Kaya

Information

Player: ChampionMouse

Character Full Name: Kaya Snakestomper Brownmane

Character In-Game Name: Kaya

Nickname(s): "Pawne"*

Association(s): Thunder Bluff, The Horde

Race: Tauren

Class: Hunter

Age: 54

Sex: Female

Hair: A long, dark brown mane pulled into braids on either side of her head. Tan-colored fur on her back with a white belly underneath.

Eyes: Green

Weight: 360 lbs

Height: 7'6"

Alignment: Neutral Good.

Appearance

Simple, handstitched clothes. For traveling, she wears crude leathers and a brown, floppy hat.

Other: Kaya is a little pudgy for her race. She tends to smell of an odd mix of flour, leather, and cinnamon.

Personality

Kaya is a simple, kind-hearted Tauren who possesses a passion for food. She has an apparently youthful, optimistic view of the world, though this is tempered by her instinct to mother those around her. Kaya will often check up on others, making sure that they are warm, well-fed, and otherwise comfortable, perhaps indicating just how much the young Tauren wishes to be liked or needed. She takes most difficult situations in stride, but has difficulty socializing within large groups. Overall, Kaya is a wanderer at heart, in spite of a distinct lack of destination.

History

Kaya was still a youth when the Orcish Horde arrived on Kalimdor, forever traveling across the barrens with her parents and older siblings. From an early age, she had been experimenting with the little food her family possessed, cooking meat to various degrees and tasting whatever plants grew near their home. Though Kaya did learn to hunt, and did learn the importance of the spirits, her interest and focus was primarily on food. After nearly forty years of this, her family came to accept the hobby for what it was, and pretended to enjoy the products of Kaya's often wayward recipes. The Orcs' appearance on the continent and the portents which followed marked the end of this placid time in Kaya's life.

Despite the dire circumstances surrounding their people, Kaya's parents were not entirely trusting of the green-skinned creatures at first. It would take the dramatic events of the Third War to change their minds; all but Kaya and her mother participated in the conflict, and all of the members of her family managed to return alive. Her father spoke great praises of the Orcs after that, and the family's prayers of thanks to the Earth Mother became a nightly ritual.

The Brownmanes traveled to Thunder Bluff shortly after the formation of the new Horde, and settled into a comfortable life there. Yet, Kaya's brothers and sisters eventually left the city one by one, drawn away by newfound patriotism for the Horde or simple wanderlust. Kaya continued her culinary experiments, and was criticized by the family's neighbors for it. (As her family would never let food go to waste, the young Tauren ended up eating most of her own handiwork, resulting in her less-than-perfect figure.) This, along with her happier memories of a traveler's lifestyle encouraged Kaya to strike out on her own, and she did so following her entry into adulthood.

On a related note, Kaya's second name is a reference to a run-in she had with a snake on the outskirts of Thunder Bluff. It was later found that the 'snake' may have actually been the shedded skin of an adder, but her parents decided to keep that bit of information from her, so extreme was her reaction to what she thought was a "poisonous cobra."

Upon her departure, Kaya was given a small pouch of cinnamon as a gift. She thanked her parents, slid the pouch onto her belt, and set out for the Barrens in search of new flavors and familiar surroundings.

• "To eat" in Taur-ahe. A less than affectionate nickname given to her by childhood neighbors in Thunder Bluff.