Shel‎'s page

Shel rarely speaks of her life before she arrived in Trunau. What is generally known by the people of the town is that she is the sole survivor of a small tribe of half-orcs that were wiped out by a larger tribe. She wandered in to Trunau nearly a decade ago, bloody and beaten. The town was no stranger to orphans and took the girl in.

As is typical of youth, Shel resisted much of the things her hosts tried to teach her, like the importance of wearing shoes, feeling that they were trying to tame her. The townspeople’s lack of respect for the spirits also frustrated her. She did what she could to convince the people of Trunau that most of their problems were the result of abandonment by the spirits that inhabit all things. Spending so much time inside hides one from the sight of the sky spirits. Wearing shoes prevents one from ever coming into contact with the earth and, subsequently, prevents the spirits of the earth from ever noticing them. Most people did not care to hear what Shel had to say about spirits, but a few took her teachings to heart. They did not care to entertain her lectures about spirits, but Shel was a powerful healer, child though she was, and the people of Trunau needed healers. This made her something of an important person in town despite her contrarian personality.

Shel is a half-orc native of the Hold of Belkzen. Her red skin and prominent lower canines jutting from her lips betray her orcish heritage but as a fourth-generation half-orc the orc blood in her veins runs thin and she otherwise appears human. Her unadorned nape length hair is sun-bleached white from her long treks across the badlands guiding pilgrims and traders. Tattoos of black chicken feathers cover her left arm and shoulder. A double row of small, raised, “dot” scars run across her collarbone from shoulder to shoulder. The scars spread out to cover her right shoulder and the upper right quarter of her back. A thin, curved scar runs from just above her left brow to the point of her chin and two thin, inch long horizontal scars, one over the other, mark her right cheek. Perhaps due to her relationship with spirits of life and healing, her body is otherwise a flawless monument to health and vitality. When she casts spells, her eyes and hair shimmer with a white light.

Shel maintains many of her habits from her tribal life despite now living in civilized society. She generally goes barefoot and topless, wearing simple, loose fitting cotton trousers or a knee length skirt. She carries a spear when traveling outside Trunau but has little skill with martial weapons. She has an area on a hill near town where she can chant and dance around a bonfire to commune with the spirits of the world. When it is too dangerous to go outside the town walls, she performs her ceremonies as best she can at Bramblehouse. She makes a living as a guide in the wilds near Trunau and as a healer, utilizing both medicine and magic.

Shel was raised to utilize temperance and patients in order to hear the quiet whispers of the spirits, traits that clash with her naturally fiery and independent personality. She had been training to be a shaman of her tribe, a pillar of the community, but she often clashes with the townsfolk of Trunau as many of them still see her as an outsider. She has a forceful personality that is mirrored and even surpassed by her spirit animal, Phoenix.