Qu Yuan, poet and hero

Basic Information
Birth Name: Qu Yuan
Aliases: Ping, Zhengze, Mr. Q; in my professional life, I use the name John Ch'u... I have legitimate paperwork and a passport in that name.
Place of Birth: State of Chu (part of modern China)
Age: Real"� 2,345 [most of that immobilized in a coma-like state: I awoke in 1885, so I have spent merely 120 years as a vampire]; apparent"� 65
Male/Female: Male
Current Occupation: vendor of old books and manuscripts
Past Occupation (if different from above): poet

Appearance
Hair Color: white
Length and Style: shoulder-length, in a loose queue
Eye Color: gray
Skin Color: pale
Height: 5' 3"
Weight: 120
Nationality: Chinese (though I despise that name, taken as it was from my sworn enemies, those of Qin [pronounced, roughly, 'cheen']
Race: vampire [I prefer the Chinese term, kuang shi]
Body Type: thin
Description of creator: Some accursed Confucian vampire from the kingdom of Qin who was sent to turn me (literally) to that state's cause

Personal Questions
1. Describe your character's personality: quiet, unassuming, taciturn and melancholy; focused on my poetry and my yearnings for the past; fiercely defensive of Asians in this country
2. Describe how your character would appear to a stranger: Thin, aging Asian dressed in loose silk clothing, slow somber steps as if in great pain.
3.What does your character like? Poetry
4. Dislike? Being a vampire; abuse of Asian-Americans
5. (For humans) Describe what abilities you see your character having if they were turned.
6. What are your fears? Taoist hells... I tried to kill myself once.
7. What are your character's strengths and weaknesses? incredible poet in ancient Chinese; passable in English, this vile, monotonous tongue of yours; I am embarrassingly possessed of an overactive libido, and garlic, salt, iron pellets and uncooked rice all make me quite ill.

Hobbies & Skills
Abilities: I refuse to test my strengths for the most part, though I have discovered I can float about an inch off the floor and I have had cause to kill many men throughout the last century or so to avenge injustices perpetuated against what was once my people
Flaws: inability to accept being a vampire; guilt over attempted suicide; inability to fit into modern society (though I don't quite see this as a flaw)
Cosmetic Traits: slightly elongated ear lobes
Quirks and Habits worthy of mention: tend to close my eyes and tuck my hands into my sleeves when deep in thought

Personal History (Please be detailed, this creates your basis for your character)
[color=red]I, Qu Yuan, was born in the southern quandrant of the state of Chu in 340 B.C., during the time now called The Warring States Period. Qu is my family name, one of great nobility and reknown; as a child, I was called "Ping," but when I established myself as an adult, I took on the courtesy name of Yuan. Eventually I became a minister in the government of the state of Chu; I fancied myself a champion of political loyalty and truth, and I was always eager to maintain the Chu state's sovereignty.

For many years I advocated a policy of alliance with the other kingdoms of the period against the hegemonic state of Qin, which threatened to dominate them all. The Chu king, however, fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered me, and my lord banished his most loyal counselor. In my exile, I spent much time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while travelling the countryside, producing (if I may be so bold as) some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature while expressing my fervent love for my state and my deepest concern for its future.

My bouts of anxiety brought me to an increasingly troubled state of health; I returned against the wishes of my sovreign to the town of my birth, but the blackness would not lighten. During my deepest, darkest depression, I would often take walks near a certain well, looking upon my reflection in the water at my emaciated person, thin and gaunt. This well is now known as the "Face Reflection Well." (Today on a hillside in Xiangluping in Hubei province's Zigui, there is a well which is considered to be my original well. I reveal to you that it is not.)

In 278 BC, learning of the capture of my country's capital, Ying, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin, I wrote a lengthy poem of sorrow called "Lament for Ying." What history does not record is that, as I put away my quill and paper that evening, I was unexpectedly attacked by a Confucian vampire from Qin; the enemy kuang shi (as vampires are called in China) wanted to turn me and use me to promote Qin's status as conquerer of Chu, reasoning that if Chu's greatest patriot would announce his support of Qin, the whole state would soon fall. Rushing away from my attacker, the change already jerking its way through my flesh, I flung myself into the Miluo river (in today's Hunan Province) holding a great rock in order to kill myself.

I did not die.

Gu Cheng, a Taoist priest of my acquaintance, fished my undead form from the river. Upon seeing that I was become a kuang shi, Gu Cheng quickly composed an incantation upon a strip of yellow prayer paper and glued it with wax to my forehead, immobilizing me, driving me into a deep coma-like sleep that would last more than two thousand years...

You see, Gu Cheng's intent had been to give my soul the release it required, but he had to stow me away until the time was right within a large, hollow statue of Lao-tzu that graced his temple. Before he could carry out the proper rites, the Qin descended upon my home town and slaughtered him along with many others. And for millennia, I passed out of time and mind (though my death is still commemorated in the Dragon Boat festival), as the statue was moved from temple to temple, region to region, till it stood alone among ruins in a backwater village.

A young civil servant, called upon to leave his country and travel across the sea to San Francisco, a powerful city in a golden land, chose to bring the statue with him to decorate the consulate where he would now be working. It was 1885, and public sentiment in the US West was rising against the very men and women who had made westward expansion possible. Then, on September 2, in a mining town in Wyoming called Rock Springs, the unspeakable occured... 25 Chinese were slaughtered by white miners who felt threatened by their presence. They were butchered like pigs and their bodies were left for carrion birds. When the remaining five hundred or so Chinese residents informed the consulate in San Francisco of the atrocity, the young civil servant was overcome with rage. As the consul calmly negotiated for federal troops, the younger recent arrival to this diplomatic post locked himself in a room with the statue of Lao-tzu and prayed. His prayers fell on deaf stone ears, of course, and he was gripped by despair and unfocused anger. Seizing a paperweight from off a desk, he hurled it at the statue's chest, which cracked and began to crumble away. Furious, the young man flung object after object at Lao-tzu until the image broke apart and my undead form crumpled to the ground.

Startled, the young man read the incantation affixed to my forehead. He understood what I was, and a glimmer of a plan kindled in him mind. He obtained permission to personally visit the site of the massacre, and in his travel chest he brought my still slumbering form. When we arrived in Rock Springs, the young man interviewed the survivors, made a list of the killers, and then... he awakened me.

We could scarce communicate, and I was utterly bewildered and afraid at the strange surroundings. But the blood lust was strong, and Chinese characters had changed little in the intervening time. I understood soon enough. The weak had been violated, slaughtered. I was a kuang shi. Hunger and indignation blended in me, and I hunted them down, every one of those vile ruffians, and I killed each with great pleasure that it pains me to recall, gorging myself on geysers of blood and the limp acceptance of my prey.

From that time to this I have tried to adapt, tried to ply a scrivener's trade in this strange, strange future, living peacefully among people who have little in common with me. But when injustice against my people is perpetrated, my melancholy becomes rage, and I feed...

[/color]

Odd Questions(To help define your character)
1. A stranger at a bar offers your character a drink, what is a typical response? In the unlikely event that I should find myself in a bar, I would accept out of courtesy, though I obviously would not drink the proffered beverage
2. Your character finds a lost child alone on the streets. What do they do? I would take this child to the local constabulary corps, despite my excrable longings to siphon its blood
3. A barfight erupts in the nightclub your character is in, what do they do? Stand to one side, or leave if the commotion becomes too wide-spread. Unless, of course, someone has slighted an Asian-American, at which point I will quickly end the fight by damaging the offending party severely.
4.What animal does your character most identify with? The phoenix

OOC Info:

Player name: David Bowles
Other Characters you play: none for the moment
How you came to SA (Other board, friend, etc): Friend invited me