Ayken
Ayken had a privileged and relatively luxurious childhood as daughter of a relatively high-ranking Ernaldan priestess in Notchett.Her grandmother, in her eagerness to make alliances to further the family's power, had made expensive marriage alliances for all of Ayken's six older sisters and was as surprised as Ayken's mother when she was blessed by Ernalda at the age of forty and maybe for once in her life was disappointed that the child was yet another girl. Thus Ayken was dedicated at an early age to Babeester Gor, to free the family of the cost of yet another marriage alliance and to forge closer ties with the Axe Temple there.
Ayken confirmed her dedication to the avenging daughter at age 15, untroubled by the prospect of never marrying as she did not see anything desirable with having to be responsible for a man or of gaining power by bearing as many daughters as she could. She tried to dedicate herself to the "guarding way" where a Babeester Gor initiate serves as a temple guard or escort for Earth Priestesses, but tired of the endless repetition of days and of the lack of opportunity to imitate her goddess by becoming a punisher Earth-defilers, kin-slayers and oath-breakers in the wild world beyond the sedate farms of Esrolia bordering the Mirrorsea Bay, and one day simply saddled Tanglefoot, a small, ridiculously muscular and terribly clumsy pony, and offered her services as a guard to an Issaries merchant departing for the Beast Valley. Working on the sound basis of not saying no to an Axe Maiden, her accepted her, the first of many employers these past five years.
In this time she has circled the Mirrorsea Bay by land and crossed it by boat, seen the City of Wonders underneath its waters where Belinthar rules the Holy Country, and travelled the Royal Roads up and down Heortland and Sartar. Apart from a year of service to a petty lord in the March, the depths of each Storm Season when the caravans stop, or the time she serves each year as a guard in an Earth Temple, she has always been on the move and is as tired of that a she was of standing guarding a temple for eight hours a day.
Most recently she was hired as a bodyguard by a Lhankor May Freesage who wanted to investigate the ancient tomb in the city of Poralals, to the north of the Elf Sea. He was very old and not in particularly good health but wanted to write one last scroll before retiring to the library in Derensev. Sadly he died of natural causes despite the best efforts of local healers in the city and Ayken had to leave with only her personal effects as the local Zarkosings started fighting over the Free Sage's own possessions. Shes been picking her way south but without the old Priest to guide her way has got terrifically lost.
Her true love is fighting, and she comes alive at the prospect of battle or of telling in detail the fights she has been in, and hearing other warriors tell her their tales. Unless she judges someone she has killed to be deserving reaching the halls of the dead with both ears, she will take one as a trophy, and carries the traditional Babesteer Gor trophy belt from which hang seven and twenty ears, four tongues of those she judged to be oath-breakers, and the genitals of three men she killed in Alone when she heard the cries of the woman they were attacking.
She has travelled with, fought with and indeed fucked enough men who have grown up outside of Esrolia to realise that the rather dismissive attitude high-ranking Esrolian women have of men is not always justified, and is maybe a result of the way boys are raised in the grand-matriarchal extended families there - little is expected of boys so they do little.
She is strikingly attractive as distinct from beautiful, has remarkable green eyes and dense black curly hair, but cares little for her appearance. She is little more than 1.5m tall (5') or 50kg (110lbs)in weight and is not particularly strong, but has never found her size or strength an issue in a fight, regarding her speed, skill and wits to be of far greater use than strength. In a helmet and armour, her slim build would make think her an adolescent boy unless you could see her face, which is unmistakably feminine for all the Death Rune tattoo beneath one eye, and the circlet of Earth and Death runes tattooed around her neck.
She will, unless for a time by restrained by reason or an oath, kill defilers of the Earth, oath-breakers, kin-slayers and any who harm women with cold fury and no trace of mercy. She also sees deserting a comrade in arms as oath-breaking, and will never desert a brother or sister in arms if there is a hope they will live, no matter the risk to herself. However, although she has no scruple against Resurrection, she does not see the point of risking her own life to recover a dead body, reasoning that their time had come and who is she to argue with the gods?
In complete contrast to this, she carries herself as the noble woman she once was, can speak eloquently, loves to sing and drink (although her choice of songs is often a little sanguine). She will also slake her sexual appetite on occasion, but only with a man she thinks is brave and smart.
In addition to the Death Rune on one cheek, she has a circlet of alternating Death and Earth Runes on her brow, repeated around her neck and each wrist. The back of her right hand has a Death Rune, the left and Earth Rune, and the knuckles of each hand have alternating Earth and Death Runes. Her right upper arms bear a stylised tattoo of a black-haired woman, marking her as a member of the Hulta Clan from Notchet. She has a scar all around her upper left arm, marking where it was reattached, a puckered. circular scar on her left lower abdomen where she was run-through by a spear, and a crescent-shaped scar on her left thigh.