A broad-shouldered human with weather-worn skin, close-cropped brown hair, and a pale scar across the right eyebrow. She wears polished chain mail under a well-kept soldier's cloak, with a shield marked by a simple white star and a practical sword worn at the hip. Her posture is rigid and alert, as if she is always on parade, but her eyes soften when she notices people in need.

Steady, courteous, and quietly stubborn, Maris speaks with the calm certainty of someone who has already decided that panic is a luxury she cannot afford. She is kind in practical ways, mending straps, sharing rations, and placing herself between danger and the helpless without making a speech about it.

Maris Vane was raised on the edge of a frontier keep where the harvest could be lost to raiders in a single night. She learned discipline before she learned comfort, drilling with spear and shield beside veterans who taught her that courage was not the absence of fear, but the habit of standing firm while frightened. When her unit broke a bandit siege on a river town, Maris saw how quickly ordinary folk could be abandoned by the powerful, and she swore that if she survived the army, she would spend her life being the wall that others could shelter behind. Now she travels as a newly minted adventurer, carrying her soldier's habits into a world that is far less orderly than the barracks. She keeps her gear spotless, takes the first watch without complaint, and writes down names of the dead so they are never reduced to numbers. Though she has left formal service, she still salutes old banners by instinct and cannot ignore a command voice in distress. She seeks not glory, but a cause worthy of the oath she has not yet spoken aloud.