'''Name:''' Hau Nen Shi Hacks
'''Age:''' 38 (born Bethas 27th, 2674)
'''Race:''' wick
'''Place of Origin:''' Hox, then Laughing Sky

!!!Backstory

Shi, as she likes to be called (last given name being the usage one in her old-fashioned family), has been raised as an Hoxian galdor by her galdori grandmother. Her grandmother had fled her Desstekan family after falling in love with a passive. Note that Hoxians aren't much more tolerant of their passives than Anaxi, the luckiest ones being held hidden and treated as slaves or outcast servants, and the unlucky ones simply considered as humans in galdori bodies, and sent out to live with the humans, where their origins are sure to make them very unwelcome.

The couple and their daughter settled for an isolated life on the foot of the Spondola mountains, near the border to Mugroba, and maintained a living by the grandmother becoming a healer for wick tribes that stopped in the area. Contrary to the family beliefs, passives are not bound to have magically weak offspring and, at the age of 16, Shi's mother decided to abandon her outcast parents to apply to Brunnhold and live a real galdori life. But before, she let her desert heat and a handsome male wick flashiness turn her head, slipped from her galdori manners, and conceived Shi.

Shi was raised and home-schooled by her grandmother, thus following her family traditions. As the head of family she would never become, she had to not only learn the spell book, but also proper etiquette, and martial arts. Her grandfather died young, weakened by wounds self-inflicted by his diablerie during his youth and the feud he had provoked. She never really knew him.

At the age of 16, once again unwittingly following family traditions, she started looking for teachings away from home. But a witch would not be allowed in Brunnhold, and she had to find her place in the world. She first learned independence by joining her father's small desert family, but had higher goals, like travelling and learning more about the mythical Shotha monks and their language. Maybe she could find a way to ask the mona for the magical abilities her genetics refused her?

But during the tribe's travels, and a stop in Thul Ka, she met Noli Ol'Inalo, a young, optimistic, and open-minded human brewer apprentice. They dated on and off during several years of a tumultuous relationship, where she would at the same time be attracted and refuse this attraction because it conflicted with her ambitious scholarly goals. Eventually, after burying her grand-mother, the young witch decided to follow her example and her heart, and abandoned her pursuit of knowledge and power for a simple barmaid and brewer assistant life.

The couple settled in the Laughing Sky tribe, that Shi had met during one of her trips to Anaxas to try to get allowed a peek in a galdori library. The only place, in her opinion, where the odd couple between a human and a galdori-looking witch could feel at ease. The patchwork tribe where they could be proud of their differences, instead of having to try to blend in. They turned their carts into a mobile tavern and ale brewery, and soon added a girl named Neti to the family, often jokingly referring to her as Neti Onalo-ti-hacks for her parents family traditions of long complicated names. Their life was quite happy and uneventful, as much as a spoke's life can be, until Neti reached 16.

Despite Shi willingness to embrace spoke's culture and forget about her past ambitions, and Neti looking more human, the adolescent girl dreamed of more. She, too, like her mother before, planned on leaving home to learn more, and find a better place for herself in Anaxas. Shi was horrified by such plans, having learned in her travels how dangerous this world could be to a young witch. But Neti was as stubborn as her mother and slipped away, sadly only to die in Vienda when she found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the news of the death, Noli lost the joy and optimism that had made him so attractive to his wife, and began increasingly avoiding a moody Shi to find solace in the arms of a younger witch. And Shi found herself losing both her reasons to live the simple life she had. She decided that at the end of the festival, she'd drift out of the tribe.

!!!Personality

Shi feels like the last 18 years have been a dream, happened to someone else. She is back at being the well-raised Hoxian girl looking for her place in the world. As that, she is a well-mannered, distant but smart and curious woman.

She is quite sensitive, and would not harm someone willingly, but can be mean if needed, especially since Ti's death re-awakened her cynical and pessimistic tendencies. She is well versed in deadly martial arts, but these were traditionally taught in her family to teach self-control, not to encourage girls to seek trouble. Adhering to that, Shi prefers to avoid fights, and the only real-life use she put them to in the last 18 years was subduing the occasional drunken patron.

In addition to her love of learning and knowledge, she has kept from her adulthood a love of open-minded company and good tales, and has learned to enjoy everyday little pleasures to keep herself from her inner darkness. When in trusted friendly company, she can forget her good manners and use the tales and songs she has learnt in her tavern-keeper witch days. When alone and not feeling fit for meditation or practice, she likes to support it by drawing or painting, usually imaginary landscapes or abstract constructs inspired by monite characters. She usually burns her drawings after, and has even taken to building them off dust and sand instead of ink and paper.

!!!Physical Description

Shi has taken a lot from her mother's side, and looks a lot like a Hoxian galdor, with her small size, slightly reddish black hair, and round face with green slanted eyes above a small, but still slightly pointy, nose. Besides her sometime colourful clothing and weaker field, the only think that might alert an observer of her being a wick are the freckles that have grown on her fair yellowish complexion for spending too much time in the sun.

She's still quite slim, but her small breasts have grown a bit heavier thanks to motherhood and liking good ales. She has paid for it with stretches marks and slack skin around her navel, that she doesn't display anymore, and slightly rounder hips than would be fashionable with her small size. Not a dream silhouette, but some patrons still seemed to think that this, or the wrinkles appearing on the corner of her eyes, did not distract from the way those eyes lit or the pretty dimples that appeared when she smiled. And that even before they tasted the beer.

Shi's aware that flowing skirts, hiding the extra inches around her hips, are better for her silhouette. But she finds herself more comfortable in pants-and-tunic outfits, whether the black or white, modest but tight-fitting, clothes she inherited from her grand-mother, or the more flowing and colourful ones she wore as a witch. She is not fond of the time needed to tend for common witches exuberant hairstyles, and usually keeps her waist-long straight hair in a long simple braid, or tucked under a turban.

!!!Inventory

''Weapons''
*Ancient Hoxian one-edged two-handed sword + scabbard
*Ancient Hoxian long knife + scabbard
*Staff (long walking staff of her size)
*Short bow + 6 wooden arrows, 3 blunt and 3 sharpened.

''Stuff''
*Backpack
*Stones and oil for blade maintenance
*String, thread, and needles.
*Soap
*Mirror
*Flask
*Pan, plate, fork and small knife
*Small salt pouch, small spices pouch
*Small flask of home-made sleeper's lemon berries liquor
*Hacks grimoire (heavy ancient tome bound in Bambusi leather, handpainted in Monite and Deftung)
*Spoke's magic notebook (as handwritten by Shi herself in Monite and Estuan. Includes notes on deep Tek)
*Kahirasheba book (Mugrobi)
*Panther Queen book (Mugrobi poetry based on the tale)
*Pen, paintbrush, inkbloc, charcoal, and paper

''Clothes''
*Tight silken white pants and long-sleeved black tunic
*Tight silken white pants and long-sleeved white tunic
*Puffed-out yellow pants and flowing sleeveless red tunic
*Straight wide purple pants and straight large long-sleeved burgundy tunic
*Indigo blue dress
*Black hooded cloak
*Burgundy, Indigo, and white turbans, also usable as belts
*Wide leather belt
*Miscellaneous accessories including socks, handkerchiefs, stays, pins, and ribbons
*Sturdy walking boots

!!!Career

''Hacks daughter''
*Etiquette,
*Deftung,
*Monite,
*Galdori magic (first level spells, only push/pull, Living, and Static have been practiced young enough or often enough to be remembered without written support),
*Martial arts: unarmed (grappling, vital points control, and projections), staff, knife, sword (including quick-draw), long bow, meditation (including blind fighting).

''Desert runner / Laughing Sky tavern-keeper''
*Tek (mostly as a slang, can understand deeper Tek or slow sign language, but not speak it beyond the most common signs),
*Mugrobi (of the most domestic and less poetic type, though she generally can guess the meaning of a written text of the later),
*Desert lore and survival,
*Kenser care,
*Short (hunting) bow, plus some archery
*Spoke's magic (first level spells, only those listed here have been used often enough to be remembered without written support: lamp, matches, balance, shroud, purify, lift),
*Tricks: dodging,
*Cooking,
*Brewing and tasting,
*Tales weaving, and a bit of simple singing.

!!!Goals

Shi's main problem is that she has no clear goal. Her first goal would be to find one!

Short terms plans would be:
*Finding a way to leave her kint peacefully. (Somewhere inside, she knows it's not fair to blame Noli the way she currently does, or to think she's the only one grieving, even if she does not realize it now).
*Finding access to some galdori library, or some help to start some research on the nature of mona and possible enhancements of wick's magic. (Word of mouth has been that the new headmaster is more liberal than the average galdor – Brunnhold would be worth a try, even if it's doubtful that this liberalism extends to letting a witch inside the library)

((Now, a small OOC word about the sheet: I choose Hox as an origin because its culture seemed to fit better with the kind of character I had in mind. But there are not that many information about Hox on the wiki, so I've invented things.
It should be easy to downgrade some of them to mere family quirks if they don't fit with your ideas on Hox, or upgrade some family traditions to Hoxian traditions if you think they'd fit well. Just tell me so I can make the modifications – and because my character should know too, of course!
Hope the rich past I've invented for her isn't too akin to god-modding too…))

Hey there Welcome to Thorns!

I read your OOC note first, so I'm taking that into account as I read this over. Small assumptions are generally ok; I don't have time to fully flesh out all the cultures, so I rely on players somewhat to offer ideas that can be assimilated into the game.

Firstly, could you change all plural, possessive and adjectival instances of "galdor" (such as "galdor grandmother" and "galdor's library") to "galdori" please? The single "galdor" is only used when refering to a person, galdori is used in almost every other instance.

Her name is a little confusing.. "(last given name being the usage one in Hox)" I'm not sure what you mean by that. Shi could just be a nickname, but why would she prefer to call herself Ji? A nickname of a nickname?

"Noti Onalo-ti-hacks" - I'm also a bit confused by this name, I have to admit. Last name mash-ups are really uncommon in this world, and this one is just baffling. But it could pass as just a weird quirk.

"Despite Ji willingness to embrace spoke's culture and forget about her past, and Ti being closer to the human side, the young girl dreamed of more, and planned on leaving home to find her place in Anaxas. And she finally did slip away, but only to die in Vienda, when she found herself at the wrong time in the wrong place."

I am soooo confused by this paragraph, specifically who died and why the culture thing was relevant. If you could clarify this I'd appreciate it.

As for character goals, I understand if your character is a little wanderlusty right now. Not all characters have real goals. But it is going to make gameplay difficult for you if you don't know where she's headed, so even if you don't add any to the sheet, it would be a good idea to plan ahead a little

If you could run through this and edit a bit for me, I'd appreciate it! Thanks.

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to answer them step by step.

I've changed most of the "galdor" into "galdori". Dze, I thought I had understood the wiki…

For the name, I was imagining Deftung as a mono-syllabic language. I did not detail that to try to limit the backstory length. So, Haunenshi's full name, for a traditionalist Hoxian, would be Hacks Hau Nen Shi, and her grand-mother would have simply called her Shi. Which most spokes would have deformed as Ji.
I've edited the sheet to try to clarify that:



"Noti Onalo-ti-hacks" was indeed intended as a quirk, a jab at her parents complicated history and Mulgrobi love of long poetic names. Actually, most of the time, Shi would have called her Ti. I've added a sentence to clarify that. (and changed the given name to Neti. Noti was too close to Noli, might have been confusing)


I've reworked the confusing paragraph. Hope it makes sense now:


Thanks for the remark about the goals. I've already made the mistake in another RPG, so I've got short-term plans cooking, don't worry. I've added two of them to the sheet:

"*Finding a way to leave her kint peacefully." I've planned to handle most of that through LIT threads, a kind of introduction, as I don't want to burden you with playing Noli or Maxine just for me. But maybe I'll find some other wick PC at the festival to punch some self-pity out of Shi.
"*Finding access to some galdori library" Brunnhold might be worth a try… And if it cannot work, trying will give me time to cook some other plans, or opportunities for PC interaction.

Feel free to delete them, as they're bound to be outdated quite quickly. I don't know how you usually manage that.

Thanks again!

Deftung isn't monosyllabic, but the multiple names could fit in with a very old-fashioned tradition. But even then they didn't put the last name first (the "x" sound indicates the end of phrases or names, and most last names in Deftung end in x, kx, ks, or cks, which are distinct sounds in the language).

Wicks wouldn't have spelled her name differently. "j" in Tek is pronounced a bit like "jch". If her name had been Ji originally, they would have pronounced it "jchi", but they wouldn't change the spelling for a sh- sound or even a a ch-sound.

Could you go ahead and change that in the sheet? I can change your username to Hau Nen Shi Hacks, to avoid further confusion.

Also, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. It's exam week for me.

I've read that, don't worry (break a leg!)

Back to the sheet, let's summarize that naming thing:
Shi is now never called Ji, because the difference is clear to wicks' ears, and the multiple mono-syllabic names, with the last one being the usage one, is an ancient tradition kept in her old-fashioned family but has nothing to do with Deftung.

I edit that immediately. For the username, no need to change, it's not like other people than old-fashioned Hoxian would know how to write Shi's name properly anyway

Okay! then you're approved, go have fun thanks for being patient.

Thanks!
*Goes bumping into Christoffe...*

(Edit done BTW. You might want to update the wiki page)