08-28-2016, 06:56 PM
Howdy, folks! I joined this site a few days ago and have been lurking ever since (trying to figure out how everything works, still.) I'm relatively new to MMO roleplay, but not new to FFXIV - I've been playing since 2.0, on and off. I currently play on Excalibur, but if I can get a taste of what Balmung RP is like beforehand, I might transfer to Balmung. Anyways, I've got a few questions on my newly revamped character, Soleil Vahllen.
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I've read up on lore and scrounged some old content, but I'm not entirely sure my character would be 1) lore-friendly, and 2) interesting to roleplay with. This is gonna be...pretty long? I dunno.
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So here's what I have:
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Changed a bunch of stuff!
There we have it!
Gonna make an RPC page for her once I get everything clear. Thank you for the help, I hope Soleil is alright and intriguing!! Forgive my typos, sorry if there are any!
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I've read up on lore and scrounged some old content, but I'm not entirely sure my character would be 1) lore-friendly, and 2) interesting to roleplay with. This is gonna be...pretty long? I dunno.
Â
So here's what I have:
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- Appearance:
Standing at 6'5, Soleil makes an imposing figure. She is tanned and lean, well-muscled. She is broad-shouldered and has dark brown eyes as well as raven-black hair, often tied in a stiff ponytail or single braid down her back. She appears almost Doman in ancestry, but retains the build of a healthy Highlander. As a roaming scholar-merchant, she wears simple garments, unless she feels something different - like feathered overcoats, or anything fancy. As of the moment, she doesn't have any particular tastes.
As a rogue (Level 60 NIN), she imitates Ifrit. She wears Ifrit's Mask, then a crimson, open vest and sash/trousers with intricate golden patterns. She wears open-toed black sandals reaching up to her knees. Soleil wears black-armored armguards with orange palms and red coloring. (My current NIN glamor!!)
- Age: ~29
- Guardian Deity: Rhalgr
- Personality:
More extroverted than anything else, Soleil thrives in social situations. She might not be particularly talkative, but she can easily keep up with the flow of conversation and generally enjoys speaking with others about anything - though she likes gossip the best.
She's easily excitable and often adorably cheeky when around friends and allies, but puts up a calm, kind, friendly front around strangers. Knowledgeable in the arcana after throwing years into the study, she doesn't appreciate others downgrading her effort, though she doesn't mind constructive criticism or input.
She has a soft spot for refugees and the poor. When she can, she is seen aiding those in need, having once been in their situation.
Though she says otherwise, Soleil has a very strong desire to become a hero like the Warriors of Light. This is a problem when her heists go awry, and lives are endangered. She's almost been caught many times due to her compassionate nature, and fear of pain and uselessness.
She has the weirdest fixation on chocobos. Her personal steed, Queen, is testament to that. It appears there is a special reason behind her affection for the choboco, as well as the name she gave it.
Soleil dislikes any talk of Rhalgr. She gets politely irritated at the god's mention, especially if it involves asking said deity to aid them in battle.
Finally, she has a sort of minor interest in Ifrit. Soleil is particularly drawn toward fire, for unknown reasons. She tends to lie about it when asked, just like how she lies about where she learned to wield dual daggers with great skill.
- Background:
Soleil is an Ala Mhigan Highlander, daughter to a now-incapacitated former Fist of Rhalgr (light-sect) monk and also a semi-wealthy merchant. She spent the majority of her childhood learning self-defense from her mother and politics from her merchant father. She primarily excelled in her academic studies, forging on ahead of others her age, and was aware of the concept of chakra early on. (Soleil wasn't entirely sure how to use it, and never planned to. Her mother had spent decades training before her birth, and still hadn't mastered it.)
When she was 9 summers old, the Garleans invaded Ala Mhigo. Her mother had already been driven into hiding and severely injured due to King Theodoric's destruction of the main temples. Her father, however, was trading in Ul'dah during this time of crisis, and would never be able to step foot in Ala Mhigo ever again.
Soleil and her mother, through their few connections, barely avoided capture and joined the Ala Mhigan Resistance. As a child, Soleil was not expected to fight out in the front, but rather deliver messages and errands around the area.
Because of her mother's endurance training and her father's insistence on learning tactical command, Soleil was able to navigate Ala Mhigo and deliver smuggled goods and secrets to the populace without much fear of capture. This led to her rise in the resistance, never fighting, but always moving through the battlefields as a messenger. She only did so a few times, though, knowing that chances of capture rose every time she did a mission. However, she was witness to an insurmountable number of crimes, both by the hands of the Garleans and her own fellows.
One event that remained in her memory began simply. Three years into her service, it was - she was twelve, now. She was to bring an encrypted message both on paper and verbally to one of the Resistance captains camped in one of the underground bases in a poorer sector of the country. Another young messenger would follow her in case either died before the message was delivered. When she arrived, the captain was waiting - and so she gave her message appropriately. It was then that the Garleans struck.
Three platoons of Garlean soldiers then bore into the small squad of Ala Mhigan fighters, guns flashing with each shot and flames bursting across the browning sky. Camped out near civilians, the Resistance fighters had little choice but to retreat as their numbers dwindled.
Soleil was caught in the crossfire. She didn't remain to retaliate; she bolted immediately. One of the Resistance officers caught her by the wrist, forced her to face the ongoing battle. When she struggled, the man leaned over, blade hovering inches from her throat.
"Abandoning your comrades now, of all times? Are you not Ala Mhigan? Did you not accept our oath, our promise to devote our lives to the cause till the last man falls?"
Soleil never had the chance to answer, ducking her head in her attempt to escape. A swift cauterizing shot from the Garleans blasted the officer's face into a mess of blood, the flesh hot and gooey and dripping into Soleil's hair.
She took the man's sword and threw him over her, playing dead. The mass of clotted blood and chunks of meat made playing dead much easier, though her heart skipped a beat when she heard her fellow messenger's scream for Rhalgr's retribution. It was cut off by the swish and splatter of a mallet.
Garleans did not leave the dead on the field. They immediately took to inspecting and removing the bodies (for disposal, Soleil assumed). As she was near the edge of the battlefield, they arrived at her location hours into the cleanup, with only two soldiers checking on the area.
When one reached down to examine her body, throwing the man's off her own, she leapt into action. She swung the sword, embedding it deep in the man's neck, hearing the cry die in his throat. The other Garlean was taken by surprise, giving Soleil a chance to kick out and knock him off his feet. She removed the sword and killed the other man, but not as efficiently as she could. It took her several swings to silence his whimpers.
Soleil grabbed her officer's sword, then the Garlean's pair of daggers, and ran. She saw, some yalms away, the decapitated head of her fellow messenger. The girl's head had been smashed in, mouth open in what seemed to be a final prayer.
It was not until later that she learned a civilian had given away the Resistance squad's position. (She could not find it in her heart to blame them.)
Soleil Vahllen, on that very day, absolved to never pray to Rhalgr - not until she was worthy of saying his name again. Not until she escaped that shadow of cowardice she'd created for herself.
Two years later, after five years serving in the Resistance, Soleil escaped the country with her mother and five others in tow. Only she and her mother made it out alive.
They went to Ul'dah to find her father, who had fallen into debt due to the Ala Mhigan controversy / influx of Ala Mhigan refugees. Racism, really, and lack of opportunity. He was serving at the Platinum Mirage, to be pitted against other debtors for the fun of the rich.
Soleil took his place in the game so he could find other opportunities to help pay off the debt. She spent the next three years of her life pitted against others desperate to survive - another three years of a miniature war, until their family's debt was paid and finished.
She knew that the owners of Platinum Mirage would not let them go so easily. But, in those three years, Soleil had met and befriended a wealthy heir to a vibrant merchant company - a dunesfolk by the name of Fufuyan Fuyan. Fufuyan made a few backup plans to keep the Vahllens from falling back into debt, reassuring Soleil that she'd help look after her family. Soleil's father already had his hands full taking care of his ailing wife, so Soleil saved up her gil and bought a boat to Limsa Lominsa, bringing with her some clothes, a few scraps of food, the Garlean's old daggers, and the memory of her mother's dimming smile.
I want you to keep our cause alive, her mother had whispered. But do not forget your own purpose. Your own desire.
Soleil arrived in Limsa and immediately found herself surrounded by Ala Mhigan refugees. She was not alone in her plight, but found herself alienated anyways. These people had already accepted their fate, yet still fought on with hopes of change.
She went to the Arcanists' Guild in order to learn their ways. At 17 years old, Soleil was broad-shouldered and exceptionally tall. She was refused on the grounds that she hadn't had prior experience in the arcane, and was therefore not suited to the guild.
(It was because she was an Ala Mhigan with no credentials. She didn't say that to their faces, however.)
Her life went on through taking odd jobs as a bodyguard, a bouncer, a stablehand. She took any job people were willing to offer. One year later, she had had enough, and made that quite known to those around her.
Limsa Lominsa would experience a string of "disconnected heists" for the next two years. She was not the culprit, but evidence pointed toward her.
The heists had caught the attention of both the Yellowjackets, Maelstrom Command, and the rumored Rogues' Guild. It would only be a matter of time before she was caught and blamed - so Soleil hurriedly removed herself from any criminal activity she'd done, lest things go too awry. She went back to honest work, for the sake of gil.
A Yellowjacket by the name of Kevano Luvano, a scoundrel and informant of the Rogues' Guild, often came by to help her in exchange for information. She was wary of his ministrations, but after some time, opened up. She had to repeatedly tell him to lay off whenever he tried to get her to confess to whatever crimes the heistmaster had done. (She, for the last time, wasn't responsible.)
Finally, after witnessing enough evidence of Soleil's innocence, Kevano stopped bothering her.
One day, Limsa experienced a day of heavy rain and high tides. A Miqo'te child that had been playing near the dock edge fell in, swept up in the tides. Soleil, being nearby, dove in after the child.
When she dragged the half-drowned Miqo'te back to safety, she was met with no resistance. The child, safe, went back to his family. Kevano extended an invitation to the Rogues' Guild.
Soleil, having nothing to lose, accepted. She ran with the guild for a time, proving a competent member and scout.
The moment she felt unsafe in Limsa - mainly due to the adventures she'd undertaken with the rogues - she returned to Ul'dah to apply to the Immortal Flames Grand Company.
The trials Ul'dah faced, the plight of her fellows, she could not ignore. So, even as she traveled back and forth under the guise of a merchant, she asked what she could do to aid her people.
The Rogues' Guild, ever one to play pranks, proposed she wear Ifrit's Mask, and become a vigilante, targeting very peculiar individuals for the Rogues' Guild throughout Eorzea. Soleil, being Soleil, went along with it.
People wondered what this vigilante wanted. In the end, Soleil wanted two things: the recovery of Ala Mhigo, and for people to stop thinking she was the perpetrator of the Lominsan heists.
She had learned, through the Resistance, that Ala Mhigans fought with fear. Terror defeated their enemies. She knew Ul'dah, her primary target, feared the beast tribes - feared the reign of Ifrit. So, for the fun of it, she heckled law-breaking Ul'dahns with the image of Ifrit.
Meanwhile, the Rogues' Guild, even after Maelstrom Command had abandoned the search for the Lomisan heistmaster, continued their inquiries. Soleil assisted when she could.
Soleil came into contact with a lone Gridanian poacher-turned-adventurer, Miah'to Epocan. Fufuyan Fuyan supported their endeavors with little things, trying to help clear her friend's name. An adventurer from Ishgard, one who lived in Tailfeather but made a new home in Idyllshire even before the gobbies had come, also provided assistance. Her name was Estelle Greystone, an unknown bastard child.
These four vigilantes banded together to create a "coalition" of criminals. Of course, criminals with good intentions - but still criminals, in the end, Soleil reasoned. All working for the Rogues' Guild.
Kevano Luvano, having risen in the Maelstrom ranks, now helps steer any prospective inspectors on the right path to find and detain the Fortuitous Four, or so they are called. Those four, after all, did nothing but gather intel of suspicious activities and occasionally carried out assigned missions. Kevano was just doing his job.
(Or Thieving Three - at times, Fufuyan was omitted, much to her annoyance.)
The effects of their acts were far-reaching. They were not grand. They were not particularly amazing, even, just a few strikes and a few investigations. But rumors spread quickly.
When, or where, will they strike next, the people wonder? - first Ul'dah, then Limsa...perhaps, Kevano reasons, now Ishgard.
"You're sending me where?" Soleil shouts, Jacke's smile far too smug for her liking.
"Ishgard, of course," Kevano replies. "I'm sure you want to help your fellow Ala Mhigans, but it might be best to direct your efforts toward the Ishgardian clergy and the dispossessed."
Well. That was that.
- Fighting Style:
IC: As a rogue, she uses dual daggers, similar to the styles of a monk but with daggers. She is extremely flexible and lithe, more into dodging and hit-and-runs rather than exchanging blows.
OOC: In-game, as a vigilante, she's a rogue.
--
Changed a bunch of stuff!
There we have it!
Gonna make an RPC page for her once I get everything clear. Thank you for the help, I hope Soleil is alright and intriguing!! Forgive my typos, sorry if there are any!
? As well, as explained in the thread above, chakra magic is used for chakra things, not other things. Kilieit gave a good example of that in the thread as well.