Yona Atovich Vzia

Yona Atovich Vzia or simply Yona (born 16 Bennath 4th Age 1743) is the second main character flushed out, developed and role-played by Shepard on World 42. He is a crossbread of human and elf descent who has worked as a merchant, archeologist, and mecernary; currently he is wandering as a home-less spellsword. Born off of the Wushanko Island of Flou Tar-Shei while on his father's ship, Yona learned at an early age commitment and dedication towards completing assigned tasks.

The dawn of the Sixth Age has returned life to him, leading Yona to his current destination, the Academy of Heroes. Here he plans to widen his use of magic and sharpen his skills in physical combat. Yona often accompanies his peers on adventures in between his few and far apart lessons.

Younger Life
In the region of the Wushanko Islands, Yona was considered above average height: standing just over six feet tall. His broad shoulder-blades complement his lean and muscular physique, with his back panning in towards the buttock. His face certainly brings notice to his mixed heritage. Under a pair of shadowy eyebrows lies a pair of deep gray eyes, the corners sharpened and fading slightly down into epicanthic folds. The formation of his face is handsome. The length face slowly pulls inwards from his brow to the jaw, where it it sharply points towards his chin, which is covered with shortly kept facial hair.

Adorning his head is raven black hair, in the back, passing his shoulder-blades, it's pulled into a single grouping and tightly held together, three inches from the bottom, with a crimson patterned tie. On top it is cut smaller, allowing it to spike up slightly if he remembered to ruffle it early in the day, while in the front it is parted to the sides, reaching down to the back of his jaw. His ears bare little semblance to his distant Elven kin. The pigmentation of his skin seemed as pale as porcelain or bleached sand.

Current
As the years passed by, his hair slowly changed from black to grey, grey to silver, and eventually silver to snow white. During his travels he grew an additional inch, now stooping at a total of six feet and an inch. Unlike many men of his age-- being dust or skeletons-- there'd be little physical evidence of his age across his face. The changing of times affected his attire and hair. Expanding his silvery facial hair, trimmed to mimmick five o'clock shadow, to encompass his lower face, thicker on his jawline. Yona's hear is now sloppily cut to medium length, the hair softer-looking than his younger years, with a single plait falling infront of his left ear. At the end, the plait would be tied off with a gold string. His dabbling with ancient magic and pocket realms render his eyes with distinct purple pupils with horizontal cat-like slits down the center, prevent additional glare during his stay in the Kharid.

Necessity showed proved it's weigh on Yona's redevelopment of muscles. From his shoulders to his elbow are thick medium sized muscles, before narrowing off on his forearms to his wrist. His torso became leaner adopting even more of a v-shape, while his legs became stockier, thick with muscles prepared for both endurance and sprinting. With this training he would weigh around 180lb. The effects of magic, travel, and the sun, darken his skin to a light tan.

Tattoos and Scars
On top of his left eyebrow is an indenting three inch long scar from carelessly walking into an anchor. The left brow itself is mildly scarred from being split open from a right hook. Across Yona's torso there are marks indicating where his ribs reformed after breaking; despite the near-perfect shape they retained, small bulges of excess growth can be seen on his lower ribs. Ribs broken: lower two on each side after Kuro's rage; the upper two ribs on his right side broke after receiving a sweeping kick from point blank range.
 * Encompassing the majority of his right forearm is a series of patterned dragon scales. The side nearing the elbow-- nearly a handswidth from it-- is cuffed with a rough fur collar. This is done with black ink, which he has allowed to fade.
 * Nearing the center of his chest, on his right pectoral is a tattoo writing the name of his father's clan horizontally in Eastern characters. The writing itself would be fairly straight, except for the edges which ceremonoiously curve off sharply.This is Yona's oldest tattoo, dating back nearly three centuries, everytime the black ink from sea creatures begins to fade he has it carefully redone: thus flawlessly maintaining its utmost splendor.
 * A hilt of an Eastern blade, immediately below the scripture on his right pectoral, colored red and black with a dangling gold tassle, is clutched with outward facing talons colored grey.

Spoken

 * Wushanko Tongues: Yona quickly learned these languages in both writing and speech under the strict enforcement of his father, their knowledge a necessity considering the business.
 * Common Tongue: For the same reasons as above, it became more than a necessity to learn the western language.
 * Kharidian: Through his travels in the Kharid he has become an avid speaker of the language. He has learned to read both more modern scripture and older glyphs located in ancient temples.
 * Elvish: His human features prevent him from fully hearing or pronouncing several syllables while speaking, but he is able to make himself understood. His knowledge of elvish is almost entirely limited to speech, barring the occasional word he has translated on ruins.

Other Knowledge
His knowledge of language extends past these, but in no way does it constitute being accurate. He is able to translate many written writings with the aid of a bilingual dictionary. Through his travels he has heard the ancient tongue spoken aloud, but it's meaning has eluded him.

Argonite Eastern Blade (Kasai)
Kasai was recently created by a Kharidian smith and Ryo Cam, an enforcer at the Academy of Heroes. The latter intending the blade as a gift to Yona. It is forged in the Wushanko fashion by refolding the blade hundreds of times in order to increase its strength. It is formed from the Daemonheim metal, Argonite, which was created via alchemy and not retrieved from Forinthry therefor it currently does not-- for better or for worse-- a single trace of the taint. The current alloy is 70% Argonite with equal portions of 15% of Mithril and Silver. Currently, Yona is trying to further empower the weapon through various magical means until he is further satisfied.
 * Blade Characteristics: The blade resembles a Katana from real-life. The length of the sword in total is 40 inches in length, 27 inches belonging to the blade, the rest to the hilt. The edge of the blade is mixed with silvthril alloy rendering it dangerous to vampyres. The blade itself is slate-blue in color.
 * Hilt Characteristics: The grip is tied with interlacing rope which is black and purple, finally, attached to the pommel is a six inch crimson rope. Within the hilt's metal there are shattered onyx fragments allowing improved conduction of magical energy, while reducing the back-flow of energy.
 * The blade is kept in a purple and black magic wood sheath that is tied to his belt with more of the crimson rope.

Quarter Staff (Bludgeon)
It's a stick. A big stick for whacking.
 * The length of the Staff is just over five feet tall, just reaching up to Yona's shoulder. It is made from yew wood and at each end are thick iron clasps, the grip of the quarterstaff being dyed red leather.

Steel Throwing Needles

 * Each needle is around 14 inches in length. Yona often rubs paralytic poison on them before their use. He always carries twenty of these on a small pouch on his left hip.
 * On his left forearm there is an easily concealable vambrace which houses three additional needles on the inside of his arm, for ease of access in battle.

Armor & Clothing
As a simple man from the east, Yona has always appreciated calm colors in all the clothes that he wears. Often he forgets where he is-- and the common dress of that area. The majority of his clothing are fashioned in either a thin Eastern fashion, or while in colder climates, thicker garments made from wool, cotton, and lambskin. The colors he wears very, although he tends to avoid bright colors, sticking to drab green, khaki, and gray tones.

Kharidian Travelling Garments
During his travels in the desert he often wore clothes that matched the sand or the sparse vegetation. He wore a tan shirt open to his solar-plexus, while his legs were coverned by wide eastern pants held together with a large leather belt around his waist. Clasped around his neck was a light, drab green cloak.

Winter Clothes
Following a while the climate at the Academy of Heroes slowly became colder because of its proximity to the Eastern sea.

Other

 * Hanging outside his shirt is a thin, flat, four inch dragon tooth pendant, which makes a good make-shift knife.

Prowess and Abilities

 * Magic Ability
 * Melee Ability

Birth and Early Age
The Fourth Age According to the few remaining census records, which bear his since forgotten eastern name, Yona was born in 1743 of the fourth age on Bennath 16th. On a cloudy evening, a half-elven mother, Eirlys, and a father, Ato Hiru-Ah, from the Eastern lands, bore a son. The sounds of his mother's labor pains were muffled by the sounds of the crashing waves against the ship's hull, the newborn boy's extended family was vast, housing refugees, merchants and travelers. His bastard traits were evident even at his birth. Compared to his plethora of cousins-- his uncle, Hayate Hiru-Ah being a very fertile man-- he grew at a sluggish rate because of his elven longevity. Before learning how to speak or walk, Ato would begin teaching his son his first skill: the art of using chopsticks.

The beginning of his life was mainly spent playing with his siblings or sleeping on his mother's lap. Little teasing came from his visible distinctions, but the bearing of time became apparent when comparing his body's and mental growth. He and his whole family were happy.



His first steps on land came five years after his birth, Ato sets sail to The Pincers for trade. The sound of the creaking boards, the soft roar of the tide, and the vastness of New Heritage's pier, which were packed with dockworkers, merchants and pirate in boisterous harmony. This became one of Yona's favorite memories of his childhood. Elsewhere on The Pincers, the peaceful island of Flou Tar-Shei, he met even more of his family and curiously explored their ancestral mansion there with his brothers and sisters.

For the next two decades, his immediate family temporarily retired from the trade waters for a multitude of reasons. Most notable among them were the desire to raise children and the danger from the increase in resurgence of piracy in the East. During this time, Ato began teaching to Yona basic arithmetic; how to speak, read and write in both the East and the West; and along with his other children the basics of hand-to-hand fighting.

Among these three areas, Yona excelled in the studies yet unlike his kin, he did not hold a talent for the martial arts-- this lack of talent still plagues him to this day. During one fight in particular, his only  brother, Kuro Hiru-Ah, who has just about as much talent with fighting as Yona, decided to reinforce his attack with magic that he secretly learned from their half-brothers' suggestion. Compared to days past, this brother was excelling in fighting against his other brothers, and Yona was happy for him. However, this would not last long, Yona, despite being much smaller than his siblings because of his blood, would be pitted against him.

As they began to circle one another, Yona began to feel insecure about the fight feeling that something was off. The first clash of fists resulted in Yona's favor, who ended up bruising Kuro's rib with a palm strike to everyone's surprise. Yet that was not the end of it, that one strike infuriated Kuro by damaging his new-found pride. He returned the favor tenfold. They circled once more before the elder released a swift volley of enhanced attacks, swiftly turning the child Yona unconscious. The fight itself did not last long, but it was not over.

Kuro returned the palm strike to Yona, despite having lost, breaking four of his ribs. This act infuriated not only his brothers present, but once the word reached Yona's mother there was hell to pay. Only Ato could calm her down. As a fitting punishment-- since Kuro never actually disliked Yona-- he was made to serve his younger brother during and after his recuperation.

Three years disaster strikes the Hiru-Ah. Yumiko Jia, Hayate's concubine, is distraught, her twin son and daughter, Itsuki Hiru-Ah and Kyo Hiru-Ah respectively, come down with an illness that is incurable with medicine from the East or West. Yona held these twins she only does what she can, she begs Eirlys to save them. The half-elf tries what she can, but neither her knowledge of human physiology or magic can help them, only one solution remains: she decides to preserve the twins by entombing them in coffins of crystal. Her plans run seamlessly. To this day Yona doesn't know if they're still entombed because they were left in Kuro's care. Perhaps there is now a cure.

Several decades later, Yona around forty in human years, finally grows into his present height and build. Unlike him, his family around him-- save his mother-- begin to show their age, Ato is now late in his years around eighty. The time that transpired resulted in overall poor expansion for the trading industry, but unlike many other family companies, they were able to survive with a small profit margin. That profit was enough for their immediate survival. The years continued to pass, and he was slowly brought into the realm of trading much later than his other kin.

Following his return from a successful venture, Ato, bedridden with the same incureable illness, greets Yona warmly. Weeks fly past, if but an instant, his father's health progressively gets worse, and with his death in the air he asks his family to gather around his deathbed one at a time.

""My son," Ato coughed out while trying to sit upright "you have grown into a fine young man. Your black hair looks much like mine did."

"Father, please lie back down, I can talk to you like this." Yona pleaded gently while patting his shoulder.

"Seeing as how you are the youngest of my children, you are the last to see me. I am very happy that I've lasted this long. You do remember how to use chopsticks, right?" he retorted with a laugh, choking on it all the while.

"Please!"

His chuckling would increase. "I can't have my son worrying like this can I? As I've told everyone before you, I am leaving the company to Kuro. Your look of puzzlement does not surprise me. Behind his goofy exterior is a sharp mind for business." Momentary silence filled the air as he emphasized his next word. "Competitive. You faced that very side of him many years ago while sparring with him. Besides, I can tell that you're not made for the trade. You have a knack for bartering-- as does any good son of mine I might add!-- but I can tell you are made for other things. I have but one request, look after your brother for awhile as he did for you."

At this point Yona choked back tears, refusing to let that be his father's last memory of him. "I would of done that without asking. We're still family right?"

"I've said what I needed to say... I think I'll go now." with that Ato passed away."

Kuro's succession brought prosperity.

Early Travels
He traveled as a merchant with family to Port Phasmatys, then later broke away

Later Travels
The Fifth Age

Present Day (RP)
The Sixth Age

The Academy of Heroes Pt. I: Arrival
Year Zero, Wintumber XX to Current Day

The days in the southern desert begin to wear Yona thin, and he decided to once again head north. During his travels across the Kharid, a small scroll pinned onto the Pollnivneach inn's billboard grabbed Yona's attention. It's contents sparked his now-rare-found interest-- a desire to seek strength-- so he responded by sending an application via hawk to the academy. To this day he still wonders if the hawk delivered the paper, for it never returned. This is due to Baldor Greyfur, then Grandmaster, eating both bird and letter. "Salutations Master of the Academy of Heroes,

If the post stretched this far south then I’d have an accurate date for this letter’s departure from my hand, but alas, in the sun such luxuries are hard to find. I know not anymore the year as their passing now eludes me far from civilization. Only if I could uncover more mysteries underneath the sand… it is not my time I’m afraid. Yes… I’m afraid… … Or so others would conclude. I am not content with my current abilities, which this ill-content now presents itself as an obstacle to my pursuits. Is there a possibility of my enrollment in a swordsman's course and or magic practice?

As I travel north for the first time in ages, I hope you will consider my plea.

Sincerely, Yona A.V. a traveler

P.S. I’m going there without rest… gods… I hope there is water."

His arrival was unceremonious, he arrived in ragged and ripped robes sweat-stained to a drab yellow-green. The march north lasted two weeks, water lasted Yona for twelve of those days, and when he finally entered Academy grounds after trekking through the desert without water for two days without rest, he fell unconscious from a combination of sleep deprivation and dehydration. Quickly recuperating, he finds himself distracted by the old Saradominist architecture of the formerly known nunnery, the Abbey of St. Elspeth Citharede. Adapting to new faces and the turbulent atmosphere, Yona gladly came to accept the Academy as his new home.

Much to his annoyance, Yona was unofficially split between two teachers at the academy for his melee pursuits. Gonad, a Fremmenik, and Faramel Hyar, a man from the Eastern lands, their different philosophies in the combative arts allow for a wider range of understanding, but Yona was currently not at the level where such distinctions are beneficial. Slowly, he began to notice his progress with both sword and other martial-arts. Aditionally, Yona was assigned to a magic instructor, Riis, who is a lunar mage, but as of yet to receive instruction.

Unchronicled Current Events

 * Wintumber 23: Spar with Septimus. Result: Victory. No Injuries.
 * Wintumber 23: Accompanies Caspar Ali, Weiss Eris Pandora Azazel, and Septimus to imbue an object with energy from Summoning Obelisks. Result: Success No Injuries.
 * Wintumber 26: The Ratai Tournament: Dueling Faramel Hyar. Result: Defeat. Fractured Left Cheekbone, Major Bruising
 * Wintumber 28: Spar with Guy Orion. Result: Defeat. Two Right Ribs Broken
 * Wintumber 36: A Lunar Witch attacks the academy, stealing a book. Result: Target's Escape. No Injuries.
 * Rintra 1: Ryo Cam gifts Yona an Eastern styled blade made of Argonite.
 * Rintra 1: Ryo Cam invites Yona to join the Academy's enforcers: as of yet he has not responded.

Family Tree & Relationships
Family Tree In his Paternal Family Tree (Click Here), he is related to the ancient merchanting clan, Huri-Ah. Here he is related to his frozen twin cousins and to his brother, Kuro Huri-Ah.(I suggest using 120%+ zoom.)

Yona's Maternal Family Tree (Click Here) highlights his connection with his distant relatives, both the Elven Cadarns and the Fremmenik Fyresongs. Through this connect he is related to Elruc Gilde, a descendant of the Fyresong chieftains. (I suggest using 200%+ zoom.)
 * Please note that deceased members are faded out. Male persons have a bluish tinge, while female members are pinkish- this may require zooming in or highlighting.

Trivia

 * This is Shepard's fourth character and the second of Shepard's characters to have a developed biography on the wikia.
 * Yona's date of birth in Roman numerals: Age/Year/Month/Day - IV/MDCCXLIII/III/XVI
 * Yona is related to my other character, Ronan Gilde, through his mother's paternal family.