Sandbox / Cole Elmira

Coulson Pike (Ezekiel Conreid)

A Human definitely-not-Treasure Hunter who carries an unfortunate, infamous reputation with a few shady-types. Hiding in plain sight from a mother with military authority.

• Action Survivor: How he tends to make it through most situations. He truly would like to pursue his life's chosen passion in peace but considering that passion tends to lead him into encounters with cutthroats, ancient dangers, and the like, he solves problems as they present themselves, usually dodging danger by a thread.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: His passion and profession. Cole is always in the pursuit of some new artifact or the like that rumor has indicated might be within reach. He has the knowledge to find and follow clues, the ingenuity to figure out a plan to get what he wants, and the combat skill to fight his way through whatever threats (or other treasure hunt- er, archaelogists) might come between him and his subject of interest.
• Badass Bookworm: He is extremely well-read in subjects ranging from history to myth to military tactics to excavation techniques to- well, near any subject that relates to his field of interest.
• Badass Normal: Why use magic when gun do trick? In a world filled with all sorts of supernatural entities and abilities, Cole has nothing but bullets.
• Birds of a Feather:
• The Charmer: Cole is a bit of The Casanova, but he hasn't only used his looks and charms to attract women. He can also be disarming in general, because everyone should totally trust the fellow at the archaeological dig who's just there to do all the brain and planning work, right?
• Combat Pragmatist: If it is in range, he will shoot it. If it is too close, he will shoot it. If it's not possible to shoot it, he will use whatever base method he can to bash it away.
• Cultured Badass: Zig-Zagging Trope. Cole has extensive knowledge of history, various cultures, literature, and similar fields associated with sophistication, but he uses his knowledge to find pieces of history for profit as much as anything and fits much more comfortably among seedy types than he does refined nobles. Of course, part of this is him pretending to appear a more common man - secretly, he is a highly cultured and refined noble.
• Defector from Decadence: His mother had secured an important military post for him by way of her prestige as a scientist. Cole, who was not exactly qualified in the first place, quickly decided that this position wasn't worth having to be a part of his mother's descent into a dark madness (which the empire chose to ignore in favor of progression) and departed to start an unattached life focused on his real passions.
• Gadgeteer Genius:
• The Gunslinger: His class, and how he tends to approach most dangerous situations. If bullets can't take something down, he's mostly out of ideas lest he can concoct some other plan.
• Indy Ploy: How he handles a wide variety of situations, mainly because, in his line of work, he doesn't know what he's going to get into before uncontrollable circumstances slap him right in the face. Cole always finds a way to make it out of situations through pure determination and/or fear-fueled adrenaline.
• Ladykiller in Love: spoiler: Cole has always had a fairly easy time as it relates to opportunities with women, but Elmira intrigues him so much that the vast majority of other women he encounters nowadays fail to capture his attention.
• Le Parkour: Cole is both strong and nimble, and most importantly of all, used to maneuvering his way around difficult terrains such as ruins, canyons, and the like.
• Lovable Rogue: Cole has little to no interest in following the trappings of most laws that have to do with the exchange of money and the like and has no qualms when it comes to swindling people that are as dishonest as he is. Nonetheless, he doesn't screw over common people and tries to avoid violence to get what he wants.
• Outlaw Couple: Not so much outlaws, as the authorities aren't necessarily after them, but he and Elmira invoke this trope in relation to their families' searches for them - though Cole isn't convinced his family cares to find him.
• Race Fetish: Cole has always had a none-too-well hidden thing for lithe elven women.
• Reliably Unreliable Guns: Given he's a user of a fairly rare firearm (which he only has because it is a machination that he stole from his mother's laboratory before he bolted) that he barely knows how to maintain and that isn't exactly common, the weapon can misfire on him. A problem, given he is merely a Badass Normal and relies on it heavily.
• Sanity Slippage: What was happening to his mother, and what Cole wouldn't stand by to witness. He realized that any care his mother had for him had been entirely replaced by her obsession with some discovery she had made that was affecting her mind and pushing her development of new technologies forward at a rapid pace.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Essentially how he left his home and his post. He declared that he planned to leave to his mother, blew a small hole in her lab and surely injuring her in the process, and departed on the fastest self-propelled vehicle he could pilfer from her prototypes.
• The Smart Guy: Cole has a litany of knowledge about history and lore, learned a great deal about scientific invention from his mother (while having quite an aptitude for this himself), and is a highly capable battle tactician. To say that he can offer some expertise in almost any situation. This happens to make him annoying to some people... especially those he has crossed.
• The Spark of Genius: Cole's creations might strike others like this, but the reasoning behind his inventive capabilities is that Cole either figures out how to duplicate an item he saw in testing or production within the empire, even if it's not something that would ever see the light of day, or he digs up an ancient item, studies it, and recreates it.

Elmira

A Half-Elven woman who is a Monk mostly in physical prowess, because no one would mistake her for solemn. She was dumped in the monastery, after all, by a “father” who would as soon see her dead now.

• Action Girl: Elmira may draw attention for being shapely, graceful, and striking, having seemingly gained the best traits from both her human and elven genetics, but she draws precisely as much attention for regularly using her highly trained and sculpted body to perform such superhuman acts as jumping twenty feet in the air to kick towering beasts in the face.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Highly prefers to utilize her fists and feet in combat, though she does carry a weapon.
• Big-Breast Pride: Part of Elmira's vanity comes from her being buxom.
• Birds of a Feather:
• Boisterous Bruiser: Elmira has an outgoing, typically bright personality and tends to say exactly what happens to be on her mind - a combination of being around painfully honest monks for most of her life and of her own strength of personality. This expression fits right alongside her in-their-face fighting style and energy in battle.
• The Charmer: Incredibly independent and prone to streaks of mischief to get her way, Elmira has found herself in trouble many times over the years, even in the peaceful confines of the monastery where her masters, at times, had to find ways to handle her attitude. Despite this, Elmira has proven to be so endearing over the years that everyone at the monastery, though they disciplined her, was to some extent under her charming spell. They adored her so much that they were willing to let her flee and live her life rather than risk death alongside them.
• Cute Bruiser: Elmira has cute half-elf features and, lest someone get a close look at her, would seem to be unthreatening in size and build. Despite this, she is a sculpted, tenacious martial artist who can beat the daylights out of a monster as easily as she can a brawny man.
• Dude Magnet: Well, she got Cole distracted from all other women aside from her, for one. Plus, in her first real adventure, she ends up having both a bard and a half-orc become admirers for her beautiful ass-kicking prowess.
• Hot-Blooded: Downplayed. Elmira does tend to be explosive at times, but typically only when the situation calls for it and something important to her is threatened or insulted. However, when she is angered, she is relentless with her words and her fists alike.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Adding to her natural charms, Elmira's blue eyes have done wonders for keeping her out of trouble over the years. They're just so... bright and earnest.
• Kamehame Hadouken: As a monk trained by practitioners of the Way of the Sun Soul, she can functionally form these from radiant ki energy to blast at her foes from range.
• Kick Chick: Frequently employs kicking into her martial style, and while it is graceful, it is otherwise practical and not exactly played for the leggy emphasis. Let no one tell Cole that her shapely legs are not there for him to admire, however.
• Le Parkour: Par for the course as an agile, athletic monk.
• Leg Focus: Cole tends to comment favorably on her legs.
• Locked Away in a Monastery: Before she was hardly old enough to comprehend what was happening to her, Elmira was thrust into a monastery by a "father" who didn't want her around. Though she made the most of it, her time there was filled with loneliness and boredom, especially given her independence and innate yearning for freedom.
• Magical Martial Arts: The particular martial arts employed by her monastery involved forming ki into radiant magic, and Elmira is a practitioner.
• Murderous Thighs: Cole is sure she has them, says so frequently, and in reality, she does.
• Outlaw Couple: With Cole, though neither is truly an outlaw. Elmira probably skims closer to outlaw than Cole, though she has committed no crimes. Her father has enough sway to see her treated as a fugitive by certain authorities, however, should he find out she has left the monastery.
• The Paralyzer: In her first adventure, she could not seem to stop succeeding with clutch uses of the monk technique Stunning Strike.
• Parental Abandonment: See Locked Away in a Monastery. Her father's plan was to get Elmira out of his life as a reminder that her conception proved that her mother thought more highly of another man than she did of him, and by his hand alone, she has been cast aside. Worse, at this point, he would be happy to see her dead.
• The Power of the Sun: Practiced in the Way of the Sun Soul, which is exactly what it sounds like, allowing her to channel her ki into various abilities that let her release blasts of radiant solar energy.
• The Prankster: How Elmira entertained herself at times in the monastery. With little to nothing to do that stretched the creative side of her mind, she got her thrills by coming up with new ways to trip up the alert, disciplined, and agile monks of the monastery. Her pranks didn't often pay off, but they were fun to come up with, nonetheless, and she still enjoys them.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: See The Charmer and Innocent Blue Eyes. Elmira was in no way a model monk during her time at the monastery nor did she try to be, but her proficiency at batting her eyelashes helped her win over the more mature monks despite her antics.
• Super-Reflexes: Given her training, Elmira's reflexes appear to be borderline superhuman... but it's just her mastery of her own ki.