Ridahne Torzinei, from Shades of War, a roleplay on RPG

Ridahne is a woman in her early twenties. She has a tall, slim frame, standing just under six feet. Her skin is a dark tan (think pacific islander) and her hair is a mane of ebony-black waves that come down to her shoulders. Eyes are an amber brown.

One of her most notable features is the tangle of blue, black, and white tattoos on the right side of her face. To her people, it's called an Ojih (oh-juh) and it is like a small mural that tells a shortened story of her life. Azurei are adept at reading them, but few outsiders know much about them aside from the fact that each one is intensely personal and very important to their culture.

In her right ear, she has a large bone earring (like a gauged earring) with a scrimshawed crest on the largest part of it. Every Azurei has something like it, but the shape, color, material, style, and crest varies. It is known to outsiders that these earrings, always worn on the right side where the first line of the Ojih begins, is to denote region, tribe, and family.

Ridahne has other jewelry as well, particularly in her ears and some small bone beads in her hair, but they have no significance.

She always carries a leather bandolier of pockets where she keeps the majority of the small trinkets she carries with her. The back doubles as a strap for a removable quiver.

Personality

Ridahne is a jovial woman who loves to meet new people and try new things. She has spent a good portion of her life traveling, as her family is from generations of sailors and merchants. She has a wide knowledge of the wilderness, particularly the desert land from where she hails.

But she is fierce. Azurei is dominated by a warrior culture in which females are the head of households and tribes. She is not used to being completely submissive and refuses to be looked down upon in other cultures for being a woman. She does not like being ordered around by people she doesn't respect (who does?) but is fiercely loyal to those who earn her respect. In a fight, particularly hand-to-hand weaponless combat, she is superb--tussles and grappling is an Azurei childhood staple pastime. In actual combat, she prefers a bow or a knife.

Azurei are known to be rough around the edges and Ridahne is no exception.

Equipment

A small throwing knife, kept in the underside of her bandolier
A bandolier
A hunting knife
Bow and arrows (with blue and white fletching, of course)
General survival stuff....she lives on the road for the most part

She carries little containers of ink and a tattooing pen for her Ojih.

History

Ridahne is one of the few Azurei to be born of mixed heritage. Her father, Ra'hatal Torzinei traveled far and wide due to his profession as a merchant. On his travels, he met a woman, Kyyri (kee-ree) Tenenaas from the green nation, Ni'kali. They married. To marry outside of Azurei bloodlines is a vicious taboo that effectively excommunicates the couple and their descendants. This mortal sin is displayed on the Ojih.

The Torzinei family was allowed to live within the borders of Azurei among Ra'hatal's home tribe, provided that they answer the call to war when it came to the Heartlands (their region) and that they would be sent to the front lines where they would most likely die. Instead of honoring this, they decided to bolt and Ridahne came with them. Her choice to accompany them (as opposed to going to war as one of the matriarch's squires) branded her with the same shame of desertion.

Ridahne returns home on rare occasions but she is not welcomed. If you ask, she will tell you she is Azureian. She identifies with that side of her more than her Ni'kalian half, and if you can't read her Ojih, no distinction could be made between her and a full blooded Azurei.