http://www.deviantart.com/art/Kiana-403689997<br/><br/>Transcendent Starlight Beauty<br/>Caste: Night<br/><br/>Background: She was born as simply Night Star. The child of a mortal soldier of Lookshy on leave and a lovely but poor peasant girl in one of the smaller villages of the southern Scavenger Lands, Night Star's prospects weren't good. The soldier denied all connections once he found out the girl was pregnant. The girl's family wasn't about to raise some bastard when they could barely feed themselves. As soon as the child was born she was sold off to the next Guild caravan to come through, over her mother's objections. The Guild in turn sold her off to a geisha house for a hefty profit. They didn't realize exactly what they were selling her into.<br/><br/>This particular geisha house, the Mist of Sapphire Blossoms, was owned by one Spring Blossom. Spring Blossom was the public face of the Diving Raiton Society. The "society" is a polite name for a criminal organization that has deep roots. Members of the Society run everything from smuggling to murder-for-hire. They have magistrates in their pockets, and count nobles among their leadership. The Society has many facets, and many fronts. Spring Blossom, who was a member of the Society's administrative ranks, ran the "sweet" side of the operation: honeytrap operations, prostitution, and the more high-class geisha and courtesans. Her job was training and managing agents who could be invited into places and then could seduce, steal, or kill as needed, sometimes all three. She ran all this from behind an unassuming and polite mask as the head of a geisha house. This was the world Night Star was sold into.<br/><br/>Her early years were shaped almost from the time she could walk. She and the other children were praised and graded on how well they could lie and decieve. They learned early that they could get out of trouble by informing on other children for their own crimes, if they were clever enough to come up with a convincing lie or could fake evidence well. The children were assigned chores, and fed only when they did their chores. But those children who could convince or bully other children to do their chores for them got the best meals and the nicest toys. By five the children were separated. Those considered pretty enough, talented enough, and smart enough began their training. The rest were sold off into lesser branches of the Diving Raiton Society. Waste not, want not. Night Star was one of the lucky ones chosen to remain, and begin her training. Over the next ten years she learned the arts of dance, of seduction, poisons, and theft. She learned how to be what people expected and to be completely unique. She also learned to trust no one. To view people and events solely in terms of how she could manipulate them for maximum gain. The only being she ever allowed herself to get close to was the house cat. She learned, painfully, that people betray and gods are fickle. She drove herself to be the best, because only then could she be sure that her heart couldn't be betrayed.<br/>She was taught to find joy in her work, in the ways she could twist others around her fingers, and she relied on that joy as the only thing she could truly count on.<br/><br/><br/>Her constant rival during these years was a girl named Oasis Willow, who constantly strove against her. Oasis Willow was pretty, but not as pretty as Starlight. Talented, but not as talented. She always strove to be better than Starlight and never quite measured up. So when the Society got a very lucrative contract for the honeytrap division, it was only natural for the trainees to compete for the honor. And Starlight won, as she always did. She was assigned to infilitrate the court of a nobleman notoriously unwilling to be bribed or threatened, kill him and his immediate family, and send a message to anyone else who might resist subversion by the Society. It was a simple enough assignment. She successfully infilitrated the household by befriending the man's daughter, Sunset Spark, and being taken on as a household servant.  After a few months of memorizing the household layout, servant schedules, and earning the trust of the staff and family, she was ready to move. There was only one thing that troubled her. Over her months of preparation she'd become a trusted confidant of Sunset Spark. The teenage girl was surprisingly friendly, as well as terribly lonely. Her mother had died of a wasting illness. Her brother was a soldier and gone on deployment a lot, and her father, though well-meaning, had no real idea how to raise a daughter. Her position kept her isolated, and by the time she met Starlight she was dying for a friend close to her own age.<br/><br/>Something about the open way Sunset connected to her caused Starlight to begin to have doubts about her mission. She was used to the pit of vipers she'd grown up with and the intrigue of her previous assignments. Sunset's honesty and vulnerability touched a chord in her that she struggled very hard to deny was even possible. The fact that Sunset often donated of her family wealth to help the poor and sick in her family's lands struck Starlight as too good to be a true, an obvious attempt at mollifying the masses. But still, she seemed so sincere, and Starlight, who was trained to know a liar and a con when she saw one, could detect no falsehood in her.  The existence of someone who was not a cynical manipulator threw her. Genuine friendship was something she was never trained for. And she felt strangely warm when Sunset would take her and the other household staff out to contribute to the poor houses and asylums. The night she was to carry out the assassination, she was having serious doubts about whether or not she should, let alone if she could kill Sunset.<br/><br/>It turned out not to matter. Oasis Willow and some of the others from her training program had decided that if they couldn't beat Starlight on their own merits, they would ruin her. They leaked information about the assassination plot to Sunset's father and the city guard. When the guard came for her, she was with Sunset and the other attendants on the way back to the mansion after a day helping in the slums. Realizing that she was compromised, she began to fight. But when she saw Sunset (mistaken for an accomplice by a hasty guard) come under attack, something in her changed. She couldn't let this innocent girl suffer for her crimes. Or even her other attendants. She fought fiercely and led the guards a merry chase back into the slums. When the exhausted and angry guards decided to torch the building she was holing up in, starting a fire that threatened to consume the slums, she looked down and saw all the work and care of Sunset going up in flames. And she knew it was wrong that so many should die, so much hope lost, over her. She snuck out of that deathtrap, killed every one of those guards, then went to the slum-dwellers and with her force of charisma and gathered them at the shelter Sunset used. It was the safest place from the fire. Starlight knew she had to go, but there were two things left to do.<br/><br/>First, she made her way through the cordon of security back to Sunset Spark and she thanked the girl. Thanked her for showing her that not everyone was an evil, amoral user, and she asked her to continue her good work. The second item on her agenda was revenge. She made her way back to the Mist of Sapphire Blossoms in secret. Not knowing that the whole organization had not betrayed her, she broke into Spring Blossom's hidden chambers and retrieved her hidden ledgers, blackmail files, and other compromising information on the honeytrap division of the Diving Raiton Society. Oasis Willow and the other conspirators caught her as she exited the office. To say that they were surprised is an understatement. Starlight didn't give them much chance to enjoy it. She buried a dagger in Oasis Willow's eye, and then the battle was on. Starlight's talents were for seduction and targeted assassination. A straight up fight against numbers wasn't her forte. But she refused to give up. Not now. These people had lied to her her whole life. They had used her for their own cynical gain and would have had her kill a woman who tried to help so many others. As five guards closed in on her, swords ready to snuff her life, a golden circle blazed into being on her forehead. She would not die here! She'd bring down this nest of vipers if it was the last thing she did!<br/><br/>In the rush of Exaltation, she slid under the blades. She surprised herself by killing all the guards. Then killing anyone else who got in her way. She managed to escape, and then proceeded to use the information she found in Spring Blossom's files to uncover damning evidence on other Society members, breaking into their homes and businesses to acquire the info. At each stop, she made it a point to assassinate the division heads and leadership of the Society, all in a single night. She finished by slipping the information she'd gathered to the few uncorruptible magistrates that had been pursuing the Society all the years of her life. Within a day, the leaderless members of the Society were rounded up. Without the extensive blackmail files, money (she'd stolen all she could carry), and other resources, the members were easy prey for the law, and couldn't rely on the crooked magistrates, judges, and nobles to protect them. Of course, Starlight was long gone by the time the magistrates had captured Oasis Willow and the rest of her "family".<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Attributes<br/><br/>Charisma: 2<br/>Manipulation: 4<br/>Appearance: 5<br/><br/>Perception: 3<br/>Intelligence: 3<br/>Wits: 3<br/><br/>Strength: 2<br/>Dexterity: 3<br/>Stamina: 2<br/><br/>Caste Abilities<br/><br/>Socialize: 3<br/>Stealth: 2<br/>Larceny: 3<br/>Athletics: 2<br/>Awareness 2<br/><br/>Favored Abilities<br/><br/>Presence:  3<br/>Performance: 3<br/>Integrity: 3<br/>Thrown: 3<br/>Dodge: 2<br/><br/>Supernal Ability: Larceny<br/><br/>Occult: 1<br/>Resistance: 1<br/>Linguistics: 1<br/><br/><br/><br/>Merits<br/><br/>5 for Hidden Justice (moonsilver and green jade throwing needles)<br/>3 for Belt of Shadow Walking<br/>4 for Shadow's Embrace<br/>Hearthstone (Freedom Stone)<br/>Res 2<br/><br/><br/>BP Spends<br/><br/>6 for Stealth, Awareness, Athletics 2.<br/>2 for Dodge 2 and Thrown 3<br/>HS: Freedom Stone<br/>2 for Belt of Shadow Walking<br/>2 for Res 2<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Hidden Justice: Vyer Akelos was the last person you'd expect to be an assassin. That's what made him such a good one. In the First Age, Akelos was a Waning Moon who served as mate to a glorious Solar of the Zenith caste. Akelos's mate was a good and righteous ruler, but woefully naive. Akelos was in charge of his security, and far more pragmatic and ruthless than his love. He developed Hidden Justice to strike at those foes of his mate who were too high-profile to simply be torn apart by claws or fangs. Akelos would conduct thorough investigations on potential enemies, then use his shapeshifting talents and skills as a spy to sneak in and assassinate those targets that needed killing. Or just frame or sabotage those enemies too highly placed for assassination.<br/><br/>Formed of moonsilver with green jade worked into the handles, these poisoned needles were designed to be thrown at a considerable distance. One who has mastered them can cause the needles to bend and warp, flowing around and through weak points in armor to deliver their deadly poisons. They can leave behind slivers of moonsilver that seek the heart of an enemy. And by magic, they return to the hand of their wielder once they've done their deadly work.<br/><br/>Shadow's Embrace: In the First Age, if you were a criminal in the West you quickly learned to fear and hate the name of Twelve Shades. Known among his peers as Twelve Shadows Flowing, this Night Caste Solar was a fearsome and harsh inquisitor. Under a variety of assumed names and guises, both male and female, Twelve Shades wormed his way into criminal conspiracies of mortals, renegade spirits, rogue demons, and even the plots of less scrupulous Exalted. He'd gather evidence meticulously, sometimes spending years on his investigations. Then he'd strike. Conspiracies and cartels would awake to find their leaders dead or hauled up before the Deliberative with so much damning evidence they couldn't hope to get off. He struck without fear or favor, and was infamous for his inability to be bribed or threatened off a case.<br/><br/>After a particular close call in which a black market Exigent enforcer for a cartel had nearly sniped him down, Twelve Shades commissioned this blue jade and orichalcum chain shirt. He needed something flexible enough to wear when deep undercover but sturdy enough to hold up to the abuses he often took. It was designed with a socket for a hearthstone, as he often used hearthstones (and sorcery) to aid in his investigations. The chain shirt gave him increased awareness of the hostile intent of others, as well as bending light to better conceal him from the senses of enemies.</div></div><br/>Charms<br/><br/>Precision of the Striking Raptor (p. 415)<br/>Joint-Wounding Attack (p. 416)<br/>Graceful Crane Stance (p. 261)<br/>Monkey Leap Technique (p. 261)<br/>Perfect Shadow Stillness (p. 403)<br/>Reed In The Wind (p. 299)<br/>Dust Motes Whirling (p. 299)<br/>Mastery of Small Manners (p. 393)<br/>Masterful Performance Exercise (p. 361)<br/>Seasoned Criminal Method (p. 315)<br/>Blinding Battle Feint (p. 404)<br/>Spurious Presence (p .315)<br/>Preying on Uncertainty Approach (p. 316)<br/>Swift Gambler's Eye (p. 316)<br/>Lightning-Hand Sleight (p. 316)<br/><br/>Intimacies and Limit Trigger<br/><br/>Defining Intimacy: I don't know who I am anymore. I need to find out who and what I am now.<br/><br/>Major Intimacy: Sunset Spark showed me what compassion and generosity were. I should support others like her in the world.<br/><br/>Negative Intimacy: Oppressive or unjust rulers.<br/><br/>Positive Intimacy: Those who presevere in the face of unjust oppression.<br/><br/>Limit Trigger: Seeing the generous and compassionate being ground under and not doing (or not being able to do) anything about it.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Parry: 2<br/>Resolve: 3<br/>Guile: 4<br/>Evasion: 3<br/><br/>