Lin Tsao

**Lin Tsao** is a swordsman, soldier and King Arthur's proxy as the Defender of Britain. He was the student of Kim Kwon-sung, and first encountered Else Rommel, Ray Freedom, Viktor Vaughn and Fernando Jose Salas del Monte in London during his time in London and their dealings with the Shadow Federation. Later, he joined Winston Churchill's Century Club Junior Squad initiative, forming a unit with Simon Laffey, Abigail Kirkbride and Robert Elliott.

## Appearance

By far the youngest looking person in the group when he first joined, Lin's nonthreatening appearance was not helped by his short stature or his unusually cheery disposition. He had long black hair which he kept in a ponytail, narrow dark eyes and peach skin tempered and paled by England's dreary weather.

Most of these traits were lost by his later teenage years. Although he retains his signature smile and general ebullience, the events of the Great War, particularly the Gallipoli Campaign, noticeably aged him a few years.

Perhaps the most prominent change of all, however, is that he is no longer the shortest member of the group. Thanks to the generosity of teenage growth spurts and his extreme training, he now commands a somewhat more physically imposing figure.

## Personality

As a Centurion, Lin is heroically inclined by fate. He is chivalrous, perhaps to a fault, and wields a strong sense of justice that would likely be considered idealistic were it not also dented by war weariness. Lin is loyal to all those he forms an attachment to, but his loyalty to Britain is particularly fierce. He is bound to it not only by the oath he made to King Arthur, but also by the fact that it is his home. With a patriotic spirit that simultaneously confuses and inspires other Britons, Lin works tirelessly to keep the promise he made to the Once and Future King of Britain.

Lin's demeanour can be described as cheery, affable, and impressionable. He is not, however, as naive as most tend to assume and is capable of cunning when the situation calls for it, such as when he convinced Jack to release him and guide him back to his allies after he was captured in Saint Haven.

It is said that no man is without foibles, and Lin is no exception to that rule. With sufficient prodding and taunting, his polite and respectful disposition can quickly evaporate into a steaming, bloodthirsty rage not wholly unlike the one that his wrathful mentor wielded. This tendency is not helped by his years of repressed rage, nor his sword's shard propensity for spilling the blood of enemies.

## History

#### Early Life (1901 - 1907)

Lin was born in Beijing, the only child of a pair of not-so-modest Mandarins by the name of *Tsao Hu* and *Yang Fei.* Growing up, he was showered by his parents with a plenitude of tutors and teachers: masters of courtly manners, historians, geographers, linguists—everything, for the sake of guiding their son into a prosperous future as a Confucian scholar-official like them.

Fate, however, had other plans for the young Centurion, as he would also eventually find himself under the more exciting yet grueling tutelage of Centurion sword-master Kim Kwon-sung, who somehow managed to successfully convince (or force) his parents into allowing him to become his teacher. A young boy needed to know how to defend himself, after all, and the political climate at the time no doubt helped feed those fears.

Eventually, a certain Shadow Centurion found his way into his life and conspired to have both him and his family killed in a courtly cobweb of political intrigue. It was only thanks to his laoshi's timely rescue that he was able to escape the grim fate his family met... albeit, while unconscious and on a boat to Britain.

#### The Interlude (1914 - 1915)

After they parted ways with the others in Saint Haven, Lin and his mentor soon returned to London to track down Fu Manchu. For months, they would stay in the comfort of The Piccadilly Hotel, a gift from Winston Churchill which he accepted with great gratitude and relief, as the only other alternative was camping inside boxes.

Lin's time in London could, perhaps, be described as having been eventfully uneventful. Kim's training was harsh and intense, but helped little in the way of preparing him to face the nigh-invincible Dr. Methuselah (whom he had sworn to defeat in Saint Haven) and often came at the cost of leaving their room in a state of destruction, and they made little in the way of results in their hunt for Manchu, except for slaughtering several of his various gangs in London.

This arrangement would only last three months, however. His mentor's training slowly eased up over time as he [Kim] became more and more absent in Lin's daily routine, disappearing for days on end sometimes before vanishing completely into lands unknown during one of his solo trips to track Manchu. Even the diary entries and letters—his only source of solace during these times—came to an end, as the British government would eventually drop by to make good on his oath as the Defender of Britain.

#### The Great War (1915 - 1916)

Although many of his accomplishments during the war were hushed by the government, his actions towards the end of the Gallipoli campaign earned him a slightly bizarre reputation as a war hero—the Chinaman who fights for Britain. During his time as a member of the Century Club Junior Squad, Lin would go on to assassinate Turkish commanders, fight an army of the ghosts of his former enemies and, perhaps most importantly, lead the retreat from Winston Churchill's failed operation.

## Abilities

Unlike his Centurion mentor, Lin received formal training in swordsmanship from a fairly young age, working through various short-lived tutors before finally coming across the Centurion himself. Although he initially lacked the pragmatism and flexibility that characterized his mentor's fighting style, Lin was, for the most part, able to make up for it with a combination of skill, endurance and inhuman reflexes honed by years of physical abuse.

Though he would later learn to adapt his strategy depending on the type of foe he faced, Lin's 'flawless parry', which allowed him to parry almost any attack and deflect it back against his opponent in a lightning fast counter-attack, would stubbornly remain as a staple in his combat style.

Among other things, Lin also developed something of a sixth sense to danger, which he attributed to his experience with constantly getting ambushed by his mentor during late night trips to the bathroom (and early morning, when he woke up). As a result, he was almost always on guard and extremely difficult to catch off guard by way of stealth.

## Trivia

* Lin has an odd fascination with hats and collects them as souvenirs. So far, he has at least one from every single battlefield he has gone to, with his favourite being a fez he acquired from his mission in Gallipoli.
* Despite it technically being the other way round, Lin considered lower-ranking agents of the club like William Holmgrove his superior.