#brochilde

Brochilde’s story is pretty simple, really.

First, the history lesson: long ago, hill dwarves forced out of the depths by invaders from deeper in the Underdark and humans who wandered through mountain passes also beseiged by those invaders met, made alliance against the invasion, and, by the time they’d driven it back, had forged so many bonds of friendship, marriage, trade, and overall partnership that they melded their lifestyles and peoples into one. The Stripeclaw tribe is made up entirely of half-dwarves, with the blood of both races flowing in their veins. They revere the badger, a burrower and fierce fighter, as their tribal symbol. Their village is carved halfway into a mountain, its heart an easily-defensible keep quarried directly into the stone; there are sturdy stone structures on the surface, for those who prefer to dwell above and for the winter keeping and storage of equipment for their mountain-goat herds, and access to the natural caves deeper in the mountain, for those who like to venture into the depths in search of treasure and for the harvesting of cave fish, mushrooms, and other bounties of the deep. They are a proud and mighty tribe.

Second, the personal story: a girl is born in this tribe. From a young age she shows strength and skill in arms, and an eagerness to participate in competition, so she is trained as a warrior. The Stripeclaw clan does not wage aggressive battles--with its secure physical and economic position, it has no need--but it will defend itself to the last, so the girl is trained in defensive skills, and taught that her strength is for the protection of others. She is one of the best warriors of the tribe, certainly the best of her age cohort, and is immensely proud. One of those who come close to her prowess is a boy named Nuvald who, during their years of training together, becomes her best friend. Nuvald has a twin sister, a beautiful girl named Linnea, who is without question the most sought-after girl in the village. Our heroine, like most of her age cohort, falls head-over-heels for Linnea, and due to her friendship with Nuvald, she has more opportunity than the others to press her suit.

Linnea is not interested in her suit. (Nor in anyone else’s, not that it should matter.) She is, however, well-mannered and gracious, and our heroine is unable to accept the gentle rebuffs that her best friend’s sister for what they are. She keeps pressing; in her blindness and desperation, her behavior turns ugly, and she tries to bully Linnea into accepting an affection that she does not want. Nuvald, finding his sister in tears one day, issues a formal challenge to our heroine. He thinks that the formal language of ritual combat will make clear to his best friend what the softer language of indirect refusal did not. What should happen in such a challenge is that our heroine will accept (it would dishonor her not to at least accept), and after a few ritualized blows, will concede the fight in the name of their battle-bond before any blood is drawn, satisfying the honor of everyone involved.

Our heroine does not intend to concede anything, honorably or otherwise. She thinks this is a chance to show off to Linnea--that winning the combat, which is only to first blooding, will somehow be a step forward in her suit. (She is voluntarily oblivious to the message being sent, even now.) A ritual battle is conceded after each party has made two (inevitably parried) blows, so after his second, Nuvald, anticipating the concession, drops his weapon. She, assuming that he will raise it and parry again, strikes with extra force in the hope that she’ll stagger him. He’s nearly as good as she is, after all, so she doesn’t expect to actually hit him yet. She lands what, in an actual battle, would be a very lucky critical hit, while raging. In a fight meant to be to first blooding, the result is, formally and legally, a murder.

Because it was ritual combat, and Nuvald issued the challenge, the only possible response is exile--she was not the challenger, so she cannot be executed, but it was outside the terms of the challenge, and so she cannot pay weregild and make restitution to the tribe to regain her honor. She is stripped of her name, of her honors, of her rank and membership in the Stripeclaw tribe. She is emblazoned with the mark of the kinslayer across her forehead, and given only clothes and a handaxe and a week’s supply of rations, and she is cast out of her tribe and their lands. And, by dint of the marks on her forehead, out of the lands of all who deal with or share the customs of the Stripeclaw, because no tribe will abide a kinslayer among them.

So the girl is alone in the wilderness, isolated from all civil human contact by the mark she bears, filled with shame, and rage, and grief, and a deep, abiding loneliness, when the Badger comes to her. She does not seek her totem out--she is no longer Stripeclaw, so she has no right to its patronage. But it comes to her regardless. It is not complimentary about her actions, and it does not pretend that its intentions are kind. But it guides her all the same, warning her of danger, showing her the way to shelter and forage and game, until she settles into a kind of peaceful half-life of bare-bones survival and meditation on the fringes of the wilderness where no barbarian tribe finds it worth their while to hunt or gather and no citified settlers find it worth their while to expand. The Badger guides her in the meditation, as well, and teaches her many things that would normally be known to a shaman, not to a warrior: the skills of medicine and herbalism, a deep understanding of totem spirits and their existence, the navigation of the spirit world and the reading of omens. Someday, it tells her, it will also lend her its power in battle, but she is not strong enough yet to bear up under that mantle.

And one day, the Badger tells her to get up, to stop hiding herself in the wild, and to travel westward, away from the old wilds and towards civilized lands. It does not tell her why, only that she must go, and she does.

If she is going to be among people again, she needs a name, and she no longer has any right to the one that her tribe gave her. So she takes another: Brochilde, “battle-badger,” because she hasn’t forgotten the Badger’s promise and someday it will be true.

---

Race: Half-Dwarf

I’d rather homebrew this one myself than try to decide whether I like someone else’s homebrew. If I ever played her somewhere I’d go by DM’s preference (their stats, my stats, someone else’s that they liked, or just go with hill dwarf and have the human blood be flavor), but this is how I envision it breaking down for her tribe:

Ability Score Increase: Humans get all six increased (unless using the variant build), and that’s the only perk they get, so I take that to mean that the across-the-board increase is pretty powerful. Hill dwarves get Con +2 and Wis +1. I decided to try and break even on the two by giving these half-dwarves Con +2, Wis +1, and Cha +1 (reflecting the half-elf charisma boost, which doesn’t come from elves, and which I kind of tongue-in-cheek take to relate to the human tendency/ability to sleep with EVERYTHING in DnD), then shaving off some of the dwarven traits most likely to be lost in this crossbreed situation.

Darkvision: These half-dwarves, living partially underground, have retained some but not all of the dwarven darkvision genes and thus have typical darkvision within 40 feet.

Dwarven Resilience: They have retained the dwarven advantage on saving throws against poison, and resistance to poison damage.

Dwarven Toughness: They still have the strong constitutions of hill dwarves; their hit point maximum increases by 1, and increases by 1 every time they gain a level.

Age: Dwarves and humans mature at the same rate, so these half-dwarves are physically adults by 20, but culturally considered young adults until almost 40. The dwarven and human lifespan averages out to anywhere from 120 to 200 years, and is the most individually variable trait of this racial mix. Brochilde is 32.

Languages: Though they speak a combined language among themselves, half-dwarves trade with both species and thus are fluent in both Common and Dwarvish.

Alignment: The Lawful influence of the dwarves has made half-dwarves particularly bound by and respectful of tribal customs and standards of honor, though their human side makes them tend towards neutrality rather than good or evil. Brochilde, personally, is True Neutral.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that Brochilde’s point-buy would be an even split of 15s and 8s, but here’s a breakdown with those racial stats added:

STR: 15 (+2)

DEX: 15 (+2)

CON: 17 (+3)

INT: 8 (-1)

WIS: 9 (-1)

CHA: 9 (-1)

Class: Barbarian (eventual Totem Warrior)

armor proficiencies: light armor, medium armor, shields

weapon proficiencies: simple weapons, martial weapons

saving throws: Strength, Constitution

skills: Athletics, Survival

totem spirit: badger (the bear options)

personal totem: the skull of a badger, found in her usual meditation spot one day without any other parts or pieces

tattoos: the two black stripes of a badger come down her temples and around her eyes, but are marred and partially obscured by jagged brown runes emblazoned large across her forehead

Superstitions:

If you come across a frozen beast in the winter, avert your eyes and pass by without disturbing it, or the cold might seize you next.

Sorcerers’ magic comes from being inhabited by spirits; if you kill one at close range, the spirit might leap into you.

Those who die younger than they were meant to may come back in the form of animals. If an animal you are hunting looks you straight in the eyes, it is such a soul, and you must turn away and let it live.

Background: Hermit

Life of Seclusion: I was exiled for a crime I didn’t commit absolutely committed.

Feature: Discovery: The quiet seclusion of your extended hermitage gave you access to a unique and powerful discovery. This is so campaign-dependent that I don’t want to go too in-depth with it, though it would definitely be gained through communion with the Badger spirit and would probably be related to why she was sent out of the wilderness and into settled lands. For the purposes of the daydreaming I’ve been doing with Corric’s party, though, it’s definitely related to the same background action/eventual evil as Rudnik’s fear-inducing reality-bending monster and the vanishing of the ancient red dragon in the Cinderfells.

skills: Medicine, Religion

tools: Herbalism kit

languages: Undercommon

Personality Traits:

The leader of my community had something wise to say on every topic, and I am eager to share that wisdom.

I connect everything that happens to me to a grand, cosmic plan.

I see omens in every event and action. The gods try to speak to us, we just need to listen. (from Acolyte)

I get bored easily. When am I going to get on with my destiny? (from Folk Hero)

I watch over my friends as if they were a litter of newborn pups. (from Outlander)

I am horribly, horribly awkward in social situations. (from Sage)

I bluntly say what other people are hinting at or hiding. (from Urchin)

Ideals:

Self-Knowledge: If you know yourself, there’s nothing left to know. And she knows herself way too well at this point.

Tradition: The stories, legends, and songs of the past must never be forgotten, for they teach us who we are. (from Entertainer)

Change: Life is like the seasons, in constant change, and we must change with it. (from Outlander)

Bonds:

I’m still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

I’m guilty of a terrible crime. I seek to atone for my misdeeds but might never be able to forgive myself. (Criminal/Charlatan, combined for max accuracy)

My tribe is the most important thing in my life, even when they are far from me. (from Outlander)

Flaws:

I harbor dark, bloodthirsty thoughts that my isolation and meditation failed to quell.

Now that I’ve returned to the world, I enjoy its delights a little too much.

I let my need to win arguments overshadow friendships and harmony.

I am too enamored of ale, wine, and other intoxicants. (from Outlander)

I speak without really thinking through my words, invariably insulting others. (from Sage)

My hatred of my enemies (and myself) is blind and unreasoning. (from Soldier)

As with many aspects of her life, Brochilde is not entirely sure what she wants.

I didn’t mark the free space because Hiophis is one of my few real, actual straights XD she is a top by sheer social awkwardness tbh!

For Fsssh:

34. What is something unusual OC has bonded with someone over? 

…does alchemy count as “unusual” if he’s a professional alchemist?

Probably bad jokes/puns, tbh. At some point in his journey some friendly gnome heard him putting together three different voices to make a joke and sat him down and taught him all the lines of a bunch of classics, in Common, just so he can deploy them at will in a language most people speak. Fsssh appreciated it a lot, and they now maintain a friendly correspondence.

36. How has OC been affected by their friendships? 

Most of Fsssh’s friends so far have been goblins, and given their tendency to a) blow themselves up, b) piss off hobgoblins with shenanigans, and c) get selected as “test subjects” by hobgoblins even if they DIDN’T do anything wrong, it’s definitely made Fsssh very Concerned about his friends. He hovers and gives warnings against dangerous ventures and bad idea, and tries to always have a bunch of healing potions handy.

I think his friendship with Ferosi has also made him examine his own quest a bit more–he’s still going to do it, he has strong loyalties and a devotion to duty, but it made him have to think harder about the end results of all his testing. And thus a bit more about consequences in general, when he’s part of any given larger action.

(Bird will do what bird is told, but bird is allowed to have reservations about it.)

40. Who motivates OC? 

Definitely his teacher, who trusts him, and values him, and thinks he’s worthwhile and important and doing a Good Job. Fsssh really wants his continuing approval. He’s also motivated by other alchemists in his teacher’s guild (a lot of whom are not goblins, it’s a large cross-borders scientific org) who have started writing directly to him with requests, because it means that they trust him and think he can do a Good Job.

…honestly, anyone willing to throw validation his way can motivate him, his teacher’s just at the top of the list because Fsssh respects him and owes him so much.

44. How long does it take OC to open up to people?

…a while! He’ll make bad jokes and tell them about his research (though not the background to it; he’s realized after leaving goblin territory that it’s best to leave that vague), and some people mistake that for opening up, but he’s really very private. Even with people he likes a lot, he doesn’t want to talk about his past and he doesn’t always want to talk about specifics of his employment and he really doesn’t want to talk about the inner workings of a hardworking but somewhat lonely bird who prefers to look at the world from behind the shelter of a fumes mask.

(They’re not that interesting, anyway. Things he can do and make are interesting, and useful, and worth attention. Things that he feels are not.)

46. How does OC act differently after they know someone better?

When Fsssh first gets to know people he’s very soft-spoken, for fear of offending; once he gets to know them better, and feels like he has a read on their comfort levels and soft spots, he’s a lot less self-effacing and more willing to actually engage and sometimes even challenge them. He’ll talk more about the origins and results, and not just the process, of what he’s doing, and about the part of his past that involves the lab, and about his alchemist correspondents and other penpals (because he travels so much, and if I’m reading Volo’s Guide right kenku can write without strict imitation, he develops a lot of penpals), and he’ll ask for help with things, which is something he’s reluctant to do with a mere acquaintance.

Food and potions he makes and gives out liberally from very early on, but once he knows someone better he also likes to give them small personalized gifts. Practical gifts are, well, practical, but everyone deserves to have shiny things just for the sake of shiny things.

—

For Brochilde:

26. Does OC have a hard or easy time making friends?

Brochilde is good at making casual friends, but has a hard time keeping them, and thus developing them into deeper friendships. Her neediness for attention combined with her brashness and awkward bluntness is off-putting to a lot of people who initially thought she was fun to drink with; she clings too hard, too fast, and is not at all graceful about rejection.

38. How has OC been affected by their romantic relationship(s) or lack thereof? 

It’s mostly “lack thereof,” and it definitely plays into/ups her clinginess, if the person she’s trying to glue herself to is also a cute girl. That said, the awful disaster of her first serious attempt at courting has made her back off a lot faster if she thinks they don’t like them. So she oscillates between pushing way too hard, then backing up so far she cuts herself off entirely if asked to take a step back.

41. Who would OC do anything for? 

…well, Nuvald, if his ghost ever showed up. Barring that unlikely event, she obeys the badger-spirit that shows up in her dreams unthinkingly, and she’ll do just about anything for someone who actually stays friends with her through the awkwardness.

46. How does OC act differently after they know someone better? 

She’s still loud and blunt and awkward, but she calms down a fair bit once she’s sure that the other person isn’t going to walk away. Brochilde is very, very protective of her close friends, and while she’ll argue with them, it’s mostly with the goal of keeping them safe. And she can be quiet with people for a while, once she knows that she doesn’t have to keep talking to fill the space. (She’ll share her meditation, too, if they’re into that–it’s very private, but if she trusts someone she’ll let them join.)

49. Is there anyone OC used to be very close to, but no longer is? 

The guy she killed! Nuvald was her best friend, until she got hung up on his sister, and in retrospect she realizes that was damaging the friendship even BEFORE she fucked up and took him out.

…she was never actually close to Linnea, even though she wanted to think she was. She knows that now.

—

For Ryxtlin:

30. How does OC get along with their parents? 

Ryxtlin’s tribe was a communal-childrearing situation, where everyone laid eggs in the same hatching pit and everyone contributed to the hatchlings’ upbringing, so she doesn’t actually know who her parents were. But she had a rocky relationship with those who tried to raise her; she was a clever, sneaky child, and while these are useful traits for kobolds and the adults knew it, those are also difficult to wrangle in a youthful setting, especially when you have a bunch of other children to wrangle at the same time. So the adults spent a lot of time trying to redirect her ambitions and energy in useful ways, like learning various skills, while she spent a lot of time trying to sneak off and do things that would impress her peers like sneak outside in daylight or collect russet mold.

The general adult view was that she was just a little too likely to grow up to get into more trouble than she could handle, and Ryxtlin’s response to that was that she was going to show them all, and then they’d respect her properly.

33. Is OC/Would OC be a good parent?

She would not be a good parent on her own! And wouldn’t be in the top child-wranglers in a tribe, either. Ryxtlin does dream of, once she’s become a dragon and can be the protector of her tribe, finding talented young kobolds to pass on her wisdom to, but that’s more in the way of apprentices. And I don’t know that she’d actually be all that good a teacher. She wouldn’t deal that well with inconvenient child needs or petulant child temper tantrums.

39. Who does OC consider they have learned their most important life lesson from?

Kyargesh, albeit in his absence, because she learned from his legend and his disappearance that people fear and respect dragons, and that set her on her current path.

42. Who would OC do anything to not have to deal with?

Do gods in general count? All respect to Scrape, but her example hasn’t convinced Ryxtlin that gods are any more worth the respect than she thought they were before–if they can interfere with the lives of thousands for their own ends, it should be simple for them to help out a single kenku instead of muddling around the lives of people who didn’t even ask for it.

But more specifically, while most of her teachers and most wizarding headmasters she’s met she does want to deal with again–when she is large and fearsome enough to meet them–she does actually never want to meet again the one wizard teacher she did really like. Livia Goosebarrelwas very kind and very helpful and did her best to teach her, and Ryxtlin is still intensely ashamed of how little progress she made with all that help, and doesn’t think she could bear to face her again and admit that she’s still struggling so hard to read.

50. What aspects of OC have, consciously or unconsciously, come from someone else?

Consciously, she’s picked up a lot from various people she’s met, especially people she clashed with, in order to try and be taken more seriously and given more respect; she’s bolstered her arrogance based on the arrogance of those who have dismissed her, she listens out for long impressive-sounding words to use in conversation, she’s copied stances and attitudes in an attempt to approximate the casual confidence of a “real,” trained, “civilized” wizard.

On a more one-on-one level, a lot of her determination to keep trying even through failure comes from the kobold elder who taught her pottery (”if pot collapses, add water, re-shape clay, start new pot”), and who also believed that she could do just about anything she set her mind to if she kept going at it. A lot of her tribe-mates were dubious when she announced she was going off to become a dragon; Krekshaw just told her to make sure she remembered her tribe once she’d managed it.

Both her nosiness and her tendency to boost up her friends were innate traits that were brought out and developed by Livia. She’s had her questions rebuffed a lot, but Livia always answered, no longer how pointless or obvious they seemed, and she encouraged her to never be reluctant to ask–that anyone who would refuse to answer an honestly inquisitive question, or call it stupid, was the truly foolish one, because the spread of knowledge benefited everyone. (Livia was, admittedly, not too worried about her own personal privacy, and didn’t have any Dark Secrets to hide in her compendium of magical knowledge.) Ryxtlin also thinks her friends are pretty great (otherwise they wouldn’t be Ryxtlin’s friends) but says it out loud a lot more now because she’s unconsciously following Livia’s example.

Scrape has gotten her more interested in originality and innovation, just because it’s something Scrape is concerned about, and now she feels a bit like she’s wasting her own potential if she just blindly copies others. Learning wizardry is a lot of exactly copying what other people have proven to work, but maybe that’s a failing of the civilized approach… maybe Ryxtlin can make some of these spells better.

—

for Fifth Red Petal:

34. What is something unusual OC has bonded with someone over?

She’s bonded with multiple people over a mutual pleasure in silence and relative solitude, but that’s not all that unusual, so….

When she first meets Housin, they’ve joined the same party, to explore the same ruins, for about the same reason (they both need the money). And these ruins are full of old traps, and Housin is particularly fascinated by one of them, the good old poisoned-darts-shot-from-the-wall standby, and… so is Fifth Red Petal. Housin is interested by both the mechanism and the poison, which she hasn’t seen before, and Fifth Red Petal is interested entirely in the poison, which she has seen before, and is alarmed to find that the rest of the party hasn’t. So while the fighter recovers from the poisoned darts (and it’s fortunate for him that Fifth Red Petal has seen it before, and knows how to counteract it), the two of them spend a short rest scraping poison off of expended darts into vials, for very different reasons.

And then Fifth Red Petal defends Housin from the monster in the depths of the ruins, and Housin invites Fifth Red Petal back to her inn to use her “alchemy kit” the next day, when they’ve wrapped up the venture, and that’s the start of that.

38. How has OC been affected by their romantic relationship(s) or lack thereof?

Fifth Red Petal has definitely had romantic relationships before, though not many. Casual, friendly sexual friendships are kind of considered the norm among the shrine guardians, and all of hers have been gentle and ended peacefully, so even though she’s demi she has a generally positive view of the nurturing value of sex. So she knows what she’s doing, but she’s willing to sit back and patiently wait for any potential buds to blossom, or not, without a lot of urgency or hang-ups.

43. How does OC meet most people?

She joins a lot of adventuring parties and traveling caravans, to make cash. She also stops in at a lot of nature temples and druid circles, because I’m not 100% sure yet what she’s looking for, but I’m leaning towards it being a missing “piece” of the shrine or nature deity that she serves, in which case she has to look wherever she might find it. So either she travels with them for a while, or she meets them while visiting their religious center.

46. How does OC act differently after they know someone better? 

Fifth Red Petal is pretty wary of large cities, and crowds, and anything she considers an advanced state of civilization, due to her upbringing. (Which includes things like large-scale agriculture and fuedalism.) So she’s very tense and stand-offish with people from these environments until she gets to know them pretty well. Conduct business with them, sure, help them out if they need a paladin’s assistance, but don’t spend a lot of time with them. Once she knows someone well she relaxes a lot, and enjoys spending time around them just to be in their company. She’s learned ways to communicate her business without speaking regardless, but she has to know someone pretty well to go to the extra effort of trying to communicate personal things–her interests, her beliefs, her likes and dislikes and so on. She also gets extremely touchy-feely and stops acting like personal space is a thing.

49. Is there anyone OC used to be very close to, but no longer is? 

There’s a wandering hermit out there who was very kind to her, and whom she traveled with for half a year, and who she got very close to… and who eventually wanted things out of her, in terms of both spirituality and her applied paladin skills, that she couldn’t tolerate. She’s not about detachment. But he was, so she… detached. From him.

The longer she stays on the mainland, the more anxious she becomes about how she’ll fit back in when she goes back home, but that’s not something she can be sure about one way or another until she gets there.

—

For Nels:

33. Is OC/Would OC be a good parent? 

ABSOLUTELY NOT. She’s vodka aunt material all the way. Babysitting a young cousin for a while is fine, but four hours is about her absolute max for dealing with children.

35. What is the most important relationship in OC’s life? 

Her relationship with herself? :P It’s the one she values most highly.

In a positive sense, her relationship with her mother (although she’s deceased), or possibly Fluffy. Both of those make her feel secure, which… is not a feeling she gets often from a lot of people, or allows herself to get.

In a negative sense, her relationship with her absent father. There’s a lot of anger and bitterness there, and it’s at the root of her abandonment complex.

46. How does OC act differently after they know someone better? 

She fakes friendliness/trustworthiness less (to reduce expectations placed upon her) and is a bit more earnest about herself overall. She’s more willing to enter into situations of mutual obligation, including asking for favors in the knowledge they may get called later, and doing favors with the intention of calling them later herself. (Favors don’t ever get done for free.) Nels is actually a bit less nice to people she knows well, like her party members; she knows their foibles better, she’ll mock them more freely, they’re safer targets to externalize her discomfort on. They should know her well enough now not to expect she’ll be better than that.

47. Who is OC’s favorite person?

Herself!

…and after that, her uncle Brandywine, who was her favorite uncle growing up and left her his shop. It’s not his fault she got too greedy and ran afoul of the law.

50. What aspects of OC have, consciously or unconsciously, come from someone else?

…this one’s kind of hard. She’s absorbed a lot from a lot of family members, but I haven’t pulled it apart a ton; she got a lot of her desire to be self-sufficient from her mom, a lot of her disregard for the rules from her aforementioned favorite uncle, an overall “take what you can get because no one else is going to give it to you” attitude from the Caergel clan as a whole. She’s shaped a lot more by her family than she realizes, or thinks about (since she doesn’t think she’s capable of being that influenced by people), which is one of the reasons it’s so unconsciously unsettling to her to be permanently separated from them.

—

For Ruarrk:

26. Does OC have a hard or easy time making friends? 

A hard time, for sure. His beak is almost always in a book, and when he can be pried away from his reading, he’s so busy preening and rattling off obscure and useless facts and generally trying to show off either his beauty or his knowledge or both that he’s… kind of unbearable, honestly. The stammering and follow-up timidity when challenged (or when he’s garnered too much attention) doesn’t help.

32. Does OC have or want kids?

Ruarrk didn’t THINK he wanted kids until he met Auilree, and now he wants whatever she wants. He’s kind of afraid of the prospect of having to actually take care of any, though. Hopefully they can hire some nannies and nurses….

36. How has OC been affected by their friendships? 

Since he hasn’t made many friends yet, it’s more how he’s been affected by his LACK of friendship. He deals with his difficulty in making friends by feeding his own vanity: it’s not that people don’t like him, it’s that they’re intimidated by him! It’s not like he needs people, right? He’s got books, and that’s good enough.

(He’s lonely, but he refuses to admit that he’s lonely, because then he’d have to acknowledge that changing his behavior would help.)

43. How does OC meet most people? 

He doesn’t, if he can avoid it. XD He meets people mostly either because he’s interested in what they’re doing and condescends to investigate or ask questions, or he sees an opportunity to show off. He’s also actively seeking out adventuring parties so that he can get a start on accomplishing that great deed he needs to pull off.

45. How much do OC’s friends know about their private life? 

He’ll share most if it, once you’re friends with him, but he doesn’t really HAVE a whole lot of a private life. He’ll talk endlessly about Auirlee, and he’ll answer any questions posed to him about his past or his feelings, but he’s not likely to talk on his own about his emotions in particular–he doesn’t mind being asked, he’s just not going to volunteer. Because it’s not nearly as fascinating or impressive as his detailed knowledge of troop movements in the fifth year of the War of the Ivy six hundred years ago.