Okasan Ishikawa

From Gothpoodle

Bone Shadow Itheaur Alpha (Lodge of Hungry Ghosts)

She is grandmother to Takami Ishikawa.

Description

Hishu

An overweight Japanese woman in her late-70s with long white hair down to the tops of her thighs (often in a long, intricate braid) and dark green eyes. She wears a white kimono without decoration, fastened with a jade green belt, worn with wooden platform sandals. A small bronze mirror hangs on a thin chain around her neck. She speaks softly, but forcefully, and is unfailingly polite, even when giving orders.

Urhan

A large, fat white wolf with blue eyes and black tips to its tail and ears.

Storytelling Hints

Okasan is a very maternal figure, interested in the problems of those she talks to and offering help (often to the extent people might complain of meddling) to fix things. She loves her granddaughter Takami deeply and is fond of Kathy and Dave, whom she sees as adopted children. She gently tries to convert any Uratha over to her lodge's view of the world, carefully pointing out any failures they have had with the traditional approach. She loves to cook and feeds people who come to talk to her.

Stats

• Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 4
• Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3
• Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 4, Composure 5
• Mental Skills: Crafts (Cooking) 4, Investigation 2, Medicine (Herbal) 3, Occult (Ghosts) 4, Politics 1.
• Physical Skills: Brawl 3, Drive 1, Larceny 1, Survival 2, Weaponry 1.
• Social Skills: Animal Ken 1, Empathy 1, Expression 2, Intimidation 2, Persuasion (Compromises) 5, Socialize 1, Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 4.
• Merits: Allies (Japantown) 2, Contacts (Food Industry, Supernatural) 2, Fame 1, Language (First Tongue, Japanese) 2, Meditative Mind 1, Resources 2.
• Willpower: 9
• Harmony: 7
• Virtue: Justice
• Vice: Gluttony
• Health: 8
• Initiative: 7
• Defense: 3
• Speed: 10
• Primal Urge: 4
• Essence: 13/2
• Renown: Cunning 4, Glory 1, Honor 3, Purity 2, Wisdom 5.
• Gift Lists: Crescent Moon, Death, Elemental, Ending, Father Wolf, Insight, Mother Luna, Shaping, Warding, Witch's Moon.
• Gifts: (1) Call Water, Death Sight, Loose Tongue, Partial Change, Sense Malice*, Shadow Speaking, The Right Words, Two-World Eyes; (2) Read Spirit, Ruin, Scent of Taint; (3) Corpse Witness, Echo Dream, Gauntlet Cloak, Luck-Eating; (4) Between the Weave, Lordly Will; (5) Ward of Spirit Slumber.
• Milestone Gift: Eyes of Death Wolf (see into or out of the Shadow by concentrating, identify Ridden or the possessed on sight, and spend one Essence to know the name of any spirit encountered).
• Rituals: 4; Rites: All first through fourth-level rites including: (4) Obon Temae, Rite of Slaying the Truth.
• Notes: She gains an extra Essence when drawing from a locus and gets an extra +1 for using a reflexive surface while crossing.

Combat

Type	Damage	Hishu	Dalu	Gauru	Urshul	Urhan
Bite	2 (L)			10	9	7
Claw	1 (L)			9	8
Grapple	0 (B)	5	6	8	7	5

Background

Hirumi Ishikawa was born in 1930 and spent her teenage years in a Japanese interment camp with her family. It was in the camp that she Changed, her parents trying hard to guide her through it despite their lack of first-hand experience, but eventually she made contact with other Japanese Uratha and joined them on their release. She learned all she could and then returned to San Francisco and fought to get back the property that her grandfather had owned, increasing awareness of the injustice of the interment and making friends within the struggling remains of Japantown. Once she had the locus back, she tended it on her own for many years with only the occasional assistance of other members of her lodge in the Bay Area. She married another refugee from the interment who started a restaurant and they had several children. Her husband died in the eighties of a stroke and none of her children seemed to inherit the wolf-blood. At about the same time, she found two new Uratha and formed a pack. One Changed in the neighborhood and Hirumi helped her through it. The other had Changed in Japan and she found him through his frequent visits to the Buddhist temple. The pack claimed an actual territory centered on Japantown immediately after. Toward the end of the century, her granddaughter unexpectedly Changed and she brought her into the pack. She still runs her husband's restaurant (called Okasan, or "mother") and is well-known in the city for her fine traditional rustic Japanese cuisine.

Renown

• Cunning 4: Tricked a powerful Azlu into sharing a meal and learned enough of her to extract a promise to defend the territory in exchange for peace.
• Wisdom 4: Brokers a peace treaty between the Uratha and the vampires, selling out Calun.
• Wisdom 5: Tracked a powerful and subtle spirit of cultural conflict (Culture War) from its birth in the 60s, through the 70s and 80s, until she discovered its ban during the Castro War and was able to force it to eat with her and brokered a compromise where it would perform its function in moderation. Earned her the Milestone Gift.

Terminology

• yokai - spirits
• obake - ridden, hosts (spirits transformed beyond normal limits)
• yurei - ghosts
• oni - physical monsters and demons (vampires)