Obscene Symphony

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

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Jannick had looked forward to this event for some time, and for the most part, it did not disappoint. He was still convinced that nobody could throw a party like the Holy City, and there would surely be no better place in Gaia for the Millennium Festival. Preparations had already begun in earnest when he and Hollyhock arrived a few days prior, and the drive over from the hotel today was significantly slowed by detours where closed-off roads were choked with people milling around in their finery, buzzing with excitement. Streets were lavishly decorated, stalls for vendors of every type were erected, and the festivities were already in full swing; and here and there, standing up above the rest on tall white horses, trotted Church Knights in their shining gold armour, waving down at children and staring watchfully over the crowds.

And that, to Jannick’s considerable disappointment, was what made his homecoming a bit of a mixed bag. He really was happy to be home; it had only been six months since he left, but in that time he’d scarcely spent any more time in his “new home” in Rosaria than he had at any one of Hollyhock’s innumerable vacation homes scattered all over Gaia, and the travel wearied him considerably. Granted, even staying put in Rosaria probably would have done the same; he had spent the bulk of his life within the same six blocks of home, and leaving it was hard. Really hard.

Which was why he didn’t expect coming back to be equally difficult, but here he was. The few extra days tacked on to their trip had afforded him some time to visit with his family and friends, but that was as much a hindrance as a help: seeing his family was good, but all of his friends either lived at the Civitas Equitum or worked at his old precinct. Jannick thought he’d be happy to visit, but the familiar sights only made him feel even farther away; there everyone was, going about the business that was so familiar to him, and he was just a visitor. An outsider. And worse still, they treated him like one, making all sorts of a fuss over his “big promotion.” Being halfway across the continent might have been better.

Sir Tyler’s Blessing Ceremony didn’t do much to lift Jannick’s spirits. Fortunately, his poor mood didn’t make him stand out; it seemed like there were more than a few in attendance who weren’t too enthused by Sir Tyler’s appointment. Jannick might have been in the minority in that sense. The media made a lot of hay out of the controversy around this appointment, but to Jannick, it seemed pretty straightforward: Sir Tyler was investigated, and the powers that be found that his Scion’s death wasn’t his fault. Case closed. Jannick had seen enough of these shitstorms to know how they worked; the media and the public never got the full story, and Incepta only knew that if the evidence was enough to convince Fyodor of Tyler’s faultlessness, it was enough for Jannick. The court of public opinion would never change their minds, but he’d never put much stock into that anyway.

Of course, the theories of the public and the gripes of the other Templars were probably separate things entirely. That much was clear from the vows they swore - similar to the vows of a Church Knight, but above and beyond in every respect, with absolute dedication not only to Incepta, but to a charge. That was probably why the eyes of more than a few Templars burned as they watched Sir Tyler receive his second Blessing - a fate the vows themselves seemed explicitly designed to prevent.

Sir Tyler felt it too, no doubt; whether from the scorn of the masses or his own personal misgivings, Jannick didn’t miss the tension in Tyler’s form as he gave his first response. Jannick tensed, too, but for a different reason. It was only six months ago that he received his own Blessing in this very hall, when he knelt before Holly and felt the sting of foreign mana as she burned Incepta’s brand over his heart. He averted his eyes as the same happened to Tyler, feeling strangely self-conscious about it all. He hadn’t prayed in years; his vows were the first time in a long time he’d even uttered the Mother’s name - outside of profanity, anyway - and he hadn’t repeated it since. He had plenty of good reasons to doubt Her claims of benevolence and seek his solace elsewhere, but even still, he couldn’t shake a deep, unsettling feeling of unworthiness. It was like the eyes of the Goddess were on him, and he hoped She would look away.

Fortunately, it was all over pretty quickly, and no sooner had the High Cardinal dismissed them than Jannick noticed Holly was gone. He heaved a long sigh, cradling his temple. Honestly, he should thank her - it was a welcome distraction from his thoughts. But the distraction was less of a solemn oath of protection and more of a bad babysitting gig, and his charge was off making very stately and Scion-like work of three cookies that a Templar - wait, really? - had somehow snuck into the ceremony.

Well, whatever. Jannick hadn’t been with Holly long, but he had learned pretty quick that when it came to stuff like this, it was a lot more work to beat her than to join her. Besides, six years as a cop built up habits that were hard to break.

Sidling up next to Holly, Jannick plucked a cookie of his own from the box, giving it an exploratory bite before deciding if it was worth giving Ionna an interesting fact. It passed the test.

“We used to keep the funniest civilian complaints framed in the locker room,” he offered. “My favourite one accused me of using excessive force because I scuffed the suspect’s Weezys.”

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@McMolly

Obscene's Scratchpad

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Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

The dog that caught the car

________________________________________ Sir Jannick Weber Male | 28 | Veradis Templar of Wind _______________________________________________ “Should he be smoking in here?” ________________________________________ I know I'm made of clay that's worn Blighted by imperfect form But I'll trust the artist moulding me

“Look at this shit, man. It might as well just say 'shoot here.’” Minor Holy Sigil Location Much to his chagrin, Jannick's minor sigil was placed over his heart. Appearance 5’10 and built solid, Jannick wouldn't stand out much in a lineup of his knighted peers. Nothing about him is flashy: his skin is as fair as the next Veradian's, his hair is the colour of wet sand, and his eyes are a flat hazel anyone could acceptably mistake for muddy brown. His expressions rarely extend beyond bored, tired, or irritated, and his only feature worth noticing is the perpetual presence of dark circles under his eyes. For the everyday, he has capitulated to dressing half-decently, usually sporting some combination of slacks and a button-down shirt, although ties don't usually make it to the end of the day. While he's still antsy without body armour, he has begrudgingly accepted that it's not always necessary or practical; however, he will never relinquish his shoulder holster, which he wears at all times. For formal occasions, he cleans up nice, and he usually wears his Templar uniform without modification. His hair is a bit longer now than it was in his crew-cut days, and ideally, he would maintain a clean shave. Ideally. Personality It is outwardly apparent that Jannick does not want to be here. He held it together well enough to get through his Templar training, but every day that passes is a day that it gets a little bit harder to pretend that his Blessing is the greatest gift on earth. He rolls his eyes in interviews, he smokes inside, he even refers to his Scion as “Holiness” - and sometimes just uses her given name. His patience grows thinner by the day, and his charge’s escape artist tendencies do nothing to alleviate his recurring headaches. He is a man of many words once you get him talking, but these days, very few of them are likely to be good. The one thing he doesn’t scrimp on, however, is vigilance. Jannick may not take the vaunted positions of Scion and Templar very seriously, but he does appreciate his duty: keeping people safe. Annoying or not, his charge is as worthy of protection as anyone, and his head is always on a swivel, always looking for the signs he was trained to watch out for to spot a dangerous situation before it occurs. But he just can’t wrap his head around protecting his Scion and nobody else - as such, he has a tendency to slip back into his old habits and stick his nose in brewing conflicts when he finds them, even if his Scion isn’t involved. Biography Faith is a staple of everyday life in Veradis, and nowhere more than Juniperus itself. As such, Jannick, the middle child of six, got all the fixings of the pious upbringing: he went to a religious school, he served as an altar boy, and his parents made sure the whole family was in the pews every Sunday. To him, it was as routine as it was rigorous, with one teaching drilled deepest of them all: the Goddess loves you. That wasn’t to say he didn’t love the Church, but what captured his young mind was not the priest at the altar, but the guards at the door: the Church Knights in their gleaming armour, shining like angels in the sun. Juniperus was crawling with them; with no civilian authority in the Holy City, all matters of public order were handled by the Church. Church Knights patrolled the streets, directed traffic, put out fires, and of course, fought crime. To Jannick, it seemed like they were the very force that made the world go round. And he wanted to be one of them. The year of his seventh birthday, he begged and pleaded with his parents for months to let him become a page. While they were apprehensive at first, his pitiable whining must have worn them down eventually, because when the day finally came, he was introduced to Sir Ulrich Gerhardt, a man not too long out of knighthood himself. The new year would see Jannick join Sir Ulrich at the Civitas Equitum, where he got the chance not only to learn the basics of knighthood, but to rub elbows with the scores of other Knights, pages and squires who called the city barracks home. It was a dream come true. The instruction of an aspiring Church Knight is rigorous and demanding, but Jannick sucked up every drop of it, from the mounted swordplay lessons to the late-night toilet cleaning. But his very favourite part was the field work, when he got to accompany Sir Ulrich on his duties. Sir Ulrich wasn’t the Knight Jannick had always pictured when he played Knights and Monsters with his siblings: instead of a traveling monster slayer or the Templar to a Scion, he was an officer of the Juniperus Police Department. His duties were varied and unique, and during his time as a squire Jannick accompanied Sir Ulrich on mounted patrols, investigations of crime scenes, arrests of petty criminals, and more small-time court appearances than Jannick cared to remember. It was a strange job for a Knight, Jannick initially thought. It had its share of action, no doubt, and the JPD took immense pride in keeping the streets of the Holy City safe from all manner of crime - but at the same time, the job possessed a level of intimacy with the people of Juniperus that had never before come to Jannick’s mind, but soon became to him the very essence of a Knight. In the stories of his youth, the Knights were always slaying monsters on behalf of faceless villagers or questing at the behest of nameless clergymen for the good of the all-encompassing Church. But in Sir Ulrich’s line of work, the villagers had faces, names, and children who got lost and needed finding; the clergy consoled people whose apartments were broken into and whose assailants needed to be held accountable for their crimes. After a while, police work became, to Jannick, the truest expression of knighthood. When he was 21, the time for his own knighting finally came. It surprised no one, least of all Sir Ulrich, when Jannick traded his golden breastplate for a kevlar vest and joined the JPD. No one would argue that it was the right choice for Jannick, but life came at him fast, and he learned soon after his knighting that the calls Sir Ulrich saw fit to bring his squire along on were not the only calls the JPD had to deal with. Juniperus had no more crime than any other city of comparable size - with its heavy Knight presence, it probably had less - but the police department was kept busy all the same. Crushing boredom on patrol could turn into a deadly encounter in an instant; every time the radio screeched, Jannick never knew what he would face next. At first, it was exhilarating. In time, it came to test his faith. He grew up learning - knowing - one thing above all others: the Goddess loved her children. That was why she created them; that was why, when they called out to her in anguish, she gifted them her essence, creating the Scions. But he was no theologian; despite his training as a Knight, he didn’t know or understand the deep mysteries of the faith Incepta had instilled into her Church. He didn’t know why, if she loved her children so much, they so frequently forgot her teachings and turned on each other. He didn’t know why the Mother was so content to let it happen. As a police officer, Jannick saw firsthand the depths of human suffering and depravity. He unearthed the OD victims from their squalid apartments, nameless and known only to landlords complaining of the smell. He wrestled battered women as they begged him hysterically to let their boyfriends go free, only to respond to their house again the next weekend. He pulled the mangled bodies of children from twisted cars while the drunks who hit them walked away spotless. When he looked up, Jannick saw the gleaming spires of the Cathedra Incepta, the points of the Sigil star embracing the city like the open, loving arms of the Goddess herself. But when he looked around, he wondered if he and his heavenly Mother were seeing the same thing. The years passed, and he didn’t pray much anymore. Jannick’s growing burnout must have been apparent, because unbeknownst to him, Sir Ulrich had taken it upon himself to give Jannick a chance at a different career: a Templar. But when news came that Sir Ulrich had recommended him for the position and he’d been accepted, Jannick was devastated; he couldn’t deny that the reality of police work weighed heavily on him, but the answer wasn’t to walk away. If there was so much evil in the world, and Incepta clearly wasn’t doing anything about it, then somebody had to act. He had been working ever more intently, foregoing leisure and taking on a daunting overtime regimen, because someone had to do something. He needed to be out in the streets, not guarding some vaunted magic brat. But there was nothing he could do. Sir Ulrich meant well, but it doomed him: if Jannick refused such an honour, his reputation as a Church Knight serving the Holy City would be irreparably cratered. No citizen of Juniperus would trust a police officer who didn’t think guarding a Scion was worth his while, and even if the people didn’t care, his superiors certainly would. The best job he could hope for if he refused would be as a deputy in some backwater Rodion village shooting polar bears, if he wasn't stuck at a customs desk in some forsaken train station. If he wasn't stripped of his Knighthood altogether under suspicion of apostasy, that is. The choice was made for him, made all the more painful by the fact that he had to accept it himself. And now he’s no longer Officer Weber, but Sir Jannick, Templar of Wind, in charge of a Scion who somehow takes the whole “blessed by the Goddess” schtick about as seriously as he does. Honestly, that’s probably even more insulting. Weapon of Choice They took back his standard-issue handgun when he left the police department, so Jannick spent his stipend on a pair of his own, which he carries in his shoulder holster at all times. In addition to that, he'll suit up with a military-style carbine when he has time to prepare, and he's always been an advocate of the good old-fashioned baton. Misc. Jannick has been the Templar of Wind for about 6 months. It’s pronounced “yannick” He has a set of throwing knives he’s been practicing guiding with wind from his Blessing, but he’s not good enough at it to keep them on his person just yet. At the moment, he mostly uses his Blessing to eavesdrop on conversations and make his frequent smoking less conspicuous. Yes, he still has handcuffs. No, your jokes aren't funny.

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

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Maya had never once regretted her move to Juniperus. Aside from the everyday benefits it carried for a Scion like herself, today it meant that she got to do all of her preparation for the Millennium Festival in her own penthouse - a relief, since she packed her day even more fully than a normal event would demand. It wouldn’t normally take several hours just to choose an outfit and do her makeup for the evening - not even she could stretch the process out that long on her own - but stopping every few minutes to re-record a clip for a Get Ready With Me or to post one of several different pictures of her breakfast really made the process drag on.

And it was all very necessary. And not just the same kind of necessary that she always insisted to Edmund that every Instagram post was, but especially necessary. Maya had been hyping up the Millennium Festival for weeks, and her followers expected detailed coverage. More importantly, she had deals and collabs set up with brands for everything from her hydroflask to her nail polish, and everything needed to be photographed in the right light and at the right angle - but subtly, of course. She wasn’t a sellout.

There was a bit of chaos, a few shrill profanities thrown around, but by the time the limousine came Maya had wrapped her day (and more importantly, her social media posts) into a neat little bow. Her dress was elegant enough for the red carpet but demure enough for a church function: long sleeves and a high neck covered most of her skin, but a slit in the neckline stopped her from looking like a seventeenth century dame, and modest gold accents glittered like stars against the midnight purple fabric. A matching gossamer veil completed the look, almost blending in with her hair if not for the tiny gold beads flecked throughout; her favourite piece of the night, since it came from a brand new sponsor of hers. The picture she posted of the completed outfit was already racking up likes as she and Edmund got into the limo.

The ride to the Cathedra Incepta was short, but long enough to be awkward; Edmund usually didn’t ride with her, and it showed. Regardless, she took a selfie on the drive with him in the background, knowing that her fans would eat it up - they had made a game out of picking Edmund out of pictures, and they loved ammunition for their search. And, brooding or not, Maya would begrudgingly admit (but never out loud) that he cleaned up decently nice; the white Templar uniform was a nice change from the edgy dark clothes he usually chose, even if the purple accents did kind of make them look like prom dates. Maya shuddered at the thought.

Aside from forcing Edmund to take a picture of her in front of the Cathedra Incepta, the ceremony itself was boring; sacred oaths, fancy light show, same thing she’d done herself two years back and witnessed a couple of times since. Maya supposed it was cool if you were into dusty old tradition, which meant that Edmund should have been having a blast, but not even Sir Knight himself seemed enthused by the display. Of course, that could have been because his panties were still in the same twist they’d been in since the news first broke about Sir Tyler’s appointment - tighter, perhaps, given that his usual dignified scowl was now coloured with shades of very real disdain at the sight of the returning Templar of Time.

Maya couldn’t deny herself a coy little smirk at the display. It was so hard for anyone to get a rise out of her duty-bound protector, this was a rare treat indeed. She knew on some cerebral level the source of Edmund’s animosity, but she neither shared nor cared to understand it; she did, however, care to push his buttons a little bit. It was a special occasion, after all.

“Aw, isn’t it inspiring?” Maya asked in a whisper, leaning so that only her Templar could hear her. “I remember when that was you and me up there, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly up at Edmund; he knew her well enough to see that the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Beyond her brooding Templar, of far more interest to Maya than the blessing ceremony were the other figures in attendance. Kasper and Justinian she knew in passing - the former had been the adopted pride of Doumerc since long before she ever became a Scion, and the latter was like an algorithm barnacle on just about every social media platform frequented by teenage boys - and she and Princess Belle over there were well-acquainted; it was amazing how much one can get to know someone through insincere pleasantries and venomous looks alone.

But the rest were a little less familiar. The big one she recognized by his sheer size, remembering him as the middle-aged Scion of Fire whose name didn’t match his home country, even though she couldn’t precisely recall either; the girl scarfing down cookies was the Scion of Wind, Holly-something, whom Maya knew only enough to know this seemed on-brand; Maya got to hear all about Marchioness Lucienne’s heroic efforts for the poor and downtrodden every time she blessed a hospital, so she neither needed nor desired any introduction; and of course, despite living in the Holy City, Maya had never really met the little princess of Veradis - that giant guard dog of hers they called a Templar usually kept her at arm’s length. A freakishly long, man-ish arm’s length.

The last one, though - the plain-looking chick who didn’t ring any bells, seemingly by design - Maya couldn’t remember which one she was. Which, by process of elimination, meant she must have been the Scion of Metal, whose ceremony Maya had attended only six months ago and whose name Maya had forgotten at precisely the same moment she learned it. No worries; if anyone from the media asked about the other Scions, they always prefaced the question with their name anyway.

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@webboysurf

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

The dog that caught the car

________________________________________ Sir Jannick Weber Male | 28 | Veradis Templar of Wind _______________________________________________ “Should he be smoking in here?” ________________________________________

“Look at this shit, man. It might as well just say 'shoot here.’” Minor Holy Sigil Location Much to his chagrin, Jannick's minor sigil was placed over his heart. Appearance 5’10 and built solid, Jannick wouldn't stand out much in a lineup of his knighted peers. Nothing about him is flashy: his skin is as fair as the next Veradian's, his hair is the colour of wet sand, and his eyes are a flat hazel anyone could acceptably mistake for muddy brown. His expressions rarely extend beyond bored, tired, or irritated, and his only feature worth noticing is the perpetual presence of dark circles under his eyes. For the everyday, he has capitulated to dressing half-decently, usually sporting some combination of slacks and a button-down shirt, although ties don't usually make it to the end of the day. While he's still antsy without body armour, he has begrudgingly accepted that it's not always necessary or practical; however, he will never relinquish his shoulder holster, which he wears at all times. For formal occasions, he cleans up nice, and he usually wears his Templar uniform without modification. His hair is a bit longer now than it was in his crew-cut days, and ideally, he would maintain a clean shave. Ideally. Personality It is outwardly apparent that Jannick does not want to be here. He held it together well enough to get through his Templar training, but every day that passes is a day that it gets a little bit harder to pretend that his Blessing is the greatest gift on earth. He rolls his eyes in interviews, he smokes inside, he even refers to his Scion as “Holiness” - and sometimes just uses her given name. His patience grows thinner by the day, and his charge’s escape artist tendencies do nothing to alleviate his recurring headaches. He is a man of many words once you get him talking, but these days, very few of them are likely to be good. The one thing he doesn’t scrimp on, however, is vigilance. Jannick may not take the vaunted positions of Scion and Templar very seriously, but he does appreciate his duty: keeping people safe. Annoying or not, his charge is as worthy of protection as anyone, and his head is always on a swivel, always looking for the signs he was trained to watch out for to spot a dangerous situation before it occurs. But he just can’t wrap his head around protecting his Scion and nobody else - as such, he has a tendency to slip back into his old habits and stick his nose in brewing conflicts when he finds them, even if his Scion isn’t involved. Biography Faith is a staple of everyday life in Veradis, and nowhere more than Juniperus itself. As such, Jannick, the middle child of six, got all the fixings of the pious upbringing: he went to a religious school, he served as an altar boy, and his parents made sure the whole family was in the pews every Sunday. To him, it was as routine as it was rigorous, with one teaching drilled deepest of them all: the Goddess loves you. That wasn’t to say he didn’t love the Church, but what captured his young mind was not the priest at the altar, but the guards at the door: the Church Knights in their gleaming armour, shining like angels in the sun. Juniperus was crawling with them; with no civilian authority in the Holy City, all matters of public order were handled by the Church. Church Knights patrolled the streets, directed traffic, put out fires, and of course, fought crime. To Jannick, it seemed like they were the very force that made the world go round. And he wanted to be one of them. The year of his seventh birthday, he begged and pleaded with his parents for months to let him become a page. While they were apprehensive at first, his pitiable whining must have worn them down eventually, because when the day finally came, he was introduced to Sir Ulrich Gerhardt, a man not too long out of knighthood himself. The new year would see Jannick join Sir Ulrich at the Civitas Equitum, where he got the chance not only to learn the basics of knighthood, but to rub elbows with the scores of other Knights, pages and squires who called the city barracks home. It was a dream come true. The instruction of an aspiring Church Knight is rigorous and demanding, but Jannick sucked up every drop of it, from the mounted swordplay lessons to the late-night toilet cleaning. But his very favourite part was the field work, when he got to accompany Sir Ulrich on his duties. Sir Ulrich wasn’t the Knight Jannick had always pictured when he played Knights and Monsters with his siblings: instead of a traveling monster slayer or the Templar to a Scion, he was an officer of the Juniperus Police Department. His duties were varied and unique, and during his time as a squire Jannick accompanied Sir Ulrich on mounted patrols, investigations of crime scenes, arrests of petty criminals, and more small-time court appearances than Jannick cared to remember. It was a strange job for a Knight, Jannick initially thought. It had its share of action, no doubt, and the JPD took immense pride in keeping the streets of the Holy City safe from all manner of crime - but at the same time, the job possessed a level of intimacy with the people of Juniperus that had never before come to Jannick’s mind, but soon became to him the very essence of a Knight. In the stories of his youth, the Knights were always slaying monsters on behalf of faceless villagers or questing at the behest of nameless clergymen for the good of the all-encompassing Church. But in Sir Ulrich’s line of work, the villagers had faces, names, and children who got lost and needed finding; the clergy consoled people whose apartments were broken into and whose assailants needed to be held accountable for their crimes. After a while, police work became, to Jannick, the truest expression of knighthood. When he was 21, the time for his own knighting finally came. It surprised no one, least of all Sir Ulrich, when Jannick traded his golden breastplate for a kevlar vest and joined the JPD. No one would argue that it was the right choice for Jannick, but life came at him fast, and he learned soon after his knighting that the calls Sir Ulrich saw fit to bring his squire along on were not the only calls the JPD had to deal with. Juniperus had no more crime than any other city of comparable size - with its heavy Knight presence, it probably had less - but the police department was kept busy all the same. Crushing boredom on patrol could turn into a deadly encounter in an instant; every time the radio screeched, Jannick never knew what he would face next. At first, it was exhilarating. In time, it came to test his faith. He grew up learning - knowing - one thing above all others: the Goddess loved her children. That was why she created them; that was why, when they called out to her in anguish, she gifted them her essence, creating the Scions. But he was no clergyman; despite his training as a Knight, he didn’t know or understand the deep mysteries of the faith Incepta had instilled into her Church. He didn’t know why, if she loved her children so much, they so frequently forgot her teachings and turned on each other. He didn’t know why the Mother was so content to let it happen. As a police officer, Jannick saw firsthand the depths of human suffering and depravity. He unearthed the OD victims from their squalid apartments, nameless and known only to landlords complaining of the smell. He wrestled battered women as they begged him hysterically to let their boyfriends go free, only to respond to their house again the next weekend. He pulled the mangled bodies of children from twisted cars while the drunks who hit them walked away spotless. When he looked up, Jannick saw the gleaming spires of the Cathedra Incepta, the points of the Sigil star embracing the city like the open, loving arms of the Goddess herself. But when he looked around, he wondered if he and his heavenly Mother were seeing the same thing. The years passed, and he didn’t pray much anymore. Jannick’s growing burnout must have been apparent, because unbeknownst to him, Sir Ulrich had taken it upon himself to give Jannick a chance at a different career: a Templar. But when news came that Sir Ulrich had recommended him for the position and he’d been accepted, Jannick was devastated; he couldn’t deny that the reality of police work weighed heavily on him, but the answer wasn’t to walk away. If there was so much evil in the world, and Incepta clearly wasn’t doing anything about it, then somebody had to act. He had been working ever more intently, foregoing leisure and taking on a daunting overtime regimen, because someone had to do something. He needed to be out in the streets, not guarding some vaunted magic brat. But there was nothing he could do. Sir Ulrich meant well, but it doomed him: if Jannick refused such an honour, his reputation as a Church Knight serving the Holy City would be irreparably cratered. No citizen of Juniperus would trust a police officer who didn’t think guarding a Scion was worth his while, and even if the people didn’t care, his superiors certainly would. The best job he could hope for if he refused would be as a deputy in some backwater Rodion village shooting polar bears, if he wasn't stuck at a customs desk in some forsaken train station. If he wasn't stripped of his Knighthood altogether under suspicion of apostasy, that is. The choice was made for him, made all the more painful by the fact that he had to accept it himself. And now he’s no longer Officer Weber, but Sir Jannick, Templar of Wind, in charge of a Scion who somehow takes the whole “blessed by the Goddess” schtick about as seriously as he does. Honestly, that’s probably even more insulting. Weapon of Choice They took back his standard-issue handgun when he left the police department, so Jannick spent his stipend on a pair of his own, which he carries in his shoulder holster at all times. In addition to that, he'll suit up with a military-style carbine when he has time to prepare, and he's always been an advocate of the good old-fashioned baton. Misc. Jannick has been the Templar of Wind for about 6 months. It’s pronounced “yannick” He has a set of throwing knives he’s been practicing guiding with wind from his Blessing, but he’s not good enough at it to keep them on his person just yet. At the moment, he mostly uses his Blessing to make his frequent smoking less conspicuous. Yes, he still has handcuffs. No, your jokes aren't funny.

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

Patron Scion of Influencers

________________________________________ Miriam Grâce “Maya” Desrosiers Female | 24 | Veradis, née Doumerc Scion of Gravity _______________________________________________ “Did you see Scion Maya’s Instagram story?” ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Baby, you got something special Your body is a work of art But we got a little issue I feel your chest, but I can't find your heart

“Let me guess: the bishop wants to see me.” Holy Sigil Location Maya’s Holy Sigil appears on her eyes. While she is not the first Scion to present this way, this has been of interest to the Church as it has historically been the only known Sigil presentation to produce two symmetrical marks rather than one. Appearance Maya is average height for a woman at 5'5", though she's usually boosted a bit taller with heels. She has a slim but shapely build, fair skin, and long, straight black hair, fairly typical of her Doumercène heritage. She typically dresses business casual, preferring skirts, stockings, and blouses in various styles. Her eyes are the colour of dark red wine, and her face, conventionally pretty, is often slack with boredom and mild contempt. When the cameras are on, however, her crowd-pleasing smile is second to none. Personality Maya is a fan favourite among the current Scions, and for good reason: in interviews, public appearances, and most notably on social media, her contemporary style, openness with media and bubbly attitude have made an otherwise distant and intimidating ecclesial figure approachable and relatable to the younger generation. There is no journalist or camera she turns away, and by striking a careful balance between zoomer fun, modern sophistication, and girl-next-door charm, the Scion of Gravity has become a widely appealing and entirely inoffensive public figure that just about anyone can look to and find something to identify with. It’s really a shame that it’s all an act. In private, those close to Maya know her to be high maintenance, stubborn, self-centered, manipulative, and prone to temper when things don’t go her way. She has a vindictive mean streak that the more pious of her friends would call her deadliest temptation, to which she often surrenders; when someone rubs her the wrong way, she just can’t help herself. Often unreadable and rarely saying what she means, she keeps those around her walking on eggshells - until they realize that her bark is usually worse than her bite. Fortunately for her, most retreat before they ever get that far. Biography Maya was born in one of Doumerc’s smaller cities, an ancient settlement called Rivière-de-Larme located on one bank of a wide river forming part of Doumerc’s historically contested border with Kaudus. One of the last remaining border settlements in Doumerc (after the rest were gradually abandoned in a diplomatic effort to ease tensions with Kaudus), tensions in Rivière-de-Larme often run high, and the settlement is closely monitored by the Doumercène military, a rare sight in the rest of the country. However, being situated on a vital trade route both out to sea and inland to Rodion, Doumerc has yet to concede the town to Kaudus’ posturing from across the river. For Maya’s part, she was born into some privilege; while they had no claims to noble lineage, her family was fortunate as Rivière residents went. They owned a family business of some repute running cargo barges up and down the river, and while their contracts weren’t huge, they were consistent, and with hard work they made enough to live comfortably, a luxury not all in their town could afford. Maya herself was a difficult child, prone to stubbornness and temper, but she performed well in school; so well, in fact, that by the time she finished high school, she had earned herself a scholarship studying physics at a university in the nearest city. It wasn’t ivy league - it was an open secret that one needed lofty connections to get into one of those - but a degree from any Doumerc university would all but guarantee Maya a life much easier than the one her parents had worked for, and they were elated. Unfortunately, Maya’s scholarship worked more against her parents’ interests than in their favour. In her time away, Maya grew haughty, acquiring a taste for the sophistication and style of “big city” life and learning to look down upon the small-time border town and kitschy cargo business that raised her. Her summers home felt like prison, and even her advanced physics homework appealed to her more than helping out with the family business. But books still needed balancing, and cargo still needed checking, so Maya was unable to escape helping her parents out on the barges. One interesting bonus of the business was that, as a cargo carrier, the Desrosiers company was one of very few civilian companies with authorization to cross the river into Kaudus. With foreign relations strained as they were, they never had Kaudian clients, but the passport was necessary to get through checkpoints and to secure some limited protection in case docking on Kaudian shores was necessary. As it happened, one of the summer days that Maya’s father could drag her out to help with inventory was one such occasion, their barge suffering engine difficulties and a rudder failure that forced them to make landfall in Kaudus. An unscheduled landing in waters as well-traveled as the Larme would raise tensions anywhere, but a Doumercène ship in Kaudus doubly so; as such, tensions ran high as Maya, for once, stayed dutifully inside the bridge while her father attempted to explain the situation to the Kaudian authorities. However, while her father struggled to communicate in broken Kaudian, armed men from the shore boarded and began sweeping the ship. Then physics rolled over, and they fell into the sky. Things moved pretty quickly after that, and after narrowly avoiding several Kaudian attempts to kill her, Maya and her father were secured by the Doumercène military and shortly thereafter, taken under the care of the Church. It was determined after a short investigation that Maya had undergone a miracle and become the new Scion of Gravity, following the widely published death of her predecessor two months prior. Maya was 22 years old at the time. It was jointly decided by the Church and Maya’s family (albeit strenuously objected to by Parliament) that, for her safety, Maya would leave Doumerc and reside in Veradis, at least for the time being. Maya, who had never been strongly religious and was loath to be told what to do, chafed under the Church’s tutelage at first, and to this day hasn’t abandoned her stubborn streak, but you will never hear her complain about the accommodations: The Holy City of Juniperus is as far a cry from backwater Rivière-de-Larme as one can get. On top of that, there is nowhere in the world where a Scion enjoys as much doting attention, and in the few years since inheriting her gift, Maya has become a darling of the media - maybe a little too chummy with them, if her bishop has anything to say about it. Weapon of Choice In circumstances where she's been approved for blatant uses of Gravity magic, Maya uses a blade-backed custom hammer. Otherwise, she carries a concealed handgun on her person at all times. Misc. Maya has been a scion for ~2 years. Maya has one of the biggest Instagram followings in the Federation, but there is a hot debate on the platform as to whether she should be included in popularity rankings at all. Doumerc is still trying to entice Maya to return to her homeland. However, the events in Kaudus at her awakening (referred to by the government as “the Larme Incident”) sparked elevated border tensions that have yet to calm down, and as a result Maya claims to be uncomfortable living anywhere inside Doumerc’s borders. By the Church and the faithful, the Larme Incident has also been called the Miracle at the Larme, and is a common topic of Maya’s interviews.

Obscene's Scratchpad

The dog that caught the car

________________________________________ Sir Jannick Weber Male | 28 | Veradis Templar of Wind _______________________________________________ “Should he be smoking in here?” ________________________________________

“Look at this shit, man. It might as well just say 'shoot here.’” Minor Holy Sigil Location Much to his chagrin, Jannick's minor sigil was placed over his heart. Appearance 5’10 and built solid, Jannick wouldn't stand out much in a lineup of his knighted peers. Nothing about him is flashy: his skin is as fair as the next Veradian's, his hair is the colour of wet sand, and his eyes are a flat hazel anyone could acceptably mistake for muddy brown. His expressions rarely extend beyond bored, tired, or irritated, and his only feature worth noticing is the perpetual presence of dark circles under his eyes. For the everyday, he has capitulated to dressing half-decently, usually sporting some combination of slacks and a button-down shirt, although ties don't usually make it to the end of the day. While he's still antsy without body armour, he has begrudgingly accepted that it's not always necessary or practical; however, he will never relinquish his shoulder holster, which he wears at all times. For formal occasions, he cleans up nice, and he usually wears his Templar uniform without modification. His hair is a bit longer now than it was in his crew-cut days, and ideally, he would maintain a clean shave. Ideally. Personality It is outwardly apparent that Jannick does not want to be here. He held it together well enough to get through his Templar training, but every day that passes is a day that it gets a little bit harder to pretend that his Blessing is the greatest gift on earth. He rolls his eyes in interviews, he smokes inside, he even refers to his Scion as “Holiness” - and sometimes just uses her given name. His patience grows thinner by the day, and his charge’s escape artist tendencies do nothing to alleviate his recurring headaches. He is a man of many words once you get him talking, but these days, very few of them are likely to be good. The one thing he doesn’t scrimp on, however, is vigilance. Jannick may not take the vaunted positions of Scion and Templar very seriously, but he does appreciate his duty: keeping people safe. Annoying or not, his charge is as worthy of protection as anyone, and his head is always on a swivel, always looking for the signs he was trained to watch out for to spot a dangerous situation before it occurs. But he just can’t wrap his head around prioritizing his Scion and nobody else - as such, he has a tendency to slip back into his old habits and stick his nose in brewing conflicts when he finds them, even if his Scion isn’t involved. Biography Faith is a staple of everyday life in Veradis, and nowhere more than Juniperus itself. As such, Jannick, the middle child of six, got all the fixings of the pious upbringing: he went to a religious school, he served as an altar boy, and his parents made sure the whole family was in the pews every Sunday. To him, it was as routine as it was rigorous, with one teaching drilled deepest of them all: the Goddess loves you. That wasn’t to say he didn’t love the Church, but what captured his young mind was not the priest at the altar, but the guards at the door: the Church Knights in their gleaming armour, shining like angels in the sun. Juniperus was crawling with them; with no civilian authority in the Holy City, all matters of public order were handled by the Church. Church Knights patrolled the streets, directed traffic, put out fires, and of course, fought crime. To Jannick, it seemed like they were the very force that made the world go round. And he wanted to be one of them. The year of his seventh birthday, he begged and pleaded with his parents for months to let him become a page. While they were apprehensive at first, his pitiable whining must have worn them down eventually, because when the day finally came, he was introduced to Sir Ulrich Gerhardt, a man not too long out of knighthood himself. The new year would see Jannick join Sir Ulrich at the Civitas Equitum, where he got the chance not only to learn the basics of knighthood, but to rub elbows with the scores of other Knights, pages and squires who called the city barracks home. It was a dream come true. The instruction of an aspiring Church Knight is rigorous and demanding, but Jannick sucked up every drop of it, from the mounted swordplay lessons to the late-night toilet cleaning. But his very favourite part was the field work, when he got to accompany Sir Ulrich on his duties. Sir Ulrich wasn’t the Knight Jannick had always pictured when he played Knights and Monsters with his siblings: instead of a traveling monster slayer or the Templar to a Scion, he was an officer of the Juniperus Police Department. His duties were varied and unique, and during his time as a squire Jannick accompanied Sir Ulrich on mounted patrols, investigations of crime scenes, arrests of petty criminals, and more small-time court appearances than Jannick cared to remember. It was a strange job for a Knight, Jannick initially thought. It had its share of action, no doubt, and the JPD took immense pride in keeping the streets of the Holy City safe from all manner of crime - but at the same time, the job possessed a level of intimacy with the people of Juniperus that had never before come to Jannick’s mind, but soon became to him the very essence of a Knight. In the stories of his youth, the Knights were always slaying monsters on behalf of faceless villagers or questing at the behest of nameless clergymen for the good of the all-encompassing Church. But in Sir Ulrich’s line of work, the villagers had faces, names, and children who got lost and needed finding; the clergy consoled people whose apartments were broken into and whose assailants needed to be held accountable for their crimes. After a while, police work became, to Jannick, the truest expression of knighthood. When he was 21, the time for his own knighting finally came. It surprised no one, least of all Sir Ulrich, when Jannick traded his golden breastplate for a kevlar vest and joined the JPD. No one would argue that it was the right choice for Jannick, but life came at him fast, and he learned soon after his knighting that the calls Sir Ulrich saw fit to bring his squire along on were not the only calls the JPD had to deal with. Juniperus had no more crime than any other city of comparable size - with its heavy Knight presence, it probably had less - but the police department was kept busy all the same. Crushing boredom on patrol could turn into a deadly encounter in an instant; every time the radio screeched, Jannick never knew what he would face next. At first, it was exhilarating. In time, it came to test his faith. He grew up learning - knowing - one thing above all others: the Goddess loved her children. That was why she created them; that was why, when they called out to her in anguish, she gifted them her essence, creating the Scions. But he was no clergyman; despite his training as a Knight, he didn’t know or understand the deep mysteries of the faith Incepta had instilled into her Church. He didn’t know why, if she loved her children so much, they so frequently forgot her teachings and turned on each other. He didn’t know why the Mother was so content to let it happen. As a police officer, Jannick saw firsthand the depths of human suffering and depravity. He unearthed the OD victims from their squalid apartments, nameless and known only to landlords complaining of the smell. He wrestled battered women as they begged him hysterically to let their boyfriends go free, only to respond to their house again the next weekend. He pulled the mangled bodies of children from twisted cars while the drunks who hit them walked away spotless. When he looked up, Jannick saw the gleaming spires of the Cathedra Incepta, the points of the Sigil star embracing the city like the open, loving arms of the Goddess herself. But when he looked around, he wondered if he and his heavenly Mother were seeing the same thing. The years passed, and he didn’t pray much anymore. Jannick’s growing burnout must have been apparent, because unbeknownst to him, Sir Ulrich had taken it upon himself to give Jannick a chance at a different career: a Templar. But when news came that Sir Ulrich had recommended him for the position and he’d been accepted, Jannick was devastated; he couldn’t deny that the reality of police work weighed heavily on him, but the answer wasn’t to walk away. If there was so much evil in the world, and Incepta clearly wasn’t doing anything about it, then somebody had to act. He had been working ever more intently, foregoing leisure and taking on a daunting overtime regimen, because someone had to do something. He needed to be out in the streets, not guarding some vaunted magic brat. But there was nothing he could do. Sir Ulrich meant well, but it doomed him: if Jannick refused such an honour, his reputation as a Church Knight serving the Holy City would be irreparably cratered. No citizen of Juniperus would trust a police officer who didn’t think guarding a Scion was worth his while, and even if the people didn’t care, his superiors certainly would. The best job he could hope for if he refused would be as a deputy in some backwater Rodion village shooting polar bears, if he wasn't stuck at a customs desk in some forsaken airport. If he wasn't stripped of his Knighthood altogether under suspicion of apostasy, that is. The choice was made for him, made all the more painful by the fact that he had to accept it himself. And now he’s no longer Officer Weber, but Sir Jannick, Templar of Wind, in charge of a Scion who somehow takes the whole “blessed by the Goddess” schtick about as seriously as he does. Honestly, that’s probably even more insulting. Weapon of Choice They took back his standard-issue handgun when he left the police department, so Jannick spent his stipend on a pair of his own, which he carries in his shoulder holster at all times. In addition to that, he'll suit up with a military-style carbine when he has time to prepare, and he's always been an advocate of the good old-fashioned baton. Misc. Jannick has been the Templar of Wind for about 6 months. It’s pronounced “yannick” He has a set of throwing knives he’s been practicing guiding with wind from his Blessing, but he’s not good enough at it to keep them on his person just yet. At the moment, he mostly uses his Blessing to make his frequent smoking less conspicuous. Yes, he still has handcuffs. No, your jokes aren't funny.

Obscene's Scratchpad

NPCs

...	Church Officials
.............................................................	High Cardinal Margaret [description] ............................................................................
.............................................................	Archbishop Elijah [Description]
.............................................................	Commander Fyodor [Description]
.............................................................	Dame Irina Albakova Templar Originally hailing from Rodion, Dame Irina has been a prominent feature of the Ordo Templi for almost two decades. In that time, she has come to serve Commander Fyodor in a number of important but unofficial roles, often assisting him in the training and discipline of recruits. Stern and uncompromising, any Templar who received their training within the past decade is familiar with her harsh reprimands and brutal methods - as well as her undeniable results. Possessed of a quiet piety and unbending will, she carries herself with all the dignity befitting her station, thinly veiling a palpable savagery underneath. Given her demonstrated excellence and considerable experience as a Templar, many among the ranks take her continued lack of assignment to a Scion as an indication that Commander Fyodor is reserving her as his successor. However, neither Irina nor the Commander have spoken publicly on the matter.
...	Government Officials
.............................................................	Prince Rowan Isadore Bachmeier Veradis II Principality of Veradis [description]
.............................................................	Dr. Eliseo Rhaveus Adjunct Professor, Université de Sc-Thomas-des-Ombres Doumerc The youngest in a Lorenzian family of lawyers and political scholars, Dr. Rhaveus (or "Eli" to his peers) is the only member of his family to pursue a calling outside of the liberal arts. A prodigy in his own right, he attended an ivy league school in Doumerc at the tender age of 15 and never left the academic world, earning multiple advanced degrees in the fields of magical and elemental research. Anyone with an interest in obscure quantum manaphysics would recognize his name; he's the leading scholar on the subject, both by virtue of his sound and thorough research and the fact that he's essentially the only one writing about it. These days, he is excited to be teaching as an Adjunct at Ombres University, and at the request of the Doumercene Prime Minister, has joined a team researching methods of predicting Dark Scion inheritance.
...	Current Scions & Templars
.............................................................	High Prince Lucas Estora X Scion of Time Estora [descripton]
.............................................................	Princess Isabella "Belle" Lanvaldear Rosaria Scion of Water Rosaria [this bitch]
.............................................................	Princess Rosemary Clarabel Bachmeier Veradis Scion of Light Veradis [description]
.............................................................	Dame Sonia Gusev Templar of Light An exemplary Templar by every measure, it was no surprise when Princess Rosemary received Dame Sonia as her protector. Although Commander Fyodor trained her well and none would challenge her merit, Sonia's modus operandi is almost a little uncouth for a Templar: if her longtime friend Irina is a scalpel, Sonia is a hammer. She will handle threats by any means available to her and has the air of someone who would not hesitate to crack your skull with a rock if you so much as looked at her funny. Given her standoffish nature, many thought it strange to choose Sonia as the Templar for a little girl; however, in the five years the two have been together, Rosemary has taken to Sonia, and some liken the pair to a gruff old wolf standing guard over a kitten.
.............................................................	Portia Meliae Botanical Magic & Alchemy Instructor Tellurian Perhaps famous as the author of From Seed To Paradise, a staple in modern botanomantic terraforming concepts, Portia served as a senior consultant for the Bureau of Terraforming and Climate Manipulation for much of her life. Academy staff note that the Belworth case has recently sent her into a bit of a melancholy - not the trial per se, but the events leading up to it. While otherwise reserved and studious, she has some strong opinions about the Bureau's management of the situation and maintains the entire scenario could've been avoided. Fortunately, she avoids being roped into any political discussion on the matter despite this perceived sympathy for Belworth by taking a strongly anti-necromantic stance. Nobody likes arguing politics with a centrist. Aura: A gentle viridian glow, breached by rays of light like sunbeams from above. The smell of fresh soil emerges when the aura is first manifested, only to be overtaken by fresh floral scents over time. ............................................................................
.............................................................	Portia Meliae Botanical Magic & Alchemy Instructor Tellurian Perhaps famous as the author of From Seed To Paradise, a staple in modern botanomantic terraforming concepts, Portia served as a senior consultant for the Bureau of Terraforming and Climate Manipulation for much of her life. Academy staff note that the Belworth case has recently sent her into a bit of a melancholy - not the trial per se, but the events leading up to it. While otherwise reserved and studious, she has some strong opinions about the Bureau's management of the situation and maintains the entire scenario could've been avoided. Fortunately, she avoids being roped into any political discussion on the matter despite this perceived sympathy for Belworth by taking a strongly anti-necromantic stance. Nobody likes arguing politics with a centrist. Aura: A gentle viridian glow, breached by rays of light like sunbeams from above. The smell of fresh soil emerges when the aura is first manifested, only to be overtaken by fresh floral scents over time. ............................................................................

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

Patron Scion of Influencers

________________________________________ Miriam Grâce “Maya” Desrosiers Female | 24 | Veradis, née Doumerc Scion of Gravity _______________________________________________ “Did you see Scion Maya’s Instagram story?” ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Baby, you got something special Your body is a work of art But we got a little issue I feel your chest, but I can't find your heart

“Let me guess: the bishop wants to see me.” Holy Sigil Location Maya’s Holy Sigil appears on her eyes. While she is not the first Scion to present this way, this has been of interest to the Church as it has historically been the only known Sigil presentation to produce two symmetrical marks rather than one. Appearance Maya is average height for a woman at 5'5", though she's usually boosted a bit taller with heels. She has a slim but shapely build, fair skin, and long, straight black hair, fairly typical of her Doumercène heritage. She typically dresses business casual, preferring skirts, stockings, and blouses in various styles. Her eyes are the colour of dark red wine, and her face, conventionally pretty, is often slack with boredom and mild contempt. When the cameras are on, however, her crowd-pleasing smile is second to none. Personality Maya is a fan favourite among the current Scions, and for good reason: in interviews, public appearances, and most notably on social media, her contemporary style, openness with media and bubbly attitude have made an otherwise distant and intimidating ecclesial figure approachable and relatable to the younger generation. There is no journalist or camera she turns away, and by striking a careful balance between zoomer fun, modern sophistication, and girl-next-door charm, the Scion of Gravity has become a widely appealing and entirely inoffensive public figure that just about anyone can look to and find something to identify with. It’s really a shame that it’s all an act. In private, those close to Maya know her to be high maintenance, stubborn, self-centered, manipulative, and prone to temper when things don’t go her way. She has a vindictive mean streak that the more pious of her friends would call her deadliest temptation, to which she often surrenders; when someone rubs her the wrong way, she just can’t help herself. Often unreadable and rarely saying what she means, she keeps those around her walking on eggshells - until they realize that her bark is usually worse than her bite. Fortunately for her, most retreat before they ever get that far. Biography Maya was born in one of Doumerc’s smaller cities, an ancient settlement called Rivière-de-Larme located on one bank of a wide river forming part of Doumerc’s historically contested border with Kaudus. One of the last remaining border settlements in Doumerc (after the rest were gradually abandoned in a diplomatic effort to ease tensions with Kaudus), tensions in Rivière-de-Larme often run high, and the settlement is closely monitored by the Doumercène military, a rare sight in the rest of the country. However, being situated on a vital trade route both out to sea and inland to Rodion, Doumerc has yet to concede the town to Kaudus’ posturing from across the river. For Maya’s part, she was born into some privilege; while they had no claims to noble lineage, her family was fortunate as Rivière residents went. They owned a family business of some repute running cargo barges up and down the river, and while their contracts weren’t huge, they were consistent, and with hard work they made enough to live comfortably, a luxury not all in their town could afford. Maya herself was a difficult child, prone to stubbornness and temper, but she performed well in school; so well, in fact, that by the time she finished high school, she had earned herself a scholarship studying physics at a university in the nearest city. It wasn’t ivy league - it was an open secret that one needed lofty connections to get into one of those - but a degree from any Doumerc university would all but guarantee Maya a life much easier than the one her parents had worked for, and they were elated. Unfortunately, Maya’s scholarship worked more against her parents’ interests than in their favour. In her time away, Maya grew haughty, acquiring a taste for the sophistication and style of “big city” life and learning to look down upon the small-time border town and kitschy cargo business that raised her. Her summers home felt like prison, and even her advanced physics homework appealed to her more than helping out with the family business. But books still needed balancing, and cargo still needed checking, so Maya was unable to escape helping her parents out on the barges. One interesting bonus of the business was that, as a cargo carrier, the Desrosiers company was one of very few civilian companies with authorization to cross the river into Kaudus. With foreign relations strained as they were, they never had Kaudian clients, but the passport was necessary to get through checkpoints and to secure some limited protection in case docking on Kaudian shores was necessary. As it happened, one of the summer days that Maya’s father could drag her out to help with inventory was one such occasion, their barge suffering engine difficulties and a rudder failure that forced them to make landfall in Kaudus. An unscheduled landing in waters as well-traveled as the Larme would raise tensions anywhere, but a Doumercène ship in Kaudus doubly so; as such, tensions ran high as Maya, for once, stayed dutifully inside the bridge while her father attempted to explain the situation to the Kaudian authorities. However, while her father struggled to communicate in broken Kaudian, armed men from the shore boarded and began sweeping the ship. Then physics rolled over, and they fell into the sky. Things moved pretty quickly after that, and after narrowly avoiding several Kaudian attempts to kill her, Maya and her father were secured by the Doumercène military and shortly thereafter, taken under the care of the Church. It was determined after a short investigation that Maya had undergone a miracle and become the new Scion of Gravity, following the widely published death of her predecessor two months prior. Maya was 22 years old at the time. It was jointly decided by the Church and Maya’s family (albeit strenuously objected to by Parliament) that, for her safety, Maya would leave Doumerc and reside in Veradis, at least for the time being. Maya, who had never been strongly religious and was loath to be told what to do, chafed under the Church’s tutelage at first, and to this day hasn’t abandoned her stubborn streak, but you will never hear her complain about the accommodations: The Holy City of Juniperus is as far a cry from backwater Rivière-de-Larme as one can get. On top of that, there is nowhere in the world where a Scion enjoys as much doting attention, and in the few years since inheriting her gift, Maya has become a darling of the media - maybe a little too chummy with them, if her bishop has anything to say about it. Weapon of Choice In circumstances where she's been approved for blatant uses of Gravity magic, Maya uses a blade-backed custom hammer. Otherwise, she carries a concealed handgun on her person at all times. Misc. Maya has been a scion for ~2 years. Maya has one of the biggest Instagram followings in the Federation, but there is a hot debate on the platform as to whether she should be included in popularity rankings at all. Doumerc is still trying to entice Maya to return to her homeland. However, the events in Kaudus at her awakening (referred to by the government as “the Larme Incident”) sparked elevated border tensions that have yet to calm down, and as a result Maya claims to be uncomfortable living anywhere inside Doumerc’s borders. By the Church and the faithful, the Larme Incident has also been called the Miracle at the Larme, and is a common topic of Maya’s interviews.

Obscene's Scratchpad

Offer your best to the Goddess. If you have nothing, offer yourself.

________________________________________ Irina Petrovna Albakova Female | 36 | Veradis, nee Rodion Templar of Gravity _______________________________________________ “Templar Albakova’s skill and dedication to her duty is second to none. Scion Desrosiers couldn’t have asked for a better protector.” “Yeah, but missing out on that promotion’s gotta sting…” ________________________________________ “You can run on for a long time, Run on for a long time…”

“That’s far enough.” Appearance Tall and well-muscled, Irina cuts an imposing figure at an impressive 5’10, with heeled riding boots usually making her taller still. Solidly built, it would be imprecise to call her “thin,” although she carries no extra weight; she has broad shoulders and long legs, and a layer of lightweight body armour ever-present under her clothing serves to further bulk up her frame. She dresses sharply at all times, but does not wear the overt armour favoured by some Templars, preferring a crisp dress uniform and polished leather boots fitting for a formal setting. With a shock of short white hair, piercing golden eyes, and a perpetual scowl, Irina could be said to resemble an eagle eyeing down its prey. Personality should be obvious Biography include where you were born, your former status (if you were a noble), your reason for becoming a Templar, how being a Templar has affected your life, and any current personal goals. Weapon of Choice Irina's melee weapon of choice is a modified heavy cavalry sabre, which, due to her unique Blessing, is quite a bit heavier than most would wield. She is proficient with firearms, but when prudence does not demand she keeps her distance, she prefers to deal with problems up close. Misc. can put a theme or whatever trivial info here use a list to make it nice and neat :)