Sunn Tzen

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Revision as of 23:29, 8 July 2009

Name: Sunn Tzen
Caste: Chosen of Mars
Concept: Patient Strategist
Motivation: Restore peace and order to Creation by adhering to the Path of Least Bloodshed
Intimacies: Hua Zhao Yi (apprentice), his children
Anima: An ominous mist of blood-like crimson.

Attributes

Strength: 3 Dexterity: 5 Stamina: 3
Charisma: 3 (costs = 8xp) Manipulation: 3 Appearance: 2
Perception: 3 Intelligence: 3 Wits: 3

Abilities

Journeys

Resistance: 2
Ride: 0
Sail: 3 (favored) (costs = 3xp)
Survival: 0
Thrown: 0

Serenity

Craft: 0
Dodge: 2
Linguistics: 1
Performance: 3
Socialize: 0

Battles

Archery: 0
Athletics: 3
Melee: 5 (costs = 4 bp)
Presence: 4 (costs = 5xp)
War: 5 (costs = 2 Bp, 7 xp)

Secrets

Investigation: 0
Larceny: 0
Lore: 3 (costs = 4xp)
Occult: 2 (favored)
Stealth: 0

Endings

Awareness: 3 (costs = 3xp) (favored)
Bureaucracy: 2
Integrity: 2
Martial Arts: 5 (favored) (costs = 4 bp)
Medicine: 0

Specialties:

Backgrounds

Backing: 3 (Night Sky Regime)
Savant: 3
Sifu: 3 (Shining Rebuke, Chosen of Journeys)
Allies: 1 (Hua Zhao Yi) (costs = 1bp)
Artifact: 5 (Fourfold Virtue) (costs = 4bp)
Wealth: 3

Metaphysical Information

Willpower 7/7
Virtues: Compassion: 2 Conviction: 4 (costs = 3bp) Temperance: 3 Valor: 2
Essence: 3 Personal: 12 Peripheral: 34 Committed:
Limit 0/10
Experience: 0/30

Combat Information

Join Battle: 6 (12 with Secrets of Future Strife)
Join Debate:
Join War:
Punch
Kick
Clinch
Weapons:
Natural Soak: 3B/2L
Armored Soak:
Total Soaks: Health Levels: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incap
---

Charms

Performance: Second Performance Excellency
Melee: Impeding the Flow (pg 155, MoEP:S), Serenity in Blood (pg 155, MoEP:S)
War: Second War Excellency
Awareness: Prior Warning (pg 173, MoEP:S), Expected Pain (pg 173, MoEP:S)
Martial Arts: Second MA Excellency, Fifth MA Excellency, Secrets of Future Strife (pg 180, MoEP:S), Flight of Mercury (pg 181, MoEP:S), Blade of the Battle Maiden (pg 182, MoEP:S), Joy in Adversity Stance (pg 182, MoEP:S)

Colleges

The Banner: 3
The Pillar: 1
The Sword: 2
The Gull: 1

Personal Information

Appearance

Those that meet Tzen usually decide that his looks are decided plain. He possesses a tall, leanly muscled frame that is accustomed to hardship and exercise. His eyes used to be a common shade of brown before they became the ruby hued irises that they are now, and his deep brown hair is kept short and well trimmed. The Chosen of Battles often chooses simple attire, usually grays and whites. He has recently taken to dressing in a collared uniform of immaculate white with black and gray trim. His saber, Fourfold Virtue is always at his side in its polished, black lacquered scabbard, tied to his belt with a silk sash. He speaks with a soft but commanding voice, one that gives those that hear it the image of a composed general standing amidst a pitched battle. A somber man, his peers remember when his eyes were full of joy and bravado, now replaced with almost detached calm and only occasion slips that could be mistaken for smiles.

History

Tzen was born in a humble farming complex near the city of Denandsor in the Eastern Threshold. Even at a young age, he understood the necessity of conflict, and the resolution of such clashes between individuals, groups, and nations. He saw the same in the grasses and the animals, each striving against one another to grow stronger and survive. However, he also saw that each being was linked to one another. But understanding conflict did not leave him without compassion. On the contrary, he saw the preciousness that was life. His father was the physician of their community and though he never pursued his father's profession, he was impressed with the need and motivation to protect the lives of all things.

When his future kindred came to prepare him for his future as Mars' Chosen and an agent of heaven, he accepted his new roles with an almost unearthly vigor, sure that his training will and efforts will protect the lives of Creation to a degree that few can understand, let alone achieve. When he exalted as a Chosen of Battles the following year, he was placed under the guidance of Shining Rebuke, a well respected Vizier under Mercury. Through his new Sifu, Tzen learned much of both heaven and Creation, and his place in both. His natural talents in strategy and command impressed his elders, and his adeptness in martial arts set him apart from his peers. His skilled with the blade earned him the right to wield Fourfold Virtue, the weapon of his predecessor. When his Sifu deemed him ready, he was brought to see the Loom of Fate, and that experience gave him renewed purpose. Seeing the grand tapestry that encompassed all the existed, Tzen saw firsthand how every strand is vital to the whole, each thread beautiful and precious.

It was after his first encounter with the Loom of Fate that he realized the secrets of Fourfold Virtue, and he went on to wield the blade with both skill and compassion, having the distinction of never having taken a single life in a hundred years of service. During this time he also caught the eye of a young Lawgiver, the two maintaining an affair and soon after, a family in secret. But alas, this life was not to last as the fateful decision came to Usurp the Solar Exalted.

Despite not seeing the same madness and evils committed by the Solars in his lover, he nonetheless saw it in the many older Lawgivers that ruled Creation callously. To protect the many, they told him, the few must die. Only then will Creation be truly safe and at peace. For the peace-loving Chosen of Battles, the choice was almost maddening, as every a single life was precious. But eventually, he relented and was persuaded that the all of the Solars must fall, lest the survivors retaliate in confusion and anger. For years he toiled in secret with his kind, his heart in turmoil as he plotted the death of the his lover and her fellows even as he spent his treasured moments with her and their two daughters. And when the Sidereals and their allies struck, he was there to ensure their success through his intellect rather than his skill with the blade, and even watched as his love was executed. In a moment of weakness however, he secretly had their children secreted away to Yu-Shan, where they would be safe from harm, where he watches over them still.

And so, the reign of the Solar Deliberative ended, but their coup, their Usurpation, had failed. The Solar did indeed return and now Creation is divided and on the verge of self-destructive war. This failure has weighed heavily on Tzen's mind. Were they wrong? Had they miscalculated? Did it even matter? What mattered was that far more lives were at risk now than there were when the Solars ruled uncontested. Peace and order must be restored, but too many lives have already been lost. Conflict was and will always be a necessity, but only when such conflict is controlled, can good result from it. To this end, Tzen wielded his influence within the Night Sky Regime towards surgical strikes against the Regime's enemies' capability to make war, rather than the massacres that some of his peers demand. He also spent substantial time and energies towards reconciling estranged allies and swaying open enemies.

Between these duties and his responsibilities to Hua Zhao Yi, a newly exalted Chosen of Serenity placed under his care, he has had little time to see his children. They were too young understand the Usurpation, and now they too will grow up without a mother and father in their lives. And finally, his thoughts sometimes stray to the mother of his children, whose exaltation will no doubt return. What will this new bearer remember? And what would he do when they finally meet?