Moxiane/DawnBreeze

Dawn Breeze

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Childhood

Born in Salt-Founded Glory in the Shore Lands of An-Teng, the girl known as Dawn Breeze was the third child of five born to a moderately well-off merchant and his wife. Life in the two-tiered house was comfortable, despite hot, humid, mosquito-infested summers & foggy, clammy winters, and she grew up with many friends in her social class, running from house to house and taking little boats around the canals of the city.

There were two events that completely changed the direction of her life, that had a direct hand in shaping who she would become.

The first was an encounter with an exorcist at the age of 12. Paddling her small boat across the canals one evening she came out into one of the smaller branches of the river to see an old man sitting in a boat in the middle of the river, slowly sinking. Moving to his side she asked if he was alright? “No,” he replied, “I cannot swim and my boat is sinking.” Did he want her to pull him to safety, she asked? “No,” he said again, “But you should go home, I would not want a life as young as yours on my already troubled conscience.” She wanted to ask what he meant, but something in his demeanour made her listen to him, at least until she reached the canals again. Turning her boat she watched from the deepening shadows as the old man sat patiently in his decrepit boat and waited.

As the last rays of the sun disappeared from the western horizon the water around the old man moved and a black hand, encrusted with barnacles and with razor-sharp talons reaches noiselessly up from behind him. Dawn Breeze wanted to scream a warning, but no sound would from her throat. She need not have bothered, as the old man turned, lightning-fast, and slapped a long, white prayer-strip onto the creature's hand. The howl that boiled out of the water scared the flocks of red-tipped crane that rested in the trees out into the sky, and woke half the neighbourhood. But the creature, a particularly inimical kind of water elemental she would later learn, was bound and the old man bade it push his boat over to where the young girl waited.

”That was very dangerous,” he said to her, “It might have gone after you instead, and then you would be dead and I would still be sinking.” What was it, she asked? Who was he? Why had he done it? “Do you want to know?” he asked in reply, his first question, “Do you really want to know.”

She did.

The second was four years later, on the day of her oldest sister's wedding. The Golden Lord's priest was about to give his final blessing on the union when a Dragon-Blood, newly-arrived from the Blessed Isle, strode into the shrine. He was tall, with dark skin, ruddy hair and eyes that burned like coal and his physical presence was overwhelming His gaze fell upon Summer Blossom, Dawn's sister, his eyes lit up and, without so much as a word to her intended, picked her up, threw her bodily over his shoulder and ran off with her, screaming and struggling.

She was returned a week later – dropped outside her parent's porch; naked, bruised and abused. Her eyes, previously full of life and smiles, were hollow and she rarely spoke a word. It took a month for her to face anyone beyond her family and by that time she was obviously pregnant. Strong protests were made to government officials, all the way up to the Prince, but there was no redress – rumour reach Dawn's ears that the responsible Exalt had been reprimanded for his actions, but nothing more.

The marriage took place a year later than originally planned, and in attendance was a six-month old boy with dark skin and ruddy hair, born to parents who had neither. Dawn Breeze's belief in the Immaculate faith, already shaky from her time with Three-Finger Shen, had been shattered by this point and she vowed to never attend another Immaculate service.

She didn't.

Adulthood

Dawn Breeze was married two years ago to a moderately successful artist named Gentle Tiger; neither family had any real idea what to do with their wayward offspring (Tiger's family were heavily into shipping) but a marriage would create an alliance. A meeting was arranged, and over the course of a year the pair became friends, lovers, betrothed and finally married. The arrangement suited them both since it removed familial pressure and freed up time to spend on their respective vocations (Tiger's dalliances with pretty young men notwithstanding).

At about the same time she was married Three-Finger Shen said that she was no longer his student, and that she was instead his assistant. As far as Dawn could tell, though, this just meant that she worked twice as hard for the same jobs, and her studies of books and scrolls and First Age records took up even more of her time, as well as learning other skills such as sword fighting and smithcraft and business. She had chosen a hard and dangerous life, more than once an angry ghost had broken free from its bindings and the pair had to run as fast as they could to survive, but she felt that the rewards made it worthwhile. Her mother came to her once and asked if she was ever going to put this insane life behind her and return to a more sensible life.

She wasn't.

Exaltation

Late one summer evening, Dawn Breeze was reading an old book, forbidden by the Immaculate Order, but borrowed from Three-Finger Shen's collection. Written in an obscure dialect of Old Realm, filled with allusions and metaphors, it buried meaning behind layers of references to cultures that no longer existed. Over the last month she had struggled with it, but then as the sun set just as she began a new section she was struck by epiphany, and it was as if curtains had been lifted from her eyes. Where the book's language had been obfuscated it was now clear and she read it easily and without effort.

It spoke of the First Age, of a seaborne city of wonders and terrors, where an eternal battle against the Wyld was fought in the city's very heart and of a giant machine that was capable of forging reality itself. And then, just as suddenly, she was there... She saw hands that were hers but not her own operating devices of incredible complexity, saw manlike machines the height of her house walking through streets lit by globes of pale blue flame that hovered in the air, saw vast skyships – greater than anything she had seen before – drift majestically through the cloud to the docks of the city, almost a mile above. With as little warning as the vision started it ended.

Dawn Breeze was back in her small house, the sun had set and the first stars were visible, but the room she was in was aglow with the sun's light. Looking around for the source she rapidly realised that it was her, and then all the old cautionary tales of her childhood flooded back to her. She had become Anathema, and every hand in Creation would be turned against her. Dawn knew what she had to do, and tearfully began to make preparations to leave Salt-Founded Glory within the next few days. What she would do then she didn't know, only that she couldn't stay any longer. She didn't even know if she would ever be seen again in the city of her birth.

She was.

Character Sheet

Caste: Twilight

Motivation: To uncover the truth about the First Age

Attributes

Strength 2, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2, Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Appearance 4, Intelligence 4, Perception 4, Wits 3

Virtues (Virtue Flaw)

Compassion 2, Conviction 2, Temperance 3 (), Valour 2

Abilities (Caste or Favoured)

Archery 0, Athletics 1, Awareness 3, Bureaucracy 0, Craft 5 (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Wood), Dodge 3, Integrity 3, Investigation 3, Larceny 0, Linguistics 2, (Native: Firetongue,, High Realm, Old Realm), Lore 4, Martial Arts 1, Medicine 4, Melee 4, Occult 5, Performance 2, Presence 3, Resistance 1, Ride 0, Sail 2, Socialise 2, Stealth 0, Survival 0, Thrown 2, War 0

Backgrounds

Artifact 4 (Endless Configuration Blade), Manse 2 (Sounding Stone), Resources 2

Excellencies

Craft (2nd), Investigation (2nd), Lore (1st), Melee (1st), Occult (1st), Presence (2nd), Sail (2nd)

Charms

Craft (Object-Strengthening Touch, Shattering Grasp), Investigation (Judge's Ear Technique), Occult (Spirit-Cutting Attack, Spirit-Detecting Glance), Melee (Bulwark Stance, Dipping Swallow Defence)

Spells

None

Join Battle: 6

Dodge DV: 4

Soak: 4L/3B (3L/1B chain shirt, Mobility -0, Fatigue 1)

Attacks: (+ cannot parry lethal damage without stunts)

Unarmed - Speed 5, Attack 6, Damage 2B, Parry DV 3+, Rate 3, Range -

Endless Configuration Blade - Speed 5, Attack 11, Damage 11L/3, Parry DV 5, Rate 2, Range -

Join Debate: 6

Dodge MDV: 5

Parry MDV: 3

Intimacies

Gentle Tiger is Dawn Breeze's husband of the last two years, although she has not seen him since she left Salt-Founded Glory a few months since. When she is being honest with herself she admits to a strong affection for him, although he does not know how he will react to her new status as one of the Anathema.

Three-Finger Shen was her mentor and secondary father figure for half her life. Her feelings towards the old man are close to the familial, and she asked him for assistance on many occasions after her “graduation”.

Essence: 2

Willpower: 5

Essence Pool: Personal – 11 / Peripheral – 23 (28) / Commited – 5

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

Belongings

Endless Configuration Blade

Chain shirt

Thaumaturgists' tools (incense, prayer strips, herbs, mild narcotics)

Practical clothes

Brocade jacket

Anima

A complex series of interweaving strips of red-gold light on which, etched in dark blue, Old Realm characters scroll up and down in endless series. Behind the strips an ocean is visible, its mood matching that of Dawn Breeze.

Background Expansions

Artifact •••• & Manse ••

Dawn Breeze left Salt-Founded Glory on the first ship she could find three days after her Second Breath, a scow called Dragon of the Waves that was headed for Chiaroscuro. The captain's fee for passage was outrageous, but she paid without comment. A week into the voyage, during which time her dreams had been filled with images of glory and horror, she woke up in the middle of the night certain that something was out there in the sea, something she needed. She badgered the sailor on watch, and upon his refusal to help went to the ship's launch and made preparations to set it down into the water. When she was almost done the captain, together with half the crew, confronted her and told her to stop.

“I have to go,” she screamed, “It's calling me. Let me go!” With the last word her anima burst into its full glory, lighting up the sky in blues and golds. The crew fainted or wet themselves and the captain backed off, making signs against evil and telling her to get off his ship. She did, and rowed the little boat out into the open ocean, not knowing why.

An hour later the boat ran aground on a tiny outcropping in the middle of the ocean, a spire of rock and sand no more than forty yards across. She jumped onto the island and pulled the boat up behind her, then looked around this miniscule island – a task that took no more than a handful of minutes. Exasperated she looked around, and then said, “It's me. Let me in.” An otherwise invisible crack opened in the rock face, and rippling light spilled out as the door opened by itself, revealing a set of stairs that led down, down into a hidden underwater Manse.

Sunlight spilled in through the perfectly transparent windows, revealing the schools of fish inhabiting the coral reefs that had built up around the mounts walls, and at the heart of the building, in a room filled with whalesong, she found the hearthstone, a Sounding Stone in a vibrating pool of water. In another room, set in a place of honour with sea-washed sunlight falling onto it, she found the Endless Configuration Blade.

Resources ••

Managing money wasn't something that Dawn Breeze had to worry about when she lived in Salt-Founded Glory. After she left she had to learn, though, and is slowly beginning to grasp how it work.

Endless Configuration Blade – Notes

When the Sounding Stone is plugged into one of the Blade's parasitic sockets it gains +1 to Accuracy and Defence and its wielder can make attacks with it in utter darkness without penalty, so long as there is the slightest sound (heartbeats will suffice). Complete silence defeats this effect.

Experience

Current: 19

Spent: 65

Total: 84

History: Melee 2->3 (3xp), Dexterity 3->4 (12xp), Judge's Ear Technique (8xp), Melee 3->4, (5xp), 2nd Presence Excellency (8xp), Shattering Grasp (8xp), Craft 4->5 (7xp), Medicine 1->4 (9xp), Bulwark Stance (8xp)