Here we have the first of a series of character portraits I'm doing of our tabletop group's Solar Exalted characters for the Exalted RPG game by White Wolf and @theonyxpath !
Introducing Night Locust, chosen of the Unconquered Sun to be a Night Caste.
Sold into slavery at a young age, Night Locust was groomed to be an assassin in Nexus under a hard, unforgiving master. Nobody would suspect the child assassin in their midst, which made him the perfect tool. However, Night Locust could never shake his attachment to a younger pupil, Arc of Silence. When the day came that he and Arc failed a mission to assassinate a Dragonblooded Fire Aspect, Night was ordered to kill Arc to prove his loyalty.
He refused and in his passionate defense of his friend against their master, he Exalted as a Night Caste and won their freedom in bloodshed. He and Arc traveled together and eventually stumbled upon Kalara Vadras, a Nexus fugitive traveling in disguise as a runaway slave rebel leader and also a chosen of the Eclipse Caste. The two would become part of the burgeoning Circle of Solars who have chosen the fugitive slave city of Dinas Rhydd as their home.
At age 19 when he Exalted, he was the youngest member to join the Circle. He currently works as Kalara's bodyguard and the head of her spy network referred to in the hushed whispers of their enemies as the Devil's Tongues.
Night wields an artifact grimscythe crafted by Voice of the Orichalcum Forge, a Twilight Caste companion, and a set of acupuncture needles claimed from the manse of his previous Solar shard's owner, as well as short daiklaves. He is one of the few in the Circle who can destroy spirits with his Ghost-Eating Technique, which he has previously used to utterly destroy the Deathlord, Walker in Darkness, a fact which has made him a name to be feared in the halls of Yu-Shan.
You can read more about Night Locust and his Circle’s adventures here.
I also streamed the creation of this piece, if you want to watch me as I painted it and rambled about the character. The recording is here (time lapse coming soon!):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I’ve been sneaking time to work on a line up drawing of the Solars in an Exalted tabletop campaign I’m in. We’ve been playing for years now, so it was about time!
Spent like an hour drawing the first character’s face only to cover it up with a mask. #artistwoes
SORROW RESPLENDENT: S2 Episode 4 - Something Wicked This Way Comes
In which our band of Solars learn that ancient murderous rituals are only the beginning of the pesky problems to be dealt with at the meeting of nations!
Have you missed a recap? Want to catch up on the story so far and meet the cast of characters? Check out the Campaign Archive!
The first night of the meeting of nations went well! The Circle of Solars impresses everyone they meet, encouraging old allies and meeting new potential ones. The next day, the Circle separates in order to cover more ground with the factions they’re familiar with.
Chaos is called to a meeting with a group of representatives from neighboring nations to discuss the new branch of the Immaculate faith that has taken root in Dinas Rhydd. Servants and representatives greet him warmly, offering him tea while they wait for the remaining representative to arrive. All seems well, until one of the diplomats starts speaking strangely. Seemingly all at once, blood seeps from the mouths of each representative, all of them dying on the spot! Chaos tosses away his tea at the realization of poison.
Panicked, Chaos rushes to find the missing representative and stumbles upon a disturbing scene in the basement…
The missing diplomat had been killed by his servant, who then turns the knife on his own guts! With the servant’s death, the summoning rites are sealed and an unknown evil crawls its way from Malfeas into Creation. Chaos attempts to speak to the unknown horror, but it only regards him for as long as it must, the Zenith dressed in a robe which requires the consideration of any who speak while dressed in the raiment. Chaos chides the demon for its bad behavior, the demon brushing him off with a word that his target lay elsewhere.
He is the Emperor’s Waiting Sepulcher, a Third Circle demon whose only goal is to target those who maintain the power of civilization! During Chaos’ attempts to stop the demon, the building catches flame. The Zenith carefully removes as many of the victims from the burning ruins as he can, only to be greeted upon his exit with the spears of the city guards at his neck!
Being a patient Solar, Chaos surrenders to the guards after bending their spears with little effort and allowing himself to be led him away to a holding cell where he hopes to explain himself further. He politely informs the captain of the guard that they need to let his traveling associates know what’s going on if they have any chance of containing a dangerous situation that the soldiers of the city will not be able to handle on their own.
Sure enough, news of a part of the city being ablaze and rumor of a panic in the district of Chaos’ meeting travels fast. Night and Kalara arrive after a brief stop to let Kalara slip back into her gunslinging Koh persona so she can continue the charade of Kalara being a mere businesswoman. Koh heads for the lockup where he’s heard Chaos has been taken into custody, while Night’s sorcerous sight allows him to track the demon. Demiato arrives at the prison as well, everyone in a panic as word of the situation spreads.
Wasting no time, Koh uses words charged with essence to immediately declare the innocence of their companion and command him to be freed so that he may aid in handling the emergency situation. At the same time, Demiato marches past the stunned guards and lifts the cell doors off the hinges in a show of authority and strength, everyone too scared of her fearsome reputation to move against her. Every mortal in that room does exactly what she and Koh say without question, the entire building too intimidated or awed to lift a finger!
The Circle scrambles desperately to decipher the meaning of the entity’s words. Does it mean to target the visiting rulers? Will it target the attending Solars? Koh and Xesa try to rally the city’s sorcerous defenses and alert the visiting dignitaries while Demiato and Chaos race to aid Night Locust, who has chosen the dangerous path of trailing the entity on his own!
During the rest of the Circle’s adventures in ‘negotiating’ bail, Night Locust follows behind the demon, watching in horror and fascination as the invisible entity only he could see lumbers towards the outskirts of the city. Any living thing it walked through instantly began to wither and die. Thankfully, only vegetation seemed to be suffering in the creature’s path. It spoke up only once to warn the Night Caste that if he ventured closer, he would ignore him no longer.
Being the cheeky fellow that he is, Night stays on him, drawing the creature to attack with a beam of destruction that cuts a swath past Night and for miles into the countryside! Thankfully, the Solar dodges it, his instincts telling him the beam of foul energy would have destroyed him if he hadn’t been able to evade it.
Wasting no time, Night Locust launches himself at the demon, the assassin shifting into nonexistence in his counterattack and reappearing at the creature’s back, his scythe’s energy blade at its neck! The creature barely has time to respond before Night channels all of his remaining essence into two more overwhelming attacks, slicing deep into the creature as he runs across its immense body, launching off of its chest and twirling into a slash that beheads the demon in one fell swoop! Night’s final blow imbued with his ghost-eating technique assures that the demon had been destroyed utterly…or so he thought.
Just as Night’s victory begins to sink in, his essence entirely spent, the rest of the Circle arrives in a strange blink of reality. Despite being blocks away, each Solar had found themselves transported as if they were closer than they remembered being. They embrace Night, Koh promising him drinks and a raise as he and Demiato support him by each arm. Xesa rattles him even more with a hug.
But how did any of them get there so fast? The mystery of the reality-bending glitch in Creation is solved by the appearance of a man with the glowing symbol of Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys, shining on his forehead. It was Bara, their old friend!
…except none of them could remember him thanks to the Sidereal aura of forgetfulness. All but Xesa had forgotten him, the Twilight being thoughtful enough to write down an account of Bara after she first noticed others had begun forgetting him upon his abrupt departure.
The afternoon ends with an addled city guard showing up to a crater of steaming corrupted essence and the supposed diplomatic delegation of Dinas Rhydd having a lot of explaining (and sleep) to do!
