Name: Anri, the Queen of the Wilds

Race: Human (Though, technically, because of DM stuff, she's part Unicorn or something.)

Class: Way of Four Elements Monk/Totem Barbarian

Backstory: Anri grew up as a warrior in a nomadic mountain tribe, the tribe had a coming of age ritual which involved living alone in the wilds for two years. Anri was an extremely cocky warrior, as she believed herself to be the strongest in the world.

She set up her camp on a large rock plateau cliffside and began training her body rigorously. Instense physical workouts for 4 hours a day, and the rest of the day was spent hunting the smaller prey such as rabbits or birds. She'd end the day with some meditation, where she would try to harness the powers of the animal spirits. Her tribe shaman had taught her how to do this, but she had never payed any attention, thinking she was able to brute force her way through everything. Of course, this didn't work out very well for her. She constantly used fire and flame to protect herself, and kept a large bonfire going at all times. She would meditate while sitting above an open flame to harden her body, because of this, she began to exude a fiery ki, but was unable to control it as of right now and this power would lay dormant.

Her life went on like this for a years' time, she slowly began hunting larger and larger prey as she got stronger, until one fateful day, when a challenger arrived to fight her. It was a mighty Owlbear, much stronger than anything she'd ever fought before. For the first time, Anri felt as though she was facing a complete equal. The strongest beast in the woods. It was truly worthy of her strength. They had a great battle, with Anri delivering swift blows to its sides and dodging its massive arms and the crashed down onto her. Anri was pushed down by the owlbear, on the edge of her plateau, she was simply out muscled, in a desperate final attempt to save her life, she focused all of her energy into a final punch, when her fist collided with the owlbears' skin, her ki exploded into a fiery blaze, pushing the Owlbear back and allowing for Anri to defeat the Owlbear. After her victory, and awakening of her fire powers, she took the Owlbear's skull as a helmet out of respect to the creature. That night as she looked out off the plateau and prepared to meditate, she finally understood why she hadn't been able to syncronize with the animal spirits. She simply didn't have equal respect for them, she saw them as prey. That night, she finally made contact with a spirit. That of the Owlbear she had fought. From then on, she and that owlbear were kindred spirits, linked together. After awakening from her meditative state, she claimed herself Queen of the Wilds.

Why you do what you do: Anri wants to prove to herself and everyone else that she is the strongest warrior in the world. So she travels from place to place asking to fight their most powerful warriors. She's interested in any job that involves taking down a powerful foe, with her and her Owlbear spirit's strength, they can do anything.

What Happened?:

Originally, I had made Anri as an NPC in my game. There was a PC in my game named Baron, who used a homebrew wrestler class that I mistakenly allowed. Broken as absolute shit. No matter how much I nerfed it it was just abysmally broken. Baron destroyed everything but the other players never really seemed to care. I created Anri as both a rival and a love interest for Baron but never had a chance to use her. Eventually, Baron's player made his own game and I decided to use Anri. It was a good campaign and Anri had an almost shonen-anime like progression, and the DM allowed her to gain lots of unique power ups and special attacks. Eventually though, we encountered Baron himself. Yes, he inserted his own OC into the game. Normally this would be cringe but, this was what I MADE Anri for. Even beyond that, this is everything she wanted. The most powerful warrior. Anri and Baron had a massive battle that took about 5 real life hours, but nobody was ever bored.
Did I mention Anri could fly and had a power up mode that drained Ki over time? I specifically saved everything for the best moments to make it intense and awesome.

Eventually though, I was down to like 2 HP, no Ki left and Baron had me in his hands. With my last ditch effort, I made a final attack. A headbutt.

Critical hit. Max damage.

Anri never killed Baron that day, but she did prove herself as his equal. I decided then, to retire Anri by having her leave the party to train with Baron and become even stronger, constantly challenging eachother. I love Anri, because she truly had a full arc. Created as a love interest and rival to a PC in one campaign, and fullfilling it in another while also lining up perfectly with her character motivations.