#dwarf lady

@feanorianweek Day 4 - Caranthir, theme: Dwarves

Brown, smooth skin, full lips, a strong nose, and noble, determined eyes make for a very handsome face, surrounded by long black hair made up in fine dreadlocks, adorned with many rings of stone and metal, polished to a fault. The bright shine of silver, the rich glimmer of gold, the auburn tones of copper. And, oh! So many colors! In so many shades! Pink rhodochrosite, blue lapis lazuli, green malachite, purple amethyst. All dancing and twirling in the air, keeping rythm with an axe that swings to the tune of a battle cry.

Red will soon join this beatiful spectrum, if it hasn’t already. And soon, too, it will swallow all others, for the war is getting harder, getting worse. It’s gonna be some time before it gets better. Because it has to get better. She hasn’t sacrificed principles, honor and innocence for a future that might not come. She has paid the price, has sworn on vengeance, for justice alone is no longer in reach. There was a time she would have ofered mercy. She would have taken her enemies, in chains but alive, to the judges to pass sentence. There was a time, long gone now, when she would not have declared herself judge, jury and executioner. But. Who will blame her for it? Who is left, now, to lay blame anywhere?

When things get better, because they will, she’ll take whatever punishiment they see fit to give. If, when all this is over, there’s still people with enough good inside to see what she’s done and recoil, then she’s done her duty. She’s soiled her hands and her soul so the filth does not touch those behind her.

All this things might not come to pass, though. The fight’s still going and she might die yet. Lying here, in the mud and the blood. Resting, at least, until her allies burn her body, so she doesn’t rise again to fight against them. What wretched destiny that would be, to delay the very cause she has paid so much to achieve.

She will not let it happen.

I’ve got this concept of a dwarf lady paladin with an Oath of Vengeance for a homebrew campaign involving a long blody war between an absolutely evil faction of fallen paladins and the people who fight to stop them from fucking it all up. I like the idea of a vengeance oath as a choice to do the hard thing, instead of a “I’m going to kill ALL the heretics” thing. And, being completely honest, the entyrety of it developed because I wanted to put shiny rings in her hair.