Patkin/TheWarlordsArmor
Name: The Warlord's Armor on Horseback
Concept: Amoral Horselord, Leader of the Deathlord's Calvary
Caste: Dusk
Nature: Leader
Liege: The Mask of Winters
Location: The Marukani Alliance
Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4, Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 0, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 4
Virtues: Compassion 2, Conviction 3, Temperance 1, Valor 4
Abilities: Archery 2, Awareness 2, Brawl 3, Dodge 2, Endurance 3, Linguistics 1 (Native: Riverspeak; Low Realm), Medicine 2, Melee 4 (On Horseback +2)*, Performance 3, Presence 3 (Threats +2), Resistance 3, Ride 5, Survival 3, Thrown 2
Backgrounds: Abyssal Command 4, Artifact 3, Familiar 3, Liege 3, Manse 2, Resources 3, Whispers 1
Charms: Artful Maiming Onslaught, Elegant Flowing Deflection, Furious Blade, Savage Shade Style, Elegant Tyrant's Majesty, Command the Dead, Armor-Calling Kata, Soul Reins, Mount-Breaking Method, Mount Spooking Shout
Willpower: 7
Essence: 2
Personal Essence: 13
Peripheral Essence: 31
Appearance: The Warlord's Armor is somewhat defined by the suit of metal that envelops him. Iron and soulsteel create a shell, withing the moaning faces of the denizens of Thorns wailing from its grooves. A pot helm for his head was also crafted from soulsteel, with the beatific white jade mask of a monk covering his putrefied face. He carries a large spear into battle, with the standard of his liege welded to the back of his armor. The Warlord's Armor is rarely out of his shell, due to the effect the Black Exaltation took on his body, rotting and decaying any semblence of humanity from his face, leaving behind a festering corpse, infested with worms and insects yet still somehow alive. His great war-horse Hood, slain and reanimated, bears many of the same features.
The Warlord's Armor on Horseback had a problem with self-control. An angry, boisterous member of the Marukani Hammers, the Warlord's Armor served skillfully in the Thorns campaign, until the Juggernaut invaded and the Mask of Winters took the land. The Marukani ordered a retreat, but the Warlord's Armor resisted, feeling slighted by running away. He and 30 other Marukani soldiers rode back to Thorns as the sun set. When they hit the borders, they already realized that they were riding to their dooms. The left flank was slaughtered after being led into a twisting forest populated by ghouls and bizarre undead creations. The right flank simply disappeared without a trace into the soil of Thorns. The center rode into the city of Thorns itself, rampaging past the undead and the nemessaries of the Mask of Winters. Finally, only 12 men remained, including the Warlord's Armor. A nemissary welding a great axe, lopped Hood's head clean off, throwing the Warlord's Armor to the ground.
Pulling out his spear, the Warlord's Armor hacked away at the horde surrounding him watching as they pulled down riders attempting to rescue him. A whispering entered his ears, asking him what he would do to get out of his situation. The whispers asked if he would kill his friends, his family, his elders, just to return home. Finally, as he consigned himself to die at the hands of the Underworld's warriors, the corpse of Hood stumbled up from the ground, without its head and began trotting toward the citadel of the Deathlord. The horde cleared a path for the horse, and picking the seemingly breathing head of his steed, the Warlord's Armor began following his horse to the citadel, as the murmuring, skeletal dead trailed behind him. As he approched the fetid Juggernaut, the Deathlord welcomed him to Thorns and made him his guest.
The Warlord's Armor watched as the undead tore apart Thorns looking for survivors of the failed attack and civilians who survived the invasion. He talked at length with the Deathlord he had sought to kill or drive out of Thorns and felt the effects of the Black Exaltation take place. He felt his skin crawling, and could see rot out of the corners of his eyes. The ghostly bureaucrats of the Mask of Winters welcomed him and treated him as a prince. His compassion failed him as he watched soldiers he'd fought with were dragged before the Deathlord and sentenced to die. But not him. His morals atrophied, rotted, just as his flesh began to. Soon, the time had come to enter the Black Pact with the Malfeans, and the Warlord's Armor simply could not resist the promise he had given.
As he rose from the Well of the Void a loyal deathknight, he was granted the suit of armor he now wears and a soulsteel dire lance known as the Barb of Oblivion's Spite. He was also granted control of the Mask of Winters' calvary, a great military force whose goal was to spread the tendrils of Thorns' shadowland throughout the Scavenger Lands. He drives his army into the Marukani Alliance, burning village after village, enslaving the living and recruitng the dead to his forces. He took a Manse as his own, an old Wood-aspected loggia in central Thorns, left standing during the assaults, which he uses as a home, stable and war room. The Warlord's Armor on Horseback has turned his back on honor and valor, and seeks only to kill everything and everyone who would witness his servitude to the Mask of Winters. He hates the world for allowing him to destroy himself as he has and will not stop until its all been burnt down at his rotten hand.
