The Story of Johnny Oh

I was asked to make a character to play in an Roleplaying game called "Changeling," many years ago. It was an interesting thing. And, well... I do what I do... and took it too far! Nobody asked for this "Main Character" energy. I wasn't even allowed to play Johnny. The GM made him, Jesse and Gucci all part of the campaign. But... I think maybe Johnny Oh could'a been a book of his own!

Johnny Oh
was born 1979 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is of Japanese and
French-American descent. His father, Takeshi Oh, ran a Kendo martial
arts school at their home estate, and his mother, Annabelle
Boudreaux, was a famous concert pianist of international acclaim.

 

In 1988,
when Johnny was nine years old, he was diagnosed with stage two
osteogenic sarcoma. His prognosis was terminal with a fifty percent
chance to survive the next five years. Unable to accept the death
sentence handed out by the local doctors, his parents arranged to
have the best oncologist in the field flown in from Germany for a
second opinion, but the diagnosis remained grim. While undergoing
alternating radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Johnny became too
sick to attend school and spent the majority of his time bedridden at
home or in the hospital. Due to his illness, he was home-schooled by
his parents and tutors and lost touch with most of his friends. His
best friend, however, Manu Kahele, a native boy studying Kendo at his
father’s school, never gave up on him. The boys shared a common
interest in Manga, and they both loved playing Nintendo and watching
scary movies. Johnny was also an aspiring artist with dreams of
creating a graphic novel based on his fictional alter ego, Diamond,
an unbreakable Ronin hunted by his former master.

 

In 1995,
seven years after his diagnosis, Johnny went into total remission.
The battle with cancer and brutal treatments took a toll on his body,
but – with time and rigorous physical therapy – he recovered. His
hair even grew back, and – for a while – it was as if the disease
never happened.

 

After
passing a Generalized Educational Development test in 1996, Johnny
was accepted into the Honolulu Community College, where he majored in
art and minored in history. His friend, Manu, came from a poor family
and couldn’t afford College, so he ended up taking odd jobs around
town after his senior year in high school, often of the shady
persuasion. Takeshi used to joke that his Kendo school was the only
thing keeping that boy out of trouble.

 

Five years
later, in early 2001, Johnny’s cancer returned. He was able to
finish the final semester and earn his Master of Fine Arts degree. In
an effort to keep his illness hidden from his friends and family, he
moved to Tokyo, Japan shortly after graduation. Rather than suffering
another bout of cancer treatments, he chose to prepare for the
inevitable, electing to spend his remaining time following his
dreams. He quickly made a name for himself as an artist, painting
dark, haunting images that reflected his fatalistic attitude and
broken psyche. His work caught the eye of a prominent gallery owner
and art critic who arranged a grand exhibition featuring his work.

 

As his
next of kin, Johnny’s parents were alerted to his condition when he
became unresponsive after a lengthy stay at St. Luke’s
International Hospital in Tokyo, late 2001. His father did the only
thing that made sense to him at the time, which was to bring an
ancient family relic, a samurai mask told to have mystical
properties, and moved to Tokyo along with his wife to be with their
son.

 

In
violation of hospital rules and against staff objections, Takeshi
mounted the mask on the wall adjacent to the bed, just as he’d done
in Johnny’s bedroom when he got sick as a kid, making sure it’s
eyes were transfixed on his dying son. As the ancestral legend goes,
the demon possessing the mask must be enticed with suffering to grant
the gift of life, which – in return – requires a payment of blood
and heart. Takeshi believed it was his failure to pay tribute for the
demon’s gift curing his son’s cancer the first time that caused
the sickness to return... the demon’s way of punishing him for his
arrogance. To satiate the demon, he murdered his loving wife and
disemboweled himself in proper seppuku tradition, right there, at the
foot of his son’s bed in the hospital, in full view of the demon’s
gaze, without leaving a will, a note to explain his actions or a
declaration of intent.

 

Johnny
awakened from his coma in January of 2005 with his cancer once again
in miraculous remission, only to learn of the horrific acts committed
by his father. The family estate and holdings automatically passed to
Johnny’s only living relative, his estranged uncle, Jesse
Boudreaux. Lucky for Johnny, his uncle was a simple fisherman leading
a quiet life in the Louisiana bayou with his one-thousand pound pet
alligator, Gucci. The man never had a need for “purty thangs” and
only dipped into the family holdings to pay for his nephew’s care.

 

When
Johnny’s strength returned, he traveled to Louisiana to spend the
summer with his uncle and reconnect with his French-American roots.
He spent the weekends in New Orleans, drinking wine and basking in
the city’s rich atmosphere. While seeking inspiration for his art,
he ended up finding a new love for history and culture. When the time
came to say goodbye and return to Tokyo, his
uncle grabbed him by the shoulders and said: “If you’re ever in a bind, kid,
you just let
me know. Come hell or high water, I’ll walk to the ends of the Earth, grab the edge and flip it over
to make things right, you’ll
see!”

 

A
couple weeks later, Hurricane
Katrina hit New Orleans, and his uncle was never heard from again.
Johnny couldn’t help but to entertain the notion that his family was somehow cursed, and that he
brought only misery and death wherever he went… just
like his father. Life seemed more like a
puzzling joke to him at this point, so
he gave up trying and succumbed to
debauchery, pissing away his
money on hookers and booze, or “philanthropy” as he’d call it. He even sold off his childhood home, the
Honolulu estate, in order to fund his depraved lifestyle for a few more months.

 

By 2008,
Johnny was flat broke and forced to clean up his act. He managed to
land a job working as a Curator’s Assistant at The National Museum
of Modern Art in Tokyo. He mainly handled the shipping and storage
arrangements of incoming and outgoing exhibit pieces, which he found
to be menial, soul-crushing grunt-work. Driving home from work one
day, he spotted his old friend Manu from Honolulu crossing the road
at an intersection right in front of his car at a red light. A honk
and ten minutes later, the boys were reconnecting over a beer at the
nearest dive bar. Manu explained how he was left rudderless after
Takeshi shut down the Kendo school and got roped into working for the
Yakuza, smuggling heroin from Tokyo to Honolulu. After listening to
Johnny’s harrowing tale, Manu offered him an opportunity to make
some fast cash. Johnny put two and two together and came up with the
idea of smuggling heroin wholesale using the museum’s channels. The
plan was sound, but he didn’t want to get in deep with the Yakuza.
A new plan came to mind, and he told Manu to start spreading a rumor
among his shady contacts about this guy called Diamond who could move
anything, anywhere. After 9/11, the increased border patrol made it
very difficult to smuggle anything into America, which – in turn –
worked to Johnny’s advantage.

 

In 2017,
working under the pseudonym Diamond, Johnny has made a name for
himself as the go-to guy for moving illegally acquired, high end
merchandise. He’s slick as a silver-tongued devil and mean like a
rattle-snake. His good looks and sharp sense of style compliments his
language skills to complete the Diamond persona. He’s on FBI, DEA,
ATF and Interpol’s radar, but all they have to go on so far is his
pseudonym. Manu works as his trusted right hand man and bodyguard.

 

Priced
possessions:

The
ancestral armor (with the mask), katana and wakizashi short sword. If
nothing else, this is what he’d grab if the house caught fire, the
cat be damned!

 

His
favorite memories:

• Playing
  with his friends on Kaimana Beach in Honolulu as a child.

• Listening
  to his mother play the piano when he felt blue.

• His
  time spent in College, being healthy and worry-free.

• Meeting
  a beautiful woman in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

 

His
worst memories:

• Being abandoned by his childhood friends.

• Undergoing
  cancer treatments.

• When
  he learned the truth of his
  parents’ deaths.

• Almost
  being eaten by Gucci on three separate occasions.

• The
  living hell he subjected himself to after his
  uncle died in Hurricane
  Katrina.

 

Language
skills:

• Japanese,
  fluent with a snobby Yamanote dialect, learned from his father.

• American-English,
  fluent with a thick Cajun dialect, learned from his mother.

• French,
  fluent with a Louisiana Creole dialect, also learned from his
  mother.

• Hawaiian,
  with a somewhat limited vocabulary, learned while growing up in
  Hawaii.

• Latin,
  a very basic understanding of the language, just something he picked
  up in College.

 

Personality:

His father
instilled him with a deep philosophical sense, both related – and
unrelated – to martial arts disciplines. His mother taught him all
about the arts and filled his head with wonder, sparking his
imagination and creativity. The Art of War may have been required
reading at the Oh household, but no Boudreaux ever grew up without a
head full of dreams, including his uncle Jesse… his dreams were
just simpler than most. Johnny is a product of his mother’s
passion, tempered by his father’s discipline. Through his ordeals
with cancer, the death of his family, alcoholism and depression, he’s
developed a transitory perspective on life, and doesn’t care about
much anymore.

 

Motivation:

The
only thing that keeps him
going these days is defiance against death,
and life. He’s angry and
bitter with the world for taking everything from him, and aches to
return some of the pain.

 

What
really happened:

Johnny’s
parents, Takeshi and Annabelle, were taken into faerie as payment for
the mask’s gift, replaced by fetches made of hospital appliances –
objects that had absorbed so much pain and grief they couldn’t
handle a mortal existence. Jesse Boudreaux became the mask’s new
owner – if only temporarily – while Johnny was comatose, and was
thereby subjected to it’s curse and taken into faerie. His loyal
pet alligator, Gucci, followed him through the hedge.

 

The curse
of the mask is the result of a pledge that requires payment of blood
and tears to grant it’s gift of eternal life, and when that debt
isn’t paid, the fae come calling. Whoever owns the mask – for
however short a time – will be bound to the curse, along with their
entire bloodline.

 

The
Kurushimi (means suffering) mask has the appearance of a
black-scorched demon skull with eyes of imperial topaz (shines of
fire and blood). Through it’s sneer, it reveals large fangs made of
white jade.

 

Johnny’s
Durance:

Not knowing of the mask’s curse and thus failing to pay the price,
Johnny was taken into faerie and made to work as a postal service
under extreme duress for a very, very long time.

 

Escaping
Faerie:

When returning to the mortal world, only a few days had passed. He
was found and saved by Blue Jenny, and pledged to do her bidding.