Full Name: Sijo Ban Kang
Gender: Male
Age: 23
Element: Fire [and Lightning]
Birthplace: Shu Jing
Position: Exiled Fire Nation Officer; Vagabond
Training: Expert Firebending (Tigerdillo, Panther, and Dragon disciplines), hand-to-hand martial arts (of the same disciplines as his Firebending), Intermediate Baritsu (cane fighting), Expert Tiger Style Silat
Personality: (266) Sijo is a collected individual, finding strength in his silence despite his great shame. Introverted to a degree, Sijo will not speak unless spoken to or if he truly feels his voice needs to be heard. Words and breath are not wasted by him on anyone’s behalf. Onlookers see a paragon of self control - a man of stony expression and posture with eyes that hold a honed fire within them. Even with the great physical and spiritual pain that constantly weights upon his shoulders - constantly trying to bow and break him, Sijo carries himself with a strait back and prideful posture, his broad shoulders hardly stooping even on his worst of days.
Beneath the silence and the stony demeanor, Sijo churns like a mighty maelstrom. He is enraged and disgusted with his position in life, constantly assailed by a physical and spiritual pain that stems from his five blocked chakras. Beyond that, he is burdened by shame and regret, knowing full well that he has been punished duly for his crimes against the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord. He has no one to blame for his sad position and it has yet to settle with him.
Even with his situation so grim, he is not one to abandon hope. The four fundamental chakras for Bending may have been blocked, but his Bending was not taken away outright. He can still find a way to heal himself, and that objective serves as Sijo’s yonder star. It gives him the grit and gall to rise every morning and put one foot in front of another.
Abilities: (632) Sijo was brought up as a warrior and his skill set reflects as such. He has been trained and tutored in three schools of the Firebending martial arts since he was a young boy, refined and tempered like a metal rather than being raised as a child.
The first of these disciplines is the Tigerdillo: The Tigerdillo represents strength and power in its raw and primal form - the heart and lifeblood of an efficient Firebender. The shape of the hand for the Tigerdillo forms - made to imitate the hooked claws of the savage creature - let the fire spread out farther than it would normally. Tigerdillo strikes go along well with techniques like Fire Bomb, Fire Comet, Fire Jab, and Heat Control for the hand-to-hand practitioner. Like the creature that inspired the discipline, it is difficult to control the jets of fire as they jet out with unbridled intensity in the direction of the nearest opponent. Training in the discipline of the Tigerdillo first, Sijo’s physical and spiritual strength blossomed early in his life, continuing to grow under the training of the Tigerdillo discipline until he was brought into the Fire Nation Military.
The second discipline is the Panther: The Panther is the embodiment of speed an energy, two key fundamentals for a Firebender who seeks to live through his or her first battle. The punching techniques of the Panther are best suited for Fire Blades, Fire Daggers, Fire Stream, and Fire missile. The speed and energy of the Panther gives direction and temperament to the raw power of the Tigerdillo, giving the fire a focused and directed stream in which to flow.
Lastly, Sijo was taught the most difficult of Firebending disciplines as well as the most crucial - the Dragon: The Dragon embodies the element of Fire itself as well as representing Willpower and Concentration. With the Dragon, Sijo was finally able to control the wildfire that had been steadily built within him, giving the glowing furnace of his power and energy much-needed direction. Through the teachings of the Dragon, Sijo learned advanced techniques of Firebeinding like the Flame Wheel and, finally, Lightning Bending.
After his exile and his ability to safely bend fire was all but removed, Sijo was forced to learn to defend himself even with his disability. Having to walk with a cane due to the pain of his punishment, Sijo learned to incorporate his cane into his martial arts, using the ironbark cane and crook to disarm and attack. The crook is especially useful to hook libs of attackers, allowing him to redirect enemy bending if he is in combat range. Twisting the crook around a hooked extremity (like a wrist, ankle, etc) sharply enough, Sijo can break the limb or joint.
Weaknesses: His five fundamental chakras (solar plexus, root, sacral, heart, and the Third Eye) have been blocked as a punishment for his crimes against the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation. This has weakened his Firebending greatly, but that is not all of it. The stronger his bending, the greater the blowback. The manner in which his chakras were blocked cause his own bending to blow back on him, damaging him as much as it would his opponent. Because of this, he tries to Bend as little as possible until he can get his chakras healed.
With his Bending all but removed, Sijo has opened his mind to arts of balance and zen. He has become quite talented at calligraphy painting in various inks, making a daily ritual to paint one piece of zen each day in hopes to achieve clarity. The occasional passer-by, should they be one to take interest in art, has bought his paintings. Larger cities such as Ba Sing Se have practitioners buying his artwork from street corners.
Appearance:
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 180lbs
Eyes: Heterochromatic- his right eye is the usual firebender amber, his left eye is the blue-green color of jade.
Hair: Sijo’s hair is long and black, tied back into a long ponytail at the nape of his neck. He has a shaggy beard on his angular face, not following any particular style of any of the nations. He is simply unshaven due to his time as a vagabond.
Skin: Sijo’s skin shows signs of initially being rather pale, though day in and day out without a roof over his head has slightly bronzed his skin. He bears pale and jagged scars on each of his five afflicted chakra points, apparently inflicted by long durations of lightningbending. On each of his arms, Sijo bears tattoos of Tigerdillos. On his legs are inked the taut visage of panthers, and on his back is scrawled the coiling form of a dragon. His body is a venerable canvas of firebending discipline.
(452)
Sijo is a tall and strong example of a firebender, his shoulders are broad and his hips narrow with nary a pinch of fat upon his figure. When he was in peak health as a Fire Nation Officer, he was at an apex of his physical condition with coiling steel-chord muscle rippling beneath his scarred and tattooed skin. However, after his exile, food became scarce to Sijo and his physique began to wither. While he may not be the gleaming peak of physical prowess that he once was, Sijo is still very fit from a lean diet and day to day walking or running.
He was blessed with the masculine skeletal structure of his father, especially in the face with a strong jaw, square chin, and high cheek bones. His heterochromatic eyes bore deeply through those who look into them, bearing the fiery amber color of a firebender in his left eye and a blue-green jade color for his right. Sijo’s eyebrows are sleek and angular, usually furrowed in a naturally perpetual pensive expression. He bears a scar on his brow that angles down towards his right shoulder at an angle, the jagged scar narrowly missing his eye. His ears bear no piercings. Sijo’s hair is long and dark, tied back into a long ponytail at the nape of his neck. His shapely face has a scruffy beard growing upon it due to a long while without properly shaving or bathing. His hair is disheveled and in a state of disarray, not looking nearly as noble as he used to.
On each of his cannon-ball shoulders and down each of his biceps, Sijo has a visage of the mighty Tigerdillo tattooed into his skin as homage to the creature that represents the strength and power he once held in his grasp. On his toned back, the dragon is given the same praise, as does the panther on his legs. Sijo bears the scars of his torture - physical reminders of his shame - on his stomach, the center of his chest, his lower back, and the scar over his brow.
Sijo’s clothing is rather humble, wearing a double breasted frock styled coat made of grey cotton over a silk shirt. The sleeves of his coat are usually rolled up to his shoulders, brandishing rippling forearms and hands that are heavily bandaged. Over his frock coat, Sijo wears a sleeveless wool Haori in a deep burgundy color, the hems lined in a dark blue. Sijo’s pants are made of thick and heavy black-dyed cotton tucked into his knee-high leather buckle-up boots. Over it all, Sijo wears a traveler’s cloak with a hood when he is on the move, protecting him from the elements.
Weaponry & Other Gear:
Ironbark Cane (Copy-paste as many times as needed)
Materials: Ironbark wood and brass
Description: The cane looks rather average. Proper length for a man of his height, the cane is a deep reddish-brown color with a brass cap at the end of the cane’s crook.
Zen Calligraphy Set (Copy-paste as many times as needed)
Materials: Jade handled brushes with tips of various animal hairs (wolf, bear, polar dog, panther, fire ferret, flying bison), rice paper sheets, black, red, pink, purple, and blue ink wells, water basin, sealing wax and brass stamp.
Description: Kept nicely within a velvet-lined oak box, the variously colored and sized jade brushes are lined up from largest to finest, the jade ink wells marked with the character of their color and stopped up with a fat cork. The rice paper is kept in rolls alongside the brush box. This is easily the nicest thing that Sijo owns.
Bamboo Pipe (Copy-paste as many times as needed)
Materials: Dried and fire-hardened bamboo with a brass bowl and tip.
Description: The pipe is pretty straightforward in design and appearance. The humble brown bamboo and charred brass pipe measures 13 inches in total.
History: (1,053) Sijo Ban Kang was born to an upper-middle class family of firebenders in the quaint town of Shu Jing. Born on the dawn of a summer day, Sijo was expected to be a firebender like all of his siblings before and after him. The infantile years of Sijo’s life marked the few years of peace he would know. Those precious years before he could walk or talk or think for himself, before he was something to be forged and tempered, he was actually a child to the eyes of his father. Sojin Tau Kang, Sijo’s father, was a highly respected officer in the Fire Nation military in his day, enjoying his retirement after he lost his arm in battle. While he could not Bend proficiently enough with only one arm to stay in military service, Sojin had developed a mastery based on both orthodox and unorthodox firebending teachings. When each of his sons came of age, Sojin saw fit to run them through a gauntlet, a crucible, of training and trials. Sojin’s wife, Fa Lihua, was powerless to resist the cruel tradition, forced to watch as her precious boys were denied friendship and childhood play and he daughters were all but forgotten, left to be brought up solely by their mother in her lesser knowledge of firebending and the subtle womanly arts.
When Sijo reached the age of five, he was considered coordinated enough by his father to be put through the first stages of the crucible. Through the three hells of his father’s training, Sijo was cast, dragged, and beaten. He was reduced down to his pathetic, sniveling base again and again - forged, tempered, broken, and reforged again. Like any good weapon, Sijo was put through his paces. He was tested for faults and impurities, and if impurities were found, they were hammered out without remorse or pity. Sijo grew to resent his father for his cruelty and grow estranged from his mother for her distance. As Sijo grew older, the trials and lessons only grew tougher while his anger and resentment grew. All according to Sojin’s design, of course, so that Sijo may feel the true burn of unbridled power.
At the age of 15, Sijo’s father took him to the Fire Nation Capitol, dropping him off at the steps of the Fire Nation barracks as if he was tossing out the trash. Sojin had decided his son’s destiny, and his fate, for him. Like every son of the house of Kang, Sijo was to fight for the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation. It did not take long for the Fire Nation army to bring the already-indoctrinated Sijo into their fold. In very little time, he was a valuable soldier of great honor and repute. In the next couple years that followed, Sijo had earned great honor for himself and his family, finally bridging the gap between himself and his father, drawing fatherly affection and pride out of the man now that his son had made something of himself - like any craftsman would find joy in seeing the tool he had spent so many years forging work just as intended.
Everything started to go downhill when the Fire Lord vanished. In her absence, the brass of Fire Nation military began to step all over one another, giving conflicting orders that were of great moral ambiguity. Sijo, placed in a leadership position over his own platoon for the first time, disobeyed orders from the de-facto Fire Lord Novai himself, finding them too monstrous to follow. For his disobedience, Sijo was charged with treason and was imprisoned and Boiling Rock prison. The most sadistic torturers at the Fire Lord’s command were set against Sijo. Rather than the traditional sentence of execution, Sijo was doomed to a far crueler and slower death. Over the course of a month, Sijo had the fundamental chakras for all bending blocked and damaged beyond the repair of most healers. He was not robbed of his Bending, but it was reduced to its weakest, basest form. Every time he was to try and firebend, the fire would backfire agaisnt Sijo just as strongly as it would strike his enemy. It was the slow death that Sijo had been doomed to.
Following his trial-less punishment, Sijo was exiled and later disowned by his father. He was thrown down the stony steps of his own house by his father and brothers as he mother did what she always did - nothing. Picking himself up, Sijo began his life as a vagabond, leaving the Fire Nation as soon as he could. Finding refuge in the Earth Kingdom, the crippled firebender scraped a living as a vagabond, doing any paltry job he could for money. Most of the funds he made went to seeing every supposed chakra healer he could find. He tried everything reasonable - waterbenders, acupuncturists, herbal teas, homeopathic herbs, and massage therapy. None of it worked, and each of those that treated his ailment were left baffled. As a last ditch effort, Sijo sought out a palm reader. An old guru who gave Sijo the first glimmer of hope he had held onto in many years. The guru told Sijo that he needed to seek the source of each of the chakras - learn the ways of each of the bending arts. Learn their psychologies, ideologies, and their forms. Understand them and accept them. If Sijo did this, he may begin to find balance within himself and in turn recover from his terrible afflictions. With this in mind, Sijo began to get to work once again, saving his money and on a whim, buying a fine calligraphy set. Sijo began to paint every day, finding the technique in calligraphy painting to be very relaxing to the point where it even eased some of the pain felt by his scars.
Now, Sijo seeks the knowledge found in the other styles of Bending in hopes to heal himself. He has no desire to return to the Fire Nation at the end of his journey for the time being - he is on a quest of self-discovery and redemption. If he truly succeeds, Sijo will get a second chance and if that chance is substantial enough, he may never need to return to those who so wantonly cast him aside.
Sample RP: In the box (998)
Character Box | 
Sijo Ban Kang
|
Ba Sing Se, while a great and prosperous city, suffered from the trappings of every modern city in every civilization. It did not matter who was sitting on the throne or what element the nation held loyalty to. Each city suffered from the same sicknesses of crime, homelessness, and helplessness. Some cities were more honest with it than others while certain cities may do their best to sweep it all under the rug. There was a time not too long ago that Sijo would have looked down his nose at people like what he had become - a vagrant and a roofless wanderer scraping a living off the bottom of whatever city, town, or province he found himself living in. There was a time when criminals would feel their knees turn to jelly at his presence. Now he had to suffer their chaff day in and day out as they took to terrorizing a man who was little more than a cripple in their eyes.
Sitting himself down on a street corner in the middle of the day, Sijo sighed as he procured his pipe and a leather satchel from the pocket on the inside of his haori vest. Opening the drawstring satchel, Sijo took three pinches of the dried leaves and sprinkled them into the brass bowl of his pipe, tamping down each pinch individually. With the pipe loaded, Sijo took a few deep breaths to steel himself for what came next. Wincing, he bit down on the mouth of the pipe and lit a small flame from the tip of his index finger, lighting the bowl and filling the air with a cobalt grey cloud that smelled of jasmine and earthy herbs. Shaking out the flame from his finger, Sijo rubbed the tip of his finger on his trousers. He had done too much bending in the past twenty-four hours and it was starting to catch up to him for something as small and simple as lighting his pipe would hurt.
After enjoying his pipe for a time, Sijo took to laying out his recent works of calligraphy paintings - landscapes from outside the walls of Ba Sing Se, the occasional jasmine tree, and the rare portrait of some passerby who had little enough to do for Sijo to paint their likeness. Like every other day, a buyer or two would step out of the milling crowd to barter prices in the usual Ba Sing Se fashion. Ultimately, they would part with their coin and take home a painted piece of rice paper.
“You are in a different spot this time, rat.” a voice came from beyond Sijo’s field of vision, but he knew who it was. The same punk-playing-rogue that had been hounding the Fire Nation vagrant for the past three days. Sijo closed his eyes and took a particularly long draw from his pipe, letting the exhaled smoke billow lazily out of his mouth.
”I felt a change in scenery was needed for the both of us. I assume I am mistaken by your presence here?” said Sijo, opening his amber eye to glare at his tormentor as he stood over the exile.
“It would be too much of an effort to find someone new, we thought, so here we are.” The punk paused as three young men of like size and build gathered at his flanks. Sijo let out another puff of smoke, making a grunt of a sarcastic laugh in his throat,
”I would say I understand the laziness of teenage years, but that would be a grievous lie. Surely the Dai Li could make good use of thugs like yourselves?” Sijo actually permitted himself to laugh now, seeing their faces twist and contort into expressions of slight and offense.
“We’ll call it practice, then...” said their leader as he picked up the water basin from Sijo’s calligraphy set and poured the contents over all of the displayed works of art. The ink on the paper ran in black streams off of the paper and gathered in dark puddles between the cobbled stones. All four of the boys laughed and “ooh’d” at the gall of their ringleader.
”You really shouldn’t have done that...” Sijo said in a low tone that bordered on hostile. Hours of work had literally just been washed down the drain and his meal tickets fro the next few nights melted away before his very eyes.
“Oh? What are you going to to about it, street rat? Wave your cane at me?” the punk ringleader chuckled mockingly, throwing the jade water basin on the cobbled stone, shattering it to pieces. Sijo’s eyes settled on the basin flatly, but a fire raged beneath the surface of serenity. The exile looked from the shattered jade basin up to the one who broke it - the earthbender brat who though he owned the street because his father ran a tea shop one block over.
”Not a bad idea, actually.” Sijo’s hand snapped to his cane, twirling it in a flourish and hooking the ring leader by the ankle. With a sharp tug the boy was on his back, his head smacking against the cobbled stone. Already up to his feet, Sijo twirled his cane as if it were a sword, cracking the shaft of the ironbark across the head of another of the thugs thrice before kicking him flat with a powerful thrust kick. Spinning on his heel to face the second thug, Sijo blew as hard as he could into the neck of his pipe. Ashes erupted from the bowl and blew into the eyes of the punk. Turning again, Sijo leaned on his cane and pointed to the last thug with his pipe,
”Now, we got a couple ways we can do this...” Sijo began, but was unable to finish.
“If one of them involves you not hitting me, I’ll take that one.” the Earth Kingdom boy, usually so tan, had gone ghastly pale, knees shaking like jelly.
”Smart kid.”
| Mood: Melancholy
Condition: Tired and wounded | Link: |
