#asuran commanders

[commander-snowball]

Commander Week - Day 1: Race!

"You're dumb. You'll die, and you'll leave a dumb corpse."

[commanderfloppy]

💦 👀 for anyone : )

Thank you! I'm gonna answer for Floppy <3

💦 : Is your OC’s attractiveness based on looks or a more intangible aura?

While she’s definitely more physically attractive than she thinks, Floppy’s attractiveness is more  Aura based. A lot of people will find her usual aura of ‘cool, collected, amazing commander who can do anything and probably kill you holy shit she is hot’ the most attractive one or at least it’s the only one they see. But there is the secondary aura when she’s in more natural moments when you see her kindness or passion that are also very attractive. 

👀 : Does your OC believe they are attractive? Do they use that to their advantage?

Floppy does not really find herself all that attractive, the past 25 years have not been kind to her and she mostly just sees that when she looks at herself.  

That being said I do think she knew she was at least pretty attractive back when she was younger, the whole idea most people had of her in college was that she was a country bimbo (‘have you seen those ears? So voluptuous! ‘Oh but I overheard that in Golemancy she didn’t even know how to reset a motherboard!’)

I think while it wasn’t exactly used to her advantage, her looks were what at least got her in with the more relaxed Asura who liked to party and let her have some form of acceptance. (Even if it was pretty shallow)

[commander-henrietta]

Commander Henri

Heehee she's my main,,, a harbinger gremlin

Story !

Henri was a necromancer, alchemist and a student in the college of Dynamics, later becoming an assistant in a lab. She was as snooty and snobby as any other Asura (but even more brilliant, she says), especially passive aggressive and always reminding everyone of her genius. She would always swear up and down that she'd become the boss of everyone in that lab soon.

However, on one unfortunate day, there was an 'accident' at the lab. Some were killed, the rest were injured and escaped. Henri managed to escape as well, only to realize that her entire left arm was missing. It was a long recovery, more mentally than physically. Henri was left-handed and, even as a chaotic Dynamics student, never once anticipated that her pristine lab would end up as nothing but rubble, let alone take her dominant arm with it. Because of this, she was now considered useless, and couldn't get any work anywhere at all.

That 'accident' really bothered her. She was a very diligent and meticulous lab worker and kept things in tip-top shape, how could there be any accident at all? And she (generously) assumed all of the other Asura there were competent. Through some obsessive investigation on her own, and not much to her surprise, the Inquest had targeted the lab. Henri went back to the ruins of that lab and searched for any Inquest hideouts nearby.

Once she found it, she trashed the entire place with her necrotic minions and deadly elixirs. She tore off the arm of a golem, and tuned it into a prosthetic arm. Even if it was a crappy substitute, it still was better than nothing. It made her feel a little better, but she hides the arm by wearing a long sleeve and a full glove. Of course, she trained herself to do things with her other arm. Even while having a prosthetic, there are endless scenarios that could end horribly with it.

Losing her arm gave her a new perspective of things, realizing how quick Asuran society discards you for any little reason, your fault or not. Her Asuran arrogance fizzled out mildly, and she stopped using terms like 'Bookah'. She has a new boundless hatred for the Inquest, and laughs in the face of chaos and danger. She decided to go off on her own, distancing from Rata Sum. That made her perceived as a 'weirdo' and outsider, now that she finds more comfort being with the other races and other outcasted Asura.

With the threat of the Elder Dragons becoming more prominent every day, Henri became a commander in the Pact and later on joins Dragon's Watch even before its creation.

[system-architect]

Complex Inquest Character Asks

wanted to self indulgently make an oc ask meme that might help ppl develop their inquest more in depth :-) ik there's at least one other inquest ask post out there but i wanted one with particular sorts of probing questions! feel free to reblog obvs

Have they been an Inquest loyalist since the start, or did they defect from another faction? Is there a risk they'll defect away from the Inquest in the future? (If already defected: If it were possible, would they go back?)

What is their rank, and how did they attain it? Did they WANT that rank? Do they wear it well?

Related to above: Are they SATISFIED with their rank, or do they want to keep climbing the ladder? Do they feel they deserve better than they've been given?

How well do they perform their job? Do other Inquest respect them, or are they on the chopping block?

How is their relationship with the concept of violence? Do they view it as a necessary evil, avoid inflicting it where possible, or even enjoy it?

Do they have a guilty conscience? How do they cope with or personally reconcile the continuous stress and horror?

"Fun" one: What's their uniform like? Is it a generic-issued uniform, or custom tailored? Are there any features built into it that assist with their job?

Have there been any times their loyalty to the Inquest was shaken? (Are they that loyal to begin with?)

Have they ever been involved with an experiment that could be considered truly immoral-- or, even had one performed on them? What's their attitude towards that event?

How do they feel towards Inquest leadership? (Optional: How do they feel towards Kudu and Kuda?)

What are their feelings towards the Arcane Council and Peacemakers? Have they ever been arrested or questioned?

What's their life like outside of the Inquest? Do they blend in with society well, or are they flagrantly a member of the metakrewe?

What was their real motive for joining the Inquest? Whatever their job or area of research is, why is it that they feel they can't perform it within normal society-- why do something so extreme and push moral boundaries?

It is said that the Inquest view the Eternal Alchemy as "a thing to be mastered and used, rather than merely understood, for the ultimate purpose of establishing asuran dominion over other species". Do they believe this-- is there a psuedo-religious/philosophical element to their Inquest loyalty? How do they feel towards other races?

Were they involved with any of the canon GW2 events that involved the Inquest-- Thaumanova, Crucible of Eternity, Sorrow's Embrace, Rata Primus, etc? (Optional: How'd they escape when the Commander rolled in?)

[rosewoodroad]

4, 12, 21, 23 and 32 for Wysma 👀

RUBS MY HANDS.

For this ask game! (Took me a while to get to it, but thanks for asking <3 <3)

4. What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

As a progeny, Wysma rarely left Rata Sum, let alone stepped foot outside Soren Draa. But he was obsessed with tales of adventures. When he wasn’t busy with homework or helping out his professor with lab work, he’d gather scraps from his projects to make figurines of great heroes, villains, and battlefields, to re-enact his favourite stories. Some were even mechanically automated!

Having an artistic outlet is something Wysma misses, though he’d be damned if anyone found out he basically made his own action figures as a kid.

12. What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

Terrible jokes. Dad-tier jokes and bad pickup lines are especially effective.

He also generally enjoys witty banter (both as a participant and a spectator. Especially as a spectator. I imagine being a bystander to an asuran roast/debate session is an incredible experience.)

21. What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

As a whole, Wysma doesn’t vibe with many conventional Asura cultural values. After a decade of interacting with the wider world, he finds it exhausting how everything back in Rata Sum has to be a competition. He hasn’t forgotten the stress of trying to keep up as a student, and as he gets older, it’s draining to see progress get held back by internal power grabs, bureaucratic shenanigans, or just plain stubborn pride.

23. What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Tough one! Maybe less that the other persons don't remember and more like it's not a big deal to them in the long run, but there are definitely childhood cringe moments for Wysma.

Back in college, he was enrolled in Statics, but only under pressure from his mentor who was a Statics professor. At heart, Wysma was more of a Dynamics guy and in his freshman years he was prone to making impulsive, experimental decisions in his work. There are a bunch of co-op projects and report cards he wrecked because of this.

As a Peacemaker rookie, he was very gung-ho about his duties as a civil protector but was terrible at following procedure, which left his superiors to clean up the mess and handle even more paperwork to bail him out of trouble (but those superiors had probably dealt with worse rookies.)

32. If they committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

Unlawful hoarding LMAO. He’s brought back unsanctioned mounts, horticulture, relics of mysterious origins and like 20 cats without consulting the local laboratory authorities (or his neighbours).

All those collections (and cats) scattered around the home instance is absolutely canon to him. He’s not even aware of how bad it is until he gets his homestead and realises how much he actually has to move over. The sole reason he hasn't been evicted from Rata Sum already is because he's the Commander and it would be terrible for the Arcane Council's PR image.

[gw2-correct-quotes]

"That's my invention, Kudu. You're no genius, you're a derivative thief. And you dress like a ninny. Tell your tailor that other colors exist"

~ Asuran Commander

[ratasum]

Lore Post - Aerologist Praxxi, Unwilling Commander

Praxxi was never supposed to be commander. But that is a story for later in this winding tale.

Praxxi is the oldest of two infamous members of the Inquest, Asuran Resources Director Miyya of the Inquest Ethics Committee and Overseer Vroqq of the Liquidators. From a very young age, though, Praxxi showed very little interest in the work of either of her praents, preferring instead to focus on her own little projects.

Eventually, her work gained her entry to the College of Statics, where she excelled with her ideas on improving power couplings and energy transmission for the city's power needs. While she would never graduate with a high genius grade, her work was respectable enough to get her a place on a steady krewe after graduation, and it was here she met Lopp.

Lopp was a tall, lanky, funny young asura whose primary focus was on reducing draw on power sources, and they were immediately taken in by Praxxi's ideas on how to make any new city cubes more energy efficient using her couplings and energy transference devices. The two hit it off, and Lopp would go on to become Praxxi's first and only contract, helping her cut ties with the Inquest for good, save for a handful of her younger siblings.

Lopp was fully deaf, and they helped Praxxi learn asuran sign as their relationship progressed. This would come in handy in their lives moving forward.

It took several years into their shared career for them to have children, though when they were both in their mid 20s, Praxxi gave birth to their only child, a son they named Khaill. Like their other parent, Khaill also was fully deaf... not that this was a hurdle for either Lopp or Praxxi.

As time went on, Praxxi's work began to get noticed, and she began mentoring at the College of Statics. And for a while, things were all right. Lopp had their projects, Praxxi had hers while keeping in touch with what few of her siblings she wanted to and were still alive, and Khaill was growing up to be a fine young asura.

It was shortly after Khaill turned seventeen that Lopp, who had recently won the Snaff Savant prize for their new krewe, was approached by the famous apprentice of the late inventor Snaff. Zojja had a project, a proposition. But she needed help getting things off the ground. And so it was that Lopp and Praxxi got tangled up in the race to end Zhaitan.

In fact, Lopp was well on their way to becoming commander. At the first battle at Claw Island, however, disaster struck. As they were trying to leave the island, a Risen Abomination charged. Lopp knocked Praxxi out of the way but was unable to escape themselves, the impact knocking them back into one of the sturdy stone walls, where they fell limp after a horrible crack.

Praxxi raced to her spouse's side, but it was too late. The impact had broken Lopp's neck... they had died on impact.

Though she had to be half dragged off the island screaming and sobbing after Lopp, Praxxi did eventually come to a conclusion, wrapped in a blanket with her hair falling in thick coils all around her.

Lopp was gone, but someone would have to carry on in their place.

That someone would have to be her.

[guildtree]

29 Rox

That's a vicious prompt for this character lol. Sorry this is late, by the time it arrived I was asleep for a busy day tomorrow!

“Taimi?” Rox’s communicator crackled worryingly. “Taimi? You there? Uh… Roger? Is that right?”

“Rox? Zzzzt… -at you?” All four of Rox’s ears pricked up in timid hope. “Where – you at?”

“Way up in the frozen horns of the Shiverpeaks.” Rox dug her claws into an icy shelf and heaved herself to the top in some vain hope of getting a better signal. Damned if she knew how this asuran wizardry worked, but the communicator seemed to operate better in the clear air. A gust of bitter wind blew by and she fluffed up her fur and tugged her parka more tightly around her head. “It’s good to hear from you, from anyone really-”

“Is Braham with you?” Even through the fuzzy signal, the asura’s voice was tight with worry.

“I – yeah. Yeah, he is.”

“Oh, thank the Alchemy. He won’t listen to me – does he even know how to use a comm? You know what, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Just keep an eye on him, will you? You at least have some little sense.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Rox huffed. “But yeah. You know I will.”

“Good,” Taimi said, and Rox clicked the communicator off before she could follow up with anything else.

Well. At least the thing worked.

What else had she expected really? She and the arrogant little asura had never really gotten along. Obviously she wasn’t going to be a good listening set of ears. Rox had already tried calling Kasmeer twice and received only silence; same with the Commander. Marjory was out too, from what she’d heard, Rytlock hated her, and the rest she didn’t have enough knowledge or trust to prod. And of course there was Braham… who at the moment was causing her more grief than anyone else.

She sighed and squatted down on the icy cliff, not quite willing to risk her rear on the frozen stone. A skittering noise caught her attention, and she noticed Frostbite somehow managing to haul himself over the top. Those devourer pincers worked surprisingly well as picks in the ice, though how he’d handled the cold without living up to his name she still couldn’t quite fathom. But she was very grateful, as the little devourer nudged himself up against her legs.

“Guess it’s you and me, bud,” she sighed, patting his scales. He chittered. “You know, sometimes I think we need better friends.”

[what-the-flux]

Commander Week Day 3: Pact

(Apologies for the long delay on this post, two nights unable to post it properly took everything out of me. For whatever reason, putting it under a Read More cut fixed it)

There was the softest sigh of wind outside the outpost in Frostgorge as magister Antella set down a brewed cup of tea next to the long desk in the center of the room. She, along with lightbringer Chen, had been stationed there to assist studying the Dragon iconography that had been developing in the region as the rest of their Pact allies kept the Svanir occupied, but as both allies of Jormag and Flame Legion activity continued to vie for attention both their jobs quickly encompassed monitoring communications that ran to and from the Sound and Fireheart Rise.

She couldn’t complain, it kept their minds occupied at least, even if her work partner kept grousing about the cold. She got up to pull out another tube from the cubbies in the wall that housed all the various missives that they were still going over and immediately noted the seal that marked it as being time sensitive and brought it over to their shared work desk. Chen glanced at it as the norn set it down before they picked it up gingerly, breaking the seal and pulled out the neatly rolled up parchment. There was the faintest twitch of their brows as they scanned it before they smoothed it down onto the desk, revealing an encoded message. “Explains why this one has an expiration date I guess.” Their tired voice revealed how much the long shifts had been taking their toll. Antella pulled up a chair and sat next to them, looking over at the neat black symbols stamped on the page. It used a set of shapes comprised of dashes, dots and wedges, a type of code that both Whispers and Priory had developed in the campaign against Zhaitan a couple years ago. Making sure troop orders and even the simplest logistic tallies didn’t get intercepted and exploited had been a focus that the Pact Commander and his lieutenants had early on. The lightbringer took out a metal plate that had the same sort of symbols arranged in rows engraved on its surface, with a viewing slot and magnifying glass. Both them and the Priory magister had gotten good at checking each others’ work and got the message decoded quicker than they expected. The human said out loud what the norn beside him was thinking, “The message seems so strangely simple. Why would such a missive about monitoring weather patterns in the Brand be encoded this way?” Their frown deepened as they moved to double-check their work. Antella leaned over them as they scanned the symbols again. The way the inky iconography was arranged tickled something in her brain. Every third line had an unusual break and the symbols that began and ended a line seemed significant but when read vertically it didn’t make much sense, but the message itself once read really did seem very mundane. Why indeed encode such a message? Then it hit her. She remembered seeing this unique pattern of cipher twice before, stamped by Pact commander Vireskk. While he was not the sole genius behind the code language that had developed, he had taken it a step further and created encrypted messages that had multiple layers or quirks unique to him, and the gaps and symbol arrangements, while not conspicuous to a casual reader, was obvious enough to her once she noticed it. "Hold on Chen I think I know what’s missing.” She got up, tea long since forgotten as she crossed over to a supply drawer. She pulled out what looked to be a very small wand or scepter of asuran make, scarcely larger than a standard quill pen, and brought it over to the desk. Her large hands had a hard time finding the switch but she turned it on, a tiny crystal lighting up and creating a focused circle of light like a diminutive bullseye lantern. The Whispers operative by now had been watching her quizzically and then in open excitement as the cold blue light that she shone onto the page illuminated an entirely new set of symbols in between the gaps and along the borders formed by the darker ones. “The commander I heard really loves puzzles and hidden messages, has the habit of layering code on top of code and I know you Whispers have special light-reactive ink.” They made a murmur of acknowledgment and replied, “Yeah, the shelf life on it is pretty short though. He must have sent this pretty recently.” Both of them got to work decoding what was obvious the real reason for the message’s time sensitivity. Once they had it written down, they both looked at each other in mild consternation. Consult outpost leader to send operatives to listed coordinates. Mission will require engineering and medical specialists. Lightbringer C and Magister A accompany. Follow up message to be received at destination.

“That’s not extremely ominous at all,” Chen said quietly. Antella was already in the process of getting up as she rolled the message back into the tube. She could hear the wind picking up outside and said, “Sounds like a storm. I’ll go ahead and inform Warmaster Revkya immediately so you don’t have to deal with the cold right now." Chen snorted a laugh and said to her as she stood by the doorway, “Noted. Looks like we’ll be packing up soon enough though, can’t say I’m not happy to go back south but I guess we’re trading snow for sand.” He sighed and got up, “I’ll go put on some more tea.”

[bagheerita]

Find the Word Tag

Tagged by @chaniis-atlantis! ❤

My words are: Ship, notice, command, and sky

From "these wolves, they keep on scratching at my heart"

He possesses a small ship with a cloak we will use to approach the Asuran homeworld and verify their status without risk to the hive.

From "Long Forgotten Light at the End of the World"

Though that was hardly something to have doubted, as it was hardly possible to look worse after John had left him with his clothing torn and covered in his own blood, John really couldn't help but notice an improvement in both appearance and mood.

From "Circumvolution"

Todd leans down, and as he looks around the command chair he meets the eyes of Doctor Zelenka, who stares back at him with wide-eyed horror.

From my John/Sam/Todd fic as yet unnamed

She still has Todd's coat- she'd stopped trying to hold it over her head now that the sun had set- and he is a slimmer outline in the dusk without it to hang from his shoulders and broaden his entire frame. Beyond him she sees bright lights in the sky.

NPT: @lord-aldhelm @anonmadsci @annwayne @aintgonnatakethis

Your words are: stealing, enthusiasm, days, red

[it-begins-with-rain]

TV Recommendation: Love and Redemption

**This show is 60 episodes, I did my best to summarize quickly, but I know I still left a ton out. Fans of the show, don't be offended.

The natural order states that the heavens rule over all, the mortals command the earth, and demons are to be slaughtered and purged.

1,000 years ago, a mighty Asura king rose and attempted to overthrow heaven itself. The king's armies invaded the heavenly realm, led by his terrible general: The Star of Mosha.

All seemed lost, but then a goddess of war was born to the heavens, routed the Asuran forces, and destroyed the Star of Mosha. The evil general's primordial soul was sealed in a crystal vase and hidden in mortal lands, and his spirit was lost entirely.

There was peace... and then the goddess of war went insane.

She turned her blade against the heavens, slaughtered her own people, and was finally defeated.

---

Chu Xuanji is utterly carefree.

The younger twin of the Shaoyang sect chief's two daughters, Xuanji is devoted to her sister Linglong, her friend Min Yan, and her widowed father.

But something is wrong with Xuanji- she was born without her six senses. She has no sense of taste or smell, cannot perceive colors, cannot feel heat nor cold, and has no sense of pain- physical or emotional.

One day, Xuanji meets the handsome and powerful Yu Sifeng, heir-apparent to the mysterious Lize Palace sect. He is cold and aloof at first, but slowly warms to Chu Xuanji.

But then a monster attacks, and in his cave Xuanji finds a shard of a strange mirror. After touching it, she has horrible visions of a rampaging general, and regains her lost sense of taste.

Sifeng, Linglong, and Min Yan swear an oath to go on an adventure and recover the six shards of the mirror of origin, returning Xuanji's senses to her. What Sifeng doesn't dare say out loud is that he also hopes that Xuanji will regain her ability to feel emotions.

Maybe then, she will be able to see that he loves her.

But with each shard, Xuanji sees more images of war, and something else- flashes of Yu Sifeng. Of lives she has no memory of, and each one ending in pain.

Chu Xuanji is the reincarnation of the Goddess of War, in the final reincarnation of a 10-lifetime punishment from the heavens. An attempt to bleed away her insanity and hatred, lest the King of Heaven be forced to destroy her soul to save the world.

But who is Yu Sifeng? Why has this strange, human soul appeared in every single life the Goddess of War has lived?

And why, in every one, does he die to save her?

Chu Xuanji and Yu Sifeng will defy heaven, demons, humans, and their own people to find the answers to their questions. They'd better find them fast, because ancient forces are on the move, a buried secret will come to light-

-and the Star of Mosha, terror of the cosmos, will rise again.

** The B-storyline, revolving around Xuanji's sister Linglong, features loss of bodily autonomy, implied sexual assault, PTSD, and themes of extreme self-harm. Please be warned.

[brax-was-here]

So...I was talking with Tazzy discussing something I would love to see in the new city zone of Secrets of the Obscure.

Since the city is apparently a ginormous library, and we're dealing with some fractals of the mists, it would be neat if the devs did some research into the various stories/AUs that players have made throughout the years, and made some clickable books/scrolls that hint at those stories/AUs

Something like:

"This seems to be a compendium of tales of a commander. The stories are told in a cartoonish comic form"

"This compendium tells the witty adventures of a pair of asuran sisters."

"Several book volumes detailing the redemption of a villainous sylvari."

"Tales of a sylvari that falls in love with a famous norn."

"A photography compendium of beings made of stars."

and many others. I'm sure it won't happen, but it would be fantastic if it did.

[sylvaridreams]

cat ears looked too silly on him but the other day nyx said something about putting a bell on that thing and I'm always thinking of that bit in PoF where the startled asuran researcher yells at you and the Commander is like I'LL WEAR A BELL NEXT TIME, and also been thinking about the aftermath of Alba's gyala delve meltdown and how recovery would go. so.

[commanderjuni]

💣 CHARACTER TALK | TECHNICIAN LAFF

dw abt me recycling a character name i do it all the time /lh

OK onto this girl! i made her literally Just Yesterday and am deciding that SHE shall be my de facto commander but her priority purpose? roleplay! :]

i'll be playing with her for story mode but that aint her main attraction... ONWARDS TO THE RAMBLE BELOW THE CUT! this is pretty much spoilers free! :] no story bits at all, just a basic overview of my newest pookie

Technician Laff | Young Adult | She/Her | Engineer | Queer

Right what it says on the tin, Laff is a technician working for the Inquest. Mainly, she does operations, maintenance, repairs and diagnostics for the megakrewe. Her expertise in engineering is a massive boon, even if it is just one of many.

Laff is an engineer by nature, nurture, profession and trade. Ever since she was a progeny, she's always taken to brewing alchemical potions or wiring mines. She's a very spatial thinker, and has an uncanny ability to see intricate machines in her head without even needing a blueprint.

She was recruited into the Inquest at a young age, about when she was already fresh into actual college. She studied in Dynamics for a few years (and I'm talking less than 5, at maximum) before a recruiter caught her interest.

Laff mainly was convinced into joining the megakrewe at the prospect of that delightful 'road to greatness'. She was a prime targe— err, candidate— due to her already... unruly nature. Laff didn't do well with conventional studies, and found even the enthusiastic and often reckless Dynamics too constricting. Everyone wanted to operate under the Eternal Alchemy's dictations, but Laff was much more curious in studying it, and using it for more... practical applications.

In terms of her actual personality, Laff is concerningly friendly for someone working under the Inquest. She's less-so cordial, and more-so just a massive chatterbox who derives energy from being around people. She enjoys the idea that she 'fits in' quite a bit.

Most asura tend to find her annoying at best, and off-putting at worst. There's nothing wrong with her, for a lack of better words, she's just a little... strange, y'know?

Of course, like most asura Laff is exceedingly intelligent. She's well-versed in engineering (duh), especially when it comes to mapping out alchemical equations for empowering elixers or having the dexterity to pull pins out of five grenades.

And don't let her shrimpy form fool you! Laff is surprisingly BUILT under her uniform, and she has loads of upper-body strength due to the mechanical side of her work and duties.

And be sure to not let her chipper smile and optimistic nature fool you, either. Laff is a very competitive spirit, and strives to be the best technician the Inquest has ever seen, regardless of her low-to-mid level clearance and ranking. You get in her way, and she'll make sure you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually regret it.

Laff's greatest vice is her uncooperative nature when it comes to dealing with anyone who opposes her, her allies, her goals, or whatever it is she wants. This causes her to butt immense heads with Peacemaker officer Leff— whom of which is her twin brother.

Did.. I forget to mention that? Yeah. Laff and Leff are twin siblings who, from a young age, were adopted by a single asuran mother named Botanist Ainne. Ainne only really wanted Leff since she just wanted a son, but Laff and Leff were as thick as thieves back then, so seperation was a no-go. (p.s. Peacemaker Leff is an actual NPC! I enjoy oc & canon relations...)

Ainne put much focus and affections towards Leff, and sort of just left Laff to her own devices. This excessive attention towards Leff made Laff incredibly jealous, and envy is not a color she wears well. It shouldn't have, but it came as a surprise to Leff and Ainne when Laff one day announced that she was ditching Dynamics and heading off to the Inquest. To this day, Leff constantly swears he will have her arrested for... something! He still has to figure it all out. But he will!

As aforementioned, Laff is an engineer in all sense of the word. She's proficient with rifles, pistols and other tools of the trade. She makes medium weight armor look killer in signature black and red, and her favorite tool is her magnifying eagle-eye goggles. Pin-point details are very important unless you want to accidentally get blown up, or have your elixer spill everywhere in a fight.

She's surprisingly particular about her machines and weaponry, and takes a keen liking to explosives. Mines, grenades, bombs— you name it, she probably has it stashed away somewhere on her person.

If I had to assign her a core specialization, Laff embodies explosives the best. "I'd duck, if I were you." is such a cut and corner Laff quote, AND Laff personally focuses on just blowing the enemy up into beautiful smithereens than wasting time trying to shoot them to death. Tools comes as a close second.

As for an elite specialization, Laff leans heavy into Scrapper territory. She's not big on the flashy lights of Holosmiths, nor is she crazy about having a big golem follow her around all the time like Mechanists. What she does like is putting things together, bit by bit, until she creates some new innovative little gadget. Plus, she'd find the gyros pretty cute.

stole this picture off the gw2 wiki... shh... no telling....

BUT this pretty much concludes BASE information about laff.... im VERY excited to continue writing for her, and i hope to keep true to my word about using her in rp! as she grows as a character, some things MAY change, but not by a lot.... i hope....

(p.s. you MAY have encountered her at the NA versus art party on dec 2nd .... ;] wink wonk)

[hawkepockets]

OKAY he won the poll for “next bighuge honker of a post” so… here’s commander pepa (he/she)!

his full name is pepiya, but over his long career as a hero he’s become an asura of many nicknames.

backstory under the cut.

pepa is from a small and tight-knit family by asuran standards, the middle child of five. her mother, leppi, field tests power armor, exosuits, and mech golems in high-intensity environments around mount maelstrom. her father, dopt, was a biological anthropologist but retired young, when pepa was 12.

dopt wishes he could say he quit science to be a stay-at-home dad, but that wasn’t why. at the height of his career he was at the top of his field, held in very high regard by the arcane council and considered highly ethical. which is why when the asura first encountered a free standing humanoid plant that mimicked intelligent speech, he was offered a coveted spot on the team that would study it. he never would’ve condoned live experimentation on anything he considered a person, but he was so sure that this specimen wasn’t really sapient, just imitating humans, and so curious to know how it was doing this. he went ahead with the planned vivisection, despite the subject’s screaming and pleading in an incredible mimicry of a person’s voice.

the family has been sending a citrus basket to malomedies every month for 30 years. reparations.

after speaking with caithe—and watching her kill several of his coworkers—dopt finally concluded that sylvari were thinking, feeling beings with individual personalities. people. and having realized the evil his krewe had committed, he resigned on the spot. he taught his kids to constantly question the colleges’ & council’s risk assessments and ethical standards. he expressly forbade any of them attending dynamics, where his krewe was trained, and really hoped they’d all go into the arts.

calla and eshna, dopt’s two eldest, pleased him by becoming a council secretary and wearable sculpture artist respectively, but pepa desperately wanted to go to college. she ended up at statics, studying optics. she was competent, and blended in well enough with asuran academic culture, but it took most of her energy to stay mentally present in class and keep up her engineering student persona, instead of daydreaming all day about exploring ruins and making up booby traps in her head.

his real interest has always been archaeology—dopt’s life experiences instilled pepa with both a deep appreciation for the importance of learning about other races, and a deep fear of harming them in the process. so he studied cultures that were dead or missing from central tyria: the forgotten, the stone summit dwarves, and most of all the pre-primordus asura, as records of their lives underground were largely buried or erased to ease the transition to the surface. any time pepa didn’t spend on schoolwork, intramural tennis, or making the expected number of appearances at statics parties, he spent digging around in cave entrances and archives, collecting and obsessing over junk from ages past, and picking up thief skills to get over and under obstacles and stay hidden from destroyers and other subterranean critters.

the VOED was pepa’s final project, combining her official and personal fields of study to create a device that could visually highlight artifacts of interest. after graduation, she kept working on it, developing the core technology into an oversized lens that could scan large areas for old magitechnical signatures.

while observing the wilds around rata sum through his lens, pepa noticed huge cords of ancient magitech just under the surface—the optic fiber cables for underground ratas, though this wouldn’t be proven until the discovery of rata novus many years later. curious, she searched cave systems and dig sites around the “noodles” until finally striking on an exposed section of cable, and identifying it as the same type of coated glass that statics used for optics, and clearly old asuran make. she was over the moon, and undertook the project of mapping the optic cables and marking points where many intersected. these points, she theorized, would indicate the locations of large underground asura structures—maybe even whole lost cities.

most of pepa’s marked sites were inaccessible due to infestations and cave-ins (natural, caused by destroyers, or caused by asuran explosives to seal the entrances behind them as they fled to the surface). but at the site he’d labeled ‘X,’ his luck changed. as he hiked towards the spot, sweating in the maguuma heat, he felt a sudden cold breeze from below—a shaft, opened by erosion, just barely wide enough for a teenage asura to wriggle down—directly into an intact abandoned rata. pepa explored as far as he safely could alone in stealth, and saw no trace of destroyers or dangerous wildlife. squeezing up to the surface again, he was beside himself with excitement.

getting the funds, resources, and manpower to fully explore “rata x” was no picnic, though. the arcane council was fully against it, for fear of waking destroyers or damaging the structural integrity of the ground near rata sum. statics dismissed it at as a vanity project, claiming everything of value had been brought to the surface or re-invented by the colleges by now. and while the priory was interested, they had to concede that the site was too close to rata sum for them to overstep the council.

it was an obscure, underfunded inquest archaeology krewe who finally signed on, scraping together enough gold to cover equipment costs and volunteering themselves as expedition members. they were shady, skittish, mercenary asura, the kind dopt would have chewed pepa out to no end for associating with, but pepa was impatient, and took the first offer of help.

the rata x-pedition was a disaster. the hows & whys can be their own post, but it was a full party wipe for the inquest krewe, and pepa exited alone, pursued by a hive of destroyer crabs, clutching a single treasure: the rata’s main library data core, containing all the stored knowledge of its ancient inhabitants.

condemned by the arcane council and college of statics for endangering rata sum, reviled by the inquest for taking their gold and getting their researchers killed, pepa ran straight to the priory, and traded the data crystal to gixx for sanctuary and membership there. he was 18 at the time.

for the next 17 years, pepa earned the trust and respect of his fellow scholars. it wasn’t hard to redeem himself for rata x in their eyes. after all, he’d returned with the data crystal, and the dead had all been inquest. pepa struck up a quick friendship with kekt, who was a novice at the same time, got incredibly deft at navigating unstable and heavily trapped ruins, and became a resident expert on the stone summit dwarves, in contrast to kekt’s expertise on the deldrimor. he miniaturized the VOED lens into a handheld device powerful enough to see through seven planes of magic, allowing him to detect artifacts of interest as well as curses and hidden defensive devices with relative ease, as long as they used magic. after he presented his lens to the priory’s top archaeologists, he was rewarded with his own team—the Dangerous Artifacts Recovery Krewe, or D.A.R.K.

the krewe was exactly what it said on the tin. they extracted powerful artifacts from sites around the shiverpeaks and sometimes farther afield.

caius was an iron legion tank engineer who’d been traded to the priory for a ghost expert. he designed, built, maintained, and drove the krewe’s ATV, a combination charr car/dredge drill and all around sweet ride that let them access high peaks and deep caverns. he doubled as a rocks expert who could determine whether a cave or tomb was urgently likely to collapse on their heads.

pepa’s lens and proclivities for stealth, parkour, and trap disarming would get them through a dangerous structure, while maj, a raven norn, and kekt provided historical context and insight.

renada, a former thief and fence for kryta’s bandits—identified items of interest for the priory to either examine, repatriate to their cultures of origin, or sell off to fund more research.

being trusted with founding D.A.R.K. was a major compliment, but also a test of pepa’s ability to work with other races. while gixx had no problem with pepa’s closeness to kekt, as they had great research partner chemistry, he had noticed that pepa tended to associate almost exclusively with other asura. he mistook this for common elitism, assuming pepa thought of himself as too good to work with bookahs. in reality, it was a different type of asura supremacist thought that was keeping pepa isolated from other scholars—anxiety, taught to him by his father, about abusing his intellect and curiosity to the detriment of other, more fragile races. this worry was hammered out of him in a matter of days by his new human, charr, and particularly norn teammates. but it still lingered when he had to face sylvari. around them pepa was edgy, uncertain, frustratingly polite at the cost of productivity and clear communication. he’d already let dopt down once by collaborating with inquest, and was terrified he’d do it again by causing one of these strange, delicate-looking plant people to get hurt.

in 1324, kekt was given an opportunity to specialize full time in dwarf lore, which he eagerly took. maj tried out for the rank of archon, got the promotion, and moved to the priory’s labs, and riding the tide of change, renada “pulled back” from field work after a um. workplace safety lapse. (got too curious about a cursed stone summit ritual knife she’d flagged for secure storage, took it out to look at, and got three fingers instantaneously stripped to bone. the bitch of it is, it wasn’t even one of the treasures she was thinking about pawning on the side for personal funding! the fingers still work. they’re just animated bone now.)

rather than let D.A.R.K. disband, gixx assigned two hotshot new priory members to the krewe—bonnie shaw, a kid necromancer from ascalon whose raw, unpolished skill let her talk to spirits to learn more about sites and objects, and the newly minted magister sieran. although both of them were much younger than caius or pepa, and despite pepa’s fears about working closely with a sylvari, they were all thick as thieves well before a year passed, and had a major triumph together with the discovery and destruction of the sanguinary blade. the new D.A.R.K. was less balanced and cautious than the old, but with the rookies’ enthusiasm and magical firepower they seemed unstoppable.

and then the risen moved on claw island, and everything went south fast.

[gw2-correct-quotes]

"[...] With respect, Councillor: you're a buffoon.[...]"

~Asuran Commander