Profile
"Care to share your story?"
Serves Veritas, god of myth, history and truth. With their inherent duality, there are many ways to worship them; their temples are often massive libraries of stories collected over centuries. Macha’s branch deals with gathering first-hand data and recording it themselves. There are other branches/orders devoted to gathering second-hand accounts, and still others of sorting out which accounts are accurate. It's a pretty big operation, though of course given the scope of their mission, there's never really enough people to go around. When your goal is to record all of history as it happens, while also recording the past before it's lost, you can only do so much.
The order's holy symbol is a modified stone of farspeech which, rather than sending speech over long distances, simply stores them inside itself, to be replayed on command. (basically like a magical version of a tape recorder, to allow for easier data collection and later transcription)
Macha is still fairly new to the role of active field-agent, but she was top of her class, and has a knack for turning up where interesting events are taking place. She wants to see the world and share it with others.
The order doesn't really have any official rules about “reporters can't get involved”, though they do prefer it if you don't. Still, you too are a part of history, and you're not above those whose actions you record, so if the situation calls for it, go ahead. Macha prefers to observe more than participate though.
Loves talking to people and hearing their stories; she can't record all of them, though she tries anyways, but she can witness them. Keeps a journal where she records everything she did that day; whenever she fills one up she sends it back to her temple to add to their library. This is separate from her “active research” notebooks. She believes very firmly in the concept of Objective Truth. Things are either True, or they're False. Which isn't to say that false is bad, or doesn't have a use, but Truth is a universal constant to her, and it's one she believes must be uncovered at all costs. Presenting falsehood as truth is, to her, one of the worst things a person can do, and she sees it as her holy duty to find the falsehoods hiding as truth, expose them, and bring forth the real truth. Hates people who lie to themselves, tries to never do it herself. Is variably successful at this, but she does her best to be introspective and connected with her feelings.
Good cook if she can get at a kitchen, though she rarely gets the chance to use her skills on the road. Loves learning new recipes, and has a separate notebook just for those. Those notebooks she mostly holds on to, though eventually they will all be donated to her temple.
Good artist, often illustrates her stories. Landscapes and still-life are her forte, but she’s gotten fairly good at portraits too. Usually uses pencil/pen or charcoal, since it's what she has, but her favourite medium is watercolour. Whenever she's back at her temple she always takes some time to herself just to paint. Her walls are covered in paintings of places she's been and people she's seen.
As part of collecting stories, she also gets a lot of songs, of just about every variety, but she especially hears a lot of drinking songs. She also has a fondness for sea shanties and other repeating work songs. Since she spends so much time on the road alone, she has a habit of randomly breaking into song if there's one stuck in her head. She has a pretty average voice, but a good memory for music.
Likes
- Her family
- Painting
- Origami
- Her god
- Hearing peoples' stories
Dislikes
- Alcohol
- Liars
- Being alone
- The cold
✦ Can't let things go unfinished; has to finish current project/activity before starting anything new.
✦ Has a habit of tapping on her tusks when she's thinking/spacing out, and chewing on the chain of her holy symbol. Also plays with her hair a lot, braids and un-braids bits and pieces, fidgets with the beads.
✦ She tries to travel with others when she can, either caravans or just traveler groups, but it's not always possible. She's fully capable of taking care of herself, but she gets lonely on the road; there's just something about a campfire that demands large groups of people sitting around it laughing and sharing stories and getting to know each other. Sitting at one by yourself just isn't the same.
✦ Doesn't always know when to quit. Hates not getting what she wants; often sees rules as optional if they're standing between her and her goal. It's fine as long as you don't get caught, and even then she can usually talk her way out of it.
✦ Can be kinda manipulative, especially in getting information she wants. She's very “the end justifies the means”, and firmly believes that what she does is for the greater good, and therefore absolves her of any wrongs she may have to do along the way. Which isn't to say she does a lot of bad things, but she's very good at justifying it if she has to. Also just generally not very good at resisting temptation. If she wants something, she doesn't see why she shouldn't get it. (Or more often she knows, intellectually, exactly why, but often goes for it anyways). Has a hard time balancing short term vs long term rewards.
Parents: Orc mother, human father. Met on the road while travelling with a caravan. Mother was with the caravan, as their money person. Father, a chef, was just travelling to go home to visit his family. The caravan ended up staying at Father’s town for a few weeks due to needing repairs and to restock and shit, and when it came time to leave, Mother decided she didn't want to. She’d fallen in love with the town and its people, and one very specific person in particular. Father was head over heels for her too, and together they helped his sister run her inn.
Mother: orc. Bitva. Very well-educated, brilliant with numbers. Haggler to her core, shrewd, do no harm but take no shit. Very practical and pragmatic. Always wanted to own an inn, and is unsurprisingly great at it. Loves to garden, great singer. From a big town somewhere with a big orc diaspora and less prejudice, but orcs were still almost exclusively hard labourers and/or security. Few orcs were educated, but Mother knew she wanted to go to school and learn everything she could, so she did, and then she went on to go to university as well and kick ass in economics and business. Her family are all very proud of her, and some have come to help with the inn. Before the inn, she worked for a merchant group as their accountant. (The merchants were very sad to see her leave)
Father: human. Ruadhán (rue-awn). Certified Head Chef, trained in a big city somewhere and has a lot of experience. Got sick of the snobbiness of the gourmet scene though. He loves to cook to connect with people, he wants to make them feel good with something hot and filling and delicious, not spend 5 hours and a small fortune in exotic ingredients to serve someone one teaspoon of something that tastes absolutely vile smeared artistically on a plate, while they go on and on about how the unbearable bitterness is the whole point. So when his sister wrote to him and asked him to help her with their family's inn for a while, he was happy to pack up and go back home. Sure, the ingredients aren't as fancy, but people genuinely enjoy his food, and he can feel proud of what he’s made.
Aunt: father’s older sister. Orlaith (Or-la). Adventurous. Was happy running the inn for a while, but even happier to pass it on when she saw an opportunity. Loves her family, but loves the open road more. Always brings lots of souvenirs when she visits, but doesn't spoil her niblings. Sends postcards constantly, though they arrive out of order. Loud and authoritative, but compassionate beneath that.
Siblings:
- 2 brothers, 3 sisters
- Age order goes: Sister& brother (twins), sister, sister, Macha, brother
- Oldest sister: Aisling (ashling). 8 years older than Macha. Married to the blacksmith’s daughter, they're going to take over his shop when he retires.
- Oldest brother: Ainmire (ain-mirra). 8 years older than Macha. Really good musician. Staying with Mother’s family in Big City to get a proper musical education.
- Older sister: Naoise (nee-sha). 6 years older than Cleric. Takes after her mother, already helping her with the inn, everyone knows she’ll be the one to take over when the parents are ready.
- Older sister: Saoirse. (Seer-sha) 3 years older than Macha. Off travelling the world with Aunt.
- Macha
- Younger brother: Lugh (Lu). 3 years younger than Macha. Still deciding what he wants from life, mainly helping in the inn in the meantime.
Her home village is called Ton Arian, which translates to Silver Wave in one of the local dialects; it gets its name from the abundance of olive trees in the area, whose silvery leaves can give the impression that the surrounding hills are rippling like a vast and rustling ocean. It sits adjacent to a trade route, and while passing through Village isn't the most common way to get through the area, they still get their fair share of visitors. The number of people passing through has been steadily climbing since Mother and Father took over the inn, and word is spreading that going a little out of your way is worth it for the food and comfort at the rustically charming Olive Garden.
- What’s being traded?
- Dwarf goods coming from the big mountain range to the south-east, to be taken to the sea and shipped to their new destinations. And then things the dwarves want are going the other way, having arrived by sea.
Village is mostly farms, but there’s also your standard blacksmith, Inn, doctor’s office, general store, carpenter. Also a wine press and an olive-oil press. It isn't big enough to have dedicated temples to specific gods, but they do have a large shared temple where anyone can put up a shrine to whichever god they like, and have a place to worship.
- What’s being farmed?
- Climate: mediterranean. So dry and hot. They’re not far from the ocean, and are in a moderately mountainous area.
- It’s mostly orchards. Olives are the biggest crop of the region, though there’s a couple grape farms as well.
- The area is also growing famous for its wines, which attracts still more people to the Village.
- Livestock-wise, it's mainly goats, since they're the only ones who can reliably enjoy the environment, but there are some sheep farms closer to the coast where it's a little less dry, and while they mostly don't produce enough wool to trade long-distance, the local wool trade ensures everyone has enough cloth for all their clothing and general needs.
profile html by Hukiolukio
