I did some tinkering with a concept I'd thrown out and found the character I'd like to stick with. He's a brawler fighter, so he does a lot of grabbing and dragging people around and such. He's also multiclassed monk, allowing his fists to hit like bastard swords. Attached is his sheet.
Storywise: Treasach "The Saker Breaker" Miller was the top boxer in Hollin until he accepted a considerable bribe to take a fall. Word got out, and his reputation was ruined. With pockets overflowing with dirty money, he took a trip to far-east-equivalent to follow up on a rumor about a school of near-superhuman martial artists. He found the school, and learned a plethora of new ways to kill a man with his bare hands. However, the Treasach was a bad fit for school's philosophical and spiritual teachings, and he was kicked out for being overly violent. Using the last of his illicit funds to get back home, he returned to Hollin to find work and start again.
I'm thinking our far-east-equivalent could be called the Harmonious Empire (Huxia Digua in their native tongue) and use a crab as their symbol. This is a reference to a Chinese internet meme for censorship. Taking inspiration from Rokugan of Legend of the Five Rings, the Harmonious Empire is extremely closed, xenophobic, and focused on personal honor. They think of themselves as the spiritual center of the universe, with their emperor as the supreme being. Because of this, the central government cares little what is going on in the rest of the world. The school Treasach attended is in a remote and contested area on the edge of their territory, otherwise he likely would have been killed on sight for being a foreigner. As for location, how about the most northwesterly continent on that map? The continent itself could be called Jiayuan (homeland in Chinese). The school could be on one of those islands between it and Kiln.