The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

Username: Ixcaliber
Name: Alemaiden Runa Valgerding
Gender: Female
Species: Viking
Text Colour: man who cares about colour anyway
Description: Runa has long almost-white blonde hair plaitted in a single braid that reaches almost halfway down her back. Her eyes are ice blue and her skin deathly pale. Her features might be considered masculine; a heavy lantern jaw and her nose crooked from where it once set badly. Though she's just seventeen she looks a lot older. As Alemaiden she wears the traditional armour of her position. It's made from thickest elkra leather and sturdy metal plates. It's the strongest, and heaviest, armour that her clan possesses, and is thoroughly marked from many hundreds of years of use. Strapped to her back is a huge heavily reinforced cask of Valgerding ale, almost as large as Runa herself.

Runa is intensely driven. When she makes her mind up about something it is very difficult to get her to even consider changing her mind and she will go to extraordinary lengths to achieve her goals. She can be prone to making snap judgements and decisions, which she is loathe to dismiss. She tends to go with her instincts and hope things work out in the long run. She's not sure whether she was drawn to become an Alemaiden by a desire her help her clan, or more by a desire for power.

Items/Abilities: She has a full cask of Valgerding ale attached to her back. Valgerding ale is a powerful brew that sends those who drink it into a mad berserker rage, making them almost impervious to harm and increasing their strength tenfold. She is one of the strongest most capable warriors of the Valgerding clan. Though her movement is limited by the enormous cask she carries and the heavy armour she wears she is still a force to be reckoned with. She fights with a double headed axe, or with her fists if she has to.

Biography: Although they lack the numbers or the innate savagery of some of the most fearsome clans of Kosk, the Valgerding clan have long since earned themselves a reputation as a clan not to be messed with. This is no doubt thanks to their potent berserker brew which has made them almost indefatigable in battle even against clans thrice their size. The recipe for this incredible ale, first concocted by the founder of the clan Queen Valgerd Alemother, is a closely guarded secret passed down through the generations from one Alemaiden to the next.

The position of Alemaiden is hotly contested even amongst the male members of the clan. An Alemaiden must be strong enough to carry the enormous cask of ale upon her back and still be able to fight with enough ferocity to protect the precious brew. She must be stalwart enough that even under torture she would never reveal the secret recipe of her brew. And as the most important member of the clan she has the ability to veto the decisions of the leader for the good of her people. As such she must be wise enough to know when and when not to do so.

Runa's earliest memory was when her mother took her to watch the Alemaidens of the time mixing a brew in preparation for an upcoming battle. She was amazed, gripped by the sense of power and purpose that those two strong women had, by the crowd that revered them. She decided that day that she would do whatever it took to become the next Alemaiden. She trained day and night, spending every spare minute pushing herself physically or practicing with whatever weapons she could lay her hands on.

At the age of sixteen Helga, the elder of the two current Alemaidens, died and it was time to select a successor (tradition dictated that there must always be two Alemaidens to ensure that the secret could never die). Runa was the obvious choice. Before the day was out she was working with Ingrid, learning how to make the Valgerding ale. Runa was a quick learner, every bit as dedicated as she had been for the last decade. For the next year or so they lived and worked together rarely leaving each other's side, but in terms of combat things were quiet. It was not until that winter that a threat would emerge; an army from a foreign land beyond Kosk with weapons the like of which had never been seen before.

The Valgerding clan heard of these invaders from refugees fleeing across Kosk, who claimed that they had wiped out some of the tougher clans and it was only a matter of time. Their prowess in battle seemed certainly an exaggeration, but they discovered just how dangerous they were. Hundreds of clansmen felled by the invaders' strange machinery and somehow in the midst of that hellish battle Ingrid ended up dead, face down in a pool of blood and ale. In the bloody aftermath of what was a hard fought victory Runa did not have time to select a new Alemaiden before she inexplicably disappeared.