Name: Nasa (Naa-sha) Moon-Walker, medicine woman
Age: 63 (young adult)
Appearance: This short elvish lady makes you think of a clever fox. She has hooded gray eyes that are like two pools of mercury. Her thick, straight, auburn hair is braided, and can be tucked up inside her cap. She has a slender build. Her skin is tanned, with a gray dot of ash on her forehead. On her right shoulder tattooed in ancient elvish runes is "Nasa" over the head of a northern sable. She has pointed ears, as yet unadorned.
A small silver pendent of the face of Sehanine, the moon goddess, is hidden inside her tunic.
She wears an embroidered burgundy (fading to plum) linen tunic decorated with the phases of the moon on the back, with an amber sun over her heart and other decorative work. Over this, she wears a hide shirt and trousers, each decorated with a wide stripe of red carnelian beads edged with white quartz embroidered down the sleeves and legs, as well as around the collar of her tunic. A beaded belt is tied around her waist, securing her kukri knife.
Hanging from a carved Sable head bead tied to its braided hair tucked under the belt is the rude, shrunken head of Vlaplixs, a soul-bonded goblin who was killed during a raid on the Sable camp. She can also tie him to the saddle horn while riding.
A faded red leather cap stiffened with woven boiled leather cords inside and ear flaps that can be tied under the chin, thigh-high riding boots (which make her walk funny), a pair of embroidered leather gloves, snow goggles (carved to fit the face with a narrow slit for seeing through to reduce snow glare), an inner black fur-lined coat, and a black-furred leather traveler's cape once again embroidered with the wide stripe of red carnelian beads edged with white from the neck down the sides completes her normal outfit, although these last three are only worn when it's cold or wet.
Personality: Somber and self-sufficient, she finds this outside world sometimes frustrating.
Equipment:
Transportation
- Northern plains pony (small but sturdy)
- Saddle with a war quiver, can hold another twenty arrows (12 currently)
- Saddle bags with grain and rations for five days (pemmican and jerky, hard cheese)
Personal gear
- Bandolier with small pouches along the front holding flint & tinder, various herbs and powders, and a larger pouch on her waist holding her healing kit (see below). Holds a quiver on the back that can carry twenty arrows and her bow.
- Blanket roll with carrying strap
- Clothes (as per description)
- Coil of hemp rope
- Face Painting kit (rolled up pouch with brushes and hinged freshwater clam shells containing various pigments)
- Healing Kit (bone needles, sniew for suturing, small sharpened stone blades, various bundled medicinal herbs, rolled fabric for bandaging, shafts of feathers for draining wounds, ointment inside hinged freshwater clam shells, soap for washing)
- Herbalist kit (small iron shears (traders), bone digging stick, bundles of herbs, shallow mortar and pestle.)
- Leather boiling skin (used for cooking by placing heated stones from a fire into the skin to heat the soup or shrinking the head once the skull is removed)
- Leather satchel
- Pouch containing elven ash
- Pouch with two pounds of amber
- Waterskin x2
Armor
- Boiled leather curiass,
- Belted leather kilt
- leather arm bracers
Weapons
- Kukri knife with two smaller blades to be used in cooking or collecting herbs.
- Small laminated compound bow
Skills:
- Animal handling - taught from birth in the handling of animals.
- Archery - Tested from the moment she could walk until she could draw back a bow, trained repeatedly after that to become a decent shot with a bow.
- Climbing - can free-climb up a cliff face or climb a tree to use as a hunting or ambushing post.
- Face-painting - Used in rites and ceremonies, as well as to give the wearer a fierce, demonic appearance in battle to help confuse and intimidate the enemy.
- Grace - having much practice, Nasa moves with easy dexterity through complicated movements such as ritual and common clan dances with an economy of movement.
- Herbalism - some experience in herb gathering and her training in clan medicine has given her a decent education in the use of herbs commonly found in the northern plains for cooking and healing.
- Horsemanship - literally rode before she could walk.
- Hunting - stalking of small and large game.
- Medicine woman - trained in the treatment of illness, wounds and injuries. Can craft the most basic of potions and medicines at this level. Also in the preparation of shrunken heads.
- Navigation - familiar with the lay of the Northern Plain to find her way back home and the use of the stars to guide her. Can typically remember the path and landmarks months later.
- Running - able to run great distances. Currently Nasa can manage a mile and a half in 15 minutes, barefoot, without suffering pain or being excessively winded afterward. Running on stone, however, can make her feet and joints sore, requiring a to recover. Does a visually impressive waddle wearing her riding boots.
- Stealth - hunting has taught her well how to move quietly and to conceal herself.
- Swimming - able to swim through calm water with ease of distances up to half a mile in thirty minutes, Nasa can mange two miles in two hours a day, farther if going with the current.
- Wilderness survival - well-versed in living off the flora and fauna tundra of the Northern Plains. May only limitedly transfer to other biomes, requiring some time to familiarize herself with them.
Abilities:
- Healing Chant - Used to aid healing, this chant can take an hour to perform correctly. Effect stacks if more with this ability use it on a patient. At this level, Nasa can only perform a healing chant once a day. (trained)
- Improved night-sight - can see up to 30 feet in darkness as if it was dim light, 60 feet in dim light as if it was daylight. (racial)
- Resistance to cold - Acclimated to the cold winters of the Northern Plains, can withstand freezing conditions better.
- Soul-Binding - the joining of a soul to a stone or artifact to create Ancestor Stones using a seal created by the blending of the deceased's blood with the caster's own, giving them some control over it if needed. Gems are preferred for clarity of the soul's thoughts, so warriors often carry a gem for that purpose that can then be added to weapons or gear, allowing the soul to be returned home to the family. However common stones will work limitedly, giving you access to some of their memories - although foremost, it's usually their own death they recall. Nasa can only manage one such binding in a month, best on the nights of the full moon so Sehanine may grant her aid. (gift)
Background / History:
Nasa was born and raised among the wild elven tribes of the northern plains, tapped when she was chest-high by the clan's medicine doctor to begin her training. When her skills had grown somewhat, she would be traded at the spring gathering for the apprentice medicine doctor of another clan, then returned at the fall gathering. This allowed the medicine doctor of the other clan to gauge her skill and teach her new things, while introducing her to the clan and its ways. The autumn gathering was also the time the human traders would arrive, trading for the small but sturdy plains ponies, pelts, and amber.
After twenty years of being traded back and forth, lastly to the Wolverine clan, Nasa was looking forward to returning to the Sable clan at long last. But the Sable clan had not arrived yet at the gathering. When two days had passed, she was sent out with the riders to find the clan's encampment. By the third day on the trail, they caught sight of the wrecked encampment. Two goblin tribes had come together and attacked her clan on the way to the gathering, even going as far as to steal the ancestor stones. The riders gathered the few survivors and began cremating the bodies, including Nasa's family and the medicine man. With a great cry of anguish, she knelt and dipped her thumb in the ashes of her people, then before anyone could stop her, placed a dot on her forehead, marking her as a Moon-Walker. They cleared out of her way as she mounted her horse and rode off, following the path of the goblins.
The moon was waxing full when she came across a small band of the raiders. Listening to their talk she knew they'd taken part, had even taken a few of the Ancestor stones, only hear they had given them to someone else. She watched as they fell asleep, drinking from wineskins filled with strong spirits. She then slit their throats, all save the one named Vlaplixs, who she bound and carried away.
It took two days to shrink the head and to stitch the flesh over the soul-bound amber nugget, watching as the features began to animate. His voice, first bewildered, then angry as realization struck. Another two days to break his spirit and bind him to her, to finally learn the goblins had been approached by a band of Southern traders who wanted the Ancestor Stones most of all. They had been taken south, likely already through the mountain passes.
She followed.
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