G R A V E S • T-D-D-D- 
La source cramoisi de toute vie coule du corps de Graves comme une rivière. Ses épaules larges se cramponnaient violemment avec chaque respiration inégale alors qu'il se tenait sur le cadavre d'un monstre deux fois sa taille. L'ogre était sorti de nulle part. Il est venu par le sol de tous les endroits. Graves et ses alliés ont été pris au dépourvu par l'embuscade rapide et brutale. Deux géants enterrés, l'un de part et d'autre, et un meurtre de tireurs d'élite venant d'en haut. Une boîte à tuer classique si Graves en avait jamais vu un; le problème était, Graves n'avait jamais vu des monstres employer ce genre de stratégie à Pariah. Il a eu de la chance que son parti n'ait pas été plein de hacks complets, ou ils seraient probablement raviver la moitié de la ligne arrière au lieu de se vanter dans leur victoire.
"Tout va bien?" La grave rose du Chevalier du Sang s'est levée juste assez pour faire écho à l'arrière de la fête.
Avec des respirations pantées, Graves a posé les deux mains sur la poignée de son brochet. Il s'est hissé, ses avant-bras recouverts de veine se sont serrés pour arracher la lame de la hache libre du crâne brisé de l'ogre mort. Frappant la matière du cerveau sur le bord de son bras de poteau, leur demi géant d'un char s'est retourné pour s'adresser à Rael. Graves sortait encore du haut du combat et devait prendre un moment pour se calmer avant de répondre à ses préoccupations. Comme toujours, le tank avait porté un sourire méchant tout au long de la rencontre, son berker criait seulement jamais brisé par la nécessité de crier des commandements à ses arrière-ligneurs incompétents quand quelque chose allait mal.
"Ouais, tu avais raison." Graves est d'accord, en courant une main sur sa poitrine dans une tentative pour la plupart vaine d'essuyer le sang de son abdomen nu. La plupart appartenaient à l'ogre qu'il avait massacré, mais le Chevalier avait subi quelques coups pendant l'échange. Arrows toujours coincé dans son dos, et des coups de l'énorme club de l'ogre avaient baisé ses côtes royalement. "Depuis quand ces idiots ont-ils eu la cervelle?"
C'était vraiment fascinant pour le tank à quel point ils étaient chanceux que personne ne soit descendu. Une horde d'archers d'en haut et deux gigantesques trempeurs de dommages de part et d'autre, dans un couloir relativement étroit, aurait épelé une essuie-tout ou à tout le moins, des causalités- dans n'importe quelle autre partie. Peut-être que Graves sous-estimait trop le reste de son équipe ; bien que le Chevalier du Sang doutait que c'était plus qu'une chance aveugle de la part de... certains d'entre eux.
Graves a donné un coup de sifflet rapide, regardant par-dessus son épaule à Elian. "Yo, Elfy. Si vous pouviez faire votre travail pour que nous puissions passer à autre chose, je vous serais très reconnaissante. » Les mots du tank étaient dégoulinants de sarcasme; il était détesté d'admettre que la femme avait probablement contribué un peu à la survie du parti. C'est peut-être une guérisseuse, il pensait, mais même cette moitié de compliment irait directement à la tête de la danseuse. "Tous les autres, prenez un respirateur. La merde ne fait qu'empirer d'ici." Il s'éloigna de l'avant de la fête et se dirigea vers l'arrière, espérant que son tank partenaire avait des choses couvertes pour le moment. Graves ne pensait pas que les monstres attaqueraient à nouveau si tôt, mais... dans ce donjon, on ne pouvait pas être trop prudent.
Une fois qu'il était à côté du réservoir d'esquive beaucoup plus petit et moins intimidant, Graves abaissa sa voix pour qu'elle l'entende. "Vous pensez qu'il y avait un patch fantôme? Développeur jeté dans de nouvelles tactiques pour tous les monstres?" Le chevalier demanda à Rael de ne pas savoir ce qu'il pensait de tout ça. "Ça pourrait être juste pour ce donjon, aussi, ce qui est presque pire."
A N D R E W /// G R A V E S
”Stand behind me you dumbasses!” 
 O V E R V I E W 
N A M EAndrew Matthews Gray
A V A T A RGraves T. Bludd
A G E23
G E N D E RMale
V I S A G EAndrew is a lanky Caucasian male with light blue eyes and a stupid sideways grin. He’s almost always the tallest guy in the room, standing at six feet and four inches tall. It’s only natural his avatar be of the same verticality. Graves is a tank, so of course he’s built like a linebacker, whereas his creator is skinny enough that most his of real life friends know him as ‘Twig.’ The dichotomy was initially a little difficult to adjust to, but eventually his mind was able to comprehend having two separate body types. Both Gray and his character have long nearly silver hair that they tend to keep up in a ponytail. Keeping with the theme of ‘blood,’ Graves tends to favor crimsons, blacks and silvers. His armor is admittedly more for looks than practicality. It covers his shoulders, back, arms, legs and sides- but lacks a breastplate in any capacity. This is the case for two reason: One being that he wants his enemies to think he’s vulnerable there, and give the courage to get in range of his pike. Two being showing off his sick abs.
P E R S O N A L I T YGraves has been called any number of things for his less than stellar behavior: jerk, asshole, dick, bastard and jackass all being common substitutes for his name. He isn’t particularly malicious. He doesn’t wake up in the morning, wondering who he can screw over today. But Graves is selfish to his core. He cares only about himself. Every action he takes is to get ahead, others be damned. He’s abrasive, standoffish and horribly arrogant. His crude sense of humor tends to be bent toward insulting others and joking at their expense. He very smugly thinks he’s the greatest person ever, and that anyone who doesn’t see that is a moron. It’s easy to see why he doesn’t have many friends; mostly because he takes advantage of people, treats them badly and then dumps them off before they can get too close. Once upon a time, however, he was different. Graves used to be pleasant enough. He had a small but dedicated circle of friends that he would drop everything for. He was generally joyful and kind, and there was a lot less edge to his humor. Was Bludd perfect? No. But back then, in great contrast to the present, Graves wouldn’t hesitate to help someone else- even if he didn’t get much out of it. It’s speculated that Andrew is putting up a front; that he’s building up a toxic and unlikable character to push others away, to avoid getting burned again.
When Andrew can’t hide before a pike and a fake face, he’s a lot quieter. He hides his emotions from his coworkers and peers, keeping some of the choice words he might have to himself. He avoids conflict whenever possible, to such a degree that he’s willing to bend to views he doesn’t agree with just to avoid a confrontation. Gray is weak. He knows he’s weak. That’s why, when he plays Pariah, he likes to pretend he’s strong- it’s an escape from his sucky ass life and sucky ass 'friends'. He wishes he was tougher, but never makes any strives to actually become more confident and assertive. In game, he's pursuing that power fantasy- he hunts down the toughest of the tough and trains himself until he's strong enough to beat them. Then he moves on to the guy stronger than the last, repeating the process until, one day, he stands above everyone. He isn't anywhere near completing his goal. But, hey, he has nothing but a shitty part time job to do outside of play Pariah- he has plenty of time to dedicate to the game.

B A C K G R O U N D
Andrew was born in a little town in Ohio to two loving parents and eight siblings. He was unlucky enough to be one of the middle children, so it was no surprise when he was overshadowed by the rest of his family. He found that the best way to get any attention from them was to act out- so he was a bit of a devil when he was younger. He eventually grew out of it and accepted the fact that he was meant to be ignored and merely tolerated as a background figure. His town was small, and his high school even smaller- which meant finding friends and penetrating the normal clichés was quite difficult for someone that had gotten used to quietly observing. Gray wasn’t exactly an introvert. He could be loud, excitable and social- but he just…never got the chance to. He didn’t have many friends at all. That is, until he had scrounged up enough cash for his first MMO. He used his low grade laptop to play the game at its lowest settings; it was choppy, constantly lagged and rather ugly…but he loved it. He loved everything about the game. Gray retreated from his garbage normal life into the world of a generic role playing game. He ignored his tanking grades, few acquaintances and boisterous family to play for hours on end. He started off grinding on his own, as most do. But he chanced upon a party of likeminded individuals that needed a secondary tank. Andrew melded seamlessly into their company. They were all chill, cool guys and gals that were always willing to help Andrew learn the game. They continued to play together for months, the size of the group ever expanding as they built up a sizable guild of their own. Andrew became near addicted to raiding. Fighting bosses was the most visceral and exciting experience he’d ever had in a game. Eventually Andrew was (somehow) able to graduate high school and purchase a real computer. All was well for him. His family only occasionally harassed him for being a bum. He had a steady job at a backwater gas station, making minimum wage for very little work. He had made a decent circle of friends for himself within the guild. Life was simple; it was good.
But nothing ever stays good for very long. Rumors began to arise within the lower ranks of the guild that Gray’s circles of friends, the founders of their company, were cheating. Accusations ranged from merely using gold farming bots all the way to increasing their characters’ stats to impossible levels. Gray defended his friends religiously. There was no possible way they’d do something like that. His aggressive resistance to their false claims earned him a fairly bad reputation in a short time. The rumors continued to spread, to the point where other guilds were putting in tickets to the server admin to have their guild investigated. With the moderators getting involved, Grays’ friends found themselves backed into a corner- they had been breaking the rules, and would soon suffer the wrath of the ban hammer. A meeting was held, and a rash decision was made. They would find a single member to put the blame on, plant evidence that they were responsible, and then report them to the administrators. Andrew was chosen. It wasn’t out of personal distaste for the guy; most everyone liked him well enough. But he had already tarnished his own reputation among the lower guild members and lacked many close friends who could help him fight the claim. The next day, Gray logged on to a single message: he had been permanently banned from playing the game. Of course Andrew sent in a support ticket. He tried to fight the claim. However, he found no success- and was eventually forced to abandon his first and favorite MMO. He had been devastated. Things only got worse when someone leaked a log of the meeting to him where his so called ‘friends’ had decided to use him as the scapegoat for their actions. He brought the logs to the mods that had banned him; nothing came of it. He wasn’t trusted, and they had tossed his evidence aside as fake.

 A T T R I B U T E S 
R O L ETank
A F F I L A T I O NSikth
E L E M E N T A L D O M A I N S
Arcane

A R C A N E D O M A I N
Drain

P R O F E S S I O NBounty Hunting: A video game is all about killing things for Andrew. It's what he enjoys most about Pariah. So what better profession than one that let's him kill things? Bounty Hunting covers a wide array of different targets over the entire game world. He's given a list of hunts to choose from that can range from simply kill twenty of X monster, to beat X raid boss in less than forty five minutes, to even going after other players. It's a profession that doesn't ever get boring or tedious and allows Gray to indulge his murderous tendencies on virtual mobs. Certain epic jobs are available for all hunters and can only be completed a certain number of times; making the bounty hunting profession extremely competitive for those looking to make the most from their job. 
W E A P O N O F C H O I C EGraves currently wields an oversized halberd he refers to as a pike, despite being corrected multiple times; Graves is not wrong, everyone else is. It's nearly as large as he is, and is designed to allow him to land as many hits on as many enemies as possible from various ranges. 
R O U G H V I R T U A L H I S T O R Y
Andrew came by Pariah through rather interesting circumstances. He was scrolling through online forums, looking for something to replace his beloved original MMO when he came across an advertisement for Pariah. The game looked absolutely phenomenal; and Gray had always been fascinated by the idea of VR. He had only gotten to play with a system like that once or twice, but he loved every nanosecond of the experience. He couldn't afford it, however. Not on a minimum wage job. That is until he caught wind of a giveaway being done by a local game store. The place had just gotten a shipment of VR headsets and wanted to attract buyers; so they held a raffle contest. Five people would walk away with a copy of Pariah and one of the headsets. Andrew knew he had no chance of winning, but he decided to enter anyway; there was a small fee, but...what the hell. Why not give it a try? Imagine his surprise when he gets an email from the company, informing him that he had won. Gray rushed over to the store the moment he finished reading it and picked up his package. Thus began his journey in Pariah.
Graves is not a name known by many, simply because he keeps to himself for the most part. He has a rapidly growing reputation, however, among the more attentive members of the bounty hunting community. The profession is used by a large chunk of the player base; however, the few hundred or so individuals that claims to be 'professional bounty hunters' are a highly competitive and inclusive group. So when some no name young blood starts snatching up important contracts and taking down a high level bosses and esteemed players, the smarter heads start to turn. He's an above average raider that joins public groups, dominates his enemies and takes what he needs before disappearing again.
Andrew is above average at best. He's no professional, and lacks the experience or gear to take on the really big names. Yet. He's dedicated himself to becoming the absolute strongest hunter in the name; and he's going to do it by almost any means necessary. The only thing he's wary of is teaming up with other players. He's partied up a handful of times, but never long enough to get attached- he knows where that particular road leads. However, there are some obstacles which cannot be overcome alone. Some enemies cannot be defeated through sheer force of will and hours of scrolling through guides and wikis online. On occasion, Bludd has to team up with others- usually to do bosses or gank unsuspecting targets that he can't beat alone. His temporary help always gets a 'piece of the pie' so to speak; he makes sure they get something out of the effort, even if he's an asshole to them while doing so.
Bludd received his primary weapon a few months ago in one of the hardest grind sessions of his life; it's priceless to him, and it fits his playstyle perfectly. The pike isn’t exactly anything special, but it’s Graves weapon of choice no matter the circumstance. He uses it consistently, and has yet to hear of any item that he'd rather have over it. He and that dumb ol' pike have been through a lot together. Why give it up for something unfamiliar? His current weapon is reliable. And if Gray needs anything, it's a little bit of reliability in his life.