Player Notes: Juuken

Things to note on Juuken's sheet:

• Front
  • You know two martial arts forms. You can only use one of them at a time. Water Dragon allows armor. Celestial Monkey normally doesn't allow armor, but you know its pinnacle charm (Celestial Godbody Understanding), which allows you to use the style with armor.
  • The trick is going to be weapons. Celestial Godbody Understanding also allows Celestial Monkey style to be used with any weapons. Water Dragon, however, can only use tiger claws. What this means is that if you use a weapon other than tiger claws, you cannot gain a benefit to attack or defend with it from a Water Dragon charm.
• Back
  • All of your artifacts are jade, with forced attunement. This means you get the jade bonus, but had to commit twice the motes to them. The effect is that you have a huge amount of peripheral essence tied up in these artifacts.
  • It is possible to attune to the artifacts without forcing the attunment. This prevents you from paying twice the cost, but doesn't provide the material bonus. In armor, Jade allows you to ignore fatigue value. In weapons, jade adds three to speed. So, you could reduce your commitment at the cost of subtracting 3 from the Speed listed on your sheet (Speed adds to initiative) and gaining a fatigue rating on your armor.
  • Another option is to forgo your sword. With forced attunement, it takes 10 motes to attune. Given the inability of using it with Water Dragon charms, that may not be worth it. If you like, you could exchange it for another two-dot artifact.

1. Born on the Blessed Isle, to a merchant family, in the city of Noble on the southeast coast. This city is about half military, half marketplace. He's not much of a sailor, but is pulled into the family business at a young age, thanks to a talent with both money and languages. (He gets four languages to start. Unless you want otherwise, I'd assign Low Realm (native, used by commoners on the Blessed Isle), High Realm (used by nobles on the Blessed Isle), Riverspeak (language of the Scavenger Lands) and Old Realm (language of spirits, many religions and the First Age).)
2. Shortly after leaving An-Teng (a vassal state of the empire in the southwest), he Exalts at sea, during a storm. So much energy is released by his exaltation that the ship catches fire and rapidly sinks, leaving him the only one alive. He manages to swim back to the coast, winding up on a miniscule island. Even as small as it is, it takes him a few days to notice that the plant life hides a building. He makes it inside to discover a small water manse, hearthstone dripping like solid water from the ceiling. The fresh water saves his life. Within the manse is a map of the local area. He orients to the nearest land, and swims for it. He ends up in the jungle, where...
3. He meets Serene Tail, a complex and contemplative monkey-god who is responsible for several tribes of savage men, apes, man-apes and monkeys to the south of An-Teng. The best and brightest from the tribes are "sacrificed" to him, but in reality Tail takes them to his huge sanctum, which is sort of like a monastic retreat, and civilizes them. He takes Juuken in and teaches the solar about his new exaltation, eventually training him in Celestial Monkey style, which he claims to have invented (this is your mentor, btw). He also claims that the final charm in the style, Celestial Godbody Understanding, was stolen from his mind, and that now only one person he knows of can teach it: a man with many names, one of which is Uprooted Ivy. Serene Tail tasks Juuken to find this man and learn the secret and "some time before you die, return the knowledge to me".
4. Uprooted Ivy is thought to be in Great Forks, so Juuken takes the long trip there by ship. His searches for Uprooted Ivy for weeks to no avail. One night, he awoke in his hotel bed to a disembodied voice in his ear, saying "You are in danger. If you want to live, head to the basement as fast as possible". He had been having strange, paranoid feelings all day, so decided to give the voice the benefit of the doubt, and raced down the stairs. He only got about three flights down before his room exploded in a huge fireball, shortly followed by shouting men and women (he heard at least ten stomping around) saying "show yourself, anathema!" In the basement, he met a blond, blue-eyed woman and a wild, unkempt man. She wore white jade armor, but the mark of Eclipse shone faintly on her brow. She introduced herself as First Crocus, said there wasn't much time, and opened a concealed door into a tunnel. As she spoke, the wild man started to glow, obviously focussing a good deal of energy, which he then released up the stairs. Much crashing and screaming followed as a dull red glow came flickering down the stairwell. He then ducked into the tunnel. As Juuken turned to follow him, two singed men in red jade staggered down the stairs. One looked at the woman and said "Fire? I'm am fire, bitch! Did you think..." his words were stopped, as the woman's white blade severed his head cleanly away from his body. The other died before the body of the first hit the floor. Then the two ran down the tunnel, closing the door behind them. They emerged in another building, went up to the street, then crossed over to another building. Juuken saw what looked like long tentacles of lava writing around in the building they were just in, ripping the building apart in flaming chunks and flinging burnt bodies all over the place. Above the building, a strange craft hovered, with ropes trailing down from it, now also on fire. A trio managed to survive their fall to the street, but the wild man summoned energy again and shredded them with a storm of black glass shards through the building's window. Juuken and the others ran through several other buildings. Behind them, only two people made it back into the floating craft before the whole building collapsed.
5. The next day, Juuken talked to the two solars (the other was a Twilight) and asked if they had heard of Uprooted Ivy. They claimed ignorance, but Juuken could tell the woman knew something about him, and he said so. She admitted knowing where he could be found, but wanted something in return. She was concerned that Juuken, if captured by the small Wyld Hunt they had found the previous day, might betray her to them. If he would swear a sanctified oath to never betray her, she would tell him where to find Ivy. As Juuken had no plans to betray her, this was a simple oath to make, and he did so. She said "I'll take you to him".
6. The three went to Nexus. The two other solars quickly left, but not before giving Juuken an address and a white queen piece from a Gateway board "so that he'll know I sent you". Juuken went to the address showed the piece to a spy-hole in the door, which then opened. The place was dark with far more hallways than seemed necessary. Slight music played through the incense-filled air, and Juuken followed it. He entered into a dojo that must have cost a fortune to look so plain. An old, but still vigorous and broad-shouldered man sat lotus at the far end of the room. He took one look at Juuken and said "you come to understand the celestial godbody." His green eyes smiled, but everything else about him seemed deadly. "Then, let us begin."
7. After learning Celestial Godbody Understanding, Ivy presented Juuken with a series of magical puzzle artifacts, nearly unsolvable, and invited him to stay in the residence until he solved them. Intrigued, Juuken decided to spend a day playing with them, then leave. Instead, he stayed for nearly five months working at the damned things, almost never seeing Ivy the whole time. He realized along the way that the puzzles were related to his own magical pattern in someway and solving them made him more in tune with that pattern (i.e. his Essence went up).
8. On the rare occasions when he could pull away from the puzzles, he hears mention of a "White Queen" who, according to the story, rescued a bunch of people who had been abducted by a deathlord.
9. After training, Ivy is nowhere to be found, so Juuken leaves, intent to return his newfound Celestial Monkey knowledge to Serene Tail. Partway through the journey, however, the ship runs into pirates. Thanks to Juuken's presence, they are defeated, but the ship is heavily damaged and much of the crew killed or wounded, so the vessel heads to the nearest port: Kirighast, capital of one of the few true nations in Creation: Harborhead. Once fiercely devoted to a powerful bull-god named Ahlat, Harborhead was conquered by the Realm 350 years ago. It remained a backwater until jade was discovered several decades ago.
10. Harborhead has seen multiple attempted rebellions, all put down by the Realm. Using his powers of observation, Juuken could see the patterns of hostility in the country. The population hated the Realm. The Realm used the population at will. Slaves hated their owners. Various tribes all hated each other. Though once united, the Dragon-Blooded families stationed their vied with each other for power in both the country and in the brewing battle for succession to the Empress. Those who worshiped Ahlat in secret hated the Immaculate Order for crimes against their god. The Immaculate Order hated the hethen for refusal to see the true way. And, as clear as day to Juuken, he could see the influence of something working to make these frictions worse, like poking a beehive with a stick. With some time to kill, he decided to look for this "stick", and it didn't take long to track it to two different sets of rumors. One set spoke of a messianic figure called "the Ishadhi", the Chosen Son of Ahlat, destined to save the people and lead the church of Ahlat. The other set of rumors constantly mentioned the influence of none other than the White Queen.
11. He tracked the White Queen down, finding, as he expected, the woman who had helped him in Great Forks. She looked different now, more focussed and deeply concerned for the plight of the citizens of Harborhead. Getting rid of the Realm wasn't enough to free them, she said. Their intra-tribal fighting also needed to be eliminated. She felt the best path to do that was to ally with Ahlat himself, which she had done, and attempt to rebuild the country into one unified under his banner. She admitted to being the source of the Ishadhi rumors, fully intending to use them to lead the cult that would shape Ahlat's nation. She claimed to have a good sized force at her command, complete with several solars who had sworn their loyalty to her. She also had knowledge and artifacts, all of which would be shared with Juuken if he agreed to help them. They talked for hours into the night. She was extremely persuasive. Juuken eventually agreed to infiltrate the Immaculate Order's base of operations in Harborhead, swearing yet another oath of loyalty to the White Queen for the duration of his mission and taking a number of jade artifacts to help with the cover (Note: because he has to force attune to these to get the full benefit, they require a lo of committed essence. You could avoid forcing commitment, which would reduce the stats a bit, but free up some motes):
    1. A black jade Shining Masquerade
    2. Black jade reinforced breastplate named "Necessity of the Guard", which also allows you to breathe underwater.
    3. Black jade daiklave named "Depth Seeker"
    4. Black jade razor claws named "Bite of the Reef".
12. The White Queen arranged several "accidents", killing off some key members of the local head of the Immaculate Order's staff. Those that lived were promoted into the places of the fallen, but new monks were sent for to fill those positions so vacated. Juuken and the White Queen intercepted and snuck aboard the ship carrying one of these replacements and Juuken took his place. While he didn't look exactly like the monk they dispatched, the monk had been alone and he carried all the orders and papers identifying who he was. These were replaced with Juuken's identity (Xi Odran), and he arrived on schedule to take a low-ranking position near near the Abbot.
13. The head of the Immaculate Order in Kirighast is Cynis Grell, who so despises the decedent hedonism of his family, that he prefers to simply be called "The Abbot". The Abbot is, among other things, a master of Water Dragon Style, and is proud of this achievement. He so firmly believes in the Immaculate Philosophy, that he often uses the style in showy ways to demonstrate its truth, both while training, meeting, preaching and instructing. Lacking knowledge of any styles sanctioned by the order, Juuken played the role of one focussed on his duties, and in not "cheating" with magic, all the while observing enough of the Abbot to master many of Water Dragon's techniques in secret.
14. After several months of constantly supplying intelligence to the White Queen, he suddenly got a message to meet her in secret. Once there, she explained that a new mission had come up, and he was the most likely candidate for the job. Another "accident" would be arranged, "killing" Xi Odran. Juuken would then take a flying vehicle into the south. There, he would have three missions:
    1. Rumors claim that the city of Gem was attacked many months ago. Recently, more rumors suggest that the attackers carried extremely unusual equipment, and didn't correspond to any known force in Creation. Travel to Gem to discover what you can about this force, where it came from, and what is capabilities are.
    2. News reached the Abbot that an orichalcum mine known as Dense Effulgence Root was attacked by forces unknown, then abandoned. The mine has been sealed by Realm forces and it is clear that very few within the Realm even know of its existence. Travel to this mine to see what its status is. If possible, determine if the same forces at work in Gem are responsible for the mine attack. Also, determine what it would take to reopen the mine and if it would be possible to run it in secret.
    3. Make contact with any celestial exalts you run across, particularly solars. Make it known that the White Queen wants to start a network of exalts, coordinating efforts so they do not work at cross purposes. She is most interested in those who are opposed to the Realm.
15. Juuken reached Gem quickly in the flying car (similar, but a bit more advanced that the circle's Cloudwalking Ingot). The battle had long been cleaned up, but Juuken manages to scrape together some information. The invaders were defeated on 15st day of Ascending Earth, RY 769. They had 30,000 troops, led by a seven foot tall combination of man and silver machinery who called himself Excessively Righteous Blossom. His troops piloted powered vehicles and wore a strange type of leather-like material as armor, along with dark googles. They also carried a type of bow, never seen before (crossbows). Each of them also had a gemstone embedded in their forehead. Their equipment is clearly superior, but when Juuken tracks down the commander of Gem's forces, its clear that the invaders tactics were horrendously bad, demonstrating "complete ignorance of the terrain and how to properly move and maneuver an army." With bowmen from elevated positions and handful of allied spirits, it was a slaughter, leaving only a thousand alive. Several hundred still hang from the cliffs around Gem.
16. Juuken heads to the mine next. We'll pick the story up there.