## Statistics Galactic Age: ~50,700 Subjective Age: ~50,700 Homeworld: [[Sateen Kaari]] Home Sector: [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]] Affinity Groups - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/War Dogs]] - Longer, Better, Faster, Stronger - Because killing is what you do - Curing the Plague (For Sale) - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Scientists]] - What is Science? (Wandering) - Ever seeking (and conquering) new worlds You are a Knight of [[Sateen Kaari]]. You are the sword and the shield, the antimatter fusillade and the impenetrable membrane. For more than fifty thousand years, you've trudged from battlefield to battlefield, never leaving a relatively small area surrounding your home planet. Unlike most of the characters in attendance, you've never been more than 10 light years from your home before this event. The reason you've seen so much action is simple; a hundred thousand years ago, [[House Orman]] began [[The Sundering of Harmony]] and declared war on every polity in [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]] at the same time. For the last ten myriads, any faction larger than a planet and its satellites has been a target for wholesale destruction. Thanks to you, and the work of a few others from your Holding (e.g., [[Harbinger Wilde]]), Sateen Kaari and the Kaarite Dynasty remain intact, though with their influence sharply curtailed. You have waged an at-times one-person war against the entire sector and, while you haven't won, you also haven't yet lost. Unfortunately, the eons of warfare, especially warfare against those so helplessly beneath you, is taking its toll. For nearly ten thousand years now, you've been sinking further and further into ennui. The weight of so many years is getting heavier every moment, and you're starting to wonder if you ever really enjoyed this life, or if you were always just going through the motions. Sure, your grand, doomed war to stave off the inevitable is romantic in theory, but in practice it's mostly you wiping out drone fleet after drone fleet, with only the occasional break to dismantle a shoddy superweapon. Sometimes you worry that it won't be an enemy that kills you, just sheer boredom. You've come to the [[Plague Council]] because your Holding needs you here. Whenever the galactic elite gather, violence is assumed. If Sateen Kaari sent only its diplomats and strategists, they'd be hopelessly at risk. Unfortunately, this means you've had to leave your post for the first time in millennia. You made arrangements and called in favors to get a defensive screen in place, but you can't help worrying about your home. You'll need to find a way to protect your people long-term if you want to finally put down your watch and pick up a new dream. ## Goals 1. Protect and advance the interests of [[Sateen Kaari]]. 2. Find a worthy opponent, a mission, or something else to bring the passion back into your life. 3. Learn about as many new worlds as you can. ## Character Notes - This character is *extremely* proficient in matters of violence, yet they have very little desire to engage in it at the moment. This is for two reasons. The first is a truly legendary case of burnout. The second is that Knights are cursed by their own competence. They are tremendously skilled in the disbursement of violence, and in being so skilled, the eventually run out of meaningful challenges. This is an agonizing Catch-22, as without a meaningful challenge, a Knight's psyche begins to fall apart over time. For most, this is solved by simply finding a powerful galactic figure to serve and bouncing from prize fight to prize fight until something eventually eats them whole. Among Knights, this is known as "the good life". Unfortunately for Leander, their role as [[Sateen Kaari]]'s primary defensive asset has kept them trapped in the same cosmic neighborhood for more than fifty thousand straight years. There is simply nothing big enough or scary enough nearby for you to keep your head straight. Though Leander doesn't yet realize it, the [[Plague Council]] is absolutely *full* of people worthy of a fight. Admittedly, the ones who could actually beat Leander in that fight are generally cheating one way or another, but if it means a real challenge, you couldn't possibly care less about fairness. Will Leander rediscover their love of war, or will the fog of ennui keep them from noticing their opportunities? - In galactic terms, this character is pretty young. That is, there are several characters in play who were born millions (or even tens of millions) of galactic years ago. In terms of *experienced years* (that is, when the time dilation of near-light-speed is accounted for), this is one of the oldest characters in play. More than that, in being as old as they are without ever skipping forward in time, this character is very nearly unique in the history of the galaxy. For most figures on the galactic stage, other people eventually start to seem a bit like props, like puppets on a stage. This is a direct result of the fact that you might meet someone today, spend a year at near-light-speed, and return to meet their great-great-great-grandchild, one who is the spitting image of your old friend, but to whom *you* are a half-remembered legend. It's hard to keep up relationships under those terms, and very few people try. You, on the other hand, have been around to watch generation after generation, movement after movement. You've seen the Holding you love change into something unrecognizable, and you've seen it change back. In fact, you've watched that cycle a great many times, and guarded its progression jealously. At this point, you aren't sure what it is you're really loyal to, only that you've spent too long guarding this Holding to let it fall now. The first time Knight Leander ever traveled at near-light-speed was to attend this event, and in many ways it's their first introduction to galactic society. How will Leander handle being among people with such a different relationship to time? ## Connections 1. [[Harbinger Wilde]] 1. "Songs and corpses. Lot of songs. Lot of corpses." 2. You first met Wilde, [[Sateen Kaari]]'s famous Harbinger, very early in your life -nearly fifty thousand years ago. You'd just become a Knight, and you were already regarded as the finest weapon in the Kaarite arsenal. Wilde, for their part, was the poet of poets, the voice of the greatest generation your people ever whelped. When your Governor called you up to war on the Holding's behalf, you went gladly, and you went to songs sung by Wilde. Now, after fifty thousand years of fighting, it's hard for you to see Wilde the same way you once did. True, you've heard rumor that Wilde is more than just songs, that they've actually been shepherding your people and your Holding through impossible circumstances, but it's just so hard for you to imagine someone so casual working on something so complex. You half wonder if that reputation might itself be a careful construction on Wilde's part. Nonetheless, you have to acknowledge that Wilde is by far the most likely source of any conflict to come out of this council. Will they finally help you find that spark again, or will it just be another pointless war? 2. [[Historian Sibilia]] 1. "History, written and lived." 2. You've been around a long time. Maybe too long. The years grow heavy as they pile ever higher, and in that shadow you long ago stopped trying to feel the light of the sun on your face. That all makes it especially galling to know that Sibilia has somehow been doing this shit for *twice as long as you*. Sure, they haven't been in the normal time stream for fifty thousand straight years -you think you're the only person in galactic history to ever get that unlucky- but there are at least a hundred thousand years worth of records on Sibilia's activities. In the span of your life, you've run into them many times, and each time they've been like a breath of fresh air. Something about the way they stay so strange, so curious and idiosyncratic. You don't know exactly what it is, but the weight of eternity always seems a bit less after some time with the Historian. Will you learn to bear the years from your friend, or will they learn to dread the eons from you? 3. [[Patron Duobi]] 1. "A wayfarer and a wanderer. Perhaps a friend. Perhaps my only friend." 2. You don't know how old Duobi actually is. Rumors have them exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy as far back as anyone can remember, but you suspect that's actually just a long line of people claiming the same name and title. Even so, there's no denying that the current Duobi has been just about everywhere and seen just about everything. In the thirty or so millennia since you first met, you've trudged from one battlefield to another, never leaving a ten light-year cube. During that same time, Duobi has jaunted through at least *four* sectors. You're not sure the number of kilometers involved, but you suspect it's absurd. Maybe it's this travel that has kept them so vibrant and alive. Maybe they've figured out some secret to a long and happy eternity. You aren't certain, but each time they've been back in your cosmic neighborhood, it was with fascinating, wonderful stories about the strange worlds they'd visited and the impossible vista's they'd witnessed. Is the solution to your ennui a long trip with an old friend? 4. [[Singer Tarsus]] 1. "The first time a priest ever made sense." 2. Singer Tarsus is that rarest of treasures; a holy figure with a strong stomach. You've only met them a few times over the last ten thousand galactic years, but each time you've felt almost compelled to tell them stories. You've confessed some of your vilest, most heinous crimes to them -planets annihilated out of convenience, bonds of fellowship betrayed for profit, pillage and plunder and pride. Yet through all of that, they've never wavered. They give you counsel which is blessedly free of that "repentance and humility" hairshirt nonsense, but you have to admit that sometimes it feels a bit like they don't think of what you're doing as confession. In fact, buried in the Singer's many admonitions to value yourself and your work, you're beginning to detect a sense of admiration. How do you find a better path without losing the parts of yourself Tarsus taught you to value? ## Mechanics **Asset:** [[Cohen's Legacy]] You are not a warrior in the way that a soldier is a warrior. Nor are you a warrior in the way that a duelist is a warrior. You are a warrior in the way a bonfire is a source of warmth. Those who stand against you do not stand for long, or ever again. In any [[Combat#Local|Local Combat Scenario]], you are able to remove one advantage from the opposing side for each participant who is vulnerable to this Asset. All characters are vulnerable to this Asset **unless** they possess [[Cohen's Legacy]] or another Asset or Quirk which explicitly removes this vulnerability. **Lien:** [[Raze the Sun]] What's the point of fighting soldiers when you never lose? When you can't even consider it a meaningful challenge? There are many powers in the galaxy which are beneath you, and many which are beyond you, but surprisingly few which are a decent fight with a chance for learning and growth. Whether it's alone or as part of a group, you are obsessed with finding and challenging someone (or something) to a worthwhile fight. If you are forced to walk away from a fight, or refuse the chance for one, you become irrationally despondent.