Ulana, the Steppe Wander

Name: Ulana
Race: Human
Sex: Female
Age: 23

Biography: Ulana hails from a desolate, dry land, far away from the comforts of civilization. She was raised to live on horseback, on few resources. She has a strong disdain for the settled people. Among her people, she is unique for scorning bows and thrown weapons, preferring to fight with long-hafted weapons, like spears and staves. So much is her disdain for these that she was exiled from the steppes when she dared to called the men of her tribe cowards for using ranged weapons. When she was exiled, her tribe took all of her possessions, including her horse and clothing. Against the odds, she survived this effective death-sentence, however, and made her way out of the steppes. The experience toughened her, though it gave her an aversion to nudity. Reaching the civilized lands, she scrapped out for herself a poor existence. There Ulana developed a distaste for shields and magics, in addition to her preexisting aversion to ranged weapons.

Ever since, Ulana has been walking the world, determined to find a place to call home or to make one on the roads. Arriving in Enferia, she hopes to finally make something with her life, perhaps fighting in the Arena or taking on odd work.

Personality: Ulana is a rather abrasive type, to say the least. Poorly mannered to start with, she holds most people in disdain. She is fierce and determined, a deadly fighter with her sovnya (a sort of glaive she picked up on her travels) but effectively hopeless at most trades.

Equipment: Ulana's favored weapon is the sovnya. It is a pole weapon with a single-sided blade on the end. She wears simple, earth-colored clothing. Footwraps and sandals for her feet, tan pants which come to just below her knees, a sleeveless v-neck shirt and a cowl circling her shoulders which she can put over her head. Beneath all of this, one would not find any underwear. That is surely to be a liability in the Arena.

Appearance: Deeply tanned from head to toe, Ulana has taken in more sunlight in her twenty-three years than most will over their entire lives. Standing a few inches taller than average, Ulana has a respectable amount of muscle. She has acquired some small body fat in her time in the cities, but she is still very skinny. This body fat has smoothed out her bodily features, somewhat, and swelled her breasts and buttocks from "small" into "below-average" territory. These features are about as well-shaped as they come. Her face is formed out of hard lines, but not unattractive. Her long, black hair, bound in the back with a knot, complete Ulana's ferocious and uncompromising appearance.

Ulana is most certainly not into the habit of shaving herself. Left naked, she is the picture of an untamed human, ready to spit defiance into the eye of anyone who would tell her what to do.

Stats:
(Rolls: 1, 9, 3, 7, 4, 6, 7,
Strength - 7
Dexterity - 4
Speed - 9
Constitution - 7

Intelligence - 3
Wisdom - 6
Perception - 8
Charisma - 1

Skills:

Evasion: Ulana takes a simple approach to not getting hurt- not getting hit. She is highly practiced at seeing blows coming and stepping out of their way in time. With luck (and maybe some sand kicked into the eyes), her opponent might not even realize where she went.

Polearm Strike: Combining reach and speed, a fast lunge or slash from her glaive can harm an opponent before she comes within the enemy's striking distance.

Deflect and Parry: The most basic and most critical part of fighting with a stick, Ulana has experience with redirecting the energy of a blow safely away from herself and turning it into an opening for a power attack.

((Hi, all. This looks like a fun RP and I look forward to joining it, though I still have a few outstanding questions. How exactly are rolls done for Arena stuff and the likes? What does each number mean (I read through the Galdrina vs Hillevi thread to get an idea for how it worked)? How much control do we have over our characters (I've not done a lot of forum RP, but what I've seen here suggests that during one person's turn to post, that person has considerable leeway in saying what happens to the other person's character)? Was I correct in assuming that you rolled 8 numbers on a d10 and assigned a stat to each? Will my melee fighter be screwed over by a low DEX (I figured that stat might have been for ranged weapons)? And is it too late to barge in on that ongoing prankster thread?))

Hmm, I guess what's important is that lately the leeway per post has varied.  It depends a little on the type of post.  Is it ad adventure?  Is it an arena battle?  The latter gives you more room, probably.  It really depends on the consent between the parties playing at that point.  

In most cases, what you see is a 10-sided dice roll + the stat number.  I personally use the dice roller here:  https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm

I think this character looks cool.  I'll read it more carefully when I have a bit more time; it's been a long day for me.

It's fun to have some low stats. I tend to have clumsy characters, because I find tripping over ones own feet adorable sometimes. You'll probably use the logical stat for the attack. Int to cast a spell, Str for most melle weapons, Dex for ranged, but you might also make a Dex roll to avoid something exploding near you, a constitution roll to not pass out from knockout gas, etc.

Alright, thanks for the info.

Oh, I should have added some feats, shouldn't have I? Well, that will have to come sooner rather than later. As soon as I think of some good stuff.

Am I right to think "Mongolian"? I was thinking of starting to make an image of the character based off of this one that I have made. Some changes would need to be made.

Especially as this one is a horse-archer. But getting it to read cultural "Mongolian" was some serious work. I had to use clothing items from many different cultures and modify them a bit.

The face is just about spot-on (aside from the hair, anyway), and Mongolian/Central Asian was more or less what I thought of for her.

Anyway, her equipment doesn't have to be culturally Mongolian, which I imagine could make things easier.

It will help that she doesn't need Mongolian gear.  The polearm will maybe not be 100% perfect, but some kind of halberd-thing.  I hope I have a good hairstyle to use for her.  Not sure yet.  Skinny but with small body fat, I'm reading as hips/booty and maybe a little belly?

Looks fun. You should totally get her in a match.

A simple ponytail is what I was thinking of. As for the polearm, a halberd will be more than fine. Though I'll add that she doesn't have much body fat, I just wanted to get the point across that she wasn't emaciated. She has a flat belly.

Thanks for doing this.

How's this? The weapon is closer than a halberd. Not 100%, but maybe 75% closer.

Weapon is perfect, thank you. And maybe the tunic is being misleading (not be a form-fitting garment, after all), but this picture does make her look less skinny than I had imagined her. Again, that might just be because of the tunic.

Thanks again, by the way. It's really cool that you'd do this. I look forward to putting her in the arena.

The tunic adds some weight, as does the belt. You'll see when she starts losing.