(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/f9/39/07f9396a4b5f2fd423cc51eb56131052.jpg)<br/>(https://cdn.wallpapersafari.com/38/64/BZofJH.jpg)<br/><br/>Name: Tokugawa Chihiro<br/>Concept: Samurai warrior-queen of the Tetsujin Shogunate<br/><br/>Psyche: 21<br/>Endurance: 20<br/>Strength: Paragon<br/>Warfare: Paragon<br/><br/>Powers: Master of the Grand Stair<br/><br/>Artifacts:<br/>Hoshi-no-Hikari (Light of the Stars): A naginata. The blade is pure prismatic starmetal, refined and forged by the Kappa. The handle is of starmetal-laced hardwood, burnished to a fine sheen and wrapped in the black metallic skin of an oni slain by the Iron Shogun himself.<br/><br/>4pts. Deadly Damage<br/>4 pts. Invulnerable to Conventional Weapons<br/>4 pts. Limited Shapeshift (can become invisible or take the form of a tattoo when carrying it openly isn't feasible)<br/><br/>Tsuki-no-Shukufuku (Moon's Blessing): A set of starmetal power armor, complete with a kabuto, forged by the Kappa to Chihiro's specifications. The helm has the face of a kappa as its' mask, though this can be retracted into the helmet.<br/><br/>4pts. Invulnerable to Conventional Weapons<br/>4 pts. Limited Shapeshift<br/>4 pts. Mold Gossamer Reality<br/><br/><br/>5pts. Lord of the Gossamer Worlds (ally)<br/>3pts. Partisan Support (The Iron Shogun, lawful ruler of the Tetsujin Shogunate. This comes with the full political, social, economic, and military backing of the Shogunate).<br/>5pts. Good Stuff<br/><br/>Domain: The Tetsujin Shogunate. A medieval Earth-like world where Umbra-infused Oni and Eidolon-infused Kappa crashlanded after a space battle, destroying much of the world. The Oni have enslaved most of the world and constantly strive to break through the last resistance, centered on Japan. The Japanese, backed by the Kappa, have developed power armor and gigantic mecha known as Tetsujin to fight the Oni, all under the command of the Iron Shogun who raised Chihiro as his daughter.<br/><br/>1.pt Personal Domain<br/>2pts. Control of Time Flow<br/>4 pts. Guarded (Chihiro severed the original Door to this reality and created a new one within the outer guard barracks of Edo Castle. The Door is guarded by the legion of power-armored samurai and the Tetsujin who guard the castle.)<br/><br/>Appearance: Chihiro stands at 5'1" tall, with a slender but well-muscled frame. While she does have very noticable feminine curves, she doesn't dress in such a way as to emphasize them. When not on the battlefield she dresses in the elaborate kimonos that befits her rank as Shogun. She favors a rainbow of different colors, and the patterns of sakura blossoms, cherry trees, and elaborate works stitched into her clothes, though she avoids flamboyance. Her body is toned and hardened from years of both training and battlefield experience. Out of her kabuto, her long black hair is usually braided into a warrior's topknot and ponytail. She has brown eyes and the features of her native Japan stamped on her face.<br/><br/>Personality: Chihiro is stern. She's had to be. On her world, chauvanistic attitudes were and still are common, to a greater or lesser extent. It's only been the population attrition caused by the Oni war that has finally forced the Shogunate to begin training female warriors. It was that or watch all humanity go extinct. That didn't mean the men had to be happy about it. Even though she was raised as the Iron Shogun's only child, and was thus a Princess, her trainers in the art of Bushido made no exceptions or allowances for her rank or gender. The oni and their minions certainly wouldn't. As the Shogun's daughter, she was expected to set the example for female warriors, and by the time she was six, she was determined to exceed all expectations.<br/><br/>In battle she can be cold, stern, and pragmatic. She's willing to do what it takes to beat back the Oni and their spawn and brooks no opposition. In public she maintains her tatemae or on, her face. Gracious when she can be, educated, polite, but always with a core of steel as tempered and honed as that of the blade of her beloved naginata. She doesn't do damsel-in-distress and would be more likely to rescue herself if she was captured. At the same time, she has all the social graces one would expect of royalty and can be quite charming in conversation and ettiquette. She tends to listen more than she talks, giving the appearance of being demure while really she's nudging a conversation along in the paths she would take it. She takes in and welcomes different points of view, but once she's made a decision, her word is final. She is flexible and adaptable, but always holds true to herself.<br/><br/>When in private, or among those she trusts implictly, Chihiro is a very different person. She's warm, sweet, and more willing to express what troubles her. She'll unburden herself to close friends and reveal thoughts or feelings that she would never dare reveal in public. Her honne, or inner self, is the true face she hides behind the mask of the Iron Shogun. Notably, even in her most relaxed moments, her naginata and daisho are always close to her, for she is samurai and will not part from her weapons. She lives three feet from death, always. Having recently become a mother, she is fiercely loving and loyal to her infant daughter.<br/><br/>History: Chihiro has no memories of her mother. She was born thirty-three years ago, and she has been told that her mother was a highly-placed noblewoman, one Minamimoto Ai, who died giving birth to her. Whether that's true or not, she was accepted as the child of Tokugawa Takahiro, the Iron Shogun. Takahiro was many things, but prepared to be a father he was not. Her early years were spent among the ladies of the court, with her chief nanny being one of Ai's handmaidens, the Lady Mitsuru, who taught her the ways of the Court. Both the formal ways and the informal ones that she would need to know. As a result of this, she learned early that her father had taken a succession of lovers, both noblewomen and beautiful geishas, in an effort to have more children, and specifically, to have a boy to be his heir. But for all his efforts over the years, Chihiro was his only child and thus, by law, his heiress.<br/><br/>Takahiro was a distant father. He honestly didn't feel comfortable around a daughter and wished (sometimes in public) that he had a son. But he was not totally unloving. Even though Chihiro reminded him of her mother as she grew into her looks, Takahiro saw to it that she received the best education. When he was forced to acknowledge the need for female samurai, he decided that the royal family must set the example for this new breed of warrior. At the age of six he turned his daughter over to his best samurai to begin her training. The Iron Shogun's trainers were harsh. Many were resentful of the need for female samurai and were not shy about expressing their dislike for the girls they were forced to train. The hours were brutal. The training was oftentimes just shy of abuse, and sometimes crossed that line. And for Chihiro it was worse. Because after bushi training, she was bathed and fed, then turned back over to Lady Mitsuru and her coterie to learn the ways of politics, along with historical classics, playing the biwa, and all the other arts expected of a woman of noble breeding. There were times she collapsed on her bed in utter exhaustion.<br/><br/>But all the long hours were worth it, in her view. At the age of sixteen she completed her training and her father formally bestowed upon her the daisho (katana and wakizashi) that marked her place as samurai. She took her adult name, Chihiro, and her father presented her with the suit of starmetal power armor and the starmetal naginata that he had commissioned from the Kappa for this momentous occasion. It was the first time she had ever seen her father smile at her. He also presented her with a heirloom of the family: an elaborately lacquered wooden box the size of a human fist. When she opened it later, she discovered a simple metal key attached to a chain. Puzzled, she wore it beneath her armor for years with no clue as to what it was or what it unlocked. Her father claimed to have no idea, and said only that it was something passed from one Iron Shogun to their heir upon their becoming an adult.<br/><br/>After three years of additional training and standing guard with the soldiers of Edo Castle, Chihiro made history by becoming the first woman to pilot her own Tetsujin: the Chrysanthemum Shogun. For the next eleven years she piloted her Tetsujin, starting as simply one pilot among many and building her way to command of the giant mecha force, in charge of the defense of the home isles. She earned much glory on the battlefield, and earned the respect of both the soldiers and the commoners by her deeds in battle and her fair but stern hand in the politics of Japan. As Takahiro aged, more of his duties fell to his daughter, and being both Commander of the Tetsujin and Crown Princess lead many to develop admiration for her. Even some of the old hardliner chauvinists.<br/><br/>It was in battle that she found her way to the Grand Stair. Japan came under attack from the Oni in a concentrated wave, lead by their ruler, the Dragon King. Chihiro's Tetsujin defenders were hard-pressed and falling back. Chihiro decided that she had to draw the line. She took the Chrysanthemum Shogun and with two others, charged the Dragon King directly while the others tackled the center of the wave. She battled the Dragon King for over an hour, forcing the great oni away from the home islands and out to sea. Eventually the Dragon King successfully breached the reactor core of the Chrysantheum Shogun and Chihiro could not eject in time. The Tetsujin blew up around her. She should have been dead. She knows this. As it was, she was badly scorched and battered, with several ribs broken and a gash pouring blood into her eyes. If it weren't for her power armor, she'd be dead. She came to as the waves washed her up at the severed head of a Tetsujin on the coast. Dizzy and bleeding, she climbed into the hatch of the Tetsujin to get out of the waves. Inside she found a hatch that should have lead to the cockpit. For the first time, she felt a strange warm glow at her chest. She reached to it, and found the key she had long worn starting to glow. When she inserted it into the lock of the hatch, the door opened onto a bizarre array of staircases. Thinking she was delusional and dying, she stumbled through the door.<br/><br/>For the next two years she wandered. She couldn't explain it, but she felt like she was being called or guided by something. Along the way she found healing thanks to the Doormen, and the support of a mentor. It was difficult for her at first, but in time she came to learn more about what had happened. What she was now, a Gossamer Lady, and what that meant. She spent some time in Shatterlight, being tutored by Vala on the history of the Gossamer Lords. The Grand Stair guided her into situations where she always came away having learned some lesson. In time she became a Warden of the Stair, and then a Master after her sojourn through the Labyrinth. Eventually, having seen wonders she could never explain to her people, her feet took her back towards her home, the world known as the Tetsujin Shogunate. She claimed it as her own personal Domain and changed its' Door to prevent any aquatic Oniblooded from finding it. She learned that her father had died just a few months before she came home and, after killing all would-be usurpers, took her place as the Iron Shogun. The first-ever female Shogun at that. She swore that her world would know an end to the Oni and their campaign, and has begun diligently building her forces and using her newfound abilities to save her world before she even considers getting involved in the affairs of others or the intrigues of the Gossamer Lords, which she doesn't much care for. To be certain of her world's future, she selected a nobleman, one Lord Isshiki Ichiro, to be her consort and sire her daughter Natsume. What she has with Ichiro is not love, precisely. She's never known love. But it is duty, and a legacy for the future.<br/><br/>Colors: Chrysanthemum and iridescent rainbow.<br/>Symbol: A sakura tree with a naginata and a katana set before it. The naginata stands tall and proud, and the katana lies before it.<br/>