Character Name: Maha bint Amr

Canon/Original: Original

Gender: Female

Age: 22

Family: Presumed dead:
Father: Amr Ibn Munqidh
Mother: Fatima bint Bilal
Possibly Alive:
Brother: Ali Ibn Amr
Sister: Samira bint Amr

Occupation: She likes to call herself a botanist, but nobody takes her seriously when she does that. She is successful as an herbalist and a minor healer; or at least she would be, if more people trusted her.

Place of Habitation:
Originally from Damask, Arabia, but currently located in Lawley. For now.

Physical Description (five sentence minimum):
Maha stands out in a crowd.

Maybe it’s her dark brown eyes or long dark hair. No, not likely; many people in Thiasa have dark hair and eyes that are much more beautiful then hers. Well, maybe then it’s her modesty and humility. No, that wouldn’t be it, either. Maha dresses the way she does because it’s familiar—she’s actually quite lax about how she wears her hijab. And humble would be one of the last words to describe her anyway.

Maha stands out in a crowd because she is different. Her dark features are almost unknown on the island of Thiasa, as is her style of dress. Many women cover their hair, but Maha covers everything except her face and hands. The long tunic she wears is definitely not the style in Thiasa, or even Baskar. While she is fluent in Scalian, she still will occasionally stumble over her words, and her accent marks her speech even when her grammar is perfect.

Maha’s difference is seen as appealing to some; these people would call her “exotic.” Most others though, see her difference as negative, and to them she is nothing but an unwelcome foreigner.

Personality (eight sentence minimum):
When Maha was little, she was a sweet child. Her father’s greatest worry about her was about her absent-minded nature. Maha was very prone to daydreaming, and Amr was always afraid that one day that she would get so caught up in her daydreams that she would walk into a busy street and would be hit by a horse or cart. Or both.

In a perfect world, Maha would have remained just as sweet and gentle as she was as a child. Her father would not have had to worry about her walking into busy streets because Maha would have attracted a wonderful and caring husband who would keep an eye on her. In this perfect world, Maha’s radiant smile would have carried on into old age, where she would have become the sweetest doddering old grandmother who was stopped from walking into busy streets by her devoted grandchildren.

But this is hardly a perfect world.

Maha has become bitter during her time in Thiasa, and that has colored her entire personality. While she is still just as prone to her daydreams, her dreams have taken a dark color. She would just as soon leave an injured Thiasan alone to die of his own stupidity, but she knows that if she were to leave him alone, she would be just as responsible for his death as was however/whatever injured him. She does this out of duty, not love. She is not typically gentle with anyone she is treating; she is impossibly clinical.

But something of the young Maha still does exist, softly shining. She is always gentle with children, even the belligerent ones. What few people Maha has had friendly relations with would even go as far as to call her kind. Finally, Maha has not completely lost her hope, which may be her only salvation.

As a side note, Maha is exceedingly nationalistic. She is proud of her people and country. Her pride has, however, been more hindrance the help in Thiasa. Her rare, but passionate, outbursts have nearly gotten her lynched on more then one occasion.

History (ten sentence minimum):
When Maha was young, she lived in the lap of luxury. Her father, Amr, was a talented botanist, well known and respected by even the king. She was educated as any noble woman would have been; she developed skills in the arts, philosophy, and the sciences, botany in particular. Her interest in botany delighted her father, especially after her older brother, Ali, ran away and joined the army. Amr was so delighted by her talent and dedication to botany that when Maha was thirteen, he decided to send her away to assist an old acquaintance of his, Mohammad Ibn al-Qais. Mohammad was at the time studying native Scalian plants. For four years, Maha and Mohammad traveled across Scalia, until shortly before Maha’s eighteenth birthday. During this time, Maha became quite knowledgeable about the native plants of Scalia.

A few days before Maha’s eighteenth birthday, she and Mohammad parted ways and she began to make her way back to her home in Damask. She had made it as far as the eastern coast of Thiasa, where she would join a trading vessel that was headed back to Arabia, before suddenly receiving a disturbing missive.

Maha, the righteous Emir Khaled has been overthrown. Stay where you are. –Father

Enclosed with the letter was a small pouch of money and a scarf that Maha’s mother had prized. Maha, with little else to do, remained in the little port for a year. The trading ship did not arrive as scheduled. Maha wrote to her father, her cousins, even to her estranged brother, Ali, but she did not receive any replies. She then wrote to Mohammad in desperation; he had remained in Scalia after she had departed, but not even he did not respond. After an incident involving the smith’s son, Maha was forced out of the port town, the only place that she was familiar.

The past three years have been a lonely struggle for Maha. She has never remained in one town for much longer then a month or so, and in almost every town she has faced discrimination and eventual persecution. She’s made her living off of her knowledge of botany—her remedies often work just as well as the complicated and foolish procedures that are common in Thiasa, if not better. She peddles what she can at inns and taverns; treating bar fight wounds has become something of a specialty for her. Sometimes she is able to sell her herbs to the local healer. When she is able, she continues her botanical studies, but recently that has become harder and harder to do.

Without her family or any sort of friends, Maha does not know what the future for her will be, or even if she has a future. Her only hope lies in her brother’s survival; if he survived whatever revolution occurred in Arabia, than surely, one day, he will come for her.

Plot Potential:
Well, she sticks out like a sore thumb. Beyond that, she does have some training in human anatomy and some basic knowledge of medical procedures. At least the Arab ones. If you tell her about some of the Thiasan medical techniques, she’ll give you a funny look. She also knows the medicinal properties of her plants; she wouldn’t make a very good physician on her own, but she could very well assist and/or do very minor procedures.

Speaking of her knowledge of the medicinal knowledge of plants, Maha also knows how to treat some more, ahem, sensitive problems. Those remedies happen to be her bestsellers, actually…

She’s also extremely easy to blackmail. While she has not practiced Islam since she first arrived in Scalia and has not admitted to ever practicing Islam, she has never denied it. If someone were to point this out to a religious official, Maha could be in serious trouble.

SAMPLE RP (with this character only):

Today had the potential of being a good day. Last night, the sky had been thick with clouds, and Maha had been certain that it would storm. But this morning, the sky was clear and the ground dry--excellent weather to prowl about the forests in. Plus she had managed to grab fresh bread this morning. Fresh! She hadn’t had fresh bread in months. Every baker or inn or whatever place she had tried to purchase bread from in the past five towns sold her stale day-old bread, at the price of fresh bread, of course. She wouldn’t fight the price gouging, not after what had happened at Gillingsley, or whatever that town was called. She had caught onto the inflation after being ripped off for three towns straight, and finally complained to the baker. The baker, in turn, began to scold Maha for her “impudence,” and of course, the scolding turned into screaming and the entire town quickly involved itself. Maha had barely enough time to collect her journals before fleeing the angry townsmen.

Stupid towns and their stupid Scalian names. Idiots who can barely read, the lot of them, she crossly noted in her journal later that evening.

This town—she thinks it’s called Lawley or something like that—is bigger then the other ones she’s been in recently, but nothing so large as Damask, the city of her birth. But nothing here in Thiasa has been nearly so big. Roma, she heard once, was nearly as big. But nothing could be as big or grand as Damask, the pearl of Arabia. But for now, this Lawley would do. Even if there was a strange tension in the air; the tension wasn’t directed at her, so Maha could conveniently ignore it. She had made it a policy to keep her nose out of Thiasan issues. She was, after all, and Arab and not a Thiasan, so quite naturally, it shouldn’t involve her. Hopefully. Somehow, despite the logic of her philosophy, when there were issues in a town, she almost always found herself somehow involved. But she couldn’t exactly leave this town. Her purse was becoming astonishingly light since she had been chased out of Gillingsley; she had barely been able afford a room at the inn last night. She would have to find someone, or several someones, to purchase her remedies, or she may not have a roof over her head tonight.

Today. Maha thought as she turned back toward the inn she was staying at, [I Today will be a good day.[/I]

It had to be.

What's the name of the Creator God the Ekaini worship?: ((correct))

Wonderful application. I can't think of a thing I'd change. I like your personality, which is deep and detailed, really exemplary, and the history is original, believable, and fascinating. The religious issue should be very fruitful in terms of RP.

You're tempting me to bring over an Arabian-trained physician I have on another site--let me know if you'd like me to do so. In meantime, I'd love to RP with you with Brian or Conn Farraday (those who are at Lawley at the moment). Brian might want to enlist a physician to help the serfs while they're rebelling.

I'm sure plenty of others will want to RP with you as well (Darien, you around?). Lawley is about to get quite exciting--glad to have you aboard.