Aphelions stinky lizard application

[Aphelion]

BYOND Key: 1062 Aphelion

 

Character Names: A broad mix of characters. Though to name my recent three most common:

Yul Sybilla (a farmer from Vysoka who somehow wound up in space)

Eva Jotunheimr (Scarab lady)

and SCC.PX6 'pete' (Unwaveringly loyal robot)

 

Species you are applying to play: Unathi

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Green.

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes

 

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: 

Who's the stinky lizzo? It's me! I'm the stinky lizzo!

Though really, I like Unathi, their bombed to hell world of Moghes provides opportunity for interesting characters. I'm particularly interested in the political persecution around Si'ahk, and that whole belief structure is facinating. Post-apocalyptic religions that are built around guilt are really cool, especially when they're the result of alien ideologies that have formed as a result of interaction with humans. On top of this, I understand it's a bit of a meme, but the green janitor unathi is just a favourite stereotype that I would want to fulfil but make real based on a reasonable investment in the lore. 

 

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

Unathi are a tortured race, who's spiritual beliefs and society has been harmed and moulded by foreign powers. They are torn constantly between spiritualism, conservative feudalism, piracy, and progressive sects, all built on top of layers and layers of how each of their cultures intermingle. I think it would be a fairly big stretch to try and write a human who grew up on a world cooked in nuclear fire under a hegemony, who wound up believing an illegal but totally valid conclusion of their faith, resulting in them being considered a total undesirable that would be better off dead. Maybe the closest I could get would be Martian, but it would still not be the same, because Unathi are very tough and big lizard monsters, famous for their strength and savagery that no other species really represents in the lore.

 

Character Name: Khetchzi Guwan

 

Please provide a short backstory for this character (Approximately two paragraphs)

Khetchzi Ekriskor was hatched in Baandr in the year 2444, as the contact war was in it's prime, early life was pocked with terror and hatred for all those outside of the Itzweki clan, one of his earliest memories is being six, just after the war ended, and needing to walk with his family for three weeks, on sparse food, desperate to get to S'th out of fear of radioactive downdrift reaching Baandr over the mountains. On arriving in S'th, they found that there was still very little food, his parents both rationed for themselves to feed him and his two sisters. Nothing would be stable, but there were several brief years of what felt like stability in S'th growing up, the economy improving and attending a school of sorts before his father managed to get Khetchzi and his sisters apprenticeships.

Ketchzi's apprenticeship was with the Merchant's Guild and led to more long journeys across Moghez, and even off-world once or twice, through hard work he slowly grew and learned more of the world and the terrible thing that destroyed it. Most attempts at trading outside of Izweki were extremely profitable; they could bring canned fish from the Mogrhesian Sea and trade it for rare metals and fabrics to the starving isolated colonies of the ruined wastelands. With the right protection it was always a profitable venture, and soon Ketchzi could purchase full guild membership. 

 

Ketchzi had pride, and a reasonable amount of wealth, eventually he was granted leadership over a trading party traveling deep into the wastes to crawler Hu'maz under the belief that 'the deeper you go, the better the trade'. This journey was immense, however. He and the party found themselves passing through ruins along the way, the Thas'Karum ruins, it was here that the party met preachers of the Si'ahk faith. At first, they simply believed them to be preachers, but on camping under the shelter of ruined buildings, the preachers told them of the terrible sins of the old world, and how the nuclear fire that enveloped Moghes was the final judgment by Sk'Akh for all the evil, and that they must all beg forgiveness. Offended by them and their antics Ketchzi told them they were crazy, and forced his party to get them to leave.

Things on the journey worsened after that, Ketchzi's party was raided by Gawgaryn, and lost three members, they found themselves getting flat tires, engine failures, and leaks for the whole journey. On arriving at the landcrawler, to their dismay, they found themselves trading for food from it, which, for some reason, had plenty. The great test to Ketchzi's command abilities versus the difficulties of the wastes had led him to a miserable state, he just saw more ruin and famine wherever he looked and could not help but think 'why would we have done this to ourselves'. He took the defeated trading caravan back to S'th, on the way encountering the preachers again. Seeing the terrible way Moghes was in, and feeling hopeless, he listened to them, and shared water with the fire-priests, bringing them back to Izewski and learning their beliefs in depth. Soon he came to terms with the fact that the only way to really save himself and other Unathi would be to throw themselves before Sk'akh and beg for forgiveness. He made it his mission to bring the priests into Izweki.

 

Things got worse on arriving in S'th. Party members were disappointed with Ketchzi and reported him for his failure to properly lead. What's more, bringing fire priests to S'th and helping them integrate, it outraged a few members of the guild. Rather suddenly Ketchzi found himself stripped of guild membership, and labeled as Guwan. However as he became more convinced of Si'ahk beliefs he became more sure that he didn't want the riches of trade, and in fact, was comfortable being a Guwan. But to avoid violence he came to terms with the fact, he would be safest away from Moghes, this led him to eventually stowing away on a Tarwa ship, paying them the last valuables he had to travel to Mictlan, in Vezdukh.

From Vezdukh he pursued small ways of life to make as little money as could be made to get food for eating. This led him into simple custodian work for various corporations, until he eventually fell in with Nanotrasen, and the SCC as a janitor, getting transferred to the Horizon.

 

 

What do you like about this character? 

Monk like custodian lizard man who eats raw meat out of spiritual need who is consumed by piety and is hated by his homeland for his beliefs, what's not to like? 

I feel like he has a reasonable amount of conflict and knowledge about the world, the crisis of faith backing his beliefs and the terrible truth of Moghez pushing him towards Si'ahk even further, and towards being alienated by his own people, is just really fun to play. He essentially just lives to beg forgiveness for the sins of his elders and mops the station. He's not a grand pirate, or a big figure who has any importance at all readlly, but more of a meek unathi who has fled into a strange place, to maintain his beliefs in peace.

 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

6/10

Slow typing, and occasionally I break character for a bit of fun. But most of my characters are backed by at least a solid concept that drives them to be roleplayed well, and I enjoy getting invested in RP.

 

Notes:

Sorry if I let his backstory get too long. I tried to make it briefer towards the end. I really felt that the crisis of faith and downfall to Guwan was important to his story though.

[RustingWithYou]

Hi, thanks for applying.

A few notes - merely faiing as a merchant might be enough to get Khetchzi kicked out of the guild, but it wouldn't be enough to get him named Guwan on its own. Being made Guwan is a criminal punishment that's generally reserved for fairly serious crimes - the listed wiki examples are theft, assault, piracy and murder.

A much more minor thing, the Tarwa Conglomerate don't really operate in Uueoa-Esa or run smuggling operations - the Shortclaw Clan could be a potential alternative organisation, or a generic non-Unathi smuggler. That being said, this backstory is tied into a lot of different elements of Unathi lore, which I do like.

An extremely minor note is that the name sounds kind of off for an Unathi - the 'ch' sound isn't something that really appears a lot in Unathi language.

All that being said, I love to see Si'akh characters and I like the core concept here. Some questions relating to this character:

1. As a former merchant himself, how does he view the recent bankruptcy of the Merchants' Guild?

2. He currently lives in the Free City of Vezdukh - how does he view the ongoing struggles on Mictlan/the Corporate Reconstruction Zone in general? Does he have sympathy for one of the sides in the ongoing conflict, or does he prefer to remain out of it like many of the Unathi on Mictlan?

3. What are his thoughts on the Hegemony as an institution as someone following a faith ideologically opposed to it in a lot of ways - especially with recent events such as the civil war, the expansion of Hephaestus, and the end of rationing?

4. Did Khetchzi arrive on Mictlan before or after it joined the Republic of Biesel? If before, how does he view the Sol Alliance, which he would have briefly lived under? If after, is he a Biesel citizen and how did he go about getting that if so?

Edited September 29, 2023 by RustingWithYou
extra question

[Aphelion]

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

A few notes - merely faiing as a merchant might be enough to get Khetchzi kicked out of the guild, but it wouldn't be enough to get him named Guwan on its own. Being made Guwan is a criminal punishment that's generally reserved for fairly serious crimes - the listed wiki examples are theft, assault, piracy and murder.

This is an error on my part. I read about Si'akh discrimination, and assumed that helping Si'akh get into the city would have made him Guwan by collaborating with undesirables. However, on further reading, I see that is wrong, and that he would only become a Guwan if he were to aid Aut'akh, if any religious entity. 

Ketchi Ekriskor would not be a Guwan, in this circumstance, my mistake. Would it be possible for me to expand on the story, and have the merchants working in his party lie on returning to S'th? And accuse him of murder for the deaths during the raid, due to their anger at him associating and inviting Si'akh to come with the party/ leading them on a huge waste of time?

If not I would be willing to concede and say he is not Guwan, but just a peasant.

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

A much more minor thing, the Tarwa Conglomerate don't really operate in Uueoa-Esa or run smuggling operations - the Shortclaw Clan could be a potential alternative organisation, or a generic non-Unathi smuggler. That being said, this backstory is tied into a lot of different elements of Unathi lore, which I do like.

My bad, again. I wanted the Tarwa association for the sake of interaction with them when they dock. I would be willing to change this part of the story, after the trade caravan and it's failures, he felt like a failure and wanted to leave Moghes. In spite of his Si'akh beliefs they were not enough for him to accept his suffering at face value, and he left on a corporate shuttle, when available.

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

An extremely minor note is that the name sounds kind of off for an Unathi - the 'ch' sound isn't something that really appears a lot in Unathi language.

I see. What if I changed it to Ketckzi? 

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

As a former merchant himself, how does he view the recent bankruptcy of the Merchants' Guild?

If pressed about the merchant guild, and why he left, instead of explaining the deaths of merchants in his party, or the attempt at bringing food halfway across the world, he points to the economic collapse, and tells people that "It was bound to fail" and "I got out while I still had something to leave with" in reference to his few riches remaining paying his way off-world.

He does think interstellar corporations played a role in the downfall of the merchant's guild, and internally believes that a corporation is how their target for the trade ended up already having plentiful food when his party arrived, but does not run around accusing them of destroying Moghes. Under his Si'akh beliefs he thinks that it is all just dressing and circumstance for the punishment that he deserves as one of the spirits left behind after the apocalypse, and holds no major grudge against any specific company. (but maybe as an antag gimick, him finding out Hephaestus was actually, totally responsible would lead to him seeking revenge)

 

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

He currently lives in the Free City of Vezdukh - how does he view the ongoing struggles on Mictlan/the Corporate Reconstruction Zone in general? Does he have sympathy for one of the sides in the ongoing conflict, or does he prefer to remain out of it like many of the Unathi on Mictlan?

He dislikes, and does not support the events happenning throughout the corporate reconstruction zone. If asked about it he will use it as an opportunity to prosletyze and say it confirms his beliefs that he only lives to suffer with all the other sinful souls. But during the peacekeeper mandate, he did know of quite a few Samaritans that he chose not to inform any authorities about.

He sympathizes with the Samaritans, and views them in the same light that he views many faiths and unfortunate people who have their hearts in the right place. But he does not fight for either party, and widely views the actions of corporations and politicians, and other powerful entities as 'acts of god' that come about from fate, on opposed to actual decisions.

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

What are his thoughts on the Hegemony as an institution as someone following a faith ideologically opposed to it in a lot of ways - especially with recent events such as the civil war, the expansion of Hephaestus, and the end of rationing?

 

He does not like the Hegemony but cares about the fate of people within it. Even though he is guwan (may not be anymore), he still has family in Izweski and though they don't share his beliefs, wants them to live well.

He thinks that the outcome of the civil war was ultimately bad. If the Hegemon did lose power through it, then suffering would have been alleviated, in his mind, and during the famine he would use it to argue Not'zar's incompetence.

While the famines were ongoing, he would tell people "ThisSs iss what they get. they should have eaten the meat RAW. All thiss cooking, and eggssss. They were assking for a famine". taking the situation as another chance to prosletyze, at least, in the company of those he knew would not react violently to his criticism of the Izweski. He is glad that the rationing is ending, however. Even though he knows his family are all sinners, he doesn't want them to suffer.

As for the expansion of Hephaestus and ultimate cause of the end of famine, he thinks that it's proof that there are more Ski'akh underground movements within the Hegemony than people are aware of, and that the combined belief is leading to less suffering for Moghes. This is pure speculation on his part.

 

 

On 30/09/2023 at 05:43, RustingWithYou said:

Did Khetchzi arrive on Mictlan before or after it joined the Republic of Biesel? If before, how does he view the Sol Alliance, which he would have briefly lived under? If after, is he a Biesel citizen and how did he go about getting that if so?

After, he arrived late 63, just as demonstations by the peacekeeper mandates were starting. He took this as more confirmation, everyone is here to suffer for their sins.

He has a work visa with Biesel, though he traveled there on a tourist visa. He is hoping to apply for citizenship as soon as he can, which is going to be in November. 

[RustingWithYou]

Yeah - having him be framed, or just keeping him as non-Guwan is good, and the other changes are all fine. With these responses in mind, I'm more than happy to accept this application.