[@Skyrte]

[hider= Olivia // Ebon Horizon]
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/fNAS06d.png[/img]
[hr][hr]
[h2][color=orange]OLIVIA // EBON HORIZON[/color][/h2]

[img]http://img13.deviantart.net/6ffd/i/2015/089/1/7/red_knights___the_mage_by_joshcorpuz85-d8npzad.jpg[/img]

[i][b]“I don't have any spells to dull the pain.”[/b][/i][/center]

[h3][color=black]O V E R V I E W[/color][/h3]
 
	NAME
[hr]Olivia de Verley

	AVATAR
[hr]Ebon Horizon

	AGE
[hr]20

	GENDER
[hr]Female

	VISAGE
[hr]Ebon is a carbon copy of [url=http://pre10.deviantart.net/6756/th/pre/i/2016/006/2/0/violet___beret___by_raichiyo33-d9mxqpa.jpg]Olivia[/url], save for the hair which has been shortened to shoulder length, and perfect vision. Olivia is a short person, standing only at 5'2/157cm. Thanks to years of fencing and training in HEMA, she is fit and athletic. She normally wears glasses over her dark brown eyes to correct her poor vision, something she doesn't need to do in Pariah. She has black shoulder blade length hair often tied up in a ponytail or wrapped up in a bun, styles that she keeps while in the game. The outfit she wears in Pariah is only cloth, but it's comfortable, light, and lets her keep her range of movement. Although it was designed for practicality and comfort in mind, some parts are there for fashion. The shoulders have been padded, her shirt extends downward to her shins much like a dress, and her coat stops at the middle of her midriff. Her boots are thigh high, but still made of a durable, rugged material. She wears a metal mask which acts as her 'fencing mask'. She usually has a dark grey cloak wrapped around her shoulders for warmth. 

	PERSONALITY
[hr]Olivia is an introverted, practical person, nervous and uncomfortable when outside of her comfort zone. She compensates for this by imitating confidence, following the saying 'fake it until you make it'. She would very much rather not be bothered, but the false confidence she displays when in social situations can cause others to approach her. While it is something she dislikes, she knows that she has to work on her social skills in order to avoid becoming a crazy cat lady when she grows older.

When it comes to other people, she is friendly and helpful. She's quick to make friends see the good in them, just as quick to become close to them and trust them. There's always a lingering fear that she'll be betrayed in some grand and cinematic way, but so far, none have done so. When she's in a familiar setting she relaxes and becomes more honest, quieter, turning back to her normal introverted ways.


	BACKGROUND
[hr]Olivia was born into a wealthy family on the east coast of the United States in the 2092. With one other sister and three brothers, she's the youngest in the family. As a child she was enrolled into public schools, raised as a normal child, with loving, caring parents with four attentive siblings. Remarkably she turned out to be very... normal. She connected the most with her eldest brother, Alfons, a man who wanted to live without any financial help from his family, he wanted to stand with his own achievements. On his own he had joined the military making a career out of being an Air Force Pararescueman. As a child Olivia always saw him as a real life superhero, after all he did jump out of planes and ride helicopters to save people for a living. Whenever he came home she was always around him and he always taught her a few things, how to dress a wound, how to fight, how to hide and evade from people chasing you. Skills typically utilized by an Air Force Pararescueman. Alfons the practical, special operations brother, made a huge impact on Olivia. She grew up to be like him.

When she was seven, her parents let her choose a hobby, ranging from sports to music to woodworking. When presented with so many objects, tools, musical instruments, she picked up one of her fathers sabers that was mounted on the wall. She wanted to be a warrior, like Alfons, someone who could fight and protect others. A week later Olivia had a fencing tutor. Throughout the years she kept at her swordsmanship, expanding her interest into Historical European Martial Arts as well, specifically Victorian sabre. As she went through middle school and high school, she had joined a club to further expand her knowledge, she had participated in a number of tournaments, winning more than a few of these competitions. In her club she was exposed to a number of other techniques, Fiore’s longsword and rondel dagger, Polish and French sabre, but she only dabbled in these, learning from other students when everyone was leaving for the day. She floated through life committed only to martial arts, not really knowing what she wanted to do in the future.

Two years after graduating high school, Alfons was wounded during an operation, an earthquake struck Italy. Ten hours later, Alfons and a handful of other pararescuemen were at the city that was hit the hardest, searching for survivors. Twenty eight hours after their arrival, a group of extremists attacked. As people ran from the fighting, Alfons and his fellow PJs prepared to fight back, armed with nothing but kitchen knives salvaged from the rubble and rocks. They fought for hours in the darkness of night before the area was mostly clear of civilians and the Italian armed forces had arrived. During the battle Alfons shielded a young Italian soldier from a grenade, taking shrapnel to his back and two bullets to his left leg. The battle lasted for ten hours more, Alfons laying in a field hospital with the people he had rescued just earlier, hating that he was taken out of the fight so early. He would be sent back to the states to recover from his wounds with two shiny medals pinned to his jacket, one from the Air Force, another from the Italians. 

This story haunt haunt Olivia for a week after Alfons had told her. Soon after, Olivia decided to study to become a paramedic, understanding how fragile people are. It was nothing like the movies or books, where heroes would take sword blows to the chest and keep on fighting, where warriors would lose limbs and fight on. Her superhero was taken out of the fight by two bullets and a handful of shrapnel. She got her own apartment close to the campus. She stopped practicing martial arts to focus on her study. She kept in contact with the friends she made during those years fencing but she had very little luck making new friends. A year later one of her old friends had mentioned a new virtual reality game, Pariah Online. Olivia had no history of playing video games, but it didn't take much to convince her to join.

[h3][color=black]A T T R I B U T E S[/color][/h3]
 
	ROLE
[hr]Combat Medic - Healer/DPS

	AFFILIATION
[hr]TYHRIEN

	PROFESSION
[hr]Healer

	WEAPONS OF CHOICE
[hr][i][b][url=https://puu.sh/tlDwH/f22efd7ecc.png]Sunset's Edge[/url][/b][/i] - A military sabre based off of the appearance of the English [url=http://www.militaryheritage.com/images/swords/1853%20sword%201.JPG]Pattern 1853 Cavalry Sword[/url], complete with three bar hilt. Crafted with blackening on the ricasso in the shape of a right triangle, the back of the triangle on the false edge of the blade. Further blackening follows the fuller and spine, halting where the fuller stops. Two angled stripes cross the weak of the sword. The black oxide coating represents the night, while the steel is day.

	BENCHMARKS
[hr][hider=Physical Benchmarks]
[b]Enhanced Speed[/b] - Years of HEMA and fencing practice has made Ebon remarkably quick on her feet. Her ability to dodge, dash, lunge and move in short distances is only rivaled by other competition fencers and martial artists. This benchmark only further enhances her speed and reaction time.
[b]Saber Expert[/b] - Her history with the saber has gotten her this benchmark rather quickly. However this only extends to Saber weapons, although she has experience with other swords, she cannot use them as effectively as the saber.
[b]Lightning Step[/b] - A Storm magic ability that Ebon has unlocked very recently, which also has the potential to deplete her stamina almost immediately depending on how far she wishes to step. Lightning Step was allows her to advance, retreat, or lunge a distance of at most 10 meters with the speed of a lightning bolt. Observers have told her that she practically becomes an orange lightning bolt when casting this. When Lightning Stepping only one meter, the stamina usage isn't so much, but ten meters will make her fatigued. She can only lightning step when in en garde, meaning she cannot use this outside of being ready and in stance to fight.
[/hider]
[hider=Mental Benchmarks]
[b]Experienced Warrior[/b] - Years of sparring and competing has given her a good sense of battle. When fighting she can tell when the opponent will attack, advance, retreat, guard or parry based on the movements of her opponent's body. This benchmark gives her the ability to feel if her opponent will be attacking physically or magically. 
[b]Healers Incantations[/b]- Not the best healer in the game thanks to her obsession with becoming proficient with the blade again, but she has a wide variety of healing chants. The spells are more effective when specific, a chant to heal a broken bone will heal much quicker than a general 'heal this warrior's wounds' spell. This requires her to identify the wound and then say the correct chant to heal the wound, her ability to see, properly diagnose, and heal has given her this benchmark.
[b]Shorthanded Cant[/b] - Ebon has developed her healing in the form of chants and prayers. Then she developed it further into a shorthanded cant that sounds like a foreign language, it's been compared to the more rapid sections of a Tibetan monks morning chant. She can only shorthand her lower level healing spells, which is unable to heal heavier wounds. She is able to shorthand heal and fight at the same time, although she'll grow tired quickly and may mess up the heals, making it less effective. She is unable to shorthand anything stronger than her most basic healing spells
[/hider]

	ROUGH VIRTUAL HISTORY
[hr]When Ebon first joined, she explored the starter areas, amazed by the landscape. Then she quickly became tired. This was a problem to her, a big one, in real life the amount of travelling she had done wouldn’t even have winded her. But there she was, panting. So the second thing she did was get a sabre, she tried it out and found that it felt heavy and sluggish in her hand. This coupled with her lack of stamina upset her. The third thing she did was train. She ran laps, practiced her advances, retreats, lunges, ripostes, parrys, attacks, she wanted that sword to feel familiar in her hand. She felt incomplete without it. For weeks she would stay in the same park, exercising, running through flow drills, practicing her techniques. So much so that others had gathered around her, mostly warriors, doing the same. With her as the center they exchanged their knowledge of weapons, armor and shields. They taught new players, and sparred with experienced ones. 

It was here that the sword became familiar to her again, and it was here that she met a man named Elias. He was a blacksmith, wanting to adventure and travel, but he had no experience in combat. He wore a suit of armor that he made, wielding weapons that he forged. Ebon taught Elias what she knew and he invited her to party up with her. She agreed. The two travelled the forests and mountains, fighting wild creatures, discovering beautiful waterfalls and rivers, talking well into the night, seeing the sun rise and set. Then Elias told her that they should return to the city. When they did, he disappeared for a few days. Olivia had volunteered at the local hospital, where hunters would be healed. When Elias reappeared, he held a sword, a very specific sabre. He said that he was going to move, and he had to sell his module to make the trip. He wasn’t certain that he would come back. The two logged off for the night. When Olivia logged back in she was greeted by a message, Elias saying that he had walked to a cliff where they had camped and seen the sun rise and fall for the first time. If this was his last moments in the game, he wanted it to be in a beautiful place. She unsheathed the sword that he had given her as a parting gift, it was the [i]Sunset's Edge[/i]. 

[/hider]
In a shocking turn of events I’m not going to fuss about color formatting even though I did originally.

Despite having a very descriptive and well-crafted concept I do think you need to proofread it a little bit— there are some phrases that although exceptionally minor do read poorly as well as grammatical mistakes such as “haunt haunt” and “in the 2092”. These will take little time in adjusting, I imagine. With that said I do really enjoy your characterization and concept; I would have little issue accepting it… however, I believe Shy is right about the benchmarks situation.

Shy has pretty much stated all of my relative issues with the benchmarks (though I think increased proficiency/expertise with sabers are fine enough, though what does this earn her beyond not stumbling with the weapon?). I’d love to give this an immediate stamp of “go ahead, you good fam” but I feel like understanding the benchmarks has been a consistent issue in this RP that is largely my fault in not explaining it cohesively. Is there any specific help I could give in this fashion to make these physical benchmarks work? Here are my reiterations of my benchmarks for my character so we can analyze how I did it and make sense of what is different to how you did it:

[quote=@Gowi][i]Acrobatic Reflexes – In addition to her abilities as an evasive combatant, Rael is uncanny with her movement around an enemy [b]thus making it exponentially more difficult to strike her or maintain a full threat assessment of her party given her tendency to jump, weave, and duck in the midst of battle. This benchmark has given her increased polish to her dodging abilities. [/b]

Dirty Fighter – Rael has always incorporated cunning into her attacks and using the environment against monsters and even resident opponents in duels. [b]After doing this consistently for an amount of time she has found herself good at analyzing the environment for utility in battle whether it is a section of dirt, loose rocks, or weakened building supports.[/b] This has earned her a passive increase to temporarily immobilize her enemies.

Duelist’s Ethos – Rael is not a tank who blocks but there comes a time where she needs to meet an opponent’s weapon over simply dodging. However, instead of blocking Rael chooses to misdirect and counter instead; using her spear to shift an enemy’s weapon to the left or right instead of taking the brunt force of its blow. [b]As such precision-based techniques in clutch situations come easier to her.[/b]

Evasive Combatant – As a tank who doesn’t bear heavy armor or extensive enchantments, Rael has had to take a different approach to combat; [b]after conditioning herself to be faster than most of her peers she has achieved an agile and dynamic skillset that allows her to perceive things quicker and react in kind. [/b]

Provocative Presence – Intending to keep the attention of their enemies away from their allies, the rogue-like user has proven to constantly shift the attention of [b]their enemy to focus on them by being agile and persistent. Due to this Rael has found herself emitting an inherent aura when in the heat of battle that attracts the attention of dangerous foes even when in the company of more dangerous allies that should be prioritized.[/b][/i][/quote]
I’ve bolded key points in Hanako’s skillset for emphasis on how benchmarks are and should be.