Will/RainofAshes
Name: Rain of Ashes (Eiyaza Tarok)
Caste: Day
Liege: Mask of Winters
Nature: Paragon (Abyssal)
Attributes
Strength 3, Dexterity 5, Stamina 3
Charisma 4, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3
Perception 2, Intelligence 2, Wits 3
Abilities
Favored Abilities: Archery 3, Athletics 3, Awareness 2, Dodge 4, Endurance 2, Martial Arts 5, Presence 3, Socialize 2.
Non-Favored Abilities: Linguistics 1 (Old Realm, Riverspeak), Lore 3, Occult 2, Survival 1.
Backgrounds
Artifact 3
Rain of Ashes owns three artifacts. Two are soulsteel plasma tongue repeaters, modified to use six-shot charges. These were christened Executioner and Judge by the Mask of Winters. His soulsteel Hearthstone Amulet, shaped like a skeletal hand, hangs at his breast and clutches the Gemstone of Murder tightly.
Liege 3
Prior to his master's disappearance, Rain of Ashes was a loyal bodyguard and servant. Afterwards, he hoarded what was left of the Mask of Winters' treasures. Therefore, he gains six Background Points for use with specific Backgrounds.
Manse 2
Encased in its own Scavenger Lands shadowland, the Citadel of Murder's Respite was originally Eiyaza Tarok's home and the seat of power for the kingdom that once stood there. It is a beautiful multi-story castle of obsidian and bone, functioning as a home and vault for Rain of Ashes and is protected from fate's prying eyes much like he is. It produces the Gemstone of Murder and also stores his Monstrance of Celestial Portion.
Resources 4
Stolen from Mask of Winters' citadel and stashed in the Citadel of Murder's Respite, Rain of Ashes' treasure is enough to last him for a very long time.
Whispers 2
The Malfeans reach Rain of Ashes' mind faintly and rarely, but when they do their whispers always pertain to The Man With Garments Drenched In Darkness.
Merits
Ambidextrous I - Rain of Ashes is capable of using his left hand as readily as his right, and suffers no off-hand penalties.
Hidden Manse II - The Citadel of Murder's Respite was created by the Mask of Winters with special geomantic properties, and is immune to divination through fate or sorcery. Furthermore, it has been cunningly hidden within the shadowlands and is no easy task to find.
Flaws
Disturbing I - Exudes aura of menace, -1 for Social rolls not based around intimidation.
Known Anathema II - Rain is known by the Wyld Hunt as a deathknight, but they can never seem to track him down.
Virtues: Compassion 1, Conviction 3, Temperance 3, Valor 2
Willpower: 6
Essence: 3 (Personal 15/15, Peripheral 30/36, 6 motes committed.)
Resonance: 0
Charms
Cold-Hearted Void Consideration
Cost: 1 mote per die
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
The deathknight may choose to either subtract one die from her target's first defensive action or add one die to the damage of the attack, up to a limit of her Dexterity + Martial Arts in dice. Both functions may be invoked in the same use of the Cold-Hearted Void Consideration, as long as the Abyssal can pay for each.
Invocation of the Hekatonkhire
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
The player activates the Charm and doubles the damage done on a successful Martial Arts attack using a firewand or some similar weapon. The bonus damage is applied before the target rolls to soak.
Mortwight's Swift Judgment
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
The Exalt readies his firewand and fires instantly. Not only does it surprise his opponent, 'shooting from the hip' gains him 1 point of Initiative per point of permanent Essence.
Benediction of the Knowing Void Meditation
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Until fired
Type: Simple
The Essence spent is committed until fired. Add the character's permanent Essence in damage dice to an attack with a single firewand, and have it deal aggravated damage against creatures of the Celestial Bureaucracy (little gods, Sidereals, etc.). This damage cannot be increased or doubled by another Charm, and this Charm can only be used on one firewand at a time. If two firewands are enchanted, it requires two turns.
Spiraling Blackness Stance
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
After an attack with a firewand, the character may spend the Essence cost and make a Reflexive (Wits + Martial Arts) roll, difficulty 2. If successful, the weapon is reloaded without need for ammunition and can be fired in the next round. Failure indicates that the weapon is not reloaded, and a botch does something very unpleasant with those clouds of firedust and Abyssal Essence.
Elegant Tyrant's Majesty
Cost: 6 motes
Duration: One hour
Type: Simple
Bureaucracy, Presence, and Socialize rolls made under the influence of this Charm have the deathknight's permanent Essence added to their dice pools. This also applies to intimidation.
Raiton's Nimble Perch
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Reflexive
The Abyssal using this Charm can balance on objects too weak or light to support his weight, and does not have to make Athletics rolls pertaining to graceful movement or keeping his footing except under the most extreme circumstances.
Fivefold Sensory Exercise
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
This Charm adds the character's permanent Essence to Awareness rolls and can differentiate sensations far more readily than normal. The Exalt is not any more susceptible to sensory overload than usual.
Flitting Shadow Form
Cost: 1 mote per 2 dice
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
For every mote spent, the Abyssal reduces the dice pool of a single attack by two dice. This Charm can only target attacks aimed specifically at the Exalt and may reduce a dice pool to zero, thus causing the attack to automatically miss. This Charm can be activated after an attack is declared but but before dice are rolled, and only works on attacks the deathknight is aware of.
Fivefold Shadow Form
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
The attacker loses a number of dice from a single attack roll equal to the deathknight's
(Dodge + Essence). If this reduces the attack dice pool to zero, the attack automatically misses.
Equipment
Executioner (Plasma Tongue Repeater, Soulsteel): +5 Accuracy (13/15-die attack pool), 10L Damage, Rate 2, Range 20, Ammo 6.
Judge (Plasma Tongue Repeater, Soulsteel): +5 Accuracy (13/15-die attack pool), 10L Damage, Rate 2, Range 20, Ammo 6.
Each of these black-metal guns vaguely resembles a small rifle, sized and molded for one-handed use. The barrels are perfectly circular, thin and supported at their bases by black ash, with a small ring around the end. There's a rectangular opening just above where the thumb rests, where the thin alchemical cartridges can be inserted. Executioner's engravings are of scythes and swords, while Judge's metal seems to have a rope pattern etched into the metal.
Hearthstone Amulet: Carries Gemstone of Murder, shaped like a clutching skeletal hand when holding a Hearthstone and a slack skeletal hand when empty.
Gemstone of Murder: A slick egg-shaped crimson stone that exudes the scent of freshly-spilled blood after a kill and beats like a heart as the moment of death draws closer. Every time the wearer kills any living creature of mouse size or larger with his bare hands, he regains a number of motes equal to its permanent Essence score. If he kills an intelligent being, he doubles the number of motes regained. No motes are gained for "killing" spirits unless they are permanently destroyed.
PTR Ammunition: Roughly fifty charges (three hundred shells) in total. Rain generally carries ten charges (sixty shells) with him, including the two pre-loaded charges.
Dodge: 12
Soak: 3B/1L
Health Levels: -0 [ ] / -1 [ ][ ] / -2 [ ][ ] / -4 [ ] / Incap [ ]
Experience: 0 XP unused, 0 XP spent.
Appearance: Rain of Ashes is a striking man, tall, lean, and of clear Southern heritage. His irises are pale blue, almost blending into the whites of his eyes, while his hair is coal-black and kept long, often tied into a topknot. Rain is clad in funerary garb at all times, wearing skintight grey clothes with flowing sleeves and a black head-wrapping that his hair and forehead. Over this is a simple black cloak that conceals the black-leather, rune-inscribed holsters strapped on his thighs to facilitate his cross-draw. His features, noble and somewhat-drawn, are usually impassive but quickly shift to tempestuous anger when sufficiently provoked.
Personality: Rain of Ashes' mind is a chaotic whirl of thoughts and emotions pertaining to righteousness, his master, and, increasingly, of the man in black. These thoughts do not show on his stone features, but even during combat or social interactions, Rain's thoughts inevitably drift back to those three subjects. He's intensely loyal to the Mask of Winters, and considers him as the only being worthy of his service. The Deathlord's recent disappearance has shaken him greatly, and he has fixated on this black-clad deathknight as the source of his answers. Justice, to him, is the lightning-fast delivery of death to those unworthy of existance. Rain of Ashes seeks the pinnacle of his Judicious Revenant Style to fully learn the truths of righteousness and vengeance, and wishes to demonstrate its ultimate technique to the being responsible for his master's disappearance.
Backstory: Eiyaza Tarok was one of the many royal scions born in the Hundred Kingdoms, coming into existance in RY 743 as the son of a noble Easterner and his Southern mistress. His father was cold and distant, constantly concerned with financial and martial matters, leaving his upbringing to the family weapons master. The weapons master, an Earth Aspect by the name of Soaring Eagle, taught him the rudiments of martial arts while drumming philosophy and the 'finer arts' into his recalcitrant head. Through this regimen, Tarok grew from an unruly beast of a child into a composed, intensely-focused young man.
Called into battle against another kingdom, Tarok proudly went to the front lines and displayed discipline and skill against their foes, eventually forcing the far-greater enemy force into one final battle. The bloodshed on that day was great and terrible, and in the end both armies were decimated. Surrounded on all sides by spearmen, Eiyaza Tarok fought to the last with fist and foot, felling half before being pierced by their lances.
It was at that very moment that the Mask of Winters and his legions took to the fields, drawn like wolves to the slaughter. In Tarok he saw great potential, and slew the remaining soldiers before taking the mostly dead princeling back to Thorns. There, confronted with the world-shaking charisma of the Mask, Tarok swore eternal loyalty to him and the Neverborn. On that day, Eiyaza Tarok forsook his name and heritage, becoming the Rain of Ashes. For years he trained under the best of the Mask of Winters' men, ghosts and deathknights alike, before taking up the twin guns of the Judicious Revenant Style.
His first shots fired from his guns shattered his past; Judge felled his old, ailing father while Executioner took the wind from Soaring Eagle's wings. Systematically, he felled the entirity of the little kingdom, and claimed the shadowland formed there for his liege. The Citadel of Murder's Respite was raised up from the Underworld and through the flaming ruins of the kingdom's castle, as the landscape was warped and twisted to redirect the fell Essence into the Manse.
For twenty-five years, Rain of Ashes served as the Mask of Winters' personal bodyguard, supplanting those with greater combat skills with his sheer loyalty and potential. Though the Mask was indubitably capable of detecting and eliminating traitors among his deathknights and undead servitors, it pleased him to have a pair of eyes, attached to a pair of very deadly guns, watching out for him constantly.
Mask of Winters' sudden disappearance, along with his other deathknights and servants, left Rain of Ashes adrift and without guidance. Returning to his master's Underworld citadel before the scavengers could plunder it, he took what valuables he could, along with his Monstrance, and returned them to his shadowland castle. Pledging on his existence and guns, Rain of Ashes set out to find his master, guided by the whispers of the Neverborn that inexorably lead him to the man in black..
