Blazer Orpheus
The youngest member of his circle, Blazer remains idealistic and hopeful--but how long can his innocence last in the face of the Age of Sorrows?
Description
Blazer Orpheus
Twilight Caste
Anima Banner: A white comet, its head shaped like that of a mighty tundra wolf, streaks past, raining down burning snowflakes.
Str 0 Agl 2 Fgt 1 Awe 4
Sta 2 Dex 4 Int 13 Pre 2
Init +17
Dodge 10
Parry 7/3
Fort 8
Tough 8/2
Will 10
Skills: Acrobatics 2 (+4), Deception 6 (+7), Expertise: art 3 (+13), Expertise: history 3 (+13), Expertise: magic 5 (+15), Expertise: science 2 (+12), Expertise: theology 2 (+11), Insight 3 (+7), Perception 5 (+9), Persuasion 6 (+7), Ranged Combat: bows 4 (+8)
Advantages: Artificer, Attractive 2, Benefit(wealth) 1, Defensive Roll 6, Eidetic Memory, Equipment 2, Improved Aim, Improved Initiative 1, Inventor, Jack-of-All-Trades, Languages 4, Move-by Action, Ranged Attack 1, Ritualist, Speed of Thought, Ultimate Effort: Will, Uncanny Dodge, Well-Informed
*Notes: Yes, Blazer has all three versions of the “make new powers as devices/rituals” advantage. The player knows they’re mechanically near-identical, but he wants all three so that he can work at a given problem with thaumaturgy/sorcery, magitech, or traditional magic-item crafting as he wants.
Languages: Foresttongue, High Realm, Low Realm, Old Realm, Rivertongue, Seatongue, Skytongue
Headquarters
One of the pages of Blazer’s Tome of the Great Maker is a cleverly concealed doorway to a sanctum that travels with the book. This warehouse-sized space contains a laboratory, library, workshop, and enough living space for a dozen people, as well as a troop of bound elementals that act as servants and staff. The page is nestled among the books many thousands of leaves, and is both concealed from normal sight and sealed such that it requires the flare of an anima banner to open. The sanctum manifests as a tiny golden ziggurat that slowly seems to grow larger to a person as they enter it.
Powers
Alchemize: Quickness 9 (limited to Artificer advantage, check required 2 [DC 12 Expertise: Magic])
All-Encompassing Sorcerer’s Sight: Senses 4 (acute touch, analytical vision, magic awareness, rapid vision 1; innate), Senses 4 (accurate magic, acute magic, analytical magic, check required: expertise(magic) 3)
Anima Banner: Environment 2 (bright light; uncontrolled: activates when other powers are activated)
Twilight Caste anima ability: A Twilight Caste can spend 1 hero point to reduce the effects of failed Toughness saves by one level (to a minimum of one level) for the duration of a scene. (Thus, a failure by 5 levels or more still incapacitates the character.)
Excellent Physician’s Technique: (array)
Healing 7 (activation 1, distracting, check required: treatment 5)
-alternate: Wound-Mending Meditation: Regeneration 1 (affects others, persistent; activation 2)
-alternate: Healing Pulse: Healing 7 (area burst 1, check required: treatment 5, distracting, unreliable (5 uses), quirk (shares unreliable uses with Re-energizing Touch)
-alternate: Re-energizing Touch Restorative Healing 6 (check required: treatment 4, distracting, unreliable (5 uses), quirk (shares unreliable uses with Healing Pulse)
Hardship-Surviving Mendicant Spirit: Immunity 1 (environmental cold)
Swooping Shrike: (array)
-Spirit Bow: Ranged Damage 5 (accurate 1, affects insubstantial 1, multiattack; activation 1, quirk: need hands free to fire)
-alternate: Shielding Wings: Deflect 12 (triggered 4 (whenever a chosen ally is targeted by an attack), diminished range 1)
Mirror of Lives Past: Senses 2(postcognition, limited(previous incarnations only), tiring)
The Eyes Betray the Heart: Mind Reading 1 (subtle; limited to surface thoughts)
The Tome of the Great Maker (easily removable device array)
-“Ignition(flame bazooka)”: Burst Area Damage 7 (increased range 1; activation 2) [Fire]
-“Wildlands’ Embrace”: Cumulative Affliction 6 (vulnerable/hindered, defenseless/immobile) (alternate resistance: Dodge, cumulative, extra condition, increased range 1; activation 1, limited degree) [Wood]
-“The Coil”: Line Area Damage 7 (increased range 1; activation 2) [Air, Lightning]
-“The Cymbal”: Cone Area Damage 7 (increased range 1; activation 2) [Air, Sonic]
-“Cold Snap(ice whip)”: Line Area Damage 7 (increased range 1; activation 2) [Cold, Water]
-Clockwork Eyes and Ears: Remote Sensing 10 (affects visual and auditory, range 4 miles; noticeable: creates small creatures as spies)
Tundra Wolf’s Tireless Stride (array)
-Glowdisk: Flight 7 (platform)
-Falling Snow Step: Speed 7
-Flash Step: Teleport 3 (turnabout)
Combat Intuition: Enhanced Parry 4 (resistible by Will)
Third Eye: Enhanced Intellect 4 (activation 2, check required: expertise (magic) 1, unreliable (5 uses)), Enhanced Awareness 6 (check required: expertise (magic) 2, unreliable (5 uses), Will -2), Enhanced Dodge +2 (unreliable (5 uses)), Enhanced Ranged Combat 4 (unreliable (5 uses)), Counters Concealment (invisibility, unreliable (5 uses))
Terrestrial-Circle Sorcery: (array)
-Melody of the Soul
Complications
Distinctive Appearance
Blazer’s too-pretty looks draw attention wherever he goes, whether he wants that attention or not.
Enemy: Nagi Mystina
The Air aspect Nagi Mystina believed Blazer was destined for Dragon-blooded Exaltation (thanks partially to visions of “greatness” Blazer’s mentor had for the boy), and subtly tried to nudge him towards becoming her eventual consort. Upon his Exaltation as a Solar, though, she attempted to murder him, and swore to destroy the monster who had claimed the soul of her young scholar.
Enemy: The Bull of the North
The Bull of the North’s army burned down Blazer’s home and killed the monks within. His Exaltation came then, but it left him homeless and exposed to the Wyld Hunt. He has sworn to end the Bull’s tyranny.
Limit Break: Idealism
Blazer was once a pacifist, trained to approach problems from a nonviolent manner and deal with enemies without killing them. Though he has forsworn his original vows of total nonviolence, he still prefers not to kill when faced with opposition, which sometimes complicates his life.
Heart of Flint: Blazer’s idealism is deep-seated, but can only be pushed so far. Eventually, he closes off his mind to the concerns of others, and solves a dilemma in the most efficient manner possible, even if that involves getting his hands dirty.
Motivation: Curiosity
New information causes Blazer to enter an almost autistic state for a period of time relative to the scope of the new data.
Power Loss: Essence Attrition
If a Solar Exalted rolls a natural 1 on a d20 roll and that roll is also a failure, he must pay a hero point or suffer power loss for the remainder of the current scene.
Reputation: Anathema
Blazer Orpheus is a reborn Solar, considered to be a demon of the ancient world by the followers of the Immaculate Faith.
Bio
The boy who would become Blazer Orpheus was born to a society of monk-scholars living in the remains of a First Age library, where he was known as Shinn. The library culture was funded by a retired Water Aspect who had discovered it while on campaign and turned it into a pet project. Mostly staffed by native scholars, young Shinn was given a comprehensive education into both scholastic matters and practical crafting, tempering him into a pacifist with great respect for knowledge and faith alike.
In his teenaged years, one of the elderly scholars of the library became convinced that Shinn had a great destiny ahead of him, perhaps even to Exalt as a Dragon-Blood! The rumor became so common that one of the library-master’s friends, an Air Aspect visiting the library, became interested in possibly taking him away with her when she left. Shinn likely would have lived out a calm, scholastic life (either in the library or as the page to a Dragon-Blood) save for the sudden appearance of an arm of the Bull of the North’s army, far off course and looking for someone to take their aggression out on, and his own subsequent Second Breath.
Recognizing him as Anathema, the Dragon-Blood dueled Shinn but could not defeat him; in turn, Shinn could not bring himself to kill a woman that he now had to admit that he had feelings for. Shinn fled and discovered a sub-basement below the library where he found an imperishable book bound in orichalcum: the Tome of the Great Maker. Escaping through the caverns beneath the library, he finally learned hatred as well—for the army that had destroyed so much knowledge and so many innocent lives out of ignorance and fury. In that moment, he was Shinn no longer—but Blazer Orpheus. Blazer studies the book whenever he can, grasping only the basics of the theory, but enough to allow him to create temporary artifacts by manifesting them through his anima. He can create permanent artifacts the standard way, and knows a good deal about thaumaturgy and the principles of sorcery.
The events of the past year find Blazer in a markedly different place than before he met up with his sworn brothers and sister. He has shown extremely promising aptitude with sorcery, as introduced by his mentor The Walker in Darkness, honed his artifice abilities enough to throw together complex magical devices in mere minutes, dramatically expanded his Library, and discovered a new source of knowledge and insight by opening his Third Eye. However, this progress has not come without cost: at times, Blazer has run into considerable conflict with several of his circle-mates over their methods and beliefs, and has started to find himself questioning whether or not the Solars(and Lunars, for that matter) are truly more of a boon to the world than a bane. On top of this, he recently discovered that his own immediately previous incarnation – not the Bull of the North – was the mastermind behind the massacre at the Librarium. This has combined to put the young Twilight in a particularly reflective place – where that will take him is still cloudy and indeterminate, and only time will tell whether the long hours of study and meditation going on in the Library will lead him to reconciliation, or to something far darker.
