Name: Hana, "The Crimson Scholar" "The Mistress of Whispers" "That Crazy Bean-Counter Woman"
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Appearance:
Hana is an attractive woman, and not even the folds of the red kimonos she favors can completely cover up curves to rival a geisha. However she does have a branding scar on her left shoulder she refuses to speak of, in the form of a black crow wing. She often wears red kimonos, red being her favorite color.
Personality:
Hana is at first glance a archetypal yamato nadeshiko woman. Dutiful, wise, mature, loyal, humble, all while hiding true steel behind a silken appearance. The last one she has trouble with as she doesn't hesitate to show her skill in economics and accounting. She always strives to be the best she can and doesn't hesitate to rise to a challenge in her field of finances, even if it means stepping out of the conservative role of a traditional woman.
In general, she rarely loses her calm focus and strictly rational insight into the world and people around her, even if it sometimes means she has trouble dealing with unexpected Youkai that interfere in her well-laid plans. However that rigidly rational attitude is being worn away as she has met and fallen in love with her lord, the heir to the Mitsumine Clan, and now works seeking his approval and favor.
Skills and Abilities:
* Innovative Bookkeeper- Hana's first and foremost skill, and the only one she will openly but softly boast of, is her ability to manage the numbers, sums, and finances of the Mitsumine Clan with astounding accuracy and speed unmatched by even the greatest of Imperial Bureaucrats. Not only that, she is actively improving upon her abilities with new financial techniques. Changing age-old systems set by the bureaucrats of the capital with her own unique sets of ciphers and bookkeeping methods. (Double-entry bookkeeping in an era of single-entry accounts)
* Merchant Visionary- While she is merely an assistant to the Master of Coin of the Mitsumine, Hana has some serious authority over the Mitsumine Clan's finances where her master gives her some freedom of action (mostly in recordkeeping and large-scale business transactions). But in other regards she is kept under tight watch by the Master who finds her secrecy involving her books quite suspicious.
* Whispers of Merchants - Hana always stays abreast of economic developments thanks to informants and maintaining a regular economic journal of all goods across the Imperial domains. And in the process quite a few rumors and pieces of information also like to fall into her lap.
Possessions and Assets:
Hana always carries with her a satchel laden with books, ink, and a quill, so she may write numbers or notes whenever needed. Her accounting books are in ciphers and organization only she can comprehend, with techniques unheard of by even Imperial Bureaucrats held within their bound pages.
Hana has a friendly rivalry with a Yuki-onna (Snow Girl) accountant of the Tiger Clan, who is one of the few that can rival her in financial skill and ability. While the two frequently fight and duel over tariffs, trade, and subverting businesses and guilds to their sway, the two are respectable friends on a personal level. The bored Yuki-Onna finds amusement in this human game of money now that she has found a strong opponent while Hana uses her opponent as a whetstone to sharpen her abilities against, and the two often swap stories and juicy information when the two meet. Yet for all their friendship, they don't know eachother by name. Merely the "Crimson Scholar" versus "The Frost Dancer". And both would prefer to keep it that way.
Hana is also able to tap into Master Tenzin's informants regarding financial and trade affairs. But such informants also report to the Master of Coin.
Bio: Hana is tight-lipped about where she came from and what her original birth family name was. She considers her true birth, and wakening to the field of trade and coin, to be when she was adopted by a wandering merchant from a foreign land at the age of 10, and she considers him to be the origin of all her ideas and way of thinking as they traveled and traded together as teacher and student. Then one day after reaching the age of 16, the trader disappeared, leaving Hana with his cart and all worldly possessions. In hindsight, Hana wonders if the merchant may have been a spirit of some sort, and refuses to speak of his name.
From there, Hana found herself adopted again by a major merchant guild of the Mitsumine Clan, when in her dealings she met the aged Master of Coin Matsuran Tenzin. Tenzen enlisted her as an assistant to replace his previous incompetent one upon seeing her make transactions in her hidden journals. For the next three years, it was a dance of interactions between the two as the old master Tenzin turned a wandering trader into a scholarly bureaucrat able to run the complex affairs of an entire clan, whilst trying to obtain her secrets for himself. To his amusement, he has so far failed despite his best efforts, and thus has kept Hana as a close assistant to watch her work and try to decipher her unusual skill. He keeps her so close, that he brought her to the clan heir's coronation just to show off his protege and point out how unusual she is.
And it was there she fell in love with her lord and master. Further driving her to succeed and aid in the Mitsumine Clan's rise of new power to obtain recognition and approval from her lord. Her position could not be more precarious. She is held in suspicion by some quarters of the clan for being an adopted outsider, many seek the secrets of accounting and finance she knows, and even her own master keeps watch over her actions. She merely thinks of it as challenges to rise to, if she is to be accepted by her lord.
