The Shogun Of Sorrow
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Contents |
History
The man known as the Shogun of Sorrow is, in actuality, Ashina Yaijinden, the crowning heir of an organized crime family back in Japan. Raised under the principles of seeking and gathering wealth and power, he was groomed to succeed the family even as a baby, with education and training arranged for his future. Unfortunately, as meta-humans began to crop up and propogate in ever increasing numbers, ordinary organizations like the Yaijinden Clan became less and less known, since even a single meta-human could replace scores of operatives. Unwilling to allow his family to simply fade away and die in obscurity, Ashina used the family's immense resources and network of contacts to arrange for a trip to the the centre of the meta-human criminal population: The "Rogue Isles". With a substantial kick-starter, dossiers, and his suit of armor, Ashina discarded his true name and assumed a moniker for use in this new land: "The Shogun of Sorrow"
Into The Underworld
Shogun's first step upon arrival was to locate an organization whose manpower and resources could serve as a suitable starting point for his own ambitions. It did not take long for him to find such a group: The United Underworld. Far more organized and concise than any other group he'd run into so far, the Shogun deemed the United Underworld sufficiently matching his requirements, and thus became a member. However, he quickly discovered that the Underworld wasn't quite what he imagined it to be. Many of it's members seek only to cause mayhem and sow chaos, a thing which runs counter to his agenda. Despite this setback, the Shogun has steadily risen to the rank of Primary Council, where he stands as one of the candidates next in line for the head leadership position.
Personality
The Shogun is a cold, calculating individual. He does almost nothing impulsively, and always takes his time to patiently plan ahead. However, he doesn't quite consider himself a "villain" in the same vein as Nine-Ball or Pure Inferno might. He prefers to classify himself as a "career criminal". Despite his ruthless business-manner, he can be quite amicable in public, and has no issue socializing or being polite, cordial, and even downright friendly towards the right individuals, regardless of alignment. He considers the distinction between "hero" and "villain" to be an archaic thing. Though he admits that he engages in legally questionable activity, he likes to remind heroes that he has as much to gain by the City's continued existence as they do, and while they persist, he flourishes. He abhors mindless violence and mayhem, despite the latter being one of the founding tennants of the United Underworld. He believes that there's no shame in some nobility and civility even when dealing with enemies. Do not mistake this, however, to say that the Shogun is a good person. He is as ruthless and greedy as they come, and would do almost anything to get ahead.
Double Cross
As the Shogun gathered influence, information, material wealth, and power, he found that Paragon City and it's conflict with the Isles were perhaps the richest source of everything he desired, as well as offering him the largest opportunities to gather more. Unfortunately, this often means his desires run almost violently counter to those both in the Underworld, and even in the Isles as a whole. Realizing that damage done to Paragon would damage not only his profit margins and network of information, but also the greatest source of challenge and entertainment, the Shogun has taken it upon himself to make sure such plans to ruin the City do no succeed. Sometimes, he'll even manipulate his own comrades to get what he wants from them, with or without their consent:
- When Nine-Ball began his plan to use the Neural Synaptic Device to try and destroy The Challengers, a prominent super-hero team, the Shogun knew that Nine-Ball, if successful, would likely not stop his plan there. When the brainwashed Luficia was forced to leave her intelligent weapon, Seiken, behind, the Shogun struck a deal with the weapon to make sure it found it's way back to it's owner. The Shogun had prepared a plan to secretly disrupt the effects of Nine's device, but the Challengers defeated Nine-Ball before he could enact it, so the Shogun shelved his plan.
- When Maestro Fortissimo used the Meta-Amplifier to try and level Paragon City, the Shogun chose to meet with Asunder, of the Challengers, telling her in intricate detail the Maestro's scheme so that they might prevent the Maestro from doing permanent damage to the City. The Shogun still wound up using the Maestro's cover to instigate his own scheme, distracting the Challengers with a false bank robbery so that he could steal goods from Longbow. When the Challengers tried to intercept him, he left behind a robotic duplicate of himself, as well as Seth, making them believe they were going to apprehend him. By the time they discovered the duplicity, he was already out of their reach.
- Shogun worked on an experiment in an attempt to clone Nine-Ball hoping to use the psychic's immense potential for his own purposes, from a sample of DNA obtained from Nine-Balls prison uniform during his short stay in the Zig. However, the Shogun discovered that Nine-Ball's powers were not naturally occuring, nor a mutation. Shogun's attempt at recreating the process seemed to have succeeded, except that he couldn't completely control the clone's stability. When he realized that the condition was degenerative, he sacrificed the clone to Autosaurus Wrecks in the hopes the machine could successfully integrate the clone, which would gain him robot's favor. Unfortunately, the clone proved too much for Wrecks to handle, and it started corrupting his systems. The Shogun attempted to shut down the clone, but Wrecks had already devoured too much of the clone's brain for it to recognize his command. The incident resulted in Wrecks self-destructing, leading almost all present to believe the Shogun had either tried to enslave or assassinate Wrecks. To cover for his experiment, the Shogun lied and stated the clone was actually a Fortunata physically reconstructed to resemble Nine-Ball for a plan he was putting together. The Underworld bought the lie, leaving Shogun's plans undetected.
- Most recently, the Shogun was present at a meeting where the Underworld was approached by Baron Blitzman, Phanto, and Codename Devilfish, to assist Phanto in a plan to unleash a psychic bomb upon Paragon City, in almost a manner identical to what Darrin Wade had attempted before. Shogun was (suprisingly) most forward with his distrust and dismay for such a plan, since it required Underworld to risk their own well-being. Despite Devilfish offering protection, Shogun was most suspicious, and soon after met Asunder once again in the depths of Dark Astoria, where he revealed to her the plan of Phanto's ambush, information that was used to brief the heroes gathered. However, after the plan failed, Phanto revealed that his image on the battlefield was only an illusion, and that he was never present. Compounded on top of the complications of the bomb's sabotage, the unstable psychic Epilogue, and Devilfish's faulty neural dampeners; the Shogun, quite thoroughly disgusted with Phanto's incompetence, revealed his treachery, stating he acted in the Underworld's best interests. Despite warnings that Phanto might enact revenge against him, the Shogun remains unphased, and holds that allying with the likes of Phanto or the Baron would only have lead to disaster, especially since the Baron's capture and imprisonment meant he was useless to them.
- Autosaurus Wrecks captured Gadgix of the Challengers, with the intent of using her to create a hybrid synthetic-organic species as part of his project to "fix" what the robot believed to be wrong with the human race. Shogun, leery of such plans, contacted Asunder with the information, and attempted to slip Gadgix several items that might assist her. To his surprise, Dominatriea (The now-former Supreme Leader) approached him just before he went to deliver the items to ask him, as a secret order, to ensure Gadgix's well-being against whatever Wrecks had planned. However, before Shogun could enact any sort of plan, Gadgix escaped from custody all on her own. As of this moment, the Challengers are aware that the Underworld has operations in the Shadow Shard, though given the sheer size of the dimension, determining the exact location is nigh impossible.
Physical Attributes and Powers
The Shogun himself is nothing more than an ordinary human. He simply has access to some of the best resources known to man, making even a man lacking powers like himself a formidable adversary to even the strongest heroes.
Powered Armor
The Shogun's armor is likely his greatest weapon, and his most versatile. Created prior to his arrival in the Rogue Isles, it holds a wide variety of functions. The most mysterious however, is the armor's ability to somehow manipulate the flow of temporal events. There is absolutely no magic involved in the armor (the Shogun himself distrusts most magic and believes in the comparable, if not superior power of science and technology, and all attempts to discern how the suit operates and produces it's effects have failed. There is a theory that the ability to alter time's flow may be a product of the Shogun himself, rather than the armor, but medical tests reveal no mutations or abnormalities in the Shogun himself leaving his armor as the only explanation even if the function doesn't make any logical sense.
Time Manipulation
The mysterious property of the Shogun's armor allows him localized control over the flow and motion of temporal events. This means the Shogun can accelerate, slow, or even stop time in a given area, or for a given object, living or otherwise. The Shogun may even possess very limited powers of precognition. His power isn't limited merely to physical object either. During an argument with fellow Underworlder Pure Inferno, the latter tried to set Shogun's cloak on fire. The Shogun 'stopped', and then made it temporally cease to exist, erasing it as though it had never been formed. The extent to which the Shogun can affect non-physical objects hasn't been fully explored.
Information Network
The Shogun prides himself on his intelligence sources, and they are another of his most potent weapons. Established shortly after his arrival, the Shogun has worked to use the various contacts within the Isles to gather dossiers and information on almost everything and anything. It's believed the Shogun may have his own base of operations outside that of the Underworld that he works from, and it's no secret that often intelligence and relevant information is forwarded to him through his Armor's computer system, allowing him to sort leads or balance his finances even during field work.
Ninja Army
The bulk of the Shogun's power lies in his agents, the army of ninja henchmen at his disposal, which he uses even moreso than the Underworld's own forces. His ninjas are seemingly limitless in number, and they can seemingly drop from thin-air, leading some to believe either the ninjas are all clones of each other, or possibly even constructs. The Shogun HAS confirmed the Oni minion is a construct, designed to resemble the demon of japanese mythology, and that this was done out of the Shogun's own amusement.
'Seth'
(Currently looking for someone interested in playing Seth)
The mysterious red-armored man is the Shogun's right hand man, his 'commander' of sorts for any of the Shogun's various schemes and plans. He is the Shogun's representative in anything where the Shogun himself cannot be present for, and often engages in side-operations and errands, including gathering and delivering information and goods, and even assassination. Seth was revealed to be some kind of draconic monster, suffering from a "condition" the details of which only the Shogun is aware of. The Shogun and Seth share a tenuous master-servant relationship, though Seth often likes to see how much of the slack he can pull from the Shogun. Otherwise, Shogun has Seth's absolute loyalty.
Allies and Enemies
The Shogun has, in his short time developed a number of relationships. Remarkably however, very few people have openly declared any sort of rivalry or grudge, though there are individuals the Shogun heavily dislikes.
Allies
United Underworld - The United Underworld is one of more well organized groups the Shogun has encountered, and although it's membership varies wildly in terms of goals and principles, they offer the manpower and resources that the Shogun needs for his own agenda, as well as offering several individuals for him to work with.
Slot King - One of the members of the Underworld that Shogun admires and respects the most, he is the closest the Shogun could consider to be a 'kindred spirit', as they are both businessmen who seek profit and opportunity, while waving away the anarchy loved by the majority of the Underworld. King has even commissioned the Shogun for work in the future.
Voice of Dagon - The arcane telepathist, probably one of the ONLY magic users in the Underworld, the Shogun made a deal wherein in exchange for the Voice's favor and assistance at a future time and place, the Shogun would surrender a week of his dreams over to the Voice. Whether the Shogun is aware of the implications of the pact or not, or simply doesn't care is anyone's guess. However, he feels the considerable powers and talents of the Voice are worth the risk.
Nine-Ball - The psuedo-leader of the United Underworlds commands Shogun's respect for his considerable charisma and power, although Shogun feels Nine squanders his skills for his own entertainment when there are immense possibilities. Nine's insanity doesn't help the issue either. Still Shogun won't deny Nine's presence, since he and the Maestro helped form the Underworld.
Asunder - The charming young lady of the Challengers is not only Shogun's informant, but someone whose company he finds most enjoyable. He finds her ability to engage him with both intellect and humor a quality he rarely finds in others (especially others of the fairer sex), and she openly admits to using the Shogun as much as he tries to use her, making their back-and-forths like a game for him. He's openly admitted that, were she not currently engaged to Replacer, that he'd consider dating her himself.
Enemies
Phanto - Phanto's scheme of the psychic bomb immediately earned the Shogun's ire for both copying Darrin Wade's foolish idea, and the fact Phanto didn't seem to plan carefully enough. On top of that, the fact he didn't even risk himself while potentially trying to kill off everyone he allied with for his plan has made the Shogun immensely distrust him, and dislike his conspirator, the Baron. Also, several people have stated that Phanto may attempt to gain revenge on the Shogun for his betrayal, an attempt the Shogun welcomes.
Codename Devilfish - Phanto's associate, Shogun has nothing but contempt for the soldier of fortune, who made the claim of being a "professional" when Shogun teased at the idea of counter-contracting Devilfish to work against Phanto. He finds the statement ironic considering that the bomb was likely sabotaged by Devilfish, and that the neural dampeners Devilfish offered were faulty, leading Shogun to conclude that either Phanto planned this outcome, or Devilfish acted on his own, neither of which improves the mercenary's standing in the Shogun's eyes.