nimble Perch, Spider Pounce Technique, Enduring Huntsman Method)

Melee

• Offensive
  • Furious Blade
  • Savage Shade Style
  • Slashing Ghost Talon
  • Crimson Banquet Method
  • Five Shadow Feint
  • Unfurling Iron Lotus
  • Blade-Summoning Gesture
• Defensive
  • Elegant Flowing Deflection
  • Fluttering Moth Defense
  • Hundred Razor Circle
  • Eye of the Tempest
  • Vengeful Riposte

Arcanoi

• Life in Death Path
  • Transubstantiation of Flesh
  • Lower Soul Ascendant
  • Spiteful Essence Onslaught
  • Wraith Form Transformation
  • Ghost-Body Evasion
• Essence-Measuring Thief Arts
  • Aura Reading Technique
  • Delicious Essence Scent
• Terror-Spreading Arts
  • Corpse-Fed Radiance
  • Hand of the Wind
  • Strike of Dead Hands

Fighting Techniques

Death Sentence (v3.0)
Furious Blade
Savage Shade Style
Fluttering Moth Defense
Vengeful Riposte
Slashing Ghost Talon

Pale Feather Flurry
Unfurling Iron Lotus
Savage Shade Style
Fluttering Moth Defense

Phantom-Step Riposte
Ghost-Body Evasion
Strike of Dead Hangs
Fluttering Moth Defense

Advantages

Backgrounds: Inheritance - 2, Artifacts – 4, Liege – 3, Manse – 3, Resources – 3, Contacts – 1, (Mercenaries) Reputation – 2, (Ghost-Blooded mercenary and One Scary Lady) Familiar – 3, (Ice, Noble warhorse)

Virtues:
Compassion 2, Conviction 4, Temperance 3, Valor 4

Willpower: 9
Health: -0,-1,-1,-1,-1,-2,-2,-2,-2,-2,-2,-4,Inc
Essence: 4
Personal Essence - 21
Peripheral Essence - 50 (34)
Total: 71 (55)
Commited: 16

Equipment: Black Queen's Vestments, Betrayer, Soothing Shadows’ Cloak, exceptional knife, traveling supplies, bow and arrows, a few books (Love Poems, Helen and Julian, For the Queen of my Heart), noble warhorse (Ice), Death-speech Gemstone, Gem of Terrifying Visage (unattuned)

Combat:
Base initiative: 8
Soak: 15B/14L/12A (Black Queen's Vestments 12L/11B)
Dodge: 7
Attacks:
Punch: Speed 8 Accuracy 7 Damage 5B Defense 7
Kick: Speed 5 Accuracy 6 Damage 7B Defense 6
Knife: Speed 11 Accuracy 10 Damage 7L Defense 8
Grand Daiklave (Betrayer): Speed 5 Accuracy 15 Damage 16L Defense 12
Spiteful Essence Onslaught: Speed 8 Accuracy 8 (-# of enemies) Damage 1L / mote (7L max)

Expanded Backgrounds

Artifact 2 - Soothing Shadows’ Cloak Commitment: 2 motes

• +2 to Stealth rolls, +3 when used in shadows
• Provides Vorpal with sufficient shade to eliminate the damage dealt by her sun-seared flaw. She still finds sunlight very annoying even when protected by the cloak, and thus suffers a –1 penalty to her rolls in bright sunlight, but the brunt of the effect is taken away from her.
• By spending 1 mote of Essence, the color and the texture of the cloak can be changed. The change remains until the wearer chooses to banish the effect or is no longer attuned to the artifact. The cloak can be made to revert to its original color and texture at will, without a cost.

Being an albino under a brightly shining sun is a very painful experience in the long run. Vorpal has never felt very well on sunny days – bright light hurts her eyes and her skin burns very easily when exposed to direct sunshine. The Lover, however, would not tolerate such weaknesses in her deathknights and offered a solution for Vorpal’s dilemma, in the form of a minor artifact. Soothing Shadows’ Cloak is a long and heavy garment, unadorned yet made of nothing but the finest black velvet, with a voluminous hood and a brooch of soulsteel that serves as the focus for its powers. Imbued with darkness and dyed with shadows, Cloak always keeps its bearer comfortably cool and shaded in every situation, thus effectively eliminating Vorpal’s vulnerability to sunlight. In addition to this, the silent and shadowy nature of the artifact also enhances its bearer’s natural ability to move about unnoticed. And finally, like with so many other things in the Underworld, the nature of the cloak is malleable and with a little bit of effort of will from the bearer’s part, its color and texture can be changed to better suit each situation. When moving among mortals, Vorpal usually prefers to make the cloak look like an old and worn traveling cape that is either grey or dark-green, depending on the season.

Artifact 3 - Betrayer (Soulsteel Grand Daiklave)
Speed -3
Accuracy +2 (+3 for Abyssals)
Damage +11L
Defense +0
Commitment: 8 motes

• 3 Hearthstone sockets (all currently empty)

Although there is no denying that Vorpal was already among the finest war commanders in the North even at the time of her Exaltation, the Lover knew that military prowess alone is not enough to make a true general. It had been Vorpal’s own lack of tact and subtlety that had brought about her downfall. Thus, when the time came to equip her latest champion with a fitting weapon, the Deathlord gave instructions to her swordsmiths to forge a blade that would forever remind the Pale Angel of her bitter lesson. The armourers chose their materials with care. Sorting painstakingly through their larders of souls, they picked only thieves and assassins, spies and schemers, people to whom silence and subtlety were the necessities of survival. These souls they then forged together with the black ores of Underworld, to create a sword that would later be known as Betrayer.

Although its design is surprisingly simple when compared to the fancy weapons wielded by many of the other Abyssals, Betrayer is nonetheless a Grand Daiklave – a frightening weapon by its sheer size if nothing else. The sword is almost as long as Vorpal herself is tall, its straight black blade over half a foot wide. Its handguard – the length of a man’s arm – is in the shape of the unfurled wings of a raiton. Beginning from the root of the blade is an engraving of a black snake, so detailed that it seems almost alive. Spiraling lazily upwards, it slithers around the hilt, entwining both wings of the handguard several times and encircling three empty hearthstone settings in the center. Then it continues on along the long handle, climbing ever higher until it finally reaches the pommel. There the snake lies its head down, yet its eyes are open, as if it would be ready to strike out any moment now, biting the hand of its own wielder.

Its surface cold, smooth and gleaming black, Betrayer is unusual for an artifact crafted from soulsteel. The souls within the blade still remember the importance of silence and thus, unlike most of its kind, the weapon never lets out so much as a whimper. Its silence is that of an assassin, however – there is a lingering aura of watchfulness about the weapon, as if it were an alert and patient creature, ever prepared to execute the final stroke. As the snake on the sword’s hilt constantly reminds Vorpal, there is no telling whether or not that last strike will be against the Ghost-Blooded herself.

Artifact 4 - Black Queen’s Vestments
Soak: 12L / 11B
Mobility: -0
Fatigue: 0
Commitment: 6 motes

• One hearthstone setting.
• The Black Queen’s Vestments decrease the successes of the incoming damage rolls by one after the soak has been applied. Much like with the Sidereal starmetal armor, it can thus decrease the damage to 0. In addition to this, the Vestments’ soak applies to all attacks that include some sort of a physical component, even the ones that generally ignore armor such as the Sprouting Shackles of Doom spell or attempts to strangle the wearer to death. It can do very little against attacks that are specifically designed to penetrate armor (such as the Armor-Penetrating Fang Strike), nor can it withstand poison or long-term area-effect damage (such as extreme temperatures). However, it can momentarily cover its mistress’ entire being and thus avoid even area effects that last only for one turn.

A mere glance at the Black Queen’s Vestments’ design and appearance should give a hint or two about the hand that fashioned it. A leotard-shaped body-armor made of gleaming-black soulsteel, somehow cast into a shape which clings to its bearer’s form like a lover, accentuating every arc and curve and etched with hair-thin patterns reminiscent of tulips and spider-webs, it might be a little difficult for the observer to decide whether the Vestments were created with the heat of battle or some dark fantasy in mind. A very well-endowed woman herself, Vorpal found it rather embarrassing when the Lover granted her this third and most powerful of her artifacts, but the Pale Angel nonetheless realized the advantages the armor possessed.

Personally crafted by none other than the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears herself, the Black Queen’s Vestments was an experiment of sorts for her, an attempt to produce an armor that would combine the firm protection necessary for the battlefield with all the allure of a dark temptress. There are rumors circulating that the Lover is actually planning to equip all of her female deathknights with similar armors – an endeavor that would definitely go well together with her usual foibles and hobbies. Despite the sturdy protection it grants, the armor rests lightly on its bearer and is very easy to move in. As a matter of fact, a careful observer might notice that the Vestments can actually stretch and bend to better accommodate to its mistress’ movements. In addition to this, the armor is also empowered to sense incoming attacks and remold itself to better meet each threat. Should the wearer be struck with a blow that the armor could not in its current form deflect, Vestments twist, fold and flow, gliding along its mistress’ body much like a puddle of living ink and suddenly solidifying just in time to turn the impending attack aside. Thus, despite the limited amount of flesh the armor covers in its natural form, it is actually quite capable of blocking attacks aimed at almost any part of its mistress’ being. In clinches, the armor forces itself between its bearer’s throat and the strangling hands. When caught in sudden explosions, the armor may actually spread out to cover its mistress’ entire being, turning her into an ebon statue just long enough to protect her from the brunt of the damage. Even when Vestments are penetrated by a powerful blow, soulsteel quickly flows back together to mend the created hole, thus immediately repairing the armor back to its original condition.

While Vorpal herself finds the sensation of liquid soulsteel slithering along her body somewhat unnerving, she cannot deny Vestments’ defensive value and she has grown accustomed to it over the years – meaning that she never forgets to wear an ordinary leotard underneath the constantly shifting and moving armor. Furthermore, Vorpal realizes how darned conspicuous costume Vestments actually is, and thus she generally covers it with a patchwork of additional clothing and black leather when moving among mortals. However, should she ever feel that a bit more impressive appearance would be in order, she is not above shedding the unnecessary garments – while she is a bit embarrassed at how much the armor actually displays of her, she is quite aware that black soulsteel makes a nice contrast to her milky-white skin.

Hearthstones
Death-speech Gemstone (Abyssal - Hearthstone lvl 3)
Concentration – Allows the bearer to speak with the dead.

Gem of Terrifying Visage ( Abyssal - Hearthstone lvl 4, unattuned)
This Hearthstone makes the user appear terrifying, a vision of death, a monster walking among men. While under the effects of this Hearthstone, the user is considered to have appearance 0, but adds a number of dice to intimidation attempts equal to her Conviction, and has half her Conviction, rounded down, subtracted from any attacks against her.

Vorpal looted this Hearthstone from the Celebrant of Blood after the battle where the Daybreak Abyssal was struck down. The stone is unattuned and the Pale Angel cannot use its powers – this does not prevent her from using it to replenish her Essence supply, however.

Notes

Experience spent so far:

Strength +1 – 16 exp
Manipulation +1 – 8 exp
Temperance +1 – 6 exp
Willpower +1 – 16 exp
Melee +1 – 7 exp
Melee Specialty +1 (Daiklaves) – 3 exp
Presence +1 – 7 exp
New presence specialty (Leadership) – 3 exp
Athletics + 1 – 5 exp
Athletics + 1 – 7 exp
Athletics Specialty (Feats of Strength) – 7 exp total
Endurance +1 – 3 exp
Survival +1 – 3 exp
Survival +1 – 5 exp
Survival +1 – 7 exp
Ride +1 - 6 exp
Charm: Ox-Body – 10 exp
Charm: Summoning the Blade – 10 exp
Charm: Magnificent Creature Method - 10 exp
Charm: Companion-Empowering Method x 2 - 20 exp (Raiton's Nimble Perch, Spider-Pounce Technique, Enduring Huntsman Method)