Dr. Nian Zhen
Nian Zhen - Believe in truthfulness
Mother of Aurora, she is the primary doctor of Castle Warrick. She is Chinese and is married to Sir Boswick, one of the senior knights of the Order. The two fell in love and she chose to join the Order because she would have opportunities to practice medicine and do research that she would not have in China. She has extensive knowledge of Chinese herbal medicines, including antiseptic lichens and mosses and a distillation of willow leaves (containing salicylic acid) and the opium poppy (for extreme cases of pain). She has quickly mastered Centurion medical practice which includes brewing sour beer (a green beer with a golden foam that includes tetracycline) and surgery using obsidian for scalpels. She also does some medical research of her own.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Good physical condition.
Body Features
She is fairly tall (at 5' 6") and very slender.
Facial Features
Nian Zhen is Chinese and has traditional Chinese features and black hair.
Identifying Characteristics
Her almond eyes and earthen skin color set her apart in the west. She bears the brand of a slave on her left shoulder.
Physical quirks
She is deaf in the right ear and tends to turn the left side of her head slightly towards people in order to hear them better.
Special abilities
She has mastered the glaive and is one of the premier doctors in Europe.
Apparel & Accessories
She wears tradition Centurion clothes but she still wears a decorative blue and green, silk scarf draped over her shoulders as a reminder of her homeland in China.
Specialized Equipment
Obsidian for surgical scalpels, a medicine bag of painkillers, antiseptics, and antibiotics. She has a very large library of medical books with her own handwritten notes in each one. She also has a custom glaive made for her that has both a hook and a spike forged into the back of it.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Nian Zhen was born into a middle class family of merchants. He mother died when she was young so she, along with her sister and two brothers often accompanied her father on his trade missions. Her father deeply appreciated her abilities and her help and referred to her as "My brilliant girl".
Her uncle had big dreams of rising higher within the military and deeply resented anything that might impugn is ability or his honor. One day when she was accompanying her father on a trade mission to India they were stopped by some Chinese soldiers who were looking for contraband. He uncle was in command of the soldiers. He made a false statement about her father and his goods and she corrected him. He backhanded her so hard that it left her mostly deaf in her right ear before beating her senseless while is soldier restrained her father and brothers. He ordered her father and brothers killed as smugglers, confiscated her father's goods and took her and her sister as slaves. Her uncle took them over the border and sold all of the goods and the two girls into slavery.
A Centurion trading mission happened to be in the city at the time and they saw the girls being branded as slaves after they had been sold to Indian merchants. Seeing them both badly beaten they bought them and gave the girls their freedom. Since the girls had no safe way to go home (and probably no safe home to return to) they chose to accompany the Centurions back to the west at the completion of their trade mission.
On the trip back Nian Zhen fell in love with Sir Boswick and with his faith, which offered equality and opportunities to women that were not afforded other places. She converted to Christianity, joined the order as an artisan, and married Sir Boswick. Her sister also eventually converted, joined the order and married a knight who is serving in the northern marches. They correspond regularly but have not seen each other in several years.
Education
No formal education but she is highly intelligent and extremely well read.
Employment
Senior doctor of Castle Warrick
Accomplishments & Achievements
She is working on an exhaustive medical encyclopedia with a focus on treating women, their diseases and battle injuries, since she has not found any extant writings on those topics. She is especially interested in those ways in which typical diseases and battle injuries differ from similar traumas in men and how they may need to be treated differently in women compared to men.
Mental Trauma
Due to the murder of her family and the beating she received she is determined never to be at the mercy of an oppressor again and takes her combat training very seriously. She is one of the instructors of the use of the glaive for the other artisans and maidservants. Her knowledge of where and how to strike the human body with a glaive along with her ruthlessness in combat is actually very scary.
Intellectual Characteristics
Very intelligent, very inquisitive. She enjoys drawing and painting and uses them in her practice. She has asked for several people to serve as nude models for her work as she is making a medical encyclopedia which includes extensive anatomically correct drawings of healthy, inured, and diseased bodies. Sir Gerard allows this but requires that her drawing be kept locked away when she is not using them since some are considered inappropriate. She has done nude drawings of Portia because of her clear musculature so that she can compare them to the musculature of young men to note similarities and differences. She has also done drawings of her own daughter and husband.
Morality & Philosophy
She is not as strict or as modest about the human body as some of the others in the Order because of her medical background. She maintains the high moral standards of the Order and is usually very blunt (her name means "believe in truthfulness"). She cares deeply about life but has no trouble with the idea of killing oppressors. She can be less forgiving that the Order teaches.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
She is intensely curious and wants to learn about everything, especially medicine. After her mistreatment by her uncle, she is very adamant about respect for women in general and about her own abilities in particular.
Hygiene
Obsessively clean even by Centurion standards as she believes that it helps to keep her healthy even while she is exposed to disease. She makes it a practice to wash her hands in between patients though in her case, this is more about keeping herself free from disease than about not spreading diseases between patients.
Social
Family Ties
Her sister is the only relative that she has any contact with.
Religious Views
She is Christian but looks first for a natural explanation before invoking the miraculous as a last option.
Social Aptitude
She is seen as being aloof but this is partly due to the way she was raised. She does NOT believe that women should not speak unless spoken to but being raised that way means that she is naturally quiet and tends to initiate conversations only with those whom she is very familiar. She is always gracious and polite to strangers but speaks the truth to those whom she knows.
Mannerisms
She tends to sit and watch others and is very observant.
Hobbies & Pets
She keeps numerous small animals but these are test subjects not pets.
Speech
Her speech tends to be formal and she has a slight Chinese accent.
Current Location
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Doctor
Birthplace
The Hunan province of China
Children
Current Residence
Castle Warrick
Gender
Female
Eyes
Very dark and almond shaped.
Hair
Black, it is long but is typically worn up to keep it out of the way.
Height
5' 6"
Weight
120 lbs
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Character Prototype
Lucy Liu
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