Name: Saoirse Lockwillow
Race: Human
Age: 31
Profession: Tinkerer and Treasure Hunter
Inventory: A pair of leather-bound spark-protective goggles with several magnifying lenses, a long gray scarf, a string necklace threaded with a dozen different keys, a tarnished necklace chain with a heavy compass pendant, a pair of nimble leather gloves, a ball of twine, a set of small wrenches, a set of small screwdrivers, a lockpicking kit, a set of pliers and tweezers, a set of needles and pins, a small ceramic bowl, an oil lantern and oil, several short candles, a small supply of chalk, a long hunting knife, a paring knife, a long rope, a supply of dried fish, several lidded jars, a canteen, a set of playing cards, a set of dice, a sturdy leather backpack.

Description:
Saoirse's scrappy stature and bright grin often get her mistaken for a child, which error she'll be quick to turn to her advantage. She's a practiced liar and storyteller when there's something she wants -- and there is always something she wants. The secrets of the world before the Obliteration -- the civilizations that created the automatons -- call to Saoirse out of the old ruins and the deep black forests. She is confident she will be the one to discover the lost techniques of the ancient tinkerers; she is, after all, willing to go where few in her field would dare.

At first glance, Saoirse is a boyish, quick little tinkerer with a mess of gray-brown hair and loose cotton clothes and hard leather boots suited for mountain-climbing and machine-clambering; the goggles, the key collection, and the burn marks on her hands and forearms confess her profession. She is nimble and strong, proud to show muscle gained from lifting heavy machinery, eager to demonstrate her getaway speed.

What is your character's crime?


Favorite poem?


What do you treasure most?


Given the choice, how would you die?

Dancing Lights: Chao can create up to four lights resembling lanterns or torches casting that amount of light upon an area, or up to four glowing spheres of light, which look like will-o’-wisps, or one faintly glowing, vaguely humanoid shape. The dancing lights must stay within a ten-foot-radius area in relation to each other but otherwise move as Chao desires. He must only have a piece of flint in his possession for this to work. The spell will remain in effect for as long as Chao requires or if he moves more than five hundred feet away from the light. Once the spell is cast, he no longer need think about the light. It will remain.

Vanish: When this ability is enacted, Chao disappears from sight in a puff of smoke for three seconds. He can either move quickly away from an opponent, continue to attack or move toward an opponent. Chao must have a flint & tinder in his possession and a dirty yellowish powder of crushed sulfur.

Darkness: This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area are concealed. Even creatures that can normally see in such conditions as with darkvision or low-light vision cannot see in an area shrouded in magical darkness. Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) are incapable of brightening the area. If darkness is cast upon a small object that is then placed inside or under a lightproof covering, the spell’s effect is blocked until the covering is removed. The darkness spell can be dispelled by a dispel magic spell. Chao must have a bit of bat fur and a piece of coal for this spell to work.

Chao stands 67” tall and weighs 160 Lbs. He has brown almond shaped eyes and a fair, youth-filled complexion. He has several scars of varying length across his body; trophies from the many fights he has been involved with. Chao’s hair is completely white. He keeps it long, either braided to the rear or in a high ponytail. His hair is rarely permitted to splay across his back in an unkempt manner. He is muscular, more thin than robust from years of a cardio vascular dominated training regimen.

Chao wears a black leather brigandine with silver ornate markings angled like the body of a dragon. His black leather vambraces match the brigandine ending at the elbow. At the back of the elbow is a 3” blackened steel spike prepared to produce damage if Chao delivers an elbow strike to an opponent. A thick black leather belt, approximately three inches in width, matches the chest piece and the vambraces. His high soft leather boots are worn and form fitting. They fit his feet smoothly allowing him to walk quietly when necessary. Silk leggings or bloomers billow out from his waist and tucked into the top of his knee-high boots. Atop his head is a hooded cloak and mask that covers his nose, mouth and chin area. The hood conceals his face quite easily. When not engaged in the act of his profession, his hood and mask reveal his boyish looks.

Jhang Chao has committed murder by differing definitions. In some regions, he is a wanted man. In some regions, bodies were found, but knowledge of who committed these murders remains unknown. Yet, in other regions, he is known for killing but is held up high as a champion, savior or hero of the weak. He has also committed larceny and a few other minor crimes.

“We grasp our battle-spears: we don our breast-plates of hide.
The axles of our chariots touch: our short swords meet.
Standards obscure the sun: the foe roll up like clouds.
Arrows fall thick: the warriors press forward.
They menace our ranks: they break our line.
The left-hand trace-horse is dead: the one on the right is smitten.
The fallen horses block our wheels: they impede the yoke-horses!”

They grasp their jade drum-sticks: they beat the sounding drums.
Heaven decrees their fall: the dread Powers are angry.

The warriors are all dead: they lie on the moor-field.
They issued but shall not enter: they went but shall not return.
The plains are flat and wide: the way home is long.

Their swords lie beside them: their black bows, in their hand.
Though their limbs were torn, their hearts could not be repressed.
They were more than brave: they were inspired with the spirit of “Wu.”
Steadfast to the end, they could not be daunted.
Their bodies were stricken, but their souls have taken Immortality—
Captains among the ghosts, heroes among the dead.

Chao favors his sword Xùnjié the most. It was gifted to him by the head of the Assassin’s Guild, Ytzhak Kelmin. The Brotherhood of the Hand will always be his family. He has bled for them and sacrificed quite a bit. The brotherhood has also paid him back in spades. He does wish to return to them one day soon.

Jhang Chao would choose old age as a means of death. But given his chosen profession may provide other opportunities. To die in battle would be much more pleasing to the young warrior from the Jade Kingdom.

Chao was born in the Shaodong Province of the Jade Kingdom over two thousand miles east of the Twilight City of Teluval. His parents were poor dirt farmers working for a local governor as share croppers. They could live on the land and have food to survive if they worked the land for the land owner. Jhong Li and Jhong Mei were happy with their lot in life and bore five sons to help till the land. Their second youngest child Jhong Chao was not happy to work land for a disinterested land baron, leaving the family hovel when he was twelve years of age to make his own way in the world.

As children, Chao and his brothers practiced unarmed combat, developing their own skills. Well, they fought just like any group of brothers in the world. It was their thing to do. They admired adult warriors who occasionally marched through their region. It seemed there was always a war going on when Chao was a boy. It was commonplace to see warriors marching or corpses laying uncovered on one of the fields his family tended.

Chao wanted to fight as a warrior, learning what skills he could. When he was 13, he challenged a known warrior to a duel and defeated the man, leaving his bloody corpse in the mud armed with nothing more than a four-foot length of bamboo. He was embarrassed only slightly by his victory; being revealed as a warrior to those who gathered around to watch. For fear of repercussions, he hid himself in a nearby forest.

Hunger brought him back into the civilized world. He learned a knack for picking pockets and picking locks. He found or made small tools to be used as a lock picking set. If he could not earn enough money to buy food, if he could not hunt for sufficient meals, he would resort to thievery, stealing whatever he needed to survive.

As a teenager, he found a martial arts school in Hyosung, a major city in Western Shaodong. The masters of the school saw potential in young Jhang Chao agreeing to train him in unarmed combat. He acquired rudimentary skills on his own, but they refined his abilities. He trained at the school for eight years before being kicked out after it was discovered he pilfered gold coins from the school’s treasury.

As a student of the Fudong School, Chao fought several duels against rival schools, never losing a fight. A few of his matches ended in the death of an opponent. Chao acquired a reputation as a skilled warrior. He was rewarded handsomely for his fights with gold which he gambled away or spent on over-priced armor and weapons. He retained the armor and weapons to this day. He carried a short sword and several daggers as well as a bo staff of bamboo and nunchakus. He even purchased a state of the art lock picking set when he traveled further west.

He was humiliated by his expulsion from the Fudong school, drawing dishonor upon himself. Furthermore, the Fudong brothers sought revenge for the dishonor Chao brought to their school. They sent twelve of their best students to hunt down Jhang Chao and to kill him for his betrayal. They knew Chao was a skilled warrior, but not even he was a match for twelve of his former brothers.

The Fudong warriors met him in a bamboo grove challenging him to an uneven duel. Chao drew his sword and held firm to a nine-inch dagger in his left hand. He had developed his own two-sword technique he practiced regularly. In this instance, the dagger served as the second sword. He used it to block and stab, while the primary weapon parried and slashed. He moved with fluidity from attacker to attacker consuming twenty minutes of his time and twelve souls claimed for the gods above. It was a true test of his skill with his martial abilities. He never heard from the Fudong brothers again, but avoids returning to Hyosung in Western Shaodong.

Chao gradually worked his way west, moving from the Jade Kingdom to other human lands, picking up work as a thief, mercenary or as an assassin as he found it. His wealth should have grown, if it weren’t for his uncontrollable thirst for gambling. Chao was a risk taker and only happy when he lays it all on the line. The thrill of coming close to death mades him feel euphoric. It is a natural high, he can never quench the thirst for risk and gambling.

In conjunction with his martial arts training, Chao is excellent in the use of several weapons including daggers, throwing knives, short sword, Kamas, Nunchukas, bo staff, shuriken (throwing stars), hand spikes, foot claws and tonfa. He does not always carry these weapons, but if they are made available to him, he can handle them with some mastery.

He happened upon the city of Goldung, some five hundred miles east of Teluval, the Twilight City. He was 25 years of age at the time and spent a few years here training with an old wizard named Kragus who aided Chao in learning the art of subterfuge. The wizard taught him how to move stealthily, use shadows for concealment, locate objects, and find secret passages. The art of subterfuge, the ways of a silent warrior were the skills he learned in Goldung. The old wizard also drew on the young man’s magical abilities. Kragus knew Chao had hidden talents and Chao learned to develop them to suit the role he was creating for himself. Chao never knew how to harness them or to draw them out. Kragus taught Chao to use dancing lights, to vanish and to create darkness. The more he practiced these skills, the more his hair lightened because of this path down what some might call a dark path. Eventually, Chao’s black locks turned completely white. Even the addition of a beard and mustache is completely white as are his eyebrows.

Chao continued his martial arts training in Goldung using the skills Kragus taught him to hone his skills. He developed a technique he calls cheap shot. When positioned in the rear of an opponent, his damage inflicted is doubled and there is a chance roughly every ten strikes or so when his opponent is stunned, unable to defend himself for roughly five seconds. Chao need not think about it, it simply happens. He can also strike an opponent on the head causing what he calls a sap. This sap causes the opponent to be stunned for five full minutes. The opponent cannot move or take any action whatsoever for the duration of the sap. If someone hits him, the stunning effect of the sap is dispelled and the target can resume whatever action he intended to perform.

When Chao was 27 years old, he said good-bye to his friend, Kragus continuing west. He took on jobs as a mercenary, assassin or thief from various governors, barons, kings and others throughout his travels. In the city of Belsun, he joined an assassin’s guild known as the The Brotherhood of the Hand. They helped him to perfect the skills he learned in Goldung and he shared his skills he learned during his life. He gained several positive contacts with the Brotherhood of the Hand; good friends. Ytzhak Kelmin, the guild leader taught him some basics of the use of poisons, but he never got very far with this lesson before he found himself even further to the west, entering the City of Twilight, Teluval.

At age 31, Jhang Chao feels confident in his abilities as an assassin and thief. He has killed many over the years and is willing to steal to survive. The occupation he chose for himself is quite different than the quest he set out upon nineteen years earlier, dissatisfied with the life his parents chose for him.