Salazar de Golpejera, Rodrigo

[Rodrigo Salazar]

DOSSIER: Freelancer
RANK: N/A

DETAILS

-NAME

Rodrigo Salazar de Golpejera

-GENDER

Male

-AGE

37

-BIRTHPLACE

Port Victory

-BIRTHDATE

31/12/403AR

-THEME SONG

Yesterday's Hero by Bjorn Lynne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdC_RitRJ0

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-PICTURE

Spoiler:

-DESCRIPTION

Rodrigo Salazar is a tall man, with strong cheekbones and a long neck. His face is coated with facial hair, from his pencil moustache to his goatee, and all are quite rough, though his hair is in fact quite short. He stands with an air befitting of a tall man, quite proudly. His right leg is a primitive prosthetic one, starting halfway through his thigh. The rest of his body is quite muscular after years of sailing. He dresses vainly and proudly, without any real attempt to be subtle. His large collared shirt with the ruffles, the large flowing red coat and his feathered hat are all products of his vanity. He wears practical leather boots and gloves, but otherwise values style over usefulness, which is in fact a flaw of sorts when fighting; he flat out refuses to wear armour. His gait is a slow one, thanks to the wooden leg. He can't break into a run, and his walk is laborious and tends to favour the left. His voice is a loud one, having gotten used to barking orders, and emphasises the a's and r's in a way that would remind one of a West Country English accent.

-PRIMARY WEAPONS

-> The Southern Dragon

-SECONDARY WEAPONS

-> None as of yet

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-SKILLS

-> Amongst the best sailors around, thanks to him being an ex-pirate
-> Is a phenomenal sword fighter, leg missing or not
-> A very tactical thinker, and remarkably smart
-> Very good liar
-> Unflappable, even under the greatest pressure.
-> Astoundingly good swimming

-WEAKNESSES

-> Walks with a limb, as his right leg is a peg-leg. He can't run, at all.
-> His hubris often means that he'll bite off more than he can chew, no matter how smart he is
-> Too vain about his appearance to even consider wearing armour
-> Is often very drunk
-> Is terrible at working in teams or collaborating with others

-COMBAT STYLE

Rodrigo's style relies almost entirely on his cutlass, the Southern Dragon. When it comes to any weapon that isn't a sword, Rodrigo is quite unwilling to use them and in all honesty is not that experienced. No, one-handed swords are his bread and butter, and he can weild them like a master. His general pose is a one handed variation fencing stance. While the standard poses emphasise leaning forward, he in fact bends his back leg rather than the front, leaning away from the opponent and sacrificing strength for protection and control. He prefers to use the opponent's strength against them rather than tire himself out, which means that he can fight for a lot longer than most. He relies on blocks, parries, the ability to hold back force and use of the opponent's momentum to overcome any opponent. However, arguably his greatest strength is sommething he does for simple vanity's sake; he doesn't fight with his left hand, despite being left-handed. In reality, he saves his left hand for the rare occasion where he thinks he's losing. Suddenly, his style completely reverses, becoming extremely aggressive, strong and slow. He swings his sword like a maniac in almighty hammer blows as he slowly walks forward, and keeps the attacks coming until the opponent can't resist the barrage anymore and fails a block. This style is rarely used and extremely deadly. However, both of these are hindered by his fake leg. While he puts his right leg forward so he isn't hurt if someone slashes for his leg, it means that he can't jump around or fight in large open spaces. He'd much rather fight standing completely still, and preferably in enclosed spaces where his opponents can use their superior running speed to counter his sheer weight of force when it comes to duelling sword to sword.

-PERSONALITY

Rodrigo Salazar de Golpejera. It's a mouthful, and when he's in the room you had best get used to hearing it.

Ex-pirate Rodrigo loves to brag and boast about just how amazing he is. It could be anything, even something he's not even heard of; if it's something, he'll claim he's the best at doing it, with an air of nobility and peace in his voice quite unlike any other. He's remarkably calm, no matter what the situation. It's to the point of laziness, really, as he doesn't like to put much effort in anything, and would rather spend his days drinking and eating than actually accomplishing something. However, this laziness also gives him a tremendous nerve, able to face the toughest of odds and not break a sweat or so much as doubt his chances. He thinks that he can simply survive anything the world can throw at him...

... and it's yet to prove him wrong

Rodrigo is a man of both wits and strength; he's an amazing swordsman, for one. His cutlass in hand usually spells doom for his opponent's, to the point where he's taken to fighting with his right hand even though he's left handed, and despite this is yet to lose a duel or any other kind of fight. However, brute force is not his style; he combines this strength with a tactical approach to fighting or problem solving in general, giving him a hard edge that has helped him become possibly one of the greatest fighters in the world. He also makes for a very good speaker and liar. As good a fighter he is, he's usually able to charm his way out of a fight and into trustworthiness with both commoner and noble, and is brilliantly charismatic and silver-tongued... so long as his arrogance doesn't get in the way, which it often does.

As stated above, Rodrigo has a hubris far too big for his own good, with a tremendous knack for getting him in trouble. He rarely acknowledges other people's achievements and strengths, and will often underestimate either them or their importance to him. However, it's not his only flaw. He's a pirate after all, and few pirates aren't greedy. Rodrigo is greedy even by pirate standards, happy to drop everything if it means going after treasure or rewards of some kind. While he's not one to kill on a whim, if you're in his way and he can't think of a good reason not to kill you, you're a goner. He's obbessed with get-rich-quick schemes, which is comes from his wounded pride after his ship sank, taking his leg and a lot of money with it, and Rodrigo himself is also incredibly vain. He refuses to wear armour simply because it gets in the way of his fancy clothes, even in the scorching heat of the sun, and he does NOT like to admit that he's wrong, even when it's impossible to disagree.

But, for all his nastier qualities, he is capable of treating those who he considers friends with respect, and it's not as if his ego is completely unwarrented. He's able to draw swords with the best, and is a well cultured and intelligent man to boot. But he's greedy and ruthless, ready to do whatever is necessary to get what he wants, and has no real concern or empathy towards people he doesn't have an immediate connection to. And even his friends don't get away from a boasting session from him until the name "Rodrigo Salazar de Golpejera" is engraved into their own minds.

-HISTORY

Rodrigo Salazar started life as nothing in particular; a son of a potato salesman and looking to follow in the same footsteps. Of course, Rodrigo was bored. Port Victory is not a good place to raise a boy who was already bored with life, what with sailors constantly coming in with stories of adventure and intrigue. Rodrigo's feet got increasingly itchy, so when, at the age of 14, he was asked to maintain and take care of potatoes on a shipment to the Havens, he leapt at the chance. Of course, the moment he got on, he was bored stiffless of staring at even more potatoes all day and was begging to get hit by pirates simply because it would be something to do. One night, however, he got a brilliant idea. At night, he got one of the torches and sent out a message suggesting that the ship was filled with gold. That night, the ship was attacked by pirates. In the chaos, the young Rodrigo managed to sneak aboard the ship, the SS Golpejera. When the pirates came back, disappointed at the lack of booty, they sailed onward, leaving nothing but a burning wreck of a ship behind them.

The next day was the hard part of integrating into the crew of the Golpejera, but Rodrigo had a very clever plan. Whenever anyone asked him who he was, he'd explain that someone hired him at the last port. Most didn't really pay much attention, and he gave a different answer every time so anyone who wanted to find out would find themselves in such a mess of asking people different questions that they'd just give up. Soon enough, Rodrigo was a full member of the crew; the suffix 'de Golpejera' was added to his name and he was taught to fight and to sail. It just came to Rodrigo as if it was in his blood; in just a year he was a better fighter than the quartermaster himself, and got extremely rich. The cutthroat nature of life on the Golpejera became a part of him, and he grew to be ruthless and greedy.

Amazingly, Rodrigo managed to avoid getting found out for another four years until he was considered to be the new quartermaster after the old one died. However, this was the first time the captain had met Rodrigo, and he immediately knew something was up with the eighteen year old potato salesman who had just appeared out of the blue four years ago. So the captain found a tiny rocky island in the middle of nowhere and, while Rodrigo was sleeping, simply dumped him on it and left, marooning him with no weapons, no food and no way back, hopefully dealing with the problem once and for all.

Instead, Rodrigo's resourcefulness and luck shone through.

Rodrigo Salazar woke up to the sight of his ship disappearing on the horizon without him, and he knew he had to act fast. He decided to build a boat, but he had nothing to build a boat with. That is until he inspected a nearby cave. Inside, he found a curious sight; a mass grave of long dead pirates, obviously having died in a fight, a broken rowing boat and a large chest. But what was in the chest didn't interest Rodrigo, but the sword that stuck out of one of the skeletons. It was the Southern Dragon, a legendary sword that was thought to have been made out of a dragon's tooth and had been lost to pirates nearly a century ago. Whether this was true or not didn't concern Rodrigo, but more the value and reputation of the sword. Also, the sharpness. Using the sword, Rodrigo cut the chest apart, revealing it to be filled to the brim with coin. Using the cut wood from the chest, and rope from the broken rowing boat, he repaired the boat and made a makeshift sail with his coat. He rowed in hot pursuit of the Golperjera, charging for its previous destination; a shipping village in the Havens that the pirates planned to raid. He beat them by three days, as they had to make detours to attack other ships, so when the Golpejera landed in the port town, the captain and crew got a shock in the form of Rodrigo Salazar, the man they left for dead on a rock in the middle of nowhere, standing on the pier and ready for a fight. He challenged the captain to a sword duel for the Golpejera, and in the ensuing fight killed him with ease.

Things looked very good for Rodrigo in the ensuing years. In fact, the Golpejera under his rulership went from strength to
strength. He became one of the most feared pirates in the region, from Port Victory to the Havens people knew his name. And try as they might, no matter how many people went after him, he'd always win. The navy, other pirates, freelancers and even challengers to his captaincy of the Golpejera; all met their end trying to beat him. It got to the point where many insurance companies would add an attack from the Golpejera under the list of things they'd cover. Rodrigo got very rich and very greedy... until after seventeen years as one of the most feared pirates in the southern seas, nay all of Thibudis, one night he met the one thing he couldn't beat. The weather.

A hurricane that seemed to come out of nowhere blew the Golpejera into, ironically, the exact same rock Rodrigo had been stranded on, completely destroying the boat and killing everyone on board... besides the incredibly lucky Rodrigo. With the boat and his crew, the storm had taken a lot of coin and food. To make matters worse, upon waking up, Rodrigo found that his right leg was trapped under a rock and he could only escape by cutting it off. Luckily, he did had the Southern Dragon, and he managed to find a lifeboat with three months worth of food inside and a small chest of gold. With no other choice, Rodrigo rowed for land. However, he decided to avoid Port Victory or the Havens, and rowed northways until his food ran out and he survived on rainwater and any fish his sword could reach. After a punishing half year, he made it to a port that he was completely unknown, and in good time; he was about to drop dead. Using what little money he had, Rodrigo fed himself, got a wooden leg, and prepared himself for the journey home, ready to take back what's his; a complete and utter stranglehold on the southern seas.

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-FINISHERS

-> Dragon's Wrath - Rodrigo's swimming ability is almost unmatched, and it reflects in this attack; nearly any substantial body of water, Rodrigo can grab his opponent or target, dive into the water and curl back up, leaping out of the water with insane velocity and propelling him into the sky. He'll turn the target of the attack over, flipping them, before dropping to the ground and piledriving them. He can do this very frequently, but he is hugely limited by the fact that he can only do it near a large body of water, and can't do it to anything that he can't throw into the water in the first place; if it's attached to the ground somehow, there's nothing he can do.

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-CUSTOM RANK

- Weilder of the Southern Dragon

-ALIAS/NICKNAME

Sponge

-OTHER CHARACTERS

Bones

[Elisa Castillo]

Pseudo-Approved

You meet all the word/minimum requirements, you're grammar's fine, and things seem to be sorted out. Like I said in the Cbox, Ross and I haven't been talking a lot about approval requirements and such, so I'm not going to give you your color yet, just in case I've missed a step that I need to take. We'll have this sorted out soon enough. Thank you for your patience.

-Izzy

[Opal Hutchinson]

My only real qualm isn't really a qualm at all. It's just an addendum; d'you really want to have a peg-leg? I know there's the aesthetic and theoretical value, and I know you've drawn the pic up like that, but prosthetics are readily available, if a little expensive - they're not just for the rich and only the rich.

[Rodrigo Salazar]

I'm happy to have a pegleg. I've pretty much written everything with him having it, and I think it's pretty cool. It also makes sense that seeing as he cut his leg off on the island he was originally stranded on; from that one could suppose he probably put it on himself, and that complications might mean that taking it off would be risky.

[Opal Hutchinson]

In that case...

APPROVED

[Alicon Savat]

REVISE
Not much, just change SPECIAL ABILITIES to FINISHERS, kay? ^^
Otherwise, everything appears to be in order.

[Alicon Savat]

APPROVED

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