Male Dhampir (Ru-Shi), born to Umie Satō and Veriten Berthomie (both human)
Shiro is 97 years old, but Dhampirs, Ru-Shis included, age so slowly that he scarcely even looks like an adult. More like a dumpy seventeen-year-old. He could pass for human if not for… well, everything about him; his grey skin, his grey-green eyes, his dark grey hair (he’s very grey, overall), and his awkward, stumbling gait. Shiro is seldom without his parasol; while sunlight does him no harm, he still doesn’t like it very much. Nearly his entire wardrobe is red or grey.
Shiro’s life up until now has played out over nearly a century, in Minkai, Qadira, and Osirion, and in a number of countries in Absalom. He has been a student, a translator, a bureaucrat, a scribe, and most recently (only for the past three decades), an Occultist; a scholar of the occult and practitioner of strange mind magic. Shiro’s prowess at investigation and divination, as well as his extensive knowledge of the arcane and occult, proved invaluable twenty years ago, when he and a hastily-assembled party of adventuring sorts tracked down and lay low a murderous necromancer in the city of Augustana (in Andoran). Since then, he has continued his studies at the learning institutions of Absalom, and makes some money on the side consulting others on supernatural odd-jobs. He has helped drive away gremlins, appease a nosoi, and bring peace to a restless ghost, among other, less notable things. He has also published a paper about Jiang-Shis, although he has no first-hand experience with them (just what he has managed to suss out from tomes and correspondence with foreign academics).
Shiro does not know how or why he is a Ru-Shi (a part Jiang-Shi dhampir); his parents were both human, and his conception was by all accounts normal. It’s possible that his father’s mysterious Chelish pursuers, or his father’s unknown transgressions against them, have something to do with his nature, but he lacks virtually any information of those things.
Shiro has a great deal of the pattern-seeking, superstition, and mathematical and linguistic genius of the Jiang-Shi. He is a gifted linguist and mathematician, and fascinated with the perceived meanings of numbers. This affinity for symbols, omens and patterns has made him well suited to Occultism, and to investigation in general. He is not, however, very apt at navigating social situations, nor does he have much interest in doing so. He would much rather fade into the crowd than draw its attention (although his apparent age and unusual appearance frequently make this impossible). He is, altogether, a private person, and his sheer enthusiasm for his passions are known only to his few close friends.
