Shataina/CynisSierra
Contents
Cynis Sierra
Fire-Aspected Realm Dragon-Blood
A painter and calligrapher whose greatest passion is for her art -- art that just happens to be considered blasphemous and outrageous by her supposed religion and the land she grew up in.
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Cut Scenes
It was a rainy, cold, blustery day when the caravan of animals alighted at the household of Sierra's father. She, only five at the time, displayed her typical lack of Dynastic imperiousness as she asked her servants to take her outside to look. "You'll catch your death," insisted her tutor, but the little girl was so sweet as she begged for the indulgence that at last the old man relented and brought her out to watch the unloading.
Outside on a little balcony, bundled in warm otter-furs and sealskins to ward off the damp, Sierra watched, dark eyes wide, as the assorted crates were taken down. Animal handlers came out to soothe their fretful, unhappy charges; the creatures her father had ordered for his pageant were universally native to the jungle, and they didn't like the cold here, or the rain. Sierra listened closely as her tutor, seizing a chance for education, told her what he knew about each animal; but as the last, enormous crate was unloaded under the awning of her father's bestiary, he became quiet.
She was about to ask him why, but then, within the shadowy interior of the box -- the shadows moved.
Sierra went closer, her tutor close behind, leaning over the balcony's fragile rail. They were only a few feet above the tops of the wagons. In silence, they watched the handlers as they arrayed themselves before the crate's opening, and teased out the magnificent creature -- with some trepidation, she saw, and a healthy respect for the beast's power. It came out, not like a tame pet, but like a lord alighting on a royal carpet, surrounded by servants.
"What is it?" she whispered to her tutor. "It's like -- it's like ... shadow and flame." Struggling for words, she could find none. The great animal raised its head and yawned; she shivered, electrified by its casual ferocity.
"Tiger," he murmured down to her, and his voice was sad.
"Tell me its name in your tongue. My mother's tongue," said Sierra, and hesitated. She wondered if she should ask him why it made him unhappy to speak of the beautiful thing. He won't tell me, she thought, and turned away from him to stare down at the tiger some more, pretending not to see the suspicious glimmer in his eyes as he answered her.
Its name in her mother's language, as she had suspected, was better than its name in High Realm. Everything had better names in the language of her mother's kingdom.
"Tell me about it. Please," she said, and took out her treasured parchments, taking care to shield them from the wind and rain as she began to draw. She heard her tutor, behind her, retreating from the misting rain to lean against the wall, and he told her -- keeping his sadness back rather well, she thought -- what he knew. It was a lot, she considered. Much more than he had known about the other animals, and that had been a fair amount.
The tiger, having been placated with meat and rubbed down with warm blankets, was now being led into the bestiary. Sierra drew busily, intent and focused, and was concentrating on getting the curve of the tail exactly right when she heard her mother's deep voice behind her.
"Sierra! I might have known I'd find you here, watching the animals --" and then her mother stopped as she came to loom over Sierra's shoulder, and saw what she was doing.
The girl completed the tail, and looked up at her mother with a glad smile, only to falter as she opened her mouth. Her mother -- tall and hawk-faced, dark-skinned, black hair crew-cut -- looked grim.
"What is this?" she asked softly, and pulled the drawing from Sierra's fingers. Sierra glanced around at her mother's retinue, and saw her tutor's face whiten as he saw what she had drawn. Her mother's servants saw too, and they all turned away, pretending suddenly to be very absorbed in their nails. What have I done? she wondered, suddenly anxious.
"My lady," her tutor said, fear sharpening his tone. "I didn't know -- I thought she was taking notes --"
"Silence," her mother ordered, and her voice was terrible. Sierra shrank back, but -- she suddenly knew -- there was something strange about her mother's fury. Always a perceptive child, she sensed a difference in this display of anger from the others she had seen, as if her mother was putting on a pageant of her own.
"Come with me and we will burn this insult to the Dragons with cleansing, holy fire," said her mother coldly. "And you," she addressed Sierra, "will do penance."
Without reasoning -- for Sierra was, still, too young for that -- still the girl understood one thing: if her mother was putting on a show, then there would be an important rationale. And she ought not to betray the lie by failing to react as if scolded, despite the warmth and concern she so clearly saw behind her mother's eyes. So she bowed her head, making choking, snivelling noises, and followed meekly as her mother walked through the house and shut the three of them -- herself, Sierra, the tutor -- inside her rooms. The retinue she dismissed.
Inside, together, things altered, as they always did when her mother and her tutor were alone with her. Sierra had come to understand this, though she didn't know why.
Her mother smoothed the drawing on her big mahogany dining-table, the one she had always told her daughter was the very same she had grown up with, as a child in the Hundred Kingdoms. Sierra watched, no longer bothering to pretend to cry, as her mother and her tutor leaned over the sketch.
"It's excellent," her mother said at last, with a sigh. "She always amazes me. What a shame .... Sierra, my love, I'm so sorry I acted so angry." She came to her daughter and hugged her. Sierra hugged back, loving her mother's scent, as always -- the smell of a clean-burning wood-fire. Her mother knelt, and took each of her daughter's hands in her own, studying her face. Suddenly, she smiled. "But you knew all along I was pretending, didn't you?" she asked. "My brilliant child. Nothing fazes you."
Sierra glowed from the praise, but she didn't forget to ask, "Why?"
Her tutor -- still gazing at the sketch, and stroking his long white beard -- murmured, "I told you she ought to be more exposed to your supposed religion."
"As always, you're right, Grandfather," said Sierra's mother, and sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling her daughter into her lap. (The title was an honorific, Sierra knew, one that was meant to be employed in her mother's language when speaking to an elder. She wished that Tutor was her grandfather. He would have been far better a grandparent than the ones she had on her father's side, the only ones she'd ever known -- distant, they forgot her name, barely even acknowledged her. Just like her father.) She snuggled gratefully into her mother's arms; her mother never hugged her like this in public, and she enjoyed it while she could.
"Sierra," her mother said to her. "You understand about the Immaculate Faith, don't you? I know we don't treat it like it's very important, even your father, but you know that it is, really."
"I must always obey its strictures in public," Sierra recited drowsily, seduced into tiredness by her mother's warmth and closeness. She yawned, and thought back to the lesson Tutor had pounded into her head, alone in the classroom, day after day. "And show reverence to the Dragons at every opportunity. It is what keeps the Dragon-Blooded in power, and it will be my greatest weapon if I'm Chosen as well. I must act with sincerity and conviction, and never betray a single moment of doubt."
Her mother hugged her again. "Yes, my dear. And have you never noticed that we are allowed no icons of anything but the Dragons?"
"But -- I was just drawing ...."
"Remember how your drawing tutors have always given you landscapes to paint? Made you keep to calligraphy? Remember what happened when you drew a picture of me?"
Sierra winced. "Yes," she said in a small voice. "So I mustn't draw animals, either? Not ever?"
"Not ever," her mother said firmly.
Wanting to cry, her voice shivered. "But -- the tiger -- it was so beautiful. It should be drawn! It's not fair!"
"Shhh," her mother said tenderly, stroking her hair. "I know. It is beautiful. And your picture is wonderful. Really, Sierra, I mean it. Wonderful."
Sierra sniffled, but held back the tears. She knew her mother hated it when she cried. "Okay," she said shakily. "And we have to burn it, too, don't we."
"In public would be best," said Tutor. He had lowered himself into one of the chairs and settled back, groaning a little from arthritis. "Too many other servants saw it to keep it, Sierra. I'm sorry. I know how much you hate to lose your drawings."
"It's okay," Sierra said bravely. "I'll do it tomorrow, at the temple. And I'll ask the priests for a proper penance."
"My brilliant child," her mother murmured, holding her close again.
Later, when her mother had finished telling her a story before she slept, Sierra asked, "Why was Tutor so sad today? When we were talking about the tiger?"
Her mother was sitting on the bed, down by her feet. Sierra's bed, too, was the same bed her mother had had, when growing up far away in the East; it was simply made, not anything like the beautiful carven furniture that ornamented the rest of the Manse, but Sierra loved it, and had resisted efforts to get her a fine ebony featherbed.
"Do you remember what I told you about our family totems in the old country?" her mother asked. Sierra nodded. "Tutor's family was the Tiger."
"And yours was the Hawk," Sierra said, proud to have remembered.
"That's right."
"But why does it make him sad? It always makes you smile to think of your family's symbol."
Her mother took a long time to answer, but Sierra was used to that, and had grown mostly patient, though she still squirmed a little. Finally the answer came: "Tutor's line was eliminated when the Realm invaded. Almost none of them are left .... That's why I didn't free him the way I free the rest of my slaves. He asked me not to, because he has nowhere to go."
"Oh," said Sierra.
"Now I had better go," said her mother. "You've had your story, and I have to attend one of your father's parties tonight." Sierra heard the familiar distaste in her mother's voice, and felt sorry for her. "Sweet dreams, my love."
When she was gone, Sierra lay awake, thinking about Tutor and his family. Touched, the child almost cried when she thought of how he must miss them. I'll be a better child, she resolved. I'll never tax him again! And I'll always be nice, and bring him presents on his birthday, and try to make his life as good as possible. She wondered what she would do if invaders had killed her mother. I'd hunt them to the ends of the earth, she decided fiercely. And beyond! They'd never escape. Not from me!
Character Background and Explanations
Description
Sierra has tan-sallow skin and large dark eyes; she looks very Realm except for her long, very straight hair, which is bright flame-red, almost orange. Fire-Aspected like her mother, her breeding is nonetheless not at all apparent (the Cynis her mother married had none, and her mother had practically less than none). Most of the time she prefers to go as a mortal, and this is easy, considering her appearance and low Essence; most people she knows in Nexus believe her mortal, though rich, and she never uses her family name. Very tall, she's slender but not delicate, and gives an overall impression of strength and calm -- although this does not prevent her from being vivacious and charming. Her beauty is almost a surprise; taken individually, her features -- thin lips, a blunt nose, thin overfine hair -- might not seem interesting, but together they form a whole that is significantly more than the sum of its parts. In dress she wears excellent clothing, almost always casual and in muted, deep colours (particularly red), and is rarely seen without her customized, gold-decorated rapier.
History
Sierra's mother was a member of one of the noble lines of a country that was invaded by the Realm during her youth, about fifty years before the present day. She, with some random Dragon-Blood in her, Exalted, with a kind of irony, during the invasion, and fought the invaders courageously. But of course the Realm won, and when she caught the eye of one of the Cynis who came in afterwards to round up slaves, she saw that she might be able to repair some of the harm that was done to her kingdom if she had proper Dynastic status. For their part, the Dragon-Blooded of the Realm knew that it might lend some native authority to their occupation of they had one of the nobles married to one of their own; so the low-status Cynis was allowed his fancy, the outcaste girl, who would have been difficult to dispose of anyway without offending the Immaculates, and this aided in keeping the country pacified.
For her part, Sierra's mother lightened the lot of her countrymen as best she could. There were a few slaves taken; she bought and freed them. She did her best, though no diplomat, to keep her country from uprising, convinced that if it did, it would be annihilated.
She was, of course, right. A few years after her death during Sierra's teens, the old country revolted, and the Realm destroyed it for its impertinence.
Sierra was raised, thus, not in perfect Dynastic fashion, though in the Realm. Unlike most Dynastic children, she was not wholly ignored by her parents; her mother, in fact, treated her as she would have treated a child normally, in her home country, although she had to act somewhat colder in public, as such practices are frowned upon in the Realm. She raised her daughter with her values, which were rather at odds with those of most of House Cynis -- teaching her to abhor slavery, to value temperance and love rather than the more common Cynis values of hedonism and lust. Her mother had a vast influence on the child Sierra, and made her the kind of person who could simply never fit in in a House like Cynis. Her Cynis father, on the other hand, was distant (a proper Realm father) and hardly spoke to her -- which did nothing to increase Sierra's affection for her House or the Realm as a whole. There is nothing but coldness between them.
Sierra always intended to follow in her mother's footsteps; one of her dreams was the attempt to help the old country gain further independence. When it was levelled, it was almost as much of a blow as her mother's and her childhood tutor's deaths had been. The girl turned for solace to the one passion that was left to her: art.
Having always been an amazing artist, but frustrated by the Immaculate ban on iconic art, Sierra had become a poet as well, seeking to paint the pictures she was not allowed with words. But a strain of rebellion in her came out at the destruction of her mother's native country, and she began to hone her skills at iconic art -- in private, in secret, giving expression to the beauty that was the only thing she had left to love.
At the first opportunity, she left the Realm and travelled the world, going first to the place where her mother's native country had been. Though some people remained, most of the traditions had been outlawed, the country carved into Realm satrapies, and large portions given to enemies who had aided the Realm. Heartsick at its destruction, Sierra left and never looked back.
In the end she moved to Nexus. Nexus, after all, had a wonderful art scene, was far from her so-called home, and allowed her to find a number of things that she could distract herself with.
Today, Sierra indulges her predilection for iconic art -- strictly in secret. She justifies her presence in Nexus to House Cynis by smuggling for them; what they don't know is that she also smuggles her own art, the unsigned blasphemous art outlawed by her ostensible faith. In fact, no one really knows that she does this, and she continues to make art (and write poetry) for the Realm -- safe, Immaculate art, and poems celebrating the glory of the Dragons. Her skill is undeniable, and she's famous for it; but she's not famous for the art she values most. This is something that bothers her slightly, but she understands its necessity; if it were discovered that she routinely creates paintings that insult the Dragons, she could very well be declared outcaste.
As a person, Sierra is kind; aristocratic, she is nevertheless nothing like most Dynasts, who treat your average human being as nothing but furniture. She never keeps slaves, though occasionally she buys them for the purpose of freeing them; she always treats even her servants as people rather than things. She cares absolutely nothing for the Immaculate Faith, although she is scrupulous in her public observances -- her mother always made it clear in private that although she must follow it and use it, it was nothing but a tool; and her father, a Cynis through and through, paid lip service to the faith while breaking half its tenets just during morning breakfast. She spends what time in which she isn't smuggling or working on her art with friends and at parties, although she has a limited appetite for larger and more drunken affairs; she doesn't like to be reminded of her House, for one thing, and for another, she just never really got into extreme debauchery. She certainly knows how to have a good time, though, and she was raised in the Realm, so she's unavoidably a slightly political animal. The people she most prefers to spend time with are other artists and poets; most of them aren't nearly as rich as she is, but there's little class consciousness or resentment, and a fair number are in awe of her artistic gifts.
There is little left for Sierra to truly care about besides her art; there is certainly nothing she would die for, no real goals or driving passions other than painting.
There are really only two reasons Sierra isn't already an outcaste. The first is that her mother worked so hard to get Dynastic status; Sierra would feel like an ingrate if she threw it away. The second is that being a Dynast is obviously and undeniably useful. She, however, would probably become an outcaste rather than do something she really didn't want to do, and considering how much her opinions differ from those of her House, it may very well be an inevitability.
Recent Events
Coming soon.
Backgrounds
Ally
Sierra saved the life of a bandit chieftain in the wilds somewhere between Nexus and her mother's kingdom, based solely on the heritage she shared with him -- his mother was from her mother's country. She stayed with him and his band for a while, becoming close friends with him before moving on to the city.
Connections
- Guild -- Necessary for a smuggler; also, the Guild sells the art Sierra creates that is in line with her ostensible religion.
- Nexus Market -- Necessary for a smuggler.
- Nexus Lowlifes -- Necessary for a smuggler. (There being no real criminals in Nexus, still there's a definite city underbelly of questionable activity.)
Reputation
Sierra's reputation -- that of a quickly rising star among poets and artists -- mostly applies in the Realm among upper-class circles, but there are art aficionados who have heard of her all over the world.
Resources
Sierra is a peerless and famous painter, and a smuggler as well, which brings in the cash pretty well. She's independently wealthy and never requests money from her House unless they're asking her to do something for them that requires it.
Loose Ends
Languages
Sierra speaks and reads High Realm, Riverspeak, Old Realm, and Forest-Tongue. (Houseruled Language System: High Realm 4; Celestial Old Realm 4; Riverspeak 3; Low Realm 2)
Character Generation
I've spent a rather small amount of experience here, but can't remember where it went. Sorry. She's roughly starting level, at least.
8.3.08: Spending 75 experience for upcoming GenCon game. New amounts are in brackets. Valour 2 > 3, Essence 2 > 3, Willpower 6 > 7, Wits 2 > 3, Stamina 2 > 3, Manipulation 2 > 3, Presence 2 > 3, Investigation 1 > 2. Presumably this will all be for 2E, so let's assume we switch the 1 in Endurance to Integrity and then raise Integrity straight to 3. That should do it.
Statistics
Attributes
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 3
Stamina: 2 [3]
Charisma: 3
Manipulation: 2 [3]
Appearance: 4
Perception: 4
Intelligence: 4
Wits: 2 [3]
Abilities
Linguistics: 3
Lore: 4
Occult: 3
Stealth: 1
Bureaucracy: 2 (Specialty: Negotiation +1)
Investigation: 1
Larceny: 2 (Specialty: Smuggling +1)
Awareness: 3
Craft -- Painting and Calligraphy: 5 (Specialty: Iconic Art +2; plus one extra die to all checks from the Prodigy Merit)
Craft -- Poetry: 4 (Specialties: Metred Verse +2, Odes +1)
Endurance: 1
Martial Arts: 1
Resistance: 1
Archery: 1
Medicine: 1
Performance: 1
Ride: 2
Survival: 1
Athletics: 3
Dodge: 2
Melee: 3 (Specialty: Swords +1)
Presence: 2 [3]
Socialize: 3
Backgrounds
Ally -- Outlaw: 2
Connections
-- Guild: 2
-- Nexus Market: 2
-- Nexus Lowlifes: 2
Reputation: 3
Resources: 3
Virtues and Such
Compassion: 3
Conviction: 1
Temperance: 3
Valour: 2 [3]
Willpower: 6 [7]
Essence: 2 [3]
Essence Pool: 8 Personal, 20 Peripheral (0 Committed)
Merits and Flaws
Favour (2 point value from House Mnemon, 3 point value from a garda bird)
Prodigy -- Craft Painting / Calligraphy, thereby making this ability "double-favoured" (2 point value)
Charms and Combat
Linguistics: Wind-Carried Words Technique
Lore: Elemental Bolt Attack
Larceny: Observer Awareness Method
Athletics: Effortlessly Rising Flame
Dodge: Flickering Candle Meditation
Melee: Stoking Bonfire Style
Socialize: Loquacious Courtier Method, Seizing-the-Tongue Technique
Base Combat Statistics (Excellent Slashing Sword, +4 / +2 / +3 / +1): Speed +9, Attack 9, Damage +5, Defense 8
* [Power Combat (Excellent Straight Sword, +5 / +4 / +3 / +1 / 4): Speed +10, Attack 11, Damage +5, Defense 8, Rate 4]
Dodge Pool: 5
* [Power Combat: 7]
Soak: 4 Bashing, 5 Lethal, 4 Aggravated (Excellent Chain Shirt, 4L / 2B)
Health Levels: -0, -1, -1, -2, -2, -4, Incapacitated
