Yun Li (A Very Fine Assistant)

Name: Yun Li
Concept: The Mask Maker Transcendent
Caste: Night
Limit Trigger: The Solar’s allies suffer a setback or defeat because of a mistake she made.
Anima: Ghostly mandala of spinning and fracturing masks

ATTRIBUTES
Strength        2
Dexterity   4
Stamina        2

Charisma        2
Manipulation 4
Appearance 3

Perception        4
Intelligence   3
Wits        4

ABILITIES
Archery
(F)Athletics 1
(F)Awareness 2
(F)Brawl 1
(F)Bureaucracy 4
Craft 1
(C)Dodge 3
(F)Integrity 3
Investigation
(C)Larceny 4
Linguistics 1
Lore 1
Martial Arts
Crane Style        3
Ebon Shadow Style 3
Medicine
Melee
(C)Occult 1
Performance
Presence 1
Resistance
Ride
Sail 3
(S)Socialize 5
(C)Stealth 3
Survival
Thrown
War


MERITS
Martial Artist (4)
Resources (1)
Language - High Realm (1)
Language – Old Realm (1)
Contacts – Ghosts (2)
Contacts – Spies (1)

ESSENCE 1
Personal 13
Peripheral 33

WILLPOWER 5

HEALTH LEVELS
-0
-1
-1
-2
-2
-4
Incapacitated

CHARMS
Socialize – Supernal
Socialize Excellency
Shadow Over Day
       Guarded Thoughts Meditation
Penumbra Self Meditation
Inverted Ego Mask
Heart-Eclipsing Shroud
Hundred-Faced Stranger

Athletics
Athletics Excellency
Graceful Crane Stance

Awareness
Awareness Excellency
Sensory Acuity Prana
        Surprise Anticipation Method

Larceny
Larceny Excellency
Seasoned Criminal Method
Flawless Impenetrable Disguise

Martial Arts
Martial Arts Excellency
Crane Style
Empowering Justice Redirection
Fluttering Cry of Warning
Stealth
Stealth Excellency
Perfect Shadow Stillness
Easily-Overlooked Presence Method


INTIMACIES
Defining:  Forge my circle into a tool to use against detrimental aspects of the world (as determined by me… because really, you just can’t trust their judgement… yet).
Major: Circle (Exasperated and Sisterly Affection)
Major Negative: Skullstone & the Prince (Longing for Home and Repulsion simultaneously)
Minor: Resolving Existential Crisis (Am I real if I was created by the Mask Makers Daughter, or am I a lie made manifest, and if I am not real because I was created, was she real either or the product of an identify before her, and to what end do we play this game?)
Minor: The Mask of Perfection (I must flawless as an assistant, a testament to the Daughter’s craft and the purpose I was created for and must not fail in flawlessly executing the proper demeanor of my designated role.
Minor: In all things, Moderation.
Minor Negative: The Necessity of Salt Wolf

BONUS POINTS
3 Tertiary Attribute
12 Abilities


Salt Wolf (Persona)

Archery
Athletics 4
Awareness 2
Brawl
Bureaucracy
Craft
Dodge
Integrity
Investigation
Larceny 4
Linguistics
Lore
Martial Arts
Ebon Shadow Style 3
Medicine
Melee
Occult
Performance
Presence
Resistance
Ride
Sail
Socialize 1
Stealth        4
Survival
Thrown
War

Intimacies
Defining: Revolution (This age is in essence a failed state, overthrow it and create something new from the ashes).
Major: Burn it Down (There is nothing so sacred, except maybe the Circle and even that is doubtful, that its survival is critical unless it serves a purpose.  If it stands in the way, get rid of it or find a use for it, do not tolerate it).
Major: Circle (Flawed Companionship, but at least they are equals).
Minor: Selfish (Caring too much outside yourself and your own plans is the path to ruin and failure).
Minor Negative: Overly Emotional Gestures (The weak foundations of a weak individual, better to feel little and feign a temperamental, passionate nature than to actually possess such a detrimental flaw)


 
The Mask in the Box

This is the story of a life I remember, it’s not my life though, it is the life that belongs to a mask that I keep locked in a box that not even Salt Wolf can open.    The mask is carved from Sijan Ironwood and worked in eerie lines of grey metal that is death cold to the touch chased with a gold that radiates the sun’s warmth.  The surface is smooth as the finest silk beneath an expert’s fingers, except for the gash that mars the left temple and splits the rounded edge of wood, here the metal and ironwood are stained with the red blood of a life that was a little lie.
This is the story of that life blood and the Mask Maker’s daughter.

The Tale of the Mask Makers Daughter

All the best stories begin with those terrible words “Once Upon a Time…,” such ominous words that portent tragedy, greatness, romance, and heroism.  There is an implied power in any tale that follows those fateful words so that is where this story will begin:

Once Upon a Time there were two mask makers who lived on the dread isles of the dead, the Skullstone Archipelago, and they gave birth to three daughters, but only one drew breath and opened her eyes to the world.  They raised their creature of insatiable curiosity among the fantastical and myriad faces that their craft created for the pageantry of the true nobility, the spirits of the dead.  The Mask Maker’s daughter grew beneath the black socketed gazes of anthromorphic symbols that waited to have their eyes filled with the semblance of sentience.   As the chubby fingers of youth grew slender and nimble, they learned the subtle art of her progenitors, that a touch of green velvet evoked the mossy promise of Resplendant Wood that she had only read of, that the glassy iridescence of a dragonfly’s wing hinted at ideals of beauty that transcended simple human flesh, the brush of a curving feather meant to rest against a cheek could be the provocative frame for a wicked smile, that a spray of colorful butterfly wings around the eyes brought light even to the gaze of the dead.   The girl turned youth learned the lessons of language in symbols, implications, and pageantry.

But no “Once Upon a Time” story can stay happy for long, that is not how such things are crafted by the whims of fortune and fate.  Children must grow, even in the House of a 1000 Faces, and while a child is hungry and hollow cheeked, they do not understand the terrible truth of their condition until they appreciate the idea of a distant future, for a child always lives in today and tomorrow, not five years from this day.  For all its pageantry, Skullstone is ruled by the dead and those that must breath and eat live half-lives as second citizens and stare longingly up the gray expanse of Mount Vashti or become scavenger pirates.

The Mask Makers looked upon the beautiful products of their inventive minds, the hand-to-mouth life they lived even as they furnished the necrodramas with their fine works and resolved to climb the ladder of Onyx’s necrotic society.  To Daughter they whispered the last secret of their craft in solemn voices: The Mask does not conceal, it defines and to the observant eye it reveals the truth about the wearer.  Then Mask Makers dwindled, taking no food or drink for themselves until they exhaled their last breath, anticipating their return as ghostly spirits whose shrine would be tended by Daughter.  Daughter rested her head against their chests and listened to the last dry rattle and the muted decline of their hearts.  Dutifully their funeral masks were placed on their faces, their bodies anointed with the finest oil that a season of new necrodramas purchased and then they were interred to wait their rising.  Five times five nights the Mask Maker’s Daughter waited, until the ghostly voices of the dead priests told her they had failed, they were not worthy enough to walk the shadowlands after their passing.  

In the secret place, hidden by the mask of her face, Daughter knew the priests were wrong, no one was more worthy than her parents, no one understood the drama of the dead, no one knew the way of masks like they did.   So Daughter created the first of many masks without her parents.  The mirror was her first tool, and before it she crafted the primary mask, a pleasant and contented expression filled with artistic frivolity, carving away new emotions from this mask.  With this new mask the daughter made the pretense of walking in her parents’ footsteps, mimicking the right words like a clever bird and wearing the right face for each moment.  And most importantly the Mask Maker’s Daughter watched and listened as she crafted new masks for others to wear, she to exercise the Mask Makers’ last secret.

That is how rebellion found her, or she found it.  The masks with hints of red, not of blood or macabre hues but the fiery red that the living cherish for its warmth, the veils with the green of growing things that nurtured, the warm gold of summers and harvest.  No one who truly loved the path of Skullstone and the Darkmist isle would hold these colors close, and so through such small things she crafted a new mask, one that told the truth.  The Sijanese ironwood was delicately wrought with tender and attentive care, lines and channels carved slowly into for subtle filigrees, and into these she followed the strange whispers of the island filled the channels with two contradictory metals, one holding the last warmth of the remembered sun and the other the chill of ever present night.  Each little polish of wood and careful wielding of the chisel was the building of a resolve, the leashing of a rage that the Daughter had choked and smothered beneath her pleasant facial mask.  It was a plan being made manifest, a network of names, idealist, and malcontents she had pieced together over years.  As the Mask Makers’ Daughter finished the very last adornment of the Mask, she gazed on it to realize she had not made a disguise, she had instead discovered the truth of herself.  And that Truth devoured her and blazed out with unleashed resolve as the Sun claimed her for the Night.

Ah, this is the point where in all “Once Upon A Time” stories a hero is born, but the Wolves of the Sun are not heroes like most stories know them.  It was not the moment of great action, it as the moment of great decision and acceptance that forged the newest Iron Wolf, a terrible understanding that something was rotten in the State of Onyx.  The Daughter donned her mask in public to appear the simple mask maker’s daughter, provider of the accouterments of the necrodramas, but in the secret places, in the back allies, she wore her real face of ironwood and fomented rebellion among those who saw through the veneer of lies their society provided them.  Resolve steadied her hand the first time she destroyed one of the prominent dead and it became easier the next time, until one day it was simply just another necessity.  Lives were accounted for with the necessity of an accountant, and spent when the cost was worth the gain.  Pressure was placed on the system as fracture points were searched for that would send all of Skullstone tumbling into anarchy.

And you thought this was the story of a misunderstood hero, did you not?  

Sometimes to do right, you have to do great wrong.  Mask Makers understand this.
The Mask Makers’ Daughter walked the fine edge for years, and from the docks she plucked the newly arrived Twilight, Mouse, and through the fighting arenas she lured the Dawn, Hurricane, keeping them as her greatest pieces in a game that was measured in the destiny of nations.  Though these new circle mates were inherently selfish individuals, there was in them a potential for greatness that could be directed if handled right.  The Daughter held herself aloof always, the strange agent who arrived to push things has needed with a light touch, but in order to keep her hand on the tiller of this circle she crafted her greatest mask, Yun Li.  There was a naivety in the making of this mask, a painful hope for a better world, the outward appearance of cold bureaucracy governed by a heart that secretly held a passion for all things living.  And once Yun Li breathed, once she was animated by hopes and dreams, the Mask Maker’s Daughter set her loose to become the invaluable right hand of the circle.  In time, Yun Li became more real to the Circle than the Mask Makers’ Daughter.

This tale draws to a close though, because sometimes with greatness and ambition comes tragedy, and never more when our protagonist goes it alone….

Death came for the Mask Maker’s Daughter, it came bearing a princely form and all the power and authority of the unholy dead.  Death came to offer her a choice as the Mask Makers’ Daughter’s nimble steps faltered and failed her.  Death raged and seethed in its awe inspiring and cold way as the Mask Makers’ Daughter refused.  Death was thwarted when the Daughter’s nimble hands that had built such beauty and worked such deceit and terror drove a broken pair of scissors into her own temple.  

Maybe Death did not understand that the Mask Maker’s Daughter had crafted a Lie called Yun Li who became more real than the Daughter as Death grasped for a being that no longer existed.  As the sea swallowed the battered body, the memories of the Mask Maker’s Daughter drowned because I, Yun Li, was always what was real… I think.

A Very Fine Assistant

I am the model of the perfect right hand, I know what is needed before Master Mouse and Master Hurricane have even conceived of their desires.  Discrete, considerate, I remember the foibles of my old Mask and realize the faults that lay within her.  The unchecked hatred, the rage, I was a fool to wear such a face, but I am not a fool who fails to learn her lessons.  I know that I feel too much though my face will not show it, so I have created Salt Wolf and it is all I need to do what must be done, outwardly emotional and temperamental, Salt Wolf is a lie that feels nothing.
To my circle I will remain the ever efficient Yun Li, the uniquely skilled woman who can reach Salt Wolf when they have need, the level-headed assistant who pushes them to question through carefully phrased words, the easily forgotten foundation of much of their life.  I will find anvils to forge them on, from this rough orichalcum I will make their new masks as I peel away the worst of who they are to reveal what is worth wielding in my great game.  And when I am done, even Dead Princes will quaver at the prospect of the two weapons I will wield for the betterment of this age and vision I possess.

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