Name: Katharine, Kathy, or Karmira
Contact: Discord: Karmira #6945
Are you over 18? Yes, I am.
Other characters: None
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Runyu
Age: Immortal
Cannon: Ashes of Love (Chinese Drama)
Cannon Point: Several centuries after he’s becomes the heavenly emperor (end of the drama)
Character Information:
The Heavenly Emperor is the supreme leader or figurehead of six magical divine realms which have lived in a tentative balance for centuries. The heavenly realm and the demon realm have skirmishes but since the Emperor ascended to power, there have been no wars. Runyu is the eldest, illegitimate son of the Emperor, and he does not remember his mother. Xufeng is his shining brother and everyone’s favorite.
Runyu is a reserved member of the court, fulfilling his duties and taking any accusations from the Empress with the same still expression, even when wounded. When he is sent on a mission to the demon realm, he allows Xufeng to lead, and he takes no offense when more guards are recruited for the heavenly realm and only one chooses to enlist under his service, Kaunglu. He accepts that the Empress will attempt to spy on him through the new guard and doesn’t change his expression when Kaunglu refuses to do so. The only time he is shown smiling is with Xufeng when they’re alone, sharing wine together between their missions.
Runyu changes when a floral fairy stumbles on him in his garden, when he is sleeping by the lake and his lower half has transformed into a dragon tail. His companion, the Beast of Dreams (a small white male deer), startles him and jumps at her, giving him time to return to his human form. However, Jinmi has already seen him and much to his amazement, compliments his beautiful tail. She calls him Fish Fairy and gifts him with a red string from the House of the Fox God, the God of Love. Runyu smiles and does so often in her presence.
A love triangle forms between Jinmi and the noble princes while on a mission in the demon realm. Jinmi saves Xufeng’s life.
Afterwards, Runyu gives Jinmi a place to stay in the human realm and gifts her a meteor shower when she’s bored. In return, she gives him the seeds of a night flower to give him company at night when he is working alone. The two promise to watch it open its first blooms together. Jinmi also gives him a hair pin similar to her own which Runyu starts wearing constantly. The three of them, Jinmi, Xufeng, and Runyu spend an evening there drinking together after some mischief caused by Jinmi’s friend, the Snake Immortal, Yanyou. And when Xufeng starts to suspect that Jinmi is their half sister, hidden at her birth, Runyu does not seem at all disillusioned by the doom in that statement.
Runyu shows another side when Jinmi is threatened by the Empress and when it is revealed that she is the daughter of the Water Immortal and his betrothed. He does not stand down when Xufeng begs him to break off the engagement and goes so far as to stage a sighting of Jinmi and himself by her father to cement his position at her side. In some aspects though, he is the same. When the floral fairies that have taken care of Jinmi warn him that loving Jinmi is useless, a journey with no reward, Runyu accepts it as fate but doesn’t change his course of action.
Jinmi is sent to undergo trials in the human realm and because of another threat on her life by the Empress, Xufeng follows her, tying them together. Even though she cannot remember him in these trials, Runyu visits Jinmi constantly as a powerful immortal and protects her from several attacks. He brings her the night flower so they can watch it bloom together as promised and even gifts her his dragon scale to profess his love for her. At the same time, he frowns as the human Jinmi and human Xufeng continue to fall deeply in love in front of him.
On behalf of Yanyou, Runyu agrees to meet someone, but entering her realm releases a surge of memories from this childhood, painful flashbacks of kids yelling at him for his looks and a mother screaming at him. He flees but returns, after asking Kaunglu to join him. He meets his mother, Suli, recalling the details of many traumatic events between them and his choice to leave her. For the Empress. Yanyou, now Suli’s foster son, reveals her tragic past, her ruin from the lust of the Emperor and her terrible loss and scarring from the vengeance of the Empress. Runyu is devastated but determined to make things right when everything comes to light; however, when the Empress kills her for conspiracy, even after he begs her for mercy on bended knee, he is utterly broken. Kaunglu bears silent witness to all of this, and Runyu confesses that he can never let Jinmi know, even without a vow of silence enforced on him by the Emperor.
When Jinmi and Xufeng return, Runyu appears to be the same as always. Jinmi is shaken and hurt by revelations and Runyu comforts her. He is resolute, also, in his belief that he will not give Jinmi up to his brother. But while Jinmi and Runyu enter a period of mourning, Runyu starts making the moves necessary for a coup, making minimal ripples as he slowly changes the balance of power in the realms. His eye for detail allows him to realize why Jinmi is different after her trials, but he chooses not to tell her, taking the matter into his own hands. Yanyou warns him against the path he’s set himself on, and Kaunglu, worried, remains at his side. When Jinmi’s father is murdered, Runyu leaves the Beast of Dreams with her and does not the tell her that Xufeng has been framed by the evidence revealed. He does not waver in his course of action until the day of the coup, the wedding between Jinmi and himself, when Xufeng inevitably tries to protect his corrupt parents and where Runyu’s unmasked disdain shifts momentarily to shock when Jinmi stabs Xufeng in the back.
Runyu becomes the Heavenly Emperor. The Emperor dies trying protect Xufeng and the Empress is imprisoned. Runyu tells the Empress who killed Xufeng and why an innocent died.
Jinmi realizes she made a mistake and nearly kills herself restoring Xufeng to life. During the journey, Runyu watches and cares for her, making no move to stop her. He even goes so far as sacrificing half of his life force to save her own. Kaunglu tries to stop him because Jinmi doesn’t love him. He refuses, believing himself to be nothing without her. Xufeng is resurrected and becomes the king of the demon realm. The relationship between all three is like frost, cold and bitter. Xufeng refuses to understand why Runyu took power from his parents and hates Jinmi for her betrayal. Runyu reaches out to Jinmi each time she is broken again by her sins and she continues to reject him each time. The cruel cycle is broken when Jinmi overhears a version of Runyu’s crimes and loses it, accusing Runyu and begging to be set free. Runyu doesn’t defend or try to explain anything himself, his face hardening and then breaking once more as his loved one screams at him, begging for forgiveness, when she declares that he knows nothing about love. Jinmi refuses to hear him out. Runyu locks her up.
Eventually Jinmi returns to Xufeng and Runyu attacks the demon realm to get her back. The demon realm and the heavenly realm, which can be said to be the cornerstone of the balance created, come to a head. Jinmi sacrifices herself to stop the war and the princes from killing each other. She begs Runyu to return to his old self. He promises to never attack the demon realm again. And when he returns to the heavenly realm, he writes a mandate with his crimes.
Runyu’s palace becomes cold and dark, but he believes he deserves it. He begs Xufeng to kill him when he appears. And when his brother does not, he struggles to understand why. Many centuries later, the palace remains silent and dark, and he is accompanied only by the Beast of Dreams and Kaunglu. He denies himself the right to happiness, unchanging even when he makes up with Jinmi and Xufeng. Visiting their growing family is the only joy he allows himself.
Personality:
Runyu has two sides to his personality. For a long time, he is a tolerant, generous, yet distant individual with no thought for himself, but when someone shatters that shell, he can be petty, ruthless, and unforgiving, deaf to any whispers to stop himself from fighting back with calculated manipulation and machinations.
For the longest time, he has tolerated disrespect, insults, accusations, even abuse from his foster mother the Empress without revealing nothing to his brother Xufeng. He is a generous individual, showing no ambition and putting the balance of the heavenly realm and his brother’s happiness before anything for himself. He does not resent the lesser role given to him, and when Jinmi asks if he is lonely, he denies it. He believes that he is not because he has never been otherwise. He does not seem upset but accepts the circumstances as they are.
Runyu is a distant, aloof individual when interacting with most people in the court. He is a master at going through the motions to keep the status quo required of him. He gives everyone the same muted smile and brief, honorable salutations. He makes the gestures expected of him, including granting a gift to the Empress on her birthday even if she will never appreciate it. He rarely changes this calm facade of himself, keeping himself separate from the court and his peers. Even when a guard, Kaunglu, chooses to follow him and not his brother and deliberately refuses to spy for the Empress, he grants her a more unique position with little to no change in his expression or tone. He enforces that distance between them. He does not trust or let others in easily. Being distant with others protects themselves from the Empress as well as himself.
However, there are two people Runyu cannot keep him his distance from, Xufeng, the brother he was raised with, and Jinmi, the girl he has fallen in love with. For them, his generosity deepens to kindness. Jinmi constantly bemoans her state in life, her inability to learn fast enough, her life as a prisoner, and her general weakness. While Xufeng points out her flaws to push her, Runyu uses a different approach, pointing out what she can do and framing it to lift her spirits. He can’t stop smiling in amusement at her antics and descriptions of life and even teases his brother when she asks an intimate question without meaning too. He pays no heed to any obstacles to spending time with her, choosing to look at the bright side of the life given him. Most of the time, he shares that same kind of freeness with his brother, supporting and using his wit to make him laugh when Xufeng is troubled by the expectations placed on him. He appears happy for them.
But is he really?
Runyu has made a willful decision to remain optimistic and focus on the good things in his sparse life, putting the greater good before fulfilling anything for himself. Fulfilling a righteous path gives him the facade of the warmth he has been seeking for so long and that is a strong protection against the abuse and pain the world has given him. However, that same sense of sacrifice and disregard to his own wellbeing leave Runyu open to blind obsession when it becomes too much. When something is either too good to be true. When something is threatening to destroy his carefully crafted equilibrium.
When Runyu discovers that Jinmi is his destined fiancé, when his doomed first love becomes good fortune,Runyu cannot stop himself from making his position with her secure, using all the means available to him. He can’t stop himself from spying on her father and her guardians when they’re revealing the secret of her birth or from manipulating her father’s first appearance of him with her. He becomes possessive and refuses to allow his brother equal chance with her. He even goes so far as to use that which he loves most about Jinmi, her carefree naivety. He is blind to the wrongs in these actions.
And when the visit with the snake immortal Yanyou awakens childhood memories of the agonizing time with his real mother, it is the first and only time he reaches out to his servant and only follower, Kaunglu. He cannot stop the need to express himself to someone and at the time, there is no one else. (Both Xufeng and Jinmi are in the mortal realm). But he is blind to the consequences of awakening her feelings for him and cannot see her sympathy as anything else but shameful pity.
When finally cornered or beaten down, Runyu’s facade changes. It is hard to break him, but when his control is gone, what remains is raw, brittle, cold emotion. His decision to remain optimistic about life and give generously to those that are good to him narrows into a deep-rooted need for justice, justification, and even petty greed. He embraces his usually secret disillusionment with the world around him. When the Empress kills his mother in front of him and then tortures him to keep him in his place, Runyu becomes a different person. He uses his clever way with words and the knowledge of the court for swift acts of ruthless manipulations and plays of power towards vengeance, dark machinations necessary to set the world right again. Although he had been in the position for these moves for centuries, it is only when someone destroys the secret balance within him when he takes these steps.
Runyu’s belief in a righteous path turns into single-minded zealous energy, seeing everything in black and white. Runyu takes Kaunglu under his wing and starts training her as his apprentice because he has decided to overthrow the crown, not because of her assistance over time and her support when his mother died. And when Runyu’s brother challenges him because of their filial duty, Runyu has no patience with his naiveté and even uses it against him as another step in that path of righteousness. He forgets the comradiery he treasured for centuries, only seeing his resurrection as a potential obstacle. Jinmi’s pain and confusion is a temporary setback that will fade away because what he is doing is right. In his mind, the path matters most of all. And no matter the purpose for his path, he walks it with no regrets until it is too late.
Because in the end, Runyu is a martyr. If he can sacrifice himself for others, he will. He begs for his mother’s life on bended knee, going so far as to grovel before his greatest threat. And when the Empress later threatens to kill his mother’s new foster sons and the rest of the inhabitants of her home because of her conspiracy, Runyu takes their punishment upon himself. He tries to uphold the laws. And when he can finally see his wrongs, when the righteous madness releases him, he sees himself as a lowly creature who must go to the utmost lengths to atone for his sins. He does not allow himself forgiveness or happiness. He vows to deny himself worldly happiness even when Jinmi returns to Xufeng after her sacrifice in the demon realm. He takes a long time to stop regretting and has not yet stopped.
5-10 Character Traits: Generous, Tolerant, Optimistic, Righteous, Martyr, Distant, Petty, Manipulative, Zealous, Regretful
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? 100% Random
Opts Out: Pooka, Slime, Simulacrum, Arachne
Roleplay Sample:
Fate:
Runyu was no stranger to people keeping away from him. For centuries, his duties were completed alone with little contact with both of his parents. When he wished to see his brother, Runny sought him out. Xufeng didn’t come to him. The Empress wouldn’t approve. And now, before he had appeared here, his palace was cold, dark, with no courtiers. Besides the same beast and one foolish, loyal servant.
With a faint twist of lips, he lowered himself to take the flyer that had fallen to the ground. Runyu rubbed the strange texture between his fingers, trying to recall if he had seen its like before. It was smooth almost like the fine cloth he wore but not at the same time. With his robe, he could feel slight ridges in the thread. On this paper, there was nothing like that. Not even over the words written in a bold font across the front. It was, yet again, proof that he could not recognize his location. He shook it out and opened it.
Runyu couldn’t help himself a few minutes later as a bittersweet laugh escaped his lips. Barely above a whisper. According to the information, another god had taken him away from his existence as the heavenly emperor and sealed any way for him to return or for others to find him. And in a moon’s cycle, he would turn into the monster he understood lurked underneath his righteous form. Fate had a cruel way with him. It always would. But if there was no way to leave, becoming a monster seemed a fitting exchange for the freedom inside.
He frowned. Even if he needed to take a life for it? Would he go so far now?
He let his hand fall to his side. Had it only been a matter of time before he had become like them?
He closed his eyes and folded the flyer, placing it inside his sleeve. No, he would not become them. If he had to take a life here, he would dictate who and bring about something good with it. That was his duty. Even here, that would not change.
Gathering Information:
It was impossible to blend in when dressed in white here. But he did not possess the ability to change his appearance. It didn’t matter. Keeping his expression calm, he continued on. Striding into the town as people scuried from him, he waited for an opening. He blinked as a child stumbled, quickly kneeling and cushioning him with his arms.
The boy’s wide eyes stared into his own. He let his smile grow. There was no need to create a facade around one as young and innocent as he. “It’s alright,” he murmured. “I won’t hurt you.”
A shadow fell over him, a young woman wringing her hands over a basket of food. He rose and the boy fled to her arms. He brushed off his sleeves. The woman clung to her son but hadn’t moved. Her eyes were fixed on him.
“What did you say to him?” she asked, voice quavering.
Runyu’s smile remained. “The truth,” he stated. “That I would never harm someone as young as him, even if I am to turn into a monster who must feed on someone. And I will extend the same courtesy towards you.” He glanced down to the child in her arms. “A boy should not be separated from his mother.”
Pulling himself from his reverie, he turned back to the mother. “If you don’t believe me, will you answer a few questions in exchange for your safety?”
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