This is a really cool idea! I like the shamanistic story for Bea, it's awesome. It makes sense that there would be an intricate story behind it, too. You make me feel so unoriginal. Anyway, let me try...
There's more info on all of Mali's scars in her wiki page, but the things you can actually see from the character creator are a scar on her left cheek, some red warpaint, and a red eye (she wasn't born with heterochromia, so I'm counting it).
The scar on her left cheek is from her first attempt at swinging an axe...considering where else she could have ended up cutting herself, especially if she had swung a few inches lower, having a scar on her face is probably the preferable outcome. The red eye is from some botched conjury/white magic; her eye was hit pretty badly in the battle of Carteneau (where she also got a lot of scars that aren't visible...gimme some body scar options, square!), and she wasn't able to be healed before she was flung through time. When she popped out in the present and finally got some healing, it was too late for any of her wounds to be "good as new," but not so late that she was pushing up daisies. The eye is pretty much stuck in a permanent state of subconjunctival hemorrhage (DO NOT click that link if you are faint of heart, it's some major eye squick), but with the blood concentrated in her iris rather than the sclera because magic is weird (and I couldn't have an all-red eye option). Out of character, I wanted her to be noticeably damaged from the battle but I didn't like most of the facial scar options (and the only one I liked already had a plot point), so I got creative.
But if we ever get body modifications, then Mali is going to have ALL THE SCARS! /meme
The warpaint is just something she picked up from adventuring for a really long time. It doesn't get much more complicated than that. There's no special significance, she just thought that it was useful for both intimidating her enemies (and giving off a "tough" aura off the battlefield) and obscuring her features to make her less recognizable, at least to certain people, that didn't hinder her sight like a mask or a hood. After putting on various designs almost daily for nine years it has become so much of a habit that she feels uncomfortable if her face isn't painted.
Of course she also has a certain big black tattoo on her back, but she doesn't like talking about that.
tl;dr version: Everything on Mali is a result of fighting and/or adventuring. All of it.
I don't think any of my other characters have facial markings, really...Tiv has some green-ish makeup to make him look more sickly, and that's about it. He technically has more stuff on his body but I'm gonna go ahead and say those don't count, like Mali's, since they aren't there in the game. :\ There's not much else I can say on this topic, really.
I need to go make more characters with scars and make-up.
There's more info on all of Mali's scars in her wiki page, but the things you can actually see from the character creator are a scar on her left cheek, some red warpaint, and a red eye (she wasn't born with heterochromia, so I'm counting it).
The scar on her left cheek is from her first attempt at swinging an axe...considering where else she could have ended up cutting herself, especially if she had swung a few inches lower, having a scar on her face is probably the preferable outcome. The red eye is from some botched conjury/white magic; her eye was hit pretty badly in the battle of Carteneau (where she also got a lot of scars that aren't visible...gimme some body scar options, square!), and she wasn't able to be healed before she was flung through time. When she popped out in the present and finally got some healing, it was too late for any of her wounds to be "good as new," but not so late that she was pushing up daisies. The eye is pretty much stuck in a permanent state of subconjunctival hemorrhage (DO NOT click that link if you are faint of heart, it's some major eye squick), but with the blood concentrated in her iris rather than the sclera because magic is weird (and I couldn't have an all-red eye option). Out of character, I wanted her to be noticeably damaged from the battle but I didn't like most of the facial scar options (and the only one I liked already had a plot point), so I got creative.
But if we ever get body modifications, then Mali is going to have ALL THE SCARS! /meme
The warpaint is just something she picked up from adventuring for a really long time. It doesn't get much more complicated than that. There's no special significance, she just thought that it was useful for both intimidating her enemies (and giving off a "tough" aura off the battlefield) and obscuring her features to make her less recognizable, at least to certain people, that didn't hinder her sight like a mask or a hood. After putting on various designs almost daily for nine years it has become so much of a habit that she feels uncomfortable if her face isn't painted.
Of course she also has a certain big black tattoo on her back, but she doesn't like talking about that.
tl;dr version: Everything on Mali is a result of fighting and/or adventuring. All of it.
I don't think any of my other characters have facial markings, really...Tiv has some green-ish makeup to make him look more sickly, and that's about it. He technically has more stuff on his body but I'm gonna go ahead and say those don't count, like Mali's, since they aren't there in the game. :\ There's not much else I can say on this topic, really.
I need to go make more characters with scars and make-up.