Shiki Hsiao

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Hsiao in class

Useful Notes

Lore (Hsiao)

1. Shiki Hsiao is a middling student at Higashigawa High, and a member of Caligraphy club. She's quiet and withdrawn, and doesn't stay around much.

2. Shiki Hsiao is half Korean, and an orphan, now living with her aunt on her mother's side. She's got a much better grasp on foreign languages than you might expect.

3. Shiki Hsiao is occasionally seen in the weirder bookstores, furtively browsing and occasionally buying.

4. Shiki Hsiao does not like her aunt, and tries to stay away from her.

5. Shiki Hsiao.

Overview

Background

Shiki Hsiao was born the only daughter of a Korean immigrant and Japanese mother, in one of the poorest wards in Tokyo. Working irregular and part time jobs, they would die when Hsiao was seven, leaving her to be brought up by her aunt. Her aunt had long held resentment for her sister, for "running off" with her husband and leaving her to take care of their elderly parents herself, as well as the semi-regular "loans" her sister asked for from her to help stave off financial ruin, and now she left her with care of Hsiao. Living under her aunt's strict and irregular rules, Hsiao became withdrawn and quiet. Lacking friends at her new school, her aunts orders made her ill-inclined to gain new ones. As she grew, her aunt became more and more withdrawn, the irregular hours of her secretarial job causing her to become even more snappish when she came home. By the time of her second year in middle school, Hsiao was making all her own meals with the money her aunt would remember to leave on the table every now and then. But, even as her aunt stamped down at home, at school Hsiao grew into what would be the love of her life - language. Hsiao was enamoured with language, the flowing elegant kanji of Chinese and Japanese, the more blocky shapes of the Korean her father had taught her that she refreshed, the latin letters of the English she was taught at school, and even the Ainu she learnt from books she bought with the money she could save.

As she progressed into the first year of High school, still the quiet loner who sat in the corners of classrooms at lunchtime, she'd developed a routine. Wake up in the morning, quietly tiptoe downstairs and hope that her aunt hadn't returned home yet and make breakfast and lunch. Go to school, sit through classes and then the mandatory club (Calligraphy, unsurprisingly). Walk home the long way, passing through parks and streets, occasionally stopping into the older bookshops and buying tomes that took her eye - older books on philosophy, analysis of dreams and thoughts, speculations on the structure of language - until she reached home. Stepping in, making a quick dinner, and then sitting in her room with the light off, reading the books she kept under her bed, out of sight of her aunt.

She continued in this shell of a life, this quiet sufferance, until the last year of school, over the summer break, she was offered a book in one of the smaller shops, the ones more hidden away. Buying the suprisingly small book, she spent most of the summer studying it. It was incomprehensible at first, but as she worked, cross referencing everything she'd been reading over the past years, working on it harder and harder, developing new theories of language, new theories of thought. And before the time she was done, she'd realised something, in the pattern of syllables and structure. She'd worked out how the world had a language of it's own, built from the thoughts and words of everyone that came before. And carefully, carefully, she could make her own additions to that.

But, soon, oh so soon, school came around again, and she took it greatfully. She's quiet still, and still scared of her aunt, but when she writes on little scraps in class, something like a smile can almost be seen, in the frown and knitted eyebrows.

Objectives

Teather - Her Aunt. Reasonably wealthy, reasonably connected, reasonably young, she rules her ward as much she can. Is also like, a ghoul.

Dream -

Vital Statistics

Name: Shiki Hsiao

Tradition: Ha

Concept: Shut-in little goth

Image Song:

Nature:

Demeanor: Loner

Essence:

Chantry:

Things to Track

Willpower: 6

Temporary Willpower: 6

Health Levels: -0 x1, -1 x2, -2 x2, -5 x1, Incapacitated

Current Damage:

-0: [ ]

-1: [ ][ ]

-2: [ ][ ]

-5: [ ]

Incap: [ ]

Arete: 4

Quintessence:

Tass: 0

Paradox:

Attributes

Strength 2

Dexterity 3

Stamina 3

Perception 3

Intelligence 3

Wits 5 Jumpy

Charisma 3

Manipulation 3

Appearance 3

Abilities

TALENTS

Alertness 3

Athletics 1

Awareness 2

Streetwise: 1

SKILLS

Crafts (Calligraphy, Engraving) 4

Etiquette 1

Meditation 1

Research 3

Technology 1

KNOWLEDGES

Computer 1

Cosmology 2

Culture 1 )

Enigmas 2

Esoterica 4 (Symbolism)

Linguistics 5 (Native: Japanese; Korean, English, Chinese, Cantonese, Ainu, Latin, French, German, Arabic, Russian, Spanish) Thought precedes Language

Lore 3

Occult 3

Science 1

Paradigm

Thoughts are forms which create themselves, and language is the reflection of thoughts in themselves; the world follows the thoughts of man, for thought is the highest of the forms, being that they made themselves.

Foci and Spheres

Correspondance 3 - Language in all forms.

Matter 3 - Language, Runes, Glyphs, Calligraphy

Forces 3 - (Abandoned) Runes, Glyphs, physical versions of language

Entropy 2 - (Abandoned) automatic writing, now using just any other focus she has

Prime 2 - Language, Vocal force, Writing, honestly it's rarely used on it's own, it'll be dominated by the other Sphere in most contexts.

Backgrounds

Arcane 1

Hsiao is used to trying to hide in plain sight, to hoping she could vanish from people's thoughts, and now it happens, people glossing over her just slightly more often

Avatar 3

Dream 1

Library 2

A small collection of the more esoteric books, bought over a period of a few years from various second hand bookshops around the city

Merits and Flaws

Flaws

Highschooler (-3xp)

Still underage. Still having to go to school.

Chargen

Attributes

Physical 28/24(+8)

Strength 2 (4xp)

Dexterity 3 (12xp)

Stamina 3 (12xp)

Mental 64/64

Perception 3 (12xp)

Intelligence 3 (12xp)

Wits 5 (40xp)

Social 36/44

Charisma 3 (12xp)

Manipulation 3 (12xp)

Appearance 3 (12xp)

Abilities

Talents 14/15

Alertness 1 (3xp)

Athletics 1 (3xp)

Awareness 2 (5xp)

Streetwise: 1 (3xp)

Skills 27/27

Crafts (Calligraphy) 3 (9xp)

Etiquette 1 (3xp)

Meditation 1 (3xp)

Research 3 (9xp)

Technology 1 (3xp)

Knowledges 39/39

Computer 1 (3xp)

Cosmology 2 (4xp)

Culture 1 (3xp)

Enigmas 2 (4xp)

Esoterica 3 (6xp)

Linguistics 3 (Native: Japanese; Korean, English, Chinese) (6xp)

Lore 2 (4xp)

Occult 3 (6xp)

Science 1 (3xp)

Backgrounds

Background Points 21/21

Arcane 1 (3xp)

Avatar 3 (12xp)

Dream 1 (3xp)

Library 2 (6xp)

Spheres

Sphere Points 63/65

Correspondence 2 (17xp)

Matter 2 (18xp)

Forces 2 (18xp)

Entropy 1 (10xp)

Freebie Points

Freebie Points 81/75(+6)

Corresondence 2->3 (14xp)

Craft (Calligraphy) 3->4 (6xp)

Esoterica 3-> 4 (3xp)

Linguistics 3->5 (Ainu, Cantonese) (7xp)

Entropy 1->2 (8xp)

Matter 2->3 (16xp)

Alertness 1->3 (5xp)

Craft (Engraving) (4xp)

Forces 2->3 (16xp)

Lore 2->3 (2xp)

XP

Experience Gains

Prelude 4XP

Peel-lude 4XP

The Dark Tower 5XP - Hsaio learned that there were "once" organisations of wizard people

Chan-ri 4XP

The Black Strangler (Part 1) 5XP- Hsaio learned her stalker lives in her school.

Calligraphy club members - 3 XP

The Black Strangler (Part 2) 4XP - Hsaio learned that Guardian Red is real

The Unbombable (part 1) 3 XP - Hsaio learned of Under-Tokyo

A new Cadia (part 1) 3 XP - Hsaio learned that Tsubomi is a queen of a computer's dream

A new Cadia (part 2) 7 XP - Hsaio learned that Tsubomi has issues.

A new Cadia (part 3) 4 XP - Hsaio learned that Japan has government departments working to supress knowledge of the supernatural

Battle Gymnal 6XP - Hsaio learned that there's a secret subculture of rich people who got really into Battle Royale

The World is Open 5XP - Hsaio learned that when changing the world, sometimes, the world changes back

The World is Open 2: Far Frome Home 6XP - (plays as K) Kotoba Learned where the portal is!

Experience Total/Spent/Unspent (63/46/17)

Experience Spending

Arete 4 (24 XP)

Prime 2 (17 XP, 1 XP discount due to Library)

Willpower 6 (5 XP)

Experience Total/Spent/Unspent (63/46/17)