Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars is a tabaxi Order of the Ghostslayer Blood Hunter played by Austin in Fragments.

## Appearance and Possessions

Sea of Stars is a tall tabaxi with grey fur and intense orange eyes. He usually dresses in a flight suit. This looks like a waxed leather bodysuit with short leather straps tipped with metal loops placed at different parts of the body. The forearms, shins, back, and chest all have these loops. There is a rope threaded through all of these metal hooks, attached in a coil on the left side of his belt. At the end of this rope is a metal clasp, kind of like a carabiner. This apparatus is called a lifeline and is for Star to hook onto various parts of the ship so he doesn’t fall to his death. He has also trained to use this as a weapon, mainly a whip.

He wears a holster on his left thigh underneath the lifeline and keeps a gun in there “just in case”. He has tall oiled leather boots with flexible soles so he can climb and balance better. Due to his time in the air, he waxes or oils all of his clothes so that when they fly through clouds or rain, water doesn’t get absorbed into his clothes and encumber him. He also wears a brown rain jacket over all of his other clothes.

In his backpack, he has another gun wrapped in a cloth that used to belong to River in the Clouds.

He has a streak of white fur near his heart and wisps of green energy emit from his eyes when channeling his powers.

## Behavior

Star obsessively polishes the gun he keeps in his backpack. He always wears a smile and has a reckless attitude. He believes that if he isn’t optimistic all the time, he will be tempted to give into the Prince’s lies and be lost forever.

He still wants to get back into the game, thinking that he is smarter and more powerful than before and that he can actually make it in the criminal underworld.

Star likes to imagine himself a suave smooth-talker and tries to make friends with everyone to a varying degree of success.

He keeps a list of what crewmembers he remembers so that he can track them down.

## History

### Before Fragments

Sea of Stars was born to a nomadic caravan that roamed Ei’Vendar, sometimes by land, sometimes by sea. People came and went from the clan. Some stayed for years, others were gone before the next sunrise. Sea of Stars’ parents were information brokers and two of the more constant members. Pigeons and messages came and went nightly, and Star absorbed everything he could. But they too eventually left, caught up in the mysteries of their own product. This wasn’t uncommon, Star’s family was more the clan than any two individuals. They all took care of each other, he was quite literally raised by a village.

Eventually, it was Star’s turn to leave. He was enamored with the airships that he saw flying overhead in his travels. The next time his clan stopped in Fisk, he left, seeking employment on one of these flying vessels. Eventually he was hired on a ship flying to Dulsen.

The first few runs went as expected, a noble here, some precious metals there. But then the runs got more complicated, the legality of it all was often questionable. Star handled cargo that ranged from illicit substances to obviously stolen goods, and even to infamous fugitives.

The captain bled cool, oozed charisma with every honeyed word. He talked his way through past guards and finagled their way into the high class inns (fleeing before payment was due, of course). Captain Nero took to Star quickly once he discovered Star’s penchant for collecting small tidbits of knowledge. Most of the time it was just who the local lord’s wife was sleeping with or which bakers put sawdust in their bread, but sometimes there was gold.

Like the time Star overheard a group of shady figures discussing an incoming shipment of Spirit Tears (very expensive drug). He heard everything; time, place, names, faces. He brought it all to Captain Nero, whose eyes gleamed with avarice. Their first heist.

It went without a hitch. Star’s information was good, no one even noticed the cargo’s absence until the *Comet* was already across the ocean. Star was universally praised, and received a large share of the spoils, much to the rest of the crew’s chagrin. The heists continued, interspersed with more smuggling operations.

Until one particularly bold job. Star heard about another gang about a planned raid on the governor of the town’s mansion. It was supposed to be easy, smash and grab. But when they got to the safe, Star was locked inside, his crew vanished into the night.

Star spent years in prison. Turns out, the rest of his crew stood to testify against him at the trial. It was nothing personal, they said, just business.

When Star was in prison, he met all sorts of people. Debtors, murderers, thieves, and every other sort of criminal eventually gave up their secrets to Star’s persistence. Except one. She would not say a word to him, no matter what kind of suave tactics he employed. Which made her all the more enticing. He could only get her name from other inmates; River in the Clouds, a white-furred tabaxi who had apparently been thrown in right before Star. All of his attempts at friendship were completely shut down by an ice cold stare.

And when Cloud hatched her ingenious plan to escape the prison, Star was the only one she invited.

One commandeered airship and several drinks later, they were fast friends. Soon enough, they were plotting a course to the nearest port of ill repute, looking to recruit more scoundrels to their crew.

They narrowly avoided the law in Dulsen, all the while growing the crew of their stolen craft. Star and Cloud took on increasingly daring jobs, living for the thrill of danger.

Their luck ran out when Star threw in their lot with a much larger gang. The pay was good, way too good to be true. But their relentlessly reckless lifestyle had served them and the crew well up to this point, and they weren’t about to slow down now. The job was seemingly simple: fly to a warehouse, pick up some cargo, offload part of it at a different port and keep the rest as a bonus. He should have known.

The heist was way too easy. Guards fell without so much as a sound. Cloud suggested that they were drugged or under some sort of magic, but Star laughed it off. The payout was going to be delicious.

The pickup and dropoff went great. The client was incredibly happy to see them, singling out 3 crates for them to keep. Not hesitating to celebrate a success, Cloud, Star, and the crew busted open the liquor and partied through the night. As they were all about to pass out on the deck, an explosion ripped through the ship, flinging crew members overboard and sending Cloud and Star plummeting to the ground below.

Star came to consciousness just in time to see him and Cloud being dragged away, out into some sort of forest. They were dumped in a large open pit along with other corpses. Cloud was barely alive, Star could see that she was completely broken. He was barely in better shape, he knew that he couldn’t get both of them out of there.

They both laid in agony for what seemed like hours, cursing the people who betrayed them. Why couldn’t he remember the names of the client? His crew? His head spun, the only thing he could recall were a few names. River in the Clouds. Salem. Gerard. Celine, the first mate. Sea of Stars. Wait, that was his name, right? His ship, the *Avid Horizon*. What was that?

He heard the faint clatter of steel boots on stone, and a procession of spectral soldiers paraded by the hastily half-buried mass grave. Star could faintly remember an old sailor’s tale similar to this, but couldn’t fill in the details.

A skeletal figure clad in regal attire strode forward, his corporeal form phasing in and out of existence before him. He welcomed the corpse pile to his legion, and the dread soldiers began to chant. One by one, Star watched the bodies around him stand up, their physical forms fading into the ethereal.

To his horror, he realized Cloud was one of them. When had she stopped breathing? Had she always been bleeding that much? The world tilted to one side, and Star felt a sharp pain lance through his chest. It was deeper than physical pain, it felt as if his entire self was slowly being torn away.

He leapt out of the pit and sprinted into the forest. He felt wounds tear and broken bones pierced his skin. He tore through the underground, encountering vines and thorns and thick branches, accumulating more wounds. All the way hearing the sinister chuckle of the dread king echoing in his thoughts.

Time seemed to skip for Star. The sun rose and then set again. He passed out a few times, coming to in a different place every time. His white hot rage fueled his flight, sustaining his body beyond mortal capability. Eventually his mortal coil gave out, and he felt an icy grip on his heart. The voice echoed again, enticing him to give up with promises of immortality, power, and reunification with Cloud. The mention of Cloud drove a hot spike through his consciousness as he tore himself away from the vision, banishing the voice to a deep corner of his mind. It was at this time that he realized he was covered in bandages and splints, laid up in a bed. How long was he there?

He woke to a small girl tending to his wounds, overseen by an older, scarred man. He learned that this was Jordo and Clara Verone. Jordo explained that they found him unconscious in the fields and took him in. He had been out for days, and they feared the worst. However, Jordo used to be in the army, and learned a thing or two about treating injuries.

Star promised to return and properly thank them after he had taken care of business and made enough money to repay them for his life. They refused payment, obviously, but he is not letting it go.

He returned to the cities and began to attempt to return to his previous life, but it seemed that his crew had scattered. His old contacts had moved on, leaving him truly alone. Star did odd jobs around the isles, trading information and routes, searching for a way to defeat the king who stole Cloud and learn how to control his newfound powers.

The king tried to entice him several times with the promise of an eternity with Cloud, but he refused, and continued to search for a way to grow stronger and return to destroy the king.

He found answers in a series of rumors, second hand knowledge, and obscure tomes hidden in dusty vaults. After months of searching, he found the man he was looking for. The man was called Baelin Marsh, an alchemist of some local renown. There were rumors of his past and exaggerated stories of his monster hunting days, but Star dismissed most of those. He begged Baelin to share the secrets of the Hunter’s Bane with him, ignoring his warnings of the possibility of death. After all, he already had one foot in the grave.

Eventually, Baelin relented, agreeing to mix the potentially deadly alchemical cocktail and give it to him. If Star survived, Baelin agreed to teach him the basics.

After an agonizing eternity of suffering and pain, Star came out the other side alive, and began his brief training with Baelin.

The training wouldn’t last long, as Star learned of a seer named Prisca who was able to see into the past, present, and future, and could potentially find out who betrayed his crew. Star took off immediately, leaving Baelin alone and his training incomplete.

### Before Death

Sea of Stars traveled with the Assassin Brigade Company (of Death), helping them in their efforts to lift the blockade on the Fencian Isles. He found Celine from his old crew and learned that she was not part of the plot to kill him, and that she suspected Salem of blowing up the ship. He learned of an airship docked on Eyrel Rock and hatched a plan to steal it for the party. While the beginning of the operation went off without a hitch, he was fatally stabbed in the back by a member of the Consortium.

### Undeath

After his untimely demise, Sea of Stars was raised from the dead as an undead scion under the Prince's control. The Prince sent him to the Wayward Soul, where he killed Celine and stole his guns back from the party. When the ABC(D)s tried to chase him, he escaped and disappeared. The party managed to free him from his enslavement after traveling to the Dunes of the Arbiter and killing the Prince.

### After Undeath

Sea of Stars awoke free from the Prince's power, and began to follow the path of the Order of the Ghostslayer, pledging to hunt down any undead so that no one else would experience what he did. He freed River in the Clouds from the Prince's grasp and the two reunited at the vineyard. However, they were both still cursed to be undead scions. Sea of Stars sought out the Sculptor, who cured Sea of Stars but also betrayed the party. During the fight against the black dragon Fridelya, Star uses all of his drugs to fight her off, eventually using the opportunity to kick his habit completely.

He fought with the rest of the ABC(D)s and the Vespen Arcanum to defeat the Cinder Queen and save Ei'Vendar from a second Calamity.

## Epilogue

A fire crackles in the hearth and a plethora of objects are arraigned on the mantle, trophies and mementos of adventures long past. Two guns are mounted above, neither one having been fired in years. Sea of Stars sits in front of the fire, River in the Clouds' head resting on his lap. He looks out the window to see soft flakes of snow drifting down from the sky, coating the trellises of the vineyard. He thinks back to his journeys and what he's done; it's hard to believe that it was all the same person. A brief longing for the open sky and road flashes through his mind, but as he turns to look back at Cloud and at the tiny bed that he just had built, he sighs. He's done looking for trouble, he has enough on the way. Cloud slowly opens her eyes before abruptly wrapping her arms around his head and pulling him down underneath the blankets. Maybe more trouble on the way than he is ready for.