Well, what I was thinking is mercenary, that she is of common birth but was able to find someone actually willing to train her at a younger age, my idea was from the leader of her town's local militia. Then later on fell into a mercenary company where I imagine depending on the commander of said company there would... hmm fewer issues due to her sex. Now, by the present time in the RP she would've actually left that company and would be doing something else, so that's why I said this character concept is weird.
I see. I guess my best answer for right now is to write up a reasonable CS and we'll see how it goes from there.
Also since I'm talking about this anyway the other idea I had is someone who's not even remotely a soldier, actually like the idea of a traveling peddler but with something more than just that, again still trying not to say too much here.
I whole heartily support the idea of these kinds of supporting/reoccurring characters.
If you really want my full judgement, just shoot me a PM with all the details you can manage.
One last thing I'm wondering now is how important is magic to warfare anyway? Is it absolutely required to have some magic to at least not die in an actual battle?
Magic at this point is basically artillery in its most common form and other supporting elements like weather manipulation and terrain adjustments. Of course, there's also the healing arts which provide a good alternative to otherwise unsafe medieval medicine.
Holy orders will also often bless their own units with stuff like magic/spirt armor to improve survivablity although it rarely makes one immune to damage.
This is going to be the final post of the night from me as its about midnight where I am and I can feel my thought processors failig right now >_>