Harrower of the Celestial Skein, Sworn Knight of Steel-and-Ember Elegia
Abyssal Exalt:
Essence: 2
Caste: Daybreak
Anima Banner: A carrion cosmos, a corpse-sky ruled over by a titanic seraphim. A great star-dragon, made from the merging of numberless dead.
Virtues + Intimacies:
Major Virtue: Wonder
Minor Virtue: Compassion
Major Intimacies: "No one should ever be held in thrall or bondage", The Lookshyan Empire (Bitter Hatred), Death (Ravenous Curiosity)
Minor Intimacies: "I pull validation from my art", The Wolf-Kingdom (A New Home?), Elegia (Awkward Fondness), 'Jason' (It's Very Complicated), General Navona Afia Sarantankous (Lethal Rivalry)
Exalt Advantages:
Death's Champions: Steeped in the power of the grave and in service to ancient ghosts, an Abyssal feels the wear of existence less keenly than the living. Metaphysically an Abyssal is undead, a creature of Darkness shunned by the Unconquered Sun, and cannot be incapacitated by fatigue, hunger, thirst, mundane poison and disease, or asphyxiation. If mortally injured an Abyssal instead falls into torpor and may recover at a later time. They are at their strongest in locations touched by death and feel the pull of such places as a tangible sensation, a tug on their senses.
Cruel Banquet: An Abyssal may eat and drink as it pleases them. Wine does not sour on the tongue and good food does not rot in the belly. A warm bed is a thing to be enjoyed, pleasant company an occasion to be relished and all the luxuries their Lords can provide are theirs to savor. But the truth cannot, will not be denied: a Deathknight is nourished most by flesh and blood, fear and dread. Nothing else can slake those most violent appetites.
Resonance: Abyssals are resonant with soulsteel and Necrotic aspected materials.
Anima Abilities:
Dark Inspiration (Passive): The great work of the Daybreak must continue. Let nothing inhibit their nightmare artistry. Let nothing bar the way of their dark genius. No matter the medium, no matter the methodology, let all their materials shudder with anticipation, leaping eagerly into the hands of a master craftsman.
Underworldly Lore (Active): Together they dance along the edge of Oblivion, the Daybreak and Death hand-in-hand. A slow waltz without a missed step or faltering motion such is their familiarity, such is their intimacy. What secrets must they share with each other? In those tender moments at the end of everything.
Gruesome Epiphany (Iconic): In the roiling light of their Anima Banner the futility of opposition is made clear. To a Daybreak's keen eyes there is no hiding the flaw that lays at the heart of their enemy: be it in the blade, the one who wields it, the walls beneath their feet or the crown they wear.
Attributes:
Force: 4
Finesse: 3
Fortitude: 3
Abilities:
Athletics: 4
Awareness: 4
Close Combat: 3
Craft: 3
Embassy: 0
Integrity: 3
Navigate: 0
Performance: 0
Physique: 4
Presence: 3
Ranged Combat: 0
Sagacity: 5
Stealth: 0
War: 1
Charms:
[2x] Ox Body Technique (None): The power that dwells within Harrower is an ancient thing; born of the darkness that drips, patient and ceaseless from between shattered stars and broken constellations. It cannot, will not, be undone by something as small as faltering flesh.
[Sagacity] Excellency (Sagacity 1): He was born with a consciousness chained, his world bound by horizon-spanning walls and days ruled by heavy-handed overseers. Now an ocean of occult lore lays at his fingertips and what chain, what wall, what whip-bearing hand could hold back such a flood?
Glorious Exalted Bolt (Sagacity 2): One of the oldest weapons of the Host, the Essence Bolt has been invented and reinvented, discovered and adapted a hundred times in a hundred eras by a hundred different Chosen.
Crypt Bolt Attack (Abyssal): Blood red beams and ebon lightning- the cold energies of death carve their way through the living world. Corroding, severing, and destroying all that they touch.
Grand Hydra Barrage (Upgrade, Sagacity 5): Bloodless wounds in the body spill forth oil-dark, Maiden-eyed serpents. Lances of necrotic Essence spearing from their unhinged jaws- with such a preponderance of firepower, such a grand symphony of violence, the Abyssal artfully collapses time-survivor curves and winnows away the very possibility of an opponent's victory.
Incarnadine Reaper (Sagacity 3): Where other Abyssals lace their murderous blows and lethal missiles with the power of the Banquet, Harrower instead reaps a wide and bloody harvest. Sacrificing precision and individual potency for that glut of ready Essence. It is the principles of Dragonline engineering applied on the personal scale. Those rivers of red flowing, feeding the vampire sun that lives in his soul.
Life-Mocking Assembly (Sagacity 3): He works in flesh, in bone, in dark alloys and cthonic fuels. He mines inspiration from the nightmares of carrion-titans and the echoes of eras long past. Some envision death as a terminus, a point past which the essential self ceases to be. But Harrower understands with every fiber of his still and silent heart: death is a
transformation.
Corpse-Beast Revivification (Upgrade, Sagacity 4): Inspiration flows fast and free. Dread anatomies taking shape on Harrower's table- insect and reptile, man and Shogunate machine; sometimes in carefully mixed measure, sometimes all at once. In his dreams he sees warmakers that scream through the sky. Beasts that walk with world-shaking tread. His fingers twitch and he taps his foot as he sculpts, eager and impatient.
All Consuming Entropy Attack (Craft 3): Within that complex interweaving of power and purpose, celestial venom and ghost-lit necrosis lies the careful art of unmaking.
Lightning Speed (Athletics 4): The world blurs into smears of color as Harrower moves with sharp, staccato bursts of inhuman speed. Launching himself with great leaps and deceptively swift lunges. Jets of scarlet-tinged Essence erupting from the palms and heels.
Racing Hare Method (Upgrade, Athletics 4, Essence 2): The world bends and bleeds around him. Terrain flowing and changing like water as space compresses. The journey of a few days is a thing of a few minutes and if he set himself against the distant horizon, surely he would be there swiftly.
Iron Kettle Body (Physique 2): A deep study of anatomy has prompted a fascination with his own new physicality. And what a sense of power it brings! The lash and weighted rod- if they were to strike him now he wouldn't feel a thing.
Injury Absorbing Method (Abyssal): Limits are pushed. It is discovered that dead flesh is far more accepting of wounds than living meat. It endures with the indifference of cold mud subjected to spade and shovel and does not falter in the face of injury.
Ivory Blossom Carapace (Physique 4): Harrower wills skin to shadow and ivory scale, armor as peerless as it is inhuman. Purple and blue and bloody red fire weaves itself into cloth, an open skirt around his hips. Feathers trace the line of his spine, down the long and tapered tail and starry eyes twitch behind milk white lids. A dragon's death mask in iron and gold wire sits set in the blind helm he has for a face. Its horns arcing into a broken halo.
Fists of Iron Technique (Close Combat 3): Fist and forearm meet metal and it is not flesh that yields. Foot and shin strike stone and it is not the bone that breaks, shatters and splits.
Writhing Blood Chain Technique (Abyssal): Steam flows from the marrow, the body venting a feverish heat as it forges itself anew. A great cleaving blade of palest ivory that erupts from the arm? How about lashing, spiked-tipped tendrils made from muscle and blood, the sinuous thicket bursting through his back? Harrower experiments endlessly; perfecting the chimeric arsenal of his own anatomy.
Ghostly Sentinel Technique (Awareness 4, Essence 2): Shy Elegia, ever-watchful, ever-curious, taught Harrower this technique in his dreams. Showed him how to call forth creatures of black glass and black smoke and black metal; red-shot raptors and reptilian angels that could survey the world around him unseen. Another apologetic present from a bashful Lord.
Necrotechnology:
Arsinoe-class Amphibious Assault Frames (Prototype): River Dragon anatomy represents one of the most tried and true designs in Creation. Harrower created this analogue via multiple corpses fused into a single hulking, crocodilian armature, and the early results are promising. The prototype Arsinoe boasts strength and speed outstripping its already impressive frame. Dead, tireless muscle powering crushing jaws and rending claws; predatory instinct guiding physiology already well-suited to the dark waters of the Yanaze. A fearsome ambush hunter in the making...Yet the design already begs refinement and development. The animating force is all shades and echoes, the meridian-network simplistic, and inbuilt weaponry and defenses are, necessarily, limited.
Merits:
Apollyon, the Angel of the Abyss (Past Life 5): Apollyon was a veteran of the Primordial War and carried this Exaltation for untold centuries, before perishing in the Usurpation. Shaping it, molding it, like wind and rain sculpt stone. And now that corrupted sun shapes and molds Harrower in turn. What things must he have seen then, at the beginning of all this? What dark miracles must the founder of the Black Nadir Concordat have brought into this world?
Ram of Red Splendor (Abyssal, Hearthstone 5): The orichalcum of the armband is tainted, something like smoke, something like shadow staining the edges of the supernal gold. The abstract skull-head of the Ram itself is carved from a single scarlet gemstone -a thing of perfect proportions and fractal registers- and the two interlace magnificently. Until it's as if they were smelted together, the stone and its setting seemingly impossible to separate.
Manse Attributes: Megalith-II is a cruciform complex of immense scale, the ghost of a great Shogunate industrial altar. Layer stacked upon layer, block upon block, the brutalist installation laced through with elevators and internal rail; filigreed with Xauman shrines and Age of Sorrows laboratories.
While in Possession: As he plans his projects the Hearthstone murmurs to Harrower, accurately assessing the resources and labor required, the estimated time to completion, and the material cost.
This Machine (War 4): [N/A]
Elegiac Mirror (Necrotic, Artifact 3): A cloud of glass shards, razored sharp and cool to the touch. Fingers skate over the slick surfaces as if each were just pulled, dripping wet, from the water; while the edges swirl with shades of smoke and charcoal shadow. Blackened steel that rusts into fiery reds and smoldering oranges. An effort of will calls them forth from the shadows. A trickle of Essence and they will show Harrower any place he has ever been.
Lamentation Cascade (Necromancy, Awareness 4): [N/A]
Nerius Canes Aventinus Rex, the Wolf-King of Xauma (Ally 3): He really does care for the odd Abyssal living in his palace; more than he thought he would, faster than he imagined. But trust comes slowly to a born liar and slower still to a student of Ma-Ha-Suchi. And while he has offered much and demanded little, there are still a great many cards he chooses to play close to his black-furred chest.
Chrysaor (Familiar 3): A minor elemental in the shape of a dragonbat, a thing of cinders and shadow and gelatinous orange pyreflame wound into muscle. The thick grey ruff of fur around its shoulders and down its chest is very soft. The bone mask over its face polished and bright. He lives in a simply carved Hesiesh-stone that Harrower wears around his neck and loves him very much.
Steel-and-Ember-Elegia (Liege 2): Far and forever beneath Creation is a dead continent- the land of Covenant. Archive-cities and fortress-colonies grow thickly on its ruined, rain-lashed coasts: Pelagia and Abyssia. Third Obelisk, Cinder Regalia, and Trisagion of the Deluge. It is a nation ruled over by the necropolis-leviathan, the serpent-tailed Last King of Deheleshen. The resources at his command are vast, his power considerable, and he has at his disposal many vassals and servants. But he has had neither kin nor friend in more than 750 years and frets constantly over giving offense, demanding too much of his Deathknight, or, worst of all, proving a weak-willed leech and poisoning their new bond. While he has not handled this poorly
yet, it would be overly-generous to say that he has borne his new role and responsibilities with grace.
Note: I have updated the formal character sheet under threadmarks. I will not be threadmarking this one but did want to post it in a place where uh- well people would actually receive an update that it was actually live!
