Zulfi

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Information

Player: Brisalis

Character Full Name: Zulfi Tambaza Atal'jang

Character In-Game Name: goes by the title "Zulfi"

Nickname(s): Zaza. Tambaza

Association(s): currently - Darkspear trolls, the Horde

Race: Troll

Class: Witch Doctor

Skills and Abilities: An exceptional alchemist, Tambaza is well-versed in the brews and potions of her profession. Unlike other witch doctors, who rely more on the arcane, Tambaza embraces the shamanist tradition to connect with the spirits and Loa.

Though her Orcish is a bit rough, she is fluent in Zandali. She knows a few basic words in Taurahe (primarily greetings, herbal names).

Age: 34

Sex: Female

Hair: Red

Eyes: Reddish-orange

Weight: 190 lbs (approx.)

Height: 6'8”

Appearance

Traditional kilt and beaded top. A little worse for wear, and weather-worn, but it is evident that she takes care of her ritual garments as best as she can. On her wrists, she wears two plain, wide, brown-black wooden bracelets. She wears a necklace with rows of carved wooden beads, small raptor teeth and snake vertebrae. On her ankles are two simple anklets of leather tongs and short, bright feathers. She is frequently seen wearing a simple wooden mask.

Other: Her wooden staff, complete with three small shrunken-heads (of racial ambiguity, presumably not trollish) and small looped strings comprised of: crude metal bells, tiger claws, raptor scales and feathers. Also attached to her staff are a few worn leather bags of herbs and glass orbs of various liquids.

She carries a woven bag of dried jungle vines in which she keeps her "tools of the trade." These are kept a secret, and shown only to those who are participating in her rituals.

Visibly, Tambaza has small nicks – ritualistic scarring – over her brow and cheekbones.

Personality

Tambaza is friendly in that she will not outright make an enemy of one who could have been an ally or useful. She is hardworking, and stubborn - the kind of stubborn that comes with years of doing things yourself and in your own way. Unaccustomed to friends, she is not exactly “loyal” but she will still help where and when she can -- she holds her own interests above the interests of others.

A flaw (she sees it as a benefit) is that she is very superstitious. Few things are coincidence to her, and she will listen to the messages "from the other side" over the word of the living. More than a few travel or social arrangements have been suspended due to a raptor cry from the east, a dead snake in the road, or shiver in her spine!

If Tambaza looks like she's talking to herself, she [usually] isn't. She is among the trolls who still hold on to the vestiges of the old ways. She does what it takes, and "the end justifies the means" is not far off, as long as the ends are her ends. This is not necessarily malicious, just the way things are: If her allies or the Horde fail her, Tambaza will always have Tambaza.

She respects the Orcs and Tauren for their strength and shamanistic cultures. Of the members of the Horde, she feels more comfortable around them (and the Darkspear) than the Forsaken or Sin'Dorei. As for her own Darkspear, she bears them no ill-will but instead continues to carry a need to prove herself as a competent witch doctor. She is both saddened and frightened by the Forsaken, believing that they are improperly cared-for corpses under the sway of dark voodoo that must be returned to their inert state. If ever in the presence of a Forsaken, she carries many protective charms and the like. Tambaza holds very little love for the blood elves: aside from the fear of their arcane magic, she feels they are inferior beings due to their addictions and fair bodies.

History

“Papa wanted a son; he got a ‘Zulfi' instead.”

After five daughters in a row, it became readily apparent to Tazingo Atal'jung that his mate was not going to provide him with a son. He took his sixth-born, Tambaza, and raised her personally, bringing her up as an apprentice witch-doctor. What she lacked in natural talent, she made up in hard work and determination – a practice she continues to this day to expand her skills. Because of her father, she was tolerated in her village for some time and would perform many female duties (midwifing, fertility magic, and healing among them). Though not allowed to preside over death rituals, she watched silently and learned, practicing on her own in the deep of the jungle. She was determined to prove that a “zulfi” was just as powerful as any other witch doctor.

Upon the death of Tazingo when she was nineteen, Tambaza lost her “protection”. She was slowly pushed to the edges of the village and removed from the day-to-day goings-on of the tribe. Her sisters would occasionally visit her hut to bring her food, or to tell her to let go of this “male's work”, but eventually they stopped coming. Tambaza would neither let go nor accept their gifts. She relied, instead, on the skills her father taught her and the savageness of the life he had put her on.

He had, really, never left.

Through demanding rituals, she managed to keep a connection with her father and continued to learn the arts that had previously been denied to her: recipes for brews and charms; many rituals, spells and incantations. In her lone jungle hut, she beat the drums for the Loa and sacrificed some of her blood (through ritual blood-letting) in devotion.

When the Murlocs became more hazard than nuisance, she helped her tribe from a distance. And then the sea began to rise, threatening to overtake the islands. When the Orcs came to the island with their ships, Tambaza saw the opportunity and took it – joining her fellow trolls in escaping across the sea to Durotar. Times were changing; a place in the world was opening up to her.

Like many Darkspear, Tambaza felt grateful to the Orcs. But she would not “love what they loved, shun what they shunned” completely. In her heart, she is still a Darkspear troll, who beats the drums for the spirits and honors the “old ways.”