DK/PelepsMerosu

Name:Peleps Merosu
Caste:Dragon-Touched
Nature:Gallant
Anima:A cloud of candle-sized flames.
Concept: Washed-up Prodigy

Attributes:
Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2
Charisma 1, Manipulation 2, Appearance 5
Perception 1, Intelligence 4, Wits 2

Abilities:
Athletics 3, Awareness 2, Bureaucracy 1, Dodge 5, Endurance 1, Linguistics 2, Lore 3, Melee 5 (Sword +2) Occult 3, Performance 2, Resistance 3, Ride 1, Socialize 3

Backgrounds: Inheritance 3, Reputation 3 (Catastrohpic Fuck-Up), Resources 4

Virtues:
Compassion 2, Conviction 1, Temperance 1, Valor 3

Willpower: 5
Health: -0,-1,-1,-1,-2,-2,-2,-4,Incap
Essence: 2
Essence pool: 17

Charms: Dodge
Flickering Candle Meditation
Endurance
Ox Body x 1

Equipment: Fine clothing, wineskins, various recreational drugs, fine breastplate and sword.

Combat:
Base initiative: 6
Soak: 5B/5L/5A
Dodge: 11
Attacks:
Exceptional Straight Sword: Spd 10, Acc 15, Dmg 7L, Def 13 Rate 4

Merits:
Awakened Essence (5)
Longevity (2)

Flaws:
Addiction- (Alcohol, Opium) (2)
Aura of Power (4) - a flurry of weak candlelike flames that flare and dance around his body.
Callous- (2)

Appearance

Cruelly, Merosu fits the image of the strong, well-bred Dynast impeccably. His face his well shaped, his body slim and muscular. His skin has a faint red tinge and is very warm to the touch. Dark blue eyes and his fall of long, black hair only add to his looks - something that makes him quite popular with the mortal prostitutes who are nearly his only companions.

Wears red often, prefers high boots and trousers. Seldom without his red-enameled straight sword and breastplate, though often too intoxicated to use them properly.

Personality

Self-pitying. Shrill. Simultaneously proud of his boyhood exploits and ashamed of his failure. Has almost no willpower at all, consumed by drugs and sex. Hard to get along with, always eager to find an insult. Tells jokes at his own expense, but is willing to punch out whoever laughs at them. Still burns with a little bit of that childhood bravery. Wants desperately at heart to be worth something, anything, to anyone.

Story

Peleps Merosu's birth was the result of a union between two Dragon-Blooded scions of impeccable breeding, Peleps Mara and Cathak Teroku. Their previous spouses had both died, and the two elder Dragon-Blooded married again in those twilight years before retirement. Each had already sired an Exalt or two in their previous marriages, but it had been nearly half a century for both, and both were eager to attempt to produce more children for the Realm. Their one and only chance came with the birth of Merosu.

From the beginning, Merosu was something special. He was always the quickest of the children in their Dynastic circle, the best with songs, sums, and words. Under the tutelage of the family slave Sorube, once a scribe in the Threshold, Merosu excelled.

Primary school was a similar experience, with the young Merosu constantly at the head of his class. He was not the first of his group to Exalt, but his Exaltation was the most impressive - a sudden, intense bonfire of flame that sprouted around him in the middle of an exam and flared brightly before fading.

His parents were elated, but not unduly surprised, by the news. Where once he had been only the envy of his mortal peers, Merosu now shone among the Exalted, mastering the first of his Charms seemingly instinctively.

Secondary school came, and there was one more year of glory, of leading his mock attack team in great battles across the grounds of the House of Bells, and then...

It still hurts him now to remember it. How the others first reached him, then surpassed him, then dwarfed him. The taste of blood and mud in his mouth. The daiklave, impossibly heavy, slipping from his fingers on the day they all attuned for the first time. That strange Immaculate, whose face had fled from memory like slippery quicksilver, but whose words remained. "False Exaltation."

Shamed, his parents withdrew Merosu from the school, more furious at him for his half-success than they would have been if he had failed. Failure was a reality, an eventuality for most children in the Dynasty. His existence as one of the Dragon-Touched seemed like a particularly cruel joke. Crushed, Merosu spent his evenings in the family garden alone, weeping with frustration, telling himself that he was an Exalt, he had to be, flaring his anima over and over to prove it to himself. But every time he did, the flame flared a little less brightly, burned a little less fiercely. Inside of a month, his anima had become a pathetic joke, a dancing cloud of candle flames that swirled around him uselessly.

That was ten years ago. In the meantime, Merosu's parents gave him command of one of their small estates in Arjuf to get him out of their sight. He has spent most of that time drinking and drugging himself into absolute oblivion and marinating in his failure. Occasionally, his parents made halfhearted offers to wed him, but being proud they would not accept the only ones they had gotten. As the reputation of The Golden Failure spread throughout the Isle, they stopped getting any at all.

The only ones who have any affection for Merosu at all are the handful of servants he brought from his old household and the prostitutes he visits. The first, he tells himself, care for him out of fear of his parents, the second out of love for his jade. It's mostly true, as Merosu is certainly not the most personable, charming, or even threatening of individuals.

Comments

-DK