Dirqa

## backstory

Once a member of one of the many guardian tribes of Forest Ridge, Dirqa was born to the foremost warrior family in his tribe. From the day he learnt to walk, he was brought along on scouting and hunting missions, patrolling the vast expanses of the forest where he learnt how to hunt and fight, mostly against human trespassers.

One time, his hunting group came upon a human camp and after ambushing them at night and slaying them all, came upon some very curious devices. It seemed that these people used fire to heat up their food before consumption and though the halflings were utterly disinterested, Dirqa was extremely curious.

Despite being warned by the elders not to bother with outsider culture, Dirqa is a gourmand at heart and cannot resist the temptation, and that was the day when everything changed - when he discovered cooking. With the holy trifecta of condiments, fire and meat, Dirqa was a reformed man from that point onwards and refused to eat meat raw, much to the dismay of his tribe. Seeing him as irrevocably corrupted by outsider influence, the xenophobic and isolationist tribe could not bear his presence any longer and deemed him a threat, exiling him from Forest Ridge.

Always an optimist, Dirqa was not particularly saddened by this, if anything, he was glad that his horizons have been broadened. Since then, he has eaten just about anything that got in his way, be it human slave traders, elven nomads, mul headhunters or just hostile animals. He is not a fan of wasting food and loves variety in his diet.

## appearance

Dirqa cares little for fame, gold or power and just simply wants to eat. Always on the hunt for exotic meats, new cooking techniques and rare condiments, he lives not for the thrill of combat but for what comes after. A total dumbass, he is the opposite of a detail-oriented person for all matters that aren’t culinary. He follows the whims of his raison d’etre which is to consume. Dirqa rides the current of his surroundings, never remembering nor committing to long-term goals but rarely opposing them either.

Brutally honest, Dirqa is not one for subtleties and lays his thoughts bare though he possesses enough self-restraint to not act on them if they would endanger his interests. Do not mistake his almost child-like curiosity, honesty and aloof personality as any indication of sanity: he is an absolute nutter and has more than just a few screws loose.

## personality

Dirty, and stinky, Dirqa is clad in crude shells of various desert creatures wrapped over his scrappy hide armour underneath. His wild and coarse dark mohawk points upwards stiffly, his head contained by his weird, ornamental feather circlet which he keeps as a reminder of his heritage. Under his right eye is a clearly artificial scar shaped like a lightning bolt which he carved when he was younger. He thinks it looks cool and badass (it doesn’t). He is fat and has a big beer gut that protrudes from below his chitin breastplate. This leads many to underestimate him as underneath his hide armour actually lie surprisingly large, log-like arms (but not an actual tree more like a sapling since he is a halfling). His right foot is a peg leg, a major blow from one of his most dire situations (he was starving once and thought eating his own foot was a good idea). Because of this, he walks with an extremely awkward gait, relying on his spear almost like a crutch. In the middle of battle, he uses the spear to augment his movement a lot to compensate for his foot.

His weapon of choice is a stone spear which he made himself, fashioned after his favourite implement: the fork, though everyone else always thinks it's a trident which makes it appear more menacing than it should be. His shield is also, in fact, a repurposed cooking pot. Dirqa loves multi-functional tools.