Watercolor practice and A Story on Ping
- Tmt Nova
- Dec 31, 2019
- 4 min read
Today I endeavored to work on a few practice runs with recently gifted water color paints and brushes. We have some illustrations with Ping who is one of the characters in the campaign for Waves of Time.
Ping is one of those Dungeons and Dragons characters that has never been played under a dungeon master and has always been designed to be an Non-Player Character. Yet despite this she is one of my favorite characters to play and the sheer excitement of her, causes me to rattle on about her design, as well as her story whenever I get the chance.
So buckle in because I have more.
Pings Backstory
Before Haru was born an old hag gave her mother a free of charge look into the future about her daughter. The future of her daughter was to be a vessel for evil, she would unleash into the world a power that no man had ever seen nor expected since the reign of the Gods on Necerron. At first she denied this to be true, dismissing the old witch. However the witch left her with a warning that began to fester in the mother’s mind. Eventually the omen became an obsession and near the end of her pregnancy she fled from her partner’s side and sought to kill herself and the child. Her mother didn’t make it further than the next town over before she began to have labor pains and her partner had finally reached her. It was here she drew the blade and attempted suicide and if it wasn’t without the aid of the husband's friend that Haru would not have been born. The mother in the end could not be resurrected. Unable to gaze at Haru and not be reminded of the event that took place at her birth he sent her to live with his parent’s.
Michi Hide, Haru’s grandfather, and a minor lord that serves as an ambassador to a subterranean society.Along with Michi Amabi, secretly a yokai under the guise of a Xingmao who has the ability to predict and cause an abundant harvest or a disaster, and Haru’s Grandmother. The elderly couple welcomed their granddaughter with open arms as their son explained what happened. He finishes with telling them he has no intent to return to his daughter and asks that they never mention him. Deeply saddened, the Lord and Lady of the subterranean town raise their Granddaughter as their own. Eventually noticing however that the child would often talk to herself and claim to be speaking with unseen people. Her Grandfather believing in the possibility that the child merely was making imaginary friends due to the lack of interaction with younger children. Hide sought to remedy this by attempting to introduce Haru to children of her age in the hopes that she’d make friends.
However this did not go as planned as Haru was shy and preferred to speak with the imaginary friends over the other children. This left room for the young girl to be bullied for her odd behavior and only alienated the girl even further. Running into the arms of her Grandmother who knew very well what her young Granddaughter was experiencing. This began a very strong bond with her Grandmother, who showed her more about the other world and what she saw. Teaching her the differences between the planes, how to survive, and developing a deeper love for both. As time passed and Haru began to grow taller and taller her Grandmother began to deteriorate. Growing ill to the point of where she could no longer keep up and fainted on one of their adventures into the other world. Haru having to bring her Grandmother back home on her own, not three days after this event, Amabi succumbed to her illness and died.
Distraught by the death of her Grandmother and remembering that all Yokai eventually return to the other plane in another form to eventually be reborn. Haru disappears from the material plane and begins a short venture to seek out the spirit of her Grandmother. What she found however was the darker side of the realm. Attacked and chased, Haru tumbled out of a thin rift between the material and the other (soon to be named). But not without finding what she believed to be the vessel that held her Grandmother’s soul. Exiting through the portal, as these monstrous creatures hungrilly chased after her, Haru found herself stranded and alone.
With Haru entering into the other world and seeking the spirit of her Grandmother she unknowingly disrupted the balance between the planes. Taking a vessel of a spirit that orchestrates this balance. When this spirit left the other world Haru released other beings known as Chaosborne. Beasts that often don’t seek the out right ruin of others but more or less the ruin of order and balance and law. Their troublesome nature could range between simple pranks to deadly disasters. However as Haru travels these creatures follow ultimately wishing to be forever free to live as they please, and the only way for this to occur is to destroy the vessel that Haru carries.
This is where we left off with Ping before we started our campaign and so much has happened since the small child had left her home in search of a way to bring her Grandmother back. I may cover this at a later time since I have long desired to do campaign logs for the current game, Stay tuned for more and I hope you enjoyed the story!
All my best,
Tina
Comments