Sesus Rafara
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| Sesus Rafara | |
|---|---|
 Aspect Book Fire front cover, featuring the image of Sesus Rafara. |
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| Designer(s) | Kraig Blackwelder and Genevieve Cogman, cover art by UDON. |
| Publisher(s) | White Wolf Publishing |
| Publication date | September, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | High fantasy |
| System | Storyteller |
Exalted is a role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing. The game is classified as high fantasy. It is strongly influenced by Japanese anime and manga, the cultures of China and Rome, and a number of literary sources such as the writings of Michael Moorcock. Sesus Rafara is one of the signature characters of Exalted, a representative of the Terrestrial Exalted Fire Aspect.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Pre-Exaltation
Sesus Rafara did not grow up in any particular luxury. Her mother managed a fleet of ships that hunted siaka and her father worked for the Thousand Scales as the director of security for the Imperial Post. She had two nannies that doted on her. While her childhood was happy, the lives of her parents were not, and they argued bitterly, while Sesus Rafara blithely ignored them. She did not spend much time in primary school, her father withdrawing her shortly after her second year and setting up tutors for her instead. She seldom had to deal with others her own age after leaving primary school - children with whom she shared little in common and had even less of a liking for. She excelled at numbers, dance and at all things analytical. Her tutors liked her and described her as "bright", teaching her subjects that were well in advance of others of her age.
[edit] Exaltation
Sesus Rafara was doted upon by her two nannies, S'Zil and Blossom Diri, who were much like a mother and older sister to her. This was a very odd relationship for a Dynast, one that her mother tried to discourage whenever and wherever she could when she wasn't off at sea or busy with work. One day her mother came home to find her lounging, her hair being brushed by S'Zil, being told a funny story by Blossom Diri and eating an expensive piece of fruit that had been shipped in from the Wavecrest Archipelago. The three of them scrambled to look a little less pampered, and that evening, her mother invited her to see what it was that she did at work. She was reluctant to accept the offer, but when she found out that S'Zil and Blossom Diri would be coming with her, she felt much better about going.
Her mother took her out on a ship on the strait between The Blessed Isle and Kyon, the bigger of the two great islands to its northwest, a popular feeding ground for siaka. For the first time in her life, her mother seemed interested in interacting with her as a person. Nearly an hour out of port, they found an area where the siaka were thick and so interested was Sesus Rafara in watching the siaka, she didn't even notice that her mother had brought S'Zil and Blossom Diri up on deck, naked. S'Zil was resolute, but it was Blossom Diri's blubbering that made Sesus Rafara look up from the water. As she watched, her mother gave each a shallow cut across the cheek with a dagger. She tried to save them, but her mother tripped her and it was from her prone position that she saw Diri's terrified face fall past the deck and heard the splash as Blossom Diri hit the water. She screamed and cried for another few seconds and then there was a wet noise that wasn't quite a splash, followed by silence.
S'Zil was more stoic, smiling at Sesus Rafara before being pushed toward and then over the ship's railing. Sesus Rafara tried not to cry and her mother forced her to her feet and gave her a shallow cut across the cheek like S'Zil and Blossom Diri. She felt the wound more acutely than any pain she'd ever known. It was as if her mother's blade was on fire, but it was not the blade that was on fire, but Sesus Rafara. Her rage had Exalted her and she lunged at her mother with a fury she'd never before felt. She landed a solid punch on her mother, which burned her quite badly. There was a sharp impact on her head as her mother lunged back at her, and then nothing more.
For the remainder of her time at her parents' house, she did not speak to her mother at all. Her father was more sympathetic and extremely proud of her. When she was not being tutored, she was with her father, learning anything she could about his work. Sesus Rafara was sure that her father realized that her sudden fascination with weapons came from her desire to kill her mother, but he had the grace not to say anything.
[edit] Since her Exaltation
Sesus Rafara did not attend secondary school, as most other Exalts do, but instead was trained as far from others as she could possibly be. While others were practicing dating behavior and making contacts for later use in life, she was being trained in a disused hunting lodge her family owns in the mountains south of Bright Obelisk. The Manse was huge, a ruin from the First Age that had been, more or less, restored to its original state. Her teachers were Dragon-Blooded men and women, and the youngest of them was still over a century older than she was at the time. They were the master spies of House Sesus. They taught her how to study other people, to masquerade as other people, to seduce other people, to obtain other people's secrets and then, if necessary, to kill other people. Physical training and academic instruction were alternated to keep either from growing too tedious. Her instructors were neither kind nor cruel. They were formal, stern and for the most part, fair. They were training her to be a spy, but specifically, a spy with an outsider's perspective. For that reason, they kept her from learning the standard imperial histories, the advanced catechism of the Dragons or any of the standard curricula that the other schools force-fed their students. In the last year of her training, they did teach her these things, but presented them as "what is believed in the Realm".
To shield her from as much cultural bias as possible, she was taught by instructors from all over Creation. They tried to make it as if she was being honored to be trained like she was, but she realized that in doing so, House Sesus made sure that she would never marry well, would never have children and would never personally experience the benefits enjoyed by every other Dynast. Her parents, on the other hand, benefited enormously from selling her out. Her mother smiles more now than she ever did when Rafara was a child.
Since being used as a spy for House Sesus, she has come into the assignment of following the movements of Tepet Ejava, the Roseblack in order to destroy her for political reasons. Sesus Rafara has taken it as a challenge and a point of pride to diminish the effectiveness of her reports to the point of being nearly useless against the Roseblack.
[edit] Stories involving Sesus Rafara
None at present.
[edit] Other notes on Sesus Rafara
- She is a bitter spy and a conniver by nature.
- She desires nothing more than the death of her mother.
- She is an accomplished spy and is currently altering information gathered on her target, Tepet Ejava, the Roseblack.
- She carries court poison with her at all times.
[edit] References
- Exalted (2001) - ISBN 1-56504-623-4, WW8800.
- Aspect Book: Fire (2004) - ISBN 1-58846-676-0, WW8842.
- Exalted: Second Edition (2006) - ISBN 1-58846-684-1, WW80000.
- The Manual of Exalted Power, Vol I: The Dragon Blooded (2006) - ISBN 1-58846-688-4, WW80100.
| Exalted | ||
|---|---|---|
| Types of Exalts and other Magical Beings | Solar Exalted | Abyssal Exalted | Infernal Exalted | Lunar Exalted | Sidereal Exalted | Alchemical Exalted | Terrestrial Exalted (The Dragon-Blooded) | Raksha (The Fair Folk) | Dragon Kings | God-Blooded | |
| Major Magical Beings | The Primordials | The Yozis | The Neverborn | Gaia | Autochthon | The Unconquered Sun | Luna | The Five Celestial Maidens | The Five Elemental Dragons | The Deathlords | |
| Five Magical Materials | Orichalcum | Moonsilver | Jade | Starmetal | Soulsteel | |
| Signature Characters | Solar Exalted: Dace | Yurgen Kaneko, the Bull of the North | Panther | Samea | Arianna | Harmonious Jade | Swan Abyssal Exalted: Maiden of the Mirthless Smile | Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes | Seven Degreed Physician of Black Maladies | Disciple of the Seven Forbidden Wisdoms | Prince of Shadows | Falling Tears Poet Lunar Exalted: Lilith, the Owl Woman | Strength of Many | Magnificent Jaguar | Anja Silverclaws Sidereal Exalted: Shepherd of the North Star | Iron Siaka | Crimson Banner Executioner | May Blossom | Chejop Kejak | Black Ice Shadow | Sad Ivory Terrestrial Exalted: Tepet Arada | Mnemon | Cynis Denovah Avaku | Sesus Rafara | Peleps Deled | Sesus Nagezzer, the Slug | Tepet Ejava, the Roseblack Alchemical Exalted: Stern Whip of Industry | Fair-Spoken Rishi | Excessively Righteous Blossom | Unhesitatingly Loyal Weapon (?) | Lissome Avid Engineer Infernal Exalted: Lintha Ng Hut Dukantha The Raksha: Lord Kazour | Neshi of the Double Whips | Subarto | Dilari of the Sea Foam | Nlassa of the Lion's Mane | Laughing Boy | Shikuzi the Weaver | Judge Nehemeth The Mountain Folk: Kravah |
|
| Exalted Universe | Anima Banner | The Blessed Isle | Celestial Gateways | Creation | The Cult of the Illuminated | Denandsor | Elemental Poles | Essence | The Great Contagion | The Great Curse | The Heptagram | The House of Bells | The Immaculate Order | The Imperial City | The Imperial Mountain | The Lap | Lookshy | Malfeas, the Demon Realm | Nexus | Rakshastan | The Scarlet Empress | The Scavenger Lands | Shadowlands | The Skullstone Archipelago | Thorns | The Threshold | The Underworld | Whitewall | The Wyld Hunt | Yu-Shan, the Heavenly City | |
| Source Materials | Sourcebooks | Novels | Comics | |
