Exida Exis

Exida Exis is a character in Vendetta.

Equipment/Abilities:
Twofold: the Laurels of Vivembre and a Virgina Slim cigarette. One is a necessity, the other is vanity. The Laurels are the hallmark of a hero, or at least they should be. Made of solid gold or something like it, they weigh more than you’d expect and cost more than you as an individual are worth by any reasonable market standard. Not that you’d sell them. They’re antiques. The Laurels give the wearer what’s been described as a “commanding aura”: most beings find it not exactly difficult to refuse an order under it, but certainly highly disagreeable. Roughly akin to disappointing someone for whom one holds a great deal of respect. It also has a tendency to make the wearer look more impressive than they would otherwise, which helps when your antlers barely scrape five feet.

The true purpose of the Laurels, however, is to inspire heroism in all those unfortunate souls that behold them. “Hero” is, however, a vaguely defined term, and what this really tends to boil down to is amplifying certain qualities: strength, courage, altruism, a sense of justice, a swollen ego and being a goddamn showoff, among others. Given Exida’s less than noble intentions, these can be skewed in more or less any way he wants to a virtually unlimited degree. The only restriction is that the Laurels cannot manipulate what isn’t already there, which is why he is capable of wearing them without doing something idiotic. But why should you have to worry about that happening to you? You’re a hero. You’re invincible.

There is nothing special about the cigarette except that no one knows how it was lit.

Description:
A young fallow stag, slightly over three feet at the shoulder and pearly white in color. Slender hooves, liquid eyes, an ethereal grace to its step. No record of rabies vaccination, likewise ownership. Genetic profiling would reveal further details but you should never trust a doctor, now should you? Exida wears a golden crown of laurels around his neck like a collar due to them being too large and heavy for the head of a smallish deer; other than them and the cigarette there isn’t much to distinguish him from a normal animal except for the disgusted look on his cervine face and the golden polish on his hooves.

He has a mind like a bear trap in the sense that once it’s set on something it’s unlikely to come loose, and also in the sense that he might give you tetanus. Exida is a nasty personality with few redeeming qualities to speak of other than what in a better man might be called dedication and charisma. He tends to speak bluntly and cruelly, wasting little time on dealing with those he sees as weak and deserving of suffering; this leads to some people underestimating his intelligence, which while not exceedingly bright has a bitter sort of cunning to it. He can be charming at times, especially with the Laurel’s aura, but this is in no way a reflection of the truth. Exida hates you. You, personally, from the moment you were born, because you exist. There is nothing he wants more than to be the cause of the last flicker of hope fading from your eyes as you die in the wreckage of everything you hold dear. Exida wants to watch you suffer. Exida wants to boil your children alive and beatbox to their screams. That’s the kind of deer he is.

Biography:
“Motion to expel Exida Exis from the Disastrous Seven will now come to a vote. Six presiding.”

The stag glared at the gathered entities from the head of an ancient mahogany table, the surface slicked to a dull gleam by decades of greased palms. Wisps of noxious smoke billowed from its nostrils as it shifted the cigarette clamped between its lips, glaring at the smugly slumped forms of the remaining members. The closest were just barely visible under the dim glow of the gaslights.

“It’s really only a formality, Five,” Six purred to him, breaking the increasingly uncomfortable silence. She was seated to his left in a cloud of furs and blood diamonds, flaunting the official powdered wig. Behind her mask a pair of silvery eyes glittered like old money. “It’s just that we need to rethink things a bit now that you’ve… changed.”

“I shudder to think that my presence would be unwelcome,” Exida said. If any of the beings gathered at the table were surprised to hear a man’s baritone coming from the animal’s mouth, they made no sign of it. “But I seem to recall that when Four suffered his misfortune no such measure was taken.”

Six sighed. “You don’t have to be difficult, F- Exida. The fact of the matter is Four wasn’t… afflicted, such as you have been. He- ”

“He stayed human, is that it?” The stag’s empty black eyes moved to one of the chairs on the far end of the table. A towering column of some dark substance roiled silently; a limp figure was faintly visible within. “Not conscious, not sentient, but human. Human and presentable.”

A fan presented itself from nowhere in particular and began to flap lazily in the hand of Six. “Well yes, if you must be blatant about it.”

The stag gave a snort and placed its gilded hooves on the table. “I have served on this council for fifteen years and not once have I ever heard of any restrictions on such a trivial matter as species. Where exactly would that leave Seven?”

From the other end of the table came a rumbling bellow that shook the dust from the extinguished chandeliers. A skinned-looking bird skull chattered from a heaving tangle of mismatched limbs in Exida’s direction, who ignored it. “You, Three, and Four are the only ones here excluding myself who have any claim to humanity,” the deer said, shaking its antlers. “And of those Four is catatonic, Three is borderline mechanical, and you yourself have had so much ‘work’ done that one wonders if the people you’re made from might be considered to be in a healthier state than you. There is no basis for this decision!”

“How dare-!”

“Jusssst. Tell him already,” Three’s pneumatics hissed. The heaps of machinery keeping her alive rattled with irritation. “I have had. Enoughhh. Of these theatricssss.”

Six’s furs bristled with indignation, but she turned to the irate deer and patted its foremost hoof consolingly. “It’s just that we have a sort of standard to uphold, you know- Four still looks respectable and Seven is at least intimidating-”

“You look ridiculous,” Four said abruptly. His slackened body twitched. “You’re a deer.”

Silence fell over the table. Machinery whirred and hissed.

“Ridiculous?”

“Well, that’s not how I would put it-”

“Ridiculous?” The deer screamed, slamming a hoof on the table and cracking the wood. It swung its head, narrowly avoiding impaling Six’s skull on its antlers. “Ridiculous? Look at me! Look at yourselves! Ridicbwip”

Exida vanished. All that remained were a few wisps of smoke dissipating under the table.

“He handled that well,” Two said, and tore another mouthful from One’s corpse.