Rhodes Vilari

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Info


Created
1 year, 1 month ago
Creator
leyline
Favorites
119

Profile


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Name
Rhodes

Pronouns
He/Him

Gender
Male

Age
27

Sign
Aries

Height
6'

Race
Tiefling

Role
Arcane Trickster Rogue

Theme

Brain Cells
2

HTML

Hellishly Haute Couture


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Rhodes is an arcane trickster rogue and a tailor who runs a business called The Dashing Devil and travels the realm in an ornately-decorated caravan that serves as both his home and his workshop. He creates fashionable clothing for everyone, but with a special emphasis on clothing for those with unusual features like himself - horns, tails, wings, hooves, and so on - anyone who would have a harder time finding suitable pieces readily available. These features are always emphasized and celebrated (such as with fine detailing, special clasps, or fancy trim around them rather than just a simple slit) where applicable, unless otherwise requested by the client. He also offers alteration and mending services, and the alterations meant to accommodate any such features are always offered at a steep discount.

Appearance:

- Coral pink skin, long wavy wine-red hair tied back in a bun with wavy strands hanging down on either side of a delicately-featured face, bright gold eyes, ivory horns, sharp painted nails to match a kind but sharp gaze. Androgynus/feminine-leaning features and style, a pretty boy type.

- His horns are carved with spiraling grooves and have layers of gleaming gold thread wrapped around them inside of those grooves, almost in mimicry of jewelry. A mix between fashion and function, a statement piece (can be simplified as gold lines!)

- The bands at the base of his horns resemble little crowns with glass gems, the color of which is everchanging. In the back of one of the bands is a slot with a sewing needle tucked inside - his arcane focus

- Clothing style is high fashion, fantasy, a preference for either high-collared tops or plunging necklines, sheer/lacy/billowing shirts with features like ruffles or embroidery, elegant, bit of a victorian or dark fairytale vibe

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Character

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Charisma

Kindness

Honesty

Determination

Intellect

Humour

Likes

  • Anything handmade, including homemade food (as he doesn't have a lot of time to cook so he usually just makes simple meals, or grabs something to eat in town if he can). Appreciates high-quality craftsmanship and tends to have an expensive taste, but would also just appreciate the fact that somebody put love and effort into something.
  • Reading and researching - he has a pair of glasses he wears when doing this that he doesn't need, they just look really good on him. Prefers nonfiction to fiction
  • Fashion, makeup, and jewelry
  • Flowers, perfume, and herbs - keeps herbs for cooking, and herbs for dyeing. Usually the section for cooking is looking a little sparse, as any herb that could be used for both is often ‘borrowed’ to make dyes. Vegetables are handled in a similar way, with scraps and skins being saved and used for dyes. If he can bargain with a tavern's chef and get the leftover peelings from the kitchen, he will.
  • Baked apples (a childhood favorite), rose apple and blackberry pie, spiced wine poached pears, dark chocolate, black cherries, spicy food, bouillabaisse, cockatrice au vin, sorbet, mont blanc, cider, soups and stews (easy for him to make and he doesn't have to stand over them and watch them - although, he once was making a dye and a soup at the same time, and accidentally took a taste of the dye)
  • Sparring with the other members of the party to keep each other sharp/work off stress/just for fun. Despite the elaborate outfits, he can be surprisingly hard to hit and keep track of.

Dislikes

  • Mint jelly, jerky (too tough and dry, but he ends up eating it anyway because it makes good travel rations)
  • When people rely solely on prestidigitation to clean their clothes for days on end, unless they're in the middle of a dungeon or in a situation where it would be too risky or unreasonable to clean them properly. Feels a similar way about the mending cantrip but not to the same extent (as he believes that it’s a quick fix and that repeatedly using it in the same area will have a noticeable effect on the feel or look of the fabric over time, so it should only be used sparingly, which may or may not be true) and will use it himself in a pinch if there's no way to repair the garment by hand.
  • Half-assed effort
  • Having decisions made for him. Fears loss of independence and control over his life and future
  • His biggest fear of all is that his aunt and uncle regret having raised him, or will one day. That he has to make all the time and effort they put into him ‘worth it’; that if he’s not successful, then he’s failed them. That he’s only ever been something dragging them down.

- Friendly and playful but gets very serious and focused when it comes to work. He spares no effort for his craft - he'll toil away for hours getting something just right, will go where he needs to go to get the best quality or rare materials, haggle and barter his ass off, etc. He’s amicable and flexible when it comes to his customers, and does his best to accommodate any request within reason. If you need him to get the thing and you've got your heart set on it, he will try his hardest to get the thing.

- Fashionable and professional, always dresses nicely and keeps his clothes in good condition. He makes time to maintain and wash them whenever circumstances allow, as they serve as an example of his work and it's important to him to present a polished image. Even when he appears to be disheveled, it's usually because he's styled himself to look that way. Yes the blood and dirt are intentional too, now stop looking at it. If you catch him looking like a mess, it either means he's just gone through combat, or he's having a very bad day.

- Will do the rest of the party's washing too if they ask and he's not too busy. Knows the proper way to clean each type of garment and will handle them with care, and he's gotten pretty good at getting various types of stains out of things after becoming an adventurer. Laundry king.

- Strategic, a planner. Good at money management, scheduling, focusing on the details of things. Can sometimes get so wrapped up in those details that he misses the big picture.

- Has high standards for himself. Gets frustrated with himself when he falls short of a goal or makes a mistake. Perfectionism and a strong sense of pride. Can be stubborn and inwardly obsess over things.

- Will bite the hand that feeds him (affectionate) but will also bite the hand that feeds him (NOT affectionate, out for blood)

- Restless. Outwardly he's pleasant and often in good humor, but there’s a lot of frustration built up in him - he’s unsatisfied, stressed, always thinking about the future and trying to make plans, and more guarded and moody than he likes to portray himself.

- Experiments with creating different kinds of clothing dyes, using materials gathered while adventuring. It's not uncommon to see him stirring yarn in a dye bath or carrying jars of dye in all different colors.

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Story


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The Beginning (TW for themes of toxic relationships/manipulation!)

When you’re young and first starting out in business, you should probably be cautious who you let invest in that business, or let invest in yourself. Probably not the man you did some work for shortly after starting your journey, who expressed friendly concern about you traveling alone (except you're not alone, you tell him: you were smart about this, you hired a guard) and so graciously left you a way to contact him if you ran into trouble. How fortunate then that you had that option available to you when days later, you found yourself ambushed on the road before you could even make it to the next town. But who's thinking about how convenient it all was when you're rattled from experiencing your first real combat, and coming to grips with the harsh reality that despite all your plans and youthful confidence, you really weren't prepared for what you were getting yourself into? When the one guard you could afford to hire is laying cold on the ground in front of you, your coins still warm in their pocket? Don’t worry, your new friend will take care of everything.

When he first tells you that you should sell your caravan, you balk at the idea. It must show on your face, because he continues: he’s not suggesting you give up on this, just that you take a different route. Delay it for a while. That you can buy it all back (and more) later once you've established yourself and you're better prepared to follow through with this. Hell, with the money you'll be making, the reputation you'll earn, you'll be able to buy a whole fleet of them. He's not talking out of his ass either, he's a captain after all, a reputable man with his fingers in a lot of pies and the good favor of many people of influence tucked away safely in the breast pocket of the coat you tailored for him, right over his heart. He knows a thing or two about this. Sometimes the only way forward looks like a step back. That’s what you know. So you hear him out, you let him keep talking.

The plan is this: there’s a building in town with plenty of space for a tailor shop. Not this town, the one you’re in now - it turns out that he’s here for work just like you, actually, that he’s from a place a little further up the coast. You wanted to travel, didn’t you? He’ll buy it and you’ll rent it from him, setting up shop downstairs and living in the apartment upstairs. He’s had his eye on it for a while anyway but didn't quite know what he was going to do with it, so this works out for the both of you. Besides, he tells you cheekily, he has a personal interest - he can't lose his favorite tailor now that he's found you. You rolled your eyes at the time, but you were flattered. It's this moment that you'll come back to years later, wishing that it was possible to go back in time so that you could take yourself by the shoulders, shake some sense into yourself, slap that look off your face. But there is no future you here to intervene, so the old you - the young you - just keeps looking at him with all of that embarrassing hope.

He takes you to see it, riding horseback together the whole way. When you walk through the space, you imagine what it would be like if it was yours. You can see yourself carving out a life here, just for a little while. It’s not what you wanted, but maybe it’s what you need. You can lay the groundwork here and leave when you’re ready. This arrangement won’t be forever, just long enough for you to make a name for yourself and take advantage of your friend’s many connections. Maybe a couple years, tops. You can be patient, can’t you? You know how, it shows in every stitch.

You know how important connections are in business, too, and you can’t say it’s not an aspect of your work that you’ve been neglecting. A lot of what you do is solitary - when you’re not meeting with customers, much of your time is spent with yourself and your latest project. You have people you know through your aunt and uncle, of course, but to them you’ll always be the Vilari kid, the nephew sitting behind the counter doing his homework or patching up someone’s shirt in the corner of the store. It’s time to make your own connections. You can do this. You can swallow your pride and get the hard part done, because a dream without a foundation behind it is a flighty thing, untethered and prone to slip out of your fingers at any moment. And then what would you do? You almost lost it once. Next time, you’ll have a tighter grip.

You sell your caravan the following day. You hand it - everything - over, trading your dreams in for something a little more practical, a little more tangible (for now). You don't know if the heft of the coin pouch in your hand feels good. It certainly feels something. But there’s little time to focus on that, as there’s more paperwork to sign, another deal awaiting your approval. You take the pen from him and sign your name with a flourish. If anybody notices the wavering of your hand, the last bit of uncertainty making itself known, causing your signature to be less precise than it normally would be, a little more wobbly, nobody mentions it. It bleeds out of you into the paper with the ink and then it’s gone from you, and you turn a smile to him to show that you’re handling this okay, that you’re excited to get started on this new venture together. He smiles too.

Tailor Shop/The Truth

(Friends in all the wrong places. The moment when the other shoe drops.)

The truth is that he was right - about this, at least. With the shop’s prime location and your friend recommending your services to his acquaintances, who then spread the word to their acquaintances, you hardly even need to advertise. You see the heads of passersby swivel as they see the new styles you set up in that big beautiful window, and then swivel further and poke fully in the door when they catch a glimpse of the new shopkeeper behind them. With your appearance and manner of dress, you can’t not attract attention. You lean into it, making a spectacle of yourself in glittering waistcoats that catch the light and their eye and flowing, voluminous outfits that take up the whole doorway when you stand in it, which you often do when the day is slow, watching the shoppers walk by. You grin at them and beckon them over, ushering them inside for a chat and a tour of all you have to offer.

You’re successful there, very successful. You get to enjoy that success for about a year and a half before you find out what your friend really wanted from you, what the whole point of this was.

It starts with a few requests. The first one comes from him. There are associates of his that he needs to meet with, people loosely related to navy business but not in the navy, so they need a neutral meeting place. He wants to use the shop after hours to hold these meetings, a few times a month. You don’t like this. Even when the shop is closed you’re usually working long into the night, sequestered away in the back room. Aside from that, you value your privacy, and this is your home. But he owns the building. What are you going to do, tell him no?

You tell him no. He seems to accept the rejection without complaint, and the rest of the visit continues as normal. But then, as he turns to leave, you look at the broad planes of his back, his poised stride, and see opportunity, just like he must have seen in you. When he’s halfway through the door, you ask him to wait.

And so, the door closes again, and the second request comes from you. You tell him you’ll agree to give up your shop for a few hours on one condition: you want him to teach you how to fight, to show you all those sword-fighting forms and tactics he’s learned through the navy and through personal experience, so you can be prepared when you set off to travel again in a year or so. You never want to feel that helpless again. He smiles, eyes crinkled with humor like it’s a joke. You don’t. It’s not a joke to you. He agrees, and now there's yet another deal between you two.

Your already busy schedule has only gotten busier, but things are still good, at this point. You politely excuse yourself when it’s time for your friend’s associates to arrive, either staying in the back room, or retiring upstairs for the evening. You don’t stick around to catch sight of them, wanting to give them the discretion they desired, but from the footsteps and the voices you can tell that there are usually around five people that show up to these meetings on the regular, and that they aren’t always the same people. One of the voices sounds vaguely familiar to you, but you can't place it.

So they have their appointments with your friend, and you have yours. When the last customer has left for the day, when the doors have been locked and the curtains drawn, you and your friend will go toe to toe with each other right there on the shop floor, ducking behind overturned dressers, leaping up onto the couch to dodge the slash of a sword, parrying blows and backing each other up into a corner, then slipping out of each other’s grasp again. You do this for hours, even when you’re exhausted, replaying that night over and over in your mind and envisioning how you can do better next time.

Some days you have fun with it, playful little got you’s as you find each other at the tip of a blade, and some days it’s more intense, all gritted teeth and panted breaths as you pick yourself up the floor again and again. And if you have to cheat a few times and use the mending cantrip to repair the furniture when it inevitably becomes collateral damage, well, neither of you are telling (is it just you, or does the fabric feel a little different in that spot that's taken the worst of the hits?).

You work around each other, sharing the space without issue for a while. Because of your proximity, it’s impossible not to hear something from those meetings no matter where you are in the building (it’s not a very big building after all), but the voices are muffled and what filters through just sounds like normal conversation. No one raises their voices, no one seems to argue or interrupt each other, there’s just a calm and even cadence for the whole meeting. It’s so mundane that it would be easy to gloss over the bits and pieces that you hear and just let it all fall away as you work. Let it become background noise.

Yet it’s that mundanity that strikes you as peculiar one evening, that has you pausing and setting your shears down on the work table so you can strain to listen. The more you pay attention, the more it doesn’t make sense. It’s like they’re speaking a different language, substituting words and using jargon you’ve never heard from your friend before. You understand the words but not the way they’re being arranged, not the context. You pull your notepad closer to you and quickly jot down some of what you hear so that you can look at it later, using shorthand to hide it in between your notes about your current commission.

You’ll study these later, and over time you’ll be able to piece things together, make some sense of them. Certain phrases will become familiar to you. But not tonight. Tonight, you get back to work, clearing everything else from your mind.

The next time something of note happens is when you’re in the back room again during yet another one of these meetings, and you suddenly realize that you can’t find the material that you need for the lining of the suit you’re working on. Funny, you could have sworn that you had it in here earlier. Could you have left it out on the shop floor? It’s not like you to misplace things. You check again, just to be certain, and still you come up empty. You look towards the closed door, considering.

It would be so improper. Entirely against your agreement. It would shatter the sense of security and privacy that your shop has provided to these people for months now. But you really do have to get this done tonight. You lightly place your hand on the knob and then, decision made, you turn it ever so slightly. Just enough to open the door a crack.

tbc!

Disasters and Opportunities

It's funny how the two always seem to come hand in hand for you. Tbc

Current Day

Was everything you did to get here worth it? You hope so. Does it make the uglier parts a little less ugly now that you can afford to be kind? Tbc

Trivia


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  • The sewing needle kept in one of the bands on his horns is his arcane focus (thanks to the Artificer Initiate feat), and all of his spells are thread-themed. Misty Step has him appearing to unravel as if made of thread himself, Tasha's Hideous Laughter becomes Tasha's Hideous Sweater (the ugliest, itchiest sweater you've ever seen), Bane causes silvery threads to attach themselves to the target's body as if they were a marionette and makes their movements jerky and uncoordinated, etc
  • His weapons follow this theme as well. For example, instead of daggers he uses ornate scissors, a sword that's mechanically a rapier but looks like a large pair of antique sewing scissors and/or a seam ripper, and his crossbow bolts look like giant sewing pins (shot from a wrist pincushion that becomes a wrist-mounted crossbow)
  • His familiar takes the shape of a brass sewing bird clamp (mechanically an owl). The familiar, though not an actual object, can still play the role of a real clamp by gripping onto the edge of a table and holding the fabric steady in its sharp beak - with one exception. Since it's a creature and not an object, if one goes to stick a pin in the pincushion, it will count as damage and the familiar will 'die' (be dispelled and sent back to a pocket dimension) instantly. To both of their horror, Rhodes found this out the hard way. A hasty resummoning and a disgruntled familiar later, that lesson is not one he will easily forget. If any pins ever do appear on the familiar, they are still part of the creature, and only for show. 60904405_wPlNTNUgZycMtsf.png
  • His backstory is in the process of slowly being uploaded here, but the long and short of it is that in the past, he was blackmailed into gathering secrets and gossip from certain customers and passing that information along to his blackmailer to protect his aunt and uncle’s business and lives. Sorry bestie. Gonna betray you soon bestie. While he didn’t want to do it (he tried to be clever and think of ways to circumvent it, but his blackmailer always seemed to be one step ahead), he did still do it. He still made that choice, pulling other people into the same mess he was in. It’s something that he carries with him and struggles with.
  • MBTI, Enneagram, Subtype, Tritype: ENFJ 1w2 sp/so 137 - Assigned by whitenoisewife!
  • "Rhodes Vilari" Theme by _Vil_!
  • Voice Claim: Steve Valentine, suggested by FallenSaint!
  • Perfumes are John Galliano John Galliano or Valentino Uomo Valentino (recommendations by Chaimellow!): "A Haute Couture fragrance that smells great on skin as well as clothes and looks dang fine in the bottle. Something reminiscent of a Victorian theatre." "For something more masculine/unisex Valentino Uomo Valentino which is sensual and creamy."
  • "Sometimes I say it out loud to see if I can still pronounce it. I say it into the mirror, watch the way my mouth wrestles. Then, I snatch it by the neck and squeeze it till it's limp, shove it back down to the bottom of the river." Olivia Gatwood - In the Future, I Love the Nighttime. Quote assigned by Voxguard!
  • "A thread strand winds

    Intricate and yet known

    The patterns unfolding along with memory

    Seeing what can occur means pride, success

    Creased at the edge of an article. One, many,

    Accomplishments minute and a discreet

    Source of pride in-passing."

    - Poem by IronyMobile!

  • "Come, dear one

    Behold my little shop

    Filled with cashmeres and satins

    Buttons and sequins

    Outfits tailor made for you, me, us

    It makes our oddities shine

    It makes them special and unique

    So come here, dear one

    I'll dress you in style."

    - Poem by MeowMeow422!

  • "1. When he's not working or busy he likes to take his familiar with him to go window shopping. He lets the little fella either rest on his shoulder or on one of his horns.

    2. He likes to sketch new outfit ideas in his journal when he's traveling in his caravan. He finds that the movement is calming and helps him to focus drawing.

    3. At times he's come across a strange serpent that has scales that can change color and its fangs are capable of dispensing a paint like substance that's non-lethal. He's attempted to catch this creature multiple times but it manages to elude him. However sometimes it sheds it's skin and he uses that for a new outfit for a client. Or sometimes for himself.

    4. In secret he enjoys to play the lute, for some reason he can't bring himself to play it while around others. Only around his familiar who enjoys these private concerts.

    5. He has a habit of rubbing his horns against rock, metal and other items to help keep them sharp. Is this a bad or a good habit? He's not really sure but he likes to keep them sharp looking.

    6. He has a secret love interest that only his familiar is aware about. He wants to let this person know but he gets tongue tied while around them. They just take his breath away.

    7. He doesn't like rainy weather as it makes his creative mood when working plummet drastically. He's not sure why though.

    8. Since he doesn't like to cook or have a lot of time to do so he still likes to read cook books. Possibly because he wishes he had the time to make fancy and extravagant dishes."

    - Headcanons by ScarletBloodmoon!

  • Playlist: Dear Wormwood by The Oh Hellos, You First by Paramore, 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton, Not In Love by Natalia Kills, I Could Have Been Worse by KiNG MALA, Sloppy by KiNG MALA, Bird Song by Florence and the Machine, labour by Paris Paloma, Wine Red by The Hush Sound, Break The Sky by The Hush Sound, Tidal Wave by The Hush Sound, Make Up Your Mind by Florence and the Machine, Which Witch by Florence and the Machine, HIP by MAMAMOO, Mayday by Sohodolls, Hunger by Of Monsters and Men, Oh No! by Marina and the Diamonds, Are You Satisfied? by Marina and the Diamonds, RAGE by Samantha Margret, GOOD ENEMY by PVRIS, The Fine Print by The Stupendium, Back On My Feet by Kimberose, Destroy Destroy Destroy by Transviolet, A Deal You Can’t Refuse by Cristina Vee and Em Young, Work by The Saturdays, Both by Todrick Hall, Villain by Stella Jang, Angry Too by Lola Blanc, Devil's Resting Place by Laura Marling

Related


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The Friend [ Friends to Lovers to Enemies ]

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Aunt and Uncle [ Family ]

A pair of human merchants who raised Rhodes and who run a general store together back in his hometown. He grew up helping out in their store, learning how to run a business, and even setting up a small area inside the store with their help where he could make his own money by mending or embroidering their customer's clothing while they shopped. He cares deeply for them, but he is not always honest with them, preferring to keep some things close to the chest if he thinks it would be better for them not to know.

For example, the first time he ever picked up a sewing needle wasn't out of interest or any desire to learn a new skill, but necessity. Providing clothes for a growing child can be tough, especially when that child has horns and a tail, and his aunt and uncle, loving as they are, were very busy. They had little time to spend adjusting each piece of clothing themselves, and the cost to have it done professionally kept adding up. They would never say this to to their young nephew, but they didn't need to - the walls in their home were thinner than they realized, and one night, during a time when outside circumstances in the world were putting more pressure on the business than ever before, Rhodes overheard his aunt and uncle discussing their financial troubles and worries for the future. It was in that moment that Rhodes decided that he would ease their burden in what way he could, by learning how to sew and taking care of the task himself. Once he began sewing, he did find that he had a knack for it and truly enjoyed it, and that was when it started to grow into more of a passion. But to this day his aunt and uncle don't know the true reason he took up sewing, and Rhodes will never tell them.

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Name Here [ relationship ]

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