Jekaterina Zolnerowich [Mother Russia]

Name: Jekaterina Zolnerowich

Age: Late twenties/Early thirties

Affiliation: Templar and kind of unofficial pirate

Appearance:

rough sketch kinda:

Standing at 6’6 Jekaterina towers over most. Her whole body is covered by hard earned muscle that combined with her almost constant frown makes her look slightly intimidating. Due to being so muscular she often gets mistaken as a man from behind however her face still retains femininity even though she has a brutish body. She has quite a square jaw with protruding cheekbones and plump lips whom sit under a beaklike nose, her eyes are a dark shade of brown with thick eyelashes framing them and her tanned skin (from spending hours out in the Caribbean sun) fits her shoulder length dark dirty blonde hair nicely.  What she wears depends on the weather (and what she can find that fits) so mostly it consists of a white shirt and some breech, though the one thing that she always wears is her Templar ring on her left ring finger. She is fond of braiding her hair and is often found with various hairstyles varying in complexity.  She has some scars on her but the ones that stand out the most are the ones on her left calf from the time she was stupid enough to wade through a swamp filled with crocodiles. But she got a nice wrestle out of the experience as well so she didn’t really mind. She has a few tattoos on her back resembling her past experiences.

Personality: Jekaterina often has either a frown or a stoic expression on her face except for when she’s drinking that is. However even though she often looks disgruntled with life in general Jekaterina is not an angry person, her face just looks like that, really. She finds many things amusing and has a bit of a case of bad humor, making it very easy for her to laugh, even more so when she’s drinking.

One thing that stands out in her personality is that she is incredibly blunt; she does not waste time beating around the bush so if something is on her mind she’ll not hesitate to say it, a quality that has gotten her into many brawls in the past. Another thing that stands out in her personality is her love of simple brawls, fistfights, anything that has to do with smashing her fists in someone’s face basically. (Some people say her fondness of such activities depends on having had a few too many blows to her head during them)

She is however not nicknamed “Mother Russia” for no reason. When she’s not remodeling someone’s face with her fists or upholding the morals of the Templar order she is a kind person, in her own way. She shows a great care for her crew and people around her, going to great lengths to keep them happy and well (mostly through vodka), happy companions are what makes a good crew after all and a happy crew makes success. That’s why she has that nickname. Well that and she’s Russian.

Jekaterina has always sought purpose in life (other than the Templar order) and hopes that she’ll find one whilst sailing the West Indies as what could be called a pirate, even though she doesn’t really care much for the gold.

Favorite Weapons: Fists, heavy weapons and things that go boom.

Strengths:  Jekaterina’s strengths are… well for one she’s physically strong, exceptionally so in fact. But then again when you’re built like a brick it’s not that surprising you can punch a door down. Having been on the sea a lot during her childhood and youth Jekaterina is an experienced sailor and has an easy time keeping her cool during storms and battle since she actually knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t have a problem keeping her cool overall really and even though she might rush into some things she’s still calm whilst doing them, keeping it easier for her to make good decisions during such situations. She has amazing reflexes and is very alert about her surroundings at all times. She knows some basic survival skills such as making fire, building good shelters and how to hunt and fish efficiently due to spending some time out on hunting trips with her brothers. She also speaks fluent Spanish due to the years she spent in Spain whilst she was younger.

Weaknesses: As many big brutes Jekaterina may be big and strong but she’s slow. Not stupid but she’s slow in the sense that she doesn’t run very fast. She enjoys alcohol a bit too much sometimes as well. Whilst she speaks Spanish fluently her English is mediocre at best. Another thing is that she is very stubborn, incredibly so in fact. She hates being wrong and will always argue that she is right no matter what due to her slightly excessive pride. She will even argue to the point of brawls. Not that she minds brawls very much, something that is slightly self-destructive as they sometimes escalate to big fires and chaos. She does not enjoy chaos after all since she is blindly loyal to the Templar order and her stubbornness mixed with that makes her refuse to see things from other perspectives. Especially not from perspectives that go against the Templars ideals. She could almost be called naïve since she almost blindly follows the Templar order without asking too many questions perhaps due to a fear that she will get kicked out if she doesn’t.

Background/Biography: Jekaterina was born in a small village in Russia to a fisherman and his wife who already had two sons. She was born with what would in modern times be known as Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy and what was by then called freaky. Of course they noticed something was wrong with their baby when she was strong enough to lift her head at an incredibly early age. Soon enough it became apparent the baby did not have much baby fat. Instead she was quite… fit? Very odd. Later as the child grew she only grew more and more muscular and strong, soon being able to wrestle with her brothers and not get utterly defeated.

To make things easier they started dressing her in boy’s clothes (she didn’t seem to like dresses all too much anyway) but her mother insisted they didn’t start treating her as one. She was her little girl after all and she wanted to braid her hair and teach her how to sew and cook.

However Jekaterina was never very interested in cooking or sewing (she did like braiding her hair though) but instead she was incredibly interested in fishing and hunting. Her father and brothers were also more than happy to teach her how to do it efficiently and she proved very helpful as she could lift as heavy weights as they could. Thus she started helping them on a regular basis and she liked that life. She spent most of her youth out at sea in her father’s boat or in the woods with her brothers hunting, much to her mother’s dismay.

Soon enough she could carry thrice as heavy weights as they could and she had grown taller than most. Many said she reminded of a bear, except she had less fur and teeth of course.

At her 18th birthday tragedy struck.

Her father disappeared out at sea as a storm hit and barely three months later her mother died from a severe fever. Jekaterina and her brothers were broken and far from their senses due to grief. They started arguing on almost daily basis and in the end they went their separate ways. Jekaterina ended up disguising herself as a man and getting on a ship. She didn’t care where she was going as long as she got away from Russia.

She ended up in Spain, a country completely different to her old one. She worked in the harbor for a while under the name Ivan and earned some money. She got several contacts and learnt Spanish during those days. It all went awry however when she got involved in a brawl between three men one being a man she knew and worked with so she protected him by beating down the other two.
That is the beginning of how she got involved with a smuggling gang.

The man she had protected and worked with was apparently the right hand man of the leader and the main informant of the gang. He told the leader of the Russian man who had helped him and it was decided “Ivan” would be of use. Jekaterina, who was looking for something else to do than just unloading crates agreed and soon enough she was unloading illegal crates and shipping them off inland.

Now how she joined the Templar order in the beginning she still isn’t very sure how happened. The smuggling gang was connected to the order through the leader and they were apparently supplying the Templars in turns of resources. Jekaterina who had been helping transport the newest illegal crates to their destination had done a great deed according to the order as she and the man she was working with took down an ambush that had been set up for them. Keeping the crates safe and the order considering recruitment.

So she was recruited. The Templars always needed some muscle after all and she gladly accepted, finally she had found some meaning to her life other than smuggling crates. Now she was smuggling crates and keeping assassins away. Only during the course of a few months she was taught the history of the Templar order and the assassins and how to handle a decently sized axe before it was requested by Torres, the grand master of the Templars in the Caribbean that he wanted to receive a bodyguard who actually spoke Spanish. So they shipped “Ivan” off to the West Indies only to find out that he already had one and frankly was quite happy with him.

So now Jekaterina was in the West Indies without a job except for some Templar business now and then. So she started drinking and somehow as she got incredibly drunk one evening revealed her identity as a woman and purchased a frigate.

Well now that her cover was blown and she was the hung over owner of a ship she decided to make the best out of the situation and start sailing.

So she named her ship “Czarina” and set sail after having gathered an at first slightly wary crew but they soon realized their captain could probably beat down five jaguars at once and decided that sailing with a female captain wouldn’t be so bad after all (she was about as strong as two regular men as well). There was plenty of booze as well after all so it almost never got dull. It also didn’t hurt she actually knew what she was doing as she called out orders from behind the helm as well, even if it sometimes was in questionable heavily accented English.

Rumor spread and soon men were whispering of the Russian woman built like a bear captaning with a ship and crew terrorizing English ships mostly and it didn’t take long before she was nicknamed “Mother Russia” due to her heritage and gender.

(I tried to keep the history short cause I'm lazy so sorry if it's messy at parts)

Fabulous Bunbutt <33

Well written, very descriptive. Approved.

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