Magdalen “Len” Sun 

Physical Description

At first glance, folks have two thoughts of Len: one, she’s a Shepherd, and two, she’s Chinese. Neither is entirely true. With her half-Chinese blood, Len’s skin is pale, but her eyes retain both an almond shape and a deep brown color. Her hair is dark brown and hasn’t been cut since she was fifteen. She’s not tall – about 5’4” – and not strong, but is fairly agile. She moves quietly and intentionally.

Her clothing is a mixture of hand-me-down Shepherd and regular frontier. Usually she wears a gray Shepherd’s shirt, brown pants, shin-high boots and a holster belt. The black duster, black planter’s hat and over-the-shoulder bag come out for traveling.

Personality/Roleplaying Tips

* Low, fairly unexpressive voice. Speaks when she has something to say.

* Intelligent linguistically and from books, but still does most things intuitively. Has little ability to recall terminology.

*Raised to be defensive.

* Book knowledge has not prepared her for the big, scary ‘Verse. 

Skills/Abilities  

* Random skills taught to her by the Shepherds and her home colony.

* Pretty handy with a gun but refuses to kill.

* Len loves hearing a language, or seeing a type of person she’s never seen before, and then learning from them. Very good at memorization and has a photographic memory.

* Mechanically intuitive; can put the part in the right place but can’t tell you how she did it or how it works.

* Fairly good violin player. Carries it in a very secure case in her bag when she’s not playing it.

Private Motivation (not known by most characters)  

* Len is looking for her place in the universe. She’s not sure where that is, and questions if she should have ever left Xing-Xi or the Shepherds. She is lonely and feels lost as a result.

* She spent her teenage years with Shepherds with varying degrees of faith. Some had faith that could move space ships, and Len desires that. They said she could find that faith as well, but she has yet to do so. She fears she never will.

* Len is still looking for the Shepherds, whom she lost almost a year ago.

History  

Magdalen (Len) and her brother Wiktor (Wik) were born on a crammed, dark transport en route to Paquin, their mother a young white runaway from Londinium and their father a Chinese ship mechanic from the Blackout district of Osiris. Shortly before the twins were born, the section of the Blackout district Lee and Mary Sun lived in was stripped to “relieve overpopulation.” The community was jammed into a transport and carried off to Paquin, where they were dumped with meager supplies and some livestock. The first year was the hardest; Mary died from childbirth and others died of disease. But somehow they survived, making a place for trade and rest for travelers. The colony essentially raised Len and Wik, while Lee scraped by as an emergency mechanic for transports.

Len’s father knew that she was not cut out to live the rest of her life in Xing-Xi. He saw that she had every opportunity to learn, but there was little to teach. When Len was fifteen, Lee met a group of traveling Shepherds taking an extended rest in Xing-Xi before returning to the Core Planets. Impressed by them, he asked that they take on Len and teach her as much as they could. When she came of age, she could choose her path and have a better chance of succeeding. The Shepherds agreed, and that was the last time Len saw the people of Xing-Xi.

The five Shepherds, two Shepherdesses and pilot taught Len everything they knew from their current and past lives. When they exhausted their personal knowledge, they gathered books and materials as they traveled and taught her from them. Though she came of age at eighteen, she did not decide to leave the Shepherds until age 22, and even then, it was not her decision. After landing on one Rim planet to do ministry, chaos broke out and Len was separated from the ship. The Shepherds were forced to flee and take off, leaving Len behind. She hasn’t found them since, despite looking whenever she has the chance. Now it’s up to her to make it on her own.