BurgerSlave/Riven
Riven
The circumstances of Riven's birth cannot be called anything but inauspicious. His father was a wealthy and powerful judge, serving the courts of Great Forks. This man had done a great service for a powerful sorcerer, and as payment, he demanded that the sorcerer call up a neomah from the depths of Malfeas, to serve him for a year and a day. Despite his misgivings, the sorcerer did as he was told, and for a year, the judge enjoyed the exotic and alien pleasures of his infernal concubine. Imagine his surprise, then, when on the last day, she presented his newborn son before vanishing back to the Demon Realm.
Riven's father was not necessarily bad, as fathers go. But he was an eternal bachelor, and left Riven's upbringing to a series of well-paid tutors and nannies. Riven was not allowed to play with other children, for fear that he might 'do' something to them. Denied the company of his peers, Riven found comfort in books. Study kept him out of trouble, and so his father was only too pleased to keep him in literature. Though he was fascinated by the law, Riven knew that no court in the land would allow a half-demon judge to preside, no matter how impartial he might be. Indeed, as he matured into a brooding young man, it seemed that no tradesman would accept him as an apprentice. He was certainly intelligent and skilled enough to have his pick of trades, but his heritage worked against him.
Riven was fifteen when his father finally found him work as a jailer in one of Great Forks' prisons. The work was shockingly boring for young Riven, who used the time watching the door and guarding the keys to read. He knew that his father was only doing what was best for him, but it was not the life Rivan would have chosen. He wanted to be a magistrate, wandering the land and seeking out wrongs to right. But one look at his green-on-black eyes, and any government bureaucrat would find a number of things to do besides consider Riven for the magistracy.
All of that changed the day Riven was Chosen by the Unconquered Sun. He had been at work in the jail, reading a particularly engaging book, when his otherworldly instincts perked. He had never had cause to use the dubious blessings his erstwhile mother had left him, but he recognized the warning clearly for what it was--there was a demon nearby. Riven had just sounded the alarm when an erymanthus burst into the guard room, full of furious anger. Riven was armed only with his club, and was not a very good fighter. But he knew that he could not let the demon free his prisoners, not even at the cost of his own life.
The moment Riven made that grim decision, a strange peace came over him. "The world is full of loosed prisoners," said the voice of the Sun within him. "They must be returned to their infernal jail, and I Choose you to be my jailer." In that instant, Riven drew his Second Breath. With his arm strengthened by the Sun, he engaged the blood-ape in mortal combat. With supreme effort, he was able to wring a confession out of the demon before he sent it back to Malfeas. The erymanthus had been sent with instructions to kill the jailer and free the prisoners. But who had sent it?
Deeply disturbed, Riven told his father what had happened. To his dismay, his father waved off his warnings, telling him that everything was in hand. Perhaps before, Riven would have accepted his father's word without question. But now, he could not help but think that his father had something to do with the attack.
That night, Riven made to follow his father, trailing him to all his father's favorite tea houses and brothels. However, as the hour grew late, Riven's trail led him out of the city, into the wilds beyond. In a blackened and withered grove, he found his father meeting with strange folk in heavy robes. Riven's rarified senses recognized his kin, and shrieked a warning to him. The awful truth crystallized in that terrible instant--his father had tried to have him killed, as part and parcel of having his own influence in the city increased. Anger burned away the last of Riven's compassion, and he strode out into the grove. He judged them in the name of the Sun and fought the cultists with the same grim determination with which he had matched the erymanthus. One by one, they fell to his righteous might, until his father was all that remained, cowering before his son's blazing anima.
Riven made his father swear that he would confess his crimes before a tribunal, and he sealed the vow with his Heavenly authority. However, as they were returning to the city, Riven's father was set upon by an invisible assassin. When the constabulary arrived in answer to the judge's panicked cries, they found Riven there, standing over the body. One of the policemen recognized Riven, and knew him for his half-demon heritage. Thus, they charged him with the crime of killing his own father and tried to apprehend him. Riven escaped by the barest of chances and ran for his life, hiding out in the Scavenger Lands.
Today, Riven travels throughout the East. He offers his services as a demon hunter, banishing wayward infernals back to Malfeas. He has even visited that dread realm once, invoking his Exalted diplomatic immunity to find and question his mother about the circumstances of his birth. For this display of audacity, and for hunting down and slaughtering his kin, Riven has been named an enemy of Malfeas, and he is tolerated in the Demon City only by virtue of his Solar diplomatic immunity. He remains a wanted criminal in Great Forks, but these things do not matter to him. Riven is the jailer of the Unconquered Sun, and the prisoners grow restless. He cannot falter in his duty now, lest the world be burned away by infernal fire.
Image: Riven is a striking young man of nineteen years. His features are slender and delicate, yet eerily haunting. His skin is always alabaster pale, no matter how much sun he gets. His hair is long, fine, and black. His eyes are an instant mark of his heritage--they are completely black, with irridescent irises the sickly green of Ligier's alien light. His voice is soft and velvety, and he never raises it even in his moments of anger. As his victims know all too well, when he speaks in a venomous hiss, then you have roused his demonic anger. He dresses in sturdy clothes that are well-suited for travelling, usually in shades of black and green. He carries a reaper daiklave plundered from a tomb, which he has named Golden Key, and wears a buff jacket reinforced by orichalcum that he found in a Malfean vault deep inside the Demon City. He indulges in no vices, so that he may keep his wits sharp in case his services are needed.
Statistics
Name: Riven
Nature: Bravo
Caste: Eclipse
Heritage: Demon-Blooded half-neomah
Anima: A black portal, banded by golden bars, limned by a curious mix of white and green flame.
Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3
Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 4
Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3
Favored Abilities: Melee 5, Endurance 3, Survival 5, Occult 5, Lore 3, Bureaucracy 2, Linguistics 3 (Riverspeak, Low Realm, Old Realm, Forest-Tongue), Ride 2 Socialize 3
Abilities: Awareness 2, Investigation 2
Specialities: Fighting Demons (Melee) +2
Backgrounds: Inheritance 2, Artifact 4 (orichalcum reaver daiklave, orichalcum reinforced buff jacket), Influence 3
Virtues: Temperance 2, Valor 5, Compassion 1, Conviction 3
Virtue Flaw: Foolhardy Contempt
Advantages: Willpower 8, Essence 2 (Personal 14, Peripheral 33)
Charms: (Solar) Excellent Strike, Ox-Body Technique x1 (+1 -1 HL, +2 -2 HL), Armored Scout's Invigoration, Hardship Surviving Mendicant Spirit, Trackless Region Navigation Charm, Spirit Detecting Glance, Spirit Cutting Attack, Mastery of Small Manners; (Spirit) Principle of Motion
Combos: Turn The Golden Key (Excellent Strike + Spirit Cutting Attack)
Merits: Gatekeeper +1, Immune to Possession +3, Blurred Fate +1, Selective Conception +1, Virtue Speciality +6 (+3 Valor: Fighting Demons)
Flaws: Sire's Enmity -5, Unusual Appearance -1 (Demon-Blooded heritage), Nightmares -3, Known Anathema -2, Wanted -3 (Murderer, Great Forks), Unbidden Oracle -1
SPECIAL NOTE: Due to his Demon-Blooded Inheritance, Riven pays 12 points for Solar Charms (10 if Favored), 22 points (or 18 if Favored) for non-Solar Charms, and pays his Essence x 10 to increase his Essence.
