Precious Opal - Curtain Call

Campaign

Appearance

Precious Opal is a well-(if lightly-)dressed tall woman of striking beauty. Her eyes tend to catch as much attention as her figure, despite her large bust and a tendency towards a certain amount of sinuous motions following her training in Snake Style; she moved with obvious grace even before her training enhanced her movement but her eyes now have a hint of the hypnotic stare of the snake as well. Her olive complexion suggests she hails from the southern edge of the Scavenger Lands or the areas around it though her eyes and hair suggest at least one of her parents has traveled further. She tends to dress to accentuate her figure despite not fully appreciating the effect this has on others; she prefers a mix of lighter materials and styles that allow for movement alongside closer fitting pieces that nonetheless fail to restrict her motions. It is not uncommon for her to alter her outfit somewhat for the areas she expects to deal in: more fashion when dealing merchants and nobles, hints of practicality for tradesmen, and a surprising affinity for nondescript fashions for less reputable areas.

Background

Precious Opal was born into a family of river merchants in the Scavenger Lands and to this day has a certain fondness for ships, swimming, and business. Having already started grooming various of her elder siblings to take over the business, they were not overly distraught when she showed a head for books and encouraged her to learn from whatever scraps of knowledge or passing traveler they could safely obtain. When one of those travelers turned out to be a scholar willing to take on an apprentice, it was with approval all around that she went off with them the following year. Putting sponges to shame with the amount of knowledge she soaked up, she eventually set off on her own, working for a time with various other merchants as a teacher for their children and even the children of some lesser nobles. She thrived and eventually took a formal place within a patrician's house as an Advisor through no small effort and a certain amount of luck (and perhaps the roving eye of one of the family). As fate would have it, before she could truly capitalize on the situation, she was soon to be thrown into the crucible to prove herself or be turned to dross.

Since her Exaltation, she has tried to figure out her life anew. She found that time had passed strangely during her return and that in the three years that had passed she had been replaced at the patrician's house; she took a certain grim amusement from the stories of her being spirited away by the Fae or spirits that she heard from the staff. Her time apart had changed her though, she looked and felt younger in many ways and older in others; the staff wondered if she was some younger sister or cousin (which she agreed was correct). Deciding to leave well enough alone and that her horizons were broader now, she set off to decide the best way to accomplish her goals of bringing Creation into a New Age by teaching its peoples ways to make the impossible possible. She let her family know she was still alive, even if she didn't particularly tell them the truth about what happened, and explained her need to do… well, more; with that, she left to travel on.

Some time after she started traveling, she came across a snake spirit. Having learned somewhat more caution by now and gained a bit more control over her Essence (and having little other reason to be hostile), she managed to convince it to neither fight nor flee; she taught certain lessons, and it returned the favor teaching her the very basics of Snake Style Martial Arts.

Having already been vaguely heading to the South Eastern edges of Creation anyways, it is no surprise that stories of a land reclaimed from the Wyld storms would catch her interest; the potential for setting up an Academy of her own far away from the prying eyes of the Realm is also worth consideration. Of course, upon her arrival, she found that things were exactly as expected: never as easy as could be hoped. Time to make the best of things, and then go that step farther.

[meetup]
[Kel - reaction to realization opal can punch wings/etc off of people; did Kel refuse or did Opal fail?]
[Silver - him selling her or the others on the Empire; perhaps finding her being humanitarian?]
[Agathe - WAHA]
[Aisling - ???]

Traits

Precious Opal

Caste: Twilight Concept: Superlative Teacher
Totemic Anima: Swirling Cascading Sheets of Iridescent Essence with Golden Script Rustling About to the Whispers of Forgotten Knowledge.
Inspirations: Maou, Frizzle, Merlin, Onizuka?
Age: 27 Sex: Female Skin: olive Hair: auburn Eyes: olive

Essence

Rating ●●●
Personal 19 19
Peripheral 34 47
Committed 13

Attributes

Strength ●●
Dexterity ●●●●●
Stamina ●●●
Charisma ●●
Manipulation ●●●
Appearance ●●●●
Perception ●●●
Intelligence ●●●●●
Wits ●●●●●

Abilities

Dawn
Archery
F Brawl
Melee
Thrown
War
Zenith
F Integrity ●●●
Performance
Presence ●●●
Resistance ●●●
Survival
Night
Athletics
Awareness ●●●
F Dodge ●●●●●
Larceny
F Stealth ●●●●●
Twilight
F Craft ●●●●●
Investigation
S Lore ●●●●●
C Medicine ●●●
C Occult ●●●●●

Eclipse
C Bureaucracy ●●●
C Linguistics ●●
Ride
Sail ●●●
Socialize ●●●
Martial Arts
F Snake ●●●●●

Crafts

  • Alchemy
  • Architecture
  • Cartography
  • Painting
  • Shipwright

Specialties

  • Lore: Teaching
  • Lore: The Wyld
  • Bureaucracy: ECONOMICS
  • MA: Unarmed

Anima

5+m Peripheral to advance Banner
Dim Default
Glowing Caste Mark shines; -3 Stealth/Disguise
Burning Blazing Anima; Stealth Impossible
Bonfire Totemic Displays; Illuminate short range; Visible for miles; Stealth Impossible
  • Know the exact time of day (1m)
  • Display Caste Mark indefinitely (1m)
  • 5 Hardness for 1 turn; Crash (5m or Iconic)
  • Power Place 'Port (10m,1wp)
  • Familiarize Elemental/Demon (10m)

Willpower

●●●●● ●●○○○
□□□□□ □□■■■

Intimacies

Defining (+4/-3)

  • Educate Creation to Better It
  • Learning & Self-Improvement (Love)

Major (+3/-2)

  • It is not the Wyld's place to Wreak Havoc in Creation
  • The Circle (Loyalty)
  • Slavers for Fae (Loathing)
  • Educational Institutions (Love)
  • Endangerment of her Students is only Tolerated on her own Terms

Minor (+2/-1)

  • Censoring Knowledge is to be Avoided
  • Snakes (Respect)
  • Enthusiasm is a Model Outlook
  • This Empire place is a bit of a fixer-upper, but shows potential
  • Serious Fights (Personal Avoidance)

Great Curse

Her allies suffer a setback or defeat because of a mistake she made.
■■■■□ □□□□□

Merits

- Martial Arts
2 Eidetic Memory
1 Language (Old Realm)
1 Influence (Noted Scholar)
2 Resources
1 Contacts (Fae Court)
2 Boundless Endurance
2 Natural Immunity
1 Selective Conception
1 Familiar (Snake)

Flaws

Derangement Hysteria and/or Madness?

Combat

Join Battle: 8 /+3 Rush: 6 Disengage: 10
Weapon Type Accuracy
( W / D )
Damage /
Overwhelm
Parry Tags
Unarmed L 15 11 9B 1 6 Brawl, Natural
Hook Swords M 12 10 11L 1 6 MA, Disarming, Shield
Seven-Section Staff M 12 10 11B 1 6 MA, Disarming, Flexible
Armor Type Soak Hard Mob
Pen
Evasion Tags
Natural - 3 - - 5
Chain Shirt L +3 0 0 5 Conceal
Total - 6 0 0 5

Health Levels and Recovery

Track Recovery
ok : B : L : A Bash Lethal
-0 ok 1 hr 1 day
-1 ok ok 12 hrs 2 days
-1 ok
-2 ok ok 1 day 3 days
-2 ok ok
-4 ok 2 days 5 days
In ok Storyteller

Social Combat

Influence: 6 Resolve: 4 Guile: 3
Instill Change feelings and beliefs of others. Create, strengthen, or weaken intimacies.
Persuade Must be supported by an intimacy. Convinces a target to take a course of action in line with said intimacy.
Bargain Does not need an intimacy. Convince a target to do what you want by offering a gift, bribe, etc.
Threaten Does not need an intimacy. Intimidate/threaten someone to do what you want or take negative consequences. Target forms a negative intimacy towards you.
Inspire Inspire an emotion of the user's choice in the target. No Group Influence penalty.
Read Intentions Learn what another character wants to achieve, or learn about target's Intimacies (Per+Soc vs Guile)

Languages

  • Riverspeak (Native)
  • Old Realm

Further Details

MERITS

  • Martial Arts: Opal has managed to internalize the mysteries of supernatural Martial Arts while studying under a spirit. She currently is only trained in Snake Style.
  • Eidetic Memory: The character enjoys near-perfect recall, adding one automatic success to all attempts to remember details from previous scenes and events.
  • Language: Opal is a scholar and, as befits such a profession, has had reason to learn the odd language or two. She currently knows Old Realm in addition to her native Riverspeak.
  • Influence (Noted Scholar): Opal is a noted scholar. In addition to her passion for Teaching, she is known for her knowledge about The Wyld and its effects.
  • Resources: Opal has various payments from teaching aristocratic and merchant scions, as well as commissioned consultations about obscure topics; the occasional would-be muggers contribute generously as well.
  • Contacts (Fae Court): Opal has an uneasy accord with one of the Fae Nobility; they (or their minions) can occasionally provide information on other Courts or those who deal with them. She is under no illusion it does not have its own reasons for providing information, but it has so far not outright lied either.
  • Boundless Endurance: Opal is both scholar and student; long are the nights she's spent studying some tome or trying to decipher some ancient puzzle. Learning by practicality has also led her to extend that same determination to understanding everything else as well, from swimming to sneaking about to even supernatural martial arts. Some how, she can just manage to be a morning person, evening person, and still find time for curiosity all the rest of the day and night; she reduces the difficulty of all rolls to resist fatigue or remain awake by 2.
  • Natural Immunity: Opal has been exposed to a variety of people living along the rivers as a merchant's daughter and her curiosity as a scholar has led her into strange locales, yet she never seems to contract minor ailments such as the common cold and easily bounces back from nastier afflictions; she reduces the difficulty of all rolls to resist infection, sickness and disease by 2.
  • Selective Conception: Both sexes may withhold fertility when they wish; female characters may pay one Willpower to ensure conception, and will automatically know when they’re pregnant.
  • Familiar: Opal has a snake near as long as her arm-span that she has a special connection with; she views the bond as a parting gift of the one who trained her in Snake Style martial arts. She can roughly understand the hisses, tongue movement, postures and sinuous motion of her companion and they in turn understand her; she can even share her familiar’s senses by concentrating and taking no other actions, so long as the familiar is somewhere within long range. It has gained new powers in the time before her arrival to the Dreaming City.

FLAWS
Derangements for Hysteria and/or Madness look possibly appealing. I almost want to pick both, though they overlap. Probably only at Minor, but still.

  • Opal was locked into a Library that only pretended at following some of the normal rules of Reality when it felt like it for a year while tasked to learn unspeakable knowledge on penalty of being drained to a husk from an eldritch being she then sealed and read directly from after puzzling out sense from a nonsensical place; she exalted partway through, but that can still leave a few mental ticks.

Notable Equipment:
Aside from her armor and the weapons of Snake Style, Opal tends to have some clothes and trade goods on hand; of course, she also tries to keep a few books and some supplies to assist in teaching as well.
Whatever else, really.

Charms

Excellent Solar [Ability]
Cost: 1m per die
Mins: [Ability] 1, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Solars excel at their chosen fields should they put in the effort.
Adds charm dice; 1 die per 1m.
Opal has an Excellency for: Athletics, Awareness, Brawl, Bureaucracy, Dodge, Integrity, Larceny, Linguistics, Lore, Martial Arts, Medicine, Occult, Presence, Resistance, Sail, and Stealth.

Sorcery

Spells

Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Cost:
Mins: Occult 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Can learn/cast spells of the Terrestrial Circle. Also gain 1 shaping ritual and 1 Terrestrial spell (as a Control spell)


Celestial Circle Sorcery
Cost:
Mins: Occult 4, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Can learn/cast spells of the Celestial Circle. Also gain 1 shaping ritual and 1 Celestial spell (as a Control spell)

Initiation:

Caretaker of the Ephemeral Library [some Scarred by Nightmares, some Raksi's Tutelage]
Spirited away on Calibration to a Library only partially real, she was compelled to wander its ever-changing hallways and seek understanding from inconceivable tomes, alongside the husks of those before her. Success and Exaltation lead to her binding the previous caretaker, the Raksha-like creature that had led her there, into a book and reading parts of its knowledge for herself.
The experience has left her not entirely sane and touched by Wyld energies (though her Exaltation and superlative Lore have mitigated the worst).

Rituals

Ephemeral Grace
The sorcerer may feed on emotional energies like the raksha, shaping the passions of others through spellcraft.
Once per scene, when another character forms/strengthens/weakens an Intimacy that represents an emotional feeling, the sorcerer may feed from it, gaining sorcerous motes equal to the intensity of the Intimacy (its new rating if it was strengthened, or the old one if weakened). These motes last for the duration of the story, and can be spent towards any spell she casts.
The fervent passions of the Exalted represented by Limit are even more potent nourishment. Whenever a character, including the sorcerer herself, gains a point of Limit, the sorcerer may draw power from that, gaining sorcerous motes equal to the character’s current Limit. She may draw ten sorcerous motes from a character in Limit Break, but only once during the duration of that Break.

Reality Rewritten
After an undesirable shape sorcery roll, the sorcerer may propose a twist or caveat for the spell that would diminish (but not negate) its purpose or function. If the Storyteller accepts the change, then gain a shape sorcery re-roll and take the best result.

Experience

Gained Stored Spent
Normal 200 / 226 6 220
Solar 96 / 18 00 18
Train 00 00 229
  • 3 BP: Merits +1 (Linguistics: Old Realm, Selective Conception, Familiar)
  • 8 BP: Abilities +2 (Lore, Dodge, Stealth, MA: Snake Style)
  • 4 BP: Willpower +2
  • 10 SXP: Strength 1 -> 2
  • 10 XP: Manipulation 1 -> 2
  • 10 XP: Perception 1 -> 2
  • 8 SXP: Integrity 1 -> 3 (5 days)
  • 8 XP: Bureaucracy 1 -> 3 (5 days)
  • 8 XP: Occult 1 -> 3 (5 days)
  • 4 XP: Presence 1 -> 2 (2 days)
  • 4 XP: Medicine 1 -> 2 (2 days)
  • 4 XP: Linguistics 1 -> 2 (2 days)
  • 67 XP + 34 SXP: Training 100 XP (regain 73 XP)
  • 10 XP: Manipulation 2 -> 3 (kamthathar downtime)
  • 10 XP: Perception 2 -> 3 (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Socialize 0 -> 2 (kamthathar downtime)
  • 4 XP: Awareness 2 -> 3 (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Terrestrial Circle Sorcery (based off of library experience more so)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Essence-Lending Method (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Will-Bolstering Method (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Essence-Font Technique (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Power-Awarding Prana (kamthathar downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Listener-Swaying Argument (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Craftsman Needs No Tools (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Arete-Shifting Glance (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Spirit-Detecting Glance (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Spirit-Cutting Attack (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Celestial Circle Sorcery (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Selfsame Master Instructor (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Snake Strikes the Heel (post-corrupted temple downtime)
  • - XP: Merit: Influence 5 [Warlord of Dreaming Sea: Kamthathar and surrounding region]
  • - XP: Merit: Familiar (bump to 5), sorcerous mote gather
  • - XP: Merit: Ally 1 (Valaina Silverscale, feral lunar mate)
  • - XP: Merit: Followers 5: The Snakes Under the Mountain (summonable)
  • - XP: Merit: Demense 4: Goryuko Cave
  • - XP: Merit: Retainer 2: The Elder Snakes
  • - XP: Charm: Blood-Binding Contract Methodology//Thousand Hidden Snake Hands (snake mountain downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Skin-Shedding Escape Technique (snake mountain downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Blood-as-Venom Technique (snake mountain downtime)
  • 8 XP: Charm: Coiled Snake, Transcendant (snake mountain downtime)
  • 6 XP: Merit: Hypermobility (snake mountain downtime)
  • 8 XP: Ability: Resistance 1 -> 3 (snake mountain downtime)
  • 4 XP: Ability: Medicine 2 -> 3 (snake mountain downtime)
  • 4 XP: Ability: Socialize 2 -> 3 (snake mountain downtime)

Venomous Snake: Ess 1, Willpower 3, Join Battle 4 dice
HL: 1x(-0), 1x(-1), 1x(-2), 1x(-4), Incap; most flee after taking any damage
Actions: Senses 5 dice, Stealth 7 dice, Guile 2, Resolve 2, Combat Movement 7 dice
Attack (Bite): 7 dice (wither: 3 [9 if size <=]; decisive: poison [2i/r, 3r, -2 penalty])
Evasion: 1 [3 if enemy size > housecat], Parry: 1, Soak/Hardness: 5/0
Camoflauge: double 9s on Stealth in native terrain
Keen Nose: double 9s on scent-based Perception
Tiny Creature: +2 Evasion if enemy size > housecat; also enemy at -2 sux on Awareness to notice

Elder Snakes: (summonable knowledgeable duo) [occult, spirits, snakes, nature, sorcery, snake style, demonology, sage essence]

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