Editing Sesus Sikandi

[[Category:Bound_Devil_Chambers_Conspiracy]]
'''Sesus Sikandi''' is a character played by '''Argent''' in [[Bound Devil Chambers Conspiracy]] Exalted PbP game in RPG.net

'''Sesus Sikandi'''
*Aspect: Fire
*Concept: Journeying hero gone native
*Motivation: Become a legend.
*Anima: As Sikandi spends essence, her fiery aura seems to elongate her crimson tresses, causing them to flow and coil im a medusa-like fashion among a rain of burning embers.
*Anima power: (4m) Burst into flames, causing Essence (3)d damage to everything she touches. (What, no fire immunity? The 2nd ed Aspect anima is pretty lame.)


==Description==

[IMG]http://server2.uploadit.org/files/argent-SesusSikandi1.jpg[/IMG]


Sikandi´s elemental aspect is written all over her - from the bronzed skin to the crimson hair to the amber-colored eyes. Tall, lithe and beautiful, she enjoys accentuating her natural looks with extravagant modes of dress - most often, she enjoys appearing as the "traveling hero", incorporating various exotic accessories into her overall appearance. The hair is almost always worn in a complex pattern of braids or in a large ponytail. Face pattern paints, body jewelry and various trophy items are common ingredients in her wardrobe arsenal.

==Attributes==
*Strength 3 , Dexterity 5 , Stamina 3 
*Charisma 5 , Manipulation 3, Appearance 4
*Perception 2 , Intelligence 2, Wits 3


==Abilities==
''Aspect''
*Athletics 5
*Dodge 5
*Melee 5 (Duels +3)
*Presence 5
*Socialize 3


''Favored''
*Integrity 4
*Performance 3
*Sail 2 (Skyship +1)

''Others''
*Linguistics 2
*Lore 2
*Occult 1
*Awareness 1
*Resistance 2
*War 3
*Archery 2
*Ride 2
*Survival 1

==Backgrounds==
*Reputation 5 (A famed and glorious hero-Dynast, celebrated in poems and loved by the people. This is one of the most pertinent reasons why the Empress called her - and may in fact have groomed her for this role)
*Breeding 4
*Artifacts 5
*Artifacts 5
*Command 1
*Manse 3
*Henchmen 2
*Resources 3

=====Artifact details=====

*''The White Crow Queen, Skyship (Artifact 5)''
'''The White Crow Queen''' is a long, slender three-masted air-vessel. The ship is a beautiful though jury-rigged First Age model with a lot of the magitech wonders either asleep, nonfunctional or simply stripped off along the years - it could once fly without the sails, for example, but now needs them to be able to navigate. The sails do not actually use the winds for navigation, nor are they placed in any way that a regular sea captain would recognize - rather, they´re positioned to allow the ship to navigate on streams of ambient air essence.

*''Glorious Arbiter of Justice, Royal Warstrider (Artifact 5)''
'''Glorious Arbiter of Justice''' is a legendary Royal Warstrider alluded to in several ancient texts - in fact, one granted to a superior Dragonblooded warrior by her Solar lord during the latter stages of the Primordial War, but for obvious reasons this is not known to anyone except some gods and Sidereal scholars. Sikandi uncovered and liberated the Warstrider herself from its´ watery prison in the Tchekthce Jungles - it´s Animating Intelligence still mostly asleep, it has never the less begun to whisper to her when she is in the Strider, and Sikandi has often chosen to meditate enclosed in the artifact as she finds it´s not-quite-quantifiable presence comforting.

Glorious Arbiter of Justice is a twenty-five feet tall, supremely crafted war machine in white jade. Its´ white fram is adorned with flowing red ribbons and veils, the visored head is crowned with a jade halo, and folded on its´ back is three pairs of jade wings so exquisitely crafted that the white jade feathers seem very lifelike to anyone but an extremely thorough observer.

*''Swift Judgment of Heaven, Warstrider Dire Lance (Artifact 2)''
Rechristened "'''Swift Judgment of Mela'''", this is a blue jade Warstrider Direlance ending in a double prong, this is Glorious Arbiter of Justice´s traditional weapon. It has settings for three Hearthstones.

*''Skin-Mount Amulet (Artifact 2)''
Inset on the inside of her right lower arm, this artifact/body jewelry is most often adorned with a Hearthstone.

*''Daiklave (Artifact 2)''
'''Tidecutter''' is a curved, saber-like black jade Daiklave with a heavily adorned hilt and twelve jade-alloyed gold rings adorning the blade.The rings dance with the expenditure of essence, making the blade almost sing as it is swung - its´ battle melody clearer the stringer the intensity of its´ wielder´s elemental anima.

=====Hearthstone and manse details=====

*''Monkey Stone (Wood)(Manse 2, Ex2C p383)''
-2 to diff (minimum 1) on Athletics tests involving balance, jumping or climbing.
Doubles climbing speed and jumping distance.

*''Jewel of the Flying Heart (Air)(Manse 1, Oedanol´s Codex p85)''
Adds +1 to Dodge DV (final), and +1 to the Accuracy when inset in a weapon (note: last is my reading).

*''Gem of Grace (Celestial - doable?)(Manse 3, Ex2C p384)''
+2d to all Charisma and Manipulation rolls.

(More later)

==Charms==
''Athletics''
*2nd Athletics Excellency [2m/succ success buyer/DV enhancer]

''Dodge''
*2nd Dodge Excellency [2m/succ success buyer/DV enhancer]
*Safety Among Enemies [description]
*Elemental Defense Technique


''Presence''
*2nd Presence Excellency [2m/succ success buyer/DV enhancer]
*Glowing Coal Radiance
*Aura of Invulnerability
*Warlord´s Convocation

''Performance''
*2nd Performance Excellency [description]
*Soul-Stirring Performance Method

''Ability''
*Charm [description]

==Virtues==
*Compassion 2
*Conviction 3
*Temperance 1
*Valor 5


==Other traits==
Essence 3
*Personal motes 15
*Peripheral motes 41 (35 base +6 for Skin-Mount Amulet w. Hearthstone 3.)
*Committed motes (peripheral) X

Willpower 8

Health Levels: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incap

Join Battle/Debate: 4

'''Defensive values:'''

Dodge Value (DDV): 7

Parry value (PDV)(Unarmed/Daiklave/Warstrider Direlance): 4/6 or 8/6 or 8

Mental Defense Value - Parry (MPDV) (Presence/Performance/Investigation): Honesty 5/4/3, Deception 4/3/3

Mental Defense Value - Dodge (MDDV): 8

==Intimacies==
*Glorious Arbiter of Justice - the warstrider has become the focal point of Sikandi´s existance, the symbol of her journey and free spirit as well as her point of stability.
*

==The Four Questions==

'''1) Why are you more loyal to the Empress and/or the Realm than the average Dynast?'''

Quite simply, because she is the Ideal, the personification of everything that Sesus Sikandi strives to be. She saved the Dragonblooded Host and built a new empire through sheer guts, smarts and determination - she defied fate, refused to let go and remade the world in her own image. It is this ideal of being a true Prince of the Earth that spurs Sikandi on - in this, she´s a Scion of the Empress.


'''2) Who do you serve, apart from the Empress? Who else constitutes a superior?'''

Sikandi serves the head of her family - being of the Alon line, she is a granddaughter of Sesus Alon, in turn the granddaughter of Sesus herself, accounting for her high Breeding. The daughter of two Exalts - Sesus Ryak Eijin (mother) and Mnemon Eleisos (father), she has a lot of respect for her elders but also a hard time fitting in with a family so focused on political acumen.


'''3) What did you openly achieve in the past century that makes you a worthy subject for historians of the next Age to investigate thoroughly?'''

Well, what hasn´t she done?  Sikandi has travelled the Treshold and the countries beyond having fabulous adventures, warstrider duels at dawn, slayed great beasts, waged war against the Raqksha and bedded feather-haired princes on beds of leaves. As the game starts, she has just arrived back to the Blessed Isle with the enormous head of the behemoth-like Coral Harrower, its´ once-living mineral hide still glistening with the jewels and precious metals of a thousand sunk ships over the course of centuries, tethered to the front of her sky-ship Black Crow King as a tribute to the Empress.

A lot of her adventures has been chronicled and distributed in pulp-romance novel form by the incomparable pen of [[Leedal Catala Cordelia]], who also minted some of Sikandi´s aliases - the Argent Blade and the Incomparable Crimson Captain being two of them. This has only sparked her fame even further, and her personal mythology is even grander and more spectacular than the woman herself.


'''4) What weaknesses do you possess that aren't just personal failings, but could be exploited by your enemies to cost you the Game of Thrones? What are the fields of engagement where you can't just apply Game Theory analysis, but instead will act against your interests?'''

This where things get interesting, of course. The earlier idea of Skandi being a hidden blade/operator for the Empress was stricken both because it interferred with the whole "glorious hero" deal unfavorably and because it stepped on some other character´s schticks, and they do that stuff better than Sikandi.

So what do we have under the surface? Well, on an obvious level she is a fish out of water in the higher political reaches - she has few if any true allies and a lot of petty enemies to go with her larger-than-even-Host-life lifestyle; some because they got whipped in some spur-of-the-moment duel or other, some because they envy her prowess and wish to make a name for themselves, some because they fear that someone else will pick her up and use her as a figurehead for their cause.

There´s also the matter of family - Sikandi´s first husband was Cynis Raiekh, a relatively mild-mannered Exalt of the Cynis household picked out as much for the excellent political alliance and high breeding as the favorable astronomical match and the fact that they were both born on the very same day. The pair had three children in a rather rapid - some would say hurried - succession, after which Sikandi left for the tempting horizon and a life of adventure. Raiekh stayed at home, minding his own business - and if there is truth to the rumor that the resentment that their three children feels for their mother mirrors his own, it is only they who can reveal it.

Raiekh died during what should have been a standard journey-by-sea to the satrapy of An-Teng where he would both act in the capacity of a bureaucrat of the Thousand Scales and greet his wife, who was a guest in the area at the time. The details are sparse, but the annals note him dying in a sudden storm - and it is the truth that there was a storm, both strong and unforeseen. Beyond that, people can only speculate. Sikandi was not overly heart-broken when she recieved the news, but she did send him off with dignity and poise before leaving yet again.

There are other things as well.

There are dark flipsides to every glorious, shiny story - and Sikandi carries a lot with her of which the stories keep their silence. "Gone native", people whisper. "Un-Dynastlike mannerisms." And it is a truth that she has picked up a lot on her travels, on the dark places beyond the Treshold. She carries with her nightmares and horrible memories, scars from her confrontations with monstrosities and forgotten tombs and things that feed on your fears and that can assume the mantle of horrors thought long forgotten.

Yes, Sesus Sikandi carries a heavy burden within - scars that she suffered on her very first travels, when she battled the Grey Eyes Prince, and who have only become deeper and more numerous since. She cannot allow herself to settle down. She is not sure if she recognizes herself in the mirror anymore. Looking at the faces of her children only strives to make this worse, and so she avoids it whenever possible.

Her wounds are always bleeding, and it is all that she can do to not have them stain the floor for everyone to see. Leedal Catala Cordelia knows more about this than anyone else, and she is a very personal weakness to Sikandi - because that knowledge might possibly not only hurt but destroy her, should it fall into the wrong hands.

==Backstory==
Backstory