Essentials

• Species: Faizel has many features of lean, small desert wolves; she looks Iranian or Arabian almost completely. Her jackal blood is barely visible but for her ears, muzzle, and long torso.
• Fur: Her fur is short but a little thicker than most desert wolves'; she requires clothes in winter.
  • Optime Hair: Pale, wavy, falls to about shoulder length.
• Facial Features: Sharp-angled features, with a slim muzzle and large ears.
• Build and Size:
  • Lupus: (~26 in) Faizel is small for a wolf, with a lean, long-legged body. Her paws are large, the middle toes slightly fused. Her long back slopes like a wolf's.
  • Secui: (~40 in) Her Secui form is long and lean-muscled, powerful and made for hunting. Her fangs protrude from her lips.
  • Optime: (~6ft 2in) She is proportioned "long," with a very flat chest. She looks like a lean, cross-country runner.
• Humanization: Yes -- she'll go clothed in Optime, if simply; her gear is always practical, suitable for work or winter.

Palette

Fur

Eyes

Nose, Skin, Paw Pads

Interaction

• Speech: Quiet, steady voice; accented. Fluent in Arabic and Turkish as well as English.
• Scent: Kartal, brackish water, marsh, wood and must, earth, fresh kills, rivers.
• Quirks, Gestures, Etc.: Almost always has something in her mouth: twig, bone, etc. -- especially if nervous/thoughtful.
• General Posture and Body Language: Adheres strongly to dominance or submission cues; rather feral, aloof. Stands at attention, alert.

Accessories

• Leather "contraption" with buckles, chains; meant to be able to change as one shifts
• Dark pants torn off at knees
• Big, baggy sweatshirt; a little short on the torso and arms, but meant for a heavyset human

Interests

• Likes: Hunting, physical training, open land, wildcats, warmth
• Dislikes: Wetness, thick forests, nonsense

Traits

• Outlook: Realistic, controls her future
• Sociability: Introverted
• Expression: Dominant, stoic, self-assured
• Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Motivations

• Family: Her driving force. Faizel acts as the guardian and caretaker for her siblings and devotes her time to keeping them safe and providing for them where she can.

Fears

• Being unable to keep her family safe

Biases

• Species: Prejudiced against jackals (and likely coyotes) due to tensions in Beirut; basically, she'd cross the street if she saw one walking toward her.
• Non-Luperci: Sees the Luperci virus as a gift and a source of fascination; Faizel is likely to "experiment" on any non-Luperci she comes across.
• Sexuality: Faizel is not prejudiced against homosexual individuals, but she is used to them being discreet and makes a vain effort to hide her brother's predilections. She heavily disdains promiscuity.

Sexuality

• Heterosexual
• Faizel is not likely to be openly affectionate with her love interest. She would likely treat them like her other family members -- taking charge and protecting them.

Substances

• Abstains from intoxicants.
• Faizel has seen alcohol destroy her father's judgment and heard stories of his constantly falling off the wagon. She generally thinks lesser of those who are dependent on intoxicants.

Spirituality

Faizel was raised in a community that practiced an Islamic faith (with many liberties) and believes in a singular god, called Allah or Tanrı. She is not necessarily devout, and would be considered lax among such people, but she practices some of its tenets.

3.1  Family

• Mother: Daniyah bint Khairan
• Father: Levent Kartal
• Littermates: Khairan Kartal, Naila Kartal
• Half-Siblings: Atalanta Kartal, Achilles Kokinos; Aiden, Aysun; Benjamin Kartal

• Benjamin Kartal: Her illegitimate brother who has picked up many of their father's vices. Faizel loves her brother despite these faults, the only one of her siblings to truly accept him -- though she tries to keep him out of trouble.
• Khairan Kartal: Her no-nonsense brother. Khairan is protective of Faizel, though she usually puts him in his place when he becomes overbearing. She loves him immensely but always defends Ben from him.
• Levent Kartal: Her merchant father -- the cause of many of the family's problems. Faizel adores her father though she was embarrassed by his transgressions; she tried to support him but knew that taking his advice and leaving was their best bet.

• Naila Kartal: Her serious-minded sister. Faizel and Naila have a silent bond, having traveled together for trade many times before, but they are not openly affectionate.
• Daniyah bint Khairan: Her thief mother. Faizel and Daniyah had a great relationship, Dani showing Faizel most of her tricks and encouraging her strength.
• Djinni: A caracal that Faizel hand-raised. Though Faizel doesn't show excessive affection to the cat, they have something like a mother-daughter relationship; Faizel does openly consider her family.

3.2  Pack Relations

• Nivosus Moineau: Sapient's leader -- whose tendency toward drink reminds Faizel of her father's struggles, and not in a good way. Faizel clings to the hope that Niv is a leader for a good reason.
• Vedetta Auditore: A fellow hunter and introvert, Vedetta is pretty well liked by Faizel! She sees him as a potential friend, if they can establish trust.

• Itō Miwa: Faizel is leery of Miwa -- who is part jackal and who got "snippy" with Faizel during their first tense meeting.

Combat, Hunting

• Education and Learning: Faizel served as a hunter and guardian-escort in the hunting parties that set out from crowded Beirut for nearly two years -- and has experience traveling, fighting off wild animals and brigands, and bringing down prey alone and in a group. She also received some tutoring in swordsplay before she left Beirut.

• Hunting (Journeyman): Faizel is an adept hunter on four legs; she understands the nuances of most of the prey she hunts, and is extremely enduring. She excels in coordinated hunts over long distances, as well as taking a dive at medium or small prey alone.
• Combat (Journeyman): Faizel is a calculating but physical fighter, relying on close quarters combat in all her forms. She strives to intimidate and disable her foes and end fights before they escalate.
  • Secui Combat (Journeyman): She tends to fight on four legs, using her hunting knowledge to aim for vitals -- usually on canines in similar forms.
  • Hand-to-Hand Combat (Journeyman): Faizel uses her hands, arms, and body in as many ways as she can -- clawing, grabbing and pulling, punching, sometimes supplemented with knuckle-weapons.
  • Short Swords (Apprentice): She received some tutoring in short, curved swords.

• Faizel hunts best over long distances, wearing her prey down rather than striking fast when hunting larger prey; she is weaker when it comes to hunting in thick brush or killing quickly.
• She has issues fighting canines in mismatched forms (e.g., she is in Lupus and they are in Optime), mostly due to lack of experience and training in combat situations like these.
• Faizel has no practical experience in sword-fighting.
• Her most apparent weakness is distance fighting, as she has no way to ward off arrows, other blades, etc.; she will use armor to supplement her defense, however.
• Due to her morals, Faizel does not aim to kill her opponents; she would likely hesitate before killing another, leaving her open to attack.

Other

• Education and Learning: Faizel learned most of these skills from her parents, either under their tutelage or from observation.

• Language (Journeyman): Faizel shows evidence of being a polyglot like her father, having a talent for picking up on new languages; she is fluent in English, Turkish, and Arabic, with very limited proficiency in other Eurasian languages (a scarce handful of words, mostly curses).
  • Low Speech (Apprentice): She has some proficiency in some Low Speech dialects; she is most fluent in feline, but she can mimic sounds of other animals as well. Given familiarity with a herd for long enough, she can understand their dialects as well.
• Reading & Writing(Apprentice): She can read Arabic script and Latin alphabet, as well as write in the former.
• Felines (Journeyman): Like her father, Faizel is good with cats; she has been around small cats for much of her life. Additionally, she has helped her father raise wildcats -- successfully and unsuccessfully. Her current companion was hand-reared.
• Crafting: (Apprentice): Faizel has helped her mother and sister in their crafting projects, and therefore knows the basics of carving and shaping bone and horn into weaponry and other shapes.

• Low Speech does not lend itself well to consistent understanding; she must relearn most dialects when encountering herds in new places, though her quickness of picking up language helps somewhat with this.
• Her reading comprehension is fairly weak; she is a slow reader, especially in English, and tends to only read short messages rather than long prose.
• She has inherited her father's terrible handwriting.
• Faizel would have no idea what to do with a larger feline, such as a cougar; she might be able to handle lynxes or bobcats. However, she can only handle felines that have been raised by or around Luperci; her talent doesn't make her a magical cat-whisperer.
• She is only an apprentice crafter, and is often blind to the flaws in her own work.