Thyrsus

Li’s Jeep was getting old, so her dad replaced it with a Hybrid Escalade. The new SUV is cobalt blue. The same old survival gear sits in the back, more or less continuously.

Magical Tools
Path: a brass coin worn on a cord with some rough jade beads. The coin has the Pentacle worked on one side, and several hexagrams on the other.

Arcanum:
– Life – A wooden rice bowl (cups)
– Spirit – a bamboo flute (Wands)
– Prime – A shard of red obsidian (Mirrors)
– Matter – A garden spade (Swords)

In the trunk
The trunk is a black, heavy-gague, waterproof plastic trunk that locks with a combination lock.

$1000 in cash

First Aid kit
Bandages, Roller gauze, Butterfly bandages , Cloth tape, 4 pair medical grade gloves, Antibacterial wipes, Cold packs, Heating patches, Scissors, Tweezers, Thermometer, Face shield, First aid manual, Non-aspirin pain reliever, Antihistamine, Eye wash, Burn pads, Lip moisturizing stick, Antacid, Potassium iodine tablets

Survival Gear
AM/FM battery/hand-crank radio, 2 lanterns, 2 directional flashlights, Battery operated alarm clock, Extra batteries for all products for three days, 4 light sticks, Fire extinguisher, 24 hour candle, Waterproof matches, Gas shut off tool, Magnesium flares (5)

Utility Items
Entrenching tool, Hammer, Hatchet, All-purpose knife, Chain (about 6 feet) and padlock, Bolt Cutters, Nylon rope 1/2 inch (100 ft), Needle and thread, Binoculars, Duct tape (1 roll), Work gloves, Gaffer tape (1 roll)

Hygine Supplies
4 Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Dental floss, Toilet paper, Tissues, Shampoo, Comb and brush, Sunscreen, Razor, Shaving cream, Insect repellent, Condoms, Tampons, Soap, Mirror, Wet-wipes (1 canister), Cloth diapers

Comfort Items
A blanket, Clean clothes including underwear, socks, and shoes, A second set of clothes that will fit someone else – baggy sweats, etc.

Miscelaneous items
Chalk (1 box of 12), Plastic sheeting, 8 x 10 foot tarp, Whistle, Super glue, Safety goggles, 4 Mylar blankets, Zip Lock freezer bags (1 box), Waterproof pouch (documents), Disposable camera, Garbage gags, Contractor style (10), Latex gloves (unpowdered) (1 box), Rock Salt (5 lb canister), Shop towels, “Utility Belt” military web belt with several pouches she can load up with whatever she’s likely to need, Zip Strips (50 or so of the heaviest ones available), A sack of quartz crystals, most very small. Some of them have simple jewlery settings.

Food and Water
Water, 20 oz. bottles (2), Powdered milk, Peanut butter, Jelly, Crackers, 12 food bars (some no nuts), Lifesavers and twizzlers, Canned tuna, canned fruit, Hydration electrolyte powdered drink, Dog food, Fruit snacks, raisins, nuts, Flavored drink mixes, Caffeinated beverage, Water purification tablets, box of Power Bars, mess kit (bowl, cup, fork, knife, spoon) (2)

Carried on her person
$1000 in prepaid American Express gift cards (This is for emergencies only. Li doesn’t even think of it as money)
iPhone
Flashlight with red filter
Multitool
Notepad
Pen
Lockpicks (when she’s doing B&E, not most of the time)
Jade bead bracelet.

In the SUV
2-man tent
Batteries for everything she owns that takes batteries
Sleeping bag
Tarp
Water, 2 gallon container (1)
Wooden stakes and mallet
The trunk

Brought out for special occasions
A Monk’s Spade

iPhone Apps (These are all real apps I found by searching the internet)
Digital recorder
Hiker’s GPS pathfinder utility (will build a map of your movements – useful for retracing your steps)
Beacon App (lets you pick a set of GPS coordinates, and gives you distance, elevation, and bearing of those coordinates)
“MyPanic” (sends an email of your GPS coordinates to a pre-chosen address.)
“Weatherbug”
“Sunrise” (calculates local sunrise, solar noon, sunset, and phase of the moon)
Has a google calendar for dates of occult significance.
Police band tracker (In many areas, the police stream the police band radio, and it’s publically available)
Document Scanner (turns photographs of text into PDF documents. Makes it easy to print them by synching to a bluetooth printer)

Active Spells
Li casts Bones of Steel with extended duration every morning

Personality

Qing Yuan seems to carry the weight of a great sadness, but she can feel equal happiness. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, and deeply compassionate. Her compassion is coupled with bravery and willingness to sacrifice herself that can seem like recklessness, but in fact is not. Qing Yuan just considers her life a fair price to pay for the life of someone she cares about.

Qing Yuan is bisexual, with a strong preference for women. In fact, she mostly identifies as a Lesbian. After a long period of not wanting to be tied down, she has started to yearn for companionship deeper than casual dating will allow. But she is reluctant to expose many people to the dangers of her life. Although forceful in most aspects of her life, Qing has submissive sexual tendencies. Perhaps it’s because she’s so forceful in the rest of her life. In her love life, she likes to be able to surrender control to someone she trusts.

(I am debating her having a polyamorous streak. It seems to fit her personality, but I don’t know how well it fits the social network of the game)

Since Taming the River, Qing has become much more interested in arts and crafts. She likes to create things and shape things. She’s not terribly good at it yet, but she has a spark of real talent, especially in physical endevors.

Both parents wanted to give Xian Li the best that America and China had to offer, and when they discovered her Gift they wanted to nurture it. When Shen died in 1992, her training took a more martial bent as Michael was left to raise her alone.

Xian Li grew up in several worlds: the world of Hollywood glitz and glamor, the world of Eastern misticism, and the world of the shadow war between humanity and its supernatural enemies. When she grew up, she wanted to be a Storm Dragon. Or a superhero. Or a handsom prince on a firy steed.

She more or less succeded. Her father wouldn’t let her seriously Hunt until she turned sixteen. By then, she’d been training with some of the best in the Storm Dragons, both in conventional martial arts and in Tao Chi. Li’s mastery of Tao Chi was strange. In some ways she surpassed any of her teachers, learning things intuitively, almost as if she wasn’t learning them, but simply remembering. The Elders put off testing her for initiation while they tried to understand her.

Her life changed when she turned eighteen.

At noon on her eighteenth birthday, Xian Li fainted in the midst of a workout. She remained unconscious, muttering something in really old Chinese off and on, and having strange dreams of distant places and mythical beings. Her temperature was elevated, and strange discolored patches appeared on her skin, gradually resolving into the shape of an elaborate Imperial dragon tattoo that coiled all over her body. Smaller dragons circled her forearms and ankles, and in places poems in very old Kanji appeared.

When she woke up twelve hours later, she said “I need to leave now.”

It wasn’t quite that simple. Her parents, and the Storm Dragon elders, understandably wanted to know what had happened, but their attempts bore no fruit. Every day’s delay pressed on Xian Li harder. She became flighty and restless, unable to concentrate. She started sleepwalking, and would awaken half way down her home street if no one stopped her.

Finally, it was obvious that she really couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. She packed her most essential belongings in the new Jeep Grand Cherokee her father bought for her and started driving, not really knowing where she was going.

After several months, she found Mythic City.

On her first night in Mythic City, Xian Li saw a group of risen dead attacking women near a cemetary. She leapt to their defense, and might have died except that one of the women was Mercedes Salizar, who had supernatural powers of her own. Together, the two women defeated the monsters. After that, they struck up a friendship close enough that when Mercy came into a lot of money and bought a big house, she offered to let Li move in with her.

Two years later, Cassie ))MacArthur(( and her friends arrived in Mythic as well. Brigid Cathair founded Cathair Investigations, and the group started fighting to protect Mythic City from superhuman threats.

Now everything has changed. Li has discovered she’s a powerful Mage. The supernatural world has been transformed, and Li is struggling to find her new place in it.