Seraph/Challenge2

Name: Maros
Caste: Chosen of Battles
Nature: Judge
Concept: Demon-Hunter

Attributes
Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4
Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 3
Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 3

Abilities
Archery 2, Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Bureaucracy 2, Craft (Fate) 2, Dodge 2, Endurance 3, Investigation 1, Linguistics 2, Lore 3, Martial Arts 2, Melee 5, Occult 3, Presence 3, Resistance 2, Ride 3, Socialize 2, Stealth 1

Backgrounds
Acquaintances 2, Artifact 3, Artifact 2, Artifact 1, Celestial Manse 1, Connections (Demon Hunters) 2, Familiar 2, Familiar 2, Salary 1

Colleges
The Mask 1, The Shield 2, The Sorcerer 1, The Spear 2, The Treasure Trove 1

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

Charms

Burn Life

Hot-Eyed Snake Whispering

Harmony of Blows
Impeding the Flow

Mark of Exaltation
Tell-Tale Symphony

Ordained Bridle of Mercury

Optimistic Security Practice
Unwavering Well-Being Meditation

Prior Warning

Red Haze

World-Shaping Artistic Vision (Against Demons)

Willpower: 6
Health: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4Seraph/Challenge2/Incap
Essence: 2
Essence pool: (10) (18) (10)

Equipment: excellent longbow, excellent short sword, quiver (30 broadhead, 15 frog crotch, 15 target), starmetal dire lance (Beneath Forgotten Skies), starmetal reinforced breastplate (mp -1, ft 1), white jade collar of dawn's cleansing light

Combat
Base initiative: 6
Soak: 13B/12L (9B/10L breastplate) (17B/16L with charms)
Dodge: 4
Attacks Dire Lance Strike

• Init 12Seraph/Challenge2/Att 10Seraph/Challenge2/Dam 11LSeraph/Challenge2/Def 8

Longbow Attack

• Att 7Seraph/Challenge2/Rate 3Seraph/Challenge2/Range 250

Short Sword Attack

• Init 6Seraph/Challenge2/Att 10Seraph/Challenge2/Dam 7LSeraph/Challenge2/Def 10

Sketch

Maros is a tall man with handsome, well-formed features and distant red eyes, filled with tiny fire-red specks. He wears his shoulder-length hair tied back in a warrior's knot, even when at rest. Maros wears many guises in service to Heaven, often appearing in the garb of a soldier far from home, an ecstatic warrior naked except for a loincloth, or a Yozi-cultist in black. One thing remains constant, however: around his neck, Maros wears a collar of dawn's cleansing light made of white jade. When appearing as himself, Maros prefers loose, billowing clothing in dark colors with splashes of blood red. He often wears his starmetal breastplate, inset with red jade. Maros' weapon of choice is his starmetal dire lance, Beneath Forgotten Skies, though he also carries an excellent short sword and an excellent longbow, both unnamed. Maros sometimes effects a wide-brimmed hat to cover his face, caste mark, and distinctive eyes.

In person, Maros is quiet and strange. There is clearly something different about him, something that sets him apart even from other Sidereals. He has a healthy sense of humor, however, though it rarely sets others at ease. Maros also has a beautiful, though untrained, singing voice. When he hunts demons, he has a disconcerting habit of humming along with the Tell-Tale Symphony in harmony or counterpoint to the demonic rhthym, depending on his mood.

Maros often laughs, but he only smiles in battle.

History

Maros was born with a different name, in a world that seems to have no bearing on his world today. Once, he was Iron Fox in the small Threshold village of Two Hawk Hill. Maros' father was a tanner and his mother was a wise woman of the village, bartering with spirits when the immaculate monks were too far away. From an early age, it was apparant that Maros was fated for a different life. Even then, he was quiet and strange, though his sense of humor was more apparant and he was more often happy. When Maros came of age, he decided to leave his home village and enroll in the Imperial Legions. His parents were sad, but they knew he had no choice. Maros never saw either of them again.

Iron Fox served in the Imperial Legion for seven years, travelling up and down Creation with his commander, the courageous and compassionate Tepet Havardela. Iron Fox quickly developed a reputation for utter calm, even in the fiercest battle. Some said he was touched by the Maiden of Serenity, others the Maiden of Journeys, or even Endings. The Terrestrials claimed he was specially blessed by the Dragons themselves. All of them were wrong, but Iron Fox kept it to himself. He was happy. Then came the Battle of Futile Blood. Tepet Havardela was killed in the first sally and Iron Fox was found at the end of the battle, greivously wounded, with Havardela's jade collar clutched in one bloodied hand. For once, his serentiy had abandoned him and he had panicked and tried to save his commander, but he was too late.

Iron Fox lingered in the hospital tent for weeks, too wounded to recover, too stubborn to die. It was then, when he lay at the edge of death, that Mara, Eater of Souls, came to him. She had been attracted by the carnage and the powerful magics used by both sides of the conflict. In Iron Fox, she saw something special. Perhaps it was the determination with which he clung to life or the rightness he found in battle. Perhaps he roused himself from his fitful slumber and, mistaking the demon for a nurse, said something that made her laugh. Either way, the demon's heart was moved to love. She began visiting Iron Fox regularly, bearing in her lips pieces of souls she had devoured. Iron Fox's condition began to improve as his soul absorbed those souls. He rallied, and soon it became clear that he would make a complete recovery.

Eventually Iron Fox became aware enough to realize that something was wrong. As he grew stronger, other soldiers who had been recovering began to sicken and die. Further, something was changing whithin him. His serenity was being replaced with an alien certainty, his humor with silence, and his happiness with a strange a hollow melancholy. At the same time, he began to remember strange dreams in which a sad, beautiful, and somehow sinister woman came to him in his dreams. She would whisper to him in words he did not understand, kiss him with bitter lips, and then they would make love in his tiny cot. Iron Fox knew the legends of Mara, Eater of Souls, but it made no sense. He was no shaman to earn her favor. Why was he growing stronger, instead of weaker, and at the expense of other soldiers?

Even more distressing, Iron Fox realized that he had fallen in love with the phantom from his dreams. There was a rightness in her strange whispers, a sweetness to her bitter kisses, and a sincerity in her tenderness that touched his heart.

One night, Iron Fox decided to see what the truth was. He did not drink the soporific tea the nurses offered him, and instead feigned sleep. Sure enough, Mara came to him. She whispered to him in the tongue of Malfeas and kissed him and fed him the soul of some soldier or villager. When she moved to straddle him, Iron Fox knew what he had to do. He snatched up his sword from where it lay next to his cot and struck the demon down. With sadness in his eyes and a blood-red anima banner flaring up behind him, he watched as Mara faded from view, back across the endless desert, to the demon city that was her home. Iron Fox exalted that night. When Sidereals came to take him away, he decided that his old life was over. He was no longer Iron Fox, he was now Maros, a testemant to the creature that had saved his life.

Maros has told no one of his congress with the Eater of Souls. As far as any Sidereal knows, he exalted in the hospital on the night that he would otherwise have died. Maros's skill in bed is legendary in Yu-Shan, though he has had only a few lovers, and he certainly has a taste for death, but no one has put these two together. Maros is still conflicted. He knows that his love for the demoness was real, but he also knows her place is no longer in Creation and it is his duty to keep her where she belongs. Maros channels his inner conflict into his battles with lesser demons, but he does not know what he will do when confronted with Mara again.

Backgrounds

Acquaintances 2

Maros is the proprieter of the Maiden at War, a small bar for demon hunters and exorcists in Nexus. Although no one ever remembers the quiet barkeep with the odd red eyes, they do remember each other, and that keeps them coming back. What is important is that Maros uses the bar to keep tabs on demonic activity throughout the Eastern Threshold.

Artifact 3, Artifact 2, Artifact 1

Maros owns a starmetal dire lance, a starmetal reinforced breastplate and his deceased commander's white jade collar.

Celestial Manse 1

Maros keeps a small home in Yu-Shan. It produces hearthstone of some sort, probably a gem that glows green in the presence of demons so Maros knows when to activate Tell-Tale Symphony.

Connections (Demon Hunters) 2

Thanks to the Maiden at War, Maros is able to maintain contacts with demon hunters across the Eastern Threshold and, through friends of friends, throughout Creation.

Familiar 2, Familiar 2

Maros has two familiars, created with the Ordained Bridle of Mercury. They are both large hunting dogs trained for war. The oldest, named Heart, is suspicious of strangers and wise, in the way of dogs. The younger, Hand, is impulsive and friendly, except towards demons and gods, whom he dislikes. Both are devoted to Maros. Maros plans to make both of them into godly companions when his charms become powerful enough.

Salary 1

Since he is a relatively new Sidereal and he has so far refused to join either the Bronze or the Gold faction - preferring not to let politics get in the way of hunting demons - Maros is near the bottom of the pay scale.