Skill: Floral Alchemy (5)
Skill: Be a Cherry Blossom Tree (1)
Skill: Shine (1)
Passion: Y.O.L.O. (1)
Bond: I am the greatest martial artist in existence (5)
Bond: I am guided by the World Tree (1)
Bond: I guide my Blossoms (1)
Bond: I love my plant-dog Sekai (1)
Affliction: I am both a cherry blossom tree and a girl (2)
Affliction: I am a hopeless romantic (1)
Affliction: I get tangled up in drama (1)
Affliction: I attract others like butterflies to a flower (1)
PLANTS
… begin and end the circle of life
… hide many secret properties (3)
… grow uninhibited and natural
… recycle our breath
… can be tamed and manipulated
ASPECT 0
DOMAIN 5
PERSONA 0
TREASURE 0
GIFTS
*Flight (1)
*Unblemished Guide (1)
*My Blossoms (Treasure 5 ("elegant martial artists") + Simple (-1) + Local (-1) + Handful of Uses (-2) + Rare (+1) = 2 CP)
*Cherry Blossom Style (Aspect 7 (Skill: Martial Artist) + Simple (-1) + One Local Target (-2) + Flexible (+1) + Rare (+1) = 6 CP)
BACKGROUND
A long time ago, in ancient Japan, an infant girl was transformed into a cherry blossom tree. Whether it was an evil sorceror or a demonic martial artist is lost in the mists of history. The girl was turned into a seedling, which grew like a second womb in the Earth, until finally sprouting. Many years passed and the tree-that-was-also-a-girl was barely awake in the truest sense. She didn't even have the spiritual life of a tree-sprite; her mortal viewpoint trapped her in the inanimate boringness of just being a tree in the Prosaic Reality.
And then, she awoke to the Truth! She became a sort of tree boddhisattva, a saint of the green. She meditated on her secret awareness, harmonizing with all life and the Yggdrasil, until a few centuries later, she was enNobled as the Domina Planta. It all flowed pretty naturally.
This didn't really shake up her lifestyle much. She remained mostly a tree, quite content and the level of enlightenment she had attained before life. Her ascension only confirmed much of what she had already knew, and brought her closer and closer to the World Tree. She orchestrated her Estate from her position overlooking a Buddhist monastery. She watched the men train in secret and foreign martial arts.
And then, she fell in Love! The boy was the greatest student of the Old Master, and the Domina could attest he was the greatest in generations at this dojo. But it was more than his strength which earned the tree's love, it was his wisdom. He would often gather the other students to sit under her branches and talk about the noble truths. She wanted to sit under those branches and hang on his every word like the others.
So to do so, she became a girl. She had known for a long time she was born human and made into a tree, and thus was always rather unique. But now as the Power of Plants, and a Regal at that, she had much more say on the matter. Like a dryad she split herself in twain, leaving her cherry tree self unharmed and right where it had always been, but allowing her to walk and talk and love the young monk.
Needless to say the romance was a bit awkward. She was a living enlightened goddess, a saint of the World Tree, many lifetimes older than he. And yet, she was also brand new, young, only days old. She called herself "Sakura Blossom", and he would run his strong fingers through her pink hair under her blooms and discuss the meaning of existence.
For a while, Sakura roamed about Japan, a spirit gained flesh. She got into duels, advised generals and emperors, lounged in the Imperial palace and wrote some poems that are better left forgotten. All the while she would return every night to her love, who was now the abbot. They hid their dalliances to avoid the wrath of the priesthood for breaking his vows, as well to avoid a run in with the Locust Court.
The World Tree spoke to her one evening as she lay in her lover's arms. With greater urgency than ever before, the mother of all life urged Sakura to directly confront the Excrucians. She said they were a cancer upon her lifeforce and would end all worlds. Now that she could walk, and talk, she could fight. She was actually extremely good at it. The best in the world.
And fight she did. Many conflicts with Harumaph's Riders followed, but though many were victories for the Domina, in the end they struck her where it really hurt. She found the monastery slaughtered, every monk's heart stolen for some Beyonder ritual. Her lover had meditated to the point where he survived on the echo of his last heartbeat for hours before she arrived, but with one last look between the two of them, he fell to the floor.
Sakura Blossom was devastated. Torn apart by grief and rage, she fled to South America and grew the thickest wildest portions of the Amazon Rain Forest. She tried to immerse herself in beauty and nature, far from the world of men, but it didn't work. She even made an adorable plant-dog named Sekai. It wasn't enough. (Eventually, she came out of her depression, but she kept Sekai. He's too cute.)
What lured her out of hiding was the suave and confident Power of Cities. Urban Black ventured into her deepest lair and begged to speak to her. For The Light and its noble cause, and for the good of all humanity, the Domina Urbes wanted her permission to expand his Estate even though it meant removing plants, forests and jungles, as the people built their roads and factories. He promised he would foster initiatives to preserve nature and to keep trees growing in cities. Through their deliberations, they fell in love. He led her by the hand out of her long seclusion and out into the New World. The Industrial Revolution was in full throttle and he had big plans.
Their romance was unhealthy. It was productive, certainly, for Black. Sakura became involved in the real world, in the well-being of plants and in the affairs of the Nobilis. The World Tree still drove her to combat the Excrucians wherever they dwelt and she threw herself into her work. But the whole thing was kept at the utmost secrecy. Lots of sneaking around, lots of secret messages. Their times together were passionate but brief. She was infatuated, but as the centuries rolled in, it became clear he was using her. The march of urbanization had gone too far, and the sprawl of cities was getting too much for the Earth to bare. Worst of all, much of Japan had succumb to his influence, and even the tree where the-girl-who-was-also-a-tree stood was in sight of concrete towers (though the space around it was owned by Sakura and the dojo was now filled with her personal warrior disciples, the Blossoms). Enough was enough. Their secret dalliances grew more infrequent, and then they stopped.
Nowadays, Sakura is trying to be more proactive about her Estate. Though Black has pushed the Green Movement into urban centers in recent years in an effort to win her back, Sakura is trying to be her own woman for a change. She became human for love, and her heart still longed for it, but it was time for this rose to grow wild. And then she saw him. An Excrucian. With her first lover's face. A Warmain named Gorz Korbinian, he who wields the Test of the Tournament. He had claimed her long lost monk's life and had taken his visage with it. Perhaps more. Now she doesn't quite know what to do.