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Circle of Life
2012-01-17, 02:15 PM
Iulian, Champion of the Doomed Citadel

http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/6293/maelmadocbycaelicorn.jpg

Legend: Nothing remains in the histories about the origin of the Blade of the Last Citadel, the great legacy weapon of the White Raven. It is a blade of champions, a blade made to lead armies and turn the tide of battles; all the same, the story of its birth has been lost to time. Just as the knowledge of the Blade’s origins has faded into the void, all but nothing is known about its first wielder, Iulian the Just.

Iulian the Just was one of the first great human warriors, a masterful hero and leader, inspiring his men with songs sung in the tongue of angels, and his martial spirit was both great and terrible to behold. He himself devised the most cooperative of the nine great martial disciplines, the style of leadership and glorious charges. Iulian's presence on the battlefield was enough to turn the tide of wars, and the songs praising him were outmatched only by his own songs of valor and courage.

Nothing is eternal, however; not even glory. The great Iulian taught and lead other warriors for a very long time, longer than most men hope to live; but even he felt the ravages of time, and he eventually found himself in a small encampment, teaching green troops how to hold their blades. His life had little splendor, though he lived in comfort, but his bard’s spirit hungered for more. He was old, but his strength at arms and strength of mind was more than a dozen normal men combined, and the thought of wasting the rest of his life made him bitter. Months went on without action or movement, and Iulian relaxed the training of his men. They would never face a true war, he thought, so why waste his time and their effort for naught?

That thought damned him. After months of nothing but routine drills and silence, the little mountain encampment heard a quaking of the earth, a tremor without pattern or end. Arising in the night, Iulian saw with his own eyes death heading down on his men; a tribe of giants, enraged and vicious, were attacking them in the night.

Iulian was old, but he was still mighty, and he led his men into a charge against the giants, a glorious formational assault that the old warrior had used a thousand times before. His men, however, were still green and untrained, and they could not break the skin of their aggressors. Pulled from the fortifications by Iulian they died there, in the dark, crushed by mauls and massive fists. Iulian himself killed a dozen giants, but even the greatest of men can be crushed by numbers. He fell, his spirit torn from his body.

Despite his final years Iulian held a pure and beautiful soul, and he was drawn to the arching realms of the heavens. His spirit, however, ground his ascension to a halt as he looked back down to the world. He watched, pain-stricken, as his young squire took up his sword with trembling hands and charged the monsters that had killed him. He watched, unable to look away, as the boy was slammed to the ground with a single blow. Iulian turned back to the heavens, gazing there to the purity and beauty they held within.

Iulian had lived a life of glory, both singing the tales of heroes and living a heroic life. He had been a champion of good, a paragon of humanity, and an honest man. He did not deem himself deserving of heaven, however; the body of his squire, lying on the earth, had made the pain in his heart too powerful to bear. He had failed his men, failed them because of hubris and laziness. He turned from heaven, attempting to force his own soul to a plane of punishment, but that was not how the afterlife functioned. Iulian had barred himself from heaven, but he was far too pure for any hell. He was without a destination, without a purpose, and the only power remaining to him was song.

And so he sang, singing words that came from no language and every language. He sang in a tongue that made angels seem as children, a tongue that forged the heavens and the words. He sang of his pain, and his anguish. He sang of the ending of things, when all has become dust. He sang until his spirit had become nothing but the song, and then he sang until not even the song remained.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7251/iludan.jpg

Special Requirement: Iulian refuses to answer the call of a binder who attempts to bind him while bound to Malphas or Chupoclops, both of whom he loathes with a hatred beyond mortal comprehension.

Manifestation: Iulian appears amidst a storm of ravens and doves, which disappear in a gray smoke as he materializes above his seal. Iulian stares implacably at the binder with his sightless eyes while the pact is made, blood streaming down his face from the perpetually bleeding gashes marring his visage.

Sign: Your eyes become the milky white of one born without vision, though this does not impair your ability to see.

Influence: Iulian requires that you take the lead in all things, even when your knowledge might be inferior to that of others. You must make every effort to enact your own plans, though you may temper them with the advice of others, so long as the core of the plan is your own.

Granted Abilities: In life, Iulian was a leader of the grandest of mortal armies. His granted abilities allow you to spur your allies to greater accomplishment, protect them from fear and compulsion, and continue fighting when you would otherwise fall.

Iulian's Cunning: You may use Intelligence-based skills and Perform (Oratory) untrained, and you gain a bonus to any checks made with these skills equal to half your binder level so long as you do not have a rank in the skill.

Iulian's Inspiration: You may use Inspire Courage as a bard of your effective binder level a number of times per day equal to one-third your binder level. Effects that change or augment the effectiveness of Inspire Courage (such as the Dragonfire Inspiration feat, or a badge of valor) cannot be used to augment this ability.

Iulian's Resolve: You are not disabled at 0 hitpoints, and you do not die at -10 hitpoints. Instead, you may continue fighting without penalty until your hitpoints reach -10 plus an additonal negative number equal to your binder level, at which point you die. In addition, all allies that can see you gain a morale bonus on saves against charm and compulsion effects equal to half your effective binder level.

Iulian's Skill: You may use your binder level in place of your base attack bonus for the purpose of determining your total attack bonus (but not iterative attacks), if doing so would result in a net increase to your attack modifier.

Iulian's Tactics: You may initiate several maneuvers from the White Raven discipline, based on your effective binder level. Use your binder level in place of your initiator level when determining the effects of these maneuvers. Once you use one of these maneuvers, you may not use any others granted by this ability for 5 rounds. You may use each of these maneuvers only once per encounter.
{table=head]EBL|Maneuver
8 or lower|White Raven Tactics
9-10|Covering Strike
11-12|Flanking Maneuver
13-14|Order Forged from Chaos
15-16|Clarion Call
17-20|White Raven Hammer[/table]

blackspeeker
2012-01-20, 11:01 AM
I just wanted to say I love the three binder vestiges you posted this week, and hope to see more in the future. These will help me love what's become my new favorite class even more.