Guru Dazumo [Master]

This is an application for my first master-tier character. He is not a master in traditional combat, but in other respects that make him powerful enough.
I'd like this character to be categorized as a spirit, but it's difficult to distinguish.
-Da-Zho


Full Name: Dazumo
Gender: Male
Age: 112
Element: None
Birthplace: Gaoling
Position: Master Guru
Training:

Spirits [Master]

No fighting skills.

Personality: [358/300]

Imagine yourself in the mountains. You walk among the serene ridges and see upon a precipice an old man, sitting in peace. He does not acknowledge you as you approach him, and when you speak to him, he does not respond. You leave.

A guru carries many preconceived notions of personality. Guru Dazumo is not exempt from this rule. He often speaks in proverbs and phrases, especially those of his predecessors. He will choose not to speak unless he feels his word is desired. His speech is concise and sometimes hard to understand. He is also a man of many quirks.

Dazumo is a man of habits and rituals. Every morning he wakes up on the right side of his body, if he wakes up on the left he goes back to sleep. He eats two meals of equal size per day, the meals on saturday being notably larger than the others. He goes to sleep as soon as he has seen three constellations, and wakes three times a night for meditation to allow him to enter lucid dreams. Lucid dreaming allows for Dazumo to enter the spirit world and continue his search for enlightenment.

Much of Dazumo's waking time circles around his search for enlightenment. Meditation and travel punctuates his waking hours, a life with little responsibility yet infinite meaning.

Dazumo, despite his seemingly serious existence, has a personal side. He is a silly, light-hearted man. He finds joy in unlikely places, and happiness in simplicity. He is incredibly humble, he owns nothing more than his clothes and his food.

As Dazumo grew older, his personality began to change even more, pervaded by a sense of continuity. He would need to find disciples, those who could learn what he had to teach and carry on the traditions that he lived for. He was inspired by men who had escaped their own bodies, to live as an elevated being. He had been fascinated by the story of Iroh who abandoned his body to live in the spirit world, and began to seek out how to achieve this, so he may continue his search for enlightenment and elevated existence.

Abilities:

As mentioned, Guru Dazumo's abilities are only spiritually related, but these spiritual abilities can be very powerful.

Dreaming: A lot of Dazumo's abilties are dream related. He practices nightly to transcend the void between conscious and subconscious. He completely unlocked the world of lucid dreaming before he was even a spiritual monk, and as he progressed in his guru training, he gained the ability to project his dreaming mind into the spirit world. With the lucid dreaming, Dazumo experienced full immersion into the spirit world, as if he had entered from one of the spirit portals. Had he been a bender, he would be fully capable of using his skills. Eventually, Dazumo learned not only how he could project his dreaming mind into the spirit world, but into the minds of others, even while they were conscious. He discovered he could fully enter other peoples' dream worlds and talk to them, fight with them, and learn from them. The next step was entering their conscious mind during his dreams, and once he learned that he became capable of sending messages directly to anyone in the world at any time.

Healing: Dazumo was not the first to realize that healing was as much spiritual as it was physical, but he certainly was the first to be able to actually act upon that knowledge. He learned to sense other peoples' chi, and he learned how to unblock it himself. He also learned that although this power could potentially save lives, it could also destroy them. If he used this power to open another's chakras, that person would be spiritually and mentally destroyed forever. He never learned to heal those wounds.

Emotional Manipulation: Think bloodbending, but of someone's emotions. Dazumo found he could make people happy, sad, angry, depressed. He could break hearts and fill others with unending joy by simply touching three fingers to the center of another's forehead. Dazumo is also afraid of using this power too freely, as although it would not directly harm someone, it could cause others to do terrible and unfixable things.

The Third Eye: To open your third eye is to accept things as they are. Your two physical eyes allow you to see. Most people will never acknowledge that they have a third eye within themselves, one that does not require light in order to see. One that does not require air to breath, water to drink. The third eye allows you to see all that is there, and not what appears to be. Dazumo successfully opened his third eye long ago, and through constant training with it he has gained the ability to see the light and the dark. If Dazumo is lied to, he will see the lie and he will see the truth. If Dazumo meets someone new, he will see them for who they seem to be, and who they really are. Dazumo has gained the ability to accept and acknowledge everything.

Spirit World: Dazumo possesses the capability to fully interact and associate with the spirits as if he was one of them.

Appearance:
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 123 lbs.
Eyes: Grey
Hair: White
Skin: Brown



Dazumo is brown-skinned and grey-eyed. He has long white hair that he ties in a double top-knot on top of his head. He has a beard that he carefully trims, although it remains long. He wears a white robe that does not cover his right shoulder and does not extend past his knees. He has yellow leather sandals which are worn and cracked from age. He also wears a brown beaded necklace that carries a pendant engraved with "infinite oblivion." Dazumo has never explained the significance of this possession. Perhaps there is none. Dazumo has kind eyes, although they are never rid of a thousand-yard stare, one that simultaneously pierces the soul yet disarms the recipient of hostility.

History:

Dazumo is reluctant to share stories from his past. He claims nothing happened, though that is far from the truth.

Dazumo was born to a lone mother in the city of Gaoling. He was not born under the name Dazumo, that was one he adopted for himself. He was born Han-Tzu, and he was forced to labor tirelessly as his mother could not hope to provide for them both in their deep poverty. Child labor is difficult and often considered unfair, but Dazumo held none of these grudges. He did what was required of him so that he might come back home and make his mother happier. He was never successful. Eventually, one of the wealthiest families in Gaoling offered to take Dazumo away from his mother, who couldn't hope to provide for the boy. His mother accepted, wishing the best for her son, even if she could not be there to share his happiness.

Dazumo was eight years old when he left to live with his new family, the Qin's. This is when he took on his new name, he insisted that they call him Dazumo, and he thought he wanted to be a poet. He wrote poetry as much as he could, and he was fairly decent at it, though the Qin's tried to make him into a bureaucrat, a statesmen. Dazumo hated world affairs, and hated current events. It was never the fact that he was angered by the developments, it was that he realized that world leaders acted like children with an education. He felt like he was at least as intelligent as the rest of them, and took no interest in the matters. He continued studying poetry, eventually finding the works of
ancient Gurus and other masters. He began to realize the beauty in simplicity, in the spirit, and so at the age of 15 he escaped Gaoling. He escaped materialism, world affairs, even poetry, and went to a monastery in the mountains near Omashu. He was accepted into the society and began his spiritual studies. He was quite skilled at it, though he was often limited by the impatience of youth and the pride of prodigy. It took him a decade to release himself from the bonds of human petty and truly begin his growth in the spirit. He learned everything the monks knew, and became a fully realized monk of the monastic order at the age of 35. He spent the next decade performing the duties of a monk; travelling, helping others, teaching, healing. Eventually he grew tired of this lifestyle, and decided he wanted to actually use what he had learned, and he left the monastery. He took the first path he saw, and left it as soon as he saw another. This is how his travels continued for the next twenty years.

These two decades of travel taught Dazumo much about patience and solitude. Eventually, at the age of 57, he returned to the monastery in order to truly practice the techniques he had learned, and even began to pioneer some. It was during this stay that he learned he could use lucid dreaming to inhabit the minds of others. The masters of the monastery were astonished, never had they thought such a feat was possible. They were never capable of accomplishing it themselves. Dazumo also developed his spiritual healing and emotional manipulation here. The healing was heralded as a gift by the masters of the monastery, and they learned it themselves. Dazumo began to travel frequently with the monks to villages struck by conflict, by war. He travelled to villages struck by disaster and grief, and he learned how to heal not only the wounds of the wounded, but the souls of the broken. The masters of the monastery brought Dazumo into their circle, and at the age of 68 he was a master of the monastery, the third youngest in history.

As a fledged master, Dazumo finally brought emotional manipulation into his repertoire. He presented it to the other masters of the monastery, but they were horrified and disappointed by the ability. They claimed the ability detracted from the detachedness that they were expected to achieve from other humans. They feared this ability could cause horrible things to happen, wars to start and people to die. Dazumo understood, and the other masters respected him for it, but nothing could erase the abomination Dazumo had created. The other masters proclaimed him a complete guru, one whose skills may not again be reached for many years to come, and Dazumo left the monastery. The masters claimed it was his calling to find enlightenment, to abandon this world for good, and it was, but it was also punishment. Someone so powerful could not be allowed to stay within the monastery and corrupt its teachings. Dazumo would have to create his own following.

Dazumo wandered for decades in peace, although now his aimlessness shifts gears to a new goal. Dazumo realized that despite the power of the techniques he had created, the risks and dangers, they would need to be continued, they were too important to be forgotten. The guru set off on a journey to find disciples. Potential monks that would be able to bear his legacy.


Reasons Why You Believe You Deserve a Master-Tier Character/Position:

IC Reasons: Dazumo is an incredibly old and powerful spiritual master. He has risen to becoming a master in technicality and in practice at the monastery he learned in. The abilities he has are not to be taken lightly, yet do not give him absolute advantages over others in the context of this forum.

OOC Reasons: Obviously I am active frequently. I plan to be here to stay, and I think I have decent skill with roleplay. Admittedly, my ideas can be a little far-fetched and I can be a little too eager to argue in favor of them (for example, I still think soundbending is completely possible), but this is a more reasonable product of that. I think I at least deserve a fair shot.

Guru Dazumo (this picture is a joke, I will not actually be using it in RP, don't worry.)

The sun had not risen yet, but the Guru's eyes fluttered. Before he rose and stretched for the morning, Dazumo felt which side he was lying on. The left. He fell back to sleep. The mountains' crisp edges stood out against the rising sun, black spires cuffed with orange fire. Dazumo lay on his right side, and as his eyes fluttered again, he assessed his position. It was acceptable to wake, and so he did. He ate a modest breakfast, and so tonight he would eat a modest dinner. There was no taste to the food, at least, not for Dazumo. His mind did not linger on what his food tasted, smelled, or felt like. He cared only for the fact that he would need it to walk the days journey. He had been walking towards Full Moon Bay in hopes that he could find a boat willing to take him to the Fire Nation so he may continue his search. Dazumo stood and left. There was nothing to pack. No fire to quench, no bed roll to roll, no tent to fold. He travelled only with the food in his pocket and the clothes that carried it. The road today was mud. It had rained through the night. Dazumo had felt it wetting him as he slept, though his mind was elsewhere during the night and it did not bother him. Walking was difficult for such an old man, but Dazumo persevered. It was hours of wander before the road had finally hardened underneath him. He loosely hoped that he was going the right way, but he always understood it would not matter if he wasn't. A large man came up the trail as the Guru walked down it. "Excuse me," Dazumo asked, "I need your help." The man looked at him with scorn and disgust. Any person would see that this man was repulsed by the Guru, but Dazumo saw more. Appearance shied away in the truth that Dazumo could see. The man hated the elderly. Dazumo could not say with full accuracy why, but it was obvious to him that the man distrusted his kind, and Dazumo was disappointed for him. "I am so sorry for your misfortune," said Dazumo. His stare was now transfixed on the man, who became quite uncomfortable. Dazumo's right hand reached up towards the man's forehead, and although the man at first shied away, Dazumo's fingers brushed the center of it. A void simultaneously opened and closed between the two humans. There was no way that the man could comprehend what had happened, but for Dazumo, the world stopped and became black. I need you. The thought filled the void. It did not matter who it came from, but in the darkness this became light. A visualization of peace came to the void. An oasis in the center of the desert, untouched by man or animal. A small fire caught in one of the palm trees, but it was extinguished with nothing but the strength of the serenity that washed over the oasis. The fire died and the void returned to darkness. I am peaceful. The darkness faded away until there was no conception of vision. This was blindness, and this was bliss. Suddenly, the physical world snapped back into place. Not a second had passed. Dazumo's hand fell to his side slowly, and the man's look of horror turned into one of kindness. "How can I help you, elder?" "I am looking for Full Moon Bay, am I on the right path?" "Indeed, you are. Continue, respected elder." Dazumo thanked the man and continued down the road. More potential students lay down this path, and Dazumo would find them.

Mood: Condition:

Link:

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Type Forum Name Here:Guru Dazumo[/i][/i]

there are a few borderline things here, but overall, I think it's acceptable. I can always overturn my decision later if I prove to be incorrect though, but hopefully that won't happen. APPROVED!