Cara
Information
Contents
Player: Caravan
Character Full Name: Caravan Fairwinds (née Caralee Tabitha Poprocket)
Character In-Game Name: Cara
Nickname(s): Cara, (self-titled) King of the Bartop, The Most Interesting Gnome in the World
Association(s): The Hate Exchange, Fairwinds Ltd, The Salty Sailor tavern, the Earthshaker tavern, Convoy McCall, you (yes, you!) (formerly) officer for Argus Wake, Hemet Nesingwary's Expedition, Sun'n'Snow Shipping Company, Free Tinkers Union, the Gnomeregan Stitch'n'Bitch Knitting Brigade.
Race: Gnome
Class: OOC: Warrior
Skills and Abilities: "Though she be but little, she is fierce!" Caravan is a proficient hunter, sharpshooter and (for her size) hand-to-hand combatant. She does not always "fight fair", but she sees it as working with what she has against opponents who already have a natural advantage.
A strange skill is Caravan's ability to consume vast amounts of alcohol, even outdrinking companions two or three times her size. When asked about her limit once, Caravan shrugged and remarked at how she "had found her limit, but then lost it again."
She is rarely seen speaking in her native Gnomish. In addition to her Common, Caravan is passingly-fluent in Goblin and has a very, very basic grasp of Taurahe. She's picked up "Throm'ka", but that's as far as she goes with Orcish.
Age: 100
Sex: Female
Hair: Dark brown. When not in her weather-worn hat or, on occassion, her Amani Death Mask, she keeps her hair pulled back in an untidy ponytail.
Eyes: Green
Weight: 34lbs
Height: 2'6"
Appearance
Usual Garments/Armor: She is not one for frills, preferring practicality and comfort over fashion. Her usual attire consists of a threadbare tank-top, a leather harness, patched and weather-worn pants, and comfortable leather boots. She is famous for her battered hat, her most prized possession.
She does not wear jewelry and refuses to wear dresses.
Other: Unlike other lady gnomes, Caravan does not have a particularly high-pitched voice, it's lower and sounds a bit more like a dwarvish or human tone. Yes, she has practiced.
Beneath her hat, Caravan usually stores one dented, scratched and overall beat-up silvery flask full of suspect alcohol, usually a strong moonshine.
Caravan is a lover of cigars and can be seen indulging in one or two from time to time, as frequently as she can afford or acquire them.
Personality
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Caravan Fairwinds is a gnome of many, many pecularities. For one thing, she says "swelltastic."
The root of Caravan's personality is impulsiveness: She is just as likely to clap you on the shoulder and buy you a drink as she is to throw down fisticuffs. Impulse has landed her in numerous exciting situations, and she is always seeking out jobs -- even taking them without much description or briefing. As is common with gnomes, Caravan is curious but she channels this into adventure and thrill-seeking. She can be easily distracted, stopping in the middle of an argument or story to approach an interesting newcomer to a group or to address a whole new topic.
She is unapologetic and says what's on her mind, despite the appropriateness or offensiveness of a statement (though she will, of course, preface such statements with a preamble such as "I hate to say it -- but I will --..." or "I don't mean no disrespect, but I'm going to say it anyway, ..."). She is also marked by her irreverence, discussed further below.
Caravan is friendly, sometimes too friendly, and frequently forgets that she fought or threatened a person just a day --or even a few hours-- previously. However, she has been known to hold grudges, particularly against "repeat offenders". She is very defensive over her height, referring to other races and buildings as "heightists"; she also remarks that she is -not- short. Because of this, Caravan is frequently seen standing on bartops, tables, or sitting on the shoulders of the tallest members of a group. She also does not tolerate being patted on the head, spoken to like a child, picked up like a sack of potatoes, or talked-down-to because of her race. She will quickly challenge the offender to a fight, give them a lecture, smack their hands, leave, or a combination of all of the above.
In regards to relations with other races, she is not so much racist as she just makes racially-insensitive comments and, usually, out of affection. She refers to people either by a racial characteristic (all unknown trolls are "Blue", all draenei are "Hooves", all Forsaken are "Bone Daddy/Mama", most Blood Elves are "Dandies", etc) or by some physical characteristic (remarking on hair, glasses, scars, clothing, you name it). Caravan also frequently mispronounces names and, despite correction, will continue to call a character by their new Caravan-given name until she decides otherwise.
Due to her recent encounter (and subsequent befriending) of the Forsaken couple Pawn and Lendri, she has began to champion the cause of Forsakens-in-Love and is prepared to throw down fisticuffs with so-called "Alivingists". She also, embarassingly, attempts to prove Tauren beauty and set up her friend Tragga with any and all Tauren she meets as well as other members of the Horde. There are only a few races she is not particularly fond of in general (others she judges on a case-by-case basis), in particular she views humans as "squares" who are racist, heightist and "alivingist".
History
Caravan's origins do not indicate a gnome destined for greatness. She was born the eldest daughter (and second-oldest child of a brood of seven) to two average gnome parents, and had a childhood dog named Spot. The only extraordinary thing about Spot was that he did not, in fact, have spots. It was just what the Poprocket family assumed all humans named their dogs and a human had given her father, Eustace Poprocket, Spot as a gift. Eustace was an unremarkable engineer, spending most of his time on blueprints than on actually creating anything, and her mother - Tabitha Boomberry-Poprocket - was a very talented baker and piemaker.
Like many young girls her age who lacked a certain je ne sais quois when it came to engineering, Caralee took up knitting, eventually forming the Gnomeregan Stich'n'Bitch Knitting Brigade. (She still occasionally receives irradiated socks in the mail from Gnomeregan, and takes a small pleasure that the Brigade is still operating. She has yet to keep a single pair.) Caralee tried, on numerous occasions, to follow in both her mother and her father's professional footsteps but despite gaining membership with the Free Tinkers Union, she found that her heart was never in it or that she could not, for the life of her, get a darn souffle to rise.
Caralee could never be considered tall by any means, even amongst gnomes she was still short, and this posed its problems until she met the dwarves Conrad Snowhammer and Baeligh Sunpeak. They ran the Sun'n'Snow Shipping Company and had begun to branch out beyond their snowy borders. However, most of their couriers were large dwarvish men, and they were losing money from having to send their messengers on multiple trips to send out all of their goods. Now, at this time Caralee could not tell you a Night Elf from a Rabbit (except that one of them, she was sure, had fur and the other did not), but she signed up on the spot. She bid Gnomeregan a tearful farewell, and resolved to see the world. And what a world it was!
She worked for the Sun'n'Snow Shipping Company for quite some years, and with her small hands managed to expand it to almost unmanageable proportions. By all means, she never lost a package! By the time her 30th birthday rolled around, her contacts had already begun referring to her as "the Fairwinds gnome", so she tucked the old 'Poprocket' away and assumed her new surname as was customary. But she wasn't just content with taking her new last name. Over the years, she'd seen so much -- even learned how to use a rifle and speak Goblin -- that she wasn't going to stop now. Caralee Poprocket was a tiny, no-good, knit'n'purl gnomette. But Caravan Fairwinds, that was a gnome who could be anyone.
Shortly after, Sun'n'Snow Shipping Company was acquired by a Goblin merchant, the two dwarves mysteriously disappearing in a freak Zeppelin accident, and Caravan decided to high-tail it out of there. From that time on, her adventures become far too numerous to include here, but she never hesitates to tell anyone, should the occasion spark her memory. She spent time with the Nesingwary Safari, where she acquired her almost obsessive love of hunting, but left after a few disagreements with Hemet. It is rumored it was after an affair, which Caravan will neither confirm nor deny, but she will say that there were more than a few times when Hemet left her out of the glory memoirs. Caravan has also suggested a few other affairs in her life, a few of them being the Salty Sailor barkeep Nixxrax, Gazlowe, and Vanndar Stormpike, but one can never be sure if she's telling the truth or telling tall tales.
Recently, Caravan has set out on her own, forming the Fairwinds Limited or, as Caravan amends, the "not-so-limited." She'll take any job that pays, even some that don't, and continues to seek out adventure where ever it may be hiding.
