<em>Elegy for the Damned</em><br/><strong>Caste:</strong>Day<br/><strong>Age:</strong>17<br/><strong>Gender:</strong>Female<br/><strong>Concept:</strong><em>It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathknight</em><br/><strong>Motivation:</strong>To avenge herself by utterly destroying the rogue Abyssal Ravenous Murder of Black-Winged Fate.<br/><br/><strong>Description:</strong><br/><br/>Elegy is slender and wispy, her frame has been visibly honed to near-perfection in flexibility, agility, balance, and speed.  Her strength, however, is wholly supernatural; though in superb physical condition, she lacks the sheer size and musculature to match the sort of terrifying raw power she effortlessly displays.<br/><br/>There is every indication that Elegy would have been a lovely young woman if she hadn't accepted the Black Exaltation.  The dark gifts have made her breathtaking instead.  Her skin has become a flawless porcelain, her lips purple-black with a natural sheen, like smoothed obsidian, or perhaps as though freshly wet with blood.  Her hair is cropped near the shoulders, jet-black and often kept in slight disarray, her bangs splashing haphazardly across her face.  Her eyes are fathomlessly deep pools of coal black, reflecting nothing, muted with a dusting of deep, royal lavender from her eyelids to her brows.  Her features are sharp--aristocratic, in the sense of Dynastic heritage--with high-arching brows and raised cheekbones.<br/><br/>Normally, Elegy wears a hooded black cloak common to funerary hermits who live in the far Southeast, where mausoleum-city necropoli are still common.  Underneath, unless dressed to "blend in", she generally wears only intricate wrappings of pristine white bandages; these are often as much functional as part of the trappings of the Underworld, as her Air Dragon Style can take a considerable toll on her body.<br/><br/>Elegy recovered a set of Yoroi Rapid-Response Armor from her family's vault, chosen over the few other surviving models there for its ability to operate without upkeep.  This lack of maintenance is obvious: the armor is chipped, dented, cracked, and indellibly stained with blood, with the moonsilver and jade long-since tarnished, dulled, or simply faded into a spectral gray.  Adorned with the full helmet, she looks like nothing so much as a phantasmal soldier from a bygone age, a walking suit of armor whose owner perished, forgotten, in a war no one remembers.<br/><strong><br/>Personality:</strong><br/><br/>Even for an Abyssal, Elegy is disturbingly detached from most of the events that take place around her.  Though many deathknights feign an air of indifference or callousness, they are usually as prone to the opposite of those emotions they disdain: where a normal person might feel sympathy, they delight in sadism; where a mortal might experience gut-wrenching terror, they find a heady rush of excitement at the inevitability of doom; where despair, elation; where love, disgust and searing hate.<br/><br/>Not so for Elegy.  The majortiy of the time, she experiences no strong feelings or impulses whatsoever.  To the outside observer, it appears as if she has no concern for the world, and perhaps doesn't even consider those around her "real".  The truth is the opposite: to her mind, Elegy is already dead and gone, existing in this world only as a dreadful revenent bent on revenge.  Everything else she can easily regard with cold discernment.<br/><br/>This does mean that under those circumstances where she sees her goal in sight, she can easily become completely, irrationally tempestuous.  The raw intensity of her single-minded devotion and fearlessness brought on by her fatalistic world-view can be slightly disturbing even to other deathknights when roused.<br/><br/>Elegy is not stupid.  She realizes that she is no match for The Lion and cannot, as of the current time, afford his ire.  Likewise, she realizes that the Walker in Darkness is playing at something far more complex than he lets on, and is fairly certain that it will raise an obstacle in her path that will need to be dealt with.  She is capable of working within the system set by The Lion to accomplish her goals, at least until such a time until she feels her "liege" is no longer needed.<br/><strong><br/>Background:</strong><br/><br/>Centuries ago, a First Age Lunar created the Bulwarks of the Four Directions as a last-ditch effort to stave off what he saw as the inevitability of the Wyld overwhelming the Realm's defense systems.  Deceptive in name, the Bulwarks were not towering fortresses or pieces of grandiose First Age artifice; rather, they were small villages secreted away in the furthest reaches of Creation, at the edge of the Wyld.<br/><br/>These villages were intended not as first-line defenses--they were too small, and almost entirely populated by mortals--but rather as breeding grounds for the evolution of fit and hale humans not only resistant to the Wyld taint, but also tested by survival of the horrors spewed out by the Bordermarches...  that is to say, excellent would-be candidates to serve as recipient's of Luna's blessing.<br/><br/>Years ago, when the Realm still had the might to concern itself with such far-flung matters, a Wyld Hunt was dispatched to slay the Anathema who served as patron of the Bulwark of the East.  The hunters, led by an Immaculate monk and his disciples of the Whispering Wind, were ultimately unsuccessful.  Rather than return to the Blessed Isle in shame, they chose to remain in the Bulwark as its protectors and enforcers, lending Terrestrial might to the defense of the largely mortal populace.<br/><br/>This was the beginning of the Whispering Wind Clan.  The clan lived in a compound cordoned off from the rest of the village due to lingering suspicions on the part of the Lunar patron, and to prevent their dragon's blood from "tainting" potential candidates for future Children of Luna.  They kept mostly to themselves so as to maintain the purity of their bloodlines.  This is the family to which Elegy, in her past life as Yukikaze of the Whispering Wind, was born.<br/><br/>The youngest of two siblings born to the purest and most prominent breeding of the clan, Elegy and her elder brother were raised under the weight of immense expectations.  Not only was she trained, as with every other child in the village, in the ways of the wood and survival, but also groomed from a very young age to inherit the Immaculate martial arts passed down through her family upon inevitable exaltation.  The burden was one she carried well: among the entire village, only one other youth--an orphan of Raksha invasions named Blazing Temper of the Unmatched Beast--could even come close to matching her.<br/><br/>The pressure seemed too much for her older brother, however.  In secret, he forged a pact with the Walker in Darkness; for immortality and unfathomable power, he agreed to sever his ties with everything in his mortal life.  And he did so--thoroughly.  On a cold moonless night, he slaughtered the entire Whispering Wind clan to the man--or rather the girl, as Elegy was the only one he spared.  He told her that he did this because she was beneath notice, unworthy even of contempt; there was no need to slay her to sever his ties with his old life, because there were no bonds between them to break.<br/><br/>Among the flocks of carrion birds and the nightmarish carnage wrought by her brother, Elegy's mind snapped.  The young woman became convinced that her life had ended, for all intents and purposes, and was entirely without meaning; the only reason she continued to exist was to exact retribution on her deranged brother.<br/><br/>Madly driven in her mission, she raided the manse of her fallen family for its secrets: the weapons, armor, and scrolls of Immaculate martial arts passed down from the monk who first came to slay the Bulwark's Anathema.  She withdrew completely from society, living and training tirelessly in the nightmare-haunted corridors of the Whispering Wind compound.  Before long, the only one in the Bulwark who even tried to keep contact with her was Blazing Temper, who seemed to fret increasingly over her consuming obsession.<br/><br/>As she began to teeter on the edge of despair, having realized that she was plateauing at the limits of what her mortal body was capable of--even a hundred years would never be enough to cross the ocean between her strength and her brother's unholy proewss!--the Walker in Darkness returned to offer his services once more.  Of her, he demanded a far less exacting toll; she had already given up on the world of the living in his eyes, so she had only to seek him in the Underworld and offer her fealty, and the power to overcome her brother would be hers.<br/><br/>The only one who noticed when she stole away in the night was Blazing Temper, and he pursued her tirelessly through the eternal twilight of the skyless jungle canpoy.  He caught her at the edge of the nearby shadowland where the Bulwark interred its dead; he knew she meant to make a similar dark pact to what her brother had, and he had every intention of stopping her.  He was even prepared to use force, if necessary.<br/><br/>He was not prepared for her to respond with lethal force in return.  Against a roughly even-matched opponent with killing intent, he could not hope to win; she struck him down with what should have been a fatal blow.  To her surprise, Blazing Temper exploded with glorious and terrible celestial light, exalting in the favor of the Unconquered Sun before her very eyes in the moment that his mind began to fade into unconsciousness from shock.  The resurgent persona of the long-lost god-king within him came to the fore in his absence, and battled back against her with a power utterly unmatched; in moments, she was hurled, utterly broken and helpless, into a shadowy moonlit lake.<br/><br/>As she sank into darkness, she could only reflect on her failures--her body too broken to even drag herself back up toward the surface--and watch the light fade as water filled her lungs.  A voice spoke to her from the depths, a scathing whisper cursing her impotence and frailty, and assuring her respite--from her mortal weakness, from the despair of her impossible crusade, from her inevitable death...  at least, for a while.  "A while" was all she would require, if the promise of power held true; she readily agreed.<br/><br/>Reborn Elegy for the Damned, she emerged from the bloodied and disquiet lake in full command of her new powers.  Blazing Temper, distraught with what he had done after returning to his senses, once again found himself outmatched.  This time, though, she couldn't bring herself to land the killing blow--no matter how much the searing, maddening whispers of her new masters demanded it from the echoes of the pit.<br/><br/>To Elegy's surpise, however, it was not the Walker who came for her in the depths, but The First and Forsaken Lion.  The Walker in Darkness seems strangely undisturbed by this "poaching" of a prospective servitor, and equally calm about the fact that her older brother--Ravenous Murder of Black-Winged Fate--has gone rogue.<br/><br/>There's obviously some game afoot, but for the moment Elegy is unconcerned with their duplicity; The Lion wants Ravenous Murder found and possibly even killed, for whatever reasons of his own, and that's good enough for her.  Of course, The Lion suspects that Walker is scheming something as well, so he keeps on guard for treachery from Elegy the best way he knows how: by keeping his grip on her leash tight.<br/><br/>For the moment, Elegy is content to master her powers and scour the Underworld for signs of her quarry while serving in the capacity as The Lion's enforcer.  The young deathknight holds no particular love or deep loyalties to him, of course, of which he is well aware; she is among his least favored and trusted agents, desirable only for her unique skillset and keeping her out of the Walker's grasp.  Likewise, she expects little, if any, support from her liege, and has been working tirelessly to marshal the strength she'll need on her own terms.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Attributes:</strong><br/><br/>Strength ****<br/>Dexterity *****<br/>Stamina **<br/>Manipulation **<br/>Charisma *<br/>Appearance ****<br/>Intelligence **<br/>Perception ***<br/>Wits ****<br/><br/><strong>Abilities:</strong><br/><br/>Athletics **** [Caste]<br/>Awareness *** [Caste]<br/>Dodge ***** [Caste]<br/>Stealth ***** [Caste]<br/>Integrity *** [Favored]<br/>Resistance *** [Favored]<br/>Martial Arts ***** [Favored]<br/>Thrown ** [Favored]<br/>Survival ** [Favored]<br/>Lore *<br/>Presence **<br/><br/><strong>Virtues:</strong><br/><br/>Conviction *****<br/>Compassion * (Flawed)<br/>Valor ****<br/>Temperance *<br/><br/>Willpower ********<br/>Resonance<br/>Essence ***<br/>Personal 17<br/>Peripheral 39 (23)<br/><strong><br/>Intimacies:</strong><br/>Ravenous Murder of Black-Winged Fate (Hate)<br/><br/><strong>Backgrounds:</strong><br/><br/>Yoroi Rapid-Response Armor (Artifact) ***<br/>Infinite Jade Chakram (Artifact) **<br/>Gem of Perfect Form (Manse) ***<br/><br/><strong>Derangements:</strong><br/><br/>Obsession: Revenge (Debility)<br/>Sociopathic Detachment (Deficiency)<br/><br/><strong>Bonus points:</strong><br/><br/>7 for +1 Essence<br/>1 for +1 Athletics<br/>2 for +2 Dodge<br/>2 for +2 Stealth<br/>2 for +2 Martial Arts<br/>3 for +1 Valor<br/>1 for +1 Background (Manse)<br/><br/><strong>Charms:</strong><br/><br/>Air Dragon's Sight<br/>Wind Dragon Speed<br/>Breath-Seizing Technique<br/>Shrouding the Body and Mind<br/>Air Dragon Form<br/>Cloud Treading Method<br/>Thunderclap Kata<br/>Lightning Strike Style<br/>Flitting Shadow Form<br/>Flickering Wisp Technique<br/>Shadow Cloak Method<br/>Unseen Wisp Method