Ayin Rends-Words

Character Page for Ayin Rends-Words in CrazyIvan's "Nothing Certain" Exalted Game

Exalt: Inferal
Caste: Malefactor
Anima: His caste mark flaring on his brow, Ayin's eyes become flame-cored orbs of rough-chipped quartz, while the air around him becomes saturated by a construct of silver sand approximating some great engine appropriate to the situation
Effect: Anima effect One per day sacrifice a sentient being of Creation (spend 1m, roll CHA+Per with a difficulty of 7-victim's Essence) to create a desecrated zone (successes x100) yards in radius, within which difficulty of prayers to Yozis are reduced by 2, difficulty of thaumaturgy to summon demons is reduced by 2, and difficulty to bind demons is increased by 1. After spending 11m+ Peripheral, she gains +5L/+5B soak vs holy beings, and deals (Essence x2) minimum damage to them.
Concept: Benevolent travelling trickster-artificer

Character Details

Bio

First Age Bio: Perhaps the most well-known Eclipse Caste of the Age of Dreams was Desus, whose exploits during the Primordial Waf and after were the stuff of legend even among other Solars, but the other members of his Caste, while less publicly-visible, were no less busy.

Niya Wordweaver was one of them, a girl the Quicksilver Falcons despaired of turning into a confident socialite. She preferred subterfuge to society, paperwork to performance, and spent more time tinkering with gadgets than on her appearance. In short, everyone suspected that at some point her Exaltation must have gotten confused and chosen a Copper Spider instead. When the time came to negotiate a treaty with the raksha permitting Creation's armies access through Wyld waypoints to assail one of Oramus' hidden subsouls, she was sent as part of the delegation largely because the Deliberative was hoping she would get killed off and her Exaltation recycled to a more appropriate bearer.

Surrounded by the opulence of the raksha court, the other Eclipses began their usual process of bullying, exploitation, and use of powerful magics to manoeuvre their way to their objective. Niya just listened. To the disgust of her colleagues, the fae found the reticent young bookworm a thousand times more alluring than the brightly-arrayed Deliberative peacocks, and they plied her with treasures and tales, all of which she accepted with quiet gratitude and grave attentiveness. The Solars began to squabble amongst themselves, refusing to believe that someone as plain as Niya could draw the attention of the Fair Folk away from them. Weren't they interesting? Tragic? Brimming with epic potential for narrative?

As they descended deeper into the pattern laid down by that Freehold's Unshaped, Niya continued to nod and listen.

One day, she strode into the throneroom where the more prominent raksha gathered in some semblance of a court. At the foot of the great dais lay the bodies of a number of Solars, either dead or comatose, ensnared and drained by fae magic, too weakened and blinded by their own internal strife to recognise the trap laid for them. In her hand she held a small ceramic egg. She showed this to the Nobles.

"You have been generous and given me many gifts. Allow me to offer you one in return. In this egg is your Heart. You have hid it amongst these many semblances, but as each came to me with poisoned words I leached the venom from them and spun a true story, one that has wrapped its strands around your very Essence. Everything you are is in this egg. Holding your life in my hand, I give it to you freely."

She laid the egg down carefully on a cushion, and strode away.

Weeks later, the other Quicksilver Falcons returned to Creation, shamefaced and humbled. Each in their hearts held a burning taper of vengeance for the indignity wrought by Niya, but in their keeping they also held a contract, signed and sealed and witnessed by Heaven, pledging the Deliberative the support they had sought.

Nobody mourned Niya when she died. The Dragon-Blooded commandos sent to kill her returned shamefacedly to their commanders, bringing news that her soul and Exaltation had already fled her lifeless form when they came upon her. Shattered on the floor at her feet they had found her last project, which had occupied the last years of her life and which they believed to have been another Solar folly. They poured into Lytek's hands the remnants of what had once been a delicate ceramic egg, its shell thin as paper. What the Right Hand of Power did with those remnants few can attest to, but Niya's shard, fallen into the hands of the architects of the Reclamation, appears to be remarkably stable in its perfect recall of the First Age...

Appearance

A bespectacled young man of pleasing countenance, Ayin often gives people the impression that he's something of an ascetic, with his long lean face and soulful expression. He very quickly sheds that guise when confronted with the prospect of temptation (either his own or that of others), revealing a predatory grin and eyes that glitter with nothing of human sympathy; something of a congenital weakness afflicts his eyes, and he affects a pair of ground glass lenses that correct his vision. They give his gaze something in the way of cool hauteur. He dresses simply more by necessity than anything else, having a terrible head for numbers and a distressing tendency to squander huge sums of money. This never appears to be a problem: for some reason or the other, Ayin is never short of friends willing to spot him some loose change (or their inheritance, or entire estate) in a pinch. His Exaltation has not radically altered his appearance except for his complexion: his skin bears the same burnished bronze tint as an agatae's carapace.
Ayin, pondering Oblivion

Motivation

To build a new, better world shorn of the weaknesses of the old

Urge (Cecelynian)

To hold the Neverborn at his mercy

Intimacies

• Mara, who taught him the rudiments of Black Claw Style (love)
• his Lunar mate, who used sex magic on him (lust)

Character Sheet

Attributes

Strength 2
Dexterity 4
Stamina 3

Charisma 3
Manipulation 1
Appearance 3

Perception 4
Intelligence 4
Wit 3

Abilities

Caste:
Integrity 3
Performance 2
Presence 2
Resistance 2

Favoured:
Craft 5 (+1 Air)
Martial Arts 2
Lore 5 (+1 the Underworld)
Socialise 2
Occult 5 (+2 Yozi Charms)

Virtues/Willpower/Essence

Compassion 5
Conviction 2
Temperance 1
Valour 2

Willpower 10/10

Essence 5
Personal 25/25
Peripheral 41/57 + 10 (Flames Lit Within)+ 10 Transcendent Desert Within)
Committed 16 (usually 16) (Mind-Hand Manipulation, Loom-Snarling Deception)

Background

Backing (the Ebon Dragon) 1
Those who venerate the Ebon Dragon, or who are descended from him, instinctively recognise that Ayin bears some faint mark of the Yozi's favour

Cult (Yozi) 1
Cultists of the Ebon Dragon venerate Ayin in their prayers.

Influence (over Ophidian subsouls) 1
Setsuhou, the bisclavaret serving as Ayin's coadjutor, was well-known among the subsouls of the Ebon Dragon as a consummate spymaster. While they cannot know for sure how much of Setsuhou's memory and resources are open to Ayin (practically none; the Green Sun Prince's powerful ego has all but obliterated all traces of the demon's original self), the fear that some juicy blackmail material is floating around in the back of Ayin's cranium tends to earn him at the very least wary courtesy.

Lunar Bond 5
Ivan, I'll leave this to you. Surprise me

Past Lives 5
Ayin's memories of the First Age, especially pertaining to the various magics that his former Eclipse-Caste incarnation researched, having a passionate interest in the cataloguing of Charms.

Savant 2
Ayin's training in Malfeas dealt primarily with artifice.

Charms

Pyrian
1. Factual Determination Analysis
2. Analytical Modeling Intuition
3. Counterpoint Inquisition Defence
4. Cosmic Transcendence of Compassion (against chaos)v 5. Essence-Dissecting Stare
6. Counter-Conceptual Interposition
7. Mind-Hand Manipulation
8. Principle-Invoking Onslaught
9. Force-Suppression Barrier
11. Tool-Transcending Constructs
12. Experimental Acceleration Mastery
13. Flames Lit Within (BWC)
14. Sensory Corona Endowment (custom)

Cecelynian
First Excellency of Cecelyne
Second Excellency of Cecelyne
15. Cecelyne Mythos Exultant
16. Cecelyne Inevitability Technique
17. Effortless Cecelyne Dominance
18. So Speaks Cecelyne
19. Hellscry Chakra
20. Demonic Primacy of Essence
21. Penitents Like Scattered Grains
22. Temple Self Apotheosis
23. Transcendent Desert Creature
24. Verdant Emptiness Endowment
25. Scoured Perfection of Form
26. Bestowal of Accursed Fortune
27. As You Wish
28. Holy Land Infliction
29. Draught of Sweet Infinity (IMC)
30. Miracle Gift Mastery (IMC)
31. Holy Land Infliction
32. Transcendent Desert Within (BWC)
33. Untouchable Infinitude Reflection
34. Counter-Pronouncement of Enthymemic Law

Malfeas Hardened Devil Body x2 (gratis)
By Pain Reforged
Blight Internalisation Technique

Ophidian Loom-Snarling Deception
Eldritch Secrets Mastery
Endless Suspicion Vigilance

Kimbery Mother Sea Mastery

Heretical Nomads of Wave and Waste
Unsurpassed Devil Craft x2

Sorcery 35. Sorcerous Enlightenment of Cecelyne
1. Emerald Countermagic
2. Slave-Spawn Summons
3. Infallible Messenger

*custom Charm

Sensory Corona Endowment Cost: -- (1wp); Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: None Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Mind-Hand Manipulation The mental force extruded by the Infernal's Mind-Hand Manipulation is endlessly versatile, but even its utility is sometimes hampered by insufficient informaiton. This Charm seeks to prevent such incidences by furnishing Mind-Hand Manipulation with tactile sensitivity. The Infernal has always 'known' what his telekinetic force is doing, but this information usually imposes itself on his mind as purely objective data rather than sensory input. The Infernal can now choose to feel through his Mind-Hand, which applies all things that the telekinetic force is capable of interacting with (he could detect dematerialised entities even if blind, as the Mind-Hand can interact with dematerialised entities, but he can't smell or hear or taste, as the Hand can't meaningfully interact with those qualities of an object. He can tell that an apple is ripe by squeezing it slightly but he can't know if it's green or red). He doesn't feel pain even if the thing he is touching would ordinarily cause that sensation (moulding red-hot metal). For a 1wp surcharge while activating Mind-Hand Manipulation, he may choose to extrude such a sensory field to the maximum range of his Mind-Hand Manipulation, simultaneously perceiving all valid objects in that range. At Essence 4+, this becomes a two-way affair: the Infernal may bestow Touch effects through his Mind-Hand as readily as through his actual physical limbs.

Nomads of Waste and Wave Cost --; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent Keywords: Heretical Duration: Permanent Prerequisite: Mother Sea Mastery, Transcendent Desert Creature Cecelyne exults in her desolation and extends her blessings to those who live in her wastes because it breeds strength; no less a hostile cradle are the depths of Kimbery, the teeming multitudes which abide within every bit a great a challenge to survival as Cecelyne's scouring sands. The Infernal who realises this is catalysed by these twin truths: that the salt sea and the silver sands are, at their heart, the same thing. This allows the Infernal to treat seas as places of desolation, and vice versa with regard to her Charms. If any combination of Charms provide a similar benefit, their benefits stack. (for example, Mother Sea Mastery and Transcendent Desert Creature collectively reduce the difficulty of all attempts to forage and harvest food from 4+ to 1 and grant automatic successes equal to (Essence) when attempting such feats; Sand-Slip Trick and Mother Sea Mastery can also accelerate movement by speed by a factor of (Essence x2)). Furthermore, these benefits are transferable through any of the means of bestowing their prerequisites through an abomination mutation of the same name. Charms like Locust Mana Plague manifest altered thematics when used in an adopted environment, availing Infernals of variants like Teeming Devilfish Swarm. Holy Land Infliction, when used over water, creates green stains on the surface of water, transforming a patch of ocean into an environment analogous to Kimbery's poisonous depths, with similarly dire effects on wildlife and vegetation not specifically adapted for such a change. What Lurks Beneath in the desert does not summon aquatic behemoths, but rather conjures forth creatures appropriate to the desolation, like gigantic scorpions and the terrifying godworms of the deep desert; if the Infernal knows Withered Soul Wastes, the Charm summons forth demons appropriate to the urban environment, like a cadre of Erembour's shadow-slaves.

Combo

Invisible Weapons of Spite (gratis)
While Ayin does not enjoy combat, he has found it necessary to develop some capabilities in that arena, and he has done so by ensuring that he never appears to be the aggressor in any conflict. Even if prompted to open hostilities, Ayin always affects an air of injured bewilderment, as if his trust has been betrayed by a sudden and treacherous attack, and his chosen weapons never leave a trace. While in his favourite guise as a Lost Egg Terrestrial, he favours using Principle-Invoking Onslaught to duplicate the effects of an Elemental Bolt Attack.
First Cecelyne Excellency + Counter-Conceptual Interposition + Principle-Invoking Onslaught + Force-Suppression Barrier + Counter-Pronouncement of Enthymemic Law + Endless Suspicion Vigilance

Combat

Weapon

Speed Accuracy Damage Defense Rate

Parry DV:
Dodge DV:

Soak: A/L/B
Hardness: L/B

XP

XP Total: 248
XP Spent: 227
XP Available: 21

XP Expenditures

200 Charms
8 Charm (Unreasoning Prejudice Infliction)
3 Combo enhancement (add Soul Crack Exploitation)
8 By Rage Recast
8 Want Becomes Need