RPGnet - User contributions [en]

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-07-28T19:53:16Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Oy, a Discussion Page!

This page is where we can keep track of who's doing what to make this campaign wiki a whole lot more awesome. Just looking at all of the pages and the recently edited things isn't really enough information about what's been done.

I've added a subsection for everyone under their name. If you let me know your wiki-name here, I'll go ahead and append that to your name so we all know when someone edits something.

Remember that our goal here is to keep track of what happens in game as well as to make it a resource for things we need to actually play the game. Go have fun with the wiki-goodness, but please remember to '''''Sign In''''' before editing any pages! Just seeing an IP address is no fun when trying to figure out who did what. =(

== To Do List ==

In this section, there are two lists. '''In-progress''' means it's something you're working on and would like to finish without someone else doing it for you. '''Things We Need''' is a list of links that will need creation and finishing, and are up for grabs by anyone. Basically, stuff we'd like to have but haven't gotten to yet. Ideally these things aren't only linked here, but are linked from wherever they would be in the actual content pages.

'''In Progress''':
*

 
'''Things We Need''':

*Everyone: Begin thinking about your First Age incarnation. Who they were, who their enemies and allies were, what wonders they may have possessed, created, or stolen, etc.
*Name your Combos!
*[[Granias]]' page
*Session descriptions for all but Gulliver's Ascent
*Fleshing out the battle pages
*[[The Lap]]
*[[The Steel Tower]]
*Valen, perhaps?

==Sessions==
We've gone ahead and titled the first session, and plan to do so for each subsequent session. Please use the session title to divide up what you've written. Check out what's already written in people's section as an example.

'''May 21, 2010:''' Gulliver's Ascent.

'''June 4, 2010:''' When Armies Collide.

'''June 11, 2010:''' Assault on the Tower.

'''June 18, 2010:''' Sidereals and Tower Defense.

'''June 25, 2010:''' The Liquification of Gem.

'''July 9, 2010:''' Paragon Underworld Adventures.

==Joe / GM (Vargo Teras)==
Pre-Game Show:
* Created [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Orichalcum Handbasket Main Page]] & Sundry Data therein.
* Created [[Lethality Houserules]] and [[Combo Houserules]] Pages.
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added names to Dramatis Personae section of [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Dramatis Personae|Main Page]].
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

==David / Duricorre (Davvves)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added Duricorre's Name and Link to [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Main Page]].
* Created [[Duricorre]]'s Page.
* Fixed various and sundry spelling and syntax errors (<3 Thank you!)
When Armies Collide:
* Added intimacies to [[Duricorre]].
* Began writing more story for [[Duricorre]].
* Added the story of [[Duricorre]] receiving the Green Iron Heart.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Created the page for [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]] and wrote story.
* Added Exalt name for [[Duricorre]].
* Fixed more grammatical errors.
* Added a picture to [[The Mountain That Devours]].

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Added a picture of [[Admiral Sand]].

==Devon / Feyth (Feyth)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[The Penitent]] Page, and Reference on Main Page.
* Created Battles Subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Battles!|Main Page]].
** Created [[Battle of the Bulge]] page.
* Created [[Feyth]]'s Page.
* Created Codex of the Sun-Touched Realms subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Codex_of_the_Sun-touched_Realms|Main Page]].
** Created [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] and references for Chapter One and Two.
When Armies Collide:
* Added [[Feyth#Skills|Skills]] section to character page.
* Added [[Salient Proclamations| Quotes]] page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
Got of his ass finally and
* Created [[Terrible Bloody Rose|First Age Incarnation's]] page.
* Created [[The Scepter and Orb of Peace and Order]] page.
* Cleaned up the formatting on the main page. Seriously, mismatched formatting == eww.

==Mary Jane / Arisa (Alydra)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Arisa]]'s Page.
* Created [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]'s Page.
* Added notes about campaigns and other use to [[Lethality Houserules|Houserules]] [[Combo Houserules|pages]].
* Created This Talk Page.
* Created [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds subsection of the [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
** Added outside links to the Solar Hero Style page and Map of Creation.
* Added Ages & Arisa's full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added image to [[Arisa]]'s page.
* Added Basic Stats to [[Arisa]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Finished [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created [[Admiral Sand]]'s Page.
* Created [[Dual Surprises]]. (The war from 6-18)
* Created [[Erosion's Omniscient Touch]]'s page. (First Age Incarnation)
* Separated out everyone's work on this page into the proper sections so we can see what's ''actually'' new from week to week.
* Added When Armies Collide synopsis to [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] page.

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Created [[Son of Crows]]' Page
* Created [[The First and Forsaken Lion]]'s Page.
* Created [[Chapter Three: Assault on the Tower|Chapter Three]] Page.
* Created [[Chapter Four: Shadowland Investigation|Chapter Four]] Page.

== Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Created [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] Page
When Armies Collide:
* Created [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] Page.
* Created [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]]'s Page.
* Added Sirokos' full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added Intimacies to [[Sirokos]]' Page .
* Added Basic Information to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Echoes of the First Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Added New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Charmed, I'm Sure to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Pestering the Perfect of Paragon:
* Added Exaltation and Expatriation to [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]]'s Page.
* Updated Charms list for [[Sirokos]]' page and added statistics on the Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal and Reed in the Wind.

== Trixie / Ebon (TrixieVixen) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:
* Added to [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
* Created [[Wind over the Slaughtering Fields]]' page.

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

Sirokos

2010-07-28T19:52:28Z

Belasco: /* Charms */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal
The Solar can spend 2 additional motes to crystallize Essence around a fired projectile. This has two effects:
* If the projectile is normally non-physical and/or elemental based, it is instead considered a physical attack without an element type.
* The DV of the target is reduced by 2.

|}
|}

;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
**Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Reed in the Wind
The Solar may freely interchange Shadow Over Water with Seven Shadows Evasion when used in Combos. For determining XP cost of the combo use the ability with the highest requirements

|}
|}

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

;Integrity:
*Third Excellency
*Phoenix Recovery Technique (Conviction)

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-07-28T19:38:46Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Oy, a Discussion Page!

This page is where we can keep track of who's doing what to make this campaign wiki a whole lot more awesome. Just looking at all of the pages and the recently edited things isn't really enough information about what's been done.

I've added a subsection for everyone under their name. If you let me know your wiki-name here, I'll go ahead and append that to your name so we all know when someone edits something.

Remember that our goal here is to keep track of what happens in game as well as to make it a resource for things we need to actually play the game. Go have fun with the wiki-goodness, but please remember to '''''Sign In''''' before editing any pages! Just seeing an IP address is no fun when trying to figure out who did what. =(

== To Do List ==

In this section, there are two lists. '''In-progress''' means it's something you're working on and would like to finish without someone else doing it for you. '''Things We Need''' is a list of links that will need creation and finishing, and are up for grabs by anyone. Basically, stuff we'd like to have but haven't gotten to yet. Ideally these things aren't only linked here, but are linked from wherever they would be in the actual content pages.

'''In Progress''':
*

 
'''Things We Need''':

*Everyone: Begin thinking about your First Age incarnation. Who they were, who their enemies and allies were, what wonders they may have possessed, created, or stolen, etc.
*Name your Combos!
*[[Granias]]' page
*Session descriptions for all but Gulliver's Ascent
*Fleshing out the battle pages
*[[The Lap]]
*[[The Steel Tower]]
*Valen, perhaps?

==Sessions==
We've gone ahead and titled the first session, and plan to do so for each subsequent session. Please use the session title to divide up what you've written. Check out what's already written in people's section as an example.

'''May 21, 2010:''' Gulliver's Ascent.

'''June 4, 2010:''' When Armies Collide.

'''June 11, 2010:''' Assault on the Tower.

'''June 18, 2010:''' Sidereals and Tower Defense.

'''June 25, 2010:''' The Liquification of Gem.

'''July 9, 2010:''' Paragon Underworld Adventures.

==Joe / GM (Vargo Teras)==
Pre-Game Show:
* Created [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Orichalcum Handbasket Main Page]] & Sundry Data therein.
* Created [[Lethality Houserules]] and [[Combo Houserules]] Pages.
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added names to Dramatis Personae section of [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Dramatis Personae|Main Page]].
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

==David / Duricorre (Davvves)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added Duricorre's Name and Link to [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Main Page]].
* Created [[Duricorre]]'s Page.
* Fixed various and sundry spelling and syntax errors (<3 Thank you!)
When Armies Collide:
* Added intimacies to [[Duricorre]].
* Began writing more story for [[Duricorre]].
* Added the story of [[Duricorre]] receiving the Green Iron Heart.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Created the page for [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]] and wrote story.
* Added Exalt name for [[Duricorre]].
* Fixed more grammatical errors.
* Added a picture to [[The Mountain That Devours]].

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Added a picture of [[Admiral Sand]].

==Devon / Feyth (Feyth)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[The Penitent]] Page, and Reference on Main Page.
* Created Battles Subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Battles!|Main Page]].
** Created [[Battle of the Bulge]] page.
* Created [[Feyth]]'s Page.
* Created Codex of the Sun-Touched Realms subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Codex_of_the_Sun-touched_Realms|Main Page]].
** Created [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] and references for Chapter One and Two.
When Armies Collide:
* Added [[Feyth#Skills|Skills]] section to character page.
* Added [[Salient Proclamations| Quotes]] page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
Got of his ass finally and
* Created [[Terrible Bloody Rose|First Age Incarnation's]] page.
* Created [[The Scepter and Orb of Peace and Order]] page.
* Cleaned up the formatting on the main page. Seriously, mismatched formatting == eww.

==Mary Jane / Arisa (Alydra)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Arisa]]'s Page.
* Created [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]'s Page.
* Added notes about campaigns and other use to [[Lethality Houserules|Houserules]] [[Combo Houserules|pages]].
* Created This Talk Page.
* Created [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds subsection of the [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
** Added outside links to the Solar Hero Style page and Map of Creation.
* Added Ages & Arisa's full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added image to [[Arisa]]'s page.
* Added Basic Stats to [[Arisa]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Finished [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created [[Admiral Sand]]'s Page.
* Created [[Dual Surprises]]. (The war from 6-18)
* Created [[Erosion's Omniscient Touch]]'s page. (First Age Incarnation)
* Separated out everyone's work on this page into the proper sections so we can see what's ''actually'' new from week to week.
* Added When Armies Collide synopsis to [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] page.

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Created [[Son of Crows]]' Page
* Created [[The First and Forsaken Lion]]'s Page.
* Created [[Chapter Three: Assault on the Tower|Chapter Three]] Page.
* Created [[Chapter Four: Shadowland Investigation|Chapter Four]] Page.

== Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Created [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] Page
When Armies Collide:
* Created [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] Page.
* Created [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]]'s Page.
* Added Sirokos' full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added Intimacies to [[Sirokos]]' Page .
* Added Basic Information to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Echoes of the First Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Added New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Charmed, I'm Sure to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Pestering the Perfect of Paragon:
* Added Exaltation and Expatriation to [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]]'s Page.
* Updated Charms list for [[Sirokos]]' page and added statistics on the Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal effect of the Essence Arrow Attack.

== Trixie / Ebon (TrixieVixen) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:
* Added to [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
* Created [[Wind over the Slaughtering Fields]]' page.

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-07-28T19:38:03Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Oy, a Discussion Page!

This page is where we can keep track of who's doing what to make this campaign wiki a whole lot more awesome. Just looking at all of the pages and the recently edited things isn't really enough information about what's been done.

I've added a subsection for everyone under their name. If you let me know your wiki-name here, I'll go ahead and append that to your name so we all know when someone edits something.

Remember that our goal here is to keep track of what happens in game as well as to make it a resource for things we need to actually play the game. Go have fun with the wiki-goodness, but please remember to '''''Sign In''''' before editing any pages! Just seeing an IP address is no fun when trying to figure out who did what. =(

== To Do List ==

In this section, there are two lists. '''In-progress''' means it's something you're working on and would like to finish without someone else doing it for you. '''Things We Need''' is a list of links that will need creation and finishing, and are up for grabs by anyone. Basically, stuff we'd like to have but haven't gotten to yet. Ideally these things aren't only linked here, but are linked from wherever they would be in the actual content pages.

'''In Progress''':
*

 
'''Things We Need''':

*Everyone: Begin thinking about your First Age incarnation. Who they were, who their enemies and allies were, what wonders they may have possessed, created, or stolen, etc.
*Name your Combos!
*[[Granias]]' page
*Session descriptions for all but Gulliver's Ascent
*Fleshing out the battle pages
*[[The Lap]]
*[[The Steel Tower]]
*Valen, perhaps?

==Sessions==
We've gone ahead and titled the first session, and plan to do so for each subsequent session. Please use the session title to divide up what you've written. Check out what's already written in people's section as an example.

'''May 21, 2010:''' Gulliver's Ascent.

'''June 4, 2010:''' When Armies Collide.

'''June 11, 2010:''' Assault on the Tower.

'''June 18, 2010:''' Sidereals and Tower Defense.

'''June 25, 2010:''' The Liquification of Gem.

'''July 9, 2010:''' Paragon Underworld Adventures.

==Joe / GM (Vargo Teras)==
Pre-Game Show:
* Created [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Orichalcum Handbasket Main Page]] & Sundry Data therein.
* Created [[Lethality Houserules]] and [[Combo Houserules]] Pages.
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added names to Dramatis Personae section of [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Dramatis Personae|Main Page]].
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

==David / Duricorre (Davvves)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Added Duricorre's Name and Link to [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Main Page]].
* Created [[Duricorre]]'s Page.
* Fixed various and sundry spelling and syntax errors (<3 Thank you!)
When Armies Collide:
* Added intimacies to [[Duricorre]].
* Began writing more story for [[Duricorre]].
* Added the story of [[Duricorre]] receiving the Green Iron Heart.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Created the page for [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]] and wrote story.
* Added Exalt name for [[Duricorre]].
* Fixed more grammatical errors.
* Added a picture to [[The Mountain That Devours]].

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Added a picture of [[Admiral Sand]].

==Devon / Feyth (Feyth)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[The Penitent]] Page, and Reference on Main Page.
* Created Battles Subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Battles!|Main Page]].
** Created [[Battle of the Bulge]] page.
* Created [[Feyth]]'s Page.
* Created Codex of the Sun-Touched Realms subsection on [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page#Codex_of_the_Sun-touched_Realms|Main Page]].
** Created [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] and references for Chapter One and Two.
When Armies Collide:
* Added [[Feyth#Skills|Skills]] section to character page.
* Added [[Salient Proclamations| Quotes]] page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
Got of his ass finally and
* Created [[Terrible Bloody Rose|First Age Incarnation's]] page.
* Created [[The Scepter and Orb of Peace and Order]] page.
* Cleaned up the formatting on the main page. Seriously, mismatched formatting == eww.

==Mary Jane / Arisa (Alydra)==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Arisa]]'s Page.
* Created [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]'s Page.
* Added notes about campaigns and other use to [[Lethality Houserules|Houserules]] [[Combo Houserules|pages]].
* Created This Talk Page.
* Created [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds subsection of the [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
** Added outside links to the Solar Hero Style page and Map of Creation.
* Added Ages & Arisa's full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added image to [[Arisa]]'s page.
* Added Basic Stats to [[Arisa]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:
* Finished [[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts|Chapter One]] page.
* Created [[Admiral Sand]]'s Page.
* Created [[Dual Surprises]]. (The war from 6-18)
* Created [[Erosion's Omniscient Touch]]'s page. (First Age Incarnation)
* Separated out everyone's work on this page into the proper sections so we can see what's ''actually'' new from week to week.
* Added When Armies Collide synopsis to [[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence|Chapter Two]] page.

Paragon Underworld Adventures:
* Created [[Son of Crows]]' Page
* Created [[The First and Forsaken Lion]]'s Page.
* Created [[Chapter Three: Assault on the Tower|Chapter Three]] Page.
* Created [[Chapter Four: Shadowland Investigation|Chapter Four]] Page.

== Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Created [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] Page
When Armies Collide:
* Created [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] Page.
* Created [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]]'s Page.
* Added Sirokos' full name to Dramatis Personae on [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Main Page]].
* Added Intimacies to [[Sirokos]]' Page .
* Added Basic Information to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Echoes of the First Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page
* Added New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
* Added Charmed, I'm Sure to [[Sirokos]]' Page.
Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:

The Liquification of Gem:

Pestering the Perfect of Paragon:
* Added Exaltation and Expatriation to [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]]'s Page.
* Updated Charms list and added statistics on the Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal effect of the Essence Arrow Attack.

== Trixie / Ebon (TrixieVixen) ==
Gulliver's Ascent:
* Created [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
When Armies Collide:

Assault on the Tower:

Sidereals and Tower Defense:
* Added to [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon|Ebon]]'s page.
* Created [[Wind over the Slaughtering Fields]]' page.

The Liquification of Gem:

Paragon Underworld Adventures:

Sirokos

2010-07-28T19:29:39Z

Belasco: /* Charmed, I'm Sure */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal
The Solar can spend 2 additional motes to crystallize Essence around a fired projectile. This has two effects:
* If the projectile is normally non-physical and/or elemental based, it is instead considered a physical attack without an element type.
* The DV of the target is reduced by 2.

|}
|}

;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
**Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal (see sidebar)
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

;Integrity:
*Third Excellency
*Phoenix Recovery Technique (Conviction)

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-07-28T19:28:28Z

Belasco: /* Charms */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal
The Solar can spend 2 additional motes to crystallize Essence around a fired projectile. This has two effects:
* If the projectile is normally non-physical and/or elemental based, it is instead considered a physical attack without an element type.
* The DV of the target is reduced by 2.

|}
|}

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
**Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal (see sidebar)
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

;Integrity:
*Third Excellency
*Phoenix Recovery Technique (Conviction)

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-07-28T19:20:45Z

Belasco: /* Charms */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
**Shattering Cascade of Inescapable Crystal (see sidebar)
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

;Integrity:
*Third Excellency
*Phoenix Recovery Technique (Conviction)

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-07-28T19:17:44Z

Belasco: /* Combos */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
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{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
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! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-06-11T14:28:51Z

Belasco: /* Destiny and Dinosaurs */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-06-11T14:19:25Z

Belasco: /* Combos */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready.''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-10T19:31:54Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Sirokos

2010-06-10T19:31:06Z

Belasco:

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
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{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Charmed, I'm Sure==

===Charms===
;Archery:
*First Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Arrow Storm Technique
*Flashing Vengeance Draw
*Essence Arrow Attack
**Righteous Judgment Arrow
*There Is No Wind
*Accuracy Without Distance

;Dodge:
*Shadow Over Water
**Reed in the Wind
*Seven Shadows Evasion
**Reed in the Wind
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique

===Combos===
;Laughing Rebuke of the Dauntless Brigand
''Sirokos becomes a blur of motion as he instinctively reacts to encroaching danger, allowing him to avoid even unseen attacks and come out with guns ready''
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind
*Flashing Vengeance Draw

;Unspoken Price of the Brigand's Offer
''Sirokos holds both guns in one hand as he digs deep into his pocket, drawing out a handful of copper coins. He flings the change into the air and begins to shoot rapidly into the glittering cloud. Shots careen wildly off the coins in a relentless torrent of flame.''
*First Archery Excellency
*Trance of Unhesitating Speed
*Essence Arrow Attack
*Reflexive Sidestep Technique
*Reed in the Wind

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T21:26:39Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T21:23:07Z

Belasco: /* Dramatis Personae */

This is the main page for the Exalted 2e game entitled Orichalcum Handbasket because, well, these Solars are all going to Hell.

== Dramatis Personae ==

'''Circle of the Radiant Insurrection'''

-[[Sirokos]], Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake, Age 19, Dawn Caste

-[[Feyth]], Age 29, Eclipse Caste

-[[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]], Age 20, Night Caste

-[[Duricorre]], Age 30, Twilight Caste

-[[Arisa]], Wind Moves the Mountain, Age 17, Zenith Caste

'''Princes of the Earth'''

'''The Hosts of Heaven'''

'''Ghosts of the Past'''

- [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt, Gunsmith, and Firearms instructor

- [[Lady Hecubus]], Waning Moon Lunar Exalt, Consort of The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn

'''Various and Sundry Characters'''

- [[The Mountain That Devours]], the steed of Arisa

- [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], elder Dragon King

== Location, Location, Location ==

'''Places of Interest'''
*[[The Penitent]]

'''Manses, Demesnes, and Freeholds'''
*[[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]]

== Items of Power ==
- [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]]

== Codex of the Sun-touched Realms ==
*[[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts]]
*[[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence]]

== Battles! ==

[[Battle of the Bulge]]

[[The Battle of You and What Army?]]

== Rules of the Game ==

[[Lethality Houserules]]

[[Combo Houserules]]

== Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds==

[[Salient Proclamations]]

[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=500468 Solar Hero Style Martial Arts]

[http://hd42.de/images/exalted/Creation_Map_v7.1a.jpg Map of Creation]

Sirokos

2010-06-08T21:19:46Z

Belasco:

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

'''Sirokos''' (SEER-oh-kose) Is a brash, tempestuous young man who has been crossed by the Realm and aims to see them brought low for it. In the meantime, he's happy to pick them apart piece by piece, waylaying supplies and people as a brigand and highwayman. Fueled by a fiery nature that shoots first and lets it sort itself out later, he cares little for social niceties or the feelings of others. A testament to the wrathful nature of the Anklok who he counts as kindred. Sirokos does not know the meaning of the word restraint.

==Basic Information==

{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
|-
|
{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
|-
! align="left" | Intimacies
* I will find my missing family and avenge those slain and defiled by Terrestrials.
* Dragon Kings are redeemable creatures.
* The Law of The Realm is unnatural and wrong.
* It is no accident Mount Drakkengardte was dropped on my family's home.

|}
|}

* '''Exalted Name:''' Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake.
* '''Given Name:''' Sirokos.
* '''Age:''' 19.
* '''Height:''' 6'
* '''Weight:''' 190 lbs.
* '''Hair Color:''' Platinum Blond.
* '''Eye Color:''' Red.
* '''Skin Tone:''' Light brown.
* '''Motivation:''' To end the tyranny of The Realm

==Echoes of the First Age==

Sirokos' original exaltation was known in the First Age as The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn. Back then, his Solar circle was allied with the Dragon King [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] and claimed [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]] as a Manse. His guns, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]], were forged during this age by the Soulsteel Alchemical Exalt [[Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice]], before the Alchemical Exalt disappeared into the East.

The Corundum Drake was a skilled marksmen with the guns bestowed upon him, showing much Valor in battle though his lack of Temperance and Compassion often found him estranged from those he fought for. When Mordant Custodian of the Unbalanced Scale of Justice, who taught him how to shoot, departed into the Wyld of the East The Corundum Drake stayed behind to guard the rest of Creation from the aberrations that spawned from its edges.

During The Corundum Drake's journeys his brash nature caused him to enter headlong into a drawn out battle with [[Lady Hecubus]], a Waning Moon Lunar Exalted blamed mistakenly for the bewitchment of a township in the northeastern reaches of Creation. Once they finally realized the other was not responsible or a threat to Creation, they banded together to take down the Fey Lord and his cadre of bound spirits responsible for feeding off the will of the townsfolk. This marked the beginning of a long partnership between the two, with Hecubus acting as a calming voice of reason to reign in many of The Corundum Drake's...eccentricities.

Ultimately, the Usurpation saw the downfall of The Corundum Drake as it did most other Solars of the age. Losing contact with his circle one by one as they were isolated and slain by the Terrestrials, he turned to Knopsen to safeguard his prized weapons and left to find out what had become of his long-missing partner and lover, Lady Hecubus. Swearing he would return for them, he departed to check in on rumors from the East. It was not long into his journey when at last the Terrestrials cornered him. The wizened Anklok recorded the story and images of the explosions seen on that crimson dawn, a day which marked the end of The Corundum Drake and his pursuers. Lady Hecubus was never found.

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem. Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym). Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings. His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South. Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely. Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day. Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape. The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come. The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles. When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain. When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar. There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves. The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede. Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead. His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?). Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact. As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them. Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic". It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead. Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before. They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however. Harsh voices called out orders. Terrestrial voices. Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist. Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought. He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert. Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock. The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother. The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips. He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered. That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses. Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old. Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him. He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent. As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls. With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him. The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody. It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor. To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror. Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel. He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind. As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light. The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was. Was Anathema some kind of devil? Had killing those men made him a demon? He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body. Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces. The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay. Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks. At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant. It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less. It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings. As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily. An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota. With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature. He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it. The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature). Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room. With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings. Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant. Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many. As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig. Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew. He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to. And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons. They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist. Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth. The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how. Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath. Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T18:43:27Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T18:42:10Z

Belasco: /* Dramatis Personae */

This is the main page for the Exalted 2e game entitled Orichalcum Handbasket because, well, these Solars are all going to Hell.

== Dramatis Personae ==

'''Circle of the Radiant Insurrection'''

-[[Sirokos]], Sweltering Desert Tempest of the Rampant Corundum Drake, Age 19, Dawn Caste

-[[Feyth]], Age 29, Eclipse Caste

-[[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]], Age 20, Night Caste

-[[Duricorre]], Age 30, Twilight Caste

-[[Arisa]], Wind Moves the Mountain, Age 17, Zenith Caste

'''Princes of the Earth'''

'''The Hosts of Heaven'''

'''Ghosts of the Past'''

'''Various and Sundry Characters'''

- [[The Mountain That Devours]], the steed of Arisa

- [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], elder Dragon King

== Location, Location, Location ==

'''Places of Interest'''
*[[The Penitent]]

'''Manses, Demesnes, and Freeholds'''
*[[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]]

== Items of Power ==
- [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]]

== Codex of the Sun-touched Realms ==
*[[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts]]
*[[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence]]

== Battles! ==

[[Battle of the Bulge]]

[[The Battle of You and What Army?]]

== Rules of the Game ==

[[Lethality Houserules]]

[[Combo Houserules]]

== Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds==

[[Salient Proclamations]]

[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=500468 Solar Hero Style Martial Arts]

[http://hd42.de/images/exalted/Creation_Map_v7.1a.jpg Map of Creation]

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T18:29:35Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

Knopsen Dhul'tek

2010-06-08T18:28:23Z

Belasco: Created page with ''''Game''': Orichalcum Handbasket Born long before the rise of humanity to the Anklok Dragon-Kings of the south, Knopsen Dhul'tek is a remark…'

'''Game''': [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

Born long before the rise of humanity to the Anklok Dragon-Kings of the south, Knopsen Dhul'tek is a remarkably even tempered representative of his kind. In his early years he trained both as a warrior and as a mystic, both skills aiding him well in the troubled times surround the war between the Gods and the Primordials. Following the Exaltation of many humans, Knopsen became the trusted advisor and boon companion to The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn (a Dawn Caste of the first age). Knopsen traveled much with the Dawn Caste and the rest of his Solar Circle, and in his travels saw the decline of his people to the deprivations of the Fey and other dangers of the time.

Knopsen foresaw a time of even greater troubles ahead that gravely threatened the survival of his people. With the aid of his Solar allies, he gathered Dragon King eggs from the far corners of creation to stow in stasis crystals within their Manse, an ancient holy site of his people known as [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]]. Secured with them were also relics of the First Age, a weapons cache for his Solar friends who wanted to keep them beyond the reach of the power-hungry Terrestrials. At the behest of The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn, Knopsen secured himself within the Manse as the Usurpation raged in its fury. Lost to memory and meditating over the future of his people, Knopsen could do naught as his friends spread to the corners of creation and were slain. Thus began Knopsen's Long Watch.

This watch was disturbed many centuries later when the Wyld Hunt gained word of his ancient refuge, where it lay ensconced in the summit of Mount Drakkengardte. Scouts of the Hunt, Sesus Mugen Durandal and Regara Brethed Guignol, came upon the ancient Dragon King who stood ready for them, alerted by wards set an age past. Mugen approached and spoke peaceably as Brethed watched on in brooding silence. Knopsen explained the nature of his sacred duty in preserving the line and lore of his people and entreated the young Terrestrials to dissuade the hunt from disturbing his refuge, to which Mugen readily agreed as Brethed scowled. Unaware of the lengths Mugen would go to keep his word, Knopsen remained undisturbed for several more years until the sudden uprooting of the demesne by unknown powers (in actuality, the works of Brethed, who had become the Abyssal On His Tear Stained Path the Rivers of Men and Dragons Spill Their Lamentation, using [[The Penitent]]. As his sacred charge crashed out in the deserts many leagues east of Gem, Knopsen could only look on in horror as the eggs he had worked so hard to save were crushed by rubble within their stasis crystals. The future of his people bled onto the unforgiving stone, and the few tears an Anklok will ever shed in its life followed. Knopsen was left physically and emotionally crippled by the upheaval. In this wounded and distraught state was found by the young boy [[Sirokos]], his forehead glittering with the familiar markings of a Dawn Caste.

Enlisting Sirokos to aid in closing his wounds, Knopsen listened to the child's story and winced both from pain and from the horror of the way in which Terrestrials had dealt with the boy's family. For his part, Knopsen explained to the boy his birthright as a Chosen of the Unconquered Sun and what that meant to the world at large (at least, as Knopsen remembered it). Sensing something hauntingly familiar about the child, Knopsen gave him shelter and did his best to raise him in the cramped ruins of the demesne. To say Knopsen used draconian methods in his instruction would be to put it mildly - Ankloks have seldom been known as gentle or forgiving teachers. As Sirokos came of age, Knopsen received a vision of his old friend The Corundum Drake Rampant In The Sun's Ruddy Dawn passing on his trademark weapons, [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] to the young man. Taking this as a sign, the aged Anklok directed Sirokos to where in the rubble the ancient firearms should lay and lo and behold, they had survived the crash intact! Knopsen watched onward in stunned silence as Sirokos picked up the weapons of his original incarnation, his anima flaring to totemic levels to assume the coruscating crimson form he recognized from his long dead friend's battles many centuries past.

Realizing the boy had yet a larger destiny to fulfill in the workings of Creation, Knopsen explained to the young man the heritage of his previous incarnation and the injustices of the Usurpation. Seeing the grim set of the Dawn Caste's jaw, Knopsen bid him to journey forth into the world and seek both his own destiny and vengeance for all those who have suffered under the tyranny of the Terrestrials. Knopsen sent Sirokos on his way with his blessing and the hearthstone of the Manse, with which to both fuel his First Age weapons and serve as a reminder of his history with the Dragon King. As his friend from antiquity left to make good on his new future, Knopsen settled once more into silence and obscurity, to ponder anew the future of his own people and whether any others had survived to the current age...

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T17:10:14Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young

2010-06-08T17:09:01Z

Belasco: Created page with ''''Game''': Orichalcum Handbasket An ancient holy site and Demesne originally built into the summit of Mount Drakkengardte, The Dream of the …'

'''Game''': [[Orichalcum_Handbasket:Main_Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

An ancient holy site and Demesne originally built into the summit of Mount Drakkengardte, The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young began as a rookery for the Anklok Dragon-Kings before the coming of humanity. Long abandoned amongst the chaos of the war between the Gods and Primordials, it was rediscovered by a war-weary Anklok named [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] towards the end of the First Age. Seeing the downfall of his people already begun, Knopsen enlisted the aid of his Solar allies to gather Dragon King eggs from across Creation to be held in stasis crystals. Here, Knopsen would preserve the vestiges and lore of his people as he meditated on their future. In return, the potent energies of the demesne served as a Manse for his Solar allies. The site itself served as both a secret retreat for these heroes of the First Age and as a weapons cache to keep their most prized possessions safe against the rage and zealotry of the Usurpation.

Many centuries later the Dragon-Blooded have secured their rule over Creation as The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young lay forgotten and slumbering in the deserts of the south. This isolation was not to last, unfortunately, as the Wyld Hunt inexplicably gained knowledge of its location. Knowing it only as a cache for First Age armaments, an expedition was mounted based out of Gem. Two of the advance scouts, Sesus Mugen Durandal and Regara Brethed Guignol, breached the demesne and spoke with its guardian Knopsen. Understanding the true legacy of the site, Mugen assassinated his commander and the rest of the unit as they slept to preserve its sanctity. Brethed however saw the site as a stain upon creation. Taken unawares by Mugen's act of outright treason, Brethed strove with Mugen for the better part of three days on the mountain before receiving a fatal wound. Mugen fled to the southern deserts as Brethed died, cursing his name.

Unbeknown to any living, Brethed's hatred carried beyond the gates of Death itself and he returned to Creation as the Abyssal, On His Tear Stained Path the Rivers of Men and Dragons Spill Their Lamentation. Through methods unknown, he gained knowledge of and access to the Meditation Chambers of [[The Penitent]] and altered both the geomancy and physical location of The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young, physically dropping the entire mountain-top it on the homestead of his old ally Mugen in an attempt to eradicate both the demesne and his "friend".

Inexplicably, the demesne survived the forceful relocation and impact. Much of it was damaged, leaving many of the items in the weapons cache inaccessible or rendered inert. The stasis crystals, however, were uniformly destroyed and Knopsen left crippled. The energies of the demesne itself were greatly diminished though still functional.

The Dream of the Sun Baked Young remains where it landed in the deserts many leagues east of Gem, buried amidst the rubble of what used to be the summit of Mount Drakkengardte. It currently serves as the Manse of [[Sirokos]] and the site from which he acquired [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]]. Knopsen maintains his guardianship of the site, recovering from his wounds and lamenting a future that may be lost to his kind.

Talk:Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T17:04:12Z

Belasco: /* Jonny / Sirokos (Belasco) */

The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne

2010-06-08T17:03:25Z

Belasco: Created page with ''''Game:''' Orichalcum Handbasket A pair of First Age Essence Cannons Sirokos was gifted by the Anklok Dragon-King, Knopsen Dhul'tek fro…'

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

A pair of First Age Essence Cannons Sirokos was gifted by the Anklok Dragon-King, [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]] from the weapons cache hidden within [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]].

'''Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon'''

'''Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error'''

Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-06-08T17:00:26Z

Belasco: /* Items of Power */

This is the main page for the Exalted 2e game entitled Orichalcum Handbasket because, well, these Solars are all going to Hell.

== Dramatis Personae ==

'''Circle of the Radiant Insurrection'''

-[[Sirokos]], Age 19, Dawn Caste

-[[Feyth]], Age 29, Eclipse Caste

-[[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]], Age 20, Night Caste

-[[Duricorre]], Age 30, Twilight Caste

-[[Arisa]], Wind Moves the Mountain, Age 17, Zenith Caste

'''Princes of the Earth'''

'''The Hosts of Heaven'''

'''Ghosts of the Past'''

'''Various and Sundry Characters'''

- [[The Mountain That Devours]], the steed of Arisa

- [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], elder Dragon King

== Location, Location, Location ==

'''Places of Interest'''
*[[The Penitent]]

'''Manses, Demesnes, and Freeholds'''
*[[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]]

== Items of Power ==
- [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]]

== Codex of the Sun-touched Realms ==
*[[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts]]
*[[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence]]

== Battles! ==

[[Battle of the Bulge]]

[[The Battle of You and What Army?]]

== Rules of the Game ==

[[Lethality Houserules]]

[[Combo Houserules]]

== Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds==

[[Salient Proclamations]]

[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=500468 Solar Hero Style Martial Arts]

[http://hd42.de/images/exalted/Creation_Map_v7.1a.jpg Map of Creation]

Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page

2010-05-24T18:39:03Z

Belasco: /* Location, Location, Location */

This is the main page for the Exalted 2e game entitled Orichalcum Handbasket because, well, these Solars are all going to Hell.

== Dramatis Personae ==

'''Circle of the Radiant Insurrection'''

-[[Sirokos]], Age 19, Dawn Caste

-[[Feyth]], Age 29, Eclipse Caste

-[[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]], Age 20, Night Caste

-[[Duricorre]], Age 30, Twilight Caste

-[[Arisa]], Age 17, Zenith Caste

'''Princes of the Earth'''

'''The Hosts of Heaven'''

'''Various and Sundry Characters'''

- [[The Mountain That Devours]]

== Location, Location, Location ==

'''Places of Interest'''
*[[The Penitent]]

'''Manses, Demesnes, and Freeholds'''
*[[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]]

== Items of Power ==
- [[Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]]

== Codex of the Sun-touched Realms ==
*[[Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts]]
*[[Chapter Two: A Journey into Penitence]]

== Battles! ==

[[Battle of the Bulge]]

== Rules of the Game ==

[[Lethality Houserules]]

[[Combo Houserules]]

== Scrolls from the Athenaeum of Outer Worlds==
[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=500468 Solar Hero Style Martial Arts]

[http://hd42.de/images/exalted/Creation_Map_v7.1a.jpg Map of Creation]

Sirokos

2010-05-24T18:00:29Z

Belasco: /* Destiny and Dinosaurs */

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

From where Sirokos stood, frantically dodging the affections of a tyrant lizard, he thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in the expression of the girl. A subtle gesture from her, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. Sirokos heard what sounded like a mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, he kept himself at the ready. In a show of bravado he grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-05-24T17:12:27Z

Belasco:

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

==Destiny and Dinosaurs==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne

2010-05-24T17:10:16Z

Belasco:

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

A pair of First Age Essence Cannons Sirokos was gifted by the Anklok Dragon-King, Knopsen Dhul'tek from the weapons cache hidden within The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young.

'''Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon'''

'''Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error'''

Sirokos

2010-05-24T17:09:36Z

Belasco:

'''Game:''' [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]]

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Sirokos

2010-05-24T17:07:37Z

Belasco: Created page with 'Sirokos had been having a very bad month. If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Fir…'

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, viva la revolucion!

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne

2010-05-24T16:47:40Z

Belasco: Created page with 'A pair of First Age Essence Cannons Sirokos was gifted by the Anklok Dragon-King, Knopsen Dhul'tek from the weapons cache hidden within The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young. '''Just…'

A pair of First Age Essence Cannons Sirokos was gifted by the Anklok Dragon-King, Knopsen Dhul'tek from the weapons cache hidden within The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young.

'''Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon'''

'''Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error'''

Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts

2010-05-24T16:43:15Z

Belasco: /* Tickets to the Gun Show */

''This Page is a part of the history from the campaign [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]].''

This chapter chronicles how the individual members of the Circle of the Radiant Insurrection met, and became the force of chaos that now boils through creation.

== A Not-so-Dormant Volcano ==

Enter [[Feyth]], Eclipse Caste Solar Exalt, stage left, in the city of Gem. Or, to be more specific, the dormant volcano that housed Gem. Feyth entered town, learning a few things about the local fire elementals from the townspeople, and proceeded to track down these elementals in the hopes of talking them into stirring things up. Really, the volcano had been dormant for far too long and besides...it was their own fault for building a city in a volcano. Unfortunately, he wasn't as stealthy about his plans as he'd hoped to be, and he soon found himself accosted by a group of rightly concerned townspeople.

When [[Arisa]], a Zenith Caste cowgirl arrived in Gem in the midst of her wanderings, she found a fantastic looking man being accosted by a number of rough looking townsfolk. Unable to hold herself back from what looked like an exciting fight, Arisa threw herself into the battle to save the fantastic man, if only because he looked like he could use a hand... and a drink.

After the fight, Arisa and Feyth rode out of town on Arisa's Tyrant Lizard familiar, [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]. Luckily for Feyth, Rover took a liking to him, and even allowed him to ride on his back, in exchange for a treat. Feyth, being Feyth, convinced the monstrous tyrant lizard and his rider that really, he'd be better off if they let him tether himself to Rover and get dragged through the air behind them like an errant balloon.

== Who Drinks Tea in a Tavern, Anyway? ==

A quiet monk, [[Duricorre]], was calmly drinking a cup of tea in the local tavern when he noticed that a bunch of violent ragamuffins seemed to be scrabbling around him. He quickly put an end to this by using his clockwork armament to quell the uprising. Seeing the quick, clean actions of Duricorre, the instigator of the bar fight, a Night Caste thief named [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]] was impressed.

Ebon's intentions when she approached the monk were made clear very quickly. In her infinitely spur-of-the-moment wisdom, Ebon proposed to this strong-armed monk that he should perform the duties of a bodyguard for her. Since Duricorre has a high Temperance, he did not immediately throw the idea aside. Duricorre was still so annoyed by the childishness and the low temperance of the rabble around him that his response to Ebon's assumptions about what he would do for her was mere apathy. Sensing acceptance, Ebon gave a little squeal, and shadowed Duricorre everywhere he went in the city, and a tentative partnership was formed.

== Target: Tyrant Lizard ==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, ''viva la revolucion!''

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

== Tickets to the Gun Show ==

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, believing her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts

2010-05-24T16:42:48Z

Belasco: /* Target: Tyrant Lizard */

''This Page is a part of the history from the campaign [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]].''

This chapter chronicles how the individual members of the Circle of the Radiant Insurrection met, and became the force of chaos that now boils through creation.

== A Not-so-Dormant Volcano ==

Enter [[Feyth]], Eclipse Caste Solar Exalt, stage left, in the city of Gem. Or, to be more specific, the dormant volcano that housed Gem. Feyth entered town, learning a few things about the local fire elementals from the townspeople, and proceeded to track down these elementals in the hopes of talking them into stirring things up. Really, the volcano had been dormant for far too long and besides...it was their own fault for building a city in a volcano. Unfortunately, he wasn't as stealthy about his plans as he'd hoped to be, and he soon found himself accosted by a group of rightly concerned townspeople.

When [[Arisa]], a Zenith Caste cowgirl arrived in Gem in the midst of her wanderings, she found a fantastic looking man being accosted by a number of rough looking townsfolk. Unable to hold herself back from what looked like an exciting fight, Arisa threw herself into the battle to save the fantastic man, if only because he looked like he could use a hand... and a drink.

After the fight, Arisa and Feyth rode out of town on Arisa's Tyrant Lizard familiar, [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]. Luckily for Feyth, Rover took a liking to him, and even allowed him to ride on his back, in exchange for a treat. Feyth, being Feyth, convinced the monstrous tyrant lizard and his rider that really, he'd be better off if they let him tether himself to Rover and get dragged through the air behind them like an errant balloon.

== Who Drinks Tea in a Tavern, Anyway? ==

A quiet monk, [[Duricorre]], was calmly drinking a cup of tea in the local tavern when he noticed that a bunch of violent ragamuffins seemed to be scrabbling around him. He quickly put an end to this by using his clockwork armament to quell the uprising. Seeing the quick, clean actions of Duricorre, the instigator of the bar fight, a Night Caste thief named [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]] was impressed.

Ebon's intentions when she approached the monk were made clear very quickly. In her infinitely spur-of-the-moment wisdom, Ebon proposed to this strong-armed monk that he should perform the duties of a bodyguard for her. Since Duricorre has a high Temperance, he did not immediately throw the idea aside. Duricorre was still so annoyed by the childishness and the low temperance of the rabble around him that his response to Ebon's assumptions about what he would do for her was mere apathy. Sensing acceptance, Ebon gave a little squeal, and shadowed Duricorre everywhere he went in the city, and a tentative partnership was formed.

== Target: Tyrant Lizard ==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trade caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, ''viva la revolucion!''

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, he lazily scraped his gaze across the arid badlands further north. Something caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand shield at ready. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

== Tickets to the Gun Show ==

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, thinking her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts

2010-05-24T16:38:06Z

Belasco: /* Tickets to the Gun Show */

''This Page is a part of the history from the campaign [[Orichalcum Handbasket:Main Page|Orichalcum Handbasket]].''

This chapter chronicles how the individual members of the Circle of the Radiant Insurrection met, and became the force of chaos that now boils through creation.

== A Not-so-Dormant Volcano ==

Enter [[Feyth]], Eclipse Caste Solar Exalt, stage left, in the city of Gem. Or, to be more specific, the dormant volcano that housed Gem. Feyth entered town, learning a few things about the local fire elementals from the townspeople, and proceeded to track down these elementals in the hopes of talking them into stirring things up. Really, the volcano had been dormant for far too long and besides...it was their own fault for building a city in a volcano. Unfortunately, he wasn't as stealthy about his plans as he'd hoped to be, and he soon found himself accosted by a group of rightly concerned townspeople.

When [[Arisa]], a Zenith Caste cowgirl arrived in Gem in the midst of her wanderings, she found a fantastic looking man being accosted by a number of rough looking townsfolk. Unable to hold herself back from what looked like an exciting fight, Arisa threw herself into the battle to save the fantastic man, if only because he looked like he could use a hand... and a drink.

After the fight, Arisa and Feyth rode out of town on Arisa's Tyrant Lizard familiar, [[The Mountain That Devours|Rover]]. Luckily for Feyth, Rover took a liking to him, and even allowed him to ride on his back, in exchange for a treat. Feyth, being Feyth, convinced the monstrous tyrant lizard and his rider that really, he'd be better off if they let him tether himself to Rover and get dragged through the air behind them like an errant balloon.

== Who Drinks Tea in a Tavern, Anyway? ==

A quiet monk, [[Duricorre]], was calmly drinking a cup of tea in the local tavern when he noticed that a bunch of violent ragamuffins seemed to be scrabbling around him. He quickly put an end to this by using his clockwork armament to quell the uprising. Seeing the quick, clean actions of Duricorre, the instigator of the bar fight, a Night Caste thief named [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]] was impressed.

Ebon's intentions when she approached the monk were made clear very quickly. In her infinitely spur-of-the-moment wisdom, Ebon proposed to this strong-armed monk that he should perform the duties of a bodyguard for her. Since Duricorre has a high Temperance, he did not immediately throw the idea aside. Duricorre was still so annoyed by the childishness and the low temperance of the rabble around him that his response to Ebon's assumptions about what he would do for her was mere apathy. Sensing acceptance, Ebon gave a little squeal, and shadowed Duricorre everywhere he went in the city, and a tentative partnership was formed.

== Target: Tyrant Lizard ==

Sirokos had been having a very bad month.

If there is a bright spot in the center of the universe (and I'm sure the terrestrials would have you believe it's a mountain), the Firelands are the furthest point from it. Now this is not to say the South is not without a fair deal of traffic. Sirokos' livelihood and chief form of entertainment depended on it. You could say Sirokos was a bandit, or brigand, or whatever other label the local representative of The Realm chose to call his activities. Sirokos, naturally, didn't hold to this view. He rather thought himself a revolutionary, quietly unraveling the moldering tapestry of Realm authority one fat trader caravan at a time. If the proceeds from these excursions kept food in his belly and drink freely pouring down his parched pate, well, ''viva la revolucion!''

Business, however, had been very poor of late. Either he was too successful for his own good or, the more likely, The Realm had found alternate means of ferrying goods. For the kind of young fire-brand that Sirokos exemplifies, there is little sport to holding up simple farmers and cattle herders. With a grumbling stomach and a spirit thriving for a challenge he sat upon his usual roost overlooking the poetically named "Hedging Fence of Stone Timbers", a narrow ravine that all trade proceeding further south from Gem had to funnel through. Sirokos's desire for a challenge, a distraction, had driven him to his Limit.

As Sirokos pitched up a make-shift lean-to to beat off the sun's languorous tendrils of afternoon heat, lazily scraping his gaze across the arid badlands further north, he spotted something that caught his eye. A distant but swiftly approaching cloud of dust marked the approach of something moving very rapidly, something...large. Sirokos wasn't sure quite what it was until it drew close enough for him to make out the form of an enormous bipedal reptile, the like of which the Dragon Kings may have kept as pets. Upon its back rode a simple but fierce looking girl, her eyes alert with a spear near at hand a shield readily available. Behind her sat a very striking fellow, possibly some sort of authority in the labyrinthine structure of The Realm.

The decision came to Sirokos as rapidly as his guns game to his hands. A mark! The fop must have swag simply overflowing from the saddle-bags of that overgrown gecko, and the farm girl shouldn't be much trouble, he thought to himself with a smile. Dashing to the far end of the ravine Sirokos wheeled into the opening with The Incandescent Arbiters As They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne gleaming and warm in his hands, the lowering afternoon sun casting his shadow long down the trench. He said not a word, trusting his guns and his glare to speak his intent plainly.

== Tickets to the Gun Show ==

As he stood before them, barring the path out of the ravine, Sirokos thought he saw a flash of surprise on the girl's face. Whether or not his daring actually surprised her, that look quickly turned into incredulity and contempt. Her beast let out a roar of delight and merely quickened its pace, head lowering and jaw dripping at the thought of an easy meal. The well kept gentleman merely smiled with amusement. "An easy mark" thought Sirokos to himself, and fired a warning shot with Justice, Resplendent in Her Blind Abandon and Vengeance, Long Shadow Cast Upon the Road of Error.

Surprisingly, the beast didn't even flinch as the heat of the two First Age cannons sped past it. Rather, with a joyous roar it closed the distance between itself and Sirokos in the merest blink of an eye. Enshrouded in the heavy breath of a barely dodged bite, he realized that this may not be as simple as he planned. The beast allowed for little musing past that, however, as it attempted to stomp him into the ground between flashing attempts to consume him whole. Calling upon the speed granted the Dawn of the Unconquered Sun, Sirokos flowed around the lumbering tyrant's surprisingly accurate strikes. As the sun slowly passed along its course, Sirokos could feel his caste mark flare to brilliance from his exertions.

Arisa had been at first flabbergasted, then amused by the foolish approach of a simple robber. The flash of two Essence Cannons caused her but a brief moment's concern before Rover, The Mountain That Devours, was upon him. "Ah well, Rover musta been hungry after the run from Gem" she thought, thinking her daft assailant no more. To her renewed surprise, however, he was not only still alive but uninjured, dodging around Rover's probing assaults like a dust-devil. Feeling rover slowly tiring under her, the explanation for his difficulties in acquiring a meal soon came to light (quite literally). Arisa hadn't seen too many other Chosen of the Unconquered Sun before, and had only recently just come upon Feyth. The burning brand of her attacker's Caste Mark, however, was unmistakable. Maybe this idiot could be useful, if Rover doesn't devour him first.

A subtle gesture, barely even the twitch of a single muscle, was all the command Rover needed to back off. A mournful groan escaped its jowls as it obediently withdrew from its elusive meal. Sirokos, sensing a shift in the intent of his targets, stood warily. He grinned like a fool up at the woman who was clearly this beast's master - that had been the most fun he had all month! Names were exchanged, and intent. Exalted, eh? Stirring trouble in Gem, eh? It seems like Sirokos had finally found a few kindred spirits. Sirokos led them to the cave he called home where they might feast as friends.

Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts

2010-05-24T16:35:07Z

Belasco: /* Target: Tyrant Lizard */