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Character's name: N'tho 'Sraom
Character's LJ: warriorraceguy
Character's canon: Halo

Personality:
N'tho is a Sangheili warrior, or an "Elite", as the human slang is for his kind. He was born to a people whose beliefs include "to draw a weapon and lower it unfired is to disrespect it" and "to lose blood is to lose honor". His is a species that has spent several thousand years with forming the backbone of the Covenant military as its driving purpose. He's stubborn, dignified, honorable to a fault, and bold as brass. N'tho tends to speak and act formally, he's very aware of how he presents himself and wishes to be a good representative of his family and his species. N'tho was considered a good candidate for Spec Ops because he displayed the ability to pause before diving into most situations headlong and doing something fatally stupid, as well as good attention to detail. It's kept him alive many times. He's often on the quiet, thoughtful side but when angered sufficiently he still tends to leap before he thinks. This, however, seems to come with the territory when you're an Elite.

Like many Sangheili, N'tho's pride is an issue. It drives a lot of his snap decisions and has a major impact on his world view. If you do something he sees as besmirching his honor he is easily riled into a fight. He's high strung and has a fierce temper under his outer layer of formality. With humans he is slightly more lenient because he sees them as ignorant and somewhat savage (seriously, what kind of species sends their women into battle too?!), though he respects their courage. He does not expect them to "know better" and is reluctant to cause a break in such a young alliance, so he lets them get away with more instead of retaliating fully to what he sees as their stupidity and insolence. He can get along with them. He prefers not to have to be among them and it's an uncomfortable arrangement for all concerned, but he can deal.

N'tho is nervous about his future, first with the injury to his eye (which has kind of screwed him out of any potential high rank ever) and then with the sudden flipping of everything he's understood about his place in the universe. (Thanks, Prophets!) His future is uncertain, and he's privately a bit pessimistic about it. He has an injured eye, not only a scar (gasp!) but a handicap that can be taken advantage of by other Sangheili. He is very hard on himself about this and has an exaggerated perception of how "dishonored" he is, though the events of the Great Schism have bolstered his confidence somewhat and he's immensely proud of fighting the Flood. He has hopes that this will make up for his eye. He would really, really like to be able to go home and marry and have children of his own someday, and the thought gives him something to work for. He's a rampant perfectionist, too. He expects to give the absolute best he can at everything he does, regardless of what it may be, and hates it when he thinks he could have done something better.

N'tho values his independence now more than he used to, and is much more reluctant to follow orders blindly. He's been lied to before and doesn't want it to happen again, but the fact still remains that he's young and a bit naive. So, while he's disillusioned with his former religion and political beliefs, he's still kind of an idiot and easily deceived because he just plain doesn't know better. When he's put his faith in something or someone he's loyal to the death, which he has never feared, and (much though he'd like to think so) logic and reason will not do much to sway his opinion unless it's coming from someone he already trusts well or the evidence is absolutely irrefutable. He's very idealistic and has a romanticized view of the world that nobody's quite managed to beat out of him yet despite everything he's been through in the war. He especially likes the idea of the great heroes of legend though he, to tell the truth, doesn't honestly believe he can become one. He's sort of a hypocrite that way in that he's seen exactly how war is hell, but he still considers it the most noble vocation he can think of. N'tho is still young and rather uncertain about where he's going, so he clings to the old structure of his life as he understands it in the face of his world being flipped upside down.

N'tho is surprisingly philosophical and curious when he has liberty to be, though this curiosity does not necessarily mean he's open minded. He also tends not to confess to it unless he can do so subtly, that would be admitting that he finds a lot of things confusing. There's also a difference between knowing things and understanding them. While N'tho loves to know things (it makes him feel safer and more in control) he finds it very difficult to fully absorb or understand other world views. He can try, but N'tho often doesn't manage to do more than scratch the surface. He's nosy for an Elite, a trait that most considered annoying in his youth and that was never encouraged, but by normal standards he's just a bit less intolerant and disinterested in outsiders than the lot. It does, however, make him a good scout and source for details because of his tendency to stick his face in places he shouldn't, and be quick enough to get out with it still attached.

History:
N'tho was born in the state of Sraom (hence his surname) on the planet Sanghelios. Like other young Sangheili of many clans, his early life was spent in common rooms with the rest of the boys so as to put him on equal footing with them and prevent benefit from any sort of inherited status. He never knew his father, as is also custom, and the closest surrogate figures in his life were his maternal uncles. It was they who taught N'tho the fighting arts that would prepare him for not only the military service, but for ordinary life as a Sangheili. When he came of age at twenty (twenty-three if you go by Earth years) he was granted his name (then N'tho 'Sraomee, the "ee" suffix for going into the military) and allowed to go into service. He'd never even as much as considered a trade besides the military, which was uncommon and somewhat dishonorable anyway, and went without hesitation.
The Sangheili held an ancient pact with the species called the San'Shyuum (The Prophets) and various other alien races that made up the Covenant. They had always been the warriors, the tactical and military strength, while the Prophets were the leaders, the politicians, the sages. N'tho was just as deeply religious as any other Sangheili, and revered the ancient Forerunners whose artifacts the Covenant strove to uncover and the gods he'd been taught to worship since childhood. The Covenant had been caught in a long, bloody war with the human race since a time before N'tho was born, and he was raised to hate them and scorn them as was proper for their lowliness and heresy. He would grow up, he would fight, and if he was lucky he would die honorably for the Covenant and be remembered as a hero. It was that simple.

Early in N'tho's service, he took a near miss to his right eye that instead damaged the nictating membrane that goes across it. He can withdraw it and hold the eye open, but it's a conscious effort and it hurts. He can see through the membrane, but his sight is less clear and it messes with his binocular vision some. N'tho refused to see a doctor about it. This was typical, anything that causes a Sangheili to bleed "without honor" such as surgery is deeply scorned. Doctors in particular are rare, and looked on almost as parasites for their work.

He recovered and has done his best to watch himself and make up for his bad eye, having learned a valuable lesson about charging into things headlong, but is still privately deeply ashamed of the wound. Despite his eye, N'tho was judged a good candidate for a Special Operations position and became the youngest member of his Spec Ops unit in the Fleet of Retribution.

That was when things got interesting.

N'tho was there for the invasion of Earth, but it didn't go as he'd thought it would. During the fighting, the Great Schism began. The Jiralhanae, a species that was long rivals with the Sangheili for position in the Covenant, gained status and began to push the Elites out of their old, higher roles. The blame had been placed on N'tho's kind for the recent death of a Prophet and the destruction of a sacred relic despite the truth being far messier. The Elites were furious, and the Covenant turned on the Sangheili and began to try to eradicate them. This was exacerbated further when the Arbiter of the Sangheili discovered the purpose of the sacred Halo rings they had been seeking and protecting was not to bring all the faithful to a higher plane of existence, but instead to wipe out all major life in the galaxy.

N'tho found himself abruptly on the same side as the species he had come to destroy: the humans. He was furious with the Prophets for betraying him, with the high ranking Sangheili for allowing it to happen, and with the Jiralhanae for throwing his kind aside. He stripped the "ee" from his name, as all the new Separatists did, and threw himself into battle against his former allies with righteous anger. Thankfully, he was usually too busy to have much time to think about it too hard, or to waste time and energy taking offense at these new human allies for, frankly, having no idea how to show him proper respect. He gladly provided important information to the UNSC about Jiralhanae group structures, and the Chopper vehicles they rode into battle.

N'tho fought alongside not only humans, but the Master Chief and the Arbiter themselves in several battles. He's very, very proud of this and considers it a great honor, possibly even making up for his eye, though they are strangers to him. When the war reached its official end with the deaths of the remaining Prophet Hierarchs and the destruction of the Flood parasite that had played as a "third side", N'tho and the other Sangheili set out to return to Sanghelios. N'tho hasn't seen home since he first shipped out and was looking forward to going back, especially to help with the mopping up at the end of the conflict.

Unfortunately for him, he's not going home just yet.

Third Person Sample:
http://wilderlands.livejournal.com/5780.html

Abilities and Weaknesses:
N'tho is very big. He stands 8'6" tall ordinarily and weighs in at over 700 lbs. He's very strong as well due to extensive training and life on a high gravity planet. Like all Sangheili, N'tho has digitigrade legs. These make him a good runner and jumper, but he has difficulty with climbing and ladders are the bane of his existence.

The nictating membrane of N'tho's right eye is damaged. He can withdraw it and hold the eye open, but it's a conscious effort and somewhat painful. He can see through the membrane, but vision clarity and depth perception are compromised. He is (although privately) deeply ashamed of the wound; it has badly shaken his self image. N'tho is still pretty effective, he's used to the problems he has with his bad eye, but it does unquestionably affect him.

His armor offers him a targeting reticle compatible with all Covenant, most UNSC, and some Forerunner weaponry and systems. It can monitor these as well as the harness's energy shielding, which will break and require several seconds charging time after taking a certain amount of force. His helmet also houses a comm link.

N'tho is a reasonably good shot and can drive both human and Covenant vehicles. He'll work with anything unfamiliar based on what he knows from these. (As far as human vehicles go, he's most familiar with Warthog jeeps and has commandeered a few before.) He's also no slouch in a hand to hand fight and can work with basically anything you give him. He's been doing it all his life, and fortune favors those who can improvise.