Post by Smoke on Jun 15, 2010 16:49:12 GMT -5
Forge Your Life
Name: Toya ”Smoke” Forger
Age: 28
Species: Human
Occupation: Inventor/Weapons Engineer (Gunsmith)
Height: 5’10” (1,78m)
Weight: 105lbs (47kg)
Eye Color: Black
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Skin Color: Golden Caucasian
Physical Description:
Quite tall and slender of build, Toya has a noticeable look with how nature made her in the first place. She is of a mixture of ethnicities and therefore she has a light yet pigmented golden skin. Together with her pit black eyes and dark brown hair this gives her quite an exotic look. Having been in a quite physical business most of her life she does have a slight bit of muscle even though she doesn’t show it, she is surprisingly strong.
She’d often wear practical clothing above anything else and this often includes a sort of baggy style. It is far from unusual to see her covered in smudge from her metal work and it never seems to bother her either, after all she is a smith. If she would need to she can however put up an appearance and pull it off quite well. That is, until someone would tell her to start walking in high-heels which would look quite awkward. Upon having to wear a decent dress she would also always have to buy a new one, since she’d probably have ruined the last one by tearing it into polishing cloths or transformed it into some sort of war wear experiment.
Accessories:
Breath Scarf – A long scarf designed with use of engineering and slight magic to work as a mask that can filter out clean air.
Trusted Hat – A worn old hat with a thin shadow which she holds dear.
Random Gun – She almost always carries one of her own pistols on her person.
Pen & Notebook – She always carries these two things with her in case she should come up with something.
Vehicle:
Mobile Workshop – Heavily modified Steam Wagon which works as Toya’s mobile work space and home. She put it together from and old cheap worn steam tractor and used much of her experience engineering steam tanks to recreate the machine in her own image.
Personality Description:
Toya is a workaholic. She loves working on new inventions and always seems to cover herself in smudge in the process, but doesn’t mind at all. Due to years studying at the university her brain and though pattern has transformed into something somewhat scientific and different. One can often find her lost in thoughts and discussing with herself and when having a conversation with her she can often either let her mind wander silently or start to explain in detail for an example the science behind something which is otherwise irrelevant.
She is quite uncomfortable as a lady and knows little next to none how to actually act like one. Having been surrounded by men and generally treated as one most of her life she sort of has an easy time brotherhood-bonding with men and often lack conversation topics with women. This also leaves her romantically confused as hell and even if she ever had experience romance she probably wouldn’t quite know what she wants herself.
So even though she is quite a headstrong and intelligent woman she is also quite socially handicapped which is mainly why she would hardly ever seek events where this is focus. That said she does enjoy drinking herself into an early grave in a tavern because the requirements for social skill are quite limited in such a place, especially with a lot of alcohol involved.
History:
Toya was born into a family of blacksmiths on her father’s side. The trade had been in her family for centuries, mainly horseshoe mounting and blade forging, hence why the family somewhere down the line change their name to something more suiting. Toya was the youngest sibling of three, following her two older brothers. Because of this, her father really had no use for her in the family business. Despite this, Toya quickly turned out to be the one of the three with most interest in metalwork and generally crafting things. At this point the family business under her father’s supervision was a workshop based in Dirge employing between 15-20 men working on high quality metal work mainly focused on that used in war, armor, swords etc. When a person of certain wealth would be looking for something other than the normal mass factory produced products, he would regularly come to them with a custom order.
The business was quite respected and moderately successful, however despite this Toya’s father maintained a firm position in the workshop, doing the most important orders himself and always working hard, even though he could expand and take a more administrative position. The father however knew that is the quality of the work and the satisfaction of the customers would have to be maintained he would have to continue the work himself until he was sure one of his sons would be capable enough to take over.
Even though her parents’ plans were for her to help her mother around the house, Toya couldn’t keep out of the workshop. The father tried hard to scare her off and did what he could to make her lose interest, but eventually he gave up. When he first put her to use in the workshop she was about 6 years old and because of her lack of strength they found that her dexterous small fingers were exceptional at putting together the fine tiny rings of the elegant chainmail armors. Even though she didn’t much like the work she was assigned, she was quite pleased just to get any work. Eventually she took a liking to it, seeing the final result usually put a smile on her face. Through most of her early childhood she would move between whatever work she was physically capable of doing. Unlike her two brothers she hardly ever got told off by their father because unlike them she quite enjoyed the work and usually put extra effort into making a decent product.
Toya soon found out though that she didn’t want to continue what her father had been doing, even if she were strong enough to hammer a sword together. And making armors was not quite advanced and exciting enough for her. When she was the age of 13 she joined the Sideris Military Engineer Academy also stationed in Dirge. The academy got next to no female students but with her family reputation and her father having done quite some work for many of the officials in charge; it wasn’t hard for her to get in. After the first year of basic school bench training, she immediately joined the development department to study and work alongside the gunsmiths there as an apprentice. Not liking her presence there even though she was a girl the teachers/engineers there didn’t give her any special treatment and though that she would that way eventually quit. Though being used to the harsh tone working in her father’s workshop, she wasn’t really bothered. They however quite quickly changed their opinions about her when she was partially put to work on her own. The precision and the fine craft of creating firearms quite got to her and she dedicated all her energy and time to every task she would be given, despite how insignificant it would be.
Her apprenticeship ended at 17 and she had exceeded the performance of most of her co-students and therefore got offered to continue onto university to continue her study of firearms and weapons on the most advanced level. She accepted the offer, but mostly only because the offer was more of an order and that the opportunity was too great to let pass. Having learned the basic practical skills of weapons engineering during her apprenticeship, the university focused mainly on teaching her the science behind it. This would include the physics and mathematically aspects behind firearms and projectiles and also for example the chemistry behind gunpowder and other explosives. Having always done things the practical manner before anything else, the whole theoretical approach didn’t come easy for her, since she never took basic school a lot of the basic principles where all new for her. Like most things she’d accomplished she only though one way to conquer the challenge and that was dedication and time. Luckily the professors were understanding of her situations and were often willing to give her advice and point her in the right direction towards the book with the answers. Toya however couldn’t help to feel that the fact that she was a half attractive young girl who often smiled had something to do with the professors’ willingness to help her, after all most of the other students were either boys or quite butch boring women.
At 24 after 7 years of hard work she eventually got her Master’s in Weaponry Science with focus on firearms. At this point they offered her to continue at the university and maybe one day become a professor herself, however she respectfully declined since she wanted to get back out to the practical part of the work. At first returning to her father she proposed he could expand the workshop and also deal with customized firearms. Her father however let the idea down and said she needed to go out and start her own thing, since the family’s business would remain as it has been for a long time. Toya weren’t surprised by her father decision so she had already made a plan B. Sure that the officials would eventually put her to work, she knew she had to make herself useful to the kingdom before she would be forced into work. Her plan was however a little unusual.
Since her years studying at the university she had toyed with the idea of creating a mobile workshop to conduct her work out from. Though, she knew that the vehicle would take too many resources and too much time to create, so in the meantime she asked her father if she could do some of her work out of his workshop with promise to stay out of the way. He didn’t have problem with it and quite enjoyed seeing his daughter schooling her older brothers at their own work while she did hers. Her first real work was a simple modification of the Military’s standard grappling rifle often used to board airboats or to siege fortresses. The standard issued model had huge imperfections which made its function only rarely successful. Modifying the weapon with a more efficient hook and totally different projectile pattern so that the hook would spin and fly more precisely, Toya’s work was successful. Even though the patent for the new rifle didn’t give a fortune when she sold it to the military, it gave her well enough to continue with her plan and the reassurance of being left alone to continue with her dream.
With an old steam tractor, some advanced accumulator technology, an anvil, tons of raw metal materials and a whole lot of man hours, Toya was 26 when her mobile workshop was finally done. The machine’s massive coal fire which heats the steam engine also functions as the workshop’s forge close to that is the anvil which works as the driver seat with a mounted chair/saddle when the vehicle has to move. Only a very little area in the back of the wagon is reserved for a bed which is even folded up when work as to be done in order to make room. Since creating the wagon she has been quite well known as a travelling gunsmith. She has since done more work for Sideris and even travelled a few times over the Black Dog to visit Caedere and do requested work and contracts mostly on weapon prototypes. However as of late she tries to steer clear of “government” contracts to avoid trouble and mainly does work for private companies, not really caring who they deal with.
Miscellaneous:
All Artwork made by yours truly
