Takeshi is a middle-aged Easterner with the typical slightly tanned complexion of the coast and thick dark-brown hair, flecked with errant red and iron-grey.
stuff! also things! including bestest magistrate evar, ambassador to the nicer fair folk, seasonal-faerie girlfriend, sidereal buddy, Black-Jade Raiton, burying of treasures with more-or-less loyal godlings, funky golden crane iconic aura, and emo "I punish the world by robbing them of myself!" antics.
Takeshi was born in a farming village in one of Calin's northern valleys to a pair of fairly prosperous farmers. He flourished in the idyllic rural environment and grew up quick and clever. Things changed in the year of his fifteenth harvest when the Shogun transferred the governance of his prefecture to a different house. Fuelled by a powerful desire to buy her way to success in Calin's Great Game the new prefect increased the taxation on the whole prefecture, using the proceeds to purchase support at court back in the capital. The towns and villages of the prefecture, including Takeshi's, bore the burden stoically - until drought struck and the villagers had to starve in order to meet their obligations. Pleas and petitions from the hard-pressed farmers of the region brought no relief; while the prefect feted her supporters in Port Calin, the farmers slowly began to eat their seed grain.
Filled with anger at his parents' meek acceptance of this manifestly unjust situation, Takeshi left his family home and took to the hills with a group of angry young men and women from neighbouring villages. With his band Takeshi began to steal from grain stores in neighbouring valleys, bringing the grain back to his home village and distributing it to the farmers. The villagers shook their heads at the offences of their young people, but they gladly ate the grain all the same. These acts of dubious charity continued until a scale of professional troops from the house militia arrived and established themselves in the area. With their thieving now much harder, Takeshi and his fellows retreated higher into the hills, where they encountered other - more experienced - bandits. There was a confrontation, and some deaths, before Takeshi persuaded the leader of the bandits - a battered ex-soldier named One-Eyed Shark - to allow the young folk to join her band. Takeshi and his comrades now embarked on a life of more traditional crime, stealing from the rich merchants for themselves. It was at this time that Takeshi developed his taste for luxury, revelling a little in his roll as a cunning rogue - however, to this very day, he sincerely regrets many of his misdeeds during part of his life and, in part, his near-poverty lifestyle is a kind of personal atonement for his indulgence of his youthful appetites.
Takeshi's life of criminal excess came to an end after a few short years. The ambitions of the wastrel prefect came to nothing, and the Shogun stripped her house of the patronage of the prefecture and bestowed it upon a rival. The new prefect was much more attentive to his new lands. At the head of nearly two dragons of crack house troops and accompanied by the famed Terrestrial magistrate Akiko the Azure Crane he marched into the heart of One-Eyed Shark's hills and began to establish armed camps. Once these bases were properly fortified talon-sized bodies of troops began to scour the hills, driving the bandits back to their final redoubt.
One-Eyed Shark's final stand was epic and bloody. Her hand-picked bodyguard fought to the last, and the prefect's troops paid a heavy toll in lives that day. In the end though One-Eyed Shark lay defeated; her remaining eye destroyed by Akiko and her flashing blue jade sword. The surviving brigands, including young Takeshi, were bound and forced to kneel before the magistrate and await their fate. The magistrate's mercy was scarce that evening, and only a few of the young brigands were spared. These lucky handful were cut free and lined up again; each was branded on the shoulder with a sign to note their offence against the prefect's laws before being sent stumbling off into the sunset. When Takeshi's turn came, he was not freed. Akiko, unsheathing her sword from its exquisite scabbard, ordered the bewildered young man to accompany her. Walking with the magistrate, alone in the twilight, Takeshi was soon to be further amazed. As the pale noblewoman spoke to him, she explained that she had discerned something worthwhile in him - and that she might make use of this, if he sought to atone for his misdeeds. Takeshi, stammering, agreed and Akiko, with a sweep of her sword, cut a line through the fresh brand on his shoulder. With that, Takeshi become one of Akiko's archons.
For years Takeshi accompanied the elegant Air Exalt on her peregrinations. Akiko taught him her skills, the sword and the eye, and he took them up avidly. He became a constant companion over these years; growing in skill, learning humility, and awakening his deep personal sense of justice. Seeing this, Akiko spoke with him often on the importance of such things, of the duty of the strong and the wise, and of the peril that she felt the world inexorably slipping towards. Takeshi heard her well, transfixed by her words as much as her voice. As Takeshi grew to greater maturity, Akiko changed little, and Takeshi came to possess great, if unspoken, love for his magistrate. Akiko - who cared for her charge, the young man had grown to be her companion and bannerman - never reciprocated Takeshi's feelings to the same degree. Takeshi resolved to admire his dear mistress, but kept a wall about his heart to spare their friendship from what might have unendurable tension.
The partnership was successful beyond measure though and Akiko's investigatory skill and martial prowess were in great demand. As the years rolled by the pair developed quite a reputation in Calin and the adjacent lands: the beautiful pale blue princess, with her eyes of living ice and her blade of cerulean jade; and the heavy-browed yojimbo at her back, frowning and wary, his voice cheerful rumble or a fearsome roar.
It was while investigating the disappearance of several young women in one of Calin's eastern prefectures that the partnership was ended, and Takeshi's life forever changed. The two had determined that each of the women had been last seen near a forest of poor repute and had gone to investigate, expecting a monster, a ghost, or an ill-disciplined godling. They found a terror instead. The forest itself seemed to strike at them, and the local troops accompanying them were slain in a single horrible instant as they drowned screaming in a storm of leaves that seemed to drink the blood from their bodies even as they crammed themselves into the unfortunates' mouths. A tall figure emerged from the darkness of the forest and approached the two survivors, the magistrate and her yojimbo, and unleashed a laugh of heart-rending bitterness. The figure, apparently addressing Takeshi, criticised him for his lack of devotion, and informed him that if his table was to be kept so poorly then it was his fault if his guests felt the pangs of hunger. Takeshi's confusion and his reply served only to anger the creature which shrilly denounced him, saying that the punishment for his infidelity was to be cruel but that he should take some joy in knowing that at least he might now prove a better host. With those strange words said, the creature cut Akiko to her very heart and the beauteous magistrate died with a widening of her eyes and a single gasp for breath. With the awful laughter of the retreating creature echoing through the forest, Takeshi took up the body of his beloved mistress and fled.
At the edge of the accursed place, he stared at her lifeless face and squeezed her cold hand. His emotions welled in him, warring with each other. When he looked up again he called out with his heart and pledged not revenge, but justice. Takeshi swore to take up Akiko's burden and to not let her work go undone.
As the last breath of his pledge left his body, Takeshi felt a warmth welling within his body. The sensation grew, becoming first a fire in his chest, then seemingly rising to his crown. He perceived a brightness, then a burning in his heart, then in his mind, then in his very soul. Waves of essence, more powerful than he had ever experienced, surged through him. He felt that power burst from his body, he saw the light shining from his skin, he could taste the incense smoke charging the air around him. The awesome presence of the Sun filled Takeshi utterly and he knew that his pledge had been heard, and that he had been granted the means to make good on it.
When dawn came the next day, Takeshi loaded his teacher's body onto their horses and rode to Port Calin. When the funeral and the mourning was over, Takeshi - through the intercession of Akiko's relatives - received an audience with the Shogun. The stern-faced former-yojimbo kneeled before the Shogun and asked to be made a magistrate in Akiko's stead. His impassioned words and earnest demeanour touched the hearts of the Shogun - and also of his chief ministers - and Takeshi left the chamber that day as a magistrate, with Akiko's own white jade seal of office fixed to his chest.
Takeshi, knowing something of the treatment due Anathema, resolved to keep his powers hidden and to do his duty while keeping a low profile. His humble and direct resolution of the problems he encounter - of all the problems, and not just those of the wealthy and powerful - began to have its effect though. Within months the peasantry and the urban poor alike were talking of Takeshi the Arrow, the unerringly direct magistrate who sought justice without regard for status, blood, or coin. Takeshi's fame began to grow.
Drawn by this fame, many sought to become his archons, but all were rebuffed. Another was drawn by the tales of Takeshi's deeds too, a small god, Black-and-White-Jade Raiton. The Raiton recognised a pattern long unseen in Takeshi, that of a hero it had known in the First Age. The Raiton came upon Takeshi, surprising him as only a giant talking magpie god could. That first meeting was not as warm as the Raiton had hoped, but its suspicions were correct; Takeshi did bear the signs of its old comrade. The Raiton led Takeshi to its hidden sanctum and presented him with ancient arms, a sword and armour, and an apology. It had suffered in the Fall too, and its power had been reduced; it failed in its pledge to the hero-that-was and lost part of his regalia to thieves while it had been weak. The new Age, of seeking and finding treasures, had brought more prayers to gods of its type though, and it pledged anew to the hero-that-is to help him recover his panoply. Takeshi, stunned at the revelations and the gifts, accepted the Raiton's pledge.
Now, armed with a strangely familiar white-gold sword and carefully painted golden armour, Takeshi continued his work. His experience grew and his honed his skills carefully. His powers were left undeveloped though, despite the Raiton's encouragements to use them. Afraid of discovery and the terror it might bring to those around him, Takeshi drew on his essence as little as possible and so it remained weak like a limb long-unexercised.
Takeshi avoided the court too, while he could, seeing in the aristocrats the memory of his beloved teacher. It was on a rare visit to the palaces of Port Calin that Takeshi met another like him... T.'s character
Horsey dude - C.'s character?
Gunslinger dude - G.'s character?