Character

character sheet

name: Jane Doe

appearance: Jane Doe is an...odd person. Standing rather tall, at 1.8 meters, with long golden blonde (dyed) hair, blue eyes and an overall indistinct appearance. She often dresses in a simple light green robe, which signifies the orders' third stage of mastery (the order values their mastery as white for rank 1-3, red for ranks 4-6, green for 7-9 and blue for rank 10 of mastery of the style, although read below on that last one).

It must be noted, that she also has a number of piercings across her body, that come as a result of her harsh tutelage, but again more on that below.

backstory:

The Soaring Polar Arrow. Legends of the order spoke of it's original master being a powerful archer who lived atop a great mountain that was incredibly difficult to climb. Those that came to him, did so seeking justice and vengeance over a person, or multiple. The master archer accepted only one request per year, however, and sometimes, people couldn't manage to make it to him within that time as well.

Whenever he heard a request, he judged it as worthy or not. The unworthy (read: petty and hypocritical) were shot dead on the spot, evaporated by the potency of the arrows. Those that were judged worthy, received justice via a very precise firing, from the mountain's top that annihilated the source of their anguish, wherever they may be. One day, a young man climbed the mountain and made an unusual request of the man...to be trained.

The man, unsure of how to respond to the request, found that he could not simply kill the young man, for he had technically done nothing wrong. And if he could not kill him, he'd have to accept the request. Thus, the young man begun his apprenticeship under the master.

Years later, when the apprentice had seemingly learned everything he could, he asked one more thing of the master. "Show me how, at this point, you are still my master, and me still your apprentice." Hoping to receive praise, of course, and be called himself a master.

The old man told him to take a seat, as he nocked an arrow, blinding to look at, and producing such strong winds that blew the away the cloud cover for miles and miles, and fired it at the night sky. Supposedly, the arrow was so powerful that it created a gap in space, that became known as the North Star, whereas the body of the master was thrown so far back, it too warped space and flung the masters' body into the afterlife, where he ascended into a form of pure light.

-------

Historians and academics, of course have mostly indicated that this was a pure myth, and the truth was far simpler, the master archer was potent, yet nowhere near as powerful as to have created a star, many, many light years away. Instead, he is attributed with destroying a city, through firing an arrow that was so powerful, it not only killed him, but also one of his apprentices who was standing far too nearby.

The current form of the style incorporates a more modern variation, which became required once more and more practitioners chose to join, and becoming iron-boned was considered difficult, and resource consuming. Some masters of the order developed the necessary techniques and training that was taught simultaneously with the actual arrow skills... The style shifted from one of tremendously long range and singular shots of terrible power, to small to mid range acrobatics and explosive arrows.

Jane was born to one of the greatest masters' of the style, and she was guided by her parents to become... a doctor, apparently. Realizing how dangerous the style could be to someone, her father would never have wanted his child to end up suffering using the style's techniques. (It should be noted, that her father was himself closer to the old art than anyone else, preferred firing long range thin shots, that possessed tremendous piercing power, and had some sort of method to avoid damage to his body entirely, but... he never shared).

Everything changed however, when a rival school attacked the mountain temples of the Soaring Polar Arrow masters, and then the villages under their protection (the temples were located near a number of mountain peaks, close to one another, and the villages in the relatively high altitude valleys). Jane's mother died, and her father left, saying that the whole thing did not make any sense, and that he'd go out of the way to find justice.

The Soaring Polar Arrow is a rather extreme style, but they barely, if ever bothered anybody, and they functioned on a basis of tremendous necessity. The full power of their style was said to be used only against the truly, irredeemably evil, which they had made extremely clear throughout their history, being rather reserved and isolated, yet not violent. There were allegations of their golden bows, reserved for their more potent masters were made by an A Rank Crafter, and the raids were there to find, and eliminate the threat, but that too was bullshit. So was the theory that the order was prepping said Crafter for S rank, as they tried to create a stage 4 (rank 10 mastery) (which would, according to the order, make S-Rank) master at once, and then giving him an immensely powerful bow.

Jane spent many years in the company of the monks, away from her father, and thus, without her family to influence her, turned to the style. A natural talent (for breaking her own bones?) she soared (ha!) through the ranks, until she was given the green robe...and permission to leave the monasteries, which of course she gladly took.

Her quest was a simple one, find the school that had initiated the massacre (a closely guarded mystery which she would be unable to discover within the monasteries) and then her father, and then find justice too. On top of that, running parallel was her quest for mastery... she wouldn't leave the job unfinished. If her father was the alleged 'closest man to the legend of the old master', she would be the one to surpass it.

She would fire an arrow so bright that the whole world would be able to see. She would then, live to tell the tale.

rank: C9 red

SPIRIT 2

unspent pp 0

base advantage: 40

ability points (ap)

other limited resource (if any)

skills

Skill: Archery
Mastery: 7
Cost:

Skill: Archery (Soaring Polar Arrow)

Description: Known to outsiders as 'Explosive Suicide Archery' and other less pleasant names, this school is a rather... potent, yet also potentially very dangerous to the user. It relies on charging up energy arrows, through a special bow, granted to practitioners. Arrows fire off very quickly and almost instantaneously, but tend to be no stronger than any normal, average arrow. Charging for more time powers the arrow up, but introduces recoil.

Recoil is, well...painful. When the arrow is charged sufficiently, it can cause the user to be shoved back a good distance, which masters of the art use, by taking a leap, and firing an arrow at the ground, which directs the recoil upwards. Thus, temporary flight of a sort (more like, propulsion and then gliding down).

It accommodates for a significant amount of aerobatics and charged up arrows not only are stronger, but also explosive. Masters of mastery 6 and above are said to be able to channel the arrows in such a way that instead of exploding, they maintain shape throughout their flight, and maintain a potent piercing effect. This has the effect of not actually damaging the users' bones over a moderate area. Instead, it tends to, if handled improperly outright shatter the bone in one specific, tiny area, or otherwise damaging  muscles.

It is thus, considered highly impractical, however should the arrow fire, it is essentially a very thin, very dense burst of pure, raw energy. Dangerous.

Mastery: 7
Cost:

Skill: Human Anatomy
Description: Knowledge of human anatomy. It helps when trying to avoid some of the recoil and damage. Certain muscles and bones tend to hurt or damage less, if struck from certain angles. This tends to alleviate SOME damage when considered, however some arrows are simply TOO powerful when fired, for damage to be avoided, so under those circumstances it is merely selecting the lesser of two evils ('lesser' being highly subjective or contextual. Sometimes 'arm or leg' is a choice between being unable to fire at someone and being unable to run away once you firing at them fails)
Mastery: 4
Cost:

Skill: Applied Physics
Mastery: 4

Skill: Applied Physics (Kinematics:
Description: Crunched skill. It denotes understanding of motion in general, and tends to help with things such as timing, angles and forces. One should note that arrow mass is a problem here, strictly speaking, due to the mass energy equivalence (the most famous physics equation of kids'shows for one), then their mass should be positively tiny, granted the user is not firing nuke level arrows (which have nuke-level recoil, at that point). It helps with getting creative about acrobatics. Not necessarily a prerequisite, merely a way to attain effectiveness.
Mastery: 4
Cost:


Skill:

abilities

passive abilities

Ability: Pain Dulling
Description: An odd nerve treatment that makes it so that the user will feel pain inversely proportional to it's actual value. Thus, being slapped (by a normal/D rank person) should not cause any reduction, but being run over by a car would not even be felt. Of course, the user would likely die afterwards, but hey, at least they die painlessly. While this skill is not absolutely necessary for the style (and indeed, old traditionalist masters are critical of it's use, as being counter to the philosophy of the style itself), it was discovered that all learners who were in fact not supernaturally enduring would simply faint after a few shots. Some even died. (More than some, according to the style's many critics).
Mastery: 7
Cost:

Ability: Power From Suffering
Description: A technique that allows the user to raise their inner reserves the more their body is hurt. This does not necessarily equate to pain being felt, rather, signifying the stage in which the users' body is damaged. At this point, power is generated, which the user puts into their arrows. It is important to note that the arrows have a POWER CAP. Which means, that an undamaged user can only fire the normal arrows.

A damaged user will likely be able to produce considerably potent explosions, however or fly all over the place. It must be noted that flight/acrobatics is available only through recoil, which in turn, is guaranteed to cause damage.
Mastery: 8 (Noteworthy may be the fact that this skill having a higher mastery than the above, using the maximum output of this specific ability will likely mean that the user would be feeling the pain associated with the mastery rank >7 of Pain Dulling which should be substantial and under almost any circumstances, faint worthy or worse)
Cost:
Cost

hybrid abilities

equipments and belongings

Considerable amount of healing herbs and the like. Some plaster. The golden bow associated with masters of above rank 6 of the style.

preference sheet (may be combined with the character sheet or independent)
preferences

lethality: If it suits the story, it suits the story.

Power Reduction: Certainly, seeing how the character operates.

Power Progression Certainly, again.

GMing mechanic style

Triggers

Arcs- want

Arcs-do not want