*waves* Hello!
Name: Svana Izar
Age: 22
Race: Human, with distant dragoon relatives.
Gender: Lady
Diamond Color: Gold
Appearance:
Svana is a woman of medium height at 5'6", with long, curly brown hair and dark eyes. Although her dragoon blood is distant, the lady has ivory ram horns just above her ears, as well as fingers that end in claws and a thin, black tail that reaches past her feet. Her skin is smoother than the average human's, perhaps due to the presence of small, iridescent scales that are difficult to notice at first glance. Thick scars coat her neck, though she is careful to keep them covered with a scarf to avoid Roth's distaste for imperfection. Thin golden chains around her wrists and ankles also mark Svana as a member of the royal harem.
Weapon(s): With a place in Roth's household but outside of his guard, there are few opportunities for Svana to obtain any manner of weaponry. However, she is familiar with the quarterstaff, and is strong and clever enough to manage most other weapons.
Personality: Life in Roth's harem has turned what was once a happy, spirited girl into a careful, mistrustful woman. Given the constant abuse of living in the castle, Svana is slow to warm up to new people, but can recognize genuine kindness when -or more accurately,
if- she sees it. She tends to make snap judgments based on first impressions, and takes some convincing to deviate from said judgments; and since misjudging a person in Roth's household can have disastrous consequences, Svana is usually correct in her assumptions. She has a critical eye, an occasional stubborn streak, and of course the hard and bitter heart of a woman who is punished for every show of weakness.
If by some miracle one is able to grow close to Svana, they will see a gentler side of her that expresses itself in small but meaningful ways; a kind glance, a soft touch- oddities that have not yet been beaten out of her in the harem. She is always willing to listen to her adopted sisters' problems, and is trusted with their secrets- partially because she is physically forced to keep them, and partially because of her quiet, understanding nature. She has a soft spot for the abused, the downtrodden, and the abandoned, because, just like herself, she knows they all have the desire for a better but unlikely future.
Skills:
Body language: Although she has no voice, Svana has learned how to communicate via body language, and consequently can understand others' feelings and intentions after even a quick glance.
Lightness-of-feet: Since her introduction to the harem, Svana has learned how to move very quickly and quietly; it is in her best interest to remain unnoticed as often as possible.
Trades: Svana was raised in the presence of several trades: her mother taught her how to dye cloth, her father taught her farming, and her brothers taught her the basics of small metalworking (jewelry, etc) and weaponry.
Intelligence: The hybrid is quick to pick up on new ideas and concepts.
Strength: With some dragoon blood in her, Svana has enhanced human strength (although nowhere near the strength of a full-blooded dragoon).
Magic: After obtaining her diamond, Svana has found that she is able to be not only quiet but completely
silent. Her footsteps make no noise, and she can traverse the castle halls completely unnoticed. Other than this, however, the lady has not discovered any other special abilities.
History: As the years passed and the Lord Tyrant tightened his grip on Rothendust, the Izar family farm began to struggle more and more under the weight of poor, cramped living conditions. Svana's older brothers, Atticus, Tymund, and Rhoshe, were each born into dark poverty, each trained in a dying trade (for newer, magical, and more efficient means of farming were being developed every year), and each imparted with the unspoken understanding that life would never be fair to them. When Svana was born, roughly 25 years into the reign of Roth, Tymund and Rhoshe had given up farming to learn more profitable trades, while Atticus and her parents struggled to keep the family farm afloat.
Like many children growing up in the slums of Rothendust, Svana's childhood was short, sad, and dirty, though she never regarded it as such. She learned how to tend thin livestock, grow shriveled vegetables, and patch holes in her own threadbare clothing; and, in secret, practiced fighting techniques with Tymund and small metal craftmanship with Rhoshe. Her grandmother taught her how to read and write, and her mother showed her how to dye cloth using weeds around the city. For Svana, life was still full of possibilities; but her father Zhohan had become bitter and hard, having been given a glimpse of true happiness some 40 years ago, before Roth had ever shown his face where it did not belong.
In response to farmers' increasing resistance, Roth raised the taxes on meat and produce grown by local farmers, as his own household resources were unaffected (being supplied with little effort by magic). One by one, the local farms failed until only a handful were left; met by continued resistance, Roth then ordered the remaining farms offer one child in service to his Lord Tyrant's household to ensure the farmers' compliance. Outraged, the farmers staged a feeble coup, supported by a few tradesmen who had had enough with Roth's insatiable desire for control.
Well after midnight on the third day of the coup, Svana woke with a loud BANG BANG; three large dragoon soldiers had knocked down the thin front door and were dragging her father outside, while Atticus shouted and her mother shrieked senselessly. Without thinking, Svana leaped on the muscular arm gripping her father's dirty nightshirt, using her full strength to try and hold it back. With one slash of a claw, however, the 15-year old was laying face-up on the ground, blood pooling in several newly-made cavities on her neck. The terrified face of her mother was the last thing Svana remembered before waking in Roth's castle, surrounded by cold walls and cold hearts.
Svana never learned of her family's fate, though, to be fair, she rarely had the energy to fully contemplate her own. Once her throat wound had healed, leaving her without a intelligible voice, she was taken into Lord Roth's harem in service to the Lord Tyrant (and as an added spite to her grieving family). She entered the harem as a lower-level servant, and was taught by the other women how to survive living in Roth's estate. In her free time, Svana wandered the castle and made connections with other servants while she still had some measure of innocence. Life wasn't terrible for members of the harem; they were pampered more than other members of the household, and had the freedom to go where they pleased provided they informed the guard where they were going. At age 18, however, Svana was made a
gedik, or adult member of the harem, and quickly began to lose all hope for the future. She learned how to adapt and survive, of course, but once those cruel hands had touched her for the first time Svana was never the same. The lady fell deep into depression, though her muteness and curly ram horns made her one of the Lord Tyrant's favorite women.
After seven long years, word of her grandmother's death permeated the cruel castle walls, and Svana made a brief, undocumented escape to see her mother. Although she did not end up finding her mother (the old farm had been long since abandoned and repopulated), Svana DID find something unexpected: a stranger, a diamond, and a chance for change.
I have read the rules and understand them.
