Rakuzen Ashclaw - XERES LIVE!

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Basic Information

Full Name

Rakuzen Ashclaw

Nickname

None

Race (Grade)

Swolbold (F)

Class

Samurai

Height

5'7"

Birthday

Goldenleaf 3, 1286

Age

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Birthsign

The Phoenixborn Ifrit

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Bloodline Ability

🔮 Unknown

This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.

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Physical Description

Rakuzen Ashclaw, on the road with a good sword

Appearance

Rakuzen is big for anyone with kobold blood: broad through the shoulders, thick in the arm, and far taller than an ordinary kobold, with the heavy build that marks a Swolbold. His scales are a deep, glossy black, and his eyes are a bright amber-orange. Large pointed ears, lined in dusky red, sweep back from his head beside a pair of short horns, and a mane of long black hair, twisted into thin ropes and strung here and there with beads, falls past his shoulders. He wears a black wrap jacket under dark, studded leather armor: scaled shoulder guards, laced bracers, a long split coat of leather panels, and shin guards strapped above bare, clawed feet. A brown baldric hung with small pouches crosses his chest, and a braided red cord is knotted around his waist with its tassels hanging to the knee. His sword is a single curved blade with a round bronze guard, carried in a pale wooden scabbard. None of his gear is new, and all of it is spotless.

Unique Characteristics

Rakuzen has exceptional reflexes, unusual physical strength for a kobold-blooded warrior, and a natural instinct for reading an opponent's balance. His technique is still inconsistent, and it shows where it came from: some portions of it are remarkably sophisticated, while others contain glaring gaps. He maintains his equipment obsessively, and he practices sword draws whenever he thinks nobody is watching. He is usually wrong about nobody watching. Every competent swordsman who watches him for long enough reaches roughly the same conclusion: someone needs to train that one properly.

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Personality & Temperament

Positive Traits

Polite to everyone, including whoever just beat him
Absorbs a correction the first time he hears it
Keeps his sword and armor in spotless condition
Serious about training, never solemn about himself
Knows potential is not the same as accomplishment

Challenging Traits

Technique full of gaps a veteran can exploit at once
Competitive enough to keep a list of every loss
Flusters badly when praised too directly
Eager to a fault, and it shows in his timing
Has not decided what being a master actually means

Strong is easy. Everyone where I come from is strong. The samurai I saw when I was nine could have cut the post in half, and he stopped his blade a finger's width from it. That is the part I want.

[Flat on his back in a practice yard.] That was very good. Would you do it once more, please? I would like to see what I did wrong.

[Told that he has a real gift.] I, ah. Thank you. That is very kind. I should go and oil my sword.

Likes

A formal kata performed by someone who knows it
Being corrected, plainly and without ceremony
Oil, a clean cloth, and an hour with his sword
Old sword manuals, however badly copied
A fair bout against someone better than he is

Dislikes

Being praised to his face
The assumption that big means bruiser
Rust, loose fittings, and neglected gear
Losing to the same mistake a second time
Being caught practicing his draw

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Background & History

The Big One

Rakuzen Ashclaw was born into a small Swolbold community where physical strength carried considerable social weight. He was larger than most kobolds from an early age, and everyone naturally assumed he would become some sort of bruiser. Nobody thought of it as an insult. In a village of people built like that, it was simply the obvious future for the biggest child in it.

The Kata

Rakuzen surprised them all by becoming obsessed with swordsmanship instead. When he was nine years old, he saw a traveling samurai perform a formal kata, and he was completely captivated by the precision of it. Strength restrained by discipline fascinated him far more than strength alone ever had. He spent years imitating the movements with sticks before he ever touched a real blade.

Paid in Corrections

Formal instruction came slowly. Rakuzen had neither wealth nor impressive family connections, so most of what he knows was learned from retired guards, wandering duelists, old manuals, and anyone willing to correct him in exchange for work. That patchwork education shows. Some portions of his technique are remarkably sophisticated, while others contain glaring gaps that an experienced opponent can exploit immediately.

He Absorbs

What worries his instructors, in the best possible way, is how quickly those gaps disappear once somebody points them out. Rakuzen does not merely practice. He absorbs. A mistake that beats him once is rarely useful against him a second time. He is not especially powerful yet, and he lacks the experience to compete with veteran fighters a grade above him, but more than one of the people who taught him has finished a lesson looking thoughtful.

Silmarithil

Rakuzen moved to Silmarithil on Harvestide 1, 1307. He arrived the way he has arrived everywhere else: with a good sword, well-kept armor, and a standing offer to work for anyone willing to tell him what he is doing wrong.

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Goals & Aspirations

Trained Properly

Rakuzen knows exactly what his education has been: a little from a great many people, and never enough from any one of them. He wants a real teacher, someone who will take what he has apart and put it back together without the gaps. He has no money to offer for it. He has two strong arms, a great deal of patience, and no objection to sweeping a floor.

The List

Rakuzen secretly keeps a written list of every warrior who has ever defeated him. It is not a list of grudges. He intends to find each of them again someday and ask, politely, for a rematch. The list is longer than he would like, and he adds to it honestly.

What a Master Is

Rakuzen dreams of becoming a true master, but he has not yet decided what that actually means. For now, he is simply a talented young samurai with a good sword, frightening potential, and enough humility to know that potential is not the same thing as accomplishment.

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Development

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Current Status & Relationships

Residence

Silmarithil

Role

Samurai

ATTENTION!

Rakuzen Ashclaw is an F-grade Swolbold samurai, and he is not especially powerful yet. What makes him noteworthy is his potential. He has exceptional reflexes, unusual strength for a kobold-blooded warrior, and a natural instinct for reading an opponent's balance, but his technique is inconsistent and he lacks the experience to compete with veteran E-grade fighters. An experienced opponent will find the gaps in his swordsmanship immediately. Do not expect to use the same gap twice: a mistake that beats him once is rarely useful against him a second time. He is polite, eager, and competitive, and he is easily embarrassed when praised too directly, so if you mean to compliment him, do it sideways. If you catch him practicing his draw, the kind thing is to keep walking.