Character Information
Mar. 29th, 2017 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivemetaldragonsName: Shu Li ‘Julie’ Wen
Canon: Old World of Darkness
Sex: Female
D.O.B.: October 25, 1715 by the western calendar
Apparent Age: Mid to late 20s
Convention: New World Order
Methodology: Operative, White Suit
Recruitment Date: 3/10/10
History:
Julie née Shu Li Wen was born in 1715 during Qing Dynasty China. At the age of 14, she was sent to the Palace to serve as a concubine in the Emperor's harem. When she was 16, she bore the Emperor a son. He was named Li Wei, and she was elevated to the rank of Consort. That was when she really became aware of the intrigue present among the women of the harem. Competition to bear the next heir to the throne was fierce, and being a favorite of the Emperor made her a target in many people's eyes. In order to survive, she had to learn to play the game.
As it turned out, not only was she good at it, but she enjoyed outsmarting her rivals. She did well for herself and her son, gaining considerable power in the harem, but unfortunately, it was only four years later when her luck ran out, and her machinations caught up with her. Seeking to eliminate a possible heir, one of the women, backed by the Dragon Wizards of the Wu Lung, arranged to have Li Wei murdered.
The shock of discovering her son's lifeless body triggered Julie’s Awakening. Suddenly, she could hear the thoughts of the people around her, including those of the culprit. Consumed with grief, pained by the voices in her head she could not silence, and senseless with rage, she confronted the old man who had prepared the poison. The old man who just happened to be a powerful Mage. Serious error of judgment. She wasn't meant to survive the encounter. The spell should have killed her, but something went wrong. She wouldn't know exactly how wrong until years later.
When she woke she had been left for dead, dumped outside the Palace walls with no one to turn to, and no real idea of how to survive in the real world. If the Akashic Brotherhood hadn't found her, she would have been completely lost. Julie entered monastic life for a time, and there she found some measure of peace, but ultimately her fiery temper, and a desire for revenge landed her among the more martial minded Warring Fists of the Vajrapani where her training began in earnest.
She met the greatest and possibly only love of her life during that time, a fellow warrior called Jian Yu. The two married, and meant to start a family together, but she was unable to bear him a son. As the years passed, Jian Yu aged while Shu Li stayed young. The botched curse meant to kill her all those years ago hadn’t killed her, but it had halted her aging process permanently, and rendered her sterile. She stayed by her husband’s side, watched as he grew into an old man, and was devastated when he died of old age. Everyone around her met the same fate eventually, and in the end, she couldn’t help but see immortality as a curse.
In the 200 some years that followed, Shu Li was a warrior for the Akashic Brotherhood, studying, training, teaching, and going where she was needed to protect the Order. She lived through the turn of the century, fought in the Boxer Rebellion, and witnessed the horrors of World War II firsthand. In the late 1940s, she immigrated to the United States, and in the 1980s she opened a martial arts studio in Chicago, where she taught anyone who was willing to learn, all the while keeping her eyes open for potential Akashic Brothers.
In 2010, she was approached by the Council of Elders. The prophets of the Cassandra Complex had predicted a great catastrophe. She was told that she had the opportunity to stop it, but only if she joined the Five Metal Dragons to do it. Despite her misgivings, she agreed to their “request”. Memories were suppressed, suggestions were planted, and disillusioned with a Tradition run by “monks who have no real understanding of the real world”, as well as “frustrated by the “inability of the Akashic Brotherhood to get anything at all done”, she made her move. The New World Order didn’t find Julie. She went to them, and they were happy to have her.
After the social conditioning that every new agent undergoes, she spent a good amount of time in the Ivory Tower studying and training for her new life. Impressed by her progress, the higher ups took a liking to her, and she quickly earned herself a position as a Woman in White. She worked mostly in different Horizon Constructs, investigating the loyalty of the scientists there, and keeping a close eye on the constructed reality, monitoring the resulting ideologies for conformity to the Technocratic Union’s goal.
She has been assigned to Project Nighthawk, ostensibly, as a therapist working with the Department of Psychological Evaluation and Maintenance, responsible for the individual and collective health of the amalgam, and that is part of her mission, but left unsaid is that she’s also there to watch its members, monitor their loyalty, and report back to her superiors on her findings.
Psychological Evaluation:
Life really began for Shu Li inside the Palace walls, where she learned the benefits of ambition and cunning. She was rewarded for being manipulative, lying served a purpose, and when she became a mother, it wasn't just for her sake that she did it. She had a child to protect, and it didn't matter if that meant compromising her ideals or hurting others. She never liked like to see people suffer, but she was and is capable of intellectualizing some pretty horrible things. Her conscience might bother her, but she's always done what she needs to do to survive.
Despite all of the above, she is not without compassion for other people, and in fact she has a strong desire for companionship. The loss of her son affected her deeply, and the knowledge that everyone she loves will ultimately grow old and die while she lives on makes her reluctant to form close relationships with other people for fear of being hurt again. It would be wiser in her opinion to keep others at an arm's length, but life is rarely so simple.
It's difficult for her to not involve herself in other people's problems. She is still a mother, and after 300 years, most people seem like children to her. It's not out of malice that she makes judgments or interferes with their lives. She genuinely believes that she knows what's best for them, and when they don't listen to her, she quickly becomes exasperated.
Immortality has made her cynical, and it would be easy to resign herself to nihilism, if she wasn't ultimately hopeful. Restless and driven towards an unknown destiny, she has seen enough of war to make peace a priority even if that means she must adopt an "ends justify the means" philosophy to achieve it. As a warrior for the Akashic Brotherhood or as an agent of the Technocracy, she has always been, and is willing to get her hands dirty if the goal is a better world for future generations to live in.
It's her experience and the unique perspective on individuals and society that living so long has given her that makes her special to her superiors in the New World Order, and because she's no stranger to subterfuge, she's well suited to be an Operative. Thus far, her assignments have been cherry picked for her. The NWO is aware of her feelings regarding children, and she hasn't been directly exposed to some of the more controversial experimentation involving the young yet. She's aware that they exist, and she has her misgivings, but as far as her supervisors know, she's been nothing but loyal so far.
Character Sheet
Nature: Survivor
Demeanor: Judge
Spheres: Mind, Entropy, Correspondence
Merits: Unaging, Confidence, Perfect Liar
Flaws:: Demented Eidolon, Short Fuse, Double Agent
Abilities: Do, Psychology, Logic, Pharmocopeia, Microbiology, Interrogation, Seduction, Torture
Preferred Effects: Edit Memory, Plausible Denial, Psychic Intrusion, Psychological Breaking Point
Other: Cloaking (Arcane)
Canon: Old World of Darkness
Sex: Female
D.O.B.: October 25, 1715 by the western calendar
Apparent Age: Mid to late 20s
Convention: New World Order
Methodology: Operative, White Suit
Recruitment Date: 3/10/10
History:
Julie née Shu Li Wen was born in 1715 during Qing Dynasty China. At the age of 14, she was sent to the Palace to serve as a concubine in the Emperor's harem. When she was 16, she bore the Emperor a son. He was named Li Wei, and she was elevated to the rank of Consort. That was when she really became aware of the intrigue present among the women of the harem. Competition to bear the next heir to the throne was fierce, and being a favorite of the Emperor made her a target in many people's eyes. In order to survive, she had to learn to play the game.
As it turned out, not only was she good at it, but she enjoyed outsmarting her rivals. She did well for herself and her son, gaining considerable power in the harem, but unfortunately, it was only four years later when her luck ran out, and her machinations caught up with her. Seeking to eliminate a possible heir, one of the women, backed by the Dragon Wizards of the Wu Lung, arranged to have Li Wei murdered.
The shock of discovering her son's lifeless body triggered Julie’s Awakening. Suddenly, she could hear the thoughts of the people around her, including those of the culprit. Consumed with grief, pained by the voices in her head she could not silence, and senseless with rage, she confronted the old man who had prepared the poison. The old man who just happened to be a powerful Mage. Serious error of judgment. She wasn't meant to survive the encounter. The spell should have killed her, but something went wrong. She wouldn't know exactly how wrong until years later.
When she woke she had been left for dead, dumped outside the Palace walls with no one to turn to, and no real idea of how to survive in the real world. If the Akashic Brotherhood hadn't found her, she would have been completely lost. Julie entered monastic life for a time, and there she found some measure of peace, but ultimately her fiery temper, and a desire for revenge landed her among the more martial minded Warring Fists of the Vajrapani where her training began in earnest.
She met the greatest and possibly only love of her life during that time, a fellow warrior called Jian Yu. The two married, and meant to start a family together, but she was unable to bear him a son. As the years passed, Jian Yu aged while Shu Li stayed young. The botched curse meant to kill her all those years ago hadn’t killed her, but it had halted her aging process permanently, and rendered her sterile. She stayed by her husband’s side, watched as he grew into an old man, and was devastated when he died of old age. Everyone around her met the same fate eventually, and in the end, she couldn’t help but see immortality as a curse.
In the 200 some years that followed, Shu Li was a warrior for the Akashic Brotherhood, studying, training, teaching, and going where she was needed to protect the Order. She lived through the turn of the century, fought in the Boxer Rebellion, and witnessed the horrors of World War II firsthand. In the late 1940s, she immigrated to the United States, and in the 1980s she opened a martial arts studio in Chicago, where she taught anyone who was willing to learn, all the while keeping her eyes open for potential Akashic Brothers.
In 2010, she was approached by the Council of Elders. The prophets of the Cassandra Complex had predicted a great catastrophe. She was told that she had the opportunity to stop it, but only if she joined the Five Metal Dragons to do it. Despite her misgivings, she agreed to their “request”. Memories were suppressed, suggestions were planted, and disillusioned with a Tradition run by “monks who have no real understanding of the real world”, as well as “frustrated by the “inability of the Akashic Brotherhood to get anything at all done”, she made her move. The New World Order didn’t find Julie. She went to them, and they were happy to have her.
After the social conditioning that every new agent undergoes, she spent a good amount of time in the Ivory Tower studying and training for her new life. Impressed by her progress, the higher ups took a liking to her, and she quickly earned herself a position as a Woman in White. She worked mostly in different Horizon Constructs, investigating the loyalty of the scientists there, and keeping a close eye on the constructed reality, monitoring the resulting ideologies for conformity to the Technocratic Union’s goal.
She has been assigned to Project Nighthawk, ostensibly, as a therapist working with the Department of Psychological Evaluation and Maintenance, responsible for the individual and collective health of the amalgam, and that is part of her mission, but left unsaid is that she’s also there to watch its members, monitor their loyalty, and report back to her superiors on her findings.
Psychological Evaluation:
Life really began for Shu Li inside the Palace walls, where she learned the benefits of ambition and cunning. She was rewarded for being manipulative, lying served a purpose, and when she became a mother, it wasn't just for her sake that she did it. She had a child to protect, and it didn't matter if that meant compromising her ideals or hurting others. She never liked like to see people suffer, but she was and is capable of intellectualizing some pretty horrible things. Her conscience might bother her, but she's always done what she needs to do to survive.
Despite all of the above, she is not without compassion for other people, and in fact she has a strong desire for companionship. The loss of her son affected her deeply, and the knowledge that everyone she loves will ultimately grow old and die while she lives on makes her reluctant to form close relationships with other people for fear of being hurt again. It would be wiser in her opinion to keep others at an arm's length, but life is rarely so simple.
It's difficult for her to not involve herself in other people's problems. She is still a mother, and after 300 years, most people seem like children to her. It's not out of malice that she makes judgments or interferes with their lives. She genuinely believes that she knows what's best for them, and when they don't listen to her, she quickly becomes exasperated.
Immortality has made her cynical, and it would be easy to resign herself to nihilism, if she wasn't ultimately hopeful. Restless and driven towards an unknown destiny, she has seen enough of war to make peace a priority even if that means she must adopt an "ends justify the means" philosophy to achieve it. As a warrior for the Akashic Brotherhood or as an agent of the Technocracy, she has always been, and is willing to get her hands dirty if the goal is a better world for future generations to live in.
It's her experience and the unique perspective on individuals and society that living so long has given her that makes her special to her superiors in the New World Order, and because she's no stranger to subterfuge, she's well suited to be an Operative. Thus far, her assignments have been cherry picked for her. The NWO is aware of her feelings regarding children, and she hasn't been directly exposed to some of the more controversial experimentation involving the young yet. She's aware that they exist, and she has her misgivings, but as far as her supervisors know, she's been nothing but loyal so far.
Character Sheet
Nature: Survivor
Demeanor: Judge
Spheres: Mind, Entropy, Correspondence
Merits: Unaging, Confidence, Perfect Liar
Flaws:: Demented Eidolon, Short Fuse, Double Agent
Abilities: Do, Psychology, Logic, Pharmocopeia, Microbiology, Interrogation, Seduction, Torture
Preferred Effects: Edit Memory, Plausible Denial, Psychic Intrusion, Psychological Breaking Point
Other: Cloaking (Arcane)
