RPG Archives ad20 - Horatio Hua Li

Horatio Hua Li

Alrighty, I was going to wait for the great BMS to answer my earlier questions, but I'm in a bad mood right now and only playing with my character will cool me down, so here's the new char. Any problems, let me know so I can fix them.

Name: Horatio Hua Li
Race: Human
Age: 23
Class: Shapechanger
Attack Bonus: +0
Armor Class: +4 (dex)
Hit Points: 8/8
Energy Points: 2/2

Ability Scores: Saves:
STR 12 (+1)
DEX 18 (+4) Reflex: +4 (+4 dex, +0 base)
CON 10 (0) Fortitude: +2 (+0 con, +2 base)
INT 14 (+2)
WIS 12 (+1) Willpower: +0 (+0 wis, +0 base)
CHA 22 (+6)

Skills:
Bluff (fast-talk, misdirection, misleading body language) +10 (4 ranks, +6 cha)
Disguise (impersonation) +10 (4 ranks, +6 cha)
Escape Artist (restraints) +5 (1 rank, +4 dex)
Knowledge: Cultural Arts (literature) +3 (1 ranks, +2 int)
Seduction (female) +8 (2 ranks, +6 cha)
Sleight of Hand (stage magic) +7 (3 ranks, +4 dex)
Sense Motive (speech) +2 (1 ranks, +1 wis)
Speak Language (English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish)

Special: Alternate Form (cosmetic changes) Level 0
Attributes: Regeneration (2 ranks, cost 4/rank), Art of Distraction (4 ranks, cost 1/rank)
Defects: Guy/Girl Magnet (1 rank), Vulnerability (3 ranks, cannot use Regeneration when touching metal), Nemesis (3 ranks, see background), Recurring Nightmares (1 rank)
Feats: Brawl, Block Ranged Attacks

 

Weee! Long story!

Horatio Hua Li was born in Canada, the child of a poor Chinese stunt man and a Canadian artist. He lived in an undisclosed Canadian metropolis for most of his life. As a teenager, his parents split up, in part because his father could not make a decent wage in Canada, but was offered a job by a cousin in the directing business in Hong Kong. Hua Li still lived with his mother for years to come. Just after the divorce, Hua Li took a job helping out backstage with a stage magician’s show, making a bit of money to help his mother out. It was discovered that he had a natural talent for the art of deception, and he was offered a job on-stage with his boss, the legendary performer “The Great Reynaldo”. Stage magic became an obsession for Hua Li, and he was always ridiculed for his love of cheap card tricks and sawing people inside boxes in half, but he didn’t care. He vowed to some day have his own show, to travel the world, and to create a name for himself in the entertainment industry.
After graduating from high school, Hua Li did end up starting his own show in his hometown, and tales of the rivalries between his own performances and those of his mentor are the stuff of legends, mostly because Hua Li got beaten so badly whenever they would compete. He had a definite passion for what he did, and knew how to do just about all the Great Reynaldo’s tricks, but his performances seemed to lack something. It seemed Hua Li was having a run of bad luck, and people eventually stopped coming to see his shows, as the Great Reynaldo was just a better performer. The bad luck continued, for in that same year Hua Li’s mother contracted a strange illness and died a few months later. Now with no place to live and no job, Hua Li was faced with a decision: either give up his dream of having his own show, or find a way to Hong Kong to try to get help from his estranged father. His mother had always drilled into him the importance of having a dream, so he decided to try to scrape together the cash for a plane ticket.
It was no surprise that Hua Li didn’t have the money. He needed to find a way to get to Hong Kong, and he had an idea. He took to the roads, hitchhiking across the country, exchanging cheap tricks and minor amusements for passage and repast along the way. Eventually, he fell in with a travelling circus that was in need of an assistant for their magic act, “The Amazing Lamia”. He agreed to travel with them for a while. Working so closely with Lamia, the two became very close, and eventually their relationship took on some very unprofessional undertones. Some of the tricks Lamia did onstage Hua Li could not understand, not even with all his experience in the artificial magic industry. She explained everything as “just another trick” or “simply something she could do”, but he always thought she was hiding something from him.
One evening, after a performance, Hua Li walked into Lamia’s trailer to tell her that he had finally made enough money for his trip to Hong Kong. He wanted to ask her to come with him. Entering the bedroom of the trailer, Hua Li saw the most horrifying sight he could imagine: Lamia’s body lay on the bed, strangled, the neck crushed, and strange symbols burned all over her body. At that moment, the manager of the circus entered, looking for Hua Li. He saw the young performer standing over Lamia’s body, staring blankly, and got the wrong idea, thinking that whatever had happened had been done by our hero. Before Hua Li could explain anything, the manager had run out to gather the other performers. He had no choice but to run. He didn’t want to face an angry mob, much less a mob of his angry friends and co-workers.
Escaping at last and stumbling into town, to the nearest airport, Hua Li bought his plane ticket managed to get away. Safe on the plane, he thought he finally would have a chance to try to sort things out. He had no idea what had just happened. All he knew is that the woman he loved was dead, and that everyone he knew thought that he had killed her. He succumbed to a restless sleep during the flight, only to be tormented by a horrible dream.
In his dream, a figure which could only be described as demonic stood before him, it’s thousand faces grinning maliciously. “I did it!” hissed the demon. “I killed her!” Of course, being a mostly-rational person, Hua Li decided that this was only a dream, and the stress was just getting to him.
Finally arriving in Hong Kong, after much searching, Hua Li found his father. In a grave yard. It turned out that he had died a year ago in an accident during the filming of an action movie while performing a difficult stunt. Overcome with grief, as all he had ever know, his mother, the woman he loved, and now even his absentee father, had all been taken away from him. Everything seemed to point to one thing: Hua Li was completely screwd.
Spending that night on a park bench, Hua Li had another dream, much the same as the last one. This time, the thousand-faced demon was laughing, saying “Guess what? I killed him, too!” Hua Li was getting really annoyed now. “Who the hell are you?” He yelled, but then he woke up.
Similar dreams haunted Hua Li for weeks as he struggled just to get by in an unfamiliar place. Eventually, he had managed to get a small job working in a tiny little bar playing the piano for a Spanish singer who seemed horribly outclassed in that dump. The singer, who was as Lia Voz, seemed to take a shine to Hua Li, the two really hit it off. For a time the nightmares left, and he nearly forgot about the whole incident with Lamia. The two were poor, and barely managing on the low wages they earned at the bar, but they were happy together.
Of course, given the way things for Hua Li seemed to always go, this happiness couldn’t last long. About a year later, a large quantity of alcohol spilled on the bar, and caught a spark from a customer’s cigarette. The old building caught fire quickly. By some miracle, Hua Li survived, but no one else made it out of the blaze. Even Hua Li had been burned to a crisp, and had to stay in a hospital for weeks before he was fine again. During this time, he had yet another of his dreams.
“Figured it out yet?” the demon said. “I killed them all, too.”
“You bastard!” Hua Li exclaimed. “If I ever find out what you are ... you’re dead!”
“So, I still haven’t broken you, have I?” came the reply. “Well, maybe this time you’ll learn.”
Hua Li woke up, finding himself face to face with a beautiful nurse who was changing the dressing on one of his burns. They began to talk, and once again became involved over time. Then, on the day Hua Li was to be released from the hospital, the nurse caught an illness from one of the patients and died a week later.
This time, the dream was different. The demon just laughed and said “You’re mine!”
Seeking answers to what was going wrong with him, his mind, his life, everything, Hua Li found himself at a church or temple or something like that. The priest, after speaking with Hua Li for several hours, determined that he was possessed by Yi Qian, a demonic spirit of some kind of evil. The exorcism would be painful, but there was no other alternative.
Hours later, the exorcism was about complete. Hua Li lay naked on a small, cold, wooden table, odd symbols painted on his chest, forehead and hands. The priest stood above him, muttering in a forgotten language. With a final yell, the priest plunged his hands into Hua Li’s chest. Oddly, the flesh seemed to open up on its own, and out the body the priest pulled a large, spectral figure with one thousand faces.
“Demon, begone!” the priest yelled plainly in Chinese. “I cast you back from where you came!”
The demon wailed as it plunged down to a burning ring of fire that lit up around the table. Finally, it seemed that Hua Li’s misfortune would be over. He fell unconscious on the table, succumbing to a relieved sleep.
Awakening several hours later, the priest greeted Hua Li with a solemn expression. “There has been a problem with the exorcism,” the priest said. “I mispronounced one of the incantations, and part of the demon has been left inside of you.” Hua Li was about to say something, but the priest cut him off. “I assure you, you will see no ill effects. In fact, the result could be quite beneficial. For example ...”
The priest grabbed a knife from a rack on the wall and plunged it into Hua Li’s arm. The young man screamed in pain, but after the knife was removed, he noticed that the wound seemed to close on its own. He later learned that the “thousand faces” were within him as well, and he could make minor changes to his exterior. He was annoyed with the priest for not putting him back together properly, but the fact that he now possessed an actual magic of his own thrilled him. Maybe he could finally start his own show. And he was just glad to be rid of the demon. The priest just neglected to tell him one thing ...
Over a year later, in his dressing room off the set of his new small-time magic show at a tiny club in a more respectable area, Hua Li decided to take a little nap after his last show of the night. He was shocked to find Yi Qian in his dream again.
“Thought you got rid of me, did you?” the demon seemed more human now. Instead of having one thousand faces, it’s face just kept changing rapidly. “Well, your little priest was a moron! Instead of banishing me, he just confined me into a human body!” Then Hua Li recognized a series of faces that shot past: his mother, his father, Lamia, Lia Voz and the nurse. “I’m coming to get you, you charlatan! I’ll show you some real magic you won’t soon forget. And then, when my powers are mine again, I’ll destroy you, and all who you have ever laid eyes on!”

 

The rest of the story

Hua Li woke up. He knew this time that the dreams were real, not just a by-product of stress. He asked his manager for some time off. Reluctantly, he gave the performer a sabbatical leave, telling him to take as much time as he needed. He knew that if Hua Li asked for time away from the job he had always dreamed of it had to be serious.
Hua Li figured he’d flee to a place no one would ever look for him. He headed for Japan, a completely random country he had never even thought of visiting. Renting a small apartment using a fake name, Hua Li began to look for a new job to get him by, hoping his life would just stop being so much like the imported cartoons he’d watched as a kid.

You should have known better than telling me to write something.

 

Phys and Pers

Description: In his normal form, Hua Li is an extremely attractive man, chiseled features, finely-tuned body, the whole nine yards. He has fairly pale skin, black hair and very deep brown eyes. His hair is cut short, in a very trendy manner. He wears stylish clothing whenever he can afford it. When performing, he is almost guaranteed to be in a tuxedo with a red-trimmed black cape and a top hat, with white gloves and a long black cane. He always prefers elegance, a sign of his profession. His nails are always neatly trimmed, his hair is always flawlessly combed, and his clothing is always free of wrinkles, lint or any other possible defect. He is obsessed with looking his best.

Personality: Hua Li is always worried about being alone, and as such tends to cling to people at times. His good looks, unique style and sense of humour make him a continual target for obsessive young women. This only gets worse when people find out about his past, because then they start to pity him and want to show sympathy. He has a tendency to fall in love easily, or to think he is in love, anyway, but his relationships always seem to end in disaster, so he tries to keep his distance from romance. He wishes he could be the easy-going stage hand of his younger days, but all the trauma he has been through have kind of changed him so he’s a little paranoid at times. Nevertheless, Hua Li is a fun-loving guy who likes nothing more than a night on the town, except maybe for putting on a big show. Hua Li hates his first name, and usually introduces himself as “The Master Hua Li” or something else like that, but always only using his last name, which often leads others to believe that his first name is Hua and his last is Li. People often call him “Hua” or “Li”, and he gets a little annoyed, but after trying to explain that the whole thing is his last name unsuccessfully, he usually gives up and just accepts it.

 

Ooh! Presents!

Okay, I'll increase my Art of Distraction to 5 ranks, and I'll take one rank of Highly Skilled, giving me four additional skill points. My skills now look like this:

Skills:
Bluff (fast-talk, misdirection, misleading body language) +10 (4 ranks, +6 cha)
Disguise (impersonation) +10 (4 ranks, +6 cha)
Escape Artist (restraints) +6 (2 rank, +4 dex)
Knowledge: Cultural Arts (literature) +3 (1 ranks, +2 int)
Seduction (female) +9 (3 ranks, +6 cha)
Sleight of Hand (stage magic) +8 (4 ranks, +4 dex)
Sense Motive (speech) +3 (2 ranks, +1 wis)
Speak Language (English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish)

I was debating just upping my Art of Distraction to six ranks, but distracting 200-1000 people seems a bit out of Hua Li's league at this point.

 

Oh, and it occured to me today that I didn't give the specifics of my alternate form. Should I list that here?

 

Alternate Forms:
Level 0 (cosmetic form) - “Xu Qian”
This form is a composite of all the victims of Yi Qian the demon. It is as though the best features of all the victims were combined. The result is a stunningly attractive woman in her mid-twenties. She has dark hair, a bit longer than shoulder length, with a trace of red-gold. She is shorter than Hua Li himself, and appears to be in better physical shape (i.e. leaner, more finely-toned). Her features should probably be mostly Asian, for although Yi Qian did not limit himself to Chinese murders, he is of Chinese origin himself, and would have preferred these features when forming this image.
Of course, Hua Li uses this form and calls himself his own lovely assistant as a result, and claims to be able to perform both the roles of the magician and assistant at the same time. Whether or not this is true has never been proven ...