Kuori was designed at short notice to playtest a Perrenland introductory adventure (which can only be played by 1st level characters). Because of the limited time available, I settled relatively quickly on playing a barbarian, because they are relatively simple combat builds - high Strength, good Constitution, two-handed weapon, and feat(s) that make you good at hitting things.
Having settled on a class, I then spent most of the two hours before the game thinking about what would make the character interesting, both to myself and to other players. Recent changes to the Living Greyhawk Campaign Standards allowed characters to take non-Player's Handbook feats at 1st level, while a recent scenario had included a new race, the Goliaths, in the Clatspurs near Perrenland. While I couldn't play a Goliath, I could play someone who lived with Goliaths and who was descended from Goliaths - thus explaining the high physical ability scores.
Continuing with the Goliath theme gave me the other character design and characterisation elements I needed to have an interesting character. Goliaths can wield large-sized weapons without penalty despite being medium-sized creatures. While I couldn't do that with a human (who had Goliath ancestry as a "special effect"), I could take the Monkey Grip feat and thus wield large-sized weapons - though not as well as a Goliath. Not having the racial ability score bonuses of a Goliath meant the character wasn't as good as a Goliath at a lot of things that mattered to Goliath communities, such as climbing, fighting, storytelling. They were someone who never measured up to the standard, who stole a frost giant's axe to try and prove her worth but was instead forced to leave the tribe and the mountains for the lands of the "little people" (the humans), someone who buried her anger and shame deep inside and could express her fury only when she fought ... someone named Kuori.