Aralak Mogra'thir - The orc strategist.

[Aralak Mogra'thir]

Name: Aralak Mogra'thir (Literally translates to 'The axe that thinks' but the frequent mis-translation of 'The axe of malice' has proven more memorable to his enemies.)
Age: 29
Sex: Male
Height: 7'2''
Weight: 128kg
Hair Colour: Fire-opal orange
Eye Colour: Dark, malevolent red
Occupation: Warband leader and tactician

Personality and history (the two are inseparably linked for this character): To understand Aralak, it is first necessary to understand the culture that he was raised in and is part of. Aralak hails from the world of Teramil, in which the orcs inhabit the wastelands to the west of the civilised area of the continent. Like his brethren, Aralak follows a strict code of honour when he fights, he will never attack a foe from behind unless they are running from him and he will always hear the last words of a dying foe so that he might inscribe them on the skull of the fallen. These practices may seem barbaric, but it has long been the way of the orcs of Teramil to revere those who die in battle before all else. Consequently cowardice in all its forms is reviled within their culture. Similarly, it is their belief, and hence that of Aralak himself, that the act of beheading a fallen foe grants them swifter passage to the Halls of Preparation, an orcish interpretation of heaven.

Orcish mythology states that when the time is ready, their god will lead the souls of those who died honourable deaths in battle against his arch enemy. Those responsibly for maintaining the prestige of this god in the mortal realm are the shaman caste, a group that take in those few orcs adept in the arcane arts and tutor them in how to dedicate their gifts in service to the god. To keep their secrets and preserve their status above other orcs, the shamans use a different sub-dialect of the orcish tongue that differs enough from the language used by others to make the matter of their discourse concealed from listeners. It is rare that anyone beyond the shaman caste learns this language.

Aralak learned the language of the shamans when he was fifteen. The shaman caste stands alone among orcs in their reverence for intelligence, a trait often seen as undesirable. Discovering his innate talent as a military tactician at a young age, Aralak sought them out. He was already a competant warrior, but there were those that were stronger, faster, and would see to it that he never got the chance to use his talent. The shaman caste taught him something more useful than magic: they taught him how to think in battle. It is the nature of an orc to go into what is called a 'blood rage' when faced with conflict. Whilst this makes them fight with added ferocity, it prevents them thinking coherantly and so can cause fatal carelessness. The shamans taught Aralak to overcome this battle rage so that he could fight a stronger foe using his head instead of his muscle, which was considerable even if there were those whose strength was greater. They also taught him how to make a thick poultice that, when painted onto the skin before battle, numbs the pain from a wound, reduces the influence of magic over him, and causes the blood to clot faster over an injury, reducing the blood lost.

As far as orcs go, Aralak is what could be called kind hearted. The one thing that stands in the way of this interpretation is the rather controversial view taken by orcs to the matter of property. It is the belief of orcs that a person only has the right to the ownership of a commodity, be it land, gold, or those who follow him, as long as he can defend it from all challengers. They apply this philosophy to anyone they encounter, most notably the border outposts of the human empire. The orcs will continually test whether the garrison commanders are still able to defend the land they claim, and fail to understand why the humans find this offensive.

By the time he was 20, Aralak was participating in raids such as this, at the time equipped with coarse leather armour, a spear and a crude wooden shield that had probably once been a door to the hovel of some peasant. On his seventh raid, the leader of his warband was slain by a human cavalier who, much to the waxing wrath of the orcs, took his body back as a trophy without severing the head! At the end of a long campaign to reclaim the body that humans record as 'The spring the west rained blood,' through which Aralak orchestrated most of the battle tactics used by his band, Mogra'thir formally became the leader of his own warband.

he then set about the labourious business of drilling into his followers the importance of discipline and co-ordination. He had been greatly impressed by the humans he had fought against in his campaign and had realised that the greatest potential could be reached by combining their discipline with orcish strength and battle prowess. By the time the next summer came around his warband was trained to form complex formations such as shield walls, the tortoise and the most fearsome of all, a phalanx.

Eight years later, Aralak has brought his warband up to a strength of some 800 orcs and has other warband leaders willing to work alongside him for greater plunder and honour. He was poised to attack the human settlements when a summons came through from the shaman caste seeking a champion to compete in a grand tournament in a distant land. Seeing a chance to not only claim a great reward, but also to boost his fame a considerable amount and so win more orcs to his campaign, Aralak accepted the summons and so arrives here in the tournament of champions.

Appearance: Standing just over seven feet tall, Aralak towers a head above almost any human, when added to the orc's short neck which makes his head appear to sit in front of his immensely well muscled shoulders instead of above them, this makes his stature all the more impressive. Thick slabs of muscle cover his green skinned torso and shoulder blades. Legs built like tree trunks support a lower ody equally well muscled as his upper body. His arms carry a number of criss-crossing battle scars however his body and head bear surprisingly few marks, only a shallow horizontal mark across his right pectoral and a thin line above his right eyebrow. The comparatively heavier scarring on the right side of his body reflects how he tends to step forward with his right leg as he attacks. His eyebrows resemble thick tufts of tiger fur and his head is bald aside from a thick orange braid that grows from the back of his scalp and is bound in strips of black cloth. This reaches down to the middle of his back. When he is not wearing his armour, Aralak wears a tunic and leggings of rough spun brown cloth.

Weapons: Aralak only uses one weapon in battle, which reflects a trade off of flexibility for greater proficiency with his blade of choice. He uses a double headed steel axe with an oaken shaft five feet in length. The handle is bound in iron rings to keep it from splitting and is tipped at the end opposed to the head with an iron spike an additional foot in length. The blade on the axe head carries many notches from its previous use and ends in a spike on the nearside of the blade for impaling people who get inside the swing of the heavy weapon. Weighing roughly 32kg, the weapon is too heavy for all save the strongest humans to wield with any aptitude.

Armour: The mismatched set of armour Aralak uses consists of a toughened leather layer with pieces of metal plate bound to the outside. The metal is mostly iron thought with some pieces of steel and is rusty and dented in many places, but gives his torso ample protection and encases his shoulders, elbows and upper arms in segmented joints. The heaviest armour covers his legs, with thick steel plates covering the top of his thighs, although the one on his left leg is split. He wears no helmet and only stiff cloth gloves on his hands. So that he can better assess his footing, he wears no boots unless he is fighting on ice or rock that is sharp or heated.

Skills and Abilities:
Innate Orcish Skills - As a Temaril orc, Aralak is posessed of an awesome strength that is greater than that of a human, approximately 2.5 times in proportion, but less than that of an ogre, troll or giant. His skin is tougher than that of a human, roughly equal to elephant hide, but, again, not as tough as a giant or dragon. This tough skin is also semi-resistant to magic (10%), but not as much as that of a draconian. On the down side he has a natural ineptitude for magic that reduces the power of spells (if he has them) and forbids him from using magical artefacts.

Axe Mastery (skill) - Aralak has trained for years in the use of his mighty axe. He thinks of the weapon as little more than an extension of his arm and can as a result wield it in battle by instinct.

War Paint (preparation ability) - Aralak's war paint, which is by default applied before each battle, gives him an increased resistance to magic (30%), numbs the pain of any wounds he takes, and causes the blood to clot faster over a wound, making it heal faster and causing him to lose less blood. This obviously doesn't work for a near fatal wound or severed limbs or injuries of comparable severity. This lasts for the duration of the battle, although weather effects such as rain may wash it off sooner.
Blood Rage (orcish ability) - Aralak is able to drive himself into a battle rage that lasts for five turns of combat in which he moves faster (all his actions take 70% of the time they normally would), his blows strike with two and a half times the normal force and he perceives hazards more swiftly. After it ends he is left exhausted and sometimes dazed. Blood rage ends, and inflicts all the relevent status ailments, if Aralak fails to attack for one turn while under its influence. Combined with the momentum of his axe, the added strength of Blood Rage enables Aralak to sunder all save the heaviest armour. When he enters battle rage it is accompanied by a loud war cry to get the adrenaline flowing, which also has the side effect of warning his enemy.

((Please note: very few skills, abilities and equipment to make up for those he has being of considerable power.))

[Taskmienster]

Alright, you may want to put spaces between when one paragraph ends and the next begins, because as it is now it's very difficult to read.

Other than that:

What metal is the armor? How much resistance to magic does your skin give, and the war paint give? I'd suggest 10% skin, 25% paint just to be fair. Also, what is 'awesome strength'? 2 times greater than a regular human, 4 times? How tough is your skin? I'd suggest maybe as hard as boiled leather.

Finally, Blood Rage: How much faster does he move, how much more force/strength is applied to the blows?

[Aralak Mogra'thir]

Ah, quantitative specification. Sorry, I've never worked with an environment so heavily based on stats before, two seconds...

Done, I think that's adressed all the points you mentioned. I had to make the war paint slightly better than you suggested since it's his only real defense against magic. He can't interrupt or dispell enchantments or hexes and the guy I'm teaming with has a 'point and shoot' approach to arcane mechanics so... If it's too much then I'll nerf something else, probably the Blood Rage.

[Taskmienster]

Due to the fact that you have so few skills, you can up your strength if you'd like. Maybe 3-4 times as strong? Of course, when the bloodrage hits you'll be like... 6-8 times as strong for five posts, but I think that's considerably fair since you don't have much else in the line of skills.

[Aralak Mogra'thir]

If I've got more points to allocate I'd prefer to place them in damage reduction and magic resistance. This character is built as more of a tank than a high damage-per-second combatant. Would that be ok?

Actually, forget I said that. In my experience tanks lead to very slow, boring battles and it's hard to make a character who barely feels pain interesting to read about. Editing up the strength.

Ok, I added a bit of speed to the Blood Rage as well but also put in an added condition that gives the opponent a warning so that should balance out.

[Taskmienster]

The skills you have towards defense are about all I can reasonably do as far as giving, but if you wanted to add another ability or two towards defense that'd be fine. Something along the lines of protecting your teammate, pulling attention/attacks towards yourself, taking damage for them, or increased constitution so you can take more blows than normal would be fine.

You can also have your armor equivalent to Dehlar that would be fine. If you're not familiar with the metals we use you can find them in the second post of this thread. Dehlar is a very heavy, strong metal that is good for magical resistance.

[Aralak Mogra'thir]

Ok, I made some changes to his strength and his speed in Blood Rage, just hope I havn't overbalanced him. If it's still a bit underpowered then I'll go with it anyway, I think if I added any more abilities I'd be getting a bit close to ripping off a few MMOs.

[Taskmienster]

Alright, cool. Looks good, and you are approved!

Go kill, green beast. And good luck with the tournament!