Katarina

[Katarina]

Name: Katarina
Age: 26
Race: Shifter (Wererat)
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 100 lbs
Physical Description (Human): In a few words, short, dirty, and smelly. Katarina has a distinct odor of fish about her, mingled with other less identifiable scents. Her once brilliant red hair is tangled and streaked with filth. Eyes the green of new leaves are often the only bright spot on her pale, dirt-spattered face. The young woman usually wears a smile, her most charming accessory. Thin and lithe, Katarina shows the signs of someone who has always had more exercise than food.

Katarina's clothing consist of a simple and sturdy peasant blouse of a dun brown color that doesn't show stains. A full roughspun skirt of similar color falls down to her ankles, and a pair of well-used leather boots peek out from beneath it. Her worldly possessions are tucked into bulging cloth pouches tied to a plain belt around her waist, worn over her shirt. The pouches look as though they've been sewn together from every scrap of fabric she could find, made as they are of patches of mismatching colors and textures. Her clothing always seems to somehow stay cleaner than she is.

Energetic and nervous, Katarina seems to always be in motion even when standing still. Her nose has the unfortunate habit of twitching, and every now and then she stands up on tip toes to peer at her surroundings. Her fingers twiddle, and if she's particularly anxious she begins rubbing at her face, like a rat cleaning her whiskers.

Physical Description (Rat): A small, filthy creature with reddish brown fur and a long healthy tail. Her nose is always twitching, and a strange and wild intelligence peers out from this rat's round, beady eyes. She eats garbage like any other rodent, but she seems to stare too intently at passerby for comfort.

Possessions: An examination of Katarina's belongings will reveal that the pouches she carries mostly contain food, as if she's hoarding against some coming famine. Mixed in are a paltry handful of Bishan, some bits and pieces of junk that might be suitable as nesting material, and a pendant heavily wrapped in layers of thick fabric. The pendant contains a portrait of Katarina's grandmother, and though it's made of silver Katarina can't bear to part with it. These days she doesn't dare even unwrap it to look at it, but it brings her comfort to know that it's there, and it gives her something to look forward to on the day she is cured.

She owns, though she does not always carry with her, a small number of fishing nets, line, hooks, traps, rods, bait, and other tools which she uses to ply her fisherman's trade. She sometimes carries a small iron knife, essential to crafting her fisher's tools, though she doesn't have the faintest idea how to use it as a weapon. The very idea of having to use it as one makes her faintly nauseous.

Powers/Strengths: Being a wererat, Katarina can turn into a rat. Like most shifters, she can also partially transform herself, but she rarely does. She has heightened hearing and sense of smell, which is especially enhanced while in rat form. She's quite good at swimming in both her forms, and as a rat can burrow fairly impressively. She has the enhanced healing abilities of most shifters.

Raised by fishermen, she is quite good at catching fish.

Weaknesses: Like all shifters, Katarina is vulnerable to silver. Her heightened senses of smell and hearing are coupled with a dampened sense of vision, making her near-sighted in human form and even worse off as a rat. Despite her desire to find a cure, Katarina is becoming addicted to spending time in her rat form. At no other time does she feel as free, as right, as connected to something larger than when she's fully animal. And, in a place like Marn, having an itch to use magic can be dangerous...

Spending so much time around fish can rub off on a person. Katarina tends to smell like fish, and her animal side has caused her to be less in touch with human views of hygiene. She'll clean up when she remembers to, but in those interims between baths her lack of cleanliness can be somewhat offputting.

History: Katarina was born in a small fishing village in Eyropa, north of Zhaltev, to parents who made their living from the sea. In her early years she was largely raised by her grandmother, who doted on Katarina while her parents were out on the boats. The old woman passed away when Katarina was still a child, but she left behind a silver pendant, which the little girl kept near her always. It was her security blanket in times of trouble, and Katarina would clutch it whenever she was sad or afraid. She didn't need it often, thankfully, for Katarina had a good life - the sea and her parents provided much of what she needed, and she had the other children for companionship once her grandmother passed on.

And so for most of her life she grew up just like any other of the village chidren - poor but happy, carefree until she was old enough to be trained as an apprentice in the trade. Then her days were filled with the hard work of catching and gutting fish, making and checking the traps, and spending endless hours upon the sea. One day, she had the misfortune to spot a rat stealing fish from their haul, and her life changed forever.

It had been a long day and a hard one, hauling the nets full of fish back onto shore, working until her palms burned. Katarina was proud of her work, proud of the haul they'd brought in, and looking forward to a well-earned feast when she spied the creature. The rat had the gall to walk on the piles of fish they'd spent all day catching, and eventually it seized one in its teeth and started to nibble. Katarina ran at it, hollering to try and chase it away, but it only stared at her. Undeterred, she threw a well-aimed kick at the thing.

Her boot contacted the furry body, but instead of flying away the rat grabbed hold. Before she knew what was happening Katarina felt its sharp teeth dig into her ankle, and then the world started spinning. Something burned at her throat. The fisher girl's vision wavered, and the last thing she distinctly remembered was falling into the pile of fish.

She woke up some time later, feverish and back in her bed. Her hand went immediately to her grandmother's pendant, seeking its comforting presence. She found only burned flesh where the pendant had rested.

Dizzily, Katarina sat up, calling for her parents and asking for her pendant. Her mother and father frowned, and, mutely, her father held the silver bauble out to her. Katarina reached out to take it from him, then gasped and dropped it as her fingers burned.

They explained it to her, in small words. Katarina refused to accept what had happened. There had to be another explanation. Had to be!

And then it happened. On the night of the new moon, her body shifted and changed, and on rat's paws Katarina crept from her bed. The girl bawled her eyes out the following morning, but she never forgot how it felt that night. The world, new and alive, full of freedom and power that was hers for taking, called out to her in ways she'd never experienced before. She wanted that feeling, and at the same time hated what she had become.

Villagers acted differently around her. Those who didn't already know her shunned her, and even her friends regarded her with new wariness. Katarina tried to cope, to live as though nothing had changed, but the fear she saw in her neighbors' eyes eventually drove her away. She began wandering aimlessly, seeking a way out of the mess her life had somehow become.

She tried living in places where no one knew her or what she was, but it always came out eventually. And traveling through the wild only made the temptation to change stronger, often too strong to resist. Her grumbling belly would have her turning into a rat and running out of her clothes often enough, because as a rat she could better forage for food. One year she made her way to Zhaltev, hoping there, among other shifters, she might find some way to cope with her condition.

There, Katarina was accepted, and she was thankful enough for that she at first turned a blind eye to the inherent violence and lack of certain civilized mores in Zhaltev's society. Worse, a part of her embraced those things, even as they shocked the human side of her. Eventually, though, Katarina's human side won out. She'd been raised human, after all, and as much as she was grateful to the shifters of Zhaltev for accepting her, she ultimately decided she could not live as they did. She longed to be part of a human family, not an animal pack.

When tales reached her ears of Thar Shaddin, and the strict stance the people of Marn took on magic, she dared to hope there might be some way to rid herself of lycanthropy. Seeking a cure, she entered the city of Marn, registered as a magic user, and made ties with the University that she might work with the scholars there to find a way to become wholly human again. She currently makes her home in Shim, near the river, where it's easier both to ply her fisherman's trade and not to get caught if the itch to run as a wild rat becomes too overwhelming to resist.

The current atmosphere of revolution - and the reaction to it - have left Katarina frightened and unsure of herself. Should she - as Lady Navarre's pamphlets urge - come forward and publicly pledge her allegiance to the government? She certainly wants the government to stay strong and solid. She's all too aware of the sorts of atrocities that could happen if the revolution gets it's way, and Katarina is none too eager to again become a victim of an unscrupulous shifter or any other kind of criminal. But she can feel the strong bias against all magic under Lady Navarre's words, despite the good Lady's pains to say not all magic users are evil. If Katarina comes forward, is she shielding herself from harm, or exposing herself to bigotry? And, if the revolution is gaining momentum, can she afford to sit idly by and not act to help stop it?

For now, Katarina gives in to her instinct to keep her head down and hope it all passes over. But she's as well aware as anyone that her time to do so is short...if she doesn't make a choice, someone is bound to make it for her. And if she allows that to happen, she might not like what the choice turns out to be...

[Metarie]

If she looks that filthy and is fishy smelly, people will probably avoid her. Something to consider when playing.

Otherwise, Approved!