Shiro Tanarashi

## History

### *Infancy*

Shiro Tanarashi was born on a cold winter night to Baruko Maesuda, a human woman, in the Jininese town of Sugiyeda. He was born nearly a month early; the first indication that Baruko's elven husband, Eiburo, had that something was wrong was the midwives' screams. He ran into the room and the first thing to greet his eyes was his wife's pallor face. The second thing he noticed was that the pale child in her arms had the rounded ears of a human, not the pointed ears of a half-elf.

He would have no time to question her fidelity, however, as the strain of the hard labor and blood loss would take her life before he could look back up at her. Eiburo's elven reflexes allowed him to barely catch the babe before the boy could hit the floor.

The local temple refused to take the child, taking one look at his ghastly countenance and slamming the door in Eiburo's face. Unable to bring himself to leave a babe to die, let alone do the deed himself, Eiburo decided to try to raise the child.

Four months after Shiro's birth, he started teething. When, at six months of age, Eiburo found himself with a pale-but-otherwise-human-looking child with a set of fangs even more impressive than those of some full-blooded elves, he knew he was in trouble.

When Shiro was seven months old, an itinerant merchant came to town. The merchant, Akusho Tanarashi, tended to come around once per year, so his arrival - dead in the night as was his custom - only surprised anyone because he was several months later than expected. The night after the merchant's arrival, Eiburo visited to see what wares and news the merchant brought from the world outside their small village. He carried a fussy Shiro with him, and was trailed by his two older, half-elven sons, six-year-old Kisuku and three-year-old Tsukuno.

When Eiburo awakened at the crack of dawn the next day, Shiro, and the merchant, were gone.

### *Childhood*

Akusho Tanarashi left Sugiyeda within hours of first laying eyes on his dhampir son...and he did not leave alone. After all, for an experienced moroi, infiltrating a mortal's home is but child's play.

Knowing he would not be able to continue his usual route with an infant in tow, Akusho headed straight for the capital of Jinin, Ayajinbo. From there, he used a teleportation circle in the mansion in the city maintained by the Blood Lords to return home, to Mechitar, the capital of Geb.

Once home, his first order of business was to introduce Shiro to his father, Ienoye. The elder moroi - one of the Blood Lords who ruled Geb, and the one who sent Akusho yearly to travel Jinin and watch over the lands he had lived in, long before it was settled by the elves - immediately took a shine to his new grandson.

For the next eleven years, Shiro was raised almost exclusively by Ienoye and his household, with Akusho coming and going as required of his position as a Blood Lord's retainer and heir. Not long after the boy's twelfth birthday, Ienoye handed his title and position to Akusho, thus ending Shiro's years of only seeing his father sporadically.

With Akusho's return and ascendance, Shiro began to attend meetings as his father's heir. Although many were initially uncertain about the young dhampir's presence, Shiro quickly made himself known as an intelligent, well-spoken boy, with a rather impressive breadth of knowledge for one so young.

### *Blessed by Urgathoa*

Shortly after Shiro turned sixteen, the boy became ravenous, to the point that he was caught by his father having torn out the throat of one of the family's few human servants - not uncommon for a newly turned vampire, but odd indeed for a dhampir. He also began to put on weight at an alarming rate. Yet, with these changes, Shiro's already impressive intellect seemed to improve even farther overnight.

At a loss, Akusho and Ienoye took Shiro to the Cathedral of Epiphenomena. After much study and prayer by the resident clerics, it was determined that Shiro had been chosen, blessed by Nethys with divine knowledge, and equally blessed by Urgathoa with an insatiable appetite and a girth to match.

With the news of Shiro's oraclehood, the Tanarashi family's status was elevated even further than it already had been, as an old family with a history of training their dhampir offspring and turning the most promising. Akusho immediately became determined to find a suitable partner for his son as soon as Shiro came of age.

...By the time Shiro was 20, he was so tired of his father's attempts at matchmaking that the young man, already pushing 300 lbs and not at all interested in anything but increasing his knowledge and eating anything placed in front of him, decided to strike out and see the world.

### *Reunion*

Once he crossed the teleportation circle into Jinin and was out from under the priests' watchful eyes, Shiro bought a horse and decided to go travel the countryside, as his father used to do. After spending all of his life (that he could remember) in Geb, seeing so many living people was remarkable to the young dhampir. At the same time, he quickly grew frustrated with the stares and whispers, so he never stayed in one place long.

Eventually, his travels brought him to a small, bustling town named Sugiyeda. Within hours of his arrival, he was confronted by an elven man and his two half-elf sons. Shiro was shocked speechless to learn that he had a stepfather and two half-brothers he'd never even been told about. Although the most he got out of Eiburo was an assessing glance and a dismissive huff, he quickly found himself subject to ribbing and challenges from his newfound siblings.

When he left Sugiyeda, several weeks later, it was with the younger of his half-brothers, Tsukuno, riding next to him.

### *Arrival on Roatera*

The next couple years were spent with Shiro and Tsukuno exploring Golarion, side-by-side. Although the two certain didn't see eye-to-eye on many things - Shiro saw Tsukuno as too forgiving of his easy fatigue and annoying when Shiro decided to deal with an enemy by biting it, while Tsukuno saw his half-brother as more than a bit more ruthless than he was comfortable with but often in need of protection - they found that they made a good team, especially as Shiro's weight continued to climb. At Tsukuno's insistence, Shiro tried everything from diet to exercise to prayer; eventually, Tsukuno accepted Shiro's 'affliction' as being beyond his ability to help, but only when Shiro had starved himself to the point of losing control and attacking his brother.

In their third year of traveling together, the brothers came across a temple in southern Xa Hoi, near the edge of the Valashmai Jungle. As they approached, a rift opened abruptly before them, swallowing them both before they could even think to move away. They spent the next seven weeks traveling together through Abaddon, negotiating with the daemons on Shiro's part and, on Tsukuno's part, appreciating the ease of hiding behind a man that was well over 400 pounds. Eventually, they found a rift leading out of Abaddon, and breathed a sigh of relief...

...Until they emerged from the rift to find themselves standing before the skull of a giant creature, in a city whose name they had never before heard, and realized they were no longer even on Golarion.

Courtesy of previous Gebbites who had also found themselves in Akasa Kas over time, and recognized Shiro as the blessed one of Nethys and Urgathoa (though, at this point, Shiro himself very much doubted that the gifts Urgathoa had bestowed on him were actually meant as blessings), and their aid in helping the brothers convert their currency in its local equivalents, Shiro and Tsukuno soon found themselves the proud owners of a noble villa near the outskirts of the city.

Towards the end of Sarenith, in the 83rd Year of Peace, as their new world called it, Shiro and his brother found themselves facing an adventure beyond anything they could have dreamed...

## Appearance

Shiro is a young dhampir male, with black hair kept in a formal topknot and pale brown eyes. He is morbidly obese; he has no idea how much he actually weighs, but knows that he's heavy enough that even a draft horse can't move at full speed if he's mounted on it.

He wears the clothing of nobility under kikko armor made of mithral, and wears a mithral-spiked cestus on his right hand. A cold iron dagger rests in a sheath at his waist.

## Personality

Unlike most moroi-born dhampir, Shiro is far more intellectually inclined than charismatic. He tends to shy away from gatherings of strangers, but is happy to have an intellectual conversation with anyone who at least has the courtesy to not assume he's not worth their time. He does have a tendency to work his way through issues requiring diplomacy by using reason, rather than force of will.

## Relationships

Father: Akusho Tanarashi, moroi, current Blood Lord of Geb

Grandfather: Ienoye Tanarashi, moroi, former Blood Lord of Geb

Stepfather: Eiburo Maesuda, elven artisan

Half-Brothers:

* Kisaku Maesuda: Half-elven town guard
* Tsukuno Maesuda: Half-elven explorer, also in Akasa Kas

## Aspirations

Shiro aspires to learn all he can of this new world he has found himself upon. He also hopes to someday figure out why the gods chose him, and figure out how to free himself of the so-called blessings Urgathoa has afflicted him with. Eventually, someday, he would also like to go home...but, well, both dhampir and half-elves live a long time, so he's not in a hurry to leave.