[hider=Bragus Kargad][b]Name:[/b] [Bragus] Kargad [b]Species:[/b] Krogan [b]Sex:[/b] Male (quad for DAYS) [b]Age:[/b] 680 (babby krogie) [b]Profile:[/b] Adept: Only biotic powers, 2 weapons. [b]DOB:[/b] 1505 CE [b]Homeworld:[/b] Tuchanka [b]Appearance:[/b] Standing at 7’2”, and weighing somewhere in the area of 400 pounds (of pure scaly beefcake), Kargad is a monstrously built thing, with an admirably large hump between his shoulders and a leathery hide the shade of Macassar wood. Said hide culminates in a head-crest not dissimilar to a horny toad’s, and towards the very front, above his left eye, a distinct crack runs towards the centre ‘horn’, and then splits off about it before fading into the carapace. Despite his imposing build, he boasts green eyes, soft as a Krogan’s can be, a ridge of stony outcroppings from the chin in the likeness of a small beard, and lines about the corner of his mouth, ghosts of smiles and raucous laughter. [hider=Tuchunky Backstory][b]Background:[/b] [hider=Life Before Love]Kargad was born strong. For a Krogan, all that is needed to pass the Rite of Life is that you come out breathing... he came out screaming. Kicking. From the first heartbeat, he had been dissatisfied with merely [i]living.[/i] And it only went downhill from there. Although he was sturdy, and strong as a half dozen oxen [i]("what even IS an ox?"),[/i] which most Krogan would have been more than pleased with, Kargad was haunted by a hollowness in his chest. Even when it became apparent to the others in his brood that he'd been born biotic, destined for status in whichever clan he tried for- possibly even a battlemaster! - he couldn't bring himself to shake it. Life was... bleak. And without prospect. That passed, when a real fight kicked off, but only fleetingly. Only until quiet fell. And then he was just another Krogan, stood in the dust of their self-immolation. There had to be something [i]more.[/i] That was when it first struck him, late perhaps, that wave of... heat. Burning in the pit of his stomach, like a bullet fragmenting in his gut. Raw, primal, brutal anger. Yes. Yes this was [i]more.[/i] This was [i]anything but emptiness.[/i] Kargad gave himself to it. He became Krogan that year, and of Clan Bragus. The Bragus Rite of Passage involved fighting one's way down [i]The Strait,[/i] a long-dry canyon filled with the toothiest Tuchanka had to offer. The Bragus are trophy takers, after all - hunters for sport and prowess. The task was straightforwards, fight the entire river's length- a three-day trek on foot, alone in the wilderness- and return with the biggest trophy you can. The one catch being that you were expected to do it armed with just a melee weapon. For most, trophies were taken from an overgrown species of tawny canyon Varren. They weren't hard to come by, by day 3, but they grew to a good size and in close-combat stood a chance of dealing serious damage. No [i]shame[/i] in it. But Kargad didn't settle for shameless. He wanted glory. To do what nobody else ever had - and with his biotics, that was almost feasible. In Clan Urdnot, seldom few had taken down a Thresher Maw, with guns and allies on their side. In Clan Bragus, the Thresher Maw was undefeated. How does one fight a Maw with just a hammer? [i]"Tooth and nail."[/i] Part way through day two, Kargad killed and bagged himself a Varren. A fair size, an alright prize. But he'd set his sights higher. Since the first day, something had been dropping Klixen- fire bugs, nasty little things- on his head. Shortly after bagging his Varren, he'd started batting Klixen back upwards with his hammer. Whatever had been dropping them was huge, and fast - and only after he'd hit it, and it landed, did he realise it was a [i]Harvester.[/i] Shit. Kargad didn't stand a chance one-on-one, but he had the edge where it didn't. His biotics were an asset, but when combined with his hormonal Krogan rage, they brought the walls of the canyon down on the pair of them - pinning the Harvester, burying himself. He broke his way free with his hammer, and then put the writhing beast out of its misery with a blow to the head. The first Bragus to kill a Harvester in a couple of decades, no small feat... but not enough. Not yet. He dragged the thing by a broken wing the rest of the way, and once he broke the river's threshold, found himself staring into the dry wastes of an open, arid Tuchanka. And then he was screaming. He didn't even realise it, not really: not until he heard his own voice echoing out into silence. [i]"Come and get me, Thresher Maw!"[/i], he'd thrown the Harvester to the ground to show its worth, [i]"I am [b]Krogan![/b]"[/i] He called for an hour. Maybe several. Called until Clan Bragus came to get him, and- awkwardly- for a little while afterwards, too, until they shepherded him into their vehicle. Demanded a fight, for the Maw's honour, for his blood lust. But none ever came. Many Bragus had hidden from the Thresher Maw, but when he opted to stare it down by choice, there was... nothing. He lost his opportunity to carve his name into Tuchanka's history, and in completing his Rite, lost his drive, too. His anger waned when he was granted his new name. He learned to control it in Clan territory, and because he rarely left, eventually it diminished, save for those small traces a Krogan never loses. He settled into a routine, and became, for lack of a better word, a grunt. Killing off encroaching wildlife, occasionally scrapping with the other tribes. At around age one hundred, Kargad expressed an interest in being a Battlemaster: he was huge, strong, and a relatively gifted biotic, for a Krogan. But those he told either laughed him off for his inexperience, or told him grueling tales of inter-tribe warfare, political conflict he cared not for. There were few problems Kargad cared to deal with deceptively, and politics seemed all smoke and daggers. When he was two hundred- after a century of slowly becoming a valued member of Bragus' militia- the Clan Shaman approached. He said that although Kargad was inexperienced, his biotics, and his success in his Rite of Passage (although Kargad didn't consider it that) qualified him for consideration as a successor. Should he want to face Tuchanka again, many times, to clear the Rites of the Shaman, he would be accepted with warmth. [i]"No thanks, that sounds miserable."[/i] For the next two hundred years, Kargad continued his work as a lower-tier Bragus militiaman, without purpose. Perhaps pursuing the Shaman Rites would give him that same drive he had felt when his Rite of Passage had arrived... [/hider] Kargad was lost, until he found her. From the moment she caved his head in, he knew she was the one. A young krogan biotic, not yet 400 years old, Kargad was to be a Clan Bragus shaman – and he was fine with that, he supposed. He wasn’t [i]averse[/i] to the confrontational nature of the Krogan. He, too, felt the call to battle, blood and brotherhood. And he supposed, given his predisposition towards being [i]huge[/i] and [i]biotic,[/i] there was no reason not to chase the privilege and honour awarded to clan shamans for their service. Logically, it made sense. Emotionally, however, his heart simply wasn’t in it. Kargad craved battle, true, but near since birth he had craved it on other worlds. He had heard his elders, in their final days, wax lyrical as Krogan could about the Uprising. How they had seized beautiful worlds, of endless gardens and golden shores… and spilt enemy blood on them. [i]That[/i] was the legacy Kargad wanted to chase. Not Krogan glory- fun, ultimately self-destructive- but the sort of glory the Citadel Space races had seized with both hands. New worlds to fight and die for. But just as his heart wasn’t in his impending Shaman Rites, it also wasn’t in his leaving. He longed for the stars beyond Tuchanka, but knew there was no place in this galaxy for him. And then he met her. The woman that would nearly kill him. Revixtia was an Asari Huntress, and bodyguard to a visiting Matriarch, come to inquire about an off-planet Bragus clansman causing (massively destructive) mischief. In his short 400 year life, this was the first sight Kargad ever caught of aliens in the flesh. His curiosity overtook him, and he breached an unspoken border between himself and the clan’s visitors. Revixtia brought a biotic elbow down on his crest so hard, it cracked. So far as Kargad was concerned, it was love at first brutal, disfiguring injury. When he recovered, he knew he had to see her again. Purple skin, sharp eyes, and a punch like a megaton bomb. Finally, he had his motivation to leave Tuchanka: to buy the strongest, nastiest drink in whatever bar he found Revixtia in, and share it with her. And so he did. He left the following month, and made for the Citadel – although quickly found that he wasn’t welcome in the more photogenic areas, and ended up slumming it in the lower wards. For a year, he worked on-and-off as a mercenary – but found the work much more fulfilling than his life on Tuchanka, if not just because of the aesthetics. He joined a small private security business, made up more or less solely of Turians and Krogans, with a few humans on the administrative side. They were almost all ex-guns-for-hire, trying, slowly, to get back onto the straight and narrow. Kargad liked them well enough, although the Krogans thought him odd, and the Turians thought him too full-on. None minded having him on their side during a fight, however. During every job, he would ask his co-workers if they had ever encountered his beloved attacker, to no avail. That is until he was working a security detail at Chora’s Den, and she walked right in. He’d prepared himself for another scuffle, but she was there to collect information on another, and was primed to leave before he’d even gathered himself to talk to her. Admittedly, the second time she elbowed him in the face, he had it coming: it is a [i]little[/i] jarring to see a 7’2” Krogan charging across the bar at you, albeit, slightly less jarring than his asking you for a drink afterwards. So far as Kargad is concerned, that story was the start of his new life. Revixtia was his gateway to the galaxy. Once courting, the two were inseparable, and together travelled the Citadel worlds in search of adventure. She ignited in him that flame that had been half-kindled, the Krogan urge for glory and combat, but only when she was near. He had no will to return to Tuchanka, to pursue the path of a Shaman – he couldn’t afford to give up his name, because he wanted to give it to Revixtia. And he did. She showed him those distant garden worlds he’d longed for, and more than that. She didn’t just give his life substance, she gave it [i]meaning[/i]. Changed not only his environment, but his philosophy. Helped him [i][b]embrace eternity.[/b][/i] Melding with Revixtia started Kargad down the path of a new faith, not just in volleys of bullets and blood (although they both revelled in that), but in a universal oneness. The interconnection of all life, all things. He realised he had always been waiting for Revixtia, that they were meant to be. But his spiritual awakening truly came when their daughters were born. Twins. Every soul on Tuchanka prayed for twins, but for Asari it was almost effortless. Through the Asari, and their way of life- i.e. their predisposition towards [i]not[/i] nuking themselves back into the stone age- he found love, found meaning, and had beaten the genophage. By the time the Andromeda initiative had begun recruiting, their children were grown (enough) and both he and Revixtia were a couple hundred years wiser, although still naught but babes in the eyes of their races. They had always longed for adventure. Kargad had told Revixtia one thousand times, he longed for the conquering of the Krogan Uprising, without the moral evil. To set foot on worlds never seen before. [i]She[/i] signed them up for the project. It’s a shame she never got to see it. A year before cryo-freeze, Revixtia passed from a disease of the blood. Kargad was inconsolable. After risking his placement within the Initiative by instigating a bar-room brawl with an old security acquaintance trying to offer him comfort and recompense, he fell totally into despair. And then into Asari religion. He found peace again, but only in the fundamental idea of interconnectivity. That Revixtia was as much a part of him now as she had ever been, and that she was already waiting for him in Andromeda, as part of the great Oneness. His daughters had to carry him, bawling, up to their cryopods. But he felt one last thing, before he closed his eyes on the Milky Way for the last time. Peace. Following the Nexus Uprising, Kargad stuck around in order to improve the station for his daughters, still in deep-freeze. But he heard the wild calling to him. Once Ryder turned up, and brought with her new engineers, new supplies and new hope, he suspected it would only be a matter of time until the Nexus was thriving and would no longer need his help – so he signed up for APEX. The rest, as they say, is in the process of becoming history.[/hider] [b]Personality:[/b] Friends, family, guns and gore. Kargad is passionate, about [i]everything.[/i] He wants blood, and glory – to feel the heat of battle beneath the plates of his armour. But he also wants synergy, friendship, and to carve the Milky Way’s notch into Andromeda with his bare hands. So far as Kargad is concerned, anything worth doing is worth doing with every fibre of your being. Drink until you’re unmanageable, fight until you’re dead, and love until you make the Salarians feel stupid. Violence and love are both equally as valuable to him, an oddity: if you give him a concussion, there’s a weighty chance he’ll bring you flowers. Incidentally, Kargad has fallen hard into the hylozoic Asari faith, and he [i]will[/i] mention it. A lot. Like, incessantly. Crisis of confidence? All is one. Guilty kill? Part of the oneness now, brother. Finding the All is One philosophy changed Kargad's life. Although he remains a bloodthirsty brute, he sees his allies (not just other Bragus) as his sworn brothers, and his enemies as [i]begging[/i] to be reunited with the great consciousness. [b]Reason for being awoken from Cryo:[/b] Two-fold. Kargad was originally woken up from cryo sleep to fight off the mutineers, alongside many other krogan, and following that stuck around even after his comrades were spurned for their efforts, using his biotics and raw strength to try and help build a station worth his daughters’ investments. Whilst he feels, on some level, that he's betrayed his kind by remaining on the Nexus, he also feels his daughters- blue skin and tendrils aside- are as much a pair of Krogans as any other, and blood of his blood. And, ultimately, they're all expressions of the same cosmic thought - someday, he and every other Krogan will be one again. [b]Equipment:[/b] Kargad carries a mechanised Krogan Hammer on a magnetic grip left to the hump of his armour – made up of a coppery-looking alloy. Although still huge, it was designed for a slightly more petite krogan than he, so it always looks a little silly when he’s wielding it. Unless you’re on the other end, of course. Chained to the hilt of this hammer is an unfolding purple charm, shaped to resemble the silhouette of an Asari head – upon opening, it reveals a picture of Kargad and Revixtia, arm-wrestling in Chora’s Den to celebrate an anniversary. Kargad seems to be legitimately struggling. Written in small, polite handwriting, it reads [i]"Together in Eternity."[/i] On the other end of his hump, an M-96 Mattock assault rifle, plated with an earthier brown. On the side, in childish scrawl, [i]”Korbal”[/i] is written alongside [i]”Kargad’s krantt – pain killers, delivered fast and free.”[/i] The other side of the weapon boasts a smiley-face, drawn with about the same level of skill. Based on Heavy Onyx designs, Kargad’s armour is a charcoal-grey, heavy plated suit, with a houndstooth-weave reminiscent texturing across the steel. Beneath that, he wears a cross-hatch patterned padding. Designed to look as though the armour is held together by a series of belts (although in truth these are just designs carved into the steel), Kargad’s outfit is intended to be at least somewhat reminiscent of an Asari Commando’s gear. [b]Powers:[/b] [Biotics] [b]Charge[/b] - Krogan smash! [b]Pull[/b] - Get over here, so Krogan can smash you! [b]Throw[/b] - Krogan smash you against that thing over there! [b]Shockwave[/b] - Krogan smash ALL OF YOU. [b]Nova[/b] - SMAAASH[/hider]