Grace "Kat" Shannon's page

In the 7th ward of New Orleans, children grow up tough or they mature into the meek working class who have resigned themselves to lives of desperate struggle just to survive and avoid getting chewed up and spit out by the larger community. One of the former was born Yōuyǎ Shān to mixed race parents. Her parents were among the downtrodden whose spirits were weary of struggle and abuse. They worked long hours and could not supervise her activities once she had learned to walk and talk. Once she was old enough to attend the terribly underfunded local public grade school. It amounted to day care with little real teaching or learning.

Yōuyǎ found herself being bullied by older children who would become street gang members committing crimes to survive rather than attempting to learn a trade and find employment. Yōuyǎ quickly tired of the teasing she received about her name, so asked someone who spoke Chinese what her name meant. Her first name meant “Grace” while her last name meant “Mountain.” She started telling people her name was Grace Shannon, since she didn’t know anyone with a last name of mountain, but she knew some families with the name Shannon.

She yearned to learn about the world but her teachers and community could offer little to satisfy her curiosity. She took to sports as something she could learn from other kids. Her new first name proved prophetic, as she was capable at many athletics requiring nimble movements. The activity strengthened her and she tried for a little while to learn boxing. She had a cheap skateboard and she tried to learn tricks that she saw others doing.

At age 8, she was skateboarding in a street that was reasonably smooth. It was recess but no one stopped her from gliding away from the school to practice and other kids had likewise drifted to the area to play other games. As she tried to lift the skateboard from the street over a curb to the sidewalk, she noticed an old Creole woman staring at her from about twelve feet down the sidewalk. This was unsettling because Grace knew that the woman was blind, with thick white cataracts on both eyes. Nevertheless the old lady began to walk slowly toward Grace, hunched over, leaning heavily on a short cane. Grace skated away to the other side of the street, but the old lady, known as Mestra May Santos Iabas, simply turned and tottered toward Grace again. Grace picked up her skateboard and walked as quietly as she could around some cars until she was directly behind the old lady. Then she stood still and made no noise.

She felt creepy and chilled as the old lady turned and walked right up to her. She stopped and huffed and said in local Creole, “Shango is with you. He will give you great strength if you listen and learn from him. Come with me and I will introduce you to others who can teach you what you need to learn.”

She huffed again and turned and walked away down the sidewalk. Grace looked around and felt on a knife’s edge. Part of her sneered at the crazy old hag, thinking she just needed someone to do her chores for her. She sensed something else, however, almost a hazy field of powerful energy. The old woman was frail, but she seemed very powerful at the same time. How had she known where Grace was standing? Could she offer her something that would give her the strength to stand up to bullies?
She set her board down and started to follow the woman, wondering if anyone was watching her.

What followed introduced Grace to an unseen underground in her very neighborhood, a coalition of adults with all manner of backgrounds, skills, and resources. They operated in secret as part of a tradition that went back to the early days when people recognized their cultures were threatened by the European settlers.

She stopped attending the grade school, but she did not tell her parents this. She went to various buildings where teachers worked with small groups of children, teaching all manner of topics: languages, religions, history, self-defense classes, and various practical skills like cooking, crafts, and city geography.

Grace dove most enthusiastically into learning a strange martial art called Capoeira. Developed by African enslaved people in Brazil, hiding the defensive and offensive training as dancing. Grace took advantage of strength training to build all her muscles as far as her genetic inheritance would allow.

She was taught about orixás, gods and goddesses worshipped by Africans and many who now live in New Orleans and the islands of the Caribbean. When Mestra Mae said, “Shango is with you,” she was referring to one of the most powerful orixás, associated with storms, thunder, and lightning. She was taught to meditate on various objects associated with Shango, to walk into storms and feel their power, and to cultivate that energy into her own person so that when she fought, she could add Shango’s power to her own.

For her 14th birthday, Sensei Yoshindo, a man from Japan who had been teaching her the art of fighting with the curved sword of the samurai, ancient warriors of the Japanese nobles, gave her an actual katana to replace her crude wooden practice sword. He instructed her further with the art and tactics of sword fighting. She fashioned a way to keep her katana in its sheath on her back, covered over by a flowing dark blue shirt. When confronted by street gang kids, if she couldn’t drive them away with her capoeira moves, she drew her katana. That usually ended the fight.

Many of the teachers, including Mestra May and Sensei Yoshindo, taught about a subtle substance that inheres in all living things and in other natural phenomena, like storms. Mestra May called it ashe, Sensei Yoshindo called it Ki, a Chinese healer called it chi. She learned to accumulate it in her hands and feet and deliver it with her punches to add force to her blows. Mestra May had also taught her to accumulate it in her heart for release in moments of need to shield her from harmful influences. She hinted that other powers could be unlocked using ashe, to create a bolt of lightning or fire, to deliver powerful blows from a distance, and to enhance her defenses.

Her life changed dramatically when she was summoned to a house in a much wealthier neighborhood by Mestra May, who escorted her to the house. Inside she was introduced to a wealthy Brazilian couple. They offered to adopt Grace and take her with them to live in Brazil. Mestra May assured Grace the couple were good people who could help her get a good education and continue to train in her martial arts. She agreed, said sad farewells to her neighborhood friends and flew to her new life.

[More details to follow once player knows more about the setting.]

Grace is a little shorter than average with a compact build, strong and graceful. Her features are an exotic mix of Chinese, African, and European races. She has a very pretty face. Most consider to be very attractive. She has brown skin, dark eyes, straight black hair, and an expression that often fails to conceal strong positive and negative emotions.