Her face is open with big eyes and an expression that lends itself to smiles. Long bangs are raggedly cut across her eyes so their glow shines through the strands. Twined into her hair are shells, gryphon-feathers, and little flashes of quartz. Her horns and hooves have small nicks in them showing she doesn't get them looked at too often.

She is muscular, toned from hoof to horn and smells of leather and fresh, clean water.

There are many bags attached to her belt, vying for space with her weaponry. One is oiled and seems to carry meat of some kind.

A crossbow is slung across her back, a quiver hanging from one hip.

After hosting a public roleplaying event that was overrun with idiots, griefers, and even an elf who thought she was Tyrande telling her to kill herself, a friend of mine told me that (despite the flood of retards) the bare handful of decent people made the whole thing worthwhile. I didn't really understand it at the time. I would have gone out of my mind to have spent so much time on a project only to have it ruined by people who probably should have been discarded at birth. I figured she must be some kind of modern-day saint with the patience of twenty people and left it at that.

Then I ran into Tomyris.

Normally, I try to avoid reading too many character descriptions in one sitting. I really don't need the blood pressure spikes. But when I see someone typing with proper sentence structure and punctuation, usually I decide it's worth at least a peek. I wasn't expecting much; this was a female draenei in a purple Lunar Festival dress. That type of person is usually just a mailbox away from making a spectacle of herself. I figured it would be just another poem featuring prominent, cone-shaped nipples slicing effortlessly through any fools who dared cross her.

Boy was I ever wrong.

I don't get to say that a lot, and I'm sure there are a few people out there who've fainted dead away from the shock of reading that, but it's absolutely true. It was like a punch to the jaw that knocked me flat on my ass and left me there with a stupid grin on my face. What joy! A physical description that was actually a physical description! What's more, no mention of lips, breasts, hips, legs, breasts, waist or breasts! The glowing eyes are mentioned in passing, which doesn't stick out because draenei eyes happen to glow. Rather than a paragraph describing the shine and sultriness of her hair, there's a sentence about the various adornments. She's describing things seen on her character that don't appear on the in-game model, a concept which, even though it appears in the program's own help file, is completely alien to almost every single person who uses the program!

From the description, it seems rather obvious the character is athletic. But the physical signs of that are presented matter-of-factly rather than as a lure to draw in the under seventeen, home-alone-on-prom-night crowd. There's not so much of a hint of attention-seeking in the way she describes a muscular and toned female body. I didn't even think that was possible, but there it is.

She even takes the time to show her character as having to carry her baggage with her, rather than the usual abilities to produce three claymores and a poleax out of nowhere on a whim. The crossbow is there (being too large to stuff in any of the packs) as is the quiver (because the bolts have to come from somewhere) rather than appearing and disappearing at will so as not to break up the careful balance of the outfit.

There is one thing, and one thing only, that I could possibly take issue with. None of the draenei encountered thus far have ever had surnames. It's common enough in descriptions that it's unlikely most people with their entirely human perspective actually think about it. And it's even possible that it could be intentional (or simply explained away) because a race of people new to Azeroth might adopt surnames to fit in with the natives. Even the name "Arrowsong" is night elven in nature; night elves being the race the draenei would have the most contact with given the location of their capital city.

It's the flaw that makes the masterpiece, the little oversight telling me that yes, there is indeed an actual person behind this character instead of it being a trick of my imagination or someone playing a nasty prank on me.

So for actually managing to surprise me and making me think that there may indeed be hope for people, Tomyris receives the "Shiny Red Apple" Award!

Hooray!

Score: Recipient of the January '09 Shiny Red Apple Award!