Rosalinda la Punaise rescuing a Burmy from a dungeon
Pokémon Species: Scolipede
Nickname: Lady Rosalinda la Punaise (or just Rose to her friends or anyone who refuses to use her full name (which is basically everyone because its a pretentious mouthful))
Types:Bug-Poison
Desired Rank: Ace
Notable features: Carries a sword made from a scyther’s blade, and wears a set of courier saddlebags (that come from her side job, and which generally hold provisions when she’s doing her main profession) that also includes a scabbard for her weapon.
Personality:
Rose is a bit uptight, prideful and pompous all things considered, while also being very by the book. That book being one on chivalry. As a result she is also kind, generous and polite to a fault, leading to an odd mix of hard edges and a soft center.
She is unflappably brave and gallant and is a stickler for honor. She refuses to lie and finds deception and trickery abhorrent (while also being rather susceptible to them). She hates bullies and will shove herself into confrontations no matter how wise that might be. She also hates unfair fights, and has been known to hobble herself to ensure that a battle is an even one.
History:
Rose was born to a family of self styled bug knights, who claim a long and fruitful legacy dating back all the way to when Irenia still stood, though a lack of any actual historical texts or data means that only the family's oral tradition is the only evidence of this fact. Still, while their ancient history might be in question, the Punaise family do have a well earned more recent reputation as skilled warriors of the blade. Which made Rose’s father(Malcolinus)’s decision to follow his heart and marry his mother (Elise, whom he met after the woman performed a rather daring delivery of much needed supplies to his party while they were in middle of a battle) a somewhat conscientious one, considering the fact that their children lack the blades of their father, let alone hands to wield artificial ones with.
Still, despite this natural born disadvantage, and the disinterest/failure of her older brother(Joscelin) and sister(Emblema) to take up the blade, Rose has done everything she can to embrace her knightly heritage, up to and including rejecting her poisonous nature as a dishonorable form of combat. When she was young the sight of a Venipede attempting to learn how to wield a wooden training sword earned her the mockery that drove her older siblings from her path, but Rose soldier on regardless and was rewarded when it turned out that a Whirlipede rolling at you while holding a sword is actually rather dangerous. Like a runaway chariot wheel coming for your shins.
Just when she was getting the hang of things, however, tragedy struck when one day her father left on a secretive quest with a few other members of her family, and then never returned. The loss struck Rose hard, and for a time she fell off the path to knighthood, first relying on her family while stuck in a bout of depression, and then, once fully evolved, bitterly joining her siblings profession, namly as members of her mother’s courier service, to help make ends meet.
It was only months later, when she followed rumors to find one of the mon (a Galvantula spearmaster named Fenri) who had been father’s band living in self imposed solitude in a cave in the mountains, that her fervor returned. Though Fenri would not speak of what had occurred at first, Rose kept badgering him until she eventually got him to admit his guilt, and the reason for his exile. The band of knights had come under attack by a mysterious foe who fought with overwhelming power shrouded in smoke and darkness. Standing thorax to thorax they fought a valiant yet losing battle against the darkness, but in the end Fenri’s nerve broke when he lost contact with the others in the smoke, causing him to flee for his life, abandoning her father and the rest of the mon to their unknown, but most likely grim, fates while Fenri barely escaped with his life.
Following the shamed mon’s directions to the site of the battle, and ignoring his warnings, she descended into a mystery dungeon, seeking her father. Whatever danger had struck the cadre of knights within seemed to have vanished, along with the knights themselves. The only trace she found of them was one of her father’s blades, embedded into a stone and surrounded by a burnt out field.
Yet danger still remained despite the disappearance of her father’s foes. Enough at least to threaten the out of practice young knight and, having lost her own she was forced to use her father’s blade to escape the dungeon. Having unwillingly used it at first, once it had saved her life her opinion of using the unsavory blade changed. She fashioned the blades into a proper weapon and vowed that she would never again lay down the sword till she found what had become of her father, before returning to Fenri’s cave and demanding he continue her training in her father’s stead.
Years have passed since that day, and the young woman has grown into the very image of the knight her father always wanted her to be, who braves the dangers and depths of the world to save others and seek the truth. The money she gets that helps grow her family’s courier business doesn't hurt either.
Strengths:
As befitting a knight who is her own horse, Rose is strong, tough and fast. Her heavy chitin is tough as steel, while her four legs can carry her at breakneck speeds and let her move with surprising agility despite her size and weight. She’s also capable of curling up into a ball like a pillbug, either for increased defense or a devastating rolling attack.
Rose’s most notable strength however, which sets her apart from her kind, is her sword. Fashioned from one of her father’s blades she holds the sword’s handle sideways with her mouth, wielding it a highly unorthodox yet deadly style, putting her entire body weight behind heavy blows or dexterously parrying and countering swifter opponents.
While using her horns (front and back) and ‘hooves’ in combat is not out of the question, as a knight she considers poison to be dishonorable, and as such never uses her neck spines in combat. Indeed, said spines have been filed down as a commitment to this ideal, and are as a result entirely blunt.
Rose generally gets stronger as the fight goes on, with her blade striking harder with each slash as she dances from blow to blow, each strike swifter and stronger than the last. When badly wounded, she can reach inside herself and find additional power to win the day as she ‘stops holding back’ and delivers some truly titanic blows.
Reputation wise she is known for being straightforward, reliable and is known for taking on jobs for less than they are worth if it's for a good cause. Connections wise, her mother and two siblings run a local courier service, transporting goods from town to town (and sometimes to parties mid adventure, though these days that is mostly Rose’s job) quickly and safely. All three of them are proud of her, though they do wish she’d stop undercharging for her knightly services.
Her extended family meanwhile are well renowned knights who can be found across the land, though her relationship with many of them is a touch strained due to their reaction to her father’s marriage to her mother. There are a few exceptions: the only member of her party to return (a Galvantula named Fenri) is one, having helped continue her training after her father disappeared, and a few of her younger cousins aren't old enough to remember, or simply don't care about, the family drama dividing Rose’s little branch of the family from the rest.
Weaknesses:
Rose has a strict code of honor as a knight, and abhors deception, trickery, lies and all things dishonorable. The ethics side of things do not particularly clash with her chosen profession, other than her refusal to tell even the whitest of lies sometimes making her come off as blunt, but when it comes to combat her refusal to use her natural poisons is considered wasteful by some and downright negligent by others. It also results in her lacking in ranged options, though with her speed the enemy is never going to be at range for long.
Her vows to protect others come first, of course, but it would take a great deal to get the knight to embrace her toxic nature (and if she did she would be incredibly bad at using it). On the other side of things, she will often insist on ensuring her opponents have a fair fight, and refuses to use, and becomes outraged by, underhanded tactics. She has, as a result, something of a weakness to dark type’s strategies.
More generally, she has trouble hurting a lot of types with her biological blade and though most of those can be taken down with a good kicking she has a lot of trouble even hurting steel and ghost types. She doesn't exactly have a lot of good offensive advantages either with her limited set of bug and normal moves. She also has nothing to handle fliers, teleporters or speedsters who stay at range, and her biological armor doesn't stand up well to fire.
Learning to understand what she is saying while talking through the sword is a skill in and off itself, so she doesn't make a particularly good shot caller in the heat of battle.
She has a mixed relationship with her extended family, many who see her as the shiny wooloo of the family, more so even than those who have simply abandoned their knightly ways, due to her being emblematic of her fathers ‘poor’ choice in partner and her mouth based sword wielding being considered an insult to their fighting discipline.
Greatest Fear:
Rose is scared of losing anyone else, which can make her rather overprotective, sometimes to a detrimental degree, of those she is close to. While protection is part of her shtick, sometimes you don’t want a mass of chitne throwing itself in your way, especially if she is already hurting badly or is stopping you from dealing with a problem.
More directly, she is deathly afraid of fire, both due to her natural weakness and because it was likely her fathers’ end.
