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Xandrya
Name: Quarel
Age: 20
Class: Bandit – an offshoot of the Thief class, oftentimes called ‘Thug’, based more on open fighting using short blades and fisticuffs than sneaking and stealing. Bandits typically rely on numbers, teamwork, resourcefulness, and dirty fighting to make up for a lack of distinctive offensive or defensive power in combat, but they do tend to command high mobility
Race: Strigiforme - a race of anthropomorphic owls with no wings. While possessing a degree of intelligence greater than humans on average, strigiformes are far less social. They possess most natural abilities of owls, including excellent hearing and eyesight (including night vision), the ability to turn their necks 270 degrees, lightweight bodies, deadly talons, and making almost no noise when moving. They exhibit sexual dimorphism; that is, females are slightly larger than males on average. However, they also possess the dexterity of humans and, somewhat strangely, human mouths. A strigiforme's beak is essentially its nose, and one's actual mouth is completely hidden below the beak. Depending on the an individual strigiforme's plumage, the bottom of the facial disk is often the upper lip and the beginning of the ordinary plumage is the lower lip. With human teeth, if a little sharper to support their carnivorous diets, and a human tongue, strigiformes are capable of speech, with the noise exiting through their beaks. Because of this, strigiformes are emotive but not expressive, relying on their eyebrow tufts to convey their feelings. That said, they can bare their teeth in a smile or grimace, but the sheer creepiness of how it looks has made it suitable for intimidation only
Reputation: There is an innate irony in being a bird, physically designed for the skies, yet being unable to fly. Ostriches and penguins might not care, but the strigiformes of the murky and expansive Velvet Wood feel that pain keenly—perhaps that is why they as a people tend to be grim and moody. Keeping mostly to itself, this owl-like people can seldom be found outside its ancestral homeland, and to this rule Quarel is an exception. He was not, by any means, discontent with life in his little nation. Being keen and crafty learners, after all, the Strigiformes boasted society just as advanced (if a little more reserved) as, and in their opinion better than, the world’s humans. All the same, he felt stifled by the Wood’s eternal twilight, for he found no appreciation and little consideration. The irresponsible and fun-loving child he was then pushed his more serious parents and five older sisters away from him, and he began to loathe himself for being what he thought was repellent. In his teenage years informed his parents and sisters that he would be leaving to see what the outside world had to offer, and soonafter joined a caravan to leave the Velvet Wood behind. He took with him one set of clothes, a sack of provisions, and two special knives stolen from the collection of his father, who had once been a soldier, as a reminder of all he left behind.
Things did not go as planned. The caravan leader, who by bad luck was a man who’d loved but been denied Quarel’s mother many years ago, decided to take revenge against his enemy’s child by moving the caravan on while Quarel slept during the day. When he woke, he was alone in a grassy prairie. Beside himself with fury, Quarel came to blame himself, and with nowhere to go he started walking until, miserable as could be, he stumbled upon a town. It had no hospitality to offer him, and he took this, too, to heart. In the couple of months he spent in this environment, the last of his childlike energy seeped away, and he grew up to be sardonic and spiteful.
His barbed words ended up picked a fight with a local thug, and using what training he could muster from his lessons with his father, Quarel pummeled and cut the brute until he lay unconscious. With nobody to stop him he took all the man had on him as a victor’s spoils, and the feeling that followed elated Quarel like nothing else had. He had no friends, no connections, no charisma, and no conventional talents, but he had his knives and his wits. Preying on the weak, he knew, would leave him with an awful taste in his mouth, but there was plenty of scum nobody would weep for. With this in mind, Quarel found directions to Axel and ventured there to make it big, unaware that he was being followed.
No sooner had he arrived in the city than he found himself embroiled in conflict. The man who tailed him, the very same who he’d shaken down, blabbered to his local cousins –the Jacknives- about the impudent owl who’d roughed him up. On his first day in Axel, Quarel was attacked by a gang of a dozen men and women, but was saved at the last moment by the arrival of the Nightcrawlers, a rival gang. A bitter skirmish ensued, during which the newcomers’ leader was mortally wounded by the Jacknives’ boss, and everything seemed on the verge of collapse. Enraged by the thought of dying here, when he was so close to making a fresh start in life, Quarel rallied the Nightcrawlers and helped annihilate the Jacknives in what turned out to be an important upset. The chance encounter ended up shifting the balance of power in Axel’s underworld, just as the Nightcrawlers’ observant leader hoped it would. The Nightcrawlers now had free reign to establish themselves, and in thanks (as well as long-awaited recognition of talent) they allowed Quarel to join their ranks as a bandit, one step up from the common mook. As it turned out, the Nightcrawlers were in discrete league with Axel's governor, doing the dirty work to keep the city peaceful and free from worse organizations, rather like privateers. About a year of this went by, excitingly dangerous but not exactly healthy for Quarel’s conscience, and he never progressed in the organization, and his meager earnings kept him hungry. Feeling unhappy and detached, he decided a change of pace was necessary, and looked to try out work as an adventurer on the side. His bosses, after finding out his intentions from a supposed confidante, did not interfere with his plans and decided to see where this road might take him. In the dead of night, the strigiforme slipped away, headed to the countryside lodge where he might register.
Personality: Self-loathing and short-tempered, Quarel is not overt with his feelings but is emotive nonetheless. While polite on the outside, and doubtlessly intelligent, he tends to be critical of errors and flaws, but none more so than his own, and every little failure and judgment weighs upon him heavily. He is responsible and serious, unlike his younger years, which he often looks back on with revulsion. Quick to anger, he is wont to strike quickly and savagely with either words or blows, but he cools off speedily as well. Most of the time, he gives off the impression of being quietly mad for no adequate reason, but at least a part of it is to blame on the way his face naturally rests. Inwardly, he hates being alone, and feeling abandoned in particular, and will actively try to be sociable even with people he feels contempt for. As self-effacing as he is –for he really does have rock-bottom self-esteem- he will not hesitate to efface others who he feels deserve it. While he does have a good memory for grudges, he also remembers everyone who does something legitimately nice or considerate for him, and treats them accordingly. It takes some digging to find that Quarel’s not really a nasty person, but rather a defensive and sardonic one with a hidden streak of altruism and geniality that make him a dependable ally. As much can be gleaned from how he does his job: despite being a bandit, he doesn’t actually steal or kill, and works more like hired muscle
Skills:
Nimble – being a Strigiforme means an affinity for quick, efficient movement, whether horizontally or vertically. Hollow bones and light feathers, combined with talons for gripping and dense muscles for springing, make Quarel an accomplished jumper, climber, and dodger. Light weight also entails reduced from falling or being sent flying into something; he's more likely to bounce off a surface than plow through
Camaraderie – making friends isn’t the same as making allies, and when the going gets tough Quarel is good at getting a handle on the situation and getting his team to work together. So long as the task isn’t too complicated, he’s often able to get even temporary allies to rally together and solve urgent problems
Belongings:
Alloy Knives – two short blades, one a little longer than the other, which Quarel employs for both combat and utility. They’re not very remarkable in terms of combat; with poor overall balance, they aren’t even viable as throwing knives. However, both are composed primarily of a unique chrome metal commonly known as meld iron. They are extremely easy to forge with, and in high heat chemically react with other high-grade metals to create an alloy with the same properties. This means Quarel is always on the hunt for quality metals that he might be able to take to a smith in order to make his blades longer and stronger
Gum Vine – a strong vine harvested from a jungle plant that evolved a distinctive trait for both offense and defense. When one of the plant’s vines comes in contact with a prospective eater’s saliva, it begins to secrete a very sticky, gummy mucus meant to lodge in the herbivore’s throat and suffocate it so that the dead animal would enrich the surrounding soil with nutrients. In practice, however, Quarel uses the vine as a sort of grappling hook; by quickly running one end through his mouth he can make it adhesive before using the vine as a rope. It can also be used as a flail if stuck to a small object, or if the mucus hardens, which it does pretty quickly. Once the mucus hardens, a good tug can break it, allowing frequent reuse