C'kayah Tia

C'kayah Tia
Gender	Male
Race	Miqo'te
Clan	Seeker of the Sun
Citizenship	Ul'dah
Tribe	Coeurl tribe of the Sagolii
Age	29
Height	5 fulm 6 ilm
Date of birth	12th sun of the 5th Umbral Moon
Server	Balmung
In game	Monday, Friday from 8-12 PM Pacific, occasional weekends

Character

General

C'kayah Tia (Ka-kai-yah Tea-ah) is an active, vigorous Seeker of the Sun living in the city-state of Ul'dah. Somewhat "urbanized" compared to many of the Coeurl tribe, he typifies the sort of energetic Tia who leaves to Hunt the World and decides that it's pretty nice out there. Very distinctly not a hero, he walks that grey area between mere decadence and villainy.

Note: C'kayah does not have the Echo, nor is a part of the Scions. He has no information on anything relating to the events portrayed in the game.

Appearance

"I am tall for a Miqo'te, and I have always been blessed with swift feet and an athletic build. My coarse brown hair is unruly, like my father's, so I tend to keep it braided. My eyebrows, which are fine, I get from my mother, as I do my eyes. While I do not dress like a tribal Couerl - I am too fond of stylish urban Miqo'te fashion - my mannerisms sometimes give away my affiliations."

Behavior

Despite his tribal background, C'kayah has adapted to civilized society like a fish to water. He is curious, energetic, and adventurous, with the sort of overweening fondness for the trappings of civilization that sometimes develops in civilized barbarians. While he likes to portray himself as a the same carefree Miqo that he's always been, living through the Calamity has affected him, making him more aware that ignoring a threat does not make that threat go away. He doesn't tell anyone, but the last five years have seen him apply himself to study (of healing, of history, and of politics) with a diligence that is quite unlike him.

Combat

General

Originally trained in his tribe as a hunter, he has some skill with the bow. While he picked up the sword during the Calamity, he considers himself only knowledgable enough to get himself into trouble. His study of conjury has enabled him to develop some of the offensive means of using aetherial power, though he does not readily admit this. His overall philosophy of combat is that it is best to engage an enemy in a way that he knows they have been defeated before they are even aware that they are in combat.

"If I am in a fair fight, then I have done something terribly, terribly wrong."

Tendencies

"Likes/Dislikes: I like to roam, and I like to return. I like good food, fine wine, witty conversation with intelligent people, beautiful women (oh? Did you think that a Tia, by not breeding, has no knowledge of women?), and comfortable living. I like subtle and thought-provoking poetry and philosophy. Dislikes? I am not fond of Elezen, or at least those Elezen who maintain that the rest of us are merely invaders in their world. I dislike limitations. I dislike foolish behavior, maudlin sentimentality and boredom. Most of all, though, I dislike an empty purse."

Likes

• Good food and drink
• Exploring the outdoors
• Playful and fun people
• Clever conversation
• Romance
• Music
• Sunlight
• Cooking

Dislikes

• Cold weather
• Being caught in the rain
• Authority figures
• Betrayal
• Small-minded people
• Limitations
• Being poor
• Garleans

Hobbies/Talents

• He's a pretty decent hunter with good tracking skills
• He's becoming quite a good healer and a conjurer adept
• He's a good singer
• He's a surprisingly good cook

Other

• Despite the impression he gives, he has a very strategic mind and loves to plan
• He is a connoisseur of good wines and strong drink, though he dislikes beers and ales
• He has a weakness for beautiful women and is easily swayed and manipulated by them

Relationships

Family

"My parents are C'xin Nunh and C'issapa Oya. My father is very conservative, holding to the "eternal ways of of Coeurl Tribe". My mother... is something of a free spirit. They said that she has Keeper blood in her, which I suppose means that I have it as well. My own wandering feet I have certainly inherited from her. Other relatives? You know how it is in a Seeker tribe, especially one such as the Coeurls. I have many relatives, many siblings by my father, yet none (that I know of) by my mother. Some I got along with very well, and we exchange letters to this day, though I have not seen any of my siblings since I left to Hunt the World, twelve years ago."

• C'xin Nunh: C'kayah's father. C'xin is extremely conservative, and expects C'kayah to uphold the traditions of the tribe. Often distant with his children, C'xin nevertheless takes an active interest in their lives.
• C'issapa Oya: C'kayah's mother. C'issapa is an extremely free-spirited and free-thinking woman whose sharp canines and large eyes betray a mixed ancestry. C'issapa reveres Menphina, and it is from her that C'kayah developed his own devotion to the diety. C'kayah and C'issapa have always been extremely close.
• The rest: As is common with Seeker tribes, C'kayah has many brothers and sisters.

Other Relationships

"I suppose my natural disposition is to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness."

• Erik Mynhier: Erik is everything C'kayah is not: tall, noble and virtuous. Despite all of that, C'kayah finds himself enjoying the big Hyur's company, possibly due to Erik's loyalty towards Siha. Since his death and return, however, he has heard rumors of troubling behavior.
• Kage Kiryuu: C'kayah met this Lalafell while trying to reverse the effects of Natalie's tempering. The pair bonded over their shared interest in helping her, and have since become fast friends.
• Liana Blu: Thal to Suri's Nald, C'kayah has nothing but admiration for her. He once harbored hopes of something more, but she rebuked him. After Suri's departure, they have since pursued an odd relationship - not friends, not lovers, but something else.
• Natalie Mcbeef: A dedicated Sultansworn Paladin who had subjected him to an in-depth investigation. Over the course of the investigation, the pair developed feelings for each other. This has blossomed into an extremely strong relationship. C'kayah loves and trusts her more than anyone else.
• Siha Xinkei: A scrappy little Keeper girl who was rejected by her family, Siha has managed to touch a genuine spot of compassion in his decadent heart. He is concerned about the path she is walking since Erik's death.
• S'rahvi Khai: An extremely attractive Seeker whom C'kayah's developed strong feelings for.
• Surilian Blu: A young Keeper who's somehow managed to kindle extremely strong (and completely unexpected) feelings in him. A characteristically ham-handed declaration of those feelings has driven her away, much to his despair.

C'kayah and Natalie are currently engaged in a relationship loosely modeled after a traditional Seeker group.

Rumors

"You may have heard that I am a smuggler, though I do not care for that term. Some have called me a thief, but I must point out that those who slander me with such terms have never been able to prove their accusations in court."

Common Rumors (Easily Overheard)

• "Him? He's a lush. Spends all his time drinking and feasting and wenching." - Ul'dahn wine-seller
• "Do you know the word débrouillard? No? Pity. I think it applies in his case." - Gridanian dye-maker

Moderate Rumors (Uncommonly Overheard)

• "He's a fantastic cook. That's all I'll say on the matter." - Ul'dahn courtesan
• "An easy mark. I took him for every gil he had." - Lominsan courtesan-thief
• "One of these days I'm going to catch him red-handed!" - Ul'dahn Sultansword

Rare Rumors (Very Difficult to Discover)

• "He's always taking things from place to place. From the way he handles some of them, they're not just spices and coffee..." - Gridanian courtesan

PC Rumors (Feel Free to Add IC Rumors)

• "Beneath all of the jokes and the attitude, there's a good heart, a better heart than most possess but I think he's afraid of something that makes him hide behind all of that." - Siha Xinkei

• "He is a mystery, to be certain. But I have seen the way he cares for people he loves, and that speaks volumes of the man he is inside. That is enough for me." - Roen Deneith

• "He's far more than his feather headed playboy image let's on. Of all the would be vipers slithering in Ul'dah's shadows, Kayah is far and away the most dangerous... next to me of course." - Torken Queb

• "I can appreciate a good liar when I see one. I like him! Not sure if I still would if I had something to my name, though..." - Chokho Viqqoh

• "He's got a good and loving heart, I could not ask for a better man to call friend than him. One day, the complications will cease and I'll stop seeing him and Natalie getting into arguments." - Kage Kiryuu

• "The only one I fear, and the only one I love" - Natalie Mcbeef

History/Timeline

1548-1565 Childhood/adolescence

C'kayah was born into a sept of the Coeurl Tribe in the deserts around Ul'dah, C'kayah (like many Seekers) both loved the security of his enormous extended family and chafed at the restrictions imposed by them. Coeurl tribe children typically join a ton at adolescence, leaning to fill an adult's role with the tribe. With his love of wandering, he chose the Hunter's ton, learning the skills of tracking and shooting and enjoying the freedom that tramping through the wilderness provided. On his seventeenth name-day, he left his sept to Hunt the World, a Coeurl "travelling ritual".

1565-1572 The carefree life

Initially upon leaving his tribe, Ul'dah drew him in, as it draws in so many. When he first arrived he had no money, so life was hard for him. His skills were ill-suited toward gaining a living within the city, so he found himself earning his way through mercenary work, caravan-guarding and the like. Along the way he developed his rudimentary Couerl medical talents, becoming a decent frontier medic. Ul'dah is a decadent place, and he took to this decadence wholeheartedly, especially after attracting the notice of A'rela Nereh, a wealthy silver merchant. Twice his age and a notorious consumer of attractive young Miqo'te, he briefly became her lover while she, in turn, taught him to appreciate the comforts of civilization as well as the importance of connections, though he did not appreciate that lesson until years later. Back on his own when her attentions wandered, he began to supplement his income by smuggling and theft and soon grew wealthy enough to enjoy life in Ul'dah. All good things must come to an end, however, and he was chased out of that city in his eighteenth year.

Over the next few years, he made his way across the world, spending most of his time around Limsa Lominsa and Gridania. Like Ul'dah, these places combined plentiful opportunities for acquiring money with a wealth of pleasures on which to spend it. By this time he had developed a grab bag of competencies, allowing him to get by while avoiding the tedium of a full-time occupation: smuggling, petty theft (though never more than his victims could afford), fixing (in the sense of arranging matters), and even the occasional legitimate job. In Gridania he met his first real love, a young thief who called herself S'aitei Koei - an obvious pseudonym. Another Ul'dan refuge, S'aitei was an escaped slave with the lash scars on her back to prove the cruelty of that institution to him. Their intense and unconventional affair lasted nearly three years, consuming them until they could no longer sustain it, like coal burned to ash. They remained close friends afterwards, and much of his apparent arrested adolescence and inveterate womanizing could be considered his heart yearning to return to those three devastating years.

1572/0-Present Calamity

C'kayah did not take the Garlean threat seriously at first, considering such politics to be inconsequential to him. As the clouds of war gathered, however, he began to see how he may be affected. Like many in Gridania, he learned to handle a sword in anticipation of a Garlean invasion of the city proper, though he remained in the city when the Gridanians set out for Cartaneau.

Like all who survived the Calamity, the devastation wrought by Bahamut and the red moon shocked him, giving him the full measure of the Garlean threat. He awaited the end with the other Gridanians, and when it did not come, he lent his aid as a medic to the streams of refugees and survivors. The event opened his eyes to the larger concerns of the world.

S'aitei disappeared during this time, and he presumes she died in the calamity. He nurtures a slow-burning hatred of the Garleans as a result of her loss.

In the aftermath of the Calamity, he gradually returned to his old ways. Smuggling and fixing, in his mind, were good ways to both help those who lacked what they needed while also giving him the money he desired. He has recently managed to placate the Ul'dahn Syndicate and was allowed to return to that city, where he began to give up his wandering life. Gathering a number of talented criminals, he began to contract out their services as the Nald'Thal's Hand Social Club. Once the Club reached a significant size and level of power, he left it in the hands of his old lieutenant, a Seeker woman named Emelie Annel, to pursue other opportunities. The Club currently operates out of The Laughing Lady, a tavern known for its underworld ties.

Character Addenda

OOC Notes

IC Connections

Character Soundtrack: - ((None at this time)) Character Inspirations: - Giacomo Casanova, an adventurer in many senses of the word. - The Grey Mouser (from Fritz Leiber) - Elim Garek (from Star Trek DS9), mainly in his love of clever conversation

Your character might know C'kayah from: - Smuggling- C'kayah has done quite a bit of this, mainly between Gridania/The Shroud and Limsa Lominsa/La Noscea. Perhaps you needed something that he was able to acquire for you. Perhaps you stole something that he was able to fence for you. - Romance- C'kayah is a notorious flirt and womanizer. Perhaps you had a fling with him in the past. Perhaps a friend or relative did. Perhaps you are angry with him as a result?

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