Pangir Kha
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Name: Pangir, son of the Kha tribe Epithets: Warrior of Light, God-slayer, Khagan Age: 20s Gender: Male Species: Au Ra (Xaela) Class: Berserker (WAR/RPR) Occupation: Sellsword-turned-Celebrity Favorite Color: The sky at dawn Favorite Food: Grilled meat, Warm drinks, Raw saltwater fish Likes: Sailing, Horse-riding, Wide-open spaces, Men that are smaller than him Dislikes: Loneliness, Embarrassment, Crowds, Men that look down on him Best Traits: Passionate, Loyal, Privately affectionate, Good with kids Worst Traits: Insecure, Masculine vanity, Broody, Sad drunk |
Contents:
Appearance
Visuals (of varying canonicity) can be found in his Tumblr tag.
Pangir has a face that's both stern and youthful, particularly to an Au Ra's eye. He looks like he'll one day age into a truly rugged looking man, and it is this foresight, this trace of the man he'll be, that brings out his more boyish qualities. Maybe one day, heavens forbid, his scales will creep up toward his upper lip, and he'll wear a mustache to remedy his cuteness.
His eyes are handsome and intense, a stark burning yellow against all the cool grays and off-black. Up close, when his limbal rings thin and the light catches his irises, one can see their muted purple hue.
Like all of his kind, he has hollow horns with thick stems connecting to where his ears would be. They are somewhat touch-sensitive, a sensation similar to tapping on headphones while you're wearing them. He's got a few other horns too of various sizes, from the goat-like horns on his crown to the straighter, narrower ones right above the back of his neck. His tail is thick and expressive, and tends to idly sway.
Auri men are known for long bodies with dramatic hourglass shapes. Pangir, on the other hand, is relatively stocky. His thicker midsection and understated hips more resemble Highlander Hyur – Which is nice, because next to Hyur he is quite tall, whereas Au Ra consider him short.
A solid go-to reference when envisioning his physique is Henry Rollins. A powerful, thickly-built man, and similarly "tall, but not like, tall-tall".
In battle, his curls are kept tied and braided, both to keep them out of the way and to keep them from getting tangled. His manner of dress most often goes one of two ways: "Traditional Steppe Warrior", or "Dashing Pirate".
Abilities
Pangir is an incredibly capable Warrior. In his teens, he was trained by a healer who had grown too tired and old and unsteady to wield his axe. His first real paternal figure. The old man saw him grow from a surly little tween to a man, and instilled in him the mindset that "Bullying is what little boys do. A strong man protects the weak."
Apart from his physical strength and years of training, he had certain advantages in the form of the Echo (see The Mothercrystal) and then later in partnering with a Voidsent (see Faustian Bargain). This would wind up saddling him with certain obligations when he came to Eorzea, a land where tensions gave rise to Man-made Gods called Primals, beings which corrupted followers and enemies alike, save for those with Hydaelyn's blessing.
The Echo also has more mundane applications. Pangir is a natural with animals, gaining a reputation as an animal tamer and shepherd nonpareil. Being omnilingual, he often made friends with the children of Doman traders and Beast-tribes as a lad, and then as an adult, was uniquely qualified to parley with the Beast-men of Eorzea.
As for his Voidsent pact, while he doesn't strictly need its help to wreak havoc on the battlefield, its powers perfectly compliment his preferred fighting style. Rather than weilding a scythe and relying on agility as Reapers do, he still leads the charge with a big, hefty axe. As he sheds his enemies' blood, the Voidsent feeds, and as he sheds his own, it mends his wounds.
There are those times that, in the heat of battle, his body seems to act on its own, driven by rage and bloodlust. Abalathian Warriors call it the "Inner Beast", a frenzied state that one can learn to control. The Lemures of Ul'dah's refugee quarter would call it a stupid, dangerous, sometimes-necessary practice. By training under both groups, he'd come to a better understanding with his Voidsent partner.
The main consequence is that Pangir has an intense appetite, especially after exerting himself. The most reliable way to sate it is by eating aether-rich foods like Sharlayan rye bread, or disturbingly, fresh blood. Otherwise, he has to eat a huge amount of food to feel satisfied. Unrestrained gluttony is beneath his dignity, but if he's too restrained for too long...
Well, financial security and a smartly-stocked pantry is a neat and tidy solution, and one he fortunately stumbled into when he was practically still fresh off the boat. This is most often a "quirk" of his rather than a curse.
The Mothercrystal
The Warrior of Light's encounter with Hydaelyn, the Mothercrystal, is the first thing Final Fantasy XIV players get to see after wrapping up character creation. She grants the hero her Blessing of Light, a ward which makes their soul incorruptible and protects them from being enthralled by Primals. Here-on, the WoL also possesses the Echo, an ability that grants its user visions of the past, and an understanding of any spoken language.
Pangir's first encounter with Hydaelyn was long before he arrived in Eorzea, when he was still just a young boy, with no name and no possessions. All he had were the clothes on his back, and his beloved horse. While riding through the steppe one day, tired and hungry, a shock went through him. His horse vanished out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
With a groan he collected himself, only to realize that the "ground" was cold and smooth, made up of shimmering blues and twinkling stars. The sky itself had swallowed him up. Before his fear could sharpen into rage, a woman's voice washed over him, like a soothing summer rain.
"Hear... Feel... Think..."
When next he opened his eyes, he saw his horse's big, cute, worried face, and felt him nudging at his cheek. The animal's nervousness could've been guessed by his restless hooves, his flaring nostrils, the posture of his ears. But then strangely, miraculously, with the same clarity of listening to a person speak, the boy heard the horse ask "Are you okay?"
He had been granted the Echo. A particular variant which let him speak to beasts, not just men.
This mystical power, a gift unheard-of outside of folk tales, made him look on his fainting spell in a new light. He realized he had been touched by something truly divine, an entity which he would come to think of as the Sky Incarnate, a Mother Goddess who breathed life into all things, and who ruled over Azim the Sun-god and Nhaama the Moon-goddess.
Even after the Kha tribe took him in, and took notice of his odd knack for animals and the ease with which he talked to foreigners, Pangir kept this vision to himself. It felt too important, too private.
Faustian Bargain
When Pangir was old enough to wield the same arms as a grown man, but young enough that he still fumbled with them, he resolved to become the strongest man in the Azim Steppe. How would he achieve such a thing? Well, it wouldn't be by staying home. He had come to love the Kha people, who brought him up through his teens and who he saw as his family, but their ways were gentle and he was restless.
Eventually he set out to explore the places his fellow nomads didn't roam, through Othard, to Kugane, and eventually into Eorzea. It's because of this that he was able to take part in the story of Final Fantasy XIV; meeting the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, becoming Eorzea's champion, felling tyrants, and saving entire worlds from certain doom.
There's a step in this journey, however, that he doesn't tend to mention.
One night, before he'd ever even thought to sail as far out as Eorzea, Pangir had a brush with death. In the dense woods of Yanxia, near occupied Doma, his mare lost her footing, and they both were sent careening down a cliff. The landscape battered and tore at their bodies all the way down, until each landed in a thorny heap.
Pangir could hardly draw enough breath to cry out for help. It would've been useless anyway, knowing the area, if anyone was around it'd be brigands drawn to his mare's death-cries. If he didn't get help fast, he would be cheated out of glory by a common, unmanly death. He needed another miracle.
Out from the mists stepped... Something. It wasn't like any creature he'd ever seen. It stunk of blood and made sounds between a laugh and a groan.
The next morning, Pangir had no injuries. No sign at all that he had been at the brink of death, save for unkempt, tattered clothes, and a missing horse. He left Doma behind and tried to forget about what happened that night.
At the time he couldn't come to grips with just how he survived, but whether he liked it or not, he made a deal with a Voidsent. An aether-starved monster. Was it drawn to him because of Hydaelyn's mark on his soul? Did She, seeing this encounter in Pangir's future, preemptively shield his body and soul from its corrupting influence? Was he simply "lucky?"
In any case, Pangir would soon adapt to the changes brought on by this partnership, and later on he even came to accept it and open up a dialogue with the Voidsent. By the Mothercrystal's grace, the Void's great power, and his own raw determination, he'd come to surpass all mortal limits. He'd become a living legend; God-slayer, Liberator, Lightbringer, Shadowbringer... And reciever of countless fan-letters.
Cross-compatibility
Pangir Kha, Steppe Warrior, is just one iteration of a base character concept that I've used as my "stock action hero" for a handful of years now.
I particularly like to default to him in video games with any sort of character selection or customization, but I'll also just idly reinvent him for fun. He's been my Fallout: New Vegas courier, I've toyed with how I'd build him in Werewolf: the Apocalypse as the son of a Black Fury, I've envisioned him as a Star Wars Cathar, a Star Trek Klingon, so on, so forth.
He was born in a VtM: Bloodlines playthrough, a Gangrel that went through the story with the mentality "I have huge claws that can cut through concrete, why should I bother with subtlety?" Even that early, I had it in mind that he was a gay guy. Sorry Jeanette.
For a good while he was a Vampire roleplay character that I named Pan. Which, by the way, giving your character a dorkily on-the-nose "Oh, that is NOT the name his parents gave him" name is pretty handy and versatile for remixing into different fantasy contexts later on.
A lot of my roleplay was probably really very corny, and I mean, part of that was on purpose. The joke of his character is that he's a tough guy with a tryhard streak. At the same time though, I was also just a very unseasoned writer and VtM-player. But that was a very formative time for figuring out his character. And I'm very grateful to my friends who roleplayed opposite to him, whether we've stayed in touch or not.
Vampire: the Masquerade isn't a game that compels you to be the good guy. Its one in which, if you aren't guarding your humanity tightly, the setting will wear it down and turn you into a monster. Pan ended up wooed into the (more or less) "evil faction" of the series because, of all things, he fell in love. And with a handsome Toreador douchebag no less!
Gangrel antitribu Pan was a lot of fun, what with all his slasher villain antics and wacky friendships and torrid gay romance, but there was something sad about it. Deep down he was kind of a sweet boy, he just had a rough life and a rough death. What if things went differently, or he was in a setting with a brighter, cuter tone, and he had a chance to be the hero? Not just a loyal guard-dog for cultists with hero complexes?
As you can probably tell (given that his biography dwarfs any other I've written to date), all the context and history behind him has made it a pleasure to develop Pangir Kha, the Warrior of Light.