Kate, holding a vial of venom

The Thousand Sword Competition Character: Katherine (Kate) Johnson
Sex: Female
Age: 32
Height: 5 feet, 5 inches
Weight: 120 lbs

Background History:
Kate grew up in a very wealthy family. Her father was a physician and amateur chemist, and her mother was a poised, proper, and dutiful wife. An only child, Kate was lovingly doted upon by both of her parents, with the clear expectation that she would enter society with the same grace and subservience as her mother. By the age of 16, Kate had rejected that socially acceptable plan and started to study chemistry. Using her father's old texts, she self-studied her way to an apprenticeship at a nearby university's lab. She left home at 18, against the wishes of her parents, and now works full time in the lab.

In the lab, Kate's project deals with artificially synthesizing snake venoms. While studying the snakes that her project was inspired by, she became fascinated with the idea of poisoned weapons. (See "Weapons" for details) Her research on swords and sword design led her to the Thousand Swords.

Personality:
Described by the Myers-Briggs personality test, Kate is a textbook ISTP ([link]). Never enjoying the small talk or social events from her childhood, she really appreciates alone time. While more serious than chipper, Kate is optimistic in that she has a "of course I can do this" attitude. At times, this confidence manifests itself as arrogance or aloofness. She is very intelligent and knows it. She is highly logical, easily separating herself emotionally from problems. Due to her own complicated family history, however, moral judgment calls that deal with kinship are emotional trigger points for Kate. She frequently revisits the question of intellectual independence vs. filial duty.

Appearance:
Kate is exceptionally beautiful--truly, her parents had high hopes for her future in high society. She has long, straight brown hair and brown eyes. Her skin is fairly light. She has a few chemical stains on her hands, and a small chemical burn on the inside of her left wrist.

Kate tends to wear men’s clothes simply because they are more functional (especially since she started training with the sword). Sometimes, however, she will wear dresses and skirts. She wears a necklace of antidote at all times. (See "weapons" for context.)

Weapons:
Inspired to make poisoned blades more accessible to swordsmen, and fascinated by snakes, Kate designed a weapon that will release poison on her command. Kate's sword is a rapier modified to release snake venom in response to pressure. Her custom blade has ducts in it to carry the poison, which she can discharge by squeezing the hilt tightly. This emulates snakes' venom release by voluntary muscle contraction.The venom is inserted into the sword at the hilt in a small vial (pictured above). Kate continues to rethink her sword's design, and she is preparing to create a new model in the near future.

Kate has a belt designed to hold six spare vials of venom. She wears a seventh vial on a cord around her neck, between her breasts and under her clothes. It contains three doses of antidote.

Fighting Style:
Kate is left-handed. While she is a capable swordsman, she knows that her strength lies in strategy and not in physical strength. As such, she will always wait for the best moment to strike instead of going at a fight with full force at the onset. She has pretty good endurance, and will wait for her opponent's stamina to run out if it means winning the fight. She doesn't tend to play dirty--perhaps some of her parents' lectures on etiquette and respect for the rules did have an effect on her!

Miscellaneous:
Kate is in a relationship with the professor supervising her work. (He's twenty years older than her and never married because he never found a woman smart enough to be his equal. Luckily he met Kate.) She dreams of getting married and having children, but her current lifestyle is not really conducive to family plans.

The one regret that she has in her life is losing ties to her parents. She exchanges letters with her mother regularly, but hasn't seen either of her parents since she left home.

[link]

Edit: I won first place! Super exciting Thanks for looking!