The Jade Empire - Character Index

[Louanne Learning]

Characters created by Louanne Learning

Name: Rennie Macpherson

Male or female? Male

Age: 38

Chinese, British, American or French? British (originally from Scotland)

Physical appearance:

Rennie is over six feet tall and has a toned, muscular build. A well-made man, he has long, dark hair, chiseled features and a discerning eye. Discerning, that is, unless he is rolling those eyes at the absurdity of this existence. Hard years have given him somewhat of a world-weary look. He tends to dress in leathers.

Backstory:

Rennie was born in the Scottish Highlands, but the clearances had his father taking them to Manchester, England, in 1830, where they settled. Taunted by the English boys, Rennie learned to fight at a young age. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the British army. Eventually shipped out, he fought in the First Opium War in China. At war’s end, in 1842, he deserted and stayed in China and has been there ever since.

Rennie avoids relationships. He earns his coin as a private for-hire assassin.

Personality:

Rennie can be impatient and rude. He has no tolerance for flighty ideals. He’s a get-in-and-get-out kind of guy. He doesn’t want to reflect on where he’s been, only concentrate on the demand of the hour.

Other information:

Rennie takes nothing seriously. Life is just a dog-eat-dog game.

His most loyal companion is his aether-pressured repeater rifle, which he named Daisy, a marvel of brass and iron craftsmanship nearly four feet long, with an engraved, burnished mahogany stock.


Name: Daiyu Chen

Male or female: Female

Age: 25

Chinese, British, American or French? Chinese

Physical appearance:

Daiyu is beautiful, with silky dark hair and big, brown eyes. She’s medium height, but on the thin side. Food is just not important to her. Neither is her appearance. Taught to rebel, she tends to dress like a boy, in loose-fitting robe and trousers.

Backstory:

Daiyu’s parents (Mei and Hao) belong to the Fādá class (the Developed People). Hao is a Daoist philosophy professor who greatly admires his wife’s quick mind, and thinks it unjust that society frowns on higher education for females. He’s always been determined that his four daughters would receive a good education. He’s tutored them and Daiyu was taught to question everything.

Daiyu earns money by publishing her poetry and short stories under the male name Muchen Zhou.

Personality:

Daiyu tends to the serious side, though she has got expressive eyes. She’s curious and hungry to learn. She loves a good joke, but it must be logical. Not much makes her angry, but assaults on the truth and disloyalty do. She sometimes gets so caught up in her own pursuits, she neglects the people around her.

Other information:

Daiyu is bookish, but not street smart, having been raised in a sheltered environment. She is somewhat naïve, and believes wholeheartedly in goodness. Despite this, she is somewhat of a snob towards the Elemental People and Foreigners.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Characters created by @ellekaldwin

Name: Jiàn Lù

Male or female: Female

Age: 29

Chinese, British, American or French? Chinese

Physical appearance: Jiàn wears a composite of traditional Hanfu robes and a reinforced, steam-threaded battle harness of her own design. Brass coils and jointed leather straps run under her sleeves, connecting to her arm-mounted mist blade - a retractable, steam-powered sword that hisses like a kettle when activated. She wears brass-rimmed goggles with rotating lenses and she has a lotus tattoo that winds from her right hand up to her collarbone, inked with disappearing ink visible only in heat. The tattoo is a signature from her mentor.

Backstory: Born to a Daoist apothecary and a blacksmith with secret ties to anti-opium networks, Jiàn Lù was raised among the tools of the Elemental People but educated secretly by an exiled inventor who once served in the Forbidden City's now-defunct Ministry of Heavenly Machines. At sixteen, Jiàn vanished from her village after it was razed in a violent conflict between Qing enforcers and rebellious engineers. Rumors claim she crossed the Himalayas, studied steam harmonics with Himalayan monks, and dueled sky pirates in the Tianshan peaks — but she returned to Shanghai only recently, with new machines and an old grudge.

Personality: Stoic and self-contained, Jiàn speaks softly but with clarity. She believes that true power comes from balance — between East and West, mind and body, invention and tradition. She distrusts authority, especially colonial powers and Qing officials alike, and instead aids the Yuánsù — commoners, merchants, and farmers caught in the firestorm of industrial encroachment. She is often seen slipping between the teahouses of the walled city and the mechanical heart of the foreign settlements, working both sides while pledging loyalty to neither.

Other information: Her mist blade is a steam-charged sword that uses condensed water vapor to generate high-pressure strikes. Can cut steel or disarm enemies by releasing a directional steam burst. She also uses a passed down gift from her mentor, the hēiyǐng cloak, or 'shadowsteam', which is a woven mesh of soot-treated silk and retractable metal filaments that can bend light with carefully directed bursts of heat. Can be used for temporary invisibility in foggy or humid conditions.


Name: Słux̱ʷił Yəhaw̓ (pronounced slu-hw-eel yuh-how in traditional Lutshootsheed) meaning "to proceed, to go forward with bravery, woman of song". But she simply goes by Tala to non-tribe peoples.

Male or female: Female

Age: 15

Chinese, British, American or French? Native American, specifically of the Duwamish tribe in the Puget Sound region of the Washington Territory.

Physical appearance: A young girl, she wears a mix of tribal leathers and fabrics with clever additions: metal clasps shaped like feathers, a miniature carved totem as a gear key, and a bandolier filled with copper and bone tools. Her long black hair is interwoven with strings of brass wire and cedar bark. Her eyes hold the quiet intelligence of someone who watches more than she speaks.

Backstory: Born to a Suquamish father who was a tinker and a Duwamish mother who was an oral historian, a keeper of songs and sky stories. Her world began to fracture after the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855, when U.S. officials promised peace and protection, only to seize lands and silence traditions. When soldiers desecrated sacred spaces and pushed her people into exile, Tala began receiving visions: a distant city of jade and iron, torn by steam and shadow, where her fate and the fate of many would converge. Chosen by an American industrialist to represent “native ingenuity” on a goodwill expedition to Shanghai, Tala boarded the steamship not out of duty - but destiny.

Personality: Tala is wise beyond her years but still a child - curious, mischievous, resilient. She often speaks in metaphors learned from oral traditions, but she’s unafraid to call out hypocrisy or cruelty, even from powerful adults. Despite witnessing the exploitation of her homeland, she’s not jaded. She believes in restoring balance, not through war, but through knowing, building, and listening. She has bonded spiritually with certain technologies—especially ones built with intention rather than greed. Her talent lies in combining indigenous understanding of natural cycles with steampunk mechanisms in ways no one else dares to try.

Other information: She carries a cedarheart drone, a small, owl-shaped automaton carved from cedar and powered by a pulse-steam chamber. It scouts ahead and can deliver messages or illuminate dark passages with a tiny chemical lantern. Her spiritual powers are called Voice of the Salt Sea, where she can "read" certain machines, not through direct control, but by listening - hearing flaws, shifts in pressure, even emotional residue left in frequently handled devices.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Character created by @buttercream

Name: Shaohua Yu (Shaohua is known by his courtesy name, Jizhong.)

Male or female: Male

Age: 26

Chinese, British, American or French? Chinese

Physical appearance: Shaohua is on the shorter side of average, about 5'4''/165cm or so, and has an average build. His eyes are catlike in shape and almost black in color. He has high cheekbones and soft features. His hair is very dark brown and long, going down past his waist. In a petty attempt at rebellion, he rejects the mandated queue hairstyle and grows his hair all over his head, though he does keep it braided; to avoid being found out, he wears a partial bald cap—handmade from treated hemp and bamboo—when in public, even if he's wearing a head covering.

Shaohua's wardrobe consists of robes, jackets, and vests mostly in bright colors, especially blue. His waistbelt is adorned with a jade pendant and two silk sachets filled with aromatic herbs. He wears silver dangle earrings in both ears and a jade ring on his right middle finger.

Backstory: A member of the Fādá class, Shaohua's father, Zijin, is a reputable scholar-gentry and pillar of their community. As such, Shaohua is well-educated and active in aiding the Yuánsù of his village. He spends several hours each day tutoring children. Though he takes much pride in his abilities and status, Shaohua, unlike his three older brothers, has no interest in taking the imperial examination to become a bureaucrat.

His lover is a soldier away fighting in the Second War. Shaohua sometimes feels foolish wishing for his safe return.

He paints under the pseudonym Yu Lianhua—“Yu the Lotus”, given to him for his focus on nature, especially flowers—but hasn't released a work in a few years. He also does calligraphy.

Personality: While his family is known for their warmth, Shaohua is notorious for being unapproachable. He's impassive and taciturn. When he does speak, he's blunt, which can often come across as impolite. It's not that he's unfriendly, he just has a difficult time opening up; he is always feeling, but doesn't always see the need to express it. He's actually very kind-hearted, and loyal to those he cares for. He will only ever let his emotions guide him when he deems necessary.

Shaohua is rational, strategic, and resourceful. He's bright and knows it, though he's not the type to boast. Despite his confidence, he prefers to stay on the sidelines than to seek the spotlight.

His upbringing has led him to appreciate the finer things in life. However, he's been a bit of a pessimist lately and struggles to find the beauty in all things. He doesn't quite realize, or perhaps doesn't want to accept, he's unhappy.

Other information: Shaohua is known by his courtesy name, Jizhong.

He enjoys collecting seals (stamps), folding fans, and brushes. Traditional is his preference, but he admires the craftsmanship of steam-powered, too.

His neutral stance on Foreigners has been leaning more toward dislike in recent years. He questions the Empire as well, but wouldn't dare say so aloud.