Tao Yin
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Basic Information
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Tao Yin
(Don't you Dare)
70
5'1"
Female
Human
Ascetic
Field Marshal
Koben Army
Likes
Her family | Being feared | Fancy shoes | Fishcake | Songluan sweets | Showboating | Giving makeovers | Mustaches
Dislikes
Attitude | Incompetents in high positions | Cheese any stronger than a brie | Cheap fawning | Most people, to be honest
Personality
Domineering | Vindictive | Protective | Disciplined | Family-oriented | Extravagent
Tao prefers to be feared rather than liked, under the logic that the strong are feared and the nice are taken advantage of. She firmly believes in the properness of a strict hierarchy, where leaders lead by strength and followers shut up and follow. As a leader in her own eyes, she makes a point to embody her own concept of strength - she is uncompromising, commands with an iron fist and demands due respect and obedience Or Else. She is famous for retaliating many times harder than an initial offense; to her mind cruelty is necessary - even rightful - if applied correctly, and making a statement is one such correct application. Luckily for everyone else she's not unprincipled - she holds herself to her sense of order as rigidly as she holds others to them. She falls in line with superiors she respects enough even if she disagrees, and objects to weakness only if the weak act or move above their deserved station - otherwise she is perfectly willing to protect them as a duty of the strong.
Despite or maybe because of the loss of her original family, she is fiercely protective of her current one. She gives the concept of family and blood an almost mystical significance. Even if she acts like a bitter grouch, she is immensely generous to her 'clan' and tries her utmost to give them a good life - and if everyone else in the world should perish for it, then so be it. She can be harsh when teaching lessons to her juniors, but only with the intention of preparing them well for what she considers a merciless world. Though she'd never admit it, all of her ferocity burns around a fear of losing her family again - a fear that drives her to seek order, dominance and violence as a way to control fate.
If anyone complains that she's extreme, they would be right - and she herself considers most people wet towels. She naturally has a lot of energy to pour into her goals, a hard-headedness that makes her absolutely resolute when she's decided something, and a distaste for half-assery that equates due diligence with full effort - even if the full effort is going towards liberating someone from their life. Less murderously, she prefers to be the Best(TM) wherever possible whether that be in regards to fashion, gift size, superiority of party favours, gambling stakes, the highest heels or whatever else she's currently pinned her ego to. As someone who grew up with noble sensibilities, optics matter a lot to her; she gets a lot of joy from serving looks and turning heads. She also delights in making a show of her power over enemies, and some form of public grovelling or repentence is necessary for her to begin considering forgiving a slight.
History
Tao grew up pampered in a prosperous Songluan noble house, living a life wrapped up in money and petty dramas with other nobles. When she was a teen Tao's grandmother, the family head, became bedridden with a chronic illness she'd long kept quiet. Her many children all came back to the ancestral home to wish her a speedy recovery. They gave her expensive medicinal gifts and waxed poetic about how sad they were to see her so ill, but it was clear that their thoughts were really on who would inherit the family title and riches when she died. Tao became involved too, fawning over her grandmother to curry favour for her father. The end came only a couple of years later, and it was messy. The head died of food poisoning having only completed a portion of her will. The cook at fault was employed by the eldest, who would automatically inherit everything if the will were unfinished. Absolutely convinced that he'd orchestrated the death for greed, a handful of siblings ganged up to kill him. When another sibling denounced them for their crime, they killed her too. Strife rippled through the family. With the inheritance muddied and murder already on the table, potential heirs fell left and right. Tao's family was one of the last to fall but fall it did - an aunt's family cornered them in their home and slaughtered all except Tao, who managed to kill her assailant and run.
She escaped over the border to Koben by stowing away on the then-new Song-Lu to Koben train - a trip she'd fantasized about with her siblings mere weeks ago. She made it to the second-last stop before an army lieutenant, one Iver Eickhoff, found and apprehended her. Shocked and moved by her story, he agreed to take her in until he could check the truth himself; after all, he was a recent empty-nester and had the room to spare. She lodged with him for a few weeks, saying little but deeply grateful, until he sat her down one day to announce that he'd confirmed the truth of her words. What's more, he'd found a distant cousin in Song-Lu who was kindly willing to home her - what good news, right? But to her horror, this cousin was one she knew to be tight with the aunt who'd killed everyone. She adamantly refused and instead declared that she'd follow Iver into the army to keep her place away from them - appealing to his pride as a lieutenant. He reluctantly agreed under the condition that she reconsider after her first year.
Tao did better in the army than either expected. Combat training gave her the means to protect herself, and living on the barracks gave her peace of mind that any clean-up assassin would have security to get through first. She made few friends out of distrust, but did make an impression on her superiors for her intense drive and almost defiant stoniness in the face of violence. Iver was impressed and proud despite his reservations - so much that when it came time to discuss her future and she still wanted to stay, he offered to formally adopt her. She gratefully accepted. Tao climbed the ranks steadily under the Eickhoff surname, with a growing reputation for being cruel but frighteningly effective. She also grew into Iver's social circle - eventually even catching the interest of the highly ranked Wendall Kaspar and marrying him after a long, unusual courtship. Despite being passed over for inheritance due to infertility, Wendall's ample connections paved the way for her to reach the upper ranks of the army.
When Iver passed from sickness, Tao reclaimed her original surname of Yin. Now secure and powerful in her own right, she decided it was time to fulfil a promise she'd made to herself on that train many years ago - to get revenge on her family's killers. By day she met every expectation of an upstanding soldier. By night she worked with private agents to investigate the family left in Song-Lu. She was disgusted but pleased to discover the guilty aunt was still alive and prospering after seizing the title - all the more ill-gotten gains to take from her. One by one, Tao picked out each member of her family and drove them to death - be it by destitution, creative assassination or whatever else she felt would be most poetic. Just before she won the rank of Field Marshal, she reached her final prize - Tao presented her now lone aunt with trophy body parts of all her dead family and then gave her the means to kill herself. The satisfaction of that moment turned into lasting taste for revenge - and cosmic confirmation, in her mind, that her choices were correct.
Current Story
As someone who thought Sigmund disgustingly weak, she was one of the main proponents for the change in royal line. That the new Empress should be her own niece is perfect, and she has every intention to leverage the rise of her family to the highest seat of power.
Additional Info
Has a 'dislike until proven acceptable' philosophy when meeting new people.
Her elemental affinity is thunder. Wounds from her blows end up much larger and messier than normal. Her slap can send someone flying across the room.
Her idea of order is modelled off the slippery noble hierarchy of her childhood, with strict army hierarchy grafted on top like a brace. She likes orderliness, but understands to her soul that cutthroat actions achieve things and justifies it to herself if it's in the service of maintaining or correcting the order.
Keeps a stable of assassins and other shady types in her pocket. She considers them a little like collectibles and is oddly vain about them too - she likes her assassins both beautiful and deadly.
Relations
Eickhoffs
Has the deepest respect for the late Iver and his family. She is still close with their grandchildren, two of whom currently serve in the military.
Wendall Kaspar
Her husband, a kindly jock with enormous patience and an equally enormous mustache. He's probably the only person in existence who's allowed to tease her.
