This will be the area where we prepare for the LRP and IRP. If we want, we can make an LRP based off the ideas we have here.
To start things off, here's my submitted IRP character:
Name: Derrial Deb
Gender: Male
Age: 41
Nation: Air Nomads (Previously of the Fire Nation)
Occupation: Religion (Previously Military)
Bending: None
Skills/Abilities: Certified monk and Guru in training. Trained for military, so he knows how to shoot a gun. He is good at cooking and between his political and religious backgrounds he makes an excellent diplomat. He knows how to weave and make/patch his own clothing when needed and he knows how to live on scavenged food from the wilderness.
Physical Appearance: http://www.btinternet.com/~crippsy_99/p ... s/book.jpg (I think the autograph is awesome)
Brief History: Born in 433 ASC and orphaned by 440 ASC, Derrial grew up in the Fire Nation projects on the southern islands, fighting and/or running for his life every day in the gang he was part of. He never considered finishing school or moving away from his home town until the day that Lunar Industries made cleaning the area up into a priority to quell the danger of gang riots before they could begin. Their first targets were troubled youths like Derrial, who had greater potential than they were using. Derrial was one of many who they found to be of strong academic potential and made provision for him to study at schools closer to the Fire Nation mainland, but Derrial spent less than a year in school before enlisting in the army and signing up for boot camp, since the year was 451 and Derrial was eighteen. He still harbored intense hatred for the enemy gangs and vowed vengeance for his fallen gang brothers and friends. So, unsatisfied with bookwork, he pursued learning to hurt and to kill with a passion so that when he returned to his hometown, he would be ready to make his enemies pay for all the crimes they had committed against what he considered his family. He knew that Lunar Industries had created relative peace and stability in the area, but his anger colored his vision and made him see peace as a weakness which left the enemy vulnerable. In the military, he was broken down like all the other soldiers and his unresolved rage pushed him to have a keen, brutally efficient edge that many other soldiers lacked. He was discharged from the military in 453 after he encountered a fellow soldier who was from a rival gang back in his youth and he viciously attacked the other man, nearly beating him to death with his bare hands. Weeks afterward, while he was in prison for his crimes, Derrial began to feel homesick for the military and realized that he had betrayed those who had almost become like another gang-family to him. The conflict between hating the man he attacked and the loving him as his fellow soldier almost tore him apart entirely while he had nothing to do but sit in his cell and contemplate his actions. While in prison, an older man from the Air Nomads came to speak with him as he did all the prisoners, hoping to reach them with the hope of freedom in forgiveness of their crimes. Derrial heard what he needed to hear in those moments, but wouldn't listen at first. It took him a week of sitting in his cell to realize that he had to let go of his anger and to forgive his enemies before he could ever learn to forgive himself or anyone else. Only then would he have freedom from the cruel master of hate. After that, he spoke with that monk who visited the prisons every chance he got and he spent the rest of his sentence quietly accepting his punishment. In 456, with the old monk's support, he was given an early parole and soon after he applied to become a monk in the old man's temple. He was accepted in 457 at the age of 24 and he insisted on beginning his walk in the ways of monasticism at the beginning of their teachings, learning from the ground up. He excelled academically, but his passion for his newfound faith lead him to seeking strict asceticism to free himself from the wants and needs of his flesh. He spent months trying to formulate codes of conduct to employ before the Council of Elders, concerned with his wellbeing, put his studies aside and ordered him to work in the valley as a shepherd. When he asked them for how long, they simply replied "until we tell you to come back." Though he was welcome in the temple, he became aggravated by his punishment. It took him the better part of a decade before he learned that the Council was trying to free him from his military and gang-like need for strict rules and his overwhelming zeal for maintaining rules no one could actually follow. By the time he was summoned again before the Council, he wasn't sure if he could ever want to be a monk again if it meant that he couldn't be free to take care of his sheep. Upon hearing his answer and the wisdom he had learned, his monkhood was reaffirmed (though they more said that he had never stopped being a monk than that he was one again), and not only was he encouraged to continue his studies for his own benefit, he was additionally encouraged to now go out into the world to share his faith and his wisdom with others just as he had received such gifts himself so many years ago. Having lived the quiet life of a shepherd for nearly a decade, he was intimidated by the idea of going out into the large world and declined, choosing instead to learn and teach other monks in the temple the history and ways of the order. After a little more than six years of urging, he finally agreed to set aside his quill, pick up his staff, leave his sheep and his students to those he trusted, and search the wilderness for more lost sheep. He has been on the road now for almost six months, so he's had just barely enough time to become reacquainted with the rest of the world.
(lol at my attempt to have a "brief" history XD)