Luba Gavrilova (Ravvus first alt)
Mar 4, 2016 19:38:46 GMT -6
Post by Luba Gavrilova on Mar 4, 2016 19:38:46 GMT -6
Name:Luba Gavrilova
Class:Seraph Knight
Age:56
Born in:Remi, Ilia.
Appearance:Luba keeps her blue hair cut short, save for a fringe of bangs curling at the top of her forehead. Despite her winter years, her hair has not fully grayed, with strands here and there retaining their original blue. Long gashes decorate her body, running up, down, and across her torso. However, Luba has few scars on her head, bearing one horizontal mark across her nose, two thin divots running along the right-most part of her forehead, and an old circular wound on the back of her skull. Despite being past her physical prime, Luba has managed to maintain a figure of almost pure muscle. From the biceps on her arms to the calfs on her legs, Luba's physique is a terror to those unfortunate enough to stand against her.
Personality:Distant and serious, Luba can be described as aloof. A woman intimately familiar with death, Luba tends to keep her distance from other people. She understands the severity of her duty, aware of her responsibility for the lives of her subordinates. Her exterior is hard and to-the-point. Luba hates to repeat herself and expects her subordinates to follow her orders without question. Though oft described as a hard-ass, Luba very rarely loses her temper, having mastered control of her emotions through the mellowness of age. She is the first to defend her comrades and the last to stop fighting, caring little for her own life. Satisfied with her decades of accomplishments, she now seeks to preserve the lives of those less experienced.
Story:At the age of fifty six, Luba is a woman who has seen much of war and, its companion, death. She served with distinction during the Bernese Soldier Civil War, Hargus' Bandit War, and Bern's War of Aggression. Notable among her achievements include her service as an Ironwing, an elite pegasus rider equipped with a Delphi Shield and tasked with high-risk operations. Indeed, a unit of Ironwings was directly involved in the War of Aggression's Siege of Castle Bern, in which they eliminated many of the Bernese ballista. Luba is a woman with a long and impressive resume, but, like many decorated veterans, her beginnings were humble.
Luba was born the third of four daughters to a family in Remi. The Gavrilova's had a long and prosperous tradition of farming, being one of few Ilian families that could provide for itself without resorting to mercenary work. Growing up, Luba enjoyed a tight friendship with her sisters, Agata, Cveta, and Talia. However, she always felt closest to Talia. The two were late born children with much to prove.
Luba eventually found her place, settling on the career of a sell-sword, where Talia elected to write stories about them. Indeed, even in Remi, mercenary was an occupation that carried great pride. Luba's interest started simply with her listening to the stories of traveling sell-swords. In time she was able to persuade her parents into paying for pegasus riding lessons. Luba even went so far as to spar using a pitchfork before she saved enough to buy a proper lance. By her early teens Luba was the image of a model recruit. Well-versed as a pegasus rider, bearing a hardy constitution, and having some self-taught knowledge of thepitchfork lance, she departed to Arphen to become a full-fledged mercenary.
After three years, Luba left Arphen, and returned to Remi, as a newly-forged sell-sword. She returned home to discover that Talia had run off to join an Etrurian convent, much to the confusion of her entire family. Though saddened that she could not reconnect with her little sister, Luba began working as an escort for family trade caravans. To her disappointment, the work was rather dull. Bandits usually weren't brazen enough to raid a heavily armed trade caravan. When they were, they didn't last very long. Raids were only a threat when the bandits were both numerous and organized. Luba quickly found herself bored and started taking on more dangerous jobs, namely in the Western Isles.
It was then that Luba began a relationship with death. Far from the hand of civilization and law, the Isles were a brutal place. Luba bore witness to the deaths of many comrades there. Those caravan escorts which once bored her so? In the Isles it was unusual for such jobs to end with fewer than two to three casualties. Indeed, Luba slowly watched the body count stack up. She had no idea how to cope with it.
Initially, she tried fighting back. Luba trained harder, coming into the best shape of her life. She took command whenever her unit come under attack, proving herself to be a capable leader. She perfected her lance play as well, and began to seriously consider taking up a new arm in her pursuit of bettering herself. But such self-improvements did little to protect her comrades. Indeed, Luba slowly realized that her attempts to overcome death were utterly pointless. Whether by quietus or slaughter, she saw soldiers die all the same. Tired and disillusioned, Luba returned home after four long years in the Isles.
Luba came back to work on her family's farm. To her surprise, and delight, Talia was back, serving as a merchant for her family. Talia had only joined the Etrurian convent as a means of becoming literate, and left once she'd fulfilled that end. But, even with the return of her dear sister, Luba didn't feel at place. She had been disillusioned by the reality of her chosen profession, forced to enter an all too intimate relationship with mortality. The fact that Cveta now had a feud with her didn't help. The elder sister saw her decision to depart for the Isles, let alone become a mercenary, as selfish. The act of 'abandoning her family' caused Cveta to be anything but warm to her sister. The bad blood eventually drove Luba away.
Luba went back to working as an escort for trade caravans, namely ones Talia was a part of. This year was one of the happiest in Luba's life. Reunited with her closest sibling and best friend, Luba could do what she loved without having to concern herself with death. And, even though her sister grilled her for stories, Talia was understanding enough to avoid the subject of mortality.
But it wouldn't last. Luba knew she was destined for greater things. She'd proved to herself back in the Isles that she was a cut above the other mercenaries. Low-risk jobs were unbecoming of her talents. For a time, she traveled with Talia, but eventually went her own way. Over the course of the next three decades, Luba made a great title as a mercenary for herself. She returned to Arphen, where she completed her training and received the title of Seraph Knight. She had a long-term on-again off-again relationship with both the Pale Compass explorer's guild and Ivan, a rather dashing spell caster of the guild. Between her late twenties and mid forties, she worked for a Lord Knight named Sacha Vorn, who owned a small holding of land south of Edessa. It was under his service that she first earned the title of 'Ironwings'.
Vorn tasked his pegasus riders with routing a group of bandits holed up in the Southern Illian mountain range. The brigands were equipped and well-trained in the use of ballista and bows. All of Vorn's riders went in expecting a suicide mission. However, the Falco and Seraph Knights, through a mixture of skill, training, talent, and proper planning, suffered no casualties. Indeed, that single mission for the ambitious Lord Knight did far more for Luba's career than any time she'd spent in the Isles or any certification she could have received at Arphen. Luba looks back on the day she received the Ironwing title as the greatest day of her life. Not because it made her career, but because she expected the day to end with the burial of her comrades. Instead, for once, Luba did not have to dig a hole for anyone. But, though they won the day through proper preparation, the reason they hadn't lost any bodies was attributed to another factor entirely. Luck. And luck is a transient thing.
Over the course of Luba's thirties, she served as the second-in-command of the unit. Her extreme self-discipline and talents as a drill instructor served her well in the occupation. The Ironwings became something of small-town celebrities. All those who lived in Vorn's small land-holdings knew of the Lord Knight's elite guard. Their fame only grew from there. Indeed, Vorn made a name for himself by commanding some of the finest pegasi riders in Ilia. He boasted that their abilities were surpassed only by the Edessan Conciliatory guard itself. In time, Vorn rented the talents of his guard to the highest bidder, amassing himself a handsome fortune in the process. Indeed, by Luba's late thirties, she and Vanya, the first commander of the Ironwings, had received Delphi Shields as badges of office. The cost of such treasures had been steep and not just monetarily. Vorn's ambition had cost the lives of half of the original guard by this point, something which forever lost him the respect of Gavrilova. The Lord Knight's aspirations finally came full circle when war found it's way to Elibe.
Luba was celebrating her 38th birthday when she'd first caught wind of the uprising in Bern. Vorn and the Ilian military would not be committed to the area for another year. When they were, Luba's unit proved their worth, despite their diminished numbers. Allies and enemies alike seemed to fall like dominos, one after another. Countless Ilian regulars lost their lives in the ensuing war, but the Ironwings soared amidst the chaos. A luck, similar to the one which carried them the day they'd earn their titles, saw them through the war. But this luck too was fleeting. The Bernese Soldier Civil War ended with only two fatalities amongst the Ironwings. Hargus' Bandit War would stack a repulsive number on top of that.
As soon as one war ended, another began. Hargus rose to power, causing catastrophic damage to Sacae. Vorn recommitted his forces to the area, this time against the Bernese. Not even the legendary Ironwings could go toe to toe with the undead heroes of Elibe and come out unscathed. Their wings rusted and Luba found herself once more burying the bodies of her comrades. Women she'd spent more than two decades serving beside, now dead. The aging mercenary began to tire. Tire of watching friends die. Tire of her relationship with death. As legends on both sides found themselves five feet below the earth, Luba vowed that she would leave the war-torn nation behind her. The Bernese and Sacaens could continue to blood-soak the Earth if they wished, but enough of Gavrilova's sisters had been claimed by the senseless fighting. But Luba's desires were not in accordance with her those of her lord, or fate for that matter.
A third war erupted in Bern, and though the Ironwings saw significantly less fighting, they took loses all the same. During the final days of the war, Gavrilova's unit was tasked with eliminating the Bernese ballistae during the siege of castle Bern. The castle she'd once defended seven years ago now loomed over her unit. The Ironwings accomplished their mission, as they always had, but the siege finally broke their metal. Captain Vanya, first commander of the Ironwings, a mentor and friend to Luba, and one of the last original members of the unit, lay dead before the task was done. Luba took command of the remaining Ironwings and routed the Bernese ballista. By the time the battle was over the middle-aged warrior had had enough. With the battle won and Bern in submission, her sisters-in-arms were safe. The seraph knight claimed her dead friend's badge of office and went rogue. She returned to Vorn and lay both Vanya's, and her own, Delphi Shield before the Lord Knight's feet. Her way of resigning.
Vorn was furious with her decision, but Luba no longer cared for the orders or threats of the Lord Knight. Vanya, Sonia, Masha, Spike. Names of Ironwings now dead and gone. Her comrades who'd paid the ultimate price for their country. Good women whose lives had been the cost of Vorn's ambition. Luba could no longer serve a man whose actions had killed so many of her friends.
Luba found solace in Ivan and the Pale Compass. After her defection, Luba officially became a member of the Pale Compass and has been serving with them for the past six years. Due to her decades of experience and drive to excel, Luba shortly found herself commanding the Adventurer's guild. Perks of being overqualified some might say. The old seraph knight has been trying to leave the ghosts of her past behind, trying to live a life less bloody. However, death has no desire to end its' relationship with Luba. With Etruria's advance on Remi, the old knight is compelled once more to take up her ax and lance and return to war. Her family by blood, Talia, Cveta, and Agata, dwell within Remi. And though death has taught her that it is an inexorable entity, she will not simply stand by and allow it to take the only sisters she has left.
Class:Seraph Knight
Age:56
Born in:Remi, Ilia.
Appearance:Luba keeps her blue hair cut short, save for a fringe of bangs curling at the top of her forehead. Despite her winter years, her hair has not fully grayed, with strands here and there retaining their original blue. Long gashes decorate her body, running up, down, and across her torso. However, Luba has few scars on her head, bearing one horizontal mark across her nose, two thin divots running along the right-most part of her forehead, and an old circular wound on the back of her skull. Despite being past her physical prime, Luba has managed to maintain a figure of almost pure muscle. From the biceps on her arms to the calfs on her legs, Luba's physique is a terror to those unfortunate enough to stand against her.
Personality:Distant and serious, Luba can be described as aloof. A woman intimately familiar with death, Luba tends to keep her distance from other people. She understands the severity of her duty, aware of her responsibility for the lives of her subordinates. Her exterior is hard and to-the-point. Luba hates to repeat herself and expects her subordinates to follow her orders without question. Though oft described as a hard-ass, Luba very rarely loses her temper, having mastered control of her emotions through the mellowness of age. She is the first to defend her comrades and the last to stop fighting, caring little for her own life. Satisfied with her decades of accomplishments, she now seeks to preserve the lives of those less experienced.
Story:At the age of fifty six, Luba is a woman who has seen much of war and, its companion, death. She served with distinction during the Bernese Soldier Civil War, Hargus' Bandit War, and Bern's War of Aggression. Notable among her achievements include her service as an Ironwing, an elite pegasus rider equipped with a Delphi Shield and tasked with high-risk operations. Indeed, a unit of Ironwings was directly involved in the War of Aggression's Siege of Castle Bern, in which they eliminated many of the Bernese ballista. Luba is a woman with a long and impressive resume, but, like many decorated veterans, her beginnings were humble.
Luba was born the third of four daughters to a family in Remi. The Gavrilova's had a long and prosperous tradition of farming, being one of few Ilian families that could provide for itself without resorting to mercenary work. Growing up, Luba enjoyed a tight friendship with her sisters, Agata, Cveta, and Talia. However, she always felt closest to Talia. The two were late born children with much to prove.
Luba eventually found her place, settling on the career of a sell-sword, where Talia elected to write stories about them. Indeed, even in Remi, mercenary was an occupation that carried great pride. Luba's interest started simply with her listening to the stories of traveling sell-swords. In time she was able to persuade her parents into paying for pegasus riding lessons. Luba even went so far as to spar using a pitchfork before she saved enough to buy a proper lance. By her early teens Luba was the image of a model recruit. Well-versed as a pegasus rider, bearing a hardy constitution, and having some self-taught knowledge of the
After three years, Luba left Arphen, and returned to Remi, as a newly-forged sell-sword. She returned home to discover that Talia had run off to join an Etrurian convent, much to the confusion of her entire family. Though saddened that she could not reconnect with her little sister, Luba began working as an escort for family trade caravans. To her disappointment, the work was rather dull. Bandits usually weren't brazen enough to raid a heavily armed trade caravan. When they were, they didn't last very long. Raids were only a threat when the bandits were both numerous and organized. Luba quickly found herself bored and started taking on more dangerous jobs, namely in the Western Isles.
It was then that Luba began a relationship with death. Far from the hand of civilization and law, the Isles were a brutal place. Luba bore witness to the deaths of many comrades there. Those caravan escorts which once bored her so? In the Isles it was unusual for such jobs to end with fewer than two to three casualties. Indeed, Luba slowly watched the body count stack up. She had no idea how to cope with it.
Initially, she tried fighting back. Luba trained harder, coming into the best shape of her life. She took command whenever her unit come under attack, proving herself to be a capable leader. She perfected her lance play as well, and began to seriously consider taking up a new arm in her pursuit of bettering herself. But such self-improvements did little to protect her comrades. Indeed, Luba slowly realized that her attempts to overcome death were utterly pointless. Whether by quietus or slaughter, she saw soldiers die all the same. Tired and disillusioned, Luba returned home after four long years in the Isles.
Luba came back to work on her family's farm. To her surprise, and delight, Talia was back, serving as a merchant for her family. Talia had only joined the Etrurian convent as a means of becoming literate, and left once she'd fulfilled that end. But, even with the return of her dear sister, Luba didn't feel at place. She had been disillusioned by the reality of her chosen profession, forced to enter an all too intimate relationship with mortality. The fact that Cveta now had a feud with her didn't help. The elder sister saw her decision to depart for the Isles, let alone become a mercenary, as selfish. The act of 'abandoning her family' caused Cveta to be anything but warm to her sister. The bad blood eventually drove Luba away.
Luba went back to working as an escort for trade caravans, namely ones Talia was a part of. This year was one of the happiest in Luba's life. Reunited with her closest sibling and best friend, Luba could do what she loved without having to concern herself with death. And, even though her sister grilled her for stories, Talia was understanding enough to avoid the subject of mortality.
But it wouldn't last. Luba knew she was destined for greater things. She'd proved to herself back in the Isles that she was a cut above the other mercenaries. Low-risk jobs were unbecoming of her talents. For a time, she traveled with Talia, but eventually went her own way. Over the course of the next three decades, Luba made a great title as a mercenary for herself. She returned to Arphen, where she completed her training and received the title of Seraph Knight. She had a long-term on-again off-again relationship with both the Pale Compass explorer's guild and Ivan, a rather dashing spell caster of the guild. Between her late twenties and mid forties, she worked for a Lord Knight named Sacha Vorn, who owned a small holding of land south of Edessa. It was under his service that she first earned the title of 'Ironwings'.
Vorn tasked his pegasus riders with routing a group of bandits holed up in the Southern Illian mountain range. The brigands were equipped and well-trained in the use of ballista and bows. All of Vorn's riders went in expecting a suicide mission. However, the Falco and Seraph Knights, through a mixture of skill, training, talent, and proper planning, suffered no casualties. Indeed, that single mission for the ambitious Lord Knight did far more for Luba's career than any time she'd spent in the Isles or any certification she could have received at Arphen. Luba looks back on the day she received the Ironwing title as the greatest day of her life. Not because it made her career, but because she expected the day to end with the burial of her comrades. Instead, for once, Luba did not have to dig a hole for anyone. But, though they won the day through proper preparation, the reason they hadn't lost any bodies was attributed to another factor entirely. Luck. And luck is a transient thing.
Over the course of Luba's thirties, she served as the second-in-command of the unit. Her extreme self-discipline and talents as a drill instructor served her well in the occupation. The Ironwings became something of small-town celebrities. All those who lived in Vorn's small land-holdings knew of the Lord Knight's elite guard. Their fame only grew from there. Indeed, Vorn made a name for himself by commanding some of the finest pegasi riders in Ilia. He boasted that their abilities were surpassed only by the Edessan Conciliatory guard itself. In time, Vorn rented the talents of his guard to the highest bidder, amassing himself a handsome fortune in the process. Indeed, by Luba's late thirties, she and Vanya, the first commander of the Ironwings, had received Delphi Shields as badges of office. The cost of such treasures had been steep and not just monetarily. Vorn's ambition had cost the lives of half of the original guard by this point, something which forever lost him the respect of Gavrilova. The Lord Knight's aspirations finally came full circle when war found it's way to Elibe.
Luba was celebrating her 38th birthday when she'd first caught wind of the uprising in Bern. Vorn and the Ilian military would not be committed to the area for another year. When they were, Luba's unit proved their worth, despite their diminished numbers. Allies and enemies alike seemed to fall like dominos, one after another. Countless Ilian regulars lost their lives in the ensuing war, but the Ironwings soared amidst the chaos. A luck, similar to the one which carried them the day they'd earn their titles, saw them through the war. But this luck too was fleeting. The Bernese Soldier Civil War ended with only two fatalities amongst the Ironwings. Hargus' Bandit War would stack a repulsive number on top of that.
As soon as one war ended, another began. Hargus rose to power, causing catastrophic damage to Sacae. Vorn recommitted his forces to the area, this time against the Bernese. Not even the legendary Ironwings could go toe to toe with the undead heroes of Elibe and come out unscathed. Their wings rusted and Luba found herself once more burying the bodies of her comrades. Women she'd spent more than two decades serving beside, now dead. The aging mercenary began to tire. Tire of watching friends die. Tire of her relationship with death. As legends on both sides found themselves five feet below the earth, Luba vowed that she would leave the war-torn nation behind her. The Bernese and Sacaens could continue to blood-soak the Earth if they wished, but enough of Gavrilova's sisters had been claimed by the senseless fighting. But Luba's desires were not in accordance with her those of her lord, or fate for that matter.
A third war erupted in Bern, and though the Ironwings saw significantly less fighting, they took loses all the same. During the final days of the war, Gavrilova's unit was tasked with eliminating the Bernese ballistae during the siege of castle Bern. The castle she'd once defended seven years ago now loomed over her unit. The Ironwings accomplished their mission, as they always had, but the siege finally broke their metal. Captain Vanya, first commander of the Ironwings, a mentor and friend to Luba, and one of the last original members of the unit, lay dead before the task was done. Luba took command of the remaining Ironwings and routed the Bernese ballista. By the time the battle was over the middle-aged warrior had had enough. With the battle won and Bern in submission, her sisters-in-arms were safe. The seraph knight claimed her dead friend's badge of office and went rogue. She returned to Vorn and lay both Vanya's, and her own, Delphi Shield before the Lord Knight's feet. Her way of resigning.
Vorn was furious with her decision, but Luba no longer cared for the orders or threats of the Lord Knight. Vanya, Sonia, Masha, Spike. Names of Ironwings now dead and gone. Her comrades who'd paid the ultimate price for their country. Good women whose lives had been the cost of Vorn's ambition. Luba could no longer serve a man whose actions had killed so many of her friends.
Luba found solace in Ivan and the Pale Compass. After her defection, Luba officially became a member of the Pale Compass and has been serving with them for the past six years. Due to her decades of experience and drive to excel, Luba shortly found herself commanding the Adventurer's guild. Perks of being overqualified some might say. The old seraph knight has been trying to leave the ghosts of her past behind, trying to live a life less bloody. However, death has no desire to end its' relationship with Luba. With Etruria's advance on Remi, the old knight is compelled once more to take up her ax and lance and return to war. Her family by blood, Talia, Cveta, and Agata, dwell within Remi. And though death has taught her that it is an inexorable entity, she will not simply stand by and allow it to take the only sisters she has left.