Bio.
IMAGE COMING SOON; THIS TEXT IS A PLACEHOLDER!

GENERAL INFO.

Full Name: Avani Kaur Navathe
Aliases: Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi, Langda, Dr. Navathe
Gender and Pronouns: Cis Female; She/Her
Place of Birth: Edison Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States
Heritage: Southeast Asian-American (Sindhi-Bengali; Pakistani Indian)
Date of Birth: August 7th, 1981
Age: 35-45
Parents:

Siblings:
Children: N/A
Other Family: N/A

Allergies: N/A
Addictions: N/A
Mental Conditions/Disorders: N/A
Physical Conditions/Disorders: N/A

APPEARANCE INFO.

Features: Strong, defined features with a slim jawline, gaunt cheeks, and a prominent, curved nose. Avani has various tattoos across her body, including but not limited to: three red dots beneath each eye, a cluster of flowers on her left shoulder curling along her bicep. A rose with a thorny stem on her stomach, a coiled snake traversing down her right thigh, the sun and moon between her breasts, and a vase of flowers along the lower half of her spine. She often wears golden jewelry, including a multi-ringed nose piercing and long, waterfall-esque earrings. She also has various scars across her body, mostly stemming from clumsy incidents.
Voice Claim: Priyanka Bose
Eye Color: Warm Brown
Hair Color: Jet Black
Hairstyle: Bust-length, loosely curled hair often worn tied back in a low ponytail with straightened, face framing bangs.
Build: Average, if on the stockier side, with long, strong legs and a notable hourglass shape. Avani has prominent hip dips, and a shorter torso.
Height: 5 feet and 6 inches (approx. 167 cm)
Weight: 173 pounds (approx. 79 kg)

SOCIAL INFO.

Connections:

Relationship Status: Single
Sexuality: Bicurious

MISC. INFO

Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi is a character from the 2006 crime drama film, Omkara. The film is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello. Avani purposely chose this as her pseudonym during her operation of Cotton Road as 1) it gave her credibility due to being a man's name and 2) the character is based on Othello's Iago. Iago is a character who pretends to be a loyal friend to Othello, while undermining him and tricking him into the beliefs that send Othello to his ultimate demise. His cunning nature, and overall motivation to always come out on top, felt fitting for the role she was taking on.

Likewise, the story of Cotton Road is very clearly inspired by the real life Silk Road Marketplace down to the point of the game utilizing the image placed on the original site after seizure of the property by the FBI. As such, I've mirrored a lot of the real life happenings while tailoring them to the universe and adding my own flair.

Avani is a social drug user, meaning she doesn't really go out of her way to seek her highs. There was some concern in her early 20s about addiction, as she felt herself going down the slippery slope while in med school, but she ultimately forced herself to moderate and wean away from it to focus on her career. Nowadays, she's much more likely to accept whatever is offered to her, upper or downer.

The identity of the third foundational individual behind Cotton Road, Matriarch, would remain unknown to the public. However, they are listed in the connections section given Avani knew them personally. Matriarch would commit suicide during the investigation and trial into Avani.

BACKGROUND.

Born in Edison, New Jersey, Avani grew up alongside two older sisters and her doting parents. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from Pakistan before she was born, with her father having worked as an electrical engineer, while her mother, despite having studied mathematics in Pakistan, eventually built a career in healthcare administration after moving to America. Avani was fascinated by medicine from an early age due to her mother's career, but she was never particularly interested in becoming a physician or finding a similar role in administration. Instead, what captivated her was the question of why a drug could change one person's life and fail another completely. When listening to her mother's stories at the dinner table, or seeing her working on reports during late evenings on the family computer, she would often chime in and ask questions about the things that came up. What did these medications do? How did they do it? Why do medications that stop bodily functions even exist, isn't that the opposite of what a doctor wants to happen? Her mother would answer the best she could, and would eventually pull out her old medical textbooks from the attic for Avani to read.

And she became obsessed with them. Day in and day out, between the responsibilities home and school brought her, she would find herself flipping through the worn pages to the sections on medicine and pharmacology. This would be the start of her fascination with chemistry as a whole.

When she graduated high school, Ayani would move out to study at Rutgers, initially enrolling in their undergraduate chemistry program, where she would study the precise nature of organic synthesis. This would be her favorite aspect of her undergraduate degree, with classes and lectures focusing on the architectural nature of organic life and inorganic compounds quickly becoming her favorite. After completing her undergraduate degree, she pursued a Master's in Medicinal Chemistry. Her graduate thesis focused on designing and synthesizing small-molecule compounds with the potential for therapeutic applications; seeing just how fine-tuned these compounds could become before reaching their limit of efficacy. She spent many long nights in the laboratory, sometimes often spending the night inside them and tucking herself on a sterile bench to sleep. The work was demanding, but at the time, it gave her a sense of purpose. It would pay off, as she graduated with flying colors, and immediately took the leap into Pharmacology, enrolling in a local PhD program.

Her doctoral research brought the two disciplines together. She studied how experimental compounds interacted with biological targets, investigating mechanisms of action, efficacy, and potential toxicity. The PhD years changed her in ways she hadn't expected, though. Avani became more confident, more skeptical, and considerably less willing to accept an answer simply because some senior to her insisted upon it. This got her into trouble at times, but frankly? She didn't care. She had her sights set, and she would do anything to achieve her goals.

By the time she completed her PhD, Avani had become an accomplished pharmacologist with an unusually interdisciplinary background. She eventually moved into pharmaceutical research. Colleagues knew her as meticulous and analytical, but also stubborn when she believed an experiment was being interpreted incorrectly. She developed a reputation for asking the uncomfortable question in the room.

Yet, despite her achievements, Avani never really felt like she had 'made it.' There was always something more gnawing at her, especially once the red tape of the industry began to weigh down and corral her into a tight-knit box. She tried to keep her head down the best she could, but that internal drive eventually grew too loud...

And would ignite when a late-night idea crossed her mind: There wasn't much difference between what she did, and what more illicit handlers did, in all honesty.

She thought to some colleagues who'd mentioned dealing drugs throughout their graduate programs to help with tuition, and she'd even slipped them cash a few times on particularly rough nights. What if she could put her expertise to use, and create high-grade, under the counter drugs? After all, it'd be much too hard to peddle lab-grade pharmaceuticals, but things like cannabis? Opioids? A few off-brand prescription replacements? Hell, if she could find people to trust, she didn't even have to make them herself, just provide the recipes and some form of distribution. Thankfully, those colleagues she'd thought of apparently still seemed receptive to the idea, and thus the plan would be set in motion. Cotton Road was launched in January 2013, with development beginning approximately six months prior. It would be operated by Avani, though under the pseudonym Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi. There were two other individuals also closely involved in the site's growth and success, known as Blackadder and Matriarch. The site would remain under the radar until a tabloid publication from New York posted about it on their blog several months after launch. which would lead to an increase in notoriety and website traffic. This would begin to garner the attention of authorities, who would begin investigating but ultimately be unable to obtain information at the time. Their case would build over the years to come, however.

At some point in 2016, Cotton Road was taken down for a short period of time by a sustained DDoS attack. Weeks after the site was recovered and put online back up, it was reported that the DEA seized approximately 110.2 DOSCoin, then worth a total of approximately $11,000 USD, which the media suspected was a result of a Cotton Road honeypot sting. The FBI then claimed that the real IP address of the Cotton Road server was found via data leaked directly from the site's CAPTCHA, and that it was located in Slovenia, though IT security experts doubted these claims due to the technical evidence not suggesting any present misconfiguration that could cause the specific leak at the time.

Avani would continue to operate the site until August 2018.

Due, in part, to off-duty research conducted by several IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agents, Avani would be alleged by the FBI to be the founder and owner of Cotton Road and the person behind the pseudonym "Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi." The agents searched for any mentions of the .ANN address, stating that someone likely may have advertised or suggested the marketplace on clear web services. The first mentions of the site would confirm this theory, leading to a user named "wyvern." Further investigating this alias would lead them to a post about an open position that told interested applicants to contact what was, regrettably, Avani's personal email. She was arrested on August 17th, 2018, in Paterson, New Jersey. During the arrest, the FBI seized Avani's laptop which she was using to connect to the Cotton Road servers and manage the marketplace. She would be indicted on charges of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics, distributing narcots by means of the Internet, and four conspiracy charges related to distribution of narcotics, computer hacking, money laundering, and false identity documents. The FBI would initially seize 62,000 DOSCoin from accounts on the Cotton Road, worth approximately $6.2 million USD at the time. As Avani's trial took place, the FBI would seize a total of 414,000 DOSCoin, worth $41.4 million, and that the DOSCoin belonged to Avani. They would eventually auction the DOSCoin out over several online auctions to liquidate them.

Avani's trial began in January 2019 in the Martin Luther King Building & U.S. Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey. At the start of the trial, Avani admitted to founding the Cotton Road website, but would claim to have transferred control to other people as soon as she founded it. She would offhandedly name Blackadder and Matriarch, and her lawyers would follow by stating that "Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi" was really the same person as Blackadder, real name Emmanuel Patenaude, trying to set Avani up as a fall guy. However, the judge ruled that any speculative statements regarding any alleged transfers of ownership would not be allowed, and thus be stricken from the record.

The trial lasted almost two months, with Avani and her lawyers fighting the prosecution tooth and nail, continuing to insist that she was set up. Unfortunately, the evidence wouldn't align with their claims that she had ever relinquished control of Cotton Road. And so, in February, the jury convicted Avani of seven charges, including charges of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. Due to the sentencing guidelines, Avani was sentenced two life imprisonments to be served concurrently, in addition to forfeiting $183 million USD. She would attempt to appeal the charges just months later, and would be denied. Thankfully, though, this wasn't the end of her career.

On January 21, 2025, Avani received a full pardon from the President of the United States, after just 6 years of incarceration. This move came at the height of overarching changes to sentencing guidelines and the public perception of non-violent drug offenses. While controversial, Avani was included among those pardoned due to a technicality regarding her sentencing. She would promptly move to New York City and sell any remaining assets she still had in New Jersey, hoping to find some solace in being a single face amidst a crowd of millions.

With what she earned from the estate sale, she would buy out a decent apartment and establish herself a fairly normal routine; as normal for someone of her notoriety, that was. She utilized connections made during her administration of Cotton Road to find employment within the pharmaceutical industry, working for a private corporation that often dealt with live drug testing. For the initial period, her work would remain wholly above water. She would find joy working in the industry again after stepping away from it all to pursue her underground passions, though the monotonous routine would soon begin running its course. And just as it did, a coworker let her in on a shared secret amidst the lab technicians—they knew who she was, and they had an opportunity they think she'd like. Reluctantly, she inquired about said opportunity, and learned about a grey-market trading site they humorously named "Lab Monkey." The premise of the site was to sell off pharmaceutical drugs that were still in the testing phase. In turn, they'd find out if anything went wrong in news reports, or directly if clients chose to keep things above board, and they earned a little extra cash on the side. When she questioned how secure it was, they promised it was better than "dear ol' Emmanuel promised," which she didn't find amusing at all. Still, she figured at this point, what else was there to lose?

So, she would become a dealer for Lab Monkey, helping her colleagues slip and ship out samples to buyers across the Deep Web. In turn, her web of connections would grow as some lucrative professionals would offer to buy in, or even sell, pharmaceutical drugs they had mixed in hopes of getting a live audience to make a difference. At least, that's what they always said.