First Sentinel character sheet + microfiction (Patreon)

It's my 1-year anniversary on Patreon, so I'm celebrating by publishing this once-a-year reward to the Bladecrafter level - a character sheet for one of my characters and an accompanying piece of microfiction.

This time, we have Wonlar aka First Sentinel from my novel Shield & Crocus, as imagined in Blades in the Dark, a game by John Harper from One Seven Design, published by Evil Hat Games.

I'd been thinking about a Shield & Crocus hack of Blades since seeing an early version of the game during the Kickstarter several years ago, so this brings that to fruition in a small way, though I haven't moved ahead with writing the hack itself - I think I'd want to do more with the world before bringing it to the world of RPGs.

N.B. This is set after the end of the novel, so there are some big spoilers if you haven't read the book.

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Wonlar couldn't find anything in this new apartment. He and Selweh had lived in that place in Audec's Bowels for years, long enough for the intentional messiness to settle into comfort. File folders and neat stacks were inefficient when he could hold the apartment in his mind like a memory palace.

But now they'd moved, the new apartment was a whole different shape, and nothing was where it was supposed to be. Wenlizerachi had done them the great favor of moving them in with his unmatched speed, but with him gone, Wonlar had to pick apart his fallen friend's logic about which papers went with which. 

A small, silly thing to miss when someone's absence left a hole in your hear, when you'd already buried three other members of their family, each life given in the fight to liberate the city. The City Mother was free but the fight was far from over and Wonlar was hobbling around the apartment losing his calm over a single piece of paper and the formula for the sealant for his fighting sticks.

His teapot whistled, pulling him back to the kitchen to pour fresh water over his thrice-refreshed mug of dounmo tea. He sank onto his chair and drank, hoping the fresh burst of stimulant would unlock the mystery that had plagued him for the better part of the morning. There were a thousand things to do but he couldn't even try to start until he'd found the page.  He walked to the chest where Blurred Fists' fighting gloves awaited cleaning so they could be put back into use. They were the ninth or maybe tenth version, the first made for Wenlizerachi's great-grandmother. But Wenlizerachi had no other family, so they might be the last version, he the last Blurred Fists. 

There. Beneath the gloves. He grabbed the paper with his little finger, still holding the gloves and steadying himself on the cane.

City Mother only knew how it had wound up in the chest with the repairs, but there it was. 

Sichi buds. Of course. He'd switched from the red root for the resonance of flexibility, the Sichi tree swaying through storms rather than cracking. He held the gloves up to the light, let a thousand memories of the house of Chi wash over him like waves, then set the gloves on a table for later as he returned to his working station to restore the sticks and get on with his work.