Clockwork Abattoir: Characters

[Rose-of-Vellum]

This thread is reserved for the Clockwork Abattoir game, a pbp campaign set in the Cadaverous Earth. Players, please post your characters here.

[Seraph]

[ooc=Mr. Nix]Furtive Male Ghul Witch (Diabolism) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 1
Pools (Edge): Might 7 (0), Agility 10* (1), Intellect 15 14 (1); Damage Track: Hale

Defenses: disease & poison (mastery), aging & death effects (immune); AC 1; Might Cost: 1; Agility Penalty: 2*
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 4

Languages: Hellspeak, Shambles
Lifestyle: Poor
Senses: See in the dark (100 ft.), perception of demons (expertise)
Skills: deception (expertise), demonology and persuasion of demons (expertise), illusion- & deceit-based invocations (expertise), stealth (expertise), witchcraft (expertise)

Weapons:

• Derringer (light ranged weapon)

• Bite (medium bladed weapon)
• 2 Claws (light bladed weapon)

Esoteries:

• Emonomancy (2 Intellect points): Through a brief calling and binding ritual, Mr. Nix commands demons to scan an area equal in size to a 10-foot cube, including all objects or creatures within that area. The area must be within short range. Successful emonomancy of a creature or object reveals its level. He also learns whatever facts the GM feels are pertinent about the matter and energy in that area. However, this esotery doesn't tell him what the information means. Many materials and eldritch fields prevent or resist emonomancy. Action.
• Soul's Torment (1 Intellect point): Mr. Nix can attack a foe's mind, filling it with harrowing, phantasmagoric images of Hellish landscape and denizens. To use this invocation, Mr. Nix must be able to see his target. With a successful check, this mental attack inflicts 2 points of Intellect damage. Some creatures without minds (such as automatons) might be immune to this variant. Action.

Flaws:

• Carnivorous: Mr. Nix can only digest meat.
• Light Sensitivity: Mr. Nix is dazed in direct sunlight.
• Slow & Certain: swift movement (defect)

Items:

• Eldritch Oddities:
  
  
  • Lashing Tongue: This foot-long appendage appears to be the still-living tongue of a demon. Mr. Nix keeps it in a bag, where it worms and thrashes around eerily but ineffectually. It is slimy, and drips saliva constantly, and it is covered in ugly boils and blisters. Anyone who dares to put it in their mouth will instantly be able to speak Hellspeak, but can only manage to shout profanity and curses.
• Theurgic Devices:
  
  
  • The Dark Glass: The edge of this jagged shard of obsidian has been carefully engraved with glyphs of seeing.  Upon command and with a successful roll against the target's DC, the glass will display an image, albeit smoky and slightly indistinct. The vision lasts for one minute, and at the end, the vision fades, and the glass becomes ordinary obsidian.
  • Glutton Worm: Mr. Nix keeps this sluglike creature in a small ivory box. Properly known as aerugo larvae, the glutton worm secretes a powerful, unique acid which can dissolve inorganic material of level 3 or lower, but has no effect whatsoever on flesh or other organic matter. The creature gobbles up the dissolved material around it, and in a matter of rounds, eats until it curls up into an ephemeral cocoon, then explodes, releasing a cloud of tiny aerugo-flies.
  • Wailing Bottle: A bottle carved with mourning, screaming faces, the lid is stoppered up, and sealed off with clay. If this bottle is smashed open on the ground, it releases the damned souls in torment that were trapped inside. They instantly start to be pulled down into an otherworldly Hell, and they will reach, pull, and claw at a single living creature within immediate range to try and remain in this world. Upon a successful attack, a horde of spirits assaults the target of this bottle, increasing the difficulty of all its actions by 1d6 rounds.

Mundane Items: Voulge Chirurgeon derringer pistol (12 shots), ornate ceremonial knife, spider-silk cuirass, clothing (tricorn hat, frock coat with hidden sleeve pocket, mask), chalk, 9' knotted measuring cord, tallow candles (5), matches (5), votive silver chain, 12 crowns.
[/ooc]

[ooc=Vex]
Familiar: demon; Level: 2
Health: 6; AC 0
Attack: bite (4 damage) plus poison (level 2, 4 damage)
Skills tracking (expertise)
[/ooc]The man called "Mr. Nix" does not know his name.  The ghul-transformation erased his memory of his former life, but sudden flashes of insight, and the grim diary scrawled into his skin provide him clues.  Many of them are clearly in some diabolical code worked out by his former self--symbols operating on metaphors and shorthand; acronyms, riddles, and pictographs that contain volumes of information waiting to be unlocked--if the voices in his head don't drive him to raving madness first.

Mr. Nix is tormented by demons.  They worm their way into his mind, to which they seem to have ready access--why?  None of the other Ghilan in the Ebon Ward have this affliction.  Or they are lying to him.  He can't be sure.  He certainly doesn't trust them.  Perhaps they are responsible for his present condition.  Maybe that was the message he had tried to leave himself.  Or perhaps not.  Nevertheless, there are answers here in this city.  That's what it said.  "Skein." He'd carved it into his own skin (anyone with sense would know those wounds were self-inflicted) so it must have been important.  What secrets is this city hiding from him, with its decadent ways?

His only ally is a hellhound familiar called Vex, whom he simultaenously loves, hates, fears, and abuses.  In his mind it is an entity trying to control him, even while he commands it.  Vex is his avenue to infernal power--his intermediary with the dukes of hell who grant him power.  Vex has been with him for as long as he can remember--manipulating him, helping him, and steering him towards either his destiny or his doom.  Or both.  He often acts out against the demon's advice, though he is always afraid the beast is more cunning than he, and is playing him.

Every so often, Mr. Nix feels the wracking pains of the eternal torture of hell, having hung on to the barest piece of his soul in undeath.  Most often, however, he feels crushing ennui, and disconnection with the world and even more horrifyingly, from himself.  His driving impulse is to discover himself: his past, his identity, and his soul. 

[Ghostman]

[ooc=Xavier]Shrewd Male Human Rogue (Assassination) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 2
Pools (Edge): Might 10 (0), Agility 14 (1), Intellect 12 (0); Damage Track: Hale

Defenses: Agility (expertise), Intellect vs mental effects (expertise); AC: 0
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 4

Languages: Hellspeak, Shambles
Lifestyle: Decent
Senses:
Skills: flex skill (expertise)*, crafting bombs (expertise), crafting poison (expertise), deception (expertise), disguise (mastery), stealth (expertise), identifying or assessing danger, lies, quality, importance, function, or power (expertise)

Weapons:

• Sabre (medium bladed weapon)
• Garrotte (medium bladed weapon)
• Blowgun (light ranged weapon)

Tricks: 

• Pierce (1 Agility point): This is a well-aimed, penetrating ranged attack. Xavier can make an attack and inflict 1 additional point of damage if his weapon has a sharp point. Action.

• Surprise Strike: If attacking from a hidden vantage, with surprise, or before an opponent has acted, Xavier reduces the difficulty of his attack by one step. On a successful hit with this surprise attack, he inflicts 2 additional points of damage. Enabler.

Flaws: 

• One-Eyed: Xavier is half-blind whenever his clockwork eye is covered, and suffers social repercussions if he leaves it uncovered in public.
• Infernal Curse: A diabolist, slain by Xavier, cursed the assassin before succumbing to poison. This eldritch malediction marks Xavier as an enemy of demons and their devotees. As a result, any task involving diplomacy against demons or demonologists has its DC increased by 2.

• Trivial Ignorance: lore and knowledge (defect).

Items:

• Eldritch Oddities: 
  
  
  
  • Vomitignus: This appears to be a small petrified creature, some manner of chimeric hybrid of insectile and reptilian features. Small enough to fit in a pocket, the many-limbed figure is curled in what resembles a fetal position, suggesting that it might be an unborn - or unhatched - spawn of a much larger beast. What is truly odd about it is that despite it's microlithic condition, there seems to be some kind of ineffable life left in the thing: if so much as a single drop of fresh blood is sprinkled on the creature, it's gaping mouth will belch forth a tiny flame of fire - barely more than a sparkle, but enough to light a cigarette. The blood staining it's form will immediately disappear, as if absorbed by the being. Xavier bought Vomitignus from a curiosity shop whose owner claimed it had been found in the Slouching Devil Mountains.
  • Spy's Eye: This is an artificial eyeball of eldritch clockwork construction, implanted in Xavier's right eye socket after he lost his natural eye in a vicious confrontation with a Nine Eyes syndicate enforcer. The device restores his stereoscopic vision, but only when he isn't wearing an eyepatch over it. When ucovered it also negates 1-step hindrances due to dim illumination. The orb's bewitched gaze sometimes falls upon vistas not meant for the sight of mortal men, revealing glimpses of nameless hells and aberrant realms beyond the fabric of the corporeal world. Such revelations, though usually mercifully brief, can be more than a little disturbing. The mechanical nature of the graft is also readily apparent.

• Theurgic Devices:
  
  
  
  • Smoke Bomb (x2): Detonates in a cloud of thick black smoke that fills a volume in the immediate distance. The cover of the smoke screen grants a benefaction to visual-based stealth tasks, provided the affected area is between you and the target you are hiding from. Such tasks have their DC reduced by 2 steps for one round, then only reduce the DC by 1 for the following minute. Smoke bombs similarly raise the DC of sight-based tasks (e.g., perception, attacks). Action.
  • Flash Bomb: Detonates in a bright flash of light that temporarily blinds opponents in an immediate-distance, centered around wherever the bomb is thrown. You must make an Agility roll against their DC; if successful, they are blinded for 1 round. Against blinded foes, the DC of defense rolls and attack rolls is reduced by two steps. Action.
  Mundane Possessions: Clothing, a bag of light tools, bomb making tools (first-tier), a pack of cigarettes, a pocket watch, 5 crowns.
  

[/ooc]

Xavier is a professional hit man, an artist of cold-blooded murder. Although slaying men is his business, he doesn't consider himself a warrior. He never engages his targets in combat if he can avoid it, prefering to dispatch them via more effective means. He favours methods that are contemptible, dishonorable and decidedly unfair: poison, arson, planted explosives, orchestrating "accidents", strangling sleeping victims in their beds, etc. As long as he performs his job correctly his targets will never even know what got them, let alone have any chance to fight back. Should his plans go awry he won't hesitate to flee; he feels no sense of pride nor honor that could compel him to stand and fight. He is a ruthless pragmatist that kills without mercy, though never without reason.

Xavier is neither tough nor very strong. He is agile and possessed of lightning-fast reflexes, keen perception and sharp intellect. Although his movements are swift and precise, they are also completely devoid of grace and flair. He has no interest in the pompous showmanship of buffoonish swashbucklers, no time to waste on fancy flourishes.

His greatest expertice lies in stealth and acrobatics; he blends into the shadows and slips through the dark alleys of Skein with the ease of a ghost, dashing silently across rooftops and scuttling through the narrowest of windows and hatches. Few are the locks that can hold him out. When he isn't out on the field stalking his next victim Xavier tinkers in his laboratory, mixing deadly poisons or constructing various gadgets ranging from simple tools to intricate clockwork mechanisms and alchemical aids.

Xavier is a man of average height, with a wiry athletic build and pale complexion. His sleek coal-black hair is cut short, oiled and combed back. His face is clean shaven and narrow with sharp features. A deep scar runs from his right cheek to his forehead, interrupted by a mechanical clockwork orb that replaces his lost right eye. Xavier usually hides this device under a black eyepatch while in public, primarily because it gives him a disturbing countenance that attracts unfavourable attention from the population of Skein, but also because the preternatural vistas this eldritch mechanism reveals can be unsettling even for someone as cold-blooded as him. His left eye is of icy blue color, in contrast with the blood-red hue of it's artificial pairing.

His clothing is of quality suitable for a middle-class skeinite, albeit without the slightest hint of the typical pretenses to imitate the flamboyance of the nobility. We wears a brown shirt, black trousers and a cowled gray cloak. On his feet are boots augmented with clockwork enhancements, on his hands leather gloves similarly improved. Attached on his belt is an array of strange little tools and vials, and a sabre rests sheathed by his side. His other weapons are kept concealed until needed. The lower half of his face is covered, in accordance with customs of Skein, under a veil of black silk.

Xavier is a member of the Brass Skulls syndicate, working as one of their hitmen in addition to crafting some of the simpler mechanical gadgets. He lives in a tenement in the Copper Ward where he also keeps his smallish workshop-lab, taking advantage of the proximity to the artificer population and the local market for parts and raw materials.

[Steerpike]

[ic=Catena]Fungi and obscene graffiti mottled the decaying brickwork of Swinehowl Alley, one sigil proclaiming the crooked side-street the domain of the Nine-Eyes, another image depicting the Magistra Jeanne Phan-Luru (identifiable by double-headed raven heraldry) fornicating with a clockwork paramour.  The lurid drawings competed for wall-space with faded bounty notices and posters urging citizens to get tested for harrowflux infection.  The alley was clotted with refuse: overflowing garbage-bins, corroded gears and other machine parts, a mildewed heap of pamphlets calling for the expulsion of ghilan from the city.  A bedraggled man twitched nearby, lips black from shadowmilk.  The sound of clanking chains and creaking wood emanated from the nearby docks, alongside the dull cacophony of the Jewelled Monstrance.  Swinehowl Alley was dark, even at noon, the buildings to either side shrouding it in gloom.

The rancid odours of the Radula curdled the air, mingling with the other multifarious reeks of the Indigo Ward – tar, blood, wine, semen, sewage, smoke.  Catena ignored them all, unperturbed by their pungency: she had grown up in the slave-caverns of the lilix surrounded by the omnipresent stench of sweat, piss, and excrement, the fetor of a thousand men and women crammed into a too-small pen.  She turned a corner, following the zigzagging alley to its point of termination where a grubby leechkin slouched beside a wooden door.  The creature wore a fine waistcoat and trousers, along with a shabby top-hat shadowing its mouthless visage; its toothy palm-maws hissed as she approached.

"I'm here to see the Oddsaugur," she said simply.  Her voice bore a sibilant accent.  "Eaters' business."

The leechkin looked her up and down suspiciously, its yellow eyes narrowing.  "Surrender your weapons," it croaked, after a moment's consideration.

"Other than these I'm unarmed," she said, holding out her chains.  "Search me if you want."  She stepped forward, putting both hands on the back of her smooth, hairless head.

The leechkin took the chains and dropped them into a nearby barrel, then patted her body with slimy, long-fingered hands.  She wore a sleeveless vest of red leather, black hose, and hob-nailed boots; the creature investigated her garments, its breath hot on her skin as its palm-mouths exhaled.  Satisfied, it opened the door, stepping aside to let Catena enter.

Inside, the old knackery had been outfitted with benches and tables where a handful of men and women lounged, watching two women with stiletto knives circle one another inside one of the rusty cages where horses and pigs were once slaughtered for rendering.  Catena ignored them, threading her way towards the door to the backroom where another two guards – humans, armed with cudgels and wheellock pistols - surveyed the room.  These searched her a second time before, reluctantly, admitting her to the chamber beyond.

Inside sat a hunched and bloated figure, swathed in rags beginning to mildew.  The swollen corpse's flesh twitched and fluctuated beneath the faded cloth wrappings as the shade controlling it like a macabre marionette quivered and pulsed.  It tapped at the glyph-etched keys of a rusty machine, a scrap-fashioned, bastard twin to the grander Sortilege Engine of the Copper Ward, built from scavenged scraps and castoffs.  The machine was a mass of exposed gears, pumping pistons, and steaming valves, cobbled together in an ugly mass of metal.  The corpulent grave-spawn bookmaker adjusted a pair of round spectacles and squinted at the readout the churning machinery regurgitated.  The windows of the room had been carefully boarded up and swathed in curtains so that no sunlight could enter.  One wall was dominated by a huge painting liberated from some nobleman's household, an erotic sinscape of demonic and human flesh commingling in the moonlight.

"Yes?" the Oddsaugur rasped with its ruinous voice, not looking up from its work.

"I'm here to collect," Catena declared flatly.  "You owe the Eaters a lot of chitin, augur."

The creature waved a bony hand dismissively.  "I'm good for it," the shade insisted.  "Should have it be next Molting.  Early Ashwick at the latest.  Tell your drugged-up employers they needn't worry.  I've worked out all the kinks; my calculations are flawless this time."

"I don't think you understand," Catena continued.  "This is your last chance.  You have to pay now.  As in, open the safe I know you have behind that painting and give me what's inside it."

"Or what?"  The Oddsaugur chuckled.  "The Orchid-Eaters didn't even bother coming themselves.  Too strung out on their pollen to get off their pimpled arses!"

"I assure you, my employers take this matter very seriously."

"Then they shouldn't have sent a pale little girl to do their dirty work.  What're you going to do?  I've got two men outside with hand cannons and half a dozen more in the next room.  Go back to your drugged-up masters and tell them to be patient."

"This is your last chance," Catena said patiently.  "I urge you to take it."

"You make these old bones shake, kid," the Oddsaugur said, looking up at her for the first time.  "But seriously, fuck off back to the Greenhouse or I'll have Hardskull and Blisters out there send you back in pieces."

Catena sighed, then moved.  Bursting forward fast in a blur of sudden motion (like a spider, suddenly scuttling in a single, jerking spasm of movement) and grasped the shade by its long, mouldering hair, pushing its face down towards the exposed machinery of the engine so that its rotting features were mere inches from the churning gears.

"The combination," she said flatly as the grave-spawn thrashed, trying to free itself from a grip like iron.

"Guards!" It croaked.  "Get in here you bastards!"

Catena sighed again, flinging the shade away into a corner and springing rapidly towards the door as it swung open.  Seizing the first tough by the wrist she twisted, hard, producing a sickening snap.  The man howled in unexpected pain as his pistol clattered to the floor; she kicked the man hard in the solar plexus, knocking the air from his lungs and sending him barreling backwards into the second thug behind him.  With a smooth motion she plucked the man's wheellock from the floor, took half a breath to aim carefully, and then fired a bullet at near point blank range through the skulls of both guards, spattering the room behind them with blood, brains, and fragments of skull.

She remembered once, seeing a lilix forewoman take care of two subordinate slaves in much the same way, lining them up one next to the other.  Two slaves were worth only one bullet, she'd said, her mouthparts chittering in the spiderfolk equivalent of laughter.

There were shrieks, grunts, curses, and cries of alarm.  A gutter-witch was barking some incantation, weaving strands of numina into a mass of glowing eldritch worms, congealing between his fingertips.  Catena growled and hurled the pistol at his face, shattering his nose, while others in the room drew daggers and rapiers, advancing towards her.  Unarmed again she dodged the sword-thrust of the first to step over the bouncers' corpses, then rammed an open palm up into the man's face, driving bone and cartilage up into his skull.  He staggered backwards, blood spurting from his nostrils, and she was still moving, keeping low to avoid the crossbow quarrels now whistling overhead.

The smell of blood and smoke filled the air, reminding her of the stench of the pits, of the mines deep in the Chelicerae Mountains where men and women, her kindred, died by the dozens, while the lilix snapped their whips and snarled orders.

More quarrels thudded into the wooden walls as Catena snatched up a half-full bottle of wine.  A burly man hefting a hatchet and a lithe, tattooed women with two daggers - one of the girls from the cage – came at her.  She flung out her arm, sending a stream of wine into the eyes of the man, then side-stepped a dagger-swipe and smashed the woman in the head with the bottle, braining her.  The knife-fighter toppled and Catena stomped hard on her throat – once, twice, thrice.  Blood welled beneath her hobnails as Catena grabbed the discarded daggers, just in time to parry an overhead blow from the recovered tough's hatchet.  She plunged the second blade into the man's belly, just above his groin, and hugged him close, twisting; two crossbow bolts hit him in the back.  She shoved the dying man into the second pit-fighter.  The witch, recovered, spat a second hex, manifesting as a glob of caustic bile.  The acidic vomit hurtled through the air, nearly searing her hairless scalp.  She hissed softly and threw her remaining knife, embedding the blade in the magus's chest.

She had learned early in life what theurges could do, when she'd watched a lilix priestess torture a heretic to death in a public square in Chenzirr, weaving a cat's-cradle sigil out of cobwebs between her fingers, a criss-crossed pattern that sliced the screaming dissident into half a hundred parts, the cuts clean and neat, like the work of some slaughterhouse mechanism.

The crossbow-wielder was reloading.  She came at him bare-handed and covered in blood as he fumbled for quarrels.  Wrenching the mechanism from his hands she slammed the butt of the repeating crossbow into his face, breaking his jaw and spraying teeth across the floor.  He'd loaded two of the quarrels already; raising the crossbow slightly she put both bolts into the chest of the leechkin bouncer at the door.

Those left in the knackery fled as Catena returned to the backroom where the Oddsaugur was still picking its gas-bloated bulk up from the floor.   Calmly, Catena finished reloading the crossbow and fired three bolts, aiming carefully, pinning the grave-spawn to the floor.  Then – slowly, deliberately – she threw back the curtains, revealing the boarded-up windows.

"The combination, Oddsaugur," she said in the same unruffled monotone she'd used before.  "Unless you're eager to work on your tan..."[/ic]

Catena was born in the black pens of Dolmen, one of the albino slaves of the lilix.  Bred for endurance and stamina, such "subhuman" labourers live a life of squalor and pain, competing with one another for food, space, and light.  It was here, in the sweaty, pallid press of bickering flesh, that Catena (then known only by her designation, Zyrix-Mhalofneshea) first learned to fight, sparring with other children and with adults, breaking arms and noses to keep herself fed.  A frequent troublemaker as a child and young adolescent, she was whipped mercilessly by her arachnid overseers after killing several slaves in self-defence, snapping one's neck with her bare hands, beating another's head into the ground till his skull cracked, tearing out the neck of a third with her teeth.  She spent a period in the lightless mines of the Chelicerae Mountains and another in the factories of Xelschemyr before being purchased by a freedwoman with a manse in Illhillisz to work as a servant.  She performed her duties well and would soon have earned her freedom, but before she could an assassin sent by a rival freedwoman merchant broke into the manse of her mistress.  She killed the assassin with a hatpin to the throat, but also destroyed the venomous spider the assassin planned to poison her mistress with.  Since slaying a spider is a capital crime in Dolmen Catena knew she would be publicly and gruesomely executed if she remained in the manse.

Quickly, Catena devised a plan to escape her fate.  One of the Ladies Revenant, Genevieve, had sent a vessel to Dolmen in order to purchase corpses, raw material for the necrotheurgic experimentation of the Revenants.  Fleeing through the streets of Dolmen (dispatching several patrolling guards as she went) she made her way to the docklands of the Foreigner's Quarter and crept onto the boat, concealing herself in the foul mass of cadavers stored in the hold.  The corpse-barge was bound for the spires of Somnambulon before her crime was discovered, and Catena was able to slip over the side and escape into the wilds of the north.  Wandering the Baronies, the Slouching-devil Mountains, and Barrow Scrub, Catena worked as a mercenary and bodyguard, honing her skills and learning Shambles.  Eventually she found her way south to Skein, where she began hiring herself out as a freelance enforcer and tough.

Physically, Catena is a short, sinewy woman with alabaster-pale skin, huge reddish-pink eyes, and a hairless scalp (she can grow hair – unusually thick and perfectly white – but keeps her head hairless).  Her back is a mass of scar-tissue from the whips of the lilix and her neck and wrists are riddled with small puckered scars where overseers fed on her blood.  She is extremely strong and semi-feral, with finely honed reflexes and killer instincts.  Capable of fighting without weapons, she nonetheless favours a long chain that she uses to strangle, whip, and bludgeon foes.  She is utterly without mercy and has no discernable moral compass, doing whatever she needs to survive.

Catena lives in the Indigo Ward in a suite of dark, spartan chambers, swathed with black lace curtains.

[ooc=Catena]Stoic Female Human Warrior (Bloodletting) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 2
Pools (Edge): Might 10/15 (1), Agility 11/14 (1), Intellect 3/7; Damage Track: Hale

Defenses: Agility (mastery without armour), Might (expertise), Intellect vs emotion-altering effects (expertise) AC: 1
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+2; Rolls Left: 1/4

Languages: Chattelchatter, Shambles
Lifestyle: Decent
Skills: balancing (expertise), climbing (expertise)

Weapons:

•   Chain (medium bashing weapon)
•   Dagger (light bladed weapon)
•   Hand Crossbow (light ranged weapon)
•   Unarmed Strike (light or medium bashing weapon)

Combat Maneuvers:

Always Armed: Catena can turn nearly any object into a deadly weapon, from a broken bottle to a silk sash. Consequently, attacking with an improvised weapon is not a hindrance for her. Enabler.
Bloodlust: When she wishes, while in combat, Catena can enter a state of frenzy. While in this state, she can't use Intellect points, but she gains +1 to her Might Edge and her Agility Edge. This effect lasts for as long as she wishes, but it ends if no combat is taking place within range of her senses. Enabler.
No Need for Weapons: Whenever she makes an unarmed attack, Catena can choose for it to count as a medium weapon instead of a light weapon. Enabler.
Trained Without Armor: Catena has expertise in Agility defense actions when not wearing armor. Enabler.


Flaws:

Arachnophobic: Due to her upbringing in Dolmen's slave-pens, Catena is haunted by a lingering dread of spiders. Consequently, she suffers a debility in any task involving arachnoid creatures or devotees of Verlum (foible).
Stoic: Emotional displays, reciprocity, and empathy (defect).


Items:
 •   Eldritch Oddities:
   o   Cheater's Coin: Taken from the corpse of an itinerate gambler Catena was charged with eliminating as a message to other deadbeats unable to settle their debts, the Cheater's Coin seems to be a small, Lophian drachma, but close inspection reveals that it has been stamped with unfamiliar sigils.  While the coin is balanced perfectly, it reads the thoughts of any who flips it such that a coin-toss is always resolved in the flipper's favour.
   o  Dr. Sachs' Field Journal: Grants a +1 bonus to botany, toxicology, and related tasks.
 •   Theurgic Devices:
 o   Clockwork Doll: Created by the artificers of Skein as automaton bodyguard-toys for the children of magisters and merchant princes, these dolls seem like nothing more than children's playthings unless wound a certain number of times, at which point they move to protect their charges by expelling a puff of noxious gas from their mouths in the direction of any threatening their wards. Upon activation the doll releases a level 1 poison that does 2 points of Might damage to all living creatures in an immediate distance.
   o   Thrum: Though not addicted to the stuff Catena is an occasional user of the eldritch drug known as Thrum, which causer the affected individual to quiver rapidly while enhancing their agility.
   o  Scarlett Bliss
   o  Ampule of Tar-baby Blood: A level 4 poison that hyper-coagulates blood via injection or injury.
   o  Ceramic Jar of Demon-Bile: Imbibing the fiend-bound bile will induce melancholia, but grant you certain insights and limited witchcraft.
   o  Asherat Blossoms
   o  Bottle of Vermillion Orb Weaver Venom: 3 doses of level 2 poison, 5 damage
   o  Glyph-Sealed Pot: When unsealed, the pot's substance acts like pheromones for dreamspawn, attracting them and/or potentially distracting them.
   o  Pressurized Spore-Flask: Contains enucleation spores (level 4 poison, causes temporary blindness to exposed eyes and debilitating pain that infamously causes victims to gouge out their own eyes).
 •   Mundane Possessions: clothing, chains, dagger, hand crossbow (12 quarrels), key to the Stallion, handful of gold crowns[/ooc]

[Rhamnousia]

Phrixia Gronne, the Rogue Bravo

A former corsair and bravo from the City of the Lamprey, Phrixia Gronne has always had a talent for violence, having killed her first man in cold blood (and under less-than-honorable circumstances) while still a girl. Possessing a ruthlessly amoral philosophy that cherishes nothing but her own survival and seemingly devoid of ambition beyond satisfying her appetitive urges for blood, sex, and coin, she carved out a comfortable niche for herself in Lophius' cutthroat society without ever swearing fealty to someone other than herself. It was almost by accident that she discovered her nascent ability for witchcraft, but her general unwillingness to focus meant that she has yet to learn more than a handful of petty incantations, but that does not dissuade her from referring to herself as a "spellsword" when boasting of her skills. When she answered Skein's call for mercenaries during the Adumbral War, she did so only because she thought she could profit off of the bloodshed without putting herself in any real danger; when the odds of victory turned against the corsairs during their first engagement with Crepuscule's mercenaries, Phrixia jumped ship and swam for shore as quickly as she could. She then spent the remainder of the war traveling the length of the Radula as a freelance sellsword, joining the battles just long enough to loot what she could and disappearing as swiftly as she could. She settled finally settled down in the Clockwork City only because she'd made fewer enemies there than in either Crepuscule or Lophius; she considered Skein's rigid class hierarchy stifling and dull, but found herself sufficiently entranced by its wealth of fineries and arcane lore to not seek opportunities in another of the Twilight Cities; originally planning to flee down the Radula River as soon as she was sure most of those who knew her face had gotten themselves killed, as the years went by, she has become increasingly comfortable with her labyrinthine, smog-choked surrounding, the acrid aroma of industry now nearly as pleasing to her nose as the stench of swamp muck. No longer as piratical as she once was, she mainly finds employ as a freelance sellsword and bodyguard for Skein's many competing merchant factions. There is little lost love between her and the local criminal cartels: while she affords them the barest modicum of respect, she also kills those underlings who cross her path without a moment's hesitation.

Phrixia is an exceptionally-tall, long-limbed woman whose substantial curvature does not fully distract from her powerful, tightly-corded physique. She is darkly complected even for one from Lophius, with deep-set olive green eyes (often ringed by thick smearings of white kohl) that seem to flash at the promise of violence and oily raven hair that spills down around her broad shoulders in a tangle of loose curls, kept out of her face beneath a colorful bandana. Her nose is shapely, her jawline chiseled, and there is an almost feline quality to the curl of her lips made all the more prominent when she smirks in mirth or anger. Virtually every inch of her body, from her feet to her throat, is covered by tattoos intricately etched in black and gold ink; the designs are largely geometric arabesques, incorporating a great many clutching tentacles and leering death's heads. The majority of her thick scars are self-inflicted decorations, the most notable exceptions being several circular arrangements of deep puncture wounds along her forearms, "love-bites" earned while dueling leechkin. A natural dancer as well as a killer, she moves with a supple, almost predatory grace, seemingly always balanced effortlessly on her toes as she spins about. She speaks Shambles with a distinctive, Glatch-infused accent, and she always seems to reek of liquor, cigarette smoke, and the heady floral perfumes she anoints herself with to the point of excess.

Her distinctive, colorful garb marks Phrixia as much a foreigner as her swarthy complexion: a pair of knee-length leather maiden boots; close-fitting, high-waisted trousers with a brocade sash worn round her waist as a belt; strips of black cloth wrapped about her palms and wrists; a loose, open-breasted tunic of pale damask beneath a richly-embroidered brigandine jack so perfectly tailored to her form that it does not seem to weigh her down in the slightest; and numerous pieces of gaudy jewellery gracing her hands and throat, nearly all of them plundered. In deference to Skein fashion, she also dons a simple rectangular mask of dark lacquered wood. Always at her hips are her two closest companions: a swept-hilted rapier she's named "Blackwand" and light, nimble revolver called "Salamandrine."

[ooc=Phrixia Gronne]
Graceful Female Human Rogue (Way of the Blade & Pistol) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 2
Pools (Edge): Might 10, Agility 14 (1), Intellect 12; Damage Track: Hale

Defenses: Agility (expertise); AC: 2 (medium); Might Cost: 0; Agility Penalty: 0
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 4

Languages: Alleyspeak, Shambles
Lifestyle: Decent. Phrixia rents a single spacious and well-appointed room in a boarding house on the periphery of the Indigo Ward, an establishment more often frequented by travelers from Lophius than by members of Skein's established criminal community.
Skills: balance (expertise), persuasion (expertise), physical performing arts (expertise), running (expertise)

Weapons:

• Blackwand (light bladed)
• Salamandrine (light ranged)

Tricks:

• Armor Proficiency: Phrixia can wear any kind of armor. She reduces the Might cost per hour for wearing armor and the Agility Pool reduction for wearing armor by 2. Enabler.
• Gutter-Witchcraft (1 Intellect point): Phrixia can perform small invocations: temporarily change the color or basic appearance of a small object, cause small objects to float through the air, clean a small area, mend a broken object, prepare (but not create) food, and so on. She can't use gutter-witchcraft to harm another creature or object. Action.

Flaws:

• Prideful: a roll of 1 on any Agility task leaves her dazed for one round due to shock and shame.
• Taste for Madwine: Phrixia can go a number of days equal to her Might Pool without taking madwine. After that, she must make a Might defense roll (DC 3+1 per previous check) or lose 2 Might, Agility, and Intellect points per day until she takes the drug. Until then, or until she overcomes her addiction, she cannot recover points in her pools and shifts down one step on the damage track.

Items:

• Eldritch Oddities:
  
  • The Red Hag: an eldritch tattoo of a hagfish inscribed in vivid carmine, which ceaselessly wriggles and squirms its way across her skin of its own accord, occasionally disappearing into a black and gold arabesque only to reemerge somewhere else on her body. Close inspection of the animate illumination reveals it to be a tughra (a stylized signature) formed of curling Glatch script.

• Theurgic Devices:
  
  • Doppelganger's Defensive Ring: An iron mourning ring engraved with hellish glyphs, containing a single bound imp of exceptional rascality. On command, the ring disintegrates and releases the demon within, who assumes a form identical to Phrixia and grants her a benefaction to Agility defense actions for 1 minute.
  • Oil of Viciousness: A small glass flacon containing an ugly, viscous mixture comprised of a dead soldier's blood and yellow bile and the ichorous effluvia of a Sallow Seas demon. When the oil is used to anoint the edge of a weapon, every wound blackens and sizzles from the eldritch cruelty, inflicting an additional 1 point of damage. The effect lasts for 1 hour, at which point the oil's potency evaporates.
  
  Mundane Possessions: Blackwand, Salamandrine (12 bullets), custom-fitted brigandine jack, clothing, cigarettes (12), bottle of brandy, bottle of madwine, matchsticks (10), 60 crowns.
  

[/ooc]

[TheMeanestGuest]

Born in the city, and brought up among its privileged class, Hadric nonetheless has never felt much more than a tenuous connection with Skein, feeling a deep longing in his heart for someplace else. He never knew his father, and his given name is the only bond the two share. The elder Hadric quit the city shortly after his son's conception, leaving the pregnant Cybille Phel-Nirian to raise Hadric Beyam on her own. Hadric's mother spoke seldom of his father, saying only that he was quite charming, and a witch of prodigious talent. Fortunately (or unfortunately) orphaned, Cybille Phel-Nirian was in full control of her family's estate at the time of Hadric's birth, and kept the Sheevra child secluded within her familial spire for several years. Though his mother saw to his proper tutelage in both the arcane arts and social etiquette, and foisted numerous toys and several clockwork companions upon him, the young Hadric would nevertheless spend hours staring longingly out the windows at the bustling streets below with an intense sadness in his green-gold eyes. The boy seemed to exude misery, and Cybille found herself at a loss for what to do. It would be cruel, she thought, to raise a human child in such isolation, and Cybille knew she did not fully comprehend the effect it might have on one with Sheevra blood. For bearing a child out of wedlock - and one of impure human stock at that - her name and that of her whole family would be besmirched, and indeed, her title itself might be put in jeopardy. But she loved her son, and she resolved that she could not bear to see him suffer another day. She took him by the hand and led him out into the sun. Her familiar on one arm, and her child upon the other. Hadric cheered immediately, and seemed to bask in the excitement of the city, his skin glowing brighter than it ever had before. A hundred shocked or disapproving stares and glances fell upon the masked Magistra and the Sheevra boy, but Hadric seemed to pay them no mind, and so neither did Cybille. With purpose she strode through the Azure Ward, and to the Stewards' Hall. With the unmistakable light of motherly pride lit in her eyes, she declared Hadric her true son and heir before a slack-jawed and startled clerk. The declaration would not go uncontested.

Cybille's brother - the Magister Claudius Phel-Nirian - had always desired her inheritance, and had borne a powerful envy of his elder sister's arcane talent since childhood. He saw in this the perfect opportunity to seize what was his rightful due, and placed a case before the Court. He claimed that his sister's designation of her non-human bastard child as her heir was unlawful, and furthermore that it had done grievous injury to the family's reputation. Thereby, he argued, she had demonstrated a lack of fitness to administer the family estates, and indeed, even bear her noble title. Cybille demured. While acknowledging Hadric's bastardry, she argued that - as established by precedent in no less than seventeen cases in the past century alone - the right of a legitimized bastard child to inherit had been upheld by the Court. Further, she raised question to contest Claudius's claim that Hadric was indeed non-human, and in turn accused him of slander. She had borne Hadric in her own womb, she said, and pointed out that it was common knowledge that there were no full-blooded Sheevra left on the face of the Cadaverous Earth. Thereby, Hadric's blood must in the majority be human.  The Chief-Justice himself agreed that the existing legal definitions of the distinctions of species in the Corpus Juris could not apply cleanly in this instance, and called upon the esteemed Dr. Niddeus Nival, professor of xenobiology at the Collegia Tho-Lladrim, to stand before the Court and deliver his expert opinion.

The doctor concurred with the argument of the Magistra Cybille. The boy, he said, could be judged human if his blood was so in its majority portion. Indeed, he declared, many prominent families of the city are known to carry traces of the demoniac in their blood, and by the application of sensible biology (or the law, of course) one could not designate them se'irim. And so before the Court, the Chief-Justice, and an increasingly red-faced Claudius Phel-Nirian, Dr. Nival draw a sample of young Hadric's blood and dripped it most carefully onto an alchemical paper. It puffed a puff of purple smoke, and the doctor peered at the small slip intently. "No less than seven-tenths in its proportion human, and no more than two and three-quarter tenths in its proportion of the lineage of the ancient city of Ker-Iz." he said. Chief-Justice Girauld brought down his gavel, and ordered the case dismissed, having been satisfied that the boy had been proven to meet a certain legal definition of humanity. Claudius stormed out in a rage, and mother and child returned to their home.

With Claudius's departure, life proceeded happily for some years, though Hadric was given to fits of moodiness. He eventually enrolled in the Collegia Tho-Lladrim, studying botany, xenobotany, and applied alchemy & cantrips. Hadric was an avid student, but the necessities of sleep caused him to miss lectures frequently and earned him the ire of several of his professors. However, his enthusiasm for learning was undeniable, and he seemed possessed of irrepressible drive and energy, routinely exceeding the academic achievements of his peers. It was perhaps this, in conjunction with his evident if not legal race, that encouraged his classmates in their enmity and various torments. This bullying shortly induced in Hadric another fit of profound misery, and his mother's sympathy seemed to do nothing to alleviate it. But abruptly his misery seemed to morph to determination and anger. Awaking early one afternoon feeling strangely light and joyful, he holstered his revolver, and immediately proceeded to the Tho-Lladrim campus at a trot. There, on the quad, he sought out and challenged Shenn Adrien - the son of a powerful and storied family of Magisters, and Hadric's chief tormentor - to a duel, demanding satisfaction for the many slights delivered against him. A crowd was gathering, and Shen was laughing. Hadric could tell it concealed an inner nervousness. Hadric knew Shenn couldn't refuse - the two belonged to rival shooting clubs, and Shenn made no secret of his antipathy for Hadric. Shenn seemed to hesitate for a moment, but nodded his head in assent. Seconds quickly volunteered, and a firing lane cleared. The duel commenced; ten paces, and Hadric turned, drew, and fired his revolver twice. The first round went wide, embedding itself in a nearby tree. Nonetheless, Shenn had barely put his hand on his own pistol when the second bullet struck him in the chest. The crowd fell into a stunned silence, and gradually dispersed. Hadric was briefly detained by the Watch, but was quickly release after a cursory investigation confirmed the duel had been lawful. Hadric's classmates maintained a respectful distance thereafter. Shenn recovered from his wound, but was troubled by a persistent wheeze into old age.

Then Cybille Phel-Nirian died. It was a carriage accident, they said. Consumed by a furious grief, Hadric refused to leave his rooms, moping in the darkness. He eventually dropped out of the Collegia entirely. Years passed in this way. His servants came to wake him one evening, as they always did, but he was gone. Days turned to weeks and then to months, and it seemed the Sheevra had disappeared. Hadric was declared legally dead, and Claudius gained the estate. On an unremarkable day a worn and scarred man with glowing gold-green eyes stepped off a barge in the Indigo Ward. Tall, he bore unruly locks of blonde hair. Bedecked in some kind of living coat of ever-moving flowers, he bore a razor-edged green sword crisscrossed with veins upon his shoulder, and it resembled nothing so much as an enormous leaf. Returning to a certain spire, the man found it well-guarded, and his entry denied. Even on the street far below, the man heard a familiar laugh echo from the height of the spire. So began Hadric's odyssey to prove that he was, in fact, himself, and that he was, in fact, alive. Three years later the case remains before the courts, and Hadric finds himself wearied by the strange legal limbo he has found himself in.

Nibs

On his fifteenth birthday - as is right and proper for a young magister - Hadric summoned and bound his first and last familiar. The rigorous pomp and ceremony of the day had somehow simultaneously bored him and filled him with trepidation. Hadric had to steady his shaking hands and swallow down rising bile as he drew the summoning circle and spoke the words. His demon appeared in a thin and unceremonious wheeze of blue smoke. It resembled nothing so much as a large constricting snake, save that it was covered in a rich plumage of brown feathers, and bore the shining yellow eyes of a cat. It gave its name as Nibs, and made no secret of its delight at having been summoned by 'one of the great dead city under the sssea', exclaiming that it had been several milennia since it had conversed with such a being. Nibs revealed itself a cheerful and loquacious creature over the course of the following weeks, and Hadric was well-pleased by this new companionship, seeming much happier than he had seemed in several years. But a strange guilt began to gnaw at him. A memory crystallized in his mind: clutching a stuffed toy in a tiny hand, and staring out at Skein's spirescape from his bedroom window with a feeling he couldn't then describe, but now knew to be that singular and intense longing to be free. Without any consideration of consequence or propriety, Hadric struck the silver collar from about Nibs' neck, and unraveled the spell that bound the demon to him.

Nibs stared at Hadric with a look of eminent concern writ plain upon its serpentine features. For his part, Hadric seemed flummoxed now that he had done what he done. "Ah, young masssster, why would you do.... thisss?" Nibs hissed, motioning to the slack chain with the end of its tail. Hadric sputtered and gestured meekly with his hands, eventually managing to explain his reasoning. Nibs grinned a snakey grin. "I am free to choose then." it considered "Sso I choosse to stay here." Nibs answered, finality evident in its tone. The event was deemed scandalous by Skein's upper society, and Hadric found his admission to the Collegia stymied for several years. Even Hadric's mother made her disapproval evident in her own way. Nevertheless, the two became fast friends, and have maintained their unusual relationship over the course of years. Though Nibs comes and goes on jaunts to various Hells, he has always returned to Hadric's side, and the pair have shared several harrowing near-death experiences which Nibs gleefully refers to as "Adventuresss'. Their bond is one for the ages, and stronger than any silver chain.

[ooc=Hadric Beyam Phel-Nirian]Frenetic Male Sheevra Warrior (Phytology) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 1
Pools (Edge): Might 13 (1), Agility 14 (1), Intellect 9 (0); Damage Track: Hale

Defenses: Intellect vs witchcraft-produced effects (expertise); AC: 2, Might Cost: 0, Agility Penalty: 1
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 4

Languages: Shambles, Hellspeak, Hextongue
Lifestyle: Decent. Property and majority of remaining assets currently held under attachment pending court decision vis-a-vis appeal regarding declaration of death in absentia.
Senses: sight-based perception (expertise), sense witchcraft (expertise). Unhindered by dim illumination.
Skills: botany (expertise), identify witchcraft (expertise), initiative (expertise), jumping (expertise), persuasion (expertise), running & swift movement (expertise)

Weapons:

• My Leaf-Bladed Kneaf (heavy bladed weapon)
• Grent & Grisham Special Eight Revolver (medium ranged weapon)

Combat Maneuvers & Esoteries:

• Gutter-Witchcraft (1 Intellect point): Hadric can perform small invocations: temporarily change the color or basic appearance of a small object, cause small objects to float through the air, clean a small area, mend a broken object, prepare (but not create) food, and so on. He can't use gutter-witchcraft to harm another creature or object. Action.
• Hexsight (2 Intellect points): This invocation causes Hadric's eyes to glow more brightly, but allows him to perceive and potentially identify aetheric auras. Scanning an item or creature requires concentration, and each use of this ability can last up to one minute. Scanning a target reveals whether it can perform witchcraft, and if so, its level. It also reveals whatever facts the GM feels are pertinent about the aether in that area. Many materials and eldritch fields prevent or resist this hex. Action to initiate and sustain.
• Lugent Vessel (2 Intellect points):  Although Hadric's skin and eyes constantly produce dim illumination in the immediate distance surrounding him, he can temporarily amplify and even transfer some of this radiance to another object, person, or place. To do so, Hadric must touch the intended target. If successful, the target sheds bright illumination up to a short distance for ten minutes. Action.
• Pierce (1 Agility point): This is a well-aimed, penetrating ranged attack. Hadric can make an attack and inflict 1 additional point of damage if his weapon has a sharp point. Action.
• Placate Plant (2+ Intellect points): With a successful roll, Hadric can convince a plant that is within immediate distance to refrain from attacking him for one minute. Instead of applying Grit to decrease the difficulty of this esotery, he can apply Grit to protect more targets, with each level of Grit causing the affected plant to ignore up to two additional targets. Hadric must be able to see and speak with said targets to provide this protection. Action to initiate.
• Thrust (1 Might point): This is a powerful melee stab. Hadric can make an attack and inflict 1 additional point of damage if his weapon has a sharp edge or point. Action.

Flaws:

• Drowsy: Hadric requires large amounts of sleep. He requires twice as much time to rest in order to make recovery rolls (i.e., 2 rounds, 20 minutes, 2 hours, and 16 hours of rest to make his daily first, second, third, and fourth recovery roll, respectively).
  
  • Jittery: Staying still or quiet for extended time (defect).
  • Radiant: Hiding (debility). Hadric has slightly luminous eyes and skin, making it hard to conceal himself.
  • Tremulous: balancing & steady movements (defect).
  
  Other:
  
  • Fey: Sheevra occupy a liminal space between mortals and oneiroi. Consequently, effects designed to specifically target mortals or oneiroi may affect sheevra, whether for good or ill.
  • Omnivorous: Sheevra can digest both meat and plant matter, but also draw nourishment from emotions, dreams, and other esoteric substances.
  
  Items:
  
  
  
  • Eldritch Oddities:  
    
    
    
    • Cybille's Locket: A silver locket given to Hadric by his mother when he was a boy, and one of the few remaining mementos of his childhood. The locket holds two tiny daguerreotype portraits: one of his father, and one of his mother. His mother's portrait is evidently ensorcelled by some means, rendered in living motion - flashing a smile or blowing a kiss, or simply reading a book (almost always Rest for the Wicked, and other stories of treachery and romance by Skien's own Vibius Beeze]. Cybille's portrait has spoken to Hadric on some few occasions, whispering words of caution, advice or love when he has needed them most. His father's portrait -a dark and blurred profile against a hazy background- seems to have been captured unknowingly, and has so far proven itself to be nothing more than an ordinary daguerreotype.
    • The Magnificent Lens: A small lens of hardy glass mounted in a bronze frame. Catching a strange glint out of the corner of his eye while wandering the markets of Crepuscle, Hadric purchased this oddity from a trinket-vendor who seemed unaware of its unusual eldritch properties. The world transforms when seen through the Magnificent Lens, superimposing a bizarre and surrealist landscape over the mundane, a landscape peopled by a tiny and mischievous folk possessing large teeth, bright clothes, and strange hats. The folk seem to be aware of Hadric's attention and often wave or wink at him, or huddle in small groups while throwing the occasional glance his way. The lens seems completely ordinary to anyone else that Hadric has had peer through it, who report only a slight magnifying effect. Hadric has come to suspect the Magnificent Lens to be an artifact of Ker-Iz, or to have otherwise been crafted by another Sheevra. A source of occasional amusement or inspiration.
  • Theurgic Devices:
    
    
    • Rosenhound Bulb: A desiccated and peeling bulb smelling of cardamom and vinegar. Hadric cultured several specimens of this plant during his time in the laboratories of Tho-Lladrim, and this one has at last reached maturity. When the inner flesh is exposed to light, a startling transformation is initiated. Petaled stalks twist from within, quickly forming themselves into the semblance of a squat quadruped. A thorny maw glistening with sap juts from one end, its head-petals arranged into the floral mockery of a grinning predatory visage. A Rosenhound will viciously attack and consume any nearby organic matter, heedless of its own safety, until it has filled its belly. It blossoms for a few brief moments, shedding pollen. Its lifecycle completed, a rosenhound will wither and die, leaving an immature bulb behind.
    • Qaun-Devu: A fine grey powder kept tightly sealed in a small vial. The second iteration of the fourteenth entry in a long series of pesticidal compounds developed by Hadric. This level 2 poison enters through the breathing apertures of a given arthropod, thereby infiltrating the hemolymph of the affected creature. Through a method still poorly understood by Hadric himself, the compound hinders or prevents entirely any muscle contraction in arthropodal species, effectively paralyzing affected victims for 1d6 rounds. Effect on the locomotion of molluscs is mild by comparison (dazed for 1 round), and requires further study. Rendered inert in mammalian or other body systems.

-

Mundane Possessions: My Leaf-Bladed Kneaf, Grent & Grisham Special Eight revolver (12 rounds broad #8), live ardlilly coat (medium armor), clothing, phytologist's tools, stainless steel canteen, pouchfull of oat cakes, leather coin purse, 40 crowns.  
[/ooc]

[False Epiphany]

Alisandre was once the heir to House Mei-Vourne. Her fall from Father's grace was long in coming. Never entirely suited to family politics as a girl, she proved more adept at artistic fields--sculpture and architecture--that were of less value than binding fiends to the defense of interred nobles' crypts. Her 'coming of age' demonic summoning was a disaster, resulting in burned servants and costly damages to the family estate rather than a bound and loyal familiar. Fortunately, her half-brother's heretical faith allowed her to deflect the scandal and try again next year. Father sent her brother's nuns back to the Chelicerae Mountains and forced him to renounce the Weeping Lady. He never forgave her. The funeral she oversaw for a prestigious noble family provided ample opportunity for revenge. Protesters assaulted the grieving mourners. The dearly departed's body was recovered with its own phallus in its mouth. Alisandre herself was pushed face-first into a crematorium, barely surviving. The aggrieved family demanded still further recompense. Her father paid it. Disowned, disfigured, and cast out, she took to dwelling in her mother's crypt. Father had made her sleep there before many times (all of his other children were required to do the same with their mothers) so it already felt like home. She had even built it herself.

Little was left but the magician's craft. The living dead proved more receptive to her commands than hell's thralls, and her newfound drive to master the necromantic arts surprised even herself. Her half-sister Alphosine occasionally came to visit, bringing news, food, and simple companionship. At least one person believed that her brother and his partisans had arranged the whole affair. In time, the entire family would. The conspirators will know an eternity of deathless agony, and House Mei-Vourne's rightful heir will reclaim her birthright.

[ooc=Alisandre Mei-Vourne]
Esthetic Female Human Theurge (Necromancer) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 2
Pools (Edge): Might 0/8 (0), Agility 1/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1); Damage Track: Impaired
Defenses: none; AC: 0
Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 0

Languages: Hellspeak, Morbis, Shambles
Lifestyle: Poor. Alisandre lives in her mother's crypt, relying primarily on her half-sister Alphosine's 'funerary offerings' for food. It's not quite so luxurious as her former accommodations.
Skills: creating or discussing artwork (expertise), intimidation (expertise), perceiving, identifying, or interacting with grave-spawn or necromantic rituals and arcana (expertise), witchcraft (expertise)

Weapons:

• Scalpel (light bladed weapon)

Esoteries:

• Grave's Call (1 Intellect point): Alisandre can attack a foe with flesh-rotting hexes, swarms of devouring flies, or bone-rupturing invocations. To use this esotery, she must be able to see her target. With a successful attack roll, the effect inflicts 4 points of damage.
• Gutter-Witchcraft (1 Intellect point): Alisandre can perform small invocations: temporarily change the color or basic appearance of a small object, cause small objects to float through the air, clean a small area, mend a broken object, prepare (but not create) food, and so on. She canʼt use gutter-witchcraft to harm another creature or object. Action.
• Necrotic Servitor (3 Intellect points+): Alisandre can reanimate the body of a dead creature of approximately her size or smaller. It has none of the intelligence, memories, or special abilities that it had in life. The level 1 creature she creates follows all of her commands and lasts for 1 hour (although certain alchemical and arcane means may extend the corpseʼs longevity). As a level 1 creature, it has a DC of 1, 3 health, and inflicts 2 points of damage. Alisandre can create an additional servitor for each additional point she spends. Action to animate.

Flaws:

• Morbid: Alisandre's fixation with death is unnerving to others. The difficulty of any task involving charm, persuasion, or deception is increased by two steps.
• Vogue Whim: Alisandre is easily bored by the routine. The difficulty of any non-artistic task that she's done just recently (within the last hour) is increased by one step. Tasks during combat are exempted from this penalty.

Items:

• Eldritch Oddities:
  
  
  • Belphia's Death Mask: Alisandre never allows herself to be seen without this midnight-black plaster cast of her dead mother's face. Beyond concealing her own disfigurements, the mask attunes its wearer to deathly energies and allows her to hear whispers from nearby corpses. Whether they truly come from the dead or are a projection of the wearer's psyche is unknown.
• Theurgic Devices:
  
  
  • Adderstane: This smooth white stone is approximately the size of a human eye. If used to grind a corpse or gravespawn's eyeball into pulp and then placed inside the empty socket, it allows the owner to see through the body with her own eyes. Most necromancers use adderstanes to spy through their reanimated servitors. The stone dissolves into gooey liquid that resembles retinal fluid after ten minutes.
  • Corpse-Canvas Ointment: Valued among Skein's morticians, this hex-marked jar contains a sticky yellow unguent with the texture of syrup. The jar is warm to the touch, smells of brimstone, and occasionally rattles of its own accord while coughing hoarse profanities in Hellspeak. When the ointment is rubbed over a corpse's skin, it temporarily binds a minor demonic spirit to the flesh and imbues it with fell animacy that a mortician can use to mend, disfigure, or completely transform the corpse's features. After an hour, the demon's bindings evaporate, and the flesh returns to its previous state.
  • Mumia Falsa: About half a dose of milk-white liquid still remains in this syringe. Pleasant-smelling and sweet-tasting, mumia falsa induces feelings of drowsiness when sampled in minor doses, and a full comatic state when intravenously injected. Subjects appear clinically dead in all ways for one minute.

Mundane Items: Clothing (loose hooded white robe with black leather gloves), dented imbroglio board, lace necklace with embalmed kitten-head, mortician's kit, mausoleum blueprints (for self and Alphosine), mummified demonic familiar (decapitated imp named Zorjub), necromantic grimoire, pitted silver manacle with note saying "you'll do it," scalpel, unfinished clay model sculptures, worn and stained poetry book, 10 crowns.
[/ooc]

[Rhamnousia]

Decarabia Saturnine is so old that even she is no longer certain exactly how old she actually is, but by her closest reckoning, she has walked the paths of the hoary Twilight Cities and the blighted Slaughter-lands beyond for well over half a millennium. Being an immortal corpse-riding undead parasite, charting the passage of time is of little importance. Decarabia has long styled herself something of a belligerent knight-errant, a peregrine gunslinger with bloodstained feet who wanders the degraded earth, righting injustices through extreme violence wherever she might find them. She lived (so to speak) through the midst of the Red Ravishing and the near-collapse of what fragile illusion of social order existed, it was during that maddening time that she learned from two of the greatest gunfighters of the age, the militia general Morgiris-Shun and the legendary bounty hunter Sal "Dry-Eyes" Wightbrock, that she learned the fundamentals of the shootist's art. In the centuries since, she has ranged the width and breadth of the Occident and Slaughter-lands, putting those skills to brutal effect. From Dolmen to Lophius, she has left the bodies of the unjust strewn in her wake, dispensing righteous violence with ease and enthusiasm that can only be described as monstrous. It was her connection to the bricoleur Madame Fontanelle, whom she first met while they both roamed the Etiolation, which eventually drew her to Skein. For one as disdainful of hierarchies as Decarabia, the rigidly-stratified City of Silk may seem like a strange choice of location, but she has found an interesting distraction for herself as a retainer for the mortuary aristocracy of the House Mei-Vourne. For the past decade, she has ostensibly served the House as an armsman and agent, though she does not consider herself beholden to them in any meaningful sense and has made little effort to channel her violent propensities, only to find more suitable excuses for when she puts a bullet through the mask of a pompous nobleman.

Decarabia's current host body is that of a human woman of indeterminable extraction, most excellently preserved for her by the morticians of the Mei-Vourne and artfully bespoke to better match the tastes of the undead creature that inhabits it. She makes no effort to conceal her ashen complexion. Her clouded, strixine eyes seem far too large and too round for her uncannily-proportioned face, her thin lips are pulled back in a perpetual rictus grin over a mouthful of teeth carved from precious stones, her black-nailed digits are just slightly too long and thick to escape notice, and she wears her pale hair in a long and intricate braid draped twice about her shoulders like a scarf. In battle, she is a grotesque sight, moving with both incredible alacrity and rigorous stiffness like an immense insect, her cadaverous form frequently twisted into spasmodic poses but no less nimble for it, and even the roar of gunfire cannot drown out the terrible cacophony of her death-rattle laughter. Rather soft-spoken much of the time, her voice is pronouncedly hoarse, and she invariably carries the stench of bitumen and other preservative elements with her wherever she goes.

As a wandering gunfighter of a mendicant persuasion, Decarabia carries but a few personal possessions. An ankle-length cloak with profoundly morbid embroidery shrouds her from the purgative touch of the sun as well as concealing the bandolier draped across her chest and the brace of gun belts slung from her hips. If she absolutely must risk venturing out into the daylight, she dons a large, wide-brimmed hat and a pair of leather gloves as well. Further adding to her monastic aspect are her steel-soled wooden sandals and the numerous strings of prayer beads that dangle from her wrists, and when Skein etiquette dictates, a grisly mempo with an exaggerated leer covers her face. For nearly as long as she can remember, Decarabia's closest and truest companion has been Marchocias, a heavy-bore wheellock carbine of ancient and masterful design. A masterpiece of engraved dark wood and damascened black steel, the stock and barrel have been cut down so that she can more swiftly draw it from its scabbard at her side. Her backup shooting iron, an Unlucky Seven revolver, was crafted for her by Sal Wightbrock himself. A light cuirass of tightly-woven spider silk beneath her clothes offers her some modicum of protection, though she obviously faces the prospect of bodily harm with a cavalier disregard.

[ooc=Decarabia Saturnine]
Frenetic Shade Warrior (Gunslinger) 1
XP: 0; Benefits Gained: none
Grit: 1
Pools (Edge): Might 12 (1), Agility 16 (1), Intellect 10 (0); Damage Track:  Hale

Defenses: diseases & poisons (mastery, immune in natural form), mind-influencing effects (mastery, pain-based effects (mastery); AC: 1 Recovery Rolls: 1d6+1; Rolls Left: 4

Languages: Morbis, Shambles
Lifestyle: Decent. Despite being relegated to the Ebon Ward with the majority of Skein's grave-spawn, the apartment that Decarabia rents is surprisingly pleasant, well-appointed if decidedly minimalist. She would just as soon live as an indigent in a darkened alleyway, but her aristocratic patrons have certain reservations about one of their retainers living in abject poverty.
Senses: darkvision (unlimited)
Skills: initiative (expertise, mastery with firearms), jumping (expertise), running (expertise), stealth (expertise in natural form)

Weapons:

• Marchocias (well-made heavy ranged weapon)

• Wightbrock Smithy Unlucky Seven revolver (medium ranged weapon)

• Unarmed Strike (light or medium bashing weapon)

Combat Maneuvers:  

• No Need for Weapons: Whenever she makes an unarmed attack, Decarabia may choose for it to count as a medium weapon instead if a light weapon. Enabler.

• Pierce (1 Agility point): Decarabia knows exactly where to place her shots to inflict the greatest trauma. She makes an attack and inflict 1 additional point of damage if her weapon has a sharp point. Action.

Flaws:  

• Spasmodic: The difficulty of any task that requires her staying still or quiet for extended time is increased by one step.

• Sunlight Vulnerability: Direct sunlight can forcibly expel a shade from its host. Decarabia can resist expulsion with an Intellect defense roll (DC 3+1 per round of exposure). If she is outside a host and exposed to direct sunlight, she becomes debilitated and takes 1 point of damage each round she remains so exposed.

• Unbalanced: Decarabia is fast, but not quite graceful. The difficulty of any task involving balance or steady movements is increased by one step.

Items:

• Eldritch Oddities:  
  
  
  
  • Morbid Heraldry: One of the few pieces of finery that Decarabia owns, this heavy livery collar denotes her as a retainer in the service of House Mei-Vourne. Crafted of black bronze and navy blue sapphires, from the chain hangs a heraldic badge bearing the House arms: a six-winged lammergeier with wings displayed, pecking at a half-empty hourglass. Always cold to the touch regardless of weather, when in the presence of the freshly dead, the badge will let out the long, greedy cry of the scavenger bird.
  • Sparsille Fane Prayer Beads: A set of monastic prayer beads that takes the form of a string of human skulls hand-carved from petrified human bone, this memento mori was once the possession of Matron Giselle, the sacredos of the Sparsille Fane, the cult of the Star-Gods. Given to Decarabia as a reward for repeatedly guarding the Matron's flock from certain elements of Skein society who wished to see the Fane driven from their city, when exposed to starlight, the beads can be heard to softly chant ancient hymns in the Carrion Tongue.
• Theurgic Devices:
  
  
  • Conflagrating Cartridge:: A large, blunt-nosed slug containing volatile phlogiston salts. Upon Impact, this projectile creates a potent concussive, incendiary blast. In addition to taking normal damage, targets are knocked prone and, if flammable, catch fire, taking 2 fire damage each round until the flames are extinguished. Due to the particular chymical mixture, the cartridge is particularly sensitive to atmospheric conditions and cannot be used in air-depleted environs, rain, or similar circumstances.
  • Transmogrifying Bullet: Produced by the Night-Marrow merchant company, the cavity of this hollow-point cartridge is filled with minuscule shards of unrefined ur-bone. When fired into living flesh, the glyph-marked jacket causes an eldritch chain reaction with the bone fragments to create a lightning-fast, but terribly virulent Slow Plague infection. Injured flesh rapidly mutates, causing excruciating pain and disability, providing a 1 step benefaction to all rolls against the wounded creature for 1 round as its mutative spasm subsides.

• Mundane Possessions: Marchocias sawed-off carbine (24 rifle rounds), Wightbrock Smithy Unlucky Seven Revolver (12 revolver rounds), spider-silk cuirass, clothes, 100 crowns.  

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