<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/kCO6g7j.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Yasuki Mitsuki(Mitsue)<br/><strong>Rank: </strong>2<br/><strong>Clan:</strong>Crab<br/><strong>Experience Points:</strong>45<br/><strong>School:</strong>Yasuki Courtier<br/><strong>Insight:</strong>150<br/><br/>Starting Honor: 2.5<br/>Glory:1<br/>Status:1<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Rings</div><div class="spoiler_body">Fire (3)<br/>Agility 3; Intelligence 3 <br/><br/>Water (3)<br/>Strength 3; Perception 3<br/><br/>Air (3)<br/>Reflexes 3; Awareness 3<br/><br/>Earth (2)<br/>Stamina 2; Willpower 2<br/><br/>Void (2)<br/>Void Points: 2</div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">skills</div><div class="spoiler_body">*Commerce      2            Appraisal, Mathematics<br/>*Courtier              2<br/>*Defense              1<br/>*Etiquette              2<br/>*Intimidation      1<br/>*Sincerity              1            Deceit<br/>*Animal Handling   3            Crows<br/>Perform (Oratory)   1<br/>Acting                  1               Gender<br/>Investigation      1<br/>Artisan(Sculpting)   1<br/>Artisan(Painting)   1<br/>Athletics              1<br/>Jiujutsu              2            Hojojutsu</div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Advantages</div><div class="spoiler_body"><strong>SERVANT [MATERIAL] (5 POINTS)</strong><br/>A servant has been assigned to assist you by your family, or possibly one whose help you purchased with your own resources in order to make life a little bit easier. You may have a maximum number of servants equal to twice your Status Rank. Different kinds of servants have different useful abilities and can more easily be supplied by different Clans. Typically, a servant has all Traits at rank 2 and a single Skill at<br/>rank 3. You may add additional Skill Ranks or Emphases to a servant at the time the Advantage is purchased by paying 3 additional points per Skill Rank or Emphasis. Consult the following table for sample servants and their costs: <br/><br/>Eta Attendant <br/>Lore: Anatomy 3 <br/>-2 points for Crab<br/><br/><strong>SEVEN FORTUNES’ BLESSING [SPIRITUAL] (4 POINTS)</strong><br/>One of the Seven Fortunes, the most powerful of all the Fortunes, has taken notice of you and showered you with his or her blessings. These can be powerful bonuses, but sometimes come with expectations. The Fortunes are both fickle and wrathful, after all. The Clans listed after each blessing may purchase that Advantage for 1 point less than its normal cost. <br/><br/>----<strong>Daikoku’s Blessing (Mantis):</strong> The Fortune of Wealth has favored you with his patronage, and you excel in matters pertaining to wealth and mercantile pursuits. You gain a bonus of +1k1 to the total of all Commerce Skill Rolls. <br/><br/><strong>PRECISE MEMORY [MENTAL] (3 POINTS)</strong><br/>You have an incredible ability to recall exactly things you have seen or heard. In any situation where you need to remember something exactly the way it was, whether the wording of something you read or the details of a person’s physical appearance, you add a bonus of +1k1 to your Intelligence Trait Roll. <br/><br/><strong>BALANCE [MENTAL] (2 POINTS)</strong><br/>You possess an inherent calm and serenity that others have difficulty overcoming when attempting to antagonize or taunt you, and that strengthens you when your honor is tested. When adding your Honor Rank to the total of any roll made to resist Intimidation or Temptation, you add an additional +1k0 to the roll as well. <br/><br/><strong>VOICE [PHYSICAL] (3 POINTS)</strong><br/>You have a voice that others find pleasing in virtually every respect. You gain a bonus of +1k1 on any Perform Skill Roll that utilizes your voice, such as Perform: Singing or Perform: Oratory. </div></div><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Disadvantages</div><div class="spoiler_body"><strong>Contrary [Mental] (3 Points)</strong><br/>Your strong will and rigid view of the world insists not only that you develop an opinion on everything, but that you must share it at every opportunity. During any debate or dispute, or even casual discussion, you feel compelled to weigh in and attempt to persuade others to see the matter from your point of view. In any tense situation, you must succeed at a Willpower Trait Roll to avoid taking action, whether to resolve a conflict physically or simply to interject into an argument. The TN for this roll can vary widely, and should be determined by the TM (typically somewhere between 5 and 25). This Disadvantage is worth 4 points to Imperial and courtier characters. <br/><strong><br/>Fascination [Mental] (1 Point)</strong><br/>You are completely fascinated by some subject, and will go to great lengths to learn more about it or to experience it in new ways. Typical subjects of a samurai's fascination include music, horses, poetry, and history. This fascination badly impedes your judgement, and you will take even dishonorable actions to learn more, which could end in absolute disgrace if your actions are discovered.  <strong>(rumors? Gossip?)</strong><br/><br/><strong>Wrath of the Kami [Spiritual] (3 Points)</strong><br/>The spirits of a particular element have a vehement dislike of you, and when invoked to smite you, they gleefully and enthusiastically comply. This may be the result of a shugenja's curse, an offense you offered to the Fortunes, or a variety of other spiritual causes. Select one element when you purchase this Disadvantage. Spells of this element cast against you confer one Free Raise on the Spell Casting Roll. This Disadvantage is worth 4 points to shugenja characters. <strong>(WATER)</strong> </div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Techniques</div><div class="spoiler_body"><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Rank 1:The Way of the Carp</strong></span><br/>The Yasuki are masters of commerce and practice it far more openly than other samurai families; they do not consider it to be a breach of etiquette to engage in open commerce. You gain a Free Raise when using the Commerce Skill, and you do not lose Honor or Glory for using the Commerce Skill even in public. Also, Yasuki are taught from youth to be adept at sizing up their potential customers. When speaking with someone you may make a Contested Roll of your Commerce/Perception against their Etiquette/Awareness to discern some material object or service they want or desire. <br/><br/><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Rank 2: Do As We Say</strong></span><br/>The flip side of Yasuki commerce is Yasuki pushiness. The Yasuki are renowned for both their glib tongues and their high-pressure sales tactics, pressuring and deceiving their customers and allies into doing what they want. A number of times per session equal to your School Rank, you may re-roll a failed Sincerity or Intimidation Skill roll. You must keep the results of the second roll. </div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Items/Money:</div><div class="spoiler_body">1 Koku<br/>Traditional Clothing<br/>Wakizashi<br/>Knife (Tanto)<br/>Calligraphy Set<br/>Traveling Pack<br/>   -Smoking pipe<br/>   -Lucky Frog (in cage)<br/>   -Pet Crow (2 items)<br/>   -Vial of paint<br/>   -Ink brush Kit<br/>   -Fan<br/>   -Rope (50')<br/>   -Parchment and Charcoal (10)<br/>   -Personal Chop (Mitsue)<br/>Kimono(1koku)<br/>Make-up kit<br/></div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">20 Questions</div><div class="spoiler_body"><span class="bbc_u">1. What Clan does your character belong to?</span><br/>Crab<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">2. What family does your character belong to?</span><br/> Yasuki<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">3. Is your character a bushi, a shugenja, or a courtier?</span><br/> For all intents and purposes he is a courtier<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">4. How would you describe your character's appearance?</span><br/>Mitsuki is quite the alluring looking woman under the right conditions. Sturdy and with a curvature at the hips that not even thicker kimono conceal all the way. It compensates for the slender boyish chest that no doubt is well covered for modesty's sake, not the fact they are as flat as a teppanyaki grill. Still, even when dressed as a man there is a subtle femininity to his features and hairless chin. Standing only five foot four inches, they come to at least an inch or three under the average Rokugani, let alone the larger sized members of the Crab clan. He is not small by any means but certainly not as tall as others would expect. Mitsuki also tends to 'grow' a few inches here and there with the right footwear, a trick taught to him by his occasional traveling companion Bayushi Mayu. Dark silky hair and naturally long eyelashes make for emphasized simple facial expressions which has been relied on more than once when using the subtle practice of performance in the middle of a court situation. If there was one thing Mitsuki was proud of about his appearance it was his slender wrists; small enough to make bangles and bracelets constantly slip back and fourth across them and draw the eye whether he was pouring tea or just twirling his smoking pipe in his slender fingers.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">5. What is your character's primary motivation?</span><br/> Restore the economic power of his family and benefit the crab clan while doing so. Erasing the stain left by his ancestor is also rather high on the list.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">6. Who is the person your character trusts most in the world?</span><br/> While it is a natural response to say 'his lord' he has not dealt with him enough to truly call it trust as much as faith. Trust is earned and in that regard he trusts his Attendant Eta, Tsubame, most in the world. Formerly, his sister.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">7. What is your character's greatest strength and weakness?</span><br/> In matters of Strength, Mitsuki has strength in the mental world. Rice, Trade goods, spices, all these physical goods somehow transmute in worth to coins of different metals and colors that confuse peasants and samurai alike. The numbers behind them are all in the mind and he has never had trouble seeing these numbers that do not exist, changing them, molding them like a shugenja can with the spirits of air, and present them back in a way which is most complimentary to the seller. The salesman works harder to deliver what someone else needs, do they not? It is not rice that koku represent so much as time and much like the elaborate gift giving rituals of Rokugan being less about the physical object and more about the sentimentality, if you do not conduct your business properly you are being rude. Rudeness of the customer is rewarded with the salesman coming out on top. Truely commerce is balanced in this way under the son of heaven.<br/><br/>In matters of Weakness, it has been a number of years since his sisters death but he is still somewhat beside himself emotionally. He still 'performs' as Mitsue when outside of crab lands just like she never died bringing back good fortune to the Yasuki with each excursion. When forced to show his masculine side he very quickly loses his confidence and returns to the soft spoken state of a young boy lost overboard in court. a sea of silk wearing sharks. <br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">8. What does your character think of Bushido?</span><br/> It is as important for a Bushi as the Tao is for a Monk, Cadence is to a courtier, and Mathematics is for a Merchant.  The mind must be as sharp as the soul for anyone can swing a three foot razor-blade around and kill something but what is at a Samurai's core makes what he does more than an honor-less bandit. A duel is won or lost long before a sword is drawn. Honor and its code ensures that sometimes swords not need to be drawn at all thus preserving life.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">9. What is your character's opinion of his Clan?</span><br/>We are all family that do what we must. The Yasuki were adopted into the clan from the Crane and we serve with loyalty and our benevolent fathers have always made us feel important when others scoff at what we do as trivial. The Hida understand that we feed our family when the taint fouls the land. <br/><span class="bbc_u"><br/>10. Is your character married?</span><br/> The last match making process did not go well. I think the Match-maker is a monk now.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">11. Does your character have any prejudices?</span><br/> Master's who mistreat their servants and mismanage their resources<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">12. To whom does your character owe the most loyalty?</span><br/> His lord, having no real close friends only business partners and happy aquaintences<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">13. What are your character's favorite and least favorite things?</span><br/>Favorite: Animals. They have such a simplicity to them and when properly tames do as they are told.<br/>Least Favorite: Nattō. Seriously, this needs to stop. I will walk into the shadowlands right F*#$ing now and cut off the head of some nightmare creature and bring it back so that you can look at its face that I might properly express my feelings of this dish if you don't get that bowl away from me<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">14. Does your character have any recurring mannerisms?</span><br/>Smoking from a long pipe, fawning over trained animals, making small talk over make-up techniques<br/><span class="bbc_u"><br/>15. What about your character's emotions?</span><br/> They are worn on his sleeve. Literally, depending on whom he is dressed as.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">16. How would your character handle a subordinate's improper behavior?</span><br/> Mitsuki: Shaking a fan vigorously at them while blushing profusely. Mitsue: "Oh We're being improper now are we? If you are going to be so lewd than at least do no go only half way! This reminds me of a joke I heard on Teardrop Island. So this Tortoise and an Utaku Battle Maiden walk into a tea house..."<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">17. How would your character's parents describe him?</span><br/> Mother: My child is...special to me. They are troubled sometimes by what fate has dealt them but no matter their decisions they will always by my precious three months.<br/>Father: Wait...I thought he died?<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">18. What is your character's highest ambition?</span><br/>To be the person she always believed I could be but never was.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">19. How religious is your character?</span><br/>Holidays observed, prayers offered up to the dead, fortunes occasionally praised with donations at temples.<br/><span class="bbc_u"><br/>20. How will your character die?</span><br/>Laughing. It won't be long now, I'll see you soon.</div></div><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">History</div><div class="spoiler_body">The twins were born on a cool mid spring afternoon, the tenth day in the Month of the Dragon. It was something of an auspicious birth as while the Father's arrival back from a trade deal had been delayed it was a wild eyed Heimin attendant, having been sent stumbling outside by a pot tossing crab clan midwife, that came upon a travel weary Kuni Shugenja along the roadside. All the business savvy and fast talking a personal attendant could have possibly picked up from his Yasuki master came spilling out in one long unbroken sentence as he went as far as to get behind the robed priest and outright push him into the small estate. <br/><br/>The Kuni, only finally coming to his senses through the verbal barrage enough to be irritated at the rambling peasant, halted his wrath at the sounds through the rice paper walls of the main room and in quiet epiphany the Kami were addressed, incense lit, and the ancestors praised with the birth of two new Yasuki; A boy and a girl yet otherwise identical and surely meant to be the pride of their family. Reading of fortunes and stars said that they were to grow strong, Brash but Charismatic as befitting the season.<br/><br/>There are a multitude of naming conventions. Some believing that a child should have a 'milk name' that is something undesirable, such as rubbish or mud-rake to trick evil spirits into staying away from them. Others wait as long as three months so that they know their child can hear their own name. Yasuki Suzu was adept at running the household financially in the absence of her husband, Yasuki Kazuo,  who often gone to ply his trade and bring back as many supplies as he could for the Carpenter Wall...but this? She was ripe with indecision for the first time in her life. Looking her two children in the face one evening in quiet contemplation after the servants had long gone to bed the boy reached up and grasped her hand and 'Mitsuki,' slipped from her mouth. Three months. It was an appropriate name wasn't it? <br/><br/>She eventually did choose names for her twins but the boy was always 'Mitsuki.' His childhood name didn't matter. It wasn't that he had been a slow child, no, his sister was just the epitome of what the stars had said. Brash and Charismatic she took her first steps and three months later, Mitsuki took his. She said her first words and three months later he said his. His own sisters name, by the by much to the chagrin of his father who had hoped to be the first one spoken to by his own son. They finished each others sentences, they imitated each others voice to vex their parents. They never left each others side even if she was always the one to go first.<br/><br/>When they grew old enough to travel with their father she was the first to begin fighting with the other Yasuki children. Her brother still looked exactly like her which was the source of his being picked on and having none of it would bloody the nose of anyone who said he wasn't just as tough as she was. As they grew older Mitsuki began to grow as inward as his sister grew outward. He was quiet and demure to her loud braying and laughing and took to his love of animals to hold quiet solace while his sister began to day by day spend less and less time with him. She never abandoned him but gempukku was nearing for the both of them and such is the fate of those trying to prove who they were as individuals before becoming adults. <br/><br/>While having never been poor, the Family had always been cursed with koku and teetered back and fourth on financial ruin from a grave mistake an ancestor had made long long ago. Mitsuki's father worked his entire life trying to erase this stain and when he was on it's cusp he fell gravely ill. Mitsuki and his sister had newly passed their Gempukku and she, Now called Mitsue, demanded to take on the burden. Mitsuki his name officially now, was ever as eager to not leave his sisters side and after one long night of tumultuous arguing the brother and sister had set off to Toshi sano Kanemochi Kaeru: The City of the Rich Frog. <br/><br/>The Tensions between the Lion and the Unicorn clans had drawn much business that far north. No one knew when hostilities would break out but both sides were liberal with the coins they shuffled around and vicious peasant merchants grown fat off the wealth employing handfuls of ronin as personal guard made for a perilous combination even for legitimate business.<br/><br/>Mitsue died in a newly planted open rice field with a soft blowing spring wind catching the curled ends of her hair in front of her face like spun silk. Mitsuki had never paid much attention to the art of the sword. He had gained some popularity among the local crab bushi returning from the wall on forced leave painting dirty pictures and writing risque stories in pillow books like penny dreadfuls. A young man's fantastical fictions of evil bandits and noble samurai always besting them were no armor against the reality of a scared young man with only a wakizashi to defend himself. <br/><br/>She was everything he wasn't. He looked like her, he spoke like her, he bled like her, but he could not be her no matter how hard he screamed and begged of the fortunes into the sleeves of his kimono that he deserved this instead. She was gone, having held off the spiteful lapdogs of men who had caught wind of their fathers goods and thought they could take them before they reached their market. Mitsue had beaten the bullies away from her brother just like she always had, a fact that had her pass with a subtle smile on the corner of her bloodied lips. The city guard arived in time to save him from those Mitsue could not fell herself and brought him into the gates of the city. It was too late to go all the way back home to tell their father they had failed wasn't it?<br/><br/>The next night he knelt by the base of the Drowned Merchant river with wakizashi in both shaking hands, hesitating only long enough to weep into the still waters of the shore, the contact rippling outward distorting the face of his sister he saw there in the reflection. Before he could join her, a tiny three legged frog emerged from the waters and peered up to the distraught youth. Laughing out loud at himself, disrupted not only by the appearance of the strange thing but by breech of tension the small amphibian opened his mouth and out plopped a little copper coin. Feeling as though he had all but lost his mind he'd accept this 'offering' and abscond with the little frog back to the room the guard had provided him.<br/><br/>He always looked so much like her. His tears left him when he put on one of her spare kimono. Tied the obi like she had begun doing differently since the Gempukku. The paint on his nails was strange but it was her, its what she would do. Her hair, her make up. The Unicorn Samurai he met with had been told of Mitsue's coming in a letter from her father and having never laid eyes upon the woman it was unnoticed the very minor differences of a second person he had also never met. The commerce went cordially and efficiently. The soft spoken Mitsuki spoke with a voice that was neither his own or his sisters but one of combination. Mitsue lived through him just one last time.<br/><br/>Mitsuki was always just a name his mother called him. He and Mitsue were always the same. The twins were always side by side and the emptiness at being separated was gone now... even if it was only when he was wearing her clothes.</div></div>