Archived-Xiao

Template:PC Summary Awakening"I dreamed a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance

On everyline there was a new horizion drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls.

One of those souls,
Dozing through some imangined afternoon,
Dreamed these words.
And needing a hand to set them down,
Made mine."

General Information

Know As: Xing-Zu Xiao, Little Dragon, Xiao

Born: 1901

Age: Existed since 1901. However, due to the excessive time spent in the deep Astral the subjective time Xiao has experienced places his 'age' as immeasurably older.

Rank: 1st Degree Master

Memberships: Ticket Holder of The Midnight Train

Concept: Astral Citizen

Physical Description: A Disembodied Mind

Astral Description: A Small Chinese Dragon

Nimbus: Claustrophobia & Atrophy; at low levels this manifests as slight feeling of being trapped, raised heartbeat, creeping fear, and mild rigor mortis. At high levels one feels completely cut off from the world, gripped with a hysterical fear, rigor mortis so severe as to be unable to move. Living tissues drys and desiccates, the gums peel back and the skin of the scalp and fingertips recedes, blood pools at the bottom of the body, and eyes wither and turn white; curiously, fingernails are always ripped back and hang off the cuticles. The affected is disjointed from the world, locked away in an invisible cage, unable to be seen or call for help. However, at any level, there is never any physical pain or discomfort. Objects, oddly, are hardly affect by his nimbus at all; at low levels there is no perceivable change, though at high levels smaller objects take on a slight malevolence.

Awakened: 1918

Initial Master: Xing-Zu Lao (NPC Apostate), Deceased

Current Master: None

Current Apprentice: None

Alignment: Dedicated Apostate

The Lament of Wallace Sheersmith

Childhood

This is OOC knowledge presented to give other players a feel for the character, and should not be considered known in game.

Wallace was a curious fellow of the young age of 16, and was, unknowingly, what some call a Sleepwalker.

He was always exploring: old buildings, sneaking into private clubs, or delving into caves where he could steal away with his beau beyond the watchful eyes of his parents.

Wally's life was changed one day upon spying something different while visiting the upper stories of an abandoned work-site: two men appear out of thin air, bloody and wounded. The first man waved his hand, and they were both enveloped with a gentle glow of light, leaving them free of all wounds. In great astonishment, and with a wry stealth befitting his youth, he trailed after those queer men, to an eldritch house uptown. Stealing into their yard, ensconced in the hedgerow for they of an hour of more, he finally observed three men depart from the house, including the two he had marked before. Despite his better judgment, Wally slinked around the house turned aside the lock with artful skill, pressing the cellar door open just enough to slip through and not a hair more.

Now finding himself in the cellar, he observed his environment, illumined only by the gaslight from the street; shining eerily into the window upon the ground level. To his right against the far wall was stationed an old, oaken cabinet, exhibiting mastery of art with its ornate glass frontispiece. There inside he spied all manner of wondrous things, though his reverie was intruded shortly by a subtle susurrus, a whisper, a stalling silence only. In hesitation he stayed his hand, rooting his feet momentarily, stopped in fear, and waited, and waited still, for silence and nothing more. Presently, he steeled his resolve once more, and pressed on; passed many objects of uncanny design, and in four dangerous steps arrived before the cabinet.

A subtle touch and the latch yielded easily and there inside the trove of wonders contended for his attention: rings, pendants, quills, crowns, puppets, glasses; all of apparent normalcy, but something spoke to him of a deceit worked here; a clever lie, a wonderful trick, an irresistible danger. Moments passed and Wally had scarce realised he had adorned a deep black ring, covered in queer markings; upon his finger it was arrayed in such natural fashion it was undoubtedly his possession ever more. Next, a bracelet of silver worked with deceptively simple lines that belied the complexity of its form.

A truth then revealed, and Wally eyes were opened. The trinkets no longer appealed, no longer called unto his avarice, but instead defined by malevolence instead. At their heart, lay one ponderous pendant, which seemed to seethe a quiet loathing at his person.

Unbidden came the imperative: "Try it on."

In trepidation, Wally spun a most ungainly pirouette, only to find himself confronted by the very man he had marked before, who had rendered the light fantastic on his brethren. Uncertainty gripped him, knowing not whether to sue for clemency, stuck as he was in a most dire rictus of terror, and issuing only few scant nonsense for his efforts.

Then, with one wholly dreadful gaze, a slow, cold, sneer exuding from his face; recalling in uncanny fashion the disposition of the pendant. Unbidden came the imperative once more: "Try it on, I insist."

Still uncertain, still petrified, Wally mustered sufficient reserve to lay grip upon the ring and sought its removal; trembling efforts exacted a price of blood and pain, for the ring now cinched his finger, as surely as the bracelet clasped fast his wrist. Exchanging glances between the elder man and doleful pendant he sought to resist the inevitable as that dreadful man intruded upon his person, with slow, important, icy condescension exacted with a smile that offered no warmth, and a voice of unnatural sonance.

Unbidden came the imperative, in final command: "Put on the pendant!"

Now Wally comprehends that acrid smell, that stench of a man having soiled himself; for the shadows behind that dreadful man distended themselves like wings. His consciousness fled himself, his body following the doom that had befallen him and reached forth for the pendant. Then turning back, face filthy from snot and tears, the man finally seems satisfied and issues a single nod, proclaiming his doom.

The pendant slips over his neck like a chain, and for one empty, yawning moment, his breath seized, nothing transpired. Then fear sets in, and Wally remembers to exhale. Then fear sets in, and Wall that he cannot, for his ghost has long escaped him. Then the fear sets in, and the thudding sound of his meat falls to the floor. For all his mind is screaming, for all his eyes are pleading, no expression issues forth from that vacuous throat to declare his state. Death befalls him, and steals even that fading light from his eyes.

Cold Awakening

This is OOC knowledge presented to give other players a feel for the character, and should not be considered known in game.

Waking in darkness, in coldness, and in bittersweet remorse, Wally suddenly becomes keenly aware of moments, things lurking beyond what phantom perceptions he now possessed: rising stairs, gleaming windows, thunder strikes, the clack of some cloven foot, the rake of talons upon stone.

With what strength he could muster, Wally lent wings to his feet, fleeing madness down twisted corridors, across open plain beneath delirious sky, and ever sensing the aspect of a predator behind him. Hearing the command to run, and run farther.

His flight is stayed as his right hand plunges into some puddle of molten iron, and again his cry is denied by a throat seized in pain. Some prescient wisdom bides his tongue, for he feels the predator looming behind him, before his mind escapes once more.

Again, Wally rouses to consciousness. Before him stands the behemoth; a mass of teeth, claws, and eyes. Its gaze, so much like the elder man's, accuses him of failure, and conveys to him some deep disappointment that the flight has so quickly ended.

The question poses itself in his mind, wondering where he stands. Yet, before they might articulate themselves, those eyes demand of him his silence, that he might entreat the question in silent communion.

Ideas pass between the two, and Wallace learns that the apparent danger abound is false, but that the true danger lies in failing to comprehend. There is a terrible secret about him, one hidden in the labyrinth of painful angles, of unnatural lines, and most importantly, the impossible twisted tower looming of all things.

Wallace knows that the feasting will begin, and agreement passes swiftly between beast and mortal: the beast falls upon his phantom body, and gorges itself on his tender morsels. Now detached, feeling pain and base emotion sundered from him in this act, and knowing only his mind and the gauntlet of iron that assumes his hand. Naked, he issues a command to his daimon to lead on.

The path before him clear, all illusion turned aside and presented before the black iron edifice that mars the sky. There is blood, there is pain, and there is screaming, but all is naught but haunting refrain casting the tower in its most ideal construction. With iron-clad hand, Wallace leaves his signature in the metal, a token of his coming and his departure.

Once more, communion passes between beast and mage: it offers service in exchange for an opportunity to depart. An accord is struck between beast and master.

The land falls away beneath him, and an implacable abyss opens wide. Like the flushing of a drain, the mage falls into darkness, into heavy substance once more, and into his fundamental body. Yet echoing through his mind he hears some constant command; run.

Eternal Prision

This is OOC knowledge presented to give other players a feel for the character, and should not be considered known in game.

Psychic Projections can not be seen my spirits, ghosts, or any being in Twilight, only spells such as Sense Consciousness can perceive their presence. Wallace was truly isolated, imprisoned, with only the tenuous contact (clues, never answers) of the demon from his Awakening. However the demon was his demon, and in its own way guided Wallace in his ordeal, just enough to build on the supernal knowledge of what he had brought back from Pandemonium.

The demon hinted at Wally being more than dead, but not a ghost, and subtly laid the path to greater power and understanding of the mind. However the powers he had rough control of gave him nothing more than more ways to view the world he could not interact with. He could see Ghosts, Spirits in Twilight, and the world around him; but he isolated, a prisoner. He could force words into the mind of others, but this served little than to make people afraid, and while he could see many, he could not grant others the power to see him. Years past with increasing insanity, losing grasp on his past and the world, but in his insanity, so the laws of the Supernal became easier to understand.

In time the mind that was no longer Wallace, was able to cause others to see him, but shattered as he was the interactions were never positive; but he learned to live in dreams. Places of warped interaction, but interactions no the less. Soon dreamscapes were more reality to him/she/it, than the Fallen World.

More years and then It could take people. Enter their minds and take the lives of humans and animals. It could force things of twilight to see it and force their companionship and company; madly grasping at being see, known, loved and some form of living. It would take peoples lives for years forging itself from the ID and Ego; becoming them and living.

It was during this time than an apostate named Xing-Zu Lao finally noticed him, while he was living a life as a wolf pack. The pack behaving in unnaturally unison draw his attention. Xing-Zu Lao was a solitary mage, ignorant of the great war of the Pentacle and Seers, in the Himalayas, a wise man of his remote village. Lao was also a skilled Astral Traveler and Taoist.

Lao laid a trap and captured the mind, sensing its great distress and damaged state, preparing a place where he would be safe if the powerful mind lashed out. With the mind subdued, he took it to his hut and entered the Astral and navigated his way to the mad oneiros of the lost mind.

The Lone Master

This is knowledge that can be known in game if a character has met Xiao.

Over the course of years Xing-Zu Lao soothed and healed the mind, educating it to what it was, but never able to located the body from which it was separated; it seemly being behind wards, shielded from the perceptions of time, and his own fate too tangled to be of any help. Over time the mind came to know itself as Xing-Zu Xiao, it's past lost, taking the name of the man that saved him. Never shaped or maliciously influenced by Lao, simply guided back from madness.

Unable to reunite Xiao with his body, Lao taught him the ways of the Astral. Opening an infinite world to Xaio in which he could exist and be known. The Astral became Xiao's home, and surviving such a place second nature; his Astral knowledge nearly unparalleled, in time surpassing even that of Lao. Further Xiao came to know the Spirits and to respect them and walk amongst their number, The Shadow becoming more familiar to him that the Material world that shaped it. He spent time with his Master's Lu and learnt the ways of the Celestial Court, so that he could petition them and spend time with their number.

In time Lao, unlike Xiao, grew old and passed away. Xiao made it know in the villagers' dreams and appeared in mourning before the Celestial Court. Soon the villagers had turned Lao's hut into a small shrine and with little to hold him to the Fallen World, Xiao took to the Astral; seeking the pardon the the Celestial Court and gifting them the Place of Power that was Lao's hut.

A New Life

This is knowledge that can be known in game if a character has met Xiao.

Xiao constructed a home for himself in his Oneiros, a modest house in the small mountain village that is the metaphor of his soul, that backs onto a vast imposing mountain, that no villager evere traverses. He came to know himself in that village, but in time knew that to live here would risk pure stagnation, they way of the Morpheans.

From there he started to explore the Temenos creating a small junket on a floating section of river, just long enough to hold the boat, it was on this junket he sailed over the years all the way to The Ocean Oroboros and gave up his madness (and with it the memories of the isolated days that broke him and his mortal life) to the lapping waves of Dragon-Blood. He has attended the Courts of the Aeons', staying his welcome and no more, offering to each a favor for his stay- something that he can do in Fallen Realm for them as thanks. But there is only so much time that can be spent to deep in the Astral and the Citadels are no place to live, and the shore of the Oroboros no place to wander too long.

It was on return to the Tremnos he was brought a ticket for the Midnight Train; riding it through all realms, greeting and conversing with its passengers. As time went by he left the train less and less; choosing to stay on board; enjoying the stability and protection it afforded. Hosting gods and demons, archetypes and wanderers, nightmares and dreams, in his private chambers exchanging conversations and experience. He has collected much over the course of his travels and had even met and exchanged very real experience with Morpheans. As he explored the realms he discovered and traded items and wonders, taking them back and using Mind to make them permanent parts of his Oneiros; filling his home in the village a thousand times over, the inside ever growing larger till it looked more like an infinite ancient trinket shop than a home, with a small clean room in the attic for if he wished to rest.

Not given to simple conversation, and the passengers on The Midnight Train often being more than single minded creations, he took to creating for them; shaping the stuff of the Astral into trinkets and items of the experience others shared with him. Items that carried the weight of changed ideas and growth. Trinkets of protection for travelers going places he knew were dangerous. The exchange was always the currency of the Astral, things of importance; from stories, to memories, objects from the Fallen World, or simple ideas. Xiao was not a malicious Fae style trader; he would not ask more than could be afforded, and never something that would endanger a traveler. On occasion others would request more of him, a service beyond the comfort of the train; to act as a guide through the Whorl or other such place, sometimes to aid in the stabilization of a Madness Realm, or help bring peace to warring factions of a realm. However, he would always draw the line at helping in a battle. He would broker peace, or claim a storm, but never take a side.

Xiao has a very fluid opinion on things, changing his attributes and skills depending on whom he is talking to so he can better understand their view, and provide challenging, but non-offensive conversation. Using memory holes to block out prejudices and coming to deeply understand Wisdom/Morality is very much a trait of the human soul; and not something to be enforced onto the greater realms. He views his own personal Wisdom as a simple fact, no more that a limb of the soul. Something not to live by, but to be aware of. Though in saying that, speaking with myriads of beings has cause him to be more sympathetic than callous; taking an 'each to their own' point of view.

His fluidity of personality, ability to understand any point of view, and power to posses any trait beyond human comprehension, he became a favored passenger of The Midnight Train. A collector and trader of stories, items, points of view, and knowledge. Xiao became known as a citizen of the Astral, content in a home of infinite possibilities and tales; with the warped time of the Astral granting him the perception of a thousand lives.

That was until he met a fellow mage. That changed everything...

Tea With The Little Dragon

Quotes By Xiao

Please add a quote here-

• 'Being here as long as I have you realise you're a small fish in a big pond, a big fish in a small pond, far more worthless than you think, with far more power than you can imagine.'
• 'Your 'Wisdom' is merely a mechanism of the human soul, an abstention of those thing the souls of man deeply and collectively chose to be repulsed by.'
• 'If you would like to believe a different point of view for this discussion; just let me know.'
• 'I won't raise a claw against the Seers, that is your war. I will, however, help you in your endeavours to enlighten and discover.'
• 'If it is a simply anomaly, it would be nice to learn more. If it might spread suffering, it would be nice to do more than learn.'
• 'You're nature is my compass, if you meditate on it you will find a better answer than I could provide. For existing out side dreams, yes, but not in the direction you do, though I can, but not in away you would approve.'

Quotes About Xiao

• "Run little mage" - Demon of Pandemonium
• "Now there's a riddle is every I heard one" - Odin

Rumours

• The subjective length of Xiao's life is measured in millennia due to his time spent in the deep Astral.
• He has, more than once, worked with Seers.
• Xiao's body is currently locked away in a Seer archive, somewhere.
• He has been completely mad, several times, but not currently.
• His fate is so polluted and tangled by a curse that he cannot be directly affected by Fate magic; for good or ill.
• He has the ability to manifest items and whole sections of the Astral in the material world.
• Xiao gave away much more than he realises to the Ocean Oroboros.

Inspirations and Soundtrack

OOC Info

Member Information
Player:	Symon
Number:	AU200605003
Domain:	Sydney

• A work in progress until the start of chronicle.