These are holding up rather well, given that I wrote some of them over a decade and a half ago.
Samuel
Cherub of Purity
Corporeal Forces: 6 Strength: 12 Agility: 12
Ethereal Forces: 6 Intelligence: 12 Precision: 12
Celestial Forces: 6 Will: 12 Perception: 12
Vessel: older, grizzled, wiry male/6, Charisma +3
Skills: Dancing/6, Dodge/6, Fighting/6, Large Weapon/6, Ranged Weapon/6, Savoir-Faire/6, Small Weapon/6, Tactics/6
Songs: Hint: if it involves doing, removing or avoiding damage, Samuel knows it at level/6. There are specialists for all the other stuff.
Attunements: Cherub of Purity
Relics: Please. If he needs something specific, he’ll borrow it from someone. Laurence would hand him his current sword if Samuel asked for it, no questions asked.
There are uncounted warriors of the Host. There are many, many elite fighters. There are quite a few Vassals of the Sword, a good many Friends of the Lord’s Troops, and a respectable number of Masters of the Armies of God. There are some Majors, Colonels and Generals, and a handful of Grand Masters. There have even been three Supreme Commanders of the Host.
There is, however, only one Sergeant Major.
The skill system breaks down completely when trying to map out someone of Samuel’s experience and aptitude. He is, simply, the best fighter on both sides who isn’t a Superior. If he wants you dead, you’re dead. If he wants you maimed, you’re maimed. If he wants you hanging off of a tree branch, vaguely wondering where that annoying loud ringing noise is coming from, by God you’ll end up that way. It doesn’t matter who’s better armed: Samuel, bare handed, is a better weapon than you’ll ever hope to own. Grim Lord of Battles, it doesn’t even matter if there isn’t a tree within ten miles.
You will note that he has no Attunements or Distinctions, other than his basic Choir Attunement to Purity. He doesn’t need them. You will also note that his skills have no specialization noted. That’s because he’s equally skilled in
all of them. Samuel’s had 20,000 years of constant battle to refine his art, and it shows.
Samuel hasn’t seen as much battle as he might have hoped, lately. Being Sergeant Major under Michael was easy enough: find demons, kill demons, find more demons. When Michael stepped down and Uriel took over, Samuel found his job expanded to include training new angels how to fight. This wasn’t a particular problem, considering that the Archangel of Purity considered life-fire exercises to be the only proper way to learn. Every officer in the Host in a certain age bracket has been taught by Samuel – painfully – and they all remember the experience quite vividly.
This, incidentally, includes the Archangels of Faith and the Sword. Granted, Laurence has only once been defeated… in a sword fight. Even Samuel couldn’t force more than a draw, back when Laurence was merely a Word-bound. Alas, the Word of the Sword does not include the concept “defending yourself in a bare-knuckle fight”… something that the young angel discovered when he mouthed off one too many times. Khalid, being a bit smarter, never needed quite so much of an attitude adjustment, but he has his own, slightly embarrassing, memories.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone that Laurence and Samuel got along quite well, after the bruises of the former faded: the cliché of “the wet-behind-the-ears, painfully-young hotshot officer matched up with the pragmatic, S.O.B., grizzled-yet-starkly-dangerous career N.C.O.” exists for a reason. Uriel began using the Sar-Major to keep an eye on his protégé, especially as the Purity Crusade began to crank up into high gear. Samuel and Laurence worked well together in that conflict: while Laurence was a consummate soldier even then, having someone you can absolutely trust to handle problems without supervision is always a pearl beyond price.
But the Crusade didn’t last forever: it ended with Uriel’s… well, not “arrest”. Very few entities ever had the personal might to make the Archangel of Purity do anything except what he blessed well pleased. However, the full legion detailed to ‘escort’ Uriel to the Council was enough to make Laurence and Khalid reach for their swords… until they saw Samuel’s expression. The angel had been watching Uriel, and seeing as Uriel had visibly decided not to start the Second Revolt right then and there, it was clear that his subordinates weren’t to do anything stupid. The Archangel of Purity watched this by-play in his cold fashion, then nodded. “Good,” Uriel finally intoned. “Keep them out of trouble until I return.” He turned without further speech, and was marched off… although an outside observer might not be blamed if he concluded that Uriel was actually leading his ‘captors’.
Today, Samuel is still the Sergeant Major of the Host. He knows the troops, knows what they can do and can’t, and oversees their training and day-to-day operations. Don’t let his lack of apparent rank fool you: Samuel could be Grand Master of any Holy Order in a nanosecond. He simply chooses not to seek rank. Besides, he already has the ear of Laurence, who considers him an irreplaceable font of hard-earned wisdom in war. Samuel, for his part, has a deep respect for Laurence’s superior skills in strategic thought: the Sar-Major knows how to do things, but he’s beyond his depth when it comes to comprehending the Big Picture, and he knows it. He’s also on very good terms with Michael and David: the three of them, old soldiers to the core, understand each other in ways that the younger generations can’t hope to duplicate.
With those advantages, formal rank is irrelevant. Besides, Samuel has his orders, and they don’t include self-aggrandizement. After all, when Uriel comes back, he’s going to expect a full report…