Mesalia Forums
Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - Printable Version

+- Mesalia Forums (https://www.mesalia.net/forum)
+-- Forum: Locked Threads (https://www.mesalia.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=36)
+--- Forum: Archive (https://www.mesalia.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=38)
+---- Forum: Paused Characters (https://www.mesalia.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=40)
+---- Thread: Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... (/showthread.php?tid=172)

Pages: 1 2


Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - 3llusive - 21-04-2013

Name:Zatoshi Oruken

Age: 27

[Image: tumblr_m7d4tgXkjF1ralswjo1_500.png]

--

Appearance:Zatoshi has black medium length hair that's drawn back into a short pony tail. He's fair skinned, with light blue eyes flecked with grey, and has a straight scar that stretches above, and below his right eye, The scar is faded, and nearly unnoticeable, save for it being just a shade lighter than his skin and dividing his eyebrow with a small space where no hair grows on it's scar tissue. Additionally he has a scar below his left eye, following the curve of his cheek bone that is a bit more recent, and paler.

He's clean shaven and looks relatively young, his face seemingly formed by straight, clean lines, although he has a slightly wide nose.

He wears traditional far-eastern Twin Rivers style robes, but noticeably as with all Senshi robes, he lower end of the gown has been replaced by separate, somewhat baggy legs, to ride horses and give better movement in combat. The lower ends of the leggings, however, are tucked into light tatami shin guards.

He wears upon his back a sword of tremendous length - a weapon over five feet long known as an 'Odachi', a blade which comparatively dwarfs traditional swords in size. Zatoshi's in particular is 66 inches long, or exactly five and a half feet. It is of the highest quality workmanship coin can buy, and is elegantly decorated by black ray skin hilt wrappings, and a scarlet silk charm that hangs from the pommel. In the circular cross-guard is engraved two wolves stalking each other.


Character Traits
Positive Traits
-Brave. Zatoshi has seen his share of violence, and dealt it as well. The prospect of dieing doesn't scare him in the same way that it might others, partially because of his culture's views on war and pressures on their warriors to be fearless and glorious in combat.

-Disciplined. In contrast with his normally lazy, laid back demeanor, growing up in a noble household as a warrior has instilled a sense of discipline and duty into Zatoshi. When he commits to doing something, he commits to it heart and soul.

-Seeking Meaning. Zatoshi's realized by now, that he's broken inside, and he doesn't know how to put himself back together. He wants to heal, and he wants to be a good, and kind person, but he's afraid he's lost the path, that he can't be whole again.. Or perhaps that he was never whole to start with.


Neutral Traits

-Passive. Zatoshi typically avoids conflict like the plague, and violence as well, wishing to be left out of it for fear of what he might do if caught in a moment of passion. This is because he knows that there's still a part of him inside that would kill, and do harm to others. He may kill dusk if it's needed, but he steers wide of any conflict with a 'human', Lucin, Mesalian, Xitian or otherwise.

-Sociable. Zatoshi generally tries to be nice to other people, and comes off as an extremely laid back person that's completely non-confrontational and non-violent. Others would probably not believe he was a warrior if he didn't wear a sword. Some still don't, and believe he wears it for show, or doesn't know how to use it. He's perfectly fine with those assumptions as well.

-Lazy. Zatoshi typically.. Does not do much in a given day. This is somewhat because he enjoys naps, and also somewhat that he really doesn't know much besides swordsmanship, and as he wishes strongly to abstain from using it, he can't find work in that regard. So he's given up the idea of working or doing anything for a living to live the life of being a wanderer. Living off of what comes to him naturally, or that he could fish or catch himself.

Negative Traits

-Has the capability to kill. During his path as a warrior Zatoshi slew many he has lived to regret. From his life as a child, a great majority of his life has been devoted to the arts of the warrior, and once the adrenaline gets flowing in him, and Zatoshi is put with his back against the wall, or his hot-headed temper flares, he may kill another.

-Ashamed. Zatoshi does not have the strength to own up to the things he's done. He instead bottles it all up instead of facing it, ashamed of his past he's tried to leave everything about it behind, even his own name.

-Brooding. Zatoshi is prone to occasional episodes of depression, and when this happens he will normally isolate himself from other people to struggle with it himself, because he doesn't want other people's pity, something he's felt all too often over his time wandering the lands.

-Guarded. From his jaded past, Zatoshi has taken the lesson that he can not get close to people. He couldn't ever bear it if he had to kill someone he truly cared about again. For this reason he's built up walls, making himself very distant from those he interacts with, to protect himself from more sorrow.

Backstory:

Zatoshi was born a bastard child to a woman in the village of Taiyoseng; a small logging community along Sagaru's northern border. His father was a wanderer who fostered him illegitimately and didn't stick around in the village. His mother was a simple weaver. However, he would know neither of them as when he was only two years old the village was razed to the ground by Xitians. It was a false-flag attack specifically designed to start the next war between Takai and Sagaru, and it did it’s job wonderfully.

The Lord General of Sagaru, Yushito Oruken, set out immediately for the village with a full three battalions of men the very night the village was razed from his nearby estates. By the time he'd arrived the dead were piled high. There were no survivors save for one child found on the outskirts of the carnage, hid under the warm bodies and crying in the snow. That child would grow up adopted into the care of the Lord General as he waged a lengthy war campaign that spanned seven years, completely crippling Takai's abilities for war and subduing them into a forced surrender in fealty to Sagaru.

Zatoshi's childhood was a good one, and he was raised with the belief that he was the Lord General's only son. Completely without knowledge of his adoption. There were suspicions from some of the warriors but none save Oruken and one of his most promising soldiers knew; the one who found the child. Each day Zatoshi would travel with the soldiers, learn calligraphy, and his arts from his father. He'd play with training swords, and showed great interest in being a warrior just like his father, which made the Lord General's heart swell with pride.

He however, was beginning to grow weary of war. Talk of displeasure with the Emperor over the years, that had been planted by Xitian spies reached soon his ears through his ranks of his trusted Captains. This soured his attitude towards serving his master. After the war was finally settled, the Lord General began planning meticulously for the day he would overthrow the emperor. He started by gathering support from the generals under him, rallying ranks of men. He did so with his most promising Captain that served under him, the same warrior that had found Zatoshi and earned the Lord General's trust for keeping his most sacred secret.

That warrior was then Captain Misato. He had a son of his own, Kora, who grew quickly into becoming Zatoshi's best friend. During the days when the Lord General, his head captain, and Misato would take care of the lengthy political maneuvers to gain power in the region, Zatoshi and Kora played, competed, and grew into men.

Through their teenage years, Zatoshi and Kora both were trained through hard and rigorous training to become Senshi warriors; the noble class of warriors of the Twin Rivers. However, Kora fostered a deep jealousy of Zatoshi. The 'favored' son of the Lord General, the better swordsman; the person he wished he was. He saw Zatoshi's life as being so easy. So simple - to have everything he wanted as he did, and to be blessed with talent in the warrior arts. It seemed effortless for his best friend. That jealousy would ruin him in the end.

It's during these years that Kora learned of Zatoshi's secret from his father. Despite instructions to never share of it, soon their fellow warriors circulated rumors and guesses about Zatoshi's illegitimacy. This and a lie from Kora about the identity of who started the rumors ended up with Zatoshi challenging a lower-classman named 'Reika' to a duel to the death. After Zatoshi had slain Reika however, his father was forced to tell him the truth.

After killing a fellow warrior, an innocent one who had looked up to him over his adoptive father's name, Zatoshi was forever estranged from his father. A wedge was drove deep between them. Zatoshi became deeply depressed, resentful and repenting for what he'd done. He'd matured emotionally very prematurely after that; after learning truly what it meant to be a warrior. What it means to take someone else's life. Five years later, at the end of his training Zatoshi was selected as the Captain of the new regiment of warriors that he'd trained with.

Despite how Zatoshi felt towards his father, he'd still maintained discipline as the warrior he still wanted to be. The Lord General saw with pride as he believed Zatoshi had blossomed into the height of his potential.

That day that should have been of celebration was the day that finally the Lord General, now with the aid of his son, gathered their forces to lay siege to the Emperor's fortress. The battle was a brief one - the Lord General had pulled all his strings to make sure that the Emperor was alone with only his guards to protect him, and to have his gates open expecting an extravagant foreign guest. The only guest to find was two battalions of his own men, who stormed the fortress and slaughtered his guards to slit his throat. In the middle of the fighting, Kora betrayed Zatoshi once more out of fear of being branded a traitor. He clashed steel with him in a final attempt to final prove to himself that he was the better warrior. Zatoshi slew him in a one to one duel. A duel that destroyed him.

As Kora died in his arms his heart hardened. As Kora blamed his father, Zatoshi followed suit. He impaled his father who was still in the midst of celebration, and Zatoshi's troops clashed with his father's remaining battalion in an intense skirmish that ended with Zatoshi escaping and disappearing into the country-side, his spirit broken by everything he had to do on that day.

Sagaru was broken, and leaderless as well. The generals that had once been rallied by the Lord General soon fell to their own plots. Nearly all branded Zatoshi as a traitor to the country and an assassin; an outlaw to be despised. He was welcome by name nowhere, and drifted as a traveler through the country-side for years. His eye-color often netted him the name 'The blue-demon', and made life terrible. He was forced to take many more lives over those years, of bounty hunters and of misguided men who were hunting him with the thought of protecting their families. Eventually this forced him to accept that he never again wanted to be a warrior. He ended up paying a Trading ship captain with all but the last of his coin to take him to the Forbidden lands... Where he hoped to find solitude, and peace at last from his past.

Arriving at these strange lands however, new sets of challenges presented themselves.. Strange beacons dotted the forest. Following these monuments, it wasn’t long before Zatoshi ran across a town, with high walls made of stone, and odd buildings. A town named Ravenna.


[New] Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - 3llusive - 21-04-2013

Skills:


Things your character brings to the setting:
A 5 1/2 foot long 'Odachi'
A hat of woven straw
2 gold Ryon (Coins, 1 oz of gold each)



Relationships:

Amelia: She is a truly nice person.. Maybe the first to really care for me here.. It saddens me a bit that I haven't seen her in awhile.

Zarkaylia: My friend.. I think... My leader, I know.. She's.. Well, she's the only one I've ever told about what happened back at home, if I don't count the time where alcohol has played a hand..

Ezri: I don't know what to think about her... She is understanding sometimes.. A handful and rowdy others.

Sidian: She's quite polite sometimes, but with all the news about what her group have been up to.. Well, I tried to talk to her about it but she didn't seem very interested in my help changing the situation anyways..

Drake: He isn't a particularly great warrior... And he's rather obstinate.. I guess that kind of makes him more of a burden than he is helpful, no matter how bad that sounds.. Just wish he wouldn't be so... Stupid.

William: Apparently he isn't as bad as I thought he was... But he's a bit hard to judge, really.. Glad he isn't getting drunk often anymore, that's an encouraging sign.

Margretha: She's kind, and polite.. Though I think maybe a bit distant, but that's perfectly fine to me.

Zerek: A strange new-comer.. I don't really know much about him other than his name.

Thomas: Zarkaylia's son?.. He seems to be the only one who wants to listen to my view of things about the Xitians.. Though... Well, I may be wrong about that apparently..


Re: [New2] Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - 3llusive - 21-04-2013

Edited 4/21: Traits, skills, possessions

Edited 4/22: Edited Backstory / skill layout, Reworded a negative trait to be more accurate towards what I'd like to express. (Denial->Shame), Added new trait to explain Zatoshi's motivation for his wanderings (Seeking Meaning), Reworded a negative trait to be more accurate (Capability to kill)

Edited 4/25: Added 'Important note' to end of application.


Re: [New2] Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - 3llusive - 23-04-2013

I would appreciate it if this were to be graded, in spite of my second character status.

If it would be inconvenient though, I am fine with waiting for approval before grading.


RE: [New2] Zatoshi Oruken, the Cursed... - 3llusive - 06-06-2013

Edited 6/6: *waves hands in a ninja like fashion* Nothing changed here...

As of today also with permission from Zark, I'm pausing Caine. I don't know if that changes this application's status or not, but I suspect it might.