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30 Day Warden Challenge: Day Twelve
Day 12. Tattoos. Does your Warden have any tattoos and if so how did they get them?
Kasia has her casteless brand, of course, on her right cheek, and she also has a tattoo above her right eye -- a brown stripe with negative space in the shape of a casteless brand turned sideways. These are the only tattoos she has, and the only ones she ever plans to get.
As with most casteless dwarves, Kasia was branded at a very young age, so she doesn't remember what it was like not to have one. It's a fact of her life, like having blond hair and being really short. Still, she hated knowing that it was the first thing any dwarf saw about her, the first thing people would judge her for. It took her a little while of being on the surface before she could truly believe that most people up there genuinely didn't notice it, or if they did they just saw it as another tattoo, some dwarf thing that they didn't understand but with no real significance.
Kasia got the tattoo over her eye for several reasons: she was giddy with excitement over a job that had gone well, it was a bonding experience with her then-boyfriend Fahlen, some of the other dwarves she knew had face tattoos and she liked the look of them, but most importantly it was about the idea of having a choice. Putting a mark on her face that she had chosen for herself felt like a statement of defiance. No noble or merchant that she knew had ever voluntarily tattooed themselves: it was something that casteless did, and criminals, and Legion of the Dead. If she had to wear her class on her face, she might as well make sure that no one would ever miss it.
Because of that, she understands why a Dalish might wear the vaselin, or Zevran and the other Crows tattoo themselves to signify various things: it's a way of belonging, of letting other people know who you are. She likes that the Dalish let you choose which pattern to wear, which god to honor, and thinks she might not mind her own brand so much if she'd had more of a say in its design.
Kasia has her casteless brand, of course, on her right cheek, and she also has a tattoo above her right eye -- a brown stripe with negative space in the shape of a casteless brand turned sideways. These are the only tattoos she has, and the only ones she ever plans to get.
As with most casteless dwarves, Kasia was branded at a very young age, so she doesn't remember what it was like not to have one. It's a fact of her life, like having blond hair and being really short. Still, she hated knowing that it was the first thing any dwarf saw about her, the first thing people would judge her for. It took her a little while of being on the surface before she could truly believe that most people up there genuinely didn't notice it, or if they did they just saw it as another tattoo, some dwarf thing that they didn't understand but with no real significance.
Kasia got the tattoo over her eye for several reasons: she was giddy with excitement over a job that had gone well, it was a bonding experience with her then-boyfriend Fahlen, some of the other dwarves she knew had face tattoos and she liked the look of them, but most importantly it was about the idea of having a choice. Putting a mark on her face that she had chosen for herself felt like a statement of defiance. No noble or merchant that she knew had ever voluntarily tattooed themselves: it was something that casteless did, and criminals, and Legion of the Dead. If she had to wear her class on her face, she might as well make sure that no one would ever miss it.
Because of that, she understands why a Dalish might wear the vaselin, or Zevran and the other Crows tattoo themselves to signify various things: it's a way of belonging, of letting other people know who you are. She likes that the Dalish let you choose which pattern to wear, which god to honor, and thinks she might not mind her own brand so much if she'd had more of a say in its design.