An Eclipse. Blame Brian.
Jun. 20th, 2006 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leticiaName: Ara Mutoqui, the Horizon-Crowned Falcon
Concept: Gunslinger, 'fastest gun in the west' (also airship captain!)
| Motivation: Explore all of Creation and beyond | Type: Solar | Caste: Eclipse | Exp: 2 (2 earned, spent 0) |
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Speaks Seatongue, Skytongue, Riverspeak, Old Realm, four northern tribal languages, Low Realm
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Virtue Flaw: Compassionate Martyrdom: Overcome with the need to alleviate the suffering he witnesses, the character throws himself into helping the victims in the most direct and dramatic fashion possible. The character will not resort to violence unless he is attacked or is in combat already.
Partial Control: If the character attempts to control the limit break, he must still immediately and directly aid those who are suffering. However, he can choose to do so more effectively.
Duration: One scene in combat, one day otherwise.
Limit Break Condition: The character witnesses others suffering through no fault of their own.
Willpower: 9/9
Essence: 2
Personal Essence: 15/15
Peripheral Essence: 22/34
Committed Essence: 12
Backgrounds:
Artifact 3 (Personal Alchemical Weapon: Orichalcum Plasma Tongue Repeater "When the Sun Speaks of Wrath")
Artifact 3 (Personal Alchemical Weapon: Orichalcum Plasma Tongue Repeater "When the Sun Speaks of Wrath")
Artifact 2 (1) (Orichalcum Hearthstone Bracers "Bearing Morning")
Resources 3 (Represents salary and trading interests)(3)
Backing 2 (Haslanti League)
Followers 2 (2) (Airship crew)
Manse 5 (7) (Gem of Day's Light)
Merits:
Flaws:
Health Levels: -0, -1x3, -2x4, -4, Incap.
Mundane equipment:
Perfect Buff Jacket (Resources 3 purchase, 5L/4B, Mobility -0, Fatigue 1)
Haslanti Glider (Resources 2 purchase)
Calculated stats:
- Fist
- Speed 5
Acc +1 (10)
Dam 0B (1B, 3B with bracers)
Def +2 (11 DV 6)
Rate 3 - Kick
- Speed 6
Acc +0 (9)
Dam 3B (4B, 6B with bracers)
Def -2 (7 DV 4)
Rate 2 - When the Sun Speaks of Wrath
- Speed 4
Acc +4 (13)
Dam 11L (13L with Bracers)
Rate 2 (Each - total of 4. No off-hand penalty as a pair.)
Range 50
The Orichalcum Plasma Tongue Repeaters each have a Hearthstone slot (currently empty) and automatically reload themselves with Essence generated bullets. Also, blades built below the barrels function as perfect mundane khatars in close combat. - Khatars
- Speed 5
Acc +1 (10)
Dam 3L (4L, 6L with bracers)
Def +5 (14 DV 7)
Rate 3 (each)
Dodge MDV: 7 (9+3+2=14)
Parry MDV: Cha + Pre: 5 (4+5=9)
Soak: 1L/2B (Wearing chain shirt, 6L/6B)
Anima: Ara's anima ripples and swirls, the light dancing and shimmering at the edges like an aurora borealis; at full iconic, her head appears to be concealed behind a hawk-mask, the Eclipse caste mark on her forehead blazing from its; the wings spread out behind her, the feathers stirring as if in a gale (streamers of solar essence rushing over them and swirling around her like the wind made light). Despite that, nothing physical around her is stirred.
Intimacies:
Her airship (this is in the ideal sense of 'whatever lets me fly around and explore best' not in the specific sense of 'this airship').
Her crew
Resolving, permanently, cultures such as the Coral Archipelago, where women are diminished
Twenty-One Kestrels
Her guns
Background:
Have you ever been to the Coral Archipelago? No? Well, take my advice: Don't go; it's a thoroughly unpleasant place. I was born there, you know. That was a bad idea too. My family was powerful enough - riches do that, in the Archipelago, but I was the fourth child and all the older ones were sons, so I wasn't ever going to see a clipped copper coin of that. They would have, I suppose, eventually sold me off to some unrelated rich man as a wife, and I'd still have been a virtual prisoner and slave with nothing to my own name. If pampered, I suppose. And that was a lucky outcome, since my family was wealthy enough to make me valued livestock. Well, needless to say, the Coral Archipelago didn't have a particularly strong hold on me. I ran away, talked myself on to a ship out of Haslanti League, and sailed south with them. Spent a full year on that circuit, learned my way around the ship and the rigging, picked up navigation, survived a couple fights with pirates, watched the merchants at work, and finally, as summer began to fade, sailed into Icehome's briefly liquid harbor as a full-fledged member of the crew.
And it was there that I saw my first airship, flying overhead, and fell in love at first sight with the notion of flight. The captain of the ship was sorry to see me go - I was a good sailor, which really, surprised me as much as anyone - but gave me excellent letters of recommendation, hoping they'd help me get another berth. He had to sail again - before the waterways froze up for the, well, late summer - but told me if I couldn't get a permanent position, he'd take me next year. I waved as they sailed, and headed up into the city to find an airship captain to take me on as crew, clutching my letters.
Which, it turned out, were totally useless. No one was willing to hire a foreign woman newly arrived - from the Coral Archipelago, of all dubious birthplaces - onto one of the Haslanti League's precious airships. From captain to captain I wandered, the bonus pay from the ship decreasing from living expenses, and all the sailing ships long gone. It was recommended to me that I try the ice-ships, but I wanted to fly, so I persisted.
Finally, I tried Twenty-One Kestrels herself. It was hard to even get in to see her. I was initially rebuffed by functionaries, but bluffed and badgered my way in to see the admiral, whereupon I waxed eloquent about how much I wanted to get up and fly and see the horizon expand. I had a little speech planned, but it really wasn't what came out. What can I say? I was inspired.
Really inspired, in fact. I'm standing there in Twenty-One Kestrels' office cajoling her into finding me a berth on an airship, any airship, and next thing I know, I'm golden and glowing and, yeah, wow. So this is what it's like to be an Exalt and embody echoes of the glory of the First Age.
I'd like to think I talked well enough to persuade Twenty-One Kestrels, and I know she misses flying herself and probably sympathized, so maybe the talking would have been enough. Probably, or else why'd I have picked up the Exaltation? But the admiral is far too cunning to let a resource like a Solar Exalt slip out of her fingers, so she gave me an officer's position on one of the smaller airships doing the regular run between Icehome and Diamond Hearth. It was great for a while, but a little boring after the first couple trips; I wanted to explore after all.
Still, flying was better than not flying, so I stayed there, learned the ins and outs of the airships - I picked things up rather quicker than most, but, well, not too surprising there. Most aren't Eclipse Caste Solars, and I am. So one time we're in Diamond Hearth, and supplies are being unloaded. But the burners needed some repair work; we barely got in on shoestrings and patchwork. So we were going to be stuck there at least a week, no help for it. I borrowed a glider and flew out over the ice fields. I can fly the airships, but don't ask me to fix them; all thumbs.
Really, I meant to go back to Diamond Hearth before night, but I kept chasing the horizon, the thermals were great, and as sunset hit, I saw a brilliant point of light on the otherwise black eastern horizon; I flew for it.
This was The Solstice Citadel; on a high jagged rock that thrusts up through the ice from an unknown point, there's really no way to reach it without flying. The only other way to reach it would be to climb the spire - sheer and coated with ice layers which crack and break under frozen stiff hands, handholds crumbling and melting even as you try to cling. For hundreds of feet up it rises - and finally flares out at the top, forcing anyone climbing to hang up upside down as they try to find their way to the edge and up.
And on top, the Solstice Citadel. This would be the sort of fortress they refer to as impregnable, and yet it welcomed me; there was just that sense about it, almost a homecoming. I suppose its builder, back in the first age, stripped it of most its weaponry and other valuables to fight the Dragon-blooded elsewhere. But they left a few things. I found my alchemical weapons there - a matched pair, and perhaps not dangerous enough for whoever left them behind. Aren't they lovely? The orichalcum has such luster, and the inset runes here - that's Old Realm, you know. I recognized it when I saw it, though I'd never seen it before, at least in this life. Anyhow it spells their name; they are "When the Sun Speaks of Wrath."
And down in the center of the Manse, in the Hearthstone chamber, there was - of course - the Hearthstone, and a pair of Hearthstone bracers, ready and waiting for me. The stone? Oh, it's the Gem of Day's Light; really, it's just a little night-light sort of stone. And the bracers - yes, they have a name too, of course: "Bearers of Morning" - mostly exist just to hold it. It's a trinket, let's call it. A bit of a memory of home, if you will.
Anyhow, I attuned to the Manse, spent a couple of days there - the place has all the conveniences, really, I'm telling you. A lot of it's automated: hot water (and spend a few years around the League and you'll be glad for that), clothes cleaning themselves while you sleep, food showing up cooked - I've no idea where it came from, but it was good. I'm surprised nothing seems to have broken down, but, you know, some of the First Age stuff is like that. Maybe there's elementals and things involved; I didn't really know what to look for. I wouldn't even know what was broken down if something was. But I flew back to Diamond Hearth before the airship was supposed to be fixed, taking my new toys. Didn't really tell anyone what was out there. I mean, I didn't know how the place would react to non-Solars. It clearly wasn't designed to host a lot of visitors, what with the impregnable fortress design.
A while later, they stuck me on the short list for being the boss of one of the second-class airships, and that was a lot of fun. I finally got off the Diamond Hearth run, got to go all over the League and sometimes beyond. So this afternoon, we just got back to Icehome from Bear Fort, and I had a message to come in and see Twenty-One Kestrels. Wonder what the admiral wants?
Ara Mutoqui, the Horizon-Crowned Falcon, is an Eclipse Caste Solar, born in the Coral Archipelago and currently residing in (or over, usually) the Haslanti League. She has no particular national loyalties of any kind, but a certain fondness to the Haslanti for giving her the opportunity to fly. Barring a damn good reason, she'd help them out in a pinch. More, though, she feels personally loyal to Twenty-One Kestrels, who took the personal risk and responsibility in giving her that opportunity. It's worth noting, though, that she's as arrogant as any Solar, and if she thought she knew better than the admiral did, she'd probably go ahead with her plan. She's bold, brash, and - trite as it might seem - conceals a heart of gold. She won't stand idly watching anyone being mistreated. She's earned a bit of a name for herself because of that tendency to jump into things, and if anything, she only encourages her crew to talk about their adored Horizon-Crowned Falcon, though she's far too well mannered to brag (it's good to have followers who will do it for you). Ara is as loyal to her crew members as they are to her, however, and has been known to leap into trouble to fish them out. She tends to live a little larger than life - and she's already on the tall side of average. She's a Solar, and she'll tell you she doesn't care who knows it, but the truth is, she enjoys fame and infamy from it. (If she was in a Merits and Flaws using game, she would probably have a high Known Anathema rating and an Enemy or two.)
Not everyone in the Haslanti League is entirely sanguine about her - and by now, most people who care have heard - but she's been reliable, and helped prevent a couple bad situations where airships could have been lost. And well, when the Bull of the North comes back this way, it can't hurt to have your own Exalts, can it? (The Realm's reaction, on the other hand... well.)
Ara is about 5'11", and has heavily tan skin and black hair. Her face isn't bad, persay, but her features are strong and independent, even defiant, and they'd definitely challenge most people to call her face particularly beautiful. (They might, however, say she looks like a hawk or a predator.) The men attracted to her, however, are generally not looking at her face. She's statuesque to match her tall frame, and, much like her Solarness, makes no effort to, well, really, anything but flaunt it. Given her Exalted ability to withstand the brutal temperatures of the North, Ara often dresses more like she's in a Southern desert. Ara's been known to have the brief fling or two, but never with anyone on the same crew as her, and they rarely last long, nor does she allow them to mean very much. Too close of ties with men make her uncomfortable, despite the fact that the Coral Archipelago is nowhere near and the Haslanti League doesn't suffer from their misguided notions. Ara was never much interested in the Tya of the western islands, the women who leave their homes and families and act as men in exchange for some small fraction of equality (she didn't want to have to step out of being a woman to be free - not that giving up her family and home would have been or was a sacrifice), but partly in their honor, she has tattoos over much of her body; where the Tya tend to spirals, she has elaborate knotwork, and rather than on the face, hers are on her limbs - delicate knots, in red and gold, twine up her limbs from bands around her wrists and vanish under her clothes; the same is true of her legs, and at the nape of her neck. When her clothing reveals the small of her back, the latter seems to continue down past it.
Ara's current long term goal is to either get enough rank and/or cash to be able to get her OWN airship and the freedom to sail off and explore the world rather than flying all over the Haslanti League again and again. If she gets the money without the freedom, she'll probably just resign; the League may or may not be too pleased by that, but while Ara's fond of them, she's not willing to tie herself down indefinitely against potential future threats. (An imminent threat to be combatted then and there, much more likely.)
