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Tao Qing

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Tao Qing, The Young River Lord "Element Master", overseer of the Huangshan Province, is a Fire Lord.
This is the crest which identifies him. For the full view, check this character study

    Fire Lords control the powers related to the Xnobius element and thus sense the slightly alterations of heat and fire through a veil of strange micro-organisms Ushabti which they use to automate machines, fuel up and control metallic structures, and are very practical to do laborial works. However, a more creeping prospect is that the Ushabti, controlled by Xnobius at certain levels (requiring more energy from the element as larger chains are connected), becomes radioactive to human tissue, however it didn't hinder Fire Lords from employing them in their arts for necromancy. Whilst Ushabti have lives as ephemeral as common flies, they carry out memories, and can be computed into the Sheut, collectives of Ushabtis that are a tad more sentient, being spectres on their own right. Fire Lords, to be the exclusive group they are, are able to project their own Sheut, which means, that they can pass a first death by becoming this so-called shadow, which is bright as a mass of flames, dark as some fume, smoking carbon. In turn, they need Xnobius once again to maintain their status. That said, they're employed in making the element most relevant in daily life at every level. However, whilst it's rarity was a factor it was evaluated for some jewelry purposes, it's actual energetical goodness wasn't at all automated until the turn of the century.
So, the Fire Lords are the frontlines of this hidden technocracy and carry out a somewhat nationalistic agenda to the country of Haijian, whose history is partially shared with our own world's China. They're building up some momentum, as increasing population, late industrialization and global warming lead it all spiralling down to make a "Ushabti Greenhouse" more feasible than ever. Some are most concerned with pushing forth the control of fire and Xnobius to make energy out of Earth's isostasy and rotation, which would render the benefits of such naturalized, fully automated energy exclusively to the Lord and it's state machine, turned a private joint. Many interests build up to this, and the country's parties are somewhat uneasy with the loss of autonomy to this group of Nine.
    NINE, because despite every learner can bend Xnobius' powers, few have what it takes to reach the equilibrium between quantity and behavior of the Ushabti to the energy in the Xnobius. Many outcomes went from such a science, trying to find it in genetics to building up magician schools in different places. Fire Lords used to be around Kemet and Huaxia, despite the defeat of the first Flame Emperor left the Yellow Emperor, prime ancestor to Haijian, to monopolize the Fire Lord effort. Other groups became reclusive. Using Xnobius and Ushabti leaves imprints easy to be read by other users, however, using someone else, an automated army of rotten flesh to armor plate, doesn't denounce the author. That is an interesting prospect where the labor of the people is often hierarchized. So, the most untouched the Lord, whilst maintaining most doing it's bidding, is accounted good for the group. They require Nine to replicate some numerical value as a limitating device, maybe inspired in the elementals. To rank that, they use the concept of guanxi "networking". Some believe the Fire Lord automation has been so well mastered that even organics are unaware of it's grasp. No wonder religious leaders, politicians and military account among the Fire Lord and it's intelligentsia.
 

    Tao Qing is an economical manager with some prolific educational background, counting as well some engineering, and sporadically retiring for philosophical and historical studies, where he revises some royal livelihood in the fashion of ancient princes. Of course, he's backed by some other people and arguably has a role to play, being in the Fire Lords' group, however, has made he earn greater freedom by the measure he has greater influence, and all that was accounted for by his sponsors, who acts more vividly present than his own family. The "Philosophy" of the Fire Lords, their commitment is arguably a product of their own powers and of the nature of the same: seeking energetical auto-sufficiency, blurring the limits of what the auto prefix means at all. It leads for an automation of sorts, yet Qing is there to prove a point that doesn't avoid his talents and creativity from flourishing. Raised in the ways of the Dragon, as his butlers, masters and monks tell, his presence is largely requested at summits and meetings, for it means some promising trend is on the verge of an accordance. He's friends with the last elected Panchen Lama, and that tie has made him being seen as in league with Haijianese interests in Tibet, but that is merely blackmailing. His actual works concern the joints in the "special administrative zone" of Shanghai, geographically meld with the Huangshan province his caped counterpart oversees, employing top notch tacticians and making the hands of the partisans reach for the multitude of mafias, to shake in perilous, yet promising deals. Those which systematically began to leak into European waters, by undetected subs and bribing with very local fisherman on millonaire bets. One could argue his power and accumulation of guanxi (networking) makes him untouchable, and his Fire Lord activity may be just one out of the many secret groups he's into.
    But he takes it too seriously. The spine of the Fire Lord (Yanhou) doctrine concerns the Will of Fire and the No Fayan, a concept which compares each work or activity for common good, but as well requesting personal and individual commitment as a catalyst of such mentality, enhacing a "swarm" mentality and behavior (per effectiveness of the division of labor), which should be a first step for a possible polytechnical solution which could hinder ideological dominance of politics that could increase some doubt and imply morose on any population. Anything like that could work out as "works set free" idea, but on the same manner, it respects some pacing, which in turn is defined by the owners of the means, implying some great deal of responsibility, either for single people, familiar units, tribes, districts, to the entirety of the nation. With time, the relevance of the Lords tops military conspirers, and assumes nationalistic agendas which overrun the so-called Communist Party, at this point an hierarchical dominance of the intelligentsia and work-force. On this paradigm, Tao Qing which long sought reconcilement of his private goods with the state engine, is tempted to risk it all to aggregate the Lords into something "greater than their own", which may cause disruption in the group, considering not all of them see usefulness in nationalistic agendas. He for one got his back, but he still means others to bite the dust and leave room for some youngblood to lead the nation.
    His powers as a Lord are related to the energy category of Xnobius, using more circuit and electromagnetical effects than the proper gaseous plasma. He managed to control the heat contained in the vapor and also to use liquid plasma, as well as molten metal as means to use more efficiently the spread of Ushabti, either infecting or killing enemy and it's supplies. A biological and chemical menace, if you would, that uses quicksilver and other metals in this arcane alchemy. However, his control of fire as through means of oxygen makes almost impossible transplants feasible. This knowledge is highly coveted by other Lords in other to make their personal automated armies to last longer. His works on that reflect some other background, that of the northern regions (Manchuria) as well as onmyodo techniques, only that replacing the equivalents of the somewhat classical elements with the "hidden" ones. Aware of the crystals as bedrock of the spreading of their influence, he knows that the Fire Lords' fate and intent points out to the detainer of the Xnobius Crystal as an 'ambassador' to it's chief Entity (which in turn becomes, as an overseer, the most reliable "checker" of Xnobius activity), which means it's already with one among the Nine. However, he sees it with importance to overrun the over-specialization of their fire and heat powers (given the swarm mindset is a double-edged sword, leaving room for enemies who control the opposite element), as such, he trains with the water dragon Takashi who in turn responds to Yaxchilan related powers, common to the Japanese and the former Jade dynasty, or clan, from when Huaxia was still unconquered under the Yellow Emperor. As an overseer of maritime borders, he uses the power of the tides on his favor as much as favoring potent nuclear engines to win over any pursuer or fugitive force through speed, since their advantage in sea geography, as fire lords, is much requesting as controlling the volcaninc powers in it's darkest depths (making it feasible to the surface is possible, but just through severe trainning he's already up to). He's became overly influent among Pirates in the Sea, due joints his dragon ally favored him with. In turn, he made sure that he has allies among the Yakuza as well, in the form of the Kozakura-ikka syndicate, which just hinders the planification of the mobs and the international court's interests in the region. The influence of Haijian in Japan has been often criticized and was a motive of warning between international waters. But that became quite justifiable after a common enemy rose to provoke both countries: The Triton
The Lord's superiority by dealing with such menace was proved once in early 2009, and ever since, they protected an international summit again in January 2010, further cooperating with UN on the following decade...

Initial Sketch concept | Project at Behance
JINCI | TIANGONG | SHAN-HU | SHAO-JI | QINWANG | LI YONG | TAO QING | HUANGDI | YINLONG

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