Like kill the Moon not happy.
Hey, she saved the realm from the Lying Darkness, cut her some slack...
Anyway, like I announced, here my alternative character proposal. Since people complained that my first one didn't had enough inherent potential for conflict, this one is brimming with it. Shahai is different from most L5R characters. She isn't one for duty or compassion, or any of the tenets of bushido. Instead she is pretty much a self-centered bitch, driven by an overabundance of ambition.
If you take a look at the build you will see a slightly different approach that that was taken in comparison to Miyako. She has the maximum amount of points that can be gained with flaws, which makes her more powerful, but also more unbalanced. I have also spent 24 point on her traits instead of 12, meaning that Shahai has less points left for skills. She isn't a very disciplined person and has been getting by mostly on a combination of natural talent, seduction, dumb luck and blood magic.
This character will probably be a lot harder to play than the others, because she has to hide much of what she is from other people and because her powers will destroy her when used rashly.
To avoid confusion as to which of my characters you want to vote for, I would suggest to vote for Shahai as "Zechstein 2" if you want to play this character.
Code:
Name: Hiruma Shahai
Rank: 1
Insight: 138
School: Hida Bushi School
Honor: 3.5
Glory: 1
Status: 1
Shadowland Taint: 0.5
Initiative: 3k2
Traits:
Air:2
Reflexes:2
Awareness:2
Earth:3
Stamina:3
Willpower:3
Fire:3
Agility:3
Intelligence:3
Water:2
Strength:2
Perception:2
Void:2
Skills:
*Heavy Weapons: 01 [Tetsubo]
*Intimidation: 01
*Kenjutsu: 03
*Defense: 01
*Battle: 01
*Athletics: 01
Etiquette: 01
Investigation: 03
Lore (Shadowlands): 01
Lore (Maho): 02
Sincerity: 01
Temptation: 02
*School Skill
Mastery Abilities:
Kenjutsu: +1k0 to all damage rolls made with a sword
Investigation: Second attempt to Search emphasis without TN increase.
Techniques:
The Way of the Crab
Spells:
Blood Rite
Advantages:
Forbidden Knowledge (Maho)
Dangerous Beauty
Disadvantages:
Dark Secret (maho-tsukai)
Insensitive
Shadowlands Taint
Background
"This isn't fair!"
This sentence perfectly describes Hiruma Shahai's attitude towards life. Not that her heart bled for the plight of the peasants or anything, on the contrary. From a very early age, it hat been obvious that she possessed a keen mind and a beautiful face. When she was six, she had all the men in her family's household twisted around her finger. And yet, despite her obvious natural gifts, she was still the daughter of a minor Hiruma samurai while other, less gifted people where destined to rule only because of the vagaries of birth.
The last straw came when she was eight. As it turned out, her older brother had the talent to speak to the kami. Outwardly she was cheerful and wished him luck when he made his way to the lands of the Kuni to become a shugenia, but internally, she was seething. The spirits of the natural world would talk to this gullible idiot, but they refused to listen to her, who was his superior in every way!
Of course, there are always those who would listen to thoughts like this, especially if one lives so closely to the Shadowlands. It was in this time that Shahai heard the voices for the first time. Of course she immediately recognized the whisperings of the kansen. After all Crab mothers have regaled their children with cautionary tales about evil spirits and maho-tsukai for generations.
But she never really considered giving in until two years later, when her father told her which school she would be attending. Shahai had imagined herself as a courtier, someone who ensnared the powerful, but her parents had other ideas: "You are arrogant, daughter," her father said, "you believe yourself above your peers. How could someone like you represent the Crab? I can only pray that the sensei of the Hida will be able to teach you some humility."
That should be her great future? To become some grunt on the Wall, doomed to be killed in some random ambush? Shahai couldn't accept that. The voices of the kansen, half forgotten at this point, suddenly were at the forefront of her mind again. This time, there was no resistance. It didn't matter that lesser minds had been subsumed by the forces of Jigoku, someone like her wouldn't share their fate.
And so she waited and learned. By day, she appeared as the obedient little soldier, at night she listened to the corrupted spirits whispering dark secrets in her mind. She bid her time, confident that her time would come...
