Moxiane/GareshSilverHorn

Garesh of the Silver Horns – Changing Moon Lunar, Scary MoFo Warlord

Background

More commonly known as the Bull of the North, Garesh of the Silver Horns is one of the older Lunars ranging the snow-capped forests and wind-blasted plains of the north of Creation. Born amongst the ice-walkers, those tribes of nomadic wanderers who worship their animals and treat with the weakest men of Civilisation and the hardiest warriors of barbarism equally, he was Exalted by Luna some three centuries ago. In that time he has risen steadily through the ranks of the Silver Pact, facing challenges to his territory from fellow Lunars and engaging in many great quests and battles for renown.

Over the last century he has been carefully, slowly, forging an alliance of the ice-walker tribes and the barbarians who haunt the edges of the North, bringing hundreds of thousands of strong warriors under the scarlet-and-white banner of the Bull of the North. Raiding, always a problem for the cities of the Haslanti league and the Northern threshold picked up and then news came that the Scarlet Empress had disappeared. Garesh moved swiftly, gathering his forces and beginning to move upon the now largely defenceless tributary states. Resistance gathered against him, and then the Realm sent the Tepet legions against him, resplendent in their scarlet uniforms and led by some of the bravest and strongest Dragon-Blooded the Scarlet Empress could muster. Like a force out of myth and legend, he and the allies he had gathered to his banner shattered the pride of the Scarlet Empire over a series of brutal battles, and the remnants scurried home with tales of vast war-beasts and demon-spawned creatures from Malfeas itself.

Now he seeks to further expand his reach, although none of the major players in the north know where his gaze will fall first.

Exaltation

The facts of his Exaltation have been retold by Garesh to his followers, old and new, so many times to so many people that, by now, they have become myth. He tells of how, one night with Luna half-full in the sky he came upon the single most magnificent elk he had ever seen, a beast so huge that he could barely have reached its nose while standing on the ground. He tells that for some reason he followed this great animal for many miles, across windswept plain and dense forest, until finally he came to a peaceful grove where the elk stood waiting for him. Next to the beast was a young woman, silver-haired and clad all in white, and she came to him and said that he had been Chosen for his destiny was too great for a mortal shell to bear. With those words she faded away like the light of the Moon on reflected on a dark lake, and where the elk had been there now stood a man, ancient and grizzled, but with an air of power and wisdom. “Now your true life begins,” the stranger said and brought Garesh into the Lunar fold.

Appearance

When in human form Garesh of the Silver Horns is an achingly beautiful man in his apparent early thirties. He has long dark hair and dark eyes and permanently browned and wrinkled from too much exposure to the harsh Northern sun, and there is an animal air about him that unsettles those around. Despite his upbringing and his affiliation with the Silver Pact, Garesh has an affinity for the finer things in life gained from years spent observing the people of Civilisation, and it is a rare night when he doesn’t have a beautiful maiden or two to warm his sleeping furs.

When in his warform the Bull of the North is a monstrous man-yeddim hybrid creature, 12’ tall with vicious fangs and silver claws the size of a grown man’s arm. His roar is so powerful it has been known to turn a man’s innards to jelly and his arm strong enough that a stone thrown from the ground can explode a man’s head like a melon struck by a lead bullet from a sling. With long shaggy hair and cloven feet, Garesh strikes fear into the hearts of those who oppose him, those who are not bewitched by his powerful, animalistic charisma.

Character Sheet

Nature: Bravo

Totem: Yeddim

Attributes (Caste, [Warform])

Strength 6[11], Dexterity 3[6], Stamina 6[12], Charisma 6, Manipulation 5, Appearance 5, Intelligence 5, Perception 4, Wits 5

Virtues (Virtue Flaw)

Compassion 2, Conviction 4, Temperance 3, Valour 5 (The Curse of the Raging Bull)

Abilities (Favoured)

Athletics 5 (Raw Power +2), Awareness 3, Brawl 6 (Against an army +2, Wrestling +1), Dodge 3, Endurance 6, Larceny 4, Linguistics 4(Native:Skytongue, Tribal tongues, Old Realm, Forest-tongue, Riverspeak), Lore 5 (Strategy +1), Medicine 3, Melee 4, Occult 4, Performance 5 (Swaying minds +2, Battle address +1), Presence 6 (Intimidation +1), Resistance 6, Socialise 4, Stealth 4, Survival 6 (In a snowstorm +2), Thrown 4 (A handy rock +1)

Backgrounds

Allies 3, Cult 5, Followers N/A, Heart’s Blood 5, Influence 5

Charms

Angry Rhino Charge, Attention Demanding Presence, Bear Embrace Method, Beast Instinct Method, Body-Breaking Kata, Body Weapon Technique, Bowing Reed Technique, Bruise-Relief Technique, Bull Head Technique, Calling Luna’s Favour, Courage-Building Address, Crouching Tiger Exercise, Crowd-Calming Pronouncement, Crowd-Inciting Method, Deadly Claw Blow, Deadly Beastman Transformation (x5), Eagle Eye Advantage, Emotion-Shaping Technique, Fearful Lunar Form, Finding the Spirit’s Shape, Flowing Body Evasion, Glorious Battle Presence, Golden Tiger Block, Halting the Scarlet Flow, Hide of the Cunning Hunter, Hide-Toughening Essence, Humble Mouse Shape, Hydra Head Attack, Imposing Presence Attitude, Infection-Resisting Method, Knowing the Arrow’s Path, Lion Roar Method, Many-Faced Moon Transformation, Mighty Bear Crush, Monkey Arm Style, Nature’s Harmony Advantage, Ox-Body Technique I (x2), Ox-Body Technique II (x4), Pain-Numbing Prana, Predator Grace Method, Prey’s Skin Disguise, Sealskin Endurance, Sense-Sharpening Change, Shaping the Ideal Form, Sinuous Striking Grace, Spine-Breaking Technique, Steel Paw Style, Subduing the Honoured Foe, Tale-Spinning Mastery, Towering Beast Form, Tyrant Lizard Strike, Unmoving Bear Defence, Unspeaking Aura of Dread, Will of the Stoic Warrior

Beastman Gifts

Resilience of Nature, Rugged Hide, Terrible Beast Claws, Wound-Knitting Power, Savage Moonsilver Talons, Impenetrable Beast-Armour

Tell

The Bull of the North has a pair of curled silver yeddim horns that grow from his temples.

Anima Banner

A single yeddim etched in silver and blue flame, charging eternally forwards. As the Bull of the North expends further peripheral Essence it is joined by more of its kin, until a vast stampeding herd of the huge animals appears behind him.

Anima Effect

10 motes – The character weaves an illusion about his form to appear as anyone else that he is familiar with. This effect does not change his voice or smell, and the Fair Folk are immune to it.

Initiative: 8[11]

Dodge Pool: 12[15]

Soak: 3L/6B [12L/12B, 6 Hardness]

Attacks (+ cannot parry lethal damage without stunts)

Punch – Speed 8, Attack 10, Damage 6B, Parry 11+, Rate 5

Kick – Speed 7, Attack 10, Damage 9B, Parry 6+, Rate 2

[Claw – Speed 17, Attack 16, Damage 16L, Parry 16, Rate 5]

[Bite – Speed 14, Attack 14, Damage 19L, Parry 12, Rate 2]

Essence: 6

Willpower: 9

Essence Pool: Personal – 24 / Peripheral – 62

Health Levels: -0 / 6x-1 / 18x-2 / -4 / Incap

Background Expansions

Allies

Garesh has become a force to be reckoned with in the North over the past decade, rising from being a mere fire-side story to a warleader of prodigious strength and power. During that time he has, as is the wont of the powerful, attracted many others to his banner, most of whom are not of particular note, but there are a couple who are:

• Yurgen Kaneko

One of the first of the recently returned Solar Exalted, the Bull of the North ran into the grizzled Yurgen a few short months after he took his Second Breath. Recognising his markings from the tales of the No-Moon elders, Garesh followed the young Chosen for almost a month before facing him. The battle was swift and, at least for Yurgen, painful – and at the end the new Solar had sworn allegiance to the Lunar for a period of twenty years.

Since that day, Yurgen has been a powerful ally for the Bull of the North, becoming a strong leader and a great warrior and building on his long life amongst the ice-walkers to draw them to him and thence to his liege. Garesh knows that Yurgen chafes under his command, it is not within the nature of the children of the Unconquered Sun to follow, but rather to lead, but he senses that the Solar’s sense of honour is strong enough to keep him – for now.

• Winter’s Silver Night

A young No-Moon eagle-totem Lunar, Winter’s Silver Night was drawn towards Garesh of the Silver Horns by a series of dreams that she believes were sent by Luna herself, dreams which Silver (as she is more colloquially known) has only vaguely alluded to. During the two years that she has been with the Bull of the North, she has been (variously) his sorceress, his seer and his lover, and although the two of them do not always agree they form a powerful team.

Winter’s Silver Night has been consulting the auguries more frequently of late, however, and what she sees in them are not always what she tells Garesh of the Silver Horns, the visions of blood and death are disturbing, even for her, and she does not yet fully comprehend their meaning.

Cult

The Bull of the North is the focal point of prayer for people all over the North. There are shrines to him built in every major town and city, although many of those proscribe his worship which, of course, merely serves to drive the religion underground. Whether these prayers are made to him out of respect or fear the Bull of the North cares little, but he accepts both the power that they grant and the responsibility that they imply.

Followers

The Bull of the North commands the loyalty of almost fifty thousand ice-walker warriors and as many again of Wyld barbarians. Although the two forces have long hated each other Garesh’ force of personality has been able to suppress those hatreds and pull both groups together, at least temporarily.

Heart’s Blood

Garesh has an unrivalled library of forms, both animal and human, and for the longest time could pass almost unnoticed through the cities of the North. As his power has grown, however, so has his Tell and with the stories that surround him almost any inhabitant of the North knows to look for silver horns on the temple of a stranger and what such a mark means.

Influence

Since his annihilation of the Tepet legions Garesh of the Silver Horns has become one of the pre-eminent political figures in the North. While still wary of the power of the Syndics of Whitewall, the airships of the Haslanti league and the Gethamane army, he does not fear them, and when word from the Bull of the North reaches any of these places with a request they know to think long and hard before refusing him outright. This does not mean that he is entirely unreasonable, however, since he is aware of the power and usefulness of negotiation.