Sariel/SarasvatiShai

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Shai was originally created for an AU Solars game, but it shut down before I could play with her. I reworked the concept fairly recently to be a "normal" Exalted character, shortly before a friend was finally talked into STing a game. So now I get to see how she works out in practice, yay! (Campaign logs are at http://letiwolf.livejournal.com/tag/family+circle .)

In summary: Shai is a Varang woman who managed to sneak herself to the West and into a ship's crew at a very young age. She Exalted in the middle of a storm, managed to wash ashore onto the island that the First Age holder of her shard had died on, played tomb-robber for some shiny artifacts, and eventually traded ruthlessly on Eclipse charisma and business sense to get herself a ship of her own. Her current game is starting a few years later, after she's had some time to build herself a bit of a reputation.

Images: http://pics.livejournal.com/sariel_di/pic/000bha1h/g104 is a reasonably accurate picture of her, for something done in Heromachine (2.0). Notes on errors are at the bottom of that page.

Character Sheet

Name:    Sarasvati Shai
Caste:   Eclipse
Nature:  Explorer
Anima:   A shadowy spider in a golden web of Old Realm glyphs.
Concept: Merchant captain and explorer.

Attributes

Strength       ☻☻☻oo     Charisma     ☻☻☻☻☻   Perception   ☻☻ooo
Dexterity      ☻☻☻☻o     Manipulation ☻☻☻☻o   Intelligence ☻☻ooo
Stamina        ☻☻ooo     Appearance   ☻☻ooo   Wits         ☻☻☻☻o

Abilities

Archery:       ☻☻☻☻☻
Athletics:     ☻☻☻oo
Awareness:     ☻oooo
Bureaucracy:   ☻☻☻☻o
Dodge:         ☻☻ooo
Endurance:     ☻☻ooo
Investigation: ☻oooo
Linguistics:   ☻☻☻oo
Lore:          ☻☻ooo
Melee:         ☻oooo
Occult:        ☻oooo
Presence:      ☻☻☻oo
Ride:          ooooo
Sail:          ☻☻☻☻o
Socialize:     ☻☻☻☻☻
Survival:      ☻oooo

Backgrounds

Artifact  ☻☻ooo
Artifact  ☻☻ooo
Artifact  ☻☻☻☻o
Contacts  ☻☻ooo
Follower  ☻oooo
Resources ☻☻ooo

Merits

  • Internal Compass (+1d to rolls to navigate a ship or find a way through a maze; Wits + Aware diff 1 to orient oneself with respect to the cardinal directions of Creation or the Underworld)
  • Lucky 1 (one reroll per point of anything but an Eclipse-or-etc induced botch, or +1 to any d10 check for a random event; refresh at 1 point per week that no Lucky is spent and refresh entire pool at end of story)

Flaws

  • Known Anathema 1 (scattered places in the West)
  • Unbidden Oracle (compelled to speak prophecy at least once per story though not more than once per scene, spend 1 WP to avoid it)
  • Rival 2 (relatively experienced Dragon-Blooded shipsmaster)
  • Greater Curse 2
  • Permanent Caste Mark (gold tattoo on her forehead)
  • Secret 2 (bastard daughter of an influential Dynast)

Virtues

Compassion ☻☻ooo    Conviction ☻☻ooo
Temperance ☻☻ooo    Valor      ☻☻☻oo

Charms

  • Archery
    • Fiery Arrow Attack
      • Phantom Arrow Technique
    • Wise Arrow
  • Bureaucracy
    • Deft Official's Way
  • Dodge
    • Reed in the Wind
  • Endurance
    • Ox-Body Technique x1 (+3 health levels)
  • Linguistics
    • Excellent Emissary's Tongue
  • Presence
    • Harmonious Presence Meditation
  • Sail
    • Salty Dog Method
  • Socialize
    • Mastery of Small Manners

Combos

  • none
    • none

Equipment

  • Quicksilver Singer of the Sun's Journeys (short orichalcum powerbow)
    • (Spd: +0, Acc: +3, Dmg: +3, Rate 2, Range 300, min Str 3)
  • Dayender (obsidian sheath armor, orichalcum)
    • (Def: +10B/+10L, Hardness: 4, Mobility: -0, Fatigue: 1, boosts wearer's Strength to 8 or adds 2 to Str 8+)
  • Hearthstone Bracers (orichalcum)
    • (+2d to damage, +3d to Dodge)
  • Quiver of assorted arrows
    • (+2L broadhead, +2B fowling, +4L (double victim's lethal soak) frog-crotch, +0L (halve target's lethal soak) target)

Willpower: 5/5 Essence: 2

Personal: 11/11
Peripheral: 14/28
Committed: 4e peri (bracers), 4e peri (powerbow), 6e peri (sheath)

Limit Break: Foolhardy Contempt (Valor)

Limit: 0/8

Health: [O] [O] [O] [O] [O] [O] [O] [O] [O] [O]
        [0] [1] [1] [1] [2] [2] [2] [2] [4] [I]

Combat

Init mod: Wits (4) + Dex (4) == 8
Soak (armored): 12B/11L/0A, 4 Hardness
Dodge: Dex (4) + Dodge (2) + Essence (2) + Bracers (3) == 11 (base dodge pool): can go up to 17 with Reed in the Wind
Attacks:
Powerbow: Dex (4) + Archery (5) + Acc (3) == 12 (base attack pool): can go up to 21 with Wise Arrow
              Str (8) + Damage (3) + Bracers (2) == 13 (base damage pool): 15L broadhead, 15B fowling, 17L (double lethal soak) frog-crotch, 13L (halve lethal soak) target; + Essence (2) with Fiery Arrow Attack

Charms and Combos, Expanded

  • Note: IsawaBrian's Solars Charms are being allowed into this game, with ST approval.

Archery

  • Fiery Arrow Attack (instant, supp, 2e; add perm Essence to damage b/c arrow is on fire)
    • Phantom Arrow Technique (instant, supp, convert essence to arrows at 1:1 ratio; may choose type of arrow)
  • Wise Arrow (instant, supp, convert essence to attack dice at 1:1 ratio; max of Dex + Archery pool extra)

Bureaucracy

  • Deft Official's Way (one task, simple, 6e; add perm Essence in autosuccs to rolls toward a given result)

Dodge

  • Reed in the Wind (instant, reflexive, 1e per 2d extra to dodge; max of Dex + Dodge pool extra)

Endurance

  • Ox-Body Technique x1 (+3 health levels)

Linguistics

  • Excellent Emissary's Tongue (indef, special, fluency in up to Linguistics extra languages at a time for 3e per lang)

Presence

  • Harmonious Presence Meditation (hour, simple, 6e, add perm Essence in dice to all Socialize/Presence/Bureaucracy one-on-one interactions)

Sail

  • Salty Dog Method (day, reflexive, 3e, perfect sea legs and immunity to seasickness -- basically shipboard Graceful Crane Stance)

Socialize

  • Mastery of Small Manners (scene, reflexive, 3e, dodge any unintentional faux pas if not actively interacting too much)

Backgrounds, Expanded

Linguistics: Shai's native language is Flametongue. She learned Riverspeak and Seatongue prior to her Exaltation, and Old Realm via her Exaltation.

Artifacts:

  • Hearthstone Bracers (orichalcum, Artifact ☻☻):
    • Pure orichalcum, though the aesthetic is more like starmetal's, this set of bracers are spiderwebby orichalcum bands connected to discs of black jade that slide smoothly over the armguards of Dayender or Shai's bare wrists. The right-hand bracer has a raised orichalcum ridge around its jade disc, for a hearthstone to be set into; the left-hand has a smaller ridge and an orichalcum dot in the center. Overall, the effect is like twin copies of the Eclipse caste mark surrounded by Solar rays.
  • Quicksilver Singer of the Sun's Journeys (short orichalcum powerbow, Artifact ☻☻):
    • Dubbed "Quicksilver" for short, this powerbow was hand-crafted by the First Age holder of Shai's Shard. It's made out of black horn and ironwood, inlaid with intricate patterns of orichalcum highlighted by moonsilver that, if examined closely from the right angle, spell out its name in spiderwebby Old Realm characters. A hearthstone setting of black jade and orichalcum is set near the grip, and the string is smooth and silvery.
  • Dayender (orichalcum obsidian sheath, Artifact ☻☻☻☻):
    • Crafted by a First Age Twilight as a gift for the previous holder of this Solar Shard, Dayender is a bodysuit of obsidian that resembles a thin, flexible suit of articulated plate. It's trimmed and inlaid with graceful spiderwebs of orichalcum that close examination translates as Old Realm characters: a hymn to the Unconquered Sun in his Crowned and Hidden aspects, with the name of the armor -- Ender of Days -- woven around its collar. When attuned, it moves like a second skin; a hidden clasp in the collar unseals the armor, allowing it to be removed.

Contacts ☻☻ooo:

  • Two dots' worth of assorted contacts, concentrated slightly in the West and in water-transport/trade.

Follower ☻oooo:

  • Complaining Jade: Nicknamed "Jay" for short, Shai's first mate is a native of Nexus who's been in her crew since she first captained the Water Strider. Long-term exposure to the charisma of an Eclipse has made him less prickly than he started out (any use of his full name by Shai or her crew is a joke, nowadays), and personal talent and skill has made him the best pick she could have for her first mate. He can be trusted with the ship in Shai's absence.

Resources ☻☻ooo:

  • At any given time, Shai usually has about two dots' worth of resources to hand. Most of her earnings tend to be funneled right back into Strider and its crew one way or another.

Merits and Flaws, Expanded

Merits

  • Internal Compass: Shai's always had a good natural sense of direction, which has served her well in her time at sea. Since her Exaltation, it's become actively uncanny.
  • Lucky 1: Shai has also always been fortunate in little ways, and occasionally in big ones -- like the timing and location of her Exaltation. She tries not to count on it, but she doesn't doubt her good fortune exists.

Flaws

  • Known Anathema 1: The downside of her good luck in finding her past life's artifacts is that, one way or another, she keeps having to use them. She hasn't outright confirmed that she's Anathema to any of her crewmembers -- most of them suspect God-Blooded or Outcaste Water-Blooded, if anything -- and she's good at avoiding having to spend too much peripheral essence, but she's dropped enough clues with enough people that the Wyld Hunt could put it together if they did some questioning. This is mostly a problem in the West.
  • Unbidden Oracle: Shai Exalted as a Harmonious Voice of Sol Invictus. Shai believes that her prophecies are tied into that; that the Unconquered Sun chose her to be his explorer, his diplomat, and his spokeswoman in times of need. (Admittedly, it'd be more logical if she was also the Zenith of the Circle, but considering the personality and specialties of the Zenith . . . well, yes.)
  • Rival 2: Actually, probably more like halfway between Rival and Enemy, depending on details. See Associated NPCs, below. A relatively experienced Dragon-Blooded shipsmaster.
  • Greater Curse 2: One of the clues Shai drops is in her occasional Limit Breaks; her Shard is unusually prone to falling victim to its own overconfidence. So far, Shai's been able to handle every situation her Curse has gotten her into, but that may well change soon.
  • Permanant Caste Mark: Shai spent a great deal of essence and willpower to escape the storm that killed her first ship and to achieve dry land. She didn't realize until days later that it had burned the dotted circle of an Eclipse into her skin permanently.
  • Secret 2: Shai is unaware of her Secret, but there are a few physical clues (her appearance is mostly normal for a Varang but has distinctly Dynastic aspects), her mother is quite aware that her father was a Dynast, and in general it'd be possible for someone to put two and two together. If they do, Shai may well be mistaken for a Lost Egg -- or it might get out that an influential Dynast sired Anathema. Neither of which is likely to be good in the long run.

Sarasvati Shai

Appearance: Shai is a young woman of medium height, cocoa-brown skin, and rangy build. Her wavy white-blonde hair is cut short, standing out in stark contrast to her skin along with her angular, tawny eyes. Long-fingered hands are usually wrapped around her short powerbow, Quicksilver Voice of the Sun's Journey, or a piece of rope or netting. She moves with grace and confidence, more striking than pretty; high, aristocratic cheekbones and sharp features are softened by an easy smile and casual manner.
     She favors the garb of her native South, wearing a comfortable yellow-trimmed black tunic and pantaloons most of the time -- though her time in the West has induced her to wear black leather boots unless she leaves her small, tough feet bare. (Under the outfit, she normally wears a strange combination of bodysuit and articulated plate in uncannily flexible obsidian, spiderwebbed in orichalcum; only traces of gleaming black and gold at her throat and cuffs betray the armor.) In bad weather (especially at sea), she wears Western clothing: a tough, ankle-length jacket of yellow-trimmed black canvas and black canvas trousers, and occasionally a thick leather jerkin or woven wool pullover hat in yellow.
     Quicksilver is usually slung over her shoulder (and occasionally wrapped in canvas to hide the telltale glints of gold and silver), as is a quiver of assorted arrows, and her forearms are guarded by orichalcum bracers tucked under the sleeves of her tunic or jacket. She wears a strip of yellow silk tied around her head, covering the gold tattoo of her caste mark, the tail-ends flowing down her back.

Anima: A shimmering golden glow, overlaid by a filmy silver-white spider's web of impossibly fine, complex weave. As more Essence is spent, the silhouette of a giant wolf spider -- truly giant, towering a good foot over her head -- is visible behind Shai, as if it were her own shadow magnified tenfold. When fully manifest, the spider is nearly tangible, with eight gleaming golden eyes, and the web gives the vague impression of sparkling gossamer wings, outstretched behind Shai and the spider both. When invoking her caste's ability, words are visible in the weave of the spider's web, making visible the divine right of contract by which she can sanctify the oath at hand.

Personality: Shai is cheerful, enthusiastic, and more or less irrepressable. While she has an ounce of common sense -- honed particularly by her time as a young girl of reasonable looks with no particular patron on sailing ships, and as a young woman alone on an island with nobody to help her survive -- she's also intensely curious, and rarely shies away from any but the most stupid or most terrifying risks. (Bet her Obsidian Sheath against a known expert gambler's plain buff jacket? Stupid. Hurl herself alone into the Wyld? Stupid and terrifying. Anything she botches a Valor roll against? Probably terrifying. But under ordinary circumstances, she'll dive right in.)
     Socially, she functions far far more on raw charisma than on manipulative skill; while she can be manipulative, it's much easier to work with people who just plain like and/or trust her. (As a merchant captain, she's charmed her sailors into both, particularly her first mate: she'd trust Jay with Strider even without Shai there to watch his back, and she'd at least trust her long-term sailors to do the same.) To an extent, she believes she can get out of anything via charm or wit.

History

Sarasvati Lotus was a peasant Southerner, very beautiful but very unassuming and passive. She made a living casting horoscopes for visitors to Yane: while said tourists are not bound into the Varang caste system, some found it interesting to see where their horoscope would place them, others found it politic to be armed with that sort of information, and a few sought horoscopes of their potential allies or enemies. At one point, a visitor from the Blessed Isle itself came to Lotus' tent to have his fortune read; he did not leave again until very late that night.

Nine months later, while the Water was Ascending, Lotus bore a daughter with the Dynast's eyes and the Dynast's sharp, aristocratic features. The daughter was named "gift" in one of the Southern dialects -- "Shai" -- and Lotus attempted to raise her to follow in her mother's footsteps. Unfortunately, Shai was everything Lotus wasn't: tomboyish, enthusiastically active, and far more interested in the visitors to Yane than in the Varang culture itself. One day when Shai was eleven, a caravan-trader stopped by Lotus' tent to see what the stars suggested about her upcoming trip to the West.

. . . Shai packed a bag, snuck out late that night, and stowed away in the caravan.

She managed to stay hidden until they were far from the Varang city-states, and managed to persuade the trader that she could make herself useful enough to be worth not abandoning in the nearest town. She was literate in both Riverspeak and Flametongue, had a natural talent for estimating the quality of goods and bargaining, and her age and size were such that Shai was easily overlooked or underestimated if not both. Shai paid her way to the West over the next year by playing servant and bookkeeper for Amethyst, and made it there with slightly more than the clothes on her back after a few particularly lucky breaks.

With a great deal of fast-talking and Amethyst's support, Shai found a berth as a cabin girl on the Dolphin, a small trading ship from Wavecrest. (Her age was less of a problem than her gender, but the captain was eventually convinced to give it a shot based on Shai's established bookkeeping skill. Since the Dolphin made nearly twice as large a profit as it usually does on its first trip with her as a crewmember, the crew began to see her as something of a good-luck charm, and politely ignored her gender. This made for some . . . interesting . . . confusion when Shai finally achieved puberty, but fortunately the ship's chef was female and figured out what was going on.)

Shai adored the crew and her time at sea, but at age 17 her explorer nature began to itch at her. The Dolphin was comfortable, but Wavecresters were boring, and they never went anywhere new. She had just about worked up the nerve to tell the captain she wanted to find another ship to sail on when the storm hit.

The crew did its best, but the ship was doomed. To this day, Shai isn't sure if it was merely natural or if they'd run afoul of a sorcerer or a little god somewhere along the line; the Southerner in her inevitably blames the timing, as they were at sea during Calibration, but her conscious mind refuses to give in to the old superstitions. Regardless of the storm's nature, though, Shai was the only survivor, and she only managed it because she Exalted while the ship was torn apart under her feet. The endurance and healing rate of a Solar saved her life, letting her survive long enough to wash ashore on a lonely little island nearby.

Irrepressable as always, Shai only took a day or two before she worked up the energy to explore the forested island. A small glade at the heart of it provided all the sustenance she needed -- and apparently the glade was planted by human hands, because at the center of that was an elaborate marble tomb. Not a manse or a demesne, but a glade designed to Wood-Exalt aesthetics and a tomb clearly raised by Water. There were few traps, but any number of puzzles and mazes; fortunately, Shai's Exaltation had brought with it the language of the Old Realm, and enhanced her natural sense of direction. At last, she found her way to the heart of the tomb.

Here, the walls were inlaid in flowing golden script, and the quasi-mummified body of a middle-aged Solar lay in state, clad in formal robes over a strange black-and-gold bodysuit and golden bracers, with a bow and quiver of arrows at his feet. The artifacts called to Shai, and she translated the writing in the room: the orichalcum-and-jade powerbow's name was Quicksilver Singer of the Sun's Journeys, the obsidian armor called Dayender sang a hymn to Sol Invictus, and the walls told the tale of Weaver of Harmony and how he had been slain at last, with this tomb built to pacify his spirit -- or keep it far from other living beings, if the tomb was inadequate.

Shai claimed bow, bracers, and bodysuit -- which, by some quirk of luck or enchantment in their crafting, fit her nearly perfectly once attuned -- as well as an assortment of other tokens and trinkets that had been left to honor Weaver, and set out to wait till a ship passed by her island again. At last, a signal fire caught someone's attention, and Shai was rescued at age 19.

The easiest way to sate her wanderlust was, of course, not to bind herself to someone else's leadership, and the bargaining spirit of an Eclipse let her make enough money off the sale of her salvaged trinkets to invest in her very own ship. An Eclipse's charisma and her own good fortune arranged for a crew, and with that settled the Water Strider set off for its first voyage. They've done reasonably well since then, enough to get Shai sole ownership of the Strider and to keep her crew happy. A little too well, even; the Strider's reputation has offended the pride of a Dragon-Blooded merchant, and rumors that Shai is god-blooded or a Lost Egg at best and Anathema at worst have spread throughout several areas where the Strider has touched down or let off crew. And the Strider's touched a great many places, from West to East; Shai loves expanding her horizons.

Misc Notes

  • Conversation with IsawaBrian, re the Maidens and meta-Shai's interest in Journeys in particular:
    • IsawaBrian pages: Probably <she'd have a clue about them>, yes, considering their prominence, but you'd probably think odd things about them, if you don't have high occult or lore.
    • Sariel nods. Has... a Varang-raised PC, a dot in Occult, and two in Lore, so. (And while Shai did leave Varang territory young, Shai's mother was also Really Really Really Astrology-Focused, so it pretty much balances. [laughs])
    • IsawaBrian pages: I'd say she'd know at least the names, and the fact that they're powerful. THe Varang -is- astrologically concerned. But the Varang IS under the thumb of the Realm; she probably doesn't know much about the "Sidereal Anathema" and may believe that the Five Elemental Dragons are more powerful than the Five Maidens.
    • IsawaBrian pages: Mind you, like it makes much difference if you, a starting Solar, piss either off.

Attached NPCs

  • Sarasvati Lotus: Shai's mother, who is probably still alive and still in Varang territory. (Shai hasn't seen her in over a decade.) She used to make a living casting horoscopes for tourists and other visitors to Yane. High Appearance, decent Charisma, fairly low other Attributes.
  • Complaining Jade: See Backgrounds, Follower ☻.
    • Shai's crew: Eclectic mix of largely reasonably skilled sailors. A slight majority are Westerners; a few are ex-pirates or ex-members of business rivals' crews. They tend to either trust Shai or be in awe of her enough that they probably wouldn't pass on word about her suspicious artifacts or suspicious excess of talent deliberately . . . although tavern gossip while on leave or after leaving her crew is always a possibility.
  • Others: Shai's rival and father have deliberately been left fairly vague. Both are probably Water-Exalts related somehow and the father is definitely a very influential or well-known Dynast, but details are being left open for Evil ST Plans™, particularly since Shai doesn't have a clue who her father was.

Attached PCs

  • Allen (Dawn): The second PC Shai encounters, at the mouth of the Yanaze River. She took Allen on as a passenger to the East for a token fee, as he "felt right" to her; they may or may not know that each other is a Solar by the time they reach the rest of the group. (Odds say "probably," given Allen has Known Anathema 4 and Shai tends to be more careless about dropping hints while aboard her ship, but.)
  • Green Cove (Twilight): The first PC Shai encounters, in Abalone. She took Cove on as a temporary crewmember in exchange for passage to the East; en route, they fought off a pair of tentacle monsters sea demons and have probably revealed their Solar natures to each other. (The session ended before it happened; we need to work out details at some point.)
    • Floating Leaf (Familiar): Cove's tiger familiar came with her onto Strider, so Shai is vaguely familiar with her.

Point Expenditures

  • Freebies: 15
      • Flaws: KA (1), UO (1), R (2), GC (2), PCM (2) + S (2) == 10
    • Merits: IC (-1), L (-1) == -2
    • Attributes: Perception ☻ +1 (-4) == -4
    • Abilities (c/f): Archery ☻☻☻ +2 (-2), Bureaucracy ☻☻☻ +1 (-1), Linguistics 0 +3 (-3), Sail 0 +4 (-4), Socialize ☻☻☻ +2 (-2) == -12
    • Backgrounds: Artifact ☻☻☻ +1 (-2), Contacts 0 +2 (-2), Follower 0 +1 (-1), Resources 0 +2 (-2) == -7
  • Total: 15 +10 == 25 -2 = 23 -4 = 19 -12 = 7 -7 == 0
  • Experience Earned:
    • Sessions: Prelude 1 (4) == 4
    • Bonus: none (0) == 0
  • Total: 4
  • Experience Spent:
      • Earned: 4
    • Abilities (other): Melee 0 +1 (-3) == -3
  • Total: 4 -3 = 1

Comments

Insert 'where can I watch this game? :D' comment... THERE. (<---) -DarkheartOne

Hee! [laughs]
If you want to read the logs, our GM is posting them at http://letiwolf.livejournal.com/tag/family+circle : so far there's only one (with Shai and Green Cove), but we're doing two more preludes tonight! So those logs should go up in a few days. For in-person watching, we're playing on a semiprivate MUSH; e-mail me (my address is on my LJ profile) if you want to talk about that? [grins] --Sariel
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