Name: Victoria Dyson
Physical Description:
Victoria is a tall, strong but androgynous-faced woman standing at six feet tall and one hundred thirty nine pounds of lean muscle. She keeps her identity hidden under heavy clothes and a wide-brimmed hat; her voice is low enough and her layers concealing enough that without a close look she can - and often does - pass for male. It's only when she takes off her hat and undoes a few buttons to get comfortable that it becomes rather obvious she's female.
As for her physical appearance, she does have some distinctive characteristics. For example, most of the left side of her body is covered in scars, both from burns and shrapnel from fighting in The Succession Wars. Her black hair is streaked and speckled with minor amounts of gray and white, and is cut short so no strand falls longer than her chin, with her bangs cut just above her piercing gray eyes. Her jaw is strong, her mouth thin but her lips full. Her nose is aquiline and her eyebrows thin and lightly arched at the outside ends, but slightly thicker just above the inside corners of her eyes. Her most distinctive characterstic, however, is her left arm - or rather her lack of it from just above the elbow down. She's adapted to using just her right hand in the time since she's lost it (she was a young soldier then, just out of her teens) but it's still gone, and the lack of it is a hinderance in many ways.
When it comes to clothing, she favors heavy, thick clothing meant to conceal and stay intact through hard travels and long years. Tough jeans, thick boots, a waistcoat over her shirt and a leather longcoat with a duster over if from her shoulders down to her elbows, and a wide-brimmed black hat with a leather band around it are her preferred dress. From her right hip hang three holsters, each carrying a gun; from her left hip an Empire sword she took from a dead officer during the War (she didn't kill him during any specific battle; they just surprised each other one late night during her travels and she pulled iron first) that she learned how to use.
Job: Gun for hire
Personality: A survivor, Vic has been thinking of herself as an old woman lately. She is often moody and pensive, thinking of times past and wondering what might lie after death. She can be bitter and melancholy in speech, but at her core is still the same woman who believes in romance and the greater good, who will stand up for the people who can't stand up for themselves and sacrifice what she has to sacrifice to save lives. She tends to take failure hard.
Biography: Victoria was born the third child of five (mostly daughters) to John and Catherine Dyson. From a young age she looked up to her older brother Kyle the most and like the little tomboy she was she always wanted to do what he and his friends were doing - from cow-tipping to learning how to shoot and ride to fighting. She was quite the firecracker in her childhood, and as she grew into a woman she got particularly close with one of her brother's friends, Brock Hicks.
But peace can't last forever, and her small home town was drawn into the Succession Wars. She joined right up alongside Kyle, Brock, and her younger sister Melissa (the older of the twins born after her). For seven months the town's garrison managed to hold off Empire forces, although Vic was out of action for the last days of fighting due to her pregnancy. On the same day her son was born, the Empire shelled the town, destroying it and killing most of the inhabitants. Victoria was one of the few surivors, keeping her newborn son safe by protecting him with her body despite her injuries.
The mother and hew newborn son Frank were taken captive by Empire forces, along with Tabitha (the younger twin sister) and their father John. The Empire took Frank away from Victoria - possibly out of a kindness/fear that she wouldn't live much longer with her massive injuries - and treated her wounds until she was stable. Eventually she was deemed well enough to be placed into camp with the other prisoners of war.
Time passed. Victoria didn't notice the passage of time, filled with heartache over the loss of her family, her son, and her lover so close together. She wondered why she was still alive, how she had even survived. It was only when there was an escape attempt orchestrated by her father that she came back to the here and now and escaped with her sister, though John was shot and killed in the chaos.
The sisters wandered for some time, though Tabitha's journey ended when they came to a sympathetic household in the Periphery and she married the eldest son, Austin. Victoria, on the other hand, had decided she was going to join the rest of her family like she should have so many years ago and resumed journeying toward the frontlines, intent on rejoining Periphery forces. She took one job after another, messenger, protection, always moving west, always towards the war.
It ended before she got there. The Empire had won. For the second time it had taken everything from her - first her life, and now an honorable death. She began to drift aimlessly, never staying in one town for long, before eventually drifting back to the Murphy househould and seeing her sister and her family. There was a daughter and two boys, both delighted to meet 'Aunt Vicky' and wanting to hear stories of her travels.
Her heart began to heal as she helped her sister raise her kids. She told them embellished stories, taught them what she had learned in her travels, and helped her in-laws by patrolling for bandits and other miscreants. As the children grew, so did her hunger for the open road and conflict, and eventually she headed back out to see what had been made of the world since she withdrew from it.
Author
Topic: The Far West (Wuxia Steampunk Western RPG) All full up, waitlist available (Read 21879 times)