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Sol Invictus

Back to Markuran The Bear

Mortal Deeds

• In his passage to adulthood, Markuran battled with a mad Grizzly, the fight that earned him his name and defined his totem animal. Around his right bicep curls a band of tattooed symbols, telling the story of how he wrestled the bear until he broke it’s mighty back. The grizzly left four deep claw marks in Marku’s left pectoral muscle, which pained him for years, until the Exaltation made the scars easily bearable.
• Marku battled one of the great Tyrant Lizards of the East when the beast attacked his village and attempted to carry off several of his fellow hunters for its dinner. Battling the giant lizard, Markuran was nearly bitten in half by its arm-length fangs before driving a spear into its eye. The teeth of the beast left a thick scar around his right leg, running from just above the knee to his hip.
• One of the few wounds Marku gathered in his assortment of encounters with the Fae that arose from the nearby Wyld Zones in the Southeastern Mountains is an arrow wound in his right shoulder where the diamond head of a goblin’s shaft struck deep into the bone. The goblin died soon after, its neck snapped in one of Marku’s powerful hands.

Exalted Triumphs

• Battling the undead of the Mask when they invaded the Marukani gained Marku only minor wounds, slashes on his left fist where the hooks and claws hidden in the chain swathing of the Abyssal general tried to rend his hand as he grappled with her. A slice from one of the hooks remains, just to the side of his collar bone, where he held her against him as he snapped her neck.
• When Zahara summoned Lucien for the first time, she escaped without permanent scars, but the demon’s knives cut across the chakrum wounds, turning two into crosses that pull painfully whenever Marku is giving a speech.
• When the Walker in Darkness set his armies against the Solars at the conference with the Mask, Marku went unscathed except for minor wounds. But the necromantically charged blood of the undead behemoth that he crippled seeped into his wounds, leaving permanent stains in his flesh. Covered in so much of the gore, Marku was able to fashion the marks into a tattoo of his victory, a collection of broken bones.
• Though the first Wyld Hunt that came to kill Markuran left him unscarred, the one that attempted to ‘reclaim’ the Starmetal Meteorite left several scars. The blades of the unconverted Relovia seared a burn deep into the outside of Marku’s left forearm and her Air-Aspected companion’s chakrums cut into Marku’s lower back, leaving a trio of slices that retain a slight pattern of ice frost in the scarring.
• The Wyld-touched yeddim that nearly killed both Cerin and Markuran left two of his worst battle scars. Because of the ignominy of being brought low by a giant sloth, no matter how vicious and powerful, Marku embellished the wounds with tattoos and ash, making the long talon slices down his right flank appear as if made by a flaming sword instead of a metal claw. The gory hole in his belly could not be helped, so he maintains it was the only yeddim-inflicted wound, the massive hole left as he leapt into the yeddim’s mouth to kick its brain out. The scar tissue covers the upper right quarter of his abdomen.
• The friendly duel with Selonis the Celestial Lion is one of Marku’s most prized battles, leaving him with great claw-marks from the good Lion across both his back and chest. The scars do not pull or hurt, they shine in tune with his Anima should they ever be exposed when the Bronze Bear flares in battle. After the battle, Marku was given a few strands of the Celestial Lion’s mane and smelted them into ink he used to tattoo his left arm, writing the story of his wrestling match in a few symbols across the outside of his left bicep. He hopes to add to the story each time he matches against Selonis until he finishes the ring of tattoos.
• “Recruiting” a pack of Terrestrial spies for Cerin’s use was painful and bloody, leaving Markuran with infected wounds from the treacherous javelins of the Wood Aspect who died in the battle. The wounds left a trio of round scars in Marku’s back and one in his left side.
• A carefully regulated match against the Fae Lord Rovash the Infinite left Marku with a pair of light scars, a straight, vertical slice in the muscle of his back and chest from the watery blades of the Wyld Lord. These scars are likely to fade with time, though they change shape slowly as the moon changes phase in the sky, from straight line to sinuous curve across Marku’s flesh.
• In his challenge to demonstrate honor for the Silver Pact, Marku was forced to battle a Lunar gone mad with grief and uncontrolled animal instinct. Stripped of his Charms for the battle, Marku fought as a mortal against an Exalt and won. During the course of the battle Markuran rammed his fist down the Lunar's throat and earned a circle of toothmarks just above his elbow, dragged down when Vashu pulled the fist from his gullet. Filled with Moonsilver, the scars remain as his flesh-bound accord with the Pact and Luna.

Trophies of Battle

Much of the ceremonial clothing Marku prefers was won in battle. The bearskin tunic that recently he has added to so that it covers his arms to the elbow while leaving his chest bare to display the best of his scars was won in his right of passage. His hrstal-fur cloak was only recently made from the hide of the great beast he slew while hunting with the Petrok Vasimi. The knives Markuran carries at his side, though he uses them only for carving and eating, are made from the teeth of the Tyrant Lizard he slew as a mortal and the Yeddim that tried to chew him in half contributed a steel-and-ivory horn to his collection of carvings, the embellished story of the battle carved into it with its own claws and stained with its black-red blood.

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