Character:Kago Kaishin

Kago Kaishin
Caste: Zenith
Concept: The Lord Ascendant
Campaign: RomanceOfTheHundredKingdoms

Kaishin has short black hair, dark brown eyes, and handsome features. He stands at relatively average height and has the sort of sleek, compact musculature that comes from regular training without any real focus on muscle development. He is quite young for someone with ambitions like his, no more than 20 years of age. He does not go out of his way to enhance his appearance, but expects a certain standard of quality out of his garments. He tends to prefer the kimono-like garment favored in his homeland. Prior to his Exaltation he preferred to stick to simple black and white. Since that event, he has begun to include yellow-golds and has taken to using white as a primary color more often. In battle, he often wears lamellar armor or, if he can manage to sufficiently hide it under other garments, his newly acquired orichalcum armor. He often carries a slashing sword, though he is almost never seen with his reaper daiklave since he discovered who to sheath it Elsewhere.

Motivation

Unite the broken 100 Kingdoms under one rule

Anima

Describe here in full your Caste anima power. Also tell us your totemic form.

Attributes

PHYSICAL: Strength 2, Dexterity 5, Stamina 2
SOCIAL: Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 4
MENTAL: Perception 2, Intelligence 2, Wits 3

Abilities

Caste Abilities

Integrity 4, Performance 3, Presence 5, Resistance 1

Favored Abilities

Martial Arts 5 (Slashing Swords+3), Melee 5 (Slashing Swords+3), War 4, Investigation 4, Socialize 3

Other Abilities

Archery 1 Lore 2, Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Dodge 3, Linguistics 1 (Forrest-tongue; Native: Riverspeak), Ride 1

Backgrounds

Artifact 2 (Oricalcum Reaper Daiklave; The Light in the Darkness), Artifact 2 (Oricalcum Lamellar), Influence 2, Resources 3

Allies 2

Furutsuchi no Tatsuki
Fujiwara no Akiko

Artifacts

Artifact 2 - The Light in the Darkness - an orichalcum reaper daiklave Artifact 2 - Orichalcum Lamellar

Influence 2

write some description

Resources 3

write some description

Charms

Wind-Cutting Blade Style

War and Peace Preparation, Mountain Strikes the Breeze, Wind-Cutting Blade Form, Steel-Shattering Gale, Wind Through Walls Attack

Melee

1st Melee Excellency, Call the Blade, Summoning the Loyal Steel

War

2nd War Excellency

Performance

2nd Performance Excellency

Presence

2nd Presence Excellency, Hypnotic Tongue Technique

Resistance

Whirlwind Armor-Donning Prana

Investigation

2nd Investigation Excellency, Judge's Ear Technique

Intimicies

• The Kingdom of Kou

Essence

Essence: 3
Peripheral: 16/16
Personal: 29/37
Committed: 8

Willpower

7/7

Virtues

Compassion:1
Conviction:3
Temperance:1
Valor:4

Limit Break

0/8 Self-Aggrandizing Sulk; See Dreams of the First Age, Book 2: Lords of Creation, page 127)

History

Raised as the son of the local daimyo, Kaishin wanted for little as he was growing up. The second son, he was trained and educated as a fighter so that he might lead the small kingdom's armies against their neighbors. The kingdom, Kou, was ruled over primarily by his father with two smaller sections of the kingdom being ruled over by more local lords. Kei borders the Yellow Forrest on one side and the kingdoms of Sou and Kei on two others, both of which also bordered the Yellow Forrest, and by Areno, a country consisting of wide expanses of open plains.

Despite not being designated as the heir, Kaishin competed fiercely with his brother (who was seven years older) for their parents' attention. Many years younger than his older sibling, Kaishin demonstrated considerable aptitude for the sword from a young age. Though he rarely won, due to the older boys better strength and reach, his technique was superior. Kaishin insisted on getting much the same education that his brother received, not wanting to be left behind. He learned to read and write and a bit about local and world history, primarily. His education was also supplemented with things his father thought he would need. Tactics and strategy and military history were taught. They obtained a copy of The Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier from the realm, which he read voraciously.

At 14, he managed to convince them he was ready to enter the more courtly side of noble life. He began to attend parties at tea houses and salons hosted by his parents. He immediately established himself among the local nobility as being very personable and charming. Though he made a number of acquaintances, only one has ever been much of a friend to him: Akiko, daughter of one of his father's ministers (detailed below as an NPC). It was also during this time that he managed to truly anger his elder brother. He turned out to be much more popular than Tsuyoshi was and didn't hesitate to turn a few of the regular courtiers against his brother for his own benefit.

At 17 he rode into battle for the first time. Surprising no one who had sparred with him in the past, he did quite well for himself. This battle was a skirmish with the kingdom of Sou, to the south of his home kingdom, and it was in this first engagement that Kaishin managed to slay the crown prince of that nation in single combat. While lauded for his outstanding success at home, the King of Sou was livid, swearing vengeance upon Kaishin and his nation for slaying his heir.

His Exaltation came to him in private - a good thing for his political career. He was meditating, or trying to meditate, in the small shrine kept on his family estate. The shrine - something of a combination of a shrine to ancestors and to local deities - was empty. One old man tended to it normally; he hired a young girl to help with specific ceremonies and to help him clean it. Both were absent. He had become frustrated, yet again, by his position. Relegated to the role of being a general, at best, while his brother - acknowledged by many to be less suited for the position - stood to inherit Kou from their father. With his eyes closed, he wasn't sure how long he went without noticing the glow that has begun to suffuse the room, and his own form. When he finally opened his eyes, he looked up upon his patron, the Unconquered Sun.

"The people of Creation are broken and lost," his voice was, as one might expect, overwhelming, "Give them a leader. Be the light that shines in the darkness." One of the giant man's four arms came to rest on Kaishin's brow. "Know now that you are Exalted above mortal men by My hand." Then sensation that accompanied those words was utterly overwhelming, defying description. The glowing figure faded from view, but the glow itself persisted. A gold disk on Kaishin's brow was the culprit.

He waited... Minutes? Hours? He could no longer tell. Overwhelmed by senses that he'd never imagined might exist and memories of a different Age, Kaishin sat still in the small shrine absorbing the experience of what had happened. As he regained his wits he came to notice a single glowing gold mote floating before him. The light from his brow had subsided by this point, and so he followed this mote out from the shrine. The sun was setting; he'd been in the structure for almost the entire day. He followed the mote to the city's much larger shrine in the city center. No other seemed to notice the glowing image that he followed, and so he did not mention it as he greeted the monk that lived and worked at the shrine. He continued to follow the - what? spirit? - until it led him to a smaller side building on the shrine's grounds. Here he found a stairway leading into the earth.

Kaishin followed the glowing mote down the stairs which rapidly opened into a cavern, the stairs descended along one wall. The mote he followed, for all it glowed, did not provide much illumination. He found that this was not a hindrance as he himself began to glow. At the bottom of the stone-carved staircase he met a bent old man that he didn't recognize dressed in a simple white robe. The man directed him to a natural spring pool that had remained hidden from the public. Without speaking, the man indicated that he should bath in the spring. As he did, the ancient figure brought him white robes of his own.

Apparently purified, Kaishin was led deeper into the cavern, passed archways reinforced with wood, through a number of smaller tunnels, and finally into a small room formed by the dead-end of this particular tunnel. Here there was a box, a shrine, about six and a half feet tall and around three feet wide. The old man opened it to reveal a suit of armor made with plates of a metal that naturally shone in the light of his own anima. With careful reverence the old man fit him into the armor and then led him from the tunnel, deeper into the cave system, apparently picking the side tunnels at random.

He came finally to another cavern, this one about the same size as the one he'd originally entered through. In the center was another shrine, small squat box-like structure. Atop this box on an overlarge rack, rested an overlarge sword. The old man opened the shrine to reveal a simple urn, which he did not touch. He merely allowed Kaishin time to take note of it before closing the shrine again. He lifted the sword, withdrew it from the sheath, and handed it to Kaishin, hilt-first. The weapon was a four-foot single-edge razor of the most exquisite craftsmanship Kaishin had ever seen. It, like the armor he now wore, was also made of a golden metal that reflected the light of his glowing anima in a particularly eye-catching way. The old man handed him the hilt which had a number of markings on it, one set of which he was able to read: "The Light in the Darkness"

Armed and armored thus, he was returned to the first cavern and then back up into the world. With no illusions about his new nature, Kaishin hid the armor and weapon and used their mundane equivalents the majority of the time. He used them to practice his newfound abilities, but knew that their use on the battlefield would reveal information about his nature that didn't need to be spread around. Even without these artifacts of another time, he managed to defeat a Dragonblooded commander from Areno, forcing him and his men out of Kou with almost trivial effort, earning himself yet another powerful enemy in the process (detailed below).

Not a few people have noticed the change in Kaishin and his methodology, which is becoming more aggressive, though none attribute this change to Exaltation, at least not yet.

Personality

Kaishin is frustrated with the current state of affairs in the 100 Kingdoms in general, and Kou and its neighbors in specific. He is arrogant, but not quite to a fault. Since he has had servants his whole life, he expects his orders to be carried out. He carries an air of aristocracy about him, whether he knows it or not. He firmly believes that uniting the 100 kingdoms, ending their constant warfare, and raising the general quality of life of the populace is the best possible course of action he can take at current.

Merits and Flaws

Rivals

2 - Kago Tsuyoshi

Enemies

2 - The King of Sou 3 - Kazatarou - the Wind Through the Trees

Secret

Himitsu desu.