Bashuk
Appearance
Somewhat slight for an orc, but she still has room to grow, her face bears the scars from her Coming of Age, a reminder to herself to never be too cocksure. She bears them with pride, pulling her braided hair into a high ponytail, both to show off her scars and because she hates it in her face.
Skills and Abilities
- Hunter - light on her feet and quiet as a mouse, she love to hunt. The stalk being her favourite part. Seh can disappear for days into the forests, content in her own company and always bringing back a kill or two.
- Scout - Her skills as a tracker make her a perfect scout for a group, though you better be able to understand sign language, because Bashuk cannot speak.
- Dumb - Bashuk is speechless and has been from birth, though she learned to communicate with her hands and her axe well enough from a young age.
Personality
Quiet, though not by choice, Bashuk still has many opinions about the world around her. She is curious but prefers her own company, so she tends to watch from afar. Suspicious of strangers and slightly xenophobic. If you are lucky enough to earn her trust and friendship, know that she is fiercely loyal and protective.
She has a deep love for nature, and always chooses her prey with care. She takes it as a personal offence when people disrespect the nature around them, and she repays disrespect with violence.
Biography & Lore
Born to a nomadic tribe in the wilderness of the Spine, Bashuk's childhood was much like any other orcs. Her father taught her to swing an axe as soon as she was able to hold one and her mother taught her the ways of the forest, how to step lightly, how to track your prey without being seen and smelt and how to kill it cleanly. Despite her inability to speak, she was capable of making herself known well enough and the rest of the tribe were quick to accept her in spite of her inability to speak.
On her tenth birth year, she was given a dagger by her father, a family heirloom passed from generation to generation and sent into the forest alone. Her task, to return in seven days with a bearskin. Finding the bear was easy enough, killing it however, was less so. Despite Bashuk sneaking up on it and pouncing from a tree and driving a makeshift spear into the beast's back, it refused to die easily, throwing her and the spear aside and swiping at Bashuk’s face.
The blow left her dazed but still able to fight and after a long battle, wound sported by both parties, the bear finally gave up. Her reason for fighting so hard? Three young cubs tucked inside a tree hollow. Bashuk wept for them. She had a choice, to kill them painlessly so they would not be devoured by another, or to take them back with her.
She arrived a home after six days, bearskin draped over her shoulders and three cubs in tow. She would care for them and raise them herself, her vow to them for killing her mother was to see them live happy lives. Her father mocked her lightly, but both understood her need and helped where they could.
When the cubs reached adolescence, their tribe was visited by another seeking trade and her tribe graciously accepted them in, throwing a grand feast for them. They shared food, swapped tales and fell asleep beneath the stars. And in the dead of night, the visiting tribe rose and slaughter everyone, save for Bashuk, for they could not get within a foot of her because of her bear children. Bashuk fled into the forest she knew so well, leaving behind everything she knew, hiding in the hollow she had first found the bears in.
She stayed there for a day and a night before returning to find a massacre, her children among the bodies of the slain. Everything that could have been useful, was taken and Bashuk was alone. Believing herself to blame, for the slaughter of the bear mother brought a curse upon her, she fled to Bhathairk.
Five years later, she comes and goes from the settlement, sometimes alone sometimes with a band or hunting group. To this day she has not seen the faces of those who killed her tribe.