Askin has a rather doll-like appearance, barely topping 4’10” with a petite body and thin, inoffensive shoulders. Most of him is covered up by a large cloak of yellow and indigo, giving him the appearance of a toy head mounted on a pretty-colored napkin. His voice is rather low and throaty, adult in a way his height most certainly isn't.

No one looks at Askin and thinks that guy there, that is definitely a nomad. And they may have a bit of a point. He’s never pretended to be a committed fighter, and it shows in his words, actions, and appearance. The upturned, gentle expression of someone who’s avoided suffering most his life lingers around Askin’s face and smile, and his faded soap-sud-colored eyes are framed by heavy eyelids and thick black lashes, giving him the look of someone who just woke up, or is about to fall asleep.

Askin’s hair falls in a messy blond bob, and dangling gold earrings hang from either ear, three on the left and four on the right. When he moves, they make a fun little tinkling sound, which he enjoys.

■ Sweet-tempered
■ Carefree (and it takes a lot of effort)
■ Mellow
■ Thoughtful
■ Wanderlust
■ Too trusting
■ Falls in love easily
■ Easily Manipulated
■ Probably a bottom
■ Puts all his insecurities and fears in a little tiny box, then puts away the box and never ever ever looks at that box again

Askin La Askerrone was born in the long lost Kingdom of Genevieve over one thousand years ago. On the day of his birth, the heavens were aligned—each star was in the right position, each planet was in perfect harmony, and there was probably an eclipse or something going on somewhere in the immediate vicinity. It was a Very Big Deal. He was, after all, according to all rational interpretation of prophecy, the Chosen One.

People expected great things from young Askin, and they all believed in him. Maybe he never showed much prowess as a warrior, but the people of Genevieve saw that he was happy and kind, and that had to count for something, right? If you look at him, even today, you can tell that this was a boy who was surrounded with love from the moment he was born. On his tenth birthday, when he parents told him his destiny as the Chosen One, he accepted it with a bright and maybe simple-minded smile.

About a week later, Askin left his home in the city, ready to face the big bad world. One day, his father had told him, in the middle of giving his son a piggy-back ride, you are going to be the greatest warrior anyone’s ever seen. Whatever man you grow up to be, I know you’ll make us so, so proud. But Askin quickly found he didn’t have much interest in warrioring. He enjoyed more than anything the sidequest side of life, talking with lots of strange people and running off on silly errands for them. One day, however, at the age of 21, his trust in strangers backfired terribly when a traveling wizard offered to show Askin his magic lamp. Askin agreed, and suddenly, with five Words of Power from the wizard, he found himself falling through clouds and empty sky and rushing air. Eventually, he struck the ground. He was trapped.

For a thousand years, Askin wandered a lonely sandbar in the middle of a beautiful, tropical ocean. In the sky above, beautiful and turquoise, he sometimes saw faces. Askin let years go by, staring up at that sky. The air of the island was calming and sweet and smelled of sea salt. His mind drifted away from him during those centuries alone in the lamp. It was like a long and restful dream.

Then, one day, at a museum somewhere in London, someone pried open the lamp and Askin was free. It was a bizarre next few months, catching up on the new and alien world of the future. And it was fun. There were interviews, and he was a minor celebrity for a short time. The boy out of time. After checking the date, Askin soon realized that the Promised Day, the Day he was Chosen for—the day he would duel the Wizard of Truth and the Seven Zombies and the First of the Dragons—had long since passed. And Askin was left with the sudden strange knowledge that no one needed him anymore, nothing was required of him, nothing was expected of him, and, wow, I guess that means I’m free to do whatever I want.

It hasn’t totally hit him yet that everything he ever knew is gone. You might sometimes catch him make reference to introducing you to his parents, or a marketplace in Genevieve where he and his friends used to play. Askin is very good at brushing these aside though, and quickly stuffing them down that tiny and problematic box, the one in the back of his head where he puts all sorts of annoying and ugly-looking thoughts. Askin has never once inquired to the ultimate destiny of Genevieve. He did, however, once scan a map, and notice that an enormous lake now lies where his city used to be. That was enough for him.

Askin avoids at all costs thinking about the people who probably died because he wasn’t there, and has never subjected himself to learning the exact number. It is possible, if you were spying at him late at night, that you might see him awake, and if you stayed awake with him you would see it sometimes takes a very, very, very long time for Askin La Askerrone to fall asleep. Maybe that’s why he became a nomad. Despite his overall carefree demeanor, something in the back of Askin’s brain is troubled at the thought of not making a difference in the world.

But at the same time, Askin is legitimately happy. He might feel a bit confused about this, and a bit guilty, but he’s happy. He’s happy with is new life as a hero, and he’s happy with the people he meets on his journey. That’s what counts, right?

There is a part of him that goes out to tournaments and Nomad gatherings to learn more about this new and wonderful time. There is another part of him that is excited at meeting new friends. And maybe there is yet another part that is deeply lonely, and hopes maybe one of these random strangers will take him on a candlelit dinner, and hold him in their arms and tell him everything that ever was and ever will be is going to be a-fucking-okay. Mostly, he only really acknowledges the first two. Askin is a very carefree person, and it takes a lot of effort and a lot emotions bottled up and stuffed away to stay that way.

Throughout the last two years in this strange new future, Askin kept with him the magic lamp. From its strange design and powers, he has learned a great many things.

You will likely underestimate Askin due to his diminutive appearance, and assume he isn’t much of a fighter. If you do, you would be right; Askin is a shit fighter, and probably always will be. Despite being born with massive inherent ki, he never worked to train or improve it, and never learned to use it in conjunction with martial arts. By the time he became a young adult, he had about average ki for a strong nomad, almost the exact same amount he was born with, and with no combat prowess to back it up.

What he lacks in speed, power, or experience, however, he makes up for in versatility and pure unpredictability. The abilities you might see him use are all vastly different and have apparently no rhyme or reason. One moment he might produce a wave of freezing cold, the next you might be dizzy with hallucinations, or dodging gunfire. It’s difficult to figure out what kind of fighter Askin really is, or what sort of attacks or techniques he might produce next.

It’s not well known, but the truth behind Askin is that he doesn’t have any real abilities, any real fighting techniques or superpowers on his own. He’s like a blank and naked doll that can be dressed up according to whim and convenience. Using the secret magic of the lamp, Askin created ten lesser duplications, powerful brass containers that can trap things in them just as he was trapped. By bottling away weapons and attacks, either outside of combat or in the heat of battle, Askin can make use of a wide spread of powers, and keep his opponents constantly guessing. However, everything he is has to come from others—on his own, Askin is just another face in the crowd.

Independent of the containers, Askin has learned some very rudimentary ki manipulation, focusing on momentary bursts of speed to jump quickly from place to place. On its own, this is a rough, amateur ability that no respectable nomad would use, though it's good at supplementing his stolen powers.

Askin’s greatest weakness is that he isn’t a trained fighter. He does not understand technique, his ki manipulation is extremely simple, he is physically weak, and all in all doesn’t take fighting nearly as seriously as many nomad’s much, much stronger than him. His abilities are extraordinarily versatile, but they all rely on gaining abilities from friends outside of battle, or clever use of an opponent’s power within the flurry of combat—ultimately, Askin has no true power or fighting identity of his own.

Askin also has no good way to get around someone who can outspeed him, and if a person can avoid all his attacks and act too quickly for his Dollmaker to block, there's not much he can do. There is also the chance he uses up all his previously stockpiled powers, and ends up only capable of using attacks copied in the middle of battle, which spells bad news for Askin.

It's possible his many, many centuries trapped in the lamp did something to his head, because Askin seems to have an unhealthily high pain threshold (and difficulty recognizing when he's being seriously hurt), and is prone to zoning out. One of these can be helpful in fights, sometimes, while the other can get him knocked flat on his butt.

Khan has mastered the art of the composed smirk, the conspiratorial half-smile, and the noncommittal bedroom eyes. As a movie star and pop-culture personality, it comes with the job description. The wild and vicious emotions that slog back and forth through his head, privately, like jellified thunderstorms, are held in check by The Look that Khan wears by default. His eyes are black, almond-shaped, heavily lidded, and lined by a generous amount of eyeliner, and his lips are dark, defined, and full of color. His long face—usually wavy and soft, occasionally rigid and sharp—is a blend of Vietnamese and European features, which helped considerably when he first entered acting in the white-obsessed world of Southeast Asian celebrity.

Though he is not altogether far from forty, his smile and his eyes have retained a certain ageless boyishness, though whether this is natural or the work of Hollywood surgeons is anyone’s guess. Sometimes, Khan will fail to wash off his eyeliner before crashing after a bad bender, and the next morning head out into the world with smudged, day-old darkness around his gaze. His skin is tawnyish, while his hair is bleached blond, usually worn in some form of undercut. Two bright diamonds sparkle on either earlobe.

Build-wise, Khan is roughly average, standing at 5’8” with a somewhat toned, somewhat sleek, artfully everymannish body, bought for him by celebrity bodybuilding consultants, courtesy of his agent. Nowadays, however, there is a bit of softness to his build, a bit of underfed leanness, though in the past he had private nutritionists to advise him on his dietary needs, and exercise advisers to advise him on exercise. Of course, Khan was never the best at sticking to schedules, and exercise and healthy living pair badly with raucous partying, and after driving off three separate teams of nutritionists with his winning personality, Khan’s agent gave up, and decided to let him run wild.

Khan enjoys the best of clothes, colorful, fashionable things preferably in shades of greenish blue and bluish green, shiny dress shirts and sleek velvety blazers—for most things in his life, he simply throws his money in the direction of his agent and scoops up whatever she deigns to throw back, but in the case of his clothes, everything is personally selected and purchased with great care and deliberation.

■ Callous
■ Emotional
■ Short-sighted
■ Vain
■ Self-destructive
■ Fatalistic
■ Lonely
■ Childish
■ Spiritual
■ Absolutely furious
■ In control(?)

Khan grew up in an apartment on the suburbish edges of Hanoi. Across the hall lived Vang Dùc Jong. She and Khan had been neighbors since elementary school, but their lives seemed to run parallel to each other, passing each other like ghosts what must have been every day, but never really intersecting, not until the tenth grade when, out of the blue, the two suddenly found themselves best friends.

Jong was of Hmong descent, and her mother, greatly attached to their family’s history, raised her daughter on a rich diet of religion and language, supplemented by regular love, support, and encouragement. Khan, on the other hand, came from a wealthy, sanitized background, with a British chainsmoking mother and a father who wanted very little to do with their family’s or their country’s past. The marriage started falling apart roughly before the first grade, and it wasn’t a violent kind of collapse, but more like a ship slowly sinking, with one end hoisted up out of the water, its weight throwing up great fat whirlpools and sucking down any swimmers unlucky enough to find themselves nearby. Khan, as a child, was largely ignored, while his parents buffeted each other back and forth and, occasionally, used him as a prop in their arguments. He raised himself alone, which he preferred, because when he wasn’t alone he was being raised to hate himself and his home and everything around him. All things considered, Khan could’ve turned out a lot worse.

His isolated upbringing might have contributed to how much he depended on Jong. As a friend, he was funny, and supportive, and honest, but he was also needy the way black holes and dying plants are needy, and he was never the kind of person to think before he spoke. Good looks and good jokes can make it easy to keep people around you, even when they should know better.

Khan was interested in acting, while Jong wanted to follow through on her lifelong ambitions in photography. She would move to China, she said, or California, where there were larger Hmong communities and more in-depth resources at the national libraries. Learning as much as she could about her history and culture and being able to share it was her mother's dream, and now hers. Photography, she often explained to Khan, was her paintbrush, her medium, her power. He listened, sometimes, and was polite enough to not act interested when he wasn’t, and impolite enough to tell her he wasn’t interested, Christ, do you ever talk about anything else?

But while photography didn’t hold much interest for Khan, he had a kind of tentative fascination with religion, thoughts on which Jong had in no small supply. She sometimes talked to him about Hmong mythology, and Khan listened like a fearful Protestant fresh off the Mayflower, listening to foreign thunderstorms shake the foreign trees and foreign soil surrounding him on all sides. The story of mankind’s creation in particular captured Khan's imagination, though not always in a pleasant way.

According to some Hmong clans, Nplooj Lwg, a great frog deity, was responsible for creating humanity, and upon whom humanity eventually turned, and killed. With his dying breathe, the great frog cursed all of mankind, splitting them off from the world of the divine and the spiritual. They would know sickness, and death, and the leaves would turn brown on trees. And then he died.

The invisible world of gods and faith and heavenly powers fascinated Khan, then and now, and as a child he would glimpse them occasionally on TV, in fun action movies, and in recordings of Nomad heroes mid-fight. They were a sign of something, and Khan didn’t know what that something was, but it was something different and greater than whatever life he had lived, and seemed certain to continue living. Acting, then, was a convenient way of getting close to that otherworld without putting himself in any real danger. He was interested in several big-name universities, while Jong looked more into smaller, liberal arts schools. However, after copious begging, and after throwing away one of Jong’s other acceptance letters before she could get home and check the mail, Khan eventually convinced her to come to the same school as him.

At school, Khan fell in with new friends, though most weren’t so much friends as they were drinking acquaintances, at best. He and Jong got into arguments. But they stayed friends, still, no dumb argument would change that.

Then, halfway through their first year, Khan struck gold. He had sent out acting applications to a dozen studios, and, to his surprise, was offered a role in a new comedy being filmed in Korea. After some hesitation (he tells himself, often mentally emphasizing the moral quandary of that moment), Khan accepted the offer. Jong was left to complete her degree alone.

In the years later, Khan would think about how many missed years he and Jong could’ve had together, all those times they must’ve silently passed in the apartment halls as children, the different life that might’ve grown if they’d just met earlier, if they’d met differently. He believes strongly in savoring the moment, and not wasting one’s time, though at the same time has a bad habit of never savoring the moment, driving off friends, and generally wasting his time.

But the move to Korea treated him well. Khan became a much beloved character on Wheelflowers, a silly television show about a the slice-of-life antics of a struggling boy band, and after two years on the show, h made his first incursion into Hollywood. Once again, Khan struck pure gold, this time in an Oscar-bait drama where he played a heroin-pusher who facilitates the downfall of his closest friend, and ultimately takes his own life. More roles opened up. Two more hits. A fuckton of money. One day, in some shadowy attic of his mind, he thought, California, didn’t I know someone who wanted to move to California? Shortly after his second big hit (an action movie), Khan tried to look up Jong. He didn’t try very hard. But it was enough to provide some fake relief for his conscience, and to suddenly give some new life to old memories and fantasies about his childhood, his teens, and the life he lived and could’ve lived growing up. It is possibly just coincidence that, afterwards, his career choices took an enormous dip in quality.

There were no more successes in Hollywood for Khan, not after his early twenties. At least, not critical ones.
He was in one or two flops, guest starred on a handful of television shows, but mostly he retreated to his Los Angeles home, and he fell into a whirlpool. Parties, mostly, and sometimes those parties even involved people other than him. He felt unhappy, and more than that, realized that he had been feeling unhappy for a very long time. In the blur of jumping into his pool every other weekend from the house roof, out of his mind on cocaine, and masturbating to the infamous shower scene from season two of Wheelflowers, and thinking, always thinking, about the time he spent in high school with Jong, Khan came to a realization. Acting wasn’t enough. He had to go out there, off-stage, off-script. He had to tear shit up.

What if you became a nomad?

Khan tried working out, hiring several famous martial artists to train him. This, of course, was an unmitigated disaster, and either by having sex with, disrespecting, ignoring, or generally badmouthing just about everyone who crossed his path, sometimes all at once, as well as a complete lack of discipline, his training never went very far. Good old fashioned hard work would not do, apparently.

Instead, Khan put his considerable wealth into drugs, rituals, and invasive medical procedures, imbibing whatever piece of science and magic he could get his hands on. He quietly receded from Hollywood, building up a purchased nomad's body born from fine taste, excess wealth, and lack of restraint. Mystics would trap him in magical vortexes, drugs would be injected one after the other into his spine, surgeons would plant mysterious organs into his chest—it was a hectic, badly thought out, and altogether painful affair, to say the least. Khan was very drunk for most of it. But he kept going. Some part of him must’ve savored the pain, the feeling of knowing exactly what he needed, and getting it, and for once having what he needed and got be neither drugs or alcohol.

It was around then, sometime after his fifth augmentation, that he began having dreams.

The corpse of Nploog Lwg loomed over him, and Khan was deafened by the frog’s dying curse, which rang in his head like a bell, splitting his body in two.

Odin hung from the Tree of Creation, pinned to the living wood by a spear, crying out into a starry sky, and Khan cried with him, screaming for help, screaming.

He held up his hands and shouted for mercy as Ma’at lowered her scepter upon him, flatting the infinite chaos of the universe and imposing order upon all of creation, binding Khan’s body to the belly of the earth.

He watched Yeshua pray on the hilltop, hours from his execution, steeling his doubts and fears as Judas led a crowd down the road in the distance, his intent as clear as day, and Khan wept, and could not stop weeping until every drop of water in his body had leaked out from his eyes.

He saw thunderstorms, and stormcrows.

Eventually, Khan decided these nightmares were a sign of divine providence, that his new path had been approved by the powers that be. This is intermittently a source of wild confidence and frightening unease. When he felt he had enough augmentations, that is to say, he was told any more would kill him, Khan took to the roads. This was his moment. This was when he would make change, real change.

However, after a few months of attempted nomading, as with most other things in his life, Khan quietly gave up. With very little fanfare, he returned to his life as a celebrity, and rumors went wild over his recent, mysterious absence. With a kind of blank, uncomfortable resignation, Khan was cast by a Korean film studio for a supporting role in a well-received, mild box-office success, and he has, once again, drowned his thoughts in reckless indulgences and the glitz of the advertising tour. His most recent stop—Japan.

Khan has only rudimentary fighter’s training, and can't rely on skill to win a fight. His powers come not from ki or marital arts prowess, but from a hasty cornucopia of mind and body-altering drugs, rituals, and surgeries. Most of these are geared towards elevating a normal, low-ki human to full nomad fighting status, and allow him to stomach nomad-level attacks and return them in kind like any other fighter. Compared to most nomads, he has slightly below average strength, nonexistent skill or training, solid defenses, and what amounts to an extraordinarily high health bar. His true danger, however, is his debuff abilities, which can whittle away at ki reserves during a fight and cause temporary stat drops in opponents.

Khan’s powers are most useful in battles of attrition, as his techniques are good at punishing attacks and lessening damage, and grant him a respectable tanking build. However, Khan’s stormy temperament, always close to the surface, breaks out easily in fights, and he tends to resort to straightforward brutal assault even if it isn’t the wisest strategy.

However, at the same time, Khan has an ultimately empathic and emotional nature, and just as easily as he might resort to violent pummeling attacks, he is quick to jump back and give an enemy space if he thinks he might’ve gone too far, a rather dangerous tendency for a nomad to have.

Khan’s ability to injure ki is quite dangerous, and his augmented body boasts strong defensive capabilities (though without true ki protection he does get quite bloody easily). However, he is at his best against melee fighters, and is very weak to strong ranged attacks, as he has low speed and low mobility. His abilities also work best when dragging out a fight, so fighters who can apply constant aggressive pressure from the start can usually overpower him.

He is also slightly below average for a nomad in terms of raw power, not to mention his lack of skill and training puts him at a disadvantage against highly trained fighters.

Khan can, at times, be a legitimately good actor. However, since his first three films, which were met with critical acclaim, he has mostly been cast in rather schlocky roles with rather schlocky directors, and has yet to score another true hit. General consensus is that he is a somewhat talented actor who got lucky, but isn’t much more of a celebrity coasting on hot air. That said, his latest film, Blue Medicine, is seen by some fans as a return to form.

A combination of experience and his augmentations means Khan has to take in a significant amount of alcohol or drugs before the effects can take in.

A tall, unsmiling woman who breaks six feet by an inch or so, Verga does not put off the friendliest sort of appearance. Her teardrop-shaped face is solemn and unrevealing, and her sharp, almond eye has a way of telling you, no, she would not laugh at that joke, so don’t try. Verga’s skin is somewhat light, and her body is visibly strong—her massive reserves of life energy have prolonged her youth, appearing more like a woman in her early forties, or maybe late thirties, though her eye has a certain weariness to its lined and lidded gaze that does not match her appearance.

The siniydusha condition that Verga was born with stained her hair, eyes, eyelids, and nails a valley lily shade of blue. Her hair falls nearly shoulder length, and the bangs over her face are swept carefully to the side, hiding the place where her left eye would be. Behind the hair, an eyepatch covers up an empty socket—you give up some things, chasing power. Verga’s fingernails are all filed into long, sharp points, and her fingers are thin and calloused from years of work.

On the surface, Verga's wardrobe is rather simple. Clean black turtleneck jumpers and white cargo-pants. Very efficient. Her boots are dark and hardy as well, though maybe a bit sleeker than functional, with heels a bit higher than would be fitting for a martial artist and survivalist. Her belt is also notably nice, dark with a round brass disc to buckle the warm leather. She also often wears a dark, heavy greatcoat, with sleeves and a collar marked with subtle but intricate floral designs. Bits and pieces of her hidden vanity, always poking through.

■ Cold
■ Proud
■ Willful
■ Unsympathetic
■ Single-minded
■ Introverted
■ Socially awkward
■ Superstitious
■ Power-hungry
■ Merciful
■ Commitment issues
■ Uncomfortable around children

Verga could not have shown you her hometown on a map. She could not tell you the name of the lake below the village, the mountains that blocked out the morning sun, or the woods that surrounded her childhood on all sides. Her world was nameless, one made up of plowing snow and dark forests, and fairy tales whispered over crackling fires. The village was the only thing there was—that, and the bristling wilderness.

Verga’s education had no room for science or history. She learned how to cut down trees and how to make camps, how to kill animals and light fires, how to keep the frostbite from turning her fingers and toes into blackened corn-husks. She learned basic math and literacy so outsiders couldn’t trick her, and she learned to distrust people, and to distrust nature, because both would always be looking for ways to gain the upper hand. However, if given the choice, she felt most at home in the forest, preferably in the wintertime, when the snow made everything peaceful and hushed. One day, far in the future, she would emerge onto the world stage as a renowned martial artist, but even as an adult with years of experience in the outside world, she could never feel comfortable in urban areas, or among crowds.

In Verga’s world, your worth was determined by the weight you pulled, and no one pulled more weight than Verga Ilgraven. Though her neighbors were never the affectionate type, and most exchanges, even with family, were short and gruff, she was always appreciated for her natural abilities. Verga had been born with a unique condition, siniydusha, the blue ki, which endowed her with enormous innate strength, and grew faster than any normal ki. By the time she was sixteen, Verga could carry more firewood than any man in the village, and could endure biting cold that would glue even the hardiest lumberjack to the fireplace. Each year her strength swelled. But it was never enough; the more powerful she grew, the more Verga wanted. During excursions, she would stray farther and farther into the wilderness. If she could, she stayed away from the village, which began to seem unbearably small. One day, when she was 19, a hunting expedition took Verga to the very edge of the valley. Without giving it any conscious thought, she just kept walking.

For over a year Verga traveled east through thick, unforgiving wilderness. She was searching for something, and she didn’t know what, not exactly, but she knew she wouldn’t have found it back in her old valley. She fought off beasts, and she fought off the elements. Even with her prodigious strength, it was a grueling ordeal. More than once Verga sat beneath the trees, staring up at the sky, dizzy with exhaustion and starvation and certain she was going to die.

The handful of towns she passed slowly filled in the gaps in her knowledge of the world—she was in Siberia, which was a part of Russia, and, the few times her power was brought to light, they called her strannik: a Nomad. Eventually, after months in the wild, she reached the Chinese border.

After a run-in with border patrol, Verga would embark on a two-week string of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and several fights, before she was ultimately scooped up by a local tai chi master. He took notice of both her raw potential and her lack of affiliation to any competing nation or martial arts school, and was quick to recruit her.

Verga’s new master would aid her in obtaining Chinese citizenship, and teach her the local languages. And during the next three years, she found exactly what she had wanted for so long—training, purpose, and power. She would study tai chi and, eventually, arnis, and begin to learn more and more about this strange new world beyond Siberia.

Tai chi did not agree with her at first, Verga’s hard, inflexible personality making the fluid, changeable martial art a frustrating challenge. Years passed. Verga worked, and worked, and at some point that work paid off. Her blue ki grew, ravenously. After only a shocking five years of training, she used her natural gifts to equal her master himself. Success met her in multiple local tournaments, and she was soon something of a small celebrity. Pride, power, success—Verga had all of these in no small supply, and she was drunk on them. She even began developing her own martial arts style—tai chi and arnis weren’t enough, it seemed. As with everything in life, Verga would not be satisfied with what things were when she could see so clearly what they could be.

Verga was not stupid, however, and sometime after leaving her old workshop she realized it took more to survive in the outside world than flashy martial arts. With this in mind, Verga enrolled in a local university at the age of 25.

It was at school that she became acquainted with Runsu Ryuga, a Japanese exchange student. Verga rarely had strong feelings when it came to other human beings who, in most cases, either confused or alarmed her, but she wasted no time in deciding she felt, openly and mightily, a strong hatred for this boy.

Runsu was from money, and it showed. His clothes, his laptop, his car, and of course his bragging. Like Verga, he had quite the ego, though where Verga was reserved, and preferred to speak with actions, not words, Runsu was all talk. Unfortunately, he too was an aspiring nomad, and Verga soon found he had the bite to back up his bark.

Runsu would be the first person to ever challenge Verga. Sometimes they sparred, and sometimes Verga would win. Her raw ki reserves providing a slight edge over the skill-oriented Runsu, but if she did beat him, she would be challenged for it. Often, Runsu would win. These wins burned the skin of her pride like frostbite. When he mocked her for her strange habits, her accent, her grades, it killed Verga to know that any punch she threw at him could be matched by one just as strong.

In academics, Verga was hopelessly behind her other classmates. While Runsu was only a middling student, he was studious enough to stay ahead of her, and his successes in the face of her failures frustrated Verga in a way only her early years in tai chi could rival. She channeled her anger into her work, and sometimes into her fists during sparring matches. The rivalry between Verga and Runsu would reach a peak during one clash in the spring semester when, after gaining the upper hand, Verga lost her temper, and her rival was very nearly killed. All Verga’s frustration poured out of her just then, her confusion at the strange new world she lived in, her hatred for the industrialized inner city, her frustration with her own academic progress, her loathing of Runsu—all of it. Eventually, she pulled back, not knowing or caring if Runsu was still alive. Then, she did something she couldn’t have explained, just like she couldn’t have explained why she kept walking all those years ago, when she left her village for good. Picking him up, Verga took Runsu to a local hospital.

She allowed doctors to extract her own ki for healing. For some reason, the thought of him dying, and her being responsible, drove a deep, uncomfortable spike through her belly.

She was there when he woke up. There wasn’t much to say. Uncomfortable, unhappy, half-wishing she had left him to die, Verga left. She would return only once afterwards, to drop off a bag of pao after the local streetcart accidentally gave her extra. Later, Runsu confided in her that she was the only person to visit him while he was hospitalized. Parents were too busy, he said. What about your friends? she’d asked. He shrugged.

It wouldn’t be long before Verga realized the sickly feeling that had been following her since the fight was guilt. She felt guilty. It was unfamiliar, ugly territory she wanted nothing to do with, but apparently that wasn’t an option. Runsu, for his part, seemed more reserved around her. There weren’t any more taunts, at least.

It took time, but eventually the two took to talking. Runsu, despite whatever he said before, was quickly fascinated by Verga’s stories of her upbringing, and listened raptly to her descriptions of traditional Siberian fairy tales and folklore. Verga eventually found Runsu was the only person she was comfortable asking simple questions that, prior, she had been too embarrassed to ask her master. They began to confide in each other. Their old egos, both injured by that unhappy fight, began to swell again. They trained together, they studied together, and before long they were dating.

It felt, to two young adults, both in their own ways unfamiliar with the realities of the outside world, that they were at their peak, the top of the world. Their feats in tournaments brought them modest fame, but to them, modest fame felt like the most glorious thing in the universe.

Both were interested in refining their own, unique takes on martial arts, and their arguments over whose was better were ultimately settled by a strange, alien thought—what if we had a child? They could teach that child everything they knew. A legacy worthy of their talents (and egos), a trophy that would combine the best of both of them, together, united. This was only an idle thought, and they didn’t start actively trying for a kid so much as they stopped actively avoiding it. After all, even without condoms, it could be months, maybe even a year, before anything happened. But within two weeks, Verga was pregnant. Under encouragement from Runsu, she decided to follow through with it.

Not long into her pregnancy, Verga decided she wouldn’t return for her second year of university, and, with more than a little dissatisfaction, moved away from her more strenuous training. Runsu visited regularly. They had arguments over the child’s name, of course, both wanting a name to reference themself over their partner. Verga developed a bit of cabin fever, cut off from her training, but she endured. A checkup in the first trimester told them they would have a girl. A checkup during the second trimester told them their child would be born with Senshinōben.

It was a hereditary disease, one that drastically stagnates life energy. The baby would be pitifully weak from the moment she was born, with minimal ki reserves. If she was born at all, that is—the baby’s chance of survival was incredibly slim. A doctor hesitantly gave the option of an abortion, though this wasn’t something Runsu or Verga were ready to hear.

The two tried to talk about it, afterwards, but talking was never their strong point, even at the best of times. Learning their child would likely miscarry was nothing they were prepared for, and the two realized, privately and separately, that they were still very young, and there was so much outside of their abilities. They ended up arguing, and things probably would’ve gone better if they hadn’t said anything all.

Runsu didn’t visit as often, afterwards. From the way he talked when he did come by, you would think Verga wasn’t pregnant at all. He made no acknowledgement to her pregnancy, or the Senshinōben, and when Verga tried to press him he stammered and dodged and half-answered, and usually left early. Verga felt spite germinating inside her, like a spiky, armored creature squeezed between her organs, imagining Runsu going to classes, pretending she didn’t exist. She had always known he was the weak one. She began consulting with doctors on the possibility of an abortion, but something—stubbornness, fear, pride—held her back from committing. Still, while Verga stewed in her apartment alone—her belly round and full, her thoughts dark and unhappy—the ‘A’ word floated regularly through her head, though it always drowned below the sea of bitterness inside her before it could take root. She had Runsu’s number, but after the first few days, stopped texting, stopped calling, and would not respond to his few attempts to reach out.

As well-known and successful martial artists, the two had funds for extensive medical care and consultation. Eventually, it was decided to remove the baby by caesarian section, and place it in a heavily monitored sustainment tank. The surgery was a success, but the baby’s condition remained uncertain. Runsu avoided the hospital and Verga completely, and made no appearance. When the child finally stabilized, it was time for Verga to figure out what it would be called. Runsu failed to show, which Verga told herself was inevitable, but it didn’t stop the angry disappointment that flickered through her as she held her baby, alone. The child would take her surname, ‘Ilgraven.’ On the paperwork, feeling all those weeks of spite and anger come boiling over, Verga jotted down ‘Shippai’ in a burst of impulse. It was a Japanese word, her husband’s language, and it translated to ‘failure.’ Shippai Ilgraven would be her daughter’s new name. When Runsu found out, they shouted, then they fought. This one was a stalemate. Bloodied, bruised, Verga went to the car to take little Shippai out of the back seat, while Runsu stormed off.

If mastering tai chi was difficult, figuring out how to care for a baby was something else entirely. Verga was in and out of the house, constantly, always in need of new supplies, new clothes, new diapers. Shippai needed weekly check-ups, as her Senshinōben persisted in weakening the baby’s already delicate body. Verga had no idea what was right or wrong when it came to raising this tiny, squealing, fragile creature. Then, when Shippai was half a year old, Runsu returned. To Verga’s enormous surprise, he was back to apologize. She, of course, would not and could not forgive him, but he was there to help, and Runsu couldn’t refuse.

Runsu, likely with the thought of his own parents haunting his mind, did his best to stay by Shippai’s side at all times. He took off from university as well. Verga, who tried to care for the girl best she could, felt guilt for the second time in her life, this time over the child’s name, not to mention a certain amount of wounded pride over her daughter and heir carrying such a shameful moniker. Not that she ever said these things out loud, of course. Runsu was no longer the handsome boy she confided in, all those months ago. To the public, of course, it was a sweet little picture—two famous martial artists raising a child together. News of their strife would not reach the tabloids.

But as Shippai began to walk, and speak, the two began training her. Verga was determined to have this child throw off her name, her disease, to fight through and conquer it. Maybe if she did, all Verga’s past pain and confusion would be vindicated. Or, maybe, the guilt would go away.

Where Verga was a cold wall, pushing Shippai silently to grow no matter the cost and holding the girl at arm's length, Runsu was a constant fire, always telling her to do better, to be better, a fixture at Shippai’s side.

Meanwhile, no longer pregnant, Verga returned to her own training. To her frustration, the meteoric growth of her teens had slowed down, and her ki would grow only at a normal rate now that she approached her thirties. Still, it was good to be fighting again, seriously. But her martial arts seems hollow now. She continued to fine tune her blend of tai chi and arnis, which she now dubbed ‘Tikhiyvolna,’ the Tranquil Wave. She garnered attention in local tournaments, and imitators of her technique began to crop up, enough to gain her little experiment in martial arts proper respect as its own school, and, for herself, the title of Tikhiyvolna Master. But the limits of punches and kicks and self-defense seemed so small in the face of the struggles of the last few years. It was like being back in her old village again, surrounded by trees, unsatisfied by the smallness of the world. Verga hated that no matter her skill, no amount of martial arts could take away her powerless to situations like miscarriage, and broken hearts, and crying babies.

Whatever she did, whatever she said, Verga loved her daughter. She didn’t know what to make of that, of course, and, on some level, it disturbed her. But those few moments when she would play with the girl, show her how to build little towers out of wood blocks, or how to make twig dolls like the ones her parents made, or laugh while Shippai roared like a movie monster and knocked over her buildings—Verga was happy. But it didn’t make the guilt go away, or the pain, and having to deal with happiness and unhappiness at the same time felt more confusing than unhappiness on its own. And even if she loved her, love isn’t enough. If anything, it made Verga’s actions worse—a mother may be cold and heartless, and that’s a simple, understandable evil, but a mother who loved her daughter—she should’ve known better.

Verga and Runsu were not good parents. They pushed their daughter to reach the stars, and when she couldn’t, when the reality of the Senshinōben beat her back down, they, either consciously or subconsciously, would blame Shippai. Runsu would lose his temper and shout, Verga would go cold as stone and speak only curt, harsh indictments. Eventually, the tiny shred of goodwill that had built up with Runsu’s return fell away. They argued, and argued, and argued, and Shippai cowered on the sidelines.

When Shippai was seven, the two took their daughter to Japan, where Verga hoped to put her through survival training like what she endured in Siberia. On the way, as they often did, Shippai’s parents fought, and fought. In the airport. In Japan. Up in the mountains. While they walked the hiking trail, Runsu finally succeeded in pulling Verga’s trigger with a comment about her taking his future from him, and suddenly her icy sniping became vicious shouting. She ordered Shippai to wait for them by a bench on the hiking trail, and told Runsu that she was done. Done with him, done with Shippai, done with all of it.

That broke through his bluster. But what about Shippai? We can’t leave her here.

I can, said Verga. If you want to raise a child on your own, be my god damn guest.

She marched off down the path, and Runsu tried to follow her. By the mountain base, they came to blows. For the first time in a very long while, Runsu was victorious, but he must not have felt victorious, because when Verga met his gaze, beaten and gasping for breath beneath a Japanese fir, he turned, and he fled. Verga knew her daughter was waiting for her up in the mountains. But she couldn’t return. Not to China, and not to Shippai, not to Runsu. Once again, Verga was marching off into the wilderness, alone.

For the next fifteen years, Verga sought only the hard and tangible. She sought power. She sought anything that would keep her from powerlessness. She sought something clear and simple, and something that she was actually good at. And Verga was very good at amassing power. She let her martial arts skills go rusty as the benefits of her blue ki slowed with age, and instead spent her time scouring the corners of Asia for ancient ki techniques derived from old powers and terrible sorceries. She might occasionally participate in tournaments, a way of maintaining her fortune, but other than that Verga Ilgraven faded from the public scene. The thought of people, always somewhat uncomfortable to Verga, even at the best of times, was now downright frightening to her. Power had been her first love, and, she now realized, it should have been her only.

In the last few months, noting her loss in a recent tournament, Verga has decided to begin work again with her martial arts skills, and has quietly returned to the city in order to find sparring partners. She keeps on a straight face, deflects questions about her daughter, and hides admirably her great distaste for almost every single thing about the busy cities of Japan.

Verga spent much of the last fifteen years tracking down, learning, and refining some of the most dangerous ki-attacks known to martial arts. She fights with a balance of these attacks alongside her own martial arts prowess, generally using her special techniques to beat down the enemy with raw aggression, then closes in and finishes them off with her martial arts.

Her martial art style, Tikhiyvolna, is based on her studies of Chinese tai chi and Filipino arnis, and focuses on control and adaptability. Verga is an aggressive fighter by nature, but her martial arts style is ultimately more suited to waiting, reacting, and controlling, and while she is the inventor of Tikhiyvolna, it’s techniques are not suited towards her natural disposition, and she relies almost entirely on her ki abilities for direct offense. While still skilled, Verga has grown rusty as a Tikhiyvolna practitioner, and currently seeks to refine her old skills again.

Because Verga pursued only the most powerful techniques, almost all of her specials require enormous amounts of ki to function, and her body can only sustain a certain number of ‘shots’ before requiring a lengthy recharge time.

While Verga’s ki attacks are enormously powerful, their raw power is also their greatest downside. Verga has pursued only the most dangerous of techniques during her quest for power, and, as a result, most of her special moves have a limited number of ‘shots’ before her body can no longer sustain them, and she must act conservatively against stronger foes, something that doesn’t come naturally to Verga due to her pride. In addition, almost none of her abilities can safely be used in closed in spaces, like hallways, and are difficult to use without harming allies. This also means she has a certain lack of versatility, as her abilities cannot be easily fine tuned or controlled—they operate at either 0%, or 100%, with no middle-ground.

If her abilities are spent, she has to rely on martial arts, and, while more than competent, her style focuses on self-defense, and isn’t appropriate for the shows of aggression and power that Verga relies on by nature.

Ben's fighting style relies entirely on grappling and counters. His power set relies around disorienting the opponent with dazzling speed, brutal take downs and flashy throws. He refer to it as "Slayer Grappling"
His movements are quick and violent, opting to generally go low and dodge roll when possible. Similar to a greco roman wreslter, when fighting he is squatting and shooting for the knees.

■ Kobain Clutch: The Kobain Clutch a is running Kick that turns into a hold. The kick itself is a running one leg dropkick (also known as a shotgun kick). But the second it hits he tucks his legs and lands on the opponent, rolling with them and tosses them up on his shoulders.

■ Mindless Self Punishment/High Variant: One of his Staple Moves. Stepping in under High Attacks he sweeps the legs and pick them up for a old fashioned judo throw over the shoulder.

■ Mindless Self Punishment/Low Variant: Reversal for lowattacks is a little different in that he steps back, grabs their leg or arm and pull them into the throw that way instead.

A reversal that if timed, delivers a massive flurry of ki enhanced blows to the opponent's face. When the opponent kick or Punch, he’ll find that Ben sways out of the way in the last minute before delivering a massive, highspeed punch that is bound to send them flying.

A more powerful variant of the Shotgun Kick from Kobain clutch, only this time the kick doesn’t turn into a roll but stomp. As soon as the enemy's face is stomped into the ground, Bens heel explode with hidden shotgun shell.

His father, Alfred, has put a price on his sons head, Ben is still unaware of this.

Far from the more elaborate AI-controlled combat machines that are currently being used, XAND has a rugged, militarized design that makes it blatantly obvious that it isn't meant for anything other than war. Painted in camouflage colors suited to the environment at hand, carrying a railgun rifle, and covered in pouches for equipment of every stripe, XAND is patterned after the human soldiers it is intended to replace, and it shows. Its pilot, Jack Falcon, is a muscular but somewhat overweight Caucasian man with a truly magnificent beard. His clothing varies by the occasion, but when piloting XAND he chiefly wears the fatigues of a garrisoned soldier. Jack should not be considered a weakling because he’s a little fat, however: Doughy he may be from spending all his time on a military base rather than fighting in-person, but he’s “fat and fit” as they say.

XAND:
--> Absolutely zilch. It's a drone, what the hell did you expect?
Jack Falcon:
--> Friendly
--> Loves to drink
--> Talkative
--> Gets shit done
--> Avid gamer
--> Extrovert
--> Cautious when he needs to be
--> Does not take kindly to sexual misconduct
--> Disciplined soldier when on-duty...
--> ...average guy when he's not.

Jack Falcon was born to an average family in England, but his parents emigrated to the United States soon after his birth due to his father's job forcing him to move to New York. Jack ended up getting dual citizenship at a fairly young age, but grew up around Americans almost exclusively. He had a relatively ordinary childhood, though he was known to get into often physical scuffles with the local kids, and was prone to getting detention. He wasn't a bad kid, per se: He had good grades, and a decently-sized circle of friends, but he tended to respond to bullies with violence.

His record of fighting led to an interest in martial arts. He wound up studying American kickboxing and dabbled in taekwondo, but had only intended to use his skills at a hobbyist level...until he came across a curious advertisement. Apparently, DARPA was seeking out martial artists, preferably ones who weren't trained in ki use, to test pilot a drone intended to directly fight and possibly kill Nomads. His interest piqued, Jack drove down to Virginia to take DARPA up on its offer. Once there, he somehow managed to pass the tests they had organized, and received a more detailed explanation on the project from a Pentagon representative. With the ki-empowered martial artists known as "Nomads" roaming the world and getting into supernatural battles with one another, and the rise of the Nomad terrorist known only as "Abel," the threat of rogue Nomads was so dangerous that DARPA was putting together a project that would put this power in the hands of the governments of the world. But first, it would go into the hands of the U.S. military. Because of course it would.

The XAND Project, as it was called, took a different approach from the AI-controlled robots that had been used thus far. AIs weren't human. They were inherently alien, and could theoretically develop difficulties interacting with humans. XAND had no such problems, because it employed powerful bipedal combat drones that were designed to match Nomads through pure mechanical might. DARPA envisioned armies of XANDs crushing even Abel through sheer force of numbers, bringing rogue Nomads into line one battle at a time. However, it was still in the experimental phase, with small quantities of drones being sent on missions to test their capabilities in the field. Obviously, he accepted. Due to XAND being a military robot with a limited battery life and not a human being, Jack can’t travel the world looking for fights like actual Nomads. However, Jack nonetheless seeks out opportunities to test XAND at every turn, as an attempt to get a taste for the Nomad life vicariously through his robotic shell. If he runs into a Nomad, you can be sure he’ll bring up XAND and mention the opportunity for a good fight. You can expect to see XAND at tourneys and other events where Nomads gather as well. Not that XAND doesn’t get sent on missions like any other military robot, it’s just not as common, since it’s specifically an anti-Nomad weapon.

XAND-1 (or just XAND for short), technically fights in the manner of its pilot, but it is clearly built to have a “keep-away” combat style. Its punches and kicks have enormous reach with its extending limbs, and it has several ranged weapons as well as jet-equipped legs to keep its opponent out of melee range. Jack happens to be trained in American kickboxing with a side of taekwondo, but his skills carry over surprisingly well to the robot. XAND is equipped with various pre-installed weapons as well as jet-equipped legs for flight and an integrated repair bot. It also benefits from extremely fast reaction time due to being a robot, but such reflexes are par for the course among the Nomads it's intended to fight. However, XAND-1 only has a battery life of about three days, necessitating that it be recharged every once in a while.

XAND is a drone, and as such is often controlled from several miles away, and potentially from the other side of the planet. This can result in input lag when Jack gives a command, and a lag spike, or God forbid a complete loss of connection, can be deadly. It is also experimental, and as such has the potential for glitches to occur at the worst times. Jack himself isn't a ki-user whatsoever, and as such he isn't particularly strong when not piloting XAND-1. That means that he's vulnerable to a Nomad in-person, and as such may need to be protected in the event of a Nomad attack. Not that he isn't a well-trained soldier, he just can't throw fireballs or walk off bullet wounds like Nomads can. There's also the ever-present danger of Jack's connection to XAND-1 being hacked, allowing an external user to gain control of the drone to potentially-devastating effect.

As for XAND’s actual combat weaknesses, it’s a keep-away fighter, and as such it is vulnerable to opponents getting into close-quarters. It has very few options for dealing with enemies in close combat, and as such its entire combat strategy revolves around staying at a range at which its superhuman reach applies.

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