Lisa Chan
History
Lisa Chan (Lu Xia Chan; born December 18, 1924 in Guangzhou) is a petite Chinese woman with long, straight black hair and gray eyes. She typically dresses casually, her fashion sense informed by the popular R&B artists of the day. She is pretty and has maintained a youthful appearance despite her age.
Lisa was born into a rice farming family. Her parents were remarkably well-traveled for simple farmers, and schooled her from a young age in the ways of the occult. She showed an aptitude for such teachings that her older brothers did not possess. They were taught to run the farm, and she was taught the family secrets, both magical and martial.
During the Japanese occupation of China, as unrest and violence were rising throughout the Guangdong provice , Lisa's parents gradually raised enough money to send her to America at a very young age, to live with one of her mother's uncles, a man named Wei. He lived in San Francisco and owned a Chinese herb shop in Chinatown. Under Wei she learned English, and continued her studies, incorporating advanced kung-fu teachings into her learning, among other skills related to her craft. She proved an adept student. She worked in Wei's shop cleaning, labeling containers and making signs to earn her keep. She has not had any contact with her family in China since she left, and she does not know whether they are even alive or dead
One day, sometime after her 26th birthday, Lisa was at a Chinese market in Oakland buying assorted supplies for Wei. While she was shopping, several bikers with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club entered the establishment and opened fire. She used her quick thinking and kung-fu to help resolve the situation, disarming two men and incapacitating another. Unbeknownst to her, the store was a Tong front, and the Hells Angels were warring with the Tongs over heroin distribution. The Hells Angels she disarmed and incapacitated were executed by the Tongs with automatic weapons. The surviving Hells Angels made note of her, passing her description along to their fellows, and have assumed she is with the Tongs ever since. Following this incident, she moved to Los Angeles and changed her name to Lisa.
In Los Angeles she hoped to teach Chinese to American foreign service personnel and college students, but learned to her dismay that they were mostly only interested in Mandarin. She managed to find a handful of private students in the area, and also secured a place teaching Chinese calligraphy one night a week at Santa Monica Community College. She supplements this with parttime housekeeping work in motels and homes, but she has struggled financially ever since moving to Los Angeles some 14 years ago.
Until recently, Lisa lived in West Hollywood, in a tiny efficiency apartment on Doheny and Wilshire. In a recent stoned encounter with a counterculture friend, Jim Morrow, she revealed some of her history with the occult and mysticism to him. Jim, as it happens, is a student of parapsychology with a grant from the Promethean Foundation. He put her in touch with one of his sponsors, which is how she became involved with the Foundation, where she signed on covertly as a special investigator.
Diskordia
During her tenure with the Promethean Foundation, Lisa became deeply engrossed in the study of gate magic, the college of magic associated with spatial and temporal manipulation, including transportation, wormholes, and contact with planar entities. Her interest in gate magic was sparked during a mission to the Pasadena Mystery House, where she came into contact with the Book of the Gates. It was her budding expertise in this area of magic that led Gardner Graves to contact her to assist him with a special teleportation ritual, so that he could escape the grasp of the Red Hand. Lisa is unaware of what went awry in the ritual, but she ended up in a barren desert in another plane of existence, and through her travels there, eventually happened upon the Broken Earth of Diskordia, where she resides today, trying to piece together the mystery of the fate of her own world.
DarkStar
After a lengthy journey through alternate worlds and parallel dimensions that started with a magical cataclysm on Earth, Lisa ended up aboard the Freighter Prosperity alongside Doolish Lóegaire and Ambrose in the year 4523. The Earth is missing, presumed dead, and The Cabal represents the biggest nemesis toLisa, her friends, and perhaps the entire galaxy.
Personal Life
Lisa is an avid student of martial arts. She typically rises early and trains before breakfast. She spends the rest of her mornings reading and studying, then trains more after lunch. She is unusual in that she typically only eats two meals a day, breakfast and lunch. She forgoes dinner. Her evenings are spent listening to music in her guesthouse at the Promethean Foundation.