Minóki Kíuru, Himiko, Compendium Writer

Name: Minóki Kíuru

Gender: Female

Age: 35

Race: Human

Tribe: Himiko

Occupation: Compendium Writer

Title: Frostflower

Detailed Description

Overview :

Minóki Kíuru is a woman of the matrilinear icetribe living on islands in the Northern Seas between the Icelands‘ Coast and Cyhalloi. Her character is friendly and open, she is skilled in telling stories, in surviving harsh climates and currently wandering through Santharia to broaden her horizon.

Physical Appearance

Ms Kíuru is of a strange beauty. With about one ped, two fores and a handspan in height she is in the range of Santharian women, but what distinguishes her is her well rounded appearance. She is by no means slender, but in contrast to overweight local women her features are just perfect and fitting. No sharp edge is found, all limbs are well proportioned and softly rounded. Her face is rounded as is her head. Most times a broad smile lights up her face and dark green, almond shaped eyes seem to welcome everybody she meets. Her nose is more flat than pointed, her skin tanned with freckles all over. Despite her relatively young age, she has a lot of small wrinkles around her eyes, but they add only to her natural charm. What makes her beauty outstanding, is her long thick hair falling down her back in slight waves. It is of a soft dark brown, with a slight hue of red, in the sun however it seems to have golden sparkles in it.

Clothes

Her clothes are not typical for her, for she can‘t wear the furs she is used to in her homeland. She has now adopted the Santharian style of clothes, though she prefers to keep them simple. Currently she prefers trousers and a light tunic to dresses, in which she feels uncomfortable and which look somehow a bit displaced on her. The only exception is the Kuglimz dress she wears on cold days, a dark green ankle long dress with golden and red embroidery, a present of Dro‘go Minar’ian when she stayed in Lu‘Weilima. The only piece on her which reminds an observer of her origin, is a necklace of different polished teeth of predators of the north, which she claims she has killed all by herself. She says, she is used to more adornments and would like to have more, but that she thinks, Santharian jewellery doesn‘t fit to her and that she still has to find her style.

Personality

Minóki could well be the nicest person you ever met. Not shy at all, open-hearted and friendly she smiles at everybody, even if she is sad or feels badly about something which has happened shortly. She tends to just ignore the negative sides of life and is as optimistic as somebody can be. Despite her forced parting from her tribe, she displays always a happy face, though at times when she thinks that nobody is near, sorrow about the distance to her family and the stress of living in a new, still strange environment takes over, and she cries, her face hiding behind her hands.
Due to her childhood in a tribe which favours the sharing of all things, where personal belongings are few, she shares all she has, even her personal belongings, if asked to. Raised in a tribe, where co-operation in all things concerning life is necessary, where life or death depends on the reliability of your family members and other relatives and the trust in each other is a natural thing, she is too trusting for the Santharian society and thinks the best of everybody, even if it is obvious, that a person has at least an doubtful character.
However, being friendly and open, trusting and sharing light-hearted doesn‘t mean, that she is stupid. She can defend herself and others, if she thinks, that something is unrightfully and wrong. Then the always friendly Minóki can well turn to a ball of fury with eyes which shoot of gazes like a lightning.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Minóki's greatest strength is probably her friendly , open character. It is hard not to love her instantly when having met her for some hours. Nearly everybody is so easily attached to her, that she gets help whenever needed. There is no difference between men and women, for she doesn‘t fit, despite her beauty, into Santharia's ideals of slender women and doesn‘t evoke jealousy.
She has a basic training in self-defense without weapons, but knows how to wield a short knife as well, if needed.
She has, as every female member of her tribe, a faint inclination towards magic, though nothing a Ximaxian mage would regard as this.
Storytelling is a gift inherited of her mother, though some say, that it is the strangeness of her stories which captures the listeners, not her talent to narrate.

Weaknesses

Minóki is too trusting. Even if her instinct tells her not to rely on somebody, she doesn‘t listen to these feelings but goes on nevertheless to work with and rely on this person. If it has come to an minor disaster, she nevertheless forgives and doesn‘t draw consequences out of it.
Though having stayed now for a while in Santharia, Minóki still has not adapted to the society and culture of her guest country. So often she drops one clanger after the other, that only her nice character has prevented that she is banned from New Santhala.
Though she is healthy, she hardly can‘t stand the heat in Southern Santharia. Sometimes she just passes out on the way.
Because in her tribe her magic abilities were considered as non existing with so much stronger mages around, she never thinks of using it, except in rare cases where she does it automatically, out of instinct.

Magic (nearly none)

She has, as every female member of her tribe, a faint inclination towards (divine) magic, though nothing a Ximaxian mage would regard as this.

That includes three areas:

Weather: She could e.g. produce a very light fog or dissolve it, but only if the conditions are right (wet surrounding or sun coming out)
Healing: A broken leg is nothing she could handle with magic, but a headache might go away, if she puts her hands on ones forehead, a sore stomach might feel better.
Seeing: A blurred vision of another place , holding only for a short blink, could show her an image of an friend in need at another place.

What she is able to do is enhance a given situation very slightly in one or the other direction.(Weather, Healing) Her tribe has the gift to „see“ another place (see history), but Minóki does not count to the gifted ones.(Seeing)

Changes: Stronger magic

She has, as every female member of her tribe, a faint inclination towards magic. She is untrained and therefor stronger, if in need and best, when desperate or loved ones are involved.

The magic includes three areas:

Weather: She could e.g. produce a fog or dissolve it, but only if the conditions are right (wet surrounding or sun coming out), gather snowflakes, if falling and enhance the snowfall, produce a blizzard, if in need. Out of a light wind a strong breeze could evolve, calm a storm to a stiff breeze
Healing: A broken leg is nothing she could handle with magic, but a headache might go away, if she puts her hands on ones forehead, a sore stomach might feel better. Bleeding could be stopped, when in danger.
Seeing: A short vision of another place , holding only for a few moments, could show her an image of an friend in need at another place. She may have short visions of the immediate future, if in need.

What she is able to do is enhance a given situation in one or the other direction.(Weather). Her tribe has the gift to „see“ another place (see history), but Minóki does not count to the gifted ones.(Seeing) With healing I need to experiment still.

Generally I would need some freedom to develop some ideas for the Himiko magic and make them then accessible for more players. (Once the tribe is written down

And survive somehow in "Tears of the North")

Short History

Minóki Kíuru was on an expedition with her tribe which had the goal to free a woman of the mainland ice tribes. This was successful, but Minóki had to be left back to not to endanger the whole enterprise. She was not killed, but had to fill out the place of the freed woman. There Turik of Barsalon found her, won her and brought her back to Santharia, as a proof for his tales.

History

Minóki Kíuru was born around 1632 a.S. in the middle of the winter on the main island known here as Wicker Isles, the exact location is unsure, it was in one of the moving winter camps of her tribe.

She grew up as a normal happy child, without any remarkable events, just moving around with her family following the seasonal changes and other needs, fulfilling her chores, falling in love and out again, learning the ways of her tribe, how to hunt, to fight, how to treat the prey hunted down, how to build a snow house quickly. Meeting other families at the gatherings was another important part in her life, for it raised her interest in the differences of her people. With only a small inclination towards magic her duties were those of any other member of her tribe.

However, she has always been a bit more restless than others of her family. She likes to travel, despite the inconveniences of her homelands and was therefore often chosen to hold contact with the other families and sub tribes of the islands around the bay. This allowed her to learn about the differences between the Himiko tribes - and those things, that they all shared. This love to travel around might have been the reason, why she choose to have not children yet, though she has had several lovers who would have liked to become her husband.

Her live changed the day, when her sister, who is a seer, got a call of a woman in need, a woman from the far away Icelands' Coast.

Some explanations are necessary here, as long as the final research report of the Himiko tribe is not yet available:
The Himiko have, in contrary to the ice tribes on the main land, a strong inclination to magic in certain areas. One of them is the ability of „ seeing“, not so much seeing into the future, though they may have a blurred vision of it as well, it is more the seeing of what happens in distant places. Especially when women are involved, women in need. Women of the ice tribes on the mainland of the Icelands' Coast. The „seer“ receives a „call“, is able to feel the strong emotions of a tortured woman screaming for help. The knowledge where the place is comes with it, and nobody can‘t explain, or wants explain, how it works.
Expeditions are then set out to rescue this woman if possible, either with their little fast boats or in winter with sledges drawn by the remarkable animal called snow runner they they have bred. The seer has to be on board to show the direction, a woman able to do magical things with the weather, a healer and other women who know how to fight. These raids do not take place often, they are most times successfully, because they are well planned and have the advantage of surprise. Of course, misfortune can strike always.

Ms Kíuru accompanied one of these raids , when she counted twenty eight winters. Her sister was the one who had received the call, so she had to go, and Minóki wanted to protect her. The outcome is told shortly. The raid was successful, the woman, living in Saeroth was freed, but through unlucky circumstances Ms Kíuru had to be left behind so as not to endanger the whole enterprise.

She wasn‘t killed immediately, just beaten till she was unconscious and found herself in the house of the man whose wife they had taken away. There she was forced to fill out the role of the woman they had freed. She recovered from the beatings, learned the language of the tribe she lived with fairly quickly, though an accent remained. Her life was from now on not exceedingly miserable, not more than any other woman‘s life within this tribe. But she suffered more, because she had known the freedom, the difficult but happy life of her tribe, where all people had the same rights.
Minóki never accepted her fate, hoped that her tribe would come to free her, but nothing happened. Several times she thought about how she could flee, but in a harsh patriarchal society and an even harsher environment it seemed impossible.

Then the seemingly impossible happened. One day in the spring after her thirties' winter a foreigner came to the village, somehow different in appearance and behaviour, but as arrogant and dismissive as every man around - and not looking very trustworthy. However, he should change her fate, Minóki Kíuru had met Turik of Barsalon.

She didn‘t like him when they first met, but he caught her interest, because she heard him talking of lands far in the south, lands without snow, houses which reached into the sky and plants growing tall as a mountain. Minóki didn‘t have a perception of the „south“ . Though she had heard tales at the fire of lands without snow and winters without ice, this was all regarded as bunkum and everybody in her tribe laughed at the imagination of snowless lands.

So she tried to be near the fire, when he told stories about these distant lands and listened fascinated. Till the day she forgot, where she was - in a very hostile ambit - where women where not allowed to speak to men without invitation. She posed a question, and a dangerous silenced followed, and hits. But she had caught the attention of Turik of Barsalon, who had well noticed the different appearance of the woman, the strange beauty. However, he didn‘t want to get into trouble with his hosts, and therefore avoided to look at her closer. Now he had heard her accent, and witnessed her impossible behaviour, impossible for the ice tribe women he knew. He asked his host about her, and after some bribes was told, that she was a woman of the witch tribes , living on cursed islands far beyond the sea in the east. Turik's interest in her grew, for she was the living proof, that his stories about an ice tribe lead by woman was true.

Several days went by, where he did nothing, but talking, drinking and gambling during a late snowstorm that ravaged the lands. Born in Barsalon, he had skills the people of the north didn‘t know of and soon his host was in deep debt to him . On the evening, when the snowstorm ceased and the weather promised to get fine again, he offered the man to exchange his debt for the foreign woman and some necessary supplements to his food and travel equipment. The man agreed being unwell for some time now with this woman from the „witch-lands“ around. So already the next morning both left for the south, walking, with Turik's pony on the leash.

Ms Kíuru followed Turik gladly. She was happy she could leave the northern ice tribes and his promises of wonderlands and descriptions of unbelievable worlds made her heart light. In the beginning their relationship was easy, Minóki was very thankful and did what he wanted, and behaved mostly as Turik expected it. Their stay in Barsalon was short, then they headed southwest . Turik had bought her a horse, and after some initial fears Ms Kíuru not only mastered the horse , but liked riding very much. In this time, he taught her how to write, which she learned quickly, after he had convinced her about the usefulness of this skill. With time Minóki found her way back to her old habits, and that included that she didn‘t accept every decision of Turik, which made him furious. Living close together, the different ways of life they both were used to, lead to arguments and quarrels. Turik had to learn the hard way, that the peaceful Himiko women had means to defend themselves and that in their society the woman were the courting part. She was willing to share her body with him, but to her conditions. He always thought, he had told the ladies in new Santhala unbelievable stories, but now he was in the position to doubt, what Minóki told him about their way of life.

Their voyage was a revelation for Minóki. For the first time in her life, she saw a land without snow. She loved the Heaths of Wilderon they passed, a wide landscape, just green and colourful instead of white. But when coming near to the Shadowlands and Shadow Vell Turik needed several days to convince her to go on. She didn‘t want to come near the forests and entered one only late during their voyage. They met various people, including elves and dwarves, and their adventures were plenty. The voyage on the Luquador, their diving in the depths of the underground towers of the Kurakim dwarves and their visit of the Injerin‘s Shaded Forest are just a few examples. They passed the bridge of Elindor, made entirely out of mithril, and Minóki could not believe, that it was not a work of gods, but of dwarves, mere small beings like her and Turik.

At the end of fall they reached Lu'Weilima, the Kuglimz capital in the Celeste Mountains. An early start of winter forced them to stay till the next spring, which turned out to be a pleasant time for Minóki, who enjoyed the people and the town. Dro’go Minar’ian, the Dirg’mystrume of all Kuglimz, which Turik had met already earlier, welcomed them as his guests and both had a great time. Minóki admired the colourful clothes and the metal rings in the hair of the warriors, though their meaning frightened her. The éclat came with the spring. Minóki Kíuru refused to travel on with Turik to Santharia. She said, she was very grateful that he had saved her from a life of misery in Searoth, but that she had told him now enough about her tribe and her way of living, that he could write an entire book about her and her tribe, that would be enough. Turik was furious, because he didn‘t want to write a book, but have someone he could show to the Santharian society. He suspected, that she was in love with Drogo, which added to his misery, but she said only, the life of the Kuglimz would suit her, she would probably join one of the nomadic tribes.

She has not revealed, what changed her mind. But in late spring they took a ship and reached Milkengrad after a few weeks of sailing.
It didn‘t take them long, till they reached New Santhala. It was the beginning of summer and a very hot day. This factor led to the biggest scandal New Santhala had seen for years and only Turik of Barsalon is to blame for this, he should have known the effect of a bare bosom onto the inhabitants of the Santharian capital. Maybe it was his revenge for her wish to leave him in Lu‘Weilima.

To explain , how this could happen, one has to know about Himiko culture and customs. In contrary to our local coevals, the Himiko think, that their bodies are presents from the gods, and if you share your body with someone, be it just the permission for a look or more, then you praise your god. So they don‘t have any awe to show their bodies, it is natural for them. This may have derived from their living style. Their clothes are mainly furs, with the furry side turned inside and worn directly on the skin. Sitting at a hot, warming fire requires to remove these clothes.

Minóki did not have many clothes, when she arrived in New Santhala, and what she had, including the Kuglimz dress, was just too hot. So she was merely dressed with an linen skirt, Kuglimz underwear, and nothing on top except her necklace out of polished predator teeth. A sight for men and women alike. She didn‘t know, that this was so very unusual for Santharian women. The summer before, she had removed her clothes as well, when they were travelling through Northern Sarvonia, but Turik was obviously pleased with the sight and didn‘t say anything. Back then her pale skin had turned to a nice bronze, though it never reached the tanned dark gold of her face. In this way, she was presented to quite a lot of people, including members of the grand library. Some looked away and were embarrassed, more gazed, but no one said a word, till Dalá Valannía took her aside and gave her a shirt to hide her nudeness. Talia Sturmwind of the Shendar was not present this day, but came as quickly as possible, when she heard about this fabulous woman who reported from a matrilinear tribe in the high north. They both liked each other from the beginning, which was no miracle if one takes into consideration the at least distant similarity of their societies. It took not long, and Talia was asked to write down all about the Himiko what Minóki knew to tell. She trusted her more than Turik, whom she still valued, but not really trusted anymore. Since then she lives in New Santhala, but plans to travel around in Santharia for a while - till she wants to try to make the long way back to her homelands.[/color]

Weapons

Two knives, one out of bone, a normal one out of metal.

Belongings

Some clothes to change, a beautiful Kuglimz dress, a necklace out of the teeth of northern predators, her weapons, a coat and boots out of the skin of the Raház-Éstar, a present of Talia Sturmwind.

Familiars

She carries with her a young kuatu she found on her recent travels with a broken leg, half starved. She nurtured it back to health and now it is tame, but follows - if at all - only her advices and only to an very limited extent, as far as its little brain allows.

This applies only, if she should ever go back up in the North, currently she is in working in New Santhala

Additional History
After two years travelling in Santharia Minóki had enough from the heat, the green landscape and the mostly unfriendly people. So she travelled north, spending nearly all her money for a passage on a ship of the Stormcloaks to Guldor on Cyhalloi, from there she managed to get on a Remusian ship and now she is stranded in Remusiat, not knowing how to get to her beloved homelands, for no trade nor any trade routes are established yet with the Himiko. She does not dare to wait for the winter to cross the gulf between the main coast and the islands by foot - or better with a sledge and some icemutes - for there she would have to go in the territory of the Tokarians and even worse, the Sarmannians and to meet these people again would be the last she wishes. Remusiat and its people is so different from Saeroth, here she can hide among the normal folks, many southerners are visiting as well and women are not seen as inferior as with the other icetribes. She has bought local clothes by now and only her differently looking face gives away that she is not from here.
Hoping to persuade a Remusian ship owner to take her with her and sail close to the islands where she could reach the land with the help of a little boat she waits for the day to come where she can grasp the opportunity to leave, but till now she has not found anybody. But the sea will be open for at least another month, so her hopes are still high. Meanwhile she has taken residence in the Wison's Breath Inn, but is thinking about asking, if she could not help out there for free accommodation and meals.

Additional weakness

The long years of her absence from her homelands and the exposure to foreign countries, people and landscapes have taken their toll on Minóki. Though she is still the friendly and trusting person she always was, an unnatural exhaustion has taken over. Her body is as fit as it was, but often she is mentally too tired to go on struggling and a deep depression comes over her. In such times she is not able to do anything, she cannot work, she doesn‘t try e.g. to get away from Remusiat, she just sits in a hidden place and stares. Only pressing circumstances like a sailor who chases her from the disembarking ship help to break the agony and she can go on as usual.

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Edit 2012_08_02

Currently she works in Urimpaar, her mental state is slightly better.