Appearance: Quan is an athletic woman with warm ivory skin and straight black hair. Red markings adorn her forehead, complemented by gold earrings and a small ornament in her hair. She wears loose black martial-arts trousers, a pale wrapped top, and a layered brown and red cloth secured with cords, beads, and talismans.
Personality: Blunt, confident, and occasionally reckless, Quan runs on instinct and prefers action over deliberation. She has little patience for pompous people or anyone trying to dictate how she should live.
Backstory:
Quan hails from Shu'fa, a remote village devoted to inkweaving, a magical tradition said to have been passed down by the Lady of the Red Seal. Its practitioners believe history must not merely be remembered, but preserved through magic.
Quan struggled with inkweaving's demands for patience and precision, preferring martial arts and movement. She often skipped lessons to frolic with macaques in the forest, eventually developing her own fighting style inspired by their agility and mischief.
By fifteen, she had earned a reputation for beating up bullies, thugs, and the occasional troublesome adventurer. At eighteen, she received the moniker Quan, meaning "fist," in recognition of her martial prowess.
She was appointed one of Shu'fa's guardians, tasked with protecting its inkweaving tradition and the Red Seal, an artifact said to rest beneath the village's central altar, though no one in recent generations had seen it.
Quan frequently abandoned her guard duties to explore the forest with her macaque companions. She even learned Common Sign Language to communicate with them.
At twenty-two, her father arranged for her to marry the village chief’s son. Refusing to accept the future chosen for her, Quan argued with her father before finally reaching her breaking point.
In her anger, Quan snuck into the central altar, contemplating taking the Red Seal with her as she abandoned Shu'fa. Yet, faced with the artifact she had sworn to protect, she could not bring herself to steal it. Ashamed that she had even considered betraying her duty, she left the village without it, torn between her resentment towards her father and her lingering attachment to her home.
