Jody Yu

ATTRIBUTES

DOB: 16 January, 1973
Place of Birth: San Fransisco, California
Date of Awakening: 9 February, 1993
Foci: Calligraphy (Time). Chanting (Mind), Bone Wand (Spirit; Unique Foci. The wand is made out of the fibula of her past life's body)
Resonance: Dynamic 1 (Juxtaposed)
Wits Specialty: Level-Headed
Mentor: Jody’s mentor and Cheng Li's student in San Fransisco, Shen Long is still in occassional contact with Jody, and does what he can to help...unfortunately, being on the opposite side of the United States, there’s not always a lot he can do to help.
Intolerance: Euthanatos (1 pt. Flaw): Jody is caught up in the enmity her past incarnation, Cheng Li, held for the Euthanatos. As close as she is to Cheng Li, she shares the opinion, though she rationalizes it as her own opinion that Euthanatos disrupt the cycle of life. Actually, it is kind of her opinion, even if it’s his, so there you go.
Languages: English, Mandarin, Japanese, Cantonese, Spanish (Mandarin learned in multi-lingual family and SF Chinatown as a kid, Japanese & Cantonese learned with Kannagara, Spanish learned in Meadow Green)

Description: 
Small and innocuous...those would be the first words many would use to describe Jody. Standing at 5’4”, and weighing nary more then 110 pounds, her racially mixed blood is obvious, with a strong hint of Asian features and coloring in her otherwise Caucasion face. Her ebony hair is cut short, making her look much younger then her 32 years of age. She’s dressed in a white button-down shirt, khaki cargo pants, and a comfortable, worn-in pair of hiking boots, with a windbreaker over it all. Her eyes, a bright green with tiny gold flecks in them, carry a note of wisdom beyond her years, worldly knowledge, and just a touch of hesitance. Despite that, she gives a small smile in greeting to all those that she comes across, walking quietly by, barely noticed by those around her, but very aware of them. ((Arcane 2))

Weapons:
None

Equipment:
Her bone wand, fashioned from the fibula of her previous incarnation's remains
Clothes
The Concerto Club

History:
On January 16, 1973, the world welcomed Jody Yu into its embrace. It wasn’t the first time...but we’ll get to that. Her parents, a second-generation Chinese-American father and a Caucasian mother, were astounded by the pregnancy, as Amy Yu had been told she would never be able to have children due to complications from an automobile accident five years earlier. That fact didn’t seem to deter their child, though, and soon after Amy went into labor on a chilly January night, Jody was born.

Amy and her husband, Chan, owned a small, out-of-the-way restaurant on the edge of the Chinatown district of San Francisco. Had it been a Chinese restaurant, they may have been able to make an excellent living, attracting the tourists who wanted to get a taste of authentic Chinese cuisine without venturing into the seedier areas of the district. Amazingly, though, Chan went against that theme, instead going for a more Americanized diner. He had grown up as his parents, Chinese immigrants, struggled against much harder racism then he had to deal with, and he grew up of the opinion that his best chance at acceptance was blending in. The result was that while his restaurant didn’t fold, it didn’t do nearly as good as it could have, and life was always tight, with the Yu's living month-to-month.

From the rather odd circumstances of her birth onward, Jody was a very odd child. She had an incredibly vivid imagination, but one that drove kids away rather then attracting them, leaving her without friends. Her parents and teachers became quickly concerned with her, as she would tell stories from her daydreams about bloody wars and ancient rituals...things no child should ever be familiar with. Occasionally, she would find herself chanting in a strange language she didn’t understand.

Understandably confused and frightened, Amy and Chan sent their daughter though a series of child psychologists. They would listen as Jody told them her stories with sad smiles on their face, and then give the Yu’s their diagnosis. Recommendations ran the gamut from anti-psychotics to “giving it time,” from simple counseling to institutionalizing. The Yu’s couldn’t afford the prohibitive cost of home care and medications, and Chan simply couldn’t deal with his daughter’s fanciful visions of Eastern-themed fantasies, just the things he was trying to rid his family of. They made the more economical (and for Chan, more convenient) choice of sending her to a “mental health facility.”

Not surprisingly, things did not go well for Jody in Green Meadows Mental Health Home. The doctors tried to convince her that her fantasies were nothing more then just that, and the orderlies would make fun of the introverted adolescent. As trusting as she was, it took her about a year to learn that the more she pretended not to see things, the more she was left alone. So pretend she did. She quickly learned the tricks to avoid taking the pills given to her by the nursing staff, and eventually, she made friends among her fellow inmates, and in a strange way, Green Meadows became more of a home then home had been.

When she was 15, Jody found her world turned upside down again, as California budget cuts in social services due to the excesses of the 1980’s left Green Meadows shut down. As she had made a good go on her attempt to hide her strangeness, the decision was made to release her. Jody walked out of Green Meadows on February 19, 1988, to find no one there to pick her up. She took the bus to her old home, and was shocked to find it sold. Her parents had left without her, not even bothering to let her know or give her any way of contacting them. Jody was crushed. She had suspected something was up, since they hadn’t visited or called her for over a year, but she never thought they would abandon her. Left with no home, no family, and no friends, she quickly found herself a place to sleep in the streets, one of the forgotten children.

Jody was on the streets for almost a year. Once again, she learned very quickly how to survive, crashing with whoever she could make friends with—easier now that she hid her visions from those she met—and begging for spare change. It was a difficult life, particularly at first, but she made do, and once again, found herself a home.

In November of 1989, Jody was squatting in an abandoned shopping mall project in Oakland. She was doing okay for herself, and had almost even convinced herself what she had convinced everyone else of...that her visions weren’t real, that she didn’t have them anymore. Her dreams were just that...dreams. She wasn’t different, just forgotten. How very odd, then, for her when she passed by a Buddhist-looking temple in San Francisco and found herself humming along with the chanting coming from inside. She stopped, and listened, here eyes growing wide as she realized she recognized that chant. It was the one she used to find herself chanting when she was young. Amazed, she walked up, giving a humble bow without noticing to the statues outside the door before entering.

Inside, Jody found several men in robes, with there head shaved. Something about them was eerily familiar. She watched them as they chanted, from behind a pillar...yes, that’s it, she decided. She had dreamt of these people, or ones like them, long ago. She did have much time to think about it until she felt a hand clamp on her shoulder. She looked up in to find peaceful eyes staring down at her.

“Greetings, Revered One,” the monk said as he looked down at her. Jody’s only response was to stare back in confusion. The man smiled and extended a hand, one she found herself taking. He led her back to a small chamber, where he explained that he had been looking for her for his entire life. His name was Shen Long, and he had been a student of hers in a previous life, when she was known as Cheng Li, a Tao-shih (Do specialist) within the Akashic Brotherhood. He retrieved a bag, and gave it to her. Jody opened it up and found a collection of bones and scrolls. Shen Long watched as Jody, listening to the whispers for the first time in years, unerringly picked out the scrolls that had belonged to her in her previous life without looking at the content. Amazed, Jody listened as Shen Long explained that she was part of a long legacy within the Akashayana. He reached into the bag and pulled out a fibula, handing to her.

As Jody took the bone, her dreams became clear...her lives in the Akashayana, her accomplishments, her failures. She stayed at the temple that night, and for several years after, with her old student now tutoring her. She learned of the ways of the Akashayana Sangha, the Kannagara monastic order, of Draladharma and Akashakarma, and, of course, of Dharma. She learned how to control her Chi, and studied calligraphy. She adhered to the Kannagara’s ascetic way of life.

It wasn’t always easy, however. No matter what she was in a previous life, Jody was still a teenager, and an Americanized one at that. She found herself struggling often to reconcile her modern ways with the traditionalist beliefs of the Brotherhood. Always, Shen Long was patient, sometimes maddeningly so, letting her find her own path toward Awakening. She struggled through, failing sometimes, succeeding other times. And finally, in the first week of February in 1993, over four years from when she arrived, her mind opened, and she heard her Bodhieitta for the first time. It was the most fulfilling moment of her life.

She remained with the temple, and with Shen Long, for many years, acting as servant and master, student and advisor. Her connection to her past lives was exceptionally strong, particularly to Cheng Li, her most recent, and there were times she would even remember specific conversations between herself and her student, who was now her master.

Still, as strangely comforting as that was, she found herself trying to keep her own identity as much as possible. She wanted her enlightenment to come from this life, not from her past ones. Eventually, she came to the realization that as long as she remained with Shen Long, she would never be able to do that. With a heavy heart, she went to him, explaining this. He simply smiled and nodded, as if he expected this. Though his eyes were sad, he bid Jody goodbye, and good luck. He would always be there for her.

Jody spent the late 1990’s traveling the United States, seeking her own path. She found Akashic monasteries, and stayed with each one for a while, graciously accepting their hospitality and studying with them. It was also in her travels that she first ran afoul of the Euthanatos. Cheng Li has been an ardent opponent of the death-mages, holding the traditionalist Akashayana view that the Euthanatoi’s habit of manipulating the Great Wheel, and had found his Do skills well-tested among many of the death-mages’ ranks. As strongly connected as she was, Jody found herself sharing the opinion, rationalizing that she simply agreed that the Euthanatoi should not claim power over life and death as they do. She came afoul of a fairly advanced member of the tradition, and Adept in Entropy and Forces, and barely escaped with her life. Since then, she’s learned to keep her opinions to herself as much as possible, though her belief that the Euthanatos are to be opposed was only reinforced by the incident.

Then, finally, came the Reckoning. Jody was in Louisiana at the time, near New Orleans, and actually weathered the storm well enough, though she lost contact with several of the allies she had made. She found herself wandering her way Northeast, as if drawn that way for some reason. She has finally arrived in New York City, and is curious to see why her path has led her here. She is an entirely different person then the frightened girl that left the Mental Institution. Firmly stuck between the past and the present, accepting of both but not truly comfortable with either.

If she had long hair...