Personality Traits (3): Lota devotes as much time as possible to her disciplines and practices, and pursues mastery over everything she does, be that as a spiritual seeker or a master of the rapier, Lota is driven. She struggles with when to strike, having once slain a wolf that she feared did not have to die, Lota is living consciously. She will defend her friends to the death, like a lioness with her cubs, but she can become paralyzed when she does not know whose side she is supposed to be on, she is loyal and values life, and becomes disoriented when those things clash. -- Bonds (2) : Lota is devoted to her God, Khaalahara, and far more than most, but she doesn't care to discuss that which compels her to maintain her spiritual sadhana with such steady conviction. Having once slain a wolf that did not need to die, she will dedicate the wealth she gains adventuring and her life to righting that wrong. Between adventures she lives in a large shelter in the Panther Hills where she cares for wounded wolves, panthers, and other animals. It is said that frequently animals come to her and lead her to injured or suffering brothers and sisters. -- Secret / Flaw (1): Though Rogue by upbringing, Lota rarely uses her gifts as others do. She frequently behaves with the heart of a Fighter, the questioning of a Druid. Many of her skills, the charlatanism that came from being raised as she was, are skills she does not want to use... but they are the skills she has. What does one do if who they were has not prepared them for who they are? -- Contacts (2): Lota's teacher, Mother Khaala has taken as much care of her as a forest woman could, and though Lota came from traveling carnival folk, she has little attachment to them, but feels greatly connected to the hills where they rested between seasons. -- Enemy / Rival (1): Lota's primary enemy is within. She has taken up a life of adventure to test her weaknesses, test her ideals and convictions, and seek to destroy the weakness, ignorance and suspicions and anxieties within. What greater enemy is there than one's flaws? -- Backstory (3 Paragraphs): Lota was born into a troupe of carnival performers, travelers, her moonsick father was unknown to her, her mother drunken and her people less a tribe than a desperate chaos functioning as a camp. Early on she began to see that the people she traveled with were taking advantage of good people, exploiting the poor and the rich without discretion. She recognized that they behaved in petty and ugly ways, and began to question. But this life was all she knew, and would have been all she would ever know where it not for Mother Khaala. It was Mother Khaala, the forest woman of the Panther Hills, who told her that "untested ideals are of less use than an evil committed whole-heartedly." She urged Lota to leave these people, as there "is more to you than to tumble for coins and cut purses with this lot." So Lota departed on a life of adventure. And she did indeed soon find herself tested, and found herself often failing. And she rarely found answers, just more questions. To write at length about this would be to cheapen what is at stake. Were Lota to fail... what would she lose? Wisdom. And if not wisdom, what is there to gain from adventuring, riches? To Lota, that hardly seems worth all the trouble of adventuring. And what does she have to gain? Liberation. She has to gain herself, and a deeper knowing of that deep self than most will ever realize. But win or lose, as Mother Khaala used to say: "There is room for that, too, in the dice and dreams of Khaalahara." Lota is open to what will come. p.s. I did not rewrite this or scour it for typos.
