Asahina Misao
Contents
Asahina Misao
Asahina Misao is just fresh past gempukku, where she announced herself as a woman, and she's still somewhat boyish in appearance. Somehow, Misao manages to look amazing wearing rumpled clothes and dishevelled hair--dyed white, like many Crane. It is evident from Misao's looks that she is at most half-Rokugani, and she wears a colourful scarf around her neck and across her shoulders, patterned in a Ra'shari style. She carries with her a satchel, inside which reside many scrolls and notes, whatever pillow book she has been reading, a finely decorated telescope, and somewhat improbably, a black cat named Kuro. She also carries a fan decorated with sakura and plum blossoms, given to her by Kitsuki Umi. When she speaks she is often excited about some omen or another, and often she gets a vague, distant look in her eyes, as though seeing something no one else does. Misao becomes flustered easily, and will try to change the subject as quickly as possible if matters of romance involving Misao or more physical acts come up, though Misao very vocally believes that love conquers all.
Character Sheet
Doji Matchmaker
Rank 1
XP 0 (3 spent)
Strife 1 Composure 6
Air 3
Earth 2
Fire 1
Water 2
Void 2
Status 35 Glory 47 Honor 50
Skills:
Meditation 1
Courtesy 1
Culture 1
Sentiment 1
Aesthetics 3
Theology 3
Skullduggery 1
Games 1
Access: Air and Water Invocations, Rituals, Shuji
Invocations: Yari of Air Path to Inner Peace Sympathetic Energies
Ritual: The Ties that Bind Divination
Distinctions:
Dangerous Allure (Fire) $ You always make an impression, and NPCs remember your name and face after interacting with you for one or more scenes (unless you take pains to disguise yourself). $ When performing a check for which your good looks are a benefit (such as a Command [Fire] check to get someone to act in spite of the possible consequences or a Performance [Fire] check to incite emotion in someone), you may reroll up to two dice.
Mysterious Visions(Void) You are occasionally beset by mysterious prophetic visions. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're very, very wrong. They seem more accurate when you're actually divining, though.
When performing a check to divine information your senses cannot, such as a Theology[Void] check to divine someone's future or a Sentiment[Void] check to divine someone's hidden emotions, you may reroll up to two dice.
Adversities:
Gaijin Appearance (Fire) People of higher and equal status tend to assume that you are uneducated at best and a barbarian at worst, while people of lower status respond to you with fear. When you make a check to inspire others who do not share your culture or background (such as a Command [Fire] check to rally troops or a Commerce [Fire] check to create a product that peo- ple desire), you must choose and reroll two dice containing or . After resolving the check, if you failed, you gain 1 Void point.
Passions:
Fortune Telling (Void) You can identify any common portents (such as constellations and other stellar phenomena, the cracks in oracle bones, the appearance of certain animals, and various other signs of things to come), along with their implications for the future. $ After performing a check to discern the future (such as a Survival [Void] check to look for small omens in your earthly environs or a Theology [Void] check to perform a divination by reading the stars), you remove 3 strife.
Anxieties:
Omen of Bad Luck (Water) Omens of bad luck seem to follow you wher- ever you go. Even if bad luck rarely befalls you, others see these signs and tend to respond negatively to them (and to you). After performing a check to interact with some- one (such as a Commerce [Water] check to trade for goods with a superstitious merchant or a Government [Water] check to gather information from people who have witnessed one of your bad omens), you receive 3 strife. If this is the first time this has occurred this scene, gain 1 Void point.
Outfit
Traveling clothes, ceremonial clothes, wakizashi, tea set, divination kit, blanket, bowl, chopsticks, four days of travel rations, flint and tinder, sweets (4), pillow book, rokugani pony, pet cat, telescope, like 4 koku, omamori from nozomi-shrine
Boon of Nozomi: Nozomi is the Fortune of Impossible Dreams and watches over underdogs and those who strive for the impossible. Once per game session, after rolling dice, the wearer may spend 1 Void Point to change a single die rolled to show a face showing :explosive_success: , but only on a roll for which the base TN is higher than their rolled Ring.
20 Questions
1. What Clan do you belong to? Crane (+1 Air +1 Culture 35 Status)
2. What Family do you belong to? Asahina (+1 Void or +1 Water, +1 Theology, +1 Aesthetics) I was born in Medinaat al Salaam though. Father was some kind of diplomat, that’s all people will tell me.
3. What is your character’s school? Shika Matchmaker School (+1 Water, +1 Air, Sentiment Courtesy Theology) The Doji have been training my divination abilities in their Matchmaker school. I am unfortunately very bad at the actual matchmaking parts. People are weird.
4. How does your character stand out within their school: Calm and Patience (+Earth)
5. How do you stand out that got you one of your clan's coveted spots at the Rainbow Games? Choose one skill and add 3 ranks. If this takes it above 3, redistribute extra ranks as standard. This skill must be one with an event at the Rainbow games, as discussed with ND || Theology -- I have a gift for divination, even seeing visions when I’m not trying to specifically sometimes. I think they’re going to assign a courtier to handle the daily stuff and leave me to my divinations...
6. What does your character long for, and how might this impede their duty: Gender stuff, finding parent’s fate, avenge parents (or mother?) learning more about the Ra’shari, making friends, earn respect from the Crane, visit Medinaat al Salaam, maybe fall in love...
7. What is your relationship with your clan? I am a good Crane, but sometimes I want to not be. Auntie and Uncle raised me in the ways of the Doji, and I want to honor them, but also my original family and my Mother...
8. What do you think of Bushido? Should be more room for love (+1 Skulduggery)
9. What is your greatest accomplishment so far? (Prophetic Trances(Void)) Everyone seems impressed by my visions. There’s a girl who keeps appearing in them that I want to know more about...
10. What holds you back most in life? (Gaijin Appearance(Fire)) My mother was Ra’shari and even though I dye my hair white (it grows in a deep red they call auburn) it still shows in my face.
11. What activity makes you feel most at peace? (Fortune Telling(Air?)) I feel calmest when I’m performing divinations, particularly with the tarot. It’s important not to be agitated when you are going to perform a divination, or else you’ll affect the outcome in a negative way. Plus, sometimes the visions are of the girl with the red hair...
12. What troubles you most? (Omen of Bad Luck (Water)) It’s like I’m being followed around by someone setting up omens everywhere to make me look bad. Only I don’t think that’s what’s happening either. I don’t really have as bad luck as the omens would involve... Who have you learned most from during your life? Uncle and Auntie taught me how to downplay my own foreign appearance to bring matches to successful union, and to be a good Doji. (Dangerous Allure)
13. What do people notice first when they encounter you? My hair is pretty noticeable, it’s wavy and dark red if I haven’t dyed it, but Uncle and Auntie make sure I keep it dyed regularly. Still wear a scarf that belonged to my mother, though not on my head. Somehow my clothes always end up looking rumpled and disheveled but for some reason people still tell me they think I’m very attractive. I don’t know how to deal with that.
14. How do you react to stressful situations? Snark, fluster, bluster. Sometimes, just shut down and stop responding.
15. What are your preexisting relationships with other clans, families, organizations and traditions
-Lion: The Lion are brave and honorable and courageous and strong! All the books say so.
-Crab: I’m a little frightened of the Crab. They’re so intense, and that’s just as true when they’re happy as when they’re facing death on The Wall. I mean, I guess. I don’t truly know what they’re like when they’re on the Wall, and I’m not sure I’d ever want to. Anyway Uncle says that’s what comes of their daily lives being so deadly serious, I think he has an odd respect for them.
-Scorpion: I always get this funny feeling like the Scorpion I meet are laughing at me. After careful observation and questioning, I determined that the Scorpion I meet are laughing at everybody. I asked a Scorpion and they confirmed it, but then I realized they might have just been laughing at me...
-Dragon: I wonder what answers they find up there. I don’t think I could be a monk or anything, but they must be enlightened or they wouldn’t keep doing it...
-Phoenix: Ahhh, Nozomi Hohoemi and Nozomi Tabi’s courtship was so dramatic and romantic! I’ve got a whole series of pillow books about their adventures together. I bet the libraries of the Asako don’t have that! (Please let me visit the libraries of the Asako please please)
-Orochi: Auntie and Uncle say good Crane do not mingle with the Orochi. So I’ve never met any, but I’d like to! I bet they all have so many stories about travelling around the whole world.
-Unicorn: I feel a kinship with the Unicorn for their difficulties arising from being considered gaijin. I don’t actually know any Unicorn samurai, though. I would love to meet one someday and learn about their way of life! And the many many omens their culture recognizes. Which I don’t yet.
16. How would your parents describe you? If they had not vanished mysteriously under sinister circumstances when I was only a few years old, I like to think they would be proud of me. Auntie and Uncle are tough love, proud when I am a good Doji, only hard on me when I’m not. They’d probably want me to be less ‘spacey’ as they call it.
17. Whatcha got from your fambily? I have a tarot deck that once belonged to my mother. It is my most treasured possession.
18. What haunts your nightmares? My nightmares are really really weird sometimes. Sometimes I’m a cat being chased by a giant rat. Those ones aren’t that bad, though. It’s the ones where...it’s almost like I’m remembering something. I think they’re in Medinaat al Salaam, and there is an argument, and shouting, and I don’t understand what’s happening but I have to run, and hide, or else...I don’t even know, because I’ve always been able to hide, but it’s never for long enough that whatever the bad thing is goes away for real, so I end up just running and hiding and hiding and it’s so near but it hasn’t seen me…
Sometimes I have nightmares where I have a premonition of a serious disaster but I can’t get anyone to listen to me and things get worse and worse. Other times, I try to explain what’s going to happen but I can’t make anyone understand me in any language at all, and I can’t understand them, either. Sometimes they combine, and I’m trying to run away from something horrible and nobody will listen to my pleas for help.
Sometimes I’m locked away all alone, forgotten and abandoned.
19. What dreams leave you disappointed and sad when you wake because they're just a dream?
Ahem. Who did you say is going to see this, again?
There are dreams where the girl with the red hair that I see in my visions is there. Only, in the dreams, she’s me, and her hair is so bright red that no dye could hide it. They’re all kinds of dreams. Even in my nightmares, sometimes. When I wake up I’m boring old me again…
whispering and sometimes there’s a boy and we talk and spend time together and hold hands and… <blushing too hard to continue> ... and I never remember his name when I wake...
