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I’ve mentioned a character named Sin.  He is an wandering thief who really becomes more adventurer than criminal.  One of the things with his series is that new allies and enemies get introduced in every book.  There are a few who return for other adventures, which tends to span over all of Windemere and have tiers of villains.  I based the adventure-style over Final Fantasy games in 4 Acts.  This is where Ryusuke Kuroyama comes from.

I attempted to run a Sin game on-line once and my friend Greg joined as Ryusuke the Samurai.  He was brave, honorable, strong, and debuted with a bad roll that caused him to get knocked off his horse by a tree branch.  In the short time the game ran, Ryusuke and Sin became close friends.  So, he entered the Sin books in the second book and shows up in many of the other books.  In fact, it’s been hard for me to find a reason for Ryusuke not to be in a Sin book.  The best I have so far are points where they fight and separate for a few acts.  So the two grew into loyal friends.

The origin of Ryusuke came about in an odd way.  Greg had a basic idea and I ran with it for fun, including spoilers that I won’t mention here.  Ryusuke’s family was charged with protecting a magic set of blades.  They were the katana, wakizashi, and tanto set where each blade had a power.  Katana had wind blasts, wakizashi could drain the strength of an enemy with every cut, and the tanto was a healing blade.  Somebody killed Ryusuke’s family while he was lost in the wilderness with his horse.  During the massive attack, a thief stole the blades and Ryusuke is the one to recover them.  So, his original story is to find the mastermind behind his family’s murder.  Once that story ended, he stuck around out of loyalty to Sin and an oath to protect innocent people.

Dahaka from Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Ryusuke became such an interesting character that I gave him an origin book called Ryusuke: Honor of Vengeance.  He goes after ninja clans that he suspects (no idea if he’s right or not) and is running from an unkillable demon warrior (I was playing Prince of Persia: Warrior Within at the time) summoned to regain the blades.  Remember me mentioning that the wakizashi absorbs strength from an enemy?  Well, that’s only half true.  That is what it does, but it did something else when Greg used it in the game.  The blade was cursed with a demonic rage that increased Ryusuke’s physical abilities, but risked taking him over if he used it for too long.  The power comes from him accidentally absorbing the demon warrior into the blade.  Ryusuke is the only one who has the willpower to push the demon down because he is bonded to it.  This does leave an opening for the demon to get free at some point and I’m trying to find a Sin story that will allow this.  I’m even wondering if he should lose the demon at some point and gain something else.  To be honest, I keep forgetting about the cursed blade.

Ryusuke is a character I haven’t altered much from his first appearance.  Greg did a great job making him and his evolution is rather gradual.  He is more about finding peace and protecting others.  I already know he’s going to be a major player in the final battle of Windemere when I get around to that book.