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Duffy Bracken (Level 13)
I’ve been many different people throughout my lives. I’m not going to bore you to death with a detailed history. There’s no point. All that matters are who I am now, and what I intend to do with the freedom I’ve found myself in. My name is Duffy Bracken. I’m a bard. I’m about five hundred and fifty years old and I’m the leading man of a theatre troupe operating out of Scara Brae’s streets. You might have heard of us. We’re the Tantalum Troupe. If you haven’t, don’t worry, in a few weeks you will. I have five siblings. My sisters Ruby and Lilith are headstrong, paragons, matriarchs, warriors all. My brothers in arms are Arden, the silent swordsman, Leopold, the raven merchant, and Pettigrew, who I guess is sort of like my understudy, only better looking and more able to hold his liquor.
We threw in our lot with a plan to break down the barrier between our world and what you know as the Tap. Magic. Effervescent sparky bullshit. In it, the Thayne thrive, and without it, people suffer for the sins of our ancestors. I’ve seen what ‘gods’ do when they have the opportunity to make the world a better place – fuck all. I’m tired of being someone else’s puppet on strings. I’m weary of all the fighting just to carve out a hovel to call home. We stood together, on the ruins of all our efforts, and made a pledge. Us six souls a dreary will gift back art, craft, and happiness to the place we call home or die trying. This time, death is a promise we cannot avoid forever. One way or another, Scara Brae will remember it’s golden age, from long before the Forgotten One Oblivion came to the island, and long before the Molyneux Rebellion soured its citizens against the idea of magic, of the Tap.
I don’t expect you to like me. Lord knows, I don’t. My siblings have tolerated my pious bullshit for centuries, but despite it all, they know my heart is in the right place. Nobody wants to see the place that birthed them, brought them up, and taught them everything they now go to the dogs. Scara Brae has finally fought its way out of the shadows of the Empire, of Corone. Not even the Thayne can stop us – if we’ve anything to say about it. So, here we are. No need for exposition. No need for long drawn out flashbacks. A bard. A swordsman. A merchant. A spell singer. An assassin stands together about a rickety stage in the heart of the city. In a few weeks’ time, we’ll show our heartland a play unperformed in forty years. We’ll draw on the wonderment and revelry to empower a song not sung in five hundred and fifty years and with that power, with that strength…down will come the seals placed on the wellsprings by those who fear what good men can do with the boundless Tap.
Skills: Duffy has amassed an impressive array of skills over the years. Although he possesses knowledge and insight into each, the fugue of a thousand cuts and deaths dampens his ability to apply them successfully. Because of his personality, he often finds himself with a plan that doesn’t quite fall into place. Each skill, therefore, is not the be all and end all his experiences. Basically, he’s a lucky bastard often.
Blade Master: Duffy is all but unrivalled in skill with daggers, short swords, and martial bladed weapons. He is especially proficient with Tooth and Nail and Lysander, and often, only trickery and magic can overcome his defences (or a bloody big hammer). Anyone who knows him knows better than to try and fight Duffy on his terms.
Thespian: Duffy is one of the greatest human bards alive. He can recite poems and plays and improvise to any occasion. He can dance, sing, and perform in a variety of Scara Braen, Raiaera, and Coronian styles. Whilst he is still a twat, he can help others to bring out the ‘inner thespian’ and incite crowds to rebellion and courts to mutiny with his oration and hips. Only Ruby has come close to matching him, when it comes down to the wire.
Acrobat: Duffy is a street urchin at heart, and can run prolonged distances and climb things that most men would throw up at the thought of. His acrobatics can be used defensively (represented in his abilities), and his speed and grace and gymnasts get him out of all sorts of scrapes and into all sorts of debauchery. He knows how to fall safely, and use his speed and dexterity to maximise efficiency and keep drinking until dawn.
Historian: Duffy is scholarly when it comes to the history of Scara Brae, Raiaera, and Corone. Whilst it doesn’t come out in a particularly eloquent way, ask him anything and he’ll get to an explanation eventually, despite its awkwardness and oft half-cut prattling. He can recount myths and fables and the histories of royal families like he was there (and probably was), and knows much about the flora, fauna, cultures and traditions of the people who live and lived there.
Abilities: Duffy’s abilities stem from natural talent and an affinity with the Aria – or the realm in which a mage finds the Tap. To a bard, the Tap is a wellspring of creativity, a resource containing every thought, song, poem and spark of inspiration from across time and space. Without the limitations of spell books and archaic notions of spell craft, the Aria can be a place of sanctuary, revelation, and nightmares. All magical abilities listed below are instinctual, and save for those ‘borrowed’ from his siblings, require no preparation but do require semantic or physical components to wield (as befitting of a blade singer).
Trapdoors: Duffy can enter and exit the Aria at will, disappearing in a whirl of blue ribbons and a verse of a random song drawn from the rich history of Scara Brae. This ability allows him to travel great distances to places he, or any member of the troupe have acted or used the power of the Aria prior. It cannot be used in combat or any form of competitive engagement.
Props: All of Duffy’s artefacts, stage props, weapons, and resources can be produced from thin air. A small pocket vortex allows him to simply think of the item he requires, reach in, and pull it out. Props cannot be living, must be placed there when he legitimately owns the item in questions, and occasionally results in the bard plucking out something entirely inappropriate. In combat, he can produce only his own weapons, but other items can be used to improvise given half the chance.
Improvisations: Duffy’s link to his siblings is unbreakable. As the bard Wainwright’s understudy, and most talented of the troupe, he can use the abilities of his siblings a described in their biographies (including limitations), up to fifteen times in any encounter. When he draws on the skills of his family, he does so at the current level of that individual and takes on their affectations and mannerisms.
Curtains: Duffy has an uncanny knack for getting out of awkward situations with a combination of diplomacy, luck, and stupidity. When things go awry, he reverts to a physical form akin to a ten-year-old, a manifestation of his insecurities and his self-doubt. When in this form, his physical abilities are reduced accordingly, and whilst he remembers everything, he acts and behaves as a child. When things go his way, he can appear like Tantalus, taller, bolder, older, and with a detached dedication to the art of the stage. In this form, he loses his charm and personality but retains his skills and abilities as a Bladesinger.
Anxieties: Such is his awareness of his penchant for trouble, that Duffy is constantly anxious and alert. He hides it well, and it manifests as double the dexterity and reflexes of a physical fit human of his comparable age. He is quick in combat and can use these reflexes defensively, offering X2 evasion and heightened senses – he’s sort of like an angry cat, without the fur balls and the clawing need to scratch things indifferently.
Method Acting: There is no role from Althanas’ history that Duffy can’t spoof or mimic. Just as he can use the abilities of his peers, he can, to a lesser degree, copy those of his enemies. Three times per thread, Duffy can use an ability listed in an opponent’s current profile but must suffer any side-effects and pay any costs associated with that ability. Any mimicry is done at the same level as the current profile, and this includes ability modifiers and semantic components.
Equipment:
Wainwright’s Blade: Wainwright’s Blade is a steel longsword with a gold cross guard and spherical pommel. It is mundane by itself, but when wielded whilst wearing the rest of Wainwright’s artefacts it can cut the bond between body and soul. These relics are too important, and dangerous to use in battle. When the relics are combined, anyone suffering a fatal strike from the sword will die, regardless of immortality or magical prevention.
Tooth & Nail: Two short swords/daggers (depending on Duffy’s form), that can penetrate at X2 strength and slash at X2 strength of a normal masterwork steel weapon. They are Duffy’s weapon of choice, and each carries the opening and closing line of I Want to Be Your Canary along their blade.
Lysander: Lysander is a black handled elven katana, used in the war of independence between the Corone Rangers and the empire. It is unbreakable and unwitherable against any non-magical weapon or armour. It conducts spell song with remarkable efficiency, and when Duffy is singing, the blade vibrates with the fury of a sun. It cuts as mithril when he is not channelling it, and strikes with X3 strength when he is singing – it will retain this quality for thirty seconds after the verse stops.
Stage Props: All the troupe have access to a bewildering and growing range of props and costumes, ranging from the practical and mundane to the absurd and obscure. None of the items in the playhouse’s inventory are magical, and even the arms and armour are ramshackle and about as much use as a paper hat. He has access to food, water, alcohol, and household items and is just about as crazy enough as needed to put them to use in weird and wonderful ways to get into, and out of trouble. Items cannot be sold or bartered.
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Apologies for the wait. We had some trouble accessing some information on the old site we needed to begin to approve your update, but the problem has now been resolved. You should hear back shortly.
Thank you for your patience.
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As this is essentially just a direct transfer, you are approved!
