Post by Shepherd on Nov 3, 2012 19:40:45 GMT -5
Player: Josiah
Contact: PM account
Intentions: Mentor
Background
Name: Martin Dietrich Brandt
Race: Human
Species: Lich
Age: 157
Tier: 4
Social
Place of Birth: Rynok, Ruthenia
Allegiances: The Ruthenian Resistance
Aspirations: Bring Rasputin to the good side again, or bring him to justice; free the people and unify, or at least pacify, the different sentient species; form a new Ruthenia
Nicknames: Shep, Sheppy Herder
Titles: (The) Shepherd, Leader of the Resistance, Undesirable No.01 (Kokuhane's idea)
Relatives: Ilya Brandt (Daughter, deceased), all others killed or deceased
Significant Other: Sophia Brandt (Wife, deceased)
Mental
Personality: A counselor in spirit, Shepherd is a quiet, collected person. Save where a bullet or an explosion doesn't give him the time, politeness is his primary recourse. His heart is large and empathetic, even if it's technically stopped beating. The welfare of others is his major concern, and that concern guides most of his actions. As effective leader of the Resistance, the necessity of sacrifice and the demands of the status quo remain in frequent conflict with this, even as he does his absolute best to make sure as many people make it out alive, no matter who's side they're on in this horrible, dreadful war. While all these things build up significant mental stress in his life, he makes a point of taking the time to himself to relax and rebuild his emotional fortitude.
Likes: Family (personal or adopted), Training (himself or others), Steak and potatoes, Tea, Meditating
Dislikes: Naive idealism, Complacency, Carrots, Thinking about the past (a necessary thing), Being weak (hence all the training)
Strengths: In and out of war, Shepherd has had a thorough "education" to cultivate wisdom, intelligence and cunning. While not a master strategist, he knows how to play the board and manipulate the pieces. He's seen through his share of traps, and set them in turn. Believing in the best tool for the job, he is constantly adapting and learning from the things he goes through, picking up and discarding different uses of his abilities depending on how effective they turn out to be. Combat is a second nature to him, so he knows how to keep his cool and prioritize. Between those things and his personable, compassionate nature, the Shepherd makes a strong, well-liked leader for the Resistance. He knows several languages, thanks to his parents.
Weaknesses: Grow old enough, and you'll have something to be guilty about. Shepherd still carries scars beneath the surface about the loss of his family, being tricked and betrayed by his old friend, and for all those he killed while on the wrong side of the fight. In quiet moments, he still grieves, and even though he has come to terms with these things on his own, he quietly wonders if it has stunted his capacity to love, or be loved. 100 years plus, and no one yet has ever been worthy of standing beside Sophia in his heart. Most likely unable to father any more children, the Resistance is as close to a family as he can have now, with angry, ungrateful kids included.
Physical
Major Details: brown eyes, white skin, salt-and-pepper average length hair, beard, 6' 2"
Appearance: Martin stands at 6'2'', with an extremely dense but lean athletic build. His body having developed early on from years of gymnastics and continued training, his musculature is well-pronounced even in his "old" age. Since he started wearing formal wear most of the time, this is harder to tell, hidden under several layers of clothing. The two/three piece suit with a clerical collar is his most frequent outfit, black with a white shirt. While people used to comment on his handsome, personable face, he rarely smiles now and it is instead marred with an almost depressed look most of the time. His brown eyes look a little sunk-in with age. He has unkempt black hair leading to a full, slightly scruffy beard. Before he became a lich, his hair was just starting to gray, leaving it with a salt and pepper appearance. He could dye it, if he wanted, but he finds it helps remind him of the half and half line he walks. In general, his features and skin are closer to early, late 40's, give or take.
In Shadow form, he takes on a sleek, vaguely humanoid shape, with indistinct, wispy features and green eyes. Clothing and belongings are subsumed into the form, and vague if visible at all. A cloak or long coat tends to wreathe behind him in battle.
Natural Abilities: Faster and stronger than the average man, early training has put him on par with a college level gymnast. What age would have taken away, lichdom has restored, leaving him at his physical peak. His strength is such that he can support his whole body with his arms and then some.
Natural Traits: Effectively undead, his body technically doesn't follow the same rules as a mortal being anymore. He neither needs to eat or drink, much less sleep - though he can if he wishes to do so. Tiredness is a matter of being low on magical strength, not physical exertion.
Strengths: Training in his youth, a healthy lifestyle and even more training when it came time to take the fight to others means that Shepherd has a strong body and the skill to use it. While not technically following any specific form like those in the Upper Kingdoms, he knows more than enough to handle himself in physical combat, to put his body behind each punch, or hold back a kick so as not to break someone's nose. Combined with the agility of an acrobatic youth, some of his fights end up rather pleasing to the eye.
Weaknesses: Whatever he can do, there's an expert out there that can do it better. He believes in a strong body, strong mind, but his magical abilities are still vastly superior to his physical ones, and he's been out-muscled by plenty of warriors. Undead, he doesn't feel the effects of adrenaline the way a living body would, which means the fight-or-flight effect doesn't really apply. What you see is what you get.
Magical
Specializations:
- Tier 1: Mental (Shadow). Shepherd can create, manipulate and augment shadows, and tap into their extra-dimensional nature.
- Tier 2: Spoken (Necromancy). Shepherd can manipulate soul forces, negative energy, corpses, and various dead/death related spells with his words.
- Tier 3: Written (Runes).
- Tier 4: Mental (Chaos). Shepherd can project and control chaotic magical energies that interrupt, interfere, or generally harm other things.
Visual Display: Shepherd's magic is of a black hue, with edges of green. Runic arrays are green with edges of black instead.
Special Abilities: Familiar (Locket), Empathy, Foresight, En Recovery 1, Chimerical Shapeshifting
Bonus Special Abilities: Immunity to Telepathy, En Speed 1, Elemental Shapeshifting (Shadow), Alternate Sense (Magic)
Unique Abilities: As a lich, Shepherd cannot technically be killed without destroying his phylactery. If his body is destroyed enough, it turns to ash and he reconstitutes near his phylactery.
Strengths: Forged in revolutions and war, necessity has led Shepherd to master both the subtle and overt uses of his magic. At one moment as dark and destructive as a storm cloud, at another as soft and gentle as a tree's shade - he has near perfect control at all times, and had the kind of frequent life-or-death experiences in his past that has taught him the most effective time for both. His skill with Chaos is so finely tuned that he can destroy spell work from the inside out, or warp a person's nervous system enough to make them pass out, and he can quickly and rapidly create basic (but massive) runic arrays in mid-air.
Weaknesses: Over a 100 years of "death" magic at his fingertips, and far more than 100 kills under his belt has worn down part of his resolve. Another mage of his caliber could waltz into a room and kill dozens, maybe hundreds. He wastes time and magical energy trying to employ non-lethal means, reining in his real strength so as to cause as few casualties as possible, instead of just blasting any target in his way with negative energy. While he's a powerful enough necromancer even to bring back the recent dead, the emphasis is on "recent." He's still had to deliver the bad news to several Resistance members that their loved ones were gone, gone, and magic wasn't going to bring them back, no matter how much anyone tried. In the same vein, a powerful Runic mage, he's not much of an enchanter himself, with little knowledge of metalwork or crafts that defines so many of the great forgers. Most often, they're attached to his Shadow magic. The most complicated Written spells are not his forte, but he can do them well if given enough time.
Inventory
Mundane:
A picture-frame locket under his jacket ; a bible in his jacket pocket, over his heart; pen and paper, wallet, papers, etc
Magical:
Suit Jacket - Written (Perpetual): the black suit jacket worn with the rest of his clothes, with runic spells sewn into the inside, out of view. Multiple spells of different varieties, multilayered, help to prevent, deflect, or fool sensory magic aimed his way and keep up his facade.
History
Martin Brandt was born 157 years ago, on the outskirts of Rynok. In the largely Fey-ruled city, humanity had several pocket communities to itself He, however, did not live in one of those. His parents had a profitable trade business, workers finding materials in the forest, coordinating others to sell far and wide. Under their wealthy, watchful eyes, he was raised under scrutiny, groomed as well-rounded a child as they could make. By the time he was ten, he was already a great student and an athlete - an aspiring young gymnast (not that he had much choice). Life, at least, was good to him where many others of his kind were much worse off.
Like always, they left him with the maid for their anniversary that year. It was always an over-night vacation, to the capital, so the fact that they weren't in the house when he woke up didn't make him worry.
But first thing in the morning, the words, "I'm sorry," are terrifying.
The official story is the two of them were caught up in a "terrorist attack." The Fey overlords would hardly recognize a peaceful political demonstration as anything else, so when the fey knights were sent in to break it up (read: "kill them until they leave"), a lot of people died in a short amount of time. Martin was too young to understand the full situation then, nor to take care of himself just yet. His only living relative was his grandfather, a retired farmer-turned-pastor
running a ministry one town over. The simplicity and love of the faith and its followers gave him sanctuary in his grief, when he would finally have it a few years later.
Being bathed in the religion by his grandfather, his goals in life began to shift slowly. He kept up the rigorous daily routine his parents had ingrained in him - it was the only way he could feel like life was still normal without them - but visions of life as a trader or athlete or whatever they had meant for him began to be replaced by a life of the cloth. This was probably for the best, since his growth spurts in his later teens put him well above the average height of a gymnast.
By the time he was in his mid-twenties, Martin was pulling a professional double-duty. His family still owned the business, which brought him a large amount of wealth (for a human), even as he began his life as leader of his own congregation. He was only there a year, when he met the most important person in his life. A teenager, hardly more than a boy and struggling to be a man, Raz was a troubled youth. Slave to the Fey overlords, they saw the young Raz as a most curious specimen due to his inordinate magical ability. They were constantly testing and toying with the youth, with all the capriciousness and callousness of a winter court.
His only moments in the church were stolen with the excuse of running other errands, but it was a necessary diversion for him: Raz wanted, needed solace. The church was meant to offer that - but there was no real fighting against the Romanov court. Unable to buy his freedom, the most Martin could offer was to talk with him, and to be with him - so that's exactly what he did. On any day, when the slave was sent on his errands, Martin was waiting. They talked almost every day, little by little, sharing in the boy's life and sufferings. Just that was enough though, as true friends will tell you. The longer their rendezvous went on, the happier Raz seemed. It went on like that for several years, before Raz stopped showing up entirely.
It didn't take him long, to realize that something must have happened to the now almost adult Raz. Polite inquiries to the Romanovs went politely ignored, despite Martin's own rising political clout. Between an ever increasingly lucrative business abroad and a congregation that more and more people - humans, Fey and Beastfolk alike - flocked to, the name Martin D. Brandt was known to many people. His message of peace, compassion, and unity between the races and the social classes was a popular idea that resonated with the masses far and wide, even as rising strife put more and more people on edge.
It was tumultuous time in his country's history, for him to be starting a family, but love has a certain way of sneaking up on anyone. He married a woman just under his age - Sophia. Only a few years in, and the pair was already getting ready to bring a child of their own into the world, when a familiar face finally returned. Rasputin, now in his late twenties, met him exactly where they always used to meet. A happy reunion was off-set by the sadness of their last departure, and the reasoning behind it. In anger and desperation for his mistreatment, the young slave had lashed out. He had managed to out-magic and kill his masters - and then ran. He didn't want to bring Martin into it then, lest the Fey overlords take it out upon him.
He had returned though, because the time was ripe. The years Rasputin had spent in absence had been spent raising an army - a revolutionary army, who every day were preparing to rid the country of the overlords. But it wasn't enough. They didn't have the funds, and they still didn't have enough people. If they joined forces, if Martin used his wealth and influence, they could overturn the whole country. Rasputin had even come across old magic, ancient rituals, including one that would empower Martin with his own magic. Together, again, they could free humanity from the Fey.
Martin regretfully turned him down. Rasputin's idea of a violent revolution stood against everything he believed in, and he could not be a part of it. He had to believe there was a better way, for freedom and equality to come to the land. The two left each other, both saddened to have lost a place in the other's life. The revolution happened anyway, as Rasputin struck the powder keg. Violence and bloodshed struck out across everywhere, practically in every place around the country, as peasants turned warriors fought against Fey with swords and guns and claws. Martin and his family remained isolated from the conflicts as the war went on one year, two years, still trying to preach to peace and unification, and for a time, it seemed liked he was really getting through to some people.
Then he came home one night. It was quieter than normal. He figured Sophia and Ilya were in bed already, perhaps reading a story. Then he heard a thud. Then a growl. And that was most certainly not his wife. He grabbed a hunting rifle from the mantle place, before sneaking quietly upstairs. The door to the bedroom was open.
The phrase, "seeing red," is usually not meant so literally. The blood of his wife and daughter had gotten all over the furniture and the walls, as the pair of Beastfolk ... stopped being hungry. He shot the one immediately, and beat the other one within an inch of its life with the butt of the gun, screaming and yelling and cursing and crying and venting such a storm of emotions as he had never had before in his life. Its face disfigured beyond recognition, and choked more with sobs than screams, he finally managed to ask why. The Beastfolk himself choked, on blood, as he tried to laugh.
"Because the Romanovs told us to. We do what we're tol -" he died before he finished the "d" sound.
Martin hated. For the first time in his life, he hated. He hated the Beastfolk, for being so simple and stupid. He hated the Fey, for being so above everyone else. He hated the Romanovs, for refusing to end this peacefully.
He hated himself, for not taking Rasputin up on his offer.
He hated himself, for not having joined him and ended this stupid war sooner, for being unable to protect his parents, his wife, his daughter.
He sought out Rasputin, a blazing fire of rage unlike anyone had seen in the face of the pastor before. Still his friend, always his friend, Rasputin would have consoled him. But he wouldn't have any consolation.
He wanted revenge. The pact between the two of them gave him just that, as Martin gained the power to fight the Fey himself. It was as Rasputin predicted: with Martin's influence and wealth, the tide turned soon enough - and even more so as Martin's family, so beloved by the people, were heralded as martyrs, innocently slaughtered while trying so hard to bring peace. The people overthrew the Romanov's in the end, with Rasputin at the head of their armies. They drove out the "Noble" Fey, and slaughtered the Romanov court. Rasputin, leader and savior of the people, was named the prime minister, and though there was peace ... Martin would have none of it.
He still hated. So Rasputin gave him the chance to work through it, by giving him people to take it out on. He became an assassin for the fledgeling government, using the abilities the now-prime minister had given him to fight, to kill, to hate, mopping up the enemies of the new country. It went on for decades like that. He had to keep fighting, or else emotion would take over and he didn't know if he'd ever get out. By the time the world war came though, he was getting older. Age was showing its signs, even with the gift of magic Rasputin had given him. Not wanting to see his friend and most loyal warrior-mage fall in battle, Rasputin gave him the ritual to become a lich. Suddenly immortal, with an army of Fey on the other side, Martin was all too eager to participate in the world war.
Back then, his only regret was that it ended in their retreat. With the barrier up, they were safe from further Fey aggression, and only a few pockets of resistance still held out in the dark places. Dark was what Martin did best, however, so he kept hunting, kept fighting, kept killing. He was so deep in red that when he found the rebel seer, Madame Third Awning, sitting at her table within the gypsy coach, it was a wonder he didn't kill her right away.
"You'll want to know this." There was no point in hiding, since she knew he was there.
"Tell me, seer. Have you seen me kill you yet?"
"Yes. It's not time for that yet though."
"Oh? Then what time would it be for?"
"Time for you to know the truth."
"I think I know enough about that myself, thanks."
"Tell me, Martin." She knew his name. He didn't know why he was surprised. "Who do you hate?"
"You're the seer. You tell me."
She laughed. It was an odd time to laugh. He couldn't tell if she walked into that on purpose, or if he caught her by surprise. Her next words made him think the former.
"You hate the Beastfolk. Two of them killed your wife and child."
"Two of them ate my wife and daughter," he corrected for her, envenomed.
"You hate the Fey. Their court, arrogant and spiteful, begot all the violence that swept our country."
"Better," he admitted, toying with the trappings of her room.
"Most important - you hate yourself." He stopped messing with the curtain to glare at her. "You hate yourself, because its your fault most of all. You could have joined Rasputin earlier. With your help, the two of you could have ended the Romanov line before your family ever fell into the crossfire."
He stalked closer to her, from behind her chair.
"It's a pity you didn't use your talents for him."
"It's a pity you hate everyone except he who deserves it."
He held back, another second longer.
"Yes. 'He.' It was Rasputin. I'm sure you've already had feelings of the same, when you actually let yourself think."
The implication stirred up dark traces in the back of his mind, of days when he let himself wonder and reflect. The pain had been too much. It still was. The desire to end the conversation, forcefully rose up stronger and with greater urgency.
"He mind controlled those two."
And there it was... the words he was too afraid of letting himself say aloud.
"He forced them to attack your family. He told them what to say. And he waited for you. He knew you'd come. He wanted you, he needed you... and he played you."
Martin ran. He ran and he ran, and no matter how far he went, her words kept repeating what he didn't want to hear. It was like he could see it himself, the way things played out. It would have been all too easy, with Rasputin's powers, to manipulate two of the Beastfolk. And just like that, Rasputin had wealth, reinforcements, and a warrior full of wrath and aimed at his enemies - everything he needed to wipe out his persecutors.
Martin had been his friend, possibly Rasputin's only real friend, and Rasputin had destroyed his life.
The window cracked. The penny dropped. The ocean shattered.
He drifted through the night, before he finally came back to the gypsy coach. He almost expected it to be gone. The woman was making breakfast.
"You didn't really see me kill you, did you?"
"The better question is if you would have, had I not said I saw you do it."
He thought only a moment, before coming up with his own answer.
"What happens now?" he asked, hardly able to focus the emptiness of his mind.
"Now? Now we have waffles. Then? Then everything else."
He met with the Resistance, eventually. Madame Third Awning was an upper member, and even with everyone he'd killed ... the Resistance accepted him. Slowly, anyway. Some were not so quick to forgive, but the fact was, Martin was the closest person to Rasputin of anyone they knew. He was deep in the government, had greater access and ability, and the fact he was such a powerful mage in his own right made him one of the greatest additions the resistance had made in years.
It wasn't really a question at that point, what he could do for them. Martin went back as a double agent, feeding them information and assisting on missions as much as he was able. The Resistance was in it for the long haul though, since Rasputin was getting no older nor easier to kill. Yet for those who most wanted out, his intimate knowledge of Rasputin's necromancy allowed Martin to help get people through the barrier and out to the other side.
A few decades of subtly undermining Rasputin's control, and the Resistance had been growing steadily, but their luck couldn't hold forever. A mission to save a group of Beastfolk from the chopping block went south, as they walked into a trap. Several of them went down, before the teleportation-jammer keeping them from a retreat was taken down. Among the fallen was the previous head of the Resistance, the fey warrior, Aristarkh. In need of a new leader, the title should have passed to the next senior member - Madame Third Awning.
She declined, citing that she worked best from the sidelines, in an advisory position. The leader of the Resistance would need to be someone of intelligence and wisdom, who knew their enemy well and themselves better; a person of vision, of ideals weathered by the knowledge of hardship; a realist, optimistic. There were many members of the Resistance that had been there longer than him, that might have been as strong or even stronger than him, and so after talking over the rest, when Madame Third Awning finally said his name, he was taken more than a little off guard.
"Me? What about me?"
"You," she repeated, and how blind eyes could twinkle was beyond him. "I nominate you as our next leader."
His brows furrowed amid the quiet chatter of the room. "You do remember what I used to do?"
It was a pointless question, right up there with "What I am" and "Who I still have to work with."
"He killed us! He killed -" someone shouted indignantly, before a shoulder punch made him shut up.
"Yes," the madame agreed. "He did kill some of us - but I don't see him doing that right now. And it is specifically because of that - who he was, and who he is - that he is the best candidate. He knows how they think, and the information he continues to give us comes at great personal cost and danger. Responsibility, prudence, compassion, strength ... Yes. I nominate Martin as our next leader."
The murmurs continued, as he felt more and more on the spot. He eventually got the hint that they were waiting for him to say something, some stewing and others hopeful. In their faces, he felt like he was back in the pulpit of his own congregation. He remembered how that panned out: playing people right into Rasputin's hands.
"I tried being a leader before," he said it like a sigh, already retracting. "It didn't work then."
"So you have been tricked." "But does that make him harder to trick -" "- Or is he easier to trick in general."
"He was a man in pain," Madame Third Awning intervened. "They took his wife, and his daughter, and paraded their bodies in front of him. Some of you have suffered the same. Can any of you claim to have kept a better head in that position? Bruno! Did you or did you not attempt to take out a whole garrison yourself?"
The figured coughed into his hand and pretended not to have heard.
"Ah huh. At least his actions were less suicidal, and admittedly much more effective. And that is what we need right now: to be effective. The more humans that are born into Rasputin's world, the more the odds are stacked against us. We must act smarter. We must pick our battles more cautiously. Martin is the most qualified to do that."
Whether or not he or anyone else accepted that as true, he stayed quiet as the debate continued for a few minutes more, other names vying for more consideration than the undead human murderer-betrayer. He debated with himself, too, and when he finally came to a conclusion, he stepped back into the spotlight politic.
"If I could ... have everyone's attention for a moment," he said calmly, one hand up as if could still the vocal waters with it. "I don't want to be a leader. I don't want to give orders or tell people what to do. I've been there. I've done it, in war and out. I've sent people to their deaths before, and I can't do that anymore. But this is a war. And we're fighting for more than our lives: we're fighting for the freedom, for the hearts and minds and hopes of every man, woman, child of every race under the barrier. So if you want orders? If you want me to tell you what to do? You're asking the wrong person. The most I can be, to any of you, is a guide... A ... a shepherd, to help us get through this. I want to help you - I do - all of you," he made a point of looking kindly to his detractors, "But I'm not the one you want to lead. Whoever you decide, I'll support. That's ... that's all I wanted to say. You can continue without me."
And so he left. He thought that was the end of that, until he found Madame Third Awning within his spartan chambers later on. She had made him a cup of tea, in his absence. There was a slowly building awkwardness in the moment, as he waited for her explanation.
"So ... it seems ... a Shepherd will do just fine."
"The Shepherd" has been the acting leader of the Resistance for three decades now, fighting a slow guerilla war, trying to take down Rasputin piece by piece, from the inside out and outside in. Those down the rung and out of the organization only know him by this title, and frequently only meet with his Shadow form. His real face and persona are known only to those near the top, trying to keep his double agent status as secret as possible to everyone. Though he has little time to spare for himself, he's made a point of attending to the various members of Resistance, counseling and guiding them just as he said he would. The tragedies worked by the Ruthenian government and a populace brainwashed into bigotry and hate have left him with no ends of people to talk with about their problems.
Eventually, he might even make a difference.
Contact: PM account
Intentions: Mentor
Background
Name: Martin Dietrich Brandt
Race: Human
Species: Lich
Age: 157
Tier: 4
Social
Place of Birth: Rynok, Ruthenia
Allegiances: The Ruthenian Resistance
Aspirations: Bring Rasputin to the good side again, or bring him to justice; free the people and unify, or at least pacify, the different sentient species; form a new Ruthenia
Nicknames: Shep, Sheppy Herder
Titles: (The) Shepherd, Leader of the Resistance, Undesirable No.01 (Kokuhane's idea)
Relatives: Ilya Brandt (Daughter, deceased), all others killed or deceased
Significant Other: Sophia Brandt (Wife, deceased)
Mental
Personality: A counselor in spirit, Shepherd is a quiet, collected person. Save where a bullet or an explosion doesn't give him the time, politeness is his primary recourse. His heart is large and empathetic, even if it's technically stopped beating. The welfare of others is his major concern, and that concern guides most of his actions. As effective leader of the Resistance, the necessity of sacrifice and the demands of the status quo remain in frequent conflict with this, even as he does his absolute best to make sure as many people make it out alive, no matter who's side they're on in this horrible, dreadful war. While all these things build up significant mental stress in his life, he makes a point of taking the time to himself to relax and rebuild his emotional fortitude.
Likes: Family (personal or adopted), Training (himself or others), Steak and potatoes, Tea, Meditating
Dislikes: Naive idealism, Complacency, Carrots, Thinking about the past (a necessary thing), Being weak (hence all the training)
Strengths: In and out of war, Shepherd has had a thorough "education" to cultivate wisdom, intelligence and cunning. While not a master strategist, he knows how to play the board and manipulate the pieces. He's seen through his share of traps, and set them in turn. Believing in the best tool for the job, he is constantly adapting and learning from the things he goes through, picking up and discarding different uses of his abilities depending on how effective they turn out to be. Combat is a second nature to him, so he knows how to keep his cool and prioritize. Between those things and his personable, compassionate nature, the Shepherd makes a strong, well-liked leader for the Resistance. He knows several languages, thanks to his parents.
Weaknesses: Grow old enough, and you'll have something to be guilty about. Shepherd still carries scars beneath the surface about the loss of his family, being tricked and betrayed by his old friend, and for all those he killed while on the wrong side of the fight. In quiet moments, he still grieves, and even though he has come to terms with these things on his own, he quietly wonders if it has stunted his capacity to love, or be loved. 100 years plus, and no one yet has ever been worthy of standing beside Sophia in his heart. Most likely unable to father any more children, the Resistance is as close to a family as he can have now, with angry, ungrateful kids included.
Physical
Major Details: brown eyes, white skin, salt-and-pepper average length hair, beard, 6' 2"
Appearance: Martin stands at 6'2'', with an extremely dense but lean athletic build. His body having developed early on from years of gymnastics and continued training, his musculature is well-pronounced even in his "old" age. Since he started wearing formal wear most of the time, this is harder to tell, hidden under several layers of clothing. The two/three piece suit with a clerical collar is his most frequent outfit, black with a white shirt. While people used to comment on his handsome, personable face, he rarely smiles now and it is instead marred with an almost depressed look most of the time. His brown eyes look a little sunk-in with age. He has unkempt black hair leading to a full, slightly scruffy beard. Before he became a lich, his hair was just starting to gray, leaving it with a salt and pepper appearance. He could dye it, if he wanted, but he finds it helps remind him of the half and half line he walks. In general, his features and skin are closer to early, late 40's, give or take.
In Shadow form, he takes on a sleek, vaguely humanoid shape, with indistinct, wispy features and green eyes. Clothing and belongings are subsumed into the form, and vague if visible at all. A cloak or long coat tends to wreathe behind him in battle.
Natural Abilities: Faster and stronger than the average man, early training has put him on par with a college level gymnast. What age would have taken away, lichdom has restored, leaving him at his physical peak. His strength is such that he can support his whole body with his arms and then some.
Natural Traits: Effectively undead, his body technically doesn't follow the same rules as a mortal being anymore. He neither needs to eat or drink, much less sleep - though he can if he wishes to do so. Tiredness is a matter of being low on magical strength, not physical exertion.
Strengths: Training in his youth, a healthy lifestyle and even more training when it came time to take the fight to others means that Shepherd has a strong body and the skill to use it. While not technically following any specific form like those in the Upper Kingdoms, he knows more than enough to handle himself in physical combat, to put his body behind each punch, or hold back a kick so as not to break someone's nose. Combined with the agility of an acrobatic youth, some of his fights end up rather pleasing to the eye.
Weaknesses: Whatever he can do, there's an expert out there that can do it better. He believes in a strong body, strong mind, but his magical abilities are still vastly superior to his physical ones, and he's been out-muscled by plenty of warriors. Undead, he doesn't feel the effects of adrenaline the way a living body would, which means the fight-or-flight effect doesn't really apply. What you see is what you get.
Magical
Specializations:
- Tier 1: Mental (Shadow). Shepherd can create, manipulate and augment shadows, and tap into their extra-dimensional nature.
- Tier 2: Spoken (Necromancy). Shepherd can manipulate soul forces, negative energy, corpses, and various dead/death related spells with his words.
- Tier 3: Written (Runes).
- Tier 4: Mental (Chaos). Shepherd can project and control chaotic magical energies that interrupt, interfere, or generally harm other things.
Visual Display: Shepherd's magic is of a black hue, with edges of green. Runic arrays are green with edges of black instead.
Special Abilities: Familiar (Locket), Empathy, Foresight, En Recovery 1, Chimerical Shapeshifting
Bonus Special Abilities: Immunity to Telepathy, En Speed 1, Elemental Shapeshifting (Shadow), Alternate Sense (Magic)
Unique Abilities: As a lich, Shepherd cannot technically be killed without destroying his phylactery. If his body is destroyed enough, it turns to ash and he reconstitutes near his phylactery.
Strengths: Forged in revolutions and war, necessity has led Shepherd to master both the subtle and overt uses of his magic. At one moment as dark and destructive as a storm cloud, at another as soft and gentle as a tree's shade - he has near perfect control at all times, and had the kind of frequent life-or-death experiences in his past that has taught him the most effective time for both. His skill with Chaos is so finely tuned that he can destroy spell work from the inside out, or warp a person's nervous system enough to make them pass out, and he can quickly and rapidly create basic (but massive) runic arrays in mid-air.
Weaknesses: Over a 100 years of "death" magic at his fingertips, and far more than 100 kills under his belt has worn down part of his resolve. Another mage of his caliber could waltz into a room and kill dozens, maybe hundreds. He wastes time and magical energy trying to employ non-lethal means, reining in his real strength so as to cause as few casualties as possible, instead of just blasting any target in his way with negative energy. While he's a powerful enough necromancer even to bring back the recent dead, the emphasis is on "recent." He's still had to deliver the bad news to several Resistance members that their loved ones were gone, gone, and magic wasn't going to bring them back, no matter how much anyone tried. In the same vein, a powerful Runic mage, he's not much of an enchanter himself, with little knowledge of metalwork or crafts that defines so many of the great forgers. Most often, they're attached to his Shadow magic. The most complicated Written spells are not his forte, but he can do them well if given enough time.
Inventory
Mundane:
A picture-frame locket under his jacket ; a bible in his jacket pocket, over his heart; pen and paper, wallet, papers, etc
Magical:
Suit Jacket - Written (Perpetual): the black suit jacket worn with the rest of his clothes, with runic spells sewn into the inside, out of view. Multiple spells of different varieties, multilayered, help to prevent, deflect, or fool sensory magic aimed his way and keep up his facade.
History
Martin Brandt was born 157 years ago, on the outskirts of Rynok. In the largely Fey-ruled city, humanity had several pocket communities to itself He, however, did not live in one of those. His parents had a profitable trade business, workers finding materials in the forest, coordinating others to sell far and wide. Under their wealthy, watchful eyes, he was raised under scrutiny, groomed as well-rounded a child as they could make. By the time he was ten, he was already a great student and an athlete - an aspiring young gymnast (not that he had much choice). Life, at least, was good to him where many others of his kind were much worse off.
Like always, they left him with the maid for their anniversary that year. It was always an over-night vacation, to the capital, so the fact that they weren't in the house when he woke up didn't make him worry.
But first thing in the morning, the words, "I'm sorry," are terrifying.
The official story is the two of them were caught up in a "terrorist attack." The Fey overlords would hardly recognize a peaceful political demonstration as anything else, so when the fey knights were sent in to break it up (read: "kill them until they leave"), a lot of people died in a short amount of time. Martin was too young to understand the full situation then, nor to take care of himself just yet. His only living relative was his grandfather, a retired farmer-turned-pastor
running a ministry one town over. The simplicity and love of the faith and its followers gave him sanctuary in his grief, when he would finally have it a few years later.
Being bathed in the religion by his grandfather, his goals in life began to shift slowly. He kept up the rigorous daily routine his parents had ingrained in him - it was the only way he could feel like life was still normal without them - but visions of life as a trader or athlete or whatever they had meant for him began to be replaced by a life of the cloth. This was probably for the best, since his growth spurts in his later teens put him well above the average height of a gymnast.
By the time he was in his mid-twenties, Martin was pulling a professional double-duty. His family still owned the business, which brought him a large amount of wealth (for a human), even as he began his life as leader of his own congregation. He was only there a year, when he met the most important person in his life. A teenager, hardly more than a boy and struggling to be a man, Raz was a troubled youth. Slave to the Fey overlords, they saw the young Raz as a most curious specimen due to his inordinate magical ability. They were constantly testing and toying with the youth, with all the capriciousness and callousness of a winter court.
His only moments in the church were stolen with the excuse of running other errands, but it was a necessary diversion for him: Raz wanted, needed solace. The church was meant to offer that - but there was no real fighting against the Romanov court. Unable to buy his freedom, the most Martin could offer was to talk with him, and to be with him - so that's exactly what he did. On any day, when the slave was sent on his errands, Martin was waiting. They talked almost every day, little by little, sharing in the boy's life and sufferings. Just that was enough though, as true friends will tell you. The longer their rendezvous went on, the happier Raz seemed. It went on like that for several years, before Raz stopped showing up entirely.
It didn't take him long, to realize that something must have happened to the now almost adult Raz. Polite inquiries to the Romanovs went politely ignored, despite Martin's own rising political clout. Between an ever increasingly lucrative business abroad and a congregation that more and more people - humans, Fey and Beastfolk alike - flocked to, the name Martin D. Brandt was known to many people. His message of peace, compassion, and unity between the races and the social classes was a popular idea that resonated with the masses far and wide, even as rising strife put more and more people on edge.
It was tumultuous time in his country's history, for him to be starting a family, but love has a certain way of sneaking up on anyone. He married a woman just under his age - Sophia. Only a few years in, and the pair was already getting ready to bring a child of their own into the world, when a familiar face finally returned. Rasputin, now in his late twenties, met him exactly where they always used to meet. A happy reunion was off-set by the sadness of their last departure, and the reasoning behind it. In anger and desperation for his mistreatment, the young slave had lashed out. He had managed to out-magic and kill his masters - and then ran. He didn't want to bring Martin into it then, lest the Fey overlords take it out upon him.
He had returned though, because the time was ripe. The years Rasputin had spent in absence had been spent raising an army - a revolutionary army, who every day were preparing to rid the country of the overlords. But it wasn't enough. They didn't have the funds, and they still didn't have enough people. If they joined forces, if Martin used his wealth and influence, they could overturn the whole country. Rasputin had even come across old magic, ancient rituals, including one that would empower Martin with his own magic. Together, again, they could free humanity from the Fey.
Martin regretfully turned him down. Rasputin's idea of a violent revolution stood against everything he believed in, and he could not be a part of it. He had to believe there was a better way, for freedom and equality to come to the land. The two left each other, both saddened to have lost a place in the other's life. The revolution happened anyway, as Rasputin struck the powder keg. Violence and bloodshed struck out across everywhere, practically in every place around the country, as peasants turned warriors fought against Fey with swords and guns and claws. Martin and his family remained isolated from the conflicts as the war went on one year, two years, still trying to preach to peace and unification, and for a time, it seemed liked he was really getting through to some people.
Then he came home one night. It was quieter than normal. He figured Sophia and Ilya were in bed already, perhaps reading a story. Then he heard a thud. Then a growl. And that was most certainly not his wife. He grabbed a hunting rifle from the mantle place, before sneaking quietly upstairs. The door to the bedroom was open.
The phrase, "seeing red," is usually not meant so literally. The blood of his wife and daughter had gotten all over the furniture and the walls, as the pair of Beastfolk ... stopped being hungry. He shot the one immediately, and beat the other one within an inch of its life with the butt of the gun, screaming and yelling and cursing and crying and venting such a storm of emotions as he had never had before in his life. Its face disfigured beyond recognition, and choked more with sobs than screams, he finally managed to ask why. The Beastfolk himself choked, on blood, as he tried to laugh.
"Because the Romanovs told us to. We do what we're tol -" he died before he finished the "d" sound.
Martin hated. For the first time in his life, he hated. He hated the Beastfolk, for being so simple and stupid. He hated the Fey, for being so above everyone else. He hated the Romanovs, for refusing to end this peacefully.
He hated himself, for not taking Rasputin up on his offer.
He hated himself, for not having joined him and ended this stupid war sooner, for being unable to protect his parents, his wife, his daughter.
He sought out Rasputin, a blazing fire of rage unlike anyone had seen in the face of the pastor before. Still his friend, always his friend, Rasputin would have consoled him. But he wouldn't have any consolation.
He wanted revenge. The pact between the two of them gave him just that, as Martin gained the power to fight the Fey himself. It was as Rasputin predicted: with Martin's influence and wealth, the tide turned soon enough - and even more so as Martin's family, so beloved by the people, were heralded as martyrs, innocently slaughtered while trying so hard to bring peace. The people overthrew the Romanov's in the end, with Rasputin at the head of their armies. They drove out the "Noble" Fey, and slaughtered the Romanov court. Rasputin, leader and savior of the people, was named the prime minister, and though there was peace ... Martin would have none of it.
He still hated. So Rasputin gave him the chance to work through it, by giving him people to take it out on. He became an assassin for the fledgeling government, using the abilities the now-prime minister had given him to fight, to kill, to hate, mopping up the enemies of the new country. It went on for decades like that. He had to keep fighting, or else emotion would take over and he didn't know if he'd ever get out. By the time the world war came though, he was getting older. Age was showing its signs, even with the gift of magic Rasputin had given him. Not wanting to see his friend and most loyal warrior-mage fall in battle, Rasputin gave him the ritual to become a lich. Suddenly immortal, with an army of Fey on the other side, Martin was all too eager to participate in the world war.
Back then, his only regret was that it ended in their retreat. With the barrier up, they were safe from further Fey aggression, and only a few pockets of resistance still held out in the dark places. Dark was what Martin did best, however, so he kept hunting, kept fighting, kept killing. He was so deep in red that when he found the rebel seer, Madame Third Awning, sitting at her table within the gypsy coach, it was a wonder he didn't kill her right away.
"You'll want to know this." There was no point in hiding, since she knew he was there.
"Tell me, seer. Have you seen me kill you yet?"
"Yes. It's not time for that yet though."
"Oh? Then what time would it be for?"
"Time for you to know the truth."
"I think I know enough about that myself, thanks."
"Tell me, Martin." She knew his name. He didn't know why he was surprised. "Who do you hate?"
"You're the seer. You tell me."
She laughed. It was an odd time to laugh. He couldn't tell if she walked into that on purpose, or if he caught her by surprise. Her next words made him think the former.
"You hate the Beastfolk. Two of them killed your wife and child."
"Two of them ate my wife and daughter," he corrected for her, envenomed.
"You hate the Fey. Their court, arrogant and spiteful, begot all the violence that swept our country."
"Better," he admitted, toying with the trappings of her room.
"Most important - you hate yourself." He stopped messing with the curtain to glare at her. "You hate yourself, because its your fault most of all. You could have joined Rasputin earlier. With your help, the two of you could have ended the Romanov line before your family ever fell into the crossfire."
He stalked closer to her, from behind her chair.
"It's a pity you didn't use your talents for him."
"It's a pity you hate everyone except he who deserves it."
He held back, another second longer.
"Yes. 'He.' It was Rasputin. I'm sure you've already had feelings of the same, when you actually let yourself think."
The implication stirred up dark traces in the back of his mind, of days when he let himself wonder and reflect. The pain had been too much. It still was. The desire to end the conversation, forcefully rose up stronger and with greater urgency.
"He mind controlled those two."
And there it was... the words he was too afraid of letting himself say aloud.
"He forced them to attack your family. He told them what to say. And he waited for you. He knew you'd come. He wanted you, he needed you... and he played you."
Martin ran. He ran and he ran, and no matter how far he went, her words kept repeating what he didn't want to hear. It was like he could see it himself, the way things played out. It would have been all too easy, with Rasputin's powers, to manipulate two of the Beastfolk. And just like that, Rasputin had wealth, reinforcements, and a warrior full of wrath and aimed at his enemies - everything he needed to wipe out his persecutors.
Martin had been his friend, possibly Rasputin's only real friend, and Rasputin had destroyed his life.
The window cracked. The penny dropped. The ocean shattered.
He drifted through the night, before he finally came back to the gypsy coach. He almost expected it to be gone. The woman was making breakfast.
"You didn't really see me kill you, did you?"
"The better question is if you would have, had I not said I saw you do it."
He thought only a moment, before coming up with his own answer.
"What happens now?" he asked, hardly able to focus the emptiness of his mind.
"Now? Now we have waffles. Then? Then everything else."
He met with the Resistance, eventually. Madame Third Awning was an upper member, and even with everyone he'd killed ... the Resistance accepted him. Slowly, anyway. Some were not so quick to forgive, but the fact was, Martin was the closest person to Rasputin of anyone they knew. He was deep in the government, had greater access and ability, and the fact he was such a powerful mage in his own right made him one of the greatest additions the resistance had made in years.
It wasn't really a question at that point, what he could do for them. Martin went back as a double agent, feeding them information and assisting on missions as much as he was able. The Resistance was in it for the long haul though, since Rasputin was getting no older nor easier to kill. Yet for those who most wanted out, his intimate knowledge of Rasputin's necromancy allowed Martin to help get people through the barrier and out to the other side.
A few decades of subtly undermining Rasputin's control, and the Resistance had been growing steadily, but their luck couldn't hold forever. A mission to save a group of Beastfolk from the chopping block went south, as they walked into a trap. Several of them went down, before the teleportation-jammer keeping them from a retreat was taken down. Among the fallen was the previous head of the Resistance, the fey warrior, Aristarkh. In need of a new leader, the title should have passed to the next senior member - Madame Third Awning.
She declined, citing that she worked best from the sidelines, in an advisory position. The leader of the Resistance would need to be someone of intelligence and wisdom, who knew their enemy well and themselves better; a person of vision, of ideals weathered by the knowledge of hardship; a realist, optimistic. There were many members of the Resistance that had been there longer than him, that might have been as strong or even stronger than him, and so after talking over the rest, when Madame Third Awning finally said his name, he was taken more than a little off guard.
"Me? What about me?"
"You," she repeated, and how blind eyes could twinkle was beyond him. "I nominate you as our next leader."
His brows furrowed amid the quiet chatter of the room. "You do remember what I used to do?"
It was a pointless question, right up there with "What I am" and "Who I still have to work with."
"He killed us! He killed -" someone shouted indignantly, before a shoulder punch made him shut up.
"Yes," the madame agreed. "He did kill some of us - but I don't see him doing that right now. And it is specifically because of that - who he was, and who he is - that he is the best candidate. He knows how they think, and the information he continues to give us comes at great personal cost and danger. Responsibility, prudence, compassion, strength ... Yes. I nominate Martin as our next leader."
The murmurs continued, as he felt more and more on the spot. He eventually got the hint that they were waiting for him to say something, some stewing and others hopeful. In their faces, he felt like he was back in the pulpit of his own congregation. He remembered how that panned out: playing people right into Rasputin's hands.
"I tried being a leader before," he said it like a sigh, already retracting. "It didn't work then."
"So you have been tricked." "But does that make him harder to trick -" "- Or is he easier to trick in general."
"He was a man in pain," Madame Third Awning intervened. "They took his wife, and his daughter, and paraded their bodies in front of him. Some of you have suffered the same. Can any of you claim to have kept a better head in that position? Bruno! Did you or did you not attempt to take out a whole garrison yourself?"
The figured coughed into his hand and pretended not to have heard.
"Ah huh. At least his actions were less suicidal, and admittedly much more effective. And that is what we need right now: to be effective. The more humans that are born into Rasputin's world, the more the odds are stacked against us. We must act smarter. We must pick our battles more cautiously. Martin is the most qualified to do that."
Whether or not he or anyone else accepted that as true, he stayed quiet as the debate continued for a few minutes more, other names vying for more consideration than the undead human murderer-betrayer. He debated with himself, too, and when he finally came to a conclusion, he stepped back into the spotlight politic.
"If I could ... have everyone's attention for a moment," he said calmly, one hand up as if could still the vocal waters with it. "I don't want to be a leader. I don't want to give orders or tell people what to do. I've been there. I've done it, in war and out. I've sent people to their deaths before, and I can't do that anymore. But this is a war. And we're fighting for more than our lives: we're fighting for the freedom, for the hearts and minds and hopes of every man, woman, child of every race under the barrier. So if you want orders? If you want me to tell you what to do? You're asking the wrong person. The most I can be, to any of you, is a guide... A ... a shepherd, to help us get through this. I want to help you - I do - all of you," he made a point of looking kindly to his detractors, "But I'm not the one you want to lead. Whoever you decide, I'll support. That's ... that's all I wanted to say. You can continue without me."
And so he left. He thought that was the end of that, until he found Madame Third Awning within his spartan chambers later on. She had made him a cup of tea, in his absence. There was a slowly building awkwardness in the moment, as he waited for her explanation.
"So ... it seems ... a Shepherd will do just fine."
"The Shepherd" has been the acting leader of the Resistance for three decades now, fighting a slow guerilla war, trying to take down Rasputin piece by piece, from the inside out and outside in. Those down the rung and out of the organization only know him by this title, and frequently only meet with his Shadow form. His real face and persona are known only to those near the top, trying to keep his double agent status as secret as possible to everyone. Though he has little time to spare for himself, he's made a point of attending to the various members of Resistance, counseling and guiding them just as he said he would. The tragedies worked by the Ruthenian government and a populace brainwashed into bigotry and hate have left him with no ends of people to talk with about their problems.
Eventually, he might even make a difference.