Branna the Woodswalker
“Roots remember. Skin remembers. Even if people try to pretend you were never theirs.”
Branna the Woodswalker is a legend whispered beneath the boughs of The Grandgleam Forest, a half-feral ranger-druid, an orphaned noble-born child abandoned before she could crawl and shaped instead by hunger, cold, and the indifferent mercy of the wilds. Born to nobles who begged a witch for a child when they could not conceive, a witch they offended; So a child she would give them, with her father's blue eyes, her mother's blonde hair and the pointed ears of the Elf people they hated like no other. Within six months they cast her aside to a gutter orphanage that never let her forget she was 'wrong.' No culture that would have her, she found herself in the woods, and grew into a quiet specter of the frontier, a person walking among animals as-if they were her kin, tracking the things that stalk travelers and killing what cannot be reasoned with. Her skill with bow and spear is legend inside Everwealth’s borders as an indispensable ally who's skill has no rival. Hunters seek her guidance, villages whisper her name when predators grow bold. Tales speak of witchcraft in her early years and rites mastered without any mentor but the forest itself, yet Branna remains an enigma who asks for nothing and belongs to no one. She is a guardian only by circumstance, a wanderer by habit, and a woman who long ago renounced both the family that discarded her and the civilization that never wanted her, choosing instead the only world that ever showed her kindness. The wild.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Branna is lean, long-winded, and deceptively strong. Her body reflects a life spent climbing ancient boughs, ranging over uneven earth, and surviving off the land. Her endurance borders on supernatural, Grandgleam seasons carve survivors into their own breed.
Body Features
Her pale skin bears freckles scattered like pollen. Weathered hands tell her story more clearly than words, scratches from bramble, nicks from bone-knives, calluses from bowstring and climbing bark. Her blonde hair falls to her mid-back, often tangled with twigs or soft fur from her animal companions. She dresses in layered pelts stitched in functional patterns, each from a creature she respected deeply. Some were guides. Some were adversaries. All were honored.
Facial Features
Her features echo Elfese elegance, sharper lines, high cheekbones, slight taper to her eyes, but softened by a human warmth and humbled by Everwealthy freckles. Her smile is faint but constant, the kind worn by people who survived more than anyone realizes. When she plays her flute, eyes closed, her face carries a serenity no city ever gave her.
Identifying Characteristics
- Soft blonde hair that moves like light in a breeze.
- A cloak of mixed pelts, the marks of a skilled ranger.
- A flute carved from Everwood Tree sapling, tuned to call or calm beasts.
- A look in her eyes that suggests she remembers being unwanted, and chose kindness anyway.
Physical quirks
Branna moves with a quiet, instinctive grace, placing her feet softly even on terrain that should make noise. Her ears give away emotions she prefers to hide, flicking subtly whenever she feels uncertain, embarrassed, or caught off guard. When she listens, she becomes completely still in that uncanny way wild animals do, which unsettles most people but puts beasts at ease. She often rests with her back against something solid, half-curled like she’s denning rather than merely sleeping, a habit left over from a childhood spent hiding in makeshift shelters. Her fingers fiddle with her hair whenever she’s anxious or thinking deeply, though she brushes off questions about it. Even her breathing falls into the slow, rhythmic cadence of a woodland creature at rest, revealing how thoroughly the wild shaped her before she ever chose to walk its path
Special abilities
Branna’s abilities are the hard-earned fusion of instinct, druidcraft, and a ranger’s relentless discipline, not elegant sorcery nor academy-trained precision, but something older, wilder, and unmistakably hers.
- Beast-Bound Resilience: The years she spent surviving alongside the bear who first protected her left deeper marks than memory. Her body moves with a quiet, grounded strength, sudden bursts of power, uncanny balance, and a predator’s intuition for when something is watching her.
- Master Survivalist: Branna navigates the Grandgleam the way sailors read the sea. She can trace the faintest bend in a fern and taste the weather on the wind. Creatures stalking from cover, illusions woven by covens, even the silent glide of an owl, the forest speaks to her in signals anyone else would miss.
- Druid Magick: Though she learned nothing from formal circles, Branna possesses a natural affinity for the magicks of nature. Vines tighten at her urging. Saplings lean toward her as though listening. With effort, she can coax rapid growth from plants to create cover, impede a foe, or mend a wounded creature. These feats cost her, fatigue sets into her bones afterward, but they are precise, gentle works, nothing like the monstrous displays of seasoned druids.
- The Hunter’s Rhythm: Branna shifts between bow and spear in fluid, dance-like motion. Her archery is functional, merciless, and terrifyingly fast, honed by necessity rather than training halls. Her spearwork is more dynamic, spins, vaults, sweeps, and sudden bursts of momentum that allow her to meet predators twice her size and survive. She treats combat as movement first, killing second.
- Spirit-Listening: A subtle talent discovered by accident. Sometimes, when the night is windless and the Grandgleam is quiet, Branna hears faint impressions, echoes of animals long dead or spirits wandering the treeline. She cannot command them, but she senses when they stir, and she has learned to trust this as a warning of old magick or looming danger.
Apparel & Accessories
Branna dresses in the quiet practicality of a woman who survives alone in a forest that kills armies. Layers of supple leathers, fur-trimmed for warmth, wrap her frame without ever hindering movement. Scale-mail plates stitched beneath pelt and hide catch the light like dew on bark, offering protection without noise. Her hooded cloak is a patchwork of the forest’s gifts, wolf fur, boar hide, and the molted plumage of great owls, stitched not as trophies but as memories of creatures she hunted, saved, or honored. She wears no noble ornamentation, only what is useful, durable, and earned.
Specialized Equipment
Branna carries three weapons, each a reflection of a chapter in her hard-won life, a bow, a spear, and a dagger carved from a dragon’s claw. None bear names; She believes a tool should serve without vanity.
- Her Bow: A heavy-draw longbow rebuilt more times than she can count, splinted, re-strung, reforged, and shaped anew after storms, battles, or simple wear. Its tension is formidable, enough to make trained archers grit their teeth, but Branna draws it with fluid ease born from decades of repetition. The grip bears faint grooves worn by her own hands, polished by rain and sweat. Even shattered once in-battle with a nest of Lanternwings, she simply rebuilt it from Grandgleam yew and carried on.
- Her Spear: The shaft is carved from the remains of a massive fallen log, the same trunk she once slept beneath as a starving child hiding from storm and beast. It has been shaped, sanded, and reinforced until it balances like an extension of her body. Branna uses it not only for thrusting or distance throws but for acrobatic maneuvers: vaulting across ravines, redirecting her weight mid-leap, or spinning into tight strikes. Its head is steel, old and well-maintained, but the soul of the spear is the wood that once sheltered her.
- Her Dragon-Claw Dagger: A relic of a hunt fought in uneasy partnership with a famed band of dragon-killers. When it began desolating her territory, mauling wildlife and slaying wanderers, Branna agreed to act as their tracker. The kill was brutal, when the carcass was salvaged, she kept a single talon. Shaped and hafted into a dagger with rawhide cord, it holds a wicked edge. She uses it sparingly, the closest thing to a trophy she has ever kept.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Branna’s story begins in the velvet chambers of Opulence, Everwealth's very capital. Born to the wealthy O’Tiernan barony, Humans who prided themselves on their purity, their lineage, and their very public hatred of the Elfese. When their long-awaited child arrived with blonde hair like theirs but pointed ears like the people they despised, the parents recoiled as if she were a curse. And in truth, she was, the witch Mother Matilda had marked the child before birth, ensuring their line would carry the face they loathed most. Branna’s mother refused to hold her. Her father refused to name her. Within months they arranged for her disappearance, passing her to a ramshackle orphanage as if discarding a spoiled heirloom. She grew up hearing her own origins spoken of in-passing, each version crueler than the last. Life in the orphanage carved early scars. Other children mocked her ears, caretakers blamed her for misfortune, and the city’s prejudice seeped into every waking day. Unsure what she was allowed to be, she learned silence, self-reliance, and the skill of making herself small. But the hurt accumulated faster than she could bury it. By age eleven, she’d had enough. One night she fled into The Grandgleam Forest, barefoot, bruised, just a little girl and already so tired of being unwanted she felt death would be a kindness. The forest refused to let her. A great brown bear appeared in her path, old, scarred, and strangely calm. It followed her for days, then months, becoming an unspoken guardian. Paths opened where she walked. Food found her more often than she found it. Wind softened around her when cold nights threatened. These were Mother Matilda’s interventions, subtle acts of penance from the witch responsible for Branna’s cursed birth.
Matilda never tried to mold the vulnerable girl into a witch either; She felt she had done enough meddling with her fate as it was. Instead, she let the forest do the teaching. Branna learned to track by following the bear, to forage by watching the birds, to listen as though the trees breathed secrets into her ears. Through the years she grew into someone steady and luminous, soft-spoken but unbreakable, wary but kind, a woman more at home among roots and rivers than stone and politics. Matilda revealed herself only when Branna was grown, offering a way to remove the curse entirely and claim a human life free of pointed ears. Branna declined. What others rejected had become the foundation of her strength, and she refused to erase it. She abandoned the O’Tiernan name the moment she understood it meant nothing. She abandoned Miyoko, the Elfese name her brief adopters forced on her, because it never reflected who she was. The woods gave her one name, Branna, and she kept it. Travelers speak now of the Woodswalker, the huntress who brings down beasts that threaten the roads, the ranger who protects children wandering too near the forest’s edge, the Druid who plays a flute that even Dragons will pause to hear. She still wrestles with the old ache, the sense of being neither Elf nor Human enough for either world. But the forest claims her without hesitation, and in that bond she found the belonging her birth never offered. Her story is one of bitter survival shaped into compassion, grief tempered into purpose, and a life self-forged from everything others tried to take from her.
Gender Identity
Branna understands gender through the lens of survival, not culture. Neither human nor Elfese communities ever claimed her, and so she never learned their rigid expectations, the forest cared nothing for womanhood or propriety, and thus she grew into someone who identifies simply as a woman because the shape of her body and the sound of the word feel familiar.
Sexuality
Though capable of affection, Branna’s early life left her wary of intimacy, slow to trust, and slower still to believe herself wanted. Her attachments are platonic, formed through deep companionship. What rare affection she allows is quiet, patient, and deliberate, love or romance, to her, would leave her far too vulnerable, and so to it she has always been a stranger.
Education
Branna has no formal schooling, her education is carved into her bones by hunger, cold, and the ruthless tutelage of the Grandgleam. She learned tracking from beasts, shelter-building from storms, and druidcraft from years of subtle, unseen nudges by Mother Maggie. Her knowledge of the wilds surpasses most rangers, and she possesses a druid’s instinctive understanding of magick as something living, breathing, and hungry.
Employment
Branna has never held a traditional job. Her “career” formed in the shadows between hunts: first surviving as a feral orphan in the forest, then serving as an informal tracker for mercenaries and monster-hunters who respected her skill enough to treat with her as an equal. Over time she became a guardian of the Grandgleam’s borders, slaying beasts that strayed too close to villages and hunting bandits who used the woods as a refuge. She does not seek payment, though grateful communities leave offerings she accepts without acknowledgment.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Branna earned renown by participating in the slaying of a young forest-dragon that had begun razing the outskirts of the Grandgleam, an act that earned her the dragon-claw dagger she still carries. She tracked a cannibal bandit-lord across thirty miles of murderous terrain and returned alone, her arrow buried in his throat. She ended the terror of the Grove-Widow, a monstrous spider-beast that devoured whole caravans. Though she rejects praise, her name has passed between hunters’ camps and tavern tables as a quiet reassurance that some threats do not go unanswered.
Failures & Embarrassments
Her earliest failures were simply those of a child trying to survive, nights she nearly froze, hunts she botched, shelters she built that collapsed under storm-wind. Later failures cut deeper, her inability to protect a small merchant caravan she once guided, ambushed by forest raiders despite her vigilance; The guilt lingers still. Branna also considers it a personal shame that she once fled a confrontation with a group of Brambleboars out of fear rather than facing them, though any sane hunter would have called fleeing the wiser choice.
Mental Trauma
Abandoned as an infant for features she could not choose, Branna carries wounds no blade can reopen, fear of rejection, distrust of open hands, a quiet dread of being seen as something unwanted or unnatural. The orphanage years left her with a deep-rooted instinct to flinch at raised voices. Even now, being called “Elf” or “human” in accusatory tones can freeze her breath. Though the forest healed much, it could not erase the belief that belonging is something earned, never given.
Intellectual Characteristics
Branna is perceptive, intensely practical, and quietly strategic. Her thoughts move like a hunter’s, always measuring terrain, silence, danger. She speaks rarely but thinks deeply, analyzing every scent, footprint, and twitch of foliage with a near-feral acuity. Academic knowledge is limited, but her intelligence is the adaptive, lived kind, the sharp, instinct-driven cleverness of someone who has survived every day she had no right to.
Morality & Philosophy
Her morality is shaped by survival and empathy in equal measure. She believes in protecting the vulnerable because no one protected her. She holds a fierce reverence for the natural world and intervenes only when mortals or monsters upset its balance. She kills when necessary, never for sport. She distrusts institutions, nobility, and religious orders, having been failed by all of them long before she learned their names.
Taboos
Branna refuses to harm children, beasts acting from hunger, or anyone who cannot defend themselves. She will not enter a village temple or noble estate unless absolutely necessary, such places reek of judgment to her. Most of all, she avoids any act that resembles her parents' cruelty, abandonment, indifference, or forcing a child to be something they are not.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Branna wants, above all else, to keep others from suffering the way she suffered. She is driven by a fiercely guarded compassion, the instinct to shield the vulnerable, be they travelers, orphans, or creatures of the Grandgleam, from the brutality of the world that once tried to break her. Beneath that instinct lies a quieter, more painful yearning, the desire to understand who she is when she is neither hated Elf nor discarded human, but simply herself.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Savvies
- A master tracker shaped by decades in a forest that devours armies.
- Instinctively attuned to beast behavior and magick-warped terrain.
- A precise archer capable of drawing a bowstring heavy enough to exhaust trained soldiers.
- Adaptable, quiet-footed, and frighteningly perceptive in the wild.
- Utterly lost in court etiquette, noble protocol, or formal negotiation.
- Avoidant of written agreements, paperwork, and anything implying obligation.
- Uncomfortable with praise, overwhelmed by crowds, and visibly tense in enclosed spaces.
- Struggles to articulate personal emotion, defaulting to silence.
Likes & Dislikes
Likes
- Dawn mist rising through the trees.
- The scent of rain on bark.
- Animals who approach without fear.
- The rhythm of carving wood beside a fire.
- Music played for no audience but herself.
- Noble excess and its cruelties.
- Orphanages and the memories they summon.
- Raised voices, sudden anger, forced intimacy.
- Hunters who take more than the wild can spare.
- Anyone who tries to tell her who she ought to be.
Virtues & Personality perks
Branna’s greatest strength is her steady kindness, offered without expectation or ceremony. She is brave in the simple, necessary ways, standing between danger and the defenseless without hesitation. She honors promises, guards secrets, and treats every creature with a measure of quiet respect. Her resilience is not loud or legendary, but rooted in a life spent surviving what should have broken her.
Vices & Personality flaws
Her independence borders on self-harm; She refuses help even when wounds run deep. She harbors a profound fear of abandonment, making genuine intimacy nearly impossible. When cornered emotionally, she grows cold and sharp, retreating behind a ranger’s stoicism. She carries a quiet belief that peace is something meant for others, not for her.
Personality Quirks
Branna hums an old melody when anxious, the same tune she once played for the bear that protected her in childhood. She tilts her head like a wolf when listening closely and taps her thumb twice into her palm when grounding herself. Animals often approach her without fear, sensing something familiar in her stillness. Despite her reserved demeanor, Branna has a tendency to playfully giggle audibly when showing affection to animals. She also frequently lets on a soft but proud, toothy grin after completing a task like an acrobatic maneuver or slaying a challenging beast.
Hygiene
Her upkeep is practical, shaped by necessity rather than vanity. She bathes in rivers, keeps her gear and blades immaculate, and carries the scent of pine resin, smoke, and crushed herbs. Her hair is bound in ribbons of cloth, often uneven, and she has no patience for perfumes or silks unless required to attend parties held in honor of various hunting parties she has been a part of.
Representation & Legacy
Though still alive, Branna’s legend already whispers along the Grandgleam’s borders. Hunters speak of a lone ranger guiding the lost from the jaws of the forest. Poachers warn of a druid with storm-lit eyes who intervenes when blood is spilled without cause. To orphaned children, she is a promise that survival is possible. Her informal symbol is the silhouette of a woman at the treeline, bow lowered, watching, but never approaching.
Social
Reign
Branna has no throne, no command, and no official dominion, yet folk often say her “reign” extends across the Grandgleam’s borders. For nearly two decades she has patrolled its outskirts and inner paths, eliminating threats that even militias refuse to face. Her memorable moments are not victories carved in stone but the absence of tragedies, villages spared from monsters, caravans unburdened by bandits, missing children guided home. Her “reign” persists so long as she draws breath and so long as the forest still needs a guardian.
Contacts & Relations
Branna maintains loose ties with several hunter bands and rangers who travel near the Grandgleam, particularly the Ashmark Company who once aided her in the dragon hunt. She occasionally cooperates with Hedge Druids, though she distrusts organized circles. Mother Matilda, though no longer a direct influence, remains a quiet ally whose word Branna still honors. Beyond these, her “affiliations” are the unspoken pacts she holds with the wild creatures and wandering folk who know her silhouette as a sign of safety. She is also in an anomalous relationship with the knights of The Arcane Coalition; Publicly, they they do not pursue Branna despite her not possessing the License to Practice Magick they uphold for the crown, despite the murderous frenzy they typically show to those without one; Citing her usefulness in dealing with monsters, covens, and Grandgleam anomalies that even trained Task Mages hesitate to approach. Privately, rumor paints a different picture, that the Coalition has tried to detain her more than once, only for their agents to return empty-handed.
Family Ties
Branna has long abandoned the O’Tiernan name and refuses to claim any connection to the family who discarded her. The Elfese name Miyoko, given to her by well-meaning caretakers, she too rejects even more fiercely, believing it a cage disguised as kindness. If pressed about her lineage, she grows guarded, deflecting with short answers or redirecting the topic entirely. Though she insists she has no family, a quiet ache in her voice hints at an attachment she refuses to admit.
Religious Views
Branna does not worship the gods, nor does she curse them. She distrusts temples, clergy, and any divine hierarchy that allowed her abandonment to occur. Her reverence is reserved for the forest itself, the living magick of root, rain, and stone. She offers silent respect to nature’s cycles, not out of fear but gratitude. If she prays at all, it is only in moments of deep solitude, when moonlight threads through the trees and she feels the world listening back.
Social Aptitude
Branna is quiet, composed, and cautious with words. Her charisma is subtle, born not of charm, but presence. She carries herself with confident humility, avoids crowds, and dislikes loud or boastful conversation. Etiquette eludes her, yet sincerity makes her difficult to dislike. She speaks plainly, listens intently, and treats even strangers with the respect she was never granted. While not extroverted, she is far from cold, her kindness is simply measured, deliberate, and often delivered without needing to speak at all.
Mannerisms
Branna rarely sits with her back exposed, choosing natural barriers or high ground. She taps her thumb against her dagger’s hilt when thinking. Her eyes constantly scan treelines, even indoors. She avoids eye contact when discussing her past but holds it unflinchingly during danger. When nervous she twirls segments of her hair. When comforting others, she speaks softly, as if afraid to disturb the leaves.
Hobbies & Pets
Branna keeps no pets, though several forest animals follow her trail out of trust, particularly a scarred gray fox that has shadowed her for years. Her hobbies are simple: carving runes into fallen branches, cataloging tracks in a small leather journal, and collecting feathers, stones, or bones with interesting shapes. She enjoys repairing her weapons, tending to the forest’s wounded creatures, and walking long, silent paths at dusk.
Speech
Branna’s voice is low, warm, and steady, carrying a faint Opulent inflection softened by years of solitude. Her speech is sparse, each word chosen carefully. She uses short phrases rather than long explanations, and seldom swears unless deeply provoked. Her greetings are simple nods, her farewells even quieter. When offering reassurance, she often murmurs, “easy now”. Her insults are rare but sharp, usually delivered as calm observations rather than anger. She speaks in metaphors drawn from nature, storms, roots, seasons, because those are the truths she trusts.
Wealth & Financial state
Branna exists outside Everwealth’s class structures, neither poor nor rich in the conventional sense. She owns almost nothing, a bedroll, her weapons, a cloak, and a pouch of necessities. She owes no debts and keeps no coin unless it’s needed for trade with passing caravans, often donating or abandoning excess. Her true wealth lies in the respect of those she has saved and the unseen gifts left at forest shrines, dried meats, herbs, small carvings, tokens of gratitude she never collects but appreciates from afar.
Ethnicity
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Branna holds no formal titles, though several have been attributed to her by rumor and gratitude. Woodswalker, Gleam-Warden, Huntress of the Old Ways, and among some fearful travelers, The Shadow in the Branches. She acknowledges none of them and corrects all who try to elevate her, yet the names linger in whispered stories told around fires.
Age
33 years old, young in Elf terms, but life has weathered her with the gravity of someone twice that age.
Children
Gender
Female
Eyes
Dark blue, slightly narrow, with a fox-like squint born from years of watching treelines for danger.
Hair
Long, fair-blonde hair, straight, sunlit, and often tangled by wind.
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pale with a faint woodland tan, her complexion carrying scattered freckles across her nose and cheeks.
Height
5'10"
Weight
152 lbs.
Quotes & Catchphrases
- “Watch where you walk.”
- “I don’t do this for thanks.”
- “The woods listen. Make sure you’re worth hearing.”
- “Every creature fears something. Even me.”
Character Prototype
Branna carries the quiet, weathered resolve of a seasoned monster-hunter weaving weapon and magic hand-in-hand akin to Geralt of Rivia. Her wit dry as old bark and her instincts sharpened by a life spent surviving what should have killed her. Yet beneath that stoic exterior lies a surprisingly earnest heart, awkward in tenderness, stubborn in loyalty, and far more willing to protect others than she’ll ever admit. She moves through the wilds like a blade through cloth, equal parts gruff pragmatist and reluctant hero, the kind of figure people trust long before she trusts herself.
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