Public Criminal Profile
Codename: The Immortal
Real Name: Jai Da Wu
Group Affiliation Crimelord of China Underground
Current Status: At Large
Distinctive Traits:
Known Background: The Immortal is head of China Underground's Tongs, and almost unknown in the upper world. Long a power in illegal immigration, he used the emergence of the Undercity to spread out into protection, gambling, fencing stolen goods, and drug running. He does not permit the sale of any drugs in China Underground, however. Any crime in China Underground not authorized by him is likely to be punished. China Underground's businesses send 'gifts' of protection money to the Immortal, and in return the Tongs police the streets and keep out other gangs.
Mr Wu is a respected businessman who runs a large restaurant supply company that supplies most Chinese restaurants in the US.
Known Abilities: The Immortal has been shot, stabbed, blown up, and poisoned. Nothing has kept him down for more than a week. In China Underground he is believed to be truly immortal.
Non-Public Information
Jai Da Wu was born with his power, though it took years for it to be realized. As a child he simply healed a little quicker, got sick a little less often. His family lived in the Los Angeles suburbs, but made frequent trips to Chinatown to visit Grandma Long. Everyone made time to visit the old woman, though as a child he didn't think much of it.
It was shortly after his eighth birthday that he learned the truth. She wasn't his grandmother. She was his great-great-great-grandmother, and ran her extended family with an iron fist. That was the year she named him her heir, and took him away from his family to live with her in Chinatown. The change was traumatic, as he went from being a slightly spoiled eldest child, to living under his grandmother's rod.
Grandmother Long was not going to tolerate a rebellious child, however. Extra lessons in everything from ettiquette, to languages, to martial arts were piled on top of his normal school schedule. Any thing less than top scores were punished with a beating. Any signs of disrespect would also earn him a beating. Due to his swift healing, the marks never lasted long.
Twice he tried to run away, but each time he was returned to his grandmother. Grandmother Long was not only head of the family, but also head of the illegal family businesses which included human smuggling and loan sharking. He absorbed his grandmother's attitude, that these things were crimes only because the white men in power insisted on making them crimes. Credit card companies, after all, charged interest rates just as high. And if the quotas for immigration hadn't been set so low to keep Asians out of the US there would be no need for human smuggling. It was the government that was wrong, his family that was doing what was right.
Jai Da graduated from High School with the highest honors, and went on to college hoping to be free of his grandmother at last. The illusion of freedom was shortlived, however. When he dared to date a girl who was half Chinese, half Phillipino he was grabbed off the street by thugs and driven back to Chinatown for a lecture and beating from his grandmother. When he returned to the campus, he found his former girlfriend was in the hospital, the victim of a mugging. She never spoke with him again.
He got an MBA from Stanford and took over the restaurant supply company that was the public face of the family businesses. He also began to help more with the other side of things. Illegal Immigrants were smuggled into the US for huge fees. Identity papers were forged and sold to them. Space for chinese restaurants was found and leased through the legitimate side of the family business, and then released to the immigrants who couldn't get financing through a bank. Supplies for the restaurant would need to be purchased, from the Wu family of course, and if the new immigrants couldn't afford it the Wu's would also loan them the money.
The Quake turned everything upside down. Grandmother Long had been in her nineties when her power first manifested, and her ability to heal was weakened by this. It is quite possible that she died in the Quake, but her body was never found which made his full assumption over the family's businesses rocky. Fortunately nobody ever found out what really happened, after all, Matricide is such an ugly thing. Knowing the strength of his regenerative ability he took no chances, burning the body and scattering the ashes. Additionally, the Yakuza and the Russian Mafia both saw the family as weakened and attacked. Jai Da Wu was forced to relocate to New York and take more direct measures. Being able to take a chest full of bullets and be seen walking around again the next day helped.
Mr Wu returned to California after the reconstruction effort had been completed, to find the new Chinatown above a cleaned up, Disney-esque version of the city he knew and loved. Furious with how how his hometown had been 'wronged' by the whites he investigated the undercity. The ruins of old Chinatown were there, and remarkably free of outside gang influence. Some old residents had even returned, and were trying to set up businesses.
Mr Wu saw an opportunity and struck. In his role as a respectable businessman, he saw that water, sewage, and electricity were restored to old Chinatown. He even had new streetlights installed to light the main roads. As Chinatown's most successful criminal, he gathered the remains of various Tongs and turned them into a private police force to keep other gangs out of his territory and the local streets safe. He began to loan out money to those below, people the banks above would never let in the front door, and used the Tongs to deal with any problems with collections. And the Undercity let him bring in illegal immigrants in larger numbers than ever before. While most moved on to life elsewhere in the US, a few from each boatload always stayed.
Problems were remarkably few at first. Shopkeepers were used to paying protection money, and delivering it in a polite red envelope to Mr Wu's house was an improvement over being shaken down by gangs in front of their families. Mr Wu patronized their businesses in return, and sent gifts of a basket of tangerines or red envelopes of money at the Chinese New Year or to marriages. He made arrangements for deliveries from above, and for new businesses such as backroom gambling halls. Many of those that left were used as mules to carry drugs to help the whites poison themselves, of course he didn't have much tolerance for such things down below.
The Immortal Wu they call him, and he is the unofficial ruler of China Underground, and a crimelord to rival anyone found on the surface. He lives in twilight, though goes where he will thanks to wealth he can live in both worlds, and has plenty of dealings in both.
Villain Stats
PL:
Attr: Str 10 (+0), Dex 10 (+0), Con 10 (+0), Int 10 (+0), Wis 10 (+0), Cha 10 (+0)
Saves: Toughness +X, Fortitude +X, Reflex +X, Will +X
Combat: Attack +X, Defense +X, Grapple +X, Init +X
Skills:
Feats:
Powers:
Equipment: X Equipment Points
Drawbacks:
PP Spent: Abilities X + Skills X + Feats X + Powers X + Combat X + Saves X - Drawbacks X = X
