OC APPLICATION THREAD
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Raphier grew up in a relatively wealthy family of warriors. His parents are Omis and Lorel, younger fraternal twin brother is Mugiar, and younger sister is Trissia. Each male, and even most females, within his family were brought up in the ways of hand-to-hand combat and weaponry so it was only natural that Raphier and Mugiar follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. Mugiar took to the training very well as a theif but Raphier despised weapons. His father always pushed him the hardest, hoping that if he wouldn't fight from will, he would fight from determination or even hate, but nothing he tried ever gave Raphier the urge to fight. Nothing but a disappointment to his father, he spent most of his free time with his mother listening to stories of other worlds and widdling flutes out of sticks outside. His days were spent wandering the town playing tricks on people, in the library studying music, getting fingerprints all over the windows of the music shops from looking through in longing so often, or listening to the local bards play in the village square.
His love of playing tricks on people originates from his strict homelife. He was always told to be seen and not heard, so when he leaves the house his only instict is to cut loose and have fun his own way. However, none of his jokes are life threatening and he is actually very kind hearted despite his pranks.
Finally when Raphier was 12 he finally stood up to his father during a forced, and rather dangerous, training session with swords. After taking a heavy cut from his father's sword, he told his father that he wished to become a bard instead of a warrior and was banished from his home for not following the family tradition and chasing "a loser's dream." His mother gave him a small bag of money when his father wasn't looking, his brother wished him well, and he never got to see his younger sister, who was only 6 at the time, before he left.
After leaving home he aspired to become the world's worst bard with a goal of being driven out of every kingdom he could find for his wacky antics and silly tricks. Being a bard was wonderful, yes. He knew that is what he wanted to do. But he also loved playing tricks on people and he saw it was only right to combine the two and make it a profession. However, he is extremely bright when it comes to music and quickly masters any instrument he comes in contact with making him actually a very useful bard when he is not in the mood for tricks.
One month after Raphier left home he spent his entire savings on a map to a rare talking lute at the bottom of a nearby lake from a rather shady looking merchant. Eager to reach the lute he dove straight in forgetting he could not swim. Although he sunk straight to the bottom and obtained the lute, he nearly died in the process and had to be rescued by a merman that happened to be swimming by and found Raphier somewhat attractive (for a human). The talking lute's name was Hogarth and he has been a valuable, but annoying, part of Raphier's traveling group ever since. He was the perfect company for the now lonely Raphier, once surrounded by family and a few close family healers (warriors get hurt a lot, you know) he was now completely on his own for the first time in his life and it was naturally hard to swallow. However, he took to it rather well despite his money issues. He considers being thrown out a very liberating experience. He is now free to travel, sing, and play whatever music he desires without fear of being scolded or punished by his father. Therefore he went from a very strict warrior family to a new carefree and silly life of a traveling bard.
He traveled the world living on what little funds he could earn by performing and a few bits of money his family would sneak out to him.
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Raphier gets to see his brother every year for their birthday. Since both travel the world doing their own respected jobs, they make plans to meet once a year in secret to talk about the family, their adventures, and their love lives (or almost love lives in Raphier's case; Mugiar on the other hand is engaged to their childhood friend, Lenore). Mugiar also tends to send Raphier a small share of money he obtains as a theif, knowing he is often tight for money.
Zaynah and Raphier often take jobs as body guardsfor roaming travelers, Raphier sings for people in villages (sometimes actually being useful if Zaynah says that they need the money), or they use various other resourceful ways to use their talents to earn money as they travel in search of Zaynah's lost family and to accomplish Raphier's "worst bard" dream.
Raphier's relationship with his family is pretty great, not counting his father. He looks up to his mother and greatly enjoys her conversation and warm presence. She is very calm and quiet, playing sad songs on the violin and the flute when she is not doing housework. She is where Raphier got his passion for music and thus she is often blamed by her husband for making Raphier "soft." He and his brother are best friends, though they are very different they both possess charming and kind hearted personalities. They are both mischevious but Mugiar tends to be somewhat kinder and calmer than Raphier. He only steals from those who really don't need it or he only steals what he himself needs. Such as, if he is hungry he will steal a pie rather than money and he will not steal from a family he knows needs what little they had. Though Raphier has seen little of his sister, Trissia, they got along well and rarely argued. He loved reading her stories and playing games with her when he was not training with his father. Trissia has grown up quite a bit as he heard from Mugiar and has since begun her training to be an assassin. This startled Raphier and worried him, meaning Trissia is not the innocent little girl he once babysat anymore.
Finally, he and his father have a rocky relationship. Raphier was the oldest son and thus his father had the highest hopes for him. From a yong age when Raphier failed in his training he was pushed much harder than his brother was as the weight of the family rested on his shoulders. This made it all the more devestating when he renounced what was naturally expected of him, the first male in hundreds of years of their family to refuse a their traditions. Thus it was better to get rid of him and pretend he didn't exist. However, despite this cruel treatment, his father was disappointed because he did in fact love his son and felt betrayed when he desired the life of a bard. Likewise, despite the cruel upbringing, Raphier does still care for his father, wanting to make him proud, just in his own way.
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+ The bard is rather eccentric and flamboyant, making up songs off the top of his head about nothing of any real importance. He's always happy because he now has the chance to live out his dreams and do it his way. It is very rare that one could find him upset, and even if he was upset it would be rather comical as he is not a serious person. Complete and total devestation would be the only time he would show true sorrow, for example, if he lost his beloved Zaynah.
+ He loves to play tricks on people. It is a bard's job to sing of the local news, give directions, and so forth. However, he always gives false directions and sings about the hidden lives of the villagers, nonsense lyrics, or untrue events.
+ Though he was not well educated in the ways of words and speech (all of his eduaction funds went to combat training) he does his best to speak in a very proper manner to seem smarter than he actually is. He always seems rather stupid but he is usually polite and well mannered, even seeming so as he misleads people. His words are very flowery and he take great pride in complimenting people with terms of endearment.
+ He is very easily tricked and often lands himself into danger for which Zaynah must rescue him.
+ He reguards the safety of his musical instruments well over his own life treating them each like his beloved children.
+ He is either on full energy, skipping around and dancing, or he is draggy and sloth-like. There is no inbetween. He is either chipper or the laziest person alive. Sort of like someone gave him 5 energy drinks and then let him crash.
Background setting: [the setting your character came from before PC]
Raphier's world is somewhat medieval with castles, taverns, wenches, villages, wizards, kingdoms, and so forth. It's basically the middle ages with the usual fantasy/magical twist. He knows some things about the modern world due to books he obtains from dimension hoppers but he is otherwise ignorant to modern technology. I suppose it is similar to a Slayers-like world, being a generic fantasy world.
Physical description: [pictures are strongly encouraged & welcome]
+ Raphier has short red-orange hair, light blue eyes, and fair skin. He is somewhat tall for his age and extremely lanky with boney elbows and knees. Under his tunic he harbors scars from his many failed sword fights of his childhood training.
+ Though he usually wears a blue tunic and black pants he will often change to different colorful outfits depending on his moods.
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It took Raphier a good five minutes to realize he was no longer in the forest, an additional minute to realize his friends, Zaynah and Hogarth, were missing, and another twenty-five seconds to realize that probably wasn't a good thing. Zaynah was more of his body guard than just a traveling companion for poor Raphier was probably the wimpiest boy ever to breathe air. What was saddest out of all this is that instead of worrying first about Zaynah's wellbeing, he was more concerned about his cargo.
"Noo! My flute! My lyre! My talking lute! My harp! Where are all my instruments?? Dear lord, I've been mugged! When did this happen? And my goodness! They took my darling Zaynah! Who would steal my Zaynah? Who COULD steal my Zaynah? The girl only raises the dead and feasts on human flesh. Why am I talking to myself like this? This doesn't look like a forest either! DEAR LORD, THOSE FIENDS HAVE STOLEN THE TREES AND REPLACED THEM WITH TINY SPINNING HORSES!"
"... I could write a song about that..."
Sample post:
It's not that I don't particularly enjoy the company of my dear sweet Hogarth it's just that... It's a lot quieter without him here. Oh dear, I'm sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. No amount of tears could express the deep sense of loss that I feel in my heart without him at my side. Which is probably why I have shed none over the subject. Yes, that's it. There is no use crying over spilled milk, I suppose.
Though it is a rather sad thing, come to think of it. To waste perfectly good milk. After you walked all the way to the local market... In the rain, no less... Some poor farmer probably spent all day hunched over an old bucket and a pair of udders... Imagine what that's doing to his back day after day... To spill what he worked so hard to provide for me would be like spitting on his very grave!
Oh dear... I'm making myself sad...
And I promised myself I wouldn't cry!!!
CRUEL MILK STAINED FATE!
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