[Character Image]
Name
Race | Age | Gender | Height | Weight
0th Circle | Domain

[Insert basically whatever parts of their backstory matters for you, in terms of expressing their personality, the situation behind becoming Ichor-Blessed, and what they left behind in traveling to Oratorio. Three or so paragraphs will suffice, but cook more if you want.]

[Character Image]
Name [Tier 1 Paladin] [Job Title (usually two words. Can change over successive Tiers)]
[Single paragraph description of their personality, ideals, and backstory.]
Skills
One skill associated with either their Job, the Domain they serve, or a combination of both.
Grades
STR - I | END - I | DEX - I | AGI - I | MAG - I | LCK - I

Lilim [Tier 1 Paladin] [Chain Sorceror]Skills
Grades
STR - I | END - I | DEX - I | AGI - I | MAG - I | LCK - I

An adventurer, of sorts.

Ananta had never been a particularly good one, she would reluctantly admit.

Certainly, she'd accomplished some rather impressive things, for someone of her strength and age...

But it had always come down to luck. It had always, always come down to having been in the right place at the right time.

Always at the right moment to secure a kill, always at the right moment to be called instrumental, always at the right moment to take the glory... but very rarely had she done any of it on purpose.

Pure luck, that Ananta found herself piercing the skull of a towering beast. She had been a last minute arrival to the scene, and yet...

Pure chance, that the a head of a leader was sliced off. Deciding to leave the head of the enemy to the others, she who stayed at the back, it was she who was called instrumental, and yet...

Pure coincidence, that she so often found herself with all the glory. Others offered her thanks for her deeds, even those who should have realized that the glory was theirs, and yet...

"Ah, so the Hero of Kamal joins us!" No, she was not the hero of that battle, she thinks.

"Haha, it is good to see you don't forget your roots, Ananta, joining us for something so trivial!" No, she never left her roots, she thinks.

"With someone of your skill by our side, victory will surely be ours!" No, it is not her skill that will win them the day, she thinks.

It is truly amazing, she thinks, how simply being in the right place at the right time can ascend someone so far. Someone who should have died a pointless death, someone who should have amounted to nothing, someone who is as average as they come... She has no right to stand where she does, on the shoulders of giants... And yet, this is where she has been placed.

And now, in place of her heartbeat, all she can hear is the ticking of a clock.

There is only one thing for it.

"... Off to Oratorio, old friend?" Yes, she says. I have been blessed.

"Bah, what are you doing, letting me stop such a journey!" That you might deter her from this path, she thinks.

"That carriage down the way- yes, that one there! It's off to the fortress city, and soon!" She had waited so long on purpose, she doesn't say.

"Go on now, don't let this old town hold you overlong!" Ah, but she would rather it did, she thinks.

"All I would ask, is that you do not forget us, my friend! Your story will surely be one for the ages!" Ah, but it is her who should be thankful to have been more than anything more than a footnote in theirs, she thinks.

"You have ever been a wonderful companion, and it is a shame that our paths must split here, but that is what a path is want to do!" Theirs' was a path she was never meant to cross, she thinks...

But, despite it all, she is glad that it did.

"Until we meet again, my friend! Until we meet again!" And, of course, she says just the same.

Thus, the hero departs, to continue her journey further than any she'd known had taken their own.

Thus, the fraud departs, forever trapped in the image of something that she sees not.

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 0
Resources: 5 Supplies, 5 Gear, 5 Medicine
Artifacts: None
Property: None.

Divine Protection of Time
Know the Forever Forward March - A perfect internal clock. Regardless of circumstance, any who follow the time warden will know the exact time. No longer will you unknowingly miss your appointment. Instead, despair in knowing that you will. There is nothing you can do to make that carriage move any faster.

Starting Benefit
Adventurer's Kit - 5 Supplies, 5 Gear, 5 Medicine [Resources] An adventurer of many years. Though she wouldn't consider herself much above the average, she knows full well the preparations needed for such a journey, and prepared accordingly.

The nameless girl born in a bordello by the sea. She never knew her mother nor of the world beyond the bordello. The admiralty made it that way. She only had three comforts in her life: the smell of flowers that gave respite against the salt breeze, the exaggerated stories from patrons, and the company of the others who had been born in the bordello.

Of course, her story would not have remarkable if she lived her life inside of the bordello. The admiralty had been besieged by pirates. Though, such an act was not unusual. It was a mere change in management. Such was the way of life for those in a port town. If it weren't the monsters, it would be whichever fleet that had decided to lay claim to the town.

One of the bordello's new patrons had arrived with treasures in hand. Items that had since found their way to pirates in a miscellaneous trove. One of them spoke to her. It begged with her. It pleaded with her. It wanted her to grasp it from its owner. It whispered the stories that she would create if she just took it.

And so she did. When the patron was asleep, she grabbed it. It was a mere silver band among diamonds and gold; it was unnoticeable if it was taken, especially from a man who had been drunk enough to forget which pieces of jewellery he gave to which cocettes. It seared her soul when she grasped it. It taught her that all she needed to do to create her own story was take. Take, take, take.

With dreams of grandeur, she left the bordello. Onward to Oratorio she went. She'd make her own story there.

With silver tongue, she enchanted a band of merry men. Outsider thieves who found a glimmer of hope in her story.

With self-ascribed name, she envisioned the story that would make her the Backstreet Queen--the patron of Oratorio's thieves.

Elys grew up with her family in the woods. The nearest village was a half hour walk, where her mother would go to bring necessary supplies like medicine. Besides That, her home had everything it needed for them to live in moderate comfort - a garden, and a couple chickens.

Elys was born blind, and only knew the comfort of home, the sound of the chicken, the voices of her parents as an only child. She was happy.

At least, until they got raided. One night, bandits came down from the mainland, ravaging the nearby village, and finding their home. Elys was told to hide under the loose floorboards, and she held her breath. Horrifying sounds she heard, horrifying screams as the raiders killed her parents and set her home ablaze. Elys kept herself hidden as long as possible before she throw aside the floorboards and fled her home, tripping over overturned furniture and cutlery.

The raiders left with the chickens and the harvest, and Elys was alone. She lived in the smoking ruins of her home for some time, finding the bones of her parents and burying them. Then, she began to wander, uncovering her father's sword and trying to make a life for herself.

It was then she felt such strong bloodlust and revenge for the raiders who stole everything from her. She could still hear their voices in her mind, and swore she'd find them and end them one by one.

She received practice with the sword when wolves started to prey on her at night. It was this practiced listening and striking that Elys began to experience independence for the first time in her life. It terrified her to the core, but she soon got used to the adrenaline rush, started to look forward to when the wolves would come by. She found she already had some talent with the sword anyway.

If was a few years of wandering that she felt she had honed her skills enough, working as a monster-slayer of low grade monsters.

But she felt she had hit a cap, and she stopped improving. She didnt have enough power, and her lack of sight impeded her from taking on stronger bounties. This was when she began to pray fervently for the power to avenge her family.

And, one night, she saw a dream where she was walking up the narrow stairs. She knew there was a throne at the end of the circling staircase, and she felt such anticipation. Then she awoke, and something felt different. She could see. Except it was more of a feeling, a sense within her, extending up to a radius of about 10 meters.

No longer inhibited by her eyes, rather, she was now empowered by her eyes, she took her travels to the next level, and found herself in Oratorio.

Voi Narum
Human | 25 | Male | 6'0 | 160lbs
0th Circle | Souls

Voi had a different childhood growing up than most other children, instead of living somewhere sedentary, like in a village or a town. He grew up in a caravan, his parents being its leaders after the previous leader retired to a quiet town. Voi and his parents stood out since they were foreigners who came from another land before Voi was born. They were initially hired as guards to protect the caravan and eventually learned to be a merchant after spending years with the caravan. But Voi never felt like a foreigner while living in the caravan since everyone in it felt like family to him, and they treated him well.

Growing up, Voi traveled to various places and met many people while with the caravan. He was always curious about the lands and people that the caravan visited, and his parents satisfied this by buying him books to read while on the road. One curiosity Voi had was an interest in the afterlife. What happens after someone dies, and what happens to their soul? That question his parents could not answer, but one of the caravanners, an old merchant/mystic, started mentoring him on the subject and other related topics, learning much about it. Still, Voi was content with things, and things seemed good.

But, one day, they were camping in a forest for the night. When bandits attacked them, despite the best efforts of the guards and his parents, Voi was told to run by his parents with some of the other caravanners and reluctantly ran with the caravanners into the night. Voi would survive, as would a few of the caravanners. By the time they ventured back to the caravan, everyone there, including the pack animals, was dead. Voi found his parent's bodies and cried over them. The surviving caravanners and later Voi would notice that, curiously, none of the wares were touched, and a message was written on one of the carts. You two would never escape us, Death to Betrayers.

No one knew what that meant, and the survivors took what they could carry and walked to the nearest town. Voi was still saddened over their parents and the rest of the caravan's deaths and was perplexed by the message. What did it mean, and who in the caravan were they after? But it did not matter to him as most of the people he considered family were dead. It was clear that the bandits were more than mere bandits.

So after reaching the nearest town and recovering there, one of the caravanners adopted Voi. A middle-aged merchant by the name of Garth and moved to the merchant's hometown, where Voi would spend years with the merchant's family. But he could never forget that message on the cart and started training over the years to defend himself.

One day, while he was training, he started to feel weird, and as he hit the training dummy. Voi had a sudden vision of himself staring at an unknown figure, was hit by something, and exploded into a blast of unimaginable colors and intensities. As the colors blasted past him and he stared in awe. One of them, some kind of blue light, hit him square in the chest. He then snapped back to reality and stumbled down to the floor. Like something just hit him in the chest. Voi felt different and started to sense things near him. He soon discovered it was the people around him.

Now realizing that the vision was something important, he decided to figure out what the vision meant and before he left town. He was given money by Garth to support himself in his travels. He ended up in Oratorio after feeling naturally drawn to it and wanting to see what awaited him there.

Cantor Amentha, formerly known as Cant, was an orphan adopted by the Monasteries of His Weeping Saints during his childhood years. Formed during the fall of the Thousands-Faced God, the monastery's original function was to perform rites for those deceased during the Fall. In modern times, however, the Monastery function is more interconnected with the layman, working as priests, embalmers, and 'securities' in exchange for gold. They aren't rich by any means, but the monastery did provide a modicum of normalcy in this chaotic time.

This means that for those early years, Cantor's daily activities would be composed of praying, doing the field, and learning the sacred texts. A bit older, and he learned how to hold the sword and embalming bodies. Cantor, as an acolyte, excelled at dressing up the body, masquerading the face under the aura of "at peace." He does not hold the disgust nor the sheepiness against a corpse but provides the tenderness of a tailor and a dresser at work. And his work brought solace to the grieving family, allowing them to cherish their final moments together.

He still remembers the day he became ichor-blessed. It was a cold winter last year. Snow reached knee-deep. The monastery would usually try to house the unfortunate and bury those who passed away to avoid outbreaks during spring. This was Cantor's third time. He found a beggar on the street. From the look of it, the man must have succumbed to the frost before starvation overtook him. He must be an alien too, never see him from the locals. Still, Cantor washed his frostbitten body, put him in the white shroud, and buried him in the monastery cemetery. That night, they prayed for the unfortunate that they had buried. And they prayed that their help would be enough for those who need it.

For this is the purpose of the Church in this modern time. "Traditions persist, and history is important" his Head Priest once told him. They sing the hymn of God, not to pretend that he is alive, but because he has transcended the mortal definition of death. They prayed for the dead so that their suffering might stop and their existence continued beyond the mortal coil. Like their god, they will live on.

For the Head Priest once argued: "No one is truly dead. They only died when we forget them." This is what Cantor Amentha chose to believe in.

By the next morning, he was ichor-blessed.

The Spark, however, also has its demand. For some reason Cantor was particular drawn toward Oratorio. So, he ask the Head Priest to be transferred there. The Head Priest complied, transferring him to Ordo Benevolence should he be able to make the arduous journey. There, he would be tasked to help them with ceremonies and healing if need be. After a few months on the road, he reached his destination.

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 0
Resources: 0
Artifacts: None
Property: None.

Domain of Preservation
Paint and Brush for the Mortal Coil - No matter the cause of death, the body would look at ease when applying paint.

Starting Benefit
Property: A small stall inside the building of Ordo Benevolence. Used to house the order's members and patients as well as providing service. Located at A7.

A remnant of the lost, civilized era before the fall of the Thousand Faced God. An arrogant princess, tempered by time and the loss of an entire civilization, and one of the few to survive that historic calamity to live in the current day.

In those painful months following the death of God and the monstrous scourge that followed, the elven kingdom was one of the many that fell to anarchy and being overrun by creatures. Whisked away by her guards, Meisa was one of the few that retreated to the mountains where although besieged, an enclave of survivors formed to create a new society. Hidden away from the greater world, these survivors slowly grew to form the last city of a once great civilization. It was, and would always be, however, an existence in limbo.

Although the kings and queens were long gone, as the last royal, Meisa had a comfortable existence in exile. But to her, it was an unbearable one. Impotent. As the years passed, it was obvious to her that merely existing was not a way to live. A poor remnant, a shade of the past, a stagnant unaging population that could never move on—what was left was not a civilization, but a walking corpse, and a pitiable continuance. There was no motivation, no greater goal, and no progress to be made among those that were left.

The connections that could be made from outside were no less reassuring.

Once upon a time, she might have been an arrogant, vain young girl. In many respects, she still was. But the memories of proper civilization, and the horrors brought upon the land upon its fall that slowly seared themself to her very soul.

It could be recreated. She could do it herself and bring back what once was. She just had to shake off the coat of her own complacency. Among familiar lands was not the place to be, but instead she was drawn towards a distant city. Oratorio was far grander than what she knew now, but still a shade of what she remembered. Especially the slums.

But it was still a place to start.

The slight unhinged, lifetime bodyguard of her charge, Meisa. A loyal servant, if you can get past the mutual abusive master-servant relationship. Was of dubious loyalty in the past, but the death of a god and the loss of everything you held dear except for your arguably crappy mistress changes perspectives a bit, especially when said boss has the chutzpah to try and fill the vacant position.

For Meisa, at least, she really was the only natural choice to receive the spark.

Skills
Touched Mind – Firenze is particularly inventive. In logistics. In battle. In the dungeon.

Grades
STR - I | END - I | DEX - I | AGI - I | MAG - I | LCK - I

Theodore was born due to the whim and obsession of a rich noble and an old vampire. His father had once been human, and had sought immortality at any and all cost, even if it was a fascimile of it. After having had complex magic performed by hired mages, he had become what he viewed as a higher existence - a (faux) vampire. Once gaining the prolonged life he had desired, he had whittled it away as all those faced with a relative eternity do: he had sought to make it meaningful – or at least, desperately distracted himself from the creeping, ever more insistent dread that it wasn’t. Theodore was his latest projects. The old Count Valentin hadn’t merely wanted to create another vampire, he had wanted to father one.

Dhampirs were a known, if rare existence. Theo happened to come into being with far more planning, intention, and resources spent behind it than most. Theodore, however, had no inkling of his origin until a few years into his life.

Because, desire for siring a child or not, a vampire was a vampire. Losing track of time was easy, and keeping that close of an eye on all the women he’d used in aid of his goals? Bothersome.

And so, Theodore was born in a small town to a local witch of respectable skill. His mother had a dubious reputation, known for her haphazard experiments and eccentricities. Her spells and potions had side effects more oft than not, for ill or good.

She’d have strange visitors once in a while, Theodore’s father having been one of them. As for Theo, he was considered weird from birth, what with his hair and eye colour. Too, he had an unusual fascination for blood, one his mother indulged. Granted, she did restrict him to animal blood, no matter how good he thought people (especially when they were bleeding) smelled.

Once or twice, his mother had hidden him away. Theodore didn’t know, not until when she should have done so again, except she hadn’t known it. On a day like any other, he had been playing outside, when an unknown man suddenly approached him. He had red eyes, just like him. And fangs!

While Theo was busy gaping at the tall, pale man, the man in turn started at and studied him. Then, he claimed he was his mother’s friend, and that he would take him to her since he was visiting. So, the 13-year-old boy was led home, still excitable and trusting at that age. When his mother saw them, she nearly fainted. Theo had never seen her so terrified. Ever.

He wasn’t sure what was going on, but the stranger claimed that he was his father, that his mother had kept Theo from his sire. Theodore asked mother if that was true, and she confirmed it. The man – Count Valentin – gave him two choices, then. Either Theo would come with him freely, and his mother would live, or he would be taken by force, his mother killed. Theodore didn’t want his mother to die. He went willingly.

His new life had many nice things for him. His father showed him as much care as his mother had, if in a different way. Theodore had his own, very large room, a soft bed he could jump on any time, fancy new clothes, and was given almost anything he wanted. Toys, books, swords, a horse, whatever he thought of could be his.

He didn’t have any friends now – but then again, he never really had. And there was one other weird thing; his father didn’t want him to eat human food. He said only humans, their lessers, ate that, and that they, as higher beings, could subsist only on blood. Theo liked blood, don’t get him wrong, but he did wish he could eat different things. However, he didn’t dare accept any gifts from well-meaning servants, or complain to his father. When things didn’t get his way, the count could get very, very mean. His father’s rare outburst aside, Theo thought he had a good life with him. The other people living with the count?

Well…many of them had drawn the short straw in life. Some were enslaved, blackmailed, or enthralled by his father.

The rest were either well paid enough, or otherwise affiliated with the count. A few were vampires themselves.

It was a decent life, and despite his father’s peculiarities, it became the new normal for Theodore. Well, as normal as it got being raised as the heir to a noble vampire.

Things became more…bizzare after Theodore reached adulthood. Once in a while, he would have these vivid dreams that he never could quite recall after waking up. He knew they were rather violent, and involved spilling blood, but that was about it. Theo wasn’t sure if they were nightmares, premonitions, or his father’s ‘vampires must hold dominion over man’ ideas finally taking hold.

But that wasn’t all. The count became eerily possessive, oddly fixated on his son. Theo had his suspicions, but he never could have guessed the truth. It was his quarter-of-a-century celebration when it all came to a head. The count wanted to perform a ritual to take over his son’s body – to gain a more perfect, younger form, or some such nonsense. Theodore figured his old man had succumbed to insanity.

But who was he to talk? He was at his most murderous that day, and his urge became uncontrollable; rather, he didn’t care to control it once he learned of his father’s plot. He killed his father – drained him dry, and enjoyed every second of it. Beheaded him, and staked him, and laughed throughout. Theodore didn’t stop there, didn’t stop until almost everyone in that household was dead.

It was freeing. Thrilling. Utterly divine.

And it was only the start.

The next stop? Oratorio.

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 5
Resources: None.
Artifacts: None.
Property: None.

Divine Protection of Blood


Starting Benefit

Born to a small family in a small village, poor as the lords demanded them to be for their taxes, Lethe would go out into the world before he ever plied the family trade. A hunter, a forager, and sometimes even a shepherd when the wolves grew hungry, it was a miracle the boy was not so shunned at such a young age, one born from hardship and a lack of hands. In time, though, Lethe would take up that family trade in that family place, helping his father dig graves for those who had passed on. It was by no means a good life, for the others soon looked sour whenever their gaze fell on the young man, nor was it particularly happy, but it was by all means an honest living.

In time, Lethe found bits and pieces to be lost, forgotten. Men couldn't remember when the old man on the hill had lost his remaining family member, or his name, and families seldom remembered the names of the stillborn after the wife, and gravestones weathered away into plain monoliths for none to mourn. Young as he was, Lethe took on the task with fortitude, working first alongside a priest of a church not far from the village before eventually marking down the names himself. It was hard work, but Lethe's ledger grew with every funeral, a task mandated by none yet quietly appreciated by all. In time, he would mark down his father's name too, before some days later his mother also passed. The newfound gravekeeper took the loss by not taking it at all, setting down to his work.

Then the ebbs and flows of monsters, a fact of the shattered world since the death of the Thousand-Faced God, would come for them. The village, small as it was, soon fled to a walled city for fear of being overrun and Lethe, though he abandoned his graveyard, took with him that ledger and so all those names. The fleeing soon became a motif as they began the inevitable trek to another city. The world was still yet mad with divine fools and Lethe, placid as he could try to be, dug graves wherever there was a yard, noted names whenever they were to be had. It was sparse as information went yet, even so, eventually grew to be a comfort to those other suffering souls. Eventually, at a graveyard long since abandoned, in a crypt opened and forgotten by the horrors of monsters slain elsewhere, Lethe found a coal-black tome of the journey of the dead, of the realms long thereafter. The tome crumbled to dust with a touch as that Spark lept from it to him, and in that moment the gravekeeper became Ichor-Blessed.

Lethe was, for a time, lost with this newfound power. He hemmed and hawed, took his time about the whole of the issue, before eventually finding what path would be best to take as the compulsion grasped against him. Lethe set off for the city at the Abyss, to the center of the issues and the great hundreds of yearning dead who needed his aid. As he traveled, Lethe has convinced a handful of pious souls to lend themselves to his cause, to dig graves, to learn their letters, to remember.

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