Gan

Description

Gan is an experimental jiangshi created by the cult as a failed prototype for the resurrection of their true lord. They recovered a powerful treasure, Zhu, which housed a mass of resentful souls, and used the flawed False Sovereign’s Eye to bind the most coherent of those souls into a corpse. The result was Gan: powerful and obedient, but mentally unstable.

Prolonged exposure to overlapping souls left Gan deeply forgetful and prone to drifting or lapses even in combat. When separated from Zhu, he suffers bouts of mania that grow more severe the longer the distance persists. To control him during particular strong bouts of mania or when they require him to, the cult can use the False Sovereign’s Eye to suppress Gan’s personality and allow Zhu’s will to take over, creating a far more focused and ruthless entity at great risk to both weapon and host.

Backstory

His name was once Lóngqí

Lóngqí was born from ruin. His parents were cultivators of a clan that fell to annihilation, one of the countless houses erased by stronger factions, demon raids, or sect politics that never bothered to record the names of the dead. They escaped with little more than their lives and the knowledge that survival is not the same as justice. Lóngqí grew up in the shadow of that lesson. He carried no grand inheritance, no protected mountain, no elder’s indulgence, only his disciplined training and a stubborn conviction that power ought to mean responsibility.

From early on he showed talent—sharp intuition, quick learning, and the rare ability to keep his head when others chased glory. But what distinguished him most was his sense of justice. Not naïve righteousness, but a personal code forged from watching his parents live as survivors in a world that pretended their clan had never mattered. He grew into the kind of young cultivator who intervened when others turned away: breaking up extortion rings, striking down demonic beasts that preyed on villages, hunting rogue cultivators who treated commoners like fuel. He traveled light, moved often, and never stayed long enough to become comfortable.

He also had a habit of collecting people.

Not disciples or sworn vassals—strays. Loose cultivators with nowhere stable to stand: a spear-user who had been driven from a sect for refusing an elder’s order; an alchemist whose family had been taken for debt; a talisman-maker who had lost her teacher to a demonic plague; a silent swordsman who had once worked for villains; A drunken poor excuse for a monk. Lóngqí didn’t recruit them with speeches. He offered them meals, shared information, fought beside them without demanding their gratitude, and kept walking. By the time he looked back, a whole band was keeping pace with him.

Their reputation grew in odd pockets of the realm. Not grand enough for major sects to formally recognize, but distinct enough that certain towns learned what it meant when word spread that “Lóngqí’s band” was nearby: corrupt magistrates suddenly fled, monster-infested roads cleared, and predatory cultivators found that their usual victims had teeth. They were not saints. They took payment when they needed it. They made compromises. They were sometimes reckless. But when something needed to be stopped and no righteous banner was coming, they were the ones who arrived.

It was this same habit that led them into the Ghost Lands.

Whatever their original purpose—hunting a demon, retrieving lost souls, or destroying a cursed site—the result did not change. They faced an enemy they were unprepared for and were worn down by fatigue, poison, wounds that would not close, and relentless spiritual pressure. One by one, his companions fell, not in glory, but as the Ghost Lands slowly claimed them.

In those final moments, Lóngqí’s decided his fate.

He carried a clear glass guandao, rare and finely made, a weapon capable of touching spirit as easily as flesh.. As the Ghost Lands reached for his fallen companions’ souls, he opened the weapon and drew in their clear spirits, sparing them corruption while binding their resentment within the blade.

Dying himself, Lóngqí swore to one day free that resentment. To ensure the oath was not abandoned, he placed his own soul into the guandao as well, becoming the final structure that held everything together.

The weapon was later found far from the place of death, its clarity gone, its spirit crowded and bitter, its edge carrying the taste of the Ghost Lands. The cult that discovered it did not understand what it held, only that it held something that would not disperse.

They renamed it Zhu.

And much later, using a failed imitation relic and a corpse they could afford to ruin, they forced the most coherent soul within Zhu to stand up and walk again.

The cult called that jiangshi Gan.

But deep inside the weapon’s heart, the promise that created it has never stopped repeating:

I won't abandon you.

Personality

Gan’s personality is bright, childlike, and openly curious. He approaches people and situations with easy cheer, asking simple questions, laughing readily, and becoming fascinated by small, ordinary things. He forgets quickly and moves on just as easily, treating the world as something new each time he looks at it. Beneath his bright demeanor lies no open malice or ambition only a vague sense that he should be “useful” and stay close to those who guide him, even if he cannot remember why.

At unpredictable moments, fragments of the souls bound within Zhu surface through him. When this happens, Gan’s demeanor shifts abruptly. He may become sharply protective, coldly pragmatic, or suddenly violent, adopting habits, speech patterns, or combat instincts that do not belong to him. These episodes mirror the companions of Lóngqí—fighters, caretakers, and wanderers whose remnants still cling to the weapon.

Gan himself does not understand these changes. When they pass, he remembers little or nothing of what he said or did, often returning to his usual cheerful curiosity with mild confusion. To him, it feels like losing time. To others, it is deeply unsettling: a smiling, innocent figure who can, without warning, act like someone entirely different.

With Zhu close, these intrusions are rarer and shorter, the weapon quietly keeping its own voices in check. When Gan is separated from it, the fragments surface more often and with greater intensity.

Build

Gan

Origin

Warrior (122)

Spirit Foundation

Drowned Guando Spirit Foundation (Weapon / Greater Elemental (Water) Spirit Foundation (117)

Stats

Skill 5 (93)
Intelligence 0
Body 5 (63)
Perception 2

Perks

Pressure II (55)
Dual-Type Spirit Foundation (47)
Natural Insight "Sinking" (39)

Treasures

"Zhù" Heaven Weapon (33)
"False Sovereign’s Eye" Low-grade Earth Defensive / Utility Treasure (29)

Techniques

x2 Heaven (15)
Nine Anchors of the Sunken Corpse
Myriad Waves Drag Down the Heavens

x3 Earth (0)
Sediment Gathering Soul
Whirlpool Setting Palm
Undertow Submergence Field

Drawbacks

Destroyed Clan +4
Clan Enmity+2
Bad Rep +1
Hunted +4
Target on your Back +3
Ghost Domain +6
Stars of Destiny +5