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== Arohata == | == Arohata == | ||
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Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique. | Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique. | ||
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| − | Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't | + | Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't a Batman thing; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really. |
| − | The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a | + | The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood. |
| − | He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with | + | He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with a kind of Taoist ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all. |
Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said. | Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said. | ||
| − | Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had | + | Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had all of the power. He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses. |
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| + | These days, he wanders the Sheltered Hand, playing his crazy homemade samisen, making peasant food assembled from nothing taste uncannily delicious, punching the occasional wandering monster, like kobolds or priests. He's about ripe for a change, though; maybe he needs some more adventure in his life. | ||
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