Post by Fire Lord Sozin on Oct 20, 2014 20:59:45 GMT -5
Ok this is my first time trying one of these RP forums so go easy on me, that being said without much further ado...
Name: Fire Lord Sozin
Age: 82
Gender: Male
Nation: Fire Nation
Physical Appearance: Despite being over 80 years old Sozin is still an imposing and physically powerful man. At 6’0” Sozin is a broad shouldered, solidly build man that looks like he still possesses the strength someone much younger. His hair, once the same black common to all in his nation, is now silvery white and kept pulled into a top knot adorned with the crown of the Fire Nation. His many lined face, adorned with a silvery white beard kept in the shape of a V, shows the march of time proudly and with an air of distinguished grace. His eyes almost mimic his nature: their yellow-orange color is rimmed in a line of red pigment giving them the appearance of being made of fire itself.
During formal occasions and while acting as head of state Sozin wears the royal robes of the Firelord. These long sleeved robes while mostly red in color have a foot wide black band that runs down the chest to the floor which is trimmed on all sides with golden accents and bound by a black sash. The robes are capped with a three tiered shoulder piece topped with a black mantle that is adorned in gold and shows the emblem of the Fire Nation in black and gold at the center of the chest.
While in a less formal setting the now aging Firelord wears a mid-thigh length red haori trimmed in gold and bound by a gold sash. Under his haori he wears a long sleeved red shirt and a pair of brown pants. His feet are clad in a pair of calf length black boots worn over the cuffs of his pants.
Equipment: While Sozin only carries a few items on himself at any time; he has access to the nearly unlimited resources of the Golden Age of the Fire Nation. When in the field he wears a set of masterfully crafted and ornate Fire Nation armor but carries no weapons.
Combat Skills: Sozin, like all Firelords before and after him, is a consummate firebender. Having been trained since birth in the art of firebending Sozin had the best teachers the Fire Nation could possibly provide; add to this his training through his early life with Avatar Roku and it goes without saying you get a very skilled and dangerous man. Sozin is not just capable but has mastered nearly every form of firebending in existence today including many highly advanced techniques such as: Lightning Projection and limited Jet Propulsion. He is even capable of at least one technique no other, even Avatar Roku, are capable of, Heat Redirection. This gives him the ability to simply absorb thermal energy into his body and expel it in a direction of his choosing.
Talents: Sozin is above all else a master of the duties of state. His skills at diplomacy were honed over a lifetime of deft political maneuvering; including running every facet of the Fire Nation and changing not just policy but the countries very identity. His tactical mastery is perhaps the only skill comparable to his political acumen. His battles are the stuff of legend and will assuredly be spoken of in awe by generations to come. The most astounding part is Sozin has done all of this while not simply maintaining his position but strengthening it; he has turned the position of Firelord into a veritable God-King and changed the hearts and minds of his people to believe in his goal as much as he himself. The mantle he bore combined with Sozin’s very serious and driven personality did not leave him much time for other pursuits; which is epitomized by his lack of a wife or heir despite his advanced age.
Flaws: Sozin’s entire personality is such an emotional, sociopathic and rationalized mess that it would be best to see the personality section for an understanding of how flawed he really is.
History: Sozin’s childhood could be summed up by saying it was privileged. With a much more easy going father than he was to become Sozin was able to enjoy his childhood to the fullest. He practiced firebending even while very young, under the tutelage of some of the greatest masters of the age and he did it because he wanted to, not because it was the only way to gain his father’s affection. Once he grew to school age he began attending the Royal Fire Academy for Boys where he was taught not only the standard curriculum but a program encompassing the proper way to lead a state. At the academy he became fast friends with another noble boy by the name of Roku.
At school Sozin’s appetite for knowledge was voracious; he poured over books and tomes, read about forms of governance and political theory. He was particularly interested in the ideas of the oft shunned great thinkers from the Earth Kingdom whom, despite the king and later the Dai Li’s unhappiness with them, purposed the idea that everyone is morally obligated to share wealth and quality of life with those whom are less fortunate. This idea, planted in his young intelligent and driven mind, would stick with Sozin for the rest of his life.
As Sozin and Roku grew into adolescence they became practically inseparable. They played together, went to school together, practiced together it was as if they were brothers. Each leaned on the other for support, fun and nearly everything. That was until their shared sixteenth birthday when it was announced that Roku was the next avatar and that he would need to leave soon to master the four elements. While Roku was outwardly supportive this was devastating to him, he’d lost his best friend in the world at exactly the time when children need their friends most of all. While Sozin didn’t know it yet, this “betrayal” was his first step toward a darker path.
Young Adulthood for Sozin was a time of great turmoil. In a few short years he had gone from young student whom had excelled at everything he had ever tried and never really been challenged by anything to the leader of the most prosperous nation on Earth. In the process he had lost his father, mother and his best friend. He, despite his legions of servants and advisors, felt truly alone. It was this feeling of vulnerability that prompted the creation of what was to come. By now the ideas of those philosophers from a decade ago had coalesced in his mind with Sozin’s own feelings and ideas to form a grand design. He was destined to grow up with Roku, it was divine providence, after all how else could he make sure that everything the Fire Nation enjoyed could be spread amongst the people of the world. It was his moral obligation to make sure prosperity, wealth and happiness were spread to everyone; to make sure no one else lost anyone they loved. He still wasn’t sure how he would accomplish this all he knew was that it was something he and Roku could do together, unite the entire world under the banner of the Fire Nation.
As Sozin entered adulthood a wonderful thing happened; after over a decade away Roku came back. With Roku back Sozin quickly came up with the basic outline of the plan to, in his eyes, save everyone. They, with the combined influence of the Firelord and the Avatar, would convince the other nations to join the Fire Nation and thus reap the benefits of their Golden Age. After deciding that this was the correct course of action Sozin chose the perfect day to tell Roku about it. On Roku’s wedding day Sozin pulled him aside and told him his grand design, and it had an outcome Sozin could have never predicted. He assumed his friend may quibble over the details, that he may want to change orders or time tables but he never in his life would think that Roku would not only say no, but be so stubborn and judgmental that he not only wouldn’t even let him finish explaining it but would admonish him for even having such an idea in the first place. This was the great betrayal, it was this conversation that would forever turn Sozin down a dark path.
The following years were marred by the gentle, playful boy that Sozin was being eaten away by the angry bitter man he was to become. He decided that if Roku would not help him convince the other nations to join under his banner then he would simply go it alone. At first things seemed like they might go well, Sozin counseled with leaders of costal Earth Kingdom city-states and told them his plan and what he could offer them. They flatly refused every offer he made, Sozin took this as a sign that they did not care about their people in the least. That they only wanted to ensure their own power, he decided that he would use the might of the Fire Nation to “liberate” these hopeless people from their corrupt leaders. These first few colonies were “liberated” with very little bloodshed, as most Earth Kingdom city-states didn’t possess standing armies.
When Roku burst into Sozin’s chambers on that morning demanding a stop to the colonies, Sozin no longer saw his best friend. He saw the same corrupt, pompous trash he’d seen ruling the city-states of the Earth Kingdom and he lashed out with years of built up rage. However, despite all his anger Sozin never meant to hurt his old friend, deep down there was still the same brotherly love for Roku he had had his whole life and because of that he held back. Roku responded with the unmitigated power of a fully realized Avatar and utterly destroyed the palace. He too couldn’t bring himself to hurt his friend and stopped short of killing Sozin. When he left Sozin alive he reinforced not only Sozin’s belief that he needed to save the people from their corrupt leaders but also that there was no way his plan could succeed while there was still an Avatar.
Sozin sunk into a malaise of sorts after his altercation with Roku. After coming to the conclusion that his plan could not go further while the Avatar was against it he focused on changing the Fire Nation and its new, if not expanding, colonies into the image of his new Fire Nation. The reforms began slowly, but the seeds of what the Fire Nation would become in one hundred years’ time were sowed in this period. It was nearly two decades later when Sozin awoke to feel the volcano erupting on Roku’s island that the man Sozin had once been showed its face once again. He sprang to action and helped Roku to avert harm to his village and the surrounding area. When he saw Roku fall, poisoned by the toxic gas, Sozin had an epiphany this was fate giving him the opportunity he had waited for for forty years. All he had to do was let Roku die and everything he had worked so hard for his whole life would suddenly fall into place. His inner turmoil was palpable, but in the end he sacrificed his friend for as he saw it, the good of the world.
With Roku gone Sozin was empowered with a renewed vigor. He trained, readied his armies and studied like he had as a much younger man. Wanting to be on the front lines of all the good his people were going to bring the world. Years passed and more soldiers were trained, ships readied and the Fire Nation war machine was brought online. However, through all of this there was only one aching thought in the back of the Firelord’s mind; there is always another Avatar.
Personality: Sozin is a calm, collected, confident and utterly ruthless man: these traits, like Azula after him, are a product of years of being treated as faultless and simply being the best in anything he took interest in. He speaks eloquently with the practiced enunciation of an erudite man of his station but with a definite air of authority and nearly palpable force behind every word. His turmoil over Roku’s “betrayal,” in refusing to not only not support his plan but to refuse to even consider it, has weighed on him for years and has turned him from the jovial, honest boy he was into an angry, bitter, ruthless man. Sozin lives for only one purpose: to make sure that Roku’s “sacrifice” sees the Golden Age of the Fire Nation distributed to all the people of the world. He will stop at nothing to prove to himself that he is in the right; to prove to himself that everything he has done was for the good of his nation and the world at-large. Sozin believes infallibly that he is a just and good man: that his goal of bringing the world peace and prosperity is so noble as to be sacrosanct. It is yet to be seen what, if anything, can wake him up from the delusion he has constructed around himself to rationalize his actions.
Pet: After his parents death and the relative peace that came after the tumultuous months that followed Sozin set out to clear his head. He traveled around the Fire Nation and eventually ended up in secluded kingdom of the Sun Warriors. It was here that Sozin was judged worthy by Ran and Shaw and because of that and his deep commitment toward making the world better Sozin was given a small blue egg. After many months the egg hatched and out came a tiny blue whelping that Sozin named T’ian. Over the years that followed Sozin spent much of his time with Tian and the dragon and he became good friends.
T’ianlong or T’ian for short is a massive, even by dragon standards, blue dragon. While not as large as the legendary dragons Ran and Shaw, Tian was a truly impressive beast; when fully extended he ran over 200 feet in length and half again that in wingspan. With a white beard and underside and a black ridge running down his otherwise dark blue body T'ian is a awe inspiring and fearsome beast. T'ian has eyes that mirror Sozin’s own, with a mostly red color and a thin line of yellow pigment to again give the appearance of fire. At first Tian’s personality seemed to mimic that of his owner, as a young whelp he was charismatic, jovial and supremely intellectually curious. As they have grown older together and Sozin has become jaded T'ian has maintained his jovial and kind personality though he is loathe to show it as he knows it displeases his master. T’ian is above all else loyal to a fault, believing his old friend to be just in his path and while maybe not agreeing with all of his methods he will not go against his master’s will.
T’ian, like all other dragons, isn't just a massive physically powerful lizard but also a firebender almost without peer. T’ian and Sozin have taught each other innumerable methods of firebending over the years and each has humbled the other with their knowledge and love for the art. T’ian like other dragons is a gifted flier and is not only capable of crossing the 100 miles to Roku’s island in under an hour but also of hovering and producing nearly any aeronautical maneuver.
Name: Fire Lord Sozin
Age: 82
Gender: Male
Nation: Fire Nation
Physical Appearance: Despite being over 80 years old Sozin is still an imposing and physically powerful man. At 6’0” Sozin is a broad shouldered, solidly build man that looks like he still possesses the strength someone much younger. His hair, once the same black common to all in his nation, is now silvery white and kept pulled into a top knot adorned with the crown of the Fire Nation. His many lined face, adorned with a silvery white beard kept in the shape of a V, shows the march of time proudly and with an air of distinguished grace. His eyes almost mimic his nature: their yellow-orange color is rimmed in a line of red pigment giving them the appearance of being made of fire itself.
During formal occasions and while acting as head of state Sozin wears the royal robes of the Firelord. These long sleeved robes while mostly red in color have a foot wide black band that runs down the chest to the floor which is trimmed on all sides with golden accents and bound by a black sash. The robes are capped with a three tiered shoulder piece topped with a black mantle that is adorned in gold and shows the emblem of the Fire Nation in black and gold at the center of the chest.
While in a less formal setting the now aging Firelord wears a mid-thigh length red haori trimmed in gold and bound by a gold sash. Under his haori he wears a long sleeved red shirt and a pair of brown pants. His feet are clad in a pair of calf length black boots worn over the cuffs of his pants.
Equipment: While Sozin only carries a few items on himself at any time; he has access to the nearly unlimited resources of the Golden Age of the Fire Nation. When in the field he wears a set of masterfully crafted and ornate Fire Nation armor but carries no weapons.
Combat Skills: Sozin, like all Firelords before and after him, is a consummate firebender. Having been trained since birth in the art of firebending Sozin had the best teachers the Fire Nation could possibly provide; add to this his training through his early life with Avatar Roku and it goes without saying you get a very skilled and dangerous man. Sozin is not just capable but has mastered nearly every form of firebending in existence today including many highly advanced techniques such as: Lightning Projection and limited Jet Propulsion. He is even capable of at least one technique no other, even Avatar Roku, are capable of, Heat Redirection. This gives him the ability to simply absorb thermal energy into his body and expel it in a direction of his choosing.
Talents: Sozin is above all else a master of the duties of state. His skills at diplomacy were honed over a lifetime of deft political maneuvering; including running every facet of the Fire Nation and changing not just policy but the countries very identity. His tactical mastery is perhaps the only skill comparable to his political acumen. His battles are the stuff of legend and will assuredly be spoken of in awe by generations to come. The most astounding part is Sozin has done all of this while not simply maintaining his position but strengthening it; he has turned the position of Firelord into a veritable God-King and changed the hearts and minds of his people to believe in his goal as much as he himself. The mantle he bore combined with Sozin’s very serious and driven personality did not leave him much time for other pursuits; which is epitomized by his lack of a wife or heir despite his advanced age.
Flaws: Sozin’s entire personality is such an emotional, sociopathic and rationalized mess that it would be best to see the personality section for an understanding of how flawed he really is.
History: Sozin’s childhood could be summed up by saying it was privileged. With a much more easy going father than he was to become Sozin was able to enjoy his childhood to the fullest. He practiced firebending even while very young, under the tutelage of some of the greatest masters of the age and he did it because he wanted to, not because it was the only way to gain his father’s affection. Once he grew to school age he began attending the Royal Fire Academy for Boys where he was taught not only the standard curriculum but a program encompassing the proper way to lead a state. At the academy he became fast friends with another noble boy by the name of Roku.
At school Sozin’s appetite for knowledge was voracious; he poured over books and tomes, read about forms of governance and political theory. He was particularly interested in the ideas of the oft shunned great thinkers from the Earth Kingdom whom, despite the king and later the Dai Li’s unhappiness with them, purposed the idea that everyone is morally obligated to share wealth and quality of life with those whom are less fortunate. This idea, planted in his young intelligent and driven mind, would stick with Sozin for the rest of his life.
As Sozin and Roku grew into adolescence they became practically inseparable. They played together, went to school together, practiced together it was as if they were brothers. Each leaned on the other for support, fun and nearly everything. That was until their shared sixteenth birthday when it was announced that Roku was the next avatar and that he would need to leave soon to master the four elements. While Roku was outwardly supportive this was devastating to him, he’d lost his best friend in the world at exactly the time when children need their friends most of all. While Sozin didn’t know it yet, this “betrayal” was his first step toward a darker path.
Young Adulthood for Sozin was a time of great turmoil. In a few short years he had gone from young student whom had excelled at everything he had ever tried and never really been challenged by anything to the leader of the most prosperous nation on Earth. In the process he had lost his father, mother and his best friend. He, despite his legions of servants and advisors, felt truly alone. It was this feeling of vulnerability that prompted the creation of what was to come. By now the ideas of those philosophers from a decade ago had coalesced in his mind with Sozin’s own feelings and ideas to form a grand design. He was destined to grow up with Roku, it was divine providence, after all how else could he make sure that everything the Fire Nation enjoyed could be spread amongst the people of the world. It was his moral obligation to make sure prosperity, wealth and happiness were spread to everyone; to make sure no one else lost anyone they loved. He still wasn’t sure how he would accomplish this all he knew was that it was something he and Roku could do together, unite the entire world under the banner of the Fire Nation.
As Sozin entered adulthood a wonderful thing happened; after over a decade away Roku came back. With Roku back Sozin quickly came up with the basic outline of the plan to, in his eyes, save everyone. They, with the combined influence of the Firelord and the Avatar, would convince the other nations to join the Fire Nation and thus reap the benefits of their Golden Age. After deciding that this was the correct course of action Sozin chose the perfect day to tell Roku about it. On Roku’s wedding day Sozin pulled him aside and told him his grand design, and it had an outcome Sozin could have never predicted. He assumed his friend may quibble over the details, that he may want to change orders or time tables but he never in his life would think that Roku would not only say no, but be so stubborn and judgmental that he not only wouldn’t even let him finish explaining it but would admonish him for even having such an idea in the first place. This was the great betrayal, it was this conversation that would forever turn Sozin down a dark path.
The following years were marred by the gentle, playful boy that Sozin was being eaten away by the angry bitter man he was to become. He decided that if Roku would not help him convince the other nations to join under his banner then he would simply go it alone. At first things seemed like they might go well, Sozin counseled with leaders of costal Earth Kingdom city-states and told them his plan and what he could offer them. They flatly refused every offer he made, Sozin took this as a sign that they did not care about their people in the least. That they only wanted to ensure their own power, he decided that he would use the might of the Fire Nation to “liberate” these hopeless people from their corrupt leaders. These first few colonies were “liberated” with very little bloodshed, as most Earth Kingdom city-states didn’t possess standing armies.
When Roku burst into Sozin’s chambers on that morning demanding a stop to the colonies, Sozin no longer saw his best friend. He saw the same corrupt, pompous trash he’d seen ruling the city-states of the Earth Kingdom and he lashed out with years of built up rage. However, despite all his anger Sozin never meant to hurt his old friend, deep down there was still the same brotherly love for Roku he had had his whole life and because of that he held back. Roku responded with the unmitigated power of a fully realized Avatar and utterly destroyed the palace. He too couldn’t bring himself to hurt his friend and stopped short of killing Sozin. When he left Sozin alive he reinforced not only Sozin’s belief that he needed to save the people from their corrupt leaders but also that there was no way his plan could succeed while there was still an Avatar.
Sozin sunk into a malaise of sorts after his altercation with Roku. After coming to the conclusion that his plan could not go further while the Avatar was against it he focused on changing the Fire Nation and its new, if not expanding, colonies into the image of his new Fire Nation. The reforms began slowly, but the seeds of what the Fire Nation would become in one hundred years’ time were sowed in this period. It was nearly two decades later when Sozin awoke to feel the volcano erupting on Roku’s island that the man Sozin had once been showed its face once again. He sprang to action and helped Roku to avert harm to his village and the surrounding area. When he saw Roku fall, poisoned by the toxic gas, Sozin had an epiphany this was fate giving him the opportunity he had waited for for forty years. All he had to do was let Roku die and everything he had worked so hard for his whole life would suddenly fall into place. His inner turmoil was palpable, but in the end he sacrificed his friend for as he saw it, the good of the world.
With Roku gone Sozin was empowered with a renewed vigor. He trained, readied his armies and studied like he had as a much younger man. Wanting to be on the front lines of all the good his people were going to bring the world. Years passed and more soldiers were trained, ships readied and the Fire Nation war machine was brought online. However, through all of this there was only one aching thought in the back of the Firelord’s mind; there is always another Avatar.
Personality: Sozin is a calm, collected, confident and utterly ruthless man: these traits, like Azula after him, are a product of years of being treated as faultless and simply being the best in anything he took interest in. He speaks eloquently with the practiced enunciation of an erudite man of his station but with a definite air of authority and nearly palpable force behind every word. His turmoil over Roku’s “betrayal,” in refusing to not only not support his plan but to refuse to even consider it, has weighed on him for years and has turned him from the jovial, honest boy he was into an angry, bitter, ruthless man. Sozin lives for only one purpose: to make sure that Roku’s “sacrifice” sees the Golden Age of the Fire Nation distributed to all the people of the world. He will stop at nothing to prove to himself that he is in the right; to prove to himself that everything he has done was for the good of his nation and the world at-large. Sozin believes infallibly that he is a just and good man: that his goal of bringing the world peace and prosperity is so noble as to be sacrosanct. It is yet to be seen what, if anything, can wake him up from the delusion he has constructed around himself to rationalize his actions.
Pet: After his parents death and the relative peace that came after the tumultuous months that followed Sozin set out to clear his head. He traveled around the Fire Nation and eventually ended up in secluded kingdom of the Sun Warriors. It was here that Sozin was judged worthy by Ran and Shaw and because of that and his deep commitment toward making the world better Sozin was given a small blue egg. After many months the egg hatched and out came a tiny blue whelping that Sozin named T’ian. Over the years that followed Sozin spent much of his time with Tian and the dragon and he became good friends.
T’ianlong or T’ian for short is a massive, even by dragon standards, blue dragon. While not as large as the legendary dragons Ran and Shaw, Tian was a truly impressive beast; when fully extended he ran over 200 feet in length and half again that in wingspan. With a white beard and underside and a black ridge running down his otherwise dark blue body T'ian is a awe inspiring and fearsome beast. T'ian has eyes that mirror Sozin’s own, with a mostly red color and a thin line of yellow pigment to again give the appearance of fire. At first Tian’s personality seemed to mimic that of his owner, as a young whelp he was charismatic, jovial and supremely intellectually curious. As they have grown older together and Sozin has become jaded T'ian has maintained his jovial and kind personality though he is loathe to show it as he knows it displeases his master. T’ian is above all else loyal to a fault, believing his old friend to be just in his path and while maybe not agreeing with all of his methods he will not go against his master’s will.
T’ian, like all other dragons, isn't just a massive physically powerful lizard but also a firebender almost without peer. T’ian and Sozin have taught each other innumerable methods of firebending over the years and each has humbled the other with their knowledge and love for the art. T’ian like other dragons is a gifted flier and is not only capable of crossing the 100 miles to Roku’s island in under an hour but also of hovering and producing nearly any aeronautical maneuver.
