Relentless

Name: Relentless

Brief description: An indomitable weaselfolk. Charming, blunt, and tough as a coffin nail. Hero of a predominantly beastman slave revolt which later settled in Geva. Currently a strongman in the Jian Road Society, a gang made from veterans of the slave revolt, which could turn back into a bandit army given cause. Relentless is determined to build a life in this land, or else see it burned down around him.

Exaltation: Solar
Caste: Dawn
Anima: Baleful Sunburst
Supernal: Resistance
Essence: 1
Limit Trigger: Being taunted by a victorious foe

Personal Essence: 13/13
Peripheral Essence: 33/33

Health:
-0: []
-1: [] []
-2: [] []
-4: []
Incapacitated: []

Parry DV: 7 (8)
Evasion: 3
Rush: 6
Resolve: 3
Guile: 1

Natural Soak: 7

Attack w/Descending Symmetry: 14d + stunt

Attributes

Strength: 2
Dexterity 5
Stamina 5

Charisma: 5
Manipulation: 1
Appearance: 3

Perception: 2 (+2 Hearing)
Intelligence: 1
Wits: 4

Abilities

Caste:
Awareness 4
Brawl 3
Resistance 5
War 1
Melee 5

Favored:
Presence 5
Stealth 5
Larceny 5
Athletics 1
Survival 1

Other:
Performance 1
Linguistics 1
Integrity 1
Socialize 1

Specialties

Melee (Spears)
Presence (Winning Smile)
Resistance (Unstoppable)
Stealth (Ambush)

Merits

2: Boundless Endurance
3: Enhanced Sense (Hearing)
2: Fur

1: Languages: Riverspeak, Flametongue

1: Mentor: Echisia: Thoughtful Beastwoman terrestrial, Trusted Confidant and current leader of the Jian Road Society
1: Ally: Ilandier, Minor Trickster City God

3: Backing: Jian Road Society gang
3: Command: Myrmillos: Small but skilled band of beastfolk and Wyld mutants: Might 1

4: Artifact: Descending Symmetry

Artifact Longfang: Descending Symmetry(••••)

A great, golden spear built from narrow angles and straight lines, each measure bearing astrological significance. Solid planes of orichalcum are trimmed with starmetal wire. Base-seven mathematics describe the numerology of a long-forgotten martial art.

Descending Symmetry was commissioned by a Solar seeking to perfect a martial art which would place him in harmony with Creation and Heaven. Their art was never meant to be used in anger; only as a bridge to pure enlightenment, changing fate and being changed by it.

The spear was found in a private museum in Amkhu. According to inscribed legends adorning its display, its owner was killed during the Usurpation, spear in hand, while they searched fruitlessly for a weapon to defend themselves.

Though it is doubtful that an ancient anathema would prove so defenseless, no matter how mad or how decadent, it's possible that the weapon never drew blood until the day it was stolen by the Forsaken known as Relentless. The anathema turned the historical curiosity on its caretakers, who had kept it from evil for centuries, before bringing it to bear against the defenders of the city.

Though in grossly unqualified hands, the spear's attunement with heaven seeks balance. Relentless has learned a misusage that serves his needs. When he devotes himself wholly to attack, the weapon strives to bolster defense. Each turn Relentless attacks using Descending Symmetry, he receives a non-cumulative +1 bonus to DV. If he takes a Full Defense action, this bonus disappears for the rest of the engagement.

Size: Medium
Accuracy: +3
Damage: +12
Defense: +1(+2)
Overwhelming: 4(5)
Attunement: 5

Tags: Lethal, Melee, Balanced, Piercing, Reaching

Evocations: ???

Intimacies

Defining:
I'm never beaten unless I quit

Major:
Tie: Beastfolk, mutants, and shunned outlanders (My People)
Tie: Slavery (duty to destroy)
Tie: Echisia (Respect)
I love to fight
I love to learn secret things
I love music and festivals
Fear: Am I truly Anathema?

Minor:
Drinking
Heroic stories
Dalliance
I like to trick people even though I'm not good at it
Tie: Mosyti, aka: Weaselfolk (My More Specific People)
Tie: The Guild (enemy I've gotten even with)
Tie: The city of Amkhu (enemy I've gotten even with)

Charms

Resistance

Durability of Oak Meditation

Spirit Strengthens the Skin

Iron Skin Concentration

Diamond-Body Prana

Iron Kettle Body

Adamant Skin Technique

Aegis of Invincible Might

Essence Gathering Technique

Melee

Excellent Strike

One Weapon Two Blows

Solar Counterattack

Brawl

Thunderclap Rush Attack

Larceny

Flawlessly Impenetrable Disguise

Stealth

Easily Overlooked Presence Method

Blinding Battle Feint

BP Spending

+1 Stamina: 4 BP
+2 Resistance 2 BP
+2 Melee 2 BP
+2 Presence 2 BP
+2 Stealth 2 BP
+2 Larceny 2 BP
+1 Awareness 1 BP

Backstory

Successive waves of migratory invasions have buffeted the area of the Risen Empire, from increasingly populous tribes and beastfolk Polises across the deep threshold. The most recent incursion was defeated scant years ago, and narrowly. The threshold barbarians, outmaneuvered, negotiated a surrender, but were captured as soon as their arms were laid down. They were sold into slavery, flooding the local markets beyond their ability to process them. This, combined with exhaustion and losses among local soldiery, culminated in the Five Venoms rebellion less than a year later, named for the group of surviving snakefolk officers who orchestrated the uprising.

The chaotic escape from Amkhu saw many disasters. The markets were looted. The granary was set attacked, a third of its stocks stolen or burned. A hundred ancestral villas were ransacked and thirty great families murdered. As the Realm's official records lament, the destruction was so wanton that it culminated in an anathematic exaltation. In a baleful bonfire of sunlight, a weasel beastman held a narrow street alone against the royal lancers, allowing the slow-moving slaves to escape to the countryside.

Following the rebellion, the Five Venoms army rampaged across the countryside, ransacking farms and, above all, raiding Guild caravans, freeing more slaves and winning more loot. They remained in Amkhu's hinterland while the city licked its wounds and raised an army fit to crush them, but slipped away before they could be destroyed, weaving a circuitous path deeper into Risen lands.

Eventually, they reached the sprawling city of Geva. Though enormous and boasting a powerful city guard, with Realm support, the city had reason to fear. Its walls were old and poorly maintained, and too small. They left newer districts of the city outside. Then, the five venoms issued a strange demand: They insisted they had been invited.

In truth, they had.

The god of the city had once been named Ilandier, the Dark Heart. Geva had been a city of vice and murder for centuries, and its god reflected that. When a force of wealthy merchants and nobles co-opted the Realm to restore order, with the promise of greater tribute, Ilandier wasn't merely changed. He was severed from his city and left to wander, while a sterner god, Sharzusa, arose in his place. Geva had come to the leaders of the ex-slaves in dreams, promising sanctuary, knowing they would return chaos to his beloved city.

Ilandier had enough old frends, and enough locals who didn't want to see their hinterland burned, that the rebel demands were entertained, and finally accepted. The ex-slaves, remembering their earlier betrayal, refused to disarm themselves, but agreed to turn over their leadership, leaving them no longer an army. The surviving officers remain in the custody of Prince Kenou, his guests, emmisaries, and hostages.

The ex-slaves now try to make a life here. They dominate the city's so-called Impure Quarter, which has grown hastily into a tightly built mass of streets and workshops and rowhouses. There, Ilandier does battle with Sharzusa. Each day, merchants and foot patrols extend her authority over the Quarter. Each night, thieves and gamblers steal it back for Ilandier.

The old gladiator army is gone, and few in the Quarter have grown angry enough to demand its return, but they still need protection for themselves and their community. The Jian Road Society is one part criminal gang, one part town watch. They protect beastfolk, and others of impure blood, from extortion and violence, but inflict more of the same in turn on their neighbors.

For a gang, they're outrageously dangerous, with steel weapons, and ranks filled with young toughs and ex-gladiators. Among them, most worryingly of all, lurks an Anathema. He's a weasel beastfolk, but sometimes wears other faces. Once, the Wyld hunt rode to the city. Sightings of the sun-touched dropped to nothing as they arrived. After weeks of fruitless searching, they rode away, convinced their quarry had moved on. A week after they'd gone, Relentless was active again, undeterred and determined to win a home for his people.