Uadjit Cobra's-Speed

 

"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone..."

 

Nature:      Visionary        Demeanor:      Soldier   Rank:

  Cliath

Tribe:   Silent Striders   Auspice:   Theurge   Breed:   Lupus

Willpower:

  6

  Gnosis:

  6

  Rage:

  6

Glory:   0   Honor:

  0

  Wisdom:

  3

Temp Glory:   0   Temp Honor:

  0

  Temp. Wisdom:

  0

ATTRIBUTES

Strength:   3    Charisma:   3    Perception:   3
Dexterity:   4    Manipulation:   2    Intelligence:   3
Stamina:   3    Appearance   2    Wits:   3

 

ABILITIES
Alertness:   2 Animal Ken:   1 Computer:   0
Athletics:   4 Crafts:   0 Enigmas:   4
Brawl:   2 Drive:   0   Investigation:   1
Dodge:   2 Etiquette:   0 Law:   0
Empathy:   0 Firearms:   0 Linguistics:   2
Expression:   1 Leadership:   0 Medicine:   0
Intimidation:   0 Melee:   0 Occult:   1
Primal-Urge:   3 Performance:   0 Politics:   0
Streetwise:   0 Stealth:   2 Rituals:   4
Subterfuge:   1 Survival:   2 Science:   0

 

Gifts
Hare's Leap   Spirit Speech   Tireless Running
Speed of Thought      
         

 

BACKGROUNDS
Rites:   4   Totem:   4    
           

 

OTHER TRAITS
Garou Lore:   2   Cosmology:   1   Meditation:   2 

 

Merits Flaws
                                         Slip Sideways
    Phobia: Snakes
    Tribe Flaw: Haunted

Permanent Glory 0, Temporary Glory 0
Permanent Honor 0, Temporary Honor 0
Permanent Wisdom 3, Temporary Wisdom 0
Dexterity Specialty: Swift
Athletics Specialty: Sprinting
Rituals Specialty: Mystic
Speaks English and Arabic

Breed Forms
Glabro: Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Stamina 5, Appearance 1, Manipulation 2
Crinos: Strength 7, Dexterity 5, Stamina 6, Appearance 0, Manipulation 0
Hispo: Strength 6, Dexterity 6, Stamina 6, Appearance 2, Manipulation 0
Lupus: Strength 4, Dexterity 6, Stamina 5, Appearance 4, Manipulation 0

Totem:
Uadjit's Totem is Sirius, the Dog Star. Sirius was her first friend when she was separated from her pack, and guided her steps to where she would eventually meet her mentor. Uadjit has repaid that kindness with loving and loyal service. Description below, per the Silent Striders Tribe Book:

This star, the brightest in the night sky, was of special importance to the Egyptians. They celebrated the start of their year when Sirius rose with the sun, a harbinger of the annual flooding and re-fertilization of the Nile River. To those ancient Egyptians, Sirius was the embodiment of Isis, but many other human cultures recognized the canine qualities of the star and its constellation, creating legends about dogs with qualities from noble loyalty to unmatchable speed. The Incama Sirius does favor a canine form, and so feels a fondness for the Garou, the Silent Striders in particular. He is recognized as a totem of Wisdom because his gifts to his children focus on marking the passage of time and making predictions, but the Dog Star is still always fond of a good race.

Traits: Packs that follow the Dog Star receive a point of Wits and two dice in Enigmas (only one pack member may use these bonuses at a time). All pack members receive two bonus dice when performing seasonal rites. Finally, all children of Sirius receive an Athletics specialty in “sprinting.”

Ban: The Dog Star’s children must mark the yearly rising of the star over Egypt with an elaborate ritual, no matter where they may be.

Tireless Running (Tribal Gift; SS Revised TB p. 74)

Young Silent Striders quickly learn the need for extraordinary speed and stamina - often the messages that even untested youths are asked to carry cannot wait for the message bearer to sleep or eat. A Garou with this Gift can run from moonrise to moonrise subsisting on nothing more than her spiritual energy, crossing almost four hundred miles, but as soon as she breaks her run she must eat and rest. This Gift is taught by a wolf-spirit.

System: The player spends one Gnosis point. The character (who must be in Lupus form) may long run for twenty-four hours without the player making a Stamina roll. After twenty-four hours, and each twenty-four hour period thereafter, the player must spend one point of Gnosis and one point of Willpower to allow the character to continue running; otherwise, she must stop. Whenever the character stops running, for whatever reason, she suffers -2 dice to all pools until she has a chance to eat and rest, unless she has run a number of hours that is less than her Stamina.

Rite of the Jackdaw (Punishment Rite; p. 78 SS Revised Tribebook)

Silent Striders fortunate enough to parent children sometimes jokingly refer to this rite as the Rite of the Toddler. The Rite of the Jackdaw is used to punish those Garou who have broken a promise of secrecy. It causes the subject to uncontrollably tell everyone he meets about the most private and trivial matters of his life. This ritual will not cause the subject to reveal other secrets he’s been sworn to keep, but it will almost certainly cause him to reveal personal information that embarrasses only him.

This rite can be rather humiliating, and many Garou who are subject to it find themselves overcome by Rage at their embarrassment. It is considered the height of dishonor to take retribution against a Garou who has used this ritual in a just fashion. Subjects who wish to avoid the rite’s effects simply abandon all contact with others for a few days, which is considered to be an acceptable response.

System: This rite takes ten minutes to perform. The ritemaster symbolically carves a number of open-mouth sigils into bits of wood and distributes them ritualistically around the subject of the rite (who must remain more or less still during the rite, though he doesn’t necessarily have to be willing). The ritemaster rolls Manipulation + Subterfuge (difficulty 7). For each success, the target suffers for one day from the effects described above. The target can expend Willpower to avoid stating some particularly odious personal secret, but Willpower so expended does not return until the rite’s duration has expired.

Rites Known:
Rite of Questing Stone
Rite of Summoning
Rite of the Jackdaw

Description: 
Lupus:
Long and lean, the animal seems more jackal then wolf, with her long legs and curved canine teeth. She has a coat of a sleek ebony A narrow head had deep-set, brown eyes and a long nose. She looks to be just over three feet long, two high at the shoulder, and can’t weigh more then fifty pounds. There’s an odd sort of look in her eyes, a curious nature to her.

Crinos:
Tall, black-coated, and muscular…Anubis taken female form. She stands somewhere between eight and nine feet, over 500 pounds of lean brawn. Her head is that of a jackal, with a long snout, lip curled to show those long, curved teeth of hers, and deep brown eyes are narrowed and perceptive, ready for anything that comes at her.

Homid:
A short, dark-skinned woman with long black hair hanging free, Uadjit is small-framed, barely over five feet tall and weighing little more then a hundred pounds. Most of her strength, from what can be seen under her utilitarian set of clothing—a black tank top and loose cargo pants—appears to be in her legs…she has the classic physique of a runner. Her face is unadorned, without make-up…brown eyes are deeply set in a narrow bone structure. She projects a quiet demeanor, coolly looking about the vicinity with a keen eye. She’s without anything flashy, possibly excepting the brass band running around the bicep of her right arm, with a scarab as the connecting clasp.

Weapons:
 

Equipment:
 

History:
Uadjit Cobra’s-Speed, who can outrun speed itself, was not always such. She was born of wolves in the wilderness of Iran…the foothills of the Alborz Mountains. Even from birth, the pup was always fast. Running faster then all of the rest in her litter, she would have been called a prodigy among humans. But even as a cub, she was different. Her litter-mates wanted to play fight with her, but all she wanted to do was stare at the moon and race away from the pack, to sniff around in strange places. As the moon changed her face, she could feel her moods changing. When her face was full, the wolf was angry, fighting with the other cubs and running with the pack as it hunted down its prey. When Luna hid her face, the pup became playful.

Her littermates found this behavior puzzling and disturbing and started to shun her. When she went to the older wolves for comfort, they weren't interested either, nipping at her until she went away. For long months, she hung around the edge of the pack, getting what food you could and taking solace from the sweet face of the moon hanging in the sky. Things slowly got worse over the following months, though, and she was all but driven from the pack.

One afternoon, when the moon was still hidden and the sun beat down, she heard the pack's hunters howling in pain and anger. A group of human hunters had found them and was picking them off one by one. The sunned wolf felt the anger surge in her, like it did when the moon's face was full, and she exploded into frantic combat. To call it short was an understatement…and when she’d done with the hunters, some of the pack had fled in fear, others were busy urinating in submission and the hunters were all dead. The wolf who would become Uadjit was stunned by this change…and she knew that it would completely isolate her from her pack. She slunk away from the terrified wolves, running in the opposite direction. It’s the one time she’s ever run that her heart really wasn’t in it.

She traveled for a week along, not knowing what had happened or why. All she knew was that she was truly alone now. She looked up and saw a star shining brightly in the sky. Something about it spoke to her, and she followed along, using it as her guide as she went, hunting alone and evading humans whenever she encountered them. There were a couple close calls, but each time, the star in the sky seemed to guide her on.

Finally, her luck ran out. She went to sleep one night, and woke up to the sounds of footsteps. She was on her feet, but it was too late…the hunters had woken her up with their clumsy steps, but were close enough that she couldn’t run. Being surrounded didn’t help. Her hackles rose and she growled, looking around and trying not to show how nervous she was. And suddenly, before she knew it, she felt…something give way. A surprised yelp issued forth, and before she realized it, she was on the other side of the Gauntlet in the Penumbra. She had slipped sideways, something that would be a problem for her ever since that first time.

Of course, now she was in the Umbra, with no idea of what happened or why. Lucky it was, then, that someone was happening by about that time. Damien Mourns-the-Dead, a Strider Theurge, was traveling through the Umbra from the Sept of the Hidden Spring, his home Sept in Israel. Damien, a member of the Dispossessed camp, was headed for the vicinity of Tehran to attempt to locate a piece of Lore that he hoped would help lift Set’s Curse and allow the Striders free access to the Gnosis of their homeland. He recognized the poor confused Lupus’s plight and approached, explaining that he was a friend, and he could explain what was happening to her. With no other options, she agreed to go with Damien, and they returned to Damien’s Sept. The supposed tablet could wait, if it was even there. Damien had more important things to worry about now.

For a year, she traveled with Damien, learning as he saw fit to teach her. She learned about the ways of the Garou, the Litany, and the history of the Silent Striders and why they were without a homeland. Damien taught her to commune with spirits, the ways of the Theurge and the Rites that were their responsibility. She took all of this in with an absolute need to understand. Everything that was odd about her now made sense. She knew why her pack couldn’t be around her, because she was not truly one of them. And she understood her reason for life. Damien taught her human tongues as they traveled…Arabic so she could converse with the native people, and English for the times they made forays into Europe. He taught her to focus herself inward on Gaia and meditate, to better accept the Gnosis that was often denied at the Septs they visited. She learned the ways of humans and how to interact with them, and though it was something she never grew completely comfortable with, she was able to serve well enough in that capacity, too.

After a year had passed, Damien brought her back to the Sept of the Hidden Spring once more. It was time for her Rite of Passage. The Master of the Rite set her with a task…a message needed to be carried to the Sept of the Etesian Wind in Tanta, Egypt, about 55 miles from Cairo, warning of information received about the activities of Setites in the area. The Moon Bridge was inaccessible for unknown reasons, and so it fell on her to deliver it. She nodded and, when the Master of the Rite bade her go, gave her mentor a serious nod and stepped through the Gauntlet, to deliver the message.

The way from Haifa to Tanta was long and dangerous, over 300 miles through war-torn areas and places where all sorts of creatures lurked, on both sides of the Gauntlet. She kept on the Umbral side, keeping her speed up and her head down, stopping to ask and bargain with spirits to ensure she had the right way. She crossed the Suez Canal at Rafah, and made her way into Khem, the Strider’s barred homeland…and was instantly stricken by the lack of connection she felt to the land. It was unnerving in a way that she couldn’t describe, couldn’t even explain, much as she knew why from the teachings Damien had given her. She started to move more carefully, making her way toward Cairo and Tanta.

She almost made it without problems. Almost. She was SO close. A mere 60 miles outside of the Sept of the Etesian Wind, she was slinking her way past the Weaver-Choked city of Cairo. So amazed by the site of the Web-encased place, she didn’t even see where she was going, or what she was walking into…she was in the cobra-spirits nest before she realized it. Only when the thing reared up, enormous and hostile, and hissed at her did she realize what she had done. Something about this spirit, the sheer size and immensity of it, the utter hatred radiating off it for her struck something deep inside her. She probably could have talked her way out of it…she probably could have apologized and offered chiminage in return for her mistake. Instead, she did the only thing that sprang to mind…she ran. And she ran like never before. Angered, the spirit chased after her…and she ran even faster. Nothing could stop her, nothing would make her stop…all she knew was that she had to get away, and get away NOW. 60 miles she ran with the snake hot on her tail, and she raced into the Sept, collapsing once within the safety of the bawn. The Guardians destroyed the spirit, which had been tainted by the influence of Set and Apep into something nearly a Bane, and brought her into the safety of the Sept. She delivered the message, her Rite of Passage complete, and took her name, at the Master of the Rite Badr-al-Dujja’s suggestion of Uadjit Cobra’s-Speed. She was now a member of the Silent Striders, and of the Garou Nation.

She returned home to Haifa, long enough to say goodbye to Damien and thank him. She knew she wouldn’t be staying…one such as her was meant to be a traveler, not a stationary member of a Sept. It saddened her to know this, but she understood her duty, and so did Damien. They parted ways, and have not seen each other since. Just before leaving, she took the time to commune with Sirius, the Dog Star which led her to her path. A bargain was struck, and she dedicated herself to him as one of his children. She’s followed his way ever since, gifting him with loyal service.

Uadjit made her way across the world, slowly and inexorably traveling toward North America. So much to do there, and really, she felt more comfortable away from Khem. It was not her home…not any of their homes. And while she hoped that some day it would be, she knew that while it was not, she could not be there. She ended up making her way to Atlanta, doing some work for a Sept near there, before her welcome was worn out, in her eyes, at least. She traveled north, up the Eastern seaboard, and has finally ended up in the biggest city on the east coast of North America. Certiainly, they can use her skills for something. The Weaver is so strong here…she’ll do what she can. And maybe, hopefully, find a place to call home.