Zofara

Zofara Nightwalker

Zofara Nightwalker is a mercenary warlock who met the Adventurer Makar Mesaba and jointed their adventuring band. He is a warlock of The Scarred One, a lonely drifter who serves his patron's will.
Zofara is externally bristly and aloof, a man who dresses in macabre and dour armor to push others away. He displays his warlockery clearly in his style and his open displays of power, embodying a 'spooky witch warlock' stereotype. This display may seem juvenile to those unimpressed, but it is surprisingly successful with strangers. Internally, Zofara isn't exactly warm, but he is surprisingly average - he is a lonely, inward-looking man who goes from job to job mostly wrapped up in himself. Zofara is deeply terrified of the world around him, but has the discipline to keep that fear inside. That discipline and fear can take the form of fatalism; Zofara is willing to surrender and throw his life away for his patron or The Masked One and is zealously loyal to that which supports him.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Zofara was orphaned at a young age by the wars between the Empire of Zerua and the Kingdom of Esedeta, and spent his life bouncing around Southwestern Ekraht. After losing his adopted family to plague and border skirmishing in his teen years, he quit his tinworking apprenticeship and joined the Talon Company, a group of mercenaries. He fought only once with them, used as cannon fodder in an battle he did not understand, before his injured body fell into the waves.
The Scarred One rescued him and offered him a second chance in exchange for eternal service. He became a warlock at age 17 - and crawled from village to village doing his master's bidding. Zofara had frequent contact with, and eventually joined, a group called the Nightwalkers - a small group of flamboyant warlocks in Western Zerua led by Mibora Nightwalker, who hoped to unite the Scarred One's followers. Mibora and Zofara grew close and poured their souls into each other and the organization. Zofara cleaned himself up and adopted his macabre fashion with the Nightwalkers. But Zofara's rise from the muck led to him spending less and less time with Mibora's coven - he started taking mercenary contracts, to bring the Nightwalkers legitimacy, to recruit fellow victims, and as a cover to act for the Scarred One's goals. But each time Zofara returned to his fellow warlocks, he found himself less at home. They were swelling their numbers with manipulative recruitment tactics, using near-death experiences and cult tactics to force trauma on prospective recruits. These warlocks were growing political, becoming authorities, making dogma. Zofara and Mibora tried to repair their relationship, but the attempt only made them resent each other.
Finally, in 2014, Zofara broke away from the Nightwalkers in all but name. He tried and failed to take apprentices, but the fear of caring for another person (losing another person) led him to drive them away - he just tossed lonely and broken souls to his master and carried along as a mercenary. He proved effective at killing. He made money, which drifted from his purse in indulgence and apathy. He won glory, which he hated. But it was that solid, dependable, and effective reputation that led him to be hired by Princess Maina Eramzir to escort Makar Mesaba to Suwirsha in 2016.
Zofara's fatalism has grown since he has joined Makar's team; it just feels natural for the world to be ending, and he has devoted himself absolutely to fight that end by any means. This hasn't been healthy, necessarily - but at least it has helped pushed Zofara out of his comfort zone. Only time will tell how things turn out.

Alignment

True Neutral

Current Location

Kreniko

Species

Half-Dryad

Ethnicity

Zeruan Culture

Year of Birth

1989 ME 31 Years old

Pronouns

He/him

Eyes

Black

Hair

Black hair with a deep purple flower

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale brown

Height

5'9"