I saw in one of the forums or another that you were looking for more players here. Is that true?
If so, I have a few questions on the creation process before I submit a character.
How is equipment for starting characters handled? As I understand it, you need to spend points on the Resource merit to buy anything at all, which seems intuitively quite wacked-out. Is everyone dirt poor by default?
Merits:
Fighting Style (Kung Fu) *****
Resources *
Language (Chinese) *
[Note that there was errata for the WoD rulebook that put reading, writing, and speaking another language with fluency as only a one-Dot merit, in light of widespread bilingualism outside of America.]
Equipment:
Advanced (two-dot) first aid kit
4x throwing knife (Size 1, areodynamic, +1 to Throwing, Lethal)
16x wooden practise throwing knife
Compact car
Thin Kevlar vest
Lease on a rather run-down building with 'Bell Gungfu Kwoon' painted in chipped gilt letters on the front in both Chinese and English, and some rudimentry training equipment .
Background:
One of the greatest modern masters of kung fu lives in San Francisco's Chinatown. This is not surprising; Los Angeles is the de facto Chinese martial arts capital of the United States, due to its long history of being the gateway for Far Eastern immigration to the U.S. What is surprising is that he is American, and the locals do not like this surprise one bit.
Brandon Bell grew up in Hong Kong to one of the remaining British families during the tumultuous years of its transfer of sovereignity from the British to the Chinese. He was fascinated with the martial arts, and as soon as he completed high school, he left Hong Kong to begin a tour of China and learn all he could, going from the Bajiquan schools of Beijing to the still-extant Five Animals monastaries in the rural south of China to the legendary (and now, sadly, somewhat commercialized) Shaolin Temple. Many were reluctant to teach the young Westerner, but they were variously won over by demonstrations of talent and dedication or generous donations to the almost universally struggling temples. By the time five years had passed, he had achieved mastery of a wide variety of styles of kung fu, as well as having exhausted much of his family's assets in doing so.
Thus he headed to San Francisco, seeking a place to put his knowledge to use and put meat on the table by teaching. After a little searching, he bought the lease from a failed arcade with a loft over it in the heart of Chinatown, reasoning that the culture would be a little closer to what he was used to and that he would find plenty of students in such an area. Six months later, he's finding out that things aren't as simple as he hoped they'd be. On the bright side, his school is relatively successful; the number of students he's attracting is enough to pay the bills, and even provide him with a degree of disposable income. However, he's run into an astonishing degree of hostility from the Chinese locals, ironically much more so than in the increasingly cosmopolitan mainland China! The Triads have begun to hassle him about protection money, his neighbors give him the cold shoulder and he's actually had a few Chinese teachers from other schools come in and challenge him right in front of his students- an archaic tradition that Brandon knows isn't even widely practised in the PRC anymore. He's beginning to wonder if moving to San Francisco was a big mistake...
Here's the character, TetNak. Good?
Last edited by Toptomcat on Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Merits: (7 dots)
Fighting Style (Kung Fu) ***** (5)
Resources * (6)
Language (Chinese) * (7)
[Note that there was errata for the WoD rulebook that put reading, writing, and speaking another language with fluency as only a one-Dot merit, in light of widespread bilingualism outside of America.]
Equipment:
Advanced (two-dot) first aid kit
4x throwing knife (Size 1, areodynamic, +1 to Throwing, Lethal)
16x wooden practise throwing knife
Compact car
Thin Kevlar vest
Leather gloves with hand wraps (+1 Brawl)
Lease on a rather run-down building with 'Bell Gungfu Kwoon' painted in chipped gilt letters on the front in both Chinese and English, and some rudimentry training equipment.
Background:
One of the greatest modern masters of kung fu lives in San Francisco's Chinatown. This is not surprising; Los Angeles is the de facto Chinese martial arts capital of the United States, due to its long history of being the gateway for Far Eastern immigration to the U.S. What is surprising is that he is American, and the locals do not like this surprise one bit.
Brandon Bell grew up in Hong Kong to one of the remaining British families during the tumultuous years of its transfer of sovereignity from the British to the Chinese. He was fascinated with the martial arts, and as soon as he completed high school, he left Hong Kong to begin a tour of China and learn all he could, going from the Bajiquan schools of Beijing to the still-extant Five Animals monastaries in the rural south of China to the legendary (and now, sadly, somewhat commercialized) Shaolin Temple. Many were reluctant to teach the young Westerner, but they were variously won over by demonstrations of talent and dedication or generous donations to the almost universally struggling temples. By the time five years had passed, he had achieved mastery of a wide variety of styles of kung fu, as well as having exhausted much of his family's assets in doing so.
Thus he headed to San Francisco, seeking a place to put his knowledge to use and put meat on the table by teaching. After a little searching, he bought the lease from a failed arcade with a loft over it in the heart of Chinatown, reasoning that the culture would be a little closer to what he was used to and that he would find plenty of students in such an area. Six months later, he's finding out that things aren't as simple as he hoped they'd be. On the bright side, his school is relatively successful; the number of students he's attracting is enough to pay the bills, and even provide him with a degree of disposable income. However, he's run into an astonishing degree of hostility from the Chinese locals, ironically much more so than in the increasingly cosmopolitan mainland China! The Triads have begun to hassle him about protection money, his neighbors give him the cold shoulder and he's actually had a few Chinese teachers from other schools come in and challenge him right in front of his students- an archaic tradition that Brandon knows isn't even widely practised in the PRC anymore. He's beginning to wonder if moving to San Francisco was a big mistake...
