Full Name: Zang
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Element: None
Birthplace: Southern Water Tribe Capital
Position: Traveling laborer
Training: Bare Fists/Whatever's Conveniently Lying Around [Intermediate]
Personality:
"I can't believe you just did that...."
"Well you'd better, because I'm absolutely fantastic!"-Zang, moments after riding a careening cabbage cart downhill into some thugs, moments before taking a bow, and a few more moments before obtaining a date for the evening.
He's the hero of his own story, and everybody else's, and he knows it. Always rough, always ready, he's the guy everyone looks to when the walls come crashing down and they need somebody to save the day.
Well, at least, that's what he thinks. Zang is mainly a headstrong, egotistical jerk, who rarely knows when to keep his mouth shut or when to quit. At anything. Regardless of the gravity of his losses, or anyone else's. Granted, he's good at what he does, so things usually work out in the end, but sooner or later it always catches up with him. Not that he'd ever let a few miserable moments get in the way of his attitude. His cocksure demeanor is either endearing (usually to the ladies) or enraging (usually to the menfolk), but regardless of what you think of him personally, you have to admit he pulls off his personal image flawlessly. Even if he's bluffing, it never feels like it, and he's frankly unquenchable even in the most dire situations. Zang has one heck of a mouth on him, and he knows how to use it, whether it's making you laugh, fall in love, commit bloody murder, or cry into your rice beer. Sometimes all four at once.
All that aside, he's actually a decent, highly intelligent human being, and does try to pull his weight at whatever task is at hand. And of course, he does save the day when things go wrong. After all, he is the hero of the story, remember?
Abilities:
One of the advantages of being a drifter who works for his supper is that you tend to have basic knowledge of almost every job you can think of, from sweeping out floors to harvesting grapes to building a house. Zang can turn his hand to most things that can earn a man a roof and meal for the night, and a bed if he's lucky. With the life of a drifter also comes a gift for overhearing important information and the ability to talk it out of people when just listening in isn't exactly possible. In general, turn him loose on a town and he's sure to find what he's looking for pretty quickly.
Another thing he's had to do pretty often is improvise, and like most clever men under the thumb of the Mother of Invention, he's got a knack for making do with what's on hand, whether it's a brawl he's wedged himself into or just mending a broken cart wheel. Speaking of brawls, when you live on your own and travel by foot, you either learn how to handle yourself or you get fleeced or worse awfully quickly. So he's had to learn how to defend himself, and his preferred method is with his own two fists. He's a surprisingly unpredictable fighter, and regularly knocks the snot out of well-armed opponents with things like broomsticks or lengths of knotted rope. Most people don't even expect him to get a solid hit in because he starts off the fight striking some ridiculous pose and then uses distractions or the overall environment to suddenly gain the upper hand. And, on the inverse, he's very hard to catch off guard or fool, in a fight or out of one.
Appearance:
Height: 5'10"
Weight:172 Ilbs
Eyes:Deep Crimson
Hair: Ebony
Skin: Dark Tan
Zang is a tall, handsome, lean young man, with a tight, defined physique. He always keeps his raven hair in a traditional Water Tribe cut-off tail, with the sides shaved down to a bristle, and has adopted a short, pointy goatee to sharpen up his features. The dark, angular tattoos on his cheeks serve a similar purpose, and although it does actually mean something in his birth culture, the tattoo on his forehead is also only there for aesthetic reasons.
Zang's voice is always brazen, macho, and just the right combination of smooth and rough to drive all the young ladies wild. And he's developed quite the swagger to go with that voice, too. His locomotion has a bit of a jaunt, and he talks with his hands, his whole body, in fact, using exaggerated, smooth movements to accent his speech.
His clothing tends to be on the simple side, and is the one thing he rarely overdoes. He can usually be found in blue pants and a vest, with his feet covered by sandals and his arms adorned with leather, studded bands at his wrists and more traditional Water Tribe armbands around his biceps.
History:
Life started out on the normal side for Zang. He grew up well-cared for, with plenty of friends, excellent parents, and lived high enough above the poverty line that he never had to worry about all that much. However, one thing nagged at him. He heard tales of the larger world, and his own almost monochrome world of ice and snow started to bore and depress him, despite their comforting familiarity. So once he was old enough, he kissed his old life goodbye and struck out on his own, stowing away on a barge in defiance of his parent's more reasonable suggestions of a family vacation. While he did pause to write in his journey every so often, the then-twelve Zang wasn't the least bit homesick or scared. He had always been precocious, and in the year he stayed away from home it really showed. He managed to convince his parents he could handle himself from that point on, and provided that he only left for a month or two at a time, he kept traveling by his wits and luck until he was 16, when he made roaming his full-time profession and stopped going back home.
He's been all over the place since then, and taken in the sights, sounds, and smells of places most people at his home only ever read about. He's been robbed, nearly killed, beaten up repeatedly, had his heart broken (though he'd never admit that), and put his shoulder into just about every kind of manual labor available. He's seen men die fighting on their feet, or run like cowards into the encroaching night, or pass on peacefully in their beds from old age. He's felt the wrath of fever and desert, and the bliss of water and rest at the end of both. He's drunk deeply from the cup of life, and enjoyed every drop. He intends to keep drinking until he drains the vessel to its dregs.
