☼ YORA rem CAARVELIAN ☼
WOLF of the IVth
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➢ half-garlean | half-elezen
➢ 39 years
➢ she / they / he
Cheek marked in red and bearing an iridescent shine to her hair, the identity of the woman before you is plain. Constantly fearing recognition, however deserved it may be, she takes steps, at times, to hide herself. What she is. As if she has the right.To most Eorzeans, she seems as any other person. Her peculiarities hardly stand out among the vibrant Eorzean diaspora. A closer look betrays more to keen eyes. Those that hail from Bozja and the Garlean Empire would be hard-pressed not to recognize the daughter of a Decemvir. Less likely, given the controversy surrounding her fall from grace. Yet... the woman before you does not invoke the image you'd expect of someone bearing the name Caarvelian. She holds no love for the Empire. So little, in fact, that she is known to assault others of her nationality in broad daylight.Unshakeable ; unwavering ; capable ; formidable ; callous. Mind the blood on her teeth, and ware her howl. Her bite is no less savage than her bark. She has only ever been a hound of war.
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VISUAL TRAITS
| Name | Yora Caarvelian |
| Age | 39 Years |
| Height | 6 fulms 6 ilms |
| Race | Half-Garlean | Half-Elezen |
| Ethnicity | Bozjan | Garlean |
| Rank | |
| Occupation | "Social worker" |
| Orientation | Lesbian |
| Stats | STR +4 | CON +5 | DEX +0 | WIS +3 | INT -2 | CHA -3 |
❖ never mind the death threats piling at the doorway - rather be six feet under than be lonely ❖
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“Her father called Martrvje home. The home he stole, more like. Occupier that he was.”
“She'd come to school with bruises and cuts. Spend hours after school wandering, rather than going home.”
“Enlisted in the IVth at fifteen. I don't know if I pity her, or resent her.”
“Even without the shadow of her father's reputation, it's hard to forget her own brutality.”
“The kind of centurion who'd toss you in a gaol without cause. The IVth was better without her.”
Fascism rewards compliance. Usefulness. The convenient are given a place among the deserving. At the surface, so it appears. Dignity is earned. Respect comes naturally to the right kind of person.Her pointed ears and bare forehead wrote the end of that tale before she spoke her first words. An unwitting passenger in her own life. A tool through which an apathetic Empire would further its own desires and cast her aside once she no longer provided that use. Inconvenient. That's what her sort were. The Empire's dream of a new world left no room for her kind of people.
Enlisted at fifteen.
Engaged to a Primus Pilus at eighteen.
Promoted to Pilus Prior at twenty.
Convicted of murder at twenty two.Promotions came at a cost. A price she paid with the lives of the people she'd grown up alongside in Bozja. Schoolmates. Neighbors. Former friends. Their lives were little more than a tool to further her own ends. Recognition. Any sign of disrespect could be spun to be a crime. Smuggling goods. Aiding the Resistance. Hiding weapons. Suspect behavior. Any of it was grounds to retaliate.Homes burned under her command. Fields razed. Land held for generations reduced to ash on a whim. Misspeaks became weeks in solitary confinement. Lashings. Public humiliation. Families torn apart with convictions and conscriptions that were ill-deserved, and hardly earned. They'd never see one another again. Never be the same again. Broken in a single moment of selfish desire.Caarvelian was imprisoned following the death of her Primus Pilus, The case never went to court.
❖ if i could breathe, i'd be free at last ❖
M: Ah… is it on, now? We’re recording? Mmh. Just wanted to be certain that it all was caught on record.███████: You don’t appear concerned about Caarvelian’s claims.M: … No. Even in the event that she were to be given a trial, I feel our… collective testimony will be enough to persuade.███████: The murder of your cohort’s Primus Pilus is of concern, Atraxis.M: She was of… poor quality of character. We had collected evidence before this all occurred. Correspondences, between Atoel and Caarvelian. Caarvelian was seventeen, when she and Atoel first became… a pair. Caarvelian would have denied it. Atoel’s personal writings told another story. She seemed plenty aware of her actions, and moreover that at seventy-some summers, she should have known better.███████: … Caarvelian, then. You claim that she improperly exercised her power. Abused her position.M: Frequently. On all of us. The rest will say they fear speaking so critically of her. I have no such hesitations. Her upbringing did not teach her how to accept no. I remember the nights I spent talking her down from taking… extreme actions against civilians. She’d get into moods. The downside of someone so young taking her position, I suppose. She was emotionally unstable, at best.███████: Was that all? That she’d try to overwrite your decisions with unnecessary use of force?M: No. When I wouldn’t cave to her orders, she demanded… substitution. If we would not obey, then she needed the outlet still. She wouldn’t accept anything else.███████: Were these formal punishments?M: Not at all. No records were kept, and no orders given to accept punishment. She’d… grab weapons. Whatever was nearby. If she had no weapons, then came objects from the surround. She’d strike out with them, spouting profanities. It mattered not where she came in contact, so long as contact was made.███████: Is this related to the scar on your cheek?M: … It’s not a memory I like reliving. There are similar, across my back. I took the brunt of it, to try and shield the rest of us who worked most closely with her. The night that she gave me the scar on my cheek, I remember that I reported a… failure, to intercept insurgent supplies. She flew into a rage, hearing that. She struck me. It was the back of her gauntlet that caught my skin, of all things. Even as I cried, she didn’t care. Kept cursing at me as I bled and knelt at her feet, begging for her to forgive me.███████: … I think that’s plenty. Thank you, Centurion. I hope that your tenure in command treats you well.
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“Executed. That's what she should have been.”
“She came to us the day the sky alit above the west. The day the second moon fell.”
“No one knew the IVth's tactics quite as thoroughly as she did.”
“Not a word in her own defense. Whatever abuse we could fling, she'd take it all in silence.”
“If Bajsaljen won't have her put to death, we should do it ourselves. Who would care, if we did?”
Moonfall brought change to Eorzea, and even further beyond its borders. The landscape ravaged by the dread primal, the sky alit with flame far to the west. As the clouds burned, an iridescent-haired stranger washed up on the shore of Gangos. Body battered and spirit crushed, she had only one request of the Resistance members who found her. With blades held ready to carry out her sentence, she had one request before her consciousness expired.”You’re right to be angry.” Every threat. Every insult. Every doubt.Her voice cut above even the sound of enemy fire. Her orders never failed. Her truth never faltered.
❖ F̶E̶E̵L̴ ̸T̶H̶E̵ ̵W̵E̵I̸G̶H̵T̷ ̵O̴F̵ ̴W̷H̴A̵T̵ ̶W̸E̴ ̴O̷W̸E̷ ❖
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“Hard not to be aware of her. Bastard daughter of a Decemvir. Enlisted at fifteen.”
“It was never going to be anything other than this.”
“Rumor has it he paid Messalla and Gabranth to have her transferred to the Alaudae. Her own father.”
“Promoted to Pilus Prior at age twenty... it's a lot of pressure. Anyone would have broken.”
“She married her own commanding officer at eighteen. They'd known each other for some time before...”
ten, elected by the Emperor to write and pass Imperial law. He was younger, then. Invincible. His status granted him impunity, didn’t it? He was one of the favored ones. A pure child of the Empire; the right sort of person. He fell for a Bozjan lowborn woman. Settled down with her. Had a child, in his station away from the capitol.Fascism did as fascism does. It lies.Even the chosen can be put back in their place. Reminded that deviance is a sin; that their favor is only assured so long as it comes with compliance.Allegedly assassinated by another of the Decemvir’s number, Piper Maclaine passed when her daughter was seven. Caarvelian’s silence spoke volumes. No retribution through the courts was pursued. Instead, her passing stirred only whispers. Gossip and rumor about the half-elezen child she left behind, now toted around behind Caarvelian whilst he worked. A girl once loved, now sat in classrooms hiding bruised arms and black eyes.She enlisted to the IVth at fifteen. By eighteen, news of her engagement to her commanding officer once more carried to curious ears. Nepotism, some speculated. Or someone to take the fall for more worthy children of the Empire. By age twenty, she achieved the rank of Pilus Prior.It lasted two years.
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“Vitus quo Messalla was more beast than man. No abuse against his own men was above him.”
“Depraved. That's the only word I could use for him. I pity the Alaudae.”
“Don't speak to them. Don't look at them. They've seen things no man should ever see.”
“Ever notice there's hardly any women in the Alaudae? Wonder why that is.”
“Whoever you knew before is dead. Once that collar's on, that's no longer the person you loved.”
“Convicts were… less than men, already. Already more beast than individual. So… a collector would do what a collector does. Seek out the most capable among them — and take them for himself.”Vitus quo Messalla — the man in sole command of the “You can do anything to a criminal. They’re not people. No abuse was too much. Common men turned the other cheek at the sight of us. We were animals. Unworthy of their care.”You can do anything to a criminal.A man who wanted to make taxidermy of the heroes of Eorzea had no limitations on the abuse he’d commit toward the men he owned.Most wouldn’t last the first six months. Caarvelian spent three years as an Alaudae.Three years, she did the Empire’s worst work. Duties too grim for those with morals to do. Driven by the beast in Messalla’s collection.
❖ think i felt god strike me from the top - humbled my ass real quick ❖
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“Baelsar needed bodies. Who better than the Alaudae to fill the ranks?”
“Empty promises of homes to go back to. Their charges dropped; their sentence ended. All lies.”
“They fought like men possessed. Couldn't stop moving, with those collars round their necks.”
“Even with the moon shattering above us, all they could do was keep killing.”
“Saw the lifeless body of one of them, collar still trying to shock it into motion.”
Of the bodies that littered Alaudae fell upon the flats. Their conscripted counterparts, fighting in uniforms they never asked to wear, far from homes they never asked to leave, fell easily to the hands of Eorzea’s adventurers. These were... different. Dressed in ornate, absurd garments that stood out from the rest of the Empire's soldiers."They promised more, if we lived. Freedom, plus the funds to live comfortably upon our return."The Empire lies. Caarvelian knew all too well by then. She intended to die beneath the collapsing sattelite. No home waited for her to return to. Reckless, she threw herself at any foe she thought might be her last. Should she stop, the collar around her neck served a reminder to stay in motion. To keep fighting. To keep claiming yet more bodies in the name of an Empire that saw her as no more than a mongrel. A dog to white-haired woman in ill-fitting paladin's armor.“You mean to die here. With the rest of us. Don’t you?”
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“She started taking odd jobs after coming here from Bozja. Not much to do, with the country freed.”
“Keeps to herself, mostly. Doesn't like to talk.”
“These days she's been running around with her wife, more than anything. She's popular with the guild.”
“Saw another adventurer toss a drink on her the other day. Something about a matter of Bozjan pride.”
“Why she's even allowed within a malm of
In more recent time, Yora Caarvelian has found herself in the company of an adventurer of moderate repute. mixed reception. Her companions vary in their responses to Caarvelian. Some know not who she once was. Others respond with vitriol and revulsion. Why someone like her is allowed in their company...If you happen to know of her, or if you venture in your spare time, the recognition may occur to you. Dawnstrider's heart bleeds like no other. You may have seen them in Garlemald, in Tural, in Thavnair, or elsewhere as of late.
❖ nothing cuts like broken teeth - no, nothing cuts like broken teeth ❖
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“More like a virus than a curse.”
“Don't be near that one when she's injured. Aether coming off her would make anyone sick.”
“She draws it in. Aether, that is. This constant trickle gets pulled in, like a leaking drain.”
“Her blood's potent enough to eat through metal like acid. So dense with aether it burns.”
“Witnessed her wielding her own blood like a blade, once. It's... unnerving. Unnatural.”
Many who once sinned get away with it. Beneath the eye of divine retribution, there is no worldly regulation to punish those whose abuse was too great. Not without the intervention of mortal hands. In Caarvelian's case, fate exacted a price. Blood could not be paid in blood. Not in Enough time to hope to amend the damage she did.Created by fanatics attempting to prevent another elemental calamity following the flood, the Gull's Curse turns the body into an stockpiles in the bloodstream. It does not let go. It cannot let go until the moment of death.Intended to be inflicted upon sacrifices, this condition was passed from blood to blood contact to Caarvelian. An unfortunate, unintended change to her physiology resulted. Blood burns like acid, so overloaded with raw, volatile aether. With enough practice, it can be wielded like a weapon. Or like a tool. Manipulation comes with aetheric density. Aetheric density comes over time. Aetheric manipulation - magic - becomes fully impossible.When skin is broken, the aether that seeps out is nauseating in density. When spells are cast through her flesh by another, they become significantly augmented. Very little sets Caarvelian apart from a wyrm's eye, physiologically.
❖ we'll speak in tongues - worship the sun 'til kingdom come ❖
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“...”
Ah... funny.You're not supposed to be here. Not yet. Yet here you are. Stumbling into places you aren't supposed to be, to see the things no one's meant to see. Not by any means. Not now, while you have the strength to go on.Come back once you've been broken. When you can no longer take another step. When all that remains is pain, and every breath is an aching reminder of what made you this. Why you're like this.I'll be here. No rush.
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Are you curious about writing with Yora Caarvelian? Do you have a narrative niche you're looking to fill? Yora's characterization and story help to address these themes, if they are of interest to you:
‣ does suffering have value?
‣ can you assign a concrete worth to a human life? can one life pay for another?
‣ can you pay for your wrongs through suffering?
‣ at what point is the threshold of "redemption" crossed? does redemption even exist?
‣ can someone ever "make up" for voluntary participation in an oppressive system? is it truly voluntary?
‣ do victims need to be more rational than their abusers to be believed? can a person be both the victim and the abuser?
‣ what does it mean to have free will? how can you, in a culture built around the control of individual identity?
‣ what does it mean to be a "good" person? how can you be sure "good" and "bad" are opposite concepts without overlap?
‣ who gets to decide how much punishment suits someone who harmed others, if anyone?
‣ how much can you excuse from someone who was never going to benefit from their own actions?
‣ can you really call it heroism if you're doing it to be rewarded?
‣ at what point is it enough?
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The story of Yora Caarvelian is not a difficult one to have been privy to. Her birth and unfortunate downfall both were subjects of great amounts of gossip at the time of each. Even without having known her personally, to have been acquainted with someone who may is not difficult. Refugees of the Empire spread far and wide, and with them their tales.Yora Caarvelian began her unfortunate tenure upon this star as the mixed child of a Garlean Decemvir and a poor Bozjan woman. Her birth itself was controversial, but little more than gossip. With the assassination of her mother seven years later, her existence became more widely the subject of gossip and derision.She sought approval from her father more than anything. He sent her into the military at fifteen, where she rose rapidly to the rank of Pilus Prior through heartless brutality. It wasn't long before most Bozjans despised her.What followed after dominated both Bozjan and Garlean rumor mills. The young Caarvelian had uncharacteristically killed a commanding officer of her Legion. She was imprisoned, denied a trial, and sent into the Alaudae under the command of Vitus quo Messalla. Three years, she fought as yet another of Messalla's dogs. She disappeared following Carteneau, assumed dead. Good riddance.Yet... she appeared in Bozja again, shortly after. She fought for their liberation - her voice cut above the sounds of battle, her orders always direct and effective. Following Bozja's liberation, she left for Eorzea. Their whereabouts since then have been in varied places. They seem... haunted, now. Most would say the ghosts of their past finally caught up. Many would say further that they deserve to be so conflicted.As of recent times, some say she's found a relationship now with an individual beloved by many. You'd have to ask them to know more.
❖ but when you hear me you'll be near me - stay with me in the flood ❖
♡
➢ he / they
➢ 24
➢ transmasc lesbian, osdd system, mizrahi
You can call me Zeke or Ekh - either one's fine! I'm a venue owner, artist, writer, fursuiter, cat dad, and graphic designer. I've been roleplaying in FFXIV since 2015 and in general since 2010. I work full time as a case manager for substance use recovery, and am currently in school to get my MSW.Note: ACAB, Land Back, free Palestine, and punch nazis. These are an assortment of some of the things I believe. I write a mixed Garlean character as a form of exploring heavy themes with fascist indoctrination, parental and cult abuse, the impact of propaganda and the psychology of why it's effective, and the experience of being diaspora during ongoing cultural genocide.I have dealt with enough writers attempting to slide into my good graces only to say some weird lowkey racist shit. I am not going to tolerate OOC fascist romanticism. Writing a Garlean attracts these sorts of people inherently, as unfortunate as that is. I am not here for it. I will call it out if I see it. If you want to write openly Imperial characters around mine, you're more than welcome to test your luck, but neither I nor Yora have the time of day for thinly veiled OOC biases disguised as lore-compliance.
❖ interested in writing with me? i run a venue with a public server! ❖