Minrah Shaleshoe

What is even the point of being a cleric if divine revelations can't change your mind??

Minrah Elle Shaleshoe
Biographical information
Death	Year 1184
Resurrection	Year 1184
Hometown	Firmament
First Comic	1093
Last Comic	1300
Physical description
Species	Dwarf
Gender	Female
Hair color	Blonde
Chronological and political information
Affiliation	Church of Thor Order of the Stick
Class	Fighter/Cleric
Alignment	Lawful Good
Known masters	High Priestess Rubyrock Durkon Thundershield
Status	Living
D&D Stats
Level	1+/9+
Str	15-19
Wis	15+
Cha	6+
Feats	Knockback, Knockdown, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Trip
Skills	Spellcraft 1+
Spells	Standard cleric list

[Source]

Minrah Elle Shaleshoe is an assistant overnight caretaker acolyte of Thor at the temple in Firmament, along with Tinna and Rogo. Before being ordained a cleric, she was a guard. She is now a cohort of Durkon's in the Order of the Stick.

Biography

Utterly Dwarfed

When "Durkon" and his thralls attacked the temple at dusk, Minrah and the other acolytes retreated into the temple behind its magically sealed doors. Brother Sandstone covered their retreat at the cost of his life.

Six hours later, the Order of the Stick arrived at the secret back door to the temple and opened the door with the runestone given to Roy by High Priestess Rubyrock. Thinking they were vampires, Minrah and the other acolytes attacked Roy with light spells and undead turning. Minrah was skeptical of the Order at first, believing that they were there with ill intent based on their perceived "skulking" around the back door. She was convinced they were not in league with the vampires by Elan's pungent garlic breath.

Minrah, while less confident in her casting abilities, is more confident in her use of a war hammer, and offered to help the Order defeat "Durkon" and his vampires. She accompanied the Order into the tunnels of Firmament, and was nearly dominated by the vampire who was formerly Brother Sandstone.

In the first melee with the vampires in the tunnels, Minrah protected herself from domination with a Protection from Evil spell and killed at least one vampire with her hammer.

In the battle with "Durkon"* and his minions, she was able to avoid being dominated by the vampires even after the magical protections were dispelled. However, she was blinded by Ponchula and ultimately killed by Hilgya with an empowered flame strike.

In the afterlife she sees Durkon and initially mistakes him for "Durkon". She was given immediate entrance to Valhalla with an extra drink coupon for dying fighting a cleric of Loki. But before taking her reward, she accompanied Durkon and Thor to the Astral Plane to see the pocket dimension where the gods created memorials for all the worlds which were destroyed in the conflict with the Snarl.

When Durkon was resurrected, Minrah was set to enter the afterlife in Valhalla, but came to the realization she wanted to continue living in the real world, even if she ends up in Hel next time she dies. Turning around on the Bifrost, she made Durkon promise to resurrect her when he finds sufficient funds.

Minrah was later Raised by Durkon. She accompanied the Order to the Council of Clans to stop Gontor Hammerfell and the other vampires. She was in the room when Gontor was destroyed, and apparently dispatched the Creed of the Stone vampire known as Sandy single-handed, flinging her into the sunlight for destruction.

After the battle, Minrah convinced Roy to let her join the party in their journey north to defeat Xykon. She delayed the departure briefly to allow her to convey her feelings to her loved ones which she had failed to do prior to her death.

The author clarified in the commentary for Utterly Dwarfed that she is not a full-fledged member of the party, but a cohort of Durkon's.

Current Events

Minrah travels with the Order to the North Pole. She has been trying to get used to the team's eccentricities. As part of Thor's mission to convince Redcloak, she observes Durkon going to parlay with him. She intervenes using Durkon's Hammer when Redcloak attempts to implode the latter.

After escaping from Xykon, Minrah follows Durkon and reunites with the rest of the Order, going inside of the labyrinth. They end up meeting Serini Toormuck and her beholder Sunny. During the battle, she uses the spell calm emotions on Belkar to bring back to sense before having him use his charm to cure Elan to break out the others.

Personality and Traits

Minrah is a confident, assertive and pious individual. She fearlessly stands up for herself and what's right, willing to sacrifice her well-earned rest on Valhalla to be brought back and stop the Snarl. This shows a commitment into doing good and helping people. One of Minrah's most defining traits is her personal philosophy in people being themselves and in living authentically. In her own words to Belkar: "You're a person, a person who does stuff! If you want to be different, do different stuff!" This underlines her belief in people being able to make their own choices. This also includes owning up to the responsabilities coming from said actions. She herself strives to live by this philosophy, coinciding with her Lawful Good nature. Another aspect of her emphasis on self-actualization is her belief of life being too short to not take chances. She notes she made a promise to take it to her grave that her cousin was in love with her coworker Tinna, only for her to tell Durkon this in the afterlife. She notes that she did in fact take it to the grave and thus fulfull her promise, though nothing was said on resurrections or the afterlife, showing that like her fellow Lawful Good comrades, Durkon and Roy, she is willing to exploit loopholes.

As a reflection of strong beliefs in living authentically and owning up to one's choices, she has little patience for specious individuals. In her words: "fake people just make me so mad." As such, she is unafraid of calling out people for their self-serving, insincere and dishonest behavior with themselves, best seen in her speech with Redcloak. She chides him for his willingness to sacrifice the lives of every goblin currently living for the lives of future goblins that may or may not exist, despite being their spiritual leader. She accuses him of nothing more but a "big phony" who relies on speaking of noble ambitions to alleviate his conscious of his decisions dooming his people.

Despite this, Minrah is not above having her own eccentricities or quirks. She can be rather pedantic, feeling that she has to explain herself to be understood, such as going on a tangent to clarify avenging Brother Sandstone or her clarifying her idioms over to others. This quirk is noticeable enough to where Elan notes it as an indication she will fit right in with the Order. She can also be quite exciteable, happily gushing in getting to meet her patron god in Thor. Unlike Durkon, she also appears to lack a fear of heights, noting how she dreamnt of flying with Thor at least dozens of times. She also has an unrevealed personal secret that she has been worried about. She is both thankful in Thor not revealing this secret to Durkon and incredibly relieved when he reassures her that he is cool with it.

Powers and Abilities

Cleric Abilities: Minrah became a Cleric despite the initial concerns of some of her co-workers on her capabilities as such. She has enough Cleric levels to be able to cast the spell Thor's Might, a setting-specific version of the existing spell "Righteous Might". "Righteous Might" is a 5th-level spell, indicating that she must have at least 9 levels in Cleric. Additionally, her comments on not using the spell before may imply that she just reached this level very recently, possibly in gaining experience from slaying the vampires.

Fighter Abilities: Minrah noted that she started out as a Fighter. While it has been unstated how many levels she has in Fighter, she does possess the feat Knockback and by prerequisite, Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush. Additionally, she may also have the Knockdown feat (given her strike against Redcloak) and by prerequisite, Improved Tripping and Combat Expertise.

Trivia

• In the commentary for Utterly Dwarfed, it would be clarifed that Minrah counts as Durkon's cohort. Prior to this, it was generally assumed that she was becoming a fully-fledged member of the party.
• Minrah would be the first member of the Order to share her character classes with other members (being a Fighter/Cleric). Prior to this, the Order consisted of everyone having different classes.
• Minrah's big secret has been the subject of much speculation. One of the most prominent theories is Minrah being transgender. This comes from various readings of her given her philosophy of living authentically and on becoming who you want to be. A notable example is in her conversion with Belkar where she notes that when one makes a change, everyone who meets them from now on only knows the new version of them. That said, Burlew had stated on having no current plans for transgender characters due to feeling like he messed up the opportunity with how the "Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity" story arc played out. However, he also noted that he had no objections on potentially including characters later if he found a good way to do it. Burlew's statement was made in 2015 while Minrah would be introduced over in 2017, making the theory plausible.

Gallery

References

Appearances

1093, 1094, 1095, 1096, 1099, 1100, 1101, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1105, 1106, 1107, 1108, 1109, 1110, 1113, 1115, 1116, 1117, 1118, 1119, 1122, 1123, 1125, 1126, 1127, 1128, 1132, 1133, 1134, 1135, 1136, 1137, 1138, 1139, 1140, 1141, 1142, 1143, 1144, 1145, 1146, 1147, 1148, 1150, 1151, 1153, 1162, 1165, 1167, 1174, 1175, 1180, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1194, 1197, 1198, 1199, 1200, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1213, 1214, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1218, 1219, 1220, 1221, 1223, 1224, 1230, 1231, 1232, 1235, 1236, 1237, 1238, 1239, 1241, 1242, 1252, 1253, 1256, 1258, 1259, 1268, 1269, 1271, 1277, 1279, 1280, 1281, 1282, 1283, 1284, 1286, 1287, 1288, 1289, 1290, 1292, 1294, 1295, 1296, 1298, 1299, 1300