Characters at gauntlet

Bjornaer · Nov 14 '12, 8:41pm

A thread for characters at gauntlet

Michael J Steel · 1:11am

Niall

House: House Bonisagus

Summary: Noble blood in a wandering man in a cruel world

Age: 27

Future Goals: Acquiring absolute power in order to protect rather than rule

Personality Trait: Driven, power is the goal that justifies the means.
Faerie Upbring, Niall isn't completly like other kids and common knowledge not teached to an apprentice nor things you would have picked up in a forest is very much beyond his understandin.

Characteristics: Qik: 3 Int: 2 Per: 2 Sta: 2 Str: 0 Dex: 0 Com: -1 Prs: 3 (Sidhe)

Virtues

Hermetic

Includes Spell Improvisation, Minor

Faerie-Raised Magic, Mayor
Inventive Genius, Minor
Free Study, Minor
Mastered Spells, Minor
Puissant Magic Theory (Bonisagus)
Fast Caster, Minor

General
Improved Characteristics, Minor
Alluring to Faeries, Minor

Supernatural
Faerie Blood (Sidhe), Minor

Flaws

Hermetic
Weird Magic, Minor
Susceptibility to Faerie Power, Minor
Unbearable to Human, Minor
Hedge Wizard, Minor
Deficient form (Ignem), Minor

Story
Faerie Friend, Minor

Personality
Driven, Mayor
Faeire Upbringing, Minor

"Les Fleurs du mal"
and the all too long still all too short childhood of Niall the hunter’s son.

It was late Mars and the thaw had reached the little village outside Seyer. Overjoyed that the nature had awoken 10 year old Niall was playing in the forest watching his ships of bark floating away on the strong current and disappear into the great lake, it probably had a real name and it probably wasn’t that big but to him it was a great lake, the great lake. One after another Freedom, Explorer, Destiny and similar namesakes were drawn under the surface of the like by underwater current created by the entering stream and soon Niall found himself without any boats left to carry his soldier to the land beyond beyond. Foolish like only a child and a boy could be he decided to go after them but even though he were a good swimmer he overestimated his strength and was quickly drawn towards the bottom of the lake by the deadly surge, everything went black.

*Drip, drip, drip* the ice cold poundings from an unknown liquid substance targeting his head brought Niall back to reality. He must have been gone for hours as there were no signs of the last snow left and perhaps it were out of deliriousness from the strike to his head before but he could swear it was warmer now then a couple of hours ago and, the sun… it had reversed its path and were now much further to the east. With all this confusing perhaps it was time, whatever time it was, to go home.

During the way to his house Niall became convinced that it must have been a hard blow to his head as at each of the places that he passed it were something that differed a lot from the memories he had. And as he finally reached the family cabin he prayed that this were all a result of a head damage seeing how the place before him where the cabin used to be was all scorched down to its roots leaving nothing but the absence of grass. Niall closed his eyes and shook his head as hard as he could but the image before him hadn’t changed once he opened his eyes. Without knowing what to do and in desperate need for answers he ran, ran toward nearest neighbor only to find another scorched ground and another it was not until he reached the city of Seyer an hour later he saw the first sign of human life in what seems to been years.

Even if he weren’t a frequent visitor of the village of Seyer he had been there times enough to remember some of its citizens but walking pass the gates he were to his surprised surrounded by the faces of strangers. It took him almost another half of an hour to find anyone who even slightly resembled any of the faces in his memories but the following events was nothing he was prepared for and thousand times worse than he had expected. With only scarce and incoherent fragments of an explanation of what had happened together with words like demon, changeling, being from the past and mother slayer he ran back to the forest the last words echoing above the other not only dispersing any doubts he had left but also placing another burden on his shoulder, his own role in the death of his parents.

Back in the forest Niall attempt to collected his thoughts and recollecting his memories gave no new result and now he only awaited the approaching mob from the village that were to collect his payment for his crimes. But one and two times the sun rises and sets without any mob in sight and as a quarter of the moon has passed Niall started to believe that they would never come and that instead of a quick death he were doomed to spend the rest of his life in the depths of the forest. So far he had managed to stay awake through the consumption of roots and berries found in the forest but if he was to ever make it in the long run he would have to start the hunt for real food, meat. Despite his age Niall had a great deal of experience with traps as well as making the necessary tools for himself, indeed he was a smart boy and a quick learner.

Half of the moon had passed since the shocking news about his family and instead of pondering around answers he didn’t have making up explanations derived out of nothing but presumptions, the lad choose to focus on the present and the next meal to come. It was in one of these excursions for food he met perhaps the only friend he still had left a friend he didn’t even knew he had ever had. Lusus Ventus was the friends name and he had appeared before Niall seemingly out of nothing during his attempt to pierce a fish onto his makeshift trident. The absence of surprise in the boy was due to the fact that the being before him despite not being human clearly reminded him of someone, somewhere, sometime ago though impossible to locate leaving him to stare clueless at the thing hovering before his eyes.

Lusus gave Niall something of an explanation what had happened to him and even though it lacked the how, why he had been “taken” and any reasonable explanation about where he had been, it was the best explanation so far and even if what Lusus said about being gone for twenty “earthen” years seemed far-fetched, things started to make sense, in what degree any of this could ever make sense. The weeks became months and much thanks to his new friend as well as to the skills inherited from his father Niall never had to go to bed hungry. But at the end of the tenth month, food wasn’t what worried him as the breaths of some northern god covered the landscape in an elegant but deadly glaze of frost.

The unforgiving cold digged deeper and deeper into the ground of the earth and into the soul of the man, fire helped only so far the rest was depending on the will of the man. Lusus was there but as powerless as him and once again the world disappeared before him turning into the blackest black.

A parens, an apprentice and a debt of life.

When the young boy was brought back to the land of the living it was through the familiar crackle of a fireplace. Although none of his other senses picked up anything he had experienced in months and soon a year. His skin, without the close comfort of his clothes… felt the touch of soft fur and pelts a touch he even at the time with his family very rarely had felt and never in a way like this. His tongue picked up a light but distinct flavor of, was it cinnamon? A strange herb he never really liked and had only tasted once or twice before but it’s so distinct flavor was something he probably never forget, nor the aunt who brought it with her… At last he open up his eyes he found himself starring into the loving face of a lady, or a girl… it were one of those faces you couldn’t really tell but as his eyes caught a look of the rest of her he was sure she was a lady in all meanings of the word.

A day later they both began to travel to what was to be his new home for the next fifteen years. The lady,

I leave it for you to decide Bjornaer if she’s in fact THAT Guinevere…

Guinevere was her name, told him glimpses of the life he had to look forward to and also some of the backsides that he might want to be prepared for. After they have traveled for a couple of days Niall began to wonder if this castle was far away and silently if it even existed, had he been too quick to trust this newly given friend, to relieved by the fact that she hadn’t been running away screaming at the sight of him, still he hadn’t understand why people were so afraid of him, even strangers who had entered the forest had turned on the spot as they saw him without knowing who he were, his friend. Not even Lusus could give him an answer to their reactions. As he asked the lady about the distance she laughed and smiled at him, it would be long before they reached his new home, all the winter and most of the spring would they spend walking through the wilderness to a place even further into the wild in the east. And so they traveled week after week, the boy grew very fond of the lady and after some time he dared to ask her about the thing that had trouble him so long, the source for peoples fear. For the first time since he had met Guinevere she seemed sad, perhaps troubled even, and then she told him that she didn’t know, that normal people used to be careful in their presence but that what Niall had was something more, something that a few of them shared and that sadly couldn’t be cured. At least and hopefully for some comfort to him people like him and herself weren’t affected and soon he would meet many more of these.

Months passed and it had become clear to Niall that the girl liked his company as well as he liked her, she even seemed impressed and very grateful about his skills regarding the wilderness and she told him that bringing him with her should count as cheating on her gauntlet but as long as they both kept his expert skills a secret they would be fine, there were no threat in her words only joy. She explained to him that this gauntlet was something she had to do to show the rest of the magus and magi that she was prepared to finally live a life on her own, just like he will do in a distant future. Niall had secretly talked to his special friend but it wasn’t until now in the early Mars when the thaw once again greeted him that he dared to show him to his lady friend. To his delight all went well, the two of them seemed to have their disputes but through his presence they agreed to accept each other, Guinevere warned him though that he wouldn’t be able to bring his friend with him into the castle but that he could visit him in a nearby forest once he settled in his new home.

And then, finally, they reached the castle outside the city of Thessalonica located on the edge of a cliff with a grand view over what appeared to be the end of the world even though Niall knew it wasn’t so.

5 year of hell, 2 of bliss and 8 of content

To say that Niall didn’t like his new home would have been a mayor understatement he hated it with all his heart and like the theories and the massive amounts of books to read wasn’t enough his teacher, or parens like they seem to be called, was even more old and boring than the books he was forced to read. But inside he knew this was not what saddened him, it was the fact that he lost contact with not one but two of his friends, the only friends he ever had and not until he finally, after 4 and a half years of intense tutoring, was allowed to leave the castle the hatred that had simmered inside him began to cool. Albeit it was with a heavy worry that he entered the forest, not worry about the things that lived inside it but of things he perhaps wouldn’t be able to find, things that perhaps was gone forever.

To his relief this wasn’t the case, Lusus was there more eager than ever to see him and tell him all about his adventures since they separated, it seems like these 4 years was nothing to him and after hours of storytelling he asked about Niall and the new life he lived. Niall told him all about it in detail, first all the boring stuff that made him want to jump out the window and into the black sea sometimes but then about all the exciting and marvelous things like being able to clear the sky of clouds and make a rose bloom then he told him about his parens how Niall seemed to get on his nerves and how he tried so hard to not let it show and how he almost pulled his hair as he weren’t able to learn Niall how to create the smallest flame. At this point Lusus couldn’t keep his tiny mouth shut anymore and burst into laughter, apparently that little inconvenience was something of a gift from Lusus and his friends beyond but Niall shouldn’t be angry at them for that, he were also given many other gifts, some very useful, he would see for himself in time. Niall spent a month that year together with his friend in the forest and when he came back the magus had had a meeting regarding his future.

They all had agreed that Niall’s results were all but satisfactory and so was his attitude to say the least but they saw potential in him and were prepared to give him one last and unusual change. Niall picked up on the gravity in their words and after the stories Guinevere had told him he was sure he didn’t have to be told what would happen if this wasn’t to work and by that he decided to accept the offer whatever it was. Although it soon proved that Niall had no reason to worry none at all, instead a long since abandoned dream was about to come true. For the period of one year he was to be sent away from the castle and “fostered” as they called it by another magus or magi in this case, in fact by no other than Guinevere herself.

The following spring Guinevere picked him up at the castle and together they traveled for nearly 2 years a time that still probably were the best of his life. The two of them shared their stories and she also asked for forgiveness for drawing up a picture to him that appeared to have been a lie, like he probably was aware of now there was two sides of their house and she had always though he would belong to the same as her giving all his experience of life outside city walls but probably because of that thing he had that made the human react like they did they thought it would be better to him to belong to the other side, the one that spent all of their life inside the protective walls of their castle. But that would never happen to Niall, no matter who trained him or what they told him he would never be confined inside the walls of a castle no more that she promised him. Summer, autumn and winter passed as they traveled along the coast of southern Europe and as the spring came once again they arrived to the wide beaches of Nice. The two of them had always been close but the last couple of month while seeking shelter from the harsh weather in the Alps they had become more than just friends. Something forbidden for more reasons than they could count but still something completely beyond their control and at that very beach of Nice Niall, at an age of 18, finally became a true man.

But like all good things in life so this had to end and a year later Niall was back at the castle of Thessalonica but Guinevere kept her promise and the last 8 years of his studies there he spent equally time in the forest as inside the castle. Lusus were with him from time to time but not like before, he had been giving another role in his realm now he had said and would only be able to visit Niall once or twice a year but if it life became hard on him and things too much to handle all he had to do was to ask and he would be there helping him in the way that he could. If only the same could’ve been said about Guinevere, 1 time, that was all he were able to meet him during these 8 years and then only for a brief period of a couple of days. It seems like somehow the truth had revealed itself how didn’t really matter even if she had her guesses but it were clear that until the end of his gauntlet they would have to put this on ice, putting emotions on ice?! It seemed foolish to even think that were possible but to his fear it was a lot easier than he would’ve thought. After 6 years Guinevere was no longer in his thoughts, not even in his dreams, at least not to his knowledge but then the time finally came for his gauntlet and all the memories erupted at once as he realized what succeeding this final test would mean to him, perhaps to them. Blinded by thousands of emotions he catastrophically failed the first and the second test his parens had served him and not until the third and final test Niall managed to keep his feelings in place long enough to clear the test and finally after 15 years he truly were, not just a man, but a free man.

Everyone lies in the end, it’s only a question of time.

As soon as he left the castle Niall traveled back to the Alps, this time he even used some of his very limited supply of coins to buy himself a horse and with that he reached the mountains in a couple of weeks. The next two years he spent wandering the mountains mostly in solitude but for some brief periods in the company of Lusus, all the time he were looking for a lady but never was she to appear and two creeping feelings arise inside Nialls mind the first was that she like all the people in his life only had told him what he wanted to hear and thus had no intentions of meeting him anymore, the second was that she wasn’t capable of meeting her simply because she were no more and despite how much he hated lies he begged for all of his heart that she had lied him right in the face cause any other options were too much for him to handle.

After the two year had ended Niall had decided Guinevere was a liar like all the rest and he left the mountains for the warmer coast between Nice and Genoa. After some deliberating with his faerie friend they decided he should stay here for the time being and enhance himself in the preferred art of them both, the control of the strongest forces in nature, weather. Lusus helped him to the perfect place for such studies and there Niall stayed until 6 month later a strange letter was dropped on him by a passing by raven.

wrathgon · 1:14pm

Name

House: House Ex Miscellanea

Future Goals: To master his curse and to create a tower of stone to live in. After that show his family how wrong they were about him not being able to be a mage.

English 5
Stealth 2
Swim 1
Awareness 2
Survival 1
Athletics 1

childhood

Shapechange 2
Latin 5
Artrs Liberales 3
Philosophiae 2
Medicine 1

8 years later years

Magic theory 5
Parma 1
Magic Lore 2
Code of Herm 1
Conentr 2
finesse 1
penetration 1
profession(scribe) 1

apprenticeship

Age:33

Characteristics: Qik: 1 Int: 4 Per: 1 Sta:2 Str: -2 Dex: 1 Com: 1 Prs: 0


Virtues Hermetic Flawless magic, Major Cautious Sorcerer, Minor Cyclic Magic(Winter Seasonal), Minor (House free) Life Boost, Minor Magical Memory, Minor Mastered Spells, Minor Affinity with Terran General Improved Characteristics, Minor Great Int, Minor Wise One, Minor Supernatural Shapeshifter,Major (Raven) (House Free)	Flaws Hermetic Deficient Form(Animal), minor Necessary Condition (snap fingers both hands), Major (House Free) Infamous Master, Minor Susceptibility to Divine Power, Minor Lycanthrope, Major(Wolf) Story Black Sheep, Major Personality Optimistic, Minor Overconfident, Minor

Solan · 5:21pm

Uther Flambonis

Uther Flambonis, filius Indulius

House: House Flambeau, School of Ramius

Age: 38 (and a half)

Summary: A garrulous mercenary turned Hermetic Knight, a specialist in wards and protection.

Future Goals: Gain fortune and glory within his house.

Personality Traits: Compassionate +3, Garrulous +2, Humble -2

Characteristics: Qik: 1 Int: 2 Per: -2 Sta: 2 Str: 3 Dex: 2 Com: -1 Prs: 1


Virtues Hermetic Skilled Parens, Minor Minor Magical Focus: Wards, Minor Puissant Rego, Minor Affinity with Rego, Minor General Venus' Blessing, Minor Improved Characteristics, Minor Improved Characteristics, Minor Warrior, Minor (House Flambeau) Supernatural Strong Faerie Blood (Goblin), Major	Flaws Hermetic Short-Ranged Magic, Major Deficient Form (Mentem), Minor Deficient Form (Aquam), Minor Story Miles, Minor Personality Compassionate, Major Proud, Minor

KarasuKafka · 4:13pm

Domitia Guernici, filia Bonifatius

House: Guernicus (Quaesitor)
Age: 25
Summary: A studious and inquisitive young maga with heretical background.
Future Goals: To serve as a Quaestor and to prove she is worthy to the title. To contemplate on God's realm and to try to live as a True Christian inside the Order of Hermes.
Personality Traits: Compassionate +3, Humble +1,

Characteristics: Qik: -2 Int: 3 Per: 2 Sta: 1 Str: -3 Dex: 0 Com: 2 Prs: 2

Virtues

Special
The Gift, Free

Social Status
Hermetic Maga, Free

Hermetic
Hermetic Prestige, Free (Guernicus)
Secondary Insight, Major
Skilled Parens, Minor
Study Bonus, Minor

General
Clear Thinker, Minor
Educated
Good Teacher
Well-Travelled

Supernatural
Unaging

Flaws

Hermetic
Incompatible Arts (Perdo Corpus, Perdo Vim), Minor
Susceptibility to Faerie Power, Minor
Weak Enchanter, Minor

Story
Curse of Venus, Major

Personality
Compassionate, Major
Non-combatant, Minor

Blanche de Puivert, the Believer

Blanche stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the village at the coast of the Mediterranean sea with tears in her eyes. She was no more than ten, but already travelled and experienced so much. And lost so many people. And now the one most closest to her is gone too. Perfect Raymond was taken by the Church a few days ago when he went down to visit a True Christian household to give a Consolamentum to a dying Believer. She supposed to wait here until he returns at night but that was two days ago!

Blanche closed her eyes and wiped out her tears. Flashes of memory broke into the surface of her mind: the image of Raymond in his black robe and her mother, Alpais, talking about her. Her mother was a Believer too and often gave shelter to the wandering Perfects. This was no different until Raymond and Alpais agreed that Blanche should join to travel with him and study with him to become a Perfect as well. She was frightened of course, but she knew she make her parents life hard. They loved her of course but she could not find her place like her siblings. She always have been different and her mother thought this might be the sign of God's will.

Perfect Raymond was a silent man with great patience and educated background. He might had been once a priest of the Church of demiurgos or a professor in one of the Universities of the great cities. He showed Blanche the Testament and how to read it, how to talk the language of the educated folk. And they had been all around the County of Toulouse, even wandering around the north of the County of Barcelona. They had visited True Believers in Carcassonne, Toulouse, small villages all around the hills. Raymond gave them the spiritual guide and most importantly the Consolamentum before they die.

Like now, here far away from Puivert or Carcassone, in the land of Liguria, close to the Most Serene Republic of Genoa or Repúbrica de Zêna as the locals call it. A land different from Blanche home, still plenty of True Christians live around hiding from the Church. But Raymond told her, something sinister is bound to happen. That huge armies gather in north in the land of Franks to crush anyone who are supporting the Cathars as they called the True Christians. Cathars, what a nickname! Some even accuse us, she thought, to eat cats! They don't even know most of us refuse to eat the meat of the living!

Blanche opened her eyes and looked around. She knew she could not stay here forever. Raymond might be dead already and they might be looking after her as well. She packed her food and blanket. Genoa might be a good place to go. A huge city, easy to disappear, she thought and looked down to the village once again to say goodbye to the man who took care of her so long.

Late Life (5x15xp): Theology (The Cathar Heresy) 2 (15xp), Cathar Church Lore (history) 2 (15xp), Music (Sing) 1 (5xp), County of Barcelona Lore (Cathar communities) 1 (5xp), Liguria Lore (Cathar communities) 1 (5xp), Awareness (searching) 2 (+10xp), Artes Liberales (logic) 1 (5xp), Catalan (Cathar prays) 2 (15xp).

Educated Virtue (50xp): Latin 4 (50xp).

Well-Travelled Virtue (50xp): Ligurian (Cathar prays) 2 (15xp), Etiquette (peasants) 1 (5xp), County of Barcelona Lore (Cathar communities) 2 (+10xp), Charm (first impressions) 1 (5xp), Guile (lying to authority) 1 (5xp), Folk Ken 1 (5xp), Genoa Lore (safe shelters) 1 (5xp).

Domitia Guernici, filia Bonifatius

Blanche, known as Domitia in the Order now, was sitting next to a table at her room. A small room, windowless, somewhere deep inside the Domus Magna of her House, Magvillus, in the Kingdom of Sicily. Though she lived here in the last one and half decade she had little time to wonder outside and know the people. No, she had plenty of tasks to do just in here, studying under her parens, the patient Bonifatius, mentor of many generations of apprentices. And now she as the final, but probably not the last apprentice is ready to attempt to pass the gauntlet, the test of the Order to prove she knows the magic well enough and she is wise to be a full member of the society of the Order of Hermes.

But at the moment she felt anything but confident she is ready to step out to the border world. Her fear was not from the test itself. She knew all to well if she would fail she could do the test again and again, and if she would fail all to much a Quaesitor would test her and that means a lot easier test. Her fear was more existential, more an underlying uncertainness about her own self. What if the old Bonifatius was right about her, she wondered and closed her eyes to recall the memory shards of one of the plenty arguments they had.

Yes, she was an argumentative and impatient apprentice, especially at the first decade. She challenged her master view on how to deal with the mundane world and what responsibility the Magi have to the world. She was an idealist and wounded deeply by the news of her homeland slowly succumbing into the bloody warfare with the Franks. Bonifatius was calm and patient with her but she knew she was a test even for his calmness.

Yet she grew up and studied well enough to be considered as a good apprentice, and soon she felt Blanche from Puivert was a cocoon, the idea of the True Christians was just an introduction to the philosophy and theology she was bounded to learn through her apprenticeship. Aside of her magical studies, the moral philosophy, and deductive skills she shown great interest of gnostic texts and gnostic heresies through the history. It was more than just an interest, it became her faith, thinking the Magical realm as the true source of the creation, the true realm of God, distant and somehow separated by the other realms, the worlds of demiurgos, the false god.

But that was not her only interest. Blanche did found an interest of the history of the Order itself, especially the schism war, which had a resemblance in her mind to the situation of the Church and the heresies with a more underlying political and cultural conflict. The Schism War was the opening of her eyes from the idealism of the Magi and their eternal wisdom she believed so long as an apprentice.

But would she be better when she would be a full fledged Maga with all the political responsibilities to the Order? The time will prove, she calmed herself down and straightened up from the table. But now, she thought, it is better to prepare for the test and concentrate on the present.

Apprenticeship (with Skilled Parens Vertue) 300xp, 150 spell levels:

Abilities (95xp): Parma Magica 1 (5xp), Magic Theory 3 (30xp), Concentration (reading) 1 (5xp), Philosophae (moral philosophy) 1 (5xp), Code of Hermes (apprentices) 1 (5xp), Finesse () 1 (5xp), Magic Lore 1 (5xp), Penetration () 1 (5xp), Profession (scribe) 1 (5xp), Latin 5 (+25xp).

Arts (205xp): Creo 5 (15xp), Intellego 10 (55xp), Muto 5 (15xp), Pedro 2 (3xp), Rego 5 (15xp); Animal 0 (0xp), Aquam 0 (0xp), Auram 0 (0xp), Corpus 5 (15xp), Herbam 1 (1xp), Ignem 0 (0xp), Imaginem 5 (15xp), Mentem 10 (55xp), Terram 1 (1xp), Vim 5 (5xp).