Alja huffed out a relieved sigh when Luci came along and broke up Graves and Rael. Stepping backwards out of the maelstrom's center, she smiled in an altogether different way than usual as she watched the rest of the scene play out; a soft grin, with a bit of an amused tilt at the corners. More catlike than her usual bombast. She loved watching Luci put people in their places. She'd grouped with the DPS on occasion, and she'd been an absolute joy to work with every time. Yeah, she was competent--way past competent actually, better than Alja by a long shot--but that wasn't super important to Alja. Rather, what was important was that Luci was just...fun. Once you dug past the ice-queen politeness, there was a certain streak of dry, deadpan humor that made it a total joy to banter with her. And for the cherry on top, their playstyles gelled together pretty well too. Of all the people she'd met in Pariah, Luci was probably the one she liked the most--maybe with a single exception--even if they didn't end up seeing each other very often.
Not to mention, she chuckled to herself, she knows how to keep Rael in line. And that takes some doing.
A few minutes passed; Alja spent them making small talk with some of the denizens and smaller-name Wayfarers in the guild hall, downing ale all the while. She'd just finished a showcase of Tundra Glass to a couple new players--they were moderately impressed with her fairly high-level and very specialized conjuration tricks--when she heard Luci come up behind her, commenting on the altercation between the two hotheaded players from earlier. She laughed, slapping the other woman on the shoulder (it was a greeting that she used often) and chugging down another drink of the digitized alcohol.
"Too long for sure, Luci! Goddamn, it's nice to see you!" She pulled the other woman into a crushing, bearlike hug, taking her time--a good five seconds--before releasing her "When was the last time, anyway? Was it that time I tried to duel Aag and he wiped the floor with me, or was it one of the dungeons? Never had the best memory." She pondered a moment, then her face broke out in a massive grin. "Well, who gives a shit anyway? It'll be good to work together again!"
Only after her rambling was over did she address the first comment that Luci had made. Her smile became a rueful grin, and she rubbed the back of her head. "Ah, I don't know exactly what I was thinkin'. Kinda thing I said is exactly what stokes Rael and Graves, gets 'em riled up. Only way it coulda been worse is if I put loot on the table and started taking bets." She shrugged her massive shoulders, leaning back against the table. "Still, kept 'em from each others' throats long enough for you to roll on up so...success!"
She was about to say something else, leaning in, when she paused: someone was talking over near Graves. Someone that she hadn't seen in just as long as Luci, and someone that she missed even more. Her eyes lit up, and her grin--rueful as had been--bloomed into something almost manic. She bounced on her heels, and then, with a quick "hang on!, she was bolting her not-inconsiderable mass over towards the green-haired girl and launching a huge flying tackle-hug at the exception: her favorite partner in crime.
As the guild hall slowly grew noisier around her, Alja drained the rest of her tankard, then turned to the guy--looked like some kind of archer, ranged DPS, or maybe a CC-based support?--who'd just sat down next to them. She raised the empty mug, smiling at him.
"Yeah, raid group's here. Sorry that they're all like this, most of 'em aren't very good at being social a lot of the time." She winked at Kalie, her smile remaining to show she meant no real offense, then turned back to the newcomer. "Don't worry about it, though. Stick with me, you'll be okay. Name's Alja, just holler for me if you need some defensive buffs or there's some add that won't get his ass off you. Now, if you'll excuse me," she laughed and stood, cracking her neck as she looked at what seemed an imminent fight between Graves and Rael and oh boy was Alja not ready for that before the raid even started, "I think I need to go keep some people in line so we don't kill each other. Be back in a minute." She turned back to Kalie, giving her a wide grin. "And please, Kalie; don't turn the kid into some servant of a dark god before I get back, alright?"
Leaving the brown-haired, nondescript archer behind and turning her back on Kalie, she marched on over to the brewing fight, shouldering her way between the two of them and spreading her arms, pushing a hand into each of their chests none-too-gently to force them apart. She gave a brief apologetic look to the confused (somewhat underleveled-looking) mage between them.
Alja had always prided herself on being a friendly presence, someone you could laugh and maybe drink a couple beers with, no matter who you were. But she had no patience for people who put other's games at risk. Dungeons could take hours, maybe days to fully clear, and while she was happy to waste her own time, wasting other peoples' didn't sit right with her. If these two bickered enough to cause a wipe, then they'd need to start the whole damn thing over from scratch, and they probably wouldn't even get the first clear that so many of them wanted. So she needed to try nipping this problem in the bud.
"I swear, you two," she said, laugh gone from her tone, "we haven't even started the raid yet. Hell, I don't even know if the whole group is here. But here you two are, goin' at it, already about to kill each other. Did you forget that this is unfamiliar territory? I'm sure you'd be fine doing this at the Alcara Temple or the Astral Tower. Hell, you're good enough to probably pull off the Deepfire Crypt like this. But new dungeon, new tricks. This is fully endgame content. We're gonna need to work together very well, or else this raid is going to chew us up and spit us out like nothin'." She held up one of her hands, a violent ice-storm barely contained in her magical grip, and looked back and forth between the two of them. "Now are the two of you going to cool your heads, or am I gonna need to cool 'em for you?"
After a moment, her thunderhead eyebrows lightened, and she banished the cloud of Primordial ice, slapping Graves on the shoulder. "Anyway, now that that's over, wanna get a drink?"
There was a crash as the door to the faction hall was flung open and a titaness of a woman in heavy blue and brown armor clomped loudly into the open doorway, a grin on her face. She spat out a strand of white hair, leaning casually up against the jamb.
"Yo! Who's here? What faces in this crowd do I know?"
As she panned her head around the room, her grin grew even wider as she caught sight of a familiar readhead who sat at a table with someone who Alja knew she'd seen before, but couldn't quite place. Pausing only to grab a tankard full of some kind of ale from the bartop, she threw herself down uninvited into a chair at the same table, slinging her knees over the armrest and lounging back.
"Ay, it's Rael! Looks like Aaginim's pulling out all the stops if he's bringing you in on a raid team!" She took a long pull from the beer, then none-too-gently dropped it back down and wiped the foam from her lips and chin. She paused for a moment before continuing. "Wow, slots for a raid team this large for one dungeon? Lotta people here." she swept her long arm around. "You and Aaginim are supposed to be able to solo floors or something--and I'm not half-bad at this dungeon thing either. We must be up some kinda creek, huh? This dungeon must really be somethin' else."
She twitched her fingers. Fog coalesced on her gauntleted hand, then solidified into a thin shell of ice. She promptly knocked her armored fists together until the ice fell off in chunks, which she scooped into her drink (only half of it left at this point). Sure, the shards'd disappear back to mist and magic in a couple seconds, but hey, any chill was better than the lukewarm that the drink had been. SHe took another drink, smacking her lips appreciatively at how much colder it was. "Looking forward to workin' with you again, though." Another draught of ale. "Sure, you drive me nuts sometimes, but you damn sure know your stuff. Nothin' better than slappin' some Tundra Glass on that spear of yours and watching you go!" She punctuated the remark with a loud laugh, pulling herself into an upright position, more or less using the chair how it was meant. She leaned her head back into her hands, then turned to the man at the table and snapped her fingers--or at least made the motion, since gauntlets didn't snap well and she seldom removed hers--in an exaggerated show of attempted recollection.
"Know I've seen you somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can place. If ya don't remember me, name's Alja Frostguard." She grabbed Glacier Chain up from the floor where she's put it along with her backpack, tossing it casually over her shoulder and letting it rest there."Think I could grab yours, jog my memory some?"
Full Name - Kelly Anne Mackay Age - 19 Place of Origin - Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Occupation - University Student
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Alja Frostguard Pathos Affiliation - Tyhrien Role - Switch; DPS/Tank Profession - Blacksmith Weapon of Choice - Alja's favored weapon is an extremely heavy flail called the Glacier Chain. Domains - Ice; Manifestation, Conjuration, Enhancement -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Physical Alja is, unsurprisingly, a very physical person. She's physical with displeasure, she's physical with annoyance, she's physical with levity, she's physical with affection. Most everything she does involves her body and physicality in some way; hell, even drinking is something of a sport for her. Everything she does is so emphatically physical that it might look like a parody, but it really isn't. It's just the way she is.
Raucous She might cut an imposing figure, but Alja is nothing if not approachable. She's rarely uncomfortable in any given situation, and that manifests itself in being super personable and always ready to laugh. Sure, she's a little bit rough around the edges--her laughs aren't exactly dainty, and her humor tends to run along the crude side more often than not--but for a night out drinking, there are few companions better.
War Mother As mentioned above, as long as you're willing to put up with her the occasional slap on the back that ends up feeling a little bit more than friendly because of how physical she is, Alja is a pretty nice person to be around. And she loves fighting. Being how friendly she is, it's not super hard to get on her good side And if you are on that good side? She becomes the momma bear. She'd rather die than let you die.
B E N C H M A R K S
Hammer & Flame Just as she is skilled with a flail in battle, so too is she skilled with a hammer in the forge. Alja is a highly skilled smith. Most of the equipment she uses, she made and repairs herself, and she's always available to craft something for another player. She doesn't care much for price; while sometimes she'll charge for coin, most of the coin she needs she finds during her occasional dungeon delve. She much prefers having favors owed to her, and that's usually the price of her smithing services.
Tundra Walker Alja's heart burns with the cold of the north. Over the course of her time in Pariah, she's unlocked powerful ice magic. Most of it is Primordial, summoning localized arctic storms or slamming the ground with her flail to create a line of lethal ice-spikes. However, she's also proficient at conjuration, coating her weapon or armor with a thick shell of enchanted ice or using it to hold a foe in place while she winds up a finishing strike with her flail.
War Maiden While her ice magic is important, it's not what sets Alja apart in combat. Her true skill lies in the martial techniques that she's discovered over the course of her playtime. They've allowed her to specialize into some very useful abilities, including such things as rendering an enemy prone by wrapping her flail around their leg and pulling, disarmament through similar means, or a slow but powerful strike that lets her splinter shields and cave in chestplates alike.
Worldspine Wanderer Alja is equally at home out in the deep wilderness as she is in a warm tavern. She can tell the direction she's going at all times, and has a general knowledge of the animals, plants, environmental hazards, and etc. of whatever terrain she happens to be in at the time, though she knows the tundra and mountains of the far north the best. As a result of her wanderings, she also receives a healthy buff to stamina that lets her keep going longer than most people.
Physical Description
Kelly Mackay is a tiny girl; 19 years of age, she's still only about five feet tall. A bit of a doormat and wallflower with something of an anxiety problem, she's too afraid of people to go to the gym, ending up a bit of a social recluse who closes herself in her room most of the time. This leads to a couple of things: firstly, her skin is ghostly pale, as she rarely gets outside for any length of time. And secondly, she looks like a doll or something: because of how anxious she tends to be, she doesn't do anything that could result in any excitement or injury. Her skin is unmarked, and her hair is kept in perfect order, though it does sport quite a collection of split ends from constant nervous brushing. The only 'daring' thing that she ever brought herself to do was to bleach her naturally red hair and dye it a pastel pink.
So, in short, her appearance in real life has NOTHING to do with how her avatar Alja appears. The first thing that most notice about Alja is just how big she is. She soars past six feet tall, ending up somewhere six inches above that, towering over most people she meets. And her size isn't just in her height, either. She's wide as well, with broad shoulders and hips. Whatever figure she might have between those two is hidden by the layers of huge, bulging muscle that ripple across her body. Her unkempt white hair is left undone, hanging down to about her massive shoulderblades. Most of the time, she wears a set of heavy armor forged of steel, stained blue and lined with brown fur. When she's not armored, she tends toward heavy fur clothing, especially long cloaks. Capping everything off is the wild grin that usually dominates her face, a promise of either a good time or absolute mayhem. Or both.
Character Conceptualization
There are people that shy away from problems that don't have to do with them. Who don't want to get involved with arguments that they have no business being involved with, and who tend to keep to themselves.
Alja is...decidedly not one of those.
Rather, Alja is the kind of person who actively goes out of her way to get involved with things that aren't even slightly her business, and for whom 'someone else's problem' translates roughly to 'opportunity to meet a new drinking buddy.' Despite being more than capable of solo play--her tank/DPS spec letting her get away with things that she really shouldn't occasionally--Alja is what might be referred to as a social butterfly if such a term didn't sound far too delicate for her particular brand of friendship. She's the kind of woman who makes an acquaintance with everyone, and considers every acquaintance her friend, and so she's never been short of allies for dungeoneering. Her free and loose attitude towards money and her competence as a smith doesn't hurt either.
All that being said, as friendly as she is--as loud as she is--because of her tendency to make friends with everyone and so think the best of them by default, she is very easy to deceive. Her Tyhrien pathos is a painful reminder of a few incidents in the past, the worst of which--a trade-scamming betrayal from a loose group of people she'd been playing--left her alone in the wilderness with nothing to her name but Glacier Chain, a single health potion, and a halfhearted apology.
But regardless of all that--however many times her kindness and preoccupation with honorable conduct have gotten her taken advantage of, or in danger--she refuses to back down from her worldview. The day that she stops believing in the best of people--Wayfarers and advanced NPCs alike--is, to her, the day that the people that scam, the people that betray, the people that hurt...the day they all win. So she continues swaggering through Pariah with that same cocksure, wild grin on her face, always ready to dive deep for her friends.
Other Information
Her signature weapon, the Glacier Chain, is a massive heavy flail made of enchanted ice that never melts. It has the unique effect of buffing ice damage from the wielder. While she certainly doesn't need it for her Primordial spells to do work, it certainly doesn't hurt.
Most of Alja's magic damage comes from Primordial sources, leaving little need for defined spells. However, a relatively small corner of her magic is devoted to damage; most of it is oriented around tanking, and that merits a spell list.
Frigid Form - Not so much a spell as a header, Frigid Form is the category of spells that define Alja's tank-related buffs. If a spell is listed under the Frigid Form header, you can be sure it's not there for damage (with one exception).
Frigid Form - Tundra Glass (Conjuration): Tundra Glass forms the core of Alja's tank playstyle, and is also what makes her so versatile as a switch-role. She uses it to encase an object in a shell of ice. Usually, this is used to buff her defensive stats heavily, forming a suit of Frost Armor. This can also be used on allies, though the buff isn't as strong. However--here comes that exception--this is also one of her big DPS spells. By forming a shell of unstable Tundra Glass shards on Glacier Chain, Alja can cause a forceful explosion of ice on her next attack, massively empowering it. She can only have a single instance of Tundra Glass up at any one point, and there's a brief cooldown on creating it.
Frigid Form - Stand Firm (Enhancement): Alja channels for one second. Once the channel is done, her entire body locks in place as she channels the strength of glaciers. The next hit she takes--no matter how powerful--will deal zero damage, and until she absorbs damage with this, she cannot be moved. However, if she chooses to move, attack, or take any other kind of action, Stand Firm is cancelled, and drains more energy than it would if she saw it to completion.
Frigid Form - Heart of Ice (Manifestation): A channeled ability. Alja whirls her flail over her head. A zone forms around her, expanding every second to a maximum of about 20 feet across; everything in that zone not only has its movement speed slowed to an absolute crawl, but also has its damage output to all targets reduced by a significant amount. She can end the channel at any time, and can choose to slam her flail into the ground when she does. If she does so, it additionally creates a shockwave that does negligible damage, but violently pulls everything that was in the zone straight towards her. The further away they were from her, the harder it pulls.
Frigid Form - Avatar of Winter (not yet learned) (Conjuration/Enhancement): Alja's highest-level tank spell, this can only be used when she already has Frost Armor on herself. It detonates the armor, scattering shards of ice about and dealing damage. Afterwards, the frost reforms; for the duration of this spell (about twenty seconds), she has massive damage reduction and has massive resistance to forced movement. It also renders her completely immune to frost damage of any kind, as she's encased in a colossal suit of Frost Armor almost a foot thick. Naturally, this spell takes the most energy to cast.
In addition to Frigid Form, she has two very powerful damage spells in her kit that she reserves for emergencies:
Be The North - The pinnacle of Alja's manifestation magic, turned outwards. She channels for a total of five seconds and gains resistance to any kind of forced movement during the channel. At the end of the channel, the area around her erupts with a blast of frost, dealing a huge chunk of ice damage and slowing anything caught in the final explosion for another five seconds. A spell devoted to mobs of weaker enemies.
One Thousand Shining Teeth - As Be The North is the peak of her manifestation magic, this is the pinnacle of her conjuration turned to damage. She channels for up to ten seconds, during which time she floats into the air and steadily conjures a huge amount of spears made of ice all around her. At any time, she can choose to end the channel, dropping the ground and slamming it with her flail. When she does, the ice spears all seek the target(s) that she chooses. While it doesn't cover as much area as Be The North, if Alja needs to nuke one or two enemies to dust, accept no substitutes.
So if you do the nasty in the pasty with a bug alien girl, does she eat your skull?
She might not make it into my final sheet at all, depending on whether I go back to apping the cybernetic-limbed human. But if she sticks as a character...probably.
Decided to go with something other than questionable cybernetics. Instead, here: enjoy a WIP bug girl.
16 | Rhaayan | F | Pilot / Sharpshooter / Designated Loose Cannon
Character Post
"So...where do you come from again?"
Zhiti's speech chittered as she answered, the insect-like clicking fitting her appearance all too well: "Paadax. Desert moon of Sachi'il, orbits the star-pair Solaa, Irhaa." She stretched, her dry exoskeleton making a noise like autumn leaves scraping together as she did, and waited for the customs officer to write that down. As he did, he occasionally shot nervous glances at her barbed forelimbs, and the enormous, strangely-shaped rifle strapped to her back.
"Padax, moon of Sachil," he mumbled to himself as he jotted it down with his finger on a holoscreen. Zhiti clicked with irritation at the mispronunciation, but let it go; she had bigger things to worry about today. "And how exactly did you come to Orsovir Station?"
Zhiti let out a rasping sound--her equivalent of a sigh--before beginning to speak. "Mining line came to Paadax to dig for ore. Not inhabited on galactic recording, it seems our moon. I told them was not theirs to dig, they told me to come into their ship to correct the problem on their computer. She clicked aggressively.
Character Ties
1) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out. 2) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out.
Inventory
1) Triiktil - Zhiti's custom sniper rifle, tooled to be usable with her mantid forelimbs and with an auxiliary scope for her second right eye. 2) 3)
Member
AlteredTundra
Kuro
Red Hood
rabidbacon
Asura
ColdAtlas
Izurich
Damycles
