Here we go, dark elf hunter:

[hider=Elf][list][*][u][b]Name[/b][/u]: Quille. The E is [i]not[/i] silent.

[*][u][b]Age[/b][/u]: ~300; like many elves (and dark elves in particular), tracking a year of birth has never stood out as [i]necessary[/i] or helpful; once you’re old enough then everyone in the community is just used to your being there and a contributing adult. For those who live underground, there’s even less point and religious ceremonies tend to be celebrated on the basis of events rather than the calendar.

[*][u][b]Gender[/b][/u]: Female

[*][u][b]Race[/b][/u]: Dark Elf. This means, like all other dark elves, that Quille can [i]see[/i] in complete darkness, although without true colour, but makes her extra susceptible to sudden changes in light level.

[*][u][b]Rank:[/b][/u] Steel. It has been officially noted that this is [i]not[/i] an accurate reflection of Quille’s skill or experience, but rather a limitation due to unfamiliarity with (and continuing adaptation to) surface environs. She is, in the event an adventure somehow winds up deep underground and in true darkness, to be officially considered silver rank for its duration.

[*][u][b]Appearance[/b][/u]: Like all dark elves, Quille has a comparatively unusual skintone; in her case, the purple hue is slightly more dominant than the grey, giving her complexion more of a pale lilac appearance than anything. Definitely pale for a dark elf. This goes for her eye colour, too, a pleasant amaranth pink. Her hair, quite unsurprisingly, is also white rather than some shade of silver, something all too easy to examine as even the tightly-wound braid reaches nearly to the floor. One unflattering comparison was that she looks like a normal dark elf that’s been washed one too many times.

In terms of physique, she has the usual slender athleticism associated with almost all elven warriors or hunters, albeit at a rather [i]un[/i]usual 6’2, an eyebrow-raising height for one of the firstborn – who, as a rule, very rarely stray from a range of 5’ to 6’, without difference by sex or race.

For the most part, Quille’s attire is surprisingly light, given Estival’s usual climate: thin spider silk, oddly lacking in much of the way of dye and their natural pale grey, but with surprisingly elaborate patterns sewn into them in silk or – often – some metallic thread. It’s not that she doesn’t have cold-weather clothing – the fur scarf that remains wrapped around her lower face at all times shows that – but as she tells anyone who wonders: the frigid chill of the far north extends deep, deep below the surface, and the climate here is positively [i]balmy[/i] in comparison. Dressing like she’s near some geological source of warmth is the only sensible option.

From what little of her face remains uncovered, she almost certainly has the usual refined elven beauty, it’s just hard to see much beyond “those are some mighty pretty eyelashes you have”. Quille’s quite embarrassed by her teeth; like a small minority of her kind, they’re all noticeably sharp. And her ears are, of course, long and pointy – [i]yes[/i], they're also on the long side, that doesn't mean that overly touchy adventurers should play with them.

[*][u][b]Personality[/b][/u]: Quille isn’t just quiet [i]physically[/i], she’s a quiet person in general, leaving the business of starting conversations to others and often needing to repeat herself because she’s just [i]not speaking loudly enough[/i]. That’s not to say she’s rude or disinterested; the elf watches other people keenly and always answers politely when spoken to. 

As is typical for a dark elf found wandering around further south, she’s quite interested in new experiences and new sights, although this only infrequently extends to the local cuisine. As much as she’d want to eat with others, the diet frequently disagrees with her, and exposing her teeth… well, she got more than enough attention when she first arrived.

[*][u][b]Brief Backstory[/b][/u]: Dark elf society, despite the harsh environment, isn’t as hostile or uncultured as some southerners like to imagine, and elves that choose to become hunters are actually a minority – a prestigious minority, but not a massive contingent either. Nor is it something that tends to be pushed from parent to child, unlike many other specialisations; it demands a certain natural talent and inclination that can’t be [i]forced[/i]. 

Quille was one such child with this talent, and rather than follow her parents’ more domestic specialisations – and such things really are [i]specialisations[/i], not careers, with an elf’s endless life and the way the tunnels of the north enforce a migratory lifestyle – she was picked up by the older hunters and taught their ways. How to move silently, how to track and find prey in the deeps, how to kill – and how to do all of these while running away, or fighting for her life when it went wrong.

It was something that she got very good at. 

And then, as occasionally happened, she wondered about the warm and sunny lands in their cultures’ songs and stories; the stars and other celestial objects that they can almost never see; the great constructions on the surface and in the dwarves’ halls. So she made sure to find someone to learn the necessary languages from, replaced her worn set of knives in their entirety, and went through the long journey up to the top and then steadily south, through Barukstaed and then into Estival.

This… didn’t go perfectly. She, after all, had nothing in the way or money or tradeable goods on her, and there were some [i]extremely[/i] difficult misunderstandings involving livestock that needed to be resolved before she was pointed at the adventurers’ guild as a way to both pay the restitution necessary – a [i]much[/i] more practical punishment than imprisoning a baffled and heavily armed elf – and gather the funds she needs before continuing her journey in full. 

Quille hasn’t been in the guild long at all, only just starting to find her place amongst the other adventurers and learn about Estival in [i]detail[/i].

[*][u][b]Equipment[/b][/u]: Given her background, Quille operates lightly equipped for an adventurer planning to get in the thick of a melee at some point: soft leather, and a very [i]thorough[/i] assortment of knives. Armour, in her prior profession, is almost useless compared to not getting caught in the first place, and it’s more a matter of wearing something that can deal with scrapes and sharp rocks and go under [i]actually warm[/i] clothing.

Fully half her knives are tools of one kind or another, but the rest cut a neat split between very thin and [i]very[/i] pointed daggers, and wicked single-edged things. Interestingly enough, only half of the full set appear to be metal, the others are reworked [i]teeth[/i] of some underground monster.

[*][u][b]Skills[/b][/u]: First and foremost, Quille was – is, despite her interest in the surface – a dark elf [i]hunter[/i]. This is not the skill set and job of someone who tracks and stalks herbivores or fowl that they don’t want to scatter and run, or a grand hunting party to bring down more aggressive quandary. It’s the skills of someone who expects, given the slightest slip, to be in a fight for her life against a raging lithovore that could grind her to dust, against a predator eager to eat her just as much as she wants [i]it[/i], or the mushroom eaters that can somehow survive this environment.

Her movements must make no sound, mustn’t disturb the environment at all; she cannot even be a [i]glimpse[/i] in the vision of those creatures that have sight – whether by speed or by remaining in a blindspot. Every strike must be a killing strike into somewhere vulnerable, no matter how protected or hidden. The floor might be too dangerous, or not even [i]there[/i], but there are walls and ceilings too.

And then begins the process of butchering and taking everything back home.

These skills… mostly translate to the above-ground world, but outside of the perpetual snow and extended darkness of the northlands, there are always things that she’s still accounting for and not used to. Leaves. Foliage in general, in all honest. Things [i]not[/i] echoing, a sense Quille has never fully accounted for. Shadows are a big one that she slips up on, that she can be seen without [i]being seen[/i], and worked stone is a lot harder to get a grip on (let alone wide open spaces, although caverns and the occasional above-ground hunt don’t make that too crippling).

Although she knows magic, it’s all of a practical bent: cleaning, cooking, creating fires that burn with no fuel to save on things too precious to waste. Some measure of her normal silence is magical, and the ease with which her knives can carve through rock and metal, but the spells are something she uses so constantly and with such ease that to catch her ever casting them in a big display would never happen. [i]Only[/i] when a dark elf can cast these spells with a word and keep them going for the length of a hunt are they truly considered a hunter.

Quite unsurprisingly, although she knows Elven (in all its major dialects) and the languages of Barukstaed and Estival reasonably well (enough to puzzle through Veltish), Quille knows nothing of Talderian or its daughter languages, like Ithillane. [/list][/hider]