Ledaal Catala Arvala

Siege of Thorns

General Info

• Name: Ledaal Catala Arvala
• Aspect: Air (Ash)
• Anima Banner: His anima begins as a pale white and bluish glow, though the colors seem more faded than would be normal for an Air Aspect. As he continues to burn essence, the eddies of cold wind and cloud surrounding him seem almost to take the shape of human faces, often dispersing as quickly as they form, and the winds sound suspiciously like the moaning of tormented souls.
• Anima Power: 5m: triple leaping distances, no damage from falls, +Ess to DV against ranged attacks; automatic at 11+
• XP: 60 / 73
• Concept: Weapon against the Dead
• Motivation: Destroy the Deathlords
• Intimacies: Loyalty to House Ledaal

Attributes

Physical

• Strength: 2
• Dexterity: 5
• Stamina: 2

Social

• Charisma: 2
• Manipulation: 4
• Appearance: 1

Mental

• Perception: 3
• Intelligence: 3
• Wits: 4

Abilities

Aspect

• Linguistics: 2
• Lore: 3 (Underworld x 2)
• Occult: 3 (Creatures of the Underworld x 3)
• Stealth: 1
• Thrown: 0

Favored

• Dodge: 5
• Integrity: 3
• Martial Arts: 5 (Creatures of the Underworld x 3)

Non-Favored

• Archery: 1
• Athletics: 3
• Awareness: 3
• Melee: 1
• Performance: 1
• Presence: 3
• Resistance: 1
• Ride: 1
• Socialize: 2
• War: 1

Languages

• High Realm (native)
• Old Realm
• Riverspeak

Virtue and Power

• Essence: 3
• Willpower: 5
• Compassion: 1
• Conviction: 5
• Temperance: 3
• Valor: 2

Backgrounds

Artifact: 3

• Description

Backing (House Ledaal): 2

• Raised to be a weapon for his House, Arvala enjoys a reasonable amount of support from them, though he is also watched and controlled more strictly that most young Dragon-Blooded.

Breeding: 3

• Description

Henchmen: 2

• Arvala persuaded two war ghosts of the attack party to join his cause with the offer of Five Gifts. Further info pending.

Manse: 3

• Description

Resources: 1

• In addition to the resources that he can call on while on business for House Ledaal, Arvala is granted a small stipend for his personal use.

Whispers: 1

• While there might be safer ways of learning Necromancy today, Arvala followed the path laid out in the Book of Bone and Ebony, aka the Second Black Treatise. Unfortunately, his trip to the labyrinth proved more dangerous than his handlers expected, and he was left with permanent scars, though the Ledaal elders only know of the ones of the body – they do not know that the Neverborn found a purchase in his mind as well.

Charms

Athletics

• 1st Athletics Excellency: Reflexive; 1m / 2 dice.

Dodge (Favored)

• 1st Dodge Excellency: Reflexive; 1m / 2 dice.
• Threshold Warding Stance: Reflexive-5; 1m to negate environmental penalties to DDV even when dodging would be impossible.

Integrity (Favored)

• 1st Integrity Excellency: Reflexive; 1m / 2 dice.

Lore (Aspect)

• Elemental Concentration Trance: Simple; 5m + 1wp to gain one week's training in a day.

Occult (Aspect)

• Shadowlands Circle Necromancy: 1wp; allows SCN actions.
• (SCN) Five Gifts: 12m, ghosts perceive the world like the living, gain willpower equal to caster’s essence that can take them above max, lasts for one day. Ghost has MDV reduced by half against caster unless it spends 2wp to resist.
• (SCN) Iron Countermagic:
• (SCN) Master Puppeteer's Knife: 14m, shaping action is reflexive, speed 0. All animated dead within 15 yards and a 90 degree arc collapse, truly dead again. More powerful animated dead must be targeted one at a time.

Equipment

• Brief description of general equipment that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Combat Stats

• Black Widow Razor: Speed 3, Acc 14, Dam 7L*, Rate x, Tags: x, PDV 6 (+x def) [*for 3m, poison (Sta + Res, diff 5) that puts victims to sleep, 5 min memory loss]
• Punch: Speed 4, Acc 11, Dam 2B, Rate 3, Tags: N, PDV 6 (+2 def)
• Kick: Speed 4, Acc 10, Dam 5B, Rate 2, Tags: N, PDV 4 (-2 def)
• Clinch: Speed 5, Acc 10, Dam 2B, Rate 1, Tags: C N P, PDV –

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• Soak: 1L/2B (natural) | 5L / 7B, Fatigue 0, Mobility -0, Hardness 0 (Perfect Buff Jacket)
• Join Battle: 8

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• DDV: 8 (Dex 5 + Dodge 5 + Essence 3 + bracers 3)/2
• Dodge MDV: 7 (Will 8+ Ess 3+ Integrity 3+ Pertinent Specialty) / 2
• Parry MDV: (Cha 2 or Man 4) + Ability / 2

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• Health: -0 / -1 / -1 / -2 / -2 / -4 / Incap
• Current: Uninjured

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• Willpower: 8/8
• Essence: 3
• Motes: 14 / 14 personal --- 33 / 33 [33] Peripheral (Committed: x artifacts, 0 charms)
• Limit: 0

XP Expenditures

• Bonus Points: Favored specialties x8 (4), Whispers 1 (1), Virtues x 2 (6), Dodge 35 (2), Martial Arts 35(2)
• Starting XP: Essence 3 (20), Shadowlands Circle Necromancy (10), Five Gifts (10), Master Puppeteer’s Knife (10)
• Session 1: Henchmen 02 (0; gained in game)
• Session 2: Iron Countermagic (10)

Personality and Appearance

• Personality summary.
• Appearance summary.

Background

No one really expected very much of Ledaal Catala Arvala when he was growing up. He tended to be a fairly quiet boy, drawing far more attention for his good looks than for any personal excellence or poor behavior. Combined with his generally poor health, they certainly never expected him to Exalt at the age of 10. It was only because of the Catala family’s extensive research on the Underworld and the Deathlords that they recognized the signs of his true nature after Exalting – he was one of the less than 1 in 1,000 Dragon-Blooded who resonated strongly enough with the elements of the Underworld that he would be able to learn Necromancy. Realizing what a rare and unique opportunity this afforded the House, Arvala was whisked away to the Ledaal holdings in the Threshold where they could best put this newfound resource to use.

Where most young Dynastic Dragon-Blooded enjoy lives of luxury, enjoying their social status as Princes of the Earth, House Ledaal had other things in mind for Arvala. They would not send him to the Heptagram, nor any of the other great academies, for social connections were deemed irrelevant to his future. Necromancy is one of the most potent weapons available against the dead, and he would be made into a weapon, a tool to be wielded by House Ledaal against the Deathlords and their minions. The training regimen they selected was extremely harsh – they were careful not to kill him, of course, but they made no effort to spare him pain. He was to oppose some of the most powerful beings in existence, after all, so they felt it necessary that he was able to endure pain. He was trained extensively on the lore of the dead and their domain; their strengths and weaknesses, and mostly importantly how to fight and defeat them. While they had originally hoped to train him in the Golden Janissary Style, given its focus on defeating creatures of darkness, they found Arvala had little interest or aptitude for the style despite having gained extensive skill in close combat.

When the first rumblings of an effort to reclaim Thorns began, his elders knew it was nearly time for their weapon to see its first use. They obtained a copy of the Book of Bone and Ebony, and while its method of learning Necromancy is far from the safest, it would provide a good trial run to test Arvala’s capabilities. If he could not survive a relatively safe path to the Labyrinth that they knew of, there would be no hope that he could oppose the Deathlords. He prepared for weeks, studying the Black Treatise. And so it was that he was sent on his first journey into the depths of the Underworld alone (though he had fought ghosts and zombies in shadowlands on several occasions). His skills proved more than equal to the task of reaching the Labyrinth, and following the remaining steps to initiate himself should have been a relatively simple task. What neither he nor his elders counted on, however, was the relatively safe path they’d charted on many occasions being the occasional haunt of an ancient and powerful Nephwrack.

By all rights Arvala should have been killed. Arvala had no defense against the Necromancy of the Kartaxis, and the Nephwrack was more than a match for him physically as well. None of this stopped him from fighting, of course. He had spent more than a decade being forged into a weapon against the dead, and he was not about to lay down and die. He did wound the Nephwrack, he remembers that much. And he remembers being run through by the Necromantic blade of frost and blood that it fought him with, planning to enjoy the irony of striking him down with something not so far removed from his own elemental nature.

And then he awoke in the chamber, alone and badly wounded, but still alive. His initiation into Necromancy was complete, but half his face was a wreck from a wound he had no memory of receiving, and he felt far more connected to the Labyrinth than he’d imagined – not to mention able to hear sinister voices that murmured in the back of his mind. He doesn’t believe for a minute that Kartaxis let him live out of mercy, and feels certain that there’s far more going on that he doesn’t see, and is more than a little bothered that there’s yet to have been any price.

Still, his mission was a success, of sorts. His elders are convinced that Kartaxis was either a phantom conjured up to test his determination rather than a true Nephwrack or was badly enough wounded in the fighting to have been driven off. He’s continued his study, and if it bothers him that the voices in his head gleefully encourage him to continue his study of Necromancy, well, he hasn’t let that stop him from following the will of his House. And their murmurs of the existence of a martial arts style emulating the monstrous hungry ghosts that he opposes, that rivals the Immaculate Paths in power and would allow him even more power over the dead, are most intriguing...