Zarp Draken
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Contents
Personality
"I've been a puppet a pauper a pirate a poet, a pawn and a king." ~Sinatra
Zarp Draken is a very straightforward, jovial character. He is also deep, complex, and brooding. A bit confused? Okay, good. Run with me here on this.
It's hard to peg Zarp as one thing or another. Some people call him a joker, others call him a hero. Things might be a little less confusing if he tried to disuade any of the titles he's been given, but he seems content to take it all in stride. Generally approachable, your best bet to figure out Zarp's personality would be to hear him tell it... then hear others tell it... then figure it out for yourself.
The Story So Far
All done in the form of an internal monologue!
I'm not from around here. I'm from another plane, or dimension, or whatever, called Kel'sheeria. Earth's a bit wacky, but I'd say I'm managing well.
Hit the Ground Running
Ok, it starts like this.
OW!
I'm stepping out of my inn room one minute, and into oncoming traffic the next. So I get hit by a car, end up goin' to a hospital, and over the next few days I'm learnin' about Earth and PRIMUS and UNTIL and VIPER 'til I finally I just get up and GO. They're like, "Uh, you got hit by a car, you're supposed to stay here and get better" and I'm like "Guys, I gotta run. You can stay here and play with your acronyms, but I got shit to do."
Meta-S.W.A.T
So yeah. I've been here like a month now. This "heroing" thing? Best job ever. Basically people just shout, "Oh no, dudes with guns are shooting stuff!" or "There's a giant robot making a mess!" or "My cat is shooting lasers again!" It's basically troubleshooting. Awesome, right? I mean, it's just like I used to do back home.
Things really kicked off for me when a few people picked a fight with Grond. They were talking about it over the comm, and a bunch of us went to go bother him. We were fightin' him and flimdickin' around for about an hour without any real progress. Finally we figured we either gotta organize, or leave... thing is, no one stepped forward to organize.
So I figure, "All right, fine. I'LL do it."
With Striker workin' close to me, we organized the twenty odd heroes around, 'n we kneed that big green jerk in the nuts. Gotta say, pretty satisfying.
Now I'd seen Striker around before. He does good work. We got to talking, and I figured it couldn't hurt if I joined up with his group, Meta-S.W.A.T.. Shortly after, my good buddy Doc signed up, and then things really started rolling. Good group of people. Glad to be with 'em.
Oh, and after I stuck a few posters around town ((9th post. Can't miss it.)) I made officer. Go figure, huh?
... You Gotta Be Kidding Me
I was attacked by a robotic cowboy parody of myself. I am being completely serious.
Me and a couple other came across the frigger when he was in the middle of one of his heists. As soon as I came in the room, he seemed more interested in fighting than stealing. So we faught, beat him up a bit, and he ran...
... WHAT THE F***!?!
WHO IS THIS GUY?! Who would BUILD something like that?! Who even KNOWS me on Earth!? This is retarded!
Everyone (myself included) had a hard time taking this guy seriously. He kept wanting to have a "showdown" with me and kept calling me cowboy names. It was pretty silly, up 'til he murdered a few people and managed to get a dose of dragonsbanein me. A plant ONLY found on Kel'sheeria. Thanks to some quick thinking by Sero and Doc by way of a blood transfusion, I lived... But I had nothin' but questions.
It's lookin' like I'll never get 'em answered, though. Over the next few weeks, Robo-Me just kept BOTHERING me. He had hair-brained crazy schemes to try to lure me into some sort of epic showdown. I finally figured "He wants an old fashioned showdown so bad? Fine by me."
With Berzerkka and Iggy, I dressed up like a cowboy -- totally serious here -- and went to go fight Robo-Me one last time. Spewing cowboy jargon like it was going out of style, it kept his attention... for some reason. He didn't run, and now he's nothing more then a bunch a' broken up pieces of slag in some dusty ol' cave somewhere.
So long, Buckaroo.
Draco Fuge
"Sometimes I want to throw it all away." ~ Goldfinger
So... Yeah. For like a month, NOTHING happened. Then a LOAD of shit happened all at once.
So the lame part of the month goes like this: got to know Mercy, who's like my best friend now. She-... Did some things for me. Really, REALLY helped me out, in ways I won't soon forget... Anyway. Also learned a LOT about where I am in a dimensional sense from Sarah, who incidently is a great person... and a looker. Got to know Amber a bit... ALSO a looker. Three for three, eh?
We've got this undead problem coming up, and only a few people know about it... Sarah's in the know, and she was basically our go-to girl for questions... For the first week. Then WE became the go-to people for everyone else. The closer this son of a lich came to surfacing, the more people we had to explain the situation to... And in every gods-damned meeting, I have to be the one to say "we can't do anything yet, we need to wait." People HATE it when you tell them that, by the way. No, they don't hate IT... They hate YOU for tellin' 'em... I've started telling people that blessing their bullets will work, just to shut 'em up.
Then the big week came... Three big things, all leading to one question.
So at this point of the story, it should be pretty clear that I adore Mercy somethin' vicious. So when she says "I need you to help me make a ritual that will tear my soul apart", I think it's pretty reasonable that I'm hesitant. She's got this plan to use part of her soul in an amulet that's gonna help people during the lich's coming. ... I don't have faith in it. I think her plan's gonna fail... but I've gotta help her anyway. She's my friend, and if I've got ONE complaint about her, it's that she tries to hold me back when I do something dangerous. So I've gotta be real careful not to play hypocrit, 'n help tear apart my best friend for a project I don't believe it. Yipee.
Then comes the awkward middle of this oreo. Through a friend've mine, Jane I met this woman, Aria. Now I'll come out 'n say it: I like Aria. Like-... Really. So much so, that I considered dating-... Aheh. Yeah don't worry, I know EXACTLY how petty that sounds. It's a small, insignificant thing... but not for me. There's a REASON I haven't entered that scene for my three months on Earth... Or for however many years it's been back home. Anyway. That never came to fruition 'cause of some outside forces, then there was this whole web of romance that cropped up 'n I just figured I wanted NOTHING to do with it. There's no way for me to tell this story without it sounding petty and insignificant. But it's hugely significant to me in this extremely secretive way, y'know? ... Well of course you know. You're a voice in my head.
Finally, there's Amber. She asked me to help her with a something super hush-hush... Which, admitedly, I love. She's a good person, and I was thrilled to be able to help her... but then I COULDN'T. I FAILED her. She came to me with a problem that was right up my alley, but I drew blank. Didn't know what to do. And know what makes it worse? On a whim, I decided to tell John that I was doing some secret shit... I didn't tell him all of the details, but I just figured I could let him into the l'il circle of trust. I was wrong. He lost it. Went off on me about how I did bad by keeping secrets... when in reality, it taught me I did bad by not keeping ENOUGH.
And the question that comes from all three of these? "Why not run?" I'm doing shit I hate. I'm getting my soul jarred in ways only running has fixed before. I'm failing people, and I'm having my friends distrust me... I've wandered most of my life. I'm asking myself why I stopped now, and I'm not coming up with an answer.
Fin
And then he was gone. Zarp one day simply... left. No one really knows why, and he told no one. Those few dedicated to the investigation would find him in Brazil a few month later, alive and well, working odd jobs from week to week.
Kung-Fu Dragon 2: The Revengance of Zarp
Turns out it's not as easy to dissapear as I hoped. I went across the entire world in an attempt to vanish, and have the world forget me. ALMOST worked. Unfortunately One special lady tracked me every step of the way.
Powers
Zarp Draken's abilities fall into three major categories. His physical abilities, his arcana, and his fire.
Physical Abilities
It may be suprising, but most of Zarp's abilities are not abilities at all. Years of hard work and experience have taught him how to fight properly through a mish-mash of self-styled martial arts. He power in hand-to-hand combat comes from sharpened reflexes and experience alone. While he may be considered strong by mundane standard, he is by no means a strength based hero.
Flight
HE'S GOT WINGS. FIGURE IT OUT.
Fire
All draconians are innately tied to a traditional element. Zarp's heritage gives him an affinity for fire. He is particularly close with this element, to the point where he has yet to find a temperature too high for him to stand. This blessing comes with a curse, as he is extremely bothered by cool temperatures, and fares very unwell in genuinely cold areas.
Zarp is able to produce fire with a fairly limited range as well as increase his own body temperature to the point where contact with him is able to burn through flesh. The latter takes a fair amount of concentration, so it has little combat application.
((Although it cannot be statistically represented, Zarp is supposed to have an immunity to mundane fire, and a high resistance to magical flame. He is very susceptible to ice-based attacks, ESPECIALLY if they are magical.))
Arcane
Using his dragon's blood as a catalyst, Zarp can channel non-elemental arcane energy. This simply translates into kinetic force. He often laces his unarmed strikes with this force so they hit hard enough to deal with super-powered threats. With some focus, he can also launch this energy as a long range blast.
Zarp is also very knowledgeable about arcana and inter-planar mechanics, but who wants to hear about THAT?
Weakness
Aside from women, Zarp has one known weakness. Dragonsbane. It is a rare plant, native only to Kel'sheeria, that can be made into a poison. It takes advantage of a dragon's catalytic blood and destablizes their magic. If the toxin was to enter Zarp's system, his blood would gradually boil and never stop. It is unquestionabley lethal. Fortunately for him, the toxin must enter the bloodstream directly, it cannot be ingested or breathed, AND there are no traces of the plant on Earth!
So he thought.
Say What You Will!
(What does YOUR character think about Zarp? Good or bad, don't by shy. Post!)
"Purple's alright for a pig, helped me outta a bad spot. Don't much get the magic stuff but he ain't a nerd 'bout it, so that's gears." -Berzerkka
"Z? He's gorgeous and he knows it. But he adores my food and doesn't complain if I have to drag him out on a late patrol. That makes him aces." -Mercy
"Dragon in power armor or something, doesn't get more awesome!" -Smiley
"He ran away. I don't know why, I.. don't have the time or energy to care why. Not all of us have the luxury of compromising our responsibility because things get tough. He ran away. That's all I need to know about him now." -Giga Gal
"I keep telling him he should go on American Idol. Dude is always belting out old Journey songs in the locker room showers..." - Phalanxer Yellowjacket X
"Zarp? Nice guy. Had me worried when I met'em. Shiverin' his ass off in Canada. We beat up a giant monkey together. Who would'a figured, that from the outworlder who didn't know a TV from a trenchcoat, he'd come so far? Maybe it's 'cuz he had nothing to miss, everything to gain. REALLY good friends with Mercy. Back when we were dating, the kind of good friend that would make some guys all up in arms. But I knew him. An' Merce. So, never really worried. Now that Mercy and I're over, I wonder if somethin'll bloom? Still, Solid guy to have inna fight." - Hunter
"A personable and approachable personality masks Zarp's deep, complex character and profound intellect. What most people see from him is only the tip of a vast iceberg floating in very dark, tumultous seas. Still, of all the people I know, there are few I'd trust more readily with my life, or my secrets." - personal journal of David C. Smith, aka Psionistar
"He may seem carefree about what he does, but deep down he cares greatly about it. On one side, I see him talking about women and his...'posters', and then the next moment he's talking to me, helping me make a difficult decision. But, just from my few experiences speaking with him, I know he's someone trustworthy. Whoever has him as a friend will find something quite special, I think." -- Darius Phen
Trivia
- He has an emotional tie to the color blue.
- Zarp sort of has a thing for cowboys. The first movie he ever saw was The Magnificent Seven, and it stuck.
- Zarp often goes to the Millenium City park to talk to the ducks. It's unclear whether they talk back.
- He seems compelled to fight high-class threats. He has never explained this, but often stalks down big-name targets such as a teleiosaurus, or Grond. Not always alone.
- Is fully aware that his name sounds like the sound effect for a raygun.
- Absolutely adores Journey.
OOC Stuffs!
Zarp
Zarp Draken was my first delve into the world of creative. His VERY rough draft was concieved in 1997 for no game in particular. His first incarnation was a woodsman in blue, who shot fireballs (seriously. That's it). But hey, I was young! At the time I figured that was the epitome of badassery. He's (obviously) changed a lot since then.
Zarp is by far the most complex character I have created. I fully expect that no one on CO will ever see the "true" character beneath his many, many layers of personality... but it makes me happy that they're there.
Backstory
I always keep his long (and complicated!) backstory the same, up to the point he's inserted into whichever game I play. So the Zarp from CoH has the same backstory as the Zarp from CO... However the interactions with people can drastically change the character. I will not be posting any of Zarp's Kel'sheeria backstory on this site
Music
Music has always played an important roll in Zarp's creation. It will never come up in-character, but I will post here a few songs that I think are key.
Goldfinger - Superman - The closest he can come to having a theme. Fits perfectly for his "casual/playful" side. (Coincidently, I think the character in that video has the same "feigning stupidity" thing on the go! I swear to God Zarp's an original character... but they're similar!)
Loudmouth - Fly - For slightly serious, fight-type moments.
Breath of Fire 4 Intro - This has always reminded me that there's something deep beneath his surface.
Chris Cornell - You Know My Name - He's a multi-layered character, using secret personas as shielding to other personas... Okay, it's not QUITE as severe as the song makes it out to be, but it was written for James Bond, not Zarp Draken.
Art!
A dear friend of mine COMPLETELY suprised me with this. She's known Zarp from FAR before CO. Boy was I suprised when someone ELSE got a commision for one of MY characters. It remains one of my most cherished gifts. So here it is! Zarp, from his early years!]
