Jester Voss

Master of a Million Forms, Champion of Thunder, the World's Most Famous Adventurer, the Sagittariidae Jester Voss

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Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Everybody knows what Jester Voss looks like.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Jester Voss is the eldest member of the highly powerful and globally influential Voss family. Despite the name, he and his younger brother Xaro are the only blood relatives within the family. Even though they were born years apart, the two shared the same fate: they were discarded by their parents and left to die in the Nightveil Canopy and then happened upon by a community of Foul-bloods who were similarly disposed of in the same area. They were raised communally, and, when the two were old enough to speak, they swore loyalty, fealty, and service to each other with a brotherly pact. To better serve each other’s interests, they went to different parts of the world to master their different skill sets. Xaro, a naturally gifted magician, left the Sister States to learn alongside giants of the arcane, such as the mysterious Anselm Algernon, Syrene Randwyr, and even Brayden Bradley. Jester stayed in his home country, charting travel across the Valley of Renewal so he could make a pilgrimage to the Wu Jen Monastery and hone his body as his brother did his mind.
The Monastery was a good fit for Jester and he soon discovered he excelled at all tasks physical. He and all the other students would wake hours before daylight and begin their training. It was customary for a student to select one of the ancient forms and practice it to perfection, forms such as the Kensei, the Sun Soul, the Open Hand, the Shadow, or any one of a hundred dozen others. Within the first year of study, Jester had mastered twenty-five forms and earned the title of master martial artist, a title that allowed him to choose his own time for study and freely move between forms. Students from his class rumored that he could learn of a monastic tradition's existence from a scroll rack in the morning, practice its movements, and master it in a matter of days without ever needing the guidance of a master practitioner. Martial artists and monks who had been perfecting their style for a lifetime would travel from the furthest corners of Ec'algor to train with Jester and hone their form. By 22, he had completed the Alus Ari, an ancient tradition where a Monk fasts for a week and then runs non-stop across the Restless Sea from one Monastery lookout in Theotia to the other located at the southern tip of Terisirae.
At 25, the most senior member of the Wu Jen monastery permitted Jester to study the Order of the Secretary Bird. Believed to be the ultimate expression of martial arts prowess, this order had killed or disabled all but one of its previous students. Derived from the movements of the Secretary Bird, the form emphasizes opening one's instincts, delivering swift and deadly single blows, and using the legs to create and threaten space at the same time. At its highest level, practitioners of this form can even learn to fly. The internal focus and harnessing of Ki necessary to learn this form was so vast that the monastery's master, Ireshye, forbade students from attempting to learn it unless under his direct guidance. Even a genius fighter like Jester approached the form with caution and slowed his study of it to a pace less than one-fourth his normal speed. After years of study, Jester was still a lifetime away from a novice level of performance, and frustrated enough that his usual demeanor had soured significantly. Ireshye made an unusual recommendation that he had never made before, that for Jester to master the Order of the Secretary Bird, he must go out and hone it against worthy opponents. He had already proved his ability to practice the form without dying, so the only thing he could do to push his mastery further was to go out and find creatures that could push him to and past his limit. He left that evening to begin the life of an adventurer.
Jester went back to Terisirae and made his way into Western Anbhor, finding the country inundated by Guild Posts and Quests begging for adventurers. The freshman adventures of Jester Voss are well-cataloged in the famous book Iron Boss Voss: Adventures from 1032 - 1049. This book, published in 1067, was the first in a series that began in the wake of Jester's fame. Much of his celebrity was due to the highly public nature of the Quests Jester accepted. When he arrived in a new town, he would ask what business had been left in guild halls for the longest amount of time and had amassed the highest body count. Then, without fail, he would take the Quest, accomplish it within a fortnight, and return with proof of his conquest--always punctual, and always solo. Occasionally, he would hand-select a few to accompany him on an adventure, but it became quickly apparent they were there for company and to tell good stories, not to provide assistance on the mission. He quickly made a name for himself in Terisirae as a world-class adventurer, and bards around the country filled inns and concert halls alike with songs of his exploits. One of the passages in Iron Boss Voss reads as follows:

He slayed the Ashen Zombies of the Black Barrens who stood 1,000 shoulders strong and dethroned the Three Spider-Kings of Ingrid Rock. He did battle with the Warlocks of Voritox, and challenged the Ettercaps of Web Walker Point. He dismembered the Four-Armed Gargoyle of Mynmend Hall, then made a mockery of the East Pillar Manticores. In the South he did fend off Barghests, Black Puddings, and Behir's galore. He danced with the Succubus Queen Azarella and resisted her ineluctable charms. Jester decapitated a Deathlock in Dodahades and arm-wrestled Madrigal the Magnificent to a standstill in the mountain passes of the Green Line. Truly he is without equal!

He remained in Terisirae for some time, learning martial arts styles that were significant to the region, and expanding the influence of himself and his brother throughout the area. He "adopted" many people who were cast aside by greater society into the Voss family, such as the succubus Veronica, the Tiefling Akmenos, and the Yuan-Ti Maledict. These are just the known names of a makeshift family that stretches throughout Ec'algor. All the members of the Voss family are geniuses in their own right, masters of their specific craft, and all serve the collective mutual interest of their other family members. Each of them extends the influence of the others into different corners of Ec’algor and keeps the family up to date on notable events that take place anywhere on the continent. Together, the Voss family is able to subtly adjust and influence any region they determine to be disadvantageous to their specific goals, whether they be noble or nefarious, legal or not.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of the Voss family’s influence was Jester using the immense wealth he gathered while adventuring to secure a position on the now defunct Assembly. Among the most powerful people within Anbhor, he helped to guide the region in the 24 years before its demise. He used that position to gain great resources both professional and personal, and is well-regarded in almost every corner of the continent, known by many and loved by all. Among businessmen and inventors, Jester was the only member of the Assembly who financed his position entirely through the loot he took from dungeons and monsters.
Throughout a lifetime of adventuring, Jester has made a reputation for himself as The Most Famous Man in the World. His visage hangs from portraits and pictures in the halls of adventurer's guilds, restaurants, and government buildings all over Ec’algor.

Sexuality

Jester is an open and un-embarrassed person. The lucky few who he has selected to adventure with him recount that he told many fire-side stories, conquests of all kinds, and did not spare details on the more sensitive matters. When it comes to himself, he engages openly and freely with anyone who he finds respectable, admirable, or honorable.
Curiously, he has been heard talking about sex as though it were another exercise and has been known to schedule it among other cardio-intensive regiments. For the world’s foremost adventurer, perhaps everything really does come down to training.

Accomplishments & Achievements

The accomplishments of Jester Voss are perhaps too numerous to be listed in any readable format. Instead, the most important and significant accomplishment of his life, as told by him, stands head and shoulders above the rest, even in a career as decorated as his.
99 years after leaving the Wu Jen monastery, he felt his mastery of the Secretary Bird was nearing its completion--he had even learned to manifest the feathers of the fearsome creature and engage in aerial combat. He traveled back to his master to report his successes and to continue his training. The two of them practiced together throughout many long nights, and, under the light of the full moon, Jester was determined to have mastered the most difficult monastic tradition known. Master Ireshye, after decades of being the single living master of the form, passed his title to his student. On that night, Jester Voss became the Sagittariidae.
Not just a title, the mantle of Sagittariidae carries a significant burden, and only one can ever exist at a time. Whoever bears this responsibility is recognized as advancing martial arts to never before seen heights, and as the most dangerous hand-to-hand combatant alive. When Ireshye passes, Jester will assume leadership of the Wu Jen monastery and will guide all its students until a diamond such as himself appears for him to pass the title to.

Failures & Embarrassments

As a dues-paying member of The Assembly, Jester saw The Three Crown War and even participated in it knowing the Assembly’s express goal was to crush the rebellion. Many who now reside in the Kelic region regard him as an autocratic tyrant who tried to destroy their democracy, and they are correct in many ways. Jester himself speaks of the event with great regret and shame. He paints it as a situation with no good answer, where the rest of his Assemblymembers were intent on going to war with or without his involvement, and so he made an impossible decision.
Like the rest of the forces amassed by The Assembly, Jester was placed under the command of Captain Commander Ayara Kaiska, a seasoned warrior who determined the war could be won in as little as three months. Despite this estimate and a clear superiority in numbers and equipment, the war dragged on and halted with a siege at the gates of what used to be Bearingpool. Curiously, in the nearly year-long period Kaiska had him at her disposal, Jester was only commanded into combat once, a surprise attack at a peace conference that began the war in 1095, primarily as an intimidation tactic. After that, he never engaged with Kelic forces again.
He reports being happy with the arrangement, as he never wanted to fight them in the first place. Jester has been quoted on more than one occasion saying that if he were deployed to the walls of Bearingpool, he could have brought the city to its knees within a week and had surrender terms within two. Ashley Moztel has never formally responded to these claims, but she has invited Jester and his family to see the wall and its defenses should he desire to take in their glory.
Even though the war was resolved in a manner he found acceptable, it is unmistakably a stain on what could have been a completely spotless record. Without this incident marring his public persona, Jester could have gone down in history among the most respectable and honorable adventurers of all time. Unfortunately, now he stands in the shadow of immense figures like Argan, the Blazing, Hisyra Kyriné, and Solaria Tephres.
One other failure hangs over Jester like an albatross, a chip on his shoulder that has permanently altered his demeanor. In their youth, Jester and Xaro promised to do anything necessary to elevate the other, no boundaries were too difficult to cross and no border too high to scale. Naively, Jester discovered lost arcane secrets in his adventures and delivered them to Xaro in the hopes it would increase his already considerable powers. The temptation these secrets promised proved too powerful to resist: immortality and unlimited power. What Jester had given his brother without knowing was a formula for Lichdom, a process that would corrupt Xaro’s soul over the course of three decades and turn him into a hollow mockery of his former self.
The new Xaro was greedy, miserly, untrusting, and endlessly jealous. He would do anything to possess the powers of those around him, even if his own could dwarf the object of his envy. This new Xaro, obsessed with becoming an undying lord of magic, committed unforgivable atrocities against the living. Jester had to remain in his brother's good graces as he determined the answer to two secrets: how much more powerful was Xaro than himself, and the location of his phylactery. He moved alone, all the while under the suspicion of his infinitely covetous brother. Jester trained silently, fighting catastrophically powerful creatures that guarded ancient knowledge. The toll on his body was considerable, but the toll on his mind was even greater, and for the first time in his life he questioned if he was up to the task.
Unbeknownst to him, Xaro had already found three powerful adventurers who met with an untimely fate and raised them from the dead under his control, using them to collect information about Jester's exploits from afar. The infinitely wary Xaro suspected from the moment he began the process of Lichdom that Jester may somehow intervene, and this was a check against his brother. It is often said that those who know their destiny often meet it on the path to avoid it. The adventurers Xaro selected were too unruly even for him to command, and they discovered magic powerful enough to cast off his control over them. They met Jester and, together, the four of them were able to confront the Foul Phantom himself, defeating him once and for all. Although he felt as though he protected the world and all its people, Jester grieves silently to this day.

Current Status

Training for the Maelstrom Trials

Species

Foul-Blood

Age

158

Date of Birth

23rd of Ches

Sex

Male

Eyes

Amber orange

Hair

Precious silver

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Earthen brown

Height

6’4”

Weight

257 lbs