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 Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:20 pm
Name: Bahari
Stage: Prentice
Race: Water/Shifter
Gender: Male
3 Base Traits:
Sheltered
For as long as he remembers, Bahari has been treated like a very precious, special creature. Thus far he has spent all his days inside the walls of an Oban noble’s manor, and has never had to suffer any real hardships. He’s always been spoken to gently, with all his needs and wants looked after without delay. Although he loves reading and learning about the history of Tendaji, he’s never come face to face with any of the difficulties and challenges that most people face, and it’s hard for him to grasp any of the cruelty, selfishness and injustice that others take for granted an an inevitable evil in the world. All these things are just abstract to him, as distant and personally irrelevant as the gods of Zena or Yael.
Educated
One of the benefits of growing up in luxury is the quality of the education -- and the access to a large private library -- that Bahari receives. Despite his young age, he’s already a proficient reader, and reading is pretty much his favorite pastime. Many of the books are still too complicated for him to parse, but the ones that he does understand are eagerly read from cover to cover. More than anything he loves books about the different lands in Tendaji, their religions and customs, their technology and agriculture, and so on… but he’s never even met anyone who wasn’t an Oban or a Water Earthling, and the latter he’s only seen as servants and labourers. So far, it hasn’t even occurred to him that he might want to go out and see all these things for himself… he’s been content to collect knowledge and parrot it back to his benefactors and their guests, much to their entertainment.
Temperamental
A side-effect of being treated like a treasure, Bahari can come off as being quite impatient and spoiled. He simply doesn’t understand how much effort it really takes for those around him to give him whatever it is that he wants. If he can’t get a favorite treat in the middle of the night, or if he can’t get his hands on a rare book that just isn’t available in the local bookshops, he’s apt to throw a tantrum and sulk on his bed like a little angry god forsaken by his followers. At his age, however, these tantrums are quite fleeting and will soon be forgotten as soon as he finds something else to distract him.
Personality:
Bahari is an innocent, happy-go-lucky kid without a care in the world. He’s lived in luxury for as long as he can remember, and everyone he’s ever met has offered nothing but kind words and praise about his appearance, behaviour and intelligence. He thinks the absolute best of everyone, but… to be fair, he hasn’t ever come face-to-face with anyone who openly disliked him, or treated him with any sort of obvious distaste. He’s bookishly curious, and reads everything he can get his hands on. Fiction fascinates him, but not as much as do descriptions of the real world (history, geography, culture & religion, and most of all magic). For now, he takes his comfortable life and ‘special’ status for granted so thoroughly that he hasn’t even considered venturing out into the world that he likes to read about so much… but with his curiosity, that’s bound not to last much longer.
Description:
Bahari is an eye-catching half-breed, with two-toned skin that boasts of his heritage. His skin follows the pattern of a Water Earthling, but it’s much lighter. The ‘inner’ part that is blue-green on a pure water earthling is instead the pale shifter colour on him, and the ‘outer’ part that would normally be darker blue is more like a pale aquamarine. His eyes and hair are silver like a shifter’s, but he does have the fin-like ears and dotted (albeit light-colored) eyebrows of a water earthling. He has a few shifter-colored crystals -- one on his forehead, then some on his shoulders and outer thighs (grouped together with the water-style spot markings).
His hair is just above shoulder-length and floaty, the sort of pretty-boy prince style. HERE is a loose ref -- don’t feel constrained by anything in here, though! Just a little brainstorming sketch. This is more of a prentice appearance too, so his youngling hair would be a bit shorter.
Clothing:
None (youngling)
Accessories:
Bahari almost always wears a string of large pearls as a belt around his hips/waist. This is an incredibly expensive trinket, although he doesn’t have a full sense of just how expensive.
History:
Bahari is a pretty half-breed boy who lives a charmed life under the protection of a rich Oban noble. How did this come to be? The story is a little murky, and not at all as cheerful as his innocent smile would lead you to believe.
He was born in Matori, to a water earthling mother and a shifter father. They were delighted -- but before long, their ‘little pearl’ had caught the attention of black-market slave-traders, still trying to ply their trade in the wake of the emancipation of Matori slaves. They kidnapped the baby from his crib in the middle of the night, and whisked him off to the secretive markets in Oba. There, he was purchased (at steep high price) by a wealthy Oban noble who was fascinated by his odd appearance.
WIth slavery illegal, and increasingly frowned upon even by the Oban elite, Bahari isn’t exactly a slave -- he’s never been treated like one, he doesn’t do any work, and his Oban benefactor doesn’t claim to ‘own’ him. Instead, he’s treated more like a combination of a spoiled youngest son, a decoration, and a curious bit of entertainment. He is well-fed, educated, free to run and play as he wants to, and kept dressed up like a doll in beautiful clothing. He recites poetry, chats with company, and sleeps, eats and plays together with the rest of his Oban ‘family’.
Like many noble Oban children, his access to the outside world is strictly limited. Unlike other nobles, however, his odd-colored skin doesn’t afford him the luxury of being able to sneak out very easily…. and his Benefactor does not like taking him out in public for fear of attracting negative attention. As a result, he has spent almost all of his life so far in the confines of the manor, and has only a very abstract understanding of the rest of the world.
His true parents, of course, spent a long time searching for him. However, the traders took special care to cover their tracks (what with popular opinion of their trade being quite unfavorable, and there being the tangible threat of arrest), and since that time he has lived almost completely hidden away from the rest of the world, seen only by a fraction of society who tend to be tight-lipped on that sort of topic. By this point they have stopped actively looking, but they haven't given up hope that he is alive and well. Bahari, on the other hand, has no memory of them, nor any knowledge of his kidnapping. His Oban benefactor has told him that he was orphaned, and even then only vaguely. It's the one subject that Bahari is not welcomed to question and discuss, so he tends to push it out of his mind to focus on more favorable topics. At this age, he simply isn't bold or aggressive enough for that kind of confrontation.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:53 pm
Hey there and sorry for the delay <3 The first thing I would like to point out is the rule about questing hybrids is still in effect. His information has him listed as a prentice, but right now any water or fire hybrid combos can only be quested as youngling. If you need to change anything in his description or his personality to adapt to this, feel free to and let me know if changes were made. How does Bahari feel about not knowing his story completely? He is so interested in learning everything that he can, does it effect how he views his ‘captor’ since he is denied vital information about his own life?
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:20 am
no worries! and that's totally fine o wo
i would love to have youngling art of him anyway.
i made some minor wording to his sheltered/educated traits (just based on that he's a bit younger) and removed most of the clothing description as it won't be relevant.
as for his feelings:
Right now, as a youngling, he’s really kind of ok with avoiding the subject. I mean, he’s totally curious about it, but he’s a kid -- he pretty much seeks affection and approval from his benefactors, and really isn’t old enough to willingly navigate any kind of conflict. So I guess it would be kind of like… if a too-young kid asked an adult where babies came from, and based on their parents’ hush-hush response they sort of got the sense that that wasn’t a good question to ask right now, and they would let it drop (but obviously with like a residual fascination/sense of mystery about it).
I think after he becomes a prentice and inevitably gets exposed to more of the world, the issue will definitely be harder to ignore, and really that would be his main driver for finding his independence and eventually making his way out into the world. I’m not sure exactly what form this rebellion/conflict would take -- that would really depend on the people he meets in his prentice years, and what kind of an impact they would make on him -- but that would 100% be the topic of his prentice>stage 2 growth quest, him breaking out of that silence and starting to figure out the truth. He would feel a sense of betrayal for sure, but whether he’s really vindictive about this or more saddened than anything, yeah, I would leave that up to the influencers he meets in the process, plus any possible relevant meta/special events that occur.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 7:12 am
Hey! Woo to another shifter/water kiddo!! biggrin
First off, does he shift? Shifting as a trait is roughly a 1/4 chance, so I'm curious if he just takes on the color of the shifters or if he actually changes depending on the time of day.
I'm just curious on how you are going to get him out and about, considering his strict upbringing and how much he isn't allowed to move...do you plan on having him interact with local Oban nobility, or do you see him eventually sneaking away. Or will his owner/benefactor actually introduce him to society?
His character makes sense for the before and after his big debut, but I'm mostly curious on the step he will take to get out there and social.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 11:36 am
Just quoting to make sure you saw the above questions <3
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:35 pm
Elyessi Hey! Woo to another shifter/water kiddo!! biggrin First off, does he shift? Shifting as a trait is roughly a 1/4 chance, so I'm curious if he just takes on the color of the shifters or if he actually changes depending on the time of day. I'm just curious on how you are going to get him out and about, considering his strict upbringing and how much he isn't allowed to move...do you plan on having him interact with local Oban nobility, or do you see him eventually sneaking away. Or will his owner/benefactor actually introduce him to society? His character makes sense for the before and after his big debut, but I'm mostly curious on the step he will take to get out there and social.
naw, mostly not -- he just stays the night-time color with the blue water patterns. if he does shift at all, it might be like... a slight darkening, like equivalent to the way people change when they tan. but by then it's dark, so who's gonna notice anyway?
for interactions; yeah, i think as a youngling and a prentice, his interactions would be theoretically limited to noble Oban characters (guests of his benefactor, for whom Bahari often gets strutted out as a cute little curiosity). However, the manor isn't a prison camp, and he's free to roam around withing it, so he could also start interacting with hired help (servants, cooks, entertainers) and possibly people will less-than-legitimate reasons to be there (thieves and etc).
i'm leaving the details of his eventual decision to step out into the world kind of vague for myself right now. it might be his benefactor being like 'ok you're old and not that cute anymore so do whatever', it might be like an actual orchestrated escape (possibly with someone's help), or it might be a full-on shouting match/confrontation. or something else altogether.
either way it'll be significant to his character, but... yeah, i'd rather have it be a reaction to what happens in his younger years, rather than overplan it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:46 pm
He looks good to me then heart  Journal
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