My one rule [Bast Level 1]
Name: Bast
Age: Unknown. Presumed to be early thirties
Race: Human
Alignment: Good
Personality
Bast is the definition of mad hero. Really, there is no way that one cannot believe that he is anything less.
After being driven insane by overexposure to his own magic, Bast was cast down from the echelons of society and joined the homeless of Radasanth in the filthy alleyways and sewers that comprise the city. This had quite a profound effect on him – not causing him anger or resentment, but instead strengthening his own resolve to help people, so that they may avoid his own fate. Due to his quirky, eccentric and unusual nature, some people believe that he is a psychopath, but that is not true; Bast feels emotion, and the definition of psychopathy is that a person feels no emotion whatsoever. His emotion may be humour, or happiness, or even occasional sadness when one of his plans doesn’t succeed, but he does feel genuine emotion. But even with his insanity, the fact is that he has a perceptive mind. He is not only able to think up complicated schemes very quickly, and set up all the necessary tools to get these plans going, but he can also adjust them very quickly when he needs to.
Bast has hang ups on modern society. He believes in the rights and freedoms of individuals, and does not care much for institutions such as the Assembly, the Brotherhood, the Church or any other purported body of control. He actively seeks to re-distribute the wealth of corrupt organisations to the poor and homeless of Radasanth, although usually always the children and members of his camp are the first beneficiaries before himself.
Appearance
Bast is around five foot ten and has dark, matted hair to his neck. Due to the incident that “blew out†his magic stock, the hair appears black but actually has a chromatic, oily shimmer to it, whilst the skin on his face and neck has been bleached white by the resultant corrosion. Somewhat embarrassed by his appearance, Bast paints black runes around his eyes and mouth to make the discolouration look like war paint. His clothes consist of a custom made, worn grey silk undershirt, a shabby navy blue suit jacket, worn navy trousers and scuffed black dress shoes. His palms are scarred from magical burns.
Equipment
Weapons: Faustus and Mephistopheles
Bast’s only real weapons consist of his prized knives. They consist of a pair of five inch, double edged steel hunting knives, both forged in Raiaeran kilns and finished with white ivory grips.
Armour: Leather chestplate
Usually strapped to his chest underneath his shirt, this plate protects Bast from impact damage of low grade knives, hammers and swords. It will take the edge of an attack, but will not prevent penetration.
Abilities
It all burns
From the blades of his daggers, Bast can call upon small boomerang sized crescents of flame. These can travel up to twenty five feet and upon impact will cause small to medium severity fire elemental damage. Each projectile bursts into embers upon collision. This can be used once per day.
Truly incorruptible
Bast’s highly damaged mental state and highly tuned self awareness makes him a lot less susceptible to psychological warfare. All enemy skills designed to damage morale or control / influence the mind have their effectiveness halved, with any spells being of Basts’s level negated entirely.
Skeleton Key
Bast controls the ability to pass through doors and walls by using closely connected portals to rend a hole in the fabric of matter, allowing him to simply walk through for a period of up to ten seconds. Once the portal closes, the matter returns to its former state. It cannot be used on living tissue, which simply distorts the portal and makes it untenable, and nor can it be used to teleport himself, objects or other living creatures any distances. This can be used four times a day.
Background
Bast was found washed up on the beaches of Tylmerande as a child over twenty two years ago by a fisherman during one of Corone’s fiercest storms. Without any indication as to where the child had come from, or who his parents were, after much deliberation the young fisherman Braii Unaii decided to take the child in and raise him as his own son, having no immediate family. After a few years, Braii found himself running a small but profitable business trading Tylmerande’s famous pearls, with Bast as his harvester. At a time when these pearls had become acclaimed, business was extremely good and expanded quickly to the point where Bast was put to work not only gathering the pearls, but selling them too.
It wasn’t long before the success of Braii’s business caught the attention of other organisations. Seeing how much money could be made from such an industry, a group of bandits from an organisation known as the Perfect Circle visited Braii and placed an offer with him for a share of the profits. Braii, scared of what this organisation would do to him and Bast should he refuse their offer, accepted a seventy / thirty split and sent Bast to Radasanth to sell the pearls for Perfect Circle.
After several months of relative success, Bast stumbled upon Radasanth’s “dirty little secret†– a homeless community that lived in the grotty alleyways and sewers of Corone’s capital. Seeing the plight of many men, women and children who couldn’t afford to feed themselves, the young boy started siphoning off the Perfect Circle’s share of the profits to help sustain those less fortunate than himself. Naively, he believed that the Perfect Circle wouldn’t notice, but before long their own book-keepers noticed a huge deficit and paid Braii a visit in Tylmerande. They killed him, stripped the corpse of flesh and hung his skeleton out in the port for all to see as an example of what would happen if one crossed the Circle. Bast was taken as collateral on the debt, and forced to work for them.
Originally, Bast was told that Braii had passed away from a form of scurvy, but when the truth came to light several years later it broke the young man. He snapped, and in his rage accidentally released a huge quantity of dangerous and uncontrollable energy that killed seven of his captors and permanently damaged him, scarring his hands, bleaching his face and neck and unravelling his mind. Despite being grievously wounded, the young boy managed to flee and, still smouldering, found his way into Radasanth. There, he found a camp of homeless people to whom he had given the majority of his wealth, and staggering into the rancid alleyway Bast eventually passed out from the pain.
When he awoke, he found himself in a secret part of the city’s tunnels; a cleaner, safer area. He had fresh bandages, clean clothes and food. As he looked around, he saw the grateful faces of those who he had helped and heard tales of how the Perfect Circle’s stolen wealth had allowed them to build a community hidden below the streets, and gather enough resources to live a relatively comfortable life. Here, he could stay, a hero among a caste of people whom society did not even wish to see and had even less desire to help. Before long, people started to see that Bast’s mind was damaged. He would frequently be seen talking to himself, repeating a conversation over and over to try and see all of the possible contexts of whatever had been discussed. He would come back from the cold with sacks of gold coins, throwing them like confetti around the tunnel complex to the delight of the children and amusement of the adults. Finally, Bast would become obsessed with custom clothing and knives, collecting many of each and hording them in a chamber he called “The Bankâ€, which he warned people away from due to “Health and Safetyâ€.
Though his mind was sensitive, Bast would never become violent unless provoked, and never with his own people. He loved children, he was friendly with adults and cared for animals. As he put it, “only the so-called civilised people up there, in their decadent nests, are the ones who would eat us alive given half the chance.â€
