Lara Croft

# Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider

*Description Here ~ Tara*

## History

### Early Life

Lara was born to Lord Richard Croft and Lady Amelia Croft in London, England. During her early years, Lara spent much of her time with her mother. Amelia was a painter and gave Lara an appreciation for abstract art. Though when she wasn't teaching Lara about art, she was giving the girl piano lessons and teaching her how to read.

When Lara was four years old, her mother passed away in a tragic plane accident. The death of Amelia devastated Lord Richard, who started to obsess with the idea of immortality. His obsession made him neglectful of his daughter, pushing him into impromptu travels around the world and spending his wealth unwisely in search of the key to living forever so he never had to experience the pain of loss again. Lara often acted out in hopes of getting her father's attention, even going as far as to lock the family butler Winston in the walk-in freezer on one occasion. But all the attempts were often in vain.

Hoping to impress her father, little Lara started to read books about adventures and expeditions to start her journey as a traveling archeologist like him. One of her earliest finds was a jade trinket while on an expedition with her father. Unfortunately, Richard was too preoccupied with a phone call and pushed his daughter off on a family friend named Conrad Roth who was impressed by the little girl's discovery. Wanting to give her the affection that Richard wouldn't spare, Conrad tied a shoelace around the trinket to turn it into a necklace that Lara wore with pride as her first ever discovery.

Richard's continued neglect and obsession over immortality only served to strain his relationship with his daughter. Just a few days after Lara had turned nine years old, she barged into her father's office after hearing him scream over the phone about money used on his expeditions. Lara confronted him on the subject in a fit of rage, and his only response was that she was too young to understand. Her words to her father that afternoon were "I don't want to understand, I just want my father back!" Those were the last words she'd ever speak to her father. Later that night, a gunshot rang out from the manor yard. Frightened, Lara ran to her father's office for comfort, only to find Richard slumped over his desk with a bullet hole in the back of his head, likely coming from the opened window behind him.

With both of her parents dead, the rest of her childhood and teenage years were spent with fellow explorer and family friend, Conrad Roth. Conrad's travels sent him away from home for extended periods of time, leaving Lara in the care of Winston the butler when he was gone. As a result, Lara imprinted Roth and Winston as her new father figures and hardly left the manor, resulting in her becoming quite the introvert.

Once reaching adulthood, Lara was ready to attend college with the desire to earn her own way. She applied to University College London and once she was accepted, she had to pay for tuition and rent by working multiple jobs. The stress took a mental toll on Lara, but she contributes this experience to helping her become a more level headed and grounded individual. While in college, she met a young woman named Samantha Nishimura, or Sam, who was enthusiastic and outgoing. Lara was taken by surprise at the young woman's more extroverted personality, but within months, they had formed a lifelong friendship and sisterhood. Sam was the one that brought Lara out of her shell and opened her eyes to new experiences.

Shortly after graduating college, Lara returned home to the manor to hear that Roth was asked to lead an expedition for a reality archaeology television show called Whitman's World, run by the host James Whitman. Being able to select his own crew, Roth handpicked Lara to join them on the journey as her first real expedition. However, upon discovering that the network that aired Whitman's World wasn't financing the expedition, Lara was forced to reach out to Sam for help. Sam discussed the proposition with her family, agreeing to finance the voyage if Sam was allowed to go with them and the family received 60% of the profits made from the voyage.

Once finally out to sea, Sam's outgoing and charming personality made her a natural magnet to the cameras, contrasting with Lara's desire to be left alone and antisocial from anyone she wasn't already close to. Sam was constantly getting a camera on Lara, relying on playful banter and teasing to make the introverted Lara Croft laugh and lighten up on film.

Unfortunately, the laughter and playfulness didn't last. The team reached their destination at the Island of Yamatai thanks to Lara's ability to read the maps and charts. But what they didn't expect was that the island was inhabited by a tribe of followers that still believed in an ancient Sun Queen of Japan, Himiko. Himiko's spirit haunted the island, protecting it from invaders and using supernatural control of the weather and tides to prevent anyone from successfully leaving the island alive.

Lara hadn't signed up for ghosts and ancient rituals. During their stay on the island, Lara had been kidnapped, shot, stabbed, attacked by wild animals, and raided the tombs of mummies. It was on this island that Lara was first to kill other humans to defend herself, leaving mental scars that still haunt her to this day. The line between what was morally right and wrong was grayed the longer she was forced to stay on Yamatai. The tribe wanted to bring Himiko back to the mortal realm by giving her a body to possess, but that body had to belong to Himiko's bloodline. The blood of Himiko flowed through Sam's veins, forcing Lara to take out the tribesmen before they could sacrifice Sam and deliver the body to Queen Himiko.

But that wasn't the end of the journey. Ancient storm guards that protected the tomb of Himiko also tried and succeeded in kidnapping Sam for their queen. Just as Lara had done with the tribes, she used salvaged weapons and a makeshift bow to hunt down the evil samurais, killing them all and getting her friend back from their clutches. With the storm guards having brought Sam to the tomb of the sun queen, Lara found the decaying corpse of Himiko's past life and set it ablaze, destroying the last connection Himiko had to their world and freeing the island of her curse.

Upon finally leaving the island behind, Lara was forced to come to terms with the existence of the supernatural. What occurred had not been a bad dream. It was an ancient myth come to life, which made Lara rethink all the stories she had read as a child. Many of them could now be true, including Greek Gods and underwater cities. When the emergence of a vindictive archaeology team Trinity bursts onto the scene wanting to use the ancient curses and relics to reform the world in their image, Lara takes it upon herself to educate herself on their mission objectives and stop them, wanting to make sure the world stays balanced and the dead deities of the past were not disturbed from their eternal rests. She was now accepting her mission as the Tomb Raider, keeping powerful relics and artifacts with connections to gods out of the hands of evil.

## Powers and Abilities

### Skills

* **Peak human conditioning**
* **High pain endurance**
* **Expert archer and marksman**
* **Skilled martial artist**
* **Acrobatic background**
* **Experienced survivalist**
* **Master archeologist**
* **Mild chemist**
* **Modest medical knowledge**