Born as the elder son of Ryu Min(柳崏), a younger brother of King Uwijo(威祖) of Ryeoyang(麗陽), the path his life took on was a convoluted one. Although royal clansmen rarely held academic interest as the kingdom's law prevented them from taking the royal exams and holding bureaucratic positions with real authority and power, Wan took a deep interest in the laws of the nature and world beyond his motherland. He studied mathmatics and read up on engineering, both fields often disparaged as miscellaneous studies(雜學) in the Orient, and even learned foreign languages, the study of which was deemed to fit only for lowly merchants and translators. Philosophically, he preferred the teaching of Xunzi, whose views leaned towards Legalism, in contrast to the Neoconfucianism of Zhuzi which was the mainstream of the society.

When his father was arrested for treason during the Upheaval of the Year of Wood Rat (甲子換局), Wan was also arrested and exiled along with his father and male siblings to the Isle of Hwayang(華陽島). When the news that their death sentence has been confirmed arrived, Wan made a desperate choice before his fate was sealed; on a stormy day, he maimed and subdued his guard and ran. He managed to elude pursuit and leapt into the sea with only a gourd buoy he stole from a diver-fisher.

Miraculously, Wan survived the ordeal and was washed up near the mouth of Taecheong/Taiching River(太淸江), a no man's land nominally under the rule of the Empire of Hui, but de facto occupied by various nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. He was rescued by one of such tribes, but as the tribe was under the patronage of the Kingdom of Ryeoyang, the beile (chief) of the tribe decided to turn him in to the kingdom to face his doom. However, before this could be arranged, a rival tribe from further inland raided the settlement, and Wan was among those captured and taken. The beile of this rival tribe, assuming Wan to be a mere merchant due to his knowledge in foreign languages, found his literacy and arithmetic skills useful and forced him to work as his scribe and accountant, handling the matters of trade and correspondence between other tribes and the Empire of Hui. While Wan found this situation humiliating, it was an opportunity for him to better understand the nature of man and wider world.

After five years of service, another major turnpoint occured in Wan's life; the Human-Candaharid survey party had arrived at the Eastern reaches of the great northern steppes. As an interlocutor, he left strong impression on the leader of the expedition, who after much persuasion managed to purchase Wan from the beile. Upon the return of the expedition to the Occident, Wan was assigned to the human embassy in Dimitriye as an advisor and language instructor for Oriental polities.

During his stay with the humans, Wan's initially positive perception of the humans soured as he became very alarmed of their technological prowess and destabilizing effect of human culture on agrarian societies of Youkali. He eventually came to believe that no two species could co-occupy the cognitive niche of a planetary ecosystem, and arrived at the conclusion that while Youkalian canids must learn and adopt the superior technology and institutions of the humans, the purpose of this should be to eradicate the humans before their population and the level of infrastructure they possess increase beyond a critical threshold which will allow them to outcompete the canids. His writings were among the factors that prompted Şehzade Ismail, later Padishah Ismail the Second, to usurp the throne from his nephew. Wan left the humans and served Ismail after his ascent to throne.

Wan was found dead under suspicious circumstance during the chaos of the First Siege of Dimitriye, part of the Sharifi Revolt. His idea failed to see fruition with the assassination of Padishah Mehmed the Fourth, the successor of Ismail the Second, and subsequent formation of Cumhuriyet-ı Rum, a human puppet state occupying territory roughly equivalent of the former Eyalet of Rum. The only legacy of his was lasting animosity between the Youkalian humans and canids and centuries of protracted defeat of the latter.

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Finally decided upon the name for one of the OCs, sketches of whom I have posted previously (alas, keeping the characters consistent is a major weakness of mine, so pardon the dissimilarity), and wrote a brief biography of him. In his initial conception, he was a character somewhat inspired by Tupaia, the Polynesian navigator who accompanied Banks in the South Pacific expedition.