Nergüi Unen
"Unearthed Whispers"
Heimin Heretic
Spirit of the Living Earth
Confederation of Apostasy
The Azure Princess of Lop Nur
Ancestor Advisor of the Court of Firerain
Description
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 127 lb.
Ethnicity: East Asian
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Long simple black
Clothing: White promenade formal
Comportment/Cadence: Reserved
Distinctions: Intensely alluring woman with a transfixing and piercing gaze
Supernatural Qualities: Chi almost feels like it resonates and shimmers and even whispers around her, adding to an almost feline and predatory gait
Accoutrements: Moderate (and fairly primitive) jewelry
Traits: Appearance 5 (wild); Animal Magnetism
"Nothing fundamental has changed in this world."
History
Date of Birth: August 28th, 10,522 BCE
Home: Xinglongwa, Liao River Basin, Inner Mongolia, China
Family: Jegu and Yisu (parents), Morok (older brother); Khoriwa (birth name)
Second Breath: External Supernatural Trigger (the chief's daughter of the ruler of this ancient Stone Age village, she was groomed as a priestess; even for the leaders of this settlement, it was a hard life within which one could only really find joy in family; but Khoriwa found life to be too much drudgery, and through this resentment began to wander unsafely through the region, until she stumbled across a sabre-toothed tiger feasting upon a carcass, it mauled her but did not eat her, and her family sorrowfully buried her; she awoke in the ancient Hell of Lost Children, punished for her infidelity towards family, forced to service the demonic lieutenants of old Lord Chötgör, for many years, but on the brinking of breaking, found her opportunity to escape Yomiwan, scrambling up the Scarlet Path), 10,746 BCE
Mentor: Taichutaar Barulatai
The Test: Trial by Knowledge (arose from her house-grave as a chih-mei but it had been long abandoned by the living; she ventured forth, hungry for chi of the flesh, and she was attacked by a pack of wolves; she was saved (from them and her own hunger) by an "Immortal Shaman of the Blue Sky", who restored her wit and took her under wing at the ancient proto-Court of Yuying (Jade Eagle), where she proved a devoted student of the Dharmic ways, finding them akin to her own mortal beliefs, and so really only had to adapt to her new ehanced senses and extremes of her "humours" (Soul and Chi Balances)
Comrades: Taichutaar Barulatai; Tarim Gülyar, Tarim Aliye, Tarim Hala (Witches of Subesi); Alanahaukeakamea
Key Event #1: Awe & Wonder (she helped her teacher and the other ancient Wan Kuei rule their small proto-Court; the Hungry Dead in these early eras of the 4th Age directly ruled over humankind; the mortals trusted Khoriwa, known then as the "Azure Princess", as a trusted spiritual guide, for she balanced her inner souls well and maintained serenity--such that the people willingly sacrificed their Chi as she and the Wan Kuei expected)
Key Event #2: War (the hengeyokai began one of their final Interregnums in this era, attempting to savagely suppress human expansion and development; but as a Spirit of the Living Earth, she rallied spirits to oppose the shapeshifters' own totemic spirits, thus styming their efforts and draining the war of righteousness; the Wan Kuei then mercilessly defended themselves with silver and gold weapons)
Key Event #2: Treachery (as the power of the Wan Kuei spread with the expansion of humans, so too did the Azure Princess's mastery of souls--others' as well as her own)
Key Event #3: Tragedy (the Last Ice Age fully receded in about 9000 BCE; the process increased moisture in the mountains, causing the ice to actually swell and expand there--rapidly, as if driven by magic; Khoriwa volunteered to try to stop this elemental force, suspecting magic, and she rallied the spirits of heaven to her side--to no avail; the Wan Kuei retreated from the steppes into warmer climates of China, abandoning the Court of Yuying, but she was overwhelmed by acute ice growth, effectively entombed and shocked into the Little Death of torpor)
Key Event #4: Tragedy (while entombed, she slept for 8,000 years--most of that vast time was spent in utter unconscious darkness, but there were dreams, rarely nightmares, but really dreams--which likely were her spirit allies of old trying to reach her, so many of these dreams were prophetic visions of what was transpiring or what would, but it was all quite vague and blended together)
Key Event #5: Tragedy (she awoke when the permafrost happened to wane near her icy tomb, and she awoke to a completely changed world; she missed the Bronze Age entirely and the world was well into the Iron Age--and China into the Zhou Dynasty; more importantly, when a chih-mei tamer came to her site of self-disinterment in the hills outside of what was then called Kherlen Bars, informed her of the major shift in Wan Kuei culture: that the Revolution of the Great Principle had ended the lies of 'ancient wickedness and false godhood claims'; the Court of the Black Tortoise would see to her reeducation)
Key Event #6: Treachery (she rejected wholly and fled north, landing in Loulan among the ancient Xiongnu nomadic peoples)
Key Event #7: Treachery (the Wan Kuei craftily redirected a dynasty of Shih demon hunters to track and destroy a renegade heretic like her; she wished no conflict and avoided the Shih and other enemies as much as possible, but still suffered several near-misses that nearly destroyed her)
Key Event #8: Treachery (she took the changes in the world to heart all the same, and while she embedded herself among the Xiongnu, she did not attempt to control them directly; indeed, she became leader of a Wu--the Witches of Tarim--serving as Shamans of the Blue Sky, as outlying advisors for the people to rule and defend themselves, especially against the Chinese)
Key Event #9: War (over the centuries, the give and take of the conflict between the Xiongnu and Zhou Chinese would echo the struggles that would rock China and Mongolia for ages to come; in the end, the Xiongnu were brought to heel not by the Zhou but the Han Chinese)
Key Event #10: War (in the struggles, the Chinese Wan Kuei defeated the Witches of Tarim, slaying her Wu-sisters, who would be buried in that desert; she herself escaped death and fled farther north, adopting into the exiled Xiongnu royal human family, but the Han Wan Kuei proved mercilessly relentless, catching up and murdering the royals, and cursing her to suffer the Little Death eternally--shattering her body and will and burying her with the royals in the salt marshes of Lop Nur, so that she would remember forever the "price of defying Chang'an and the Great Principle of Xue")
Key Event #11: Tragedy (once more, she slept and suffered through the Little Death, this time under a strict curse of 2,000 years set to end "'pon the eve of doom")
Key Event #12: Tragedy (again she endured visions of the present and future but now also nightmares of the past came more often, as if it were less a gift of the spirits and more tricks of her own imbalanced souls)
Key Event #13: Awe & Wonder (a rash of archeological digs took place during the 20th and into the 21st-centuries, leading to the discoveries of naturally-preserved mummies, particularly in Inner Mongolian sites like the Tarim Basin; her sleeping body, "preserved best" and curiously nicknamed the Azure Princess again, was dug up in Lop Nur along with the royal family, even as her former Wu-mates, who were very much dead, were discovered on the other side in the dry desert depths)
Key Event #14: Treachery (once more, a chih-mei tamer discovered her amongst the actually dead bodies and helped restore her to consciousness--breaking the curse that was waning anyway, for the Sixth Age neared very soon; this time, she stayed calm and controlled her "rescuer", calming and deflecting his attempts to Obligate her into submission, and indeed tricking him into giving her his magical amulet; during this short process she also learned that the world had indeed changed enough that her old rites no longer worked, and she could only commune with the spirit world through sheer force of will and stolen chi)
Transition: Loss of Companions (everyone she used to know was long dead and the spirit consorts she once relied on had all been recalled, renamed, or reshaped; alone in a modern world where technology outpaced all, she fled the Middle Kingdom entirely, changing her name at last to Nergüi Unen, and quite unidentified--indeed, entirely forgotten--by the Quincunx; she settled in Hawai'i among other so-called heretics in the hopes of re-establishing her spiritual journey if not power-base)
The P’o
Appearance: Unen's P'o takes the form of an unstoppable pillar of wind in the dead of night, tearing up the land and air and everything she's ever built, while pulsating with the compulsion to build it all again so it again be blown down.
Trigger: Whenever she has nothing to do and feels indolent.
Jade Talismans
Level: 2
Color: Green
Appearance: A modestly-sized, polished, and rounded piece of jade bound by copper to a silk band and serving as a tiara that hangs upon the brow
Origin: Creation
Magical Artifacts
Amulet of the Many-Faced God
Appearance: A bronze neckpiece (typically strung by gold) shaped into a frightening demonic face--that of the Six-Armed Mahakala, the Tibetan Buddhist guardian deity and ultimate demon-slayer
Origin: Gift
Effects: It allows the bonded wearer to transform into any humanoid shape she desires: no change to mass or general size, but multiple limbs are possible
Activation: The amulet must be fed a bit of Yang Chi (the wearer puts her finger to the visage's mouth and it "bites" her for the Chi)
Significant Other
Name: Alanahaukeakamea, 2010
Nature: Companionship
Alana
Weakness
'Pon the Eve of Doom
The ancient Curse of Gaozu has ended essentially where it was designed to end: on the change from the Fifth Age to the Sixth Age. Not only did she miss so much, she may very well soon miss the rest.
Likelihood of Corruption
Very low.
Unen has a long and able history of balancing her souls and while hardly perfect, she is well on her way to Dǎh.
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