1. What clan does your character belong to?
The mighty Crab clan!
(Earth ring +1, Fitness skill +1, Status 30)
2. What family does your character belong to?
The Hida family directly descends from the great Kami Hida, founder of the courageous Crab clan. Among this illustrious lineage is the household of Hida Takeari, whose cherry blossom Yura gave him seven sons before she wilted: Uchihiko, Koreyasu, Motokata, Kazutaka, Tameaki, Nagaharu, the very recently deceased Munemoto, and Tomoteru. The latter was her favorite, perhaps simply because Takeari never took to him. That lasted the boy a short while, and then she was dead - marking the beginning of the season of his discontent.
(Fire ring +1, Command and Tactics skills +1, Glory 44, 4 starting koku)
3. What is your character's school, and what roles does that school fall into?
It is not simply that he was the youngest or that he was a bit different - he seemed proud of being different, or if not proud at least stubborn. But one's lack of graces forsakes not his birthright, and so buke he would be. His father, however, relished the opportunity to send him away to the Hiruma school. The son lost no sleep either at the thought of being gone.
(Air and Water ring +1, honor 35, 5 skills +1: Fitness, Melee, Ranged, Skulduggery, Survival. Starting Techniques: Rushing Avalanche Style, Striking as Water. School Ability: Flickering Flame. Starting outfit: traveling clothes, ashigaru armor, daishō,
4. How does your character stand out within their school?
At the Hiruma school, he found confidence in his own resilience and steadfastness in the face of adversities. For the first time, he started to believe he could act and behave as a samurai.
(Earth ring +1)
5. Who is your lord and what is your character's duty to them?
Upon return from the Hiruma school, he swore fealty to his Clan. He was recently assigned the duty of yōjimbō to his brother Munemoto, who with his last dying breath transferred his duty to his younger brother: complete the family business at court.
(Giri: make it to court and represent the Crab clan's interest against the Crane's. Island of Doctor Moreau meets The Hidden Fortress.)
6. What does your character long for, and how might this impede their duty?
He longs to die of old age while surrounded by children, grandchildren and the love of a woman he could never openly have. For painfully obvious reasons, this diametrically opposes his duty as a samurai.
(Ninjō: self-preservation, nurturing of his secret concubine and of their son)
7. What is your character's relationship with their clan?
Mutual strain stains the ties to his household and the clan at large. Much to blame is his own solitary disposition. His youth was rife with times where he would disappear from sight and make do in the brush with no supplies or help - there were no barbed retorts in those quiet times, only stirrings of small beasts and birds.
(Survival skill +1)
8. What does your character think of Bushidō?
When in school, he learned true strife, but he also learned much about love - not a child's infatuation, or a beautiful song, or the empty stage play of a samurai marriage, but the true, biting nature of intimate love. Without masks, without ceremony, and entirely behind closed doors. The prospect of dying embraced by just honor and glory seems cold and grey in comparison.
(Sentiment skill +1)
9. What is your character's greatest accomplishment so far?
He climbed countless trees and crossed many a treacherous creek as a child. The Hiruma school honed that talent, sharpening it like a katana blade.
(Distinction: Keen Balance)
10. What holds your character back the most in life?
He never quite learned to be subtle in public. True, his mother knew of that art, and so does the woman who bore him his son - but those delicate brushes of tact could not reshape the rock.
(Adversity: Bluntness)
11. What activity most makes your character feel at peace?
The bark of a bow-worthy tree will snap back just as hard as you bend it. The target of countless sharp jabs, he learned how to look for a weak spot, and hit back just as hard.
(Passion: Provocation)
12. What concern, fear, or foible troubles your character the most?
He has been called resilient, unmovable, tough - or is he just a much deeper well? And if rain should keep coming and pouring, will he not one day overflow?
(Anxiety: Ferocity)
13. Who has your character learned the most from during their life?
Countless men have once frequented geisha, but few fall in love. He found peace and held on for as long as he could, in the way that the roots of an ages-old tree stubbornly love the side of the mountain. And that woman taught him of the peace that Tea brings.
(Passion: Tea)
14. What do people notice first upon encountering your character?
The body of a Hida in a Hiruma scout: not a lithe, petite man, but one stocky and tough, yet much faster and nimble that strangers might guess.
But what sets him so much more apart are his thick frizzy curls, quite an oddity in Rokugan.
15. How does your character react to stressful situations?
After but a short time, you would learn how his eyes open wide, bushy eyebrows come up, and he gnashes his teeth.
16. What are your character's preexisting relationships with other clans, families, organizations, and traditions?
Knowing the gruel of the duty that would lay before him, she saw him off with the cups they would use to drink Tea, and a memento of his little boy.
(Starting item: Tea set and child's doll within)
17. How would your character's parents describe them?
As a young boy before Hiruma school, a girl promised to somebody else caught his eye. Much too stubborn he was - he would wander knee-deep in the taro fields, where the bonge would work, just to catch a quick glimpse of her face as a screen door was opened and closed, and the rest of the time he would work alongside them. Much too stubborn, that boy - and that doesn't leave room for much sense.
(Labor skill +1)
18. Who was your character named to honor?
The famed Hida Tomoteru, his great-great-uncle, was an outstanding warrior, commander and horseman. His steed was a sight to behold, and legend holds that it was part kami and would never die of old age. Family stories tell how when Tomoteru died gloriously in battle, he fell forward but stayed on the saddle, and the horse took off galloping like never before, kicking up dust and fog as it kicked off the ground and flew up into the heavens, taking its rider to Meido and then to Tengoku. The same stories tell that the horse then came back, and wanders Ningen-dō to this day, until it shall be found by a most worthy Hida.
19. What is your character's personal name?
Hida Tomoteru
20. How should your character die?
Things being as they are in Rokugan, I have a feeling that Tomoteru will not find the death he would wish for. I think, however, that he will not go quietly. He will rage against the dying of the light.
The mechanical rundown after session 1:
Hida Tomoteru - Hiruma Scout rank 1
air 2
earth 3
fire 2
water 2
void 1
skills: fitness 2 command 1 tactics 1 melee 1 ranged 1 survival 2 skulduggery 1 labor 1 sentiment 1
honor 40
glory 50
status 30
endurance 10
composure 10
focus 4
vigilance 2
distinction: keen balance
passions: provocation, tea
adversity: bluntness
anxiety: ferocity
kata: rushing avalanche style, striking as water
school technique: flickering flame
4 koku
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