Verity

Appearance

• Height/body type: A goliath, so she's pretty tall (7.5 feet) and not lithe. She's muscular, but not overly buff. (The phrase "Built like a brick house" comes to mind. Think MMA fighter.) Her skin is light gray, with darker markings traveling down her arms and encircling her wrists. She also has some symetrical markings on her face, primarily on her cheeks/near her mouth. (Read more on what these dark patches mean under the "skin" entry here.
• Hair: Long black hair, half down with small braids and beads interspersed, half braided into a mohawk on top.
• Face: She had dark blue eyes, and a scar on her left eyebrow. She has a high forehead. She's got Resting Bitch Face reaaaaal bad - mainly because she's wise to almost everyone's bullshit.
• Clothes: She likes to be covered up - no scantily clad business here. She got a bandolier across her chest and is wearing half-plate armor. She wears leather bracers and has leather accents on her clothing, with charcoal-gray pants and knee-high riding boots. She's sleeveless (doesn't wear the arms of the half plate, either) because goliaths don't feel the cold. She does have a small satchel on her back, but she honestly doesn't carry much beyond what could be held by a modestly sized Jansport.
• Important items to include: She's got her bagpipes and her combo greataxe-guitar that should definitely be included:
  • Bagpipes: known affectionately as "Plaidy," these magical bagpipes are a dark blue and light gray plaid with faint etchings along the chanter and drones. The wood is a dark mahogany.
  • Greataxe-guitar: Think something like this, but more in tune (pun intended!) with her color palate. It's actually pretty stream-lined - no skull and bones or anything dramatic. Just a greataxe that she can shred with:

Description

Verity is a Goliath bard from the College of Valor, standing at seven-and-a-half feet tall and intimidatingly ripped. She's got a friendly demeanor and the thankless task of making sure her partymates don't kill themselves doing something stupid. She's fond of her magical bagpipes - named Plaidy, affectionately polished each night before bed - and her scimitar. She's left a string of broken hearts across Turon, but has yet to be tied to anyone except her friends. She has a recent affinity for using the spell Polymorph to turn into a dinosaur.

Backstory

Full Name: Verity Vathunakume

Verity Vathunakume

A sad mountain childhood

Verity is a Goliath bard, born to the Vathunakume tribe in the mountains near Thain-win. In Goliath culture, children are named three times - once by their parents, once by the tribe elder, and bearing the name of their clan. Verity's clan name, Vathunakume, comes from her people, those that surrounded her and raised her after her parents died shortly after her arrival. She never knew her birth name, given to her by her parents but lost on the winds of the mountains that took them from her. The tribe never renamed her, instead settling on the name given to her by the tribe elder, Virak Fearless Vathunakume: Verity, or truth. From a young age, Verity had a propensity to tell it like it is - and people loved her for it. She was loud, brackish and always finding a tune to hum or tale to weave.

To the Goliath people, that meant she was lazy. Life on the mountains is harsh; anyone not pulling their weight to keep the clan alive is unceremoniously kicked out. For a long time, Fearless was soft on her, sympathetic to the fact she lost her parents at birth. But too many times she was caught day-dreaming of the adventures she heard in the songs from passing travelers. Too often she dreamt of making her own music at the expense of hunting, gathering and repairing the clan's communal living spaces. Fearless sent her away to a life of solitude on the mountain, something that is usually a death sentence to Goliaths. Verity took it as an opportunity to go on those adventures she heard so much about, finding her way to the coast to see the ocean. She found herself walking into the town of Pence, where she found a bard school and learned how to utilize her bagpipes as a weapon to entertain the masses and defend the vulnerable. Her natural talents and loud presence - both in height and personality - made her a popular performer in the city.

Bard school? Bard school.

At the young age of 14, Verity joined the Tarnell Bard College of Valor, led by the human bard Thanious Tarnell. Thanious' grandfather Firnick founded the college, which has gone on to produce some of the most famous, victorious bards out there: Simonina the Slayin' Soprano, Paul of the Perfect Pitch - even Troll-Killer Troy! She studied there for six years, playing in pubs around Pence to pay for her bills. She graduated at the top of her class (albeit a small class of 12, but hey! Still counts.) and set out on some small gigs to get her feet under her.

Verity hopes someday to go down in song as Verity the Valorous

Garret Delf

Verity and Garrett had a thing a long while back. He was flirty with all of the girls back in Pence (where they both lived for training at different schools), but Verity knew he only had eyes for her. They were quite the duo on stage and Verity was convinced that he could be a Bard if only he gave a damn, but he was from a military family. The romance was, like all great stories, tragic when on a night Verity was supposed to be out of town she came into their favorite bar (The Toadstool) only to find Garret with one of the townies, Belle, in their booth. With a dash of Vicious Mockery, Verity left the bar never to speak to him again.

As it turns out, she was off on her first bit of adventurer’s work: Someone in the forest of Deepwoods had found a weird statue who was talking and needed it OUT of their town. Garret was the first on her list. She needed muscle, and more importantly, needed a friend, and instead found nothing. She was all fury.

On her way out of Pence, she came across two human guards harassing a small child. What a small child was doing on the edge of town at this time of night, she couldn’t be sure. But on approach, she saw it wasn’t a small child but a druidic gnome who was trying to bring some strange pieces of metal into the city. The guards were being quite rude to her.

Verity stepped up behind them and asked if there was a problem. After a moment of hesitation, they both answered no and left, heading back to the city.

The woman offered to sell her some "Gnomish trinkets" but Verity refused. Instead, she offered her an adventure, something people would sing stories about and pass down for generations. She offered excitement and danger and--the woman interrupted. She asked if there would be Gnomes, Verity replied that if there were, they’d be far, far out of their element. They exchanged a smile, and their names, and made their way to the far side of the continent.

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