Talia Maylas

Name: Talia Maylas

Race: Ragnochi

Age: 36

***: Female

Languages: Common

Height: 8'2

Weight: 180 lbs

Hair: Silky white and long, often tied into a low ponytail.

Skin: Dark gray

Chitin: Metallic blue, tealish at the joints, with white patches. Based on the Gooty Tarantula.

Place of Birth: Cnoc Uaine, Rapal

Current Location: Unnamed Village, Aethos

Occupation: Tailor

Appearance: Tal's upper body is like that of a Dark Elf. She has dark gray skin complimented by silky white hair, with deep blue eyes. Six extra spider eyes cover her forehead, each with black sclera most visible in her main humanoid eyes. Her bust is small, and her build a slender but subtle hourglass. From the waist down, her spider half is like that of the Gooty Tarantula, sometimes called the Metallic Tarantula, taking it's colors and body type for her own. The whole spider body is fuzzy and a deep shiny blue with a tealish-blue color on the joints of each leg, accented with white patches on the abdomen and legs. Unlike many other ragnochi, she bears two pedipalps on the front of her spider torso.

In terms of clothing, Tal covers herself in silky white shirts with a blue corset. Her favorite shirt is one with bunched up sleeves sewn tightly together in the back, excess material falling over her dark hands. Rarely she uses a long light blue skirt-like shawl over her lower body that ties around her hips to repel rain, with a matching hooded coat.

Personality: In first impressions, Tal is often seen as blunt and naive. She'll say rude things thoughtlessly if they're true and ask stupid questions just to hear how they answer it. She plays stupid if she can get away with it, because people react better to a childishly innocent spider than a kind and bubbly one. Talia truly loves to give to people and to get to know them, but has been burned too much by her appearance and poor rumors to do more than sit back and play dullard. If she cuts loose, she has quite the charisma to go around and a pure heart... just don't mess with her friends, she bites.

Skills:

-Thread Work-

Weaving, Knitting, Embroidery, Tailoring, Knot-Tying, Crochet, Sewing, Braiding

-Combat Related-

None

-Trade Skills-

Pottery, Mushroom Cultivation, Dye Work, Beetle Raising

Likes: Fat grubs, actual spiders, the feel of moss, shiny fabrics, shiny beetles.

Dislikes: Places she doesn't fit inside, People who don't like spiders

Fears: Fire, Being alone

Ideals: Generosity, Kindness

Ambitions:

[ ] Start a family

[ ] Become someone important

[ ] Become self-sufficient

[ ] Make a friends

History: As with all ragnochi, Talia grew up with aloof and detached parents through her youngest years. Her survival can be mostly attributed to being a very indoorsy sort. She was content to stay inside and practice all the different things you do with thread instead of exploring the depths of the caves or the forest wilds. She didn't make many friends like this, nor learned any real social skills. Tal was quiet and easy to forget among her other siblings who were loud and often killed by curiosity. She didn't mind not having friends, and when her parents offered her love after her 11th birthday she just shrugged. She didn't need it. Talia had already closed herself off after watching her siblings perish, and her parents were forcing a loving familial connection onto her after a decade of denying it. It was easy to just keep ignoring each other like they were strangers again. It made for a very, very quiet home, bored into the side of a long cave in a great hill.

Talia's teenage years not much better. She'd become adept at weaving, knitting, sewing, embroidery.. She felt like there wasn't much more to learn, and dabbled in creating and using dyes with her silk as well as raising beetles. She wasn't an expert at anything and had no peers or friends to push her to do better. The days melted into weeks and months, where nothing happened and the cave made day and night mean little. She couldn't sell clothing in a this tiny village with all her surviving siblings doing much the same. She could barely sell dye to the lazy. Exporting was the main source of income for many ragnochi in her position, but convincing a trader to take her wares was difficult. One day she decided that her skills would be better suited somewhere with few ragnochi, where the less legged could appreciate the shiny, soft silks she made. After a month of preparation she left for Aethos, barely on the cusp of her 18th birthday.

She was wrong about much of Aethos. The thriving trade agreements between Terpes and Aethos meant they had much ragnochi-made silks and didn't need hers. The big city was so bright and different from her own that she struggled just to fit in. Her poor social skills were put through a grinder, but it wasn't too difficult to find other outcasts who understood her well enough. She just had to act less excited, show less teeth in her smiles, and carry her legs closer to the ground. Neighbors generally thought poorly of her raising fat grubs in her home, but she had to make her own lunch given nobody was selling anything to feed an insectivore. She would eat in secret just to be accused of eating people. She would hide her body under shawls just to be accused of being sneaky. She would hide what shes thinking just to be accused of plotting dark things. She had to play innocent, had to be bluntly honest, had to keep changing herself because her body scared others. Eventually she just gave up. City life was terrible (her growing social skills did little to help her) and the only thing she was really selling was her lichen dyes, usually for their psychoactive properties instead of dyes. Ten years was enough of a waste. She spent some time learning from Blaidd Esgyrn how to survive on her own, and headed off with him into the wilds.

The wilderness was difficult, but she easily scared away animals with her imposing body. She needed no violate crops with their growing seasons and droughts, or game meat that came and went, just bugs that survived all seasons equally. She could enjoy nature from the mouth of her cave and dabble in mining the pretty crystals and metals. Tal built her strength from nothing, and quickly found herself surprisingly fond of the werewolf that had brought her to this peaceful existence. No longer did she have to worry about selling things to keep a roof above her head, nor did she need to barter to get the wood to feed her bugs and mushrooms. Still, she worries about who will come to the unnamed village they've made and if they'll judge her harshly for this body she never asked for.