Lis Spencer
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:32 pm
Player Name: Jayna
Name: Lis Spencer
Age: 16
Race: Half-Elf
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 110 lbs
Physical Description:
Lis is slim for her height, a characteristic of her elven heritage, but she is still short enough and thick enough that her figure simply looks like a slender human. Her features are delicate and well-shaped, with a sort of noble beauty, but here again her half-human genes dominate and her face is elven by no means, merely a lovely human's. Lis is good-looking enough; she would never win in a beauty contest, but she's pretty enough to attract the usual amount of male admirers. Her skin is clear and lightly tanned from working in the sun most of her early youth, although her work nowadays takes place mostly in the dark.
Lis's black hair is thick and slightly wavy; it falls in long curly tendrils to her shoulders when brushed but most mornings she only finger-combs it before pinning it in a tight, messy knot at the back of her neck. Her eyes are large and coffee-colored, with long dark lashes that offer her good protection against the dust of the city. She usually dresses in boy's clothes, which she tailors to fit her woman's chest and hips. During jobs she wears what clothing blends with her environment: black clothes for night jobs, and women's clothes, skirts shortened and bodices loosened for easy movement, for jobs in the public eye. Her clothes, though they may not look it, have many pockets sewn all over the place, which she put there to keep her knifes, lockpicks, and things she needs to hide. She always wears light, quick boots that allow for fast and silent movement.
Possessions:
Lis owns several outfits, mostly boys' clothes in darker colors (modified by her to accommodate her woman's figure, with plenty of secret pockets added) and one or two women's outfits that she's fixed so that she can move quickly and easily in them without them inhibiting her or getting in her way, and so they have multiple hidden places to stash things. She also owns one pair of light, fast boots and a pair of ladies' slippers with tough soles that she only wears with her nicer dress, for jobs when she needs to appear well-bred.
Lis owns various short knives that she wears on her person and also a very nice set of lockpicks, which she spent a nice bit of money on and always carries with her. She has a purse she wears around her waist, in which she keeps her money and some small personal effects, which is also very handy for concealing filched money and valuables. Other than some other small knickknacks and "women's" items, including a horn comb that was her mother's, Lis also owns the tiny farm she grew up on, which she inherited when her parents died.
Powers or Strengths:
Lis is an accomplished thief and pickpocket. She started her thievery at twelve years of age and now practices it full-time, making her living off of pilfered items and goods. She is light and fast, and slim enough to slip into most tight places undetected. She is by no means the best thief in the world, but she's good at it and as long as she doesn't attempt anything too ambitious she can get away with just about everything she attempts.
Lis can knit and sew very well, skills she learned growing up on her parents' tiny farm. She knows rudimentary healing, such as stitching a wound closed and keeping it clean, and she has a very basic knowledge of beneficial herbs, another skill she learned growing up. She is a good businesswoman in that she knows how to get the best prices for her stolen goods, and she usually knows when she's being had.
Lis possesses magic. Not much, as far as she knows (and she's never really tested it to its limits) but she has a very basic ability to bend reality slightly around her so that eyes slip right over her without registering her presence. This has proved handy in the past, but Lis keeps a tight rein on her ability and uses it the absolute minimal amount possible.
Lis is streetwise and knows the back alleys of the city better than the average person, not to mention that she is a good runner and has skill in evasiveness and rudimentary disguise, so she can disappear when she needs to. She is hard to catch and hard to keep a hold on if caught, as clever as a goat kid and as slippery as a fish.
Weaknesses:
Lis's biggest weakness is her paranoia. Yes, she can run fast. Yes, she can get out of almost any scrape she gets herself into. Yes, she's good at what she does and yes, she's difficult to catch. But Lis is as paranoid as a deer or a rabbit, and though she's as fast and clever as either, she is terrified of the authorities and will sometimes even forget what she's supposed to do when she's around them. If she's out in the streets and she spots any member of the Guard or the government, everything she knows how to do can go right out of her head and, in trying to hide, she might call unwelcome attention to herself. This doesn't always happen but when it does, the results can be disastrous.
Though Lis is quick, she's not strong, and if she's in a combat situation she will almost always lose a battle of strength. In combat she relies on her speed and agility to maneuver out of harm's way, but if she's cornered there is little she can do for herself. For this reason Lis tries to avoid combat where she can, though this is not always possible.
Lis is quick-witted but has a tendency to over-think things. Her mind, though it works fast, can work too much and cause her to waste valuable time -- say if she was in a position where she needed to make a fast decision, she could consider all her options and weigh them in her head, but she could get so caught up in analyzing the best decision that the time for the choice is past and she's lost her advantage.
Lastly, Lis has very little practice with her small magic; since magic is frowned upon in the city, she uses it as little as possible. Though her ability allows her to be undetected, she is constantly afraid someone will catch her using it and then, in addition to being punished for a thief, she would be punished for having magic she doesn't really want. So she tries her hardest not to use it (and she can go for as long as half a year without it) but in some instances where all other options are gone, she is forced to in order to save her skin. But since she has so little practice with it it hinders her in other vital ways: it slows her reflexes, stiffens her muscles, and gives her an overall feeling of extreme discomfort and fatigue. Because of these reactions, combined with the city's penalties for using magic at all, Lis hates using her magic, and because she hates it she hardly ever uses it, and because she hardly ever uses it she'll never get any better, and as long as she never gets any better she'll continue having the dreadful reactions.
History:
Lis was born on a tiny farm outside of Shim. Her parents were hardworking villagers, raising a small flock of chickens and an even smaller herd of goats, from which they procured eggs, meat, hair, feathers, and milk. Their sole profit came from selling these items, and more than once it was all they had to live on. Lis started working on the farm at four years of age, and as soon as she could hold a needle she was taught to to spin, sew, knit, and weave. Most of what she made was sent to the market to pay for the necessities of living, but every once in a while the family would have enough extra money to buy something nice, usually a pretty dish for her mother or a bolt of nice cloth for a new dress for Lis. Though the work was hard, and many times the two meals they had each day were hardly enough to keep them going, Lis enjoyed her time on the farm with her family. When she was eight, Lis almost had a baby sibling, but her mother miscarried at four months and her parents never tried to have more children after that.
When Lis was twelve her mother was caught outside during a lighting storm that killed three goats. Though Lis's father did his best to care for his wife, she soon fell ill with pneumonia and, because they lacked the money to hire a doctor, died a week after. Lis's father became depressed and refused to eat, and then died of starvation a month after his wife's passing, despite Lis's best efforts to keep him alive. Lis was bitterly miserable after her parents' deaths and though she now owned the farm, she sold all the animals on it, buried most of the money under the house, and used the remaining to move to the city. At first she tried to get an honest job, but she discovered that most people would try to take advantage of a poor twelve-year-old girl like herself, and so she was forced to live on the streets for a time. After that she started doing as the street urchins did and picked pockets for money for food, and after a year or two of practicing she began breaking into buildings to steal, and now that's her main profession (although she does bolster her income by stitching and repairing clothes for poorer people).
Name: Lis Spencer
Age: 16
Race: Half-Elf
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 110 lbs
Physical Description:
Lis is slim for her height, a characteristic of her elven heritage, but she is still short enough and thick enough that her figure simply looks like a slender human. Her features are delicate and well-shaped, with a sort of noble beauty, but here again her half-human genes dominate and her face is elven by no means, merely a lovely human's. Lis is good-looking enough; she would never win in a beauty contest, but she's pretty enough to attract the usual amount of male admirers. Her skin is clear and lightly tanned from working in the sun most of her early youth, although her work nowadays takes place mostly in the dark.
Lis's black hair is thick and slightly wavy; it falls in long curly tendrils to her shoulders when brushed but most mornings she only finger-combs it before pinning it in a tight, messy knot at the back of her neck. Her eyes are large and coffee-colored, with long dark lashes that offer her good protection against the dust of the city. She usually dresses in boy's clothes, which she tailors to fit her woman's chest and hips. During jobs she wears what clothing blends with her environment: black clothes for night jobs, and women's clothes, skirts shortened and bodices loosened for easy movement, for jobs in the public eye. Her clothes, though they may not look it, have many pockets sewn all over the place, which she put there to keep her knifes, lockpicks, and things she needs to hide. She always wears light, quick boots that allow for fast and silent movement.
Possessions:
Lis owns several outfits, mostly boys' clothes in darker colors (modified by her to accommodate her woman's figure, with plenty of secret pockets added) and one or two women's outfits that she's fixed so that she can move quickly and easily in them without them inhibiting her or getting in her way, and so they have multiple hidden places to stash things. She also owns one pair of light, fast boots and a pair of ladies' slippers with tough soles that she only wears with her nicer dress, for jobs when she needs to appear well-bred.
Lis owns various short knives that she wears on her person and also a very nice set of lockpicks, which she spent a nice bit of money on and always carries with her. She has a purse she wears around her waist, in which she keeps her money and some small personal effects, which is also very handy for concealing filched money and valuables. Other than some other small knickknacks and "women's" items, including a horn comb that was her mother's, Lis also owns the tiny farm she grew up on, which she inherited when her parents died.
Powers or Strengths:
Lis is an accomplished thief and pickpocket. She started her thievery at twelve years of age and now practices it full-time, making her living off of pilfered items and goods. She is light and fast, and slim enough to slip into most tight places undetected. She is by no means the best thief in the world, but she's good at it and as long as she doesn't attempt anything too ambitious she can get away with just about everything she attempts.
Lis can knit and sew very well, skills she learned growing up on her parents' tiny farm. She knows rudimentary healing, such as stitching a wound closed and keeping it clean, and she has a very basic knowledge of beneficial herbs, another skill she learned growing up. She is a good businesswoman in that she knows how to get the best prices for her stolen goods, and she usually knows when she's being had.
Lis possesses magic. Not much, as far as she knows (and she's never really tested it to its limits) but she has a very basic ability to bend reality slightly around her so that eyes slip right over her without registering her presence. This has proved handy in the past, but Lis keeps a tight rein on her ability and uses it the absolute minimal amount possible.
Lis is streetwise and knows the back alleys of the city better than the average person, not to mention that she is a good runner and has skill in evasiveness and rudimentary disguise, so she can disappear when she needs to. She is hard to catch and hard to keep a hold on if caught, as clever as a goat kid and as slippery as a fish.
Weaknesses:
Lis's biggest weakness is her paranoia. Yes, she can run fast. Yes, she can get out of almost any scrape she gets herself into. Yes, she's good at what she does and yes, she's difficult to catch. But Lis is as paranoid as a deer or a rabbit, and though she's as fast and clever as either, she is terrified of the authorities and will sometimes even forget what she's supposed to do when she's around them. If she's out in the streets and she spots any member of the Guard or the government, everything she knows how to do can go right out of her head and, in trying to hide, she might call unwelcome attention to herself. This doesn't always happen but when it does, the results can be disastrous.
Though Lis is quick, she's not strong, and if she's in a combat situation she will almost always lose a battle of strength. In combat she relies on her speed and agility to maneuver out of harm's way, but if she's cornered there is little she can do for herself. For this reason Lis tries to avoid combat where she can, though this is not always possible.
Lis is quick-witted but has a tendency to over-think things. Her mind, though it works fast, can work too much and cause her to waste valuable time -- say if she was in a position where she needed to make a fast decision, she could consider all her options and weigh them in her head, but she could get so caught up in analyzing the best decision that the time for the choice is past and she's lost her advantage.
Lastly, Lis has very little practice with her small magic; since magic is frowned upon in the city, she uses it as little as possible. Though her ability allows her to be undetected, she is constantly afraid someone will catch her using it and then, in addition to being punished for a thief, she would be punished for having magic she doesn't really want. So she tries her hardest not to use it (and she can go for as long as half a year without it) but in some instances where all other options are gone, she is forced to in order to save her skin. But since she has so little practice with it it hinders her in other vital ways: it slows her reflexes, stiffens her muscles, and gives her an overall feeling of extreme discomfort and fatigue. Because of these reactions, combined with the city's penalties for using magic at all, Lis hates using her magic, and because she hates it she hardly ever uses it, and because she hardly ever uses it she'll never get any better, and as long as she never gets any better she'll continue having the dreadful reactions.
History:
Lis was born on a tiny farm outside of Shim. Her parents were hardworking villagers, raising a small flock of chickens and an even smaller herd of goats, from which they procured eggs, meat, hair, feathers, and milk. Their sole profit came from selling these items, and more than once it was all they had to live on. Lis started working on the farm at four years of age, and as soon as she could hold a needle she was taught to to spin, sew, knit, and weave. Most of what she made was sent to the market to pay for the necessities of living, but every once in a while the family would have enough extra money to buy something nice, usually a pretty dish for her mother or a bolt of nice cloth for a new dress for Lis. Though the work was hard, and many times the two meals they had each day were hardly enough to keep them going, Lis enjoyed her time on the farm with her family. When she was eight, Lis almost had a baby sibling, but her mother miscarried at four months and her parents never tried to have more children after that.
When Lis was twelve her mother was caught outside during a lighting storm that killed three goats. Though Lis's father did his best to care for his wife, she soon fell ill with pneumonia and, because they lacked the money to hire a doctor, died a week after. Lis's father became depressed and refused to eat, and then died of starvation a month after his wife's passing, despite Lis's best efforts to keep him alive. Lis was bitterly miserable after her parents' deaths and though she now owned the farm, she sold all the animals on it, buried most of the money under the house, and used the remaining to move to the city. At first she tried to get an honest job, but she discovered that most people would try to take advantage of a poor twelve-year-old girl like herself, and so she was forced to live on the streets for a time. After that she started doing as the street urchins did and picked pockets for money for food, and after a year or two of practicing she began breaking into buildings to steal, and now that's her main profession (although she does bolster her income by stitching and repairing clothes for poorer people).