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Vindicta
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Name: Thora Thorvaldardóttir
Gender: Female
Age: 36
Race: 2/3rds wood elf, 1/3rd human
Ethnicity: vague (considering mixed-species)
Appearance:
While she's mostly elven, there is enough about her that doesn't quite fit with elves, making the average elf scorn her somewhat. Not enough for them to make it out at a great distance, but enough to make her stick out in a crowd of pure wood elves. To any elf that sees her up close, she is clearly not pure-blooded, her facial angles not sharp enough, her ears too short, her body too thickly muscled, but she is more elf than anything else. She is also taller than the average elf, but not as tall as humans are (She's 157.2 cm tall). Because of her very mixed ancestry (just try to do the math to get 2/3rds breed for yourself. It takes a lot of generations),her hair is considerably darker than is usual for wood elves, at the balance point between brown and black. Her eyes are a green-tinged brown.
Her hair reaches well down her back, but despite it having proven inconvenient at more than one time, nothing has yet convinced her to cut it shorter. Combined with her woodsy clothes and darker-than-human skin, she can easily hide in any available forest, be it vast or merely an isolated grove.
While young compared to most elves, her mixed ancestry also comes into play here. At thirty-six years she'd hardly be more than a child if pure elf, yet she is physically around twenty had she been human. Mixed as she is, she's likely to stay there for a long time.
Bio:
Born to a family whose ancestors had lived on the edges between human and elven domains for uncounted generations, her mixed ancestry was not something anyone there thought odd. In fact, few there were truly pure anything. For the first eleven years of her life, Thora was raised as any other member of the border folk. Considering that peace was not exactly the norm in the world, especially not at the edges between human and wood elven realms, that meant that she received training both for survival alone and for combat. She never did manage to gain any real skill with the sword like the more human of her relations wanted, favoring instead the long knife and bow. She had just started training in the arts of using fire magics.
Mere weeks after her eleventh birthday (or twelfth, fifteenth or fourteenth), those skills meant the difference between life and death for her. Nobody is sure who struck first, the humans or the elves, but war broke out. The border shattered and her entire family was executed. Thora herself only escaped because she and her father, Thorvald Hálfdanarson, were out in the forest at the time of the strike. He told her to run while he went back for her mother. When she next saw him, it was as a head impaled upon a steel-tipped spear, a carrion bird tearing out his eye. The sight was not the sort any child should ever have to see, but see it she did. Not unexpectedly, she ran. Deep into the forest she ran, far from the place that she had called home.
Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was destiny, but she managed to survive and get out of the war zone. Her path must have taken her right past camps of army regiments, both human and elven, not to mention countless brigand camps. Her fright at the memory of her father's severed head drove her to avoid all contact with other people for a long time. Because she did not know exactly where her home had been, the exact time she spent alone in the forests is uncertain. It might have been a few months, but it could also have been as much as two years. Eventually she found her way out into the Nightwood, where the enigmatic fellow known as Brand discovered her and somehow convinced her to come out. He eventually adopted her like he had many other children orphaned by this or that war, and raised her as if she were his own daughter.
While the image of her father is burned into her memory for all time, she can no longer truly say she remembers her mother beyond a few vague impressions. Brand finished teaching her those skills she had started learning in her home, all except for the fire magics, as he did not have any magical aptitude and there were none others there at the time who could teach her to control it. By the time she did encounter anyone capable of teaching her, she had decided she did not want to learn it, despite the fact that she had no real control over it all.
Once she had learned all she could from Brand of Nightwood she left, heading out into the world. Partially to earn enough to live, and partially to seek the truth about why her father got killed. The grain of ruthlessness at her core, which shows itself occasionally, hints at just the sort of thing she plans to do with the ones responsible.
Psychological Profile:Loyal. If someone's gained her loyalty, be it through common cause, money or some other way, she will not betray them easily.
Distrustful. Thora does not give away her trust easily, preferring to keep at a distance from everything, especially crowds.
Vengeful. She seeks ever to avenge her father, a task that is likely to take most of her life considering that she does not know the name of her village of birth or its location, let alone who was responsible for its destruction.
Ruthlessly honorable. She has a strange sense of honor. She won't participate in, or even condone, the slaughter of innocents. However if she is convinced they are somehow guilty enough, she will not let them get away with the crime, whatever it is.
Not entirely sane. The brutal events around the time she got orphaned unhinged a small part of her mind. It doesn't pop up often, but it is always there at the bottom of her mind.
Fish. She will not eat fish, no matter how it is prepared. She will eat pretty much anything else, including raw meat, but under no circumstances will she eat fish.
Skills: Hunting. She is an accomplished hunter and tracker, capable of hunting and tracking both humans and animals.
Mixed fighting. While she prefers the bow, she has no problems using anything and everything at hand to fight. Arms, feet, knife, piece of wood. She doesn't enjoy using swords, but she can if that is what is at hand.
Uncontrolled fire-magic. She has aptitude for using fire-magic, but she does not have any real control over it. Things, especially arrows launched from her bow, tend to occasionally catch fire without warning. Sometimes they simply burn up or sear the target, other times the arrow turns into a fireball. Its not exactly predictable.
Archery. She is an accomplished archer, able to hit targets at considerable distance (skill/aptitude inherited from elven ancestors, strength from human)
Subterfuge. She can hide well in the wilds. Not so well in cities/villages.
More might be added later as they're figured out, but the above are core skills.
Equipment: Clothes. Woodsy colors, made to last and serve well in forests.
Water-resistant cloak with hood. Also colored to blend well into nature.
Bow with quiver of arrows. Heavy draw compared to her height, but perfectly suited for her. Arrows are well-made but not perfect. No clear pattern to their makes.
Sleeping blankets. no more needs be said about these.
Travel rations. Enough to last if hunting is unsuccessful, but not that much.
Two water skins. Unremarkable.
Coinage. enough to get by, but not all that much.
Knife. Sheathed at her belt.
Trinkets. Odds and ends. A few of these are also carried, but its a bit vague exactly what they are.
Heward's handy haversack. Size of a normal backpack, constant weight of 2.5 kg. Single main portion capable of holding up to 80 liters or 50 kg as well as two side pouches capable of holding 20 L or 15 kg each. Any item put in is located at the top when needed, hence the "handy" in the name. (converted and somewhat shrunk from non-metric version.)
Companions/Familiars:Thora is rather fond of wolves and will often associate with them, but she has no permanent companion. She hates cats and fish.
Relationships and Acquaintances: We're open for suggestions.
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