Shadows of Shen Zhou:Chao Gang
Chao Gang[edit]
- Warrior Rank 4
- Short Term Goal: Learn stronger Kung Fu and get good equipment, like a Quality sword.
- Long Term Goal: Learn light-body techniques, travel to heaven, beat the Gods until the make the world a more just place.
Statistics
Might 4
- Athletics 2
- Fight 3 (Kicks 1)
- Hardiness 3
- Lift 2
Speed 5
- Initiative 2
- Dodge 3
- Finesse 3 (Theft 1)
- Melee 4 (Sword 1)
- Ride 1
Presence 2
- Confidence 2
- Grace 1
Genius 2
- Learning 1
- Crafting 1
- Tactics 1
Wu Wei 3
- Awareness 2
- Ranged 4 (Handguns 1)
- Senses 2
- Stealth 3
Advantages:
- Status 2: Six Upright Devils’ Enforcer
- Wealth 2
Disadvantages:
- Black-Hearted
- Hunted (Demon Scholars)
Kung Fu
- Lightfoot 3 (Any, Core)
- Flawless Archery 2 (Silver, Companion p. 155)
- Cloud Mastery 3 (Jade, Core)
- Supple Blade 4 (Crimson, Custom)
Loresheets
- The Wulin (Opens up World’s Top Sinners destinies)
- Learning Kung Fu (Companion)
- Wulin Periphery & Fandom (Free due to authorship)
- One check toward Sifu & Student
Equipment
- Clothes
- Light Armor
- Backpack
- Provisions
- Longsword +5/+10/+10/+5
- Steel-toed boots: As unarmed, but damage +0
- Revolver + ammunition +5/+10/-/+5. The revolver is named
Joss
- Xia: 7
- Corrupt: 5
Deeds
- Ferocity 1
Destiny Spent
- 70
Destiny Unspent
- 4
Custom Kung Fu Style: Chao Gang’s Master, Guang Ling, was secretly a defector from the Demon Scholars. Before he left, he had begun creating this kung fu style. The Demon Scholars are curious about the style that Guang Ling was creating, and more importantly need to ensure he didn’t teach anything more dangerous to anyone. So, they are sending agents out to hunt for any pupils he may have had. This Kung Fu is known as the Supple Warrior Style, and as of right now Chao Gang is the only known living practitioner.
The other PCs may or may not have seen Chao Gang actually use his unique sword style. It's not very obvious when he does - the style has no flashy components, no signature, and part of it's strength is that it's never obvious what he's doing. He just happens to be in the right place, with his sword having cut through eight guys at once, without ever seeming to do much. And he's [I]fast.[/I]
In appearance, Chao Gang looks like a well-dressed street punk. He has several steel chains worked into his outfit, along with a billowing leather long-coat that serves him as armor. His boots have oversized exposed steel toes, scratched up from innumerable fights. He likes to dress flashy, and makes little effort to hide the longsword on his back or the heavy revolver at his hip.
How old are you?
25-ish, or so he guesses.
Why are you in the district?
He landed here after a period of wandering. It seems to him like a place where he might make some room for himself - and the budding syndicate he's part of promises permanence and opportunity.
Are you a member of any faction? If so, what are their goals, and what do you want to achieve within the organisation?
Chao would generally make a bad faction member, because he thrives on quests which may be more or less quixotic at times. He intensely dislikes attaching himself to any ideals or causes that aren't of his own making. He's only a member of the PCs' organization because he was able to get in on the ground floor, and have an equal voice in its direction.
What's your ambition? What do you hope to find in the world of kung fu?
Freedom from destiny. The very concept annoys and stifles him. Do to his painful personal past, Chao hates the idea that destiny is fixed. The idea that someone (even someone in Heaven!) planned for him to be orphaned and his Master to die makes him angry - either destiny is a lie, or he owes someone a serious beating!
How did you grow up? describe an incident that happened in your childhood. Do you have any close family?
Chao's first memories are being a street kid in various parts of the city. He doesn't actually know that his parents are dead, but if they aren't he probably owes them a beating for abandoning him. He eventually managed to become the personal servant of an old man, a sometime member of the Wu Lin. His Master was poor, but he provided food and what training he could in return for an errand-boy and general dogsbody. Chao only ever knew his Master by the name Guang Ling (which he suspects was an alias), and the old man was too frail to spar. Nonetheless, he learned a great deal and thought of Ling as his father. He was 15 when Ling died, and was alone again. He took what he could carry on his back, burned Ling's shack so that nothing could ever happen there to stain it in his memory, and went out on the road. Chao is closest to his "cousins," a group of other young men and women who he knew on the street as children. They generally haven't fared as well as he has, but the lot of them shared food when they were all close to starving, and he's likely to take great personal offense if they're mistreated.
Incident: Two days after leaving the smoking ruins of Master Ling's domicile, Chao had found a job chopping wood for an innkeeper out in the country. Two gangsters tried to hide from the law there, and took the owning couple and Chao hostage. When they threatened to abuse the man's wife, he interposed himself and was beaten. Chao instinctively interposed himself, and ended up hospitalizing both men with almost no injury to himself.
Before that time, he had never actually realized he was a martial artist. Master Ling's lessons to him were as natural to him as breathing (and sometimes were about the right way to breath!) Until this time, he had never known there was anything special about his kung fu - he just thought fighting was something everyone knew how to do. The innkeeper and his wife thought after this that Chao was too dangerous to have living with them, so they regretfully fired him. They did give him an old saber that had been hanging on the wall over the fireplace, though - it was the first thing of real value he had ever owned.
Do you have a reputation? Do you have any enemies?
Chao has a reputation for unpredictability and not knowing his place. He probably considers almost everyone powerful to be potentially his enemy, although fortunately for him he hasn't really caught their notice yet. He particularly hates any kind of slavery, though, and would probably say that if he kills slavers, its their own fault for not finding out about him before they chained someone up.
What do you believe? What would challenge your beliefs?
Chao believes that people should get what they deserve - that good should be rewarded with good and evil with evil. When this is not the case, the blame can be laid on both earthly villains and the celestial bureaucrats - he thinks the powers of heaven have a duty to create justice in the world. His own misfortunes as a youth have convinced him that he deserves revenge on all those responsible - and as a side project, he'll avenge others who deserve it, or help those in need if he can. What might disturb his certainty, though, would be if he ever received some great good fortune that he had done nothing to earn. If something purely good happened to him for no reason, it might blunt his anger at the world and make him question whether he still has cause for revenge.
Describe two people who know you.
Changying, the owner and operator of a flower stand on the corner of his protection route. The flower stand has been there a long time - Changying's grandmother was an old woman who ran it when Chao was small, and Changying just helped a bit. Sometimes she gave him tea or a little rice when times were hard on the street, and she once cleaned up a cut on his arm after a fight. He didn't see them again after he moved in with Master Ling, or indeed until fairly recently. She hasn't realized he's the same Chao as the little boy her grandmother was kind to, if she even remembers those times. Chao remembers, though, and he's exempted her from paying protection money. She doesn't know why, and he won't explain - he only insisted that she never tell anyone the envelope she passes to him will always be empty.
Guozhi, A police detective. Occasionally seeks out Chao to speak to him, although these meetings are always in secret. Chao isn't an informer, and Guozhi doesn't take bribes, but the two have a kind of common interest in keeping order in the place. For this reason, a few oblique words shared between the two can sometimes accomplish much.
Describe two places you hang out.
Hero's Lunch Counter, a noodle restaurant popular among the lower levels of the Wu Lin, wannabes, watchers and fans, groupies, etc. It's open almost 24 hours a day, and the prices are good.
The Forest:
There's a burned-out factory out in the nearby industrial district that's just a shell of a building, with no roof. Chao found that nature was reclaiming the interior, and he's helped it along by bringing in some topsoil and more plants, and also some natural boulders and river-rocks. He now has his own personal secret garden/parkland, and he has enough water flowing from an old main to make a small spring. He doesn't actually know why he did this, it's just a hobby and a place to meditate. He keeps the big loading door padlocked shut to keep people out.
