Thursday, February 16, 2012

Meet Xico, the Aztec cleric

I have a cleric that I will play as an NPC in some of the games my kids run through to help fill out a group since there are only my two kids and that's not enough PC's to make a decent game of it.

Xico (pronounced Chico) is short for "Xichotencotl", but most people just can't get it right.  He is a different kind of cleric.  He will only offer to heal other characters who he believes have gotten their wounds "honorably".

He is a pro with a mace or maul.  There are no problems he has with collecting souls for his deity, Quetzalcoatl, in "honorable" combat.

If he finds someone or something to be entirely devoid of honor, he will seriously consider offering that person or creature up as a sacrificial victim, "old style", to his deity.

Xico is a lot of fun to play because he is very set in the way he sees many things.  He is very much a "black and white" kind of cleric in terms of what he interprets his deity demands and intentions as.

Here's a bit of his recent past...

The young warrior priest watched the thief from a distance.  the thin, lanky man was deft in his movements and the old vendor, being distracted by a quarrelsome customer didn't even register the thief had snagged several hundred of gold coins worth of jewelry... but Xico did.

This was a man of no honor at all.  He stole from others with no thought or  concern of how that would leave his victims.  Whether they might have plenty besides or if that was all they had to trade in and would starve or be homeless without them.

Xico walked directly in the direction of the thief, making no effort to hide the fact that a highly decorated and well known warrior-priest of the great god Queztalcoatl was drawing the crowds attention as he strode with great purpose toward the skinny thief who was also aware of the priest's approach but had nowhere to go with the crowd closing in around them.

Xico began to silently chant as he came near the thief and within moments, the thin man realized he simply could not move anymore, no matter how much he wanted to run quick as he could from the fast approaching priest.

Xico said in a loud voice for everyone nearby to hear clearly, "You are a dishonor to this world and you will not shame those who you live among and prey upon any longer."  With those words, his right hand rose up with a mean looking mace and bashed the thief in the side of his head.

The man fell to the ground, still immobile, and as Xico knelt beside him he brought out the long ceremonial dagger from his belt and before the pitiful thief could die, had stabbed in to his chest and quickly cut out and pulled forth his heart.

As the thief lay dead in the street, Xico chanted loudly in a strong voice a series of words that culminated in the fiery disappearance of the heart that had been thrust high into the air in his hand.

The crowd gasped silently but none would dare challenge a true warrior-priest of Quetzalcoatl and the crowd dispersed as quickly and quietly as they had formed,  leaving only the body of a dead thief and Xico walking away from the body, pausing only long enough to return the jewelry to the vendor and go on his way again in search of battle and honor for his god.

In his homeland, he and his brothers are the law of the land and none will dare contest their dominance.  On the road while on a quest or in pursuit of someone or something that must be returned, the great warrior-priests are only slightly less obvious in their actions and how they deal with others.

Many a Marshall or lawman of another land has tried to subdue or imprison these powerful priests but few ever succeed or manage to hold them for long as their god Quetzalcoatl is known to shower his most faithful and ambitious priests with favors.  Very few are more faithful or as ambitious in carrying out the ways of the god as Xico.

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