Exalted: Dead Waters

[Girasol of Chaos]

Eh, summary here to make things easier:

Exalted in her hometown, an epiphany while working on a statue. The result was a terrifying masterpiece and she was forced to flee her homeland.

Her mentor Akua is on the other side of Abalone in a currently undisclosed location and housed Kaimi for the duration of her training.

Kaimi's sacrifices are her love for her hometown (she now loathes it), and she now has permanent wanderlust. Staying too long in one town/city will drive her mad, it's not easy after a month, it's not recommended after 3 months, it's impossible after 6.

Many of her dodging abilities and her throwing technique were taught to her by her older brother, whom she hasn't seen in years.

Her minor connections are individuals she has altered with imbue amalgam, and there are a small handful. If she hasn't required anything of them immediately their payment is to assist her when she calls for it.

Reason for motivation: The Immaculate Order has been disturbing the inhabitants of Gateway for longer than Kaimi has been around. Ever since the Scarlet Empress disappeared, her orders for them to cease their pressure have no bite, and the Immaculate Order has been bothering locals and insulting the volcano gods. This, in turn, makes the worshiped volcano gods angry and things have just been going downhill from there for all of the locals. Kaimi exalted in the middle of her home studio in a town full of Immaculate Order monks and was driven out, and has both cultural and personal reason to hate them and to drive them out of the west, and possibly from existance.

[Krylo]

Get to those in a second, but first one more thing I forgot to mention Drac, but with your tell being your eyes this all:

Originally Posted by Book

This does not mean that Tells are easy to detect. The
Lunar Exalted could not wear others’ skin with impunity
if they were always recognizable by a specifi c tuft of fur or
a wolf’s fangs. Most of the time, the Tell goes unnoticed.
The Lunar radiates a powerful and unnoticeable mental
infl uence on people who perceive the Lunar in any form,
commanding them to ignore the Tell. This counts as natural
mental infl uence, despite its obviously magical nature. The
Tell acts as an attack with 12 successes on the roll, automatically
slipping into the blind spot (or the equivalent for
other senses) of any target with a Dodge Mental Defense
Value of 11 or less. The Tell is most important in false human
and animal forms—in any true form, the Lunar is not
concealing his identity.

Means people are going to glaze over your character's eyes and not really pay them any particular attention (unless they have over 12 mdv, which yeaaaaaah), which isn't really an issue, but something to keep in mind when RPing. Namely that you should avoid eye based things like staring into someone's eyes, glaring, that kind of thing. In the former the NPC will almost always avert their eyes, and in the latter they probably won't notice. 'Cause if they did they'd notice your freaky bird eyes.

Edit: And why does she want to kill the deathlords?

[Overcast]

Syren is from the an outlying city near An-Teng his parents groomed him from youth to be an offering to a higher born Realm family via marriage. So they had him educated, made him good with money, primped him up a lot so that any highborn woman would want a piece. they simultaneously crushed his dreams of eventually being a part of the Immaculate Order or any other kind of martial hero in favor of this life.

This is pretty normal for the An-Teng are where the family is put above individuals.

As such while he wasn't enthused he followed his family wishes and became the prettiest administrator, but would often practice martial form off in the wilds with his dog Maduri. A goal constantly spurred by his family's prized artifact, a fighting chain far too heavy for any normal man to wield. Still dreaming that one day someone might notice him and take him away.

At some point dissent began to rise in the region, not entirely unusual as An-Teng splits its loyalties to the Realm proper as long as it is profitable, but in this case it was a bit more blunt and obvious. This gained the attention of the Realm who began to send emissaries to the city in the hopes that presence would instigate order. The families there, used to their personal comforts and the lack of intrusion on their affairs grew more irritable. Syren noted that a lot of what was happening seemed to be plotting through his own branch of the Realm Bureaucracy.

He knew that this could only end in disaster, for while most agree that An-Teng could survive on its own, it could not survive a proper war with the Realm. He began to act as a fork in the wheels of the dissent, keeping letters of assistance to the Realm, falsifying letters to the local power players, spreading small rumors of the Anathema being the true source of dissent. In the end he was able to begin reducing the animosity but in its wake someone was able to trace the paperwork back to him.

In the night a group approached him, all wrapped in dark clothes with evil intentions, led by a charismatic man who could not help a dramatic speech before he acted. As it turned out a Yozi cult had been creeping in the dark of his city, attempting to disrupt the power structure through deception so they may make it a foothold for their master's whims. For a moment he thought he would fight, but he knew there were too many. For a moment he was sure his death was at hand, but somewhere in him his confidence began to flow forth, and he could not help but speak.

He interrupted the speech of the cult leader with a witty quip that shook through the group. In a moment he could swear that he could sense the reasons they were all there, and he stepped forward and entered debate. Through force of personality, well spun lore, and a few well placed lies the cult began to dwindle and separate. All off to contemplate what they had done with their lives. Until eventually all the was left was the cult leader himself.

Enraged the man attempted to run Syren through for his no good busybodiness But with quick reflexes he dodged and smashed his fist against the man's face.

And he did it a few more times for good measure.

He finally returned home and removed his turban, and shining beneath was his caste mark. Shining with the power of the Unconquered Sun. Needless to say he was a bit freaked out, and was lost to what could be happening. The mixed feelings, the idea of being Anathema, the possibility of being lied to most of his life.

But most of all this feeling of independence. A will to power.

The day after his parents had found a fine woman for him to marry. A horror of a woman who would be sure to skyrocket his family quite a ways at the cost of his happiness, but they wouldn't find him. The artifact the family treasured was missing, a great deal of their resources had been legally transferred out of their account to an unknown source, and a collection of other bureaucrats who had been involved personally with his campaign to stabilize the city were missing, and his little dog too.

Which is to say they were all with him, travelling away from the city toward Sol knows where, but following his heart for the first time in his life.

tl;dr

• Former member of the Realm Bureaucracy, and forced socialite.
• Hates his family and doesn't have real friends as a side effect of his life.
• Dire chain was a family heirloom, he stole it.
• Administrative assistants are former members of the Realm Bureaucracy who followed him on his departure. They tend to stay close to him, and some of his resources are tied to their transportation and lodging.
• Exalted when he talked apart a Yozi cult.
• Martial and dodging skill gained by frequent personal practice in brawling, but has never had formal training and so knows no real forms.

[Krylo]

And I forgot to ask, but can probably guess... but why does Syren want to unify creation?

[Overcast]

I keep writing too many words. The world is stronger when it stands together, the world feels like it is on the edge of revolution with the Scarlet Empress gone, what better time to plot unification?

[Krylo]

Went over some things with Steel, slight changes to his sheet (resources instead of artifact, now has the right version of larceny excellency, blah de blah).

Reuploading new version for him.

TO GIRA

[Krylo]

Made a couple of edits for Gira.

Updated sheet here.

That leaves everyone approved except for Arhra and everyone's favorite magical cat. Once Drac answers his questions, and Steel gets his specialties in.

Man, I need to get to work on statting your antagonists.

Edit: Noticed immediately after she went to bed that Gira had the pre-errata version of seven shadow. Gira: if I forget to mention it more personally, the perfect dodge is 8 motes instead of 3 in errata.

Updated sheet to reflect change.

[Steel Shadow]

Welp, here we go!

[Overcast]

I'm realizing we have a shit ton of conviction around the group. We are The Greater Good.

[Wizardcat]

Rough draft, mostly complete, I think. Gonna be busy with GW2 this weekend, so just throwing it up and will address issues afterward. Feel free to offer advice, suggestions, et cetera.