"Y'wanna go, mate? C'mon, c'mon. I might not be 'stall as you, but I can still break y'in half! Hah! Then I'll eatcha!"
Four feet, eight inches isn't a particularly intimidating height for any being with an ego the size of Jora's, but she's got that ego for a reason, and most stuff larger than her that doesn't at least somewhat yield to it comes to find out that she can back up most of the threats she puts out.
Jora is an oddity, a member of a race dubbed the Bur-Ako. The closest human translation for this is rather fitting... villainous child. Bur-Ako are short (the tallest known stands five-foot two) and by nature generally aggressive and raucous, but they're also impressively strong and tough, with wiry muscle that lets them lift a hell of a lot more than their own body weight and throw it around with little problem. While their skin feels soft enough to the touch, it's much more resistant to both damage and the elements than that of a human, and they've got impressive bone density for their size.
The Bur-Ako were originally far more reptilian, almost lizard or even dragonlike, in their build and anatomy, and a lot of those traits still show through. Bur-Ako still bear horns and tails... both useful as weapons, with the horns good for headbutting and the tails prehensile and stretchy, able to bind and crush quite ruthlessly. Despite their tiny size they also have immense tongues, many of them at -least- four times the height of the specimen. These tongues are useful for feeding as they're quite prehensile, and Bur-Ako saliva is only a step below crazy glue in adhesive properties. They can fire these tongues out of their mouths about as fast as an arrow can travel, making it hard to avoid.
The average Bur-Ako is a rather stretchy creature as well, partially due to the strong, pliant consistency of their flesh. A Bur-Ako is capable of swallowing and storing up to two full-sized humans in his or her stomach without too much movement hindrance. The aforementioned tongue is another example, as is their tail, which can usually stretch out to twice its normal length in order to aid travel or capture of targets. The tail has an opening in the tip that allows it to envelop things... while originally evolved for efficient storage and consumption of water and food to keep it safe from the harsh elements of the Bur-Ako's normal habitat, many of them have taken to stuffing live and wriggly meals in their tails. Even the hair of a Bur-Ako is generally prehensile and stretchy... both males and females wear their hair long, and are capable of using the tresses for binding or consuming.
Many think that the Bur-Ako are a manufactured race, due to many of the odd abilities they have... most scientists and scholars say these would be difficult to evolve. The common belief amongst outside scholars is that they were created as a sort of experiment in creating the ultimate harsh-climate survivor... though by who and for what eventual end, no one's really sure. Others who have been around them longer say that they've done it to themselves, evolving enhancements to their own species in a very short amount of time, sometimes even over a single generation. This is far closer to the truth, in fact... manufactured or not, Bur-Ako who eat someone alive are able to selectively acquire useful traits via DNA sequencing, storing the information either for their own use or for their children to use in the future. While rare, it's possible to see Bur-Ako with very odd features, such as taloned hands and feet, or huge leathery wings. They don't much care, though. Relatively unconcerned with their past or their future, they're a species that lives for the now, and they just wanna fight and eat and drink.
Your average Bur-Ako will be about four and a half feet tall, loud and raucous, relatively touchy-feely, and brandishing a gargantuan weapon. Because they play rough, they have to have relatively sturdy clothing and equipment, most of which they make themselves. A Bur-Ako's clothing is generally made from the skin they shed from their own tails, as it's flexible and extremely tough... any armor and weaponry is forged from a metal they refer to as 'Aranite', denser and heavier than iron by a significant margin. Many of them will plate their horns in this metal as well, to allow for more forceful headbutts. They use bladed weaponry rather sparingly, as they prefer to do blunt-force damage, and so large broadaxes and clubs are their signature weapons.
Their language is hard for most to puzzle out, as it seems every word they use is either one or two syllable, with a primary syllable used to identify the particular idea, and the second syllable used to clarify. It sounds simple enough, but it basically turns into an extended memory game. Luckily, English was comparitively easy for them to pick up, and some of them even speak more complex languages, though of Earthen tongues they prefer the romance languages. Their written language is relatively rough, and luckily it's runic, because they've got universally horrible handwriting in any other language.
Well, we've ranted about the species as a whole, but what about Jora? Well, she's what her own species calls a 'Kai-Ma'... a bit of a drifter and a ranger, she spends more time away from her kind than she does with them, mingling with other species and learning useful things about them. Oh, and eating them too, of course. She's relatively easygoing, though any comments on her height being inadequate, or literally any comment about her being unable to fight, will generally earn you a punch or worse. She loves drinking and sampling foods, and she has a noticeable fondness for human rock music and many sports that involve full-body contact. She tried to play rugby once, but she was banned from it and all related sports pretty quickly, so now she just watches and yells. She likes video games too, but rarely has access to them, and tends to break any sort of console or controller she gets her hands on.
For the lazy people who don't like to read about the interesting bits, Jora is a short lizardlike girl who enjoys beating the shit out of stuff and devouring things with her hair, tail, or drooly greedy mouth.
WIP