Mali Bloodscythe

Mali Bloodscythe
"I get I'm not the sanest of folks, but there's two things you can count on: I'll protect my friends, and I'll destroy my enemies. Now which side a' that do you wanna be on?"
A Chaotic Adventurer With Loyalties Unknown
Gender	Female
Race	Roegadyn
Clan	Sea Wolf
Citizenship	Unaffiliated
Age	23 (Technically 28, born in 1549)
Nameday	28th Sun of the 6th Umbral Moon
Guardian	Rhalgr, the Destroyer
Orientation	???
Occupation	Mercenary

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Basic Info

Full Name: Unknown.

Aliases: Goes by Mali Bloodscythe as her pseudonym.

Nicknames: Mali, Malice, Mal

Pronunciation: MAL-ee

Birthplace: Unknown.

Current Residence: Limsa Lominsa

Relationship Status: Single

Religion: "Pfff, religion? Feck that noise. If the gods want to come down and do shite right for a change, maybe I'll start believin'."

Laterality: Left handed.

Other Notes: None yet.

Appearance

Height: 5'9", and if you comment on her (relatively) short stature you'll have to deal with an axe in your skull.

Weight: 135 ponz

Build: She has muscle, but her body is just a little bit smaller compared to other Roegadyn. She has a bit of an hourglass figure, but with broader shoulders.

Skin Color: As pink and healthy as a race of green-skinned people can look.

Eye Color: Heterochromatic; Left eye is a light grey-blue, right eye is blood red and slightly more dilated.

Hair Color: Light purple with red highlights. It's hard to tell if the red is natural, or it was somehow dyed that way.

Hair Style: Windswept and easy to manage. It's clear she spends minimal time managing her hair, but she was lucky enough to be born with follicles that didn't care either way. She has a constant look of "obvious, but stylish bed-head."

General Clothing Style: Usually a mismatch of armor and casual dress, depending on her mood. The armor is likely to be dirty and covered in bloodstains ("tokens of battle," she calls them), but her clothes are at least kept clean, though not exactly pristine. You will probably never see her in a skirt, but if you do you might not live to tell the tale.

Voice: Unusually high-pitched for a Roegadyn, if she ever did "pansy shit" like sing she would probably be a soprano. She has a gruff, somewhat intimidating tone most of the time, which shows especially when she's calling out in excitement during battle. If you manage to catch her off-guard, though, her voice can be much different, smoother and more dexterous at displaying emotions other than "I love killing things." She usually has a slight Limsa Lominsan accent, but it changes in severity (or disappears entirely) based on her mood.

Other Notes: She has a few cuts and scratches here and there, but nothing that strikes as obvious save for a more noticeable one on her face. Her most noticeable trait is the red war paint she has on her face. She is rarely ever seen without it, which makes some people think it might be a tattoo. When asked about it, her answer changes every time. They include, but are not limited to: family tradition, used to scare her enemies, "it makes me feel pretty," "how about I paint YOUR face motherf--"

Personality

Mali can be almost perfectly described in one word; chaotic. To say that she suffers from mood swings would be both an understatement and a misnomer, as she seems to kind of enjoy it. At times she is perfectly nice and exuberant, albeit with a dark sense of humor and a violent streak. Other times she is a brooding, antisocial pessimist with a chip on her shoulder and an axe with your name on it. Still other times she is an angry, violent demon of a woman who just wants to see the world burn. Once or twice she even shows a softer side, though she's too headstrong to admit it. Throughout all of her various "personalities" there are a few connecting themes: she likes a good laugh, she's loyal to whomever she decides is her friend that day, and she keeps a tough persona on at all times. In spite of (or perhaps to compensate for) her very "masculine" behavior, she never misses an opportunity to remind her companions that she is very much a woman...unless it involves dressing up.

When around company she isn't used to, Mali's personality shifts are less extreme, mostly because she is very uncomfortable in new or large crowds (though she would never show it, most of the time) and doesn't really know how to act around new people. She tends to stay away from making big decisions or standing out in the crowd, and the few things she does say usually come off as gruff, rude, or uncaring. While that might actually be the case sometimes, most of the time she is merely putting on her "extra tough" facade to either impress, or scare, new people. Get to know her a little, though, and she lets go of the extra tough guy attitude (thought she has a lot left to spare) and becomes her more extreme self.

Being socially awkward to an extreme, she has trouble understanding romantic relationships, or even noticing when someone is flirting with her (or setting her up with someone else, for that matter). She also has trouble understanding simple things like filtering what she says, and why people get angry when she speaks her mind. Granted, when she speaks her mind it's usually a sarcastic remark at the expense of someone else. She has trouble not looking like she's about to kill something (even when being as cordial as possible), and tends to be intimidating to the average person without making a conscious effort (or specifically trying not to be), which gives her a reputation as a bit of a bully, or even a bogeyman for merchants and peddlers ("don't look at her directly! That crazy grin is enough to make your hair stand on end!" "If you see her coming, just give her whatever she wants and hope she leaves."). Despite it all she means well...most of the time.

Likes

• Men - She gets along with men better than women, mostly. Not to say that she dislikes women, she just doesn't know how to be...feminine.
• Fights - Not necessarily with others, just in general. The thrill of battle is something she enjoys, perhaps a little too much.
• Stories - Except for her own. She likes to hear about other peoples' experiences, unless she gets bored of it.
• Winning - Post-battle celebrations are common. They usually involve drinking.
• Food - And drinks, of course. She hardly ever turns down a meal, unless it's dodo.
• Laughing - Often for no reason. She's very jovial when she isn't being antisocial.
• Allies - If you get on her good side she's a fiercely loyal friend...just don't ask too many questions.
• Challenges - She's always looking to get better. If you defeat her, she'll probably want to be your friend/rival until she can defeat you back.

Dislikes

• Self-centered people - People who are full of themselves get on her nerves. Whether they think they're the best at something or they simply don't think about others as much, or even if they are so focused on their own problems that they run in "depressed mode" all the time.
• Losing - She will rarely ever admit defeat, even when she's lying half-dead on the ground.
• Emotional attachments - She doesn't open up to people, and she doesn't know how to respond when people become close to her.
• Tedium - She hates doing the same thing over and over, and gets bored easily.
• Dodos - Alive, dead, cooked, anything. She simply cannot stand dodos.

Alignment: Chaotic...something. The closest D&D equivalent would be chaotic neutral, but given the extremes of her personality she can be anything from truly good to pure evil at any given time.

Abilities

Abilities in Battle

Mali knows just about everything there is to know about the fine art of killing things with axes. She spent most of her known life with an axe in her hands, which may or may not have led to her almost homicidal glee for battle. As a side effect of her violent upbringing, she knows probably more than she should about the intricacies of marauding and piracy, but also knows what happens to people who go too far with their power ("getting too cozy with ill-gotten power never ends well, unless you think it's good to lie face down in the dirt with a blade in your back and a pile of corpses beneath you."). Given that she easily falls prey to boredom though, she recently has started to put down the axe more often and branch out into, as she puts it, "different ways of hurting things in extreme fashions." She has at least some demonstrative skill in other forms of combat, most notably with lances and swords. Nothing that rivals her power with an axe of course, but given her tenacity that might change.

While Mali has enough skill for magic, her life has never focused on it nor really allowed time to study the intricacies of bending the aether to one's will. She sees it as something strange and alien that she might someday grow more accustomed to, and has even dabbled with it in the past, but never for very long. Of course, as unpredictable as she is, the next time you meet her she might be aspiring to be a grandmaster of the aetherial arts.

Abilities in Daily Life

To say that Mali lacks the skills to function as a regular person would be both accurate and a little depressing. She has focused so much of her life on the way of a warrior that she doesn't really know how to act outside of the battlefield, either alone or with others. She can cook enough to stay alive (but prefers other peoples' cooking to her own, as hers tends to be as chaotic as she is), and she knows enough of the basics of living to keep a reasonable life in her small abode in Limsa Lominsa, but she could never settle down and start a life that didn't involve death and destruction as a primary source of income.

As an off hobby she occasionally tries to make things. Nothing big and fancy, but little things that don't take very long and may or may not be useful (somewhere, somehow, she has a closet full of origami cranes and simple woodcarvings, all made out of boredom). She has nothing but the highest respect for people that can actually sit down and make something of actual use (especially those who make things she can use in battle) but her best way to show respect is mild curiosity and fewer insults.

Despite her exterior dislike for sitting in one place for too long, she is actually very well read and smarter than she lets on, and even has a bit of an artistic streak, for all the good it does her (the height of which are a few doodles and the aforementioned closet of random crafts). When she isn't out making coin from a dangerous life of adventuring, she actually prefers staying at home with a good book or a pen and paper. If she was really desperate and focused on it, she could probably make a decent living from her artistic tendencies, though the very thought of it would make her go crazy within her first "day" on the job.

History

What is known

Mali keeps her past close to her chest. The most people can usually get are rumors and vague descriptions. Those familiar with her would know that she had a rough upbringing full of training and battle, but very little else. She never talks about family, if she ever even had one. Where ever she came from is a mystery, as she seemed to just appear in Limsa Lominsa as a fledgling adventurer years ago, and she has yet to divulge where she was before that. She is an enigma, with no past and no visible goals for the future. She is simply here to lay waste to those who stand against her, and she'll likely keep doing that until the day she dies.

The Real Story

Show text

All That Glitters

"Mali Bloodscythe" was born as Skaenwyda Ganzsaldwyn on a merchant ship owned and operated by her parents, originally hailing from Limsa Lominsa. They were not the most well off merchants of Eorzea, but they had enough affluence to have a bit of land in La Noscea and enough wealth to live comfortably when they weren't overseeing their ships. They were a family built on generations of perseverance, from humble sailors to decorated sea captains, and it was tradition for them to often captain the ships themselves. While this meant that "Skaenwyda" spent her first few years going on cruises all across Hydaelyn, it also meant that when she reached proper schooling age, and needed to spend time studying rather than sailing, she was left alone at home with their small collection of servants and bodyguards as her only company. She was a rebellious child from the start, as unpredictable as the seas she was born upon, and rather than spend her time studying economics and history and other things she would need to know to one day take over the family business, she would often sneak out and get into trouble. She was one of very few well-to-do kids that were actually impetuous enough to sneak out, and she had a bad habit of starting fights with the other, less well off kids her age, who wouldn't play with her because she was "a pampered pretty princess," as one little Lalafell once remarked.

While her parents wanted her to grow up into a respectable young lady, Skaenwyda was growing up to be a rough-and-tumble tomboy. By the time she was 6 her behavior was so uncontrollable that servants were starting to resign rather than put up with the rambunctious child, so her mother elected to stay home instead of go with her husband on their usual voyages, so as to better train her young daughter in the "proper" manners of a young lady in her position (and to find new hired help that was less likely to quit). For two years little Skaenwyda was tortured with frilly dresses, etiquette lessons, tea parties, and enough classic literature and practical tutoring to fill a small room (which it did, coincidentally). Were it not for a series of very unfortunate events, Skaenwyda might have actually grown up to be a proper lady with a fleet of merchant ships at her disposal. Instead, on Skaenwyda's 8th birthday no less, their private seaside villa was ransacked by a somewhat reckless crew of amateur pirates. The pirates took all the wealth they could carry, and kidnapped Skaenwyda for good measure, thinking she would make a good bargaining chip for even more riches. Instead, their heist of a high profile merchant's abode and the capture of their daughter brought the full fury of Limsa Lominsa's navy down on them. The pirates cut their losses and fled for far-off shores, with poor little Skaenwyda in tow.

I'll Most Likely Kill You in the Morning

The pirates eventually made their hideout in a cave of some distant land that Skaenwyda couldn't pronounce or remember, and put the little child to work as their "scullery-slave," forced to do whatever duty the rest of the crew didn't want to deal with. Of course, Skaenwyda wasn't going to take this sort of thing lying down. She fought back constantly, as well as an eight-year-old in a frilly dress could fight back anyway. It mostly equated to shouting and kicking shins, both of which she did every waking moment. Even when beaten, thrown into a cage, abused, and forced into hard labor, Skaenwyda would keep on shouting at her captors; "you just wait! I'm going to kill every single one of you! You're gonna be sorry!"

After a while even the hardiest of crew members began to get annoyed at the child's constant tantums, and there was talk of using some very...brutal methods of silencing her. The captain, however, saw Skaenwyda's tenacity as the chance for a little bit of fun. He gave the little girl her first marauding axe and said, "if you can kill me, you're free to go. Until then, you're ours."

Of course, Skaenwyda could barely hold the axe at that age, let alone do damage with it (to anyone but herself, anyway), so her first attempt at the captain's life ended with Skaenwyda doing more damage to herself than her opponent, cutting her cheek so deep that the scar still remains to this day. The crew all had a good laugh as they watched the poor girl fumble around with an axe almost as big as she was, but the captain let her keep it and said, "you keep that axe until one of us is dead, girl. We'll see how long you last."

The next eight years were as far from her old life as Skaenwyda could have imagined. She worked all day, always reminding the crew that she was going to kill them, and at night she trained constantly for the chance to be free. While the pirates were "home" she cleaned the ship and served the crew their cups of grog (that she always spit in, whenever they weren't looking), and while the pirates were out pillaging she was left to clean the mess that was their hideout after a few nights of rowdy celebrations. Using her various escape techniques, she would sneak past the guard and lay a clever but ultimately ineffectual trap for the captain's return...or occasionally just replace their grog supplies with seawater.

The first year of her shenanigans she had to defend herself from near daily attempts on her life (though whether the crew was actually trying to kill her or merely pulling pranks, she never knew). The second year, the crew started calling her their "Little Reaper," with her constant cries of their inevitable demise and the axe she had become strong enough to carry with her, though she was still ineffectual. By the third year she could swing it with enough force to made a few small dents in the floor (she was, of course, beaten for every new dent she made while she was "training"). The fourth year, she could chop a log...if she aimed long enough. The fifth year, she began sparring with the pirate crew...although as far as she was concerned, "sparring" meant "sneaking up from behind and aiming for the head," though she still lacked the dexterity to be effective at all. The sixth and seventh year, she had become strong enough that the real sparring began. The name Little Reaper began to stick the more vicious and relentless her combat style became. They were even beginning to talk about making her a full-fledged pirate...

My First Adventure

In the eighth year, a week before her 16th birthday (which she only knew because she had been counting) the crew set off once more. Two weeks after her 16th birthday, they were still gone. Her guard had taken to pacing nervously each day that the crew did not return. Skaenwyda, on the other hand, was confident they would not be back for quite a while longer. The last time they had docked, she had used her trusty, now slightly rusted axe to break their rudder. Not enough that they couldn't steer as they left, but enough that strong seas (or a barrage of cannon fire) would do the rest of the damage for her. She used the spare time and the guard's distracted temperament to build a raft out of spare lumber. It was a terrible piece of work, but it was enough to get her out of the cove as the guard slept. Now she only had to find another ship to pick her up...

She waited four days before a passing ship picked her up. She was half-dead from lack of food and water, but she wasn't going to let something silly like dehydration stop her plan. She was, however, slightly delayed when the ship took her to the nearest port and gave her to the least altruistic doctor in the entirety of Hydaelyn. When she had recovered he handed her a bill for 10,000 gil for his troubles, and promised that she wouldn't have passage off the island until it was paid. She tried to explain that she was the long-lost daughter of a Limsa Lominsan merchant who would gladly pay the bill if he knew she was alive, but that went over about as well as anyone could expect. She was left in a strange land with a debt she couldn't pay, with nothing but the axe she carried on her back.

Then a self-proclaimed adventurer strolled into town, looking for his next step to fame and fortune. All she had to hear was the "fortune" part to convince her of doing odd jobs and visiting odd places for a few coins. The adventurer was wary of bringing a young mystery girl from the middle of the sea with him. She followed him anyway, out of pure stubbornness. He was in the area trying to find an old ruin, one that supposedly had great treasure inside. He found it soon enough, and discovered that it certainly had great swarms of monsters inside. Skaenwyda, not one to back down, tested her training against her first real targets. The battle was quick and brutal with her axe by his side, and the adventurer suddenly remembered that he had been looking for a partner and had conveniently forgotten until that very moment. Pleasantries were exchanged, Skaenwyda's name was nigh unpronounceable for him, and he added the nickname "Malice" to her previous title for her exuberant axe handling. She wasn't very happy with the string of violent nicknames she had been acquiring, but at least he could pronounce it.

"Malice the Little Reaper," later shortened to "Mali Reaper" as the full name was starting to scare potential customers, spent the next four years trying to get enough gil from odd jobs, mysterious treasure troves, and a goblin raid or two, to pay off her debt and finally get back home. While it started as just a way to get paid, "Mali" found that she had a real talent for going head-first into bad situations and making some coin off of it. It was the first time she had had anything that could even be called "fun" at all since she was a small child living with frilly dresses and unwanted tea parties. She even had a friend. After eight years of living in the bowels of hell, it was nice to be back out in the light.

Home is Where the Heart is

She almost didn't want to leave when she had finally gotten enough money to pay her debt (which had taken longer than expected thanks to basic needs like eating and finding an axe that wasn't breaking from rust). She said her goodbyes to the first friend she had ever made (and made him swear under pain of death that they would meet again, somehow) and, after so many years, so many trials, boarded a ship bound for Eorzea and took the last step towards home.

A lot of things can happen in twelve years. A lot of memories can be rewritten, things that once seemed set in stone can seem fuzzy. Mali stepped onto the docks of Limsa Lominsa and every fuzzy memory came back to life in all of their splendor. She remembered every shop her mother had walked her through, every corner of every street, every alleyway where she had beaten up that Lalafell boy for calling her names (she made a mental note to apologize to him, if she ever remembered his name). She was moved to tears just to be back in Eorzea. She didn't even know how she would handle seeing her family again.

The seaside villa had undergone so many remodellings that it was hardly recognizable at all. If she didn't remember the exact twists and turns of the roads she once traveled on, she might never have found it. She almost didn't know what to do. She had spent so much time waiting for this day, but had never figured out what to do when it happened. After spending too much time staring from a distance, she braced herself and walked up to the door.

At first, her parents didn't recognize her. Of course they wouldn't, she was an eight-year-old in frilly dresses when last they saw her, and now she was a grown, dirty, battleworn adventurer. Once it was clear, though, there was a long reunion full of tears and hugs and "oh my gods what happened" and "we thought we'd lost you." Mali was cleaned up, went back to her old name of Skaenwyda Ganzsaldwyn, and tried to pick up where she had left off. Frilly dresses and all.

Of course, years of abuse at the hands of murderous pirates wasn't the best thing to happen to a growing woman's psyche, and her social skills were lacking even for a normal person, let alone a lady of high social standing. She followed along with her parents' instructions and did her best to act normal, but she had hardly anything to base the idea of "normal" on. Her mental stability, already less than ideal, was constantly wavering back and forth, and her moods were becoming more extreme and, in some cases, violent. On the one hand, years of abuse had left her cold and uncaring. On the other hand, she had finally gotten the one thing she wanted more than anything, and it was like she was living in one of her daydreams.

Despite her best efforts, there was only so much that could be done for her. Her parents were just happy to have their daughter back, but it wasn't the daughter they had remembered. This one was different, foreign and strange, and she could see their disappointment. Home, like much of life, was never perfect. The relationship between the physically and mentally scarred adventurer and her prim and proper parents was a strained one at best. While they all knew, somewhere in their hearts, that the would always be family, Mali could no longer be the Skaenwyda she once was. Proper goodbyes were said this time, as they parted ways once again. Skaenwyda had died a long time ago. Mali was all that was left, and she couldn't fit that role. She had another one to fill.

Dark Days in Eorzea

Coming Soon!

A New Point of View

Coming soon!

Contacts

Friends

Coming soon!

Enemies

Coming soon!

Frenemies

Just a joke!

Affiliations

Coming soon!

Other Notes

Rumors

Coming soon!

Miscellanea

Coming soon!