Character Wounds: Every Scar, a Story

[Dat Oni]

[align=center]"Want to know how I got these scars?"[/align]

 

One thing I have noticed during my roleplaying career is that given the option to scar their character, RPers will hastily choose to put some sort of cut, bruise, or burn on the bodies of their precious persona(s). Not only that, but they will often construct very creative stories behind each wound. "Oh I got it fighting a boar" says the Half-Orc fighter. "Cut my cheek wide open; had to stitch it up myself. Boar's mounting my wall, now, gaha!"

 

I'd like to know, do your characters have scars, lost limbs, burns, or other injuries, and what are the stories behind them? Furthermore, do they cover them up or leave them bare, or in the case of lost limbs, use prosthesis or decide they're suddenly ambidextrous?

 

Note, this includes IC scars and such that cannot be represented by the limited character creator's selections. 

 

Emotional trauma is not for this thread; only physical.

 

Discuss away!

[Steel Wolf]

Steel still has a very slight scar across her left eye, which she had received when she was young and training to use a sword properly.

 

Not the deepest or most intense scar story out there, but hey...figured it'd at the least illustrate her resolve/stubbornness.

[Aysun]

Your poll says "often" - I had to say "no" because of that!

 

She's accumulated four (one faded nearly gone) scars over 4 years of RP. She does cover them up - well, the ones she can! Mostly because she doesn't like to be asked about them. They have stories and are from significant events that have occurred IC. But are definitely not "often!"

[C'kayah Polaali]

C doesn't get in a lot of fights, but he's a low-power character and I'm not unwilling to let him lose, so he's taken some serious damage:

 

• His right palm is terribly scarred after a thaumaturge heated a dagger he was holding - it had a wire-wrapped hilt that stuck
  
• His right flank has rough scars from an armored Roegadyn that shattered his ribs
  
• The scalp on the right side of his head under his hair is scarred from a kick that fractured his skull in the same attack
  
• The left side of his back bears a small scar from a dagger thrust in the same attack
  

[Zetchryn]

A'zireena has one, on her cheek, ostensibly from a training accident when she was trying to be acrobatic. Trying new techniques with a spear, she had seen a Dragoon doe their Jump. Not to be outdone, she tried a similar thing... Only to end up flailing and falling, almost impaling herself on her own spear. She got away with a gash to her cheek, but told the healers not to heal it completely: A lesson to herself of trying things before she was ready.

 

Granted, she's a klutz, so she has various other scars on parts of her body, like one on her waist from a boar she SHOULD have been able to dodge... But instead tripped.

 

Every time I get knocked out I'm going to add a scar somewhere. Er, other then dungeons.

[Dat Oni]

Your poll says "often" - I had to say "no" because of that!

 

I should probably edit it, then. Thank you for the feedback.

 

 

Okay, it won't let me. Well shit.

[chaoticsleepy]

N'hadiya is a patchwork collection of horrific scars from her time as a captive to a particularly cruel Garlean centurion of her backstory. They literally cover her from head to toe and blend into one another, as do her blurred recollections of their origins. There's a few in particular of note, though. 

 

- Her left eye is blind from when she was initially captured and interrogated. The threat of the same happening to her right eye and the results of several days of.. persuasion finally caused her to crack. 

 

- She also has the words Subeo ad Imperio (a likely incorrect translation of 'Submit to the Empire', I don't know Latin wompwomp) carved across her shoulder blades. While she isn't overly shy of people seeing the less significant scars, she goes to great pains to keep that one covered. 

 

Her scars are a huge source of shame and anxiety for her. She doesn't really explain them if she can get away with it, and outright fabricates stories or just ups and walks away when pressed. They're something she would only share with someone extremely close to her. So they're an extremely important part of her, not simply just 'there' for edgy aesthetic +1.

[Kismet]

If my characters get significantly injured in RP then I make them scarred from it, yeah. An exception would be Y'raja, however. She always tends to have various knicks and scars across random parts of her body (most notably her face) because she cares little for delicate healing techniques. If there's no big risk of infection, she doesn't care, lol.

 

So while there isn't a distinct story behind any of the scars themselves, I guess you could say the appearance of Y'raja's skin as a whole tells a story. About how she carries herself and what activities she usually engages in.

[Mae]

IRL I'm fairly scarred from an active childhood, and having had mostly male friends growing up I have the mindset that scars can be something worth bragging or laughing about. This is probably why most of my characters have scars -- I associate scars with being active before I do with something horrible having happened.

 

Kara's hands, arms, shoulders, legs, and feet have quite a few small scars covering them, though most are faded to the point where only she can see them. The results of training, fighting, hard work, pranks that backfired, and moments of clumsiness/inattention. The only scar she has that she makes an effort to hide is the one going across her neck. She wears a collar/choker to hide it and becomes very anxious when she's forced to take it off. That scar is the result of her overstepping her bounds and getting caught poaching on another thief's (not THF-Thief, just thief) territory. The wound got infected, causing it to become a fairly noticeable scar.

 

If the Gardener ever got a tan, she'd prove to be fairly scarred too. But what do you expect when nature makes giant thorns like this, or is in a VERY bad mood and makes giant thorns that grow more thorns?

 

Other injuries (bruises, cuts that heal well, broken bones, dislocated joints, concussions), I regularly dish out to my characters. Because I don't think it's reasonable that they come out smelling like roses from -every- encounter.

[Miryn]

I definitely enjoy scars from an aesthetic standpoint for RP. I often make fighter-type characters and scars just seem natural for them to have.

 

Miryn has plenty scattered all over her body, most of them from fighting Dravanians, and more recently a few from clashing against bandits and voidkin. Her only scar of real importance is the one over her left eye, due to planting herself between a charging aevis and her lord's son. It's an example of her very stubborn brand of loyalty and protectiveness.

[ArmachiA]

Because of the way healing magic is - not OFTEN, but if Armi gets something really bad that happens to her where she almost dies she gets a scar.

 

She has a jagged, but rather small 3 inches scar under her ribs on the left side and a long, thin, light colored scar that runs along her stomach.

[Chris Ganale]

I think all my characters have scars, but not all of them have stories.

 

Ganale looks completely undamaged to the casual observer, until one notices that his left arm is always covered. Underneath whatever he's got covering it, he's got a pile of metal fragments fused to his arm from shoulder to wrist, as a result of taking a magitek reaper blast to his shield arm by his onesie at Carteneau. The shield was magicked, and the magics of the shield didn't play nice with the reaper's energy and so violently resist being treated with magic. Also hurts like hell when rain's coming and in the rain.

 

R'tahz has two scars on his face, a shallow one on his cheek that he got in his second nunh challenge from not dodging a sword fast enough, but he's mostly decided to keep that one because A.) he respected the nunh who delivered it and B.) he feels it keeps him humble. He's got a much deeper, meaner scar over his right eye from his ninth challenge when the nunh he was fighting snuck a bladed hora into an unarmed contest and nearly took his eye out with it. That one is too much trouble to heal, plus the Calamity hit shortly thereafter so most healers had more important things to worry about.

 

Chao has a nick on her cheek from a piece of an exploding ceruleum fuel tank. She also has some pretty gruesome burn scars on her legs from the same explosion. Those couldn't heal all the way because ceruleum is corrosive as all hell, but at least she can walk normally.

 

Seno has a small scar across the bridge of his nose, probably from getting smacked in the face by his wife.

 

Garon and L'dran both have a lot of various scars, but as one's a bounty hunter and one's a mercenary assassin, no real stories other than "they get in fights a lot."

[Naunet]

I'm sure Antimony has scars; life in a nomadic desert tribe wasn't exactly easy. But this particular character has none that are really worth mentioning (i.e. no wild stories about them - just average ones!) and I haven't really given thought to specific locations. Just your standard nicks you get from life. And the scars of childbirth...

 

My most seriously scarred character is in another universe, and she ended up that way through a couple major RP events. Then I roleplayed Forsaken in WoW, which were obviously going to be messed up in various ways (externally and internally!), but I guess that doesn't really count.

[Aaron]

Aaron got his face scar from a wolf. Was out in La Noscea one day by himself and got ambushed as he passed through Upper La Noscea.

 

I gave him that as a similar story to the scars I have on my left shoulder from getting in a scrap with a German Shepherd as a kid.

[Jana]

Jana in FFXIV has a small scar on her cheek (I don't think it's as noticable in-game as I'd like, due to her skin tone). It doesn't have a particular story behind it, it's just a result of having grown up roughly. My character in Tera had some more extensive scarring though, mostly self-inflicted... But in the name of science!

[Aduu Avagnar]

Nako's torso has a veritable covering of scars. Most of which came from when he had been aducted and tortured. Beyond that, he has a couple from when an op didnt go too successfully.

[Ha'uruh Nunh]

Howl's back is heavily scarred from whippings he received in childhood.  He was very close to his dad and loved him dearly, but his dad wanted him to be tough and impervious to pain, hence the beatings.  That dichotomy is an indicator of Howl's personality, and his relative toughness in the face of pain has been a plot factor occasionally.  He's not superhuman of course, but he's able to shrug off and ignore pain that most would find distracting.

[Jazz Egi]

Weaver's entire body is covered in burns and scars from her ordeal with dragons in her youth. She will never wear revealing attire in order to obfuscate the injuries from others. Despite being a healer she cannot fix them, as the battle was years ago. Furthermore her left leg is nearly useless, forcing her to walk with a cane.

 

Worse yet, the overtaxed physicker that attended her neglected to treat unseen internal injuries, resulting in the modern Weaver having the constitution of an anemic jellyfish.

[Chika Ito]

Chika's list of scars;

• Old scars that run criss-crossed on her back. She worked in a brothel for nearly ten years, and when she first started her career there Chika wasn't always the most obedient woman, and would sometimes refuse to do what the clients wanted. To be punished for her refusal she was whipped.
  
• A small scar where her lower jaw meets her throat. It is small, and faint, and you have to be close to see it. This is where her mother stuck her spear head at during a duel between the two.
  
• Little scars that dot her fingertips. Acquired from years of weaving.
  
• On her lower right abdomen, close to the right ovary, is a small mass of scar tissue. Chika had challenged her mother for the title of matriarch of the Ito tribe. During which Chika was impaled by her mother's spear, the result was the scar and now she lacks a right ovary.
  
  
• Chika was in Limsa shopping with her ex fiancee, now missing, Arli. The pair had split up to do holiday shopping, so she was alone. While she was browsing through a fabric stall an old, and abusive, client she use to 'tend' to back in the brothel approached her. He tried convincing her to sleep with him, and when she said no he grabbed hold of her. Chika struck out violently to protect herself, and in the backlash from him, the flesh over her left eye took damage. Now there is a visible scar there.
  
  
• Faint, small scars litter her knuckles on both hands. When Arli went missing Chika took out her sudden aggression in objects around her house.
  
  
• A long scar over her right knee from an injury she received to it during a matriarch battle with her sister, Layla.
  

[shotgunbadger]

Both Zutoto's hands have burns on them from her cooking and magical training. They don't hurt her dexterity but they make it hard to grip things too tightly.

 

She also has a pretty bad stabbing scar right in her side she got during her piracy adventures. The story there is pretty obvious, she got skewered by a pirate. Doesn't hurt mobility but obviously getting hit there isn't great.

 

She doesn't let healers fully patch either of those up, feeling they're part of her education.

[Aaron]

Almost forgot, 

 

Aaron has a scar that shows on his palm and back of his hand (the blade ran through his hand cleanly) from a duel with Aerostein Epitaph, during the final clash Aaron was aiming to kill Aero but moved the blade at the last second with his left hand.

 

It's why he's always seen wearing gloves.

[Zyrusticae]

In the past I've RPed T'rahnu (in other games, under a slightly different name) as being covered in scars, but this time I went down a different track: she doesn't have any scars. In her case, this is largely to illustrate just how exceptional she is as an individual - so talented and carefree that she's never once put herself into a situation nor suffered an accident where she could obtain a permanent scar.

 

She has suffered cuts and scrapes, of course, but so far nothing on a level such that her body couldn't heal the damage away completely.

 

Realistically speaking, Eorzea does seem like the kind of world where more people have scars of some kind than those who do not. There's just so many ways to get yourself into a dangerous situation or suffer some kind of debilitating accident. Anyone who doesn't has to be either privileged or really, really careful.

[Kou]

K'washi has a few.

 

Once upon a time, when he was young and stupid, he got lost in the Sagolii Desert and got attacked by a Sundrake. It cut rather deep and is the reason he's mute. He would have died if he hadn't been found by some of the Drake-Tribe Miqos. He has a scar across his throat because of it.

 

He also has a more recent pair that are close. Two, somewhat small, scars on his left side. One is from a rather nasty stabbing incident, where an old enemy had planned on leaving him to bleed out (loljoke'sonthem). The other is from an arrow, actually, that hit him in the Grindstone.

 

Aaand that's about it so far!

[Delilah Scythewood]

Lili doesn't have many scars. She has one across the bridge of her nose that was a close call while training with an axe and a few barely noticeable bite marks from her previous mate that never seemed to want to go away. Everything else are just knicks and cuts that come and go.

[Nomine]

Ho man Jeris has a TON!

 

The most noticeable is his missing eye, lost in a desperate gamble to save himself and a friend from certain doom!  Dramatic, aye(eye)!

 

He has a few cuts across his cheek and lip from where his son whom he hasn't seen for a number of years beat the living hell out of him at their last parting.

 

Across his left shoulder and neck is extensive scarring from burns sustained from rescuing said son as a child from their burning home.

 

He has a number of other scars across his torso and chest from bullet wounds, stab sounds, cuts and gouges from a rather rough life in the wilds and on sea, plenty with their own stories but the top few are definitely the most notable.