Celu of the Broken Fang
Half-Orc - Frontline Fighter, Fierce, Loud Hearted
Backstory
Celu was born in the shadow of a mountain that belonged to the Broken Fang clan. A ruthless and war bound orcish tribe that measured strength in scars and volume in battle roars. But from the moment she could stand, Celu stood out, not for being fierce, nor for being the strongest, but for stature. She was small, a pebble in a garden full of boulders. Smaller than any full blood orc, her shoulders were narrower, her frame more agile than hulking. Some whispered she was cursed, others just laughed.
Her mother, a fierce warrior named Yorra, raised her alone. She taught Celu not to outmatch her enemies, but to outlast them. "If your body is small, make your will large," she’d say, placing Celu’s hand over her chest. “Strike where they’re blind, scream when they expect silence, and never... never... bow your head.”
But orc culture was cruel, and at the age of thirteen, during the Trials of Orkan, a brutal coming-of-age combat rite, Celu was pitted against a boy twice her size. She lost. Not from cowardice, not from a lack of skill, but because the chieftain ordered the boy to kill her, to make a point... weak blood has no place in the clan.
Yorra intervened, shattering custom and cleaving the boy’s jaw with her axe. For that, she was exiled, and Celu, spared only because her mother dragged her from the camp during the night with a blood soaked hand and a whispered apology.
They wandered for years, eking out survival. Celu learned to read the weight of armor on her frame, to pick where her blade would sing truest. But when Yorra fell ill in a coastal town and died in her sleep, Celu buried her under a cairn of salt and stone, and for the first time, she was alone.
The Emberwake found her a year later, hired muscle in a scrap over ship repairs. She bloodied three pirates and knocked a fourth into the sea. Captain Arden watched it all from the dock, arms crossed, amused. “You swing that blade like it wronged you,” he said. “Care to swing it for us instead?”
Celu has been with the Emberwake ever since.
Personality
Celu is a voice that echoes off canyon walls, loud, fierce, and unshakably proud. She jokes louder than she should, drinks more than she can handle, and fights like the world owes her a reckoning. Yet beneath the fire is the ache of someone who’s never truly been claimed by kin, too small for her people, too wild for the rest. The Emberwake is her tribe now, and she will bleed for them without question.
"My mother said the world don't care if you're soft inside... but your people should. So find people who care." - To Lorelai
"You fight for gold. I fight for a name. For a mother who believed in me. For a crew that gave me a place. That’s why I’ll never fall before you do." - To an enemy during a raid
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