Gaz Kothari

Player Name: Chris
Player E-mail: canadia.dayo @ gmail.com
Instant message contact (AIM/MSN/etc): daccodacc @ aim
Plurk (if applicable): gazzafizza
Is the player at least 18 years of age? yes

Character's Full Name: Gaz Kothari
PB: Lena Headey
Character's Starting Level: Level 8
Character Age: 28
Physical Description: Dark hair, tanned skin from working outside most of her life. A few scars from training/fighting with swords.
Character's Species/Race (aka human, elf, dragonblood human, etc): human

Character History (Pre-Veil):

Gaz Kothari was born and raised on a small farm in Legion-controlled Cormyr on the edge of an elfin forest by her hardworking parents and older brother. As a small child, Gaz's family took in a runaway half-elf named Zephyri who had been cast out by the elves of the forest. The two became like sisters, absolutely inseparable. After a while it was hard to remember that they weren't in fact related. Gaz was devastated when Zephyri left to study to become a priestess of Pelor, but was proud of her foster sister in ways she could never name. (Zephyri was later abducted into an evil death cult, but that's neither here nor there...)

One day when Gaz was in her teens, a gang of bandits attacked the farm, leaving her father paralyzed. Gaz hated herself for not being able to stop them, and swore to train herself using whatever weapons she could find, which at that point consisted of an old rusty sword and a pitchfork. Later on, when the bandits came back for more, Gaz beat the lot of them single-handedly, ensuring they would never return to bother her family again.

After that it was clear that Gaz was meant for more than a farm life. She left her family for the nearest town, where she joined the army. She was trained as a ranger, and learned to be an excellent tracker and a lethal fighter. Eventually, though, she began having doubts about the cause for which she was fighting. Around that time, her father unfortunately passed away. Given leave from the army, Gaz returned home for the funeral, only to discover an old suit of hide armor in her father's belongings. When Gaz put it on, she was struck by intense memories of a former life— her father's former life— as a member of the legendary adventuring group known as the Nine. The armor instilled in Gaz the strange desire to travel to a town called Eveningstar, to be reunited with other descendants of the Nine. Along the way, she fought Legion armies as a masked vigilante. Stories of her attacks spread throughout the ranks, and Legion fighters learned to fear her.

Once she arrived in Eveningstar, she and the others formed a new Nine, and learned that it was the destiny of the Nine to arise whenever Cormyr needed their help, as it did now. Their mission: to defeat the Legion and bring Cormyr back to its former glory. Along the way, some of their number was lost, but others found. After one harrowing battle against Legion forces at Fort Slaughterfast, Gaz fell through a portal to the Nine Hells the Veil.

Post Veil History (if applicable):

Gaz arrived through the Veil in the (randomly selected) country of Mali, outside a small village. Fresh from battle, Gaz was wounded badly. The villagers showed her kindness, tending to her wounds, even though she was a mysterious stranger. In return, she defended the village's women from being kidnapped (and worse) by a local warlord. They called her their hero for her actions, and she decided, if she could not remember where it was she came from before she passed through the Veil, then she would begin a new life here, as a champion and hero. She started small, fighting for the rights of the people of her new village, and the villages around it, but eventually her actions had enough of an impact to garner the attention of someone in the Knights of the Silver Dragon (a name which tugged at the parts of her memory which were missing, in a way that made some sort of sense). She followed this NPC Knight to England, to be judged worthy or unworthy of joining the Knights.

Personality and Psychology:

Gaz is driven by a select few principles: justice, honor, hard work, and a strong sense of right and wrong. She is not content to sit idly by and watch people suffer injustices, instead preferring to take up arms against wrongdoers and protect those who cannot protect themselves. She has little patience for foolishness or boasting, which often threw her into conflict with certain other members of the Nine (mainly Barton, the archer who often declared himself Leader of the Nine for no reason). In fact, Gaz often acted like the Nine's leader, making executive decisions when the party couldn't decide how to proceed, though she would never presume to call herself Leader. She doesn't consider herself worthy of that title; she's a warrior, not a leader.

Perhaps to her detriment, Gaz is not known to be particularly intelligent or wise— she's not dimwitted by any means, but her strengths are physical, not mental— instead relying on her strength and skill to get her through difficult situations. Se sometimes acts rashly, charging headfirst into battle before weighing what the best course of action would be. It was this tendency to charge without thinking that led to Gaz coming into possession of Izthanak, a demon-possessed sword which sometimes causes her to attack her allies. (She's working on overcoming it, it'll be fine.)

While Gaz is mentally weak, she makes up for it in physical strength. Her life growing up on a farm made it so she doesn't shy away from hard labor, and she channeled that attitude into her sword training. She fights with two swords, in a whirling dervish of blades, a tempest of which she is the calm, fierce center. When Gaz fights, she fights without caring how much she herself gets injured, so long as her target gets taken down. One of the benefits of traveling in a party with healers is knowing that, no matter how much of the blood on your armor is your own, you'll live to see another day.

Gaz cares deeply about her friends and allies. She may not always like or agree with them (again, see Barton and Tyelle), but she will fight to the death their right to be the annoying little shits they are. Much like how she fought to defend her family from bandits, even though her father was adamantly against her becoming a fighter. Gaz firmly believes the edict that the needs of others outweigh her own needs, and will sacrifice herself if need be (though, to be honest, with healers around, sacrifices are hardly ever permanent).

Gaz's main fear is tied to her main goal: she aims to liberate people from injustice, and fears being unable to do so. More specifically, she fears being powerless to stop someone from hurting the people she cares about, the way that the bandits hurt her father. That is why she fights so hard for her goals. She fears that the second she stops fighting is the second she loses her worth as an individual.

Powers and Abilities: Gaz, despite coming from a world rich in magic users, is no "finger wiggler" herself. She is devout in her faith to her deity, but that deity is Tempus, god of battle. That said, she is a skilled melee fighter, mainly with dual longswords. She is also a very good tracker, a skill she learned from her time in the army. She can follow tracks, and also avoid being tracked, especially through forests.

Roleplay Samples

Link to a sample of your character in action: Mask or Menace TDM thread

Link to a sample of your prose writing style: Arrival sample for Lana Baumgartner (bombshelled) at Entranceway, and Subsequent arrival log:

First Sid, now Poey. First Sid, now Poey. It's all Lana can think about. Why do the people she cares about have to die? Even Parker died, and they weren't all that close. She's consumed with anger and guilt, but she's paralyzed by whatever dust that was that Diamondback blew in her face. Her last words to Tandy echo in her mind. "And there you have it-- my love life in a nutshell."

All she can do is stand there and watch the church below where her friends are fighting for their lives. Just stand there helpless to save them as they command her to blow them away. Then Diamondback mentions Poey, and that's the last straw. Lana pushes back with all her strength and turns, aiming her blast at Diamondback and her lieutenant instead of Cloak. She falls from the balcony, landing in a heap of flaming wreckage, but when the smoke clears, she shouts, "...over... it's done... I don't care how many of you I catch but... you're all... DEAD!"

Then she lets go. She throws explosions at every damn Serpent Skull piece of shit she sees, not caring about collateral damage. First Sid, now Poey. They did this. They ruined her life. They're going to pay for what they've done. Poey may have been a drug dealer, but he was a good guy. He deserved better. He deserved to live. But now he's dead, and his body thrown unceremoniously in a dumpster. He deserved better. Lana can't do anything more for Poey than to try to kill as many Serpent Skulls as she can. And damn, does she try.

She barely registers through the tears and the sound of explosions when she's not in the church anymore. All she knows is, one second she was there, the next she wasn't. And instead of wooden beams and derelict pews on fire, it's trees and bushes burning all around her. She stops, unsure where she is or what the hell is going on. She's still crying, though. Maybe I'm hallucinating, she thinks. But no, she can hear the birds and smell the smoke. Feel the wind in her hair. The fire isn't big, it'll burn itself out before it spreads, she thinks. (She hopes.) She stumbles away from it, in search of some answers...

First Sid, now Poey, now... this?

Any other important information (including special inventory items in their possession): Gaz would come through the Veil with her father's armor and her weapons, a magical longsword which has the ability to split into two longswords, as well as Izthanak, the aforementioned demon-possessed sword. (Why doesn't she just get rid of Izthanak and use her other sword as two swords, you ask? Shhh, I answer, cryptically.) The armor is made of hide and possesses no significant magical abilities, other than the symbol of the Nine, which allows Gaz to recognize and be recognized by other members/descendents of the Nine (which isn't really applicable here), and the ability for her to draw her weapons quickly. (Note: I don't have the item card for Izthanak because I forgot what it's called.)

Why do you think this character would join/work with the Knights? Gaz would be an ideal candidate for the Knights, because it's basically what she had been doing before she crossed through the Veil, and what she started doing almost immediately upon arriving on Earth. She is a good follower, so long as the people she's following aren't working on the side of evil and oppression. She is a skilled fighter, both by herself and as a team. She is brave, heroic, and good with pointy weapons... basically everything you're looking for in a knight.

Do you have a preference for which member of the Knights your character is squired to? I have no preference. The only thing I will say is that Gaz is probably more likely to respect/heed the instruction of someone older than her. Whether you find it wise to assign her to someone older, or more fun to frustrate her and assign her to someone younger, I will leave up to your discretion.