Jon Stark
This article is about the Exalted character. Not to be confused with Tony Stark.
Jon Stark (insert stupid pronunciation here) is a Solar Exalted character of the Twilight caste in the (upcoming) Exlated game that we're playing or something. He crafts robots and shit, apparently.
Background
My name is Stark. I was a smith, a tinkerer, a machinist. I was dedicated to my work, my love, and my god. It was faith misplaced, instilled by the misguided -- people with good intentions who never questioned those they idolized. I was like that. I lived that lie, blissfully ignorant, helplessly devoted to showing my faith. It started young, as all theists do, my father was a smith and my mother was a scholar. As a child, I built a small wire model from scrap in my father's shop in the likeness of our god. I remember the pale laughter of the supreme one. I grew, and my skills grew with me, my constructions became more complex, more lifelike, more real. Emulation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the joy of showing my creation to the god I adored was second only to the captive, boundless curiosity of my daughter as I taught her how they worked. (A habit I inherited from my parents.) I never would have imagined a god could feel threatened, or could feel fear, or anger. It took my daughter, my wife, and my light. Then, they decided I should be made a god, too. What better way to spite someone for trying to be more like them than to make their efforts meaningless? I will show them. I will show the everyone that we have no need for these powers -- only our minds and our hands. I will show the world that we have no need for gods and kings -- only men. I set out for the east. The Blessed Isle is, indeed, blessed with a variety of resources -- iron, copper, silver. It lacks the ingredients I need for my machine, however. Rumors of strange, unworkable metals came from other tradesmen past the Salt Marshes of Sejan. I need it. I need to study it. I need to master it. And when I've broken it, I will forge it and make manifest my dreams of a better world. A world without gods. I will build the god killer.
The Mystery of Dirty Sanchez
I need to stop drinking.
Maybe it's being cooped up on a boat for six weeks, but we hit land and I got smashed. My cohorts told me a ineffectively hit on a woman at the bar and pissed off an elder. This is not my proudest moment.
Closing
There were six fatalities, I think. Maybe eight. I don't recall. Today we broke into the house of an innocent person, killed his guards, and stole from him. As the sun rose we kidnapped Sanchez's uncle. I'm waiting still to see if the shock catches up with me, but the more terrifying possibility is that it won't. I remember the ups and downs of my life before exaltation. The joy of meeting my wife. The unbridled elation of teaching my daughter. In another time, having killed as many people would haunt my dreams and make them nightmares. Today I took a nap. Then I made pancakes for the person we abducted. It seemed like a good idea. I like pancakes. I stole a hammer, too, it's a wonderful work of art. There are hints of an inhuman craftsmanship behind it, the labors of a blind watchmaker who spent his life honing a craft, then given sight for only a day to complete his masterpiece. I guess I should talk about the bodies again. That's what people do, right? They lament their misdeeds and mourn those they've hurt? Maybe the sea has more of a calming effect than it should. That would be a nice way to shove off blame -- attribute these changes to new scenery. It would be a lie, though. That fiery, wrathful vengeance -- that caustic hatred that led me to start upon this quest -- it seems to have been swallowed like a ball of molten iron falling into the ocean. The steam and raging froth dying, and the bright white incandescence falling away into the shadows of the deep. Maybe it's the reason the gods made me one of them? They knew that sooner or later, a rage unrelenting would destroy them would let me destroy them, but a person unbreakable is not a person any more. I guess that's what I am. They've pacified me, somehow. Or made me so indifferent to the suffering of people that I might as well be a marble statue with a heart of flint. Such incredible craftsmanship. There were two statues in the basement, a life to them bordering on beatific. Their construct mirrors that of the hammer I have with me, but given the chance I'd likely have uprooted them and stolen them, too. Again, I digress. Am I a danger to humanity? Have I lost enough of myself to not want to continue this quest? I keep digging for a driving emotion and coming up empty. A smarter person might find this journey metaphorical and liken it to the search for self. That person could be told to fuck off -- the self is not found, it's made. Or so I've said. As evidence of being wrong, I think I've lost myself.