TheGatesOfCreation/BurningAnise

Burning Anise, Who Curses Not the Darkness, Inheritor of the Flame

History

Burning Anise remembers quite a bit of her past, which is unfortunate, as she would rather be rid of much of it. At the same time she doesn't know some things, things which she would like to know. This much she knows, though.

She was born into slavery on the long march to Gem, to a woman who was barely more than a child herself. She learned the strictures of the lash with her first words and her first steps, and fought the dogs for the scraps thrown in the troughs for slave-children.

When she was four they took her mother away from her and sold her to a new owner. She joined a Guild merchant caravan carrying a cargo of children and other fine goods, It was headed to the Southern Wyld to trade with the courts of raksha there. All the other children and some of the adult slaves were taken. Anise was left behind, unbought, unwanted and alone.

The merchant stopped on the way back from the Lapis Court to pick up a cargo of firedust from nomadic sand-miners. Present also was a tall, strange man who stopped to speak briefly with the merchant. After some discussion, silver changed hands, and she was unchained and pushed roughly towards the stranger. The caravan then prepared to leave without her, something that thrilled and terrified her at the same time.

The man asked for her name, how old she was, and if she was hungry. She answered with single words and kept her head bowed in case her answers displeased him. He took her to the tent-inn in the middle of the nomad camp and bought her a bowl of lamb stew and some flatbread. After she had eaten all she could, she fell asleep only to wake up to the gentle jogging of a horse's stride. She was seated in the saddle in front of the man, wrapped in an oversize shawl, and night had fallen.

They travelled for what felt like weeks or months, always taking the least-known paths, Her benefactor spoke little save to point out certain hazards of the road, or the landmarks he navigated by. The landscape changed around them, shifting from arid desert to grassy savannah, and from that to thick forests and golden fields of wheat and barley.

It was in the middle of a rolling expanse of millet and amaranth that he reined his horse to a stop in front of a modest, slightly shabby house. He climbed off the horse, and then helped her down the same way he had when they had stopped at inns and taverns to rest. He talked with the woman who lived there while Anise watched butterflies and bumblebees tumble over a small kitchen garden and an unruly patch of watermelon vines.

The woman invited them in for a modest meal and tidied the spare bedroom while they ate. The next morning, the man left alone, and Anise stayed with the woman she would call Aunt Chenille. Chenille was a pretty young widow, childless; her husband had died in one of the countless brushfire wars that enveloped the Thousand Kingdoms. She made a modest living selling hand-woven cloaks to travelers who passed through, supplemented with the slightly illicit gains of helping smugglers hold interesting packages and occasionally, hiding interesting people.

She raised Anise like her own child, occasionally employing her to "deliver" packages to someone waiting outside the village boundaries, or to pick up something left inside the hollow tree on the edge of the garden. She was also something of the local village scandal due to her occasional flings with other people's husbands.

Nevertheless Anise's life was as uneventful as they came from the day she was left at Chenille's. At least, until the letter arrived...

The letter arrived with a trading caravan when Anise was eighteen. It said simply. "When I first saw you, you were hungry and the merchant wasn't treating you right. A child needs raising and feeding, so I took you to Chenille's. Every year I paid her to keep you. Now you're old enough to make out on your own. Join this caravan if you want. I'll be waiting in Nexus."

A note of credit was enclosed in the unsigned letter, written to a sum sufficient to outfit Anise with traveling equipment of her own, and to pay Chenille for a year of care. The caravan would stay a week buying and selling and restocking its stores of foodstuffs from the farmers' markets; a temporary bazaar had been established in the town square. It took Anise less than that to make up her mind.

At the great party held at the caravan's departure, she kissed her aunt goodbye, hugged her tighter than she ever had before, and joined the other youths in the village who were also leaving to see the world.

Nexus lay ahead.

Exaltation

Anise spent most of the five years away from home with her benefactor, a man who was only referred to as Flame, or the Flame, or the Burner, or something similar. She soon discovered he was a bounty hunter and occasional hired killer. He talked to her about the time he'd hired on a Wyld Hunt in the South and how his shoulder was still stiff from the injuries the Anathema had dealt him. He taught her how to break wild horses, and how to ride them, how to survive in the wilderness between villages and how to defend herself with her fists and with firewands.

But he never let her kill. Most of the time he would give her specific orders to wait somewhere with supplies and fresh horses and then ride off to whatever his mission was. He'd return in a day or three, change his tired-out horse for the fresh steed she'd brought, and then clatter away, always by the least-travelled path.

They were riding away from one of his "jobs", pursued by outriders on horseback, when it happened. Desperation drove them towards the wilderness and the open plains where their horses could run faster. It was when the sun dipped beneath the horizon where they realized their mistake.

They had ridden into a shadowland, and there was no way out until dawn. Immediately they were beset with ghosts, hungry ones, and angry ones. Flame went paler than Anise had ever seen before; some of the dead faces staring back at him, wailing at him, were faces he had known.

They had been driven into an ambush made up of the ghosts of people he had killed. The solid ghosts drove Anise away from Flame even as he started screaming, a rusty sound dragged unwilling from a mostly silent throat. His horse whinnied and fell heavily across his legs, its blood the brightest color in this terrifying night-land.

It was then that Anise drew her firewand and aimed for the mass of ghosts. Something rang clearly in her head, like the windchimes Aunt Chenille by her windows stirring in the wind. A filmy light shone about her, and a filigree of purest gold shimmered about her firewand. The gout of flame that issued forth when she pulled the trigger seared the very plasms of the wicked ghosts.

Whirling devils of firedust swept about her, leaping into the breach of her firewand each time she emptied it. She managed to clear the worst of the ghostly horde away and drag Flame onto her horse, and keep the unholy spirits away until the first hints of dawn flickered on the eastern horizon.

Then she spurred her horse desperately, riding away with her fragile, living cargo. She stopped at a copse of trees outside the shadowland to heat water and try to tend Flame's wounds. His legs were smashed to jelly and bone showed through the gashes on his side.

He stopped her as she broke saplings to use as splints and pressed a small leather-bound book into her hand. Its cover was the color of dried blood, and she gasped when she realized what he was doing.

"Stood by me..." he hissed weakly, "like you were my own daughter." He smiled weakly in the light of her still-burning anima touched the Caste-mark on her forehead with his other, bloody hand, and then died.

She buried him there in an unmarked grave and wept, the center of her forehead anointed with his blood. And then she took up the book of contracts and her weapons and rode away from civilization, away from the Wyld Hunt and into the wilderness.

Appearance

Anise has skin the color of cafe au lait and wispy pale hair. Her green eyes are at once cautious and weary. Nearly six feet tall and built like a gymnast, she finds it easy (and in fact more convenient) to disguise herself as a man when traveling alone in the Southern Threshold, and has done so thus far with a carefully padded buff jacket and a kerchief worn over her face.

She is never far from her firewand or her horse, a chestnut-colored mustang named Ember.

Character Sheet

Nature: Survivor

Attributes

Strength 2, Dexterity 5, Stamina 4, Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Intelligence 3, Perception 3, Wits 3

Virtues (Virtue Flaw)

Compassion 2, Conviction 3 (Heart of Flint), Temperance 2, Valour 2

Abilities (Caste or Favoured)

Archery 3, Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Bureaucracy 0, Craft 0, Dodge 5, Integrity 1, Investigation 2, Larceny 1, Linguistics 1 (Native: Flametongue, Riverspeak), Lore 1, Martial Arts 4, Medicine 1, Melee 0, Occult 1, Performance 0, Presence 0, Resistance 2, Ride 2, Sail 0, Socialise 0, Stealth 2, Survival 1, Thrown 0, War 0

Backgrounds

Backing •, Contacts •••, Resources •••

Excellencies

Dodge (1st)

Charms

Dodge (Flow Like Blood, Reflex Sidestep Technique, Seven Shadow Evasion, Shadow Over Water), Martial Arts (Blessing of Righteous Solar Spark Meditation, Blossom of Inevitable Demise Technique, Cloud of Ebon Devils, Kiss of the Sun Concentration, Lightning Draw Stance, Righteous Devil Form)

Spells

None

Join Battle: 5

Dodge DV: 7 (6 in armour)

Soak: 6B/4L/3A (Buff jacket, Mobility -1, Fatigue 2)

Attacks: (+ cannot parry lethal damage without stunts)

Punch - Speed 5, Accuracy 10, Damage 2B, Defence 12 (DV 6), Rate 3

Kick - Speed 5, Accuracy 11, Damage 5B, Defence 7 (DV 4), Rate 2

Firewand - Speed 5, Accuracy 10, Damage 12L, Rate 2, Range 10 (Abs)

Firewand bayonet - Speed 5, Accuracy 11, Damage 6L, Defence 10 (Dv 5), Rate 2

Flamepiece - Speed 5, Accuracy 10, Damage 8L, Rate 1 (2 dual-wielded), Range 8 (Abs)

Join Debate: 5

Dodge MDV: 4

Parry MDV: 3

Intimacies

Anise is strongly attached to the book of contracts handed down to her by her late mentor. She views it as a continuation of tradition and an inheritance.

She is also very fond of her horse, Ember, having trained the wild mustang herself while being taught to ride.

Essence: 3

Willpower: 5

Essence Pool: Personal – 14 / Peripheral – 26 / Commited – 0

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

Belongings

Battered buff jacket

Powder horn full of firedust (12 shots)

Paired flamepieces

Firewand with bayonet

Riding horse (Ember)

Book of contracts

Deck of cards

Purse full of high-denomination coinage minted by various monarchs

Anima

As Anise's anima expands and unfolds, the Essence-light she sheds coalesces into a deck of cards spinning slowly around her as though thrown haphazardly into a small, slow-motion whirlwind. As her anima becomes fully iconic, she is surmounted by one of the figures of the Major Arcana.

Background Expansions

Backing •

While the current heir of Flame's underworld identity, most of the Thousand and One Hidden Hands have yet to warm up to Anise, and thus she is still on probation within the network, as it were.

Contacts •••

Flame was a full member of the Thousand And One Hidden Hands Movement; a loose organization of bounty hunters and hired killers who pass word about contracts and jobs among themselves. They will not intervene to protect one of their own if he gets stupid and gets killed, but they will pass word about potential hazards and offers-too-good-to-be-true. By inheriting his mantle, Anise takes advantage of the contacts he made while alive, from tavern to inn to seedy bar.

Resources •••

Anise was left with a motley assortment of large-denomination coinage when her mentor died; she has since supplemented it with the occasional bounty hunt. She has not had much time to spend much of it in her constant travels; she hopes to keep one step ahead of the Wyld Hunt.

Experience (BPs)

Current: 8

Spent: 0

Total: 0

History:

Comments

I'm not sure you're looking for comments but I like the character idea and might use it later on if you don't mind. By the way, the Caste isn't listed. It's Night, right? - MoonSword

Yeah, she's a Night Caste. If you didn't already know her character concept was hugely influenced by a Louis L'Armour novel. I've also come up with a tarot deck for her use and symbology in her anima, here. [[[MelWong]]]