Bonus: Character Sheet

Ling Qi

Age:15

Spiritual Cultivation Level: Green Foundation Soul (3)

Physical Cultivation Level: Bronze Appraisal Physique (2)

Bound Spirits: Zhengui, Sixiang, Hanyi

Domain Weapon: Singing Mist Blade

• A twisting obsidian blade that releases a mist between its coils. It pulses frequently, releasing bursts of boundless Hunger, coveting all before it’s glorious sight. The holes that line it’s white bone hilt release a terrifying inhuman whistling screech as it soars through the air.

Weapon: Ebony Heartswood Flute

• A fine instrument, beyond the abilities of mortal craftsmen. Made of dark wood lacquered black and edged with silver, this flute channels qi into sound with great ease. Sturdier than any mortal steel. Contains the memory of Ling Qi’s original flute.

Armor: Swaying Twilight Gown

• A many layered gown of water smooth black silk with prominent white hems and a dark blue mantle split down the center like a pair of wings and embroidered with patterns of white lotus flowers. It’s train trails behind the wearer, never touching the base earth. A finely painted silk panel is affixed to the front, displaying curling vines and white petaled azalea flowers, spotted with red like drops of blood. Made by an apprentice of the Duchess Cai, and infused with a thread from the spirit Liming, it’s craftsmanship is near unparalleled, though its potential still sleeps. As it is now, it functions as powerful armor, and grants her the ability to fly, a skill that Imperial Cultivators cannot achieve unaided in her realm.

Special Skills:

• Peerless Musician – Ling Qi is an extremely skilled musician for her cultivation level and age, particularly when using woodwind instruments
• Sable Grace – Ling Qi has learned to move without moving, to dodge by dissolving into darkness
• Intensive Focus – While naturally flighty, Ling Qi has learned to focus her attention singularly when necessary, often with frightening results

Insights:

1. Sincerity is the measure by which the worthiness of the self and ones guests should be measured. (Argent Mirror)
2. There are endings and Endings, and only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings. (Frozen Soul Serenade)
3. Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if you can present something of beauty to those you care for at the end of it. (Forgotten Vale Melody)
4. There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end. (Sable Crescent Step)
5. Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more. (Thousand Ring Fortress)

Advanced Insights:

1. One person’s desires cannot, alone, make a home nor a family.

Current Arts:

Eight Phase Ceremony

(Near Mastery) (Main Cultivation Art)

A mystic art based upon consumption of celestial qi to improve and refine body and mind granted to those smiled upon by some aspect of the moon in order to bring them closer to their patron. The Phase the Grinning Crescent Moon emphasizes the mystery and hidden nature of acts performed in the night. The Phase of the Hidden Moon emphasizes the search for secrets, hidden by the darkness of ignorance.

Argent Genesis

(Near Mastery) (Secondary Cultivation Art)

Created by the ancestors of Sect Head Yuan He and polished to perfection under his eye, this art is the successor to the Argent Soul cultivation art. This art offers many insights into building a strong foundation for a young cultivator’s future growth. The neutral balanced qi cultivated by this art mingles easily with almost every form of Imperial cultivation, making for a fine secondary art for any young scion.

Forgotten Vale Melody

(Mastered)

There are many forgotten places in the world where human kind does not tread easily. This technique is a part of the chronicle of a long dead wanderer, composed into music and offered to the smiling moon. It speaks of mist covered valleys hidden deep in the mountains and the mischievous and hungry spirits that wait in the dark, and the loneliness of the wanderer’s path.

Mist of the Vale

Playing the first notes of the melancholy melody, the musician causes a light dark mist to roll forth from their instrument. The mist is filled with deceptive shadows and sounds, casting a pall darkness over all within. The mist spreads can cover further and further distances, but as the distance increases so too does the cost. The user may extend immunity to the mists effects to up to ten allies.

Within the mist, foes find their senses confused, attacks against the musician or their allies often strike at phantoms, and seeking to escape the mist or advance upon the musician often result in meandering travelers reminiscent of the composer’s own wandering. In their confused state, they become vulnerable to the terrors which can reside in Vales far from civilization.

Dissonance of Night’s Terror

The melody grows low and eerie, punctuated by high, sharp notes, while the mists darken with indistinct and predatory shapes. Claws and fangs of mist and shadow tear at the musician’s foes, rending armor and leaving wounds that bleed freely to feed the hunger of the mist.

Starlight Elegy

The mournful and despairing tune saps the energy of those not insulated from the mist, making their limbs heavy and their thoughts clouded with exhaustion and longing for home. The cloying mist drags at their limbs like the weight of a life spent alone and drains away their qi rapidly, making it difficult to move, let alone attack. Alternatively, the power of the Elegy may be focused on a single target, drowning them in the endless mist, leaving them to wander as if alone and far from from home. So long as they remain lost, their allies aid cannot reach them, and they will wander alone in their perception, aware only of the haunting notes of the melody and its musician.

Traveler’s End

(This technique is only usable when all the other techniques of this art are active)

In a distant, misty valley, far from the works of mankind, a traveler completed a melody and offered it to the moon, the final notes echoing long after his last breath. This melody is but a shadow of that… but even shadows hold power.

The mist grows darker and more cloying still, blotting out almost all external light, and draining the warmth from those trapped within. The mist grows potent with dark qi, fogging the senses still further to bring them the lonely despair of the traveler’s final days. While active all other Forgotten Vale techniques are much harder to dispel, and the Travelers End must be dispelled first.

The user may choose to end the melody at any time after Travelers End has been used. If they do so, the song reaches its finale, and all other techniques of the Forgotten Vale are ended as well. All who were still lost within the mist suffer an immediate spiritual attack of great magnitude, an echo of the travelers death in that far away vale. Those damaged by this attack may be paralyzed utterly by the assault, if their composure is too weak.

Frozen Soul Serenade

(Mastered)

Winter’s Muse sings from its heart, the place of true cold, where even fire freezes and light dies. The truth of cold is the absolution of endings, and in this melody lies some small part of that truth. Its notes freeze blood and qi alike, its notes often the last thing its listeners hear in this world.

Spring’s End Aria

The first notes of the users song herald the end of warmth, draining the heat from the area and around them and crystalizing the moisture in the air into snow and ice. Enemies close to the user find their qi growing sluggish, sapping their spiritual defenses and bolstering the singer’s own. Qi expended in the failed assault of the singer drains away, flowing into the singularity of cold created by the singer’s voice. Those whose dantians have been fully drained find their flesh frosting over and their blood running cold as they are lulled into the final sleep.

Hoarfrost Refrain

The user’s song rises into the howl of a blizzard in the depths of winter as they focus the expression of their will upon a single enemy. The song tears and freezes the flesh of the singer’s enemy, and spreads through their blood and meridians, carrying the chill deeper still, like a frigid poison seeking the heart of its victims warmth. The chill clings long after the technique ends, sapping the targets vitality and will the insidious cold crawling ever closer to the victim’s heart until at last it stills or the technique is dispelled.

Echoes of Absolute Winter

A technique used in tandem with Aria of Springs End, if activated at the same time, the Aria carries an echo of true winter, stilling the very air around the singer with its freezing chill until blood grows sluggish and flesh cracks.

Call to Ending

The final verse of the Serenade is a quiet, sad thing, lacking the furor of earlier verses. Upon Singing it, a single target which suffers from Hoarfrost Refrains cold feels a terrible pain as the chill infecting them grows to a terrible potency, and every last shred of heat flees their body. Should the singer lay hands upon the target when activating the technique, the damage is greatly increased.

Sable Crescent Step

(Mastered)

Darkness has no form nor presence, and so those who master it learn to cast these things aside, and embrace the absence and silence of the empty night. This movement art focuses on understanding of this rare element allowing the user to move from place to place with little regard for what lies between their present position and their goal.

Grinning Crescent Dancer

Calling upon the favor of the Grinning Moon, and using their skill at manipulating dark qi, the user becomes an indistinct phantom, a flicker of shadow dancing between lights. Greatly enhances the dancers ability to avoid attacks and stay ahead of foes. The deeper the darkness grows the quicker their reactions and movement become. In darkness the dancer’s immaterial form may ignore some of the impact of even those attacks which strike its flitting form. No mundane obstacle may block the movement of the Dancer, so long as they can perceive their destination, and entrapping them through wholly physical means becomes impossible.

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One with Shadow

The user merges with the shadows and dark, dematerializing entirely. In this form they may slip from shadow to shadow, without crossing the space between so long as the destination shadow is at least moderately sized. In this form the user’s presence is muted, even to spiritual senses. If the user slips successfully into the shadow of an opponent, their connection grants their first attack against that enemy a great potency, ignoring the effects of any damage reduction the target may have. However, an attack on the shadow the user inhabits can harm the user, and damage will break this technique.

Sable Crescent Step

A master of this art may bring its lessons together in a single movement, an impeccable step of matchless grace. The cunning master may find several uses for this movement. Any normal attack may be avoided, no matter how unerring the aim, as the user simply ceases to exist in the material world for a moment, rematerializing within a large range of their current position. If more offensively inclined, the user may instead make a single physical attack utterly bypassing normal defenses.

Thousand Ring Fortress

(Mastered)

An old and well polished art developed by a once powerful but defunct family within the Emerald Sea province. The user joins themselves to the qi of the land, and becomes as one of the mighty trees which stand in the deepest forests of the province, vital and sturdy. Yet one tree is not a forest, and so the user may extend their vitality to their allies.

Deepwood Vitality

The user channels their qi into the earth, spreading like a great tangle of roots to link with up to twenty allies. The vital qi armors each fortifies each cultivator affected against negative effects, as well as a single attack, shattering if it is great enough but leaving the person beneath unharmed.

Ten Ring Defense

This user fills themselves with the vital qi of the great forests to protect themselves and their allies from harm. Glowing verdant qi enshrouds their form, bright as the leaves of the Emerald Seas canopy. The shroud drinks in the qi of the battlefield and grants qi regeneration for each enemy just as the leaves of spring and summer are restored from winter’s clutches. So long as battle is joined, this technique will never fade unless forcibly dispelled

Hundred Ring Armament

Diffusing heavy wood qi through flesh and muscle the user armors themselves and their allies with the iron bark of primeval forests. Granting the user the resilience of a centennial tree, they may shrug off lesser attacks from bladed or piercing weapons, and endure even powerful ones.

Thousand Rings Unbreaking

The eldest trees of the Emerald Seas are mighty things, ancient and nigh invulnerable, akin to living mountains. By calling upon the image of their power, the user gains some measure of their primeval resilience, ignoring minor wounds entirely, and lessening the effect of greater ones. Under this effect, the user becomes utterly immovable to enemy action, and cannot be grappled, unless the enemy’s cultivation exceeds theirs by two levels or one realm. This effect may be extended to up to ten allies. So long as this effect is active, the user cannot be incapacitated, any blow that would reduce their health to such a point instead reduces it to the merely low health. On activation of this aspect, Thousand Rings Unbreaking is automatically dispelled.

Phantasmagoria of Lunar Revelry