20 Questions

Background

1. Where is your character from?
Shanghai, China

2. Does your character have a family?
Yes, he has a mother and father, a brother and sister, but he has not seen them in a long time, and does not know what has happened to them since he left China. His family in Seattle consists of his parents’ close family friends, Mama Lee, her daughter Merri Lee, and Uncle Jimmy.

3. Does your character have an ethnic background?
Mandarin Chinese.

Appearance

4. What does your character look like?
About 5’6, 145lbs, very well built, but his muscles are lithe and toned rather than big and bulky. His hair is medium length, perhaps about 1-2 inches long, spiky and at a variety of angles, in the classic ‘Asian pop star’ model. He is lightly tanned, and has normal brown eyes. His features are undistinguished, except for his eyes, which have deadness to them.

5. What does your character dress like?
Street casual and comfortable. He tends to wear warm-up pants, loose cargo pants, and sweatshirts underneath his ever-present black armored jacket. He prefers running shoes or similar light, maneuverable footwear. Black and white tend to be the most common motif, but as of late he has taken to making the gang colors a regular part of his attire. He tends to wear mirrorshades when he doesn’t want to talk to people, and almost always is wearing his reinforced gloves with the small spikes for that extra ‘oomph’ in a brawl.

6. Does your character have physical quirks?
He moves with an easy grace, but he tends to crack his neck from side to side right before he’s about to do something important. He also tends to flex his hands subconsciously when he thinks trouble is about to go down.

Skills, Attributes, Resources

7. Where did your character learn their Active Skills?
Shade grew up training in martial arts to succeed his father and take over the school. His perceptive skills are a product of that training as well. He learned to use Pistols while traveling the streets on his way to Seattle, and also learned his Stealth and people skills as well on the streets.
However, the actual application of his skills came in the frequent street fights Stephen partook of without his father’s knowledge. Desiring to test his skills and believing that knowledge was no good if it was not exercised, he would fight for money, pride, or no reason at all, always seeking to improve.

8. Where did your character learn their Knowledge Skills?
Mostly from his time training in his family’s school and while traveling the streets.

9. Where did your character get his goodies?
Having to travel light, he picked up pretty much all of his stuff on his travels. He purchased Wired Reflexes for himself shortly after he rented out the school and left China.

10. Where does your character live?
Currently in a small apartment by himself in the heart of gang territory. He desires seclusion, anonymity, and peace, for the most part so he can think and reflect on things.

11. Who are your character’s contacts?
Being new in town, he hasn’t had the chance to really go out and establish solid connections with anyone yet.

12. Who are your character’s enemies?
The good part about being new is that you don’t have any enemies either.

13. How did your character learn magic?
N/A

Personality

14. What are your character’s likes and dislikes?
Stephen loves fighting and the martial arts. To him, it is a constant quest for perfection; a never-ending test with one’s self and the world around him.
He dislikes losing control of himself, and never indulges in anything that might take away from his physical or mental capacity or dull his senses. He never drinks, smokes, does drugs, BTLs, or anything else that might undermine his rigid sense of self-control.

15. What is your character’s moral code?
Stephen’s moral code is currently undergoing reconstruction. He took the name Shade to reflect that he is currently but a pale shadow of who he wants to be. He’s caught between the man his father prepared him to be, good, upright, moral, and pure, and the corruption of the world and reality of the harsh life with which he has lived the past several years. He finds himself becoming increasingly cold, callous, vicious, cynical, and bitter. Ultimately, he is in the process of redefining himself, and his moral code will end up reflecting who he becomes.

16. Does your character have goals?
When his family disappeared, Stephen lost a part of himself. His belief in moral living and the value of martial arts as a means to achieve harmony with the world around oneself and to protect those around him was dramatically undermined. In turmoil over the lost of the anchor of his world, he drifted into deep depression. Furthermore, while on the streets, he realized that as much as he trained and as hard as he worked, money could simply buy people an edge he could barely compete with. When he lost a fight to a cybered thug, he nearly hit rock bottom, losing confidence in his skills, his beliefs, and himself.
In a fit of depression and anger, he took the money that was supposed to get him to Seattle and purchased Wired Reflexes 2, seeking an equalizer, or even an edge, against the barely human monsters that seemed to be everywhere to him. When he woke up, he felt as if half his soul was gone, as if he had suddenly dimmed the connection he had with the world.
He has regretted it ever since. While the cyber has provided him with a tremendous advantage in combat, he wonders if it has come at the cost of his soul. The depression that fueled his impulse buy now led to the deterioration of his mind and soul. His self-confidence, will, instinct, and even reason diminished through sheer atrophy.
Only since coming to Seattle has he regained a sense of purpose in the gang, in contributing to something larger than himself. Not the world, perhaps, but the one he lives in now at least.
After much thought and meditation, he came to the conclusion that there were two ways he could go from here. He could reject his mistakes and make atonement for his foolishness by removing the cyberware and (he hopes) restoring his soul in the process, continuing to seek purity and the union of mind, body and soul once again.
Or he could embrace the philosophy that led him here, that in the end, what matters is being the best, and that any price, any cost, is worth paying. To that end, he would jump over the edge and cyber himself up as much as he could, selling his soul to gain any minute edge over any and all comers.
He knows the crossroads is there waiting for him. He just doesn’t know which way he’ll go yet.

17. Does your character have personal beliefs?
Prior to his family’s disappearance, Stephen was a devout Christian (he was named after the martyr Stephen of the early church in the Book of Acts), but there were strong Buddhist/Taoist elements in his beliefs from his martial arts training.

18. Does your character have personality quirks?
Shade is very out of place in the gang. He’s quiet, reflective, introspective, keeps to himself, doesn’t like drawing attention to himself, and is very focused on self-improvement. He is particularly obsessed with improving himself, especially his flagging spirit (read: Mental Attributes), which he allowed to atrophy during his depression.

Running the Shadows

19. Why does your character run the shadows?
Shade was born Stephen Wu, and grew up in Shanghai, China, in a loving family with a younger brother and sister. His father was a Tai Chi instructor and ran a school in Shanghai. Although Tai Chi had tremendous combat applications, Stephen was always taught to use it only to protect others and himself. He took to it naturally, and his skill increased quickly. It appeared that he would succeed his father and take over the school when he came of age. The Crash changed everything. Stephen’s SIN was one of many deleted, and the long lines and process to apply for a new one forced him to wait in line for several days, when he had returned, his family had disappeared and the school was in shambles.
He found out from a neighbor that riots had swept their neighborhood, and his father had taken their family away from there to protect them, and told their neighbor he’d be back for Stephen. Weeks passed, and his father never returned. After a month, the neighbor gave Stephen a letter from his father that he had been instructed to give him if his father hadn’t returned in a month. The letter instructed him to go to Seattle and find a woman who ran a restaurant there, an old family friend that would take care of him until his father could summon him home.
Not having much other choice, he rented the school to the neighbor for an indefinite period of time, to obtain the money for the journey to Seattle. Along the way, he joined up with a young girl who was being sold into slavery for a Japanese salaryman. He helped the girl escape her captors, and unable to return home, the girl decided to come with him to Seattle. The two of them became a team and watched each other’s backs on the way.
When they arrived in Seattle, Mama Lee accepted them into her home without question once she heard who his father was. Introducing him to her daughter, Merrideth, she helped him get settled in Seattle, giving him a job in her restaurant.
As he got to know Merri better, she gradually introduced him to her friends in the gang. Although his personality and lifestyle differed radically from nearly all the other members, they respect him for his unyielding loyalty to the gang and them personality, not to mention the fact that he’s extremely handy in a fight. When the gang was formed, not having anything else to hold on to, he joined up, seeking meaning in the group.

20. How does your character view his/her role as a ganger?
Shade feels it is his responsibility to be a good ganger and loyal soldier. He believes part of his depression was caused by having his ‘emotional anchor’ attached too strongly to his family, and that to become stronger, he needs to learn to have good relationships with others without becoming emotionally dependent on them. The wild, crazy, and frankly, vastly different nature of most of the gangers from himself makes this fairly easy. He is very loyal to the gang and will always back his chummers up no matter what the odds, but because they are so different, he doesn’t emotionally rely on them the way he did on his family.

His opinion of the gangers is as follows (loved what you did with your character Mister Juan so I copied your idea):

Wounded Ronin’s character (given the personality and background discussed to date): Given all they have been through together, he is extremely loyal to her and considers her one of his closest friends in the gang. He thinks she’s absolutely crazy and really needs to calm down, but he understands she’s had an extremely traumatic life, and considers it his responsibility to stand by her and help her work through her issues, however long it takes, and however insane those issues might be.

Thyn: Finds the troll mechanic a reasonably calm influence in the gang and enjoys the troll’s company, finding him relatively more calm and controlled than some of the wilder members of the gang. Shade enjoys watching him work on cars, believing that the mechanic’s passion for cars mirrors his own pursuit of perfection.

JJ: He thinks JJ is insane. He cannot understand the lack of discipline and the wild and crazy life he leads. However, he knows JJ’s tough in a fight and definitely someone you want to have on your side when it’s time to throw down, so the two of them share that in common. They have a lot of stories of getting into fights together, usually because Shade’s backing up JJ from whatever crazy drek he got them into this time.

Halo: Believes her to be mostly style and little substance, but respects the strong bond she feels to the rest of the gang and shares that with her. He enjoys talking to her because she’s always up to something and trying to scam someone, and he believes that just trying to keep up with her constant scheming is good mental exercise.

Neo: In some ways, the two of them have a lot in common, and in other ways, they’re strangers. Both are dedicated to their arts and improving themselves, and they spar together frequently. However in Shade’s opinion, Neo always seems to have some larger goal in mind, and the gang doesn’t necessarily seem to be a part of that. That causes a bit of distance between them, because Shade always wonders what that agenda is, and if one day it’ll cause the two of them to throw down with each other for real.

Aziz: A mystery to Shade. He seems to enjoy pain and violence for their own sake, and appears to embrace a hedonistic philosophy of pleasure, often manifest in his drug use. His constant drug use makes Shade uneasy, just the thought of losing any control makes Shade nervous; he can’t imagine voluntarily doing that to himself on a regular basis.

Knives: Shade has a lot of respect for Knives. Yeah he’s crazy, and yeah he’s gotten them into a lot of fights, and yeah things understandably get a little ugly with other gangs because Knives is always trying to kill one or more (usually more) of their members, but the man is dedicated to his art, that cannot be denied. Shade has a lot of respect for Knives’s dedication and love for his art, even if he doesn’t always agree with the ways he chooses to express that art.

Tao-Fighter: Shade likes Tao-Fighter, seeing his own struggles for identity reflected in the young elf, and tries to help him out whenever he can, talking through things and giving the younger ganger confidence in himself. He hopes that in the process of talking and teaching him, he will re-teach himself the things he has forgotten.
Auran: Like most people, Shade is charmed by Auran. He finds her attractive, witty, fun, and interesting. Of course, he’s seen her con enough people to know that he still needs to watch his wallet when she’s around, but the fact that they run together gives him (some) confidence that she won’t blatantly screw him. And if nothing else, she makes his life brighter, even if he’s never quite sure how much of it is sincere and how much is just for show.

Raven: Probably the one Shade finds most morally in line with himself. He greatly admires her for using her abilities to help others, and while their morality certainly has its differences, he believes there is a certain connection between them with respects to their beliefs and values. Plus, he definitely understands the pain the Crash caused many people, and empathizes with her for that. He feels somewhat protective of her, and tries to look out for her, whether she wants him to or not.

Steel: Shade sees Steel and wonders if that is who he will become, desiring to be more Machine than Man. For now, he tries to study Steel and discover the answer to the question that’s been haunting him: Does being a Machine truly cost you your soul, or does it just feel like it?

0day: Absolutely does not like the fact that he deals BTLs. Feels it reveals a lack of morality. Of course, Shade’s not exactly guiltless himself, so he lets it go.

Santiago: Waiting on the background

Felix: Absolutely likes Felix. Sees him as sort of a kid brother, the over-eager kid who is kind of like the mascot of the gang. He is even more protective of him than of Raven, because he feels like at least Raven can look after herself, unlike Felix. He’s always willing to let Felix tag along with him and has offered to teach him some moves so he can at least not get killed when the gang gets into their brawls.