Kisten
Pronunciation: KIS-ten
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| Age | 76 |
| Birth Year | NRC 454 |
| Gender | Male |
| Race | Half-Dark Elf, Half-Human |
| Homeland | Marmo |
Physical Description
Kisten has light blue eyes, short brown hair, and a lean, athletic build standing at six-foot-one and weighing one hundred sixty-five pounds. His skin is a dull tan. His hair is short and usually haphazardly arranged as if he simply just pushed it to where he wanted it to be and left it at that. His eyes are epicanthic in shape and blue, but their hue is so light that they almost appear as if they are washed of color. His face is pleasant to look at, but he is modest about any attention he might receive.
Beneath his clothes he has good definition in his musculature and athletic and he holds himself confidently with a straight back and his head high, eyes seeing most everything before them. His skin is unblemished excepting one large scar and a tattoo. The scar horizontally wraps from the posterior of his left deltoid around the shoulder to the middle of his chest at mid-sternum. There used to be a second on the inside of his right forearm, but he covered that with a Caduceus tattoo. It is a depiction of a winged staff entwined by two snakes. The wings are up toward his elbow and the butt of the staff reaches to the middle of his wrist about four inches from the heel of the hand. The tattoo itself is about five inches in length and two inches at its widest point being the wings. It tapers to a point as the eye wanders distally from the elbow where the tails of the snakes and the base of the staff meet.
| Height | 6’1” | Hair Color | Brown |
| Weight | 165lbs | Eye Color | Light Blue |
| Build | Average | Skin Color | Light Tan |
Clothing and Armor
He wears a snug, dark blue shirt and dark gray pants with several pockets where he keeps things such as herbs, bandages, and a kit with needle and thread while he travels. Around the base of his neck are three snug necklaces. Two are made from small, thin steel rings linked together, though one set of links is slightly larger than the other set. The larger of the two steel necklaces is dull while the other catches light and seems to shimmer. The third necklace consists of a thin, but strong wire that has on it a series of thick clay rings segmented by cylinders of steel with black-hued patterns etched into them.
He has leather gloves that travel a few inches beyond his wrist, stopping just before where his tattoo is. His leather boots cover half the distance up his shins and are cross-laced. The soles are padded and they help him move silently. If he expects any difficulties he dons a chain mail shirt beneath the shirt he wears at that time.
He wears a dark silk cloak. It is made with thick threads and so it is not as fine as most people expect silk to be, but it is quite strong and it keeps him dry and warm when he needs it. He wears a snug, dark blue shirt and dark gray pants with several pockets. He has no things such as bracers or helms.
Weapon DescriptionKisten carries two short scimitars about eighteen inches in length. They are securely strapped to small of his back, out of sight beneath a heavy black cloak. They are made from fine steel and the hilts and scabbards are both azure blue. He also has a garrote made from a short, narrow bolt of red silk tied securely onto two iron bars with groove marks to improve grip. The use for this weapon is for Kisten to sneak up on his victim and wrap the silk around their neck to crush their throat. It prevents them from making any noise in their death throes, let alone raise the alarm.
Just because it’s a must-have for assassins, Kisten also carries two thin throwing knives hidden in boot sheaths. They are not durable enough to survive long enough to be used twice and so if Kisten needs more he has to have them made. They don’t do much good for him, he’s a poor shot with knives. To make up for the poor knife-throwing skills he has a bow made from ash wood and a quiver of normal broadhead arrows fletched with crow feathers.
| Class | Assassin |
| Occupation | Mercenary |
| Guild Membership | None |
| Weapons | Two short scimitars, garrote, short bow and 12 arrows, two thin throwing knives |
| Armor | Leather gloves, leather boots |
| Equipment | Blanket and bedroll, cloak, clothes, waterskin, coin purse, grappling hook, flint and steel, healer? kit, lock picks, shovel, hatchet, heavy silk cloak, one set of fine clothes, one set of travel clothes |
| Familiar | Raziel |
| Magic System | Shamanism |
| Special Summons | None |
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Abilities
Kisten has a sharp mind, allowing him to be clever and sly. He was quick to take up the ways of the assassin and has managed to stay alive while remaining relatively unnoticed. He is a good planner and often is successful in his missions before a third attempt. He prefers quick, silent kills, which is why he has a garrote and his short blades. To help him in his job he is skilled at lock picking and moving stealthily. His steps are light and his movements purposeful and he is good at planning months into the future.
Two other skills are empty-hand combat and the use of short-bladed weapons. Throughout his training with weapons, he always thought of the blades as extensions of himself; all he had to do was get used to using a varying reach with his arm. He is terrible at wielding longer and larger weapons unless they are staves. His body is familiar with being off of its feet, whether he is in the air or on the ground he can twist and turn to maximize efficiency of the movement or to minimize the damage of a fall. In hand to hand combat he generally goes for the quick finish by dislocating a joint or by aiming for the soft spots of the body, or he uses his garrote. Anything else could prove too costly on his energy stores to justify the extra movements.
His skill is middling at distance combat as far as throwing weaponry, but he can use a grappling hook well enough. He is also mildly skilled at making poisons if he has the ingredient list in front of him. Getting the measurements and dosages correct is tricky for him, so he doesn’t even glance at the more complex formulae. He is also light on his feet and can move smoothly. He’s a good actor if he’s given enough time to piece together a persona to behave by, allowing him to take on a role of someone he is not and thus gain access to certain areas of the city he otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
As far as Shamanism, his skill level is what would be considered “level 5”. Before leaving Marmo he was skilled as summoning spirits of invisibility and leprechauns, but had no desire to delve further into use of the dark spirits after his first experience with them. After meeting Elerial he learned to use Sylph and Undine.
PersonalityKisten is passive. He tends to just go with the flow and usually appears to pay no mind to things around him, but if he hits an obstacle he can find a way around or through it without having to involve strength of arm. He is very meticulous about how he moves and what he does when the time comes for detail. He avoids making much noise if he can.
When he is alone he is more introvert and quiet. He likes to talk to himself at times, making some people think he’s slightly loose in the head. With those he considers close to him he is good-natured and his smile is genuine. He entertains well enough and is affectionate, unless on an assignment. He is very protective of them and if someone tries to quarrel with them he can get very annoyed and resolve the matter one way or another.
Most of the people who know him in Raiden see him as a cold person. In actuality, he is quite capable of being friendly to those outside of his very small circle of close friends... in a way. The effort is usually aimed toward something he wants or needs, such as living the wayward life of a simple journeying musician to maintain his cover and anonymity. When he first meets people he is as courteous as is socially expected, but no more. It helps him gain contacts, whether said-contacts know it or not, and as a result he can gain information when he needs it.
He has a good knowledge of how to read and interpret body language and inflection of voice to both receive and relay messages. When he’s talking with others he normally gains more information than he gives and when he figures out what he wants to know, he sometimes just turns and leaves his partner in the middle of conversation. It adds to the mystery. Even though the ability to read body language and inflection of voice might not help him understand the words of a language he doesn’t know, it can help him figure out the mood and intent of the speaker. It helps him bargain and manipulate people, too.
Kisten has a malleable view on justice that is mercenary and it borders on vigilantism. He carries tasks out to the letter if he’s paid enough. Most times he lets the client name a price, then he raises or lowers it to something that sounds more reasonable to him. He doesn’t like to take more money than he has to from clients unless they are especially dislikable. To those who have heard of him, numbering only a few, to his dismay, it is thought that anyone was an option on his list of missions. Anyone from the military, to friend, to foe, to a king or guild leader and other officials, or even someone that had hired him for a previous task simply because they could see the dark elf traits in him. It wasn’t a great image but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
He does show some level of loyalty, however. He respects those who try to lead virtuous lives and leaves them alone as far as his work goes. Before accepting a request he always observes the proposed target for some time to decide what kind of person they are with cold calculation. When someone asks him to hunt a target he finds respectable and innocent he simply refuses. Depending on his mood he might ask for an outrageous amount of compensation for his efforts, but most often it is simply just a ‘no’. It’s a poor business practice, but not one that he’ll regret.
In his interactions with others he fluctuates between civility and condescension depending on his situation at the time. With his skills his assignments can range anywhere from killing someone, to gathering information, to tracking a person or an item down. He is rational and levelheaded at most times, but he is capable of exercising his imagination. He is clever and difficult to trick, but the only time he ever gives tricks any more attention than a first glance is when they’ll disturb his lifestyle or harm him.
Kisten rarely makes any commitment other than to his clients and he always keeps a courteous smile despite his feelings. He can? stand false heroism and bravado, nor does he wish to interact with cocky and overly proud people. When he knows someone is being assailed simply because of how he or she looks he steps in and is more than willing to knock a few heads together for the slightest errant remark or gesture by the perpetrators. He has a disregard for any laws and instead acts on his own instinct. That is mainly because of his past in Marmo as the outlet of institutional racism and the concept of a “perfect” race. He has little faith in constables. He does not like those who are crude and rude with no tact, and even less those who have no wish to learn such skills. Peppy people aren’t on his list of favorites either.
He fears not being in the know. For example, if he is in an area where he knows nothing of his surroundings, he often gets the feeling he is being watched, especially if he cannot see. It was a favorite prank of his peers. While it doesn’t cause him to fall into a nervous break down, it does put extra spirit into his step to get away from the feeling.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (latent tendency to Evil)
Quotes: “...”
HistoryKisten’s father, Zephin, was a dark elf and his mother, Lillith, was a human. His mother’s beauty seemed to complement a handsome father, both of which seemed to fall onto their child. Nobody would ever know if the boy would have gotten far in life, he was only a half-breed dark elf in Marmo. At first the unspoken disdain drove the boy to do well. He learned quickly the ways of shamanism despite being only a half-breed and Zephin wouldn’t let harm come to him. Kisten had no other siblings and his father treated him and his mother kindly... for a time.
When Kisten was sixteen he figured out that Zephin was an ambitious elf. The man always tried to gather more influence to his control and always using his subordinates to achieve those goals. The adolescent saw things with surprising clarity for his age, when he was young his father had boasted of his sharp mind, even after a near fatal incident involving Kisten with dark spirits one day. Despite being a half-breed he was keeping pace with those of pure breeding. It wasn’t long until that ambition was projected onto his mistress and her bastard child.
His father began to spend less time with his human family and thus his arm of protection began to slip away. It was during this time that Kisten learned not only how to hide his emotions behind a façade of gracious demeanor, but also humility. Some of the other boy elves often berated Kisten, but the only time that ever happened was when there was an upstart kid looking to pick a fight. It was a mob mentality among his peers. If there was no spark to ignite the fire he was fine and well liked as a nice guy. He wasn’t well liked some days, and as time progressed the treatment came more frequently.
When he came home from play with bloody and bruised knuckles his father scolded him. Kisten had superior strength to his ‘friends’ and shouldn’t injure others that were as promising as he was and of full blood. Zephin dressed him down so thoroughly that each time afterward he couldn’t fought back. Everyone turned a blind eye on the occurrence as if it were natural. Events played out like this for a few years, but Kisten still excelled at shamanism, though his progress gradually slowed as the other kids whittled away at his motivation to succeed. During this period of his life he suffered two large wounds, and it wasn’t until the second that his father finally stepped in, embarrassed at his son’s submissiveness.
Kisten’s first scar was more of a prank than anything else, called a twentieth birthday present to jeer at his human heritage. It had no meaning behind it other than to terrorize him for the trio of attackers amusement. They wanted to cut his skin to make rings around his body, but after wrapping around his left shoulder one time and cutting as far as his chest the half-elf didn’t resist fighting back. He threw two of them away, with some effort, and managed to flee, thanking the gods that the elves were too embarrassed to say they had been bested by a half-breed. But they kept their eyes on him with murderous hate.
His second scar was a large gash on the inside of his right forearm, coming from one of his assailant’s nails as five others held him down. They said it was a branding that claimed him as their property. It was something he couldn’t keep hidden from his father for long, and when he heard what the cut was from he was furious that a child of his, even one of impure, weak blood, submitted in such a way. More than anything he was concerned about what impact it might have on his rise in Dark Elf society. Zephin was still a long way from where he wanted to be, but he couldn’t slip up even once on any issue, including his bastard son.
He decided to send his son to Raiden Woods, publicly banishing someone that many elves thought should have been banished, or killed, long ago, the furthest point from Marmo on the Lodoss continent. Within a week, he was cast from the realm. He moved quickly to secure passage on a boat with human pirates so that he wouldn’t get swept up by any of the dangerous creatures on the island. He had to earn his keep on the boat, and he had never before been on the water on anything larger than a rowboat. He didn’t worry about drowning, he was a good swimmer, but as nights crept on he heard many stories of the denizens of the deep that occasionally wandered up to the surface. Apparently, there were massive leviathans that could smash a warship without a second thought. That kept him on edge... he had no idea if they were true or not, but he knew that in an ocean so big there had to be creatures that were at least a few feet larger than human size.
During the voyage to Roid they taught him hand-to-hand combat, as pirates knew it, as well as a bit of tumbling. They sailed on a surprisingly steady boat that had Kisten wondering if it were enchanted or not. The boat couldn’t move fast enough. Despite the constant activity there was a lot more free time than the half-elf thought was possible. The events of the past several years were allowed to stew again, but this time he pined over it as he left home, rather than stayed in it. It was a different feeling knowing that all that suffering culminated to this punishment. A punishment that separated him from his mother, whom, even twenty years after giving birth, was still beautiful. It ate at him and he began to become bitter. He vowed that some day he would go back to get his mother, but he knew he would never go back.
They reached the port of Roid and he parted ways with the captain. They tried to get him to stay on, but they occasionally stopped in Marmo. If Kisten set foot on that island again or even made port, he’d likely die. He had done what the Marmo sailor had thought was more than required, so he gained a few coins. He didn’t really know what to do, so for the next twenty years he was a member of the Mercenary Guild of Roid, who took him in eagerly, but reluctantly at the same time. An elf that could use magic was a big plus to business, but he was a dark elf. He made an honest living there, but nothing major occurred. In his time he had traveled to Flaim and earned enough money to buy a pair of short scimitars from the markets there. He had also been to Alania for short period of time.
When he was forty, he met a common elf, Elerial, who over one hundred years old and was more skilled than he was at shamanism. She was contracted out of the Mercenaries Guild in Alan with a caravan on its way back from Alan and was willing to teach him, despite his Dark Elf blood. They stayed together for almost twenty years, becoming romantically involved off and on throughout their partnership and often they would argue with each other, but they always wound up picking the same assignments. Only once was Kisten worried that she might really end their friendship during a prank war between the two companions. His retaliation at that time involved the pilfering of a certain set of clothes while she bathed in the river. She didn’t talk to him, or even look at him, for the rest of the last two weeks of their assignment.
They had split up on friendly terms when Elerial wanted to go to Roid in Valis. She had wanted him to accompany her, but he couldn’t. He didn’t give a reason, but she still smiled and promised to see him whenever she came back to Raiden. Ever since that day he has ventured back and forth between Raiden and Raiden Woods, living for periods of time in each. He picked up a career in assassination, or espionage if he couldn’t find the one he needed to kill in the target area, usually a bedroom or office. He’s found that he’s inherited ambition from his father when he heard rumors of a ‘Shadow Guild’. Despite the crimes they committed and condoned and the anarchy they seemed to work for he was intrigued. Thus began his investigation to enter the Shadow Guild, but his search has yielded nothing thus far.
Six years ago, he adopted a cat as his familiar and named it Raziel. He had an instant liking to it as he watched it stare down on the gang of boys with disdain despite knowing its life was in danger. It seemed to trust him just as much. They’ve been together since that time.
