- Player -Real Name: Joel Summers
Real Gender: Male
Real Age: 18
Sexuality: Confused
- Character -Name: Katarina
Gender: Female
Apparent Age: 11
Face Claim: Katarina, linkaimane (Commissioned OC)Played By: Whatsername
Faction: Adventurer
- Appearance -Before the Apocalypse, Joel had a lanky, incredibly slim build and was rather tall for his age, standing at 191cm (~6'3"). After the Apocalypse (and the gender swap that came with it), his appearance has changed dramatically.
Katarina is a young female fox Faunri with a very petite appearance, standing at a mere 122cm (~4'0"), making her extremely short even for her avatar's apparent age. She has extraordinarily long messy white hair, the colour fading to purple about halfway down in a smooth gradient. She possesses a soft appearance befitting a girl her (apparent) age, her deep blue eyes accentuating her cherubic appearance nicely, though the effect is usually ruined due to her almost constant glares and scowls. Being a Faunri, she has a combination of animal and human traits, possessing large fox ears and a bushy white fox tail.
In the world before Gaia, Joel preferred to wear hoodies regardless of weather, and the same applies to the world after; Katarina is almost never spotted without her cloaks and coats. Even if she decides to wear heavy armour, she'll throw a coat over it just out of habit. She has terrible posture, mostly gained from long nights spent gaming and too little exercise back when she was Joel.
- Personality -Upon seeing Katarina's cherubic appearance for the first time, anybody would assume that she was a timid, innocent little girl. And then she would open her mouth, causing them to immediately realise that their assumption was completely incorrect.
Those unfortunate enough to be acquainted with Katarina would probably describe her personality in a single word: Snark. Even when she's attempting to be nice and polite, a sarcastic remark or three will surely slip out. Due to this, plus her extremely antagonistic nature, Katarina will sometimes rile her allies, occasionally to the point of starting actual conflict within the party.
It's generally not due to anything personal against them, or even remotely intentional most of the time. In reality, her sarcasm and scathing remarks are just coping mechanisms, hiding a reclusive, skittish bundle of social anxiety and self-hate. Snark is her shield, her method of protecting herself against the outside world, and the few people that manage to get close to her tend to realise this sooner rather than later. It's not uncommon for her to fall into extreme panic and anxiety just from having somebody approach her to talk provided she isn't extremely comfortable with that person already, and her slipping into snark and antagonistic remarks the second those uncomfortable feelings rear their ugly heads certainly doesn't help matters in the majority of cases. Should she somehow manage to find someone willing to deal with all of that, she would quickly find herself becoming emotionally dependent on them, clinging to them like a lifeline. That comes with its own problems, both for Katarina and the person she finds herself attached to, but if nothing else they can be certain they have Katarina's undying loyalty.
As a child, Joel was an extremely optimistic individual, but as time has gone on and his friendships and family relationships continued to break down, he's found himself becoming a far more cynical person. Now, Katarina's general worldview can be described as that of extremely cynical optimism. She follows the motto "high hopes, low expectations" to the letter, spotting the glaring flaws in a plan first before noting the good parts and bringing them up at the very first possible opportunity; however, so long as she can see the plan having an even slight chance of success, she'll still go along with it. Begrudgingly, and she'll complain every step of the way, but she will, hoping that it'll go smoothly.
Katarina is very intelligent, often serving as her party's strategist due to her support role, her fairly well-constructed plans, her tendency to play devil's advocate, and her almost encyclopedic knowledge of pre-Pioneers of Arcadia expansion Gaia Reborn. Unfortunately, her intellect does not stop her from making very rash and arguably idiotic decisions when bored and looking to kill time, and her aforementioned anxiety issues and mild persecution complex can cause her to jump to the wrong conclusions. Thankfully, she's usually smart enough to get out of whatever terrible situation she's landed herself in that week, but this can cause problems when it comes to her keeping healthy interpersonal relationships.
Despite her outwardly nonchalant and in some ways apathetic attitude towards actually doing her job as a Cleric properly, inwardly, she takes her role in the party somewhat seriously. If the party wiped during a raid and she couldn't do anything about it, she wouldn't think twice; however if a raid failed due to her own inaction she would be extremely disappointed with herself.
The subject of Katarina's gender identity is highly complex, and whether she chooses to accept being referred to as female due to her avatar and, more importantly, whether she chooses to view
herself as female changes almost by the day. She's searching for an appearance-change potion to regain something closer to her original body; what she'll do should she get her hands on one is anybody's guess.
- Biography -In the old world, Joel lived a relatively ordinary and positively boring life. He was born into a middle-class family in southern Sydney alongside his fraternal twin sister Levi, and was raised by an extremely unprepared mother and a doting father. He had a rather close attachment to his mother, taking after her in many ways and clinging to her wherever she went, much to her chagrin. She would never refrain from utilising her rather large vocabulary of swears to the fullest, even around the young Joel. Much to her amusement, he started to take after her in that regard as well. While his parents mildly discouraged this behaviour around other people, they secretly found a great deal of amusement in letting Joel run riot.
Shortly before Joel turned ten, his mother left the house for the last time, leaving a note on his father’s bed. It detailed how suffocating motherhood was, as well as the fact that the two siblings - Joel in particular - were so clingy that she didn’t feel like she had any time to be herself. The family took this blow extremely hard, but Joel handled it the worst, viewing it as a personal betrayal. He grew paranoid about forming personal attachments to people, grew fearful of losing people due to showing his affection, and him scaring the few friends he had off with his newfound anger and aggression only seemed to solidify the idea in his head.
His father took to drinking to cope with the loss of his wife, and while he wasn't an aggressive drunk and certainly wasn't abusive, it was obvious to Joel that he viewed his son as the reason why his marriage broke down. While he was still around and still tried to look after the twins, to Joel, he considered that day the day he lost his father figure alongside his mother.
Thankfully, his relationship with Levi remained good, with the two growing even closer and more dependent on each other in the aftermath. Her chuunibyou tendencies usually left Joel exhausted after dealing with her, but he understood it was her method of escape and still loved her all the same. Besides, he couldn't call her out for it without being a massive hypocrite when in reality he was equally as guilty of escapism.
Joel's method of escape was gaming. The genre didn’t matter; MMOs, RPGs, visual novels, first person shooters, strategy RPGs, real-time strategy games, you name it, he played it. He completely engrossed himself into any game he could get his hands on, delving deep into the lore and story while also spending hours upon hours learning the ins and outs of the game mechanics, even at the expense of his grades and social life.
Eventually, about halfway into his high school career, Joel learned about Gaia Reborn. A MMO which decided to try and take on the (rather ambitious) feat of containing a half-scale model of the entire world. The sheer scale of the Half-Gaia Project drew Joel in, and before he knew it, he was hooked. Other games became an afterthought at best; this game was perfect for him, almost as if it had been designed with him in mind. The races, the mechanics, he loved every bit of it. Soon enough, he had found a party who could put up with his constant streams of snark and general bullying.
The game fulfilled his fantasies for a few years, before he realised something terrible. Something horrific. Something he wasn't prepared to accept.
He had run out of things to do.
And so, he drifted away from Gaia Reborn and went back to other games, briefly returning whenever a new update was launched only to quickly get bored again and swap games. But then, the developers announced something major: Gaia Reborn was getting an expansion pack, and a new Italian server was being launched. In any other MMO, the latter part of this statement wouldn't affect Joel in the slightest. This wasn't any other MMO though; this was Gaia Reborn. With the new server came a whole new chunk of the Half-Gaia Project; Italy, previously uncharted territory in Gaia Reborn, would become a new playable area, and with
that came new quests, new NPCs, a new storyline and more. Needless to say, this reinvigorated his passion for the game. Him being invited to the server's closed beta only ramped his hype up even higher.
The second the expansion pack was released, available for download, Joel scrounged up whatever few dollars sat at the bottom of his bank account and installed the expansion pack. Once it was all ready to go, he launched the game, ready to explore the new server.
Of course, there was one big hurdle keeping him from simply jumping in and exploring his new world:
Character Creation.
Generally in MMOs, Joel preferred to fill the DPS role. He did like his Assassins. That said, he was feeling something different this time around. A criminally small number of Gaia players play primarily support compared to the constantly high numbers of Assassins and Duelists, and he was ready for a change from the norm. And so, a Cleric it is. Faunri as well, mostly due to it being the only race he hasn’t tried yet. Besides, if it didn’t work out he could always roll a new character after.
And then, the most painful part of the character creation process: Actually making your character. Joel sighed as he saw the numerous sliders litter his screen. Was there more than normal, or was that just him? He quickly brought up the patch notes on his other monitor and groaned once he spotted “Added additional Faunri customisation options” buried amongst the slew of Enlightened Republic information. As if they didn’t have enough. Well, this was going to take a while...
Truthfully, it was probably closer to fifteen minutes, but to Joel it felt like he spent hours tinkering away at sliders, trying to make a character that fit his image of a Faunri Cleric. Eventually, he ended up with a tall fox Faunri with mid-length white hair with purple highlights. He sighed. Honestly, he liked the character design, but there was just something missing...
His cat leapt onto his keyboard, snapping him out of his funk. In the process of getting it off of the table, he accidentally moved the height slider as low as it could possibly go.
Brilliant. That's
just what he needed.
More than a little annoyed at his character's appearance being wrecked, he sighed as he looked back at his monitor, about to try and rediscover that ideal height again.
He blinked.
Twice.
...Actually, you know what, he had an idea.
A couple more changes to suit her new height, and he had his avatar. An extremely young fox Faunri with a cherubic appearance and extremely long white and purple hair. A large pair of deep blue eyes stared back at him from behind the monitor, innocent in appearance.
She was positively
adorable.
Yeah, that’ll definitely do.
He glanced at the clock. Damn. Now it was closer to twenty minutes he had spent making his avatar. He really wanted to get this bit out of the way as soon as possible. Thinking back to the last game he played, he grabbed the first name he could think of that fit his avatar’s appearance, smiling slightly when he saw it was available. Katarina, the young Faunri Cleric. He could work with this.
The last thing he remembered was clicking "Create Character" as everything faded into white.
- Extra -- Left handed.
- Favourite colour is magenta.
- An extremely untidy person, yet any books she owns she keeps stored in a neat, orderly fashion.
- Used to drink heavily in the old world, however cut down significantly upon entering Gaia Reborn due to her childlike body's lower alcohol tolerance.
- Regrets settling on a prepubescent avatar more than anything else in the world (though secretly she finds her new body adorable, and is hesitant to change it).
- Was a beta tester of the Italian server.
- Statistics -Race: Faunri - Arctic Fox
Class: Cleric
Class EXP: 156
Talent: Scholar
Talent Level: 1
Talent EXP: 0
Crafting Talent: Scribe
Crafting Talent Level: 1
Crafting Talent EXP: 0
Skill Points: 0
Ability Points: 0
- Ability Levels -Unarmed: 0
One-Handed Melee: 15
Two-Handed Melee: 0
Ranged: 0
Magic: 25
Shield: 1
Light Armor: 4
Medium Armor: 10
Heavy Armor: 0
- Skills -- Class -- Beginner -FaithEvery time the Cleric casts 4 Cleric spells, they gain one stack of Faith up to a maximum of 3 stacks. The Cleric can use one stack of Faith to empower a Rank 1 skill, two stacks for a Rank 2 skill, or three stacks for a Rank 3 skill. The effects of the empowering depend on the skill being empowered and are specified in the skill descriptions. Adventurer skills cannot be empowered. All stacks of Faith are lost when combat ends.
Passive skill.- Rank I -Arcane AlphabetOn toggle, the user’s fingertips will leave arcane ink on any surface they brush over. The color of this ink is cyan by default, but it can be customized with an RGB slider. Additionally, the user may stamp down pre-written messages by selecting one out of ten customizable messages in their interface and pushing their palm down like a stamp. The user chooses how much mana they pay for each stroke with higher costs allowing for the arcane ink to last up to a week.
No cast time, no cooldown. Variable mana cost.
“One may also use any quill to write more clearly.
Scribe’s contracts do not work with Arcane Alphabet’s writing.”AccelerateA spell with instant cast time that grants the user the
Accelerated status effect for 10s. While the user has this status, a single spell they select with a cast time equal to or lower than 3 seconds becomes Instant instead, after which this status is removed.
Instant, 30s cooldown. Low mana cost.BlinkBlink instantly teleports the user up to 1 meter in any direction, leaving a dark blue afterimage. This can teleport the user past enemies or allies and maintains any momentum they have, but the user must be able to see where they are teleporting to. Upon arriving at their destination, the user suffers a 0.5s global cooldown, so caution is advised when using this skill.
Instant, 20s cooldown, 0.5s global cooldown. Below-average mana cost.Healing ChantThe Cleric designates an ally within 20m and chants a quick prayer as a white bell appears above both their and the target’s heads. The ally is then healed for a
below-average amount of health.
Empowered: Heals for an
above-average amount instead.
1s cast time, 5s cooldown. Below-average mana cost.Healing HaloThe Cleric harnesses healing magic in the form of a ring of light. When this skill is released, all party members inside the ring are instantly healed for an
average amount of HP. The ring’s center can be placed anywhere within five meters of the caster, and the base radius of the skill is five meters. The skill has a one second cast time, however the Cleric may choose to increase the cast time by up to 5 seconds to increase the radius of the skill’s effect by 1 meter for each additional second spent casting, however this also raises the cooldown by 2 seconds for each additional second of charge time. The Cleric also builds a considerable amount of Aggro while casting this skill. This skill will be interrupted as soon as an opponent lands a direct hit on the Cleric, making it difficult to fully charge this skill. If interrupted, the healing effect will not activate, but no mana will be used and the skill won’t go on cooldown.
Empowered: The skill will instantly be at its maximum radius, but the Cleric may still charge it if they wish to build aggro. Charging it will not increase the radius even further.
1-6s cast time, 10-20s cooldown. Average mana cost.Divine LightThe Cleric harnesses holy magic to form five bolts of light which will home in on their target’s current position at extremely high speed, avoiding any obstacles in their path. Each individual bolt deals
very minor magical Divine damage, however the accumulated damage dealt if all five bolts connect is the main draw of this skill. The bolts of light will dissipate after 5 seconds if they do not hit their target.
Empowered: All bolts are concentrated into one bolt that deals
above-average damage.
2s cast time, 20s cooldown. Low mana cost.- Rank II -AmbidexterityWhile dual-wielding an one-handed weapon in the offhand, the user no longer incurs a 50% accuracy penalty to their one-handed weapons.
Passive skill.ResurrectionThe Cleric places their hands on a fallen ally, reviving them with 35% HP (the ally’s remaining mana is as it was at the moment of death). This skill’s long cast time combined with its high mana costs and the fact that it triggers a global cooldown upon use makes it very difficult to use during combat as it leaves the Cleric completely vulnerable.
Empowered: Does not require physical contact with the deceased ally, instead having a range of 15 meters.
5s cast time, 40s cooldown, 5s global cooldown. High mana cost.- Rank III ----
- Racial and Talents -Animal InstinctsWhile their appearance is primarily humanoid, the Faunri benefit from improved perception, their eyesight and hearing amplified by their animal eyes and ears.
The senses of a Faunri are more powerful than those of the other races, granting them improved eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell. Faunri do not receive any further bonuses from the animal they are; such as gills, wings, cold resistance, and so on.Scribe AptitudeScribes are known for their ability to take comprehensive notes quickly and examine various writings carefully. Due to their talents, Scribes obtain the Adventurer skill
Arcane Alphabet from the start. Their knowledge also grants additional proficiency in the use of Grimoires in combat, receiving a +1 to Magic Proficiency when they wield a Grimoire as weapon.
Passive skill.Scholar AptitudeThrough careful examination and categorization of the various skills available to the Panpaidi as well as monster behaviors, the Scholar is able to accurately interpret skills as they are being cast. This ability is represented by an progress bar only visible to the Scholar which appears above the enemy's head whenever a skill is in the process of being cast, showing the Scholar the name of the skill and the remaining cast time. Due to their research into the various monsters of the world, Scholars can also recognize a monster’s Type at a glance.
Passive skill.- Equipment -Armor:
Left Hand:
Right Hand:
Accessory #1:
Accessory #2:
Accessory #3:
Accessory #4:
- Vanity Gear -Armor:
Accessory #1:
Accessory #2:
Accessory #3:
Accessory #4:
- Inventory ----