Tung-fang Shuo

(Also known, depending on which orthography / name schema one is using, as Shuo Tung-fang.)

Because the Chinese culture was astahfrith for many centuries, a surprising number of its wizards became famous in popular culture as well as among those familiar with errantry. Tung-fang Shuo would have been one of the best-known of these.

He was apparently born in the reign of the Han emperor Wu-Ti, some time during the 1st century BC. Early accounts say that he grew up with unusual speed, and began showing his powers at a surprisingly early age, performing great feats of relocation and timesliding (thus provoking the usual suspicions among the major wizards of the time that he might have been one of the Abdals. No details are preserved of his Ordeal, though there is a recurring legend of the period that he did not have one. If this is true, this would put him among the very limited number of wizards known to have been Abstainees. In his early days of errantry, Shuo was said to have "played with the elements in such a way that the whole universe was upset," giving rise to the rumor (much later) that he was actually an Immortal come to dwell on Earth. Bearing in mind the many ways in which the word can be translated in ancient Chinese usage, this may or may not have been true.

...As an adult wizard, his compatriates and work partners described him as "sometimes deep, sometimes superficial, sometimes open, sometimes secretive," saying that "it was always impossible to know where one stood with him."

...A great number of texts on wizardry, alchemy, and what would now be taken for "alternate spiritualities" are attributed to him, one of the best-known being Spirit Tokens of the Ling Qi Jing. This masterly discussion of the "lifestyles" of creatures native to other planes of being was apparently the fruit of a prolonged period spent traveling on the High Road: it is one of the first texts to describe the Transcendent Pig and the proper protocols for addressing it. Also well known is the geomantic text Accounts of the Ten Continents, which discusses at length the questions of "national character" and continental personality, the issues surrounding the concept of the planet as a living organism and consciousness, and various other topics closely associated with geomancy and other "ground-bound" forms of wizardry. Shuo was also one of the contributors to the Ling Ch'i Ching, a book of commonplace oracles of the period.