It does?
Eila is a Slayer, so she starts with the Malfeas charmset. She Favors Adorjan, so she has Adorjan's.
Then she gets either the Demon City or Silent Wind for Patron choice, of which Adorjan got it.
Right?
Green Sun, Black Shadows (CG/Exalted)
- Thread starter Alexander89
- Start date
- Crossover
Eila is a Slayer, so she starts with the Malfeas charmset. She Favors Adorjan, so she has Adorjan's.
Then she gets either the Demon City or Silent Wind for Patron choice, of which Adorjan got it.
Right?
My bad, I skipped right down to Caste Yozi, which you have written as Adorjan. If she's a Slayer, then her caste Yozi is Malfeas.
Slayer - Malfeas
Malefactor - Cecelyne
Scourge - Adorjan
Defiler - She Who Lives in Her Name
Fiend - The Ebon Dragon
The caste Yozi is the one who defines their caste. Then they get an additional Patron of your choice. There's no sense in choosing the same Yozi twice because there's no benefit.
...theres no caste yozi anywhere in it.
Her caste is Slayer.
Her Favored Yozi is Adorjan. Favored being the second charmset available and discounted.
Her patron is Adorjan.
Theres no reason to list both caste and caste yozi, and caste is more relevant.
...
No, your character's Caste automatically chooses one of the Yozis. All Slayers belong to Malfeas. All Malefactors belong to Cecelyne, etc. Each of the original 5 Yozis chose the exaltations that most closely resonated with their themes and engraved themselves onto it. The charms of your caste Yozi are learned at a discount and with faster training time.
Favored and Patron are two different things. Your Patron Yozi is the second Yozi who's charms are discounted for you and learned faster. Favored abilities are ones you select at character generation to have an xp discount.
So your character has Malfeas as their Caste Yozi, and Adorjan as their Patron. Not Adorjan twice.
- Location
- Germany
...this is like watching a trainwreck. Patron signifies the Yozi supplying the Urge and being the absolute superior of the Exalt, and can be either the Caste Yozi or Favoured Yozi.
For example our Caste Yozi is TED, our Favoured is Oramus and our Patron is also Oramus and thus our Urge is Oramic and not Ophidian in nature and we met Oramus during our vision while exalting.
There is no Caste Yozi listing anywhere on the sheet!
Edit: @Prince of Brass has it.
Patron =/= Favored
Edit: @Prince of Brass has it.
Patron =/= Favored
Last edited:
From the sourcebook:
The Caste Yozi is the patron, the second Yozi is favored. So actually we're all wrong.MoEP: Infernals said:
In any case, I think I was just confused because of the way things are presented in Anathema compared to your sheet. Sorry for causing a fuss.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Caste Patron: Gives you the Caste (in Lelouch's case, TED is this)
Favored Yozi: Gives you the Favored Charms; Can be one of the Five Caste Patron Yozis or one outside them (in Lelouch's case, Oramus is this)
Urge Patron: Has to be your Caste Patron or Favored Yozi; Gives you your Urge; Marks the Yozi whose personal champion you are (in Lelouch's case, Oramus is this)
And yeah, its confusing as hell and is explained very poorly in the sourcebook for Infernals, if I remember correctly. It took me quite a while to process this when I first tried to make any sense out of it.
Last edited:
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
I admit I kinda panicked when I was scrolling over the Athling Infernal to see what Yozis were available for Lydia and saw that Charlie had Szoreny as her Favored Yozi. I though Alex had made a mistake and put her with Malfeas where she shouldn't be. Still I decided to bite the bullet and was relieved to find out that wasn't the case.
- Location
- Denmark
[X] XP Plan Enjou
Alexander89
Pet the pretty kitty? Y/N
- Location
- Italy
Sorry, the answer is negative. They may be mentioned in this quest, but only as obscenely large rituals that were used to make something in the past.
Considering there is a limit to the number of positive mutations at once, I don't see the problem.I just noticed something that could potentially be game-breaking if I'm not misunderstanding game mechanics: by learning Flesh of Horrible Hallucinations and Fractured Mind Empowerment, couldn't we get an infinite amount of positive mutations (capped by the normal limit of number of mutations)? Take a maxed Derangement by FME, get six motes out of it based on Revlid's version of Mutations and Derangements (that I think we are using?), convert it to a positive mutation (for the rest of the scene) by using FoHH with the cost of five motes.
So in short, we get a net positive of one mote and one maxed out positive mutation. That doesn't seem very balanced.
Mind you, this could be easily be amended with adding to FME description something like this: "These Derangements can't be removed by any method until they dissappear at the end of the scene by themselves".
That is correct.
On another note, a couple of news:
1) Miraculously, it seems Earthscorpion himself is interested enough in the themes of Oramus that he expresses the will to make an Excellency for him, among other things. I will keep working on the Exalted General Thread to feed this passion and, hopefully, create a true Oramus Charmset.
2) The same discussion convinced me of the validity of Revlid's rewrite of SWLiHN's Charmset rewrite. As such I plan to use it for this quest...However, before making the change definitive I want to know if anyone has a problem with it.*
*To be clear, even creating an hybrid to use the best of the two is okay with me.
Last edited:
*frowns* Essentially trashing our current charmset and rewriting it while the quest is underway seems odd to me (considering we've got 15 Oramus-themed charms making up a sizeable chunk of our options).
- Location
- Quezon City, Philippines
I got no problem with this. I actually did this in the Infernal game I'm running IRL.
We can still use the set we've made here, it's just that there will be what might be a more professionally made set that others can use for future games.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
As Peanuckle said, its also a free mote generator with its current cost. So you get positive mutations and motes without "paying" anything. His suggestion to make changing derangement points to positive mutation points at the cost of 2x motes of the point value of the derangement seems like a reasonable solution to me.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
We'd probably need to use the core version or a hybrid of SWLiHN's, as we have characters in-quest using SWiLHN charms that either don't exist or can't be used in the way they have been in Revlid's rewrite (specifically the MHM tree).
- Location
- Brazil
Same for me. I don't see how either choosing to keep the current charmset or opting to change to a new, possibly better one, is problem for anyone.
"Oramus felt like things were going too smoothly, have some new charms!"
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Oramus spontaneously changing his charmset would be within his themes...
We could even make it an IC thing, just for added awesomeness and drama.
Eh. I think the idea has some flaws.
The many truths that lie behind a name (GSP Ithuriel by forginblade)
I ran this Defiler past @Alexander89 and got his approval. So enjoy.
The many truths that lie behind a name
Outskirts of Munich, Germany, ???? ????, ????
Eliza was running back and forth between Ronald Feuerbahn's bedchambers and the kitchen as she had been doing for the past three hours. The only thing that occasionally changed were the destination and the task at hand. Right now she was both trying to change the silk coverings of sir Feuerbahn's bed and pillow as well as help the rest of the staff with setting up the menu for the night, because of course the maid that had only been working in the mansion for the past three months would know who was invited to dine with the esteemed speaker of the council of forty for this night and what all their allergies and other preferences would be. No wonder the E.U. is so big on immigration if their own people are so incompetent. And then they had the nerve to act all superior to the 'lowly Kenyan' as they called her behind her back.
And if that cheapskate of a master would just hire enough household servants that the ridiculously opulent mansion would not be staffed with a skeleton crew, her work load might just become something other than 'atrociously overloaded'.
Ah well, if nothing else, at least she wouldn't have to exercise to maintain her, dare she say, splendid figure. And the pay was good, pity about the dental plan, though.
Up the stairs, through the hallway, round the corner, obligatory gossiping with the other two maids, get a dressing down by the head of the household for wasting time, set the dinner table for 12, bring in the platters, be invisible to the guests, up, down, up, down.
As always, it was a minor miracle that her workload was finished by 23:00 and she hadn't collapsed into a pitiful pile of sadness and exhaustion.
Someone, probably Françoise, hadn't closed one of the faucets properly as Eliza could hear a dripping sound echo throughout the mansion. It seemed to come from sir Feuerbahn's private bathroom (and oh boy, wouldn't that be the juiciest piece of gossip to come out this week), so with a grunt the young maid got back up from the chair she had sitting on and made her way to the origin of the sound. If she didn't, the noise would probably keep her up all night.
Slowly she made her way up the stairs, the dripping sound steadily becoming louder and louder. The door to sir Feuerbahn's chambers was slightly open and no suspicious creaking noises made it relatively safe for Eliza's job to enter. Nevertheless, she knocked first.
"Sir Feuerbahn, are you in there? There is just a minor matter I need to attend to before retiring for the night. Would it be alright for me to enter?"
There was no response, which meant that either sir Feuerbahn didn't care or he wasn't inside. Either way Eliza would just quickly deal with the leaking faucet and get to bed.
Like a mouse she sneaked through the bedchamber and without as much as a peep, she opened the mahogany door to her master's private bathroom.
He was lying there, hanging over the bath tub. It reminded Eliza a bit of the few times she had caught her father spewing the contents of his stomach out after a night of boozing, but the color was off. It wasn't supposed to be so red.
The poor maid tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. She tried to turn around, but instead felt blood and gastric acid come down on her skirt and stockings like a torrent.
A knife was planted up to the hilt in her abdomen, her spleen cleaved in half. A knife she was holding firmly, even as her belly was split apart.
Eliza collapsed on the floor. She could feel that her voice box was torn apart. From the corner of her eyes she saw something: small, clad in black, brown hair. A boy?
Her stomach hurt so mu-
The stabbing pains of his stomach was a very familiar sensation for this particular beggar. They always came about a day after he had had a filling meal, usually at the expense of some rich tourist's misplaced sense of pity.
The market place was buzzing around with flies and other insects and nobody even bothered to swat them away. It was too hot for any of that nonsense and all the locals had become accustomed to the winged cretins, including this forgettable hobo.
As always it was loud, every fishmonger and farmer was trying to talk over one another to grab the attention of whoever had any money at the market place. The cacophony was like music to his ears.
His eye was dawn to a forgotten corner of one of the small streets that were so common to this part of the city. An apple, half-eaten yet entirely forgotten, laid there in some sand, and with no animal droppings or ants anywhere around it.
Lucky.
Making sure nobody was paying attention to him, the beggar picked up the half-eaten apple and, after dusting off some of the sand on it, took a bite out of it.
"Blegh."
And immediately spat it out again.
"Of course it had to be spoile-"
He looked up from his meal, small pieces of maggot filled flesh still stuck to his incisors.
Frozen water was piling up on his body and snout, his fur bristling from the cold. The pack was scattered across the mountain.
They were being hunted. The frost had scattered them, the pups away from the bitches and sires, the strong from the weak. The humans had left the mountain some hours ago, taking with them their horrible smelling ash and sulfur.
The mountain was hurt and its blood was flowing freely through the trees and plains and rocky outcrops. The blood was busy restoring life where the fire of man had taken it without distinction. Yet, that wasn't all the mountain's blood was doing. Blood's fire was wreaking havoc in the small human den at the foot of the mountain, driving the ignorant hind walkers away from the mountain.
The wind was hunting him and his pack. He knew what happened to those who found themselves on the being hunted end of the spectrum when it came to the mountain's blood made manifest.
He didn't know why, but the mountain had decreed that the pack would not live to see the next moon, and he, as alpha, had accepted the mountain's cruel mercy. Thus he didn't try to escape the mountain's wrath or try to win its favor by attacking the humans on his own.
Thus he was enjoying a last meal, one that he hadn't even hunted himself, as if he were some kind of carrion eater. It was a nice experience.
The wind had found him. It lumbered through the gnarly woods behind him. The wind had come to take his life.
The wind was a bear. Bigger than a bear as a bear is bigger than a rabbit. If it was flesh and blood as opposed to gale and cyclone, he would have had such joy in taking down a foe like this.
In fact, why not?
He leapt at the wind.
What was the mountain going to do, kill him harder?
-
With a mental lurch he was brought back from the sinister depths of his own mind.
He was in a room, the ceiling painted green with small pieces of paint seemingly flaking off of it. The windows... no he was wrong. The ceiling was stark white, not the slightest bit of dirt or dust to be found. He didn't know how long it had been since he once more thought that he was himself instead of somebody else, somebody already dead. It could have been hours, it could have been days. The only constant, the one who could unerringly bring him back to the surface of the chaos that was his mind was, was...who again?
He knew what he didn't know, it was just buried under several decades of sediment. He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths and once he felt that his mind was calm and whole again, he opened them once more.
The room he was in wouldn't have looked out of place in a hospital, pastel colors everywhere, a large window, with railing oh so subtly placed on the outside, allowing a huge amount of sunlight in, a stunning lack of personal decoration and so on and so forth.
He was lying on a bed with metal railing. Forget hospital, this was starting to look more and more like a mental institution. Good thing that he wasn't chained to the bed then.
To the side was a small table, with a plate resting on it, a meat dish elegantly displayed on it. The cutlery looked like something belonging in some posh aristocrat's mansion as opposed to, wherever he was.
It was then he noticed the other person in the room.
A young boy, or maybe a girl who had yet to show the first signs of puberty, maybe ten or twelve years old.
Ba-thump
A large forehead, with blond hair reaching all the way down to his knees.
Ba-thump
Why was he...?
Ba-thump
The sight of the boy made him see red. Like the hound whose life he had been experiencing just before, the man leapt out of the bed and, with practiced ease, snatched the knife from the small table mid-leap.
By the time the child even noticed the man's attack, he was already on top of the child, the serrated knife easily piercing through the boy's heart. With a single spasm the boy's body went limp, yet the man continued his assault.
He hacked into the boy's slim throat several times, until pieces of his larynx had flown all the way to his still feet and chips of his collar bone were stuck in the man's hair from the sheer force with which his blows had struck the boy.
The mutilated sight just angered him more.
The man went to town on the child's limbs. It wasn't enough for the knife to tear through muscle and ligament, no, the man was even slamming the now dulled tip of the knife into the boy's humerus after having mauled every one of his limbs and digits.
And still his rage was left unsatisfied.
His disfiguring of the boy's body seemed to go on for forever, but eventually, maybe even only from exhaustion, the man stopped and dropped the bent and shattered remains of the knife on the tiled floor.
And just like that it was as if all the rage that had consumed him just...vanished. In some distant corner of his mind, the man knew that his murderous outburst was justified...somehow.
When the man noticed the blood and gore splatters moving towards the boy's corpse he had already been punched in the nose.
"I would say I was disappointed in your behavior, Ithuriel, but I can't say that your little outburst is unexpected, given how often this has happened now." Even as he was clutching his nose, the newly named Ithuriel saw how every drop of blood and other small body parts flew back into the boy's rising corpse, leaving the room immaculate, the only signs of his violent attack the holes and tears in the boy's somewhat simple clothes.
"I mean, I already made sure to not wear my usual getup when visiting you after the third or so time this happened, but I still thought you could be trusted to have solid food around you without playing around." The boy stood up as if nothing had happened.
Ithuriel finally recognized the boy as V.V., the immortal preteen who had initially approached him with the offer of handing him the power of Geass in return for using it for the Geass Order's benefit. The one who had pushed him to use that power, regardless of the consequences. The one who had deliberately withheld any warning on what his fate could be like if he kept wantonly using his Geass. The one who had fucking admitted to his face, during one of his rare lucid moments, that he preferred Ithuriel in his near catatonic state than when the man could still call his mind and soul his own.
"Well, guess you'll just have to subsist on nothing more than cold soup and some bread for the foreseeable future."
And every time, when his thoughts are jumbled to hell and back from suddenly being pulled back to the forefront, it ends exactly like that. Rage-induced murder followed by vicious mocking and then...
His thoughts were forcefully brought to a halt when V.V.'s foot came crashing relentlessly against Ithuriel's sternum, forcing the air out of his lungs. Wheezing like his life depended on it, Ithuriel found himself on his back, the childish Code bearer looming over him. It was clear from the look on V.V.'s face that he was not in the mood to be ignored.
"And what are you scheming this time, my dear pitiable Ithuriel? You're nowhere near powerful or experienced enough to steal my Code away from me, so what other measure could there possibly be that could 'free' you from your oh so wretched existence? Does this," and he stomped on Ithuriel's chest for emphasis, "poor, unknowing soul still believe that he would find a miraculous cure to his existence if he attains a second Geass from my cells?
"Never forget, Ithuriel. You live for my sake," and he kicked him against the chin, "your state of mind is decided by me and me alone and your Geass, that wonderful ability of yours, exists for my ends. There is not so much as a shred of your being that doesn't belong to me, completely and utterly. You are my precious little backdoor into the World of C after all. Don't forget to eat you dinner and I'll be sure to fill the room with an airborne anesthetic when it's bed time." And with a final kick to the chin V.V. left the room, leaving a shivering Ithuriel behind.
And at the end, every time without fail, came the shivered crying and the horrified realization: that he didn't know when he would be gone to the world.
Would it be after fifteen minutes that his body would be possessed by one of the deceased and whatever was left of his mind stuck in foreign memories? Maybe he would have a total of ninety minutes to spend in fear before V.V.'s 'benediction' expired.
Attempts to kill himself never succeeded and he didn't even know if it was because he was too afraid to ever go through with it, his own Geass somehow preventing him from committing suicide or if V.V. had a team of professional surgeons on standby, just to make sure that he would recover from any such attempts.
And he couldn't even starve himself to death. With the way his Geass worked even feeling a bit peckish would be enough to summon a spirit associated with hunger who would gladly devour the food in front of him, even if he had to lick it off the walls.
He couldn't escape this hell, no matter what he tried. V.V. was right, his body just wasn't ready to receive a Code of any kind and injecting himself with a Code Bearer's cells would just mean that he would die earlier.
Killing the shrimp wasn't going to happen so all he could do was lie there and wonder which second would be the one where he would be gone again.
He couldn't help it anymore. He cried.
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes? And by that I mean that you need sore eyes to stay in the same room as you, because you look like shit."
The one who had spoken up was an averagely looking man who could have been anything between 35 and 60 years of age. From the door all the way to where the newcomer stood there were tiny, black drops all over the tiled floor. So tiny, that if the tiles weren't as white as the rest of the room he would have never noticed.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"If you must know, I am a demon who was summoned from the depths of Malfeas, or hell if you prefer. Quite frankly my name is unimportant, it's just a series of syllables as far as I am concerned." The disguised demon didn't give Ithuriel the chance to interject and continued. "Now that second question of yours is far more interesting, for I am of the race that is known as the collectors of rarities and in the pursuit of my duties I have breached the homes and sanctuaries of even the most paranoid and prudent of gods and Malfean citizens. Like some pathetic variations on the most standard and orthodox of demon wards could keep someone of my renown out."
Ithuriel's first instinct was to call the stranger out on his bullshit, but he knew better than to dismiss a claim like that out of hand. Immortal Code bearers, Geass and his own near constant connection with the so called World of C would sound equally ridiculous to an outsider. Not to mention that from the past lives that he had experienced there were quite a few occultists who had dabbled in demon summoning, so it wasn't entirely impossible. Whether or not the man was a demon could be discussed at a later date, for now he had something to distract himself from his own fatalistic thoughts.
"If your name is so meaningless to you what would be the harm in telling me it? And what would a 'demon summoned from the depths of Malfeas' need from a place like this?"
"I have come here bearing the seed of a great power, which guided me to this room. It is the wish of the Yozi, who are both the masters and the realm of Malfeas simultaneously, that this power be granted to a human who would help them escape from the chains that the traitorous gods had cast on them at the end of their rebellion. You will cast away all your earthly attachments and physical idiosyncrasies and be blessed by far greater powers, those shaped in the image of the creators of the world, all that ever was and all that ever will be.
"My name is Asaph and should you wish to be reborn, both physically and spiritually, in the service of the Yozi, I must ask you your name as well."
"By 'cast away your earthly attachments' and 'be reborn physically', do you mean to tell me that agreeing to this would release me from my Geass?"
"If this Geass is a power intrinsic to your current existence, then yes. But none of that matters if you don't accept the Yozi's offer."
He knew what Asaph meant by that.
"My name is-" Henry Michael Yohanna Eliza Adil Percy Idan Raphael Brahmin Zygmunt Yitzchak Mordechai Avi Jules Ayala Rivka Aina Albert Hershel Benedict Shana Todd Frederic
"I-I mean that I am called..." Senka Itzal Yoachim Gertrude Bertrand Bogdan Edmund Gosia Janusz Iva Dag Egil Erna Chava Sarnai Haris Gerel Yasir Firuz Gurlau
He had too many names. He didn't know which memories belonged to those centuries dead and which belonged to his current life. If he just closed his eyes he could still taste exotic delicacies from every part of the world, could still feel the sharp sting of swords and crossbow bolts in his belly and limbs. Who was to say what was right and what was not. Fuck, for all he knew he wasn't even Brittanian or male, he wouldn't put it past V.V. to have made him undergo plastic surgery just to fuck with his mind even more.
He even had names that couldn't be pronounced, names that were nothing more than a series of scents and subtle body movements. He had names that required fur standing up in certain ways to be pronounced, for crying out loud.
There was only one name that he could most definitely associate with his current self and he loathed it from the very depths of his soul.
It was the one, pitiful piece of resistance that he could offer against V.V., to never say the name he had christened him with out loud and it seemed that to be rid of his influence and that of the Geass he would have to break that one silent vow.
"I am Ithuriel."
Asaph smiled and a tiny membrane slipped off his being, taking his human form with it. A black feathered, man sized salamander grinned back at him.
"Excellent. Now I should probably put these at the side before starting the chrysalis formation. Like I said, repossessing items is what I do." And with that said the Gethin put two handguns on the floor, alongside a set of clothes and a briefcase. Ithuriel decided not to question where the demon had been keeping all of that.
Then Asaph turned around, opened his mouth impossibly far and it all went dark for the soon to be former mortal.
Without saying a word Ithuriel got dressed, holstered the guns on his belt, stashed the ammo in the various pockets of his new pants, shirt and jacket and grabbed the briefcase.
'Excellent, Ithuriel of the Defiler caste. It is always heartening to see those new to our standing in life be so full of enthusiasm in learning all they can. And yes, I am Asaph and have taken residence in your mind to be your guide for the tasks that stand before you. Incidentally, the briefcase is filled with documents and flash drives containing a stupendous amount of information gathered of this Order. Lord Octavian's orders, so do make sure this information reaches the Marshal of the Althing Infernal.
'Just to make sure, do you know the layout of this building? I should have sent the information directly to your mind, but I have to be sure.'
"Yes, Asaph, the information is there. Also, in the future, could you not do that? I've got some bad experiences with information randomly popping up in my head."
So he was about ten meters below ground in the middle of a rocky desert in China, said ten meters being pure bedrock by the way (the sunlight that streamed into his room must have been fake), and he had to make his way to Japan in a short amount of time. And Asaph had even included the locations of all cameras in the building. Convenient.
Barely ten minutes went by and Ithuriel had already found the exit, without having once crossed paths with anybody. It helped that his room was near to said exit, but he still felt somewhat insulted that V.V. used such lackluster security to keep his supposed 'backdoor into Lethe' safe from intruders and what not.
Straining his eyes and feeling a trickle of power seep into them he noticed a diminutive figure singing on top of a decently sized boulder. An instinct welled up inside Ithuriel and suddenly he knew what to do.
"What are you?"
The Least God of the rock evidently heard him and with all its might it replied.
"I am the boulder that stands vigilant against the sun's rays and the winds knives."
"What are you?"
The question hit the god like a supersonic brick. It took a moment to collect its thoughts and, surprisingly without a stammer, replied once more.
"I am whatever you wish for me to be. I am yours to command."
"You are a bicycle, my steed that will take me across the desert, all the way to where the sea meets the land." And thus, with another surge of Essence it came to be.
The crudest and most primitive bicycle stood before Ithuriel, yet despite that it was made out of sandstone, the Defiler knew that it would work as well as any store bought two-wheeler that lacked an engine.
With a small jump Ithuriel got on the stone bicycle and pedaled away from the ancient temple.
'Just wait til we get to Malfeas. I've got so many hidey holes and hidden caches filled with stuff I've stolen from Gods and Citizens alike that you could outfit your own mortal city with them. I've even got stuff I nicked from the likes of Sondok, Alveua and Lucien. And I'm even pretty sure that they won't care if you start prancing around with them, something which I could have never even dreamed of.'
"Of course Asaph. I'll be sure to make enemies of a good portion of the Demon Hierarchy just so you can get your jollies." He had more important things to do anyways. The Yozi had given him his mind back, but now he would have to restore his memory on his own.
It would be a long way to Tokyo and all he had for distraction was Asaph's gloating.
Ithuriel, Defiler of She Who Lives In Her Name and Mardukth, former prisoner of his own mind and the Geass Order, pedaled harder, the sun glaring at him from on high.
The many truths that lie behind a name
Outskirts of Munich, Germany, ???? ????, ????
Eliza was running back and forth between Ronald Feuerbahn's bedchambers and the kitchen as she had been doing for the past three hours. The only thing that occasionally changed were the destination and the task at hand. Right now she was both trying to change the silk coverings of sir Feuerbahn's bed and pillow as well as help the rest of the staff with setting up the menu for the night, because of course the maid that had only been working in the mansion for the past three months would know who was invited to dine with the esteemed speaker of the council of forty for this night and what all their allergies and other preferences would be. No wonder the E.U. is so big on immigration if their own people are so incompetent. And then they had the nerve to act all superior to the 'lowly Kenyan' as they called her behind her back.
And if that cheapskate of a master would just hire enough household servants that the ridiculously opulent mansion would not be staffed with a skeleton crew, her work load might just become something other than 'atrociously overloaded'.
Ah well, if nothing else, at least she wouldn't have to exercise to maintain her, dare she say, splendid figure. And the pay was good, pity about the dental plan, though.
Up the stairs, through the hallway, round the corner, obligatory gossiping with the other two maids, get a dressing down by the head of the household for wasting time, set the dinner table for 12, bring in the platters, be invisible to the guests, up, down, up, down.
As always, it was a minor miracle that her workload was finished by 23:00 and she hadn't collapsed into a pitiful pile of sadness and exhaustion.
Someone, probably Françoise, hadn't closed one of the faucets properly as Eliza could hear a dripping sound echo throughout the mansion. It seemed to come from sir Feuerbahn's private bathroom (and oh boy, wouldn't that be the juiciest piece of gossip to come out this week), so with a grunt the young maid got back up from the chair she had sitting on and made her way to the origin of the sound. If she didn't, the noise would probably keep her up all night.
Slowly she made her way up the stairs, the dripping sound steadily becoming louder and louder. The door to sir Feuerbahn's chambers was slightly open and no suspicious creaking noises made it relatively safe for Eliza's job to enter. Nevertheless, she knocked first.
"Sir Feuerbahn, are you in there? There is just a minor matter I need to attend to before retiring for the night. Would it be alright for me to enter?"
There was no response, which meant that either sir Feuerbahn didn't care or he wasn't inside. Either way Eliza would just quickly deal with the leaking faucet and get to bed.
Like a mouse she sneaked through the bedchamber and without as much as a peep, she opened the mahogany door to her master's private bathroom.
He was lying there, hanging over the bath tub. It reminded Eliza a bit of the few times she had caught her father spewing the contents of his stomach out after a night of boozing, but the color was off. It wasn't supposed to be so red.
The poor maid tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. She tried to turn around, but instead felt blood and gastric acid come down on her skirt and stockings like a torrent.
A knife was planted up to the hilt in her abdomen, her spleen cleaved in half. A knife she was holding firmly, even as her belly was split apart.
Eliza collapsed on the floor. She could feel that her voice box was torn apart. From the corner of her eyes she saw something: small, clad in black, brown hair. A boy?
Her stomach hurt so mu-
xXx
Slums of Vientiane, Laos, ???? ????, ????
The stabbing pains of his stomach was a very familiar sensation for this particular beggar. They always came about a day after he had had a filling meal, usually at the expense of some rich tourist's misplaced sense of pity.
The market place was buzzing around with flies and other insects and nobody even bothered to swat them away. It was too hot for any of that nonsense and all the locals had become accustomed to the winged cretins, including this forgettable hobo.
As always it was loud, every fishmonger and farmer was trying to talk over one another to grab the attention of whoever had any money at the market place. The cacophony was like music to his ears.
His eye was dawn to a forgotten corner of one of the small streets that were so common to this part of the city. An apple, half-eaten yet entirely forgotten, laid there in some sand, and with no animal droppings or ants anywhere around it.
Lucky.
Making sure nobody was paying attention to him, the beggar picked up the half-eaten apple and, after dusting off some of the sand on it, took a bite out of it.
"Blegh."
And immediately spat it out again.
"Of course it had to be spoile-"
xXx
????, ????, ???? ????, ????
He looked up from his meal, small pieces of maggot filled flesh still stuck to his incisors.
Frozen water was piling up on his body and snout, his fur bristling from the cold. The pack was scattered across the mountain.
They were being hunted. The frost had scattered them, the pups away from the bitches and sires, the strong from the weak. The humans had left the mountain some hours ago, taking with them their horrible smelling ash and sulfur.
The mountain was hurt and its blood was flowing freely through the trees and plains and rocky outcrops. The blood was busy restoring life where the fire of man had taken it without distinction. Yet, that wasn't all the mountain's blood was doing. Blood's fire was wreaking havoc in the small human den at the foot of the mountain, driving the ignorant hind walkers away from the mountain.
The wind was hunting him and his pack. He knew what happened to those who found themselves on the being hunted end of the spectrum when it came to the mountain's blood made manifest.
He didn't know why, but the mountain had decreed that the pack would not live to see the next moon, and he, as alpha, had accepted the mountain's cruel mercy. Thus he didn't try to escape the mountain's wrath or try to win its favor by attacking the humans on his own.
Thus he was enjoying a last meal, one that he hadn't even hunted himself, as if he were some kind of carrion eater. It was a nice experience.
The wind had found him. It lumbered through the gnarly woods behind him. The wind had come to take his life.
The wind was a bear. Bigger than a bear as a bear is bigger than a rabbit. If it was flesh and blood as opposed to gale and cyclone, he would have had such joy in taking down a foe like this.
In fact, why not?
He leapt at the wind.
What was the mountain going to do, kill him harder?
-
xXx
Geass Order Headquarters, China, 6th of November, 2017 a.t.b.
With a mental lurch he was brought back from the sinister depths of his own mind.
He was in a room, the ceiling painted green with small pieces of paint seemingly flaking off of it. The windows... no he was wrong. The ceiling was stark white, not the slightest bit of dirt or dust to be found. He didn't know how long it had been since he once more thought that he was himself instead of somebody else, somebody already dead. It could have been hours, it could have been days. The only constant, the one who could unerringly bring him back to the surface of the chaos that was his mind was, was...who again?
He knew what he didn't know, it was just buried under several decades of sediment. He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths and once he felt that his mind was calm and whole again, he opened them once more.
The room he was in wouldn't have looked out of place in a hospital, pastel colors everywhere, a large window, with railing oh so subtly placed on the outside, allowing a huge amount of sunlight in, a stunning lack of personal decoration and so on and so forth.
He was lying on a bed with metal railing. Forget hospital, this was starting to look more and more like a mental institution. Good thing that he wasn't chained to the bed then.
To the side was a small table, with a plate resting on it, a meat dish elegantly displayed on it. The cutlery looked like something belonging in some posh aristocrat's mansion as opposed to, wherever he was.
It was then he noticed the other person in the room.
A young boy, or maybe a girl who had yet to show the first signs of puberty, maybe ten or twelve years old.
Ba-thump
A large forehead, with blond hair reaching all the way down to his knees.
Ba-thump
Why was he...?
Ba-thump
The sight of the boy made him see red. Like the hound whose life he had been experiencing just before, the man leapt out of the bed and, with practiced ease, snatched the knife from the small table mid-leap.
By the time the child even noticed the man's attack, he was already on top of the child, the serrated knife easily piercing through the boy's heart. With a single spasm the boy's body went limp, yet the man continued his assault.
He hacked into the boy's slim throat several times, until pieces of his larynx had flown all the way to his still feet and chips of his collar bone were stuck in the man's hair from the sheer force with which his blows had struck the boy.
The mutilated sight just angered him more.
The man went to town on the child's limbs. It wasn't enough for the knife to tear through muscle and ligament, no, the man was even slamming the now dulled tip of the knife into the boy's humerus after having mauled every one of his limbs and digits.
And still his rage was left unsatisfied.
His disfiguring of the boy's body seemed to go on for forever, but eventually, maybe even only from exhaustion, the man stopped and dropped the bent and shattered remains of the knife on the tiled floor.
And just like that it was as if all the rage that had consumed him just...vanished. In some distant corner of his mind, the man knew that his murderous outburst was justified...somehow.
When the man noticed the blood and gore splatters moving towards the boy's corpse he had already been punched in the nose.
"I would say I was disappointed in your behavior, Ithuriel, but I can't say that your little outburst is unexpected, given how often this has happened now." Even as he was clutching his nose, the newly named Ithuriel saw how every drop of blood and other small body parts flew back into the boy's rising corpse, leaving the room immaculate, the only signs of his violent attack the holes and tears in the boy's somewhat simple clothes.
"I mean, I already made sure to not wear my usual getup when visiting you after the third or so time this happened, but I still thought you could be trusted to have solid food around you without playing around." The boy stood up as if nothing had happened.
Ithuriel finally recognized the boy as V.V., the immortal preteen who had initially approached him with the offer of handing him the power of Geass in return for using it for the Geass Order's benefit. The one who had pushed him to use that power, regardless of the consequences. The one who had deliberately withheld any warning on what his fate could be like if he kept wantonly using his Geass. The one who had fucking admitted to his face, during one of his rare lucid moments, that he preferred Ithuriel in his near catatonic state than when the man could still call his mind and soul his own.
"Well, guess you'll just have to subsist on nothing more than cold soup and some bread for the foreseeable future."
And every time, when his thoughts are jumbled to hell and back from suddenly being pulled back to the forefront, it ends exactly like that. Rage-induced murder followed by vicious mocking and then...
His thoughts were forcefully brought to a halt when V.V.'s foot came crashing relentlessly against Ithuriel's sternum, forcing the air out of his lungs. Wheezing like his life depended on it, Ithuriel found himself on his back, the childish Code bearer looming over him. It was clear from the look on V.V.'s face that he was not in the mood to be ignored.
"And what are you scheming this time, my dear pitiable Ithuriel? You're nowhere near powerful or experienced enough to steal my Code away from me, so what other measure could there possibly be that could 'free' you from your oh so wretched existence? Does this," and he stomped on Ithuriel's chest for emphasis, "poor, unknowing soul still believe that he would find a miraculous cure to his existence if he attains a second Geass from my cells?
"Never forget, Ithuriel. You live for my sake," and he kicked him against the chin, "your state of mind is decided by me and me alone and your Geass, that wonderful ability of yours, exists for my ends. There is not so much as a shred of your being that doesn't belong to me, completely and utterly. You are my precious little backdoor into the World of C after all. Don't forget to eat you dinner and I'll be sure to fill the room with an airborne anesthetic when it's bed time." And with a final kick to the chin V.V. left the room, leaving a shivering Ithuriel behind.
And at the end, every time without fail, came the shivered crying and the horrified realization: that he didn't know when he would be gone to the world.
Would it be after fifteen minutes that his body would be possessed by one of the deceased and whatever was left of his mind stuck in foreign memories? Maybe he would have a total of ninety minutes to spend in fear before V.V.'s 'benediction' expired.
Attempts to kill himself never succeeded and he didn't even know if it was because he was too afraid to ever go through with it, his own Geass somehow preventing him from committing suicide or if V.V. had a team of professional surgeons on standby, just to make sure that he would recover from any such attempts.
And he couldn't even starve himself to death. With the way his Geass worked even feeling a bit peckish would be enough to summon a spirit associated with hunger who would gladly devour the food in front of him, even if he had to lick it off the walls.
He couldn't escape this hell, no matter what he tried. V.V. was right, his body just wasn't ready to receive a Code of any kind and injecting himself with a Code Bearer's cells would just mean that he would die earlier.
Killing the shrimp wasn't going to happen so all he could do was lie there and wonder which second would be the one where he would be gone again.
He couldn't help it anymore. He cried.
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes? And by that I mean that you need sore eyes to stay in the same room as you, because you look like shit."
The one who had spoken up was an averagely looking man who could have been anything between 35 and 60 years of age. From the door all the way to where the newcomer stood there were tiny, black drops all over the tiled floor. So tiny, that if the tiles weren't as white as the rest of the room he would have never noticed.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"If you must know, I am a demon who was summoned from the depths of Malfeas, or hell if you prefer. Quite frankly my name is unimportant, it's just a series of syllables as far as I am concerned." The disguised demon didn't give Ithuriel the chance to interject and continued. "Now that second question of yours is far more interesting, for I am of the race that is known as the collectors of rarities and in the pursuit of my duties I have breached the homes and sanctuaries of even the most paranoid and prudent of gods and Malfean citizens. Like some pathetic variations on the most standard and orthodox of demon wards could keep someone of my renown out."
Ithuriel's first instinct was to call the stranger out on his bullshit, but he knew better than to dismiss a claim like that out of hand. Immortal Code bearers, Geass and his own near constant connection with the so called World of C would sound equally ridiculous to an outsider. Not to mention that from the past lives that he had experienced there were quite a few occultists who had dabbled in demon summoning, so it wasn't entirely impossible. Whether or not the man was a demon could be discussed at a later date, for now he had something to distract himself from his own fatalistic thoughts.
"If your name is so meaningless to you what would be the harm in telling me it? And what would a 'demon summoned from the depths of Malfeas' need from a place like this?"
"I have come here bearing the seed of a great power, which guided me to this room. It is the wish of the Yozi, who are both the masters and the realm of Malfeas simultaneously, that this power be granted to a human who would help them escape from the chains that the traitorous gods had cast on them at the end of their rebellion. You will cast away all your earthly attachments and physical idiosyncrasies and be blessed by far greater powers, those shaped in the image of the creators of the world, all that ever was and all that ever will be.
"My name is Asaph and should you wish to be reborn, both physically and spiritually, in the service of the Yozi, I must ask you your name as well."
"By 'cast away your earthly attachments' and 'be reborn physically', do you mean to tell me that agreeing to this would release me from my Geass?"
"If this Geass is a power intrinsic to your current existence, then yes. But none of that matters if you don't accept the Yozi's offer."
He knew what Asaph meant by that.
"My name is-" Henry Michael Yohanna Eliza Adil Percy Idan Raphael Brahmin Zygmunt Yitzchak Mordechai Avi Jules Ayala Rivka Aina Albert Hershel Benedict Shana Todd Frederic
"I-I mean that I am called..." Senka Itzal Yoachim Gertrude Bertrand Bogdan Edmund Gosia Janusz Iva Dag Egil Erna Chava Sarnai Haris Gerel Yasir Firuz Gurlau
He had too many names. He didn't know which memories belonged to those centuries dead and which belonged to his current life. If he just closed his eyes he could still taste exotic delicacies from every part of the world, could still feel the sharp sting of swords and crossbow bolts in his belly and limbs. Who was to say what was right and what was not. Fuck, for all he knew he wasn't even Brittanian or male, he wouldn't put it past V.V. to have made him undergo plastic surgery just to fuck with his mind even more.
He even had names that couldn't be pronounced, names that were nothing more than a series of scents and subtle body movements. He had names that required fur standing up in certain ways to be pronounced, for crying out loud.
There was only one name that he could most definitely associate with his current self and he loathed it from the very depths of his soul.
It was the one, pitiful piece of resistance that he could offer against V.V., to never say the name he had christened him with out loud and it seemed that to be rid of his influence and that of the Geass he would have to break that one silent vow.
"I am Ithuriel."
Asaph smiled and a tiny membrane slipped off his being, taking his human form with it. A black feathered, man sized salamander grinned back at him.
"Excellent. Now I should probably put these at the side before starting the chrysalis formation. Like I said, repossessing items is what I do." And with that said the Gethin put two handguns on the floor, alongside a set of clothes and a briefcase. Ithuriel decided not to question where the demon had been keeping all of that.
Then Asaph turned around, opened his mouth impossibly far and it all went dark for the soon to be former mortal.
xXx
It was with no small amount of relief that the newest Defiler burst out of the Chrysalis Grotesque. The woman of 10000, sorry 9997, giant orbs was rather intimidating, and that was without even going into some of the things she said about her plans for him or her opinion of mankind as a whole.
Without saying a word Ithuriel got dressed, holstered the guns on his belt, stashed the ammo in the various pockets of his new pants, shirt and jacket and grabbed the briefcase.
'Excellent, Ithuriel of the Defiler caste. It is always heartening to see those new to our standing in life be so full of enthusiasm in learning all they can. And yes, I am Asaph and have taken residence in your mind to be your guide for the tasks that stand before you. Incidentally, the briefcase is filled with documents and flash drives containing a stupendous amount of information gathered of this Order. Lord Octavian's orders, so do make sure this information reaches the Marshal of the Althing Infernal.
'Just to make sure, do you know the layout of this building? I should have sent the information directly to your mind, but I have to be sure.'
"Yes, Asaph, the information is there. Also, in the future, could you not do that? I've got some bad experiences with information randomly popping up in my head."
So he was about ten meters below ground in the middle of a rocky desert in China, said ten meters being pure bedrock by the way (the sunlight that streamed into his room must have been fake), and he had to make his way to Japan in a short amount of time. And Asaph had even included the locations of all cameras in the building. Convenient.
Barely ten minutes went by and Ithuriel had already found the exit, without having once crossed paths with anybody. It helped that his room was near to said exit, but he still felt somewhat insulted that V.V. used such lackluster security to keep his supposed 'backdoor into Lethe' safe from intruders and what not.
Straining his eyes and feeling a trickle of power seep into them he noticed a diminutive figure singing on top of a decently sized boulder. An instinct welled up inside Ithuriel and suddenly he knew what to do.
"What are you?"
The Least God of the rock evidently heard him and with all its might it replied.
"I am the boulder that stands vigilant against the sun's rays and the winds knives."
"What are you?"
The question hit the god like a supersonic brick. It took a moment to collect its thoughts and, surprisingly without a stammer, replied once more.
"I am whatever you wish for me to be. I am yours to command."
"You are a bicycle, my steed that will take me across the desert, all the way to where the sea meets the land." And thus, with another surge of Essence it came to be.
The crudest and most primitive bicycle stood before Ithuriel, yet despite that it was made out of sandstone, the Defiler knew that it would work as well as any store bought two-wheeler that lacked an engine.
With a small jump Ithuriel got on the stone bicycle and pedaled away from the ancient temple.
'Just wait til we get to Malfeas. I've got so many hidey holes and hidden caches filled with stuff I've stolen from Gods and Citizens alike that you could outfit your own mortal city with them. I've even got stuff I nicked from the likes of Sondok, Alveua and Lucien. And I'm even pretty sure that they won't care if you start prancing around with them, something which I could have never even dreamed of.'
"Of course Asaph. I'll be sure to make enemies of a good portion of the Demon Hierarchy just so you can get your jollies." He had more important things to do anyways. The Yozi had given him his mind back, but now he would have to restore his memory on his own.
It would be a long way to Tokyo and all he had for distraction was Asaph's gloating.
Ithuriel, Defiler of She Who Lives In Her Name and Mardukth, former prisoner of his own mind and the Geass Order, pedaled harder, the sun glaring at him from on high.
Name: Ithuriel (?) (Literally: discovery of god, popularly considered the Angel of Sacrifice. Named by V.V., who proves yet again to be a humongous asshole)
Age: 28
Concept: Pseudo amnesiac trying to rebuild his life
Caste: Defiler
Favored Yozi: Mardukth
Anima Banner: A giant verdant mendicant holding an open book in his hands, the blank pages turned towards the 'audience'. As the scene progresses the pages are gradually filled with Old Realm script, yet to those that can read it it appears to be just gibberish.
Anima Effect: Infernal Exalted of the Defiler Caste may perceive Essence through their anima, allowing them to hone their senses for magic. By spending five motes, a Defiler may add (Essence) automatic successes on any (Intelligence + Occult) roll to identify a Charm or to analyze it with Essence sight, and on any (Perception + Awareness) roll made to notice a magical effect or Charm. In addition, this supernatural perception easily pierces through deception, adding a +3 bonus to the Infernal's Dodge MDV against unnatural Illusions. These effects come into play automatically once the Infernal spends 11+ motes of Peripheral Essence.
Motivation: To reconstruct his memories and regain his old life and name
Urge: Do away with the ceremonial power of Tianzi in the Chinese Federation (Pyrian)
Torment: When an Infernal who carries a Pyrian Urge accumulates 10 points of Limit, he suffers the Curse of She Who Lives in Her Name.
For one full day, the character completely loses her capacity to empathize with mortal beings. The effects of this curse are identical to the full effects of the Heart of Flint Virtue Flaw (see Exalted, p. 105).
Worse, the effects of this sociopathy are contagious— anyone who interacts with the Infernal and whose Dodge MDV is less than the Infernal's (Essence + primary Virtue) also suffers from the effects of this Torment. Finally, any individuals who represent Intimacies of the Infernal and of whom the Yozi disapprove are automatically affected along with the Infernal regardless of where such an Intimacy might be when his Limit breaks. Regardless of when a character is affected by this Torment, the effects last for one full day.
Attributes: Strength: 2; Dexterity: 4; Stamina: 3; Charisma: 3; Manipulation: 2; Appearance: 2; Perception: 1; Intelligence: 5; Wits: 5
Abilities: Craft (Air) 3, Investigation 4, Lore 4, Medicine 4, Occult 4, Archery/Firearms 3, War 3, Integrity 5, Bureaucracy 3, Linguistics 4 (Native: English; Others: Chinese, Old Realm, Japanese, Russian)
Specialties: Lore: Post-Shogunate history +3, War: Squad Level Tactics +3, Investigation: Event Reconstruction +3, Integrity: Identifying False Memories +3, *Larceny: Disguise +1, *Bureaucracy: Evaluating Goods +1
Permanent Essence: 2
Essence Pool: 12 (personal) / 29 (peripheral)
Virtues: Compassion: 1 Conviction: 4 Valor: 2 Temperance: 2
Willpower: 6
Health Levels:
-0: []
-1: [] []
-2: [] []
-4: []
Incapacitated: []
Dying: [] [] []
Backgrounds: Cult (Yozi): 1
Backing (Yozi) 1
Influence (Yozi) 1
Past Life (Rishon): 5
Past Life (various): 2
Unwoven Coadjutor (Gethin): 2
Trait from the Unwoven Coadjutor: When pressing his hands against any solid surface the local sweat glands secrete a small amount of black oil.
Intimacies:
The Yozi (Eternal Gratitude)
Geass Order (Wary, potentially as misled as he was, might be worth rescuing)
V.V. (Utter Loathing)
Asaph (Arrogant yet can back up his claims)
*originating from the UC background
Charms:
First (Yozi) Excellency: She Who Lives In Her Name, Mardukth
Second (Yozi) Excellency: She Who Lives In Her Name, Mardukth
She Who Lives In Her Name
Factual Determination Analysis
Essence-Dissecting Stare
Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy
Mind-Hand Manipulation
Orbital Impact Storm
Precision Thought-Force Exercise
Mardukth
Written Upon The Stone
Mountain Beast Dominion
Beast Master's Menagerie
Reinventing Ancient Stone
Age: 28
Concept: Pseudo amnesiac trying to rebuild his life
Caste: Defiler
Favored Yozi: Mardukth
Anima Banner: A giant verdant mendicant holding an open book in his hands, the blank pages turned towards the 'audience'. As the scene progresses the pages are gradually filled with Old Realm script, yet to those that can read it it appears to be just gibberish.
Anima Effect: Infernal Exalted of the Defiler Caste may perceive Essence through their anima, allowing them to hone their senses for magic. By spending five motes, a Defiler may add (Essence) automatic successes on any (Intelligence + Occult) roll to identify a Charm or to analyze it with Essence sight, and on any (Perception + Awareness) roll made to notice a magical effect or Charm. In addition, this supernatural perception easily pierces through deception, adding a +3 bonus to the Infernal's Dodge MDV against unnatural Illusions. These effects come into play automatically once the Infernal spends 11+ motes of Peripheral Essence.
Motivation: To reconstruct his memories and regain his old life and name
Urge: Do away with the ceremonial power of Tianzi in the Chinese Federation (Pyrian)
Torment: When an Infernal who carries a Pyrian Urge accumulates 10 points of Limit, he suffers the Curse of She Who Lives in Her Name.
For one full day, the character completely loses her capacity to empathize with mortal beings. The effects of this curse are identical to the full effects of the Heart of Flint Virtue Flaw (see Exalted, p. 105).
Worse, the effects of this sociopathy are contagious— anyone who interacts with the Infernal and whose Dodge MDV is less than the Infernal's (Essence + primary Virtue) also suffers from the effects of this Torment. Finally, any individuals who represent Intimacies of the Infernal and of whom the Yozi disapprove are automatically affected along with the Infernal regardless of where such an Intimacy might be when his Limit breaks. Regardless of when a character is affected by this Torment, the effects last for one full day.
Attributes: Strength: 2; Dexterity: 4; Stamina: 3; Charisma: 3; Manipulation: 2; Appearance: 2; Perception: 1; Intelligence: 5; Wits: 5
Abilities: Craft (Air) 3, Investigation 4, Lore 4, Medicine 4, Occult 4, Archery/Firearms 3, War 3, Integrity 5, Bureaucracy 3, Linguistics 4 (Native: English; Others: Chinese, Old Realm, Japanese, Russian)
Specialties: Lore: Post-Shogunate history +3, War: Squad Level Tactics +3, Investigation: Event Reconstruction +3, Integrity: Identifying False Memories +3, *Larceny: Disguise +1, *Bureaucracy: Evaluating Goods +1
Permanent Essence: 2
Essence Pool: 12 (personal) / 29 (peripheral)
Virtues: Compassion: 1 Conviction: 4 Valor: 2 Temperance: 2
Willpower: 6
Health Levels:
-0: []
-1: [] []
-2: [] []
-4: []
Incapacitated: []
Dying: [] [] []
Backgrounds: Cult (Yozi): 1
Backing (Yozi) 1
Influence (Yozi) 1
Past Life (Rishon): 5
Past Life (various): 2
Unwoven Coadjutor (Gethin): 2
Trait from the Unwoven Coadjutor: When pressing his hands against any solid surface the local sweat glands secrete a small amount of black oil.
Intimacies:
The Yozi (Eternal Gratitude)
Geass Order (Wary, potentially as misled as he was, might be worth rescuing)
V.V. (Utter Loathing)
Asaph (Arrogant yet can back up his claims)
*originating from the UC background
The wielder of this Geass can briefly tap into the vast contents of the Akashic Records (also known by some as the World of C or Lethe) and extracts a single 'thread' from it. This thread contains the life memories and knowledge of a single individual residing or once having resided inside Lethe, as well as more general knowledge pertaining to the subject that the wielder wishes to educate himself on. This can range from scientific facts to cultural biases from centuries ago, the coordinates of ancient forgotten ruins...
When 'inserting' said thread into his own being, the Geass wielder could end up possessed by the personality associated with the thread, which can only be done if said personality belongs to an individual from at least 400 years ago. The personality is not a complete reflection of the original, as the World of C is an amalgamation of all who have passed on and even its most minute influence can have dramatic consequences on the resulting personality. It might have quirks the original didn't possess or lack those, its memories or interests could differ heavily as well and so forth. Reapplying the same thread at a later point does not guarantee that the personality will be in the same 'conformation'. With experience it becomes possible for the Geass' wielder to not let his own personality be subsumed, but instead coexist with the thread in a mostly peaceful manner.
When the thread leaves the Geass' wielder's mind (this takes a different amount of time for each attempt, but is usually within the range of 3-5 hours), it leaves behind a fraction of the knowledge it contained in the wielder's mind, which always includes the full contents of the original search request.
When the Geass 'overloaded' the above rules changed noticeably. Every thread inserted automatically has its associated personality take over the wielder's mind, which no amount of experience or conditioning can alleviate. This includes those personalities younger than 400 years. The associated memories are burned into the wielder's mind, making them so distinct and vivid that they are indistinguishable from his actual memories, giving him a very contradictory set of memories.
Furthermore, it is no longer necessary for the thread to spend its full duration inside the wielder's mind. The wielder has all but become a conduit for the threads to enter, requiring only a subconscious desire to enter the wielder's mind and displacing the former thread. This means that the wielder can (involuntarily) cycle through as many as dozens of threads within the hour, in which he may now actively experience the memories of the thread. While in this state the wielder is very susceptible to suggestions, making it possible for an observer to have the wielder pick a thread to his choosing.
The only guaranteed way for the wielder to (temporarily) regain his mind is to come in contact with his Contractor V.V., who gives him a little mental push, which enables him to remain lucid for a period no lesser than fifteen minutes and no greater than ninety minutes per 'hit'. Also, as the wielder is otherwise in a constant state of possession he cannot naturally get any rest and has to be regularly dosed with strong narcotics to get any sleep whatsoever.
When 'inserting' said thread into his own being, the Geass wielder could end up possessed by the personality associated with the thread, which can only be done if said personality belongs to an individual from at least 400 years ago. The personality is not a complete reflection of the original, as the World of C is an amalgamation of all who have passed on and even its most minute influence can have dramatic consequences on the resulting personality. It might have quirks the original didn't possess or lack those, its memories or interests could differ heavily as well and so forth. Reapplying the same thread at a later point does not guarantee that the personality will be in the same 'conformation'. With experience it becomes possible for the Geass' wielder to not let his own personality be subsumed, but instead coexist with the thread in a mostly peaceful manner.
When the thread leaves the Geass' wielder's mind (this takes a different amount of time for each attempt, but is usually within the range of 3-5 hours), it leaves behind a fraction of the knowledge it contained in the wielder's mind, which always includes the full contents of the original search request.
When the Geass 'overloaded' the above rules changed noticeably. Every thread inserted automatically has its associated personality take over the wielder's mind, which no amount of experience or conditioning can alleviate. This includes those personalities younger than 400 years. The associated memories are burned into the wielder's mind, making them so distinct and vivid that they are indistinguishable from his actual memories, giving him a very contradictory set of memories.
Furthermore, it is no longer necessary for the thread to spend its full duration inside the wielder's mind. The wielder has all but become a conduit for the threads to enter, requiring only a subconscious desire to enter the wielder's mind and displacing the former thread. This means that the wielder can (involuntarily) cycle through as many as dozens of threads within the hour, in which he may now actively experience the memories of the thread. While in this state the wielder is very susceptible to suggestions, making it possible for an observer to have the wielder pick a thread to his choosing.
The only guaranteed way for the wielder to (temporarily) regain his mind is to come in contact with his Contractor V.V., who gives him a little mental push, which enables him to remain lucid for a period no lesser than fifteen minutes and no greater than ninety minutes per 'hit'. Also, as the wielder is otherwise in a constant state of possession he cannot naturally get any rest and has to be regularly dosed with strong narcotics to get any sleep whatsoever.
Charms:
First (Yozi) Excellency: She Who Lives In Her Name, Mardukth
Second (Yozi) Excellency: She Who Lives In Her Name, Mardukth
She Who Lives In Her Name
Factual Determination Analysis
Essence-Dissecting Stare
Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy
Mind-Hand Manipulation
Orbital Impact Storm
Precision Thought-Force Exercise
Mardukth
Written Upon The Stone
Mountain Beast Dominion
Beast Master's Menagerie
Reinventing Ancient Stone
Well, to be more precise, V.V. will lose his backdoor into the World of C, as the events of that omake are only happening in about two months time in quest. This on the one hand because Alexander had already said that he needed to spread out when all the GSP arrive in Japan and on the other, well, let's just say I'm not done yet with telling that particular story and I'm going to need to have Ithuriel arrive only at that point in the game (so to say).
Also, still need to write about the Fiend to complete the Coven. I know I said that I'm an unrepentant bastard to my characters, but with what I had Ithuriel go through and what I have in mind for the Fiend I wonder if I might, just might, be taking things a bit too far.
Also, still need to write about the Fiend to complete the Coven. I know I said that I'm an unrepentant bastard to my characters, but with what I had Ithuriel go through and what I have in mind for the Fiend I wonder if I might, just might, be taking things a bit too far.