Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 26, 2019 10:33:16 GMT -8
Beneaimos Rhledamuk-taidhiat “The Betrayer”, or “Ben”
Resolve level: 0
Leper-Occultist
Leper-Occultist
-Appearance
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Physical Description:
Beneath the fermented and gilded ribbons that bind him, is soft pallid skin which is rosy where the muscle tenses against that alabaster shell. In some cases, particularly upon the joints and where the skin does stretch muchly, meat and muscle can be seen. There is very little fat upon his person, as much of it was consumed by bacteria or starvation.
Regardless, due to the treatments he places upon himself, and baths of alcohol, his wounds remain in a state of flux betwixt open wound and healing.
His limbs are curiously long, with his fingers nigh reaching his knees, which only serve to accentuate his modestly tall height of 5’8” [or 1.7 meters]. And yet, despite his wiry appearance, much of it is long toned and corded muscle, setting his weight to a curiously staunch 144lbs [or 65kgs].
For all the gawking his morbid corpus takes, his face is a far more grisly affair… though his mask is technically a part of his body, the face beneath remains bereft of skin, as the affliction which holds him has left naught but bloody ruin in its wake. He still retains well-kempt deep-brown hair in a slight but wide topknot, with his hairline surprisingly healthy and close to where his mask is bound to his flesh.
What does remain of his head, one can make out the narrow jawline of a scholar, though it is accentuated by wide cat-like cheeks and somewhat humorously broad ears which flare forward.
Yet, most curious of his wounds, is a steel ring set just below his jaw; where a tube made of dried and treated intestine is set with an intricate nozzle made from light leathers and silk. The ring is set in the upper center of a gold kite which is pierced into his fading flesh. This contraption permits a level of breathing and consumption that is truly ingenious… but its make is clearly designed from desperation.
Those ears are privy to a gold dot melted to the flesh upon the lobe of the left ear, and the other boasts a small chain flecked with rubies upon the anchors set at the crest and lobe of the ear.
Alas, his ears are not the only parts of his body dressed in gilded finery; upon where his bones show, where the skin had long since receded, are gilded reinforcements which have been melted and grafted to the skin in a horrifically precise manner.
Of precision; the locations which bear gold are:
Upon both elbows, and his knees,
As well as three of the knuckles upon his left hand, and all five upon the right
Along the flanks of his floating ribs, and narrowly along his ribs proper.
And lastly, where the others seemed to be dolloped upon the wound and spread appropriately, his spine boasts truly spectacular plating which flexes like scales upon a snake.
Attire: Red and gold and white define this Leper’s attire. Red cowl, red scarf, red trousers; a cowl of silk and hemp knitted tightly and strong to endure fierce winds and piercing sands. It drapes over his shoulders in a square shape, with a hood coming up to frame his mask of white in a casket’s shape.
A scarf of linen wraps about his neck, shoulders, and pectorals beneath the cowl thricely, trailing behind him like the tail of a devil as the strands taper out as time and weather and war take their toll.
Trousers, baggy to let the legs breathe in the heat, are tightly fastened about his calves by reddened leather belts which have long since become bothersome to bind properly; instead, they are wrapped tightly about the bleeding meat, where their gilded buckles clink and glimmer enticingly.
Gold wraps singularly coil about his corpus; a singular long bolt of silk had been meticulously bound together for this singular purpose. In truth, its length and fashion do design it more as a ribbon. It is all held tightly together by a singular bow set at the small of his back. This ribbon wraps around and around his body, from head to toe, thrice; such is its length. It provides fair padding against the impact of blows, and the silk is strong to cuts… though it is nothing still to chainmail and proper metal protection.
Needless to say, this gold does stain to red in due time… but Rhledamuk is keen to keep them clean with religious determination.
White mask, ceramic in make, it is thick and strong. Reinforced with steel and plated with gold along the inner edge, it is far sturdier than one might imagine… Though a good mace would surely break its pristine surface. Already, along the edge where the gold peaks out from his flesh, chips of the ceramic occasionally flake away like molting skin of a great serpent.
Yet this mask can never be removed, for gold has been molten and grafted to his skin and bone.
-Biography
Quirks:
+No Pain - Sss’et tyy S’hal || My Soul’s tears Stop for You - Leprosy has advanced to the stage which pain is utterly inconsequential. Little more than tiny pinpricks.
+Slugger - S’phei bal uu Sss’han || Your pain starts upon My Fist - His strikes always hit hard, with reckless abandon to both his own body and (hopefully) his enemy.
+Gifted - Sss’tuss ii S’et || My trust in Your Soul[/i] - His enduring body, fluctuating as it is, receives healing from both reagents and mystic means in a familiar fashion; perhaps it is a gift, or perhaps it is a reliance.
-Bleeder - Sss’sang N’hal || My blood never stops - While his routine controls his regular bleeding, a new cut will demand new regimes to compensate. Should he be cut, he will bleed until it is stopped by reagents or magic.
-Brittle - Sss’et stau, N’coros || My Soul is strong, Not my body - Rhledamuk has long since forgotten the frailty of bone; he may send a strike forward, but the impact may break his bones. Just as well, strikes upon him have a higher likelihood of breaking bone.
-Poor Breathing - Ss’saui n’suu Sss’et || This Earth was not for My Soul - Whether by ritual or deterioration, Rhledamuk’s mouth is unable to breathe air nor eat food. Instead, he breaths and drinks from a hole in his neck; it makes eating and breathing difficult, to put it simply. Simply walking puts strain upon his lungs, and in fights, he will surely be winded by the smallest skirmish.
-Chasten - Sss’coros ii S’phei || My body is your pain - By dogma and circumstance, he will never visit the Brothel nor indulge in pleasures of the pillows and flesh.
Backstory Synopsis:
A man raised from the gutter by a cult of Blood to be a worthy sacrifice, comes to the Hamlet with a singular purpose… to reap his faith’s namesake in vengeance.
Full Backstory:
Beneaimos was born without name, and to the occultists, without mother; he was found in the sewers of a rich market city, where many impoverished followed an entity of kindness and sanguine natures. They were a humble cult, asking only commitment through blood to join their ranks and benefit from comradic virtues. To this, Beneaimos was born, and to this, Beneaimos was raised.
Beneaimos was named after what those who found him perceived him to be; a gift from the wealthy, a burden they could not bear but the Sanguine would happily carry for them.
His early years had him learn the basic measures of reading and writing, following basic somatic needs for rituals of Blood to imbue themselves with good fortune and vigor. He served faithfully for many of his years and did as the cult bade, often helping clean and feed those in the sewer causways of the city.
It was not until the Crusaders came with the lances and swords that Beneaimos suffered the greatest turmoils; the city was razed, and the Sanguine were swiftly flooded with refugees of all measure, some were soldiers… that alone brought much attention to them. Yet, when the Crusaders pressed, they would find the Sanguine far from meek caretakers.
The rites of Blood and sacrifices made were capable of far more than imbuing one with due vigors to fight an illness. Beneaimos learned that on his twelfth nameday; when blood was spilled, not in ritual bowls but in the sewers themselves, when the Crusaders aimed to purge the Dark arts from the bowels of the city.
Few survived the ordeal, and fewer still spoke of the day that blood spilled out from the city’s sewer grates. No corpses were found, but the sandstone walls had been impossibly stained red with the blood of Crusaders and refugees alike.
It was from this day that the Sanguine ceased to be mere caretakers; and Beneaimos ceased to be a mere assistant to rituals. What he saw, and suffered that day sickened him; in mind and in body. For those who had raised him, bled him without his want and used him as a conduit and phylactery for them to fight those Crusaders of the Light.
For six years the Sanguine Cult fought the Light, from within sewers which grew as they put the Refugees to work. But it was a battle they would lose, but not before Desperation led Beneaimos to betray all that he had known. Thus his namesake, whispered by the Refugees as praise, would be howled in dismay by the fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who had raised him.
In those six years he had been taken by leprosy, and with much of the Sanguine focused on repelling the invaders, he was left to tend to himself inbetween tending to the Refugees. It was in this Leprosy that he found his loathing for the Sanguine, who had sworn to guard him from such maladies… The specific means to his infection was unclear, but it is indisputable that the war and strife from those within the Sewers had taken its toll. It is in those six years that Beneaimos learned to fight and fend for himself.
Yet Beneaimos was one man against an entire coven; even with his most powerful evocations, he was beaten and broken. It was then that the Sanguine saw to him in the most brutal fashions; they wished to make him the means of conduit to summon forth the Entity which blessed them with their Occult designs. They gilded his bones and wrapped him in silks to the Entity’s likeness, and branded the porcelain mask to his face; the suffered unto him as their Patron had suffered, and bade the Entity come to summon with gross ritual and design.
It is true that Refugees lived and escaped those Sewers, speaking tales of what happened, but none who remained when this ritual took place lived to tell the tale.
For the Crusaders saw their opportunity; they stormed the bloody halls of the sewers and slew all within. Yet the Sanguine were not entirely without tooth and claw, so they slew them in return; for the last time, the unspoken city bled.
What happened within those Sewers, none can know; those few witnesses to the carnage outside saw only Beneaimos emerge. Changed and bloodied, ready for a Bloody journey that would take him five years… to the Darkest Dungeon.
Misc. Notes:
Rhledamuk suffers from prolonged indeterminate leprosy; due to treatments and rituals (not particularly of the arcane) he has stayed in a flux state with his Leprosy.
He breathes, basically, through a back-alley tracheostomy with some ritualistic design engraved to the gilded hole.
That said, he moves with a surprising fluidity despite his ailment.
He does still have some sensation of touch in that he feels pins and needles when touched, though the finer nuances are typically lost to him. The silk bandaging helps make this sensation manageable under most circumstances.
He speaks with a Grecian accent, though his lack of lips gives his words a hissing tone and ‘p’s and ‘b’s give him trouble. Thus, when he says ‘about’ it is closer to ‘A’out’ and ‘perhaps’ becomes ‘Erhapsss’; I (the writer) will avoid writing this out for the sake of clarity. Usually.
-Skills & Equipment
Weapons:
A tailor’s knife; very sharp, but very flimsy with a curved single edge about 7 inches In total length with a 4 inch blade (17cm with a 10cm blade about half a centimeter wide).
His fists : “reinforced” with gold, they hit hard enough to break skin and bone with the proper momentum and torque.
He utilizes a unique fighting style, though he is trained in basic Spartan wrestling and has dabbled in a variety of Eastern martial art styles. However, his unique fighting pattern operates by misdirection and sweeping moves; emphasizing rolling backhanded strikes, often utilizing the wrist so as to avoid breaking his fingers.
Armor:
Red padding : His cowl and scarf both serve to dampen blows to his upper body and head as they are densely wrapped and padded.
Gold wrapping : wrapped all around his body is 3 layers of silk which doubly help to protect against most blunt blows and stave off a cut or two.
Other gear:
Feed tube : a long tube made of two intestines layered over eachother with leather caps at either end lets him drink things. It is 3 feet long (or 91cm).
Crank-Grind Hip-flask : A Hip Flask made of wood about 16 inches long, 10 inches wide, and in a boxy shape with an opening lined with cork and leather, with a cap of wood and cork.
It is divided into two sections that have doors which can be opened outwardly to reveal a grinder at the bottom, and a reservoir for the contents to be drained out the opening.
The grinder operates much like a miniature mill, though it uses a teethed bronze gear (singular) and a crank made of iron with a wood grip that is wide enough for one and a half hands (roughly 8-10 inches or ~25cm). There are angled pieces of wood which lead to the gear at the center of the grinder portion of the flask to ensure things put inside are ground down somewhat efficiently. From there, there is another opening which is always open, that allows for the ground up foodstuffs to be poured out.
A leather strap is riveted to either side of the flask that can be set over his chest tightly and securely. It has no adjusting buckle.
This flask is his main means to consume food.
Canvas Satchel foodbag : a simple canvas satchel 35 inches wide, 28 inches tall, and 12 inches deep when full. It is undyed but does have leather bands which serve to secure and reinforce the satchel. It does not have a leather interior, meaning it will leak if there are fluids put inside; that said, it can hold up to 45 gallons.
It has a leather nonadjusting strap stitched into the canvas.
The Satchel is typically filled with oats and nuts.
Leather waterskin : a simple kidney waterskin capable of holding 2.5 litres, capped with cork with an adjustable strap.
The waterskin is typically filled with water.
Strengths:
Freakish Strong, and Freakish Quick - Despite his lithe nature, he was born and raised on the streets; he never had the luxury of gluttony, even when he was taken in by the Cult. He rarely rested, and was always training or learning something new; the only time he sat was to study, but even then he was often set to a jog or knelt upon salt. It is a routine he has rarely broken, and thus, his body is impressively toned. His training ranged from simple exercises of punch drills, push-ups and curls, to extreme practices of strength in the shape of breaking wood planks of an inch’s thickness and proving his dexterity in games of catching oats in a bowl with sticks or skewering rats for food.
Attuned hearing - As his senses failed him, first in faded touch then vanished sight, he had to learn to practice navigating the world with his last few senses left to him; sound and smell. He has learned to live this way for 3 years, so he is rather accustomed to knowing his distance from things by tossing nuts around him.
His sense of touch is rather attuned as well; if he has a stick, he can feel when it impacts something… sometimes. Since he only feels pins and pricks, he does need to hit something a little hard with a stick to feel the vibration; his gauge in how hard to hit does mean a stick is more often broken in the attempt.
Occult Knowledge - His upbringing in a cult has lent him knowledge of the Occult; this manifests in rituals which may be able to summon forth a level of healing, though this is largely a camp skill as it requires meticulous and precise recitation of verses that are, at a minimum, an hour long. Assuming he does not mispronounce a word and recites the verse in totality.
If a single word is mispronounced, the healing will fizzle.
If more, then he will begin bleeding and require some means to heal himself (this can be in the shape of a repeated ritual).
If he fumbles the entire incantation, he can cause those around him in a 3 meter radius to bleed profusely from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth for 3 minutes (roughly 3 pints are lost.)
((25-35% of blood volume, depending on one's body size. [This is worse for smaller people]))
If he succeeds in the recitation, his healing can range from mending bones and deep cuts, to simply staunching bleeding. (range/roll is 1-20, divided into 4 for healing effectiveness. Ie; 1d20, 1-5 min heal, 5-10 med heal, 10-15 good heal, 15-20 great heal.)
(PC’s can opt in or out of the process ((by simply standing far away)) AND can roll to resist the blood loss with a 1d4 roll, with 1-3 taking respective pints, and 4 resisting all blood loss. They can also choose to just bleed the 3 pints.)
His knowledge of the Occult is more precisely around rituals in general, as well as sacrifices. Specializing in Occult use of blood and entities surrounding them.
Weaknesses:
Bleeder - From Leprosy or some Occult curse, Beneaimos bleeds very easily. Indeed, he is often bleeding in some small margin, constantly; because of this, he frequently eats legumes with his typical intake of nuts and oats. If he goes a day without eating something to keep his blood count high, he will be exhausted the next day.
Exsanguination effects are doubled when applied to him.
Brittle - Despite his physique and hard hits, he frequently breaks bones. While he may not feel them to a crippling extent, they do impair his capacity to move; though he has learned to fight with broken limbs, it is certainly to a lesser extent.
Landed attacks have a chance of breaking bone; this may be a simple rib or digit fracture, or something more severe like a leg or arm.
Critical hits will guarantee a broken bone.
Glancing attacks or the like will not break his bones, however.
Poor Breathing - Due to his mask, and his Leprosy, he is unable to breathe properly. Though he is well conditioned and trained from an early age, he will never truly match another at peak endurance.
If a battle goes on for too long, he will become exhausted and require a short rest. Generally, this will mean if he makes 5-8 attacks within one combat encounter he will become exhausted.
Once he becomes exhausted, he will have to withhold his attack for 2-3 rounds to make another attack. He may still move and protect while exhausted.
This may be altered as per DM
Blind - While he has honed senses of smell and hearing, he is entirely blind; the world is nothing but black.
He cannot detect traps, unless they have an odor to them. He is also rather hopeless when it comes to disarming them, and doing puzzles, due to his dulled sense of touch; but he may get lucky.
He is also currently not adept at actively dodging attacks; though his attack patterns do often move him out of the way of strikes to passively dodge them, he cannot (for example) reliably dodge an arrow or sword strike without already being in motion from his attack.
Clumsy - Despite his perceived grace in motion, he does fumble with items he’s unfamiliar with, and is rather awkward when handling items in general. This is due to his dulled sense of touch; the pins and needles sensation, as well as his coverage of silk.
