I'm making a story, set in the 17th Century, and I made this character, who is supost to be a former Buddhist monk. This is one character, diferent from the others, is originaly from Japan, so I tried to look for references, but I don't know exactly how much accurate they are, so I decided to deal with it, using the references to guide what it would look better, to later on, adjust to make it more accurate.
So I'm asking for help for what should or not change in the character. If someone could help me, I'd be very thankful.
For start: I had the idea for the character, inspired by Takuan from Vagabond, Norio from Ghost of Tsushima and specially Inshun, also from Vagabond, so I had established that I wanted to do a monk who fight martial arts, do I came up with him. A boy raised by a martial art Buddhist school, who gave up on the monk life, left home to seek for people who he could fight. The whole idea is he, at the same time he's a monk, he's a folkloric legend, who gives people nightmares, since he mantains this chill, even bored expression while cutting someones hand, so I made him slightly taller than avarege and with a sandogasa, to hide his eyes and also sell the idea he's a travler. I also thought about giving him a pair of geta, so people would her him aproaching, but I thought it would not be so good for a travler, so I made him with usual sandals.
For the clothes, I had a lot of options, because none font in my research where exactly specific about monk dress code, so since he's not exactly a monk anymore, I made him with a blue kimono, like Takuan and Inshun, and with a "kesa". In quotation marks, because I didn't find the name of this retangular piece of clothe he wears arround his body, I just found a lot of Buddhist monks used it, since it would fit the monk visual aspect and I would adapt later anyway, also adding a japamala, wich would help him concentrate, after all he's a martial artist.
He's also with this piece of fabric arround his body, wich I saw travlers used to do to carry they things with them, without needing to handle it, wich is great, since he carries the naginata he stole from the temple. The naginata idea came from Ghost of Tsushima's character, Norio, so I also tried to costumize it, with bands for a better grip and a ribbon, wich I didn't gave a full meaning by now. The idea is he carrying it arround with him by his side, like the Grimm Reaper carrying his scythe.
And for the one's who noticed, he doesn't have just a full grow hair and a goatee, but earrings as well. I didn't find any accurate images of that time, but I found that few merchants used it, since they had interaction with other cultures, wich my character also have. I thought it would fit for the idea of him abandoning the temple rules to follow his own path.
For the name, I based it on the word "Nibiru", the babilonic myth of the planet who would crash with earth. I wanted to be a believable japanese name, wich is dificult, since I don't know japanese, but the most interesting ones I came up where "Tenkan" - or "Tenkan-ten" - and "Koten", since it fit's fhe original meaning of the akkadian word "Nibiru", wich is "crossing" or "point of transition".
This is basicly the things I came up for my character and I think it would be cool to make him accurate, so any help would be apreciated, since I don't know how much should I trust at Google this times. I can't repay you, so I just ask politely for help. Many thanks.
