Sano Brown
Sano Brown
sano.jpg
Portrayed By: James Iha
Status: Alive and Baffled
Age: 21
Calling: Collegeboy…and alleged eco-terrorist?!
Pantheon: Amatsukami
Divine Parent: Susano-o
Significant Other(s): -

Background

I've always been happiest when it's raining.
I guess that comes from Dad; he's a storm god, after all.

He and Mom— Amy Brown, hippie extraordinaire— met while chained to neighboring trees, protesting deforestation up in Canada, and he came back down to Seattle with her when the protest was over. Their relationship was pretty messy, from what I've heard…though that might just be the racism talking; Mom's family are all stodgy, conservative white assholes— though one thing's for sure, he didn't stick around when Mom got pregnant.

Even though he just up and disappeared on her, Mom stayed crazy about him, kinda…wilting without him, I guess. She named me Sano after him (or rather, the name he was going by at the time) and my first memories are of her getting together with old protesting buddies and telling tales, and then desperately asking if anyone had seen him around. Pretty sad, really, and I grew up resenting him for doing this to her.

My aunts and uncles all tried to hook her up with "better" guys— rich, shallow yuppies who tried to impress her but always failed. There was one guy she actually did kind of like; Ryan. We moved in with him when I was twelve. He was pretty OK…not quite so full of himself as the other guys, and while he did pretty well for himself financially he didn't live like it, aside from a few guilty pleasures. He loved motorcycles, loved tinkering with them specifically, and had some VERY nice bikes which, to my complete surprise, he let me fool around with. He got me hooked, I'll admit.

Still, Mom didn't actually /love/ love him, still pining for Sano Senior, and he could tell. He tried not to let it bother him, but I guess there's only so much of that crap you can take, and we were on our own again after a year or so. All this change of scenery made high school pretty difficult; I mean, I wasn't a genius or whatever but I was OK and the schoolwork wasn't that hard, but moving around school districts in Seattle made it hard to keep friends. I ran track and swam, but I never really felt part of the teams.

You'd think I'd hate my mother over all this, but I really don't. She's great. And she got me started on this whole Mother Earth, gotta-save-the-whales thing that she's clung to for years, and I love her for it. Anyway.

College was where things got weird. I'd been hanging with a certain crowd, these neo-hippie guys who were really intense about "fixing the planet," and before I knew it we were taking up placards and marching around city hall and construction sites and doing all those crazy hippie things you only saw in the eighties. And still, my buddies were getting more hardcore. /Scary/ hardcore. Soon we started having "meetings" instead of just hanging out, and there was talk about radical change and curing the world's cancer and…I'll admit, I was digging it. It felt like we were doing something huge, something that needed doing.

I didn't know how bombs got involved; I was kind of the group's runner and lookout and I was kind of on the outside of the deep planning. We broke in to a few offices, vandalized some stuff, sure. But one night my buddies dropped off a duffel bag in a big, fancy department store known for selling real fur and leather, and as we were making our getaway the whole store just exploded behind us, the kind of thing you only see in action movies. I guess someone hadn't timed it right or cut the fuse too short or whatever— hell, I don't know bombs— because we were WAY too close to the blast. I thought I was a goner.

And then my dad was there, striding calmly through the falling concrete and billowing dust and panicked, screaming crowd on the street and taking my hand. Suddenly everything got calm in me, and we both walked out of the mess like nothing was happening. I guess I should clarify at this point and mention I didn't know he was my dad yet, but I'd just watched him do something waaaaay out of the ordinary and save my life, and I trusted him far enough to explain things anyway.

We stopped at a diner for some coffee and he told me that he was my father, Susano-o, that he was a god, he needed my help, yadda yadda. I didn't believe him at first— of course— but a few demonstrations melted that doubt away. I didn't know whether to hate him, to fear him…what. We went out to the beach and he summoned Tide Bringer, his first gift to me; a seriously ancient-looking kinda spear-thing with a blade on the end that he called a "naginata." It had a long history among the Yamabushi, warrior-monks in Japan. Next, he took the mirrored sunglasses from their perch atop his head and gave them to me, explaining that if tonight was any indication, I'd need these shades to get me out of the constant trouble I'd no doubt find myself in.

Finally, he shrugged off his coat— a light blue duster made from leather, which he assured me was synthetic— and hung it over my shoulders, explaining that as my power grew, it would open up the skies for me. Finally, we sat in the sand and he took me through the steps of speaking to the spirits in the water and the earth— scaring the crap outta me when literal faces formed and voices spoke!

In the end, as morning approached, Susano-o came home with me— "For a little while," he said, when I asked if he was really going to stay. Mom, of course, was overjoyed to see him.

Dad really did only stay for a little while— long enough to teach me how to handle my damned naginata without stabbing my own eyes out, and a little more still until I felt fairly confident about using it. He taught me how to focus my ichor and become stronger, faster and more sturdy, which he explained would help me when things beyond this world wanted to punch my face in. And then he had to go.

"New York," He said, his parting words. "Get out there and help the others."

I expected Mom to be a mess, but there's a happier ending to this tale— she totally wasn't. She had the closure she needed, and seemed stronger than she had been in years. When I told her I was headed to New York she even started looking up schools with compatible credits for me, and when I hopped on my bike, packed and ready to go, she didn't even cry.

I did, a little. But if you tell anyone I'll cut you.

Personality

Similarly under construction!

Relationships

Name Relation Thoughts
Tsuchimikado Maia "Cousin" Daughter of Amaterasu, way friendly and helpful! Sano's guide, for the time being.
Raymond Moon "Cousin" Son of Tsuki-Yomi, cool in a sort of…Dick Tracy kind of way.
Faizura Acquaintance A little cold at first, but she seems friendly.

Events Thus Far

Links to logs with event summary. Woosh!

Character Sheet

Strength: 3 Charisma: 3 Perception: 3
Epic Strength: 1 Epic Charisma: 0 Epic Perception: 0
Dexterity: 5 Manipulation: 2 Intelligence: 2
Epic Dexterity: 2 Epic Manipulation: 0 Epic Intelligence: 0
Stamina: 3 Appearance: 2 Wits: 4
Epic Stamina: 1 Epic Appearance: 0 Epic Wits: 0
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