Application
I: PLAYER INFO
Name (or internet handle): Zack
Age: 19
Contact: iamtheuberlorax on AIM, LJ, and tumblr.
Current characters in Road of 'Trode: None.
II: CHARACTER INFO
Name: Kadin
Dreamwidth Username:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
leglesspilgrim
Fandom: Original- Road of Trode (Based vaguely on a DnD style universe.)
Age/Appearance: Kadin is 20, very lean and dark skinned. From the waist down he is a diamond python, his tail is about twenty feet in length, maybe a bit shorter. Diamond pythons are constrictors, not venomous snakes, so he doesn’t have fangs, but his teeth are sharp and numerous, mostly used to help him swallow large food objects. When moving around he normally keeps himself about five and a half feet tall, but can draw himself up much taller if he wants/needs to. With a wall or a tree or something solid to balance against, he can basically stretch up almost all twenty feet, but without a support of some kind he can only get to about 9/10 feet tall. He almost never wears clothes. His pb is Eka Darville.
Wiki Links: He was originally designed as a monk class for a 4th edition Dnd campaign, so some of his powers/motivation/backstory will carry over from there, but with a distinct Ark flavor. As any tabletop rper would know, class distinctions are purposefully elastic, letting the player interpret many things however they wish, but I intended him as something of a classic monk, taught in a monastery, sheltered from the outside world, deeply disciplined and somewhat spiritual.
Some basic background for dnd monks can be found here, but basically monks are hand to hand fighters that are sometimes capable of small pseudo magic feats, as well as generally resistant to magic attacks due to spiritual strength. Since Kadin is going to be low level so to speak, this won’t be immediately apparent, but I plan on having him grow into his powers.
Personality: Kadin is very friendly. He had to deal with some measure of teasing and isolation as a small child, and found he hated it. He likes being included, and likes being needed. Luckily for him, living in a monastery that stresses community and good will makes for a decent place to build up second impressions and work through unfortunate physiological differences. He made amends with the children who used to tease him, and honestly holds no grudge to this day, even managing to become close friends with a few of his former tormenters.
He gets emotionally attached to people fairly easily, but this has yet to be a problem for him, since being close to someone already living within a close knit community with you isn’t exactly a high risk investment. Going along with this, he’s a tad naïve, although he’s very self aware about it. He knows there is a lot he hasn’t experienced yet, and he knows that not everywhere is as peaceful as his mountain home. He desperately wants to learn more about the world, but is unsure of how well he will be able to cope with the world at large.
He also has a decent amount of dysphoria about his body. He has never met another naga, and is not even sure if they exist. His tail has never felt unnatural to him, nor has the junction between skin and scales, but some aspects of being reptilian are hard to integrate to a community of humans. For example, he is still not entirely sure whether or not he has a penis. If he has one, he’s never seen it, and this fact made him very insecure while he and his peers were going through puberty. Monastic life doesn’t exactly revolve around getting laid though, so he grew out of worrying about it, and internally thinks of himself as asexual and panromantic, although probably not in those nice neat bundle terms. As a matter of fact he is not technically asexual. If he were ever to encounter a female naga in heat, or even be within a certain radius of her, he would quickly find out that he does in fact have a sex drive and not one, but two penises. It would be both incredibly confusing and stressful for him. I definitely sort of want this to happen.
I plan on playing him just as he is really leaving the monastery for the first time in order to complete his pilgrimage. His fears of being ostracized as well as his general self-consciousness are both things he’s mostly worked past, but are in high danger of resurfacing when he interacts with new people/situations. He’s basically your archetypal country boy heading into the city for the first time. He’s both eager and apprehensive to see the outside world, but determined despite his reservations. Going out and gathering experiences/knowledge/purpose is a fundamental and necessary journey for everyone in his monastery, and he’s worked too hard to be accepted there to lose everything just because of a little fear or homesickness.
Reason for playing: I thought this guy up on a whim, but it will be a while before I get to play him in a campaign, and that saddened me. This setting looks really incredibly cool, and he can fit into it pretty easily, and I want to explore and flesh out his character.
III. ARK INFO
History: Kadin was a byproduct of the Thaumic Zone. He apparently lived on his own for roughly two years, eeking out an existence in the desert, but he has no memory of this. As a hatchling he was rescued and taken in by a wandering monk on his pilgrimage. The monk named and raised Kadin, and after a lengthy and perilous journey the monk returned to his monastery with Kadin in tow. Kadin’s earliest memories are of climbing the foothills into The Teeth and arriving at the monastery.
Once there, Kadin was taught to fight, meditate, read, write, and also how to survive in the harsh environment of The Teeth. The monastery’s teachings centered on discipline and moderation. Luxuries were not prohibited, but discouraged, and a somewhat ascetic lifestyle was promoted. Material possessions were allowed, but every few months or so the whole group would pack everything up, and travel through the mountains to the next temple, always heading left in a symbolic never ending ascension. So if you had material possessions, they better be light. Kadin’s community was not the only one traveling The Teeth and using these temples, so nothing could be left behind unless you intended it as a gift for the next group of monks to use the temple. Many members of his community would build up decorations and possessions while they were staying in a temple, then get rid of them when time came for the next climb.
As mentioned in his personality section, in his early years Kadin was teased and left out often. His lacking legs made some forms and practices impossible for him. Jumping, kicking, balancing acts, stances and many forms were all things he just couldn’t do. He desperately wanted to be accepted and included though, so with the help of the monk who found him, he developed his own exercises and forms, eventually building up a bit of a unique style for himself. In the process of doing this, he proved himself many times over as a persistent person, and as his peers grew out of their immature childish prejudices, Kadin was fully accepted into the group.
The network did not play a large part in his life. Training regimens were strict, encompassing martial arts, meditation, some magic, and academic skills such as math, science and literature. When the network was used it was mostly for things like coordinating and communicating with other monastic groups, weather forecasts, and general news. VR was almost never used, as the monks believed it to hinder self-awareness, and Kadin himself has never used it.
I plan on taking Kadin just as he is embarking on his pilgrimage. At the age of twenty every monk is sent out into the world to gather experiences. Specifically, monks on a pilgrimage are looking for something of worth to merit returning to the temple, or something of worth to merit not returning. Monks leave to gather experiences, stories, knowledge of other cultures/traditions/histories. Kadin’s himself was the result of another monk’s pilgrimidge, who believed that the Weaver had led him to Kadin so that he could bring him back to the temple to learn and grow protected from a world that might exploit him. Alternatively, some monks who leave for pilgrimidges do not return. They find a new way of life, a new family, or a new calling, and decide not to return at all. Many of these ex-monks keep in contact with the monastery through the network, but some do not. Some people have a destination or a goal clearly in mind when they set out on their pilgrimage, but Kadin does not. He intends to head for Weaver territory, in hopes of bringing back tales of the spiritual realm that she guards, but that means making it through miles and miles of hostile wilderness, not to mention Twin City. He’s a bit nervous, all things considered.
Residence/Job: Full time magical hippie. Ninja. Sort of a hobo. He’s heading North for the time being. May settle down in Twin City somewhere if he finds someone/something worth sticking around for.
Skills/Powers: Extremely flexible. Like, ridiculously incredibly flexible. He physically can’t have a strong fighting stance, so his style revolves around exploiting his natural ability to bend and twist to an extreme degree. He also has quick reflexes, and is well trained in hand to hand combat and wrestling. He has no experience with any kinds of weapons however. He does not know any spells exactly, but he can enhance his strength via spiritual energy in limited bursts. Nothing game breaking, but daily/encounter powers that allow him to bust through walls and hurl his enemies ten squares. Stuff like that. He has little to no ability to do this at present, but it will scale up over time. Also has some minor resistance to magical/elemental attacks thanks to spiritual discipline. This will also start small/nonexistent and scale up.
Oh also he can unhinge his jaw and swallow things that are goat sized. And goat shaped. And goat tasting. God he loves whole goat. Delish.
Resources: He has literally no money at all. There is probably a list of various ex-monk folk that offer current pilgrims shelter/food if they need it, but he personally owns nothing but some saddle bags with various useful supplies in them. Like rope, a fire kit, a tarp probably, rations, water. Basic stuff.
IV. SAMPLE
Arrival:
Morning. The fact that this day was going to be fundamentally different from every other day before it does not make this morning any less routine. Kadin woke up, pushed though his sleepy cold fog and glided out his window, scaling the side of the temple onto the roof. This was his favorite temple. The roof faced a nice open valley, and the sun reached it much quicker than some of the other temples. He’s glad his last morning here was here. As the sun oozed slowly up from the horizon he felt himself wake up. The energy he needed soaked into him, and in an hour or so he’s ready. He slid down from the roof, ducking back into his personal quarters for a brief moment before he headed out.
He cleared out all of his possessions last night. It was a bit different from a normal clearing out. Normally, everyone would be doing it together. His friends would be scurrying back and forth from their rooms to the courtyards or the ravines, letting decorative leaves, stones, wooden figures, paintings, anything they’d collected drop drift or float away. Everyone would be chatting, talking about the next temple, or the route they’d be taking, or the nice break from training that the trek would be. Last night it was just him, and he didn’t take his things to the ravine, or to a river, but there was just as much conversation. He spent his last evening in the third peak monastery slithering to and from his friends’ rooms. The rest of them weren’t going to leave this peak for at least another month and a half, so he could hand off small tokens to each of them. Last night he had been nearly giddy, smiling, hugging, accepting congratulations readily, discussing past pilgrims, and future, and tradition, and plans, and looking forward to right now.
Right now he coiled in his empty room, breathing in the mountain air and thinking that there probably wasn’t a single patch on the whole ark that had better smelling air than right here. When he realized he was becoming reluctant, he smiled slightly, and headed out into the temple. It was only a little past an hour after sunrise, but the temple was already alive. The youngest members were going through a simple morning breathing routine, and various older monks were training or meditating on their own. His small sending ceremony wouldn’t be for the whole community. Just the eight elders, his six teachers, and the last five members of his peer group who had not yet been sent off. His last few hours in the temple passed in a blur of familiarity and heightening tension. In his last meditation session within the temple he saw nothing but paths. Endless overlapping, tilted, twisting, totally empty paths. He desperately wanted to train, or climb, or spar, something fully physical that would ware him out beyond the point of worrying, but he will need his strength for his descent out of the mountains.
Finally he stands before the elders, subconsciously making himself an inch or so shorter than usual out of nervousness, and listens as they tell him to follow Her threads to his destiny. The traditional speech brings back just a shadow of last night’s eager energy. Like a sunbeam he feels it bolster his mood, although it can’t quite tamp down the apprehension. As his teachers present him with his supplies one item at a time he takes each gift with a sincere bow and stows them into his saddlebags with a practiced ease. He shares one last too short, too impersonal, respecting bow with each of his friends then turns and slinks out the gates and down the path. And then? Well…he’s off, so the hard part is done right? Now he just needs to keep moving forward.
Name (or internet handle): Zack
Age: 19
Contact: iamtheuberlorax on AIM, LJ, and tumblr.
Current characters in Road of 'Trode: None.
II: CHARACTER INFO
Name: Kadin
Dreamwidth Username:
leglesspilgrimFandom: Original- Road of Trode (Based vaguely on a DnD style universe.)
Age/Appearance: Kadin is 20, very lean and dark skinned. From the waist down he is a diamond python, his tail is about twenty feet in length, maybe a bit shorter. Diamond pythons are constrictors, not venomous snakes, so he doesn’t have fangs, but his teeth are sharp and numerous, mostly used to help him swallow large food objects. When moving around he normally keeps himself about five and a half feet tall, but can draw himself up much taller if he wants/needs to. With a wall or a tree or something solid to balance against, he can basically stretch up almost all twenty feet, but without a support of some kind he can only get to about 9/10 feet tall. He almost never wears clothes. His pb is Eka Darville.
Wiki Links: He was originally designed as a monk class for a 4th edition Dnd campaign, so some of his powers/motivation/backstory will carry over from there, but with a distinct Ark flavor. As any tabletop rper would know, class distinctions are purposefully elastic, letting the player interpret many things however they wish, but I intended him as something of a classic monk, taught in a monastery, sheltered from the outside world, deeply disciplined and somewhat spiritual.
Some basic background for dnd monks can be found here, but basically monks are hand to hand fighters that are sometimes capable of small pseudo magic feats, as well as generally resistant to magic attacks due to spiritual strength. Since Kadin is going to be low level so to speak, this won’t be immediately apparent, but I plan on having him grow into his powers.
Personality: Kadin is very friendly. He had to deal with some measure of teasing and isolation as a small child, and found he hated it. He likes being included, and likes being needed. Luckily for him, living in a monastery that stresses community and good will makes for a decent place to build up second impressions and work through unfortunate physiological differences. He made amends with the children who used to tease him, and honestly holds no grudge to this day, even managing to become close friends with a few of his former tormenters.
He gets emotionally attached to people fairly easily, but this has yet to be a problem for him, since being close to someone already living within a close knit community with you isn’t exactly a high risk investment. Going along with this, he’s a tad naïve, although he’s very self aware about it. He knows there is a lot he hasn’t experienced yet, and he knows that not everywhere is as peaceful as his mountain home. He desperately wants to learn more about the world, but is unsure of how well he will be able to cope with the world at large.
He also has a decent amount of dysphoria about his body. He has never met another naga, and is not even sure if they exist. His tail has never felt unnatural to him, nor has the junction between skin and scales, but some aspects of being reptilian are hard to integrate to a community of humans. For example, he is still not entirely sure whether or not he has a penis. If he has one, he’s never seen it, and this fact made him very insecure while he and his peers were going through puberty. Monastic life doesn’t exactly revolve around getting laid though, so he grew out of worrying about it, and internally thinks of himself as asexual and panromantic, although probably not in those nice neat bundle terms. As a matter of fact he is not technically asexual. If he were ever to encounter a female naga in heat, or even be within a certain radius of her, he would quickly find out that he does in fact have a sex drive and not one, but two penises. It would be both incredibly confusing and stressful for him. I definitely sort of want this to happen.
I plan on playing him just as he is really leaving the monastery for the first time in order to complete his pilgrimage. His fears of being ostracized as well as his general self-consciousness are both things he’s mostly worked past, but are in high danger of resurfacing when he interacts with new people/situations. He’s basically your archetypal country boy heading into the city for the first time. He’s both eager and apprehensive to see the outside world, but determined despite his reservations. Going out and gathering experiences/knowledge/purpose is a fundamental and necessary journey for everyone in his monastery, and he’s worked too hard to be accepted there to lose everything just because of a little fear or homesickness.
Reason for playing: I thought this guy up on a whim, but it will be a while before I get to play him in a campaign, and that saddened me. This setting looks really incredibly cool, and he can fit into it pretty easily, and I want to explore and flesh out his character.
III. ARK INFO
History: Kadin was a byproduct of the Thaumic Zone. He apparently lived on his own for roughly two years, eeking out an existence in the desert, but he has no memory of this. As a hatchling he was rescued and taken in by a wandering monk on his pilgrimage. The monk named and raised Kadin, and after a lengthy and perilous journey the monk returned to his monastery with Kadin in tow. Kadin’s earliest memories are of climbing the foothills into The Teeth and arriving at the monastery.
Once there, Kadin was taught to fight, meditate, read, write, and also how to survive in the harsh environment of The Teeth. The monastery’s teachings centered on discipline and moderation. Luxuries were not prohibited, but discouraged, and a somewhat ascetic lifestyle was promoted. Material possessions were allowed, but every few months or so the whole group would pack everything up, and travel through the mountains to the next temple, always heading left in a symbolic never ending ascension. So if you had material possessions, they better be light. Kadin’s community was not the only one traveling The Teeth and using these temples, so nothing could be left behind unless you intended it as a gift for the next group of monks to use the temple. Many members of his community would build up decorations and possessions while they were staying in a temple, then get rid of them when time came for the next climb.
As mentioned in his personality section, in his early years Kadin was teased and left out often. His lacking legs made some forms and practices impossible for him. Jumping, kicking, balancing acts, stances and many forms were all things he just couldn’t do. He desperately wanted to be accepted and included though, so with the help of the monk who found him, he developed his own exercises and forms, eventually building up a bit of a unique style for himself. In the process of doing this, he proved himself many times over as a persistent person, and as his peers grew out of their immature childish prejudices, Kadin was fully accepted into the group.
The network did not play a large part in his life. Training regimens were strict, encompassing martial arts, meditation, some magic, and academic skills such as math, science and literature. When the network was used it was mostly for things like coordinating and communicating with other monastic groups, weather forecasts, and general news. VR was almost never used, as the monks believed it to hinder self-awareness, and Kadin himself has never used it.
I plan on taking Kadin just as he is embarking on his pilgrimage. At the age of twenty every monk is sent out into the world to gather experiences. Specifically, monks on a pilgrimage are looking for something of worth to merit returning to the temple, or something of worth to merit not returning. Monks leave to gather experiences, stories, knowledge of other cultures/traditions/histories. Kadin’s himself was the result of another monk’s pilgrimidge, who believed that the Weaver had led him to Kadin so that he could bring him back to the temple to learn and grow protected from a world that might exploit him. Alternatively, some monks who leave for pilgrimidges do not return. They find a new way of life, a new family, or a new calling, and decide not to return at all. Many of these ex-monks keep in contact with the monastery through the network, but some do not. Some people have a destination or a goal clearly in mind when they set out on their pilgrimage, but Kadin does not. He intends to head for Weaver territory, in hopes of bringing back tales of the spiritual realm that she guards, but that means making it through miles and miles of hostile wilderness, not to mention Twin City. He’s a bit nervous, all things considered.
Residence/Job: Full time magical hippie. Ninja. Sort of a hobo. He’s heading North for the time being. May settle down in Twin City somewhere if he finds someone/something worth sticking around for.
Skills/Powers: Extremely flexible. Like, ridiculously incredibly flexible. He physically can’t have a strong fighting stance, so his style revolves around exploiting his natural ability to bend and twist to an extreme degree. He also has quick reflexes, and is well trained in hand to hand combat and wrestling. He has no experience with any kinds of weapons however. He does not know any spells exactly, but he can enhance his strength via spiritual energy in limited bursts. Nothing game breaking, but daily/encounter powers that allow him to bust through walls and hurl his enemies ten squares. Stuff like that. He has little to no ability to do this at present, but it will scale up over time. Also has some minor resistance to magical/elemental attacks thanks to spiritual discipline. This will also start small/nonexistent and scale up.
Oh also he can unhinge his jaw and swallow things that are goat sized. And goat shaped. And goat tasting. God he loves whole goat. Delish.
Resources: He has literally no money at all. There is probably a list of various ex-monk folk that offer current pilgrims shelter/food if they need it, but he personally owns nothing but some saddle bags with various useful supplies in them. Like rope, a fire kit, a tarp probably, rations, water. Basic stuff.
IV. SAMPLE
Arrival:
Morning. The fact that this day was going to be fundamentally different from every other day before it does not make this morning any less routine. Kadin woke up, pushed though his sleepy cold fog and glided out his window, scaling the side of the temple onto the roof. This was his favorite temple. The roof faced a nice open valley, and the sun reached it much quicker than some of the other temples. He’s glad his last morning here was here. As the sun oozed slowly up from the horizon he felt himself wake up. The energy he needed soaked into him, and in an hour or so he’s ready. He slid down from the roof, ducking back into his personal quarters for a brief moment before he headed out.
He cleared out all of his possessions last night. It was a bit different from a normal clearing out. Normally, everyone would be doing it together. His friends would be scurrying back and forth from their rooms to the courtyards or the ravines, letting decorative leaves, stones, wooden figures, paintings, anything they’d collected drop drift or float away. Everyone would be chatting, talking about the next temple, or the route they’d be taking, or the nice break from training that the trek would be. Last night it was just him, and he didn’t take his things to the ravine, or to a river, but there was just as much conversation. He spent his last evening in the third peak monastery slithering to and from his friends’ rooms. The rest of them weren’t going to leave this peak for at least another month and a half, so he could hand off small tokens to each of them. Last night he had been nearly giddy, smiling, hugging, accepting congratulations readily, discussing past pilgrims, and future, and tradition, and plans, and looking forward to right now.
Right now he coiled in his empty room, breathing in the mountain air and thinking that there probably wasn’t a single patch on the whole ark that had better smelling air than right here. When he realized he was becoming reluctant, he smiled slightly, and headed out into the temple. It was only a little past an hour after sunrise, but the temple was already alive. The youngest members were going through a simple morning breathing routine, and various older monks were training or meditating on their own. His small sending ceremony wouldn’t be for the whole community. Just the eight elders, his six teachers, and the last five members of his peer group who had not yet been sent off. His last few hours in the temple passed in a blur of familiarity and heightening tension. In his last meditation session within the temple he saw nothing but paths. Endless overlapping, tilted, twisting, totally empty paths. He desperately wanted to train, or climb, or spar, something fully physical that would ware him out beyond the point of worrying, but he will need his strength for his descent out of the mountains.
Finally he stands before the elders, subconsciously making himself an inch or so shorter than usual out of nervousness, and listens as they tell him to follow Her threads to his destiny. The traditional speech brings back just a shadow of last night’s eager energy. Like a sunbeam he feels it bolster his mood, although it can’t quite tamp down the apprehension. As his teachers present him with his supplies one item at a time he takes each gift with a sincere bow and stows them into his saddlebags with a practiced ease. He shares one last too short, too impersonal, respecting bow with each of his friends then turns and slinks out the gates and down the path. And then? Well…he’s off, so the hard part is done right? Now he just needs to keep moving forward.