Husk

File:Husk.png

Basic Info

Intimacies Creation's foes have grown strong, and Penance may be our only chance at stopping them. All of humanity has the capacity to do good; to kill is to waste this capacity (per Righteous Lion Defense, all mental influence against this Intimacy is an unacceptable order). Those who would exploit and prey upon the human spirit must be subdued, reformed, or eliminated, lest the human spirit never flourish. When the world is set right, I will return to Ixlana. Without intervention, darkness will consume the Scavenger Lands from within and without; it is the burden of the Exalted, and I along with them, to keep this darkness at bay.

Name: Husk
Player: Dan H.
Caste: Zenith
Concept: Wandering savior
Political Affiliation: None
Anima: At its lower levels, Husk's anima banner merely resembles a dust storm in the South, with Essence-charged particles of sand and firedust spiraling around him as his hair whips back and forth in the gust. As the intensity of the banner grows, the illusory dust and wind settle, painting the Southern desert horizon behind him. Slowly, clay huts and lean-to shelters rise from the sand, and a spectral town builds itself behind him. Gradually, ghostly figures, scant likenesses of the people Husk has defended, emerge from the huts and shelters, gathering behind him in support, quietly chanting praise to no god, but to humanity as a whole. At its totemic level, a veritable legion of farmers, bakers, soldiers, mothers, elders, children, paupers and aristocrats alike has emerged from a luminescent metropolis, every individual standing behind Husk and pushing forward, lending him their strength and seeing to it that when Husk stands his ground, his foes cannot move him.

Motivation: Harness the good inherent in humanity to set Creation right again.

Weapon of Choice: Orichalum Dire Lance ('Rhongomiant')
Armor of Choice: None
Fighting Style: Husk's fighting style differs drastically based on his opponent. When fighting individuals he believes have the capacity to do good, such as guards, soldiers, and other mortals in the employ of a greater power, Husk will reverse Rhongomiant and wield it as a quarterstaff (he has even taped extra weight to the bottom of the spear's pole to evenly balance the weapon), preferring merely to incapacitate them. If his life is threatened, or if he is in battle with a creature he believes to be wholly evil (such a fair folk, demon, or undead), Husk wields Rhongomiant as a true spear and fights with brutal efficiency. He gives no quarter to true evil, stabbing, slashing, and flaring his anima banner in every direction, giving the appearance of a staccato, disconnected style, though in fact, it is merely Husk's effort to make each blow as devastating as it can individually be.

Mood/Theme

Music

I'm reminded of Husk's anima banner gradually growing in strength as the song plays, and the chanting in the song being somewhat reminiscent of what I've described.

• Adiemus - Cantus - Song of the Spirit

Background

Early Life

Husk was born to an agricultural family descended from Delzahn nomads. The family settled outside of Chiaroscuro, farming firedust for a living. The profession was a dangerous one, and Husk was indoctrinated into a tough lifestyle from the time he was a boy. By the time he was an adolescent, he had begun helping the family business - already of a powerful stature, Husk found himself well suited to the dangerous forays into desert caves and sandstorms that firedust farming required. As the years passed and his parents, aunts, and uncles grew too old to continue the physical firedust gathering, Husk gained more and more responsibilities as the family business's primary source of physical labor.

Eventually Husk became betrothed to a woman named Ixlana, a marriage arranged after a series of political negotiations via which Husk's family was able to acquire another, larger firedust farming operation. With more capable firedust famers, Husk's workload was reduced, allowing him time to become familiar with Ixlana. Somewhat to their dismay, Husk and Ixlana found they had little chemistry. They got along fairly well, but had little in common when it came to their every day lives. Husk was put off by Ixlana's intense interest in the mercantile affairs of the firedust farming outfit, while Ixlana could not relate to Husk's preference for simple, albeit dangerous physical labor. This didn't trouble them terribly, as marriage was largely a political affair in the South, so long as outside trysts were kept fairly discreet.

Twenty-four days before the start of his wedding, Husk began having the same dream, over and over. In the dreamscape, he'd set out for his usual firedust collection routine, only to stumble upon a pair of red, sandblasted cones of rock protruding out of the sand. The rocks were each over fifty feet high, and their shadows, in defiance of natural law, both bent inwards to form a V-like apex. It didn't take Husk long to intuit the symbolism at hand. Each of the first three days he had the dream, the angle of the apex had moved slightly each time -- it was acting as a sundial, shifting through the hours of the sun's cycle. As the dreams became more vivid, Husk became solidly convinced that these peaks could actually found out in the Southern desert, and grew inexplicably obsessed with finding them, to his own, and Ixlana's confusion. Starting nineteen days before his wedding, Husk left for the desert and each morning, and didn't return until nightfall. Each day he searched, to no avail, for the twin peaks that haunted his dreams.

The Exaltation

Husk was getting married the next morning, and he'd scarcely seen his wife-to-be in the preceding twenty-three days. He'd returned late from the desert, and had fallen into a restless sleep next to her.

Husk climbed over the last of the sandy dunes, peering down at the spires with which he'd become so familiar. This was the twenty-fourth dream he'd had, and in keeping with his sundial theory, the shadows had returned to their starting position - the day's zenith. There was no apex at all; the shadows bent directly inward, forming a baleful black circle around the base of the cones, staining black the sand through which they protruded. Unexpectedly, a thought entered his mind; it was startlingly simple. Husk, roughly 100 yards from the spires, stopped in his tracks. After a fleeting, awed gaze at the rocks, he turned straight around, smiling to himself. The footprints led neatly northeast, in enough of a straight line that they were visible to Husk far in the horizon, when it once again rose above the hill he'd traversed. When he turned around once again to take another look at the rocks, he was taken aback by a burst of blinding light. Glancing skyward, Husk was surprised to find that the sun no longer shone in the sky. Instead, it had positioned itself just behind the peaks. Despite the intense heat and flare, Husk took note that the peaks served as a crude diffraction slit, allowing through only a column of light no wider than Husk himself at its origin. Husk, squinting, followed the path of the beam to its conclusion. It illuminated the entrance to a cave in the distance, roughly 500 yards from the spires.

Husk awoke with a gasp, sitting upright as quickly as a mongoose strikes.

(More coming, wanted to get the character stuff up.)

Motivation

Husk believes that the human spirit holds the key to righting Creation's wrongs and preventing the evils encroaching from all directions from swallowing Creation as it stands. He feels that the capacity of man to do evil is ultimately what allows truly evil beings, willing to prey upon this fact, to thrive. As such, Husk does his best to draw in the good in those he meets, leading by encouragement and example. Husk knows that if all men who are able to do good act thusly, the forces that threaten Creation will lose most of their influence, and become but nuisances easily vanquished by the might of the Exalted.

As a corollary to this belief, Husk also knows that some evil has become deeply rooted within fabric of Creation, and is beyond the power of men to destroy. This is where Penance comes in -- In his mind, Penance holds the key to releasing Creation from the grasp of deeper evils, that it may once again be free to answer for its own sins and deeds of greatness, rather than be judged by forces beyond its influence.