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[LQ] Tenzin (CRT/MRK)

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Slanndalous

Dapper Codger

PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 12:48 pm


THE BASICS


Username : slanndalous
Lunarian Name : Tenzin (Tibetan for "Protector of Dharma")
Sex: Female
Origin: Tibetan
Alliance : Legion
Path : Priest
Conduit : Her father's hand-held prayer wheel
Services Offered : Presently - She can bless the Legion, initiate rites and rituals, guide those through the afterlife and into reincarnation. She's lost her talent for manipulating elemental energy, but she can teach those sensitive to the skill.

Future - She will be a powerful priest who will be able to open up a monastery and teach her version of The Way. She will also be an asset for interrogating prisoners of war. It's true that Tenzin does not like to hurt or torture other people, but she sees her duty as merely releasing a burdened soul into the light of unbiased truth. That's not so wrong, is it?

❀ Appearance!
User Image Skin Tone : Dark, red tones
Body Style : Lanky, underdeveloped, androgynous
Hair Color/Style : Shaved head at the academy. Black peach fuzz is about all anyone ever sees. As time goes by, she lets her hair grow out into a short mohawk to parody the ceremonial Tibetan headdresses worn by the higher-ranking lama and to be willfully disobedient.

By the time she graduates, it'll be a decent-sized mohawk.

As a Tenryujin, it'll be an impressive plume of mohawkness and everyone will be all "AMAGA IT'S SO AMAZING!"
Eye Color : Sea green
Clothing Description : At the academy, Tenzin wears a yellow Tibetan monk undershirt to cover her chest, although it isn't really covering much up to begin with. She wears a bright red robe over it (shown in picture above); however, she lets the sleeves hang around her waist instead of wrapping it correctly around herself.

When she becomes a soul conduit, she will have the same yellow and red theme, but idk some cool looking robes or something. I'm open to the artist's own inspiration.

As a Tenryujin, I want her to have some kind of long cape/shawl made out of the fabric from her father's robes once she is big enough to actually use it. Other than that, I am open to the artist's own inspiration.
Accessory Description : As an academy student, none.

Since she is a monk I can't really think of anything at the moment.
Unique Attributes : She is very androgynous looking. As an academy student, she is very flat-chested and could be mistaken for a pretty boy fairly easy.

As she grows up and becomes a soul conduit, she will be a little more curvy, but she will still have a strong jaw line, wider chin, and high cheekbones that make her look like a handsome woman or a short, young man. She tries to wear a little more make-up during this time as well to help sway indecision, but even still it doesn't always work.

She embraces her handsome features as a Tenryujin, content to be a medium of both genders in some ways. It represents the neutrality of The Way that she will inevitably embody once again.

Her scales are a speckling of white and sea green (representing the Tibetan snow lion).

Also, her ears are unusually big for such a small kid, but she'll grow into them.

Personality : Word count - 583

Book smart - There's no question Tenzin knows The Way well. She has a photographic memory and enjoys reading, researching, and exploring more about the one field she excels in. Of course, her prowess ends there. Living as a monk all her life, she has had very little knowledge of how the outside world works.

Her common sense is a little stilted in some situations. She lives in the now and rarely considers future planning. Academically, she is very hard-working and diligent in other practices beside meditation, but even so sometimes critical thinking can take a bit of activating before she can productively use the knowledge she has gained during her academy days.

Vengeful - After her father died, the void she felt was filled with a bottomless rage that consumed her. She left the monastic life to live one of vengeance. That opportunity was found within the halls of the Lunarian Academy. She struggles with the reckless disposal of human life in this war, but she cannot forgive those who killed her father. The only thing that lets her sleep at the end of the day is that fate is final, and if she is destined to shed blood, then that is her Way, if just for the extent of this incarnate lifetime.

Generally, this manifests as prejudice and hostility towards those on the Nobles' side

Dichotomous - Tenzin is no longer sure of her place in the wheel of fate. She thought it was beside her father, but that ended all too soon, and she became adrift, angry, and virtually alone. These emotions she feels conflict with the teachings of her father, the rules upon which she based her life around. When he died, she was no longer certain The Way was the right one.

She tries things from all ends: gluttony, starvation, violence, peace, revolt, harmony, etc. and ultimately comes back to the middle with no real answer. There are times when she wants to rid herself of The Way, but she cannot help but cling to what she knows best.

She is eager to try new things despite the warning signs to stop. She won't forget the first time she got s**t-faced and ended up puking her guts out all night.

Hypocritical - As a former monk trying to keep to The Way and the roiling hatred and attachment to vengeance she feels against the Nobles, she is a whirlwind of juxtapositions and contradictions. She is quick to point out others' flaws so that they can learn from them; however, she can fall short in her own assessment of herself as her raw emotions get the better of her.

As some kind of revolt against the fate of her deceased father, she is content to dabble in the extremes, to experiment. Not that she will admit to it or allow excess and attachment from others.

Thoughtful - Despite her grudge against the Nobles, against The Way, she still conforms to the tributes and rituals that the monks perform for the laypeople. She is content to offer what little she has to someone without anything, to recite funeral rites, answer questions, etc. because she still understands that there are needs of the soul and someone must instruct them even if she does not believe in the processes that filter them any longer.

Thoughtfulness is too ingrained in her to be intentionally selfish or hurtful toward strangers (except if they are Noble... she hasn't found unconditional compassion for them quite yet).
Hobbies :
Fishing - Tenzin is not very good at it, but that isn't the point. Caught between mountains and lakes, the monastery's best supply of food comes from either donations from the nearest town or by fishing. Frustrated by her failure to support the monastery, she grew to resent those who were far more skilled than she was. She was good at The Way, so why couldn't she achieve greatness in other fields?

Eventually, her father told her to think about it as part of her training. Incorporating the principles of disassociation, peace, and meditation, she saw fishing as a way to hone her detachment of material emotions. The purpose became the act of fishing, not the product of catching. She still sucks at it, but has grown to love it as an activity to calm her mind and reflect on her deceased father.

Meditation - Obviously. It helps to quell the newfound rage within her, though her evolution as a enlightened monk has hit a plateau since the death of her father.

Drinking - Tenzin is quite the lightweight when it comes to drinking, but that's good for someone with no money. She indulges in it to help relieve her mind and forget about her father for a time. She is not an alcoholic, but she could be in danger of it if she can't reconcile her feelings and leave them behind.
Likes : Meditation, research, fishing, liquor, sweets, being alone
Dislikes : Fighting, arrogance, chit chat, killing, unscrupulous behavior
Hates: The Nobles
Quirks : She tends to see through people rather than focusing on them when they are talking with her.

Tenzin rubs her head a lot because she's not used to the feeling of hair as it grows longer.

If someone likes to talk way too much, she sometimes interrupts them, stating that she has better things to do with her limited time on earth than waste it listening to a fool.

She gets really emotional when she is drunk. She will get unusually loud, smart mouth people, start fights, and sometimes she will cry after the night is over.

Tenzin's voice is a little rough and deep for a girl, but it is rather noticeable that it does come from a girl. She also talks really fast since she is used to reciting sutras very quickly.
PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:00 am


HISTORY & TIBETAN INFLUENCE


History : Tenzin was born from a secret affair between a well-known and respected Tibetan monk, Chogyal, and his songyum (a "spiritual wife" aka consort) who posed as one of his pupils. While these affairs were common, it was imperative that the parents' reputations remained intact, and so Tenzin was "adopted" by the monastery as an orphan, where she found a friend, father, and idol in Chogyal. She had his innate sense of the sacred inner-nature, which did not take long to reveal itself.

Quickly, she rose from a beginner to a learned monk, eventually teaching new recruits in the rites, rituals, and rules of The Way on her own. She even showed early signs of being sensitive to magic as well. It generally took a monk decades to learn how to draw energy from within themselves. At sixteen, she could warm her hands with a tiny crackle of fire.

But only a year later, Tenzin's life took a hard left and staggered into the ditch. During a non-violent protest by religious practitioners, a skirmish broke out between warriors of the Legion and Noble allegiances, egged on by some noble families. Several protesters were arrested, injured, and killed. One of whom was her father. Trying to break the warriors up in a peaceful manner, a few Noble warriors became over-aggressive and killed Chogyal in their zeal to get to the Legionnaires behind him. Looking on from the frightened crowd, Tenzin clung to his side as he was taken back to the monastery where he died soon after in his bed. She read him his final rites, the bardo thodol, and guided his spirit through the bardo (a realm of restless wandering in death) and back into The Wheel to be reincarnated.

Since his passing, Tenzin has been wandering aimlessly for purpose. She wonders if all of his teachings were meaningless. When he needed them most, they abandoned him with the first draw of blood. Enraged by the Nobles, she looks to the academy, slowly being drawn in by the appeal of a purpose and a means to seek revenge for what had been done to her poor, misguided father. With no money, she had no way to support her entry, but her remarkable sensitivity to magic caught the attention of a wealthy Legionnaire who offered to provide for her during her training on the condition that she swear allegiance to the Legion.

Future : In the future, I hope to have her reconcile some of her hatred for the nobles and take up her study of The Way again as she grows older and inevitably becomes a priest. She will come to understand unconditional compassion, but also recognizes that some must fight in place of her peacekeeping. It is their fate.

The Way : The Way is based on Tibetan Buddhism. Like all Buddhism, Tenzin believes that life is suffering and that there is no self. Nothing in this world truly exists and attachment to material items only causes suffering in this and the next lifetime.

What makes Tibetan Buddhism different is that it is a sect of Mahayana and Vajrayana, which relies more heavily on rituals as well as supporting the idea that there are gods, goddesses, demons, and those who become god-like in the material realm. A Tenryujin, for example, would qualify as a Bodhisattva, one who is god-like and enlightened within the material realm.

Tibetan Buddhism also focuses on the idea of bardo, a realm of restless wandering. There is the bardo of existence, which is found in the material realm and there is one during a soul's journey back into the wheel of reincarnation. It is important to Tibetan Buddhism to guide these souls during death to their reincarnation. Only learned monks can do this.

Slanndalous

Dapper Codger


Slanndalous

Dapper Codger

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:01 am


REFERENCES & MISC


Buddhism, especially Mahayana, is very complicated, so if you have any kind of interest about how it works, here are some useful links:

Tibetan Buddhism Overview
Vajrayana Buddhism Overview
Bardo Overview
Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead)

Tibetan Prayer Wheel


QUESTIONS


Quote:
Is it realistic to have a benefactor provide the monetary means to support Tenzin in the academy, provided she pay it back by being apart of the benefactor's allegiance? Is the academy free?


Quote:
Can she be allowed to have a very, very minimal second power that is more like a plot-point for entering the academy rather than a second power? As she starts honing her skills as a soul conduit, the second power would dwindle.
PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:09 pm


RESERVED

Slanndalous

Dapper Codger


Kurama no Koishi
Crew

Shameless Wench

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:56 pm


Slanndalous

Crit time!

First thing – I want to clear up the religion/origin aspect of Lunaria. There was a little bit of a mixup in the question thread, and I apologize for that. There are a lot of different cultures and religions in Lunaria – for us as RPers to understand them we say that our Luns are based on Chinese, Tibetan, etc culture and follow Taoism, Buddhism, etc. In RP though, no one is known according to those labels. They are not Chinese or Tibetan, but simply Lunarians from different parts of the continent. The same goes for religion – each one is just a different interpretation of Goddess worship.
So basically, if you reword the terms to correlate to the world of Lunaria, Tenzin would sound a lot more integrated.

That said, I think the way you’ve tied Tenzin to her religion is really interesting. I just want to clarify that as an Academy Student, she shouldn’t have priestly soul-ripping powers. That comes later, though the fact that she has an affinity for the spiritual is all well and good. You mentioned that she lost her ability to summon magic, I’m assuming because she left the monastery – so you’ve provided a good way for her to grow from that.

I would like to see you tie some of Tenzin’s reasons for choosing the Legion to the things outlined in the thread HERE. What does she think of the fact that the Legion fights in the name of the Goddess? Does that conflict with her beliefs? Eventually as Tenzin grows, I would hope that her conviction in her faction expands beyond simply revenge and monetary obligation.

I’m also interested to know what you think she’ll be like in the Academy, since that’s where you’ll be RPing her to start (and tenryu is a long way off!) – it would go a long way toward helping us picture her in this world, too.

As for your questions – no, the Academy is not free, and I do not see a problem with the benefactor. And you’ll have to enlighten me as to what that second power is and the plot premise for it before I can provide you with an answer.

If you have any questions or need further clarification you’re perfectly free to ask – most of the things I mentioned are just for the purpose of further elaboration. (:
PostPosted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:23 am


Kurama no Koishi

The same goes for religion – each one is just a different interpretation of Goddess worship.
So basically, if you reword the terms to correlate to the world of Lunaria, Tenzin would sound a lot more integrated.


Ohh okay! Actually, I think that'll help me a lot with her motivation to stay with the Legion as well if everyone does believe in some interpretation of the Goddess. Can you give me just a little more information on her? Is she similar to Amaterasu? Is she vengeful or is she very nurturing? etc.


Quote:
As for your questions – no, the Academy is not free, and I do not see a problem with the benefactor. And you’ll have to enlighten me as to what that second power is and the plot premise for it before I can provide you with an answer.


Oh and I may have under-emphasized it in her history. She can produce fire using focused chi basically. It's apparently something that monks can do after years of training... allegedly LOL but uhh since magic does play a big role in the world, I figured it wouldn't be too outlandish (correct me if I'm wrong certainly) that she could produce a very raw element from her energy?

And like I said, this is just a plot-point. She won't use it in any fashion except to light a candle (and even then if you think that is too unreasonable, it can disappear entirely as she studies more about being a soul conduit and practices less meditation).


The rest of your suggestions I will edit into my quest thread and let you know once it has been nice and refined! Thank you for all your help!! heart

EDIT// SORRY one last thing! You mentioned her offered services to the Legionnaire.... That was my fault, I made the assumption that the skills listed would all be what the Legionnaire would benefit from once she had graduated from academy and become a Tenryujin in the future.

So, I divided up Services Offered in my top post into what she can presently so for the Legion and what she will be able to do for them in the future! I hope that clears up the confusion about Priestness XD

Slanndalous

Dapper Codger


Kurama no Koishi
Crew

Shameless Wench

PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:40 am


Slanndalous


On religion and the goddess - a real life example to correlate would be Christianity and its various sects. Instead of a God, of course, Lunaria has a Goddess. Lunaria is also monotheistic, so you could swing Tenzin's interpretation of her to be like Amaterasu so long as you keep that in mind. c: Religion isn't a huge part of Lunaria yet, plot-wise, so there isn't a dedicated thread about it aside from the link I gave you before. What has been established, though, is that the Legion's interpretation of the religion in general has been around much longer than the Nobles' general interpretation.

Near the end of the Academy Student stage it's plausible for her to be able to summon small amounts of magic (such as a raw fire) - as mentioned in the magic thread - but as a rule this is for fighters. Since she is on the soul conduit track, it makes more sense that this power would dwindle instead of increase, especially since she should be learning soul magic. I'd advise against her having the ability in her student stage, but you can reference her having had the ability in the past!

The services offered section is much clearer now - thanks for doing that!

The next full crit will be done by a different staff member, but you're free to quote me for attention or PM me if you have further world questions. c:
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