Shataina/RishiRiana

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Rishi (Riana)

God-Blooded daughter of Arian, God of Cats (Animal Avatar from "The Book of Three Circles")

I made this character because I wanted a cat-pooka-like girl for Exalted, but I'm leery of fae PCs and I hate Lunars. I think she works perfectly as a God-Blood, though.

Note: Rishi was made before the "Player's Guide" came out and has not been retconned. However, I get the impression that it would be perfectly possible to make her using the rules presented in the "Player's Guide", so I don't feel bad about it. Thus she remains exactly as originally written save for some minor numerical changes (cost to Dematerialize, etc). It should be noted that she has, effectively, the following Merits: Longevity, God-Body (10 point version), Awakened Essence, and Magical Attunement.

Warning: if you don't like cats, or catgirls, or roguish characters, I strongly suggest that you stop reading now.

Cut Scenes

Karios the guard shivered and stamped in the morning chill, blowing on his hands in a vain attempt to warm them. "Cold for so late in the year," he remarked to his partner, who shrugged, disinterested. Disheartened, Karios turned away and retreated into fond thoughts of his family, asleep and warm at home.

"Can you hear something?" the other man asked after a long pause.

Karios stood up straighter, listening. Come to think of it, he could hear something -- a faint mewing, like an infant. "Over there," he ventured, pointing to a nearby alley.

His partner scowled and crept over, looking around. He seemed to find nothing till he chanced to look down; a look of surprise crossed his face, and he leaned over, rising with a little bundle tucked into his arms.

"A child?" asked Karios, interested.

"I'm not sure," said the other man doubtfully, bringing the bundle over and offering it to Karios gingerly.

Karios looked down into the face of a sleeping baby. "What --?" he started, then broke off in startlement as he noticed two tiny, fuzzy cat's ears tucked back on the infant's red-capped head.

"We should leave it," said the other man positively. "Demon-spawn, for sure."

Karios took it from him and rocked it gently. The baby yawned, revealing canines entirely too sharp for comfort, and snuggled into the curve of his arm. It really was kind of ... cute ... even if it was clearly supernatural. "Maybe we should ask the boss," he said.

"Hmph," was his partner's only comment.

The boss took one look at the baby and shuddered. "Throw it in the river," he snapped. "Or abandon it. I don't care. Just keep it away from my house."

Karios sighed and turned towards the door, just as it opened and the boss's wife came in with his kid. "What's this?" she asked, the young son wandering over and standing on tiptoe, trying vainly to attain the height necessary to see into Karios's arms.

"A changeling," said the boss. "Something abandoned on our doorstep. Nothing we want anything to do with." Karios leaned down a little, and the boy looked down into the child's face, reaching out a curious hand. The guardsman tried to pull the baby back, but the kid had already touched her.

The long eyes opened, blinking sleepily like any mortal infant's. It took a moment to see the yellow-green of their colour, and the slit cat-pupils. "Mrow?" said the little girl.

"Daddy, I like her," said the boy. "Can we keep her?"

"Absolutely not," said the boss. "Just look at her!"

The little boy pouted. "I think she's cute."

"No!"

The kid's face screwed up, and he opened his mouth to wail. "Come on," said his father desperately. "By the gods, she's got to be some sort of demon."

"Wah!"

The boy's mother had crossed and was looking down at the baby critically. Her face softened as the child yawned again and turned over. "Oh, she looks so helpless."

The man looked from the face of his wife to his screaming child and scowled, then failed to repress a bit of a smile. Karios knew that expression -- he recognized it from his own evenings at home. It was the face of a man defeated. Inwardly, his heart lifted a little bit. He'd actually been considering taking the infant home himself, but this would be much better. He wouldn't have been able to feed another mouth anyway, he assured himself. Maybe this way she'd have a better chance.

"Rishi!"

The little girl looked around the inner garden frantically, long red tail waving. "Rishi!" came the call again. The girl brushed aside a patch of flowers and hid something among them just as a boy, a few years older, rounded the corner of a low wall and confronted her.

"Where's my book?" he demanded.

"What book?" she asked innocently.

He sighed in exasperation. "Don't play cute with me," he said. "I know you. What'd you do with my book?"

"I haven't seen any book."

The boy sat down and put his head in his hands. Alarmed, she went over and touched his shoulder. "Play with me," she pleaded. "We can sneak over the walls and be gone in no time. Karios is on duty, he won't say anything even if he sees us."

"I have to study!"

"You don't have to study now."

"Yes, I do. I have an exam tomorrow!"

"Skip it," she said logically.

"That may work for you, Rishi, but I have my father's standards to live up to!"

Trying not to show how much what he'd said had hurt her, she backed up. "Okay," she said sadly, and dug it out from the tulips, then sat down dejectedly, ears drooping.

"Oh, Rishi," he said, distressed. "I'm sorry." To her silence, he said, trying to be reassuring, "He doesn't mean anything by it, you know. I mean, I'm sure your schooling matters as much to him as mine does --"

"It does not. You're the one who inherits. I'm just a foundling, remember?"

Silenced, he took her hand and sat with her for a spell, the book lying forgotten beside him.

The servants were cowering outside the door, none of them brave enough to open it. Raised voices within seemed to rattle the frame. Meki strode up. "What's going on?" he asked the servants, then, as they failed to answer, went for the door.

It slammed open and Rishi stormed out, gloved hands in fists, ears pointing straight up, with murder in her yellow-green eyes. Meki recalled, irrelevantly, how he had used to make her cry by teasing her about her nails, until she finally started to wear gloves and ended it. "Fine!" she yelled over her shoulder. "I don't need your charity!"

Meki went after her, grabbing at her arm. She evaded him without a second thought and rushed along the hall to the stairs. "Rishi!" he panted, keeping pace.

"I am done!" she snarled, pointed canines winking in the light. "Done, done, done!" Tears were streaming down her face, but she ignored them as she took the servants' stairs pell-mell and burst into her tiny little room.

"Rishi --"

"What? Are you going to tell me I can stay here? I don't think so! Not to be pawned off like some exotic gift!"

"Pawned off? Rishi, what's going on?"

She began grabbing things off the shelves and throwing them into a little sack -- her most personal possessions, he noticed with alarm. All the things she'd take if she were never coming back. "Apparently your father told your disgusting friend that I would go with him as some sort of concubine! After all, I'm just the little changeling, a demon-child, a fae -- I certainly don't rate marriage!" She emphasized her words by flinging things into the bag as if she wanted to break them.

"But it's almost as good as marriage -- come on, Rishi, what's wrong with it, at least he's rich, and young and handsome -- you could do so much worse --"

"I will not be kept as some kind of kinky little pet," she snapped. "I wouldn't even want to get married if he thought I was worth it!"

"You're always complaining that you're not treated as part of the family!" he cried. "I'm going to have an arranged marriage too, you know! It's tradition! You'll practically be a full noble!"

"Yeah. Practically." She snatched the sack and faced him. "Out of my way!"

To his humiliation, Meki found tears in his own eyes. "You can't leave. Please, sister."

For a moment she stood quite still. Then her shoulders fell, and she came forward and hugged him.

"I'm sorry, Meki," she said, softer now. "But it really is time for me to go. It's been time for a while now. You have your business ...."

He nodded, too miserable to speak.

"Hey, but I can see you around, can't I?" she said, forcing cheerfulness. The tear-tracks shone on her cheeks. "We can have lunch sometime."

"What are you going to do?"

"Oh, I'll find something. People say I'm a pretty good dancer -- oh, don't look so shocked, I don't do it naked or anything. Some of your silly morals have set in. I'll be okay. Don't worry, no one can hurt someone who can vanish, right?"

He had to smile. "No, I guess not."

"Say goodbye to Karios for me," she said. "I'll come back and give him a hug ... sometime."

He could only nod.

Rishi was wandering around Nexus later that night, trying to think of a place to stay, when she heard a wolf-whistle behind her. Sighing, she turned, ready to dematerialize at the faintest hint of trouble.

The man behind her sauntered from shadow into the light cast by a flickering streetlamp, and she blinked in surprise. He was the handsomest man she'd ever seen -- slender, but still clearly muscular, with shoulder-length gingery hair in a wild mane. He moved like a panther, and she was so captivated by his amazing, magnetic smile that it took her a minute to notice his -- ears.

"You're even prettier than your mother was," he said cheerfully. "Well, I think that one was your mother, anyway."

She gaped at him in shock.

"Hey, surely you have some wits," he grinned. Sharp teeth, she noted dazedly.

"Father?"

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "That's the one."

For a moment, she was tempted to rush at him and beat him furiously with her fists. "So where have you been all my life?" she asked levelly, after mastering herself.

"Oh, out and about," he replied, and winked. "Romancing pretty ladies, chasing adventure and sometimes butterflies. You know how it is, Riana."

"Well, no, actually I don't. Maybe I would if you had ever --"

"Hey," he said, raising a hand. "I just heard about you a few years ago, okay?"

"A few years?"

"There were ladies to romance. I got distracted. Come on, you came out all right, right? Right, Riana?"

"What's this 'Riana'?"

"Well," he said gravely, "in the old tongue, by tradition, you'd be named Riana. My name is Arian, you see, and so -- Riana: Arian's daughter. You must have studied the language and its syntax, surely? No education is complete without it."

"So now you just come marching in and give me a new name --"

"Well, just passing through, actually," he said airily. "Thought I'd check in on you. Looks like you've done pretty well. Anyway, I think Riana is better than Rishi, which means 'little cat' in the trader's tongue, if I'm not mistaken."

Rishi blushed furiously, angry to be reminded of her name, and chose to ignore his too-accurate translation. "Gee, thanks."

"Can't expect graciousness," he sighed, and shrugged gracefully, with a smile so wry it made her want to smile in return. "I know where I'm not wanted." Without warning, he produced a bundle of black fabric and tossed it to her. She caught it easily. "Reflexes run in the family too, I see," he said. "Well, I guess I've discharged my familial duties. See you around."

Too stunned to react, she watched him saunter off. After a few yards, he began to sing a little song: "Love to eat them mousies ... mousies what I love to eat. Bite they little heads off ... nibble on they tiny feet." He did a quick dance step, then disappeared around a corner.

"Hey!" she called, but there was no answer. Scowling, she unwound the black fabric and found a cloak. Fine fabric, she noted. Some discharge of familial duties, she thought, and slipped it on as she turned and went on down the street.

[Thanks for the song go to a mug I have.]

Character History and Explanations

Description

A mane of reddish hair (I love redheads) falls in unkempt waves down her back. Rishi has long amber eyes with cat-pupils, and a sort of pert-nosed catty face, although most people wouldn't think of it as "catty" at first glance -- they'd have to directly compare it to a cat's face to see the structural similarities. She doesn't have normal ears, but cat-ears that are set on top of her head, furred the same colour as her hair. She also has a long tail covered in the same colour fur. She's slender and quick, on the small side; she seems to have too much energy for her little frame, and unnervingly sharp canines. Her fingernails are quite opaque and round; her foster-brother used to tease her about them, and she is very self-conscious about them, wearing gloves all the time.

History

Rishi (Riana) was born to a nameless, irresponsible woman of Nexus who'd had a brief affair with the seductive God of Cats some ten months previously. When she gave birth to a child with ears and a tail, she panicked and abandoned her in a fine part of town. Rishi was picked up by the guards of a rich house, nobles by their own tradition, and would have been abandoned again had not the three-year-old son of the house, Meki (Mekan), insisted that they keep her.

She was always aware of her second-class status in the house: kept with the servants, fed with the servants, she was tolerated as a playmate for Meki and was given some education alongside him. Once in a while, she was even allowed to come to parties with him -- a sort of status symbol, an exotic plaything. She was a good-hearted but incredibly mischievous child with a knack for practical jokes, whose adorable charm readily enchanted most who met her. One of the guardsmen who had first seen her, especially, loved her as a daughter, and played with her often, giving her a rough sort of lower-class education alongside her high-class tutors. Even Meki's family eventually became attached to her, treating her almost as their child -- but never in tangible ways, such as a room out of the servant's quarters or a place at the high table.

Meki grew into a serious-minded young man and had less and less time for her as he began to take over the family business. Bored and discontent, she became more and more annoyed and dissatisfied with what she perceived as a dull and trapped life. When her foster-father arranged a match for her -- not quite a marriage, certainly; she was simply not high-class enough to marry the man who wanted her, but it would have meant some kind of status -- she became infuriated all out of proportion with the offense and left home.

She met her father, briefly, on the street that night, but he disappeared before she could remember all the questions she'd always wanted to ask him. She worked briefly as a dancer, but soon discovered that thievery was much more profitable and exciting. She did, after all, have the nearly unbeatable combination of shapechanging, dematerializing and teleportation (see Artifacts), and she has never been caught, though she's done a lot of daring (some might say suicidal) things. Accordingly, although she still sometimes works as a dancer, she tends more towards stealing things -- especially "unstealable" ones. No challenge is too great! She will not, however, steal from people who have very little, or from people she's loyal to. She prefers to do so from targets who are arrogant and pompous: Realm Dragon-Bloods, for example, are a favourite, and she likes leaving them mocking notes.

Rishi is an incredibly light-hearted girl who makes friends very easily. She makes no attempt to hide her nature unless she's going out to steal things, in which case she folds back her ears, masks herself, and ties up her tail so that no one will see it. She is fully aware of how utterly, disarmingly cute she is, and she will capitalize on her ability to act harmless and adorable if she thinks someone is suspicious of her. If she is forced into a situation in which she may have to combat supernatural beings, she prefers to either run away or convince them that she's a Lunar (and therefore not worth messing with) in order to give herself time to run away. If all else fails, she'll just dematerialize of teleport, though. She's pretty uncatchable.

(Yes, Rishi has 3 Valour. This is one of those situations which demonstrates why putting personality traits into mechanics can be awkward: the Virtue is totally in line with her in some senses, but not in others. Thus, Rishi is quite willing to do insanely brave things, such as rob the Dragon-Blood or the Fair Noble or whatever disgusting supernatural being she thinks would be amusing. She also won't use super-dishonourable tactics such as poison. But she's extremely smart, and she knows that she simply can't take most opponents, so she really just doesn't have any qualms about running away from a battle.)

[Warning: if you use Rishi in one of your games, be prepared for catgirl references.]

Backgrounds

Artifact

  • Jade-Buckled Boots (Level 1) -- Rishi stole these boots from a Dragon-Blood for the sheer joy of the challenge and only afterwards discovered that they were magical. They're knee-length, made of the finest butter-soft leather, with black jade buckles and some black jade in the soles. They add 1 to Dexterity and cost 3 motes to attune (no material bonus). [This Dexterity bonus is not marked on the statsheet.]
  • Modified Cloak of Vanishing Escape (Level 5) -- Rishi's father gave this to her the one time she saw him, out of a vague sense of duty and an impulsive liking for her. It is as per the Cloak of Vanishing Escape from "CasteBook: Night", save that it is significantly better in several ways:
    (A) it costs no motes to attune,
    (B) the teleportation ability costs 1 Willpower to use and no motes,
    (C) the teleportation ability is reflexive.
    Yes, this does mean that a mortal can use this cloak if they somehow manage to get it away from her, and yes, I did say that the teleportation ability is reflexive. Using it does not count as an action or a Charm use, but it does have to wait until her Initiative to go off. Rishi has not told anyone except her foster-brother and her Ally that she owns this cloak, as she knows very well that such a powerful Artifact in the hands of someone who can't defend it from all comers is asking for trouble. She tries to not even use it save in the direst of circumstances.

Ally

Rishi's Ally is a righteous, honourable ronin Celestial Lion who works out of Nexus. (See "Games of Divinity" for stats; also, now Righteous has his very own NexusProject entry!) The site he was set to guard in the First Age has long since fallen into disrepair, and he was sickened at the murder of the Solars and the deterioration of the Celestial Hierarchy, so he has forsaken sacred Yu-Shan. He works for those whose cause he believes is just, or simply for honest and honourable people. Rishi saw him walking down the Nexus street one day and, curious, chased after him and talked to him, charming him quickly. He sees her as an impetuous child who he occasionally has to protect and educate; he has given her a lot of training, such as in Brawl, and has educated her about the First Age (although it should be noted that his own perceptions are coloured by utter loyalty to the First Age Solars, and so the information she was passed was rather anti-Dragon-Blood). She doesn't run to him at the slightest problem, but rest assured, if she's kidnapped by Abyssals or something and he finds out about it, all hell will break loose as he chases them down himself.

Connections

  • Nexus Lowlifes -- There really aren't any "outlaws" in Nexus since there are effectively no laws, but there are things which are frowned upon (thievery, for example).
  • The Guild -- Rishi sometimes fences things to the Guild.
  • High Society -- Rishi's foster brother is her contact in Nexus High Society, should she need one.

Reputation

Rishi has a reputation as an excellent thief which is growing slowly. It should be noted that no one knows that the thief is Rishi; they must contact "the best thief in Nexus" through a labyrinth of lowlifes, and only a few of her most trusted friends know that she and "the best thief in Nexus" are the same person.

Resources

One might assume that Rishi would have more than 1 Resources, but she simply can't seem to hold on to money. She's very generous to her friends, often flings money at the poor, and tends to steal for the sport rather than the cash, although she will take a commission if she thinks that the target needs to be taken down a peg.

Loose Ends

Special Abilities

Due to her parentage, Rishi has several special abilities:

  • Perfect Darkvision (3) -- Rishi can see perfectly in the dark, unless it is specifically magical darkness which works on something other than the sense of sight.
  • Catspeak (2) -- Rishi can speak to cats in human form and to humans in cat form.
  • Retractable Claws (3) -- Rishi can grow or retract a set of extremely strong claws as a dice action requiring no dice. These make her barehanded attacks do lethal damage. They are also strong enough to allow her to climb almost sheer surfaces, including trees and all but the smoothest of walls.
  • Perfect Balance (5) -- Rishi receives 5 automatic successes, plus whatever she rolls, on any rolls to keep her balance. (Effectively, Graceful Grace Stance: she can run across laundry lines, and she will land on her feet.)
  • Luck (5) -- Once per story, the storyteller may choose one critical roll which affects Rishi, and reroll it. This may be a roll by Rishi or by someone else, and it may be rerolled either because it originally rolled too high or too low (e.g. the enemy who scored 20 successes on an attack roll with 10 dice could be forced to reroll; alternatively, Rishi could botch an attempt to convince a circle of infuriated Dragon-Blooded that she's cute and harmless, and be allowed to reroll). Note that the storyteller chooses this roll, so it may be something which seems completely innocuous to the player if Rishi is being used as a PC.
  • Dice Cap (0)-- The dice cap on Rishi's Awareness, and only her Awareness, is 6, not 5.

Charm Notes

Rishi's version of Shapechange allows her to change into any kind of mundane cat she has ever seen. (No, she cannot turn into a Celestial Lion.) Currently this only includes tigers and housecats/alleycats. She has very few forms and she knows them well, so, as per the Charm guidelines, she does not need to spend extra Essence or Willpower to take on the abilities of a form she assumes. (The way we play it, this means that her Strength goes to 6 in tiger form, and her Stamina goes to 5, but nothing else is affected. In alleycat form, there's no change, although one might wish to make her Strength go down to 1.)

Languages

Rishi speaks and reads Riverspeak, Forest-tongue, and Old Realm (taught to her by her Ally).

Character Generation

Rishi was generated with 7/6/4 Attributes, 25 Abilities, and 3 Favoured Abilities that were chosen from Brawl, Athletics, Awareness, Dodge, Stealth, Presence, Survival or Socialize. She was given 6 starting Charms and Backgrounds as a Dragon-Blood (with the points splittable any way for the Artifact Background, e.g., 3 dots of Artifact allowed her to split the resultant 6 points into a level 5 and a level 1). Then she was given 100 Experience Points. Her Special Abilities were not free, but were given an experience cost which is listed in parentheses. Note that although they were given an experience cost, they were only available at character generation. She was generated at such an experienced level because she was created as a PC for a game in which the other PC was a Sidereal, so she had to have some balance consideration.

[PS: Arian, God of Cats, is not canon. If you want to use him, use the stats for Animal Avatars from the "Summon Animal Avatar" spell in "The Book of Three Circles". You may wish to give him an extra dot of Essence as his domain is over all cats from alleycats to tigers, not just a particular kind of cat. For his personality, just imagine what a tomcat with a stupid amount of power would be like. He is not listed as a Background for Rishi because she can't rely on him; he's more like a plot device.]

Statistics

Attributes

Strength: 2
Dexterity: 4 (+1 from artifact boots)
Stamina: 3

Charisma: 4
Manipulation: 4
Appearance: 4

Perception: 3
Intelligence: 4
Wits: 3

Abilities

Brawl: 2 (Specialty: In Cat Form +2)
Thrown: 1

Athletics: 4
Awareness: 6 (Yes, that does read "six".)
Dodge: 3
Larceny: 3 (Specialty: Lockpicking +1)
Stealth: 3 (Specialty: In Cat Form +1)

Performance: 2
Presence: 3 (Specialty: Persuasion +2)

Bureaucracy: 1 (Specialty: Fencing Goods +1)
Linguistics: 2
Socialize: 3 (Specialty: Seeming Cute and Harmless +2)

Investigation: 1 (Specialty: Concealed Objects +2)
Lore: 3
Occult: 2

Backgrounds

Ally: 3
Artifact (x2): 3
Connections
-- The Guild: 1
-- Nexus High Society: 1
-- Nexus Lowlifes: 3
Reputation: 1
Resources: 1

Virtues and Such

Compassion: 3
Conviction: 2
Temperance: 1
Valour: 3

Willpower: 7

Essence: 2
Essence Pool: 33 (8 committed to Principle of Motion and Jade-Buckled Boots; cost to Dematerialize is 15)

Charms and Combat

Compassion: Measure the Wind
Conviction: Confusion
Valour: Principle of Motion, Dematerialize, Uncanny Prowess, Shapechange

Base Combat Statistics
-- in normal form, using Brawl: Speed +8, Attack 7, Damage +2, Block 7
-- in normal form, using throwing knives: Speed +8, Attack 6, Damage +4, Rate 3, Range 15
-- in tiger form, using her claws: Speed +8, Attack 10, Damage +6, Block 10
-- in tiger form, using her bite: Speed +8, Attack 9, Damage +7, Block N/A
-- in alleycat form: she dodges and runs away
Dodge Pool (all forms): 8
Soak: 4 Bashing, 2 Lethal, 1 Aggravated (modified Cloak of Vanishing Escape, 1L/1B)
Health Levels: -0, -1, -1, -2, -2, -4, Incapacitated

Comments

The word that comes to mind, is cute (and of course she is! ^_^). I am impressed. ^_^ -- BrokenShade

Glad you like her.  :) Of course of course she's cute -- she has a specialty <grin>. (I'm way too amused with myself for coming up with that.)
~ Shataina

You mean =^_^=, right? ~_^
_Ikselam

Ooo ...
I like, but I think it's better with a catty button nose: =^.^=
=^~.~^=
=^~_~^=
=^o^=
This is going to amuse me for a while! Thanks.
~ Shataina

cute cute cute cute and i might just use her soon, I need more just weird randomness for Great Forks - HeWhoSpeaksOfDarkness

Awesome! Thanks! If you use her, definitely let me know how it goes. :)
~ Shataina

I love cats (own 5) and this character is ..., can`t find an appropriate word to express myself. Vampir

=^~.~^=! Thank you. I tried to hit all the best clichés.
~ Shataina
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