路惠芬 | Lù Huifen
The Daylily
Appearance
✺ 24
✺ Element of Metal. Year of the Rooster.
✺ Doman Raen, Yanxian heritage.
✺ Open to most pleasures and people, with a slight preference for men.
✺ Slender, soft, youthful. Long black tresses that have rarely been cut. Porcelain skin. Blue eyes. Matte scales like white jade. Horns embedded with fine silverwork.
✺Hiding a lean, muscular, and agile build. Voice clear and polished.
✺ Four fulms, eleven ilms in height.
✺ One hundred and five ponze in weight.
Aptitude
✺ Highly skilled and literate in common and traditional Doman dialects.
✺ Highly skilled and literate in common and traditional Hingan dialects.
✺ Highly skilled and literate in the common and tradtional Yanxian dialects.
✺ Fluent and literate in Eorzean Common, with a notable Eastern lilt and cadence.
✺ Formerly a highly proficient sword and spear wielder. Her dominant hand (left) has suffered a severe degree of nerve damage that has ensured she will never utilize it substantially again. If one is watching carefully, they will notice her occasionally struggle to write or lift things of substance with her left hand. Her training has borne fruit as she is now capable of utilizing her right hand for combat as well as her left once more for less fine-motor related tasks.
✺An adept martial artist, although skilled practitioners might notice how she favors her right side and guards her left arm more carefully.
Attitude
This minor noble spent the majority of her lifetime either locked in the family estate or under the tutelage of her Yanxian shifu. The skills obtained under his dojo allowed her to participate and contribute heavily during the Doman liberation effort. Eager to capitalize on his daughter's success, Lù Xiaofeng scrambled to take advantage of his wife's Doman titles and secure the family a position in the slowly rebuilding kingdom. His ambitions did not end there as he recalled Huifen home in order to search for a fortuitous marriage to further cement the combined families' legacy, as well as ensure himself a life of privilege and luxury. Huifen carries herself with all the mannerisms and presence of a noblewoman well-educated in culture, music, calligraphy, and philosophy. Her swordswoman's spirit remains strong, however, and the discipline is incorporated into her worldview and lifestyle.
When addressed directly, the young woman speaks to people in their dialect and tone out of respect. From her experiences shedding blood during the war effort, death does not discriminate between classes and sexes. This proud young woman is known for her exceptionally short temper, quick wit, and terrifying appetite for information.
RP Hooks
✺ Minor Doman/Yanxian nobility: While Huifen is resentful of the political field, she understands its importance and will not turn away those with serious intent of finding employment in the province. Should you have a useful skill, talent, craft, or business proposition, it would not be difficult to obtain an audience with the ever ambitious Huifen. Her focus remains on infrastructure projects to improve the quality of life of her province.
✺ The Arts: Huifen, for all her brusque manners, remains a patron of the arts. She is quite keen on preserving and performing old art forms to ensure they continue on to inspire new generations. If you have any interesting art forms to sell, perform, or create, chances are that it could catch the Lù princess's interest.
✺ Enemies: Self-explanatory. One does not become this prosperous without making several enemies. I would be open to having a rivalry with some families and clans of all statuses.
✺ Old Faces, Forgotten Flames: I welcome all well-thought out plot lines that include the concepts of being friends or companions in a past time. Huifen's role in the Liberation front and in the political scene of Doma means she would have likely met any number of people in her travels or in her childhood. This could certainly be a lead for an RP.
Lù Province
Lù province is one of the southern Doman provinces, taking its name after the family which has governed and administered it for generations. Prior to unification under Doma, the Lù was once its own principality and its ruler reserves the old ceremonial title of a minor prince or princess. Its location remains strategically situated atop one of the prominent trade routes of Yanxia and serves as a gateway from the formidable mountains into civilization. As a result of its location and proximity to the capitol (while still retaining a distance from the brunt of Garlean occupation), the Lù province has become the most prominent trading hub of the southern territories. The primary revenue comes from the private banks operating under the family's oversight, providing considerable loans to those of the middle and upper classes under oppressive terms. It was this ruthelessness that allowed them the coffers to help fund a considerable amount of the liberation effort. So long as collateral can be provided, the Lù will lend their capital to any ambitious enterprise within Othard.
✺ Climate: mild in the Eastern lowlands, arid in the mountain highlands
✺ Primary exports: mulberry silk, mulberry paper, lacquer craftsmanship, regional silk production
✺ Primary imports: Raw rice, raw millet, metal ores, timber, spices
While their banks net considerable profits from collecting on loans, investments in private ventures, and currency exchange, the province is significantly vulnerable without the force of their mercenary army and guards. The region does not produce significant amounts of any product as their luxury goods are intentionally limited to control quality and exclusivity. As a result, they often over-expend in importing necessities such as rice and raw timber. Landlocked, they are particularly susceptible in the fertile lowlands that were once owned by the Fujimichi family. The mountain territories and fortress remains formidable and, according to legend, impassible unless granted permission to cross by the wardens.
Under the efforts of Lù Bu and, successively, his grandaughter Lù Huifen, the province began hiring capable retainers and small warlords to govern fiefs and villages under the command of the Governor. Capable samurai and ministers are few and far between, but the displacement following the Doman occupation by Garlemald saw many ronin fleeing across Othard at large. The tactics of grandfather and granddaughter were often forceful and precise, eliminating any vassals that refused to align themselves with the future of the newly liberated Doma. While the Lù family remains relatively popular with the peasant, artisan, and lower classes due to their frequent land, food, and cultural grants, those families and vassals of the warlord class or civil servant class are either fanatically loyal or fervently resentful towards their brutal repression within their own government.
Current Projects of Importance:
✺ Investment in reinvigorating and expanding agricultural production. Foreign engineers are being vetted and hired to oversee a massive project aiming to solve the province's crippling import dependency in terms of food supplies. The current focus is in demolishing of ruined walls, watchtowers, and barracks left behind after the occupation to make room for arable land. New strains of rice are being considered for their sustainability, harvest potential, and resistance to drought. New orchards are being planted in public areas and villages to provide a regular, free food source as well as to beautify the countryside.
✺ Reconstruction and occupation of Lù Dzong, the mountain fortress in the center of the province that serves as the hallmark between the lowlands and the highlands. It has been unoccupied for almost three generations and was left in complete disrepair following the Garlean invasion. Currently overrun with monsters and long since stripped of its valuables, the Lù princess is actively working to bring it back to its height of prominence by appointing a new duwei to maintain it and train the provincial army.
Current Story Arcs and Events
Journey To the WEst (ongoing)
One betrayal after another has left the gongzhu's spirit shattered. The birth of her daughter was a difficult one, and left her enemies with the false impression that the time to strike was opportune. The strong infrastructure of the recovering province was enough to hold it through attempts to destabilize Huifen after she deposed her tyrannical father. Xiaofeng remains alive, albeit imprisoned while the new governor of the province comes to terms with what she must do. Leaving him alive leaves the door open for another coup attempt. Killing him would inspire resentment and hatred from old noble bloodlines that made strong ties with her father.
Feeling her spirit waning even as her body recovered from the attempted poisoning committed by her father, Huifen grew increasingly resentful and restless until she could bear it no more. Her husband's reckless personality coupled with her increasing paranoia after thwarting one assassination attempt led to an impulsive decision -
Huifen fled her own province under the cover of night, parted with her long tresses, and once again took the guise of a wandering swordswoman to regain her spirit and confidence in her own abilities to shoulder the burdens of leadership. She left the bureaucracy to operate itself while her husband diligently handles military affairs, hoping that she might return home someday to watch their daughter grow.
For now, the undercover noble is likely drinking her troubles away now that the burden of pregnancy no longer remains upon her body. Drinking...at the expense of her allies as she freeloads upon their guest rooms and larders, getting over her initial doldrums of her personal and political struggles. Thus begins her interesting trek across all of Othard and a journey deeper into the West of the continent.