MicahHakubi/ArsenalHalo
Contents
Arsenal Halo
Caste: Twlight
Nature: Explorer
Anima: A red and gold damaged Warstrider - as it moves, clockward innards spin, click, groan, essence moves as if blood, and it's faceplate cracks and gnaws as if tasting the air, punctuated by the inhuman maw opening to issue forth a mechanical roar.
Current XP Count: 13 (None Spent)
Attributes
Charisma 2, Manipulation 1, Appearance 4, Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 3
Abilities
(F)Melee 3, Endurance 1, (F)Presence 1, Resistance 1, Survival 1, (C)Craft 1(Metalworking), (C)Investigations 2, (C)Lore 3, (C)Medicine 2, (C)Occult 3, (F) Atheletics 1, (F)Awareness 1, Dodge 1, (F)Linguistics 3 (Old Realm, Rivertounge, Forest Tounge), Ride 1
Background
Allies 2 - Reincarnated Lunar Wife (Pacifica, Princess of the Deceived Moon(Changing Moon))
Artifact 2, - White Cross (Dire Lance)(Commit 5)
Artifact 1 - Sunlight's Grasping Will (Commit 2)
Artifact 1 - Orichalcum-lined leather jacket (counts as artifact breastplate)(8l, 6b, -0 mobility, 0 fatigue)(Commit 2)
Mentor 3 - Lesser Elemental Dragon of Fire, Scorched Earth (An Elemental Dragon of Fire whom views himself as a natural cycle of life - death, cutting away at the rotting, to allow for more vibrant growth - Scorched Earth is one of the more temperate of his bretheren, like a banked fire - warm and protecting in turn, but will not hesitate to burn if mistreated. His intrest in Arsenal Halo is partly academic, having gained an intrest in ancient and rare lore in the ensuring destruction of the Upsurpation. The rest, well... that's anyone's guess.)
Resources 2 - (Family Allowance)
(Halo may be a black sheep of the Arsenal merchant family, but he's still one of thier sons, and as such, isn't exactly going hungry any time soon. But more expensive purchases may need some rather good explinations(or excuses), and so Halo is slightly limited in what he can purchase in civilizied areas.)
Charms:
Melee
Golden Essence Block
Dipping Swallow Defense
Craft
Flawless Handiwork Method
Investigation
Ten Magistrate Eyes
Medicine
Body Mending Meditation
Flawless Diagnosis Technique
Occult
Spirit Detecting Glance
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Spells
Summon First Circle Demon
Summon Elemental
Summoning the Azure Chariot
Virtue(5):
Compassion ***
Conviction **
Temperance ***
Valor *
Virtue Flaw: Red Rage of Compassion
Willpower: 8 Essence Rating(all start with 2, none above 5): 3 Essence Pool
Personal (Essence x 3) + Willpower = 17 Peripheral (Essence x 7) + Willpower + (Sum of Virtues) = 38
Health Levels
-0 X
-1 X X
-2 X X
-4 X
Incapacitated X
History
Arsenal Halo was born to a well-to-do merchant family within a Realm-owned Treshhold Patrician state. The Arsenal Clan, having a long line of rather infamous and wealthy merchants, was rather dismayed to learn that one of thier own held little to no grasp of instinctive monetary matters or the desire to learn. As a child, Halo grew into a role of a sequestered book-learned savant. His intelligence gave his family hope, and his immeadiate parentals, having moved onto other children, kept hope that thier first born would eventually come around back to the fold. Because of this, they humored him, up to and included a schooling that most children in the Second Age rarely have the oppertunity to aquire. Halo's mother, finally realizing the oppertunity her son offered, pressured Halo's father to send Halo off to a more prestigious finishing school, where Halo quickly picked up the arts of savantry and study of First Age lore.
Upon reaching legal age, Halo once again dissappointed the hopes of his merchant family and dissappeared into the Threshhold from thier prying eyes and ears. Halo was determined, as he had promised himself from an early age, to see the ruins of the grand First Age and plumb it's secrets, no matter the cost. While Halo initially started out as naive, innocent, and relatively unexperienced in the ways of the world, he -was- skilled, not only in Lore, but the Occult and Medicine as well. Many expiditions that would have frowned at taking a wet behind the ears scholar were willing to bring along someone who would serve a purpose in the group, and Halo was atleast capable of carrying his own.
Time passed, Halo survived, which marked him a good ways above most of his peers. In his thirst for knowledge, Halo settled amoung a tribe of once wanderers that had settled near the remains of a First Age manse, deep in the Threshhold. Finally, Halo saw the oppertunity to devote years of concentrated study without distractions, and gradually won himself a position in the tribe, primarily due to his knowledge of Lore, Occult, and Medicine, taking a loving and willing wife from thier number.
Time continued to pass, though that mattered little to him, having effectively found what he had been searching for in his life.
Halo was involved in a heavy research of one of the more deadlier parts of the ruins whenever he bid goodday to his wife, she having trekked all the way to where her husband obsessively laboured over ancient scripts to impart sustenace and companionship. One hour later after her return, her remains were gutted upon the hearth of her home, the rest of her tribe having been slaughtered by band of Wyld Raiders in a planned assault.
This is the way Halo found her when he returned, and where the gap in his memory of that day begins. To this day, Halo refuses to recall what transpired, from finding his wife dead to flicking the remains of the cheif of the Wyld Raiders off the end of his Orihalcon Direlance.
Halo had Exalted as one of the Solar God Kings, a Twilight, and the shock of the circumstances of his Exaltation threw him into an immediate limit break. His previous incarnation had been entombed within the First Age ruins that Halo had been studying, giving him quick access to resources that he'd need to do what he now yearned for. Moving past defenses that had previous stymied Halo in thier complexity, he retreived his weapons and artifacts from his grave and immeadiately set out to kill those whom had destroyed his life. Upon tracing down the Raiders whom, beleiving no foes had been left alive behind them, had not tried to hide thier travel, and killed each and every one of them without mercy.
Emotionally drained, weak from exertion, mentally in shock over all that occured, Halo was not in the best condition to realize his new status as an Anathema.
What He Is
Halo is a scholar, a savant, a doctor. While he has skill enough with his Dire Lance, that is secondary to his purpose. He -is- a Twlight, in every sense of the word - knowledge is his lifeblood, his thirst, his obession. Physically and mentally, he is well enough together - emotionally, he is suffering from the loss of a life, a love, and all the perceptions he had learned as a citizen of a patrician state of the Realm. Halo could come across as timid, unsure, almost shy, unless it has to do with Lore or the Occult, in which he does not know when to shut up. He is a man at odds with that of his internal rage - his limit - and struggles to contain it within after seeing the horrific results. Despite his inner demons, he is friendly enough, though he has slowly cultured a surprising, even to him, hatred of senseless barbarism and that of the Wyld, along with that of willful ignorance.
Halo has normal brown hair kept short and brushed back out of the way. His eyes are an unnatural purple, and he often times affects the habit of wearing spectcles for studying glyps and ancient script. He prefers jackets to cloaks, and would rarely affect heavy armour. He typically wears traveling boots, rugged canvas pants, and a sturdy silk white traveling shirt for ease of travel, and will occasionally wear a hat. He has a weakness for tea, rarely pays attention to the weather, and his favorite colour is blue.
How They Met
The insence burned his throat as wisps of grey smoke wafted upward from the bowl. Feet tucked under him for lack of anything else to do with them, blank eyes stared as the perfumed sticks burned.
Arsenal Halo had never been all that religious, neither to the Little Gods nor to the Immaculate Faith, but he knew enough from book learning to put a soul to rest and make sure that thier passage would be a smooth one. At the moment, it was all he could do - the only thing he could do.
The Wyld Barbarians, however, had not received such nicities, and Halo didn't care one whit. Let them rot.
He didn't know how long he had stayed that way - long enough for the inscene to burn down and the burning in his throat to become a dull ache - when the whisper of slipper clad feet against the cool stone floor roused him from his vigil. Compared to the previous silence of the 'temple' - really a simple stone building that had weathered time better than most and proved a good place for the tribe to sacrifice and pray as was needed - it might as well have been a blood-curdling yell.
The man that had intruded on his ruminations of nothing - that it was a man was plain to see - was ill dressed for someone so deep in the scavenger lands. Silken robes clothed him in various colours of jade, thier surface embroided with the glitter of fine metals and craftsmanship to make even the most learned tradesman weep for the skill that was nessecary to produce such a thing. His head was bald in the fashion of the Immaculate monks, but a fringe of long, fine, white hair rimmed the bottom of his skull and fell down his shoulders, along with a fine, straight beard that was coffered and tied neatly in the front with silken bows. His eyes were old, and neither evil nor compassionate, but merely, in the end, neutral.
"Yes," he observed, shifting slightly as he moved further into the temple. "It seems I owe you an apology, oh Exalted one." Silence. When Halo made no comment, he continued. "I promised to protect them, you know," he explained, guesturing slightly as if to say 'all of this'. "A long, long time ago. When they first came to me, and thier Shamen asked for my blessing, which I gave." He gave a long, rattling sigh. "And it seems I cannot be everywhere, or this would not have happened. And for that, I am sorry."
Silence.
"Well," he murmured, "It also seems I owe you a favour, as well. Your vengence was swift and sure, and while I know you did not do as such for me, I will offer you my graciousness despite this, oh Prince of the Earth."
Something in that seemed to rouse Halo, abit of his old self that had been subsumed in his fury coming back to the fore. "Ah, I, ah... I thank you, oh honored one, but, ah... I'm not so much a Prince as maybe, well, -Anathema-..."
"Oh, but you are," the man(?) corrected, guesturing to where Halo sat. "One of the Copper Spiders, if I don't miss my guess. A Twilight, the learned aspect of the Unconquered Sun. While your, ah, anserw to the problem was less than elegant," he mused, "You are still quite the scholar."
"I... I'm sorry, but I don't quite know what you mean," Halo apologized, looking confused and intrested in equal measure.
The man smiled. "Then come, and I will explain all this, and more besides it. For now, you will be an honored guest in my great house, oh Prince of the Earth. I am the Lesser Elemental Dragon of Fire, Scorched Earth, and there shall be no more killings today."
Sunlight's Grasping Will, Artifact *
Attunement: 2 motes Appaerance: In it's inactive form, this highly useful artifact appears to be simply a thin gold band wrapped around one wrist; on closer inspection, one will note the skin-tight closeness of this band, yet lack of restriction for the wearer. When in use, this artifact silently uncoils from the wrist of it's user, and despite it's apperance as a nearly invisble string of orihalcon, can be employed as a weapon of grappling, as a climbing tool, and as a method of retreival of small objects, up to and including the users personal attuned weapon. Mechanics: Sunlight's Grasping Will can extend and strike/attach itself to objects up to 15 yards/meters away from the user. This requires a standard success for immobile ojects. The Thread can also be used for grappling, wrapping itself around a target at standard difficulty of one; The person now entangled can be pulled to the ground by the user making a Strength + Melee roll in opposition to the target's Dex + Resistence. Also, specific targets, such as an arm, leg, or target's weapon can be made at difficulty three. If the arm of the target is entangled it gives a +2 penalty for all actions using that arm; If the leg is entangled, the target receives a +2 difficulty for being knocked to the ground; If the weapon is entangled, it imposes a +2 difficutly on using it and allows the Thread weilder the attempt to disarm the target as normal. In order for the target to slip free from his bounds, he must make a Dex + Atheletics roll at diffuculty 3; if suceded, the Thread slips from around him and retracts obidiently to it's owner.
Weapon: Imagery. 'The White Cross'. 7 feet of molded orihalcon and 3 feet of blade. A Lance of the most obscene kind. Weilded with consumate skill.
"A twin-pronged orihalcon dire lance that seems capable of discharging bursts of light from within the two spars - backfire from this weapon is ejected along the 'hilt' cross-section of the lance, creating a 'cross' feature when firing."
White Cross is a crafted length of White Jade, steel, and Orihalcon, massive in length and girth. The fighting end is a double-pronged blade of orihalcon shaped and sized in the manner of a daiklaive. The defense end flares outward into a blunt curved edged.
'thick-handled, broad-headed, two-handed spear'
How The World Sees Him
Halo's short-cut brown hair is often windblown, pushed back in fits of thought yet still falling forward in tufts with movement. Purple eyes contain the quiet apperance of maturity whenever he chooses to look someone straight on; a rarity. His face is neither overly rugged nor effiminate, but his appearance is enough to garner notice, however slight, from even the most jaded of individuals. His manner is that of dawdling, thoughtful, absentminded. Only the hardening around the eyes could possibly hint at the keenness of a sizeable intellect and the perception rivaling the most dogged of investigators. Put together, not much happens around him without him noticing, or peicing it together as a larger whole.
Halo knows things.
He wears clothes built for travel. His brown leather jacket is of a make not found in this age, but it's apperance constrasts that. The miricle of leather, that toughens as it ages. Halo doesn't have to worry about much while wearing this jacket. White slik traveling shirt, rugged canvas pants, boots that could travel to hell and back. Twin leather belts encircle his waist, one side riding lower than the other. Strapped to his back is the laquered black sheath of a slashing sword, it's hilt set over his shoulder. At his feet is a long, rectangular crate with a handle attached and it's lid snapped shut. Within are Halo's 'tools', or so he says. Whatever lies within there is up to the imagination.
His Past Still Lingers With Her
Pacifica, Princess of the Deceived Moon
Thick silver hair, changed from the walnut brown it had been before her ascension as one of the Lunar Exalted, falls from her shoulders, speading outward to flow back inward to a gradual termination somewhere below her waist. Her skin is flawless, obsidion black - now it's covered in a network of silver ideogram and runes along her back, legs, shoulder, and sides. Eyes, crimson, liquid, like that of a prey's newly fallen blood.
Sense of dress: Pants, for ease of running - short ,simple skirt covered by a longer skirt open in the front whenever she wishes to affect any sense of 'fashion'. Travel tends to be by animal form, and thus she tends to eschew any lack of heavy covering, settling for a simple long-sleeved shirt whenever appearing in any civilized area.
Totem: Snake
"Legends tell us that the first spy in history was the snake..."
Tell: A black hairless tail from the base of the spine narrowing to a fine point - the colour black is effectively her tell, and this is how it shows in her human form.
Weapon of choice: Moonsilver throwing stars - you've seen Alien Vs Predator? The throwing stars the Predator used? Yes, THOSE throwing stars.
History: You loved secrets, from childhood to adulthood - the secrets that get you in trouble, the secrets you loved to keep. And, eventually, the secrets that almost killed you.
Pacifica was once the princess of one of the many thousands of kingdoms within the Scavenger Lands - the daughter of the taken bride from the south of a proud king, accounting for her colouration. She had an older sister from her father's previous marraige, and she was the start of the tragedy. No one wished to speak of it, but everyone, from the king himself to her mother to the peasents feared her, and her odd manners. Whispers of diaboloism and pacts with the undead spread quickly, and may very well have been true, but none dared to confirm it, least of all Pacifica herself. While she loved secrets, and tried at every oppertunity to search out the secrets her sister might have posessed, something held her back. Then things began to worsen - her father took ill, and peasentry began to disappear into the forest during the day and at dark. Fear became full-blown paranoia, and once Pacifica's father died, her mother could take it no longer - she ordered the kingdom's troops to assemble, track down the elder sister, and kill her.
They did. And brought her heart back as proof - until night fell, and the heart began to beat once more, and the dying start, as Pacifica's elder sister, a Ghost-blooded, began to slaughter indiscriminately.
Pacifica ran. And ran. And then fell, and was stabbed in the chest, once, by her elder sister - but didn't die. Instead, her older sister left her for dead amidst the burning ruins of her kingdom - but Pacifica, half-mad from delirum and bloodloss, the knife still impaled in her chest, lurched forward, and began to walk - each step an agony, each movement without purpose beyond the mad desire to run, to get away, to survive.
For 7 days and 7 nights Pacifica walked, the knife keeping the blood loss to a minimum, but death was certain - the knife was too close to the heart, and thus, to remove it would mean certain death.
Overall, the entire charachter sheet is rather incomplete, in my eye. There are still places that need to be flushed out, so to speak, and it's hardly organized in form, but... I like it, and it helps me remember where Halo comes from.
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