Name: Rose Greenwood
Age: 24
Race: Mortalborn. (Human/Immortal) Moseke's Daughter
Date of Birth: 12th of Vhalar Arc 695
Marks:
Factions Joined: Order of the Adunih (Green Cloak - Hoodless)
Languages Common (Fluent), Xanthea (Broken)
Partners
Face Claim: Aleksandra Girskaya
Age: 24
Race: Mortalborn. (Human/Immortal) Moseke's Daughter
Date of Birth: 12th of Vhalar Arc 695
Marks:
Factions Joined: Order of the Adunih (Green Cloak - Hoodless)
Languages Common (Fluent), Xanthea (Broken)
Partners
Face Claim: Aleksandra Girskaya
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Rose is of average height for a female human or Sev'ryn, standing at 5’ 4” and weighting 122 lbs. She possesses a lean but healthy build, with toned muscles from running errands for her father and practicing with the longbow. Her face bears hints at her mother’s heritage, with a wide set jaw and fiery amber brown eyes. Rose’s brows appear as bold brushstrokes upon her face, giving her a striking, but at times less feminine appearance. Her skin is a light warm tan, differing from her father’s pale ivory skin tone. The warmth of her skin pairs well with her rich auburn hair.
Her hair is by far her most noticeable feature, Rose can only assume that the striking color must originate from her mother’s side of the family as her father sported blonde hair that was interlaced with streaks of gray. Typically, she wears her hair loose, allowing it to cascade around her shoulders unless she is working. In the case of the latter she carefully braids her hair back into a single thick length in order to keep her locks free of blood or other unmentionable fluids. On her right forearm is a small tattoo of a circular tree with intertwining branches and roots, it was given to her when she was a child as was custom among her mother's people.
Because Rose grew up among other humans she has a modest sense of decorum and is typically garbed in long cotton or wool dresses that reach to her ankles when working. Her father impressed upon her at an early age the need for modesty in her appearance. When Rose was a young child he had nearly turned blue from the shock of seeing her in a pair of trousers she had borrowed from a friend. Rose was equally shocked with his reaction and has dutifully worn the clothing of a lady since. After two arcs of living in Desnind she occasionally chooses to don a pair of paints and a simple shirt to give her more freedom of movement. The Sev'ryn do not allow their clothes of dictate whether or not they can run and jump, this mentality is beginning to rub off on Rose.
Her hair is by far her most noticeable feature, Rose can only assume that the striking color must originate from her mother’s side of the family as her father sported blonde hair that was interlaced with streaks of gray. Typically, she wears her hair loose, allowing it to cascade around her shoulders unless she is working. In the case of the latter she carefully braids her hair back into a single thick length in order to keep her locks free of blood or other unmentionable fluids. On her right forearm is a small tattoo of a circular tree with intertwining branches and roots, it was given to her when she was a child as was custom among her mother's people.
Because Rose grew up among other humans she has a modest sense of decorum and is typically garbed in long cotton or wool dresses that reach to her ankles when working. Her father impressed upon her at an early age the need for modesty in her appearance. When Rose was a young child he had nearly turned blue from the shock of seeing her in a pair of trousers she had borrowed from a friend. Rose was equally shocked with his reaction and has dutifully worn the clothing of a lady since. After two arcs of living in Desnind she occasionally chooses to don a pair of paints and a simple shirt to give her more freedom of movement. The Sev'ryn do not allow their clothes of dictate whether or not they can run and jump, this mentality is beginning to rub off on Rose.
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Proper decorum was always impressed upon Rose as a child, and she retains many of those ladylike tendencies an adult. Rose is polite and respectful to most, but from time to time people try to walk over her much like a doormat. Thankfully for her sake there is a bit of her mother’s wildness in the young mixed blood that rears its head from time to time. There are times when dealing with obstinate individuals that Rose can become sharp, outspoken and unapologetic with her words. Especially in the case determined patients who are unwilling to try a treatment that is certain to improve their condition. The fiery eyed woman has scolded both children and elders alike when met with refusal to listen to reason.
Aside from a bit of a temper Rose is a very inquisitive young woman who is terribly passionate about learning new things, especially knowledge associated with her profession. Many nights were spent curled up in her father’s small library reading dusty medical tomes by firelight. She has a great amount of respect for the natural curatives found in nature and is far more likely to prescribe medicine of this sort rather than to resort to surgery.
Her humor is cheerful and at times a little tongue-in-cheek but regardless Rose always appreciates a good laugh. She enjoys spending time with others of her profession but tends to live a private life once her day of work is done. Reflective and quiet when in private or one on one with others, Rose is more introspective than people give her credit for. In public she tries to seem cheerier than she really is in order to keep spirits up. Perhaps it is the nature of a physician, to act as though the outlook is brighter than it really is.
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*Thank you Ent for providing the details for Strosdyn
Rose's story begins long before she was born, as it all began with her father and his time among the Sev'ryn.
William-
William Greenwood was a well-educated and well-meaning doctor who had traveled as a young man to find a place where he could become more learned in the ways of medicine, and of course use his knowledge to help others. He was no older than twenty when he came to dwell among the Strosii, a small nation, but one that treasured civilized and democratic values. William had found his people and his calling. It was to the south of Strosdyn that a cluster of southern islands lay, and among those green lands dwelt a small colony of Sev’ryn . The young doctor was once quite an idealist and did not bear the inclination of his fellow Strosii to discount the Sev’ryn as nothing more than wildlings. However William did doubt the nature of the southern natives’ knowledge of proper medicine, and took it upon himself to venture to the south for sometimes a season at a time to try and teach the Sev’ryn his craft.
For several arcs the well-meaning doctor would make his way down to the south to speak with the Sev’ryn in order to teach what he could and to assist in the medicine house. It was hard going in the beginning, the southern natives had little interest in northern medicine and instead had more interest in ‘singing’ the ailments from their few sick and injured. To their credit the Sev’ryn were always kind to the young man, and shared their expansive knowledge of natural remedies with William. After a few arcs had passed, his pilgrimages to the southern isles had become just as fruitful for his fellow Strosii. William had learned that sometimes a few cups of a simple ginger and mint tea could cure a sickness of the stomach far better than a draining of the humors. He was less inclined to take a hot knife to a wound, and would rather treat it with an elderberry compress and clean stitches. At first his fellow Strosii thought it was a rather frightening to allow the strange doctor to administer the natural Sev’ryn medicines, but they began to accept the gentler methods, as often the results were favorable and incited much less suffering on the patient’s behalf.
This soon became the way of things; the doctor divided his time between Strosdyn and the southern island, spending at least two to three seasons a year in the south before returning to the north to manage his own medical practice. A small part of William remained hesitant to consider the Sev’ryn a civilized people, part of their culture was still too wild for his taste. However that wildness could be enticing in its own right. It was six years into his work with the Sev’ryn that William began to spend time with a young hunter who had been wounded during a wild boar hunt. The beast had awarded the hunter with a terrible laceration down her left leg and put earned her an extended stay in the medicine house. Her name was Sia’fel and it was here Rose’s parents first met.
Sia’fel was given a small private room in the little medicine house for nearly a month until she could stand and walk a few steps on her own with the aid of a crutch. The young hunter was often visited by William during her recovery as he tended to her wound personally. They talked of many things, though their greatest shared interest was the natural world. William, of course was fascinated with plants that possessed medicinal properties and Sia’fel carried on about the subtle but beautiful spirit of an ancient tree she had encountered, or the bright eager beauty of a newborn flower. The young doctor was perplexed by her fascination with the spiritual nature of mere objects. Sia’fel would talk for hours about a stately grove of pines she had once passed through, of their noble posture and primeval wisdom. William was quick to disregard many of her words as local superstition or perhaps an issue with his understanding of her language. He could speak Xanthea fairly well, but from time to time of course he would stumble and fail to convey the correct meaning of a word.
By the end of the season the hunter was rather smitten with her healer, and he with her. She was this lovely wild thing that was still such a mystery to him and William seemed wise yet alien to her. They were both still young and foolish when William invited Sia’fel to come and visit his home in Strosdyn. The good doctor was certain that once the huntress witnessed the merits of true civilization that perhaps she would never want to leave. The Sev’ryn woman was reluctant to leave the tribe, even for what she believed would be a short while.
What was thought to be a short visit to Stosdyn turned into half an arc apart from the other Sev’ryn. At first, life among the Strosii had been somewhat enjoyable, the locals viewed Sia’fel as an attraction to be viewed and studied. They were kind and first but often kept their distance. William was good to her, but he began to insist that she dress like his people and observe their manners and customs. No longer did they speak of trees and the spirits of the natural world. William seemed content to treat his patients and seek out Sia’fel’s company when it suited him. He never spoke of returning to the island of her people, and this fed a silent fear that grew in Sia’fel’s heart.
The woman began to fear that she had made a mistake, that she should have stayed with her own. It had nearly been half an arc since she had last seen her tribe and by now she had become recently pregnant. When Sia’fel realized she was with child, she knew that she would never raise her child in the land of a people who were so numb to the world around them. Regardless of her fear she departed in the dead of night for the sake of her unborn daughter, fleeing back to her home .
William was heartbroken when he realized that Sia’fel had fled. He had believed her to be happy among the Strosii. Why wouldn’t she be? Strosdyn was a civilized place of learned citizens who had been nothing but pleasant to her. Confused and saddened by her departure the doctor made several attempts to return to the Sev’ryn island, only to be turned away by the tribe.. It was not until Sia’fel had given birth that the Sev'ryn begrudgingly contacted William at the mother’s insistence. Although she had been unhappy among his people, she would not deny him the right to see his child. The little girl would be three seasons old before her father was allowed to see her. At birth Sia’fel had named her child Rys’sia and upon becoming a month old the girl had been given her first tattoo as was custom among the Sev’ryn. The small tattoo of a tree with curling intertwined branches rested on the inside of her forearm, marking her forever as a child of her mother's people.
William was delighted when he was permitted to hold his daughter for the first time, a wide smile crossing his lips as she gurgled and cooed at him. She was healthy and fit albeit her skin was a good bit paler than the skin of her nut brown mother. However Rys’sia did inherit her mother’s fiery brown eyes and a thick head of short auburn hair. Abruptly the doctor’s eyes widened as he noticed the slightly inflamed skin marked by the tattoo. He was horrified, and suddenly the prejudiced views of Strosdyn made perfect sense to him, clouding his vision. His daughter was wrapped in tanned animal hide and maimed with a tribal tattoo before her first arc. These people were no better than savages, he reasoned to himself. They didn’t deserve, nor had the right to raise his daughter in their unclean primitive world. William would see his daughter well educated and brought up as a proper young lady and not as some half clothed huntress.
After sundown that very night, the young doctor stole away with the child ; A man who once considered it his life’s work to bring medicine and learning to the people of the southern isles stole a child away from her southern mother. The Sev’ryn would try to speak with the leadership of Strosdyn to have the baby returned to her mother but they were invariably ignored by the Strosii.
William of course, changed his daughter’s name to something more suitable. As a small sign of respect to her mother he named her after a flower. Occasionally the Sev’ryn would name their children after flora, and Rose was a perfectly acceptable name for a young woman of the civilized world.
Young Rose was told very little about her first few months among her mother’s people, she rarely asked about her tattoo as it always seemed to make her father angry. She was educated and brought up as her father always wished, a learned lady that would be respected by her peers. Regardless of her father’s best intentions Rose has always possessed a wild streak in her, a desire to be outdoors, chasing rabbits with bow in hand or hunting herbs in the woodlands of the island. No matter the number of times he had scolded her she always found her way out to the small untamed corners of the northern isle.
Rose would follow in her father’s footsteps to become well versed in the ways of medicine. Even though he despised speaking of the Sev’ryn, he did indeed teach her some of what he had learned of their healing. The red headed youth kept a modest herb garden in the back of their home, tending to it daily and harvesting feverfew, peppermint and chamomile among other plants to make teas and poultices for the sick of Strosdyn to use. She dreamed of traveling to the Sev’ryn city of Desnind where she might learn from the wisest healers in the land and run through dappled forest shadows. William worried for his daughter and the truths she might find if she ever left her home. He did not regret spiriting away Rose to Strosdyn on that night many arcs ago, but he was ashamed of the misery he had forced upon her mother. He had been so young and foolish, to think he could cage and tame a wild creature like Sia’fel.
Rose-
Arcs passed and Rose began to spend most of her days working with her father in his clinic, treating simple ailments, anything from basic cuts and scrapes to mild illnesses. The people of the island rarely became ill so it was a shock when a sickness of the lungs began spreading to dozens upon dozens of the locals. Months before, a group of outsiders from the mainland had docked at the city and stayed for several trials. A few of them had been ill with a hacking cough but it had caused no concern among the locals. They had come to see Rose and her father for some soothing teas but even the doctor had hardly taken note of their visit. People began arriving at the clinic in droves, coughing up blood and complaining of an ache in their chests. It was nearly another month before Rose’s father began to realize that the condition was able to be passed on to others as members of families become sick one after another. Rose and her father began wrapping scarves around their noses and mouths and instructing families to quarantine the sick relatives away from the healthy family members. Nearly Rose’s entire supply of dried feverfew and wormwood was used up overnight. The herbs would be mixed with goats milk to make a tonic that eased the coughing , chest pain and fever. She was sent into the city begging for any herbs from kitchen gardens that might help against the symptoms. Her father was worked to exhaustion moving from home to home administering the medicine his daughter worked tirelessly to make. They focused on treating children first and so many elderly died in the first days of what her father had begun calling Scarlet Lung. It had gained the name from the wet bloody cough that heralded the final days of a patient’s life. Dozens would eventually die, but the youngest survived, those that were given several doses of the tonic and access to fresh air and clean water had the best chance of outlasting the sickness.
Eventually activity within the small clinic began to slow as the last few patients began to improve. They might struggle with shortness of breath for the rest of their lives but they would live. The final victim of the disease would be William Greenwood himself. He had worked many late nights in the homes of the sick Strosii. Striving to treat as many of the infected as he could, the man was fraught with exhaustion when the cough first began. Rose was far too absorbed collecting and processing components of the tonic that she barely saw her father during those difficult weeks. Her hands were red and beginning show callouses from working a mortar and pestle. She spent breaks upon breaks grinding up the dried leafy wormwood and feverfew. Although a novice, Rose tried to measure doses as carefully as she could, taking into account the size of every patient. Even with such care there was no telling if the right dose made it to the right patient. Dispensing the tonic was left up to the family members of the patient or her father in the more desperate cases. She was massaging her sore hands when she noticed that wet hacking cough coming from her father’s room. Rose took in a breath to calm herself, her limbs shaking with dread as she realized that there was one patient left. Wrapping a clean piece of linen around the lower half of her face the exhausted half-blood made her way to her father’s room.
William would die no less than five trials later. The mixture of milk, feverfew and wormwood only relieved his symptoms for a short time before they returned. He had gone for too long without any treatment or rest. His last hours were spent in a bright sun filled room whispering to his daughter the story of her mother. He died quietly after falling asleep, Rose had slipped a dose of Night Scarf into the chamomile tea that she had encouraged him to drink. The Night Scarf was ironically a Sev’ryn derived medicine; it was well and good that a medicine of her mother’s people had brought him to a final peaceful rest.
The morning after his funeral Rose sold her family home and the clinic it was attached to and traveled to the southern islands. Sadly her mother’s family was no longer there, they had arcs ago returned to their ancestral home of Desnind. Without blinking Rose purchased passage on a ship to Desnind herself. They were the only family she had left, and perhaps she could find her place beneath the shadows of the city of trees.
Shirvian Bear Familiar
Race: Spirit Familiar
Date of Birth: N/A
Skills: N/A
Appearance: Tyr takes on the form of a forest brown bear, common to the region of Desnind. He is quite large and if corporeal he would be nearly 1,300 pounds. Tyr's fur is a warm honey brown and he has a pair of bright golden eyes that give a hint at his startling intelligence as a spirit. Like many other bear spirit familiars of Raliath, Tyr is quite transparent and his body is undulating with glittering interwoven bands of light that ripple with a myriad of colors. This gives the impression of iridescence when he is caught in the right light.
Personality: Tyr is a fastidious creature who is also equally lazy when it best suits him. While he is often fascinated with studying the sights, sounds and smells of the natural world, the spirit is just as content napping by a fire. There is a permanent gleam of wisdom to the bear's eyes and it comes clearly through in his speech. Tyr will often wax on philosophically about minutia or things that interest him, to the point of boring his new mortal companion. Aside from his endless supply of commentary, Tyr has taken on the role of a guide for Rose, helping her when she faces perplexing problems that might stump her. He seems perfectly happy letting Rose figure most things out for herself, but the spirit is keen to motivate her to find her own way through problems. He encourages bravery and occasional risk taking if he believes it will help Rose learn and grow as a person.
Relationship to PC: Spirit familiar
Anything: else you would like us to know.: Nope
Sev'ryn Familiar - Approved by Nymph
Familiar’s Animal Form: Barn Owl/ Jaguar
Appearance: Ostara is composed of the tail and hind body of a jaguar and the wings, forelegs and head of a barn owl. Her head is not completely owl-like as she does possess two feathered cat ears on the top of her head. Her plumage and fur is a mixture of white and soft brown colors. The familiar's eyes are a soft golden amber hue. As for size, Ostara is roughly the size and weight of a medium sized dog: Roughly 50 lbs and knee high when sitting.
Personality: Rose’s potential familiar is an uncompromising creature; personifying the strongest parts of her other half. Ostara is intrepid, bold and outspoken; encouraging Rose to throw aside caution at times in order to enjoy more of life.
Quest Plan: Ostara will appear to Rose in multiple dreams, often startling or frightening dreams since her potential familiar is so eager to find her other half. In these dreams Ostara will test Rose’s character and resolve. Dreams will often force Rose into situations that are alien to her. The goal of this is for Rose to accept that she will never be fully Sev’ryn or human, but something in-between.
*I have not yet decided where I will have them finally meet in the real world. It will need to be somewhere menacing and potentially dangerous, to prove that Rose can move past her fears in order to reach Ostara.
