Niobe the Defiant
Saint of Duty, Oaths, Murder, and Punishment
Titles: Saint Niobe the Defiant, The Lordshadow, The Wolf, Lady Necktaker, The Unseen Plague, Oathkeeper, The Punisher
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Alignment: Void
Elemental Lord: Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor
Obedience: Spend an hour penning your current oaths onto paper in stylized calligraphy. Once done, cut the paper into strips and hang it from your armor or clothing.
Effect: Weapons you throw gain the 'returning' weapon special quality. You can teleport to the square a thrown weapon lands in as a swift action a number of times per day equal to your 1+ CONMOD(Min 1).
Divine Domains
Death, Trickery, Darkness, Rune, Law(Legislation, Loyalty, Judgement Subdomains ONLY)
Holy Books & Codes
The Jitu Code
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A dagger in flight with a wire attached to the hilt and entwined around it
Tenets of Faith
Only in death does duty end. Stay loyal to your lord, cause, and given word and carry out your duty to its bitter end.
Ensure those who deserve punishment recieve it. Ensure each punishment matches the crime.
Take no life wantonly or without reason. Each kill must have purpose for your lord or cause.
Take any route to victory, no matter how underhanded. There is no honor in defeat.
Preperation is the key to success. Know thy enemy and enter each battle prepared.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
To serve the ends of Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor.
To deliver a final death to Eria the Stimulating.
To teach the ways of true murder to all.
Followers & Priesthood
The followers of Niobe stand in stark contrast to the likes of Eria the Stimulating - where the followers of Eria are capricious, murderous, and followers to their desires, Niobe's followers are the exact opposite - they are tempered and loyal, and hone their murderous edges in pursuit of higher goals. Followers of Niobe tend to dress in full-body suits or in outfits that leave little to no skin exposed, often wearing the color black as their most prominent color with red being a popular accent color - they prefer gear and armor and clothing that is lightweight and easy to move around in, and often wear belts of knives, poisons, vials, and the like - anything to make their jobs easier. Followers of Niobe do not commonly form 'churches' in the traditional sense - they often roam the land as wandering, masterless warriors in pursuit of a worthy master, lord, or cause to serve - and once they find such a cause, they swear themselves into its service as a loyal and dedicated member. They thusly do not often have ranks as other Saint's Churches do - when followers of Niobe meet, it is either as allies working towards the same cause or enemies serving different lords...and while respect may be had between them, this respect and duty also means that only rarely do they both walk away from such a meeting - their code demands they serve their lord to their utmost and eliminate any threats to them. When they do form churches, followers of Niobe form 'guilds' where freelance members of the faith gather together to sell out their services to others to make it easier for members of the faith to find suitable causes. Once hired or sworn in to a cause or master, Niobe's followers are akin to deadly shadows - they work from the shadows to serve the light, performing whatever tasks are demanded of them by their master or cause no matter how grisly or undesirable. Her followers can range anywhere from dedicated ninja to loyal samurai, feudal lords, or any warrior or creature looking to embody her tenets of loyalty and dedication - to temper their murderous urges with loyalty and duty. Oftentimes, her followers will recruit others into the faith by saving them from death or from dangerous situations to show them the 'better life' possible in Niobe's service - those who have a hard time resisting their murderous urges often find their lives made easier when a follower of Niobe teaches them to hone those urges with loyalty. Likewise, a child adopted from the battlefield is not uncommon to them, and these children are often trained and raised in the ways as fledgling ninja or samurai, taught from a young age of the 'better life' possible in Niobe's service.Ethics
Nothing is more sacred to a follower of Niobe than loyalty to a given cause or lord. This may take the form of a personal code sometimes for wandering members of the faith, but more commonly does it take the form of a specific creature or organization they swear themselves to, or sometimes a given cause - and once sworn into its service, a true follower of Niobe will almost never be found betraying that which they have sworn to themselves. Only death of either themselves or their given master is enough to sway them, and even then, they will oftentimes only rest once the given cause of their lord's death is found and put down in the most brutal and bloody of fashions. This dedication to loyalty and upholding of Oaths makes them ideal arbiters of contracts - they are often talented litigators and can serve as talented creators or overseers of contract signing or creation. Central to the creed of Niobe is the ways of duty and loyalty - upholding one's given word and tempering the act of murder with loyalty is believed to take the otherwise brutal and violent act and turn it into a righteous one - as is often said by followers of Niobe, "A kill done wantonly is murder. A kill done in service to another is a chore.". To this end, they believe that victory is all that matters - codes of honor might prohibit them from certain actions and they will follow those duties or codes if it pertains to their duty, but otherwise they hold no qualms in any tactic, no matter how underhanded or dirty. All that matters in the end is victory - they hold no illusions that they are made 'better' for killing according to a specific creed - a killing is a successful chore, nothing more. Because of this, followers of Niobe are often festooned with a vast plethora of tools, gear, and items that serve to outfit them for any given scenario - allowing them to adapt and respond to the changing battlefield with flexibility and speed. Most unique among these tools are cats - they tend to keep cats on their person as natural clocks, using their eye watches as natural tellers of time. Unlike some more rigid samurai who treasure a different code, followers of Niobe see no shame in defeat - as long as one survives, all is not lost, so revenge must be taken. Finally, they are notorious arbiters of justice and due punishment - even when wandering absent a cause or lord, a follower of Niobe is likely to intervene in matters of law and see a given criminal or creature punished if they judge they deserve it - no creature can be above punishment for due crimes, they believe - and they often take it upon themselves to mete out that punishment as deadly vigilantes.History
Niobe's history is one that traces itself back to the beginning period of the Age of Conquest nearly a thousand years ago - as one of the many faceless Ninja serving a small-scale feudal lord, she lived her life in silence and carried her duties out with thankless dedication. But with the rise of the great empires of the time, the lands of her lord came under threat from the newly born Narixian Empire and its warrior-nomads, the Narixians - these mighty warrior-nomads came crushing down on her lord and his lands like a meteoric hammer, and her lord and his lands quickly fell to the Narixian hordes - leaving her absent of master. Rallying the survivors of her lord's servants and setting out to take revenge, Niobe spent the next years of her life hunting the head of the Narixian Clans, the Narix'ana, for his transgressions against her lord. She spent years waging a campaign of guerilla warfare against the Narixian Empire - and with deadly precision and a powerfully tactical mind, she and her surviving clan of ninjas from her lord's lands wreaked untold havoc on the Narixian Invaders, sending camp after camp up in hails of thundering flame, destroying supply lines, and more - such that in time, she became known as the Xina'de, or "Demon of Choking Flame" in the Narixian tongue. Her campaign of revenge lasted nearly a decade - during which the other survivors from her lords lands fell one by one, dying off or abandoning her to her single-minded pursuit of revenge - until in the end, only Niobe herself remained. At the end of her decade-long journey, Niobe stood as the last living vestige of her lord and his lands - her lord had long since perished in Narixian prisons, and her allies had long since fled or died - and on her final mission she at long last made her stand before the Narix'ana themselves. She fought like a demon, and had all but fully embraced her legend - many stories tell of her having actually succumbed to fiendish corruption due to a degrading mental state, but regardless she and the Narix'ana dueled atop the remains of her Lord's castle...and in the end, Niobe herself was slain, though she took the left arm, right foot, left eye, and crippled her enemy from the waist down before she fell. But true to Narixian culture, she was not vilified - the Narix'ana, in honor of her ferocious fight, gave her a full Narixian funeral and declared her a mighty warrior to be remembered - returning her lord's lands to her lord's descendants as a final tribute to his fallen enemy. And as reward for her final struggle, Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor canonized Niobe into a saint at his side, rewarding her undying loyalty with entrance into the heavens above as mortals on Zheng-Kitar remembered her struggle and were inspired for it, coming to form churches around her beliefs and thus forming the basis of her sainthood.
When done in pursuit of duty, killing is a chore like any other.
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Lordsworn: Follow the orders of your chosen lord absolutely, even if doing so would mean your own death. Protect your lord with your life and never let him come to harm. Never take a life unless done in pursuit of your lord's goals in some way, or done on orders from them. If your lord dies or comes to harm, stop at nothing to deliver revenge to the perpetrator.
Oath of the Contractor: Never tell a blatant lie. Always uphold your given word.
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