Race application - Tajara

[SooshyFish]

BYOND Key: 8BitBento

Character Names: Regi Gardner - Human Custodian

Species you are applying to play: Tajara - Zhan-Khazan

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Dark-Chocolate first, if not then Dark Gray. RGB of the dark chocolate is unclear, a tad lower than the 94, 38, 18. RGB of the Dark Gray would be the basic 30, 30, 30, possibly tuned down to 28, 28, 28 if possible.

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, a few times through now, and I'm still reading it even in the midst of filling this out. I admit if I was tested on it my head may explode, but I'm reading up over and over to cement all the lore and knowledge in order to try and play out the race as best I can. I have focused in the most on the Zhan-Khazan, since they're the subspecies that I would like to play out the most, but I am reading up on all of them just to be clearer on each of them.

 

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: I think their society and history is fascinating, and their physiology is intriguing, having adapted to deal with a harshly cold environment. The Zhan-Khazan in particular interest me due to old love of bulkier characters from DnD, such as Orcs or Half-Orcs. The new joy with Zhan-Khazan pushes past that, with an interest in how they're seen as the "workforce" subspecies, and to some degree may not be seen to amount to much past menial labor. Despite the restrictions to not being any head of staff I think it would be interesting to play out a Zhan-Khazan who would become well respected within his job field, not necessarily as a leader, but just as a reliable and hard worker.

I do also find a fun story point of working on Aurora being a sort of escape for the Tajara, at least for some of them, with the warring that plagues their planet or cities.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: A few of the major mechanical differences would be the Tajara as a whole deal with cold better, but are more susceptible to heat, and their disability to wearing shoes or gloves. Another mechanical change would be their ability to see better in darker environments, which could help in the event of a blackout or light outage, or even just during casual rounds through the maintenance tunnels or corridors.

Another thing to keep in mind as far as the physical aspects of Tajara versus Humans is concerned would be their ears and tails. You'd have to keep in mind that these appendages exist and operate differently than other races, such as a tail swishing with the rise of excitement, or ears folding down in cases of fear or anger. You could even rp these body motions down to whiskers or ears twitching in the event of certain changes in the environment like sounds, smells, or even just air pressure changing.

As far as finer points of rp go, Tajara have different speaking patterns and mannerisms to humans in a large majority of cases, such as referring to themselves in Third person, or to others as He/She/Him/Her. An example would be a goodbye between a human and Tajara going something like "Alright catch ya later! Hope you have a nice day." "He hopes the same for you." Another vocal pattern would be rolling, or extending, R's in their speech, such as hard becoming "harrd". While these traits can be overcome, and exceptions always exist, these are the base majorities, especially for a Zhan-Khazan.

All in all the biggest change in RP, specifically for a Zhan-Khazan, from a human character, would be their place in Tajara Society. The Zhan-Khazan specifically have a rough history within the Tajara, and despite best efforts stereotypes would still exist strongly in some other Tajara, or even other races as a whole who may know of Zhan-Khazan being the "workhorses" of Tajara society.

 

Character Name: Tazi Matve'Ravi

Please provide a short backstory for this character: 

The Matve family traces back hundreds of years, coming up in their own records around 583 CE, though by no means did their lineage stand out. Most of the families that existed during these periods were simple, keeping heads down and hardworking for fear of the repercussions. They led simple and easy enough lives up until 2421 CE, when parts of the lineage took up arms and attempted to help the rebellion against the nobility. The 'Ravi had members all along the frontlines, with some helping to move supplies between groups. After these uprisings, the Matve lineage fell into their heavy obscurity once again, but with the coming of the second revolution, they took up arms once again, doing what they felt was "their part" to help fight against oppression. 

It was in the middle, that short span of "peace" wherein Tazi was born. He was a basic child, no outstanding qualities past being slightly bigger than his siblings, but still jammed into being the 7th, with 4 brothers and 2 sisters ahead of him. His family was happy enough, despite their place in society. Even from a young age Tazi worked as hard as he could, both to help keep his family under the radar and safe, to pull his own weight within the family, and to try and stand out over his siblings. This isn't to say Tazi is competitive, but something about seeing the history of the Zhan-Khazan fuels him to push harder than most others, to try and be the best worker he possibly can be. And so that was it for his childhood, hard work, happy moments of peace in what little downtime the family had, and curious looks as his father talked with the rest of the Matve families about what the "rebels might try next".

It wasn't until Tazi was 13 that he realized what his father had talked with the other families about. The Matve families had made the journey to support the president, and during the parade the president was killed. The situation seemed surreal. It was a split second, but the crowd had erupted into chaos, some screaming to leave in fear, some screaming in anger, and even some screaming in support of the killing. What scraps of family history Tazi had learned made sense now. The nobility had sections of the people under their foot, and the ones underfoot had had enough. With the new President's passing of laws targeting violence caused by Zhan-Khazan, the Matve as a whole felt it was time to move as best they could, so the family tried to push their children into the universities that the Hairless men had helped create, and prepared to find work elsewhere.

Not much later, Tazi and his siblings, save his eldest brother and sister, shuffled aboard a shuttle with weird hairless men running it, and sat in with other cousins from some of the other Matve families. They were being shipped off to work on a whole new world. Their father didn't have much info for them, and Tazi was hurt to see his family gone, but a small part of him was excited to be leaving. The shuttle boarded a larger craft, and then that craft made it to a new world, with them being offloaded and taken to an area called District 6 by the hairless men. It was small and unassuming, but there were at least other Tajara here. Over time Tazi took as much work as he could get, and helped to see the construction of newer buildings for the District, now being called Little Adhomai by locals. Despite a cozy feeling, the district as a whole saw a rampant increase in crime, and Tazi worked harder and harder each day to just keep his head down and out of the issues. Soon enough it came to light that some of the fights were due to local Zhan-Khazan lashing out at those who sought to push the agenda of the nobility, despite having left the homeworld. Deep down Tazi felt as though these rioters and protesters were right, but still openly supported the PRA, if only to secure work and be off planet as much as possible. Tazi managed to be selected for menial labor aboard a few of the stations in Tau Ceti, and felt pride that he had made it, to be chosen for opportunity. 

In some degree, this was Tazi's rebellion. He didn't want to risk harming his family's reputation, even lightyears away. So as always, he buckles down, and works hard, to push himself to being the best he can. Maybe in that way, he can stick it to the nobility who had kept his family under their boot for so long.

 

What do you like about this character?: I like Tazi on the grounds of being simple. He's not actively violent, though he's also not willing to just sit there and take crap from the general public just for who he is. He openly supports the PRA, and feels that their efforts to push down the bad history of Adhomai is admirable, but still grimaces and grumbles about how Zhan-Khazan are treated in general. All in all he's just a hard-working simple guy, willing to be friendly to those who extend that same courtesy to him. Typically he keeps to himself, just due to that upbringing of keeping his head down and working to avoid punishment, but among friends he'll open up and smile more, and he keeps up to date with what's happening in Little Adhomai and on the homeworld in what little spare time he has.

It's nice to set up and hopefully play something basic, but that still has opportunity for layers, and the appeal of the societal differences that could come up between him and Njarir'Akhran Tajara on the station would be fun I think. Get to play out that tense air of needing each other to keep the station running, but still not really liking each other. It just seems like a fun experience in general.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?: I don't know that I would place it too high, as there is always room for improvement and ADHD can leave me a bit scattered some days, but years of D&D and other forum and game based RP has helped build a solid skillset.

I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 that my ability would be around 6 or 7. Solid, but definitely always room for improvement.

 

Notes: If anything within his backstory as far as the history is concerned is an overstep please let me know, and I'll remedy or remove it as need be.

I want the air of him to be that he works hard and fits the stereotype of most Zhan-Khazan, but privately dislikes the societal history between Zhan-Khazan and nobility. On the surface he'll support the PRA, but dislikes the nobility for what they've done to his species, which is mostly built on what he's seen in Little Adhomai and stories from his father, BUT he's not really sure he can stand with the Democratic Republic, especially after being shipped offworld and getting to see more of the galaxy.

So as far as choosing a side in the 3 he's with PRA, but it's a sort of lesser of 3 evils style.

[SooshyFish]

Just to clear it up as far as his involvement in conflict, it laid more on his parents than him specifically. Members of the Matve lineage, and even parts of the 'Ravi family, were actively involved in riots or uprisings throughout Adhomai nobility, standing to rebel against Zhan-Khazan oppression at each major point. 

Tazi himself participated in a few skirmishes here and there, but it was more to defend himself or his family than outright fight. His father did as much as he could to keep the 'Ravi family safe. 

Little Adhomai however is a slightly different story, with Tazi having been caught up in multiple riots, either on his way to or from a job, or home for a short nap.

His choice to come to Tau Ceti was more being caught in the flow. Most of the 'Ravi children were shipped out to work for NanoTrasen, and then Tazi managed to get work aboard stations with menial labor, eventually ending up at Aurora.

[Alberyk]

A couple of questions before I make a decision:

-Does Tazi follow any of the Adhomian religions? And if so, which one?

-While I get the nobility part, a lot of the second civil war was also related to the Adhomai Liberation Army, how does Tazi sees them and the DPRA?

-What job do you plan to play this character as?

[SooshyFish]

3 hours ago, Alberyk said:

A couple of questions before I make a decision:

-Does Tazi follow any of the Adhomian religions? And if so, which one?

-While I get the nobility part, a lot of the second civil war was also related to the Adhomai Liberation Army, how does Tazi sees them and the DPRA?

-What job do you plan to play this character as?

Right, sorry.

 

1. He's not overly devout or zealous in any way, but he, along with a mass of both the 'Ravi family and the Matve lineage worship Mata'ke. 

2. It's tricky with him on DPRA, and even from an OOC side I wrestled with the decision on which side to follow. But for Tazi, he does stand that their purpose for fighting is understandable, but dislikes that they would go to such lengths to fight against outside influence or the governmental changes. That said, Tazi feels that while no, NanoTrasen buying up Tajara for working isn't the best, it can still be an opportunity, both for personal growth, and for helping his family. So while he can understand DPRA to an extent, he can't say he stands with them.

3. An Engineer if possible. That's what's been the most fun for me so far, and it would fit well to the background of him having helped with construction projects in District 6.

[Alberyk]

I am satisfied with the application and the answers.

Application accepted.