Day 1: Byrna Ioreksdottir
#CharactercreationChallenge2026
Background
Byrna is the queen of the small island nation of Valland in the White Sea, a kingdom of craftsmen, traders and occasional pirates distantly related to the Icewalker tribes. The population of Valland is mostly regular humans, but around one in ten are bearfolk Beastmen, and every generation there are a few Moon-Touched that act as emissaries to the spirits. A few years ago almost saw the end of Valland when the Guild had enough of their occasional attacks on trading ships and sent mercenaries to take out the ruling family and enslave the rest of the population. Byrna, then a child, escaped and fled across the ocean to a small town where she found work as an armorer’s apprentice, never giving up on her plans to take back what was hers.
One day, a young woman came into town with a damaged suit of armor made of a strange metal Byrna had never come across before. While she was working on it, Byrna felt like she recognised both the armor and the woman, and she began to tell all about her homeland… By the time she had finished the repairs, she had told the stranger more about her life and felt like she knew her better than anyone she had ever met before - and when the woman gave a her a smile and disappeared in a flash of moonlight, Byrna was not the least bit surprised, even though she knew she should be. The power she felt in herself, and the connection to the armor - Moonsilver, she now knew - also seemed completely natural, and by the time the silver pact found her, she had already driven the Guild mercenaries out of Valland and retaken her throne. Slowly, she is starting to uncover memories of previous incarnations that ruled - and maybe even founded - Valland over the millenia.
Appearance
In human form, Byrna is an unusually tall, heavily muscled young woman with long black hair and sun-tanned skin. In her hybrid form that she takes on when there is even a chance of a fight, she is close to three meters tall, has the upper body of a polar bear, although if one looked very closely, her paws still had an opposable thumb-like digit. In either form - and even her polar bear spirit shape - she is rarely seen without Strength of Many, the heavy articulated plate made of moonsilver that she received from Luna during her exaltation.
Character Sheet
Worksheet with more details
Published at NZDT