TheHoverpope/Borgene
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Borgene, who Clouds Memory
Borgene is a woman, not tall but not short, not imposing but not meek, beautiful as one thing among many is; she is as beautiful as a mountain peak shining bright against the others in the range; she is beautiful as a single rose in a verdent garden; she is beautiful as one glistening tile in a mosaic. Her beauty is unspeakable, because it is not incomparable. Always when one sees her, she reminds them of something greater, some fragment of something beautiful from their childhood or a lost love. She fades from memory when she passes like a pleasant dream, remaining an outline of pleasures lost that the memory cannot reconstruct.
That something greater one is reminded of is her true nature and her true essence, although she is not even aware of it; she is a vessel for the eternally changing name of Hrotsvitha's master, not the name Szoreny by which he is known but by the mystic name which defines him, his tetragrammaton that to speak of is death or nirvana or both. She exists so that that name is somehow expressed, and given a form; the form, temporary though it is, is her purpose.
Borgene manifests herself as a woman with eyes of malfean green, and otherwise the body of a beautiful woman of the south, one who lives an easy life and has the marks of this in her smile, a half-conscious expression of bliss, like one caught in a revery. When she speaks, her voice is layered with dream and faint like one woken from fresh sleep; her words, when spoken, are remembered in inverse proportion with how important they are. A man may remember all his life the beautiful woman with striking eyes who told her that it was a lovely day; a solar hero who seeks the answer to how one might slay one of the neverborn would find that her answer was forgotten before it even began, that they were distracted by the light on her hair.
When she is in the presence of that thing which is her purpose, whatever it might be at the time, that thing seems more real than her. If near her, one's eye is drawn to it; if behind her, it seems to be visible through her as if she were nothing more than a mirage.
Stats
Attributes: 4/4/3, 5/2/8, 6/3/5
Abilities: Archery 2, Craft (wood) 6, lore 5, resistance 3, integrity 5, survival 4, occult 6, socialize 6, presence 4, performance 4
Virtues: compassion 4, conviction 2, temperance 5, valor 3
Willpower 9
Essence 7
Pool: 115/115
Charms: First excellency, crafts, lore, occult; third integrity
Bane weapon
Supernatural powers:
Lacuna
Costless, Permanent
Whenever a character attempts to remember something in her presence,
they must roll their wits + temperance at a difficulty related to how
obscure what they recall is. Remembering the intricate details of a
plot long-set is difficulty three; remembering how to bake a pie is
difficulty 2, remembering where you left your keys is difficulty 1,
and remembering the name of a comrade is possible unless you botch. If
the roll fails, that memory is lost; mortals lose the memory forever,
wheras exalts recover one memory per scene.
Breed the Beauteous Name
Permanent costless
The moment of dawn each year when calibration ends, something happens.
Borgene produces an object, or names an object, or thinks of an
object, and is not aware of what she has done. That object is blessed
and cursed, for it bears the name of Szoreny, and in some way is
Szoreny. She has named before a veiled heresiarch who preached to the
Varang that their fates were fickle and unchained; she has named a
copper astrolabe constructed by a madman that showed an impossible
heliocentric universe. She has named a tiger prowling through the
southeast jungles and a single coin with two letters scratched into it
with a pen-knife. The object she names carries the third circle
magical disease,TheHoverpope/ZahirsLovingCaress.
Just as Borgene cannot be remembered, her creation cannot be
forgotten; it is a blessing and a curse that consumes all who see it.
At the end of the year, the object loses its power and regains its
mundanity, but those scarred by the sight of it are not cured.
Passing like the Garden in Fall
Cost: 6m, 1wp, simple, shaping
Borgene's memory is like that of a summer rose in the fall; a
beautiful faded thing gone for a long time, rich with memory and
promise of joy to be but in and of itself a faded, withered thing. For
who remembers the single rose when the forest burns red and golden to
herald the winter?
Borgene activates this charm and passes from memory.
Everyone in the world who knows of her rolls wits + temperance, at difficulty 5, to retain any memory
of her at all except the memory that they once saw something beautiful
they cannot recall. Those in direct opposition to her may substitute
conviction for temperance; those who fight her may substitute valor.
If she is present, the difficulty is reduced to 3. Summoners whom she
is bound to are immune to this effect, as are Hrotsvitha and Szoreny.
Dust-mote in Sunlight
Cost: 6m, simple, shaping
Many are the children who have spent hours transfixed by the beauty of
a dust mote flitting through a column of light, glorious, bright speck
ethereal and ephemeral. How many have tried to grasp such a mote in
their hand, only to have it float away? How many have watched it pass
from the light and simply vanish? Borgene replicates that temporary
beauty, and then ends it. This is a simple action; she draws all eyes
to her visage, and then she is gone, and those she has evaded marvel.
This charm is a perfect attempt to reestablish surprise or to hide.
Forgotten Words of the Lover's Tongue
Cost: 5m, supplemental, social
It is known to savants, and well-known to any who have loved, that the
words of one to whom you are enamoured are permanent as adamant. Even
the merest phrase, forgotten in an instant, can be remembered by
chance years later, decades later, with clarity beyond anything feeble
reality could conjure. Borgene says something, and the target forgets
it completely. They are oblivious to the fact that she has spoken, and
they are oblivious to her words. Attempts to divine the message from
the target of this charm cannot succeed, for the target truly does not
know. However, the message is still there, and will very occasionally
manifest itself through dreams or omens; it will be, however,
instantly forgotten on waking or at the end of the oracular revery.
When comes the time or circumstances that Borgene chooses when she
activates the charm, the message is remembered with the clarity of
crystal bells. This allows Borgene to deliver time-delayed social
attacks, which always count as surprise social attacks to the bearer
of the message, if not to those to whom he speaks. In addition, it may
be used to deliver messages that should be perfect secrets even to
their bearer.
Bane weapon
Borgene, for three motes, may make her attacks do aggravated damage to creatures of appearance 1 or 0.
With flagrant theft from Borges.