Luke Chen, Streetwise Courier
Character Sheet
Background / Concept
Luke Chen was born to a Hong Kong investment broker and a San Fran local, the owner of a rather popular diner in the Bay Area. The eldest of the 2nd generation Chens, a lot of his attention at home is focused on two things.
The first is his sister, Vivian, just on the cusp of graduating high school. Making sure she does well is something he considers his responsibility, especially considering that with their father away all the time and their mother busy running her restaurant, Luke feels like he has to "step up" at home. Ten years his younger, Vivian sees her brother as a dedicated man, but perhaps a boring one - always trying to keep her on the straight and narrow.
This is mostly because of his two cousins: Alex and Sam Chen. Though only a few years younger than Luke, these two got mixed up with some bad company very early on: the local Triads running out of Chinatown. Luke does his best to keep away from such a life, but it is without fail that one of the two will eventually call for a favor or because they were in trouble. Luke has had his nose broken dealing with Alex's violent boyfriend, and he's gone broke bailing out Sam from a dice game gone wrong. Still: family is family, and Luke won't let anything too terrible happen to them, despite their intent on going deeper into the criminal organization.
For himself, Luke is almost through a graduate program at the University of San Francisco, right near Golden Gate Park. He lives in a modest apartment near the campus, and spends a large chunk of his day studying profusely to attain his doctorate in History and finally get the chance to become a Professor, like he had wanted from when he first entered school. At night, to help dissuade the massive loans he has taken for such schooling (as his father, though successful, "never had help from his family"), Luke lives a completely separate life as a Courier.
Things need to move in San Francisco. Letters need express delivery, packages need to beat traffic, a million different things need to get from Point A to Point B, and Luke is the man to do it. His motorcycle is a simple thing, not some big flashy Harley or sleek Kawasaki, but it gets the job done and he knows how to drive it quite well through the hilly streets of San Fran. Unfortunately, this job often lands him right back in the hands of Sam and Alex, who are quick to offer up Luke's name as someone who knows how to make things happen.
Dealing with The Triads is ... tricky, to say the least, for Luke. Should his name ever be associated with them, he knows that his education, his life would be over. Everything he would have worked towards would be taken away, hells, his family may disown him for the deed. However, the money is good, and Luke has always been afraid of what would happen to his Cousins should he ever refuse to move a mysteriously non-labeled, brown paper-wrapped box to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and leave it there. Because of this, Luke has gained quite the affinity for trying to get himself out of agreements or trouble. Words, then, are his weapons to try and cool an angry cop's demands as to why he's loitering near the police station, or upon trying to tell a Triad boss that yes, he is 100% sure he gave the letter to the person who asked for it and he has no idea how the Russians snagged it instead.
These troubles used to keep Luke up at night. Now, on the Hunt, they don't bother him as much anymore. He knows the real monsters living in his beloved city, and they sure as hell aren't human.
Attributes, Skills, and Specialties
Luke's priorities for attributes are Social, Mental, then Physical. He needs his words and his Composure when trying to bail out his cousins or answer why he didn't take his sister's call when in the middle of a drug dead-drop, and so naturally his Wits are quite sharp as well. Of decent intellect and resolve in putting himself through school, all that education left little time for building his body's muscle. However, his heart is doing just fine: the motorcycle can't go everywhere and Luke even enjoys taking a regular bicycle where he can to save on gas. His reflexes are rather quick, building from a lifetime of dodging traffic in San Francisco, and they've saved his life on more than one occasion.
His skills, too, are prioritized Social, Mental, then Physical: Luke is quite persuasive when he needs to be, especially when it's related to calming someone down, whether from worry or anger. He's also a child of the streets, growing up in Chinatown and working all around the city, as well as dealing with The Triads in the name of his cousins. He partied enough in college and even then finds it hard to turn down offers of a drink or get-together, now knowing what it takes to schmooze his way out of a bullet from a bodyguard pissed that he was talking to a boss's girlfriend. Likewise, Luke has learned to lie, or at least hide his intentions from his sister and others. He doesn't want his cousins knowing everything about his life, nor does he want Vivian knowing that last night he faced down a creature made of shadows and acid that took the form of his high school crush.
Luke has spent a lot of time in school. A lot of time. Over 20 years of his life have been dedicated towards Academia, so it stands that he's picked up a thing or two over the years. Like how to find exactly the right source for a paper, or to know when an article was definitely written 150 years after the event that it speaks of. Still, he has his interests, and all those books read sometimes talk about the strange and unusual. Covens performing esoteric rituals. Men that could turn into beasts. Women that lured men into the mists and sent them back as a shell to infect a town with a love of her ghostly beauty. He's flipped through several of these before out of pure curiosity. Now, his interest in such texts is also reaching levels of pure education.
Luke loves his motorcycle. He loves his bicycle. He loves being in control of a machine and taking on the day with it: there's no greater feeling than whisking down the hills of San Francisco and knowing exactly when to brake to clear the whole thing at great speed. However, there isn't much more that he devotes himself to physically. The bicycle keeps him in reasonable shape and he'll even go running when he has the time, but Luke is not much more athletic than that. Of note, though, is his purchasing of a pistol and practicing with it on Sunday mornings. It was Alex that suggested he do so, and Luke couldn't rightly argue with her about it. She even helped him get set up with the permit, which was not something Luke thought Alex even had.
Virtues and Vices
Luke is Charitable. He enjoys helping people, although this has gotten him in hot water plenty of times. The biggest examples would be Alex and Sam, who constantly are blowing up his phone and Luke knows that answering it could very well lead to a bullet to the leg. Or worse. Still, he doesn't feel right just abandoning them to their fate, no matter how often they make mistakes. Helping Vivian study for a test has made him fail one, but he knows that she's much better off for it. Among his friends, Luke is known as someone that will always help move furniture, and no, he won't charge you after, not even a beer. He'll pick you up on that motorcycle of his when your car breaks down. He'll take you to his mom's diner for some Chinese soul food when you find out your other half just cheated on you. Where a helping hand is needed, it's Luke's hand that's reaching out.
Luke is Lustful. Though he's loathe to admit it, working for the Triads has introduced him to a lot of things. A lot of things. Drugs. Money. Women. You name it. Their mass amount of excess keeps making Luke wonder if his "always dot the i's" lifestyle isn't exactly the best road. He sees men with a tenth of his intellect and charm driving Mercedes and dating supermodels named Mercedes. He's even given in a few times, going to clubs with Sam or to parties with Alex, leading himself into a world of drink and sex, only to find that Vivian was mugged last night while he was forgetting Stacy's or Lacy's name. Justifying it that even he gets to blow off steam sometimes, Luke still craves the physical pleasures he tries to deny himself, all the while thinking that surely nothing bad would happen were he to loosen up a bit.
Merits
Not wealthy, Luke at least has a little spending cash on him. The Courier business doesn't pay well, but a nice slice from The Triads every now and then helps. Likewise, having to run the city streets day and night means that Luke knows exactly where he's going. Always. Always. When your phone is dead and you have no GPS, it's fifteen minutes until sunrise and a mob boss has promised to cut off your cousin's hand if you don't make your delivery in time, you get to know where you're going, and fast.
Having grown up in Chinatown, Luke is also conversationally fluent in Cantonese, the main Chinese dialect spoken in San Francisco. It's not perfect, as his uncles and aunts are quick to point out, but hey, he was born in the States. Cantonese comes in handy when dealing with Sam and Alex, who he knows both owe him more than they could ever repay. It's not often that he can call upon them, but when he does the two both know it's serious enough that they should try and pull some of their strings in the criminal underworld to help out. On the other side of the fence, Luke has had a few run-ins with Detective Danielle St. Croix, of the San Francisco Police Department. A Vice worker, she has a habit of crossing paths with Luke, but ultimately knows that the man is trying to do the best with the cards he's been dealt. While not exactly a friend of his, Luke has called upon Danielle once or twice for some info.
