Velrune

About

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   Usually found working in and around the Bellflower inn and tavern, Velrune is a compassionate soul, always happy to lend a paw and welcome you inside. The mountain community they call home is a slow-paced, traditional little world, and they wouldn't have it any other way.

   Their presence is more than just a friendly vibe--a lifetime of training in the archaic arts of aura manipulation makes it easy for them to project a bubble of serenity around them. While the Bellflower is a for-profit business, their true passion is the healing path of the mystic, and they readily welcome patients with aura troubles of any kind. These services are free of charge (although tips are appreciated), as Vel puts a deep value on service to their community.

   Determined to keep an earnest approach to life, above all Velrune values sincerity--so while they're staunchly against holding grudges, don't expect them to spare your feelings if you give them cause to tell you off. That pleasant aura can be switched to an oppressive cloud at a moment's notice.... so just be straightforward with them, okay?


History

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   Expected to carry on family traditions since even before they were born, Velrune has great pride in their origins. The Fernwill family was and is one of the last strands left from a long history of mystic lineages. Now considered outdated and largely lost, the practice of fine aura control requires a lifelong commitment to training if one wishes to reach the highest tiers of mastery. Most curios can keep their auras under control--no need to let your bad mood bleed into everyone around you, after all--but self-control is just the tip of the mystic iceberg. Deliberately and (sometimes subtly) influencing others is its own art, the very one that Vel would be inducted into.

   The hermetical lifestyle was one that Vel embraced growing up. Their parents were kind, but training their only kit bled into every aspect of life. Vel was expected to build a deep understanding of the intricacies of auric health, monitoring, manipulation, and more; by their teens they were able to communicate casually with their parents through only silent impulses. One of the main principles drilled into them was a near-ascetic life, as their traditions demanded the forsaking of material wealth in the name of self-betterment in service of others. They'd go on to find technology and its auric draw rather garish in the future, but for now they lived day-to-day in their family's tiny cabin, studying and practicing when not roaming the fields and streams around their home.

   For all its intensity, this brand of mysticism finds few applications in the modern world. Once it had been a tool to stoke fires before conflict or investigate where medical science didn't exist, but since those primitive days it's been mostly restricted to aura-specific treatments and the occasional therapist. Velrune held a certain distaste for the more brutal past of the practice; as they grew they lent their services towards the more samaritan causes, but as nearby towns grew and modernized, they found their family's role shrinking. It seemed Rumba Sumba's growing outskirts had no need for ways of old.... so, coming of age, they left.

   Books and lectures were useful, but travel was its own sort of enlightening. They'd stop and go all around Scatterstar over the course of a few years, lending a paw where they could. But, it would be the mountains to the north that caught them in their valley embrace. The remote communities and their more traditional ways had an awful lot in common with what Vel had grown up with. Rural charm practically called to them. It seemed harder and harder to go; so, they didn't.

   The tavern wouldn't come until later. First, the introduction of Yu--a family from all the way down in Wellstone had set up a correspondence with Vel, discussing their own mystic lineage and a desire to see their kit trained in the art that had been skipped the prior generation. Velrune was well aware that infertility had plagued the Fernwill family tree, and that an apprentice was a far better opportunity than hoping they'd have a kit of their own. And so it was that a 22-year-old Velrune became the guardian of a 5-year-old Yu, freshly beaded and ready for the very first steps of training.

   Life with a sweet little apprentice wasn't so bad. Yu's parents visited a few times a year, but for the most part it was just the two of them as Vel adapted to their new responsibilities. Soon the rented room and spartan days they shared seemed not enough, though; feeding a growing kit was expensive, and unlike their own parents, Velrune had no help in supporting that kit. They'd take a new job at the Bellflower, an inn and restaurant with a local history, where the elderly owners would take a shine to them and let one of the rooms to Vel and Yu at a discounted rate in exchange for being on call. The two would become a fixture at the restaurant, to the point where when one of the owners passed and the other chose to retire, it was Velrune who scraped together their meagre savings to buy the establishment and keep the doors open.

   Mysticism was still their passion, and serving their community had not been forgotten, but nonethelss Velrune settled easily into life as the Bellflower's proprietor. They delighted in establishing connections with locals and visiting hunters, and of course the crowd headed towards Dead Mountain in summer; it certainly helped that their aura filled the little tavern with a blanketing calmness. Their world seemed all in tune--until Yu, now an unruly teenager, decided to make use of a certain silvery bottle found in the wilds. They'd grown cocky and a bit surly over the years, perhaps a bit too confident in their abilities. And now they'd decided to make a big leap--surely a trained mystic could be the one to keep a bottled demon at bay, surely Yu would be the one to learn more, you'd always wanted them to embrace academics, right Vel? The two would argue intensely about it until the cursed jar was dropped, its stopper cracking against the edge of the bar and sending nanites clouding everywhere. Yu braced to take on the demon.... only to find the black swarm covering Velrune, drawn to the bigger, more refined powersource as the unwilling host collapsed to the floor.

   Recovery would be a slow process, consisting mostly of a few days with closed doors while Velrune struggled to adapt to the huge cloud constantly plaguing them. The only thing that really kept the damned thing at bay was the brilliant glow of their bead, a bright light to chase the mass back into a condensed swarm for just a moment's peace. Such a drain on their finely tuned aura left Vel feeling fuzzy, adrift, as if everything was far away through some heavy mist. Even as they regained their footing and the restaurant reopened, they were quiet, tired, working with the head down as the AI sapped their strength. It was unclear when the nanite broke the camel's back, but one night Yu was summoned to help with some canning, a simple task but oddly out of season. Things moved as normal, until suddenly Vel rounded on the shadow still buzzing around them, the beam of their bead and a bright lantern working in tandem to corral the nanites into a jar set off to the side. The lid was slammed shut and sealed, and suddenly the jar thrust into Yu's paws with instructions to run with it, take it far away, somewhere Vel would never find it even as the AI screeched with fury in their head. Gravely, Yu took it and ran.

   Things are mostly back to normal at the Bellflower these days. Just a tendril of blackness clings to a once-again cheerful Velrune, who works their business with Yu's occasional help and still opens their arms to anyone in need of more ethereal work. If you're looking for a rest stop, why not drop in?


Design + Notes

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• crack-marks have a soft glow that flickers and brightens when the AI is thinking.
• Velrune prefers simple cuts on clothing, but has a hard time resisting finer fabrics if they can afford it.
• that being said, they dislike buttons, buckles, and especially zippers. simple clasps are on thin ice. tie closures are preferred.
• forehead mark is not symmetrical; the blue offshoot only goes out to Vel's left eye, not the right.
• ears sit tall and perky almost always; never drop below horizontal at most.
• their long hair requires extensive maintenance.
• underwent possession about 6 months before the Seajewel poisoning incident. business was pretty rough for a while after Marsa's little possession adventure....
• keeps gifts and mementos above the bar on the top shelf. this includes things from weirdos sometimes, unfortunately.
• loves flowers of all kinds and keeps framed dried specimens in their apartment.
• mostly dislikes jewelry, but has a modest collection of bracelets.
• the AI 'possessing' Vel is an analytical model, providing statistical data with brutal honestly and little to no prompting. it looks down on Vel's 'emotional' choices and would like very much to get its nanites back, thank you.