Sheva stands 6' tall with greyish skin and black eyes. She is strong and hardy and proud of her fierce appearance, although it is tough to tell whether she is more proud of her muscles or her scars. She wears black studded leather armor, which she has ornamented with pale furs and many trophies of bleached teeth and claws. She wears the head and massive black mane of a lion over her scruffy black hair. Two fangs poke "demurely" from her bottom jaw.
Sheva's father, Tau ('lion'), was a fighter of the Red Thunder Spears tribe. Her mother, Kisha, was a farmer from Three Springs, towards the edge of Anauroch. The Red Thunder Spears conducted raids throughout the region; Sheva, whose mother died in childbirth, is a product of one of those raids. The clerics of the region, who happened to be of Chauntea, worked hard to create a pact between the villagers and the tribe that would keep the violence to a minimum (peace being out of the question). Sheva was tacked on as an adder to that pact, which the clerics felt was a merciful option to exposure, and because the orcs valued the bonds of blood ... of whatever sort. The half-orc was raised communally, one of many other orc children, and called Yatima ('an orphan'). She was teased mercilessly about her human heritage. Names like who-man and pig-skin hounded her like flies on a corpse.
Yatima, naturally, deeply resented all of this and grew up with a burning core of anger inside her. She took well to fighting because she constantly fought and was able to summon a frightening rage in battle. She also showed promise as a helper to the tribe's tanner, which pleased her slightly, too. Her dream was to earn her name, Sheva Longreach, and the honored position of a warrior for the tribe, and the half-orc longed for the respect that would entail. When the time came for the coming of age ceremonies (read: fights), Yatima was quite confident that her skill with the wicked duom would shine. She was to be greatly disappointed. The tribe elders acknowledged her skill but decreed that, due to her half-blood nature, she could not become a tribal warrior. She could still fight, they assured, but she would not earn her chosen name. They allowed that she could apprentice with the tanner and, in time, become one in her own right. Yatima, though, considered this a weak substitution for the thrill of proving herself in combat.
This rejection from orc society was the final straw for the young half-orc. While the rest of the tribe celebrated the other youngsters-become-adults, Yatima (rather, Sheva) struck. She knocked out the guard of the arms tent and stole the duom, her favorite weapon, a war hammer, and a great axe. She fled the tribe, making sure that no one followed her. Assured of her freedom and heady with her success, Sheva traveled far. She tracked and killed animals, curing their pelts for trade, and learned to interact with non-orcs in a more peaceable way than she'd been taught. She does not bear active malice towards her tribe, but she recognizes that she cannot live with them.
Sheva currently travels with a group determined to reassemble and reforge the ancient Harbinger, a magical sword that was shattered centuries ago in binding a terrible demon beneath the now-ruined city of Carsis. During this time Sheva inadvertently found herself married to the Calimshan fire priest U'ziir. Since she has not killed the priest, nor in turn been killed, it is assumed that neither of them mind this marriage.
