Mesa

Mesa, celebrating the spoils of a mission at his Nexus hideout around the time of Chapter 2 (Age ~41)

Suggested Music: Smif-N-Wessun - Bucktown

Basic Information

Name: Mesa
Title: The Bamboo Ronin
Type: Dragon-Blooded Exalt
Age: 34 as of Chapter 1, currently 42
Player: Dan H.
Aspect: Wood
Concept: Grass-Spider
Motivation: Find the owner of the bamboo sanxian.
Political Affiliation: The Hallowed Order of the Grass Spiders
Anima: Mesa's motions leave glowing green trails of Essence in the air, which sprout vines with leaves and petals that shrivel up quickly after Mesa's movements take him elsewhere. At high levels, small plants, flowers, and insects spring from the ground where he steps, again dying out quickly when he leaves. At maximum power, any surrounding bamboo bends around Mesa to form a grand archway above wherever he stands.
Likes: Spicy food, impractical weaponry, hookah, coffee, flashy haori
Dislikes: Cats, opera, the Guild, perfume

Familiar: Fenrir (God-Blooded Wolf)

Mesa: Character Sheet

How I Became A Grass Spider

The newly minted circle gathered around the oak table in Mesa's range house. While Mesa packed a bowl, Opal leaned forward on her elbows, resting on the table. Idly, she gazed around the spacious abode. She noted the discrepancy between this place and hers, voicing her observation.

"How come your place is so much bigger than any of ours?"

Mesa smirked and replied, without looking up from the bowl, "I'm the oldest."

Opal scoffed, pushing herself into an upright sitting position.

"That doesn't make any sense. You've been an actual member less than a year."

Mesa's grin persisted. "Still, oldest! Look, I don't make the rules, and I didn't decide to be born before you. You'll find a lot of things just come naturally to me."

Opal simply shook her head - a few of the others chuckled, and a few of the others joined her.

"You're unbelievable, Mesa. How DID you end up here, anyway?"

Mesa dipped a long-necked match into the bowl, puffing on it a few times. Amidst a small plume of smoke, he replied, "I'm glad you asked. You know, five years ago, I'm not sure I would have been able to unfold a butterfly knife without cutting myself. I certainly hadn't taken any contracts, and I'm not positive I'd ever killed anyone at all."

There was a brief silence, which Mesa broke earnestly.

"That's not true. I killed a blind guy in a street fight. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. A few years back, just after drawing my Second Breath, I was meandering about the Scavlands and playing my sanxian basically for anyone who'd pay to listen. I fell in with some pretty weird crowds -- you wouldn't believe the sort of people who actively follow folk music -- but after awhile, I actually managed to do reasonably well for myself. I attracted the attention of some pretty prominent Scavenger Lords."

Mesa took another puff from the bowl while he reclined his chair. He continued his tale.

"I got a pretty good gig setup for myself - I'd play at their dig sites for the workers, get paid, and move on. It was great -- travel, excitement, money, y'know, whatever. Chances are, if you wanted it, someone out there had it. Well, dumbass me couldn't be content with just fans and fortune, so I started robbing them. Basically, after a performance, I'd swap out my liquor for water and then 'drink' the rest of the workers and guards under the table. When everyone had passed out, I'd pretty much leave with all their stuff."

Mesa chuckled a bit at his own audacity before continuing.

"As you can imagine, it wasn't long before I had a sizable price on my head. Well, realizing that I probably couldn't get away with that act anymore, I turned to the Nexus performance circuit. A few bigwigs from the Guild heard me play, and decided to book me as an opera accompanist for a few nights. Big theatre, huge, public, affair, me in the torchlight - I knew I may as well paint a target on myself, but it was a pretty fat payscrip, and after the digsite robberies stopped working out, I needed it. So I figured I'd risk it."

Mesa, taking a third puff, then set the bowl on the table. His gesticulation picked up as he crudely illustrated the scene with his hands, making it clear that whatever his skill as an assassin, he was quite the raconteur.

"Fast forward a week, and I'm sitting on the stage at the Grand Guild Operahouse, strumming the overture, looking out into the crowd. I'm not sure I see anybody who isn't an assassin. I start to sweat a little, and at first, I just pass it off as stress brought on by the knowledge of my looming demise. Then I realize, hey, that's not it at all! Actually, the opera house was on fire - I left a joint lit by some curtains back stage, and as I later found out, this is absolutely the best way to burn down a building quickly. So, realizing what's going on, I bolted - Dropped my sanxian and ran off the stage, and then out the back door. The fire is a disaster - Tons of people didn't make it out, including almost all of the assassins the Scav' Lords sent after me. I can't possibly overstate how convenient this was. So, Anton, that same night - he was in the audience, but being a Fire Caste and everything, didn't terribly mind -- approached me. Convinced I had concocted an elaborate scheme to take out everyone tailing me, he offered me membership that night. I've since told him how incredibly stupid that was, but we've smoothed things over - we're tight now. At the time, if the scary guy in an alley insisted I was a criminal genius, I wasn't gonna say no. So, we came back to Chaya, and later to the range homes, where I was trained and brought onboard as an associate. When I first arrived, I could scarcely do a somersault or shoot a flame piece -- I really figured I'd just float for awhile, take what I could, and move on. As I discovered, the business has a lot to offer - I had a lot of my assumptions about how this business worked overturned completely, realized just how much I had left to learn. So I figure, hey, ya know, I'll run with this. Turns out I was decently well suited for this line of work - got inducted a little under a year ago, and now, here we are."

Mesa picked up the bowl and took a final hit. He passed the porcelain dragon to Opal, giving her a taste of her own medicine.

"What about you? What's your story?"

What He's Been Up To

In the eight years since Chapter 1, Mesa has grown as an assassin, a thief, and performer. He has maintained his reputation as a slacker, often taking weeks to do a job that should take days, and months to do a job that should take weeks. He's built a sizable cult of personality around himself on the underground performance circuit in Nexus. Although mainly based around music and celebration, the crew is unsavory enough to befit a Grass-Spider - they aren't very involved with assassination and murder, but are intimately connected the sizable drug and contraband trafficking industries in Nexus. In keeping with the decrees and Mesa's personal philosophy, he does not tolerate any connections to human trafficking, and casts these people from his circle.

As the darling virtuoso of Nexus's underground performance circuit, Mesa has amassed tremendous wealth over the years, and is one of the wealthiest members of the organization. Although lazy, Mesa played a critical role in the Veil War. He served as the Order's chief of operations in Nexus, using the aforementioned connections to rebuild a network of associates which had been severely damaged by actions taken in the war. After being stuck with one of the hardest posts in the war, Mesa garnered a bit more respect in the eyes of senior members who previously took him less seriously. Still, his extended absences since the War and large numbers of followers unrelated to the Order remain a concern to some.

He's also started sleeping with Opal, which can, has, and will continue to be a disaster. They haven't told anyone yet.

Defining Quote

"I probably wouldn't hire me."

Fallback Move - Dread Pirate Mesa

Poison the wine! Mesa, being a Wood Caste, makes flagrant use of his immunity to plant-based toxins. One of his classic techniques is to sit down for a drink with his mark and poison both glasses. He lets the mark choose whichever is to the mark's liking - it matters not, since both are poisoned.

Other Fallback Move - "My bad."

"Why am I such a good Grass Spider? Well, think about it. We get hired to make deaths look believable, like accidents. I'm totally the man for the task here, because most of the time, when I kill someone, it is an accident. How's that for a beautiful job?"