Wyrm-Blooded

[Slamu]

Honored Pasiap, guide my steps along the hallowed path of tradition.
Honored Mela, fill me with wisdom and let me speak only true.
Honored Sextes Jylis, keep me hale so that my labors bear fruit.
Honored Daana'd, wash clean my soul so that I too may one day become Immaculate.
Honored Hesiesh, kindle my love of duty and keep it bright.
- Children's prayer, as recorded by Thousand Petals Maiden, Pillar of Teak monastery, An Teng. Realm Year 193

Woe oh Creation, for your fallen state! Rejoice oh Creation, a savior is nigh!
Woe ye brigands and fiends, that an implacable foe strikes ye down! Rejoice, you wretches of this fallen Age for a hero has arrived!
Woe to the Anathema of Silver and Gold who seek to murder this world. Rejoice denizens of the Realm, for you shelter under a Dragon's wings!
- Unattributed poem inscribed upon the Seven Li Bridge, Juche Prefecture


Hope lies slain on a hundred battlefields, the dreams of nations shattered. The promise of tomorrow died on the will of foes unseen to mortal eyes. Those that remain have despaired under the yoke of warlords and bandits, desperate for relief from a world abandoned by gods and men.

Yet, and yet, lo an egg has been found within it the promise of tomorrow slumbers about to hatch. A thousand evils shall fall under the claws of ten thousand dragons. Rejoice ye weary and fallen for the dawn comes at last
​

Blood thickens to ichor, a Second Breath is drawn by...

[] The gangster (Water). Kim Woo's enlightenment saw him climbing the ranks of the unenthusiastically ABB to one of Lung's lieutenants. His behavior assured by his grandmother's health, he has ensured the Ruby Dreams casino remains one of Lung's more profitable holdings.
Starting backgrounds:
- Backing 3 (ABB)
- Resources 2
- Followers 2

Starting problem: Bad Boss

Starting Intimacies:
- Grandmother Woo (4) (Love and duty)
- Lung (3) (Fear)
- ABB (3) (Useful but distasteful)
- The Finer Things (2) (Hedonistic aspiration)
- Subordinates (1) (Fond exasperation)
- Asian community of the Bay (1) (Hang together or separate)

[] The scholar (Air): Helen Cho had everything all planned out. She was going to graduate from college magna cum laude and then reinvent her field. Five years later, one academic scandal and NDA she's just trying to stay ahead of her student debt, and her overbearing family. Yet, there are still questions she needs answers to.
- Resources 2
- Connections 1 (Academics)
- Reputation 1 (Troublemaker)

Starting problems: Too curious for my own good, The whiff of scandal

Starting Intimacies:
- Family (3) (filial love)
- Good Old Boys Network (3) (disgust and outrage)
- Ian Stansfield (2) (This will clear my name)
- Mark Curtis (2) (Disappointed betrayal)
- Cats (1) (Bemused fealty)
- Tinker Tech (1) (Pandora's box is a damned tease)

[] The artist (Earth). Daryl Desmond is a young man with a stack of problems, and Nazis seem to be at least half of them. But what can you do with a hole in your pocket, a song in your heart and knees that don't bend?
- Resources 1
- Mentor 2

Starting problems: Talent doesn't pay the bills, Black to the beginning

Starting Intimacies:
- Beautiful things (4) (The world is made better)
- Mr. Flint (3) (Seen a lot, how much is too much?)
- Racism (2) (A tired cliche that needs to be crushed)
- Personal honor (2) (A man's word should mean something)
- Coffee (1) (Blessed is the bean, most holy of elixirs)

[] The iconoclast (Fire). Russell Finnegan is a young man working at one of the radio stations in the Bay. Discontent with the status quo, he sees a great many wrongs needing to be righted, but too many powerful people want to keep The Truth silenced.
- Influence 1 (Brockton Bay media)
- Resources 2
- Mentor 1
- Reputation 1 (Rabble-rouser)

Starting Problem: the caged bird yet sings

Starting Intimacies:
- Social Injustice (4) (Vehement rejection)
- The System (3) (Broken and needing fixing, or working as intended and must be destroyed?)
- History (2) (Those who study history are doomed to yell impotently at those who do not)
- Eddie & Mick (2) (Childhood friends)
- Dogs (2) (We don't deserve dogs)
- The Fairer Sex (1) (I can resist anything but temptation)

[] The healer (Wood). Kaylee Sommer was born in a family that used to mean something in Brockton Bay, but that was generations ago. Now she dreams of going to med school and leaving this all behind, but that fantasy won't come true until the world changes.
- Resources 1
- Familiar 1
- Contacts 1 (Brockton Bay Underworld)

Starting problem: Chains of iron are weaker

Starting Intimacies:
- Panacea (4) (Envy and shame)
- Family (3) (We need each other, we don't have to like each other)
- Dr. Black (2) (Transactional gratitude)
- The Gangs (2) (The names change, the natures don't)
- Animals (2) (Honest in their simplicity)
- Music (1) (I can have this at least)

 

[Slamu]

Name: Kaylee Sommer
Aspect: Wood

Strength
Dexterity
Stamina

Charisma
Manipulation
Appearance

Intelligence
Wits
Perception

Linguistics
Lore
Occult
Stealth
Thrown

Awareness
Integrity
Resistance
Craft
Drive
War

Athletics
Dodge
Melee
Presence
Socialize
Firearms

Bureaucracy
Larceny
Martial Arts
Investigation
Sail


Backgrounds:
Resources
Familiar
Contacts
Intimacies:
Panacea (4) (Envy and shame)
Family (3) (We need each other, we don't have to like each other)
Dr. Black (2) (Transactional gratitude)
The Gangs (2) (The names change, the natures don't)
Animals (2) (Honest in their simplicity)
Music (1) (I can have this at least)

Willpower:

Virtues:

Essence: 2

Health: Full

Experience:
0/0

 

[Slamu]

Reserved.

 

[Slamu]

New Charms:

Spirit-Detecting Mirror Technique repurchase (Occult 2, Essence 3) unlock [Entity]-tagged spirit detection

Twigs-as-Tweezers Methods (Survival 4, Essence 2) Combine traditional medical techniques and flora-based medicines for greater effect (tool/facility booster)

 

[Slamu]

Kaylee Sommer's new life began when her grandfather died, full of pain and hating the world. She remembered him before the ulcers, the cancers, the addictions. She remembered when he was her favorite grandparent, when he was full of stories and good humor and was willing to entertain a young child, give her piggy back rides and teach her how to spit better than any of her cousins. When he died it was less a surprise and more a relief. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not - the last decade of his life was misery and suffering, but the world felt emptier with him gone - but some time between his passing and the wake she'd started to view the world...differently.

The world was poorer for his loss, but when was that? When he was the angry, spiteful old man who demanded his cigarettes even after getting a hole cut in his throat so he could breathe? Or the old man that had told her about family history, about how the Sommers had come to the Americas as the second mate of Captain Brockton himself and had been instrumental in turning a smuggler's haven into a real city? It was the drugs, they said, the years of debauchery and reckless living back in the seventies when the Soviets were going to kill the world with the Bomb and there was nothing to live for, that ruined him and the family.

Never mind that you don't need to drink a drop or touch an ounce of tobacco to get the kinds of sickness that ruin not just your own life, but your family's. Never mind that it was pain and suffering and fear that had killed him more than the organ failures. Why is it that you can only ignore suffering until you can't?

And so a girl who had only wanted to spend her days in the outdoors hiking and hunting, who had coasted through life following the recommendations of others, became a woman determined that no one was going to suffer if she could help it.

--

In a proper hospital the patient would be given anesthesia and the surgery would be done surrounded by beeping machines and attentive medical professionals. Here however the patient was given enough alcohol to keep him from remembering much while the medical professionals socialized. "There's just no way I'm spending that much on a concert when I can listen to her music on the radio for free." The woman in the green scrubs adjusted the light a bit.

Her coworker continued probing the wound. "It's a different experience in person, and you get to hear bands that haven't hit the big time yet. Besides I thought you liked the outdoors? Don't tell me a bit of pollen and bug bites are going to scare you off. It's not like you have other - aha! There you are, you little bastard." Carefully he pried out the bullet fragment and added it to the others in the bowl. "If you could?" Instead of responding the woman simply nodded, focused a moment while moving her hand over the bullet wound in the man's shoulder and the doctor again felt like he should see some of the green energy probing the area or something, but of course yet again nothing seemed to happen. She handed him the sponge in the wound as a silent indicator that the deed was done and they should begin closing up. "Oh no, you suture. These old hands aren't nearly as neat as yours."

"Lazy bastard." She muttered. "I just don't like spending money on something if I can get it for free elsewhere." Which wasn't entirely true but it was true enough for this conversation.

Her answer didn't effect him any more than her accusation had. Shaking his head, he started moving the surgical tools to the cleaning station. "You live out of that truck and survive off peanut butter sandwiches, and I know you can afford better than that." She glared at him and he held up his hands defensively. "Not an interrogation, just incredulity."

"He's all patched up. I'll let you handle his outpatient while I prep for clinic hours."

--

Ms. Tanaka's kids were...well, they were a handful that a twenty-something mother should have an extra set of hands to help ride herd on, but while they like other four, eight and eleven year olds were a dynamo of noise, motion, exuberance and petty grievances against one another they weren't bad kids. Only the youngest was hers, the others were merely "hers", but the woman had an overwhelming maternal spirit in addition to an underwhelming maternal budget.

Dr. Black grumbled about 'charity cases' barely being worth the time they spent on them, but the poor and undocumented needing scrapes and bumps tended to far outweighed the more exciting and lucrative surgeries where crossbow bolts are removed from people who were 'minding their own business'. Even if the clinic did little better than break even on the visits, they helped keep the lights on, and since she was the one that did most of their clinic hours he just rolled his eyes and involved himself when an actually licensed doctor needed to sign off on something like school physicals.

Black...just didn't get it. To him this was a business; as a highly trained professional he expected to be well-compensated for his efforts, and was willing to entertain less-than-legal avenues to finance his comforts. But to Kaylee, she didn't look at every broken bone or persistent cough and see a dollar amount, she saw her grandfather on his deathbed hating the world for the pain he felt. She saw futures cut short by maiming, by disease, by impossible medical debt. The woman hadn't yearned to be a doctor when she was younger, but after seeing someone in pain, the kind that wasn't just a scraped knee or other boo-boo, but actual pain and knowing you can alleviate that, how could you not act?

Holding one giggling little girl by her ankles while her mother watched with only a little bit of anxiety, Dr. Green used her best "adult humoring child" voice and asked for the tongue depressor. The little bat-child did (spilling most of the container on the floor) and continued making flapping motions and pretending to eat insects around her brother's face. "It looks like it's just allergies. I'll write a few over the counter drugs to give him to help deal with the symptoms but the best you can do right now is to wait it out and be aware of potential environmental effects that can make it worse. Pollen, smog, air quality in your apartment...." she made a 'and so forth' gesture with the hand holding a tongue depressor covered in baby saliva. "Nurse, I need pen and paper."

As the bat "flapped" to where the pad of paper was, Ms. Tanaka (real name Takeda Suki, not that Kaylee was supposed to know that) giggled. "You have a way with children. Do you have any of your own?" She wasn't supposed to ask that, but Kaylee humored her.

"Sorry, most kids are too chewy for my tastes." Her 'bat-nurse' gasped at that, remembering that last time Dr. Green had been a mighty Velocosaurus Rex ready to eat little girls that didn't help their mothers with the dishes.

Ms. Tanaka frowned at that as she translated the English back to Japanese before making a horrified face, then laughing. "Yes, they certainly can be."

--

The sun was setting by the time the last of the patients were out of her exam room. Pausing to admire the reds and oranges on the horizon, she reflected on her day. Dr. Black was a lazy bastard, but he wasn't a stingy one and he was right that she could have her own place here in town. Houses were cheap as everyone tried to escape to the countryside, and being able to go for more than a few days without hitting a laundromat sounded amazing. But that money was going to a worthy cause; keeping the family farm in the family. Doc Black gave her her paycheck, she kept enough to pay for gas, car parts and laundry and sent the rest to Mama to pay down the interest the banks were charging.

Seven years, six months. Less if someone else contributed to paying down the principle, and then she could start saving for medical school. Three years of medical school, then she wouldn't have to work out of a sketchy clinic doing under the table procedures. Only ten more years and she can become a real doctor.

The sound of feathers and talons hitting the roof of her cab pulled her out of her reminiscing. "I like corn." A raven had landed there and was giving her the stink eye. "Corn!" He cawed.

Kaylee sighed. "Yeah, yeah, you greedy gullet. I'll get you your damned corn." She opened the passenger door, undid the baling wire keeping the glove box shut and pulled out the small canvas bag of feed corn. The corvid started towards it before she drew the drawstrings closed. "Ah ah ah! You know the deal." She held out her hand.

With a subvocalization that sounded surprisingly like 'stingy bitch', the raven hopped to the back of her truck where it had hidden a twenty dollar bill. "I like corn."

"Yeah, I know you do." She agreed as she stroked Morgan's head. "Thanks. Busy day?" He trilled to the affirmative but was busy eating, so she looked at the cash she had in hand. Keeping that gluttonous bird fed didn't actually cost much, she just charged him so he'd occasionally would hunt for himself instead of getting too fat to fly again. And twenty dollars was enough to do something nice for herself with. Hmm...

[ ] Find a club and let loose a little (Social secondary)
[ ] Splurge on a nice meal and good book (Mental secondary)