Sandbox / Hadrian Kore

Hadrian

An Aasimar who (somewhat begrudgingly) left his place among his brothers and sisters to protect a burial ground for the powerful, peacefully deceased. Left because he knows he needs help to stop a mistress of the undead.

• Abduction Is Love: Averted. No one is supposed to be able to ‘’find’’ the graveyard without dying, but being so in tune with nature, Kore did and decided it would be wise to make the place much more livable. Hadrian captured her at first and had to try and figure out how to keep her from telling his secret… but she seduced him and shocked him by wanting to stay anyway when she learned of his cause. The love part hit hardcore, anyway.
• Berserk Button: Do not insult, attempt to harm, or so much as offend his wife, or the wings will come out. He also has strong feelings against individuals like the necromancer, who control others for their own gain.
• Call to Adventure: Not so much adventure, but to duty. He and Kore cannot stop a powerful necromancer with the supplies and numbers that they had at the graveyard.
• Combat Pragmatist: See Shield Bash. He doesn't mind knocking things around the ugly way if it helps him win in a fight.
• The Comically Serious: Albiet self-aware, thanks to his life with Kore who calls him on it all the time. He is indeed straight-laced and serious to the point of seeming almost grim to some people, but her teasing has led him to realize he can wield his dryness quite well for his own teasing.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Hadrian is dark, more than a bit intimidating, and some of his powers seem to radiate with black, necrotic energy. Yet Hadrian's goals are primarily to destroy the abomination of undead and to prevent mortals and gods alike from unduly tampering with people's souls. He also works quite hard to maintain the intimidating presence because he's standing alone with his wife in defense of a dangerous place, but he's much more comfortable with cheesy heroism and no small amount of dorkiness in private or when he lets his guard down. And he wants to dote on his wife a lot.
• Determinator: Dumped in a graveyard on the side of a mountain, a lot of people would have given up. However, a still-prideful Hadrian has decided to be good at this job he didn't want, to the point that he has set out on his own to try and find ways to strengthen himself by nearly any means necessary within reason to put a stop to the threat he was tasked to watch for and defend against.
• The Dutiful Son: Is this among his Aasimar brethren (and... sisteren), for being the one willing to not abandon the task of protecting arguably one of the most important barriers against the rampant power of undeath while the rest go off and continue to accrue fanfare. He isn't thrilled with this fate, but he has decided to take some pride in it.
• The End Is Nigh: Suspects this may be the case for the region, anyway, if the many powerful beings who are buried are raised as undead once more.
• The Exile: Somewhat by choice. Hadrian once mingled among the Aasimar and Celestials as an Aasimar himself, but after a close call with a powerful necromancer left a burial ground for powerful entities vulnerable and charged with necrotic power, the Aasimar decided that someone needed to maintain a place of power that could ward against this threat. Hadrian was (somewhat) willing to assist, as is his nature, but some of the others were more than happy to volunteer him for this dark task.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: One of the few people around who actively uses a bident. Prefers it for its light weight for throwing and ability to slip its way easily past armor.
• Fallen Angel: Almost literally, except he was not an angel but an Aasimar who had fully embraced being guided by the Celestials and serving with others who performed deeds in the Celestials’ name in the mortal realm. When it was required that he stay so close to a place of death, this connection to his origins was severed.
• Fallen Hero: Subverted. Sees himself as one, which bothers him even more than being a Fallen Angel because he doubts he can fulfill his duty. However, in a sense, the position he finds himself in makes him even more determined to be strong enough to put an end to the evil of undeath than he was before.
• For Great Justice: In the past, now, not as much. He sees himself as doing a job; playing up the "holy smiter of evil" act is left to the other Aasimar.
• Guilty Pleasure: Ever since he got stuck guarding the graveyard, he has obsessively read books by a particular none-too-well-respected but nonetheless entertaining author. Even Kore does not have any particular knowledge of this.
• Happily Married: To Kore, since she wandered into his life with her charms, beauty, flowers, and penchant for telling off powerful beings.
• Heroic Build: Somewhat downplayed. While Hadrian is fairly cut, he is thinner and paler than one might expect from someone who wields and wears heavy weapons and armor.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: What he suspects led to one of his companions - the similarly skilled, but more magically inclined, Zeda - to so glowingly and forcefully recommend him to defend the graveyard. Whether it was growing jealousy or a disdain that always existed, Hadrian cannot be sure, but he quietly resents the act.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Though he plays it off as simply maintaining the order of things, he truly wants to see mortals be able to enjoy their lives (and the peace of death, for that matter) without worrying about selfish entities interfering with their existences, mostly because he is aware of the worst these entities can do. And while he might present an outward facade of simple adherence to duty and cynicism, he is also borderline heroic to a fault, willing to do the dirty work to ensure people, especially those he cares about, can be safe and secure.
• I Kiss Your Foot: Not always kissing, but one of his favorite hobbies, while he and Kore passed the time in the relative quiet of their past lives, was playing with her feet and legs.
• No Social Skills: Downplayed. As a traveling warrior fighting against threats that many common people were not even aware of from the age of fourteen on, Hadrian doesn't have experience with some common social ticks in highly public places and often just sticks to corners and quietly observes in large groups.
• Not So Stoic: While he might not outwardly show his feelings, he certainly has them, in the form of his deep love for and desire to please Kore, his enthusiasm to do the right thing that makes others happy, and the fact that he takes situations quite personally. It would take one quite a while to see these aspects, however - only Kore really has since he was assigned to the graveyard.
• One Head Taller: Is considerably taller than Kore and married to her.
• Pride: A sense of pride for what he once was - one of the best Aasimar warriors on the plane - is what drives Hadrian to have the power to stop the undead threat on his own, without going back to the Celestials or Aasimar for help.
• Opposites Attract: And how. Tall, intimidating fallen angel who lives in a graveyard and who is secretly chivalrous falls in love with a short, bright-eyed druid who spends her time spreading flowers when she's not setting things on fire and almost literally stomping on the toes of those who annoy her? Absolutely.
• Resigned to the Call: His situation, though he feels guilty anytime he wishes it was someone else defending the graveyard and not him.
• The Sacred Darkness: Of the "does an unpopular, but important job" variety. He is separated from his Celestial roots and therefore Fallen to protect a graveyard, but according to the Aasimar, Someone Has to Do It.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Hadrian is completely Koresexual. There is not another being that stirs him in romantic and sensual ways like his wife.
• Shield Bash: A tactic he invokes often.
• The Stoic: Generally keeps up a stern facade around strangers, but AvertedTrope when it comes to his wife or particular situations that happen to move him to strong feelings.
• Team Dad: Had shades of this among the Aasimar. He was the one to try and keep everyone from doing anything too destructive, whether personally or in combat, and many looked up to him (though he wasn't any older than most of them) as the stable, steady hand among them and a person to imitate, even if he wasn't prone to inspiring speeches.
• The Teetotaler: He's scared of what alcohol might do to him, given the nature of his powers and the potential that it might make him unstable.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Hadrian isn't so very uptight - he just seems so on the surface - but he was essentially married to his job until the Wildfire Druid Kore came along and spiced up his life.
• With Great Power: Part of his creed as an Aasimar. He may have lost many of his powers, but his divine nature, he believes, still compels him to be vigilant to improve himself and protect people. This creed spills over onto others as well... he tends to expect others to be as dedicated as he is.

Kore

A Kalashtar Druid who enjoyed a simple life bringing beauty to desolate places. Then she met Hadrian, and found him intriguing enough to surrender this life in favor of protecting against undeath. This didn’t make her powerful mom too happy.

• Burn the Undead: Frequently, if any ever made their way to the grave site.
• Combat Tentacles: A favored way of using her druidic powers is the manipulation of vines used for this purpose, quite handy for restraining and strangling people in combat.
• Disappeared Dad: Kore's mother worked very hard to keep her away from her father, and has almost obsessively worked her entire life to keep him from finding her. Kore has no memory of her father, and considering she's been around a nearly all female group for the majority of her life, she hasn't looked too far into his absence.
• Earthy Barefoot Character: A druid whose focus centers on spreading growth from the earth beneath her feet after the old things have been burned away, so naturally, she doesn't like shoes because they interrupt her connection with the soil.
• Erotic Eating: Apparently, when she first won over Hadrian, she did this with a peach to get him hot and bothered. It worked, magnificently.
• Fertile Feet: An earthly druid who walks around barefoot. Hadrian seems to like it.
• Fiery Redhead: On a slow day, she's a pleasant druid who spends her time growing flowers and fruit and sharing her bounty with her husband (in more ways than one). When it comes to punishing those evil enough to rob mortals of their free will and their peaceful deaths, she is a force of nature who's less lenient with these wrongdoers than Hadrian. Bonus points that many of her more destructive powers center on destruction by way of fire thanks to her bonding with a fire spirit.
• Fire Purifies: Part of her ideals and creed - burn away the old, corrupted, and decayed in order to make room for the new, for the betterment of everyone.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Kore’s specialty is burning away affronts to the natural world around her and then utilizing her powers (creating flowers and the like, especially) to restore the greenery to the land.
• Green Thumb: Par for the course with Druids, but Kore takes this up to eleven. Her greatest hobby is creating acres and acres of beautiful growth and growing some of the most delicious fruit in the world. Of course, this is after she burns away any corruption or old, unnaturally stubborn growth.
• Happily Married: To Hadrian, content to live their quiet life away from civilization and to follow him to who-knows-where when he finds out he has to leave.
• Hartman Hips: Prominently curvy, especially in the hips and upper legs.
• The Ingenue: Averted. Might strike someone as this in the first moments of interaction with her. Then they find out, however earthly, naive, and innocent she might appear due to her love for flowers and nature in general and her optimism, she is nonetheless the Fiery Redhead, The Tease, and a potentially very impatient badass all in one.
• Kill It with Fire: Her first option in most situations, if there is actual killing involved in the situation. Being bonded with an aggressive fire spirit tends to urge this along.
• Living Lie Detector: Given her psychic intuition and the presence of a virtuous if accusatory and aggressive spirit in her mind to provide backup, Kore is quite skilled at calling people out on their crap. And at aggressively responding to their dishonesty.
• Mindlink Mates: With Hadronos. They're constantly aware that they can converse mentally with each other whenever they please.
• My Beloved Smother: Kore’s mother never much liked Kore’s love for wandering to begin with, much preferring that she stay under her protective eye and bring beauty to their home and their home alone, but now that Kore has left to live with Hadrian, her mother’s smothering tendencies have been taken up to eleven… and made complex by the fact that her mother is as powerful a magic user as Kore herself.
• Nature Lover: And specifically, a flower and fruit lover. She would likely spend all of her time barefoot in an open field of flowers if she could.
• One Head Taller: Is considerably shorter than Hadrian and married to him.
• Psychic Block Defense: Her sharing a mind-link with another semi-conscious being makes it more than a little difficult for anyone trying to attack her mind to wriggle their way in there.
• Psychic Powers: Par for the course as a Kalashtar, who have the ability to communicate telepathically with others. She uses this to great effect with Hadrian.
• Silk Hiding Steel: More like flowers hiding steel. A most graceful, earthly druid when interacting with the natural world and her husband. More fearsome than he is when it comes to dishing out justice and discipline and prone to burning all her problems with fire.
• Sleepwalking: Semi-frequently given she is mentally connected with a quori spirit that doesn't much care that it's nighttime and does most of its "communication" with her through dreams of its past.
• Sweet Tooth: Kore loves food in general, but nothing more than sweets. Though she'll be happy with fruits for the majority of her time, when she can she tries to find candy and sweets. She's since realized that the majority of people also feel the same, she often uses her stash to make friends.
• Telepathy: See Psychic Powers. Her telepathy is a bit off and on compared to some using this trope, as it changes based on relationships and seemingly how cooperative her quori spirit is feeling on a day to day basis, but when it functions properly (as it always does with Hadrian), she can be quite the powerful practitioner.
• The Tease: See Erotic Eating. She has a knack for distracting Hadrian from his brooding with the sly application of her womanly and Druid-ly wiles.
• Took a Level in Badass: She always had Druidic powers, passed down from her famous mother, but for the most part, she used them simply for her gardening. Now that she is spending her days protecting a place of sacred rest from the likes of the undead and the gods who want to create them, Kore has become a fearsome bundle of natural magical energy who can change the landscape with a stomp of her foot and who bonded with a fire spirit to enhance her powers and perform important druidic duties.
• Two Beings, One Body: Mostly AvertedTrope. Kore has a psionic connecton to a quori, a spirit being from another realm, but it does not actually have any control of her body aside from when the strong dreams that it generates in her mind at night compel her to move. Mostly, this quori only exists to her in flashes of memory, inspiration, desire, and the like.
• Visions of Another Self: Kore is bonded with a rebel quori spirit named Koreath. Because of this connection, she cannot dream. Instead, when she sleeps, she gets visions of those in her bloodline who were also bonded to this spirit, and some of their actions. These actions can at times be violent or vicious, and so Kore does not always get the best sleep. Due to her ability to psychically link with her husband, he at times also gets glimpses of the clips she sees as well.
• Your Tradition Is Not Mine: Kore's mother was burned badly, and ended up obsessively trying to keep both herself and her daughter out of normal society. Though her fears have basis, Kore has always had a different view of what life should be like. Kore's desire for freedom led her to finding her now husband, and though she has moved on, her mother refuses to. Like mother is not like daughter, because Kore doesn't feel the need to hide away from society as if it's evil.