I severely apologize for holding us up for as long as I have been. Between personal issues, site down time and a healthy dose of writer's block, it's been tough getting my character sheet together. I'm posting everything that I've finalized thus far right now so that I can work the rest of the information in from my phone as I finish it if need be.
Name: “Master” Yaun Lao
Age: 70
Gender: Male
Home World: Old Bastion
Affiliation: Light
Physical InformationAppearance: Evidenced by his looks, it’s obvious that Master Lao was a powerful warrior in his heyday. He’s a taller man, standing at nearly six feet three inches in height, with a somewhat broad form to accompany it. He boasts a tight physique, one of visible muscle. However cut and evident this inner muscularity is, it is house beneath a thinning exterior, beginning to deteriorate in the Master’s old age. His strength is viewed through a wrinkled, tightly worn skin that would easily expose the elder’s bones if he weren’t as well built as he was; in appendages such as his hands, fingers and toes, this effect is already taking prominence.
He is paling somewhat in his age, more so in that a natural tan now gives way to a growing grayness. The top of his head has gone through complete loss of hair, exposing some liver spots and a numerous instances of scarring atop his dome. Of the notable scars are the six marks, created through voluntary burning, upon his forehead. The remnants of his hair are upon his face, where a white-gray beard falls to chest length, meeting seamlessly with a mustache and sideburns that run from just above his ears. Situated beneath a pair of bushy white brows, Lao’s eyes bear a sharp, leaf shape and black pupils that radiate an inherent strictness.
Casual Attire: Lao’s casual dress code is built upon relatively simple garments, though often decorated by something of ceremonious meaning. When at rest, he is in some assortment of robes and shawls. Typically his robes are orange in color, though other aspects of these outfits tend to vary from time to time. In these ceremonial garments, Lao is typically seen with several sets of wooden, inscribed beads, often worn around his neck and wrists; they are of spiritual meaning to him. Other manners of dress when not on the field of battle consist of gis, worn when training his students. They are typically white, though not without age and their share of permanent stains, accompanied by a black belt with a white stripe running the length down the middle.
Battle Attire: In a pinch, Master Lao will leave for battle in his casual attire, whether his robes or a gi. However, old habits die hard, and he will always adorn his old armor when time for preparation is allowed. As with his robes and gi, the armor is relatively simple, but effective in combat. Modelled after a Far East aesthetic, is commonly worn over two other layers of clothing. The first layer is typically a heavier weight gi designated for wearing in real combat. Over this, Lao wears a set of leather pads over his arms, legs and torso. The armor he wears is similar to plate mail, but not so thickly worn as those of Knights. While made of metallic material it is somewhat lighter in weight, and covers a similar range of of his body the padding worn beneath it, with the addition of shoulder guards. Of the pieces of Lao’s armor, the shoulder guards are easily the most ornate. While the other pieces are the tried and true basics, an artisan gave some decor to the shoulders, which have been forged to roughly resemble the shape of a dragon’s head, and painted over to a similar effect.
Personal InformationPersonality: Lao takes fondly after his old Master, Zaal Foleski in his demeanor as a very much down-to-earth sort of person. He’s no kook and no dreamer, but a steadfast, albeit self-proclaimed realist. His most adherent beliefs are in the importance of efficiency, effort and proper preparation. Lao is a man of strategy and patience when it comes to handling most situations, preferring to investigate and research before jumping to too much action. However, his judgment is keen as to know when the right time is to move arises, and he is quick to act when the situation calls for it and unafraid to do so blindly in a pinch. He holds adamantly to the ideal that time spent idle is time wasted, and seems to rarely sleep, especially when tensions are high.
Having witnessed the horrors of wars and the tribulation people such as himself must deal with, he practices a sort of tough love towards his pupils. His methods are rough, and his commands called in a harsh voice. He’s not a believer in shortcuts as some instructors tend to be, and thus, his training takes an impressive length from day-to-day, often lasting hours on end during the waking daylight hours. Yet this regime of rough edged drilling and practicing is balanced by by caring disposition that keeps the better interests of his pupils at Heart.
He is quick to remind them at the end of every day that the training they go through only makes them stronger to fulfill their duties and, as important, stay alive themselves. No day of training goes without time for meals and plenty of rest either; three square meals and the full eight hours a night in times of peace are common in his schedule. His eyes are sharp on the affairs of his students, and he can frequently spot troubled minds amongst them, offering fatherly advice with little hesitation. Lao is a sort of Master who is willing to lay down his life for the sake of students’ well being.
History: Early LifeLao’s recollection of his life before age ten is scant, pieced together by a few memories that he’s construed into a viable story over the years. These memories include a vast farmland overlooked by a small house, a burning field that recurs through his dreams every now and then, the sound and silhouette of a man bellowing battle cries a woman sobbing and the feeling of a soft pair of hands gripping him protectively as a sword unsheathed. From these images, the best explanation he can produce for anyone asking about his childhood was that it took place amid an age of violent war. Many of the lasting scars he has to show seem to date as far back as sixty years, proving the assertion that, as a child, he survived through a slew of raids, skirmishes and all out battles as a youth. The exact details of these incidents, however, will always remain unclear.
On the other hand, how Lao came to part from this violent childhood is very clear. Sometime after one such incident he awoke to find his memory lapsing, a sharp pain shooting about his head, indicating he had taken a serious blow. His savior was a middle-aged man by the name of Zaal Foleski. Foleski, as it turned out, was also a Keybearer, a wielder of a magnificent yet frightening weapon known as the Keyblade. This much, Zaal explained to Lao as he sat up, confused by his ordeal. Begging answers, the young Lao was informed of his destiny, and pointed to a Keyblade of his own sitting against the foot of his bed. Several weeks of hesitation followed this revelation, until early one morning, Yuan Lao approached Zaal Foleski’s door, requesting the commencement of his training as a Keybearer.
ApprenticeshipApprenticeship under Master Foleski was no meager thing. As one of the most respected Masters amongst the Keybearer’s he held himself as teacher to match the reputation he had earned on the battlefield as a disciplined and skillful warrior of both the physical and arcane arts. The training to which Lao was subjected was one that drove him ragged and frequently turned his perspective in one-eighties. Foleski drew from both the formal training he had received from his Master years before and real world circumstance into the construction of his regime. In one instance Lao found himself in the orderly, boot-camp style training of physical conditioning and technical drilling; at any moment though this routine would break off into a less routine exercise, far more chaotic and demanding not of rigid form, but creativity.
Foleski’s training never really ended. Day-in and Day-out, Lao was always being tested by his Master. Random duels were a frequent element over the course of his training, especially during the sluggish midnight hours. The end result would, naturally, be as Foleski had intended: Yuan Lao was both disciplined to hold his morals and standards high while being aware enough to think on his feet when the world threw him for a loop. By the time Lao was 18, Foleski even went so far as to dub Lao as an assistant in his continued career as a teacher of the Keyblade. Lao himself began to grow into a respectable Keybearer and was very quickly pitched to assume a position as a Master as soon as his training had been truly completed.
Yet now amount of clout could ever bridge the gap between Lao and his fellow Apprentice Axeus. The boy had come along to the Bastion some time after Lao had begun training. As it happened, it was Master Foleski that took the ambitious non-wielding Axeus in as a student.Axeus, despite being as young as he was, proved to be one of Lao’s most formidable rivals through the latter half of his Apprenticeship; it was a rivalry that was mutually felt. Lao clashed with Axeus on many occasions, both in training combat and in debates on philosophical ideals of the roles of Keybearers, over which he found himself firmly against his adversary’s stance on the matter. With each passing clash in which he engaged Axeus, Lao became more aware of his sinister nature, which he could tell their Master had long known and worried about. He did his best to keep Axeus in line on Foleski’s behalf.
The World Eater ConfrontationOver the years of his Apprenticeship, Lao had accompanied Master Foleski on various expeditions to the outer worlds, where reports had been filed of “something big” floating in the void of interspace. As the sightings mounted, so did the reports of worlds being lost to unknown forces make their rise. Merchant ships relayed regular tales of how the worlds they had originally been scheduled to deliver to seemed to have just vanished from existence. The search for a supposed “World Eater” became the center of Lao’s life, its continued activity spurring him towards many investigations alongside his Master.
It was only a matter of time until the investigations came to a head. After several years of tracking the unseen force across the outer edge of the Realm of Light, the Keybearers had managed to track the phenomenon into a corner, The alarms were raised and all available Keybearers were dispatched to Ancient Desert on the spot, forced to drop anything they had been working on in the moment. Age 20 at the time, Lao had been ordained as a fully trained Keybearer, and was thus, independent of his old Master’s absolute whim. Nonetheless, he departed for Ancient Desert alongside Foleski, remaining close to his mentor for his first true battle as a Keybearer.
Arriving on Ancient Desert, Lao moved immediately to engage the World Eater joining his Master in seeking out a weak spot upon the beast’s massive form. The battle dragged on for hours. The hours eventually turned to days as the World Eater pressed back to Keybearers’ assualt. Despite their numbers and power, the strength and resilience of the World Eater proved too much for the contingent; even the call for other warriors beyond the Keybearing population did little to provide headway. After nearly two weeks of battle, the efforts of Lao and the other Keybearers yielded a potential weakness to exploit. Combining all of their efforts into attacking the World Eater’s weak spot, the Keybearers saw success.
Still, there were casualties as the beast grew privy to its own shortcoming. By the end of the first day of the renewed assault, Master Foleski counted amongst the dead. Lao resolved to put an end to the World Eater, and, begrudgingly, formed an alliance and a ploy with his old rival and colleague Axeus. The next day, the two spearheaded a final attack against the World Eater. With a larger contingent of Keybearers distracting it, they lead a small band of powerful warriors to land a succession of lethal blows to the World Eater. Before long, the beast lay in defeat. Yet, for some reason, the remaining Keybearers could do nothing to vanquish it for good. With no other option, the Lao and the other Keybearers channeled the Light within their Hearts to create a prison, within which they were able to seal the World Eater away.
As the Years Rolled OnThe years moved on after the battle against the World Eater. The few Keybearers that remained established themselves back on Old Bastion. With Master Foleski dead Lao (and Axeus, for his recent acquisition of a Keyblade) were declared Masters in their own rights, and began taking on students of their own over the years. Both new, young Keybearers and non-wielders were welcome under Lao’s tutelage; over time, he would train a multitude of students on Old Bastion. During the course of these years, he rose to a position of prominence amongst other Keybearers. Continuing to clash with Axeus, whose ambitions of power grew increasingly out of control since the battle on Ancient Desert, Lao was a driving force behind the rogue Keybearer’s expulsion from Old Bastion, an effort that earned the respect of many of his colleagues and increased scorn from others.
In the more recent years, Lao has taken on a new team of Keybearers, which he has seen as a blessing, as he has come to notice strange, unsettling disturbance...
Combat Information:Weapon:Abilities: WIP