1. What clan does your character belong to?
Crow is ronin, but it’s easy enough to glean that she is Ki-Rin—by her looks and her manner.
2. What family does your character belong to?
Shinjo by blood, but she has since been stripped of that name.
3. Is your character a bushi, a shugenja, or a courtier?
Bushi.
4. How would others describe your character’s appearance?
Tall. Other characters have described her as “odd” and “handsome” and “different”—and not always a the positive way. Her features are very Ki-Rin, and her long nose and high cheeks have made her the butt of many a horse-face joke.
5. What is your character’s primary motivation?
Redemption. Both for herself and her former family, and by extension her clan. Crow struggles with an immense sense of guilt concerning rumors about the ailing state of Ki-Rin lands, as she believes they are the direct result of her own past inaction. She wants to return, right her wrongs, and confront her traitorous sister as she should have ten years ago.
6. Who is the person your character trusts most in the world?
There is no one person that Crow can call a close enough friend to trust more than anyone else. That said, Crow’s baseline level of trust for any given person is skewed—she is not terribly smart and she wants to assume the best of people, which leads to her being gullible in most circumstances.
7. What is your character’s greatest strength and weakness?
+ Compassionate, open, resilient, self-sufficient, amiable
– Reckless, gullible, depressive, impulsive, lustful
8. What does your character think of Bushido?
Jin and Rei speak to her the most, and it is by primarily these two tenets that she strives to shape her actions. Though she still reveres the concept of Bushido in its entirety, she feels that ten years as ronin has alienated her from it.
9. What is your character’s opinion of his clan?
Crow loves her clan and finds herself homesick quite often, even if they are estranged by now. This is halfway her doing, as she tends to give any Ki-Rin she encounters a wide berth, fearing that they might recognize her and confront her, forcing her to face her fears and a reality she has been avoiding for ten years.
10. Is your character married?
Who would want to marry ronin?
11. Does your character have any prejudices?
Crow can make friends with just about anyone, but she struggles with the Crane. She finds them uptight and unpleasant to be around, even if she appreciates the work of their artisans. She is also put off by the warmongering ways of the Lion.
12. To whom does your character owe the most loyalty?
The kitsune of Kitsune Mori. Several years prior, she suffered a mortal wound while confronting a band of poachers there and was nursed back to health by a kitsune woman. Her memory of this, however, is fuzzy at best — which she attributes to fever. She does not remember her name or her face, but she retains a great fondness for the foxes of the forest all the same and would go to great lengths to keep them safe.
13. What are your character’s favorite and least favorite things?
+ sake, women, horses, good conversation, animals, swordplay
– emotional confrontation, poachers, maho, antagonism
14. Does your character have any recurring mannerisms?
She runs her hand through her hair when she is nervous. She often pulls her arm from her sleeve to rest in the inner fold of her kosode (like the douchebag she is).
15. What about your character’s emotions?
For the most part Crow is a very upbeat, cheery sort of person. It’s something she keeps in check to stay aligned with Rokugani etiquette, but that is a line she toes frequently—as is likely expected, given that she is both ronin and Ki-Rin. Her heap of unresolved conflicts often gets the better of her though, and depression finds her often at night or when she’s alone. On the rare occasion that she’s pushed to her limit, she’s been known to fall into a blind rage…or two.
16. How would your character handle a subordinate’s improper behavior?
Depends on how grievous the action, but for the most part she will mind her own business. She feels that line is more blurry as a ronin.
17. How would your character’s parents describe him?
They died just before she became ronin—likely for the better, as they would only be disgusted and disappointed. Growing up, they would have described her as having great potential…if only she would focus. To their eye, her martial prowess and penchant for compassion gave her the makings of a great leader, but she was too given to indulgence to make anything of it.
18. What is your character’s highest ambition?
Peace—for herself and her clan. Once it might have been simply to enjoy life to the fullest, and that does still color her actions to an extent, but she has suffered too much emotional turmoil in her adulthood to fully prioritize it anymore.
19. How religious is your character?
It waxes and wanes depending on her emotional state. She reveres and Kami and the Fortunes but mostly assumes that they don’t want to hear from her, and that nothing she can offer them would be sufficiently pleasing. On the rare occasion, she will visit a temple or a shrine to meditate.
20. How will your character die?
Crow struggles with the lingering temptation to commit the seppuku her sister denied her, but with no second to name she has yet to be brave enough to see it through. She will likely die by taking a blow meant for someone else; her own recklessness, combined with a complete disregard for her own safety, has been the cause of almost every grievous wound she has suffered in her life.
Shadows in the West 