Katja

Information

Player: PuncturedWords

Character Full Name: Katherine Goldenfist ("Katja Navkova")

Character In-Game Name: Katja

Nickname(s): Lady Navkova, Lady Goldenfist, Katja, Kitty

Association(s): The Silver Hand; The Argent Dawn

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Skills and Abilities: Considering her strong and long-time connection with the Light, Katja is proficient in wielding her holy powers as both weapon and shield, although she is weak, clumsy, and untrained as a healer. Alongside such magic are more mundane skills, including a rather elegant manuscript hand when writing, a geeky knowledge of plant life, and a fair bit of talent on the lap-harp.

Age: 36

Sex: Female

Hair: Golden Blonde

Eyes: Green

Weight: A muscular 132 lbs

Height: 5'1"

Appearance

Highly concealing and bulky plate armor, shined to a high gloss, and a large, Light-imbued hammer.

Other: Very few people (especially other crusaders and clergyfolk) have seen Katja's face -- she tends to obscure her features with a massive helm at most times, with very few exceptions.

Personality

Alignment: Lawful Good, leaning towards Neutral

Having lived through the second war as a young child, having served in the third war, and having been witness to the disbanding of the Knights of the Silver hand by Arthas Menethil, Katja is more reserved and patient than her fellow hot-blooded young knights. Her serious demeanor serves to teach them forbearance, that more good comes out of calmly assessing a problem before swinging one's hammer than running full-tilt into battle with full hands and an empty mind.

To most people, Katja seems severe, serious, and without mirth. She treats her troops and her squires with the same intensity, and is known for her low tolerance of frivolity while in service. Some people may consider her a "humorless prig", but others can appreciate her more stoic sense of duty (despite how harsh her "no-nonsense attitude" can come across). Only a few people really get to know the woman behind the helmet, a woman with a good heart and a snarky streak a mile wide.

The easiest way to "catch her with her pants down", as it were, would be to offer her a drink and watch the change -- at least, if you catch her at the right time. Where most folks would jump at the chance for free ale, Katja thinks one step ahead. Patrol duty in the morning? No. Lecturing a passel of squires in a few hours? No. Traveling to the plaguelands to aid the Argent Dawn the next day? Very no. A mistress of denying herself pleasure for the sake of her duty, Katja will only allow herself to loosen up when she can be sure she has the time to enjoy herself.

Although demonstrating the fearlessness of any knight, Katja has a deep-rooted loathing of all undead creatures, scourge or not, including a childish fear of ghosts. Coupled with her childhood memories of orcs, any greenskinned beast sends chills down her spine and knots her stomach in nine places. She easily hides her fear behind righteous fury, and takes almost savage joy in beating down the undead, orcs, trolls, and even goblins with her huge hammer.

While known primarily for her stamina and strength in battle, Katja's connection with the Light is healthy and strong. She is just as content to stay behind the lines and spend days healing the sick and wounded as she is wading out into enemies, knocking them back with practiced swings of her two-handed mace.

History

Born to a nobleman in King Adamant Wrynn III's court, the tiny Lady Katherine Urthadar led the peaceful life of a noble with her parents, Lord Gabriel and Lady Mirelle, and her elder brother, Christophe. She was given the title as the successor of her father's estate when Christophe left the family to become a priest, joining the Northshire clerics as an initiate at twelve years of age.

Three years later, the First War began. In a panic, the house of Urthadar fled to Lordaeron, and to safety. Lord Gabriel was amongst the first wave of refugees to warn King Terenas Menethil of the orcish threat that was tearing Stormwind apart. Katherine was worse for the wear, having witnessed the brutality of the green-skinned orcish hordes before her eighth birthday.

Katherine searched for her brother when the Northshire clerics came to Lordaeron, and found him worse for the wear, but eager to begin his new life with the newly-forming Knights of the Silver Hand. With his experience, and at his age, he was squired right off. Impressed, yet worried for Christophe, Katherine fought for her own place amongst the Knights. She caught the eye of Lady Lana Whitehand, one of the first female clerics to take up hammer and plate and become a paladin. So it was that the child Katherine became a page to Lady Whitehand at ten years of age.

She was too young to join the Knights when the second war shattered the land, only having just been squired at fourteen years of age. Neither Katherine nor her knight could leave Lordaeron – the paladin was suffering from wounds that kept her from the parade of paladins leaving the city. Squire Urthadar caught a glimpse of her knighted brother riding to the Dark Portal – the last time she would ever see her beloved Christophe.

Lady Whitehand was perhaps more severe on her own squire than any other knight was on his own, striving to prove that her girl could do as much, or more than, any boy could. Katherine fueled herself with grief at the death of her brother, burning with an angry and passionate fire that impressed her knight (and earned the irritation of her fellow squires). Her dedication and skill cause her to be one of the lucky few to earn her knightship at 21, one of the earliest ages to take up the title. It was then that she cast off her surname and took up the name of "Goldenfist" a reference to the Light, her strength, and (a bit vainly on her part), to her hair.

Under King Terenas Menethil, she fought valiantly, doing her part as a brave warrior of the splintering Alliance to keep peace and fight back against the constant threat of the Orcish Horde.

She was seven years into her knighthood and a respected knight when Prince Arthas Menethil disbanded the Silver Hand, leaving her with a terrible sense of loss -- until she realized that a name was a name, and that she and her fellows were still paladins, still blessed, and still going to fight.

Returning home to Lordaeron to deliver news of the Prince's madness, she and her fellow knights were greeted by the burning nightmare that was the rise of the scourge. She fought valiantly, doing her part to help evacuate the city and surrounding lands of Tirisfal. Her mentor, Lady Whitehand, fell in battle while aiding a small family of farmers, protecting a young woman reluctant to leave her lover -- another paladin who eventually joined the Scarlet Crusade.

Realizing that Lordaeron was overcome, Katherine fled, having no news of her family or the other noble houses. She rejoined others in the newly-rebuilt Stormwind, and took up the mantle of teacher and instructor to all those under King Varian Wrynn's rule who wished to learn of the holy Light. She never fully came around to Varian's rule, despite the young man being the grandson of the first king of her people.

With the introduction of the newly-crashed Draenei into the Alliance, Katherine met Vindicator Novak Maruul, a soft-spoken, slow-acting Draenei who taught her much of what she knows now about patience and careful planning. Their friendship could have been a romance, had Novak not been mourning the death of his wife after the crash of the Exodar. Instead, a familial dichotomy rose between them, and soon she let herself be known (only to him) as his "daughter", earning the nickname Katja (for "Kitty") and Navkova -- the daughter of Novak.

The creation of the Argent Crusade, out of the Dawn, the remainders of the Scarlet Crusade, and the leftover paladins still under the banner of the Order of the Silver Hand, gave the older and wiser Katherine a new direction in life. Her hatred for the Scourge knows no bounds, although she struggles to work alongside the Horde -- especially Orcs.

Amongst the other Crusaders is one of her now closest friends, an ex-Scarlet known as Arineme Serisfal, the selfsame girl Katja's mentor had died to protect those many years ago.