Inwuhou
05-31-12, 02:36 PM
Name: Inwuhou
Job: Itinerant Nun
Race: Human
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Sea Green
Hgt / Wgt: 5'3" / 130 lb
Languages: Tradespeak
Weapons: Oak Staff
Armor: None
Appearance
She has a very lightly tanned appearance that results from spending nearly all of her life indoors. Her build is lean and her muscles are defined not by bulging out but by lines sunken in between them. Her face, shaped like a fresh pumpkin seed, has perpetually-closed, sea-green eyes, a small, pointed nose, and a mouth that was always in a faint smile. Her floor-length black hair is usually bound up into a pony tail with a blue ribbon for practicality.
She wears an unembellished, sky-blue, ankle-length, linen robe with no hood and wide sleeves. The cloth wraps around her chest manage to wrap them down to a B or so, which means that the white sash around her waist didn't make a reproduction of the Kachuck Mountains. A white three-quarters-skirt hung from the sash and down to the same length as the robe. Her arms are perpetually hidden inside the sleeves, which in turn are perpetually closed together in front of her. She wears sturdy, undyed hemp-and-wood shoes.
Personality
Calm, pleasant, and irredeemably benevolent, she is the very model of a modern Wuji nun because she was raised from birth under the guidance of the forward-thinking Abbess. It wasn't like the old school of thought which held a nun should stay away from the unenlightened world, which they term the red dust. The modern school of thought holds that one can best improve themselves if there is moderate contact with the outside world, because they can better see the suffering that others inflict on themselves. It also holds that the nun can better improve herself if she works to alleviate the sufferings, because this leads to an understanding of how such things came to exist.
She views the physical body as a tool and shell not to be glorified but also to be kept in good condition in order to assist the enlightenment of the spirit. Daily cleaning and exercise are important but never decorations, perfumes, or high fashion. Body shame and modesty is replaced by obedience of the Second Precept. She's vegetarian to the best of her abilities on account of killing living things, so milk and eggs are still on the menu.
She does not lie or speak ill of people, preferring instead to say nothing. Of course, that doesn't mean that people can't be annoyed by Inwuhou. She lectures rather incompetently on the subject of liberation from suffering by denying the wants of the body and can be really windy about it, since she does have all the patience and time in the world.
History
Lai Dai's mother died in childbirth for her only daughter, in a little no-name hamlet at the foot of the Comb Mountains. That day, the blacksmith's wife had forgotten to put the peppers into the lunch soup. Because his blood did not flow so strongly, the smith tired early and took a break in the afternoon. Because he was resting outside the forge, he saw and heard the village midwife as she rode by on her donkey. He noticed the cracked shoe on her mount and called out to her, offring to repair it and also some biscuits. She accepted and so arrived at her home two hours later than usual. Because the midwife was late, Lai Muni found her house empty when he went for help after Lai Yu's water broke. He had to rush two villages away to find another and by the time they returned to the home, there was only time to save the daughter.
Lai Muni loved his wife very much. After taking Lai Dai in a basket and throwing her basket into the river, he jumped in after to join his wife. The basket floated, a quiet baby inside, a ways down the river. A returning nun from the Wuji temple saw and rescued the child. She climbed back up the mountain and, with the Abbess' permission, took this child as her own pupil. Lai Dai took the precept name Inwuhou, "Answer to No Hate."
The Wuji nuns are an insular group whose founding times have been very literally lost to time; there was an accident with a novice who was practicing and made a small mistake. There wasn't much trouble about that, because the Wuji nuns believe that the only thing that actually exists is the present, which is torn down and rebuilt in all the passing moments. The past is a mass of echoes that can be seen and manipulated from the present. The future doesn't exist and, besides, is entirely dependent on the present.
Life growing up in a temple is, above all else, tranquil. A steady rythmn permeated all activities from personal meditation, physical training and cleansing to observing distant truths, village visits to trade, and tending the gardens. Wuji nuns did not pray but instead followed a number of rules and precepts for reducing the influence of their fleshly body on spiritual enlightenment. They were suggestions of a sort; while novices would be punished in various ways up to and including corporeal punishment for breaking these precepts, even the youngest nun understood that those actions are simply to teach discipline and that any harm done by violations is entirely to her own progress.
When Inwuhou first learned to look into her own past, she was tested. She was allowed to look into her birth, which was unanswered, and learn what had happened to bring her here. She learned of all of her relatives who were there at her birth and who were still living in the villages nearby. The reaction pleased the Abbess; she answered that she had no family. The Abbess added that she never had any family. Thus Inwuhou was enlightened.
At the age of 20, Inwuhou was now three years overdue for taking the worldly learning voyage that any nun are to take in order to gain enlightenment from observations of the outside world. She had been putting it off because of her discomfort of leaving the quiet, steady life in the nunnery. Finally, the Abbess, who was simultaneously proud of this kind student and annoyed at her stubbornness, persuaded her that she has hit a block in her spiritual development which can only be resolved by going out.
Skills
Awareness [S] - Within range of her Observe the Echoes of the World. Otherwise B.
Unarmed Martial Arts [A] - Wuji Cotton Hand, a soft style that has motions like endless circles, deflections like four ounces deflecting a hundred pounds, counterstrikes like a steel needle hidden in a ball of cotton, and long-winded cardiovascular endurance.
Thrown Projectiles [A] - Golden Hibiscus Needles, two inch long steel needles thrown inconspicuously in motions integrated into larger movements. Thrown in patterns of up to eight and accuracy is sacrificed for speed, surprise, and quantity.
Concentration [A] - If she wants to focus her mind, not many things are going to distract her.
Staff - Coiling Ancient Roots, a hard style that strikes and binds the legs, has motions like winding serpents, and avoids attacks through fourty-nine step positions in a complex circle.
Gardening [B] - Specializing in the vegetable garden, especially leafy ones.
Sewing [C] - Enough to mend and patch.
Cooking [C] - Has no idea what to do with meat.
[B]Abilities
Walk between Moments' Ripples - Time is a continual stream and living beings innately slice it into manageable chunks - moments - to use. A Wuji nun learns to recognize what a moment truly is and also learn to slice time into thinner and thicker pieces as desired. She may increase or decrease the rate of passage of time for herself by a multiplier of 4 per level. Whenever she is in such a state, Paradox accrues at her personal time rate; positively if she is slicing thinner and negatively if she is slicing thicker. If ever she accrues more than 20 seconds of positive Paradox, she snaps out of the timestream entirely and there is no knowing when - or if - she will manage to return.
Observe the Echoes of the World - A Wuji nun must first learn to observe the world as it is and as it has been. All that has happened and could have happened leaves echoes bouncing forever in time. If one knows where and when to look, one can learn to see and hear everything as they are and as they were, thus gaining enlightenment. Her five senses function independently of her fleshly organs, pierce illusions, and can foray into the past. She can focus on one creature, location, or object within 5 feet and observes things and events within 40 feet per level of that focus. She may observe the past of an object by concentrating, but the five-senses echoes become increasingly distorted and disconnected further into the past, to the tune of a 5% sense fragmentation for every doubling of years.
Wipe the Trail of Red Dust - The first training of a Wuji nun who wishes to alter the ripples in time because it is easier to unmake than to make. She can devour bits of the history of an object, creature, or location. A wound can be closed by devouring the history of the wound. A shattered window can be mended by devouring the history of the breaking. She can target an event up to 1 year ago per level. She affects at a rate of 1 second per level per second. Consumed pieces of history build up Paradox at the same rate and must be purged as normal.
The Seven Precepts
Refrain from killing living beings (meaning animals).
Refrain from taking what is not given.
Refrain from sensual conduct.
Refrain from false, ill, and incensing speech.
Refrain from mind-influencing substances such as alcohol.
Refrain from anger, hatred, and sorrow
Refrain from extravagance and stinginess
Equipment
Oak staff, eyebrow height
Precept knife, 6"
Meditation beads, blackwood, circle of 27
Three robe sets, two pairs of shoes.
Job: Itinerant Nun
Race: Human
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Sea Green
Hgt / Wgt: 5'3" / 130 lb
Languages: Tradespeak
Weapons: Oak Staff
Armor: None
Appearance
She has a very lightly tanned appearance that results from spending nearly all of her life indoors. Her build is lean and her muscles are defined not by bulging out but by lines sunken in between them. Her face, shaped like a fresh pumpkin seed, has perpetually-closed, sea-green eyes, a small, pointed nose, and a mouth that was always in a faint smile. Her floor-length black hair is usually bound up into a pony tail with a blue ribbon for practicality.
She wears an unembellished, sky-blue, ankle-length, linen robe with no hood and wide sleeves. The cloth wraps around her chest manage to wrap them down to a B or so, which means that the white sash around her waist didn't make a reproduction of the Kachuck Mountains. A white three-quarters-skirt hung from the sash and down to the same length as the robe. Her arms are perpetually hidden inside the sleeves, which in turn are perpetually closed together in front of her. She wears sturdy, undyed hemp-and-wood shoes.
Personality
Calm, pleasant, and irredeemably benevolent, she is the very model of a modern Wuji nun because she was raised from birth under the guidance of the forward-thinking Abbess. It wasn't like the old school of thought which held a nun should stay away from the unenlightened world, which they term the red dust. The modern school of thought holds that one can best improve themselves if there is moderate contact with the outside world, because they can better see the suffering that others inflict on themselves. It also holds that the nun can better improve herself if she works to alleviate the sufferings, because this leads to an understanding of how such things came to exist.
She views the physical body as a tool and shell not to be glorified but also to be kept in good condition in order to assist the enlightenment of the spirit. Daily cleaning and exercise are important but never decorations, perfumes, or high fashion. Body shame and modesty is replaced by obedience of the Second Precept. She's vegetarian to the best of her abilities on account of killing living things, so milk and eggs are still on the menu.
She does not lie or speak ill of people, preferring instead to say nothing. Of course, that doesn't mean that people can't be annoyed by Inwuhou. She lectures rather incompetently on the subject of liberation from suffering by denying the wants of the body and can be really windy about it, since she does have all the patience and time in the world.
History
Lai Dai's mother died in childbirth for her only daughter, in a little no-name hamlet at the foot of the Comb Mountains. That day, the blacksmith's wife had forgotten to put the peppers into the lunch soup. Because his blood did not flow so strongly, the smith tired early and took a break in the afternoon. Because he was resting outside the forge, he saw and heard the village midwife as she rode by on her donkey. He noticed the cracked shoe on her mount and called out to her, offring to repair it and also some biscuits. She accepted and so arrived at her home two hours later than usual. Because the midwife was late, Lai Muni found her house empty when he went for help after Lai Yu's water broke. He had to rush two villages away to find another and by the time they returned to the home, there was only time to save the daughter.
Lai Muni loved his wife very much. After taking Lai Dai in a basket and throwing her basket into the river, he jumped in after to join his wife. The basket floated, a quiet baby inside, a ways down the river. A returning nun from the Wuji temple saw and rescued the child. She climbed back up the mountain and, with the Abbess' permission, took this child as her own pupil. Lai Dai took the precept name Inwuhou, "Answer to No Hate."
The Wuji nuns are an insular group whose founding times have been very literally lost to time; there was an accident with a novice who was practicing and made a small mistake. There wasn't much trouble about that, because the Wuji nuns believe that the only thing that actually exists is the present, which is torn down and rebuilt in all the passing moments. The past is a mass of echoes that can be seen and manipulated from the present. The future doesn't exist and, besides, is entirely dependent on the present.
Life growing up in a temple is, above all else, tranquil. A steady rythmn permeated all activities from personal meditation, physical training and cleansing to observing distant truths, village visits to trade, and tending the gardens. Wuji nuns did not pray but instead followed a number of rules and precepts for reducing the influence of their fleshly body on spiritual enlightenment. They were suggestions of a sort; while novices would be punished in various ways up to and including corporeal punishment for breaking these precepts, even the youngest nun understood that those actions are simply to teach discipline and that any harm done by violations is entirely to her own progress.
When Inwuhou first learned to look into her own past, she was tested. She was allowed to look into her birth, which was unanswered, and learn what had happened to bring her here. She learned of all of her relatives who were there at her birth and who were still living in the villages nearby. The reaction pleased the Abbess; she answered that she had no family. The Abbess added that she never had any family. Thus Inwuhou was enlightened.
At the age of 20, Inwuhou was now three years overdue for taking the worldly learning voyage that any nun are to take in order to gain enlightenment from observations of the outside world. She had been putting it off because of her discomfort of leaving the quiet, steady life in the nunnery. Finally, the Abbess, who was simultaneously proud of this kind student and annoyed at her stubbornness, persuaded her that she has hit a block in her spiritual development which can only be resolved by going out.
Skills
Awareness [S] - Within range of her Observe the Echoes of the World. Otherwise B.
Unarmed Martial Arts [A] - Wuji Cotton Hand, a soft style that has motions like endless circles, deflections like four ounces deflecting a hundred pounds, counterstrikes like a steel needle hidden in a ball of cotton, and long-winded cardiovascular endurance.
Thrown Projectiles [A] - Golden Hibiscus Needles, two inch long steel needles thrown inconspicuously in motions integrated into larger movements. Thrown in patterns of up to eight and accuracy is sacrificed for speed, surprise, and quantity.
Concentration [A] - If she wants to focus her mind, not many things are going to distract her.
Staff - Coiling Ancient Roots, a hard style that strikes and binds the legs, has motions like winding serpents, and avoids attacks through fourty-nine step positions in a complex circle.
Gardening [B] - Specializing in the vegetable garden, especially leafy ones.
Sewing [C] - Enough to mend and patch.
Cooking [C] - Has no idea what to do with meat.
[B]Abilities
Walk between Moments' Ripples - Time is a continual stream and living beings innately slice it into manageable chunks - moments - to use. A Wuji nun learns to recognize what a moment truly is and also learn to slice time into thinner and thicker pieces as desired. She may increase or decrease the rate of passage of time for herself by a multiplier of 4 per level. Whenever she is in such a state, Paradox accrues at her personal time rate; positively if she is slicing thinner and negatively if she is slicing thicker. If ever she accrues more than 20 seconds of positive Paradox, she snaps out of the timestream entirely and there is no knowing when - or if - she will manage to return.
Observe the Echoes of the World - A Wuji nun must first learn to observe the world as it is and as it has been. All that has happened and could have happened leaves echoes bouncing forever in time. If one knows where and when to look, one can learn to see and hear everything as they are and as they were, thus gaining enlightenment. Her five senses function independently of her fleshly organs, pierce illusions, and can foray into the past. She can focus on one creature, location, or object within 5 feet and observes things and events within 40 feet per level of that focus. She may observe the past of an object by concentrating, but the five-senses echoes become increasingly distorted and disconnected further into the past, to the tune of a 5% sense fragmentation for every doubling of years.
Wipe the Trail of Red Dust - The first training of a Wuji nun who wishes to alter the ripples in time because it is easier to unmake than to make. She can devour bits of the history of an object, creature, or location. A wound can be closed by devouring the history of the wound. A shattered window can be mended by devouring the history of the breaking. She can target an event up to 1 year ago per level. She affects at a rate of 1 second per level per second. Consumed pieces of history build up Paradox at the same rate and must be purged as normal.
The Seven Precepts
Refrain from killing living beings (meaning animals).
Refrain from taking what is not given.
Refrain from sensual conduct.
Refrain from false, ill, and incensing speech.
Refrain from mind-influencing substances such as alcohol.
Refrain from anger, hatred, and sorrow
Refrain from extravagance and stinginess
Equipment
Oak staff, eyebrow height
Precept knife, 6"
Meditation beads, blackwood, circle of 27
Three robe sets, two pairs of shoes.