Mithridae Kyne, Knight Errant

Type of Character:
Human

Link to Character List Page: http://www.rpgdragons.org/f84-character-registration)

Name:
Mithridae Kyne

Alias:
Dame Mallus, (ex) Order Slayer of the Chapter of the Hearth of the Order Knights of Prosperity

Age: 31
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Homosexual  
Personality:
Bland and self-centered on the surface, Mithridae suffers from a detachment common to those who were raised as soldiers.  She doesn't place much value on her own abilities to socialize or empathize, instead remaining solely focused on her own survival and completion of her set tasks.  But, she finds herself naturally drawn to peppier people, and tends to stay closer to people who have the graces that she lacks.  Mithridae is neither good nor evil, she finds herself more in the role of the weapon than the person wielding it.  She maintains her distance from the responsibilities of decision-making, but will easily take up the mantle of commander when the decisions have been made.

Fears:
A natural in the sky, Mithridae doesn't like the idea of being stuck in a large body of water.  Even worse is being underground.  Her fears mostly stem from claustrophobia, which is worst when she feels that her limbs and lungs are immobile.  She doesn't have the same concept of fear when being close to death, being almost apathetic when her life is threatened.  She does, however, have a deep anxiety when having to make a good impression or deal with people in a favorable social situation.

Strengths:
As an ex-knight, Mithridae's strengths center around combat and tactics.  She's skilled with a blade, spear, and lance.  She's good with a shield, and her sole magical ability is a ward to protect her long enough to get her close to the combat.  She's also a highly capable dragon rider, one of the best.

Weaknesses:
Mithridae has a weakness of mortality.  As skilled as she is with a blade, and as strong as she is in her training, she'll never be more than human.  Being an older soldier, she maintains herself well but can't overcome an old back wound.  It keeps her from being as limber or athletic as younger warriors, and starts to pain her after long enough flying or straining.  She also has a weakness of range, having no long range skills to speak of.  Her social weakness are with interaction and women, she finds it very hard to be pleasant, but very easy to fall to a pretty face.

Life Info
Home:
Born to the far west, across the ocean, Mithridae now lives as a nomad.

Profession:
An ex-knight, dragon rider, and dragon slayer.  She now serves as a mounted sell-sword for the highest bidder.

Family:
Her birth family is dead, but Mithridae was raised by a foster father (a dragon named Guarnere) and a Order of knights.

General Appearance
Height: 5'6"
Hair:
Blonde, down to the shoulder blades, usually pulled back and braided.

Eyes:
Bright blue.

Appearance:
Trending towards the short side, Mithridae manages to look imposing by posture and expression.  She has a softer face, rounded cheeks with prominent cheekbones and a pointed chin.  Her nose is short and pointed, and her eyes wide and almond, with a sparkling blue tint to them.  But, her light brows are constantly drawn in a squint, and her eyes constantly turned down and narrowed at the object of her attention.

Despite her size, she's muscular and athletic.  She's significantly heavier than most women, with defined muscles for holding the reins and swinging a sword.  Much of her feminine curves are hidden, if not by her muscles, by the bulky clothes she wears.  Being a warrior, she dresses in utilitarian leathers and armor.

Skills and Abilities
Skills
Well-trained in combat and survival skills, Mithridae is has the skills necessary to survive in almost any situation.  She can hunt, prepare food, kill, infiltrate, and use anything she finds as a weapon.  She has the basic knowledge to do most menial tasks if taught once, but outside of that tends not to have many other skills.

Her one ability is a golden ward she can call from her wrist, where a shield would sit.  The order she was a part of believed themselves holy paladins serving a God-Emperor (who wasn't a god).  They studied the art of combat religiously from a young age, and along with it a ward of protection, that they could wage battle using only their swords even when fighting warriors with long range or superior weaponry, or dragon-to-dragon combat.

The ward is small and compact, no more than three feet across with the center at the wrist.  It doesn't so much stop projectiles as direct them around the wielder, which is useful unless the ward encounters dragon fire and the wielder is standing, in which case it will burn them from the hips down.  To use it effectively in combat is the same as using a shield, but the only truly effective way it can block large-area attacks is for the wielder to crouch and remain immobile behind it.

In addition, wielding it can be unnecessarily dangerous.  Because of the strain of focus that must be used for magic, it's the equivalent of driving while texting.  Mithridae is experienced enough to keep concentrated on her immediate battle, but it increases her blind spots allowing for a greater chance of getting attacked from the sides or back.

Equipment:
Mithridae's default armor is a set of leather riding gear, complete with a helmet with goggles and a face-plate to allow air through even when whipping about on a dragon.  Her other outfits are an old tunic and riding pants from her knight days, a heavier coat for the cold, and some older metal armor that she keeps attached to Guarnere's saddle.

Her weapons are the more interesting bits.  She has one plain dagger with a gem inset in the hilt.  Her main weapon is a sword, medium length, single-bladed, with a crack that runs its length and has been set with some sort of blue resin.  Her other weapons, saddled on Guarnere, are a smaller spear for throwing, and a lance.  The lance is almost as large as she is, but the middle can be extended like an umbrella, and the plating on the side can be rotated inwards to form a length almost twice her height, long enough to extend past Guarnere's head.

In addition to her standard gear, and a small leather and wood buckler, she has some standard survival gear.  It's little more than some pots and pans, fur for sleeping, pelt for shelter, and canteens for water.

Combat Style:
Ever the knight, Mithridae's fighting styles tend to be slower and more controlled.  She uses her ward to get close to enemies and wait for opportunities, and will use her skill and experience to out wait and outwit her opponents.  Being towards the older side for a soldier, and with a back injury she must favor, she'll exhaust all of her skill and experience before she gets into a straight up brawl.

Background
History:
To the far, far west, across the oceans and near distant shores, lived an island.  Upon that island was an Empire, ruled under the iron fist of the Emperor.  The people there believed that the Emperor had the blood of dragons running through his veins, and they not only worshiped him, but the dragons who lived around the islands.  Humans would serve the dragons, and in return the dragons would lend their power and intellect into combat.

Then came the war.  The Empire was razed, dragons taking to the skies to burn the cities on either side of the war into ash.  Caught in the crossfire were the Kynes, two knights of the Empire's Order.

When one of the Imperial dragons returned, they found a young child in the ashes, near the charred corpses of her parents.  Guarnere, battle-dragon of the Order, took pity on the child and kept her alive as the island rebuilt itself into a shadow of its former self.  He raised Mithridae with his mate, taking her into his roost at the abandoned Order keep.

Mithridae, like her caretakers and her parents before her, was raised with the knights and strove to become one.  She trained diligently enough that, in her teens, when a second war raged Mithridae was ready to join it.  She rode Guarnere into the conflict, confident at first, but quickly found herself jaded as she found herself in one of the worst conflicts the Empire had ever seen.

In the wake of the conflict, Mithridae was led away in chains.  She had made a choice to protect a friend at the sake of her own military, and her treason did not go unpunished.  It took seven years of labor for her release, and when she was released she found Guarnere waiting for her.  The world had changed, Mithridae had been left behind, and old wounds weren't easily healed.

Rather than continue surviving in a place that no longer considered her a friend, she saddled Guarnere and pointed him east, over the ocean.  The pair left and never looked back.

RP Sample:

The door swung open.  One foot stepped through, the wooden planks below creaking under the weight, drawing a few looks from inside.

It was another wanderer.  Another thirsty fool stepping into the wrong bar in the wrong part of town.  Another figure who stopped in the entrance and stood there like they were waiting for someone to paint a picture while they looked all majestic and mysterious, shrouded by the bloom of the sun outside against the darkened oaks of the bar inside.

By the time the doors had swung closed and the stranger had stepped in, all the curious glances had returned to their dice and drinks.  The stranger took a few steps inside, reaching up to unclasp the straps from her leather mask and pull it up and forward over her face.  Soft features, slick with grime and sweat, met the stagnant air of the building.  Bright blue eyes blinked from under golden hair, eyes that caught the bartender in a cold, unwavering stare.

"I'll take a pint," the stranger said, dropping a silver coin onto the polished wood between them.  "And some information..."

This is great only a couple things. First keep in mind dragons and humans are like life long enemies. The newborn of both grow up fearing and hating the other and it's not realistic for some how to train your dragon crap to change a whole village. Both Dragon and Rider would be outcasted if not killed if found to be in the presence of each other.

Last thing is magic is very hard for humans to come by and even harder to learn. A spell that can block dragon fire is incredibly powerful especially if we are talking the FireWings which we usually are in fire breathing dragons. Some explanation of how she acquired this skill would be appreciated as well as some clearer outlines of what this ward is capable of and maybe toning it's ability down a bit.

Clarified the ward. It's basically a sign that she used to be a knight of a holy order, and it feels like it would lower her paladin-ness a little to remove it. But hopefully that clarifies its balance a little more, I wouldn't want Mithridae to seem too strong or ready for any situation.

As for the dragon riding... That's also important to her character, since she was designed for a different world with Guarnere as her adopted father. Let's see if this sort of explanation would serve:

So, in real life there's Japan. Japan has its own Emperor who is said to be descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu (I'm paraphrasing here and might not have it all correct). So, the Emperor's lineage has a special place in Japan along with sun imagery, e.g. "the rising sun".

Your world has dragons, humans, gods, and mixtures of the three. Dragons with human blood, humans with dragon blood, dragons who disguise as humans.

So, theoretically, if a relatively-closed off island outside of the known continents were to be conquered by one with dragon blood, they could be ruled by a Dragon Emperor (a title for symbolism, if nothing else). Given their isolationism, they would know little of the prejudice against dragons, but instead have a reverence for the power that dragons provide. It might start off as human sacrifices to dragons to gain power over warring tribes, and might someday turn into a symbiotic relationship where dragons are fed and fattened and humans fight among themselves for the honor of riding them.

That's a little shy of the world Mithridae was designed for, but the details of her homeland aren't as important since she's severed her ties to it. The real concept for her is a wandering knight, who instead of riding a horse, rides the cantankerous dragon who raised her, and spends most of her time trying to figure out who these locals are so strange.

I wasn't saying you couldn't be dragon and dragon rider was just saying keep in mind the rest of the world is going to hate that relationship. Also there is only one instance of a dragon with human blood and only like two maybe three instances of humans with dragon blood. It's far from common place.

The ward looks good. APPROVED