Okubo Tokugawa

Baron Okubo Tokugawa — Chairman of the Imperial Council was the defacto ruler of the Imperium.

" I have lived for over a hundred years. I was born the youngest son of a minor samurai lord. My home was destroyed in a revolution, my family put to the sword, and I became ronin. I had seen my share of conflict by the time the Power came to me. Together we learned how magic could interact with mankind. Since that day I have traveled the world. I have learned its secrets. I have seen the heights and depths of magic. I have been to every land. Spoken every tongue. Learned everything. Fought every war. Led men into battle and killed legions with my own hands . I’ve lain with ten thousand women and sired a thousand sons. I sculpt nations as other men sculpt clay. I have traveled beyond our world and seen the others. I have spoken with the Power face to face as we speak now. I have seen the terrible being the Power fled from and I have protected our world from it in battle beyond your mortal comprehension. There is nothing truly new to me.”

It was during my wandering time that I first met an American. The black ships of Commodore Perry had recently arrived in Nippon. These foreign barbarians did not ask the shogun for permission to open trade; they demanded it from the decks of their warships while ringed in cannons under a cloud of coal smoke that blotted out the sky. There was an assumption of this absolute right. The strongest does not ask, cajole, or beg. It is the duty of the strongest to command and the weakest to obey. I had long made my way by selling my sword, and whatever lord I served inevitably became the strongest, so I was well acquainted with this concept at the individual level. Yet, it was the Americans that opened my eyes to the greater possibilities. As the strong lord must rule over the weak peasant, so must the strong nation rule the entire world. I owe them a great deal as I have tried to apply this lesson ever since.

Abilities

Baron Okubo Tokugawa had been the first active, the Power connected to him before anyone else. In the book it was believed that the first active had been a Brute. Tokugawa could use all of the physical alterations known as "magic". He was a master of every ability but when fighting Faye she used a metaphor describing how someone trying to master all things would be worse than someone who mastered one thing.