Avery Calhoun

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Motya's revised seal. This takes form in an iron signet ring he wears, the clasps on his Inquisitorial cloak, and a pendant he wears around his neck.

The second image is the banner for the squad of soldiers Motya will second to be his personal squad (a continuance from the previous Motya).

I have edited these into the character sheet.

Motya

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

I too enjoy this new season of Game of Thrones, it is interesting to see how the television version departs from and/or adds onto the books.

On another note I will repost Motya's seal sometime today and see if I cannot retrieve the relationships sections for the old character cast so I can post that and then begin focusing on any prior relationships with the new characters.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

When this all began on the old site it was a bit of a slower paced RP, something I think a lot of people liked since we all had pretty hectic schedules. What would you say LJ, Scout, Night, Orion, and Zeph, it was about a post a week per player once the IC started if I remember right. I also remember the OOC being filled with us all creating character relationships and world info. The relationships cannot come until LJ makes her final cast choices but some of that world info is open for input. If any of our newcomers want to get into the collaborative world building aspect of this story (as I have with the Red Seminary info and the Omestri info) I would be more than willing to help you navigate all the info that has been established already.

One of the biggest things (I think) that shape this world is the absence of fire. Since the fire titan was killed that element has been eliminated from the "natural order" and the word fire has become something heretical and unknown. Instead ether has taken over as a whole new power. I think that is the most important thing LJ has done is replace fire with ether, something that drives everything and is in everyone. Role playing that out can open a lot of opportunities for creative thinking.

Another neat thing is the character dynamic of the inquisitors. Our characters are, of course, powerful, talented, and skilled far beyond the average soldier but as inquisitors we are all fresh from training and all very young at 22 or less. I mean the human brain is not even completely developed until 25+ so how does all that skill mesh with newly ordained people that are just breaking out of adolescence into young adult-hood. I always believed (and stuck around) because LJ created an environment that focused on the characters and not just wielding power.

Just some food for thought, trying to share what I can from the olden days so everyone has the best ideas going into this.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Welcome back Orion, I hope the life of a Dad has been treating you well.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Hansa, that character reminds me of an NPC (at least the quarterstaff part) that Scout and I inserted into our collective back story during a training session once. I remember that it didn't go well for him because this was beginner level training before the ether abilities were a factor and Kass (Scout's char) and Motya are both pretty melee focused. If LJ ends up accepting your character into the fold maybe you, Scout, and I can develop that back story a bit more; something like having the tables turned when the ether training takes place, a sort of payback or something like that.

Too bad Mal hasn't returned because I think Joos's character would have been an entertaining counterpoint to him, f that character were to be finalized.

Bunnita, I agree with LJ, I don't think we play into the depressing and deary too much it is just that the common background of the Red Seminary's hardships give the characters a coming point of familiarity. If your final wish is to go though I wish you luck and all as you leave. I honestly don't know how to feel about something I helped to create in this world driving someone away... and to think LJ had to reign me in on the Red Seminary training, my Marine mentality wanted to make it far worse before she reality checked me. .

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

My FF days ended with XIII... with every iteration the franchise captures me less and less to the point where it is almost a chore to play out of principle. Not that they aren't good games its just that, and I am dating myself here, not one of them has replicated the thrill I felt in 1997 when I first played the newly released FFVII.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

LJ, I know you and I had talked about Motya's origins in the last thread and that he would be touched by Omestri blood. I also saw that the new CS has a spot for race which I don't think the old one did... or if it did I missed it before; so I have added his race with the explanation (rightly required) for the Omestri bloodline. I'll include what I edited into the old CS below in a hider. Since I worked with you on the whole Red Seminary and Omestri history I figured I would tie the two together through Motya and leave you with a bunch of options to muddle with the Motya character later on, plot-wise, if you so desired. Sorry it is long-ish for a single race entry, but as you know I get fired up when I write about stuff in this setting of yours. It may still need basic editing so forgive any clunky structure or typos, I'll be reviewing later today again.

Motya Race entry

Race: The Little Bear is Varyan as far as he and most others know but his blood is, in truth, half Omestri. Motya's understanding is that he was born a slave child, the spawn of criminally inclined Varyan parents that had been condemned to the mines and their sins had condemned Motya. The truth of the Little Bear's origins however is a much more... complicated "affair". The owner of the Harayatva mine that Motya was enslaved in was a man very loyal to the Red Seminary and the Inner Circle, a man who had paid for the honor of having his three sons attend the Seminary, all three of which have failed the trails at one point or another and now serve the clergy in other fashions. This industrialist had caught the Inner Circle's attention though and those attentions are seldom fruitful for anyone but the Inner Circle. The Circle had sent spies and agents into the industrialists business and private life and it was soon discovered that the lecherous industrialist had carnal tastes for Omestri slaves. He would use the slave women to satisfy his basest desires before harvesting the last of their ether and eliminating any testimony they could give to the rest of Varyan society, which would see the coupling of a Varyan man and Omestri slave as an unfathomable sin under any circumstance.

One day, after the industrialist had sated his vast and abusive desires on an Omestri slave girl, he was ready to harvest her ether and extinguish her life. Before he could finish the process though a Watcher appeared in the industrialists private and very secure chambers with no explanation as to how it had gotten there. The diminutive figure, cloaked in heavy gore colored robes that obscured all but its most basic and small humanoid form, approached the slave girl whilst holding the industrialist in check by virtue of being a direct agent of the Inner Circle. The Watcher almost tenderly touched the sadistic bruises and shallow cuts on the girl and then placed a hand on her belly. After its hand lingered briefly, the Watcher removed the slave girl from the harvesting mechanism, left a parchment sealed with the Inner Circle's signet with the industrialist, and disappeared into the growing shadows of the night without once begin seen by any other Varyan except the industrialist. With trembling hands, for he feared his secret exposed, the Industrialist opened the missive from the Circle, the signet seal crumbling to dust, and he read its words.

We are the keeper of secrets, as you must now be.
Tell anyone of this night and you both will die before the following hour is ended.
Tell anyone of the Watcher's visit or your lust for your property and both their family and your's will die before the following two hours have ended.
Open your lips and you will bring ruin to all you know before their time is due.
You have interjected yourself into our web, remain still and hold your course and you will draw very little of our attentions.
If you struggle or disobey, only Varya will save you from our attentions.

Moments after his reading of each line the ink on the parchment bled from its lettered form becoming nothing more then crimson colored blobs on cheap paper which was tossed into the ether engine that warmed his chambers.

The Watcher returned the Omestri slave girl to the Red Seminary and under the careful eye of the Inner Circle she gave birth to a half blood Varyan Omestri child. Later the Watcher returned to the Harayatva Mines but he did not visit the Industrialist. Instead, deep in the mines, the Watcher seemed to appear from the darkest shadows surrounding the crowded slave encampment. Stepping from the dusty steam filled recesses, the watcher approached a young Varyan couple that had been recently imprisoned and enslaved for crimes against the church, heresy. The Watcher sat with them for a moments time before delivering a burlap wrapped bundle. The Watcher had spent the time informing the couple that as long as they kept the contents of the bundle alive, their families, tainted by heresy, would not be hunted down and executed. The couple opened the bundle and saw the cherubic face of an infant, sleeping soundly in their arms.

Motya would grow in the mines as a child, knowing only his parents protection but never their love, he would be scarred and tattooed by the guards employed by his biological Father that was just as unaware of the child as Motya was of him. One day a young, beautiful, fervent, and newly ordained Inquisitor named Mother Oksana received an assignment directly from the Inner Circle, one that would have her raid the Industrialists holdings, executing the Industrialist, free the children from the slavery their parents had been sentenced to, and retrieve one child in particular, a youth with an amber tinge to his eyes and whose slave "parents" were not to survive the encounter. Mother Oksana performed flawlessly. She returned the child named Motya to the Red Seminary where she became like a Mother unto him as the Inner Circle monitored his progression through Inquisitorial training.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Meh, the character banter is more entertaining that way and fits better with the militaristic setting.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Comrade Motya is as he always was, thirsting for wine, women, war, and song... in that order, he is a terrible singer.

Glad the hider worked, I had trouble with it too at first.

The Frozen Flame: Dark Fantasy/Steampunk RP

Motya is Back

Name: Motya Bratva “Father Motya” or more formally “Father Bratva”
*Note: Motya means a man with bad luck but good sense and Bratva is the term for the Russian mob. I thought Bratva would translate well as "slave brotherhood" in Varyan dialect, a sort of generic name all slaves use.

Age: 22

Height/Weight: 5’7” and 250 pounds

Race: The Little Bear is Varyan as far as he and most others know but his blood is, in truth, half Omestri. Motya's understanding is that he was born a slave child, the spawn of criminally inclined Varyan parents that had been condemned to the mines and their sins had condemned Motya. The truth of the Little Bear's origins however is a much more... complicated "affair". The owner of the Harayatva mine that Motya was enslaved in was a man very loyal to the Red Seminary and the Inner Circle, a man who had paid for the honor of having his three sons attend the Seminary, all three of which have failed the trials at one point or another and now serve the clergy in other fashions. This industrialist had caught the Inner Circle's attention though and those attentions are seldom fruitful for anyone but the Inner Circle. The Circle had sent spies and agents into the industrialists business and private life and it was soon discovered that the lecherous industrialist had carnal tastes for Omestri slaves. He would use the slave women to satisfy his basest desires before harvesting the last of their ether and eliminating any testimony they could give to the rest of Varyan society, which would see the coupling of a Varyan man and Omestri slave as an unfathomable sin under any circumstance.

One day, after the industrialist had sated his vast and abusive desires on an Omestri slave girl, he was ready to harvest her ether and extinguish her life. Before he could finish the process though a Watcher appeared in the industrialists private and very secure chambers with no explanation as to how it had gotten there. The diminutive figure, cloaked in heavy gore colored robes that obscured all but its most basic and small humanoid form, approached the slave girl whilst holding the industrialist in check by virtue of being a direct agent of the Inner Circle. The Watcher almost tenderly touched the sadistic bruises and shallow cuts on the girl and then placed a hand on her belly. After its hand lingered briefly, the Watcher removed the slave girl from the harvesting mechanism, left a parchment sealed with the Inner Circle's signet with the industrialist, and disappeared into the growing shadows of the night without once begin seen by any other Varyan except the industrialist. With trembling hands, for he feared his secret exposed, the Industrialist opened the missive from the Circle, the signet seal crumbling to dust, and he read its words.

We are the keepers of secrets, as you must now be.
Tell anyone of this night and you both will die before the following hour is ended.
Tell anyone of the Watcher's visit or your lust for your property and both their family and your's will die before the following two hours have ended.
Open your lips and you will bring ruin to all you know before their time is due.
You have interjected yourself into our web, remain still and hold your course and you will draw very little of our attentions.
If you struggle or disobey, only Varya will save you from our attentions.

Moments after his reading of each line the ink on the parchment bled from its lettered form becoming nothing more then crimson colored blobs on cheap paper which was tossed into the ether engine that warmed his chambers.

The Watcher returned the Omestri slave girl to the Red Seminary and under the careful eye of the Inner Circle she gave birth to a half blood Varyan Omestri child. Later the Watcher returned to the Harayatva Mines but he did not visit the Industrialist. Instead, deep in the mines, the Watcher seemed to appear from the darkest shadows surrounding the crowded slave encampment. Stepping from the dusty steam filled recesses, the watcher approached a young Varyan couple that had been recently imprisoned and enslaved for crimes against the church, heresy. The Watcher sat with them for a moments time before delivering a burlap wrapped bundle. The Watcher had spent the time informing the couple that as long as they kept the contents of the bundle alive, their families, tainted by heresy, would not be hunted down and executed. The couple opened the bundle and saw the cherubic face of an infant, sleeping soundly in their arms.

Motya would grow in the mines as a child, knowing only his parents protection but never their love, he would be scarred and tattooed by the guards employed by his biological Father that was just as unaware of the child as Motya was of him. One day a young, beautiful, fervent, and newly ordained Inquisitor named Mother Oksana received an assignment directly from the Inner Circle, one that would have her raid the Industrialists holdings, execute the Industrialist, free the children from the slavery their parents had been sentenced to, and retrieve one child in particular, a youth with an amber tinge to his eyes and whose slave "parents" were not to survive the encounter. Mother Oksana performed flawlessly. She returned the child named Motya to the Red Seminary where she became like a Mother unto him as the Inner Circle monitored his progression through Inquisitorial training

Appearance: Motya is a brute of a young man. Compared to most of his peers he is inches shorter but significantly more massive and he is often called the little bear by the people that know him well enough to get away with such a practice. The young brawler’s arms are slabs of corded muscle attached to shoulders that have born the weight of harsh labor and his hands show the trauma and scarring of multiple finger breaks. His legs, built from years of slave labor and inquisitorial training, are just short of being small tree trunks and they need to be in order to hold up the man’s powerful and wide torso. Motya keeps his head clean shaven and his cheeks and chin are covered in a wild and long golden beard. His eyes are a deep chocolate brown color and shadowed under a heavy set brow. Both his nose and ears are just slightly large, the former looking to have been misaligned by force, the later pierced through with brass rings. The most distinguishing feature of Motya’s countenance is the large stylized “H shaped” tattoo that covers his face, a mark placed on him by the slave masters of the Harayatva mine he was born in, marking him as a slave born child. Various priests have offered to remove it through mechanical or magical means but Motya has refused, in fact as he has grown he has maintained the tattooed mark. He not only sees it as a symbol of how far he has risen but as a way to identify with his favored flock, the poor and the slaves, showing that even they and those like them can rise through Varya's will.

Motya Concept Art

Motya has risen from those beginnings though and now being an ordained Inquisitor, wears the trappings of his office over the hap-shod armor pieces he tends to favor. Under the armor or when not wearing it, Motya wears the simple fur and cloth clothing of the lower caste of Varyan society with the monastic inquisitorial robe over those to denote his station. His armor is an amalgamation of steel, brass, clockwork, and leather that was cobbled together by a tinkerer at the Seminary, a gift after he was ordained. Heavy shoulder plates cover his shoulders, the right containing a bauble filled with earth from the mine he grew up in, a brass face guard chipped and pocked by weapons practice, leather gauntlets banded with razor edged steel strips, plated knuckles, and lined with small pistons, boots and greaves studded with steel posts and pointed edges, all wrapped in a tabard of supple black fabric trimmed in red and bearing the phoenix of Varyan priesthood.

Personality: Motya’s time as a slave has been the single largest shaping factor of his personality except his time at the Red Seminary. He is industrious and focused, almost bullishly so, always training or maintaining whatever skills he possesses. Above all he maintains a fervent and unshakable faith. For Motya, his faith and his connection with Varya is personal and not just theological, it was an inquisitorial priestess that saved him from the mines, elevated him from a life of slavery, and set him upon the path of serving, what he sees, as the greatest of Gods. While being serious about his faith Motya believes that all people should revel in the gift of life the God Varya provides, while it exists, in this harsh world. He is fond of food, drink, music, and women and good natured simplistic, often physical, competition. Motya is a man that sees every moment as a gift, either to be spent testing ones Varyan given talents or more appropriately, in gregarious celebration, for him there is little middle ground between those two. Despite his zealous faith and nearly hedonistic abandon Motya is a tempest defined when angered. His anger is quick to rise and quick to fade and terrible to behold, he thinks little of correcting a slight, real or perceived, with physical force. His bouts of rage, especially in the first years of his training were often rumored to be the thing that would see his time in the Red Seminary ended prematurely. His violent temper is something he struggles to maintain through faith and the companionship of his fellow Inquisitors.

Talents/Abilities: Motya is a brawler first and foremost, capable of reaping a devastating toll with just his hands, feet, and body. Most of the close physical combat disciplines taught at the Red Seminary came easily to Motya and he excelled in the lessons, despite the fact the many of the first lessons nearly killed him. The key to this talent is Motya’s ability to channel Ether within himself, lending his movements, strikes, and abilities an enhancement over natural physical abilities. His favored tactic is closing with an enemy, disarming them, and then pulverizing their resistance with physical blows or grappling, which ends up very bloody due to the nature of his armor. The cost for this is not only Motya’s reckless disregard for his own safety, something amplified when he channels the Ether but his comparative lack of refined social skills or mastery of the more academic subjects.

Background: Motya believes he was born a slave, to a slave mother and father that protected him but never really loved him; the name "Bratva" means slave born or slave brotherhood and is a generic family name of all slaves born in the mines. The Harayatva mine was his home for his infancy and early childhood and he was marked as a child of slaves before he was a year old. The Harayatva mines were run by a wealthy Varyan Industrialist who disbelieved in much of the new technology appearing and held to the idea of “breeding” a workforce. For years this idea was socially detestable but the wealth and influence of the Industrialist insulated him from open sanction of this practice. That was before Mother Oksana. Mother Oksana was a young Inquisition priestess that had been ordained only a few short years before and began her career by taking on the corrupt Industrialist. Motya believes it was her personal quest but the hand of the Inner Circle was what truly moved Mother Oksana. She preached that Varya would never condone the enslavement of children into a life of meaningless labor and toil when it could be these children that rise up to carry out his will in the future. Her message took hold with the low caste people and before long, soldiers were raiding the holdings of this Industrialist and freeing the children he enslaved for the crimes of their "birth". Motya, then a child of seven, was delivered to the Red Seminary by Mother Oksana and was soon on the path to becoming an inquisitor. To this day when she returns to the Red Seminary she treats Motya as she would a son and Motya treats Mother Oksana like she were his actual mother and that bond between the two in nigh unshakable.

His time at the Seminary was brutal but when compared to what his life had been in the mines, it was his only chance. His courses in academia were a struggle and had it not been for some of his colleagues he would have never been ordained. On the bright side the punishing discipline enforced by the instructors for his academic failures only hardened his body and mind for what he excelled at, physical training. Motya found peace in the ceaseless combat drills which he took part in at every opportunity he could. Years spent training reinforced his faith, giving him the will and if necessary the physical ability to spread the faith and fight the enemies of the faith wherever they may be, something Motya is now eager to do.

Quote: “Do you think, because you are poor, obscure, plain and little, that you are soulless and heartless? No, you are the most divine of all subjects.”

Motya's Inquisitorial Seal & Banner: The seal was a design created by an artisan that worked in the town center within the Red Seminary walls. It was a series of five pieces that Mother Oksana had commissioned so that she could present them as a gift to Motya upon the completion of his training. The first and most plain piece is a heavy iron signet ring that Motya wears when not wearing his armored fists. He uses this to seal what little correspondence that is sent out in his name by his squad or actually sent out by him. The next three pieces are heavy brass, iron, and blackened steel fasteners that replace the fasteners typically found on Inquisitorial robes. They are each palm sized brass and iron disks with the mailed fist rendered in the blackened steel and serving as the fastener for the cloth of the robes, one at each shoulder and another at his left hip along the belt line. The last piece of the set is the only piece of ostentation that Motya possesses and he only keeps it because it came from Mother Oksana. On a heavy chain of bluish-green ethereally treated metal hangs a fist sized rendition of the seal in the picture below. The disk is made from unpolished, rough, and golden colored Ostra (a metal known for its ability to hold ether) while the black ring is blackened steel and the fist is cut from a single piece of onyx. The cutting and craftsmanship put into rendering the fist in onyx is masterful work and the fist itself also serves as an ether reservoir, much like ether vials, causing the fist to give off a dull muted golden glow when full.

The banner is an affection made by the squad of soldiers that Motya took as his own before the trip to El began. This banner now hangs wherever the squad goes and also adorns their armor and weapons.

Motya

Relationships (WIP):

Mother Kassandra:

Father Eldvanar:

Father Markov:

Father Nasir:

Father Mal:

Father Xenophan: