Miedvied/Haulden

The Thousand-Faceted Diamond of Heaven

I'm rather proud of this one.

Name: =======
Caste: Secrets (Jupiter)
Concept: Deep Cover Agent / Amnesiac
Nature: Critic
Allegiance: None. All. Silver. Rebel. Bronze. Ronin. Gold. Who, me?

Attributes:
Strength: 3 - Dexterity: 3 - Stamina: 3
Charisma: 2 - Manipulation: 3 - Appearance 2
Perception: 3 - Intelligence: 3 - Wits: 3

Abilities:
Craft - 2
Dodge - 1
Linguistics - 2
Performance - 1
Socialize - 3 [F]
Melee - 2 [F]
Presence - 1
Resistance - 1
Investigation - 3 [F]
Larceny - 3 [F]
Lore - 3 [F]
Occult - 3 [F] [Art of Warding (Ward Breaking +1)]
Stealth - 3 [F]
Athletics - 1 [F]
Awareness - 3
Bureaucracy - 2
Martial Arts - 2 [F]
Medicine - 1

Backgrounds:
Acquaintances - 3
Savant - 3
Connections - 3
Backing - House Iselsi - 2
Backing - All Seeing Eye- 1
Salary - 1
Resources - 2 (Separate from Salary; effectively 3 due to salary)
Knowledge - 1

Colleges:
Guardians - 2
Key - 2
Sorceror - 3

Charms:
Shun the Smiling Lady
Hot-Eyed Snake Whispering
Marvelous Inclusion of Details
Honorable Thief Spirit
Mark of Exaltation
Systematic Understanding of Everything
Methodology of Secrets
Soft Presence Practice
Prior Warning
Secrets of Future Strife
Joy in Adversity Stance
Impeding the Flow
Harmony of Blows
Orchestration of Conflict

Virtues:
Willpower: 6
Compassion: 3
Temperance: 3
Conviction: 2
Valor: 2

Permanent Essence: 3
Personal Essence: 12
Peripheral Essence: 34
Committed: 0

HL's: -0 / -1 x 2 / -2 x 2 / -4 x 1 / Inc

Merits:
Enchanting Feature - Eyes
Lucky (3 dots)

Flaws:
Amnesia (2 dots)
Nightmares
Secrets (3 dots)
Throwback (3 pts, Bravo)

But actually....

...His name is Vinyev Zhul, a local Guild merchant's apprentice in the far [You Pick The Direction]-ern village of ====, his mentor making his trade in moving arms and armor, insinuating himself as the middleman between local craftsmen and the Imperials and mercenaries that need to get their hands on the right equipment at the right time for just the right prices. For Vinyev, working the books is inglorious work, keeping his eyes straining under candlelight and his fingers blackened by ink all day, tracking the jade and the weapons in both directions as they march in orderly procession along the pages of his books. The only thing really spicing up his life is the occasional dalliance with a farmer's daughter (and thanks to every god in the Bureau of Humanity for all that practice they get milking the cows), and the bit of jade that seems to disappear between the 0's and the 9's in the counting columns of his books and into his own pockets....

But actually...

....His name is Iselsi Pejak; and the tattoo with the sigil of House Iselsi on the back of his right shoulder that gets spotted by every little lass (and on occasion, lad) that he gets under him, that tends to spread rumors. They're the sorts of rumors that make one think twice about just what sort of young accountant he is; most likely, the sort of young accountant who's more interested in keeping tabs on where the arms shipments are going than in actually skimming any jade, the sort of accountant that slips out of the village every third moon to exchange information with his deep-cover handler, with his last living contact with the All-Seeing Eye, for whom he watches where the weapons and the money are moving among the local warriors, especially the Great Houses' troops. These rumors aren't good things, though - they also tend to get back to others, others that wouldn't normally be interested in young accountants, but very interested in young Iselsi spies. Iselsi Pejak was a bright and unExalted son of the fallen house; his outstanding intellect - and support from unknown quarters - secured him a position in the all-SEeing Eye. As such, he quickly became hidden as a secret agent investigating the strength of certain House militaries - and is currently doing his best to keep it hidden that he's impregnated more than any good man's fair share of Dragon-Blooded princesses in every House he's visited. Cathak ===== recently discovered his young "armorsmith's" (his last cover) dalliance with four of his children (three daughters, one son, all at once), and has sent a young fire-aspect Brother-Sister pair of twins after the Iselsi for bloody vengeance (it wouldn't be such a problem if they weren't all pregnant. The girls, at least.) ....

But actually...

...Haulden Kenitt isn't really a womanizer, or a thief, or a scoundrel. He was born to a tribe of fairly peaceful south-western marsh-dwellers (nomads of a sort, that regularly migrated from the marshes to the deserts and back again.) He was born among them, though they were raided by a tribe of island-dwellers (moving islands, even) while he was still young, and his tribe slaughtered or enslaved to the last - he was too young to ever know his given name, or that of his tribe or family (though such information surely resides in the Forbidden Manse of Ivy's records, he fears what he might find if he should look.) With no knowledge of family or birthday, he was born lost to the stars. He was eventually brought to the Blessed Isle as a slave, and worked as a field slave until eventually buying his freedom (or, to be more precise, until he accrued enough blackmail information on his owner to be granted the funds with which to purchase his freedom. It was to the owner's chagrin that it was the owner's love-struck son that taught Haulden the very literacy that allowed Haulden to plant safe copies of his information with various sources and ensure his safety when dealing for his freedom with his owner.) He soon had a job with the Realm's security forces, and was eventually brought to the attention of the Heptagram, due to his instinctual bent towards the occult arts. He was eventually made a member of an elite realm hit squad; something similar to the Wyld Hunt, save that they dealt with things in a bit more quiet a manner. He was never trained to be an especially adept killer - his job was solely that of wards (the hunters') and ward-breaking (the hunted's.) Though the signs of impending Exaltation hung about him like gossamer webs for years, he finally passed the crucial point when on a mission at the residence of a Sidereal-posing-as-Dragon-Blooded (arranged ahead of time, of course; the rest of the team was left rather dazed when the target sidereal promptly dropped his Resplendant destiny and, occulted, took away the confused and newly-exalted Haulden.) Haulden was trained by this sidereal, by the name of =====, one of the few members of the Silver Faction of the sidereals. It was not long before Haulden fled the politicking of the Sidereals, the factions, and Heaven altogether - choosing instead to make his way through Creation, to discover the world firsthand before he attempted to shephard it. In his heart, he feels himself a servitor of the Solars - that the world would be better off once more under their rule, rather than having the Sidereals rule by proxy through Dragon-Bloods, Solars, or Lunars. When quitting Heaven, Nara-O appointed Haulden with the task of watching over newly exalted Solars; he made no demands of support or condemnation, only asking that they be observed. For this task (which Haulden continues to fulfill, though he does not always remember it) he recieves a pittance of a salary in Heaven...

But actually...

The life of Haulden Kenitt is rarely remembered by Vinyev. Vinyev has sunken so deep into his cover that he sometimes forgets he is, underneath it all, Iselsi Pejak. His sanity seems to be straining under the deep cover, and he has begun to believe that he actually is Vinyev Zhul, the womanizing, book-skimming Guild apprentice. The All-Seeing Eye does not yet reign him in, however, they do fear that he might be losing his mind - it has happened that he's missed an occasional meeting with his handler, and that concerns them deeply. They would be much more concerned if they knew that even on the few times that he recalls his identity as Iselsi Pejak - whom they take to be the true identity of the man - that he infrequently recalls that he is truly Haulden Kenitt; the true mortal life of the Sidereal has almost completely been subsumed, returning only infrequently and in small shards. The memories remain, but Haulden finds it difficult to separate the truth from the thousand layers of lies that he's lived through.

But actually...

Haulden wakes every night with nightmares that chill him to the bone - memories of his training in the Silver Faction come in fleeting pieces, meetings with barbarians and deserts and ice floes and islands and war and blood and then not the Silver Faction not at all but Chejop right there standing over him and with him and working and killing and is that gold? Is that a golden burning brand on that forehead that they slashed and cut and burnt and killed? Or was that the golden beaming angel standing before him as the flickering light of a servant of Mars fell to the ground in a heap of blood?

Haulden isn't sure which memories are which; whether he was truly trained by the Silver Faction, or the Silver, or the Gold, and who he was to infiltrate, if any, and why. He does not know who his true mentor is, or who his real enemies. He remembers nothing of his Exaltation and training in full; all of it comes together in shards and pieces, mixed among equally valid memories of a precisely conflicting nature. This is not helped by his dreams and nightmares - of training in the Underworld at the right hand of a deathlord ( was it a deathlord? an abyssal? Some great ghostly priest? He can't quite remember now ), of carrying out daring assassinations in Creation at the beckoning of the Malfean lords, of diplomatic trips into the heart of Malfeas. He does not know which dreams are dreams and which are memories, which are assumed roles and which are the true heart of him.

But actually...

There's no reason to assume that Haulden Kenitt is Haulden Kenitt; that may be simply the deepest cover that he's forged as yet; one that's subsumed his life even outside of the roles he's assumed, one that's seeped into his Sidereal mind.

There's no reason to assume anything about Pejak.

[Note: For character-sheet-production's sake, Haulden Kenitt is his 'real' history, Iselsi Pejak is a resplendant destiny he's woven, and Vinyev Zhul is an assumed alias under the resplendant destiny of Iselsi Pejak.

Personal but unofficial theory on Haulden is that he's suffering from a badly botched Resplendant Destiny; if he weren't so damned deep cover, he'd actually *think* of dropping the Destiny. As it were, one must wait for it to come about inadvertently. When /if such a thing were to happen, his memories would clear up, somewhat - he'd certainly remember his true self as Haulden Kenitt, and would not be confused by the memories of Iselsi Pejak / Vinyev Zhul. That isn't, however, to say that the memories of being Haulden Kenitt are his true memories - the insanity may have 'seeped' through his destiny. Further, it wouldn't clear up his shattered memories of past training - those were broken by external forces interested in making sure that he doesn't remember his heritage until the appropriate time has come about.

Personally, I think he's got a nugget of Chejop Kejak's mind stuck in his own somewhere, waiting to try and take over when Chejop passes on. Just wait and see how surprised *he'll* be when he has to contend with another couple dozen personalities for dominance, including the Throwback personality.]