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| TRADE LORE | |||
| Cost | Name | ||
| Aranashi | |||
| 5 | 1) Small & Dodgy: +1 with DCV | ||
| 5 | 2) Concealment 13- | ||
| 1 | 3) CK: Narana (INT-based) 8- | ||
| 2 | 4) PS: Volomancer 11- | ||
| 5 | 5) Stealth 13- | ||
| 1 | Language: ZHAIIRIAN (idiomatic; literate) (5 Active Points) | ||
| 0 | Language: TRULT-UNDARI (basic conversation) (1 Active Points) | ||
| 0 | Language: ULT-UNDARI (basic conversation) (1 Active Points) | ||
| 3 | Language: UNDARI (idiomatic) (4 Active Points) | ||
| 1 | Language: HIGH ARANASHI (fluent conversation; literate) (3 Active Points) | ||
| 23 | Total Skills Cost | ||
| INFLUENCE AND CLOUT | |||
| Cost | Name | ||
| 2 | Volomancer Caste | ||
| 2 | Total Perks Cost | ||
| FLAIR AND APTITUDE | |||
| Cost | Name | ||
| 2 | Magical Adept (Adjustments) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Adjustments-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Attacks) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Attack-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Body-Affecting) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Body-Affecting based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Defenses) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Defense-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Mental) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Mental-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Movement) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Movement-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Sensory) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Sensory-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Sense-Affecting) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Sense-Affecting based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 2 | Magical Adept (Size) Notes: This Talent, which may only be taken at Character Creation, allows the character to purchase and use Size-based Spells in an "Adept" Cosmic Power Magic Pool under the campaign guidelines provided for Volomancy. |
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| 18 | Total Talents Cost | ||
| CHALLENGES | |||
| Cost | Disadvantage | ||
| Aranashi | |||
| 20 | 1) Aranashi Characteristic Maxima |
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| 5 | 2) DF: Aranashi Human (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses; Not Distinctive In Some Cultures) |
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| 5 | 3) Phys. Lim.: Light Sensitive (-1 to all rolls in Intense Light) (Infrequently, Slightly Impairing) |
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| 5 | 4) Phys. Lim.: Small (4 ft - 5 ft 4 inches; 100 to 165 lbs) (Infrequently, Slightly Impairing) |
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| 5 | Distinctive Features: Volomancer (Concealable with Magic; Extreme Reaction; Detectable Only By Unusual Senses (Detect Magic and equivalent); Not Distinctive In Some Cultures) | ||
| 10 | Psychological Limitation: Claustrophobia (Uncommon, Strong) | ||
| 15 | Psychological Limitation: Feels Gratitude To Zadeshi Empire (Common, Strong) | ||
| 15 | Psychological Limitation: Quiet & Reserved (Common, Strong) | ||
| 10 | Social Limitation: Not Born A Zadeshi (Thus Not A Full Citizen) (Very Frequently, Minor, Not Limiting In Some Cultures) | ||
| 5 | Social Limitation: Volomancer Caste (Frequently, Minor, Not Limiting In Some Cultures) | ||
| 15 | Unluck: 3d6 | ||
| 110 | Total Disadvantages Cost | ||
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| BEARING AND DEEDS | |||
| Height: 4' 9" | Hair: Black | ||
| Weight: 115 lbs | Eyes: Black | ||
| Appearance: Tall for an Aranashi, with a golden skin tone and black hair shaved back to the apex of the skull in the appropriate fashion for a Volomancer among the Zadeshi. Finds the Zadeshi and Undari lands to be chilly, and usually wears a thick dark robe to keep himself warm. | |||
| Personality: Gafka has no long term plans. He is grateful to the Zadeshi infrastructure for accepting him and he wants to prove himself worthy of his status. Other than that he takes it day by day. Between his years of being stuffed into the basement to avoid detection and hiding in a ships hold for weeks, Gafka has a marked aversion to claustrophobic conditions. Though not afraid of such circumstances, they do bring back bad memories and thus he avoids them when possible. | |||
| Quote:"Imiza norir vada." (EM-ee-ZAH, nor-EAR VA-dah; roughly translated: "Fate has more to do with things than you might think") | |||
| Background: Gafka was born in Borui, northernmost of the coastal city-states of the Gersaan Peninsula. His father was a miller and his mother baked hard-loaves from the mill's spill off, and combined enough money was made to insure a profitable existance. The third of five children Gafka was benignly neglected by his parents who lavished more attention on his eldest brother Gorzan and his youngest sister Kielli, but Gafka's early life was easy by local standards. Until he showed signs of his Volomantric gifts that is at age 13. Two and a half thousand years ago the Undari Empire was in it's prime and the Zhaiirian Empire's northern provinces were both beset by Varic aggression from the Varholds of the southern Dursha Mountains and the possibility of their expansionistic northern Undari cousins. Around this time a Volomancer named Berugah Luruk created a four armed giant that he named Ku. This giant was one of many odd creations Luruk and a team of other Volomancers made in the employ of the Zhaiirian government, tasked with creating a servitor race to send out to fight the Var and if necessary the Undari. There were numerous failures, but a handful of successes of which Ku was perhaps the greatest. Designed to be equally effective fighting on steep mountain slopes, underground, or on flat land, Ku was also impressively strong and durable. Ku was run through many tests to determine his capabilities and eventually poisoned to death and surgically studied. After five years this group of Volomancers created batches of 500 instances of each of three different servitor races; the four-armed giants like Ku they called the Gersaa, another race of anthropomorphized raptors called the Kiior, and a race of pack-hunting scavengers with oddly jointed limbs allowing them to run on four legs but use their fore limbs like hands called the Molgaa. Over the course of the next two years these creatures were trained and honed to serve special roles to assist the Zhaiirian military. Eventually they were deemed battle worthy and employed against the Var for the first time in an extended campaign. The Var were well used to fighting custom made servitor races and made short work of the Molgaa particularly (but many escaped into the wild and eventually bred enough to ensure the survival of the species). The Kiior were more successful against them as aerial scouts as long as the remained at sufficient elevation to avoid any weapons the Var could craft to kill them in the air. The Gersaa on the other hand did rather well against the Var; though the Var were extremely good at killing them in individual combat, the Gersaa's extra set of limbs gave them a marked advantage. In standup fights they were able to weild multiple shields, two massive weapons each, and weapons designed to keep the short Var at a distance. Some Gersaa were trained as grapplers and could grab a Var with their lower limbs and pummel them with their upper limbs. For their own part the Gersaa and the Kiior eventually came to harbor a deep resenment bordering on hatred towards their creators, who were not kind to them in the slightest and churned them out to fight in a war not of their own making. They fought the Var, but were treated with so little respect by their Zhaiirian masters that they had no involvement with anyone other than themselves. However, the citizenry of that part of the Empire viewed them differently than did the military, seeing them as brave heroes against the Var and untouched by the corruption that was rife in the Zhaiirian military and government in that era. This would prove to be vital in days to come. Back in the rear the Volomancers made more Gersaa and Kiior, which eventually joined the war effort after training. Records indicate that the Volomancers made 9,750 Gersaa and 6,250 Kiior over the course of a decade before being stopped by a daring Var assault deep into Zhaiirian territory to destroy the facilities and slay the Volomancers at the Zhaiirian city of Forzava (which was later lost to the Sea in the Cataclysm). At this point the surviving Gersaa and Kiior were allowed to breed among themselves; up until this point all of them had been created as all available creatures male or female were thrown into the lines. The war with the Var continued for another three hundred and twenty years, though there were quiet spells occassionally as both sides paused to lick their wounds. Inevitably the Var were being pushed out of the mountains and four Varholds fell to the armies of Zhaiir. Eventually the surviving Var abandoned their holds and departed the area, unable to sustain their dwindling numbers. By this time the Gersaa and Kiior population was quite large and very millitant. No longer needing so many the Zhaiirian government decided to reduce their numbers and sent a contingent of Volomancers to accomplish the task of reducing the Gersaa's population to no more than five thousand total and the Kiior to three thousand. This would prove to be a very stupid and costly mistake. It never occured to the distant Zhaiirian governers that the Gersaa and Kiior would resist this effort for they did not think of them as living people, but saw them instead as war machines, more like a catapult than a person. The Gersaa and the Kiior would not stand for this latest abuse and rebeled. The revolt was short lived as the might of the Zhaiirian army and increasing numbers of Volomancers and the occasional Riftmagi forced them to abandon their revolt and flee into the mountains, but therein they found shelter in the abandoned Varhold's of their vanquished foes. This period cemented the Gersaa's and Kiior's hatred of the Volomancers, but significantly many of the local Zhaiirians of the region bordering the mountains who were well disposed to the Gersaa and Kiior helped them escape Zhaiirian patrols and get up into the mountains. This unexpected assistance would be remembered later. A few hundred years passed with the Gersaa and Kiior establishing themselves in their new homes in the abandoned Varholds and environs of the Dursha Mountains, while the Zhaiirians maintained ever-decreasing patrols along the borderlands. Eventually, when the Gersaa did not come out of the mountains to attack them the Zhaiirian government conveniently forgot about the affair. Then the Cataclysm came and wiped out most of northern Zhaiir, swallowing it into the Sea and the Empire itself collapsed in the aftermath. Only the easternmost fringe of the northern Zhaiirian Emprire, the hilllands bordering the Dursha Mountains, survived. In the days to come the Gersaa exerted their influence and absorbed these lands in a basically non-violent fashion. Their terms were simple; a yearly and reasonable tithe from each settlement to the Gersaa would guarantee that the Gersaa would leave them alone. One clause: all Volomancers must be slain and any settlement harboring a Volomancer would be punished. After requisite displays of force on the part of the Gersaa, the Volomancers either fled the region or were struck down. Thereafter to the modern day any child showing signs of the Volomantric Gifts are either sent away by their loved ones or slain by the populace lest the ire of the Gersaa fall upon them. When Gafka showed signs of the Gift, his parents couldnt afford to send him away at the time but his mother couldnt bear to see him executed. Thus Gafka was hidden in the basement of the mill when people were around while his parents tried to figure out a way to get him out of the region or come up with some other solution. This was possible because the mill was outside of the town proper and had no immediate neighbors. Eventually however after the secret was let out by the talkative young Kielli and the authorities arrived with a guard contingent to collect him. Gafka refused to be captured however and used his untrained power to escape, killing several guardsmen in the process. Running along the ridgelines south of Borui along the coast of the Sea of Osloanda with guardsmen in close pursuit, he saw several merchant ships departing the port out across the water, and willed himself to be on one. In a blink he disappeared and reappeared on the deck of the ship he had focused on, luckily in an out of the way location. Undetected, he managed to hide himself below decks and survive off of food stored in the hold and rats. The ship was a shallow-drafted coaster from Arvanis and turned north to return to it's home port at Narana, which had been the capital of Arvanis prior to the Zadeshi occupation. Gafka was able to get off the ship without being detected by repeating the teleporting trick that had got him on it, and the almost 16 year old lad didnt stand out particularly among the Undari (as the Undari and the Zhaiirians are both Aranashi), though his inability to speak the language was a problem. Alone, broke, and without any real hope he was stuck on the streets. After several days of hand to mouth existance however, a group of Urzali, priests of the Zadeshi state religion, came among the homeless and poor dispensing food and looking for converts. Unable to understand what they were talking about Gafka nevertheless understood free food and tagged along with several other disenfranchised and poor people in the wake of the Urzali back to the fairly new ziggurat erected by the Zadeshi to honor their gods. There the collected downtrodden were sat down and given a grand sermon, which of course Gafka was unable to understand, but after this the assembled were given food. Knowing a good thing when he was fed it, Gafka took to loitering around the ziggurat and attended every sermon he could get in to, mostly for the free food. However, he was also starting to pick up a little bit of the Undari language from the streets, and these lengthy sermons also helped him pick up on the language more. It wasnt too long before he came to the attention of the Urzali priests due to his frequent attendance and one day the Endra in charge of the temple spoke to him directly after a sermon. Gafka tried to respond but his poor grasp on the language was not up to the task. Fortunately for him the Endra, whose name was Zorazaneh Urkagek, spoke Zhaiirian as well and recognized his accent. Breaking into Zhaiirian, Urkagek got parts of Gafka's story out of him. Taking pity on the young man, and curious about him as well, Urkagek gave the lad shelter in the temple. The gift of Volomancy exists among the Zadeshi but is extremely rare, with perhaps only 10 to 20 being born each generation. Volomancers are considered to be of a very high caste and often hold positions of authority, being valued servants of the royal caste. Thus, over the coming days of getting to know the lad better and drawing him out, Urkagek encouraged Gafka to swear loyalty to the Zadeshi Empire and take up the worship of the Urzed religion. The young Gafka could see the wisdom of this and agreed. Now, three years later Gafka is a trusted servant of Opurkeh Bahurka, a lesser member of the royal caste and ruler of Narana, and an ally of the Urzed temple. He has been tasked to be part of a missionary group, nominally led by the Anilzo Shevinan Thurisis, that will go forth into the lands of the Undari nations that have not been annexed by the Zadeshi and try to find converts. Such missions are sent out on occasion and have been generally unsuccessful, but are deemed to be worth the effort by the powers that be. Generally the Zadeshi contingents are not molested, but on occasion they are or meet with ill chance, and since Thurisis is a promising young Anilzo and a favorite of the aging Urkagek, who is now an Enza (the highest order of priesthood in Urzedrek), he asked Gafka to go along with the contingent as a personal favor. |
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| Campaign Use: Young Volomancer, Magic System comparison point | |||