Barus

# Barus of the Pale

> *The frail, white haired old woman knelt down before him, her green and blue eyes filled with disgust and contempt, knowing these were his final moments he could feel his entire body shake in absolute dread in her presence. Barely able to breath he gathered the last of his bravery, wanting to see his bane in the eyes before his enevitable end. But as his gaze once again returned, the old hag was gone and in her place, a beautiful pale haired woman, not a day older than his daughter would be back home in Shem.*
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> *Her smile like morning sun, tanned skin like the dancers at the old tavern he used to visit in his younger days, her face decorated with golden piercings hidden behind a thin black veil only to slightly reveal her dark eyes of green and blue, a body covered with black cimmerian tattoos, statuesque and strong like the stories told of the young gladiator slaves taken from Cimmeria. But the more he gazed the more he started to see it. The eyes, the scar on her cheek, the one on her shoulder and the cross mark on her chest. He used to know this woman or was she from a dream? No, he knew her, he serves her, or used to. The woman started speaking the words he was going to think.*
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> *"Why can I not remember?" Her eyes met his and her warm smile was gone, only a toothy cruel grin remained. "The toll for betrayal is life."*
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> *A sting in his body. A serpent? No, something sharper. He felt warm liquid rushing all over his upper body as he glanced down to see a dagger stuck hilt-deep into his sternum. The woman spoke once more.*
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> *"How did I not feel this happen?" Her grin wider than ever. "My pet, my poor, poor wounded little pet. Our fun is done, only your death remains to fuel my fun further. Go now to The Dark and grant me whatever remains. Will you do that for me, my dear sweet dying pet? Do this for me and I will send you to your daughter back home."*
>
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> *He felt it. Yes, he finally felt it! He can finally make his mistress smile again. He would do this last favor for her and then go home to see his daughter again. He gathered his final breath and met the womans gaze once more with a smile.*
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> *"Yes Mistress... for my freedom I grant you all...." And with his final words his eyes rolled back, lifeless, dead before the last of the warm air left his loungs.*
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>    *The woman pulled the crimson covered blade from his lifeless husk. With renewed vigor she pulls herself up, before casually tossing the still dripping blade to a steel clad warror behind her. Her eyes not leaving the dry husk that remained chained to the blood stained altar, she speaks now with an insatiable, cold and sinister voice.*
> *"Next..."*
>
>

## Character Information

**In-Game Name:** Barus

**In-Game Location:**

* Temple of the Dreaming God [D7]. Currently under periodic Stygian assaults

**Other Known In-Game Locations:**

* The Legion's Fort (The tallest platau between the Hand of the Maker and Tugra's Stand [G6])
* The Lion's Fort (near the southern end of the Bridge of the Betrayer)
* Soulscourge Academy (near the Warren of Degerates)

## Physical Description

**Gender:** Female

**Age:** Visually mid 20s

**Notable Features:** Multiple body peircings, especially the face. Full body black warpaint. multiple battle scars (currently hidden via sorcery). Heterochromic eyes (Right eye is deep blue and left is dark brown)(currently hidden via sorcery), Ash Blonde hair.

## Origins

**Place of Birth:** Fianna Tribe, North Eastern Cimmeria

**Relatives:** She believes she once had an older brother with red hair.

## Relationships

**Numeria (Companion):** Clan leader of the Wolf Legion. Numeria claims to be her superior, but Barus knows the real truth. Barus thinks some of her "attributes" are enhanced more than enough.

**Hrafner (Warrior/Companion, Deceased):** Hrafner was Barus's first loyal companion within the Exiled Lands. They battled and proved equal in skill and decided to roam and pillage around the Exiled Lands together. Starting a small band of other equally fierce and violent people. As their reputation grew, so did the amount of enemies they gained. One by one the band lost members to random ambushes, beasts and slavertakers. Soon the only ones still alive were Barus and Hrafner. During a failed ambush, they found themselves fleeing and accidentally running into pack of wolves. Hrafner was mortally wounded by a Great Wolf and sacrificed herself to buy Barus enough time to flee. Barus later went back to find Hrafner's mutilated body. She killed off the remaining wolves in the area with unrelenting fury before returing Hrafner's body for burial beneath a Corpse Tree that she raised in Hrafner's honor. A curse was put upon the tree that would prevent any disturbing or further decay of Hrafner's body. Barus now searches for a ritual to bring Hrafner back to the land of the living and has started preparations for the excavation of Hrafner's remains and her reburial inside the Temple of the Dreaming God.

**Caden Thul (Warrior Thrall):** Barus's second thrall in the Exiled Lands. She tracked this one for days in the forests around the northern parts of **The Mounds** before ambushing her and dragging her back with Hrafner's help. After Barus made sure she was thoroughly broken, she was the first subject for her alchemical experiments. Thanks to these treatments Caden is now one of Barus's strongest and most brutal thralls. Wielding a massive legendary two-handed sword pulsing with black magic and wears whatever she gets her hands on, preferably something with fur on it.

**Alik the Breaker (Warrior Thrall):** Barus found this warrior wounded and left for dead near **The Mounds** and after some forced alchemical treatments he is now the most durable out of all her thralls. She keeps him with her at all times. He wields a one-handed mace and wears a mix of heavy armor parts.

**Nadya (Concubine Thrall):** Barus "liberated" this slave from a gang of Black Hand pirates she came across by accident. She now warms Barus's bed every night. Barus has personally trained her in the ways of an assassin. She wields a pair of particularly sharp legendary daggers that used to belong to Barus and she wears a lightly modified dancers outfit to allow maximum movement while still providing limited protection.

##### Mercenaries

Under Barus's command serves a number of mercenaries now occupying the Temple of the Dreaming God.

## Personality

**Disposition:** Villaineous (Inclined to evil thought; wicked; Malicious and/or Spiteful)

**Motivations:** Gaining power and wealth

**Religion/Philosophy:** Has long since lost the faith of her homeland and now worships and/or serves whatever dark diety, entity or person that would grant her more power.

**Positive Traits:** Dark humor, Masochism, Loyalty, Meticulous, Scribe

**Negative Traits:** Dark humor, Sadism, Vengeful

**Hobbies:** Squashing bugs, writing notes, alchemy, sorcery, duels

**Quirks:** Her eyes sometimes turn a pale foggy white when practicing her sorcerous art

**Likes:** Loyalty, dark humor, muscular men and women, revealing clothing, shiny things, archetecture, Numeria Dislikes: Heavy armor, betrayal, intellectually deprived people, The´"Good Guys", Numeria

**Dislikes:** Heavy armor, betrayal, intellectually deprived people, The´"Good Guys", Numeria

## Skills & Powers

**Skills:**

**Gladiatoral Combat:** During her time as a slave, Barus recieved a thourough and brutal upbringing as a gladiator.

**Assassination:** As her skills with daggers within the arena became known locally, she was bought by a band of murderers and cutthroats that put her merciless tendences to monetary use.

**Archetect:** Working as an assassin for a couple of years, she learned the ways of archetecture. This helped her immensely in her line of work.

**Entertainer:** Her last and final master had her thoroughly broken once again. Forced to learn how to entertain in a multitude of ways, some benign like dancing and playing the lute, others more sinister and cruel like subjecting others to torture or or being forced to enduring it herself at her master's hand. This is how she got most of her scars.

**Alchemy:** Barus has learned plenty of alchemical treatments and potions after coming to the Exiled Lands. She uses her alchemical treatments to enhance and keep her thralls in peak condition.

**Multilingualism:** Through her Souldraining Sorcery, Barus has learned a multitude of languages, both spoken and written.

**Sorcery:**

Barus has learned many dark blood rituals and souldraining sorceries starting the day she appeared in the Exiled Lands. Her favorite specialty is in binding people, their blood and their souls to do her bidding.

**Blood Magic:** Draining a sacrifice of their blood for various ritualistic purposes, usually for making Transporatory Circles. The bigger and healthier individuals prove the best sacrifice for this type of magic.

**Enthrallment:** By a combination of vile alchemical concoctions and foul sorcery, Barus can bend the minds of the broken to her will. All of those that have been marked by her Sorcerous Enthrallment has yellow irises and is under her complete control. Though Barus is still working out some issues where her thralls might suddenly regain some form of basic control of their bodies and move to disrupt and hinder the actions of others. This displeases Barus.

**Illusion:** Barus has dabbled in illusory magic, but prefers a head-on approach to problems, like overwhelming physical force. (Her natural eye-color and her scars are currently hidden by illusory magic.)

**Necromancy:** Raising people that have been buried alive as undead thralls from prepared mounds. Barus sees this as an incomplete and far inferior form of magic compared to her other sorceries.

**Soul Draining:** Draining the soul from a human sacrifice to augment physical or mental attributes. This is one of the ways Barus appears so young as she usually steals the youth of the people she sacrifices among other things. The stronger the individual sacrificed, the more power Barus will gain from their sacrifice.

## IC Hooks

Looking for other equally blessed or skilled people to do her bidding.

Searches for powerful sorcery and rituals to bring back people from the dead.

Might be out gathering materials for her alchemical studies as she's always looking for new plants and minerals to experiment with.

Regularly defends the Temple of the Dreaming God from Stygian raids.

# Backstory

Barus was taken from her home by Hyperborean slavers when she was a child. Clasped in iron, then tossed into a wooden cage filled with other children her age. As she grew she learned how to use her mind and/or body to survive and get what she needed. Her last and cruelest master yet did not fall for either. After he grew tired of her, he threw away her seemingly lifeless body. Having feigned death and still just barely alive she crawled towards freedom and the burning obelisks she saw on the horizon.