Matrak Sen's page

Matrak does his best to disguise his relief at not having to get involved in the fight. He climbs back down from the walkway and contemplates taunting the captured thugs. But with a quick glance over his shoulder, he thinks better of tempting fate...

Instead, as some of the others threaten the prisoners with gruesome tortures, he spies their horses. Of course they won't be a patch on a proper steppe pony, but it would be good to be able to ride and feel the wind through his hair again. He sidles closer, and begins eyeing up the beasts to see if they are any better than the mangy nag that he found himself sharing the stable with.

Looking at the map, I'll hazard a guess that my entire turn will be taken up with moving again, so please assume that that is my stated action once Ardell has done his bit

Matrak - the only way up to the walkway is the ladder near Blackbow.

B*ll*cks...Oh well, it'll have to do

Matrak had just drifted off and was dreaming of a tucking into a hearty meal of sheep's head stew, served by a plump wench, when the shouting had jolted him awake. He sees the heavily armed raiders and his immediate reaction is to hunker down in the pile of straw he has been sleeping on. As a stalk of grass jabs him in the nostril, he hisses 'what do you mean "here's your chance"? I'll get killed! There's a load of them...'

His voice trails weakly away as the leader starts to scream and claw at his face.

With a sigh so loud it can almost be heard across the courtyard, he mutters 'if this goes wrong, I swear you'll never hear the end of it', emerges from his hiding place and sneaks to the outer wall. Looking for a way up, he spots the ladder...at the other end of the wall. He looks back at the straw, shakes his fist and mutters 'you *knew* that was there, didn't you?' before setting off for the southwest tower at a loping run.

run to the ladder, climb up, sneak along the walkway towards the gate, pray

By 'eck, I come back from holiday and it's all kicked off!

@Fabes - Is that steps up to some sort of elevated walkway round the inside of the wall? If yes, then Matrak will emerge from his hiding place as quietly as possible, tip toe up the stairs to the NW tower, then run South along the walkway to the SW tower, and then east as he prepares to do something...that's almost certain to end in tears...

Matrak gives a very exaggerated yawn and stretch. 'Yes, sleeping always good before big fight. Tomorrow we deal with bandits'. He picks up his pack and heads for the stables.

Matrak holds his head in his hands. 'Why did I know you were going to say that' he moans. 'See? See what I have to put up with?' he says to no-one in particular, throwing his hands in the air.

'And you can just shut up' he continues, addressing an empty chair. He slumps back into his seat, and looks even glummer than usual.

A sly look suddenly crosses Matrak's face. 'So' he asks Oleg, 'you have horses in the stable? In case we need to run...er...ride out, tell them to get lost!'. He strokes his droopy moustache thoughtfully.

Matrak listens to the various options then puffs out his chest, folds his arms and says sagely 'yes, attack them', nodding in agreement with himself. When he realises someone might ask him to come up with some devastating tactical masterplan, he suddenly laughs nervously and says 'some of us defend this place while others fight, hey? I volunteer, bravely, to defend - leave glory to others'. He attempts to sound convincing but...

Matrak Sen allows the others to talk while he digs into the stew. His table manners leave something to be desired, and after chewing with his mouth open, and reaching across other people for bread to mop up the gravy and water to drink, he proceeds to turn his bowl upside down and noisily lick out the remaining scraps, before putting it down with a thump abd belching loudly.

Aware that several people are looking at him he nods at them and says 'good, hey?'.

Maybe some of them will change their ways. If we can be persuasive enough."

'Bah, might as well ask the sun not to rise in the morning, hey!' says Matrak, miserably. 'I knew this would turn into a disaster; why did I listen to you lot, hey?' he continues, pulling on his drooping moustache, and staring off into the middle distance.

OK, a line in for Matrak is that, having been kicked out of the Long Manes tribe (who don't want his cursed ass bringing all hell down on the rest of them), he's packed his bags and headed for Brevoy to seek his fortune. Seeing as they wouldn't even let him have a horse, he's currently lugging a large pack around - more misfortune!

It's thirsty work all this walking, so he stopped and asked for water at Kari's farmstead, and she very kindly gave him something to eat as well. Now, he feels like he's in her debt and must repay her. If Kari and Korren are siblings, he will initially base his reaction to him on Kari's, but if he finds out that amongst Korren's ex-bandit pals was a member of the Two Knives (yes, those same idiots that shot his grandpa in the butt) he'll plot horrible misdeeds against him - but as he's such a wuss it'll never amount to anything beyond a burning desire to show him up.

Any more thoughts on Character relationships or are people just keen to get started?

I like the idea - heard someone explain it in a podcast sometime and thought it would be neat to try. But I'm struggling a bit to think of how Matrak relates to any of the others being an outlander. Anybody got any suggestions?

Matrak Sen - can other people see these effects at all, or is it Matrak's reaction to them that is the most visible thing?

Bah, post eaten again!

Matrak has 3 spirits who 'plague' him - his father Muta Sen, his grandfather Mitra Sen, and his great grandfather Molon Sen (referred to in the bio in his profile). Unless anyone else is in tune with spirits then only Matrak will see them, so to everyone else it will appear like he is talking to himself (or mad...). The trappings of his spells are essentially that he will ask one or more of the 3 for their opinion on a subject, they will likely debate and argue amongst themselves, and then they will tell Matrak. Or not (this is how I'm proposing to simulate what happens if he fails his spellcasting roll, they either can't agree or refuse to answer).

This all adds up to time, so I'm going to be taking rounds, even minutes, over the spells. At the moment I only have Healing (so his 'advice' will be in the form of where to stitch, bandage, what sort of herbs to use etc) and Detect Magic (which will be the spirits view of the aura of a thing or place). If I learn any new spells over time, I plan on only taking ones which fit this model. So Speak Language, Banish and Divination are OK, Armour and Blast are not.

Matrak Sen - can other people see these effects at all, or is it Matrak's reaction to them that is the most visible thing?

Oh it's all in his head (or maybe the spirits are real - anyway, unless anyone else can see them the effect is the same).

He asks them for aid, they decided whether to give it, all other people see is him having a conversation with imaginary others. This will generally take several rounds, perhaps even minutes, to accomplish. As he only has 2 spells, 'Healing' is actually one of the spirits who does know how to heal telling him where to bandage, what to use on wounds etc, while 'Detect Magic' will be one of them examining the aura of the subject, then relaying a conclusion to him.

For future development, I'm only going to consider spells which could reasonably work on a similar basis. So Speak Language and Analyse Foe might be OK, but there's no way to justify something like Bolt or Armour.

Quick questions - correct to assume shooting and riding works the same as fighting and riding ie lower of the 2 scores applies? And standard bow damage OK for a horsebow?

I've switched back to AB:Miracles for a number of reasons. Firstly, the flavour text describes it as magic 'coming from spirits' which is how I see his 'spells' working, second the associated skill is based off Spirit rather than Smarts (which is more how I see the character) and thirdly because Miracles is the only was I can get Healing as a spell - it's not allowed in Ritual Magic. Even though Pavla is an accomplished healer, I wanted access to Healing as a spell (and Greater Healing later) which I can only do this way.

For all the spells I can or will cast, the trappings will be asking his constant spirit companions for help/advice on the matter (albeit reluctantly). I figure on a successful roll they tell Matrak something useful, on a fail they refuse/laugh at him/mock him etc so he can't do anything.

I think I'm done. Can someone else look over my sheet to see I haven't made any cock-ups?

Edit: hey, I didn't realise the boards had a profanity filter ;)

I'm getting there on a character, but I have a couple of requests.

I know you didn't specifically call it out, but can I take the Ritualistic Magic Arcane Background from FC? It feels like it's the best fit for shamanic type magic, where there is a bit of prior preparation required and most of the powers are accessed through communing with the spirits, usually after rituals that take it out of the scope of 'battle' magic. It gives 3 spells which I'd take as Healing, Detect Arcana and either Speak Language or Obscure.

Secondly, I'm looking for Matrak to be a great horseman. All of the EE and FC edges relating to horses are more knightly in theme, so can I take the Horseman edge from Shaintar (also reproduced in the Savagepedia)? It basically gives +2 to riding checks and allows mount/dismount as free actions