BurgerSlave/KazeiTeiyu
Kazei Yushoto Teiyu
At a mere 38 years of age, Teiyu is already an old man. He is the third son of Daimyo Yushoto and her husband, born into Lookshy's grand and honorable military tradition. Yet, while his two older siblings were each Exalted, he himself remained pitiably mortal, despite the obvious marks of his Dragon-favored heritage. Even as a lad, young Teiyu had all the advantages his peers did not. He was big and strong, and even able to channel Essence at the tender age of ten years. And yet, as he grew older, Teiyu remained shamefully, pitiably mortal.
The Terrestrial Exalted of Lookshy are not as obsessed with lineage as the Scarlet Dynasty. Even so, it was clear that there was something Teiyu just wasn't doing right. Though his mother never admonished him, her disappointment was clear. As a result, Teiyu grew into a bitter, angry young man. He became an overachiever, determined to trigger his Exaltation. He swore he would make the Dragons Choose him, even if it killed him.
As soon as he was old enough to be recruited, Teiyu threw himself into army life. Perhaps if he lived the Way of the Perfected Soldier, the Dragons would take pity on him and activate the fire within that he could dimly feel. Many times, he was reprimanded for trying too hard, endangering himself and his fellow soldiers with his zeal. As he passed into his teenage years and it became apparent that he was never going to Exalt, Teiyu managed to take comfort in the routine of duty. By the time he had graduated from basic, he had become a model soldier, utterly dedicated to the Seventh Legion.
Ever the competitor and overachiever, Teiyu volunteered without hesitation for gunzosha duty. Even with his limited ability to channel Essence, Teiyu reasoned that, even if he was not Exalted, he still shared in that divine heritage, and thus had a greater obligation to his command and his daimyo. Thanks to his God-Blood, he easily survived gunzosha conversion and recovered from surgery in record time. By the time he was twenty, he was in command of his own scale of troopers.
When Teiyu's first decade was up, he refused to relinquish his armor. Duty was all he knew, and his gunzosha suit was an old friend. He could not stand the thought of marching with ashigaru troops. Though his commanding officers had grave misgivings, he was permitted to retain his armor, and he was promoted to taizei. Perhaps in the furthest corners of his mind, Taiyu harbored a secret hope that he might still be Exalted, and clinging to his gunzosha armor might prove his worth to become fully Blooded. But if he felt this, he did not admit it to anyone.
Two years ago, everything changed. Teiyu's force had been part of a dragon that had marched in defense of Thorns. When the Mask of Winters raised the Juggernaut against that city, Teiyu had been one of the few officers that had held the field while the mortal troops broke and routed. His courage lasted right up until the point when an undead behemoth thundered through his own wing, crushing his men under foot. Thinking he would fall on the field of battle, Teiyu leapt down the things throat, stabbing it from within with his spear. But, once again, his God-Blood worked against him. He did kill the monstrosity, and he himself survived, though he was badly scarred. He lost his left eye, but his armor kept him alive while he hacked his way out of the beast. He barely managed to make it to the fleeing medics before losing consciousness.
When he awoke in Lookshy, Teiyu found himself promoted to kazei, for he was the only officer to have survived the massacre at Thorns, and the only one with battlefield experience against the Deathlords. An entire dragon of soldiers was placed under his command, and he was tasked with training them to fight against the walking dead. But his horrifying experience had been the straw that broke the dragon's back. This, combined with eight years too many in gunzosha armor, destroyed his resolve. Teiyu was plagued by horrifying nightmares. Sleep came only at the bottom of a sake bottle. While he struggled to live up to the expectations of his men, it was rapidly becoming clear--he was a broken, hard-used old man with nothing left to live for but duty and honor.
To make things worse, he has been saddled with an Exalted aide-de-camp, and been instructed to teach the boy how to lead men in battle. While Maheka Kurita is civil and respectful to Teiyu, it is clear that there is no love lost between the two men. Kurita is young and eager for battle, while Teiyu has had his fill of war. The fact that Kurita is expected to learn from someone who is obviously his lesser galls the young Dragon-Blood. What could he, a Prince of the Earth, possibly learn from a half-Blooded drunk and lecher? For his part, Teiyu finds his erstwhile pupil's unspoken arrogance to be an irritating blasphemy against the Way of the Perfected Soldier. The fact that Kurita is secretly attracted to Teiyu does not help matters--Teiyu's tastes run firmly to women (the younger, the better), and the Perfected Soldier does not fraternize with his subordinates anyway. That is why the gods made teahouses and brothels, after all.
In these interesting times, Teiyu has a hard path ahead of him. He is a wounded old war dog, but he is not dead yet. So long as he draws breath and can lift a spear, he is ready to give his life in the defense of the Seventh Legion. In a world where the Chosen stride the land like titans, he is living proof that even the most inauspicious and ignoble of people can have the heart of a hero.
Image: Teiyu reflects his long life as a soldier. Though not quite forty, life as a gunzosha soldier has prematurely aged him. He is a big man, standing four inches over six feet and packing 300 pounds of muscle onto his bearish frame. Once, his chiseled features reflected his noble breeding. His skin has a greenish cast, and his extensive body hair has the texture of fine moss or lichen as a result of channelling Wood-type Essence. Partial digestion in a behemoth's gullet has not helped things, turning his once-rugged good looks into bland and unappealing features. His nose and cheeks are usually flushed from too much alcohol. He wears an eyepatch over his ruined left eye-socket, and is badly scarred over much of his body. He keeps his head shaved, so as not to interfere with his cranial gunzosha node, but wears a thick, bushy walrus moustache of iron gray. When not in armor, he prefers to wear his off-duty uniform--a green silk kimono featuring the mon of Gens Yushoto with elbow-length sleeves, belted with a black obi, brown hakama, and sandals. He does not carry a daisho, preferring instead to fight unarmed. He has learned early on that his gunzosha wrist-nodes make excellent brawling aids, and has become quite adept at using them in fistfights. In his custom gunzosha suit, Teiyu cuts an imposing figure. The large shoulder-guards are marked with his rank insignia, while the breastplate sports the identifying insignia of his dragon. While Teiyu himself may look unkempt at times (particularly when he's drunk, which is often), his gunzosha armor is always immaculately polished and well-maintained.
Statistics
Name: Kazei Yushoto Teiyu
Heritage: Half-Caste Terrestrial
Nature: Critic
Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3
Charisma 3, Manipulaion 3, Appearance 2
Perception 2, Intelligence 2, Wits 2
Favored Abilities: Brawl 5, Craft (War) 5
Abilities: Performance 2, Presence 3, Ride 1, Stealth 1, Archery 3, Lore 2, Melee 3, Linguistics 3 (High Realm, Low Realm, Old Realm, Riverspeak), Endurance 3, Resistance 2
Specialties: While Drunk (Brawl) +2, In Gunzosha Armor (Brawl) +1, Small-Unit Tactics (Craft: War) +3
Backgrounds: Inheritance 5, Artifact 3 (gunzosha combat armor), Backing 4 (Seventh Legion), Resources 3, Influence 2 (Lookshy)
Virtues: Compassion 3, Conviction 5, Temperance 1, Valor 5
Advantages: Willpower 10, Essence 2 (Personal 8, Peripheral 16)
Charms: Elemental Bolt Technique
Merits: Awakened Essence +5, Large +4, Prodigy +2 (Craft: War)
Flaws: Addiction -1 (alcohol), Aura of Power -4, Diminished Appearance -3, Disciple -2, Inherited Curse -5, One Eye -2, Vice -3 (-6 Temperance dice to resist alcohol when it is offered)
