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Mug by Swift_Assassin

Name: Kalin ("Ka" as in "cat"; "lin" as in "Lyndis")
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Nation/Allegiance: Ilia
Appearance/Description: First off, Kalin is a Pegasus Knight in the Ilian army. This is explained in the next section but noted here because it's mentioned in the next few paragraphs.

Kalin is green-haired, much like Pegasus Knights of distant Silesia. It's a popular hair color among some Ilian groups. Her hair is short for female standards but long for air force standards. It's tied back to keep within regulations. However, nobody will notice when she's off on her own outside of Ilia. Her facial features are typical of a woman from Ilia (it's very hard to describe facial features, use your imagination). Being from the north, Kalin is also very, very light skinned (and burns easily). She's 5 feet 7 inches tall.

Like most Illian Pegasus Knights, Kalin is pretty thin. She does, however, have quite a bit of muscle to wield her weapons (explained further down). It’s almost exclusively tone, so as not to ruin the Pegasus Knight image. At most you’ll see a very discreet bulge.

She wears the Ilian knight armor. Ilian armor, unlike that of countries such as Bern, tends to vary quite a lot in design. Pegasus Knights in the past were all pretty weak, so their armor presumably had to be light enough not to interfere with their fighting. Kalin’s armor has a small breastplate made of iron, like a knight suit, but much thinner. There are also some metal bracers on the very top of the shoulders. Leather covers the rest of the torso. Standard armor has a small skirt covering the waist. It seems impractical but it draws attention in crowds, which is important when looking for jobs. The suit comes with some long metal shoes that go up to half-way above the knees. Unlike the rest of the suit, they’re made of really thick metal. When fighting a good Pegasus Knight, most enemies will only get clips on the legs. They are somewhat hard to walk in, but a rider doesn’t need to walk too much. Many Ilian knights have perfected making the walk look easy. Kalin has not. There are also some leather gloves, which have an enhanced grip.

This is actually all armor for areas in hotter climates, which, when you live in Ilia, is everywhere else. Most Ilian knights, however, still choose to wear it up north, as it’s also designed to look attractive to nearly every culture on the continent, and as stated earlier, more work is always appreciated.

To walk in snowy areas she has some personal snowboots she can swap out with her normal armored shoes at any time (as expected, they work well in swamps and rivers too). She has nothing for walking in most other environments, but the snow boots are better than the armored leggings. For the cold she has some leather extensions for the breastplate that cover her armors and legs. Many Pegasus Knights for some reason choose to go without such things, but they are an option. You wouldn’t guess based on the southern armor and certainly not when many knights like to wear it even up north, but in any cold area there is normally a ton of padding underneath to protect the wearer. It was heavily noted that even with the option to wear a helm, most Ilian knights went without. Since statistically, it didn’t help, Kalin wasn’t issued one. She also has some goggles (think snowboarding) for traveling through blizzards. They also double as air goggles for high speed travel. Most Ilian knights, however, go without and do just fine, but it’s a lot easier to see in a heavy blizzard (or a sandstorm or heavy rain) with them.

As far as army stuff goes, Kalin has several vulneraries and a few rations. Only enough to last a few days; the army seems to have a natural selection policy. For the pegasus there’s some feed. Fruit doesn't grow well up north so it's rather rare for a herbivore like the pegasus to eat it up north. She also has a saddle and everything that comes with it, and stores most of her belongings with it. Ilians bond with their pegasi for life, which doubles as a very nice way to keep these belongings safe. No first aid kits; Kalin instead has to improvise in any situation. She can recognize the essential plants up north. Too bad this story doesn’t take place there. The army gave some basic info about the south, but not much.

Taking a liking to pegasus riding, Kalin is of course a tomboy. She’s also greedy like her idol Farina (money money money) and craves the excitement of the real world. Her personality will be expanded in role playing.

Bio/Backstory: Like most Illians, Kalin was born and raised secluded in the cold northern mountains. The frail looks of the Pegasus Knights belie the strength they learned in the cold, unforgiving environment, dealing with extreme temperatures, frostbite, blizzards, and numerous other hazards.

Kalin's life-long dream was to ride a Pegasus Knight, imagining herself flying at mach speeds with the wind blowing in her hair. Unfortunately, only rich families can simply buy one. This left only one option: joining the military. This wasn't the worst path life could've taken though; she wanted action too. And of course, she wanted the main selling point of the Illian army: Money. The Illian mercenary army made a pretty penny out in the real world.

And so, the brave, naive, secluded 18-year-old Kalin decided to join the military.

It was noted for a long period of history that the vast majority of the divisions of Pegasus Knights in the Ilian military were given steel lances, a weapon way too heavy for them. Scholars are not certain why this practice went on for years, nay, decades, but it is thankfully a dying tradition.

Slim lances, conversely, are light but way too weak. Zealot got the army to get its shit together and produce stronger women. Kalin is no exception, being strong enough to use an iron lance effectively (though nothing more). As mentioned earlier, it’s mostly toned so it looks better in crowds. Unfortunately, like nearly every other Pegasus Knight, Kalin somewhat magically has no attunement with any other weapon; almost like some sort of curse. With a bit of training she might learn another weapon some day. That day is not today.

Going through basic training, she learned the standard stuff: first aid and how to treat wounds (which consisted of mostly improvising), how to take care of and use a lance and armor, how to take care of and ride a pegasus (and how to lance targets on it), and various others armyish subjects. Most Ilians already know how to survive long periods in harsh environments, but a quick training session was thrown in there too to cover deserts and humid forests, terrain unfamiliar to most of them. Unfortunately, there’s no live training for those kinds of situations in an area where they don’t exist, so most Ilian knights still have no real world experience with that.

Throwing javelins was in there too, but most Pegasus Knights don't receive one. It’s almost as heavy as a steel lance. The typical response to requests for one is that the army expects soldiers to learn the hard way how to get one. Thankfully the single iron lance Kalin received is sturdy enough to last a long time.

As stated earlier, the Ilian Knights being a mostly mercenary army, Kalin was then sent away to another country to learn battle tactics and culture and to earn money.