Nong Sheng
Jade Raiders
Captain of the Outpost of the Burning Fleet
The Immortal Guard
Description
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 300 lb.
Ethnicity: East Asian
Eyes: Jade-green
Hair: Long simple black
Clothing: Brown and black archaic
Comportment/Cadence: Confident
Distinctions: Beneath ancient and archaic Chinese armor and dress, muscles ripple; he is a tall and handsome man of ethnic heritage neither Han nor Manchu, perhaps Tujia
Supernatural Qualities: So much more about Nong Sheng is in evidence at first glance, so much more that is frightening: the reddish-orange cast to his entire form, pulsating like a steady heartbeat, while an emerald or jade-green burning deep in his eyes reveals he is infused with True Jade somehow, and anyone familiar with the Yellow Springs would immediately recognize him as one of the dread terra cotta Immortal Guardsmen; a daring closer inspection suggests he is not wearing armor so much as having Moliated his own jade-like Corpus into it; furthermore, his Corpus, his very presence, feels magnetic and enthralling without ever having to utter a word
Accoutrements: A few archaic weapons, white-jade manacles
Traits: Appearance 3; Full of Life; Distinctive Appearance
[in a voice eerily hollow even for a wraith, eyes flaring a terrifyingly bright soul-green:]
“The Emperor commands your immediate surrender.”
History
Date of Birth: May 17th, 235 BCE
Home: Langzhong, Sichuan, China
Family: Neng Tai and Lian (parents), Bai (younger sister)
Death: External Supernatural Trigger (in life, Sheng was a loyal knight [xia] of the Ba, who had been allied with and then betrayed and crushed by the Qin emperor, but the elite were permitted to maintain their titles and autonomy; when the emperor Ying Zheng attacked the Chu alliance, Sheng fought with his comrades against the Qin; his prowess stood out among the Chu, and so after the fall of Chu and all other rivals, the emperor now dubbed Qin Shi Huang recruited Sheng; Sheng ultimately had to prove his loyalty, however, by submitting to the mystical terra cotta army rite, which bound his soul to one of the prepared golems, and instantly ending his life along with thousands of other brave soldiers), 210 BCE
Mentor: Qin Shihuang
The Test: Trial by Knowledge (all Immortal Guard that ever would exist appeared in the Underworld together in their terra cotta forms, no Caul to be Reaped; he, along with the others, were "activated" by the emperor through another rite, which also granted only base-line power at first, the Chains)
Comrades: Qiaohui Xiaotong
Key Event #1: Awe & Wonder (so began a long era of training and development of Arcanoi and comprehending the unique nature of the Immortal Guard)
Key Event #2: War (once ready, with Yu Huang now leading the Restless Dead of China, Sheng's first major deployment with the Guard was to conquer the "Hells", those Far Shore realms that at least mimicked Yomi Wan and certainly connected to them by the Ebon Road; he fought Demonics, Shades, and Whistimmu until the realms were suppressed)
Key Event #3: War (the Yellow Turban Rebellion came to the Yellow Springs, and Sheng helped suppress those rebels as well)
Key Event #4: War (contrary to popular belief, the fall of Rome was not the only cause for the first Great Maelstrom; it coincided with an aggressive expansion by the Han peoples into southern China, and as the West fell and East rose, so did this Maelstrom brew up to "greatness"; Sheng and other Guardsmen braved the storm to gather the many lost souls during this time)
Key Event #5: War (then conflict with Swar became inevitable in the Underworld; Sheng served on the front lines, a distinguished tactician; however, the war reached a stalemate and the border with the Indian Underworld more or less stabilized)
Key Event #6: War (a vast horde of kuei followed these conflicts, and he was redeployed to the Yellow Springs' western border to help vanquish)
Key Event #7: War (later he would be transferred to the northeast, there to lead troops against the Yi-Byong Korean rebels, a conflict that mirrored the Goguryeo-Sui War; he battled the Korean wraiths' Moliated monsters then called Yeleo-Meoli; whereas the Chinese lost the war in the Skinlands, the Yellow Springs largely suppressed Korea...for the time being)
Key Event #8: Treachery (Empress Wu Zhao became a subject of desire for Yu Huang, and when she passed away, he commanded Sheng to secure her soul to become the emperor's new "wife")
Key Event #9: War (Vietnam also resisted the Chinese dead, but Yu Huang's armies prevailed, and Sheng assisted with the conscription of the newly dead as either loyal auxiliary soldiers or white-jade fodder)
Key Event #10: War (he would later be asked to assist with the suppression of Buddhist and Taoist belief of the Restless through persecution of the developers of the Way of the Soul Arcanos, an endeavor many Yellow Springs officials engaged in but were only marginally successful)
Key Event #11: War (Sheng then took on a more central role, guarding the Imperial Highway and the roll-out of jiaochao, the white-jade paper money reliquary that the Underworld economy came to rely on for daily commerce and ancestor reverence)
Key Event #12: War (meanwhile, the conquest of the Song Dynasty by the Mongols hardly ended the domination of the Yellow Springs, as Mongol dead found themselves forcibly assimilated into Chinese culture, and Sheng helped oversee the processes)
Key Event #13: War (the Black Plague did affect China, so did also the Second Great Maelstrom, blowing in from the west along the Silk Road byways; even the Immortal Guard like Sheng hunkered down, though he still stood on the front lines, guarding against the feculent Shades that rode those foul winds)
Key Event #14: War (as China's influence spread, wokou pirates became a problem for both the Quick and the Dead; Sheng became one of the Guard transferred to naval vessels floated on the Sunless Seas to combat these menaces)
Key Event #15: War (so, rebels and pirates joined forces and conspired to undo the Immortal Guard itself by invading the Jade Palace and performing a profane ritual to undo the magic that bound the Guardsmen to their terra cotta statues to begin with; Sheng was one of the captains who led the brazen charge into the heart of rebel territory to foil this plot)
Key Event #16: War (later, for the first time, the armies of the Jade and Iron Kingdoms began to clash in a serious way, overlapping the Sino-Russian War; Sheng served as a general, battling the invading and would-be colonizing Western wraiths with the Guard's terrifying power that the Stygians did not expect)
Key Event #17: War (the Third Great Maelstrom blew across the Yellow Springs anyway, forcing all to take cover; as before, Sheng remained on the front lines of defense, though this time found himself repelling Demonics rather than traditional spectres)
Key Event #18: War (meanwhile, relations with the Wan Kuei were generally cordial; the necromancers of the Bone Court grew unusually aggressive at the start of the Ming Dynasty, so Sheng was called in to address the improprieties...aggressively; fortunately, his mere presence suspended much of the misbehavior)
Key Event #19: War (Stygia wasn't through with the Jade Kingdom, however; if their mortal brethren could occupy Zhongguo, why couldn't they also take the Asian Underworld? Charon sent Legions for a multi-pronged invasion; Neng fought on the western front against the hordes, managing to lead imperial forces that repulsed the invaders back into Central Asia, where they regrouped and waited)
Key Event #20: War (the Taiping Rebellion also had a mirroring moment in the Underworld; like the Buddhists and Taoists before, Yu Huang ordered Christians to be crushed in the Yellow Springs, and Sheng followed orders, putting many a convert to the white-jade foundry himself)
Key Event #21: War (the Fourth Great Maelstrom, a consequence of both the Great War and the Spanish Flu, raged across the Yellow Springs, resulting in the usual sheltering and defense; Sheng along with the rest of the Guard, though decimated after millennia of constant warfare, helped the Emperor stay in absolute power despite the radical changes of the so-called new age)
Key Event #22: War (while World War II raged, Sheng stood at the side of the Emperor himself, who emerged to crush the Fist of Nippon personally; when the Fifth Maelstrom triggered by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki flashed while the emperor was still in the Japanese Underworld, Sheng threw himself before the emperor to help shield him against the worst effects)
Key Event #23: Awe & Wonder (Sheng's Corpus was shredded by the Maelstrom but he survived and was given recuperation time in the Jade Palace; like all Guardsmen, he devoted time to meditation and reflection, but his calcified soul made development and mastery of new skills, especially Arcanoi, a very slow process)
Key Event #24: Treachery (once fully restored, the Emperor tapped Sheng for a vital role in the Great Step Outward strategy; he was to infiltrate the West and help the Jade Kingdom expand by preparing the dead of Asian immigrants for the wars ahead; he was given the "jewel" of expansion in San Francisco and its old, famous, and well-established Chinatown)
Transition: Reassignment (so did Sheng travel to America and settle into San Francisco right under Stygia's nose with only a small detachment; slowly but surely, he began to gather allies and seize slaves, while maintaining constant contact with his creator and overlord)
The P'o
Appearance: Due to the profane ritual that created the Immortal Guard, Sheng's P'o is forever calcified in an Enfant state. He scorns his dark side's feckless self-pitying misery most of the time. It rarely bothers him, or at least he thinks it doesn't.
Trigger: Whenever confronted with evidence of loss and death.
Artifacts & Relics
Captain's Saber (Artifact)
Appearance: An ancient and undecorated darn dao as bright green as the Immortal Guard's ardent gaze
Origin: Gift
Effects: A True Jade blade, as dangerous as any Stygian steel sword and enchanted to inflict double damage on Whistimmu
Activation: The secondary ability functions only in the hands of the Immortal Guard
Emperor's Stone (Artifact)
Appearance: A bright-green jade statuette of a fu-lion
Origin: Gift
Effects: Multiple powers, most importantly a mental link to the mind of the Emperor, enabling him to communicate directly with his Guard (and recharge his Pathos; the stone stores additional "overflow" Pathos as well that Sheng can tap); it may also allow Yu Huang to channel his Arcanoi through the stone to whoever holds it, so thieves beware!
Activation: The Immortal Guard only may use it, clutching it reverently in hands
Cho-ko-nu (Relic)
Appearance: A medieval repeating crossbow, as large as a heavy crossbow with an outsized (cartridge) compartment attached
Origin: Gift
Effects: Fire deadly bolts. It does not run out of ammunition.
Activation: It has a trigger and a trigger lock; re-loading is automatic.
Spear (Relic)
Appearance: A long six-foot shaft with a deadly tip made entirely of white-jade in the fashion of wushu spears, forged from the souls of rampaging kuei
Origin: Gift
White-Jade Manacles (Relic)
Appearance: Cuffs and chains for a captive wraith made from pale white-jade
Origin: Gift
Immortal Guardhouse (Haunt)
Location: Chinatown, San Francisco, California, United States
Structure: Bunker
Stock: A plain, spartan room thought to be a Chinese New Year storage chamber for costumes; what it lacks in furnishing, it makes up for in especially thick walls
Traits: Haunt 4
Significant Others
Names: Qiaohui Xiaotong, 2012
Nature: Companionship
Xiaotong
Weakness
Army of One
Nong Sheng is alone in Chinatown among his Guardsmen. The Emperor dispatched only him on this mission. Though he has support staff and troops, he will not be getting reinforcements from the Guard. This paints a bright target on his already bright Corpus.
Likelihood of Corruption
Very low. In fact, impossible.
He cannot fall to corruption, whether from the P'o or Yomi Wan. Qin Shihuang's ritual saw to that. Having said that, the Emperor's commands are often dark indeed, so perhaps Sheng is already corrupt, from that point of view.
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