Amen
08-20-11, 12:11 AM
I think you're going to notice this profile is a fair jump in the stats department, which I'm justifying here because A) Marcus has been through a LOT, B) I'm still not sure what's "normal" for a character at my level, C) I would like to be able to justify surviving more than two seconds against higher-level characters in the Serenti, and D) in my mind Marcus HAD a certain level of speed, endurance, and toughness, I just failed to make note of it in his profile. I figure it's better to start strong and scale back than get by with a comparatively neutered character.
Also I have a pending transaction (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22530-Time-to-Get-Spendy) in the bazaar I will likely need to add, but with the Serenti looming I figured I should get this up ASAP anyway.
Previous profile is here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22510-Marcus-Book-(Level-1)). Thanks guys.
Name: Marcus Book
Age: Young Adult (Date of birth unknown)
Race: Human
Hair Color: Very Dark
Eye Color: Dark (See Appearance)
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 240 lbs.
Occupation: Mercenary. Brotherhood Templar.
Personality
Curt. Professional. Determined. Violent. Marcus has found that the mercenary lifestyle suits him: it gives him a greater outlet for his brutal tendencies, and the pay is good. He is stoic. He knows himself better than he did in his youth, and has begun to accept those troubling parts of his personality as straightforward truths. He is willful, stubborn, and sometimes paranoid, but also cunning and reasonable. Marcus is low-key and reserved at rest, sometimes even aloof, but when roused by fear or anger to into violence his passion is illimitable.
He will present himself always as a dumb brute and prefers not to mince words, but he can be stunningly eloquent in Tradespeak and Salvic when the need calls.
Appearance
Book has a notable presence for any number of reasons, and is difficult to overlook. He is broad-shouldered and prodigiously muscled in a way that suggests constant and intense strength training. He is a somewhat stout man, with short, thick-thewed legs and a long torso to compensate.
As a result of a Fallien grandmother on his mother’s side, Marcus naturally has olive skin and dark hair and eyes. Knights in The Brotherhood ritually shave their heads every three weeks, and so Marcus’ hair is rarely more than swarthy peach fuzz on his scalp. His countenance is severe and grave by default due to dark moods, intense eyes, and a heavy brow, though he makes a conscious effort to affect friendliness and softness in polite company.
Marcus’ eyes are worth a special note, as are those of all the members of The Brotherhood. Any being that channels energy from The Source seems to develop an arresting golden glint in his or her eyes. At first one might mistake this glint for the reflection of some distant fire, but a light-touched person’s eyes will glint and glow even in pitch darkness. This mark is especially prominent in Marcus, being that his eyes and features are naturally so very dark, and because his brow is particularly heavy. Should even the slightest shadow play over his face, Marcus’ eyes instead seem to be twin sparks dancing in unison in the deep voids of their sockets.
Since returning from a year living as a nomad in Fallien, Book’s appearance now favors his mother’s side. His skin is the color of smoky copper, his eyes are rimmed with black stains from Fallien kohl used to reduce the ubiquitous sun glare, and he sports a full, black goatee. He is heavily tattooed with Ringerike style designs depicting fierce, stylized ravens and bears in slim profile amidst deep, abstract spirals. His tattoos flow symmetrically to cover his pectorals, shoulders, and arms down to the backs of his hands.
Marcus has his collection of scars as well. There’s a less noticeable scar beneath his ribs on the left side, running about two and a half inches. It is more difficult to overlook the three, wicked eight-inch scars running across his chest through and below his tattoos – war trophies from his battle with Lorenor.
History
Little is known about Marcus Book before he was taken in by The Brotherhood: an order of men and women who have devoted their lives to rooting out and destroying supernatural evil and iniquity. His earliest memories are vague impressions of the ocean and the sway the sea imposes on large ships. Though The Brotherhood’s scribes paint an exciting picture of his early childhood that he knows to be true, Book has no recollection of the events that placed him firmly on the path he treads today.
Marcus was, the scribes tell him, the happy offspring of a successful merchant from Salvar and an exotic beauty he met and married in the slums of Fallien’s trade quarter – herself the illegitimate daughter of a native Fallien maid and an outsider. The scribes don’t know when Marcus was born or where, and believe it possible that he was birthed at sea. It is certain that the first few years of his life were spent in transit from one port to the next.
When he was very young – no older than five – the Book family and their ship was attacked by pirates operating out of Corone. Though the pirates were repulsed, Marcus’ father gave his life to shield his son from the thrust of a sword, which passed through the elder Book’s body to give the younger a scar he still carries. Even today, despite not being able to remember that early brush with death, Marcus finds Coronic accents grating.
Being an illegitimate child and having only cursory knowledge of sailing vessels and commerce, Marcus’ mother had no means to support herself or her injured son. She liquidated her late husband’s assets and fortuitously found support in the mysterious Brotherhood. They healed Marcus’ wounds and arranged safe passage for his mother back to Fallien, and after a great deal of soul searching she entrusted her child to their order.
Thus, Marcus began a life of intense training and discipline, preparing for an endless war against the shadows. The scribes taught him to read and write, and then they taught him about foreign cultures and their strange traditions, and then they began to teach him about their enemy – about dark rites and black sorcery, about the many brands of undeath, and about demons that would stop at nothing to torture and destroy him and the best way to end them first. The knights forced him to harden his body and his mind: to work the land on days both blistering hot and freezing cold, to stand resolute under the crushing rush of small waterfalls, and finally to fight with mace and sword. And the monks taught him to reach out to and channel the power of The Source – an inestimable well of celestial light and power and righteousness.
Marcus Book’s life has been a series of trials designed to forge him into a weapon for the light, a never ending process of self-surmounting and preparation – and now it’s time for him to fight the war. As with all squires his age, Marcus was recently apprenticed to a seasoned knight, and now he prepares to venture into the darkness.
Level 0
Due to his intrinsic physical prowess and violent tendencies, The Brotherhood encouraged Marcus to test himself repeatedly against servants of the shadow in The Citadel. It was not long, however, before his mentor – Anya Shea – was tasked with the investigation of the distant Salvic town of Farshire, which complained of demonic attacks. Marcus joined her, as well as the scribe Alexander Farkus.
The Brotherhood’s representatives found Farshire strange: the town itself was uncommonly prosperous and wealthy while the surrounding farms and countryside were, in equal and opposite measure, destitute and famished. Anya and Marcus ventured into the countryside where they did eventually discover a man possessed by a powerful demon, which nearly murdered Book before his mentor intervened. Shortly after, the secret to Farshire’s success and the country’s blight was uncovered: the town’s leadership had made an infernal pact.
The paladins returned to Farshire to find Farkus missing, and in the search for him they stumbled upon a desecrated church. They slaughtered all those they found within, including a nascent devil freshly summoned onto Althanas. With the devil’s influence severed, Farshire’s unnatural prosperity began to wane and the paladins were chased out of the country before they could locate their missing companion.
Anya and Marcus returned to The Brotherhood and, while waiting for support to return to Farshire and mount another search, Marcus was encouraged to enter The Cell as The Brotherhood’s representative. He encountered many of the most powerful individuals in the known world, and though he did not win he survived the event.
Despite their subsequent requests to mount a search for their missing scribe, Marcus and his mentor were sent far to the north along with a caravan of seasoned knights, to the border of Berevar to investigate troubling rumors of iniquitous activity and sightings of undead hordes. There was indeed a small but troublesome undead force there, which after a protracted battle The Brotherhood put down. However, in the ensuing chaos Marcus went missing in action.
Seven months later he has returned from the far north, wiser and somewhat more powerful, though his account of that time to his superiors is suspiciously vague.
Level 1
Upon returning from the north and giving an unsatisfactory report to his superiors, Marcus was essentially put on leave. Not one to sit idle, he set about occupying his time with personal projects in lieu of orders. He began spending a great deal of time in and around the Citadel, notably challenging the self-styled prophet of N’Jal, Lorenor. Despite the presence of the Citadel’s monks and against all odds, the young paladin not only survived, but somehow killed the ghoul. Though he bought Althanas a much-needed respite from Lorenor’s evil, Marcus realizes that the psychological ripples from this event will weigh on him for years to come, as surely as the physical scars the ghoul left on his person.
The manner of his victory over Lorenor – a climax to his lifelong struggle with his violent urges – caused Marcus to question his nature as never before. He began seeking answers to his relatively unknown parentage, and discovered what he believed to be the name of his mother. In a convoluted series of events, he came into contact with a mysterious Ai’Brone disciple, who struck a bizarre deal with the paladin. To satisfy his end of the bargain, Marcus trained an otherworldly young girl he knew as Sophia in the art of swordplay. She was, in fact, Azza Ambrose of the Ixian Knights, a fact to which he remains, as yet, ignorant.
With an awkward friendship established and his part in the bargain done, the monk sent Marcus on to Fallien in search of answers. There he fell in with a warlike, nomadic tribe of horsemen who at first held him captive and then came to accept him as one of them. Taking on their myriad customs and practices, and even taking one of their leaders as a forbidden lover, Book was almost content to abandon his search and remain amidst the glass dunes forever. Fate decreed otherwise.
When all was said and done, Marcus knew scant little more about himself and had struggled against impending death beneath the blazing sun for a full year. He put Fallien firmly behind him, heartbroken but stronger than ever before, and returned north.
Having been so isolated, he had no idea that a bitter civil war broke out in Corone. Upon returning to the beleaguered island nation, intent on returning to his Citadel career, he was called quite unexpectedly before the viceroy Emien Harthworth. The two immediately developed a mutual respect for one another, and Marcus was sent on to privateer in the Am’aleh Seas. A mutiny cost him his ship and his command, forcing him to return to Radasanth by way of the eastern mountain ranges, where he helped a small town resist a renegade cavalry division, and through Akashima. On the border between Akashima and Corone proper, he helped put down a Ranger-instigated revolution that threatened to drag the neutral nation into the war.
When he finally stepped into Radasanth again, Marcus once again found himself in the midst of a major battle. The Rangers staged a daring attack on the Radasanth City Guard, and Marcus, along with such notable figures as Victor “Padre” Callahan and Esme Villeneuve working incognito, helped turn the tide.
Having thus proven himself, the young templar now works directly for Emien Harthworth, a mercenary devoted to the Empire’s aims.
Skills
Martial Training: Marcus Book has been well-trained from youth in the use of maces, two-handed swords, heavy weapons, and personal shields.
Infernal Lore: All paladins of The Brotherhood are versed in the types, features, frailties, and habits of the most commonly known infernal, magical, and extra-planar species, including demons, devils, and the undead.
Striking Looks: Marcus has trained intensely from childhood to be a light-touched soldier, and is physically remarkable even among his fellow paladins. His heavily muscled physique sets him apart from most other humans. Furthermore, his brooding countenance, burning eyes, and ornate tattoos make him difficult to overlook or ignore.
Polyglot: Marcus has been trained to fluently speak, read, and write in Salvic, Trade, and multiple dialects of Fallien. He speaks with a thick but clear Salvic accent except in Fallien, where his accent is undetectable. In addition, angelic script was a special interest of his during his school years.
Deductive Reasoning: Nobody is more surprised than Marcus Book to discover that he’s actually a fine detective and logical thinker, when he puts his mind to it. He has taken fast to modern politics and spy culture in Radasanth, where his natural paranoia and distrust serves well. This has also proven useful in battle.
Abilities
Physical Attributes:
Marcus has seen near-constant struggle and combat since the Brotherhood apprenticed him to Anya Shea and sent him into the field. Where other men would have surely died, where nearly everyone else perishes, he grows stronger. This bespeaks something beyond even his relationship with the divine: he is physically superhuman.
Marcus has grown incredibly strong. For example, he is notable for displaying the ability to deadlift nearly six times more than could be expected of the average human with moderate struggle. As his preternatural strength grows, his muscles propel him at remarkable speeds: experienced fighters estimate that he moves three times faster than the average man of similar height and build. Stubborn, willful, and unyielding, he has made it a habit of physically pushing himself up to four times farther than others dare. And, most telling to his unknown heritage, Book’s skin, bones, and muscles have begun to harden and grow denser than the natural human’s wont: by his estimation, his flesh is as tough as arctic hide.
Channeling:
Light-Touched
Marcus’ eyes and other senses have been altered by exposure to The Source’s light.
He can see through low-level illusions, especially those intended to mask some unholy or extra-planar nature.
He can “feel” when iniquitous or extra-planar energies are nearby.
Because his eyes produce a slight glow, he can see much better than a normal human being in both natural and supernatural darkness.
Hellfire
Marcus can focus The Source’s light through his body, causing intense “flares” of supernatural heat and light.
Marcus can currently confer the light’s heat through touch. Hellfire consumes unholy energy, impurity, and wicked sorcery to fuel its celestial flames. Hellfire is agonizingly painful, but does not usually burn the victim physically. It can kill in the right circumstances, however: the pain of being consumed by hellfire can become too much for a mind and body to handle and thus cause death, and a being sustained by unholy sorcery might find its magical reserves utterly burnt away. Because demons and those with demonic parentage are anathema and veritably built from the forces hellfire consumes, it can cause physical harm to them in the form of painful burns that are slow to heal.
Because hellfire does not cause physical harm to most beings, it can be used to eliminate infection and cauterize open wounds, and can counteract the effects of weak poisons and disease. The process is still usually very painful, as only celestial entities are without some intrinsic darkness. The healing properties of hellfire obviously only apply to non-demonic, living beings.
Marcus must currently touch a subject to ignite it with hellfire, which will then spread and burn based on the target’s nature. Marcus must maintain physical contact with the target, or hellfire’s flames will instantly subside.
Purifying Flames: Marcus has become skilled enough in the manipulation of hellfire to heal with it. This ability is based upon the notion that wounds, illness, corruption, and recent death are “distortions” of the natural state or “pure” self. By touching and focusing on the person meant to be healed for the duration of one post, Book can channel hellfire so that it burns away all corruption and distortion of the self, and invigorates the damaged parts of a person to reassume their right order.
This ability still involves the use of hellfire, however. Targets of the paladin’s ministrations might also consider themselves victims: even when used to heal, hellfire is painful. Healed minor wounds are reasonably painful but can be quickly recovered from, but moderate wounds such as deep gashes, lost digits, large broken bones, and so on are healed so painfully that the target will require an entire post just to recover. Serious wounds, such as severe brain damage, destroyed organs, severed limbs, or recent death are healed with so much agony that the target will be incapacitated for the rest of the scene. Furthermore, the intense focus and control required to manipulate vast amounts of Source-energy in such an undertaking would completely exhaust Marcus, denying him the ability to heal any wound at all for the rest of the scene.
Equipment
- Marcus is currently dressed in basic clothing: a white cotton shirt that has grown a bit tight across the chest and arms, ragged horsehide pants from Fallien, a pair of buccaneer's boots with the tops folded over, and whatever weapons he's carrying on his person.
- Marcus carries a basic, crude, and particularly heavy iron bastard sword. It is kept in a well worn scabbard on his back. It is showing early signs of rust about the edges, and its durability is in question.
- The Hellfire Torch is a mace a little more than two and a half feet long and entirely metallic. It is forged of an alloy of damascus and steel. Its handle is wrapped in aged leather, and the head is heavy yet hollow. The torch is so named because the wielder can channel supernatural energy, such as hellfire, through it. Said energy collects at the head. Awarded here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?20573-The-Price-of-Peace/page2).
Also I have a pending transaction (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22530-Time-to-Get-Spendy) in the bazaar I will likely need to add, but with the Serenti looming I figured I should get this up ASAP anyway.
Previous profile is here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22510-Marcus-Book-(Level-1)). Thanks guys.
Name: Marcus Book
Age: Young Adult (Date of birth unknown)
Race: Human
Hair Color: Very Dark
Eye Color: Dark (See Appearance)
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 240 lbs.
Occupation: Mercenary. Brotherhood Templar.
Personality
Curt. Professional. Determined. Violent. Marcus has found that the mercenary lifestyle suits him: it gives him a greater outlet for his brutal tendencies, and the pay is good. He is stoic. He knows himself better than he did in his youth, and has begun to accept those troubling parts of his personality as straightforward truths. He is willful, stubborn, and sometimes paranoid, but also cunning and reasonable. Marcus is low-key and reserved at rest, sometimes even aloof, but when roused by fear or anger to into violence his passion is illimitable.
He will present himself always as a dumb brute and prefers not to mince words, but he can be stunningly eloquent in Tradespeak and Salvic when the need calls.
Appearance
Book has a notable presence for any number of reasons, and is difficult to overlook. He is broad-shouldered and prodigiously muscled in a way that suggests constant and intense strength training. He is a somewhat stout man, with short, thick-thewed legs and a long torso to compensate.
As a result of a Fallien grandmother on his mother’s side, Marcus naturally has olive skin and dark hair and eyes. Knights in The Brotherhood ritually shave their heads every three weeks, and so Marcus’ hair is rarely more than swarthy peach fuzz on his scalp. His countenance is severe and grave by default due to dark moods, intense eyes, and a heavy brow, though he makes a conscious effort to affect friendliness and softness in polite company.
Marcus’ eyes are worth a special note, as are those of all the members of The Brotherhood. Any being that channels energy from The Source seems to develop an arresting golden glint in his or her eyes. At first one might mistake this glint for the reflection of some distant fire, but a light-touched person’s eyes will glint and glow even in pitch darkness. This mark is especially prominent in Marcus, being that his eyes and features are naturally so very dark, and because his brow is particularly heavy. Should even the slightest shadow play over his face, Marcus’ eyes instead seem to be twin sparks dancing in unison in the deep voids of their sockets.
Since returning from a year living as a nomad in Fallien, Book’s appearance now favors his mother’s side. His skin is the color of smoky copper, his eyes are rimmed with black stains from Fallien kohl used to reduce the ubiquitous sun glare, and he sports a full, black goatee. He is heavily tattooed with Ringerike style designs depicting fierce, stylized ravens and bears in slim profile amidst deep, abstract spirals. His tattoos flow symmetrically to cover his pectorals, shoulders, and arms down to the backs of his hands.
Marcus has his collection of scars as well. There’s a less noticeable scar beneath his ribs on the left side, running about two and a half inches. It is more difficult to overlook the three, wicked eight-inch scars running across his chest through and below his tattoos – war trophies from his battle with Lorenor.
History
Little is known about Marcus Book before he was taken in by The Brotherhood: an order of men and women who have devoted their lives to rooting out and destroying supernatural evil and iniquity. His earliest memories are vague impressions of the ocean and the sway the sea imposes on large ships. Though The Brotherhood’s scribes paint an exciting picture of his early childhood that he knows to be true, Book has no recollection of the events that placed him firmly on the path he treads today.
Marcus was, the scribes tell him, the happy offspring of a successful merchant from Salvar and an exotic beauty he met and married in the slums of Fallien’s trade quarter – herself the illegitimate daughter of a native Fallien maid and an outsider. The scribes don’t know when Marcus was born or where, and believe it possible that he was birthed at sea. It is certain that the first few years of his life were spent in transit from one port to the next.
When he was very young – no older than five – the Book family and their ship was attacked by pirates operating out of Corone. Though the pirates were repulsed, Marcus’ father gave his life to shield his son from the thrust of a sword, which passed through the elder Book’s body to give the younger a scar he still carries. Even today, despite not being able to remember that early brush with death, Marcus finds Coronic accents grating.
Being an illegitimate child and having only cursory knowledge of sailing vessels and commerce, Marcus’ mother had no means to support herself or her injured son. She liquidated her late husband’s assets and fortuitously found support in the mysterious Brotherhood. They healed Marcus’ wounds and arranged safe passage for his mother back to Fallien, and after a great deal of soul searching she entrusted her child to their order.
Thus, Marcus began a life of intense training and discipline, preparing for an endless war against the shadows. The scribes taught him to read and write, and then they taught him about foreign cultures and their strange traditions, and then they began to teach him about their enemy – about dark rites and black sorcery, about the many brands of undeath, and about demons that would stop at nothing to torture and destroy him and the best way to end them first. The knights forced him to harden his body and his mind: to work the land on days both blistering hot and freezing cold, to stand resolute under the crushing rush of small waterfalls, and finally to fight with mace and sword. And the monks taught him to reach out to and channel the power of The Source – an inestimable well of celestial light and power and righteousness.
Marcus Book’s life has been a series of trials designed to forge him into a weapon for the light, a never ending process of self-surmounting and preparation – and now it’s time for him to fight the war. As with all squires his age, Marcus was recently apprenticed to a seasoned knight, and now he prepares to venture into the darkness.
Level 0
Due to his intrinsic physical prowess and violent tendencies, The Brotherhood encouraged Marcus to test himself repeatedly against servants of the shadow in The Citadel. It was not long, however, before his mentor – Anya Shea – was tasked with the investigation of the distant Salvic town of Farshire, which complained of demonic attacks. Marcus joined her, as well as the scribe Alexander Farkus.
The Brotherhood’s representatives found Farshire strange: the town itself was uncommonly prosperous and wealthy while the surrounding farms and countryside were, in equal and opposite measure, destitute and famished. Anya and Marcus ventured into the countryside where they did eventually discover a man possessed by a powerful demon, which nearly murdered Book before his mentor intervened. Shortly after, the secret to Farshire’s success and the country’s blight was uncovered: the town’s leadership had made an infernal pact.
The paladins returned to Farshire to find Farkus missing, and in the search for him they stumbled upon a desecrated church. They slaughtered all those they found within, including a nascent devil freshly summoned onto Althanas. With the devil’s influence severed, Farshire’s unnatural prosperity began to wane and the paladins were chased out of the country before they could locate their missing companion.
Anya and Marcus returned to The Brotherhood and, while waiting for support to return to Farshire and mount another search, Marcus was encouraged to enter The Cell as The Brotherhood’s representative. He encountered many of the most powerful individuals in the known world, and though he did not win he survived the event.
Despite their subsequent requests to mount a search for their missing scribe, Marcus and his mentor were sent far to the north along with a caravan of seasoned knights, to the border of Berevar to investigate troubling rumors of iniquitous activity and sightings of undead hordes. There was indeed a small but troublesome undead force there, which after a protracted battle The Brotherhood put down. However, in the ensuing chaos Marcus went missing in action.
Seven months later he has returned from the far north, wiser and somewhat more powerful, though his account of that time to his superiors is suspiciously vague.
Level 1
Upon returning from the north and giving an unsatisfactory report to his superiors, Marcus was essentially put on leave. Not one to sit idle, he set about occupying his time with personal projects in lieu of orders. He began spending a great deal of time in and around the Citadel, notably challenging the self-styled prophet of N’Jal, Lorenor. Despite the presence of the Citadel’s monks and against all odds, the young paladin not only survived, but somehow killed the ghoul. Though he bought Althanas a much-needed respite from Lorenor’s evil, Marcus realizes that the psychological ripples from this event will weigh on him for years to come, as surely as the physical scars the ghoul left on his person.
The manner of his victory over Lorenor – a climax to his lifelong struggle with his violent urges – caused Marcus to question his nature as never before. He began seeking answers to his relatively unknown parentage, and discovered what he believed to be the name of his mother. In a convoluted series of events, he came into contact with a mysterious Ai’Brone disciple, who struck a bizarre deal with the paladin. To satisfy his end of the bargain, Marcus trained an otherworldly young girl he knew as Sophia in the art of swordplay. She was, in fact, Azza Ambrose of the Ixian Knights, a fact to which he remains, as yet, ignorant.
With an awkward friendship established and his part in the bargain done, the monk sent Marcus on to Fallien in search of answers. There he fell in with a warlike, nomadic tribe of horsemen who at first held him captive and then came to accept him as one of them. Taking on their myriad customs and practices, and even taking one of their leaders as a forbidden lover, Book was almost content to abandon his search and remain amidst the glass dunes forever. Fate decreed otherwise.
When all was said and done, Marcus knew scant little more about himself and had struggled against impending death beneath the blazing sun for a full year. He put Fallien firmly behind him, heartbroken but stronger than ever before, and returned north.
Having been so isolated, he had no idea that a bitter civil war broke out in Corone. Upon returning to the beleaguered island nation, intent on returning to his Citadel career, he was called quite unexpectedly before the viceroy Emien Harthworth. The two immediately developed a mutual respect for one another, and Marcus was sent on to privateer in the Am’aleh Seas. A mutiny cost him his ship and his command, forcing him to return to Radasanth by way of the eastern mountain ranges, where he helped a small town resist a renegade cavalry division, and through Akashima. On the border between Akashima and Corone proper, he helped put down a Ranger-instigated revolution that threatened to drag the neutral nation into the war.
When he finally stepped into Radasanth again, Marcus once again found himself in the midst of a major battle. The Rangers staged a daring attack on the Radasanth City Guard, and Marcus, along with such notable figures as Victor “Padre” Callahan and Esme Villeneuve working incognito, helped turn the tide.
Having thus proven himself, the young templar now works directly for Emien Harthworth, a mercenary devoted to the Empire’s aims.
Skills
Martial Training: Marcus Book has been well-trained from youth in the use of maces, two-handed swords, heavy weapons, and personal shields.
Infernal Lore: All paladins of The Brotherhood are versed in the types, features, frailties, and habits of the most commonly known infernal, magical, and extra-planar species, including demons, devils, and the undead.
Striking Looks: Marcus has trained intensely from childhood to be a light-touched soldier, and is physically remarkable even among his fellow paladins. His heavily muscled physique sets him apart from most other humans. Furthermore, his brooding countenance, burning eyes, and ornate tattoos make him difficult to overlook or ignore.
Polyglot: Marcus has been trained to fluently speak, read, and write in Salvic, Trade, and multiple dialects of Fallien. He speaks with a thick but clear Salvic accent except in Fallien, where his accent is undetectable. In addition, angelic script was a special interest of his during his school years.
Deductive Reasoning: Nobody is more surprised than Marcus Book to discover that he’s actually a fine detective and logical thinker, when he puts his mind to it. He has taken fast to modern politics and spy culture in Radasanth, where his natural paranoia and distrust serves well. This has also proven useful in battle.
Abilities
Physical Attributes:
Marcus has seen near-constant struggle and combat since the Brotherhood apprenticed him to Anya Shea and sent him into the field. Where other men would have surely died, where nearly everyone else perishes, he grows stronger. This bespeaks something beyond even his relationship with the divine: he is physically superhuman.
Marcus has grown incredibly strong. For example, he is notable for displaying the ability to deadlift nearly six times more than could be expected of the average human with moderate struggle. As his preternatural strength grows, his muscles propel him at remarkable speeds: experienced fighters estimate that he moves three times faster than the average man of similar height and build. Stubborn, willful, and unyielding, he has made it a habit of physically pushing himself up to four times farther than others dare. And, most telling to his unknown heritage, Book’s skin, bones, and muscles have begun to harden and grow denser than the natural human’s wont: by his estimation, his flesh is as tough as arctic hide.
Channeling:
Light-Touched
Marcus’ eyes and other senses have been altered by exposure to The Source’s light.
He can see through low-level illusions, especially those intended to mask some unholy or extra-planar nature.
He can “feel” when iniquitous or extra-planar energies are nearby.
Because his eyes produce a slight glow, he can see much better than a normal human being in both natural and supernatural darkness.
Hellfire
Marcus can focus The Source’s light through his body, causing intense “flares” of supernatural heat and light.
Marcus can currently confer the light’s heat through touch. Hellfire consumes unholy energy, impurity, and wicked sorcery to fuel its celestial flames. Hellfire is agonizingly painful, but does not usually burn the victim physically. It can kill in the right circumstances, however: the pain of being consumed by hellfire can become too much for a mind and body to handle and thus cause death, and a being sustained by unholy sorcery might find its magical reserves utterly burnt away. Because demons and those with demonic parentage are anathema and veritably built from the forces hellfire consumes, it can cause physical harm to them in the form of painful burns that are slow to heal.
Because hellfire does not cause physical harm to most beings, it can be used to eliminate infection and cauterize open wounds, and can counteract the effects of weak poisons and disease. The process is still usually very painful, as only celestial entities are without some intrinsic darkness. The healing properties of hellfire obviously only apply to non-demonic, living beings.
Marcus must currently touch a subject to ignite it with hellfire, which will then spread and burn based on the target’s nature. Marcus must maintain physical contact with the target, or hellfire’s flames will instantly subside.
Purifying Flames: Marcus has become skilled enough in the manipulation of hellfire to heal with it. This ability is based upon the notion that wounds, illness, corruption, and recent death are “distortions” of the natural state or “pure” self. By touching and focusing on the person meant to be healed for the duration of one post, Book can channel hellfire so that it burns away all corruption and distortion of the self, and invigorates the damaged parts of a person to reassume their right order.
This ability still involves the use of hellfire, however. Targets of the paladin’s ministrations might also consider themselves victims: even when used to heal, hellfire is painful. Healed minor wounds are reasonably painful but can be quickly recovered from, but moderate wounds such as deep gashes, lost digits, large broken bones, and so on are healed so painfully that the target will require an entire post just to recover. Serious wounds, such as severe brain damage, destroyed organs, severed limbs, or recent death are healed with so much agony that the target will be incapacitated for the rest of the scene. Furthermore, the intense focus and control required to manipulate vast amounts of Source-energy in such an undertaking would completely exhaust Marcus, denying him the ability to heal any wound at all for the rest of the scene.
Equipment
- Marcus is currently dressed in basic clothing: a white cotton shirt that has grown a bit tight across the chest and arms, ragged horsehide pants from Fallien, a pair of buccaneer's boots with the tops folded over, and whatever weapons he's carrying on his person.
- Marcus carries a basic, crude, and particularly heavy iron bastard sword. It is kept in a well worn scabbard on his back. It is showing early signs of rust about the edges, and its durability is in question.
- The Hellfire Torch is a mace a little more than two and a half feet long and entirely metallic. It is forged of an alloy of damascus and steel. Its handle is wrapped in aged leather, and the head is heavy yet hollow. The torch is so named because the wielder can channel supernatural energy, such as hellfire, through it. Said energy collects at the head. Awarded here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?20573-The-Price-of-Peace/page2).