Avari Kore

[Avari]

Avari Kore Basic Information Race: Konti Birthday & Age : Day 24 of Winter, 477 AV (34 years old) Gender: Female

Physical Description Fine-boned and fragile, Avari appears but a delicate wisp of a Konti maiden at 5 foot 3 inches in height and 105 lbs. Her figure is graceful but scant, with most of its curves gone to slimness and insufficient muscle tone to give the impression of strength. When draped in the loose tunics and breeches she favors, with her nimble, long-fingered hands sheathed in thin gloves, and crowned with a wide-brimmed hat, Avari appears even more diminutive and dainty. As a result, she carries herself with the constant wariness and alertness of a seasoned traveler, always on the watch for potential threats who might consider her easy prey. Like the rest of her, Avari's face is thin and delicate, with high, angular cheekbones and austere, ivory-fair features. A cascade of gleaming hair as white as seafoam spills past her shoulders in feather-soft waves. The pallor of her hair and complexion gives her an ethereal, moon-kissed look, accentuated by the shimmering pearl-grey scales that twine around her limbs, neck, and back as a mark of her Konti nature. The only points of color in her face are her rosy bow-shaped lips and the pure sky-blue of her eyes, set off by silvery-pale lashes. In contrast with her well-practiced expression of deceptively sweet-faced innocence, Avari's gaze contains disconcerting depths of knowledge and shrewdness. Character Concept If ever there was a Konti that didn't fit into the gentle, peaceful confines of Mura, it would be Avari Kore. All her life, her personality was at odds with the soft-spoken Konti women around her. She thrives in the midst of activity and chaos, especially if she was the one who caused it. Adventurous, fast-talking, and impudent, she possesses a seeming genius for finding and playing upon the weaknesses of others. In further contrast to her sensitive and considerate kin, Avari has shown many times that she cares about no one but herself. Rather than concerning herself with the needs or expectations of her community, she only grows more independent and self-interested with every passing year. As untrustworthy and opportunistic as she is, Avari is also shrewd, quick-witted, and calculating. The gift she received from Avalis allows her to probe deep into someone's heart and see the things they loved or desired most, when she touches them with her hands. Since leaving Mura, Avari has parlayed her gift into a career stealing from merchants, brigands, and common folk alike. Coupled with her natural penchant for taking advantage of others, her Konti gift greatly facilitates robbing her hapless victims blind and fencing the goods. While she avoids violence and needless cruelty, Avari rarely suffers from remorse or moral qualms when taking something that belongs to someone else or turning a profit from someone else's hard work. However, she must be careful to disguise herself or slip away cleanly after every theft or scam, so that no one connects their slit purse or emptied safe to the charming Konti woman they just happened to meet. Naturally, the people Avari detests and fears most are idealists, poets, and authority figures who only care for abstract or intangible concepts like Justice, Truth, or Beauty. Not only are they the most difficult for Avari to exploit, but even if she succeeds, they usually don't have much to offer her except ideas and visions. She is extremely materialistic, with the naive belief that riches and luxury will bring the security and acceptance she had never felt in her birthplace, and thus sees no value in the immaterial or sentimental. Besides, idealists and do-gooders tend to punish criminals like her the most severely. While Avari doesn't fear poverty or hunger, as she can always use her Konti gift and silver tongue to overcome them, she deeply fears being imprisoned and left to rot. The thought of losing her freedom and being locked away forever terrifies her, and Avari is not above fleeing outright from a lawman if it means staying free and unhindered. For fortune-telling, Avari can use a set of dice to scry the future in answer to specific questions. From the numbers that come up, she can discern patterns and sequences that affect the question being asked. The more dice are thrown, the more information she receives, the longer it takes her to interpret her results, and the more accurate her answers become. She carries her own set of carved whalebone dice for this purpose in a small leather bag, though any dice will serve as long as they are not weighted or altered in any way.

Character History Almost from the moment of her birth, Avari felt herself to be alone in the world, for she killed her mother Charis in the birthing and her father was completely unknown to her. While the latter situation was not unusual in Mura, the former was considered a great tragedy, as Avari's mother had been a well-beloved poet and storyteller on the island and a scion of the respected Kore family. Thanks to her mother's popularity, Avari at least never lacked for caretakers, for several of her mother's friends and an aunt swooped in at once to rear her properly. However, every time she touched them, Avari glimpsed her mother's face and dimly experienced the longing, grief, and love they felt for her mother. With a child's cunning, she tried to act more lovable and obedient around them, but stopped when she noticed that her face never replaced her mother's in her mind's eye whenever her hand touched those of her caretakers. Stricken by the enormity of their sorrow, Avari became convinced that they all blamed her for her mother's death and possibly even hated her for being alive while her mother was dead. Avari began to distance herself from her caretakers and even openly avoided them as she grew older, with the idea that if no one cared about her, she need not care about anyone else but herself. Growing up within the alabaster spires of Mura, Avari was not content to spend her childhood as a humble pearl gatherer, let alone a student to the suspicious Konti teachers who soon divined her restless, willful nature and shunned her. While the other girls her age were studying languages, healing, and divination, she rebelled against her lessons. Instead, Avari spent nearly all her time at the harbor, where she met, learned from, and sometimes swindled new arrivals to the White Isle. From sailors, Avari learned about geography, navigation, and gambling and gained an insatiable curiosity about the wide world beyond the island. From the scholars seeking to study at Mura's famous library, she learned some history and classical literature. From the merchants and traders seeking to exchange their goods for priceless Vision Water, however, Avari learned the most: arithmetic, economics, the psychology of desire, the subtle art of bargaining, and the power of trickery and misdirection. To all these disparate teachers, Avari proved a quick and adept student, far more so than she was with the Konti teachers and relatives who often had to drag her forcibly away from the harbor and her new friends. Through her adolescence, Avari's rebelliousness, audacity, and self-centeredness only became even more pronounced. Her elders and caretakers tolerated the process with increasingly tighter-gritted teeth and did their best to make sure she at least cooperated with the laws, customs, and common courtesies of Mura. Avari soon lost count of the many stern lectures she received from her grandmother Eunoe, whose sheer presence was enough to frighten her into meekness, at least for a little while. Everyone understood that the rare Konti women with her personality usually left the island to find other people in distant lands with whom they blended in better, and the elder Konti were reluctant to openly hasten Avari's departure before she even reached adulthood. She sorely tried their patience, however, with her gift for stinging words, unsympathetic nature, and fierce insistence on self-sufficiency rather than solidarity with her community. By the time she reached adulthood at age 30, Avari was courting exile with her increasingly daring and disruptive antics. Before the Mother's Council could discuss the matter officially, however, she abruptly disappeared from the island one day, secretly buying passage upon a merchant's sloop bound for Zeltiva. Later that evening, Eunoe Kore returned home to find her study door hanging open and a yellowing diary belonging to her dead daughter lying atop her desk, its pages showing clear signs of having been riffled through recently. Having read in her mother's own words the truth about her life and her feelings toward the unborn child in her belly, Avari had decided on her own that her stay in Mura was over. There was nothing left for her on an island full of Konti who despised and shunned her. But there was a whole world outside the island, full of opportunities to seize, riches to attain, secrets to discover, and people to exploit.

Languages Kontinese: Fluent Common: Fluent Konti Abilities Water breathing Konti gift: Heart's Desire : Avari has the ability to touch someone and receive a single sensory impression of whatever the subject loves or desires most in this world, normally as an image but occasionally as a scent, sound, taste, or feel. Direct skin-to-skin contact is required, though only an instant is enough for her to perceive the subject's deepest desire or love. Depending on the strength of the subject's will, sometimes the subject's feelings of passion or covetousness for the object of his or her desire will also make themselves felt during the contact, intruding on Avari's own emotions and even subtly influencing her own desires. Abilities and Knowledge   Skills Skill Points Acquisition Level Larceny 54 25 SP, 29 XP Expert Stealth 28 10 SP, 18 XP Competent Negotiation 5 5 SP, 2 XP Novice Disguise 8 5 SP, 3 XP Novice Weapon: Throwing Dagger 11 5 SP, 6 XP Novice Fortune-telling 21 10 RB, 11 XP Novice Acrobatics 3 3 XP Novice Acting 10 10 XP Novice Bodybuilding 1 1 XP Novice Intelligence 2 2 XP Novice Interrogation 3 3 XP Novice Intimidation 2 2 XP Novice Investigation 20 20 XP Novice Locksmithing 1 1 XP Novice Mathematics 3 3 XP Novice Meditation 1 1 XP Novice Observation 22 22 XP Novice Organization 1 1 XP Novice Persuasion 7 7 XP Novice Philtering 1 1 XP Novice Poetry 1 1 XP Novice Rhetoric 10 10 XP Novice Running 4 4 XP Novice Seduction 1 1 XP Novice Socialization 7 7 XP Novice Sociology 1 1 XP Novice Storytelling 8 8 XP Novice Suvai 4 4 XP Novice Swimming 2 2 XP Novice Teaching 1 1 XP Novice   Lores Lore Acquisition Psychology of a Mark SP Laws and Customs of Mura SP Plotting a Mischievous Plan XP Thinking Under Pressure XP Understanding Zeltiva XP Reading the Chavena XP Divination - The Memories of Others XP Getting Caught in the Act XP Jaron Grunn's Deepest Desire XP Jaron's Most Prized Possession XP Captain Farabar's Secret XP Spotting Weaknesses XP The Dangers of Gambling XP Basic Disguise Techniques XP Door Code to Lion's Base XP Yshul (partial) XP Winter Ball: Masked Man's Note (40, 52, 61) XP Winter Ball: Stolen Artifact XP Sunberth: Dangers to Konti XP Nira'lia: Life Story XP Djed Storm of 512 AV XP The Mysterious Cloaked Women XP The Nightshade Clue XP Location of Behind the Silken Mask in University library XP Suvai: Defensive Postures XP   Gnosis Gnosis God/Goddess Level Description Divination Avalis One mark Stylized steel-blue seer's lily on her right shoulder Equipment and Possessions   Clothing Item Acquisition Price Black cotton tunic SP N/A Brown leather breeches SP N/A Cotton undergarments SP N/A Low-heeled brown suede boots SP N/A Thin canvas gloves SP N/A Full-length grey wool cloak SP N/A Broad-brimmed brown hat SP N/A   Equipment Item Acquisition Price Waterskin SP N/A Backpack SP N/A Set of toiletries (brush, comb, soap) SP N/A Rations for a week SP N/A Eating knife SP N/A Flint and steel SP N/A Set of carved whalebone dice SP (heirloom) N/A Thieves' tools Purchased (SP) 30 gold mizas Glass dolphin pendant Purchasd (thread) 7 gold mizas   Housing Item Acquisition Price Basic 20x20 single-room cottage near Zeltiva's harbor SP N/A Simple hearth, bunk, chest, chair, and small table SP N/A Iron pot, clay jug, bucket, poor wash basin Purchased (SP) N/A   Weapons Item Acquisition Price 2 throwing daggers Purchased (SP) 2 gold mizas   Ledger Reason Amount Starting package 100 gold mizas Thieves' tools -30 Throwing daggers -2 Bucket (empty) -0.2 Iron pot -0.5 Washbasin, poor -0.8 Clay jug -0.03 Summer 511 poor living expenses -45 Money stolen from a sailor +75 Fall 511 poor living expenses -45 Fall 511 earnings (awarded by Colombina) +280 Gambling winnings +0.6 Winter 511 common living expenses -135 Winter 511 earnings +184 Spring 512 poor living expenses -45 Post-Djed storm cottage repairs -150 Spring 512 earnings (awarded by Paragon) +182 Anselm's payment +20 Cost of glass dolphin pendant -7 Summer 512 common living expenses -135 Total 246.53 gold mizas

Thread List Flashbacks : Date Thread Location Status Summer, Day 10, 502 AV [Flashback] Aftershocks of The Call (Sondra) Mura Complete Spring, Day 5, 507 AV [Flashback] Difficult Lessons at the Pavilion (Satu) Mura Complete Fall, Day 44 , 508 AV [Flashback] Stealing What Should Be Mine Mura Complete Spring, Day 12, 509 AV [Flashback] A Use for a Gift Zeltiva Complete Summer, Day 12, 509 AV [Flashback] A Liar and a Thief (Crismento) Zeltiva Complete Summer, Day 15, 509 AV [Flashback] To Fool a Dishonest Man (Crismento) Zeltiva Ongoing 511 AV : Date Thread Location Status Fall, Day 6 The Shell Game (Open) Zeltiva Complete Fall, Day 10 No Holds Barred (Astrolabe) Zeltiva Complete Fall, Day 27 Rush Hour Risks and Rewards (Jaron) Zeltiva Complete Fall, Day 31 A Relaxing Swim in the Bay (Eorar) Zeltiva Ongoing Fall, Day 44 A Simple Job (solo) Zeltiva Complete Fall, Day 64 Prisoners of the Past (Faroul) Dreamscapes Ongoing Winter, Day 5 Of Mummers, Masks, and Sleight of Hand (solo) Zeltiva Complete Winter, Day 10 Distant Lands, Different Lives (Nira'lia) Zeltiva Complete Winter, Day 39 Don't Complain (Eorar Nevenon) Zeltiva Ongoing Winter, Day 57 Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo) Zeltiva Complete Winter, Day 85 [Seasonal Quest] The Winter Ball Zeltiva Complete 512 AV : Date Thread Location Status Spring, Day 3 Acquisitions for Others (solo) Zeltiva Complete Spring, Day 8 [Wright Library] The Weight of Books (Elem Bree) Zeltiva Complete Spring, Day 10 [The Docks] Losing Equilibrium Zeltiva Ongoing Spring, Day 36 A Fortune-Filled Fellowship (Avaltri) Zeltiva Ongoing Summer Day 31 Avari's Fortune Zeltiva Complete Summer, Day 35 [Quest] A Dark Rendezvous (Anselm, Leigo, Cascade) Zeltiva Complete Fall, Day 64 Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair (Sondra) Zeltiva Ongoing

Relationships Name: K'Sondra Kore Age: 41 Race: Konti Relationship: Cousin and childhood friend Alone out of Avari's relatives, her cousin K'Sondra was the only one who ever truly felt like family to her. Haunted by her own differences and rifts with Konti culture, the strong-willed, taciturn K'Sondra protected her younger cousin and encouraged her to grow, think for herself, and rebel. The two cousins found strength and courage in their fellowship and their shared defiance. Avari loved and admired K'Sondra without limit and missed her fiercely when she left Mura for Avanthal to follow her Call. To this day, Avari continues to wonder how her cousin fared in Morwen's city and what she must be doing now. Name: Crismento Miren (known to Avari as "Samiir Jafa") Age: Unknown Race: Human Relationship: Former collaborator and mentor While she never fully trusted the handsome, unscrupulous human, Avari learned quite a lot from him while they worked together stealing and conning from sailors arriving in and departing from Zeltiva. From him, she learned how to lie well, how to manipulate other people's emotions, and how to work together to acquire greater profits. However, he mysteriously fled Zeltiva only a few seasons after they began their partnership, leaving her on her own once more. Name: Eorar Nevenon Age: 21 Race: Charoda Relationship: Friend Though their paths cross only occasionally, Eorar has shown his good-natured friendliness and generosity every time they meet. Avari now knows not to challenge him to a swimming contest, but he can be relied upon for his knowledge of healing and the sea. In a way, she owes her life to the Charoda, a debt she wishes she could somehow repay.