Uadjit Cobra's-Speed
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"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
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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.