Name: Lacertus (Luh-care-tus)
Species: Turaga
Description: Lacertus stands unusually tall for a Turaga, and often wears a cloak that obscures most of his body. He has a muted gray Calix, and the few remaining parts of his original body similarly fall somewhere within the spectrum of dull and uninteresting.
However, closer examination will reveal the slightly off proportions of his limbs and the layered collection of implants and augmentations that contort his body. Very little of his original Turaga body remains, and those few remnants are more often than not in the process of wasting away.
Gender: Male
Powers and Weapons: Due to numerous ill-advised augmentations, Lacertus has lost all access to his elemental powers and their passive benefits or effects.
Lacertus is equipped with a Noble Calix, which allows him to briefly perform at the absolute peak of a Turaga’s physical abilities.
Lacertus is armed with a variety of weapons, including four daggers, two shortswords, and one spear. His hands and forearms are also relatively reinforced, allowing them to be effectively used as gauntlets in a pinch. He is generally competent at wielding these weapons, but few would ever think to praise his skill—despite his efforts to broaden his own horizons, punching things remains just about the only form of combat he’s actually any good at.
Tech: (Approved by Tyler) Almost the entirety of Lacertus’s body from the neck down has been replaced by purely mechanical parts. These parts have numerous drawbacks (detailed in the Weaknesses section), and do not have features that would grant any particular benefits to Lacertus. At best, they mostly just make him look a bit taller.
Given his history and the work-in-progress nature of his body, Lacertus is always careful to keep an eye out for ways to improve his body, though he has had very little luck so far, and has no real reason to think that will be changing any time soon.
Weaknesses: Lacertus’s augmentations were not designed with a Calix in mind, and overuse of them while in that heightened state causes tremendous strain to both the prosthetics themselves and the organic parts they are attached to. Although they are built to be relatively cold- and heat-resistant, extreme temperatures or direct exposure to either can cause significant damage. Since corners were occasionally cut during the acquisition of some of his prosthetics, they are also not all immune to magnetic effects—though most components are at minimum resistant, some minor parts are more susceptible than others.
Even in peak condition, his implants and prosthetics are in general no stronger than their natural counterparts, and in many cases more effectively fragile due to the need for repair and upkeep—both things Lacertus himself is only marginally good at. As a result, his body is rarely, if ever, in peak condition.
Lacertus has no affinity toward melee weapons, regardless of if he is wielding them or facing them. Although he carries weapons of his own and is broadly familiar with how they are meant to be used, he can never hope to match someone truly skilled or even experienced in wielding them, instead being forced to rely on whatever slim advantages he can find in different match-ups.
Alignment: Neutral Good
History: Lacertus was once a Toa eager to prove his worth to the world, though he had no concrete idea what that truly meant or how he would know once it had been accomplished. Still, he lived his life as best he could--he sought out power, got into some fights that may have been important, perhaps saved one or two lives, and got into a number of fights that were absolutely not important. He lived recklessly and with little direction, save for his own impulses.
One day while taking shelter from a storm, he discovered a cave filled with mysterious carvings. As he brushed aside the dust, he felt something click deep within him. This moment right here was it—this was why he had become a Toa. Everything he had ever experienced—countless encounters and fierce battles—had been building up to this very moment, where he would uncover a series of glyphs he could not read.
His destiny was not to translate them. It was not even to track down someone who could. His role was merely to be in this place, at this moment, and to brush aside a layer of dust so that someone else in the future could more easily notice them within the gloom and discover what they meant. With that, he had fulfilled his purpose as a Toa. He was done. He was no longer needed.
It was over.
In the same moment he realized this, he felt a change overtake his body, his muscles wasting away as power escaped from his body. Perhaps he had dug too deep and unwittingly drawn on his Toa power during fights, or perhaps he had simply always been defective, with the most critical of his flaws waiting to rear its head until the moment his destiny was fulfilled.
Regardless of the reason, what emerged from that cave was a Turaga. One bitter at his fate and now seeking to prove his worth to destiny itself. If his destiny as a Toa had been so trivial, he would simply find some goal to pursue as a Turaga instead. His powers, once a source of immense pride for Lacertus, now haunted him as a reminder of what he had lost—vestiges of a greater power that had nonetheless never once fulfilled anything he could truly be proud of or remembered for. Before long, frustration turned to desperation, and he leapt at a slim chance to regain even the barest semblance of the power he had once wielded, to once again feel the strength of a Toa throughout his body. When that attempt ended in failure, he moved on to the next, and then the next, each time sacrificing another part of himself to a procedure destined to fail. In time, these augmentations became more reliable and usable, but at the cost of what little connection he still had to his elemental powers.
Personality and Traits: Lacertus desperately wants to be a hero, but has no idea what that actually means, aside from apparently not what he was doing previously. Bitter at what it got him in life, Lacertus lives willfully in defiance of the person he once was. Where previously he relied entirely on his powers and his own body, he has now cast his powers away and uses a variety of tools and weapons. However, his fundamental personality and tendencies remain mostly unchanged—he still seeks to prove himself, albeit motivated by spite for what he sees as his past self’s foolishness.
When interacting with others, however, Lacertus does his best to be an upright and reasonable individual. He has adopted the belief that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and although he himself no longer truly qualifies for the former category, he is still determined to do everything he can to live up to that ideal.