Kova — Search-and-Rescue Rook
“Hold still—I’ve got you. Breathe with the wind, not against it.”
Name: Kova
Race: Owlin
Role: : Search-and-Rescue Rook
Appearance: Kova is a compact, powerful winged humanoid with dense, weatherproof plumage: mottled gray-white feathers across the body, darker bar patterning along the forearms (primary feathers), and a pale facial disk that frames two large, forward-facing amber eyes. Short feather “ear-tufts” hint at a great-horned-owl lineage. Her arms are feathered wings with dexterous, taloned hands at the wrist joint; her legs are digitigrade with gripping, taloned feet fitted into modified crampon greaves. She wears a seal-lined rescue cloak over reinforced winter leathers, a multi-point harness with carabiners and coil lines, and a lantern clipped at the chest. A compact shortsword rides her belt beside a grapnel, pulleys, and a well-used healer’s kit.
Backstory
Kova came out of the gale-battered cliffs north of the Shattered Coast, where cliff nests teach you early that a steady glide is braver than a fast dive. She followed seasonal search crews inland and found Frosthold desperate for eyes above the storm. From the Rescue Rookery Tower near the Lakeshore Watchtower, she and her apprentices fly bell-to-bell responses: hauling travelers from drift hollows, plucking fishers off cracking blue ice near the Rimewake Channel, and guiding Kethra’s teams to safe lanes when a lampline goes dark. She debriefs with Varrik after every storm and keeps a quiet ledger of names she reached in time—and those she didn’t. Her creed is simple: no one vanishes if there’s still lift in her wings.
