A Song of Ice and Fire
As the years multiply and the present draws farther and farther away from the glory of the First Age, Dragon-Blooded have begun to Exalt not only in the Realm and among their own populations, but in increasingly inconvenient places. Elk in Winter is one sample of this inconvenience, as a thin line of Dragon-Blooded descent, having skipped countless generations, has chosen recent times to manifest itself, though the line has long since migrated to the cold and bitter North, diffused into the nomadic icewalker tribes, and lost far too many vestiges of civilization for the taste of the Realm. The Immaculate Philosophy holds little sway with these savages, who are only dimly aware of it as the mistaken and erroneous beliefs of the idle settled peoples. The spiritual truths are dim and ambiguous. Life is harsh and demanding for these peoples, and they have little need for high-minded philosophy or abstract treatises. What is known to them are the animist spirits and the ancestral ghosts which watch over the tribes, the lands they travel, and the animals they hunt, and to these they offer respect and worship, in exchange for guidance and safe passage.
Elk in Winter was born to Sky at Dawn of the Star Readers, only one of many icewalker tribes dedicated to hunting the mammoth, their totem animal and one which grants them strength and unity. He was an energetic child, not skilled at learning the crafts of the people or the delicacies of interaction (though he was always earnest and friendly), but adept and quick to learn the skills of hunting, and it was no surprise to the tribespeople that Elk in Winter was one of the children to survive the harsh conditions to adulthood. What came as a surprise was the means by which he protected one of the other children of the tribe from a similar fate. During a hunt with the elders of the Star Readers when Elk in Winter was 12, one of his friends, Wind Rising, tried to show off, and ran out, hurling his spear at the mammoth the tribe had managed to single out. He tripped, however, falling over, and his spear fell short of a deadly landing, only succeeding in enraging the mammoth. Without thinking, Elk in Winter ran out to attempt to get his friend to safety, but as he made his stand, driving his own spear into the mammoth, it landed with unnatural precision, even as Elk in Winter was engulfed in a vision of a serpent of flame, devouring the taiga around them. Elk in Winter was nearly able to slay the mammoth singlehandedly, as well as rescue Wind Rising. The incident spawned a great deal of furious discussion, as well as a careful discussion to young Elk in Winter about the portents of this event. It was understood that he had the blood of dragons in him, though the concept of "dragon" was only dimly understood. It was also known that the massing tribes under the Bull of the North had no love for those with the blood of dragons rising among those tribes which had not aligned under him, and with a heavy heart, Elk in Winter was sent with an experienced hunter to go to the Ghosts Humming, a brother tribe under the mammoth, which was hunting at a more distant place where it was thought his presence would not bring trouble.
Elk in Winter grew, with the Ghosts Humming now, and was raised to use his gifts to become an expert hunter and the tribe's protector against the dangers of the Wyld and the shadowlands. They were difficult times, because each time Elk in Winter's actions drew too much scrutiny, one of the mammoth tribes would send him to go and find another tribe to stay with, and he went with a heavy heart, missing the friends he had made and regretting his solitude in the times until he would find the next tribe. He grew hardy, however, and his resolve never wavered to assist and protect his countrymen from the dangers they faced. The tales of the travelling champion of the mammoth tribes now grow, and the people under the Bull of the North have taken notice of him; it is now not just with Elk in Winter's help that the icewalkers survive, but the icewalkers' help that Elk in Winter survives. Notable are the protective god of his Star Reader tribe of birth, Herd's Great Shadow, a determined spirit who returns the devotion of the icewalkers with a great loyalty and protectiveness, and Riverfellow, the protective ancestral spirit of the Ghosts Humming, the tribe with whom Elk in Winter has spent most of his time since his Eruption, as his tribes have taken to calling his Second Breath. Riverfellow in particular has been invaluable, the ancestral ghost gifted with many generations of wisdom and cunning, and though he sees Elk in Winter as a valuable means of providing additional protection to the tribe which remembers and worships him, Elk in Winter is also a brother under the mammoth, and he finds it hard to dislike the young man, and therefore to make too callous use of him. He has begun to feel more like one of his own tribe. Joining these ranks, Elk in Winter has begun to accumulate reverence as a member himself the spiritual retinue protecting the brothers of the mammoth, and has been included in prayers, although he maintains a humble outlook and still thinks of himself as one of the people.
Elk in Winter
Terrestrial Exalt (Fire Aspected Outcaste)
Concept: Callow Protector of the Wastes
Motivation: Lead the North to a new age of peace and prosperity.
Sex: Male
Age: 18
Essence:
Permanent Essence2
Personal Essence9
Peripheral Essence17/22 (5 committed)
Willpower7
Health Levels:
-0□
-1□□□□
-2□□□□
-4□
Incapacitated□
Combat Values:
Join Battle/Debate4
Parry DV5
Dodge DV5
Weapon Speed4
Weapon Accuracy Pool10
Weapon Damage Pool (Normal)13L
Weapon Damage Pool (Charging)17L
Natural Soak4B/2L
Armored Soak12B/7L/5A
Dodge MDV5
Parry MDV2
Attributes:
Strength••••
Dexterity•••
Stamina••••
Charisma••••
Manipulation•
Appearance••••
Perception••
Intelligence••
Wits•••
Virtues:
Compassion••••
Conviction•
Temperance••
Valor•••
Abilities:
Athletics••
Awareness•
Craft (Wood)•
Craft (Water)•
Dodge••••
Linguistics•••
Medicine•
Melee•••••
Presence•
Resistance•••
Ride•
Sail• (Specialty: Iceships ••)
Survival•••••
War••
Backgrounds:
Allies••
Artifact••
Cult•
Influence•
Resources•
Charms:
Ox-Body Technique
Ox-Body Technique (Add one -1 and one -2 health level each. Permanent.)
First Melee Excellency (Spend 1 mote for each 2 dice added to Melee rolls.)
Effortlessly Rising Flame (Spend 1 mote to instantly rise from a prone position or add 2 dots to Athletics for jumping distance. Reflexive.)
Falling Star Maneuver (Spend 1 mote for every 2 dice of damage added to close quarters combat before soak, up to a maximum of permanent Essence. Supplemental.)
Threshold Warding Stance (Spend 1 mote to ignore all environmental penalties to Dodge DV for one tick, even in impossible situations. Reflexive.)
Dragon-Graced Weapon (Spend 1 mote to set the target ablaze for a single action's +4L damage dice pool bonus. Supplemental.)
Languages:
Star Reader
Ghosts Humming
Snow Dancer
Mound People
Skytongue
Riverspeak
Low Realm
XP: 9
Equipment:
Mammoth-Leather Armor
The traditional garb of a hunter among the mammoth hunter tribes of the icewalkers, a simple but serviceable bone-reinforced set of armor which protects both from the dangers of the Threshold and the extreme cold of the more northernward treks of the nomads, nearer Icehome and the Haslanti League.
Dire Lance, "Spear of Seven Fields"
An artifact of white jade, once belonging, in the old glory of the First Age, to the Air-aspected hero Ferem Dala, and known as the Breath Uplifting. Dara was an enlightened and inspired official and a respected leader of her division, and towards the end of the First Age and the approaching Insurrection, she penned treatises on government and the social order which would have been groundbreaking. The Insurrection, unfortunately, made that impossible. Dala fought valiantly against her decadent masters and their Lunar adjutants and generals, but it was the years that followed which put an untimely end to Ferem Dala's career and halted the influence of her ideas. Her post in the North was under great strains with the chaos that followed in the vacuum of power, and Dala joined with the rest of her people in standing at Cherak, desperately cannibalizing what remained of the wonders of the First Age to make possible survival in the Second. There was no need for political theory in this time of want, and Dala's works were slowly forgotten and disappeared from society. In this dark time, not long after the Insurrection, one group of Fair Folk saw a chance to enter into Creation and take advantage of the weaknesses faced by the Northern people, and descended into a First Age fortress left abandoned by necessity by the contemporary survivors. To keep the people of Cherak safe from the predations of a fortified and local colony of Fair Folk, Ferem Dala took some of her best men and made use of every brilliant tactic she could conceive of to exterminate the colony and shut down the fortress. In this, they were successful - but not a single soldier returned from the fateful mission, and Dala's weapon remained to lay in the great hall where she struck down the last remaining Fae, and was struck down herself.
The Breath Uplifting lay there for generations, until it was recovered by a party organized by the Bull of the North's tribes, and entrusted to the hands of Seven Fields Fallow, a Dragon-Blooded outcaste born into one of the Bull's tribes. Seven Fields Fallow was later sent to sow fear and distrust among the Ghosts Humming, one of a few tribes in the area deemed problematic for their refusal to enter into the Bull of the North's fold and the inconvenience of bringing them in by conquest. Riverfellow, however, saw through the Exalt's plan, and drew upon his own weapon, countering Seven Fields Fallow's manipulations and counseling Elk in Winter to bring the spy low. Seven Fields Fallow was permitted to live and return to his people, but he left without the resources he was equipped with by his people, including the lance of Ferem Dala, which passed to the hands of Elk in Winter.
Its name has passed away to obscurity; sadly, none of those who have touched the Breath Uplifting since the death of Ferem Dala are able to read the Old Realm writing inscribed upon it. The illiterate Elk in Winter has taken instead to calling it the Spear of Seven Fields, after the Dragon-Blood from whom it was taken.
Elk in Winter was born to Sky at Dawn of the Star Readers, only one of many icewalker tribes dedicated to hunting the mammoth, their totem animal and one which grants them strength and unity. He was an energetic child, not skilled at learning the crafts of the people or the delicacies of interaction (though he was always earnest and friendly), but adept and quick to learn the skills of hunting, and it was no surprise to the tribespeople that Elk in Winter was one of the children to survive the harsh conditions to adulthood. What came as a surprise was the means by which he protected one of the other children of the tribe from a similar fate. During a hunt with the elders of the Star Readers when Elk in Winter was 12, one of his friends, Wind Rising, tried to show off, and ran out, hurling his spear at the mammoth the tribe had managed to single out. He tripped, however, falling over, and his spear fell short of a deadly landing, only succeeding in enraging the mammoth. Without thinking, Elk in Winter ran out to attempt to get his friend to safety, but as he made his stand, driving his own spear into the mammoth, it landed with unnatural precision, even as Elk in Winter was engulfed in a vision of a serpent of flame, devouring the taiga around them. Elk in Winter was nearly able to slay the mammoth singlehandedly, as well as rescue Wind Rising. The incident spawned a great deal of furious discussion, as well as a careful discussion to young Elk in Winter about the portents of this event. It was understood that he had the blood of dragons in him, though the concept of "dragon" was only dimly understood. It was also known that the massing tribes under the Bull of the North had no love for those with the blood of dragons rising among those tribes which had not aligned under him, and with a heavy heart, Elk in Winter was sent with an experienced hunter to go to the Ghosts Humming, a brother tribe under the mammoth, which was hunting at a more distant place where it was thought his presence would not bring trouble.
Elk in Winter grew, with the Ghosts Humming now, and was raised to use his gifts to become an expert hunter and the tribe's protector against the dangers of the Wyld and the shadowlands. They were difficult times, because each time Elk in Winter's actions drew too much scrutiny, one of the mammoth tribes would send him to go and find another tribe to stay with, and he went with a heavy heart, missing the friends he had made and regretting his solitude in the times until he would find the next tribe. He grew hardy, however, and his resolve never wavered to assist and protect his countrymen from the dangers they faced. The tales of the travelling champion of the mammoth tribes now grow, and the people under the Bull of the North have taken notice of him; it is now not just with Elk in Winter's help that the icewalkers survive, but the icewalkers' help that Elk in Winter survives. Notable are the protective god of his Star Reader tribe of birth, Herd's Great Shadow, a determined spirit who returns the devotion of the icewalkers with a great loyalty and protectiveness, and Riverfellow, the protective ancestral spirit of the Ghosts Humming, the tribe with whom Elk in Winter has spent most of his time since his Eruption, as his tribes have taken to calling his Second Breath. Riverfellow in particular has been invaluable, the ancestral ghost gifted with many generations of wisdom and cunning, and though he sees Elk in Winter as a valuable means of providing additional protection to the tribe which remembers and worships him, Elk in Winter is also a brother under the mammoth, and he finds it hard to dislike the young man, and therefore to make too callous use of him. He has begun to feel more like one of his own tribe. Joining these ranks, Elk in Winter has begun to accumulate reverence as a member himself the spiritual retinue protecting the brothers of the mammoth, and has been included in prayers, although he maintains a humble outlook and still thinks of himself as one of the people.
Elk in Winter
Terrestrial Exalt (Fire Aspected Outcaste)
Concept: Callow Protector of the Wastes
Motivation: Lead the North to a new age of peace and prosperity.
Sex: Male
Age: 18
Essence:
Permanent Essence2
Personal Essence9
Peripheral Essence17/22 (5 committed)
Willpower7
Health Levels:
-0□
-1□□□□
-2□□□□
-4□
Incapacitated□
Combat Values:
Join Battle/Debate4
Parry DV5
Dodge DV5
Weapon Speed4
Weapon Accuracy Pool10
Weapon Damage Pool (Normal)13L
Weapon Damage Pool (Charging)17L
Natural Soak4B/2L
Armored Soak12B/7L/5A
Dodge MDV5
Parry MDV2
Attributes:
Strength••••
Dexterity•••
Stamina••••
Charisma••••
Manipulation•
Appearance••••
Perception••
Intelligence••
Wits•••
Virtues:
Compassion••••
Conviction•
Temperance••
Valor•••
Abilities:
Athletics••
Awareness•
Craft (Wood)•
Craft (Water)•
Dodge••••
Linguistics•••
Medicine•
Melee•••••
Presence•
Resistance•••
Ride•
Sail• (Specialty: Iceships ••)
Survival•••••
War••
Backgrounds:
Allies••
Artifact••
Cult•
Influence•
Resources•
Charms:
Ox-Body Technique
Ox-Body Technique (Add one -1 and one -2 health level each. Permanent.)
First Melee Excellency (Spend 1 mote for each 2 dice added to Melee rolls.)
Effortlessly Rising Flame (Spend 1 mote to instantly rise from a prone position or add 2 dots to Athletics for jumping distance. Reflexive.)
Falling Star Maneuver (Spend 1 mote for every 2 dice of damage added to close quarters combat before soak, up to a maximum of permanent Essence. Supplemental.)
Threshold Warding Stance (Spend 1 mote to ignore all environmental penalties to Dodge DV for one tick, even in impossible situations. Reflexive.)
Dragon-Graced Weapon (Spend 1 mote to set the target ablaze for a single action's +4L damage dice pool bonus. Supplemental.)
Languages:
Star Reader
Ghosts Humming
Snow Dancer
Mound People
Skytongue
Riverspeak
Low Realm
XP: 9
Equipment:
Mammoth-Leather Armor
The traditional garb of a hunter among the mammoth hunter tribes of the icewalkers, a simple but serviceable bone-reinforced set of armor which protects both from the dangers of the Threshold and the extreme cold of the more northernward treks of the nomads, nearer Icehome and the Haslanti League.
Dire Lance, "Spear of Seven Fields"
An artifact of white jade, once belonging, in the old glory of the First Age, to the Air-aspected hero Ferem Dala, and known as the Breath Uplifting. Dara was an enlightened and inspired official and a respected leader of her division, and towards the end of the First Age and the approaching Insurrection, she penned treatises on government and the social order which would have been groundbreaking. The Insurrection, unfortunately, made that impossible. Dala fought valiantly against her decadent masters and their Lunar adjutants and generals, but it was the years that followed which put an untimely end to Ferem Dala's career and halted the influence of her ideas. Her post in the North was under great strains with the chaos that followed in the vacuum of power, and Dala joined with the rest of her people in standing at Cherak, desperately cannibalizing what remained of the wonders of the First Age to make possible survival in the Second. There was no need for political theory in this time of want, and Dala's works were slowly forgotten and disappeared from society. In this dark time, not long after the Insurrection, one group of Fair Folk saw a chance to enter into Creation and take advantage of the weaknesses faced by the Northern people, and descended into a First Age fortress left abandoned by necessity by the contemporary survivors. To keep the people of Cherak safe from the predations of a fortified and local colony of Fair Folk, Ferem Dala took some of her best men and made use of every brilliant tactic she could conceive of to exterminate the colony and shut down the fortress. In this, they were successful - but not a single soldier returned from the fateful mission, and Dala's weapon remained to lay in the great hall where she struck down the last remaining Fae, and was struck down herself.
The Breath Uplifting lay there for generations, until it was recovered by a party organized by the Bull of the North's tribes, and entrusted to the hands of Seven Fields Fallow, a Dragon-Blooded outcaste born into one of the Bull's tribes. Seven Fields Fallow was later sent to sow fear and distrust among the Ghosts Humming, one of a few tribes in the area deemed problematic for their refusal to enter into the Bull of the North's fold and the inconvenience of bringing them in by conquest. Riverfellow, however, saw through the Exalt's plan, and drew upon his own weapon, countering Seven Fields Fallow's manipulations and counseling Elk in Winter to bring the spy low. Seven Fields Fallow was permitted to live and return to his people, but he left without the resources he was equipped with by his people, including the lance of Ferem Dala, which passed to the hands of Elk in Winter.
Its name has passed away to obscurity; sadly, none of those who have touched the Breath Uplifting since the death of Ferem Dala are able to read the Old Realm writing inscribed upon it. The illiterate Elk in Winter has taken instead to calling it the Spear of Seven Fields, after the Dragon-Blood from whom it was taken.