Sarviano "Sarva" Stormshatter

Hi there, and thank you for reading this. I’m Mikey, an old-soul millennial doing his best to keep pace with a world in flux. I’ve been roleplaying since the days of Geocities and Angelfire (yes, I’m dating myself). I’ve explored everything from the secret Force Academy of Gray Jedi run out of AIM chatrooms to guild politics ugly enough to qualify as a federal crime. Somehow, I’m still here.

By day I work a 9–5 in IT development; by night I’m a diehard combat sports hobbyist with a deep love for Muay Thai and Boxing. (If you have a villain that needs to get punched into next week for…plot reasons, I’m your guy.)

My RP philosophy is simple: Make the RP you wish existed. I tend to gravitate toward grounded plots that explore human truths. The stuff that’s gritty, raw, and real. Themes like classism, bigotry, patriotism vs. nationalism, predestination vs. free-will, power, responsibility, love vs. attraction, and corruption. I also like to curate all of these with moments of tenderness.

The small moments like putting an arm around a buddy and telling him he’ll be ok, married life won’t kill him or gently comforting a friend before they’re about to give a big speech in front of a crowd, and spending a day going out and fishing. If it feels honest, I’m in. Because that honesty, that authenticity, is what allows the grandeur of the bigger moments in our adventures to feel that much more complete.

Above all, I want everyone at the table to have a good time. I love DMing scenes, brainstorming stories, and helping characters grow over time. If we end up laughing, crying, or screaming “OH MY GOD” in all-caps - perfect, that’s the good stuff.

Finally, I am not my character. I’m happy to be your friend, I will always respect you, and I believe firmly in boundaries. I try to have a drama-free philosophy.

FAQ

Appearance:

If we had to choose one word and one word only to describe this Viera. It will be a word that has withstood the test of time. It would be a word that describes the downtrodden, the unforgiving mountains, and the most barbaric of animals. That word is Rugged.

Hardly ever going by his full name, Sarva is a man that was born and then formed. He doesn’t walk, he marches. His hands are usually shoved in his pockets. His shoulders hunch up. His ears fwip this way and that, listening for impending signs of danger. A stone-faced scowl is permanently fixed on his face. Speaking of which, the tiger-stripe tattoos cover the majority of his face. Messy, unkempt facial hair covers what’s left. His sad eyes are gray as thundering storm clouds and look as if they’ve seen the world grow colder, and its people - crueller. His mullet falls like a dirty mess over his head. It’s as if someone dipped a dead cat in a bucket full of jet-black ink and tried to sew it onto that granite-cut scalp.

Moving onto his body, he’s usually seen wearing attire that befit his means. That is to say a man of the lower class just barely looking presentable. His raggedy shirt is made with the oldest of wool with several patches on it. Old bloodstains decorate it like an expressionist painting. The suspenders are old and stretched out. Haphazard stitching is scattered around the sleeves, to keep the tears from re-tearing. He must have stolen the attire out from a charity box.

Standing at an average height, Sarviano cuts a figure that’s more weapon than ornament. He possesses a lean frame, every strand of muscle has been sharpened by years of discipline and punishment. His shoulders are broad enough to anchor powerful strikes, but not bulky to broadcast any strength. All function, no excess. His deltoids knot and roll beneath his dark skin with every motion. His forearms are corded and scarred, lightning shaped metallic spokes protrude through the skin - as if they were welded forcibly into the radius and ulna. His knuckles hardened into stone from years of striking. Callouses mark them like dents and scuffs on a leather hide.

His chest and core are tight, compact and honed. His pectorals look like two slabs of stone put together while his abdomen is cut with lines found on a tortoise shell. Each muscle group is defined with the efficiency of springs, built for sudden bursts of violence and chaos. His physique is not born of vanity, but of relentless training and a diet stripped down to the bare essentials. Sarva isn’t massive, but he doesn’t need to be. Speed, endurance, form and function, and explosive force all bound into a body forged for combat.

Personality/Demeanor:

Sarviano quietly carries himself with the burdensome weight of a man who has lived too long in violence and betrayals. He is laconic by nature, a brooding figure who often lets silence speak louder than words. The less he speaks the better. After all, we are given one mouth and two ears. Therefore, you have to listen twice as much as you speak. His expression rarely shifts, usually fixed in a hard and practiced scowl. When it does, it is a narrowed glare and an animalistic snarl. That is a warning against those who would seek to test his resolve and soul. Many mistake his quiet for brutish thuggishness, devoid of any sort of societal refinement. Yet beneath the surface there is a man shaped by wounds both seen and unseen. His temper, when roused by cruelty or injustice, is a storm without restraint, but when left to stillness, he is contemplative, even somber. Philosophically gloomy.

Though branded defective and a failure in his youth, Sarviano is no stranger to endurance. He has learned to harden his heart without letting it turn to stone. That imbalance defines him. He may speak little, but his actions are always deliberate. His loyalty, virtues, and outlook are black-and-white and unshakable. His brutality is an embodiment of his personal philosophy: the world is full of suffering, survival is pain, and we have no choice but to endure. If you don't, your carcass might as well be food for carrion. In the face of hopeless odds or collapsing walls, Sarviano does not waver. He endures, because endurance is all he has ever known.

Sarviano has no patience for cruelty born of arrogance. Bullying, bigotry, or any abuse of power turns his blood to fire. To him, the strong exist not to prey upon the meek, but to nurture them. In this, everyone flourishes. But reality is cruel and unforgiving. Violence is a way of life. Competition and prejudice are inherent plugins of reality. Therefore, exploitation and suffering are hard-truths built into life. It can be a bit easier by helping each other. But some will never choose that path.

He has lived through enough scorn to know its poison well, and he will not watch it spill onto others. The pariah's mark will follow him for life, and when he sees one exploit on another, he resolves to take the matter into his own hands. It is the quickest way for his temper to explode. He becomes like an erupting volcano, a snarling couerl with its hackles rising. Words are wasted on tormentors; he doesn’t lecture or reason, he lunges.

Where words fail, his fists speak clearly: he will step between oppressor and victim without hesitation, and if violence is the only language the offender understands, then Sarva delivers it with ruthless finality. Mercy is not wasted on those who revel in cruelty.

Despite his grim exterior, and his corrosive temper, there is a quiet compassion to Sarviano that he doesn’t like to broadcast ostentatiously. It shows in the way he treats beasts with unexpected gentleness, or how he shields the frightened and the weak without hesitation. He is not a man who coddles, but one who protects. His empathy for animals is a remnant of the Forest that once cast him out, a tether to a wild bond he cannot sever. In this way, Sarviano is a paradox: scarred and feral, yet empathetic; a weapon forged for destruction, yet still searching for something worth defending.

OOC Forward and Disclaimer: I’d like to preface this section by stating that this page is entirely for myself. As a lifelong boxing fan, combat sports enthusiast, and Muay Thai hobbyist, I never really had the chance to bring my 2 passions (RP and Martial Arts) together. This is one of the rare times (perhaps the only one) that I get to do so. I’d also like to say that I really relish the opportunity to mix these 2 passions together by situating my knowledge in an FFXIV context. Thus I wrote this page to serve as my master document for Sarva’s combat. I will endeavor to use it as a wellspring in my combat RP. I hope the language is comprehensible as it is in-depth.Please note: Much of this may come across as lore-bendy. But ultimately it is for myself and not to force upon others.

Fighting Style: Sarva has been using his body as his weapon for as long as he can remember. It first began with the tribe of Rava that birthed him, then with a fragmented Shadow Sect of the Fists of Rhalgr, and then settling into a vagabond's life with the Fall of Ala Mihgo. Unfortunate circumstances led the Brass Blades to arrest him, then finally commuting his extensive sentence on the Bloodsands. Through it all, he’s survived by using several Fighting Styles routed in striking.

The Jab: The lead straight-hand punch, also known as the Jab, is Sarva’s best weapon. Not only because of the destructive power he can pack behind it, but also because of the many uses and tactics he can adapt it to. He can fire it off repeated succession, use it as a feint, a range-finder, a pattern-breaker, a guard-opener, a flurry-starter, a distance-taker, and much more. The Jab itself is a basic technique that’s economic in its energy use, and simple execution. Taking your fighting stance, you fire the lead hand from your shoulder in a straight line to your target and pull it back to your guard to stay defensively responsible. But this is a technique that the man has invested years into, for practice is the mother of skill.

The 8 Levins of the Destroyer ((Muay Thai)): Practiced by a hidden fragment of the Shadow Sect of the Fists of Rhalgr. The 8 Levins are a creed written with the flesh. They call it the 8 Levins of the Destroyer, for it makes a weapon of every edge the body can offer: fists crash like hammers, elbows cut like axes, knees drive like spears, and shins smash like clubs. Each strike is meant to break, to tear, to remind both the enemy and the disciple that conflict itself is sacred. Training is endless endurance and practice. Repetition is carved into both mind and body until the disciple moves like a storm without thought.Where others might see technique, the Fists see prayer. Footwork is not simply balance, but rhythm: a pounding hymn of destruction on stone floors. The clinch is not restraint, but suffocating domination where dragging an enemy close, binding them in Rhalgr’s grasp, and breaking them with knees and elbows until they crumble. Every blow is a verse, every exchange a sermon. Even the breath between strikes is meant to be worship, measured and controlled, carrying the will of the Destroyer.

Pugilism ((Boxing)): Built on the idea of unyielding pressure, Sarva prowls forward behind a tight guard. He cuts off escape routes with steady, metronomic footwork until the pit shrinks to a coffin, then goes to work. The jab is a hammer, not a feeler, splitting guard and lining up rib-shattering hooks and short, concussion-inducing uppercuts. He doesn’t chase the end of a fight through huge blows; rather he manufactures them by layering on thudding shots until the way is paved open. Then the conclusion is delivered with cold, surgical brutality. Inexorable and durable, he fights like an avalanche that learned how to aim.

Imperial CQC ((Military combative techniques)): Also called “Black Wolf Grappling,” this nearly-forgotten combatives method was codified by a formidable Decurion within the XIVth Legion’s close-quarters Secutors. Made infamous under Gaius van Baelsar during the conquest of Ala Mhigo, it was one of many tools the Legion used to bring the city-state to heel. The system is a hybrid of armed and unarmed maneuvers that lets soldiers switch from weapon to empty-hand control in an instant.The method follows four beats: Enter; Trap the weapon line; Break balance; incapacitate. Incapacitations are short and savage: wall slams, body throws, and submissions. Built for corridors, magitek gantries, and trench ladders, ground fighting is discouraged: mobility, positioning, and stance-integrity rule. Every sequence forks non-lethal or lethal in a blink. One can choke for capture, joint shear for maiming, or spine slam for a finish. It was the Black Wolf’s way: efficient and merciless. This nearly lost art is a grappling grammar that keeps the practitioner advancing while the enemy simply… succumbs.

More to be added!