Taro's Background
I wrote this at work yesterday in between German gasket specifications as a sort of generic overview rather than a serious background, so be gentle with me.
To begin with, this isn't Taro's story. It's the story of a couple of Gold
Faction neonates sent down to Creation to learn the lessons that life
teaches. Their sifu won't let them back into Yu-Shan until they can prove
they've mastered the "Five Heavenly Sutras," which they figure refer to
martial arts. They were told to come back with an expression of each of
the Sutra of Inner Strength, the Worldly Sutra, the Sutra of the Beasts,
the Dragon Sutra, and the Master Sutra, and only then would they be
allowed back into Heaven to complete their training. Actually, they were
just being dumped in Creation for while so that their sifu could catch up
on the paperwork and take some time off, and she had planned to pick them
up after a few weeks of their being cold and miserable out in the back of
beyond, and explain it all away with the sutra titles.
Ten years later, they're still in Creation, and they're looking for kung
fu.
They've figured out a few things:
1) This place sucks.
2) This is all /your/ fault, Azure Ribbon.
3) No, it's your fault, you miserable, irritating little tart.
4) Those wolves just tried to eat us. Let's get out of here.
5) This must have something to do with kung fu.
6) The Sutra of Inner Strength, that's personal martial arts prowess,
right?
7) The other sutras, maybe they're like the Student Sutras of the
martial arts we've learned?
8) The Animal Sutra thingy, we probably have to discover the sutra for an
animal style.
9) The Sutra of the Beasts, you silly cow. The Worldly Sutra must be an
esoteric style.
10) So... where the hell are we going to learn an Immaculate Dragon style?
11) And how are you supposed to /master/ anything, you dilettante?
12) Right, that's it.
13) Oof!
About six months ago, a sixteen year old farmer's kid stood up to the local
roughnecks in his home town. Think black-hat cowboys who've taken over a
one-horse town in the Old West. He told everyone that they should get rid
of them, but most people didn't want the trouble, so he stood up for them.
Consequently, the armed and armoured toughs beat him up and took his
money. The next day, he stood up to them again, and they took his shoes.
Every day for a week he challenged the local thugs, and every day they
beat the snot out of him. Eventually they got sick of him and ran him out
of town, tarred and feathered. Limping into the wilderness, he headed for
the hills and took shelter in an abandoned hut. Poking around the hut for
tools and firewood, he came upon a grey metal box with a shining golden
lock on it, which sprang open at his touch. Inside were a pair of solid
gold bracelets and a book entitled, "The Perfected Trinity of Power, Speed
and Inner Strength, or, The Deadly Art of Snake Combat."
He read this book.
The first chapter started with the words, "Once, there was a snake..."
He trained for one week.
And then he went back to town.
The bandits laughed and jeered when they saw him come limping into town, draped in his dirty, bedraggled and slightly feathery clothes, bruised and scarred from their last meeting. He told them to get out of town once more, but this time he added, 'or I'll beat you up.'
One of the bandits shot him in the chest with his hunting bow. The first arrow glanced off his chest, and he easily dodged the second. Then he clenched his fists, grinned the grin of the righteous, and beat the bandits up, to the amazement of the collected townsfolk. Particularly to their astonishment, not to mention his, he was covered in golden fire and not even dying or anything. They attributed his miraculous abilities to the totemic spirit image that towered above him, and toasted him as a hero.
Fortunately, those rumours didn't travel any farther than the edge of town before the two mysterious veiled travellers put a stop to them.
The next day, two bearded old masters, clearly monks from up in the hills, spirited the youngster off, ostensibly to their monastery but actually to a couple of tents in the woods. Being a trusting, easygoing, naive sort of kid, the young Exalt saw nothing unusual about this. The two old masters promised to teach him more supernatural martial arts, but they could only help him if he helped himself: you see, there are five sutras that you must understand before you can learn the supreme martial art, the Invulnerable Fist of Dawn...
The kid walks Creation, like Cain from Kung Fu, going from place to place to make wrongs rights and to chase after masters of the mysterious martial arts. He's young and dumb, with a fondness for the great outdoors and a general dislike of anyone telling anyone else what to do just because they said they have to. He is terrified of ghosts, and carries a variety of talismans, some of them given to him by the old masters, to ward them off. He's good-looking in a kind of youthful, broken-nosed and battered kind of way. His good looks and occasional bouts of clumsiness as he adjusts to his growing, now Exalted body are apparent to everyone, but experienced fighters can see the poise and grace of a master martial artist in his movements, and the gleam of a warrior in his eye. Unfortunately, he's also the sort of guy who reads a book on martial arts and then expects to be invulnerable to arrows and to be able to take on a half-dozen roughnecks without breaking a sweat... and that was /before/ he Exalted.
Other Stuffs:
Enemy 2 (Disciples of the Blizzard Fist) See DisciplesOfTheBlizzardFist; also:
YerMum: no idea why/how they're your rivals but we can work on that
roughed them up a bit while they were committing injustices? beat them at a martial arts tournament? both? probably started with something minor, he probably made one of them cry or fall over... in fact. pre-exaltation, one of the kids from Taro's home village. rich kid for a one horse town, always lorded it over the other kids, beat them up for their lunch and such. Taro stood up to him and usually handed his backside to him. Eventually the rich kid left with his rich trader family and went north. The rich kid came back having joined a bizarre kung-fu cult after the deaths of his parents, loaded up with their money and some kung-fu sycophants... turns out that he's actually capable of channeling Essence, which means he can learn Blizzard Fist Style, probably worked his way up to the form charm.
there's a delegation been sent down south to kick ass and prove that Blizzard Fist Style is supreme... they've been taking names in the Scavenger Lands for a while now, taking over/out family dojos and stealing their students / impressing people enough to join them, spiriting people northwards to train them in the arctic cold :D
He comes across Taro at a martial arts contest, decides to teach him a lesson, but Taro kicks the living cud out of him. Afterwards, he and his dozen mooks jump Taro and he largely sends them packing, although they do a fair number on him. Just after this, Taro heads to the mountains to do some more training and find his Manse, but in the meantime the rich kid goes crying to the leadership and tells them all bout Taro and how much he needs his booty kicked...
let's say the rich kid left when he was ten and Taro was eight, that means he's had eight years and is now 18 and a kickass martial artist. before exaltation, he lived in one town all of his life, until the black hat badasses turned up. that lasted about a month, including the week of beatings and the week of training. afterwards he's been wandering round, talking to and occasionally fighting other martial artists, not really getting anywhere but building up Face 1, finding manses and getting scared by ghosts... that's been about 4-6 months, whatever's best for you :D
after their notable successes in the east, they're spreading down south :D of course, they've only been working the hundred kingdoms rather than the forests and mountains, which will both have kickass martial arts schools in them, and they've been steering clear of nexus and lookshy :D let's say they wowed the martial arts world with their performance in Great Forks or something, give them a little bit of face to go on
yeah, maybe... maybe he's the air dragon's missus' favourite and has had a couple of gifts and endowments and whatnot... and /now/ he has spikey white hair and icy cold eyes...
Throwback 3
On Taro's Anima:
of course, since it's a throwback exaltation, it could be an enormous human figure in orichalcum armour, leaning on a grand daiklave, head tilted back staring disdainfully at the puny foes before him, a ragged scar across one side of his face, destroying one of his eyes and carrying on up his bald head, everything about his poise and demeanour promising brutal death at the end of seven feet of sharp gold...
YerMum:now that sounds better ;)
an enormous human figure that some people might recognise, perhaps.
<>YerMum: yup, especially the agents who did him in ;)
Manse 3:
Taro's gear includes a walking staff with a bundle tied to the end of it, a plain wooden case containing a pair of hook swords, his hearthstone bracers and a startling array of talismans and wards against ghosts and spirits.
