[b]Full Name:[/b] Qian Rong Wu

[b]Aliases:[/b] Colonel Of The Storm, Charging General, Cripple Rong (only used by his detractors) 

[b]Title:[/b] Marquis of Zhou

[b]Race:[/b] Etherian

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Age:[/b] 30

[b]Height:[/b] 6" 

[b]Weight:[/b] 190 lbs

[b]Home Town and Kingdom:[/b] Two Rivers City, Zhou Province, Galkahr Region, Tera Sui

[b]Occupation[/b]: Imperial Military Commander, nominal governor of Zhou

[b]Family:[/b] Rong's notoriously intense but short-lived passions have led to a string of pregnancies and marriages, leaving him with many wives and many more children, though he rarely interacts with many of his wives, who he has fallen out of love with but does not resent enough to divorce. He practices polygamy and is a lover of men and women alike, commonly taking willing military subordinates as concubines and temporary lovers when away from home on military campaigns. He is the eldest son of the Qian family, the head of their family since his parents died, and his younger siblings are all in fairly notable positions in Tera Sui culture; his youngest brother's poetry has recently become very popular in the Imperial court.

[b]Social Status:[/b] Rong is a mid-ranking member of the noble caste, his family traditionally charged with the governance of the Zhou province of Tera Sui. He is Marquis of Zhou in name but rarely exercises that authority and leaves it to delegates, subordinates, several of whom are his wives or former lovers. His most notable and commonly exercised social status is within the Imperial military, where he is a commander of one of the armies.

[b]Affiliations:[/b] Imperial Military primarily, though has close ties to the Qizhou law enforcers.

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[img]https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/646x477q90/560/1304208131722.jpg[/img]

Rong is a powerfully built and physically imposing man, one who dresses with little care for the changing of fashion. He wears his hair short to and shaves so his enemies have nothing to grab on the battlefield and has plenty of scars that testify to a life on the battlefield. Most obviously is a strike across his left cheek from an enemy blade. Even more obvious, his left arm has been taken off between the shoulder and elbow, leaving him an ugly stump that he is simply too proud to have regenerated or hide with a prosthetic, but that he resents nonetheless.

[b]Personality:[/b] Rong is in many ways an archetypal Etherian, fiery and intense. He is commonly criticized for being brash and reckless, charging personally into battle instead of leading from the rear like the other generals do. He is far from stupid - in fact, like most of his social status he's well-educated - but he has little time for academia and study or knowledge that isn't practical. For instance, he values things like science and law more than art and philosophy. He is fast and quick witted, prone to snap judgements and operating on instinct rather than slowly thinking things through; again, it's not that he's stupid or acts without thinking at all, more that he tends to decide on actions faster than others and more impetuously, which can give that impression.

Rong doesn't do anything by halves and is known for his intensity and dedication in whatever he does; he falls in love easily and hard, burning with passion unequaled, and when he sets his mind of a task he is devoted to it almost single-mindedly. Of course, he falls out of love just as quickly. His appetites are extensive and broad for food, wine, women and whatever appetite he sets out to sate, he won't stop until he's fully sated, over-indulging often. Were he not so aggressively physical, he probably would have run to fat long ago from his prodigious meals and boozing. But the one thing he seems unable to sate himself on, of course, is his dedication and loyalty to the Empire; in this regard, he is perhaps one of the Empress' fiercest and most ardent supporters and advocates, though perhaps not her most eloquent. He has gotten something of a reputation as he attack dog, her slobbering hunting hound to be unleashed on her enemies.

Like the fire, he craves stimulation and novelty, despising stasis. For this reason, he tries to spend as little time as possible on the courts and his administrative duties, delegating those to an endless succession of seneschals, viceroys and factors. He visits court when entirely unavoidable, but doesn't really have the head for political games and much prefers military life.

[b]Personal Philosophy:[/b] If you can do it, do it well. There is nothing that cannot be overcome with enough effort and force.

[b]Training:[/b] Rong has extensive martial arts training, focusing on swordplay especially, though he is also a trained military tactician and strategist. His combat style is practical and pragmatic, a soldier's form rather than a spiritual one. He has quite a fearsome reputation as a warrior, known for leading charges from the front and personally scything through enemy ranks.

[b]Magical proficiency:[/b] None; he lacks the talent entirely. He has some academic understanding of magic's military applications, though no practical abilities.

[b]Chi proficiency and Techniques:[/b] Rong's chi burns in intense auras, powerful and unsubtle when he uses it, lacking finesse but in no way lacking sheer force. He uses it primarily for self-augmentation, to push himself beyond the typical limits of strength, speed and power available to Etherians while retaining greater self-control than in the typical 'berserker state' of this people. These techniques aren't actually that hard to master for anyone learning to use Chi, Rong simply pushes them to levels most don't. When push comes to shove, the most refined and advanced technique he has learned has been to temporarily form his chi into a kind of second arm in the place of his missing limb, which appears to be made of intense red light.

[b]Weapons/Gear[/b]: Rong carries a pair of mastercrafted blades at all times and has high quality armor to take onto the battlefield with him. 

[b]Skills:[/b] Rong is a swordmaster and an excellent military leader; the men respond well to his fiery passion and his preference for leading from the front, fighting alongside them.

[b]Other Abilities:[/b] He has extensive knowledge of geography and various tidbits of obscure local trivia, which he ostensibly studies for military advantage, but really has more to do with a love of travel and nature.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b] Rong's most obvious weakness is his injury; his left arm was severed in an incident he refuses to speak of. It is a source of great personal shame for him and has earned him the unflattering nickname "Cripple Rong" among his enemies at court. 

[b]Back-story:[/b] Rong comes from a privileged family and didn't want for much; the family of Qian are the traditional rulers of a particular province of Tera Sui and apparently their history indicates that they were warlords who rose to prominence after the Etherians were lost from the Empire and that Zhou province was their kingdom until the Empire reintegrated the Etherians. The Qian family were allowed to retain their position of leadership to smooth the transition and things carried on fairly well since then. 

Rong is the eldest son of the family, though in the Zhu matriarchy that doesn't mean much. He became the nominal head of the family after his younger sister died in a military action out on the fringes of the Empire and he regrets not being there to protect her. In stepping forward to fill her shoes, as the eldest surviving child of the family, he found things not quite to his liking and quickly delegated his duties in order to focus on his military career. He faced many obstacles as a man trying to have a family (and a large one at that) at the same time as a full career and was often reprimanded by his superiors who told him he should be spending more time at home with his kids while his wives did the work. He loves his wives and his children, mostly, but simply could not stand being at home as long as those duties would demand. Instead he relished the travel, the battle and the excitement of the military, rising quickly through the ranks though making some enemies along the way. Eventually he came to command one of the Empire's many armies, though in one of his early military actions he lost his arm under circumstances he has yet to disclose, against a threat from beyond the stars. This was a blow to his career and caused him to be stuck back home on forced medical leave much longer than he feels necessary, to play politics and government. He itches to travel, to go somewhere new, or at least for a fight, but finds himself bound by shackles of honor, duty and culture.

[b]Other:[/b] Rong is a notoriously promiscuous and indiscriminate lover of both men and women alike and has frequently been reprimanded for fraternizing with subordinates and even superiors; he rarely enters long-term relationships and isn't stupid enough to sire any illegitimate children, though often these brief romances turn into mutually-beneficial friendships, which span the Empire thanks to his travels. Most of the representatives working under him in the day to day runnings of Zhou province are former lovers of one gender or the other. On the other hand, he also doesn't have qualms about, say, sleeping with another man's wive or woman's husband - only if they're willing, obviously - which means his dueling schedule is quite full..