[quote=@Achronum]
Man War Criminal to the max! I'm very interested in his mortal slider here. Why is poisoning a settlement and forcing prisoners of war to work for you more acceptable than looting and stealing? What implications do you think this has on his interactions with the rest of the group and dies he/will he acknowledge that he is in fact, a war criminal?

[/quote]

I'm trying to go by vaguely pre renaissance perceptions, where anyone not surrendered is fair game. He was ordered to take a city and thus any means were a-okay. To take an example from the Mongol that inspired me for this character, when they invaded the Khwarezmian EMpire any city that surrendered had its people treated well. Any that didn't had its people destroyed to the last. He wouldn't exactly have a conception of a warcrime in that sense. There would also be some emotional undercurrents I haven't written where a hard to take fortress would have inevitably had a large amount of his men dead, and thus momentary rage would have more savage measures less problematic for him, and bring some impulsive desire to avenge his comrades he came to cherish; at the same time, people who already surrendered, and were of no threat being harassed is just cruelty for its own sake, especially since hypothetically everyone robbed would probably die on whatever their long road was but not even having enemy combatants in their number. Thus general Huo would have been seen as a person that is just greedy and violent rather than trying to be a good soldier. And, regarding the getting the waterbender healers to work for him, I figured that one would have been somewhat of a mercy as under him they'd be treated better than in a prison camp, rather than true coercion. While also being able to heal people of both sides rather than their talents of helping people being squandered in some sort of forced manual labour. I was also hoping to write this out IC, but I was thinking that he might have seen one of the waterbender healers tending to one of his own wounded men in the midst of battle which would have been a spark that got him much more interested in decent treatment of the foe; seeing people of the Water Nation humanize his countrymen would have certainly made him think twice about the dehumanization of his foe's people. 

I think it would definitely cause some hypothetical issues with people who might know of this, though my character would bank on nobody harming him for this because he would believe that his practical knowledge in helping overcome the Earth nation army would be too useful to throw away for an admittedly dark past. But, as long as it didn't lead to maiming or killing him, I think he would accept and understand any abuses he suffers for what he had done. If someone walked up and sucker punched him over it, he would probably stand and take it rather than fighting back. If it was a merely verbal confrontation, I guess it depends on how far the party progressed in trust. Early on he might try to deflect, bringing up some war crime he saw his foe do on his own countrymen. If confronted when he trusts people of the party more, I think he would probably concede that it was wrong, and that if he had been more worldly and had met the peoples of the other nations before rather than just listening to jingoistic stuff about them being invaders on earth nation soil he would never have done it, and hopes his current efforts stop it from ever happening again.

But this doesn't really make or break the character to me, I can get rid of the savagery/brutality if its too problematic & edgy for the rag tags. I figured it would be fun to butt heads over the past in somewhat of a zuko-esque way but I suppose having fought for the bad guys before should be enough for that