Sherman's Taj Mahal App

[The7thLain]

BYOND Key: TheBurninSherman

Character Names: Song Sun (Psychologist), IRU-Dauphine (Forensic Technician), XMLS-411 (Cargo Technician), Malta (Quartermaster) Tsezar Oktyabrsky (Medical Doctor) ISU-Lorraine (Security Officer)

Species you are applying to play: Tajara

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Ruddy Orange-Brown

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, I really really love the intricacies of the  Tajaran lore and how it has so many facets and parts.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

Why do you wish to play this specific race:

Honestly, the thing that makes me want to play this race as much as I do is the huge potential for interacting with the lore that this race provides. The Tajaran lore is huge and has so many different facets to it, and now that the ceasefire has been made canon, I think there is so much potential for interaction and tension between Tajara of different nations and ethnicities and its something I want to be a part of.  I like the uniqueness of the Tajara compared to other races, multiple languages, a fairly flushed out culture, the subraces and ethnicities, the unique way they speak, truly just how they are different from many other races. Mechanically they aren't as different from the norm, not like say an IPC or Dionae, but in terms of how they carry themselves in RP I would say they are perhaps the most unique for how developed they are as a race. Also THE HISTORY AND POLITICS. As a person who has a hobby of learning about history as much as I can in my free time, the history and lore of the Tajara is exceptionally interesting to me and I really would like to make a character that can interact with it and also show how it has interacted with them.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

The culture for one. The different, and recent, collective scars and trauma that a lot of the Tajara hold is certainly something that would differentiate them from a human. Another difference is that many of them experience a prejudice from other races, and also a prejudice from within their own race as well, the various nations and ethnicities doing anything but getting along well. It is this combination of a unique culture and sense of nationhood as well as the aspect of prejudice so actively felt by the Tajara from both inside and outside their race that makes them a unique option from humans. That and rolled R's and having to talk in third person.

Character Name: Krrah'nstar Azunja Astna'khan 

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

Krrah'nstar Astna'khan was born to the Astna'khan line of Njarir'Akhran in the year 2414 and is to his perspective, a living casualty of the First Adhomai Revolution and a soldier of the Second. The Astna'Khan line was a somewhat insignificant and unknown Njarir line, only really owning a small county of land north of Baltor on the coast. Their business was limited to little more than overseeing their peasants and the farms on which they worked and watching over a mine in the area as well. Krrah'nstar enjoyed living this life throughout his childhood and welcomed the idea of his future being the life that he saw his parents living, a peaceful one in a fine villa with a loving family. The peasants of the land had some small qualms with their noble lords sure, but it did not seem like anything that could not be worked out given the opportunity to talk. This all began to change however in 2421, the year that the revolution began.

While the Asta'khan line did not feel the effects of the revolution starting immediately, Khrrah'nstar's parents simply wrote it off as nothing more than a distant peasant uprising in ignorance, they complied with the will of their higher nobles and clamped down slightly on their peasantry, and for the majority of the war saw no real action on their quiet estate. Suppressing a dissonant voice here, confiscating revolutionary materials there, and creating a small private militia once the threat of revolution had increased. By 2428 however, the revolution had come home to Krrah'nstar. A battalion of revolutionary soldiers was reported to be exceptionally close by to the Astna'khan estate, and the ideas of the revolution were not lost on the militias the nobles founded to protect themselves. Seeing the writing on the wall, the militia employed by the Astna'Khan turn-coated and began to move from their garrison a few miles away to the estate Krrah'nstar called home with the intention of capturing their once masters and turning them in to the revolutionaries.

A M'sai soldier, still loyal to the family that employed him however, ran as fast as he could to the estate, claiming to his officers that he wished to scout the villa out for the traitorous militia before it arrived. Once there however, the soldier informed the resident Njarir of the imprending danger. Khrrah'nstar's parents made the immediate decision to flee and hastily gathered what small belonging they could before taking flight and leaving their home, driving as fast as they could along the coast in hopes of finding a ferry that would shepherd them northward to a place they could be safer. Krrah'nstar wept for hours after he saw the last glimpses of his home, his entire life being torn away from him, the things he enjoyed, the future he wanted, and the bed in which he slept. At that moment, as the roof of his home slipped beneath the horizon, sparking alight as it did, he  vowed to himself and his family that he would one day return home and reclaim his birthright to the land which his family once called theirs. After travelling for hours, the now disgraced noble family did indeed find a ferry and started out their new life in the north across the Ras'val Sea from where their roots lay.

Now destitute, the family had to work hard in a way that they were not used to. Khraah'nstar's father became a dockworker and his mother a housewife, the disgraced family now barely scraping by in a run down tenement apartment. They changed their surnames and habitually began to darken their fur with pitch to conceal their heritage, something they all detested but saw as essential to their survival. As the revolution came to an end however things quieted down some, but the family was still only barely getting by. Krrah'nstar once getting out of school and working as a carpenter, began to catch wind of an underground movement to one day restore the nobility to their rightful place. He was hopeful at first, but one day was confronted by an agent of this resistance movement to be a bit of an informant for them. Khraah'nstar jumped at this opportunity, and within a few years found himself as an agent of resistance, doing everything from vandalising the houses of low-level Hadiist officials to exposing scandals on magistrates to even assassinating a few party men, Khraah'nstar did anything he could do to hinder the nation and revolution he hated.

As the years went by, working as a carpenter by day and attending royalist meetings by night, Khraah'nstar met a woman, Bel'grnaa, a fellow Njarir in hiding and fellow member of the resistance. The two found companionship in their circumstance and truly found love with one another through the mutual lives of hiding who they truly were from the public eye, and eventually married. They moved into an apartment together, and considered settling down and pulling out of any sort of resistance activities to raise a family. This quickly changed in Khraah'nstar's mind however in the months leading up to the secession of the New Kingdom of Adhomai in 2450, a fire being ignited within him that burned brighter than ever in hopes of seeing a Njarir restoration. The secession was successful albeit violent, and given his experience as an "enforcer" of the Royalist resistance, Khraah'nstar found himself being contacted by the newly founded Royal Ministry of Intelligence wishing to recruit him as an agent with the purpose of "suppressing traitorous republican elements."

Khraah'nstar jumped at this decision, but was at first held back by his wife, Bel'grnaa, who was concerned with them not having added on to their noble line. Khraah'nstar made a compromise, that he would serve the Kingdom first, to protect himself and the possibility of his noble line, for ten years, after which he would begin to look after his family line more. Bel'grnaa reluctantly accepted this proposition, but supported her husband fully in it and form then on, Khraah'nstar became an RMI agent and devoted servant to the king, changing his middle name to Azunja to reflect this commitment to the royal dynasty. For the next decade then on, Khraah'nstar spent his time as an agent hunting down and killing ex-Republicanists in NKA territory and sometimes abroad in the PRA or DPRA all in service of the crown. He built on his skills he learned in the resistance, but eventually, ten years did indeed pass. He and his wife were still living in squalor and needed proper funding to really help themselves ascend to that noble place they so desired.

After the long-awaited Armistice of Shastar was signed among the Tajaran nations in 2461, the RMI announced that it would be expanding its operations to Biesel for intelligence gathering purposes. Khraah'nstar once again saw opportunity here, not only in serving the NKA still, but using the new area of Biesel to help get the money he needed to restore his family line of Astna'khan to its former glory and to reclaim his birthright as he promised himself he would all those years ago, something his wife also supported and saw as him making good on his commitment to their family. After negotiating with the RMI for a transfer to that new theatre, Khraah'nstar moved to Biesel and applied for a position with NanoTrasen as a corporate detective, hoping to apply his skills as best as he could in this role, as he had many that fit the requirements. He almost lept up from his chair and left the room during the job interview when he learned that he would be working with Tajara who could perhaps be republicanist, but he kept his cool, telling himself that "He is here to serve his family line, he has served the king first for ten years, so he will give information to the king; for the king, but he will protect his line and get money first. ...Even if its with republicanists."

NT, who was more than impressed with his skillset, gave him the job. Now as Khraah'nstar moves forwards in his life, he must stick true to his principles of serving his family line by working a steady & well-paying job, even at the cost of perhaps being forced to tolerate republicanist Tajara. His life has changed him, but he is now hoping to change his life and take control of the destiny, and perhaps dynasty, he sees as rightfully his.

 

What do you like about this character?

I adore the very principled nature of this character, how he has a concrete set of values that drive him in both helpful and harmful ways. He is pushed on to serve and do right by his family name, but also has a deep commitment to the royalist cause, and having to now balance the two of them by maybe doing actions that benefit one at the cost of the other is a great inner conflict in my opinion. He has gone through a lot in life, however I appreciate the resolve he has to keep going and to also stay true to his word and uphold the promises he makes to others. Despite the fact that he is a royal, he has lived in squalor for most of his life, so is not so arrogant as to think others are inferior to him just by their birth. He wishes to restore his line, not so he can boss others around, but because he feels it is what should be as the best thing for himself, his wife, potential children, and as a memorial to his ancestors and relatives that passed during the first revolution.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

8/10. I have a lot of experience in playing various tabletop games but also in different kinds of text and forum based RP. I have been on the Aurora for around six months now and have recently obtained and IPC whitelist which I have enjoyed greatly, but I want to expand my roleplaying ability more. I love the experiences I have had on the aurora so far and I hope to grow even more with the addition of this whitelist.

Notes:

Edited December 21, 2019 by TheBurninSherman
Edit #1: Spelling fixes on the family name in a few areas. Edit #2: Added dates in the backstory to make it easier to follow and match with the lore's timeline.

[Goret]

Sherman is a really good roleplayer and he contributed in giving back my will to play. This is the first time I post on a whitelist application, but he deserve it. else i might have resigned

About the character itself, I find it interesting to have the Njarir back. I haven't seen much these days, and I kind of miss the political tensions we used to have, sometimes.
I like the character, and I want to play with it. You have my +1

[Peppermint]

I kinda really wanna say -1, as I barely see Song these days and Dauphine is my new fav IPC to play with. So adding more characters to the mix would mean seeing them even less >.> .

 

But I think that says a lot about their ability and the enjoyment they bring to the community. A big plus one on roleplaying skill alone. I can't comment on the backstory itself, but the actual player is lovely and a brilliant roleplayer. 

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Sherman is a good roleplayer, very good. Despite playing a Njar*r I am eager to see what they do with the tajaran whitelist, and this application has my support.

[Alberyk]

Very good application, it uses the first revolution, the civil war and the peace, while giving a good reason on why the character is working with NT on Tau Ceti.

 

Application accepted.