Davidl/EightCurses
Name: Eight Curses\\ Caste: Full Moon\\ Nature: Critic\\ Totem: Crow\\ Tell: Black crow feathers, which tend to appear in his hair and be left behind him as he moves or changes form.\\ Concept: Jaded Ascetic\\
Attributes:\\ Strength 3, Dexterity 5, Stamina 4\\ Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2\\ Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 5
Favored Abilities:\\ Athletics 2, Endurance 3, Martial Arts 4, Presence 2, Survival 3\\ Other Abilities:\\ Awareness 2, Dodge 3, Larceny 1, Lore 2, Occult 1, Resistance 1, Socialize 1, Stealth 2
Backgrounds: Contacts 3, Heart's Blood 3, Manse 1
Virtues: Compassion 2, Conviction 3, Temperance 1, Valor 3\\ Virtue Flaw: Curse of the Heartless Weasel (Conviction)\\ Renown: 20 [Nain-Ya], Succor 5, Mettle 6, Cunning 4, Glory 5\\
Willpower: 6\\ Health: -0,-1,-1,-1,-1,-2,-2,-4,Incap\\ Essence: 2\\ Essence pool: 14/32(32)\\ Experience: 0
Charms:
- Shapechanging\\
Hide of the Cunning Hunter, Finding the Spirit's Shape
- Body Enhancement\\
Ox-Body Technique (-1 -1)
- Unarmed Combat\\
Body Weapon Technique, Deadly Claw Blow, Claws of the Silver Moon, Adder Fang Method
- Defensive\\
Steel Paw Style, Feline Guard Technique
- Spirit\\
Spirit-Scenting Technique Combos:
- Steel-Fang Asp Strike: Deadly Claw Blow + Adder Fang Method + Steel Paw Style + Feline Guard Technique
Contacts: nephew (say, a respected hemp merchant in Great Forks), two undetermined: maybe a one-time lover and a Silver Pact member - a very distant Mentor or a recently-exalted Lunar Curses was initiated with\\ Heart's Blood: Crow (totem), Buzzard, Asp, Puma, Dog, House Cat, Wolf, Deer, Horse, Catfish, Owl, Black Bear\\ Manse: Level 2 Demesne, a Water-aspected grove in a swampy area near the banks of the Yellow River, about 5 days east of Great Forks
Combat:\\ Base initiative: 10\\ Soak: 4B/2L/0A (unarmored)\\ Dodge: 9\\ Attacks:\\ Bare Hands (speed 10, accuracy 9, damage 3B, parry 9)\\ Kick (speed 7, accuracy 8, damage 5B, parry 8)\\ Claws of the Silver Moon (speed 16, accuracy 10, damage 6L, parry 10)\\ Silver Moon Bite (speed 10, accuracy 11, damage 8L, parry 9)\\ Staff (speed 10, accuracy 3, damage 5L, parry 2)
Character Comments Description
My inspiration for this character started with wondering how I could make a young Lunar who was also good at martial arts (I've mapped him out to 200 exps, and Snake Form up to Essence Fangs and Scales has excellent synergy with Lunar unarmed charms). Being some kind of monk sprang naturally from that, and making him an ascetic gave it the Lunar twist. I also wanted to see if I could make a combat-focused Lunar without using Deadly Beastman. Clearly, Curses loses out a bit on pure combat to a Lunar with DBT, but the couple points of stats he lacks are balanced a bit by his deepness in the Charm trees, and his ability to function on the edges of "mainstream" Threshold society without drawing too much attention to his nature is an added bonus.
Starting with his Crow totem and no Humble Mouse Shape may be a judgment call for some GMs; my defense is that I've certainly seen crows as big as cats.
Curses tried to believe, when he was younger, but gave it up long ago as a sport for the wet-behind-the-ears. He left his wealthy home in Great Forks at the age of 25 to seek enlightenment in the wilds like Siddhartha; he searched for almost 50 years and didn't find it. He tried drugs, he tried asceticism, he tried philosophy, he tried fasting, he tried tantric sex, he tried flagellation, he tried martial arts, he tried mysticism, he even tried moderation, he tried almost everything under the sun that men use to gain insight and failed. For the final 30 years of his mortal life he wandered the Scavenger Lands as an increasingly bitter itinerant monk of no fixed religion, begging for scraps and living off his wits, too jaded to pay lip service to a monastic order for the luxury of a roof over his head and too set in his ways to give up his life and settle down as a merchant or some such.
Until, a few years ago, as he lay dehydrated and starving in the wilds, swatting weakly at approaching buzzards with his stick, by all rights a dead man but too stubborn to give up, Luna came to him. "You, who have fought for so long against the world, I give a means to keep fighting and keep living. Use it as you see best." He felt a strength filling his limbs he hadn't felt for 60 years, and then some, and knew he'd never have to beg for food, or indeed anything else, ever again. That was almost enough to give him a purpose, and he lived for a brief while in a bliss like he had never known, confident that he had been chosen by Luna for something more, even if she had not deigned to say what that was.
That is, until the Silver Pact found him, and explained that he now belonged to some sort of cult of Luna which sounded suspiciously like any number of cults he had joined and left in his long life. He knew what to do; he listened politely and attentively to what they said and regurgitated the platitudes they spouted until they seemed satisfied enough to teach him, and he learned what they had to teach until they were unwilling or unable to teach him more. He proved himself in their trials (during which he bested in combat a ruby-eyed serpent of mist and claimed its Demesne), which were in nature like trials he had taken in other times and places, and accepted their trifling praise for their completion. Then he thanked them humbly and profusely from behind a manufactured smile and took up his robe and stick, which was all he had ever really owned, and set out into the world again, to continue living for the sake of living.
Curses appears as a bent old man in his 70's with a long scraggly white beard and long scraggly white hair, wearing a threadbare and well-patched robe of indeterminate color and carrying a stick which he seems to need to support himself. Aside from a wooden begging bowl and a bag which usually contains little aside from a half a crust of stale bread and a pot of alcohol (when he can get it), he has no other possessions. He enjoys the facade of a crotchety old man, as aside from his faked infirmity he is indeed every bit the crotchety old man he appears to be. When they appear, his tattoos are simple lines and sworls defining his form, in a tarnished-silver black.
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I like. Well written, not too long, but clearly identifying many things about the character. I'm especially fond of the relationship between the Silver Pact, and the many other cult-like societies in Creation. -- GreenLantern
