Name: Zara Horowitz (and Sarissa Dyne)
Gender: Female (both of them)
Age: 23
Essence Organ: Zara’s is the brain, inside her head. Sarissa’s is the heart.
Appearance: Zara is a shorter woman at around 5’2”. She has long blonde hair with green highlights- not dyed, a result of Sarissa’s soul making a couple small changes- usually tied in a ponytail. She has brown eyes. She’s usually wearing her armor, which is full-body, including a full helm, and green in color with several runes covering it. When not wearing the armor, she’s usually not wearing anything specific; although she tends towards lighter, easier to move in clothing. She’s actually quite attractive, with more delicate features than one would expect of her profession and a not unappreciable figure (obscured by armor though it is, usually).
When Sarissa takes control of the body, she generally lets their hair out of the ponytail, such that it goes down to the middle of her back, and the hair switches colors- green with blonde highlights now. Her eyes also change color, also to green. The armor, in contrast to the “squishy wizard” archetype, doesn’t seem to inhibit Sarissa’s magic much.
Personality: Zara is usually nice and tries to be polite, albeit somewhat impatient. She lacks confidence in herself, due to past events and the scale of her current mission, but resolves to make an effort despite this fact. Having grown up with men for most of her life- first her brothers and father, and then the men of the otherwise all-male Paladin organization- is a bit ignorant as to what is considered “lady-like” or “proper”, let alone the fact that she probably should wear more conservative clothes in public.
Sarissa, in comparison, is a selfish individual mostly working for her own interests; main reason she wouldn’t turn on the other Cazadores is that if the multiverse gets destroyed, that includes herself. She’s rather blunt as well, albeit confident in her own abilities. In comparison to Zara she is *quite* aware of what is good and proper for a lady to do or wear. The issue being, she doesn’t care; Sarissa quite enjoys that Zara’s body is, ironically, rather more pleasing to the eye than the one she had when she was alive and is not afraid to flaunt it.
Backstory:
Zara was once a member of the Paladins. While the term is more often than not associated with holiness or the divine, the Paladins, at least those of her country Olvey, are more a military organization than a religious one. They are usually an all-male organization, and membership is inherited and not optional for the oldest son of the family that is compatible with the runes used on their equipment. Zara’s case was unique; while she does have brothers- several in fact- for some reason they all physically rejected the runes, where she was able to take them. Due to the low numbers recently, she was made to join the Paladins; the first and only female member.
Soon after her basic training was complete, a mission was assigned. It was supposed to be simple; a necromancer wannabe trying to raise the dead in the royal tomb. While normally the castle guards could deal with it, this being the royal tomb they wanted to be sure. So Zara and the unit she was assigned to- 10, including herself- went to the tomb. Simple they said.
It was simple until the group was roughly halfway to the center suddenly, skeletons of the long dead arose in front of them. Many skeletons. Not a normal necromancer. While they would have left to get reinforcements, when they turned there were undead behind them as well. They were nearer the necromancer- they’d have to be near the end the center of the tomb to reach this many from both sides.
In the initial engagement they lost half the unit. As they began to progress to the center, another two were dragged off into shadows. It was more luck than any skill on her part that saw Zara to the door to the inner sanctum as one of the three survivors, with the leader being one of the others. It was a similar amount of luck that let her survive the magical trap on the door that killed the other two. Zara dragged herself, wounded but alive, into the room, which was where she met Sarissa.
Sarissa had been preparing a spell using the ashes of the nation’s first king, from the bottom of the tomb; it had been to empower herself beyond mortality, to make herself on the level of a deity. It had been a servant that had reported her activity as that of a low-class necromancer, so as to minimize the response until she was ready.
So while she was surprised when the trap went off, and more so when Zara dragged herself into the room, still alive, Sarissa was quite confident that she could win. Zara was rather sure she’d lose if she were to try a straight fight as well. At the same time Sarissa launched a blast of magic, Zara jumped towards the spell circle.
Neither of the two are entirely sure what happened to them then. Sarissa’s theory was that the power of the spell had made it easy to disrupt; when Zara had entered the circle, the runes on her armor disrupted the spell such that the magic backfired on the caster: Sarissa. She died then, but as a sorceress she had control of her soul as it left her charred corpse; she entered Zara’s body, the young woman not noticing anything besides the undead collapsing at the entrance and throughout the tomb. She managed to make it to the entrance, before collapsing from exhaustion and her wounds.
The rest is a blur; she’s told a castle servant found her bleeding on the ground and took her to the court physician. She somewhat remembers explaining what happened to… someone? Through use of healing magic, she was on her feet and heading back to the Paladins the next day. She remembers commendations, funerals for the deceased, and other such things. She even got promoted.
It was a sort of cruel irony that not three months later, the royal family was overthrown, and the Paladins disbanded as a symbol of the new peace the new rulers wanted. At some point during this time, Zara had discovered Sarissa, whose soul had taken up residence in her body, and could take control if she allowed it or let down her guard. While Sarissa does not have even a tenth of her old power, due to the new body and other factors- she likely could not replicate the possession should the new body die, for example- she does have the ability to reverse Zara’s abilities when she takes control, for rather different usage than the healing and enhancement that Paladins usually use.
Some way or another, the two had ended up in the employ of the Facilitators as a single Cazadore. While the pay was nice, saving the multiverse was definitely a good thing
Abilities: [0/5 Ability Points Remaining]
Heal / Harm (Active, Lv.1): A simple healing spell that heals moderate wounds on a single ally / A simple damaging spell that inflicts moderate wounds through magic on a single target.
Multiheal / Multiharm (Active, Lv.1): A simple multi-target healing spell that heals lesser wounds on up to three allies / A simple multi-target attack spell, that inflicts lesser wounds on up to three enemies.
Stoneskin / Paperskin (Active, Lv.1): A spell that increases the defenses of up to three allies, such that they are much harder to physically harm / A spell that reduces the defenses of up to 3 enemies, making them take much more damage from physical sources.
Strengthen / Weaken (Active, Lv.1): A spell that increases the offensive potential of up to three allies, this spell makes its targets hit harder, physically / A spell that weakens up to 3 enemies such that they can’t strike with their full power, physically.
Give Over Control (Active, Lv.1): Zara allows Sarissa to take control of their body, or the reverse if Sarissa is currently in control. Zara has access to the healing and buffs, and Sarissa to damaging spells and debuffs. Physical or equipment based skills are not affected by the change.
Equipment:
Runic Spear: The standard armament of the Paladins of Olvey, Runic Spears are engraved with various symbols that nobody can quite agree on the meaning of, or whether they’re arcane or divine in nature. In any case, it’s a rather effective a weapon, or more so than a normal spear at least. In addition to, well, getting stabbed with a spear, attacks with this spear are not purely physical in nature, allowing it to hit those that cannot be hit with physical attacks and being particularly effective against undead.
Paladin Armor: A set of rather strong plate armor and full helmet (while helmets are hardly “heroic”, there is a reason people wear them), with similar runes as the Runic Spear that make it protect against attacks be they physical in nature or not. The armor is about as strong as steel and noticeably lighter, and contrary to popular belief, well-made armor such as this does not inhibit movement much.
Author
Topic: Los Cazadores - Saviors of the Multiverse [OOC] (Read 29020 times)