P L A Y E R; NAME: Ari AGE: 24 PLAYER JOURNAL: N/a TIMEZONE: Central CONTACT: plurk @ redrumreversal OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Previous Saitou player.
C H A R A C T E R; NAME: 天蓬元帥 ; Tenpou Gensui CANON: Saiyuki Gaiden POINT IN CANON: Pre-Gaiden. [Post befriending Konzen, prior to meeting Kenren] AGE: N/a ; ageless. APPEARANCE:
"A man with a beautiful face but strange behavior."
Tenpou is a tall, slender man of nondescript age with dark hair and deep thistle colored eyes. He usually has a soft expression oscillating between politely disinterested and utterly absentminded, the latter of which exacerbates his unkempt attire. If he's not clad in his military livery, he slinks around in a wrinkled labcoat and khaki trousers that may or may not have been washed within the last forty-eight hours.
Saiyuki Gaiden is set 500 years before Saiyuki Gensoumaden and details the lives of three gods in their rebellion against Heaven. How long Tenpou existed before the start of the story is unknown, though it's assumed that it must have been a very long time, as he has a truly massive library and elaborate collection of lower-world items. Travel to said mortal plane is highly restricted and only possible through a single gate in Heaven sanctioned (officially) for army assignments alone. It's the policy of the gods to minimize their interaction and interference with the lower world, only officially deploying troops to Earth in order to subdue forces deemed harmful to heaven.
Subdue, that is, for all but the war god. Heaven forbids the taking of life (including for food, though Tenpou still partakes) with the exception of a single entity known as the Toushin Taishi, a being which exists only to act as Heaven's killing arm. At the time of Tenpou's departure, the most recent murder doll, Nataku, has already been put in place and unrest is beginning to seed into the ranks as a dark plot is born.
The likes of which he'll never fully know, as the absentminded god has spent days doing going through his latest literary niche and quite forgotten to rest again.
CANON PERSONALITY:
[ Mannerisms ] The first word normally springing from polite lips to describe Tenpou is eccentric. He rarely heeds hygiene or social convention when it's not mandated, and it reflects in his fleeting attention span, bouncing back and forth from idle points of interest until something new grips him. He can border, if not outright delve, into obsessive compulsion when that happens and disappear from his responsibilities for days to pursue his fancy, ever apologetic but hardly promising he won't do it again. For him, it's simple -- he has an eternity to groom and appease, so what's the trouble of doing it later?
(Unfortunately, this philosophy can also include sleeping and bathing, which while not 'necessary' for him in the way traditional to humans, is still problematic and leads to seemingly narcoleptic behavior.)
Though always a touch odd, he cultivates a lackadaisical demeanor that keeps him well liked, known for having a cool head and surprisingly nonjudgmental tongue for a deity. His tone is often self-deprecating and vague with the capacity to make a question feel resolved despite not providing any answers. Adding to that is his sincere tendency towards forgetfulness, sometimes in mid-sentence, and universally so: appointments, people, conversation subjects, sleeping, eating, bathing..
It's good fortune one doesn't need to remember to breathe.
[ Habits ] Smoke. If you're around Tenpou, or just looking for him, you can usually trust a cigarette or cigarillo to be hanging from his lips between thumbing through a book. It doesn't provide him any 'fix' nor is he capable of becoming addicted, it's just something -- like warm sake -- that he enjoys as a sensation, and often partakes in for that value alone.
He also collects random artifacts, items destined to litter his living space between the massive piles of books for the same reason he smokes and drinks. His collection ranges from a frog-mouth ashtray figurine to exquisite art and functionless but fashionable glasses, consistent only in that he once found each of them interesting.
[ Interactions ] His rank is not misplaced. Haphazard as he appears, Tenpou is a brilliant strategist in everything he does, and with the blink of necessity's eye, his entire demeanor will be discarded to reveal the true god. That 'person' is someone frightfully cunning, vindictive, and fiercely loyal to those of his choosing. Warnings be to the one who makes an enemy of him or his selected few, for he is both fully willing and able to devote infinite time to see all of his goals come to fruition, ethical dilemmas notwithstanding.
As an officer, he's (normally) deferential and well-mannered, leaving behind his dreamy persona for that of an orderly field marshal who's inspiring to his troops and respectful to his superiors. It's not from any genuine sense of respect, and most of them know that -- just so long as he's allowed his oddities and studies, he'll keep their egos afloat.
Part of what allows him to maintain this buoyancy is his fascination (and subsequent understanding) of culture, though he rarely interacts with it by choice. He prefers to work behind the scenes, watching mortals and gods alike with the detached curiosity of a scientist and historian, eternally observing and untouched by their plights. Tenpou is quintessentially a loner, one who carries all of his world alone by preference, and if it occurs to him that others are different, he's made no show of relating to it.
That said, he has a rather obvious weakness for children, be they youkai or immortal, and takes much more pleasure in their presence than their adult counterparts. His manner becomes understanding and patient, perhaps even jovial, going so far as to request he be called "Ten-chan" from a certain Seiten Taisei. The young embody something beautiful to him and bring out his better traits by doing so, Tenpou finding their innocence and sense of wonder incredibly refreshing and pleasantly rebuking. (But make no mistake -- it's not the innocence so much as their lack of bias that he finds thrilling, for all the older brains he knows are not nearly so open.)
[ Temperament ] He never acts without reason, but that doesn't necessitate always having a plan. Calm and constant as his demeanor is, his temper is hot-blooded and easily enticed with the right trigger, especially concerning those he deems worth protecting. Retaliation for perceived misgivings can be rash and violent or slow and methodical; Tenpou is just as likely to strike a superior for dire insult as he is to plot (and execute) their political demise, or both.
[ Battle ] In complete contrast to his ingratiating facade, Tenpou is hellbent on maintaining self-sufficiency in battle and doesn't tend to give his men anything to do beyond standing back and watching him. In part, it's because he doesn't trust in the competency (or judgment) of others, but it's also because he'd truly rather not see them hurt. Thus knowing his own abilities best, he feels comfortable (if indifferent) taking the risk with himself and bearing all the responsibilities of the fight. Fortunately, he's usually happy to share credit with his soldiers for a job well done regardless if they participated, as merely staying out of his way is still considered helpful.
[ Motivations ] Tenpou thirsts for knowledge, or perhaps -- hungers. Whichever allegory you prefer would be a fair comparison to his constant pursuit, never satisfied with scratching the surface of a subject or letting his curiosities go to the wayside. If he finds a thought more interesting than the conversation he's engaged in, he'll either interject with it or forget about the other person entirely until he's ready to move on again, quite content to live inside his mind no matter how rude it might come across. He isn't picky about what he studies, either, diving into herbal encyclopedias in the morning and reading about sewing patterns in Renaissance France by lunch, happily tolling away on just about any material as long as it's new.
When he's not burying himself in books, he lives (or exists, as is the case for such beings) for the moment. He describes the time in which he feels most 'alive' as being when he stops to appreciate the rich flavor of a cigarette, never tarnishing his worldly pleasures with cynicism or nihilism. No, it probably doesn't mean anything, but smoke still tastes good, and soup still smells delicious. Whether or not they have any physical effect on him doesn't diminish his ability to enjoy them.
[ Morality ] His moral compass doesn't have the strongest magnetism, so to speak, but it's certainly not broken. Tenpou draws definitive lines between right and wrong and then lives in between them, proceeding through the day to day in moral shadows where he might ruin someone's career for personal vengeance or show spontaneous acts of kindness in the same ten minutes. It's not something he thinks on very heavily nor feels a need to do so, letting his 'gut' rule his moral standing to the appeasement of his own standards (and only his.)
If a situation does push him past grey and into clear-cut territories, he's likely to become inflexible and indomitable until the slight is corrected. Tenpou doesn't care if that entails bringing the wrath of Heaven itself down: the right thing must and will be done.
POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/a.
ABILITIES: [ Author's Note ] The Gaiden gods' abilities are not elaborated in great depth (explicitly) within the manga and appear to be largely based on the Buddhist devas, with some manga-expected tweaks covered in the first section. For reference, see here.
[ God ] The laws of life and death are governed by the properties of inertia for the Gaiden gods -- that is, without an 'outside influence', they will perpetually exist as they are, not subject to the woes of age and disease that plague the lower world. In this way, they are biologically immortal,and the higher deities can altogether forgo food and drink while still sustaining their physical form. They are expectedly stronger and faster than lower plane beings, demonstrated by Tenpou himself being able to rip a hard-cover book in half at its binding without any special preparation.
[ Invisibility/Manifestation ] He can manifest himself in a variety of manners to the lower born or not at all to his choosing, his physical body undergoing no change in the process but rather the perception of the viewer being altered. The only mortals who can circumvent this must possess extraordinary enlightenment (as defined by Buddhism) or specific psionic abilities, though all gods can and will negate it. In fact, Tenpou can neither be deceived by another god's invisibility nor can he impose it in turn, having acquired a level of awareness immutable to such illusion. (Source: Various Earth based missions in which the gods go unseen while performing their sealing—a process used to trap creatures of great harm, demons, without killing them.)
[ Swordsmanship ] His reputation relies on his intelligence, but he's a very capable fighter, and a truly wicked opponent when he's wielding a nodachi. He's shown taking down beasts (engineered, no less) with one hit and bested a god of the fighting family without any trouble at all, only succumbing to his enemy after a night of Heaven's bloodthirsty pursuit.
[ Genius/Awareness ] What he lacks in physical powers he makes up for with an intelligence worth noting twice and then once again. Tenpou doesn't miss a detail of his surroundings or the people in them when it matters, and it takes a truly orchestrated effort of higher deities to mislead him without incurring suspicion.
INVENTORY; (1) Nodachi (2) Packs of cigarettes (1) Lighter (1) Book on the uses of lavender
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Nope, don't think so. Because of his nature I don't think it'd make sense for him to ever be an infiltrator, but that's more a player side choice!
Tenpou Gensui | Saiyuki Gaiden | Not Reserved | 1/2
NAME: Ari
AGE: 24
PLAYER JOURNAL: N/a
TIMEZONE: Central
CONTACT: plurk @ redrumreversal
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Previous Saitou player.
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: 天蓬元帥 ; Tenpou Gensui
CANON: Saiyuki Gaiden
POINT IN CANON: Pre-Gaiden. [Post befriending Konzen, prior to meeting Kenren]
AGE: N/a ; ageless.
APPEARANCE:
Tenpou is a tall, slender man of nondescript age with dark hair and deep thistle colored eyes. He usually has a soft expression oscillating between politely disinterested and utterly absentminded, the latter of which exacerbates his unkempt attire. If he's not clad in his military livery, he slinks around in a wrinkled labcoat and khaki trousers that may or may not have been washed within the last forty-eight hours.
CANON HISTORY: Wiki
Saiyuki Gaiden Setting Overview:
Saiyuki Gaiden is set 500 years before Saiyuki Gensoumaden and details the lives of three gods in their rebellion against Heaven. How long Tenpou existed before the start of the story is unknown, though it's assumed that it must have been a very long time, as he has a truly massive library and elaborate collection of lower-world items. Travel to said mortal plane is highly restricted and only possible through a single gate in Heaven sanctioned (officially) for army assignments alone. It's the policy of the gods to minimize their interaction and interference with the lower world, only officially deploying troops to Earth in order to subdue forces deemed harmful to heaven.
Subdue, that is, for all but the war god. Heaven forbids the taking of life (including for food, though Tenpou still partakes) with the exception of a single entity known as the Toushin Taishi, a being which exists only to act as Heaven's killing arm. At the time of Tenpou's departure, the most recent murder doll, Nataku, has already been put in place and unrest is beginning to seed into the ranks as a dark plot is born.
The likes of which he'll never fully know, as the absentminded god has spent days doing going through his latest literary niche and quite forgotten to rest again.
CANON PERSONALITY:
[ Mannerisms ] The first word normally springing from polite lips to describe Tenpou is eccentric. He rarely heeds hygiene or social convention when it's not mandated, and it reflects in his fleeting attention span, bouncing back and forth from idle points of interest until something new grips him. He can border, if not outright delve, into obsessive compulsion when that happens and disappear from his responsibilities for days to pursue his fancy, ever apologetic but hardly promising he won't do it again. For him, it's simple -- he has an eternity to groom and appease, so what's the trouble of doing it later?
(Unfortunately, this philosophy can also include sleeping and bathing, which while not 'necessary' for him in the way traditional to humans, is still problematic and leads to seemingly narcoleptic behavior.)
Though always a touch odd, he cultivates a lackadaisical demeanor that keeps him well liked, known for having a cool head and surprisingly nonjudgmental tongue for a deity. His tone is often self-deprecating and vague with the capacity to make a question feel resolved despite not providing any answers. Adding to that is his sincere tendency towards forgetfulness, sometimes in mid-sentence, and universally so: appointments, people, conversation subjects, sleeping, eating, bathing..
It's good fortune one doesn't need to remember to breathe.
[ Habits ] Smoke. If you're around Tenpou, or just looking for him, you can usually trust a cigarette or cigarillo to be hanging from his lips between thumbing through a book. It doesn't provide him any 'fix' nor is he capable of becoming addicted, it's just something -- like warm sake -- that he enjoys as a sensation, and often partakes in for that value alone.
He also collects random artifacts, items destined to litter his living space between the massive piles of books for the same reason he smokes and drinks. His collection ranges from a frog-mouth ashtray figurine to exquisite art and functionless but fashionable glasses, consistent only in that he once found each of them interesting.
[ Interactions ] His rank is not misplaced. Haphazard as he appears, Tenpou is a brilliant strategist in everything he does, and with the blink of necessity's eye, his entire demeanor will be discarded to reveal the true god. That 'person' is someone frightfully cunning, vindictive, and fiercely loyal to those of his choosing. Warnings be to the one who makes an enemy of him or his selected few, for he is both fully willing and able to devote infinite time to see all of his goals come to fruition, ethical dilemmas notwithstanding.
As an officer, he's (normally) deferential and well-mannered, leaving behind his dreamy persona for that of an orderly field marshal who's inspiring to his troops and respectful to his superiors. It's not from any genuine sense of respect, and most of them know that -- just so long as he's allowed his oddities and studies, he'll keep their egos afloat.
Part of what allows him to maintain this buoyancy is his fascination (and subsequent understanding) of culture, though he rarely interacts with it by choice. He prefers to work behind the scenes, watching mortals and gods alike with the detached curiosity of a scientist and historian, eternally observing and untouched by their plights. Tenpou is quintessentially a loner, one who carries all of his world alone by preference, and if it occurs to him that others are different, he's made no show of relating to it.
That said, he has a rather obvious weakness for children, be they youkai or immortal, and takes much more pleasure in their presence than their adult counterparts. His manner becomes understanding and patient, perhaps even jovial, going so far as to request he be called "Ten-chan" from a certain Seiten Taisei. The young embody something beautiful to him and bring out his better traits by doing so, Tenpou finding their innocence and sense of wonder incredibly refreshing and pleasantly rebuking. (But make no mistake -- it's not the innocence so much as their lack of bias that he finds thrilling, for all the older brains he knows are not nearly so open.)
[ Temperament ] He never acts without reason, but that doesn't necessitate always having a plan. Calm and constant as his demeanor is, his temper is hot-blooded and easily enticed with the right trigger, especially concerning those he deems worth protecting. Retaliation for perceived misgivings can be rash and violent or slow and methodical; Tenpou is just as likely to strike a superior for dire insult as he is to plot (and execute) their political demise, or both.
[ Battle ] In complete contrast to his ingratiating facade, Tenpou is hellbent on maintaining self-sufficiency in battle and doesn't tend to give his men anything to do beyond standing back and watching him. In part, it's because he doesn't trust in the competency (or judgment) of others, but it's also because he'd truly rather not see them hurt. Thus knowing his own abilities best, he feels comfortable (if indifferent) taking the risk with himself and bearing all the responsibilities of the fight. Fortunately, he's usually happy to share credit with his soldiers for a job well done regardless if they participated, as merely staying out of his way is still considered helpful.
[ Motivations ] Tenpou thirsts for knowledge, or perhaps -- hungers. Whichever allegory you prefer would be a fair comparison to his constant pursuit, never satisfied with scratching the surface of a subject or letting his curiosities go to the wayside. If he finds a thought more interesting than the conversation he's engaged in, he'll either interject with it or forget about the other person entirely until he's ready to move on again, quite content to live inside his mind no matter how rude it might come across. He isn't picky about what he studies, either, diving into herbal encyclopedias in the morning and reading about sewing patterns in Renaissance France by lunch, happily tolling away on just about any material as long as it's new.
When he's not burying himself in books, he lives (or exists, as is the case for such beings) for the moment. He describes the time in which he feels most 'alive' as being when he stops to appreciate the rich flavor of a cigarette, never tarnishing his worldly pleasures with cynicism or nihilism. No, it probably doesn't mean anything, but smoke still tastes good, and soup still smells delicious. Whether or not they have any physical effect on him doesn't diminish his ability to enjoy them.
[ Morality ] His moral compass doesn't have the strongest magnetism, so to speak, but it's certainly not broken. Tenpou draws definitive lines between right and wrong and then lives in between them, proceeding through the day to day in moral shadows where he might ruin someone's career for personal vengeance or show spontaneous acts of kindness in the same ten minutes. It's not something he thinks on very heavily nor feels a need to do so, letting his 'gut' rule his moral standing to the appeasement of his own standards (and only his.)
If a situation does push him past grey and into clear-cut territories, he's likely to become inflexible and indomitable until the slight is corrected. Tenpou doesn't care if that entails bringing the wrath of Heaven itself down: the right thing must and will be done.
POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/a.
ABILITIES:
[ Author's Note ] The Gaiden gods' abilities are not elaborated in great depth (explicitly) within the manga and appear to be largely based on the Buddhist devas, with some manga-expected tweaks covered in the first section. For reference, see here.
[ God ] The laws of life and death are governed by the properties of inertia for the Gaiden gods -- that is, without an 'outside influence', they will perpetually exist as they are, not subject to the woes of age and disease that plague the lower world. In this way, they are biologically immortal,and the higher deities can altogether forgo food and drink while still sustaining their physical form. They are expectedly stronger and faster than lower plane beings, demonstrated by Tenpou himself being able to rip a hard-cover book in half at its binding without any special preparation.
[ Invisibility/Manifestation ] He can manifest himself in a variety of manners to the lower born or not at all to his choosing, his physical body undergoing no change in the process but rather the perception of the viewer being altered. The only mortals who can circumvent this must possess extraordinary enlightenment (as defined by Buddhism) or specific psionic abilities, though all gods can and will negate it. In fact, Tenpou can neither be deceived by another god's invisibility nor can he impose it in turn, having acquired a level of awareness immutable to such illusion. (Source: Various Earth based missions in which the gods go unseen while performing their sealing—a process used to trap creatures of great harm, demons, without killing them.)
[ Swordsmanship ] His reputation relies on his intelligence, but he's a very capable fighter, and a truly wicked opponent when he's wielding a nodachi. He's shown taking down beasts (engineered, no less) with one hit and bested a god of the fighting family without any trouble at all, only succumbing to his enemy after a night of Heaven's bloodthirsty pursuit.
[ Genius/Awareness ] What he lacks in physical powers he makes up for with an intelligence worth noting twice and then once again. Tenpou doesn't miss a detail of his surroundings or the people in them when it matters, and it takes a truly orchestrated effort of higher deities to mislead him without incurring suspicion.
INVENTORY;
(1) Nodachi
(2) Packs of cigarettes
(1) Lighter
(1) Book on the uses of lavender
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Nope, don't think so. Because of his nature I don't think it'd make sense for him to ever be an infiltrator, but that's more a player side choice!