Sesus Brinn

Name: Sesus Brinn

Aspect: Water

Concept: Battlefield Healer

Motivation: Reform her house in a more humane direction.

Attributes: Physical: STR 3, DEX 4, STA 4 Social: CHA 2, MAN 2, APP 3 Mental: PER 4, INT 3, WIT 2

Caste Skills: Bureacracy 1, Investigation 4 (forensics +1), Martial Arts 4, Sail 1

Favoured Skills: Integrity 3, Medicine 4 (battlefield conditions +1), Presence 2

Other Skills: Archery 1, Athletics 2, Awareness 3, Craft (earth) 1, Dodge 1, Lore 2, Melee 1, Performance 1, Resistance 3, Ride 1, Socialise 2, War 2

Backgrounds: Breeding 2, Manse 2, Artifact 2, Resources 3, Connections (military) 2, Reputation 1

Virtues: Compassion 2, Conviction 3, Temperance 3, Valour 2

Willpower: 6

Permanent Essence: 3

Peripheral Essence: 11

Peripheral Essence: 16 (26 max)

Committed Essence: 5 bracers, 5 weapon = 10

Join Battle: 7

Attack 1, Jade Dire Lance: Speed 4, Accuracy 10, Damage 11L / 15L, Defence 10, Rate 2

Attack 2, Punch: Speed 5, Accuracy 9, Damage 3B, Defence 10, Rate 3

Attack 3, Composite Bow: Speed 6, Accuracy 5, Damage 5L, Rate 3, Range 250

Dodge Defence Value: 4 (5 w/o armour)

Parry Defence Value: 6

Shield Modifiers: +1 DV in melee, +2 DV ranged

Soak: 12B / 7L / 5A

Armour: Soak 5L / 8B, mobility -2, fatigue 2

Health: -0, -1, -1, -1, -2, -2, -2, -4, Inc

Charms: 01: Infection-Banishing Prana (2M, Sim)

02: Disease-Banishing Technique (5M, 1WP, Sup)

03: Wound-Closing Touch (1M + 2M per health level, 1 WP, Sim)

04: Investigation Excellency (reroll, 4M, Sup)

05: Five-Dragon Fortitude (1-2M, Ref)

06: Five-Dragon Claw (2M, Sup)

07: Ox-Body Technique (0M, Per)

Merits: Signiature Style—“Unhesitating” (2)

Flaws: Rival 2 (2), Secret 1 (1), Unusual Appearance (1)

Bonus Points: +3 Abilities: 3 +2 Specialties: 1 +1 Essence: 10 +1 Temperance: 3 +2 Merits: 2 = 19 (15 base, 4 Flaws)

Equipment: Jade direlance (Dragon’s Disapproval), shield bracer, Stone of Healing (Wood 1, Medicine +3), Bloodstone (Water 2, immune to diseases and poisons, does not lose blood from wounds), exceptional reinforced buff jacket, composite bow.

Background:

My start in life was hardly auspicious—I was the child of Sesus Meheret, my mortal mother and Sesus Kagnare, my Exalted father. Over a decade before my birth, my father had committed some horrible breach of etiquette in the presence of the Empress. He never spoke of it, and the accounts I had heard varied—depending on who was telling it to you, he let out a yawn while she was giving a speech, he stepped on the tail of her favourite pet animal, or he grabbed her butt at a party. Whatever happened, the Empress didn’t do a thing—she didn’t need to, since he became a social pariah, even among his own house. He lost out on a cushy job at the Thousand Scales, stopped getting invitations to parties, and ended up having to marry a patrician.

My childhood was poor by the standards of Exalts, but we were still a long way above any sort of struggle to survive. I was tutored at Midbridge, the best primary school that my parents money could buy, which wasn’t especially good. I settled in, showing a flair for medicine. It was in the last year of primary school, when I was trying to get out of swimming. I couldn’t stand the water, and whenever I was in it, I panicked and thrashed around like a drowning dog. I avoided as many lessons as I could with fabricated diseases and injuries, and the class bullies noted that.

When they thought it was time for me to be taught a lesson for showing them up in a test, they chose the bridge the school was named for as the ambush site. They grabbed me, and slung me off the bridge, into the river. I panicked, thrashing desperately in the water, as the jeers came from above. And then the current took hold of me, and the river closed over my head. And then it stopped feeling cold, and the terror subsided. I wondered if this was drowning. I felt secure and safe, as if the river was the embrace of a parent, or lover.

The next thing I remember after that, is walking towards the gates of the school in a trance, and collapsing just inside the gates. Apparently, I had vanished below the river surface and not come up. My tormentors had fled, fearing the joke had gone too far. Over an hour later, I had simply walked out from the bottom of the river. And now I was an Exalt. I never named the bullies. It wasn’t that I felt any sort of sympathy to them, I just didn’t want anything to connect them, other than the painful, humiliating accidents that each of them would suffer in turn over the next few weeks.

Upon Exalting, I was put into the Cloister of Wisdom. My parents constantly pushed me to succeed, and I was daily reminded of my responsibilites as a daughter, and the sacrifices they were making on my behalf. Or to look at it more cynically, my father viewed an Exalted child as his ticket back into respectable Dynastic social circles.

It was there that I found first love, in the presence of Mnemon Anacayel, two years my senior and mesmerisingly beautiful. This was somewhat hampered by the fact that she saw me as an uppity peasant who had no business learning alongside such a paragon of Exaltation as herself. To try and gain her favour, I started doing favours for her, helping her with coursework, running errands, buying small gifts that I thought she would like.

It was just before she left, that she approached me in private, and told me to meet her that night, in her quarters. A fevered day later, I joined her. She turned out the lamp, without a word, and kissed me. A minute later, the lights came back on, and Anacayel was standing in the doorway, accompanied by a gaggle of other students. The woman I had met removed a magical mask of some kind, revealing the stricken face of one of the slaves. Anacayel and her entourage were shrieking with laughter as I fled half-naked back to my own room.

So ended my first love. Though I contemplated a dramatic suicide immediately afterwards, and was a wreck for weeks to follow, I think now that she did me a favour. She taught me just how nasty the manipulations and political games would get in the Dynasty.

When I graduated, I was promptly shuttled to the legions, where Meheret maintained that I would be “hardened up” (he viewed healing as a soft profession). I was put under the command of Sesus Crae. The man was meaner than a Yozi and probably as old to boot, and his training regime was pitiless. Even though I respected him, I never liked him.

The expedition was to quash a rebellious satrapy. When I was there. the glamour and fear of war as understood from books and my father’s anecdotes soon gave way to the experience of the real thing. We were fighting a rag-tag band of peasant militia and mercenaries—there was no glory in it. They had no grasp of tactics and most of their soldiers were poorly trained. But they fought, like demons. A handful of outcaste or god-blooded champions were not enough to make a difference.

It was there that I took a life for the first time—I remember a young boy who didn’t look old enough to have had his first kiss, never mind be fighting in war. A single blow opened his throat, and when I realised what had happened, I promptly vomited. For the most part, my job was simply to heal the wounded. I became popular among the legionnaires—being able to make painful bruises out of a gory hole in the body has that effect.

I also began to realise something was wrong. When drunk, Crae would frequently rant about how the Empire was collapsing and everything had gone wrong, and how someone like him shouldn’t be out here on a mission fighting farmers, and how there wouldn’t be any need for the punishment if some Sesus nobles hadn’t raised the taxes to pour the money into their own coffers. After the initial military resistance was put down, the oppression continued—someone in the House was determined to teach these people a lesson. A village even suspected of harbouring a rebel was burnt to the ground. A lot of the soldiers deserted, sick of the slaughter. I knew how they felt. All of this, for money?

Near the end of the pacification, I was called to a camp to assist with the interrogation of a peasant who supposedly knew where two rebels (his sons) were. Assist in this case meaning make him well enough to withstand more torture. Looking at the man dangling from his wrists, with cuts and burns covering his body decided me on something. There were some things I just wouldn’t tolerate. Demanding privacy, I applied my skills to restore his injuries as best I could. Then I untied his arms, and told him to leave as best as he could—he was shocked, but did sneak out. I waited a minute, then hit myself across the chin with a pot, and claimed that he had caught me unawares when I was attending his injuries. He was not caught.

Despite this small black mark, the campaign was declared a success. When the heads of House Sesus decided the province was subdued enough, we returned to the Isle. There were other things to deal with—not least my father announcing he had arranged a proper match with a Terrestrial from another house, whom I’d never met. But I was becoming convinced that something needed to change in the Realm—something big, and soon.

Appearance: Brinn is a woman, who looks to be in her late twenties, with a fairly tall, lean body frame, pale blue eyes, and dark blue hair which she keeps in a bob-cut. She is fairly attractive, in an austere sort of way. There is a very faint scent of saltwater around her.

Personality: Brinn is somewhat introverted by nature, slow to trust and with a large pessimistic, cynical streak. She prefers deeds to words, both in herself and from others and has little patience for people who lie or prevaricate. However, she does like to be proven wrong in her downbeat view of the world. She has a dry sense of humour, and is seldom worried in front of others. If she does take on a responsibility, she takes it very seriously, and does not have much patience for those who shirk their duties or display laziness.

Artifact: Dragon’s Disapproval is a jade direlance, granted to Brinn by Crae—her own family had been forced to pawn off most of their own artifacts in the preceding decades. This weapon does not have a noble history, which is why nobody else claimed it. It’s former owner was Sesus Belhane, a famously incompetent commander who ignored his scouts, refused to wait for reinforcements, and led his troops into an obvious ambush. They were massacred, and Belhane was caught trying to flee the field disguised as an old woman. Rumour has it that the barbarian warlord had to order a lieutenant to execute him, as the warlord was laughing too hard to lift his axe.

Manse: The Sanguine Lagoon formed naturally from a crater made during the Battle of Seven Tigers, that filled with rainwater and became a small lake. The water has a slight red tint at all times, but is otherwise normal. The Manse consists of a small pagoda built in the middle. Brinn has left it unadorned and inaccessible from the shore, preferring to swim there when she wants to be alone, and undistracted.

Connections: Brinn has stayed in touch with Crae and the troops under his command, and could call on him for a favour—very politely, of course.

Rival: Meheret, Brinn’s father. Though she is careful to at least give the appearance of obeying his desires, she would like nothing better than to be free from his attempts to use her to regain his lost status by proxy. For now, she endeavours to have as little as possible to do with him.

Reputation: Brinn’s name is noted in connection with the successful campaign of pacification. In particular, she is known among the mortal soldiers of that campaign, several of whom would be dead or crippled without her aid.

Secret: Brinn’s small betrayal in letting the prisoner go.

Unusual Appearance: Her blue hair. It has appeared among the female members of her father’s side of the family for several generations, and supposedly traces back to a union with a lesser elemental dragon of water, a couple of centuries back.