Yana the Dancer

Appearance
Tall and lean, Yana is a beauty that most mistake for a dryad or a sorcerer's servant. In truth she is a dunshar, an amorphous creature that animates various materials for form a protective shell. With a strong artistic flare and a natural attraction to wood, Yana crafted her body from branches and twigs gathered from willow trees, white ash, and black poplar. She is very tall, almost seven feet but thin almost to the point of looking skeletally gaunt. Her body is light and very flexible, allowing her a greater range of movement than most of the enboned races are capable of.

Her overall body shape is female, and she will dress herself in flowers and shawls of woven vines when she can find them. Brightly colored fabrics are her favorite, which she will twirl about in like a flower until the splinters and rough spots in her shell start to snag and tear the fabric. She is soft spoken and easily frightened.

History/Background
Yana was born to a creche of dunshar who lived in service to a sorcerer. While she was very young the sorcerer was set upon by forces she doesn't not recall. Both of her parents were slain in battle, as we the sorcerer, and her home was destroyed. The urchin dunshar was left to fend for herself with a haphazard body of charcoal and thatch and wandered the alleys and streets like a beggar's fever dream. During these dark times, she had a single joy, music. While she could neither sing nor play an instrument, dancing was not beyond her abilities.

While other beggars would ask for coin, or food, the dunshar asked for pieces of wood, broom handles, firewood, switches and saplings. As time passed, and her skill at holding a body together increased, she made her shell more complete, and more appealing to the eye. She was sure that she could not be alone in this world, and perhaps, if she were to try hard enough she could find another dunshar.

She did just that when she drew the eye of Pavisfacio, an archivist for the mage's guild. Rather than the excitement she expected, Yana was filled with terror and revulsion. Rather than a humble creature like herself, the dunshar she found was an aloof thing, clad in stone and living among the powerful and the oppressors. Yana was deeply offended that Pavisfacio was counted as respected among the magi, who were known among the street folk to abduct the lowest of their kin to perform strange experiments on, and test relics and poisons on. She wept bitter tears and fled the city.

The Green
Yana now lives among a sietch of woods women who pray to a local goddess of nature. Removed from the city, she was able to build a suitable body of willow branches and treebark, and was able to learn proper dancing from a rowan bedecked priestess. She wove herself hair from fibers of plants, and decorated it with wooden beads, and she is filled with adolescent anxiety. She is drawing close to the Herar, and something in her yearns for material more durable than simple wood.

Roleplaying Notes
Yana is a simple female, she loves music and nature and strongly dislikes the poverty and suffering she considers endemic to urban life. She both pities humans for their often woeful lot in life, while also being painfully jealous of them, as they can sing and play music with their hands and their lips. She also resents those who are wealthy and powerful as she considers them sources of pain and suffering. She loves almost any sort of music, but the more primal and earthy it is, the more she likes it. She would rather cavort to orcish drums than a slow waltz.

Plot Hooks
The Other Hippie Chick - Being made of wood, and opposed to wealth and privilege Yana is a natural hippie. As such, she would work well with druids, rangers, and other forest folk who often stand against the farmers and soldiers and other humans who exploit the enviroment. She would be a foil to the beastmaster who unleashes hordes of wolves, the canny forest archer, or the other green stereotypes.

Escort Service - Yana has discovered that Pavisfacio has gained information about where she is, she approaches the PCs to help her escape her would be suitor. She has little to offer but her thanks, but she has some powerful friends among the elves, druids and such, who tend to think of her as a young sibling to be protected, but allowed to mature on her own. Should the PCs fail in this task, they could be tasked by one of those elfin friends of Yana to rescue her from Pavisfacio.