Riggs

Aspects

 * Template: Champion of god
 * High Concept: Soldier of Drag'gshed
 * Musts: Bless this house
 * Guide my hand
 * Holy touch
 * Righteousness
 * Trouble: Adrenaline Junkie
 * Imported from Detroit
 * Lethal weapon
 * Buddhist restraint
 * Walk the same path (as Anders)

Stunts & Powers

 * -1: Footwork
 * -1: Lethal Weapon
 * -1: Guide my hand
 * -2: Righteousness
 * -1: Holy Touch
 * -1: Vision of Hayagriva [based on "the sight"]

Taren Riggs | coiled spring of the dharmapalas

Phase One
Riggs grew up in the ironically named Paradise Valley, Detroit during the 1980s. At the time, this was one of the no-go areas of the city as it was ground zero for gang culture and the drug wars. Riggs father was never around much and his mother was frequently absent from the family's home in the Brewster-Douglass housing project working several dead-end jobs and managing alcohol addiction. By age 10, Riggs was looked after principally by his older brother, Reggie, an ascending member of the Mack avenue boys, a gang that emerged to participate in crack-cocaine trafficking after the demise of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Boys_Inc. Young boys incorporated]. Riggs barely attended school and effectively dropped out by the 9th grade, when he went to work for his brother as a runner. The Mack avenue boys were eventually subsumed by The Best Friends whereupon Reggie started work as an enforcer and hit man. By age 16, Riggs was assisting Reggie with stake-out duties and serving as a forward observer. Riggs never pulled the trigger on a hit, but he was involved in minor skirmishes, some firefights, and plenty of street beat downs. Forged in the crucible of a gangland ghetto, Riggs emerged a steel rod of anger and bitterness coiled up tight and ready to strike. He was also addicted to the thrill of the hunt. After several lethal counter strikes against the Best Friends and increased scrutiny by the police and FBI, Reggie urged Riggs to get out of Detroit. Riggs' sense of self-preservation made him oblige that request and he joined the US Army in 1998 at age 18.
 * Phase Aspect: Imported from Detroit

Phase Two
Riggs' channeled his anger into his training as a soldier. Riggs excelled in hand-to-hand combat training and developed into an accomplished marksman. He also worked with mentors in his company to complete his GED. His gifts and discipline earned him membership in the The green berets (7th special forces group). His participation in high-stakes, high-risk special operations fueled his addiction to the adrenaline rush and gave him a regular outlet for his violent impulses.
 * Phase Aspect: Lethal weapon

September 11, 2001 was a calling of sorts. Riggs' group traveled to Afghanistan almost immediately (and before war was declared) in search of bin Laden. The cat and mouse game in the badlands of central asia engaged Riggs' love of the hunt. He renewed his 5 year commitment to the military in 2003 and opted for another tour of duty in 2004 and 2005. Riggs' group worked widely in central asia, conducting operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. Hi group hunted down and killed radical fundamentalist groups, militant sympathizers, and suspected harborers. Riggs likely killed innocents too, but he didn't reflect on it. Money and new objectives were continually pumped into special ops and Riggs participated in increasingly risky missions in increasingly remote places. During am expedition in western China, his platoon came under fire and a rpg blast knocked him off balance and into the gully of canyon. Riggs tumbled hard some 100 feet down the steep canyon slope and suffered a compound fracture of his tibia.

On the verge of shock, he patched up his leg and crawled miserably into a cave shelter at the bottom of the canyon where he met Tenzin Wangdu and promptly passed out.

Phase Three

 * Phase Aspect: Buddhist restraint

Riggs woke up in the small spartan quarters of Tenzin's mountain hermitage. Without a clue of how Tenzin transported him to safety, Riggs could only seem to concentrate on the pain of his broken body. His wounds were worse than he thought: broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, cracked skull, and recurring headaches. He couldn't walk either. Riggs succumbed to Tenzin's care and unable to use his body much, he retreated to the dark corners of his mind. The regularity of Tenzin's prayers and meditation affected Riggs somehow. He found respite from his bitterness and anger listening to Tenzin, and started to participate in whatever ways he could. Riggs would lapse into rage now and then, but he quickly learned it did no good and mostly left him exhausted and unable to push away the pain.

Months passed and Riggs body slowed healed. Months turned to a year and then two and Riggs spirit was born anew.

In those years Riggs found his way to communicate with Tenzin. And Tenzin took a shine to Riggs. Perhaps Tenzin saw in Riggs a challenge from the Buddha: help this broken, bitter man to see the world as it is, to help him end his suffering and you will score mad Mahayana points.

Riggs was tutored by Tenzin all the same. Riggs learned to forage, farm, pray, see, and listen. In meditation he found a quietness and a way to close of his impulses to the bitter rage of his upbringing. Through the daily practice of life with Tenzin, Riggs learned the way of the Bodhisattva and opened himself further to tutelage. Perhaps sensing Riggs ongoing struggle with his inner demons, Tenzin responded by teaching Riggs how to commune with the Dharmapalas. Through these teachings and meditations, Riggs acquired new strategies of restraining his violent impulses, found ways of forgiving his own transgressions against humanity, and developed news eyes through which to see the world. After three years, Riggs was born anew: a practitioner of the mahayana ideal and servant to dharma.

Feeling a sense of completion and the urgent need to walk his own path, Riggs departed, with cane in hand, and returned to civilization. In the west.

Phase Four

 * Phase Aspect: Walk the same path

Phase Five

 * Phase Aspect: