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Sekteth gets up in a smooth motion, and produces a dark nut, about the size of a walnut with the coloration of a brazil nut, tied around with a bit of twine and formed into a crude necklace. On it, a character is inscribed. He presses it into the giant's hand, "Within this seed, the power of the Green, of life and potential itself, resides. Once and once alone, so long as it remains upon your person, you may call upon it to lend you strength or skill for a single action." If the giant doesn't stop him, he gently places it around his large neck. "My gift to you." Turning, he joins the others as they move for the exit, to seek out this Liar's Club.
Sekteth nods politely to their host, carefully picking up any items that may have been strewn about as he slept near the hearth, trying to make the area show no sign of his presence. When his possessions are neatly arranged on his person, pack resting by his seat, he takes advantage of breakfast, avoiding the meat and sticking to any eggs, bread or cheeses available. "You seem to have brought excitement in your wake," he says to the dracha who has joined them. "I imagine that the locals, like myself, have never seen an emissary such as yourself before."
Sekteth is unprepared to address the newcomer, as he is still processing the sight of him, and chooses to compartmentalize that reaction, turning instead to Ran-Hajad and saying softly, "You may be more comfortable in the garden out back, large one." Seeing his companions reactions to the man-dragon, Sekteth faces the newcomer and says, in Draconic, "A private room is one scale of the golden sun," holding up one finger, "the common room," he says, pointing to where they have bedded down near the fire, "is four scales of the silvered moon." he finishes, flicking up four fingers in a vaguely claw-like gesture, attempting to phrase the comment in the descriptive manner he has seen in draconic texts, referring to coins as scales, and the colors by items of similar hue.
Sekteth sits cross-legged next to the fire, eyes lidded, but not closed, in the Verrik fashion, sound asleep (having simply shut down input from his visual senses, rather than closing his eyes fully). His dark eyes fly open, and the darkness falls away, as he reclaims his visual senses. 'What is wrong with that man?' he thinks uncharitably, as he hauls himself to his feet, shaking circulation back into his legs. "Are we under attack my large friend?" he asks, his voice soft, even if there is no longer any reason to avoid raising his voice.
To Adrian's question, Sekteth seems lost in thought for a second, and replies, through steepled hands, "I am from Kaishek, and my upbringing prepared me for a life of neither winemaking nor beekeeping. Having no chance of inheriting the 'family business,' and no property or possessions not on my person, I found it necessary to make my fortunes elsewhere. I did not come here, specifically, this is simply where the road ended today."
Sekteth is perplexed by the sight of the giant, enjoying such simple pleasures. He has seen few of their kind in his travels, but everything about this giant flies in contradiction to what is spoken of their kind. He had constructed assumptions in his mind about the pair ahead of him on the road, and all of them seem thrown to the winds. And yet, not so simple, as the tall man seems to mutter under his breath the names of these flowers, names which Sekteth does not recognize, being only passingly familiar with the names of plants and flowers used to encourage the raising of bees or the making of wine. He straightens up to bow to the elderly host, "Thank you for your kind invitation, sir. I am Sekteth." He pronounces his own name slowly, with an emphasis on the second syllable, and there is a slight suggestion of amusement in his features as he does, "And your name, worthy host?"
Sekteth finds the rustic sight of the Tattered Quilt, with it's flowerbeds, appealing, and nods in approval as he approaches the inn, stopping to examine the various flora, each of which he leans down and sniffs experimentally. It always is of interest to him how the addition or subtraction of one sense or another completely changes the nature of a thing. A colorful flower may smell bitter, while a plain one smells sweet as honey.
Sekteth is relieved to see so many non-verrik faces, with humans, sibbecai predominating, as well as the odd giant or litoran. He parts with his spear with some hesitation, and regards his dagger with a dubious glance.
He had seen the giant and sibbecai ahead of him on the road, but has not quickened his pace to catch up with them, lost in his own solitary thoughts. At the gates, they are delayed for a moment, the sibeccai likely not pleased by the town's policies regarding arms, and he finds himself regarding them as something other than figures in the distance. In a way, he was comfortable with that arrangement, companions, but not really. Up close, they are more than just images, and the sound of creaking leather and the scent of dank fur transforms them into something both more and less than they were, as distant travellers glimpsed on the horizon. The original assumption that the sibeccai was assistant or servant to the giant, is dashed as he hears the sibeccai speak and make decisions for the pair, and sees that the giant does not seem to be as commanding a figure as he seemed in the distance, with visible infirmities. Distracted from his musings by the sight of the Liar's Den, his face quirks, as if a smile had sought to emerge, and then flutters away like a spooked bird as he considers it's 'famous' ale. Having grown up in a village built upon brewing wines and honey-mead, he has a poor opinion of ales and beers, and yet wonders what such things actually taste like, as they were shunned by proud people of his home, overproud of their own locale product.
Please create intriguing backstories for your characters. Sekteth was born in a farming village south of Xavel, on the foothills of the southern Elder Mountains. The village of Kaisheq was an austere place of stone and adobe, built into rugged terrain, and the original human residents were a mixture of nomadic plainsmen and goatherders, who used the sheltered cliff-dwellings as shelter from seasonal weather or hostile neighbors. Centuries later, a group of Verrik philosophers and ascetics founded a monastery atop a high plateau, and a small permanent village formed at the base of the plateau, to service the few needs of the monastery (mostly settled by the humans who had helped build the monastery). Over the course of many generations, a growing Verrik population accrued within the village as well, and the locals became renowned for the fine wines and mead they produced from the vineyards that soon swept over the surrounding hills, being one of the few crops that thrived in the locale climate (along with figs, dates, etc.). The residents of the scholarly retreat alternately shut themselves away from the more worldly concerns of those below, or openly embraced their fellows, depending on the moods of the times (and the whims of the prelates and scholars within), but the governance of Kaisheq never had any real connection to the leaders of the scholars in the mountain retreat, until a generation before Sekteth’s birth. Mallar Sek, a magister of uncommon insight, and dubious ethical standing, developed a technique unique to himself that allowed him to maintain a low-level form of psychic contact with a person for days, instead of just moments, and proceeded to use this new technique to stifle any qualms about the risks of such a connection. Using uncanny insights into the moods and psyches of those around him, as well as the ability to subtly influence the feelings of others through this connection, he grew to a position of authority within the community atop the retreat, and those who dissented found themselves not merely shouted down, but forced into quiescence, their own doubts quashed by the will of their peers, with the original researcher, Mallar Sek, the master of them all. Not content to be the dominant personality in this group-mind, he began to spread his influence into the village below, and the human population, who had spent generations working alongside their Verrik neighbors, found themselves treated as second-class citizens, as Verrik they had known all their lives became strange and distant, speaking and acting as one, subsumed into a singular malignant personality that existed within a hundred bodies, and hungered for more... While humans could have been as easily incorporated into the effects of the spells, Mallar Sek considered them unworthy to bring into the glorious being he was becoming, and instead focused on advancing the successes of the Verrik populace over their neighbors. Mallar Sek, convinced now that he was on his way to becoming a god-emperor of sorts, took many ‘wives’ from the local Verrik populace, with no regard whatsoever for whether or not they were already married or had previously been in love with others, suborning their will to his own, and siring a fairly impressive amount of children by these emotionally enthralled ‘wives.’ In later years, he would discover that his children were even *more* susceptible to his manipulations, and that by influencing them even as children, he would not merely be steering their personalities in directions of his choice, but preventing them from ever truly forming in any natural or healthy manner. His children would grow up with no lives or feelings that he had not grown within them, unable to break free of his control. As his favored vessels, these children could quickly be seen to take control, and serve as his lieutenants, conveying the instructions of Mallar Sek in monotonous tones, appearing more like puppets than children, and sitting around like discarded dolls when their father’s attention was elsewhere, in some extreme cases all-but unable to act of their own volition. Sekteth was born to a mother whose name he does not know, as the wives of Mallar Sek were given no names of their own, but recognized by a joint title. He was only eight years old when Mallar Sek died, presumably of natural causes, as none who could actively plot against him ever came within a mile of his physical body, and an entire generation who had no awareness that they even *could* plot against him surrounded him at all times. The community fell apart, with many Verrik having grown unable to act of their own volition (and some never having developed the talent, having been manipulated since birth), and others becoming dangerously independent and contrary, over-sensitive to any perception that another’s words or actions could be influencing them or manipulating them in some way. Fields lay untended, and goats wandered the vineyards, eating as they wished, while blood-relatives rediscovered each other, and others hid in caves, and still others simply lay down and died of neglect, either unable or unwilling to perform such simple acts as eating and drinking. In the worst instances, the children of Mallar Sek were remembered as vessels of his cruelty, and were persecuted or even found slain. Others fled, to avoid such a fate, as even in the best cases, the children, naturally sensitive to the feelings and moods of others, like all Verrik, felt the distrust and hostility of their fellows. Sekteth himself was gripped by contrary moods, driven by a need to prove his independence from the control of others, or the legacy of his tyrant-father, but upon attempting to reconcile with his mother, herself recovering from decades of psychological and emotional manipulation, and unable to force herself to consider this child that was forced upon her as ‘family,’ he turned instead and left Kaisheq forever, along with a half-dozen other surviving half-brothers and half-sisters. Most chose names far from their fathers, wishing to escape his legacy, but Sekteth choose to retain a fragment of that, unwilling to feel shame for crimes that were not his own. No matter what a monster his father had become, the man was a brilliant scholar of magic, far advanced in the matters of the mind, and while Sekteth has chosen to not engage in the training of the Mind Witches, he refuses to lie about his parentage or deny where he comes from, as he feels that it would be more dangerous to bury and forget the misdeeds of his father than to accept and understand them.
Cool, going with Sekteth, then. The other two posted (Champion and Unfettered) seem more warrior-ish, so I'll go the other direction and be caster-y. |
