[Shadows of Nexus] Niara Shadowleaf, Rising Sorceress

Wolf Rawrrr

Wolf Rawrrr

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  • Name: Niara Shadowleaf


    Age: 23


    Apparent Age: 23


    Place of Birth: Great Forks


    Gender: Female


    Caste: Twilight


    Concept: Rising Sorceress


    Motivation: Find the legendary vault of powerful artifacts hidden somewhere in or near Nexus, and claim it for the House of Learning.


    Anima Banner: Broad angel wings made of gold and azure Essence.


    Intimacies:

    • Great Forks (her beloved city where she was born and raised, and of which is very protective)
    • House of Learning (the academy where she studied and for whose secret division she works)
    • Mar (a young Terrestrial Exalt who works in her division and to whom she is very close)


    Appearance: 5'9'', 145 lb, white skin, deep green eyes, long straight blonde hair usually tied up in a ponytail, beautiful

    Born in Great Forks. Niara's mother passed away only minutes after giving birth to her, barely having the chance to hold her daughter. Her father served in the army, but dedicated every moment of his spare time to Niara. As soon as she was old enough to hold a training sword, he insisted that she become skilled in fencing - afraid that one day he may not be there to protect her. The girl didn't mind growing up around training grounds, and loved her father - the only parent she ever knew - more than anything else in the world. When she wasn't training, she was scholared in the House of Learning by various tutors. Even in her early years, she displayed an amazing affinity for ancient lore, the occult, and puzzle-solving.


    Niara was 9 years old when her father left for the Battle of Mishaka along with 3,000 other troops sent from Great Forks. He was not among the 100 that returned home. Losing her father was a crushing experience for the young girl and she grew up distant and remote, but harboring hatred toward the Realm, which she blamed for both her father's death and misery that the war brought to her homeland. Niara was taken in by the House of Learning, specifically the people running its secret division called the Acting Arm, which actually employed the House's gathered knowledge and artifacts in practice. The girl had already shown interest in the right direction, and as she was young and now alone in the world, she made a perfect candidate to be raised as an agent of this secret group.


    During the next thirteen years, Niara rose through the ranks of the Acting Arm, her successes earning her ever more trust and influence within the House of Learning. She proved a skilled combatant and an even better investigator and scholar on matters of lore and the occult. She was regularly sent out on expeditions into the wilderness to recover artifacts and lost knowledge, and often worked with the city watch as an investigator to solve crime. Despite her young age, she had never once failed an assignment, and had made quite a name for herself in Great Forks. Eventually her fabled lone wolf personality gave way when she met Mar, a Terrestrial Exalted who was also part of the secret division. The two of them got close, but she was reluctant to engage in an official relationship.


    At the age of 22 an expedition Niara was on went terribly wrong. She and Mar were supposed to investigate a newly discovered underground ruin supposed to containt artifacts of the First Age, but the place turned out to be a Freehold. Before the two realized what they had disturbed, they were already under attack by the guardianst. Trapped, their chances of survival weren't great, even with one of them being a Dragon Blooded - but the Unconquered Sun had other plans. In His wisdom, that hour was chosen for Niara's Exaltation as one of the Twilight Caste. With her newfound powers, Niara and Mar managed to fight their way out of the Freehold and reach safety.


    Niara returned to Great Forks as a hero of the House of Learning and its Acting Arm, strengthening her position in it further. Her new status as a Solar Exalt was celebrated, though she did not make it a known fact outside the House. Nevertheless, rumors began circulating and within a year everyone in Great Forks knew that a new Solar Exalted had made her appearance. This likely meant great changes for the academy and the city, but for now Niara embarked on a new mission of critical importance to Nexus, to pursue the legend of a hidden vault containing powerful magical artifacts that she would find and bring back to the House of Learning in the name of the Acting Arm.
 
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Ach, the Resources had a mistake. I was copying stuff from the PDF sheet too quickly. Corrected to 2 points. Thanks :P


As for the demon: wow :o


I love it! :D I didn't come across those in the Roll of Glorious Divinity II though. Have I just missed it or is this something beyond vanilla?
 
Szmiya look like they might be ok, though I'm not entirely sure about the +2 to all DVs. That gives them more DV than most starting Solars could even hope to get, all for 20m, 1wp... Which will be recovered by morning. I think I'd feel better about them without that bonus, bringing their PDV down to a (still respectable) 8.


Granted, I'm not very familiar with many of the other First Circle Demons, so if that would make them decidedly weaker than most others of the same class and it's pointed out, I may give them their DV bonus back.
 
They are that combat worthy due to the fact that they are very fragile psychologically. Their mental defenses are REALLY bad, so they have to get some combat boosts to make up for it. It takes two WP to resist any mental influence for them.
 
I understand that. However, how often are they gonna be in social conflict? When they're summoned, they'd pretty much be told, "Stay immaterial until there's a threat, then guard me," meaning that they simply follow you around with nobody even knowing they're there, just to suddenly materialize when there's something to defend against, leaving very little chance of social conflict at all.


That happens to almost completely negate the fact that they're terribly weakened in regards to Wp costs for ignoring influences. Especially when considering that an order from the Sorcerer would trump any mundane mental influence, regardless of how susceptible they are to such influence. Which would cause most negative effects of such influence to be overridden as soon as the Sorcerer opens her mouth.
 
I have no idea what you're implying. I was lost enough as it was during character creation - despite having the PDFs, browsing the internet and maintaining a near-constant Skype link with the Storyteller. Are you telling me the sheet is flawed?
 
The Errata doubled the cost of perfect defenses because they were simply too spammable. One of my houserules also alters them, removing the Flaws of Invulnerability (which I absolutely despise) and replacing them with a +1wp surcharge if the Charm is being used against an effect that it would normally be inapplicable against, such as an undodgeable attack being dodged by Seven Shadow Evasion.
 
First, I am pretty sure I looked at the Errata, since that is supposed to be the "patched" version of the game.


Second, I still kinda hate the way Exalted is (dis)organized.


Third, am I supposed to do something about this or not? wow, such confuse, wolfe unsure
 
Well, raised them to 8m for Solars. That's more than double.


(edit: I apologize for making a problem happen.)
 
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Just raise the cost of Seven Shadow Evasion to 6m (+1Wp). The cost of all perfect defenses was increased to 8m in the Errata, but I kinda don't like the fact that Seven Shadow Evasion's cost was increased by 167% when the others were only increased by 100%, so I set it to 6m instead. So unless somebody has a compelling reason not to have it at 6m rather than 8m, that's what we're gonna use :P
 
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