Philokrates, Ascetic Messenger of the Gods

"Know that lies are anathema to me, and to speak them in my presence is to invite your own destruction." 

"I am Philokrates of Great Forks, Student and Servant of the Three, World-Circler, Arrow-Master, Wind-Strider, Torture-Sufferer, Lie-Smiter, Lore-Teacher, Quicksilver Falcon, Chosen of Sol, and Consecrator of Oaths and Declarations."

Eclipse of the Perfect Circle

• Silent Dragoon, the Bronze Tiger.
• Alseia the Golden Bull (now dead, which sucks).
• Orduin the Copper Spider.
• Blithe Lark Spirit the Iron Wolf.
• Philokrates the Quicksilver Falcon.

Lo, they are named and titled!

Patriotic Scion of Great Forks

Hailing from Great Forks, Philokrates is patriotic and devoted to his homeland, and in turn, it nurtures him. The mighty deity Dayshield mentors him in his power, providing him with blessings, and he is ever welcome within its walls. His homeland affects him in key ways:

• He is remarkably comfortable with slavery, including the sort of slavery that means the slaves die young and miserable.
• He has a 'prayerful', exaggeratedly eloquent way of speaking.
• He is quite jaded about gods in general and has absolutely no patience for deities who spit bullshit.
• He is conversely extremely reverent of gods who live up to their press and in fact practice everything they preach.

In the wake of the violent implosion of the Guild Bank near the beginning of Water in RY 770, and the subsequent imminent disruptions to Terrestrial trade, Philokrates soon realized that Great Forks could not weather the storm - the farmlands surrounding the city are completely devoted to drugs. At once he ceased his explorations of governmental theory and returned home to act as a purchasing liason for Great Forks, turning his mastery of essence to the markets with the Insightful Buyer Technique.

His increased involvement with the government of Great Forks - first as speaker, then as unofficial enforcer, then as unlicensed assassin, then as an eerily honest but brutal murderer - has come to a close. His violence, brought on by a combination of a surprisingly blunt Virtue Flaw and a perhaps-unwise experimentation with essence-driven autopsychosurgical experimentation (the Epic Zeal of Temperance charm) has led to him being the willing victim of horrifying tortures designed to punish his violent ways and hopefully discourage them. They failed to restrain his killing nature, however; in the wake fo this revelation, he left town.

He returned once, to attempt to use his social-influence tricks to make lies taboo in his homeland, but was rebuffed and exiled again.

Peerless Archer, Arrow-Master

As a skirmisher in the Great Forks army, Philokrates excelled in the bow. His investure with divine excellence has magnified that to untold levels, allowing him casual mastery over unnatural feats of archery.

• Single-handedly he drove off an entire raiding party of Metagalapan hawkriders from the Scarlet Empire Satrapy of Calhar.
• As a sacrifice to his mighty patron goddess, the Dayshield, he killed and burnt a band of brigands with his fiery arrows.
• During the final battle between Maliushi and a minor concordance of Celestials of the East, he engaged the wrathful deity at a range of three hundred yards through a raging storm of fire and ash.
• He has engaged in running duels with mounted abyssals of the Dusk caste, and slain horrors of the dead on the river-bottom of the Yanaze with water-scorning arrows.
• Philokrates, along with Fudou the Mountain and Kardama, engaged and drove off the Dreaming Black Marble Skull, the necrotech horror engineered by the Walker in Darkness from the heart of the Juggernaut.

Athlete Without Superior

Even before he Exalted, Philokrates was swift-footed, strong of heart and lung, a day-long runner and fastest at every race or competition. Even now, he is driven by an unshakable competitive spirit, seeking to prove himself the greatest and the best athlete. Furthermore, he has been blessed by the gods with miraculous sandals that lighten his spirit and movements, making the feats of impossible endurance common-place for him.

• The opening movement in the Epic of his story is his bold run up the entirety of the Yanaze.
• When tested against the mighty earth-moving prowess of the elemental servants of Orduin of the Tools, Philokrates' stamina and verve proved superior to their stoic endurance.
• In a mind-boggling display of endurance and bullheaded bravado, he ran directly along the border of Deep Wyld and Pure Chaos along the entire circumference of Creation. What he saw there, he has sworn to tell no one.

Speed:

• Land Walk: 10 yds/tick or 20 mph
• Land Dash: 16 yds/tick or 33 mph
• Eagle Wing Min: 5 yards/tick, 10mph
• Eagle Wing Max: 48 yards/tick, 100mph

Ascetic Pupil of the Dayshield

Driven by impulses appropriate to those holy, Philokrates has become an ascetic. Though he is not so ostentatious as to flagellate himself or wear hair shirts, he does not partake of drink or drugs of any kind, never indulges in luxurious pleasures, and never takes for himself what he can give to others.

Philokrates is currently existing on a diet of locust mana exclusively, to evaluate their safety.

Faultless All-Reliable Messenger To Heaven And Earth

"I am a Messenger of the Gods. I will never bear false witness, spread false rumor, take the name of another in vain, or in any other fashion impeach my office." So swore Philokrates with the unimpeachable Righteous Lion Oath. In every fashion he is a trustworthy messenger; no man may call himself more unimpeachable than he. He lives up to his press, and has gone so far as to openly declare his nature to Immaculate assassins shortly before fleeing.

Furthermore, he lets it be known that he can no longer be lied to - that, indeed, he is beyond the deceptions of others, just as he himself is beyond deception. To his irritation, many people don't believe him, and keep trying to deceive him with transparent lies. Recently, his irritation has grown overtly homicidal, and no one seems safe from being abruptly murdered if they dare lie in his presence. To his further irritation, even knowing the risk, they just can't quite seem to kick the habit before they kick the bucket.

His charms have turned to further enhancing his inner lie-detecting nature. Through the Epic Zeal of Temperance charm, he has forged himself in to such a pillar of self-consistency that he is confident that the Ebon Dragon himself could not succeed in deceiving him. Whether this confidence is wise or not is unknown, but it can be assumed that it is wholly sincere.

Family Man

Ha ha, I bet you thought all his relatives were conveniently dead, didn't you? Not at all! His parents and his sister are quite alive and reasonably prosperous within Great Forks!

• His father, Nikodemos, is by trade an overseer of slaves in the poppy fields, and this affects his relationship with the rest of his family. Though he is not uncaring, he expresses himself through dominant gestures and smothers his wife Theodosia with affection in good times and with overbearing nagging in bad times. He resents, vaguely, that Philokrates' great fortune has reflected so little on to him, that his son has imposed his ascetism upon his family when Philokrates could bring great wealth to his family if he cared to.
  • When Philokrates offended the ifrit of Great Forks with his uncompromising, violently enforced honesty and ethics, and slew one of their number in a duel, Nikodemos bore the brunt of the backlash. An assassin hired by the ifrit amputated and stole Nikodemos' hands. Though Philokrates offered forgiveness and amnesty for this crime in exchange for the return of the hands, his offer was rebuffed. In reply, he considered a bloody rampage of revenge, but instead outsourced the recovery of the hands (and a great deal of incriminating documents) to his circlemate, Blithe Lark Spirit.
• Theodosia concerns herself with prayer-for-hire at the temples, and occasionally finds work as a bath attendant, though she is not lissome enough to catch the eye of any deity or raksha. This lack brings her some relief. She also concerns herself with the education of her daughter, Xanthippe.
  • She was pregnant by Nikodemos as of Descending Earth, RY 770. Philokrates was quite pleased.
• Xanthippe, his younger sister, finds herself called to the worship of Mercury, and indeed may be touched by the goddess in some fashion.
• His brother, Kallias, is quite dead and in fact died at age eight of dysentery. Boo hoo, age of sorrows. Long since passed through Lethe and everything.
• His youngest sister, Pelagia, is born as of Resplendent Air, RY 771. Philokrates is downright giddy.
• Though not actually blood-related, Philokrates was purchased - leased, rather - in his youth by Zelotes of Great Forks, who operated the courier service in which he was employed.

Due to his increasing concern over his own eccentricities - or at least how badly they are incompatible with the world - Philokrates has been forced to leave his family behind. After a short stint acting as guardian for Dreams of Elsewhere, daughter of Visions of Blue, who parted ways with him after she mastered top-tier face-punching kung fu, he is expressing his continued affection toward his extended family (he has a lot of cousins outside of Great Forks) by bringing them gifts.

Minions of Philokrates

Favored Backgrounds:

• Allies: 2nd Presence Excellency
• Contacts: Judge's Ear
• Influence: Mastery of Small Manners
• Resources: 2nd Bureaucracy Excellency, Insightful Buyer Technique, Bureau-Rectifying Method

Virtue Flaw: Pogrom of Unrelenting Sincerity

To act in accordance with the highest virtue is to act with sincerity at all times. Those who fall short of this standard can drive Philokrates to a merciless fury. When Philokrates falls in to uncontrolled Limit Break, he blatantly kills whomever triggered the Limit Break. If he is driven to a Limit Break by something other than someone lying to him, the limit break lies fallow until the next time he is lied to, at which point he flips the fuck out as normal.

With partial control, he can simply explode with righteous violence and insult sufficiently to destroy any chance of retaining an even slightly positive relationship with the liar in question.

This flaw is triggered whenever someone lies in Philokrates' presence. It doesn't even have to be to him. 'Lie' is defined as 'intentionally communicate what you believe to be untrue'.

MORTAL BODY COUNT:

Season of Air, RY 771

Jerem Golddust, a merchant of sweets (Refusing to give a beggar money, which he claimed not to have)

Grey Worm, a freed slave and mercenary soldier (Cheating at dice)

Ivory Rose, a prostitute (Was entirely too impressed by a client)

DIVINE AND SEMI-DIVINE BODY COUNT:

Season of Air, RY 771

Lion and Sky Daughter, Godblooded scion of the God of Great Fork's cooks (Claimed to be the best cook in town. DID NOT MEAN IT.)

EXALTS ALIENATED:

Season of Air, RY 771

Orduin of the Tools, for claiming the Terrestrial Host were once 'faultless protectors'.