Mikhail Stanislav - The Initiate

[Kavonde]

Basic Information

NAME: Mikhail Stanislav

GENDER: Male (He/Him)

AGE: 18

NATIONALITY: American (Russian emigrant)

PLAYBOOK: The Initiate

KEY WORDS: Strong body, casual clothes.

Enrollment Information

CLASS: First Year

COLLEGE: Hertford

DEGREE: Human Sciences

 

Appearance and Personality

Mikhail Stanislav is a very tall (6'6") young Caucasian man with brown hair--currently kept shaved--and dark green eyes. He is rather imposingly muscular, though his whole demeanor radiates a laid-back, patient vibe. He favors simple clothing in earth tones, and the only pair of pants he owns that isn't denim is reserved for weddings and funerals.

Mikhail is a calm, cool-headed and empathetic person. He's highly emotionally intelligent and interested in understanding and helping others, which drew him to the Human Sciences course. Some see him and initially dismiss him as some Yankee himbo, but he's earned his place at Oxford with dedicated study and a sharp mind. He also possesses a strong sense of justice, which is only growing more pronounced as he comes to understand the complexities--and many failings--of the modern world.

The Warriors of the Unyielding God

This ancient sect originates from ancient Slavic worshippers of Veles (or Volos), a shapeshifting nature god and trickster deity. Veles is the sworn enemy of the God of Thunder, Perun, and rises from death again and again to oppose Perun's tyrannical regime and bring justice to the world.

Good Traditions:	Ancient lore
	Open heirarchy
Bad Traditions:	Obsolete gear
	Poor

Crunch

CHARM	COOL	SHARP	TOUGH	WEIRD
+0	+0	+0	+1	+2

MOVES

Act Under Pressure This covers trying to do something under conditions of particular stress or danger. Examples of acting under pressure are: staying on task while a banshee screams at you; barricading a door before the giant rats catch up; resisting the mental domination of a brain-worm; fighting on when you’re badly injured. When you act under pressure, roll +Cool. • On a 10+ you do what you set out to. • On a 7-9 the Keeper is going to give you a worse outcome, hard choice, or price to pay. • On a miss, things go to hell.	Help Out When you help another hunter with a move they are making, roll +Cool. • On a 10+ your help grants them +1 to their roll. • On a 7-9 your help grants them +1 to their roll, but you also expose yourself to trouble or danger. • On a failure, you expose yourself to trouble or danger without helping.
Investigate a Mystery Investigating can be done any number of ways: following tracks, interviewing witnesses, forensic analysis, looking up old folklore in a library, typing the monster’s name into Google, capturing the monster and conducting tests on it, and so on. Anything that might give you more information about what’s going on is fair game for an investigate move. When you investigate a mystery, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ hold 2, and on a 7-9 hold 1. One hold can be spent to ask the Keeper one of the following questions: • What happened here? • What sort of creature is it? • What can it do? • What can hurt it? • Where did it go? • What was it going to do? • What is being concealed here? On a miss, you reveal some information to the monster or whoever you are talking to. The Keeper might ask you some questions, which you have to answer. It’s important that your attempts to investigate (and the results you get from them) are plausible and consistent with what’s happening. For example, if you’re using laboratory equipment to investigate evidence, you probably won’t be able to learn anything about the monster’s magical origins.	Kick Some Ass When you get into a fight and kick some ass, roll +Tough. On any success (i.e., total 7 or more) you inflict harm on (and suffer harm from) whatever you’re fighting. The amount of harm is based on the established dangers in the game. That usually means you inflict the harm rating of your weapon and your enemies inflict their attack’s harm rating on you. If you roll a 10+, choose one extra effect: • You gain the advantage: take +1 forward, or give +1 forward to another hunter. • You inflict terrible harm (+1 harm). • You suffer less harm (-1 harm). • You force them where you want them. On a miss, you get your ass kicked instead. You suffer harm or get captured, but don’t inflict any harm back.
Manipulate Someone This move is used when you want someone to do something for you. You’ll need a good reason for them to do it, and what counts as a good reason depends on what you are asking for and your relationship with them. For friends and allies, you might just need to ask. For witnesses to a monster attack, you could tell them you are with the police, or just offer them some cash for answering your questions. Once you have given them a reason, tell them what you want them to do and roll +Charm. For a normal person: • If you get 10+, then they’ll do it for the reason you gave them. If you asked too much, they’ll tell you the minimum it would take for them to do it (or if there’s no way they’d do it). • On a 7-9, they’ll do it, but only if you do something for them right now to show that you mean it. If you asked too much, they’ll tell you what, if anything, it would take for them to do it. • On a miss, your approach is completely wrong: you offend or anger the target. For another hunter: • On a 10+ they mark experience and get +1 forward if they do what you ask. • On a 7-9, they mark experience if they do what you ask. • On a miss, it’s up to that hunter to decide how badly you offend or annoy them. They mark experience if they do not do what you asked.	Protect Someone When you prevent harm to another character, roll +Tough. On any success (i.e., 7 or more), you protect them okay, but you’ll suffer some or all of the harm they were going to get. If you got a 10+ choose an extra: • You suffer little harm (-1 harm). • All impending danger is now focused on you. • You inflict harm on the enemy. • You hold the enemy back. On a miss, then you end up making things worse.
Read a Bad Situation When you look around and read a bad situation, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ hold 3, and on a 7-9 hold 1. One hold can be spent to ask the Keeper one of the following questions: • What’s my best way in? • What’s my best way out? • Are there any dangers we haven’t noticed? • What’s the biggest threat? • What’s most vulnerable to me? • What’s the best way to protect the victims? If you act on the answers, you get +1 ongoing while the information is relevant. For example, if you ask for the best way in to the monster’s lair then you’ll get +1 while you are infiltrating it. But once you’re in, the information doesn’t help you any more. On a miss, you might mis-read the situation (e.g. “Everything is fine here! It will be totally safe to go investigate alone!”), or you might reveal tactical details to your enemies (which means the Keeper can ask the questions above of you)	Use Magic When you use magic, say what you’re trying to achieve and how you do the spell, then roll +Weird. • If you get a 10+, the magic works without issues: choose your effect. • On a 7-9, it works imperfectly: choose your effect and a glitch. The Keeper will decide what effect the glitch has. • On a miss, you lose control of the magic. This never ends well. By default the magic has one of the effects listed below, lasts for around thirty minutes, and does not expose you to danger, unwanted attention, or side-effects. If there’s a glitch this might change. Effects: • Inflict harm (1-harm ignore-armour magic obvious). • Enchant a weapon. It gets +1 harm and +magic. • Do one thing that is beyond human limitations. • Bar a place or portal to a specific person or a type of creature. • Trap a specific person, minion, or monster. • Banish a spirit or curse from the person, object, or place it inhabits. • Summon a monster into the world. • Communicate with something that you do not share a language with. • Observe another place or time. • Heal 1-harm from an injury, or cure a disease, or neutralize a poison. Glitches: • The effect is weakened. • The effect is of short duration. • You take 1-harm ignore-armour magic. • The magic draws immediate, unwelcome attention. • It has a problematic side effect. The Keeper may require one or more of the following: • The spell requires weird materials. • The spell will take 10 seconds, 30 seconds, or 1 minute to cast. • The spell requires ritual chanting and gestures. • The spell requires you to draw arcane symbols. • You need one or two people to help cast the spell. • You need to refer to a tome of magic for the details.
Initiate When you are in good standing with your Sect, at the beginning of each mystery, roll +Charm. On a 10+ they provide some useful info or help in the field. On a 7-9 you get a mission associated with the mystery, and if you do it you’ll get some info or help too. On a miss, they ask you to do something bad. If you fail a mission or refuse an order, you’ll be in trouble with the Sect until you atone.	Ancient Fighting Arts When using an old-fashioned hand weapon, you inflict +1 harm and get +1 whenever you roll protect someone.
Mentor You have a mentor in the Sect: name them. When you contact your mentor for info, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, you get an answer to your question, no problem. On a 7-9 you choose: they’re either busy and can’t help, or they answer the question but you owe a favour. On a miss, your question causes trouble.	Mystic Every time you successfully use magic, take +1 forward.

 

GEAR

Spear	2-harm hand/close
Silver knife	1-harm hand silver
Crossbow	2-harm close slow

 

History

Mikhail Alexandrovich Stanislav was born in Moscow on Nov. 9th, 1989--the day the Berlin Wall fell. His parents immigrated to the United States just a few months later, building new lives for themselves near the small city of Peoria, Illinois. As such, despite his very traditional Russian name, Mikhail is very much an American Midwesterner in terms of accent, outlook, and grasp of cultural norms. Despite his physical and cultural distance from his nation of origin, however, destiny has conspired to tie Mikhail back to it.

When Mikhail ("Mikey" to most) was ten years old, his Babushka Ekaterina came to stay with the family following a cancer diagnosis. She and Mikey bonded immediately, spending afternoons baking tea cakes or reading ancient Eastern European folktales. In fact, Ekaterina was more than just another wizened Russian grandmother; she, like many of her ancestors before her, was secretly a priestess dedicated to the old Slavic gods, or rather, one in particular: Veles, or Volos, the enemy of the God of Thunder Perun, a shapeshifting nature deity who committed the crime of, as Ekaterina put it, trying to make the world more just. Every year, she said, Veles went forth to challenge Perun and topple his tyrannical regime; and though Velen was smote each time, he always rose again, ready to challenge the established order anew.

The Warriors of the Unyielding God have never been a large order, or a wealthy one; even during the heydey of Slavic paganism, Veles was held in low regard by the powerful. Many members of the Order all descend from the same bloodline, and Ekaterina saw the potential for a promising new recruit in her grandson. She began to encourage him towards athletic competition and martial arts, and she told him the story of Veles' eternal struggle against Perun over and over, emphasizing Veles' unyielding hope and resolve, how he never stopped striving to create a better world, and how Perun and, later, Christian missionaries demonized him for it.

Ekaterina was also the person responsible for planting the idea that Mikhail might want to study overseas. She encouraged an interest in European history and romanticized the idea of striding the same paths that ancient philosophers and inventors once walked. Mikhail, however, was unconvinced. He was a valedictorian with an impeccable academic resume, and he knew he had at least a chance of being accepted by far-off prestigious universities like Oxford, but he didn't like the idea of being so far from his family--especially given that Ektaterina's cancer had returned.

Finally, faced with her grandson's truculence, Ekaterina decided to explain everything. She told him about the Order of the Unyielding God; she told him how she'd been grooming him to join the order for years now; and she told him why he needed to attend Oxford. She could not give many specifics, because she did not know them, but occult auguries had revealed that Oxford would be the site of important events--ones so important that, were the right leverage applied, the current state of affairs in the world might be overturned and replaced with something more equitable. But the Warriors were a small group, their resources scarce and their allies few and far between. They needed Mikhail. She needed him, because she did not know how much longer she had left to live. It was a low blow, certainly not a card she relished playing, but it worked. Mikhail agreed to be sworn into the Order, to enroll in Oxford if he could, and to fulfill the responsibilities and duties of a Warrior of the Unyielding God to the best of his ability.

The next year of Mikhail's life was an almost constant blur of school, studying, sports, training with his grandmother, and fighting the occasional monster. (Also, monsters existed, apparently.) He battled a werewolf in the woods near his home, managing to subdue the beast before handing it over to the authorities. (Also, there were authorities for this sort of thing, apparently.) He investigated and cured a strange curse that was driving the local deer to throw themselves into oncoming traffic, the result of a cranky old witch being very tired of having her begonias eaten, and convinced her to lift it. (Also, there were actual witches, apparently.)

Through the sheer mule-headed stubbornness (or, as Ekaterina would put it, the unending optimism and determination) of Veles, Mikhail somehow managed to balance all of this. He graduated at the top of his class and was accepted into Oxford. Now, leaving his parents and his gradually diminishing babushka behind, he's boarded a plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean and meet his destiny.

 

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Kavonde (see edit history)

[Intro]

Ack. I was just writing up a Chosen based on English mythology (though I went for the heritor of Guy of Warwick for a slightly more constrained myth), though I was thinking of a British relative of the Earl of Warwick trained from birth to fight monsters. I shall consider more. 🙂

[Kavonde]

 

2 hours ago, Intro said:

Ack. I was just writing up a Chosen based on English mythology (though I went for the heritor of Guy of Warwick for a slightly more constrained myth), though I was thinking of a British relative of the Earl of Warwick trained from birth to fight monsters. I shall consider more. 🙂

Actually, this whole character's still very much in the rough planning stages, and your idea sounds much more specific and interesting than just going to the ol' Arthurian legend well. By all means, go Chosen!

[Shen]

13 hours ago, Kavonde said:

 

Actually, this whole character's still very much in the rough planning stages, and your idea sounds much more specific and interesting than just going to the ol' Arthurian legend well. By all means, go Chosen!

This is just a suggestion, but an alternative to the Chosen would be for this character to be the Initiate; they were taken in and trained by a secret cult, they're supposedly the reincarnation of a mythological hero, both of these things can fit into that playbook at least as well as the Chosen. Especially if you take the Past Lives alternative Weird move!

[Knave]

@Kavonde please add a "ready for review" tag once you are done. Feel free to run basic ideas past me if you are still looking for the right one

Selection is on Wednesday

[Knave]

Just one main question on the backstory please @Kavonde . Are the Warriors of the Unyielding God always monster hunters? Why? Is it part of Veles's religion that they have to? Do monsters seek them out?.

[Kavonde]

I think their primary goal is to overthrow unjust power structures in the name of equality, though monster hunting has more or less become their de facto reason for existing. They're revolutionaries who never really had the wealth, power, numbers, influence, or even really ambition to actually revolt. Monster hunting was originally just one facet of their "make a more just and equitable world" tenets, along with charity work and political activism, but time and futility have gradually worn most of that away to just being words engraved on an old placard.

The last time the Warriors really had any sense of momentum was during the initial years of the Russian Revolution. They thought this was their chance to push their ideology and expand their ranks and influence. Unfortunately, once reality set in and it became clear that the folks in charge were just building another corrupt, unjust, and brutal order, that enthusiasm died quickly, particularly with the Bolsheviks' suppression of religion.

So, for the last century or so, the Warriors have mostly just existed as monster hunters with some vaguely progressive leanings. Most other occult organizations that are even aware they exist dismiss them as completely irrelevant. They maintain a headquarters about three hundred miles north of Krasnoyarsk, an old Soviet prison they were given in exchange for saving an oligarch's daughter, but they mostly organize online nowadays and don't have more than a hundred members, scattered mostly through Russia and Eastern Europe.

As for Veles himself, I don't think many members actually give him more than lip service. Many probably don't actually believe he exists, at least not anymore. It's just a small cadre of devoted priests and priestesses like Ekaterina who genuinely worship him.

For an out-of-universe comparison, I think they have a bit of a Wolf School Witchers vibe. Just a handful of aging, jaded ex-idealists, keeping up the fight because that's all they really know.

[Knave]

That's a great explanation thank you. Marking complete