Ok Revan, let me know if this is alright with you. I got a bit carried away with the background so i can cut it back a bit without too much worry if you need me to (It is more for fluff as well as to give you some dirt upon my character than anything!).
Name: Dyanah
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Appearance: Her dark, black-brown hair has grown out from being cut short for so many years till it brushes at her jawline although Dyanah has a habit of confining the unruly curls beneath a russet scarf of very fine material that was a gift from her father. Her eyes are the amber of late summer honey and have a slightly feline shape that is only heightened by Dyanah’s leonine features. Her skin is dusky olive and lean muscle graces her slightly curvy frame. Although she tends to pay little mind to her appearance beyond ensuring that she is clean, there is something of a hint of the exotic to Dyanah’s appearance and soft, husky voice. There is no doubt that she is not originally from the Nordlands.
Height: 5’ 5”
Weight: 125 lbs
Personality: There is a commanding and comforting presence about the young woman, something that animals pick up on right away. Although her voice is a low purr, it is surprisingly strong and steady. Dyanah is sometimes puzzled by the reaction of men around her, being raised as a ‘boy’ for a fair part of her life she finds the notion of her physical affect upon them rather awkward.
Village Job: Vet / Animal Husbandry
Background: The Baroness of Ritterwald, a low-ranking barony in a neighboring kingdom, fell in love with the captain of the Keep's guard, a darkly handsome man named Alistayr DeVyran, and he with her. Alistayr was much respected by the men under his command and known for his courage and steadfast dedication to the safety of the Keep and the barony (more so than the Baron himself). For many years they denied their desires until, after a night of celebration over the destruction of a roving band of beastmen that had been harassing the lands of the barony, the Lady found her way into his arms.
The encounter was only for a single night, for though he could not deny his love for the Lady the shame of betraying his oaths to the Baron (though a vicious and heartless man) ate away at the soul of the honourable Captain. Less than a fortnight later, a call to arms from the high King came to the barony and the Baron answered that call with Alistayr at his side.
However, when the Baron returned home after the drawn out battle that called upon him and his men to serve two and a half years upon a warfront, he found the Baroness had given birth to a baby girl in his absence. It was obvious that single night was all that was needed for the olive skinned, dark-haired, and amber-eyed tottling baby girl looked nothing like the Baron and Baroness' two other children's ash-blonde, blue-eyed, and pale skinned features and everything like the man whom he trusted most.
The Baron flew into a rage that his Captain of the guard would lay with his wife behind his back (even though the Baron himself was noted for his appetite for the town's women and was the father of multiple bastard children), taking up his sword and rushing to confront Alistayr only to find the Captain had been pre-warned by the Baroness and fled with the young girl, named Dyanahthea. The Baron commanded his men to give chase only to find that all of the saddle girths had been cut and the horses turned out and spooked (a job too big for a single man to accomplish although the Baron could never prove any of the Captain’s men aided in his escape).
At dawn of the next morning the Baron had his wife beheaded for adultery, swearing that if Alistayr DeVyran ever set foot back upon the soil of the barony he would be drawn and quartered in the town's square, his head set upon the Keep's highest point for the carrion crows.
No one in the barony ever saw the guard Captain or the little girl again.
A year and a half later, a man with the callouses of a life-long swordsman beseeched work from a farmer upon the village outskirts so that he might feed himself and his four year old 'son', Dy. The farmer, behind on the harvest due to an injury earlier in the season and taken by the honest need of the bedraggled pair even though it was plain to see the two were not from the Nordland region, agreed space in his barn and a single meal of portage and trimmings per day if the man (who called himself simply Alistayr) would help finish the harvest. Alistayr worked tirelessly from dawn till dusk in the fields with the farmer and his older sons, his young ‘son’ helping the farmer’s wife and daughters fed and tend to the animals. The ‘son’ Dy showed the same dedication as his father and an acute knack for handling the animals of the farm.
With Alistayr’s help the farmer was able to complete the harvest just in time and, seeing the opportunity of a dedicated and hardworking farmhand, the farmer offered a steady job and the use of an abandoned cottage upon his lands if Alistayr would fix it up himself. Dy proved ‘his’ worth by helping aid a cow in labour, fearlessly reaching in to turn the calf and save both animals. Alistayr agreed and over the course of the next seven years worked happily and productively in the fields, helping the farmer clear more land and, in turn, using the wood to repair the cottage into a warm and cozy home.
It wasn’t until the summer of their eighth year in Nordland that Dy’s secret was uncovered by the farmer’s wife who found the youngster hiding in the barn between two of the farm’s largest heifers. The youngling was shivering, wrapped in stable blankets from the waist down, and weeping. It only took a few moments for the farmer’s wife, a plump and caring woman, to coax the truth out of the frightened child. The seemingly slight and soft spoken son of Alistayr was, in reality, his daughter… and now a young woman. After seeing to the girl’s distress, the farmer’s wife promptly marched out into the field where Alistayr and her husband were hard at work and unleashed her wrath upon the startled ex-guard Captain.
Although Alistayr, the farmer, and his wife spoke late into the night… nothing of Dyanah’s past was ever revealed to the young woman even after all these years beyond the knowledge that Nordland is not where they are from.
At the age of fourteen, two years after the truth of her gender was revealed, Dyanah began apprenticeship to the local animal doctor; a crotchety Vet named Mervak. When the old man passed away a year ago, Dyanah took his place in tending to the village’s livestock and pets, her seemingly innate knowledge of the creatures coupled by a low, calming voice puts even the most panicked beast at easy in relatively little time.
Weapons: A five inch curved blade of bronze with a horn handle used for a multitude of functions including bloodletting of livestock to skinning small game caught in snares.
Equipment: (Requirements) Small tinder and flint box, rough woolen cloak, bedroll, backpack, and 1 man tent. (Additional) Basic pack of herbs and poultices for animals, bone suture needles and fifteen feet of catgut thread, leather apron with dark stains of blood and other animal fuilds, small leather-bound book with oiled parchment pages containing notes on the husbandry of the village’s animals (these notes are in symbol form taught to her by the old Vet, Dyanah cannot ‘read’ anything beyond those notes), a stoic mule named Guinevere and a week’s worth of oats.
