| Shui Zhu | |
|---|---|
 Captain of the Barracuda | |
| Vital Statistics | |
| Title(s) | {None} |
| Gender | Female |
| Race | Human |
| Faction | None |
| Relatives | None |
| Alignment | +1; Robin Hood |
| Level | 1 |
| Status | Afloat |
Shui Zhu is an original character from the [Blood Wake] universe, written as one of the background characters who supports Shao Kai during missions. She joined the multiverse April 15, 2014 as the first character from Blood Wake, and the fourth character for Sarah Kerrigan.
Background[]
Shui was born to sailing family that worked for a wealthy merchant in the Jade Kingdom. When she was eight, she was onboard the family junk when it was attacked and captured by pirates. The Shadow Clan, whom the merchant paid protection money to, swooped in minutes later to clear out the other pirates, but not before Shui's parents had been killed and the junk she was on slowly sinking. The Shadow Clan pirates who rescued her, seeing the spunk the little girl had, decided to raise her themselves rather than return her to live on the streets of the Jade Kingdom.
Over the next decade, she grew under the tutelage of their leader Ped Zeng and the others. From them she learned how to live, fight and drive the fast, heavily armed boats that made the Shadow Clan such a feared force on the water. There were those who whispered Zeng and Lady Helena were grooming her to take over the Clan one day. Just as she was given her own speedboat to fight with, however, there was a great shift in the Northern Kingdom. Admiral Shao Lung of the Northern League, wielding an unstoppable weapon known as the Dragon Claw, began his quest for world conquest.
With the help of Lung's brother Shao Kai and a magical amulet, the Shadow Clan was able to ally with the Jade Kingdom it once prayed on and brought Shao Lung's invasion to a halt. In an effort to end the threat once and for all, the Zeng personally lead an all-out assault on the Admiral's flagship. Shui was proud to take part in this assault, and attacked the much better armed and armored battleship with gusto. It was a long and deadly battle, but in the end, Shao Kai's amulet reflected the Dragon's Claw back on the battleship, destroying it.
Shui was in the middle of a strafing autocannon run just meters from the Dragon Battleship's hull when the Dragon's Claw attack struck. The explosion flipped her boat over, sending Shui into the sea. But she wasn't the only thing to hit the sea. Once underwater, she spotted the Dragon’s Claw itself, pulsing dangerously with reflected magical energies. For a few seconds, curiosity and ambition got the better of caution, and Shui swam downward, pushing herself in an attempt to recover the Claw before it fell beyond reach. She was almost touching it when magical energies finally broke free. The explosion tore open a magical rift, and Shui Zhu, along with a few dozen gallons of sea water, was pulled through.
Involvement[]
As many have done, Shui entered the multiverse via Pascal’s laboratory. The lighthearted engineer helped Shui through the disorienting transition to the Multiverse, despite the seawater deluge she’d brought with her soaking the laboratory. Wanting to return to the Sea, Shui took Pascal’s advice and sought out a Shy Guy loan agent, finally finding Suspicious Guy in a dark corner near the Wing of Nightfall. He provided her a shuttle ticket to Junon on Gaia, where he said would arrange for “a boat to be waiting for you.”
Shui found the boat, an oddly similar vessel to the Barracuda she’d used back home, and headed out to restart her life of piracy. Her intent was quicly sidetracked, however, when she encountered a merchant vessel that had already been sacked by another powerful and villainous pirate group. After towing the damaged ship back to port, Shui set out with the ship’s Engineer, Jennifer, to find this pirate group and make them pay for their crimes.
Sometime later, Shui & Jen traveled to Isle Delfino in search of a warm and relaxing port to relax for a few days. Unfortunately for them, the port had frozen over due to Snomads attack. The shivering captain went to investigate while Jen stayed with the boat.
Capabilities[]
General[]
Although Shui Zhu’s greatest strength is her ability to operate her high speed, heavily armed attack boat, she’s not completely defenseless without one. She’s a skilled, if aggressive, student of martial arts. In addition she’s highly adept at utilizing her environment and her opponent’s actions against them. Oddly for one who is a highly skilled vehicle gunner, she has no proficiency with hand-held firearms. Unlike many vehicle focused characters, she’s not much of a mechanic either.
Stat Combat[]
(‘’Based on post-quest intended build’’) Shui Zhu herself is weak for her level, with ¾ of her vitals and currency sunk (or intended to be sunk) into her vehicle and follower. What’s self of her skills is an aggressive, high-damage/short combat style based on physical (Blunt/Slash/Pierce) melee attacks augmented with Qi (Spirit). The nature of her technique and abilities means she has an exceptional ability to tailor her attacks to her opponent within those ranges. Defensively, she’s biased to dodging, rather than absorbing, attacks.
Crew/First Mate[]
Jen[]
History[]
Jen, a little worse for wear
Shui’s friend, mechanic and only crew member, Jen (Jennifer Corsair) was born into a post-apocalyptic water world where the free must scrape to survive against a draconian military-industrial government. (Battle Pirates) She displayed engineering brilliance at a young age and quickly found herself at the head of developing jury-rigs and technological hacks for her pirate captain to use in taking vital supplies from the Draconian Empire and fend against the Reaver assaults. At times she joined in the raids, ransacking enemy bases for blueprints or other technological advantages she could find. During one such raid, she accidently triggered an experimental portal device and was shunted into the multiverse. She eventually found her way to Junon, where she signed on as the chief engineer for an independent transport captain.
Capabilities[]
(‘’Based on post-quest intended build’’) Jen’s primary capability is as a skilled and innovative mechanic. She’s taken to learning the ins and outs of Shui’s Shadow-Clan style ships with gusto, adding in her own personal touches and upgrades to the vessels engine and systems. When the vehicle actually gets into combat, Jen leaves most of the running and gunning to her captain, spending her energy optimizing systems, trying keep her upgrades working or patching holes from weapons impacts.
In stat-based combat, Jen often attacks alongside Shui, adding a {melee} power fist or {Ballistic} pneumatic driver attack to the mix. Although not as strong on the offensive, she has as good of vitals as Shui herself and shouldn’t be dismissed as a push-over. She’s tougher (more HP), but slower (Less DP) than her captain.
Vessels[]
Barracuda[]
Description[]
The Barracuda is an over-gunned, under sized attack boat built by the Shy Guys in the style of the Shadow Clan’s fleet. Its powerful inboard motor is positioned directly behind the open air cabin, which houses the Captain’s chair & First Mate’s chair side by side. The entire front section is dedicated to equipment, fuel and ammunition for the four large chain guns installed on swivel-mounts. In order to cut down on weight, it uses strong wood and lacquer in place of heavy metal armor, a choice that helped its maneuverability more then it helped it’s durability.
Capabilities[]
(‘’Based on post-quest intended build’’) The Barracuda’s primary asset is its reasonable price-point, at least as far as gunboats are concerned. Its light, which keeps it fast despite not having the high torque engines available on the bigger boats, and its small, which keeps it maneuverable. It’s still heavily armed for a speedboat, but the spread on the chain guns is more useful for making up for a driver’s poor accuracy then guaranteeing a powerful strike. Jen’s recently upgrade it with a few extra tricks, presuming she’s around to make them work right. Its small frame, however, means it’s weak to being blasted apart by heavy impacts.
In stat-based combat, the Barracuda’s a pretty straight forward fighter, attacking continuously with its chain guns (Piercing-Ballistic). It has a second seat (typically Jen’s) allowing someone to activate its buffing abilities without reducing its damage output. When fighting other vehicles, it has the option of going in for boarding actions, if story calls or it seems like the better option. It does have a major weakness to [blunt], leaving it vulnerable to explosives, fists and simply running into things.
Quotes[]
- “凡在龙的名字我是谁？”
- "Yeah, beating out information will likely be step two."
Trivia[]
- ‘’English’’, ‘’Multiverseal Common’’, or as she refers to it, ‘’Colonial’’ is Shui’s second language. Her first language comes from the Jade Empire, represented by Simplified Chinese (Manderin).
- Despite having great sea legs, Shui gets easily air/space sick.
See also[]
External links[]
- Jade Sea; Shui’s Storage Topic
- Pirates of the Gaian Sea; Shui’s current Quest.