Name: Archaementes
Alias: The Illuminating Mystery
Appearance: Currently takes the form of an effete, young Greek man with brown hair.
Class: Tempisti
Abilities:
*Soul Cast-Can create soul gems from the souls of mortals and use them to power constructs and mighty spells.
*Prodigy (Persuasion)- Despite his (current) appearance, Archaementes are very good at finding ways to wrap others around his finger...
Attributes: Strength:3 Agility:5 Intelligence:6 Willpower:8 Perception: 6 Presence:3
Wealth/Assets: 97 gold and 8 silver.
Power: 30
Current Actions:
Influence 1 event in Greece.
Items:
Soul Gems
Twin Bronze Swords (Secrecy and Mystery)
Influence:20
Devoted Followers
8 Skill 1 Scholarship Followers (Students)
3 Skill 3 Teaching Followers (Teachers)
1 Skill 2 Crafting (Wood) Follower (Wood Crafter)
2 Skill 1 Woodworking Followers (Carpenters)
2 Skill 3 Doctor Followers (Nobles)
3 Skill 1 Fighting Followers (Nobles)
8 Skill 3 Spies
21 Skill 5 Assassins
General Followers
20 Skill 4 Spies
520 general followers
Total number of followers = 588
Family:0
Skills:
Grand Master Force Shield
Grand Master Persuader
Proficient Teacher
Expert Force Dasher
Master Assassin
Master Cryptographer
Master Force Vibrator
Accomplished Dual Wielder
1 year spent traveling to Belarus.
4 years spent formulating the Sudden Death Mark Spell.
3 years spent gathering devoted followers.
2 years teaching Espionage.
Some spies sent to Persia and Carthage. Others instructed to gather rumors.First Acter was slain by the Cisharni, then Elthirian died under mysterious circumstances and now Ammon died from an assassin's blade. If these deaths weren't a collective wake-up call for Archaementes, nothing else will do. With most of the other Sindari in the East and some in the New World, Archaementes was certain that he was the only one still in the Mediterranean area and the closest to Atlantis the head of the snake itself. Needless to say, he has a lot of work to do.
Since the sacking of Rome, the Atlantean Empire has tightened their grip on their provinces, particularly in Greece. While taxes and levies were raised, scrutiny of governmental and administration documents and actions have increased and any sign of dissent would be met with swift brutality. If Archaementes wished to extend his reach far and wide, he must become just as cunning and ruthless. After all, it takes a (smarter) wolf to defeat another wolf.
After pulling a few strings to get one of his most influential and trusted followers appointed as headmaster of the Corinthian academy, Archaementes gathered his belongings and traveled north to a small town in Belarus named Slavohk, away from the threat of Hera and her Spartan offspring. The new headmaster will serve as his proxy when sending encrypted messages to the rest of his network, functioning as the primary leader of the Greek branch of the Shrouded Dawn. No one would suspect that Archaementes is actually the one in charge until it is too late.
After buying a humble abode on the outskirts of town, away from prowling eyes. Archaementes began work on his next spell. The superstitious natives believed in vengeful spirits who curse any offenders with death for heinous crimes. Though he doesn't know whether the stories were true, Archaementes was interested in whatever texts they could provide concerning their beliefs. Perhaps he could find some way to weaponize misfortune against the Cisharni and their Atlantean underlings.
After peering through the text, Archaementes discovered that these vengeful spirits cause death by placing a mark on each of their victims that will cause them to suddenly die a day later. However, he wanted such a mark to activate only via a sort of trigger like pain or blood for example. Such a mark could be reliably placed anywhere on his agents' bodies such as at the middle of their tongues. When faced with capture and torture, they would simply bite the marked location or get blood on it and drop dead, thus saving themselves from a grisly fate and denying the enemy information. Though he doubted that the mark would even work on the Cisharni themselves, the same couldn't be said for their mortal and perhaps their partly mortal minions.
For four years, Archaementes labored extensively to formulate this new spell. Initially, he conducted experiments on rodents he captured. Allowing the animals to reproduce for a few months, Archaementes regularly culled their numbers and studied what effect their collective deaths had on the mystical energies surrounding him. There was always a miasma that arose at the point of death, almost as if the animals' souls themselves were leaving a temporary mark in the esoteric forces. The miasma conveyed a feeling of a sudden and jarring cessation of life that was followed by eternal peace. Theorizing that the manner of the rodents' deaths would influence the effect of the resulting mark, Archaementes often went out of his way to ensure that they died as quickly and painlessly as possible. Using his prior knowledge of how to manipulate these forces, Archaementes tried to rein in this miasma, to give it form and a physical reaction and to recall and banish it at will. After finally succeeding in the first part, Archaementes tinkered with the miasmatic mark to get it to automatically connect with the marked person's heart and brain so that it can function as intended.
Finally succeeding in his task, Archaementes 'redrew' the mark into what resembled a sun with a single Egyptian-style eye on it face, the mark of the Shrouded Dawn. 'Painting' it onto some of the test rodents, Archaementes tested the mark's trigger responses and speed, tweaking whenever necessary. Soon enough, the rodents died almost instantly when Archaementes either applied enough pain to the marked sites or drops of blood. He then manipulated the mark enough to make it almost invisible to the naked eye and undetectable to all but the most thorough magical inspection. Theoretically, he
could make the mark activate on a time delay trigger but since it would only be used on his agents at the moment such things can wait.
Shortly after formulating his new spell, Archaementes went back into Slavohk and acquired more like-minded and trustworthy individuals for three years. Impressed by his rhetoric, a handful of natives joined his cause. Spending two years training them in Espionage, Archaementes inducted them into what would be the first of many secret ceremonies with the purpose of proving their loyalty and reaffirming their devotion to the cause. Afterward, he placed the Sudden Death Mark on the middle of their tongues so that their won't activate it by accidentally biting them. Sending some of them to Persia and Carthage to set up informant networks there, Archaementes commissioned the smartest of his spies to be his spymaster. Like Archaementes' master of assassins, the spymaster will oversee the other spies and train anyone he sends, freeing him up to pursue other tasks.
2 years spent focusing on family.
One of the townspeople, a Roman woman named Herodias, was enamored by Archaementes' speechcraft. Though she wasn't one of his followers, Archaementes found in her someone who is diligent and wise. Confiding her with his secret, he was surprised when she didn't immediately dismiss him as a lunatic. After all, her family did fled the sacking of Rome before she was born and later told her of the incident. After spending several months together, Archaementes and Herodias got married. Nearly a year later, they became the parents of a beautiful baby girl named Sophia.
4 years spent getting soul gems.
Unbeknownst to his family, Archaementes decided to gather more Soul Gems. For four years, he covertly attended executions, bandit hunts, and death beds. Secretly gathering the souls of both the slain guilty and the dying innocent, Archaementes began to wonder just what sort of lines he was prepared to cross. Sure he felt that the ends justified the means but that would mean that he was stooping to the Cisharni's level. He doubted that his wife and his more compassionate Sindari comrades would like what he is becoming. Nevertheless, Archaementes shook himself back to his senses for the umpteenth time. He would gladly see to it that the Atlanteans and their evil masters drown in blood, even if some of it belonged to bystanders. They started all of this when they slayed Sind as well as three of his fellow Sindari. They had forced his hand and he is unwilling to refrain from retaliating. It is their fault, all of it! Of course he could do his best to minimize collateral damage but sometimes there is no guarantee of success. Before the Cisharni go down, many more innocent people will die and such a time will require harder hearts and even greater resolve. Well, someone has to be willing to bear that burden after all.
3 years spend formulating the Madness Curse Spell.
Another thing Archaementes gathered from the texts is the myth of a man who was rendered insane when his kidnappers hanged him upside down above a fire and allowed the heat to cook his brain within his skull for a short period of time. As the man wandered the land in an insane fit for years, an unknown god touched by his plight gave him the power to project his madness onto anyone he chose. Still remembering those who put him in such a state in the first place, the man tracked them back to their hideout and inflicted them with a curse that drove them mad. They were so filled with insanity that they tore into themselves and each other, dragging their nails across their skin and ripping chunks of flesh off their bodies with their teeth. Needless to say, Archaementes was eager to make use of a similar skill.
Waiting until his rodent population replenish their numbers, Archaementes chose a handful of them to induct madness into by essentially putting them through the same method of torture as the man in the myth. After losing a few rodents to heatstroke and third degree burns, Archaementes finally got the procedure and timing right and produced several rodents who showed clear signs of insanity and aggression. He then muzzled and declawed them to prevent them from harming themselves and each other. Manipulating the surrounding esoteric forces, Archaementes directed them through pairs of rodents that consisted of a normal animal and one of the affected specimen, knowing that none of them possessed the intelligence and willpower necessary to detect or control them. Noting how the mental status of each rodent affected the flow of the forces, Archaementes finally isolated a certain pattern of vibration that existed in the forces that crossed the brains of the affected rodents. After practicing calling this pattern into being and dispelling it, Archaementes moved to the next step.
Spending some time tweaking the pattern to make it more powerful, Archaementes tried "connecting" it to each normal rodent's brain in a similar way that he done the Sudden Death Mark. At first, the rodents appeared to be distracted by the curse but otherwise passive. However, he dealt with this issue by making the pattern three times as powerful. This has the effect of making the affected rodents much more aggressive and deranged than even the first specimens. However, this is what he actually wanted to happen so he decided to make some finishing touches.
For the rest of the three years he spent formulating this spell, Archaementes experimented with ways of changing when the curse activates. By creating a curse that activates immediately upon exposure to within five hours, Archaementes can induct madness in his target and leave the scene before any suspicion can be raised. After perfecting the spell's 'time delay', Archaementes begin to experiment with cursed objects. The idea is that anyone who touched the cursed object would be afflicted by the spell. With more tweaking, the spell can also be made to 'leak' into its surroundings unless properly insulated with metal, preferably lead, making it particular useful in contaminating food supplies and drinking water.
To test out his newly formulated spell, Archaementes placed all of the specimens he'd experimented on and a few more normal rodents inside a makeshift pen. Binding a non-leaking Madness Curse with a 30 minute delay onto a slice of cheese, Archaementes picked it up with a pair of tongs and dropped it into the pen. When a few of the normal rodents ate the cheese, they succumbed to severe bouts of madness about a half hour later. Though some of them begin biting themselves enough to tear the skin, the rest of them attacked and ripped into the other rodents. This resulted in a free-for-all that resulted in brutal deaths followed by mortal injuries. Culling all but the few normal rodents who escaped mostly unharmed. Archaementes released them back into the general population and cleaned up the resultant mess.
1 year spending training Persuasion.
Expected Results
---------------------
Informant network set up in Persia and Carthage. Important rumors known.*1 year travel= Corinth, Greece to Slavohk, Belarus.
*4 years(Death Mark X 2) = Accomplished Sudden Death Mark User.
*3 years(10 X 3 Presence) = 90 Follower Points.
*Devoted Followers
22 Skill 4 Spies = 2 years(Espionage X 2)
*Total number of followers = 610 = +3 Attribute Points
*2 years focusing on family
Herodias, Female, Age 27 (Wife)
Sophia, Female, Age 7 (Daughter)
*4 years(Soul Gems)
*3 years(Madness Curse X 2) = Expert Madness Curse User
*1 year(Persuasion X 4 due to Prodigy trait) = Legendary (14) Persuader
Attributes: Strength:
4 Agility:
6 Intelligence:
8 Willpower:8 Perception:6 Presence:3
Author
Topic: Sindari: Immortals (Read 32294 times)