Hunter’s Name:
Age: 25
Appearance: She likes to wear minimal protective clothing, as armor will only hinder her both in swiftness and in sense: her two important assets. Any more than her pauldrons and greaves could prove to be noisy.
Weapon of choice: Bow and Arrow
Armor of choice: Pauldrons, Greaves and Chestplate. Everything else is leather or cotton
Strengths/Abilities:
1.)Tracking: Can use the environment to find runaways, or locate monsters (tree bark scratches, pieces of cloth, blood trail.) Without sight, she more heavily relies on her other heightened senses. Mostly her hearing. She cannot see a sword coming at her, but the twang from its sheath could easily give it away. She can also somewhat distinguish smells, although regular human capacity would still call it sub-par to tracking dogs.
2.)Hunter's Training: She has extensive experience as a hunter/tracker. Since sensing the environment for giveaways and clues often relied on hearing sounds and examining clues left behind (touching, smelling, tasting), she can still completely apply her training. Part of this training is to live off the land, so she can not only hunt monsters but also scour for food and water.
3.)Trapping: As a disabled hunter, she relies on traps and the like more heavily. Her tactics rely on disabling the other's senses to give her the advantage. She is known to hunt her targets at night.
4.)Nerves: Part of being a tracker is to calm oneself. She exhibits steel senses, both in action and patience. If she could, she would wait for her target to come to her, or fall into her traps. Suffice to say: Silica is not meant for a fair one-to-one, although she could hold her own if needed.
Weaknesses/Hindrances:
1.) Blindness: She cannot see. This in itself is already a major disability, and she tries to make up for it with her other senses. Due to a hunting accident in the past, she has lost her eyesight permanently. The condition of her eyes, defined as a "cold, glassy stare" had earned her the moniker of "Silica"
2.) Frailty: Silica is.. a woman. Despite her senses and wit, her physique is not much to behold. In a fight for strength, she will almost always lose-- however a woman aiming a bow at your chest is still something to fear.
3.) Endurance: Her stamina allows for quick bursts of energy, more so if it's a long walk-- but don't expect her to run a mile and a half continuously.
4.) Swordplay: She is meant for a bow, not a sword. Silica fights with a dagger up close; her frame does not allow her to wield anything bigger than a short sword.
Personality:
History: Silica was not born blind. She hails from a family of hunters. Her father, and mentor, decided that his life would not permit to wait out Silica's hunter training. Where their line of hunters traditionally is raised at age 15, she instead started at 10. Due to this, she was trained to track and hunt instead of the formal bow training first-- she would have to learn that at 15 like all the other hunters in their line.
By age 15, she had been an adept trapsman and tracker, easily outperforming even some professionals. Children learn quickly, and master even quicker. The knots and mechanisms of a proper snare was like a language to her, fluently written by her hands and exclaimed by the creatures that she captures. Her skill would only improve through the years.
Her favourite snare was of her own invention: Fowler, she would call it. The trap was meant to immobilize creatures by spraying them with hogweed essence, an irritant that would render the skin to feel burning. Mostly, her targets would be sprayed at the side, making them itch at first. (The motion made them look like a chicken flapping its wings, which is why the trap is called fowler) She also keeps a remedy with her to 'cure' the irritant before it completely burns through the skin. Silica never used this trap without being nearby-- as the consequences would be dire.
After learning to trap, she then starts her training as a bowman, now having the baseline build for a short hunting bow. Five years later, she 'graduates' as a hunter, tuned to a bow, and even more mastered at tracking/ trapping.
At 20, and on her thirteenth hunt, she was tasked to locate a runaway prisoner. Silica did not intend to hurt the prisoner at all. Her task was to track and bring him to custody, so that's what she aimed to do. However, a scuffle ensues as she was tying the man for round up, having her fall into one of her traps. It would have been safe, if it hadn't been for her falling face first into a fowler trap. She scrambled to get the remedy and quickly have the irritant off her-- but the damage has been done.
She opens her eyes and sees nothing. She tried putting the remedy directly into her sockets-- still nothing. It was then she realized just how catastrophic this trap may be. It was humiliating to fall for one's one trap, but it's completely different to be permanently disabled by it. Silica became an object of ire for some time.
Her skin would heal from the burns, but her eyesight never came back. It took her another three years to regain a fraction of the prowess she had attained as a fully-capable tracker, and another two years to hone the skills unhindered by her disability.
Now, she's ready to face the world again-- as a full-merit hunter.
