LiOfOrchid/MnemonHiroko

Mnemon Hiroko

House: Mnemon
Apsect: Air
Nature: Savant
Anima: Tornado of freezing wind. Mixed with snow and ice at high levels.
Concept: class know-it-all

Attributes:
Physical: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2
Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 3
Mental: Perception 2, Intelligence 4, Wits 3

Abilities:
Linguistics 3, Lore 3, Occult 3, Stealth 2, Thrown 1, Socialize 3, Dodge 3, Melee 2, Archery 1, Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Bureaucracy 1, Endurance 1, Ride 1, Awareness 3, Presence 1, Performance 1

Backgrounds: Backing 5 (House Mnemon), Breeding 5, Connections 1 (House Mnemon), Artifact 2

Merits: Legendary Breeding (3)
Flaws: Rival (1)

Virtues: Compassion 1, Conviction 3, Temperance 2, Valor 3
Virtue Flaw: Conviction

Willpower: 6
Health: -0,-1,-1,-2,-2,-4,Inc
Essence:3
Essence Pool:

Charms:

• Lore: Elemental Concentration Trance

Spells: none yet

Equipment: Winter's Caress, blue jade daiklave.

Experience:
Total: 5
Spent: 0
Remaining: 5
Notes: 1 point must be used for Awareness. 1 point must be used for Presence. 1 point must be used for Stamina.

Appearance

A pretty adolescent of fifteen years. Hiroko stands about 5'6" and is willowly and slender. Her face is angular and fine, and her features are pure Mnemon - she bears a striking resemblence to her mother. Hiroko's hair is pale white and her eyes, bright sky blue.

Backgrounds, Merits and Flaws

Artifact 2
Winter's Caress, a blue jade daiklave. A gift from Hiroko's father upon her Exaltation.

Backing 5 (House Mnemon)
As an Exalted child of Mnemon, and a potential sorcerer, Hiroko has managed to capture her mother's attention. Thus, she has also captured the attention of the rest of her House.

Connections 1 (House Mnemon)
Despite her lofty position as a favored child of Mnemon, Hiroko is still very young and has only a few close family members as friends and contacts.

Breeding 5 + Legendary Breeding
The daughter of Mnemon and Cynis Evander (an elder Wood Aspect), Hiroko's bloodline is impeccable. The marks of her heritage are obvious even at her young age and her fine, sharp features bear a striking resemblance to Mnemon herself.

Rival (1 point)
Cynis Zanen is Hiroko's cousin. Zanen is a cocky, brash and very vain Fire Aspect. The two attended primary school together. They have been rivals since they were nine, ever since Hiroko broke Zanen's nose during a sparring match. Though Zanen's nose has long since healed, they never got along after that, constantly angling to one-up the other.

A Conversation with Mnemon Hiroko

When you’re the daughter of Mnemon, life is not easy. Oh sure, scoff. But Mother doesn’t pull punches: a scion of Mnemon’s is tool, a weapon for her to wield. Just as Mother herself was the Scarlet Empress’ tool, like we all were, the Empress was the Realm and whatnot. Yeah, I used the past tense. You don’t seriously think she’s coming back, do you? Give me a break. I don’t want to argue about this now. You were asking about my family.

I’m the 30th child of Mnemon. Twenty-two of my elder brothers and sisters have been blessed by the Dragons. I don’t even remember how many grandchildren there are. Over a hundred. I mean, I have great-grandnieces who are older than I am. A lot of them, in fact. My father is Cynis Evander, one of the few notable warriors House Cynis has. He commands the 17th Legion. I’ve met him all of three times. I understand the Cynis received the Threshold tributary state of Zheng, somewhere in the South, from my House in exchange for the children produced by their coupling. I have two elder sisters who are also Evander’s get, Jeda and Miroko. Jeda is close to thirty, an Earth Aspect, and a monk of the Immaculate Order. Miroko is twenty-two. She never Exalted, poor girl, and was married off to Sesus Tejen last year.

My elder siblings (and elder nieces and nephews, and so on) took very little notice of me until I Exalted, which is probably for the best. All of Mnemon’s children are perfectly dutiful – well, okay, most of them are – but that doesn’t stop us from competing with each other. Before my Exaltation, I was unimportant. Now, I’m worthy of further attention, but not much. I’m still too young to be a threat to them.

I Exalted in an avalanche in the foothills of the Imperial Mountain. I was there on a pilgrimage with several mortal members of my family. I’m sure you’ve heard all about how pious my family is. I endured countless pilgrimages. After a while all the shrines and temples started to look the same. You can tell I was never meant for the Cloister, eh? We were visiting the shrines on the lower slopes when my nephew Igano, a mortal man of fifty years, proposed to climb to the Ephemeral Gateway Shrine farther up the Mountain. It was quite a bit farther up the Mountain, past the snowline. Some of the retinue stayed behind, and I climbed up towards the shrine with my uncle and a half dozen other family. In retrospect, we should have known that climbing the Mountain in late winter, close to the first thaws, was a blatantly stupid thing to do. But the Ephemeral Gateway Shrine did not seem that high and we thought it would be safe.

When we were approaching the Shrine, we heard a loud crack above us. I had no idea what it was but everyone else looked up and turned pale, so I looked up too and felt my whole stomach drop out. A huge sheet of snow and ice was hurtling down the mountainside at us. Everyone broke in a run for the Shrine, because it was set back into small cave, where we would be safe from the avalanche. Most of my family members made it into the cave. Igano and I did not. We were steps away from the cave entrance when the avalanche hit us like a charging yeddim.

I can’t describe being in the avalanche. I must have lost consciousness for a couple minutes. Woke up in the dark, with snow in my mouth and nose and unable to tell which way was up. I started to panic and feel sick to my stomach. I clawed at the snow and clawed until I started to see a faint blue light. The cold around me started to – well, it didn’t fade exactly, but suddenly, I didn’t really care about it anymore. I burst out of the snow and realized I was glowing with blue light and a wind around me was whipping up little tornados in the snow. A couple minutes later, my family dug their way out the Shrine and pointed and marveled at me and my flaring anima.

Unfortunately, we never found Igano’s body.

Not long after that, Mother took me into her study and sat me down. We talked for hours. It was the longest conversation I’d ever had with her. We talked about everything. Mostly she was trying to get inside my head, I think. Now that I have Mela’s Blessing, I’m a greater asset to her than before. She was trying to decide how best to use me. Near the end of my interview, she asked, “If it were up to you, child, what would you do, now that you have been Exalted?”

I looked her right in the eyes. She has the hardest eyes I’ve ever seen. Even the Empress, the few times I’ve met her, didn’t have the kind of unyielding quality that Mother’s eyes have. I thought very carefully about what I was going to say. It occurred to me that what I really respect about Mother the most is that steel. That kind of determination: it’s the kind that can sway empires. I wanted the same self-assurance that came from real knowledge and real power. So I looked at her and said, “I want to be a sorcerer.”

And for the first time ever, she smiled at me.