Kraken/GloriousCarmineElegance

Glorious Carmine Elegance

Caste: Dawn
Nature: Thrillseeker
Concept: Berserking Sword-Dancer
XP: 0 unspent, 0 total
Player: Kraken
Game: HighPulp

Description

Glorious Carmine Elegance is a tall and graceful woman with a mass of wavey red hair that is as often worn loose as it is plaited into an elaborate arrangement of braids. Her eyes are a deep dark brown, and her lips are full. Carmine's skin is a smooth expanse of perfectly bronzed flesh, and though she is not overly muscled, anyone running a hand over that skin will find it firm below their hand.

Carmine typically dresses in just five pieces of silk: One band across her chest, tied behind her back; One peice about her waist, held up at the side with a complex golden clasp and then two silk ribbons, one tied to each wrist. A silk strap, from shoulder to waist, acts to hold the sheath for Eminence, hilt protruding over one shoulder. Held up by the same strap is a small bag containing Carmine's possesions, and a brace of javelins. Simple canvas sandels protect her feet.

Her anima starts as a faint glow, growing in brightness as she channels more essence, growing deeper and redder until finally a woman of sunlit flames with a spear of pure dawnlight and armour of shimming gold appears above her, long violet tresses blowing in the wind.

History

The sun shines down on the battlefield.
The sun shines down on a field of corpes.
The sun shines down on a small circle of men and demigods.

In the middle of the small circle , a woman dances. Her red hair flows in the breeze and a golden glow surrounds her. She is clad simply, in five peices of silk. Her skin is marred by many cuts, and her body is covered in blood. The weapon in her hand is made of sunlight and it weaves complex patterns on the air. She does not know why she dances, only that she must. She does not know who she dances with, only that she is. She does not know how to lose, and so she will win.

A violet haze surrounds her, when one of the men slices clumsily with the brutal sword in his hands. She is aware of the blow, lets it hit, red motes seeping into her skin, the blade not even breaking the skin as the sunlight blade reaches out, severing the man's head from his body cleanly. Defensive instinct takes over as one of the demigods, a woman clad in jade, strikes with long and thin blade, parry and counterstroke simultaneous. Crimson sunlight deflects the sliver of glass as the jade of her breastplate is sundered, blood spurting from the wound with the scent of roses, the wood aspect falling back. The other two mortals attack, blades falling loosely from their hands as they strike the woman's skin, her counterstrikes openning their chests to the desert air. The Earth Aspect's attacks are parried almost before they are launched, used to give impetus to a spin. He flares desperately, a mountain appearing above him as he frantically channels essence into his skin, hardening it again the riposte, the twin slices still scoring him deeply.

Having followed in the dance, now it is her time to lead, and lead she does, the sunlight in her hand glowing with white heat as she launches the trio of cuts at the Earth aspect. He falls, stomach spilled onto the sands, arm hanging half detached, neck half missing. There are just two dance partners now, leaves surrounding one, a woman of flame dancing above the other, the scent of blood and roses hanging in the air. The pair trade blows as they dance across the boiling sands and scattered bodies, before one of them falls.

The red haired woman relaxes, now that the threat has passed. With some small measure of sorrow, she drops out of her fighting stance, sheathing the golden blade. A bird alights on her outstretched hand, and she knows it. She talks with it a while, but it can tell her nothing, and so she bids it take wing again. She starts to look over the bodies of the dead, for any clues to their identity ... none, save for the eye shaped sigil on the palms of their hands. The sigil means nothing to her, and so she gathers the bodies, takes what food and water she can find, and then piles the bodies with some of the dryed grass growing nearby.

As she walks away across the desert, the plume of smoke rises up into the clear desert air.

Attributes

Strength: 2, Dexterity: 5, Stamina: 4

Charisma: 3, Manipulation: 2, Appearance: 4

Perception: 2, Intelligence: 2, Wits: 3

Abilities

• Dawn
  • Martial Arts 1
  • Melee 5
  • Thrown 1
• Zenith
  • Endurance 3
  • Performance 2
  • Presence 1
  • Resistance 5
  • Survival 3
• Twilight
  • Lore 1
  • Medicine 1
• Night
  • Athletics 2
  • Awareness 3
  • Dodge 1
• Eclipse

Languages: Flametongue

Tempers

Essence: 2
Willpower: 8/8

Compassion: 2, Conviction: 3, Temperance: 2, Valor 3.

Essence pool:
14 Personal | 26(32) Peripheral | Committed 6

Health Levels:
-0/-1x4/-2x6/-4/Incap

Advantages

SolarCharms

• Melee
  • Golden Essence Block
    • 1m/2 die
  • Dipping Swallow Defence
    • 2m per parry
  • Solar Counterattack
    • 3m to launch a counterattack in response to incoming attack.
• Endurance
  • Ox-Body Technique

• • Essence Gathering Temper
    • 1m to roll to regain Essence
• Resistance
  • Durability Of Oak Meditation
    • 1m per 2B Soak added.
  • Spirit Strengthens The Skin
    • 2m+wp to convert B soak to L
  • Iron Skin Concentration
    • 3m to reduce damage to minium.
• Survival
  • Hardship Surviving Mendicant Spirit
    • 5m for virtual immunity to adverse conditions
• Medicine
  • Body Mending Meditation
    • 10m to heal quicker

Combos

• Crimson Sunrise A faint violet tinge fills the air around Carmine as the the Sunrise starts, building into red arcs that guide her weapon in defence or vicious counterstroke, webs of red essence hardening her skin further when strikes pentrate her defences, the red fading to true sunlight as more essence is channelled.
  • Golden Essence Block
  • Dipping Swallow Defence
  • Solar Counterattack
  • Iron Skin Concentration
  • Essence Gathering Temper

Backgrounds

• Artifact 3 ( Eminence)
• Familiar 2
• Manse 2

Expanded Backgrounds

• Familiar 2
  • Hawk (more description)

Magical Posessions

The Quiet Oasis

 Manse ••
 Aspect: Water

Out in the desert near to Gem, the Quiet Oasis sits. Surrounded by trees and all manner of plants, it appears to be a small slice of heaven in the harshness of the desert. No animals come to drink here though, no birds live in the branches of the trees and none of the desert tribes visit if they can help it. The reason for this might not be obvious at first, but anyone sampling the fruits or supping on the water is likely to find out soon. Any toxins or diseases the bearer of the Hearthstone has been exposed to taint the waters and contaminate the fruits, the toxins persisting for months after the exposure. In addition, if the wearer of the stone should bleed, instead the pool will fill with blood.

A small island in the middle of the Oasis, if carefully searched, will yield a series off steps that descend to caves carved into the rock, pleasantly cool even at the height of the day, the hearthstone chamber at the very base of the manse, where the plinth sits in a pool of icecool water, drawn up from the Dragonline running through the sands below. The Quiet Oasis produces a Blood Stone.

Quick Combat Stats

(not accurate yet)
Base Init: 8
Dodge: 8
Soak: 2L/4B or 13L/13B

Melee Acc: 16
Melee Def: 13
Melee Dmg: 12L
Melee Spd: 15
Melee Rate: 5

Ranged Acc: 7
Ranged Dmg: 5L(P)
Ranged Spd: 9 (When in melee range)
Ranged Rate: 2
Ranged Range: 30 yards

Merits And Flaws

Prodigy (Melee) - Carmine weilds all manner of melee weapons as easily as she breathes, flowing into attacks and defences alike with a grace and poise that is staggering to behold.

Amensia - The fight in the deep desert is the first thing Carmine remembers. She has no idea as to the identity of the people who she killed, or why they might have attacked her. She knows just three things from the time before. Her name, the location of the Quiet Oasis and that somehow, she is special, to someone or something.

Nightmares - Carmine is plagued by dreams, bad dreams. In the dreams she sees images of a city torn apart, armies butchered, the buildings aflame. And always she is helpless to do anything, a mute observer as the metropolis disintergrates before her eyes. She has no idea as to the location of the city, the identity of the attackers, when the attack was or will be, or even if the city is real and not dream spun imagination.

Known Anathema •• - Eminence is a weapon with a past, though Carmine has only the barest idea of this, merely feeling a link to the weapon through the attunement. The wyld hunt, on the other hand, has heard the rumours that Enimence has been found once more, and is in the hands of one of the Forsaken and rightly, those in charge fear this. A group has been dispatched to verify the rumours, and to ...deal with the threat.