Sandbox / Markos Zara

Markos

A Gladiator-turned-soldier who somehow survived numerous injuries after he was nearly killed in battle with the drow. Not surprising, given he's a powerful, hardy Earth Genasi and doesn't know it. He escaped with the woman who was meant to keep him as a slave, and after a run-in with Mind Flayers, they both developed strange telekinetic skills.

• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Seemingly one of the reasons Zara found him so intriguing as a slave whom she could keep happy and away from other drow by treating him well.
• The Big Guy: Played with. While he is gigantic, he is more a variant of The Charmer rather than The Brute or the Boisterous Bruiser. Has aspects of the Stone Wall (literally) and the Gentle Giant, however, and has the Brute's ferociousness when fighting for his life.
• The Charmer: Downplayed. Markos learned as a gladiator to build beneficial relationships with others and has a knack for swaying people to agree with him, but he does not use his charm like The Casanova. He merely wants to secure what he and the people around him need at any given moment, and he realizes he has the muscles and rugged jaw to make people notice.
• Chick Magnet: By no particular effort of his own. Them's the breaks when you're as tall as the ceiling with rippling, smooth muscles, but he has only hooked up in a serious way with two women in his life.
• Defiant to the End: Averted. Fought and killed multiple dozens of drow after an ambush killed most of the troops that he had accompanied into the Underdark, simply because he wanted to take out as many as he could before he died. He ultimately survived, likely because this ferocity made him attractive to Zara.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Markos' unknown nature as an Earth Genasi provides him some minor elemental powers, such as concealing his allies by having them leave no trace that they pass through an area.
• Elemental Embodiment: Markos has no idea exactly what he is, since he is less marked than some Earth Genasi, simply possessing gold eyes, skin smooth as stone, and flecks of gold coloring in his skin. He also comes from a culture where Genasi are exceedingly rare. However, these markings (and his size) display his close relationship to the earth, much like a mountainside spotted with metal ore.
• Genius Bruiser: As someone who has fought other people specializing in a wide range of fighting styles and weapons and a variety of dangerous creatures in arena combat, Markos has developed a mental acuity to match his immense physical prowess.
• Gentle Giant: In combat, Markos is a focused monster. Out of combat, for the most part, Markos is a Stoic but courteous and inadvertent Chick Magnet who pointedly avoided getting himself involved in serious scuffles at the Coliseum.
• Gladiator Games: The Domina's interest in Markos was to train him to compete in these, and for the most part, participation in these games has been the life he has known. Good thing he was an exceptionally successful gladiator.
• Gorgeous Greek: A towering, strong-jawed, muscular man with all the aesthetic advantages of being an Earth Genasi from a Greek-inspired culture.
• Hunk: The chin. The pronounced muscles that seem to be carved from stone. More than qualifies.
• The Juggernaut: Par for the course with Barbarians, who just keep coming even when they are surrounded and wounded. Taken up to eleven with Markos, whose Earth Genasi nature adds to his freakishly juggernaut-like stature.
• Made of Iron: Almost literally. His skin and muscle tone reminds one of stone when touched, though it is all still very much flesh. Zara can't get enough of it.
• Mind over Matter: The blast in the Mind Flayers' lab gave Markos burgeoning telekinetic powers to move objects and people, form barriers, and enhance his physicality.
• Mistress and Servant Boy: Not so much servant boy as "slave" in name, but Markos and the Domina had this relationship with her providing a healthy amount of fondness and attention when she was shaping him into a gladiator and without the Unresolved Sexual Tension. This is part of the reason why Markos developed comfort with Zara, despite being her slave.
• Mr. Fanservice: Somewhat self-aware. He was told, and he came to understand, that his stature, build, and looks benefitted his status as a gladiator both among the other gladiators and among the crowds.
• One Head Taller: Towers over Zara, with whom he has an... interesting relationship.
• Only One Name: Markos never had any last name, born (so far as he knows) into the slave trade.
• Psi Blast: As the psionic powers he got from the explosion manifest in more physical forms than Zara's (aside from her blades), Markos can smash foes with psionic force energy as he strikes them with his blade.
• Red Baron: "The Ram" in the arena, since nicknames were expected.
• Sculpted Physique: Almost literally. Markos is sculpted as if carved from stone by a sculptor, and as an Earth Genasi, he nearly is.
• Sex Slave: Averted. Thought he would be this for Zara, but she only asked him to enjoy this with her while she prevented him from being treated as such by the other drow. He agreed.
• The Stoic: Though he has a way with words, Markos nonetheless does not show a great deal of outward emotion.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Both of his eyes are quite evidently gold. This is a mark of his Earth Genasi nature, though he doesn't know that.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Got his telekinetic powers while strapped naked to a table in a Mind Flayer lab and witnessing an explosion of strange technology. Surprisingly, despite all of this trauma, he had a better experience than Zara given he was still conscious enough to break his restraints after the explosion.
• True-Breeding Hybrid: His being an Earth Genasi means, yes, one parent likely got it on directly with some sort of elemental being of rock, stone, or something similar. He just does not know his parents, nor does he know he is a Genasi.
• Unexplained Recovery: When he awoke after the battle with the drow where his wounds rendered him unconscious, he was covered in caked blood and dirt, but few of his wounds remained. As an Earth Genasi, his innate sturdiness made it so that what should have been mortal wounds were nothing more than the average battle wound.

Zara (Zarania)

A Drow (actually a half-drow, but she doesn't know it) Rogue who has separated from her people, mostly because they attempted to kill her for being too kind and killing her murderous brother in defense of her slave, Markos. Upon their escape from the drow, Mind Flayers captured them, and they were only saved due to an attack and explosion that gave them strange mental powers.

• Action Girl: A fit, exotic drow who was arguably the strongest fighter in her family, amongst a people where hyper-violence was the norm. She can handle herself.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: Not Amazon in stature but certainly in fighting ability, and there were obvious, muscle-and-might-related reasons she first set her eyes on Markos.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Due to not having a litany of magical powers like most drow, her being a bastard, and her disinterest in sexing and slaughtering her way to the top, most drow who had a right to (i.e., the ones she didn't have to take down a notch just to survive and the ones who hadn't already been beaten down by another drow) looked on her with disdain.
• Alpha Bitch: Par for the course with females in drow society, and Zara was compelled to vie for this position as much for survival as anything.
• Bathtub Bonding: She coerces Markos into private baths with her after freeing him from the dungeon so that she can personally clean the blood off of him.
• Brains and Bondage: An incredibly clever woman who survived for years as a White Sheep among the drow through her own ingenuity, and one who also enjoys all the trappings of a kinky time in the bedroom.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Zara spends little time in Markos' presence not admiring everything about him, but, in stark contrast to other drow, she didn't take it upon herself to start acting on her ogling before he indicated that he was accepting of it.
• Cool Sword: She learned shortly after the escape from the Mind Flayers that she can manifest blades of energy with nothing more than a thought and in any form she desires. Handy, for a girl who lacked other drow's magical talents (due to being a half-drow).
• Dark and Troubled Past: Having to grow up as a drow with the constant threat that others might try to kill you for your station and belongings is bad enough for evil drow. Zara compounded her problem by daring to act with some semblance of decency. Add in her being the black sheep of her family due to the circumstances of her birth, and it is understandable that she could throw it all away to save a decent man.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Looks like a drow, walks like a drow, and talks like a drow. The difference is Zara hasn't been brainwashed by the teachings of Lolth.
• Dominatrix: All she knows about how to spend time in bed as a drow and utilized against Markos. He surprises her by not only willingly rebelling against her control but also by proving to have a gentle, loving side.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Her with Markos constantly and unashamedly the moment a bit of his armor comes off, as might be expected of a drow.
• Energy Weapon: Can manifest a blade in either hand that seems to manifest from some sort of psionic energy, given the source.
• Fantastic Racism: Any drow on the surface, no matter their motivations, are bound to deal with this in some way.
• Good Bad Girl: Though she has a healthy appetite for physical fulfillment and especially when it comes to Markos, Zara acts nothing like the black widows that dominate the drow populace and tends to have mutually beneficial intentions.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: In the "bad girl" sense, but not to the point of pointing out that she's a Dominatrix. She merely wears fitted leather armor.
• Heroic Seductress: Played with. In a sense as much a Femme Fatale as most traditional drow women, Zara has no problems with using her wiles to get who and what she wants. However, she is not cruel like most drow, only interested for the fun, and actually convinced Markos to willingly become her lover in part to keep them both protected from evil drow who would wish to kill one or both of them. Of course, getting Markos in bed was reward enough for this noble act.
• Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. She already had a distaste for most of the drow. It was simply their attempts to kill her and Markos that caused her to fully turn her back on them entirely.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Zara kept Markos alive because his Defiant to the End stand against her fellow drow impressed her so much and made him an object of desire for her.
• Literal Bastard: Born to the consort of a self-appointed drow queen and another drow woman who was promptly killed in front of him as punishment.
• Mental Affair: With Markos. Due to her newfound psychic powers, she tends to fill Markos' mind with teasing thoughts of what they might do when they are alone later because she plans to reap the benefits.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Zara has never held any fondness for her people nor their tendencies within the worship of Lolth, but among them was the only place where she had a chance to belong and potentially thrive. Now, however, she holds absolutely no desire to tolerate their insanity.
• One Head Taller: It's not that Zara is short, but Markos is gigantic. The two of them share a unique relationship, as well.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Received her psionic powers while strapped naked to a table in a Mind Flayer lab and surviving an explosion of some strange technology. She got the worst of it of the two, being tinkered on by the Mind Flayers and catching debris during the explosion, to the point that she thought she was so weak that Markos would kill her and escape by himself.
• The Un-Favorite: Zara's biological father mostly sees her as a mistake, and if was not for her ingenuity and skills, he would likely want her done away with outright. Her fanatical and ambitious brother is clearly the favored one in the family. Thus why she was blamed entirely when she killed him to protect Markos and herself, as he would have killed one of them.
• White Sheep: Not only for her family but for her entire faction of drow as a whole. Among a people who spend their time obsessed with dominating others to the point of senseless slaughter, Zara is a secretly well-intentioned Good Bad Girl with warmth left in her heart. Needless to say, most of the drow hated her and promptly exiled and hunted her when she protected Markos from injury.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Her unwillingness to harm innocents is one of the reasons she did not fit among the drow.