cosmiccowgirl
Nallore
Hey there! I see you mentioned a loose deadline by the end of Feb, and I also see this is still tagged apply - mind if I jump in? I have an idea for a Bosmer and I'd love to write w/ you guys! c:
edit:
nvm, I missed this part. Here's an early wip of an absolutely normal fisherman who definitely knows how to sail a boat and operate a fishing pole and isn't lying to you. Yep. Nothing fishy about this guy except for the sea bass he's selling you that he assuredly caught himself.
โท NAME โท Epiduin โ Haesil
โท RACE โท Bosmer
โท AGE โท 33
โท BIRTHSIGN โท The Lover
โท ORIGINS โท Epiduin was born in a small village outside of Silvenar, the third youngest of fourteen siblings. โ Haesil was born in The Paramour's Trill, a brothel in Arenthia, Valenwood. He doesn't know which of the workers was his mother.
โท APPEARANCE โท
Epiduin has the archetypal svelte frame you'd expect, almost too reedy for this line of work - knees and elbows sharper than blades, fragile-looking wrists. It's a wonder he can reel in his line. Coarse, dark brown hair cropped above his chin. Creepy, all-black eyes. High-pitched, grating voice. Excessive antlers. You've met the sort before.
โท [ height & weight ] 5'2", 118 lbs. โท
Haesil changes his appearance to suit his needs. He was born a slight mer, with wide and upturned features on a narrow face, but he's undergone several minor surgeries to change his affect in subtle ways, and will likely do so again. His complexion is chestnut and heavily freckled. He's been hiding his freckles under makeup - either sloppily applied face paint smeared across the top of his face that Epiduin claims is "for the glare," or more expensive and carefully applied concealer. His natural hair is a dark, honey-colored blond that falls in loose waves, though he's dyed it sable, hacked away the length with a scaling knife, and applies a straightening and waterproofed tonic to it biweekly.
His speaking voice is bright and pleasant with clear diction and doesn't sound natural paired with Epiduin's dialect - luckily, he's a fantastic mimic, and has been using a shrill, uneven Silvenar accent since he arrived in Anvil. He has a mild, amiable smile that he pairs with measured, casual mannerisms when he's speaking with clients, teeth white, straight, and dangerously sharp near the bicuspids - he's painted the right canine gold to match the plain ring he's worked onto one of the lower times of Epiduin's four-point rack. His gaze feels hollow, even when he's smiling.
There's a trait that he and Epiduin share - one that follows him into every character he's ever played. Haesil is a very tactile person and speaks with his hands, and unless he's asked to stop he will touch everything and everyone he interacts with.
โท PERSONALITY โท
Don't ask Epiduin anything. You're just gonna get some long, cyclical story with all the insignificant details left in that ends up not answering what you asked, which he'll have forgotten by the end of it. Don't ask Epiduin to do anything. It's all in one ear and out the other with the little fetcher.
Oh, he's pleasant enough - happy as a clam to sit and drink with us. Just...don't engage, yeah? These neurotic Wood Elves, I swear...
โท [ affable, vapid, mercurial ] โท When talking shop with Haesil, a client might walk away wondering if it's wise to hire someone who seems to take so little in life seriously, especially considering the delicate sort of work folks hire Haesil to do. He's certain to have flirted with them at least once during the interview - politely - and then outrageously, if they respond well. It's also likely that he lied to them. Harmless, little lies. And then outrageous ones, if they seem to have believed him. Why push things so far? Isn't an agent meant to be subtle?
Most will suffer through this initial meeting - Haesil's past work speaks for itself, and he is worth the money. Regardless of how much they're paying him, however, there's a chance he'll turn them away, deigning their troubles not worth an investigation. For a man who often works for the wealthy and noble, he's not very concerned about professionalism.
Haesil does believe he's charming - or rather, he believes that his business persona is a charming character, and he's never broken character simply because his acting has upset someone. And it's completely true that he enjoys the thrill of a complicated job, a risky one - a problem he's never encountered before to puzzle through, or the prickling sense of nausea that accompanies nearly being caught in a lie. He finds himself bored more often than not, so he lives for such highs.
And sometimes it's simply funny to toy with people.
It would be a mistake to claim Haesil doesn't care about his work, however:
โท [ shrewd, diplomatic, confident ] โท Being a convincing actor is a good trait for an agent to have, but it's not enough to make them a good agent. That requires a level of awareness over oneself and one's surroundings that few possess. Haesil has put in the time and effort to make himself worth the money.
He researches multiple aspects of the role he'll be filling before he approaches his targets so that, by the time he does so, his disguise convinces the most distrustful of misers. He records his notes in cipher. His thinking is not naturally lateral; he spends much of his free time working through puzzles and trivia to keep his mind sharp and pliable - like stretching a muscle.
He's educated himself on various cultures around Tamriel and understands the basic etiquette and vernacular of a dozen separate and diverse groups. He knows when to follow social mores to avoid suspicion. He knows when to break them to steer a conversation in a profitable direction. He knows how to redirect attention.
None of this is a chore - he adores his work, enjoys the sleuthing and the gossip of it all.
He's quite aware of the fact that he's a valuable friend to keep and dangerous enemy to have; Haesil believes, genuinely and wholeheartedly, that he is the best operative the world has ever seen, independent or otherwise. To him, this an objective fact. This deluded sense of confidence makes it easy to insert himself into any situation without an ounce of shame or self-preservation.
โท [ patient, tolerant, passive ] โท Haesil feels quite safe under these delusions of grandeur, believing he's untouchable. He approaches life believing that he'll only die when he's ready to die and doesn't entertain any other possibility. Because of this, he's very generous with his time - he's been an attentive listener since he was young, he asks good, open-ended questions, and he rarely takes offense (even when offense is meant). He thinks he's experienced annoyance before, but it's difficult to say - certainly, he's never been angry in a manner that wasn't performative.
He's very forgiving of flaws in other people, and has precious few stipulations - he dislikes child abuse, slave trafficking, and violations of consent, but is happy to exchange pleasantries and business with all other sorts of social refuse, and he has a high threshold for disrespect and threatening behaviors. When he believes his associates truly mean to do him harm (and when that concept ceases to excite him) he'll slip away at the first notice.
Haesil is not an assassin, and he will not kill another person, but that's not out of the goodness of his heart - he will conspire to murder, he will act as an accessory to murder, and he will shamelessly lay down his own money to have someone murdered given enough cause. He only refuses to deal the killing blow.
He follows the Green Pact very devoutly, and interprets it very literally; he does not have enough time nor family to do what he'd need to do with a body, so he's sworn off killing anything larger than a wolf.
โท [ dishonest, callous, myopic ] โท Haesil is not a pathological liar. Everything he says and does is intentional and he's very meticulous about keeping each character's story consistent - even when the character he's playing is lying, they're lying in a way that's credible to who they are. For example, Epiduin is a recovering alcoholic, but he lies to his new friends at the local tavern because he "doesn't want to bring the mood down," and only the barmaid knows that he's actually drinking water. She's very proud of him. Conveniently, Haesil avoids mind-altering substances. Every disguise is littered with these red herrings.
Haesil isn't lacking in empathy. He's both a detective an an actor, and in those lines of work the ability to immerse oneself in another's shoes is a hard requirement. To sleuth effectively, one must imagine how another's emotions and perceptions might cause them to act erratically. To act convincingly, one must know how to laugh and weep for the character they're portraying - and Haesil has only ever wept for his characters.
What he's lacking in is identity, and he readily compartmentalizes the terrible ways he's betrayed people he made friends of. Haesil has ruined many people's lives with what he learns and he doesn't feel badly about any of it; setting aside one's empathy is a very simple thing when there's no 'one' to blame.
Though he's perfectly able to plan his daily schedule months in advance for the sake of a job, he doesn't understand long-term gratification and hasn't ever sought it out for himself. A thrill-seeker, he's been known to compromise his position and months of effort for a single hour walking the tightrope. He's particularly drawn to scenarios that have a high likelihood of ending with him maimed or killed, and finds suffering preferable to his usual state of numbness.
โท [ tenacious, mutable ] โท Haesil doesn't believe that any of these traits are legitimately his own, and they might as well not be - there's very little he's unwilling to change about himself, and even his religious beliefs can be disguised with some effort. He is, above all things, adaptable.
โท HISTORY โท
Haesil was born in a brothel to an unknown father and a reluctant mother, and there he was raised communally by the courtesans among a dozen other children until he was around five years old. With resources stretched thin, he was chased from his home and loosed upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of Arenthia.
He already had an edge on the other urchins, a lesson taught by the mad scramble for attention that dominated the lives of whoresons raised in high numbers and close quarters - resources, be it food, affection, or anything else, are not obtained through patience. Resources are obtained through wheedling. Constantly. Boldly.
He was good at mirroring adults' expressions, offering a sympathetic ear. He was good at modeling himself to their expectations. He was good at making up a new sob-story every morning, and acting heartrendingly resigned to his circumstances. It got him money, which he could exchange for honey-braised salmon cutlets.
Eventually, it got him board and wage with a Camoran socialite who ran a high-end restaurant near the border with Anequina. She wasn't concerned about how poorly he bussed tables; he was being paid to eavesdrop, merely a cut of the profit she was making selling secrets under the nose of the Third Dominion and its heavy-handed surveillance.
And he was good at it.
Fourteen years and several private tutors later, and the while the doe-eyed softness of childhood had melted into a narrow, foxlike face that was handsome enough but not quite as trustworthy, his talent with manipulation matured into something truly formidable. He had everyone Adathel Camoran set him on eating out of his hand, whether they be skooma barons or Justicars.
It swiftly went to his head. With that sort of skill, why should he settle for a minute fraction of the profit when he could be quite wealthy as an independent contractor? He made up his mind to abandon her in the autumn of 4E 199, and so it was.
Listed here are a number of catastrophes his meddling is indirectly or directly responsible for. It is not a comprehensive list.
4E 201 : An Aldmeri merchant schooner carrying expedited medical supplies during one of the worst bouts of flu since the Third era discovered its entire cargo had been replaced with juvenile Jonethroats, a species of designer parrot.
4E 202 : A fighting pit is discovered in the root caves under Woodhearth and the gamblers are scattered by a local militia. Everyone's puzzled by the dreugh they managed to smuggle under the Graht without detection and dress in Orcish plate without vivisection.
4E 205 : A village near Dune holds an annual election for Head - a position much like a mayor in a homestead - and for eleven minutes, a six-year-old kitten has executive control over all affairs in her hometown. A recount is warranted, and while they never discovered who planted the false ballots, the investigation reveals that the prime candidate for Head had been complicit in Khajiiti trafficking with the dregs of House Dres. He's executed in the town square the following morning.
4E 208 : The young marriage of Kinlady Cianarre and Ioranlion of Cloudrest, the culmination of a bloodline planned six hundred years in advance, becomes a very public and messy divorce. Ioranlion's paintings depreciate in value by the hundreds and both he and his great grandfather (the one who planned the marriage) are declared apraxic - in his ancestor's case, posthumously. An infant is given to the care of a Temple of Auriel one year later.
In 209, Haesil was hired by a cult of Hircine to become close with the young chief of a neighboring settlement, Eldhedwen, and determine whether she suspected the rampant lycanthropy among their ranks, and whether she was planning on doing anything about it. His payment was to be an adamantine blade with a fine ivory hilt and a very interesting summer. Dusting off his unenviable skill with woodwind instruments, Haesil donned the guise of Caliver, an inept busker, and spent several weeks being chased from the streets outside her offices until she finally confessed that she found his tuneless piping endearing - which he knew she would, having researched her interests - and asked him to dine with her.
Having grown up in the environment he had, Haesil dislikes being physically intimate with his targets - the person they intend to spend that time with doesn't exist, after all - and after several months of spurning her advances, he expected that she would end their relationship. To his surprise, she only asked to him to stay - permanently. Tied at the wrists.
Even more shocking - he had considered it, laying down all of Haesil's ambitions and all of Haesil's hard-earned skills and dissolving into a character for the final time. Elhie was a firey woman, endearing in her own ways, and exactly the sort of person Caliver would have come to love. Once he forgot he had ever been anyone else, would he be able to?
Frightened by this self-destructive train of thought - like facing down the abyss and knowing you could choose to jump - he fled. He had confirmed that she had no idea the other tribe consisted of cultists, let alone apostates, but he never turned in his findings. He left the Dominion-held territories that year and hasn't returned; 'identity crisis' doesn't begin to cover the ego death waiting on him there.
He's found ample work in the meantime, having meandered his way through the Nibenean East, continental Morrowind, Southern Skyrim, High Rock, and back into the Heartland, but he's found that there's no demand for his sort in Skyrim, too much competition in High Rock...and poor air quality in Morrowind. Cyrodiil is the perfect temperature.
A week and a half before the current events, Haesil passed through Skingrad while wandering - a little more meaningfully - toward the Gold Coast. He was approached by an aging heiress in a low class tavern. She had heard rumors of him, and she had heard rumors of a disappearance in Anvil.
Earlier this week, a fisherman fresh from Valenwood rowed into harbor and inserted himself in the lives of the crew of Anvil's local shrimp trawler with surgical precision. He tells lots of stories and most of them imply that his twenties were largely lost to binging, which might explain why he's so bad at telling stories. He's a little obnoxious, but he's a nice a fellow, and it already feels like he's always been here.
โท REGRETS โท
"Last summer I went out a few hours before a storm hit the coast and capsized my boat. Not - not the boat, no. I had a massive halibut on the line. Was just about to pull her in, too."
Haesil struggles with the concept of regret - he emotionally distanced himself from the world at a very young age, and has yet to close the gap - moreover, he believes that, since the moment Anu endeavored to know itself, time has been on a relentless and inevitable progression of cause and effect, and that free will is the only illusion the Earthbones cast. He doesn't acknowledge his actions as his own, merely the result of every factor preceding them - he's just the catalyst, you see. This makes it (conveniently) difficult to feel remorse. What I'm saying is that he's full of shit.
But there are times, in between jobs, when he's left to contend with the void in his soul.
Haesil has been pretending to be someone else his entire life. He can reduce grown men and women to tears with the narratives he spins and the emotions he fakes, but his inner world is a very flat place beyond the acting. He's made more than one mer fall in love with him by telling them exactly what they want to hear, memorizing every minute detail and off-handed comment so they feel seen in a way they never have before, and it's ended in a marriage proposal at least once. He doesn't regret abandoning his bride - she thought she was marrying a man named Caliver, anyway.
It's just that the whole experience made him realize that he's never known real connection with another person. Perhaps regret is the right word. He should never have taken that job.
He practices his expressions in the mirror above a dusty faux-Reman basin that's been crammed in the corner of his room in a dockside inn. Plucked brows that pinch upward, concerned about a fellow sailor's coughing fit. Neutral. A bright smile that crisps the corners of his deadened eyes. Neutral.
He can tell you what Epiduin regrets. He's practiced that, too. He can tell you what his favorite story is ("The Guile Hero and the Round-Ring-Path!"), which city makes the best mackerel bake ("Honestly? Stros M'kai"), and which knot he prefers to use when returning to harbor ("It's called a senche-hitch. Of course you don't recognize it, it's from Malabal Tor").
Haesil made the senche-hitch up. Haesil has never been to Stros M'Kai. Haesil doesn't have a favorite of anything. It seems, to Haesil, that if Epiduin does not exist, then Haesil certainly doesn't.
โท GOALS โท
To be as annoying and irrelevant as possible. Or at least to be annoying and irrelevant enough that any inconsistency in his story is overlooked - that a fool might gravely underestimate him, get a little drunk and loose-lipped in his presence.
As with his regrets, Haesil's goals are very shallow. He's already doing what he believes he loves most - inventing personas, solving puzzles, airing out others' dirty laundry - and he's certain that he will be able to charge a king's ransom for his services in due time. It's simply inevitable. That sort of price needs a hefty resume, however, and he's content with building it at the moment.
Narratively, Haesil needs to be unmasked to grow. He needs someone else to see and judge him as himself, not the role he's playing - it might be better if that judgement isn't in his favor and holds him accountable for once. He's been living in a world relatively free of consequence, where he's unseen and unacknowledged, and it's made him question whether he (or anything) is real.
Or maybe he just needs to establish boundaries between his work life and his personal life.
edit:
For any other interested writers - this game will never be "full" and you can always apply
nvm, I missed this part. Here's an early wip of an absolutely normal fisherman who definitely knows how to sail a boat and operate a fishing pole and isn't lying to you. Yep. Nothing fishy about this guy except for the sea bass he's selling you that he assuredly caught himself.
โท NAME โท Epiduin โ Haesil
โท RACE โท Bosmer
โท AGE โท 33
โท BIRTHSIGN โท The Lover
โท ORIGINS โท Epiduin was born in a small village outside of Silvenar, the third youngest of fourteen siblings. โ Haesil was born in The Paramour's Trill, a brothel in Arenthia, Valenwood. He doesn't know which of the workers was his mother.
โท APPEARANCE โท
Epiduin has the archetypal svelte frame you'd expect, almost too reedy for this line of work - knees and elbows sharper than blades, fragile-looking wrists. It's a wonder he can reel in his line. Coarse, dark brown hair cropped above his chin. Creepy, all-black eyes. High-pitched, grating voice. Excessive antlers. You've met the sort before.
โท [ height & weight ] 5'2", 118 lbs. โท
Haesil changes his appearance to suit his needs. He was born a slight mer, with wide and upturned features on a narrow face, but he's undergone several minor surgeries to change his affect in subtle ways, and will likely do so again. His complexion is chestnut and heavily freckled. He's been hiding his freckles under makeup - either sloppily applied face paint smeared across the top of his face that Epiduin claims is "for the glare," or more expensive and carefully applied concealer. His natural hair is a dark, honey-colored blond that falls in loose waves, though he's dyed it sable, hacked away the length with a scaling knife, and applies a straightening and waterproofed tonic to it biweekly.
His speaking voice is bright and pleasant with clear diction and doesn't sound natural paired with Epiduin's dialect - luckily, he's a fantastic mimic, and has been using a shrill, uneven Silvenar accent since he arrived in Anvil. He has a mild, amiable smile that he pairs with measured, casual mannerisms when he's speaking with clients, teeth white, straight, and dangerously sharp near the bicuspids - he's painted the right canine gold to match the plain ring he's worked onto one of the lower times of Epiduin's four-point rack. His gaze feels hollow, even when he's smiling.
There's a trait that he and Epiduin share - one that follows him into every character he's ever played. Haesil is a very tactile person and speaks with his hands, and unless he's asked to stop he will touch everything and everyone he interacts with.
โท PERSONALITY โท
Don't ask Epiduin anything. You're just gonna get some long, cyclical story with all the insignificant details left in that ends up not answering what you asked, which he'll have forgotten by the end of it. Don't ask Epiduin to do anything. It's all in one ear and out the other with the little fetcher.
Oh, he's pleasant enough - happy as a clam to sit and drink with us. Just...don't engage, yeah? These neurotic Wood Elves, I swear...
โท [ affable, vapid, mercurial ] โท When talking shop with Haesil, a client might walk away wondering if it's wise to hire someone who seems to take so little in life seriously, especially considering the delicate sort of work folks hire Haesil to do. He's certain to have flirted with them at least once during the interview - politely - and then outrageously, if they respond well. It's also likely that he lied to them. Harmless, little lies. And then outrageous ones, if they seem to have believed him. Why push things so far? Isn't an agent meant to be subtle?
Most will suffer through this initial meeting - Haesil's past work speaks for itself, and he is worth the money. Regardless of how much they're paying him, however, there's a chance he'll turn them away, deigning their troubles not worth an investigation. For a man who often works for the wealthy and noble, he's not very concerned about professionalism.
Haesil does believe he's charming - or rather, he believes that his business persona is a charming character, and he's never broken character simply because his acting has upset someone. And it's completely true that he enjoys the thrill of a complicated job, a risky one - a problem he's never encountered before to puzzle through, or the prickling sense of nausea that accompanies nearly being caught in a lie. He finds himself bored more often than not, so he lives for such highs.
And sometimes it's simply funny to toy with people.
It would be a mistake to claim Haesil doesn't care about his work, however:
โท [ shrewd, diplomatic, confident ] โท Being a convincing actor is a good trait for an agent to have, but it's not enough to make them a good agent. That requires a level of awareness over oneself and one's surroundings that few possess. Haesil has put in the time and effort to make himself worth the money.
He researches multiple aspects of the role he'll be filling before he approaches his targets so that, by the time he does so, his disguise convinces the most distrustful of misers. He records his notes in cipher. His thinking is not naturally lateral; he spends much of his free time working through puzzles and trivia to keep his mind sharp and pliable - like stretching a muscle.
He's educated himself on various cultures around Tamriel and understands the basic etiquette and vernacular of a dozen separate and diverse groups. He knows when to follow social mores to avoid suspicion. He knows when to break them to steer a conversation in a profitable direction. He knows how to redirect attention.
None of this is a chore - he adores his work, enjoys the sleuthing and the gossip of it all.
He's quite aware of the fact that he's a valuable friend to keep and dangerous enemy to have; Haesil believes, genuinely and wholeheartedly, that he is the best operative the world has ever seen, independent or otherwise. To him, this an objective fact. This deluded sense of confidence makes it easy to insert himself into any situation without an ounce of shame or self-preservation.
โท [ patient, tolerant, passive ] โท Haesil feels quite safe under these delusions of grandeur, believing he's untouchable. He approaches life believing that he'll only die when he's ready to die and doesn't entertain any other possibility. Because of this, he's very generous with his time - he's been an attentive listener since he was young, he asks good, open-ended questions, and he rarely takes offense (even when offense is meant). He thinks he's experienced annoyance before, but it's difficult to say - certainly, he's never been angry in a manner that wasn't performative.
He's very forgiving of flaws in other people, and has precious few stipulations - he dislikes child abuse, slave trafficking, and violations of consent, but is happy to exchange pleasantries and business with all other sorts of social refuse, and he has a high threshold for disrespect and threatening behaviors. When he believes his associates truly mean to do him harm (and when that concept ceases to excite him) he'll slip away at the first notice.
Haesil is not an assassin, and he will not kill another person, but that's not out of the goodness of his heart - he will conspire to murder, he will act as an accessory to murder, and he will shamelessly lay down his own money to have someone murdered given enough cause. He only refuses to deal the killing blow.
He follows the Green Pact very devoutly, and interprets it very literally; he does not have enough time nor family to do what he'd need to do with a body, so he's sworn off killing anything larger than a wolf.
โท [ dishonest, callous, myopic ] โท Haesil is not a pathological liar. Everything he says and does is intentional and he's very meticulous about keeping each character's story consistent - even when the character he's playing is lying, they're lying in a way that's credible to who they are. For example, Epiduin is a recovering alcoholic, but he lies to his new friends at the local tavern because he "doesn't want to bring the mood down," and only the barmaid knows that he's actually drinking water. She's very proud of him. Conveniently, Haesil avoids mind-altering substances. Every disguise is littered with these red herrings.
Haesil isn't lacking in empathy. He's both a detective an an actor, and in those lines of work the ability to immerse oneself in another's shoes is a hard requirement. To sleuth effectively, one must imagine how another's emotions and perceptions might cause them to act erratically. To act convincingly, one must know how to laugh and weep for the character they're portraying - and Haesil has only ever wept for his characters.
What he's lacking in is identity, and he readily compartmentalizes the terrible ways he's betrayed people he made friends of. Haesil has ruined many people's lives with what he learns and he doesn't feel badly about any of it; setting aside one's empathy is a very simple thing when there's no 'one' to blame.
Though he's perfectly able to plan his daily schedule months in advance for the sake of a job, he doesn't understand long-term gratification and hasn't ever sought it out for himself. A thrill-seeker, he's been known to compromise his position and months of effort for a single hour walking the tightrope. He's particularly drawn to scenarios that have a high likelihood of ending with him maimed or killed, and finds suffering preferable to his usual state of numbness.
โท [ tenacious, mutable ] โท Haesil doesn't believe that any of these traits are legitimately his own, and they might as well not be - there's very little he's unwilling to change about himself, and even his religious beliefs can be disguised with some effort. He is, above all things, adaptable.
โท HISTORY โท
Haesil was born in a brothel to an unknown father and a reluctant mother, and there he was raised communally by the courtesans among a dozen other children until he was around five years old. With resources stretched thin, he was chased from his home and loosed upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of Arenthia.
He already had an edge on the other urchins, a lesson taught by the mad scramble for attention that dominated the lives of whoresons raised in high numbers and close quarters - resources, be it food, affection, or anything else, are not obtained through patience. Resources are obtained through wheedling. Constantly. Boldly.
He was good at mirroring adults' expressions, offering a sympathetic ear. He was good at modeling himself to their expectations. He was good at making up a new sob-story every morning, and acting heartrendingly resigned to his circumstances. It got him money, which he could exchange for honey-braised salmon cutlets.
Eventually, it got him board and wage with a Camoran socialite who ran a high-end restaurant near the border with Anequina. She wasn't concerned about how poorly he bussed tables; he was being paid to eavesdrop, merely a cut of the profit she was making selling secrets under the nose of the Third Dominion and its heavy-handed surveillance.
And he was good at it.
Fourteen years and several private tutors later, and the while the doe-eyed softness of childhood had melted into a narrow, foxlike face that was handsome enough but not quite as trustworthy, his talent with manipulation matured into something truly formidable. He had everyone Adathel Camoran set him on eating out of his hand, whether they be skooma barons or Justicars.
It swiftly went to his head. With that sort of skill, why should he settle for a minute fraction of the profit when he could be quite wealthy as an independent contractor? He made up his mind to abandon her in the autumn of 4E 199, and so it was.
Listed here are a number of catastrophes his meddling is indirectly or directly responsible for. It is not a comprehensive list.
4E 201 : An Aldmeri merchant schooner carrying expedited medical supplies during one of the worst bouts of flu since the Third era discovered its entire cargo had been replaced with juvenile Jonethroats, a species of designer parrot.
4E 202 : A fighting pit is discovered in the root caves under Woodhearth and the gamblers are scattered by a local militia. Everyone's puzzled by the dreugh they managed to smuggle under the Graht without detection and dress in Orcish plate without vivisection.
4E 205 : A village near Dune holds an annual election for Head - a position much like a mayor in a homestead - and for eleven minutes, a six-year-old kitten has executive control over all affairs in her hometown. A recount is warranted, and while they never discovered who planted the false ballots, the investigation reveals that the prime candidate for Head had been complicit in Khajiiti trafficking with the dregs of House Dres. He's executed in the town square the following morning.
4E 208 : The young marriage of Kinlady Cianarre and Ioranlion of Cloudrest, the culmination of a bloodline planned six hundred years in advance, becomes a very public and messy divorce. Ioranlion's paintings depreciate in value by the hundreds and both he and his great grandfather (the one who planned the marriage) are declared apraxic - in his ancestor's case, posthumously. An infant is given to the care of a Temple of Auriel one year later.
In 209, Haesil was hired by a cult of Hircine to become close with the young chief of a neighboring settlement, Eldhedwen, and determine whether she suspected the rampant lycanthropy among their ranks, and whether she was planning on doing anything about it. His payment was to be an adamantine blade with a fine ivory hilt and a very interesting summer. Dusting off his unenviable skill with woodwind instruments, Haesil donned the guise of Caliver, an inept busker, and spent several weeks being chased from the streets outside her offices until she finally confessed that she found his tuneless piping endearing - which he knew she would, having researched her interests - and asked him to dine with her.
Having grown up in the environment he had, Haesil dislikes being physically intimate with his targets - the person they intend to spend that time with doesn't exist, after all - and after several months of spurning her advances, he expected that she would end their relationship. To his surprise, she only asked to him to stay - permanently. Tied at the wrists.
Even more shocking - he had considered it, laying down all of Haesil's ambitions and all of Haesil's hard-earned skills and dissolving into a character for the final time. Elhie was a firey woman, endearing in her own ways, and exactly the sort of person Caliver would have come to love. Once he forgot he had ever been anyone else, would he be able to?
Frightened by this self-destructive train of thought - like facing down the abyss and knowing you could choose to jump - he fled. He had confirmed that she had no idea the other tribe consisted of cultists, let alone apostates, but he never turned in his findings. He left the Dominion-held territories that year and hasn't returned; 'identity crisis' doesn't begin to cover the ego death waiting on him there.
He's found ample work in the meantime, having meandered his way through the Nibenean East, continental Morrowind, Southern Skyrim, High Rock, and back into the Heartland, but he's found that there's no demand for his sort in Skyrim, too much competition in High Rock...and poor air quality in Morrowind. Cyrodiil is the perfect temperature.
A week and a half before the current events, Haesil passed through Skingrad while wandering - a little more meaningfully - toward the Gold Coast. He was approached by an aging heiress in a low class tavern. She had heard rumors of him, and she had heard rumors of a disappearance in Anvil.
Earlier this week, a fisherman fresh from Valenwood rowed into harbor and inserted himself in the lives of the crew of Anvil's local shrimp trawler with surgical precision. He tells lots of stories and most of them imply that his twenties were largely lost to binging, which might explain why he's so bad at telling stories. He's a little obnoxious, but he's a nice a fellow, and it already feels like he's always been here.
โท REGRETS โท
"Last summer I went out a few hours before a storm hit the coast and capsized my boat. Not - not the boat, no. I had a massive halibut on the line. Was just about to pull her in, too."
Haesil struggles with the concept of regret - he emotionally distanced himself from the world at a very young age, and has yet to close the gap - moreover, he believes that, since the moment Anu endeavored to know itself, time has been on a relentless and inevitable progression of cause and effect, and that free will is the only illusion the Earthbones cast. He doesn't acknowledge his actions as his own, merely the result of every factor preceding them - he's just the catalyst, you see. This makes it (conveniently) difficult to feel remorse. What I'm saying is that he's full of shit.
But there are times, in between jobs, when he's left to contend with the void in his soul.
Haesil has been pretending to be someone else his entire life. He can reduce grown men and women to tears with the narratives he spins and the emotions he fakes, but his inner world is a very flat place beyond the acting. He's made more than one mer fall in love with him by telling them exactly what they want to hear, memorizing every minute detail and off-handed comment so they feel seen in a way they never have before, and it's ended in a marriage proposal at least once. He doesn't regret abandoning his bride - she thought she was marrying a man named Caliver, anyway.
It's just that the whole experience made him realize that he's never known real connection with another person. Perhaps regret is the right word. He should never have taken that job.
He practices his expressions in the mirror above a dusty faux-Reman basin that's been crammed in the corner of his room in a dockside inn. Plucked brows that pinch upward, concerned about a fellow sailor's coughing fit. Neutral. A bright smile that crisps the corners of his deadened eyes. Neutral.
He can tell you what Epiduin regrets. He's practiced that, too. He can tell you what his favorite story is ("The Guile Hero and the Round-Ring-Path!"), which city makes the best mackerel bake ("Honestly? Stros M'kai"), and which knot he prefers to use when returning to harbor ("It's called a senche-hitch. Of course you don't recognize it, it's from Malabal Tor").
Haesil made the senche-hitch up. Haesil has never been to Stros M'Kai. Haesil doesn't have a favorite of anything. It seems, to Haesil, that if Epiduin does not exist, then Haesil certainly doesn't.
โท GOALS โท
To be as annoying and irrelevant as possible. Or at least to be annoying and irrelevant enough that any inconsistency in his story is overlooked - that a fool might gravely underestimate him, get a little drunk and loose-lipped in his presence.
As with his regrets, Haesil's goals are very shallow. He's already doing what he believes he loves most - inventing personas, solving puzzles, airing out others' dirty laundry - and he's certain that he will be able to charge a king's ransom for his services in due time. It's simply inevitable. That sort of price needs a hefty resume, however, and he's content with building it at the moment.
Narratively, Haesil needs to be unmasked to grow. He needs someone else to see and judge him as himself, not the role he's playing - it might be better if that judgement isn't in his favor and holds him accountable for once. He's been living in a world relatively free of consequence, where he's unseen and unacknowledged, and it's made him question whether he (or anything) is real.
Or maybe he just needs to establish boundaries between his work life and his personal life.
โ
โท SPEECHCRAFT : EXPERT โท He's been caught in a lie many times. This doesn't negate the "fact" that he's the best money can buy (if you were to ask him, Haesil would say that's down to simple determinism) but these instances gave him a more well-rounded understanding of how people think. Before, he wondered how anyone could trust that he was who he said he was so easily - it's almost comedic, some of the nonsense people will believe only because a friendly stranger told them it was news. For Haesil, it had always been intuitive to look into another's face, minding their body language and their cadence, and know when he was being lied to. Was he the only one who noticed these things? Was everyone else in the world walking around with their eyes closed?
He understands, now, that people will believe what is convenient, not what makes sense. Not even what should be obvious. Present them with information that confirms their biases and they will accept it, no matter how far-fetched - what's more, they'll like you for it. They'll trust you.
Haesil divides his career into two eras. From the streets of Arenthia into his early twenties as an entrepreneur he assumed roles like a child playing pretend - and he believes most people who are hiding behind a persona do the same thing. He only set himself apart from these amateurs once he understood that the first person he had to convince with his story was himself. Haesil is a method actor born in a time period where acting is largely confined to the makeshift stages of wandering troubadours, and this means that his targets are often woefully unequipped to recognize his manipulations for what they are - after all, he feels that he's speaking true to his own experiences until he switches character and ceases to share those experiences.
A large part of his character is shaped by these sharp interpersonal skills (and near non-existent intrapersonal ones).
โท ILLUSION : ADEPT โท Have you ever made out a face in the grain of wood paneling? Have you ever spied a figure moving in your peripherals, but when you turn to look, there's no one there? When given little information, our minds will fill in the blanks. We, as thinking beings, do no experience reality objectively; what we believe to be reality is a recreation colored by our senses and perceptions. Haesil's spellcasting capitalizes on this principle - drawing attention toward what he wants the observer to see and away from what he doesn't, shaping their reality like a potter at the wheel.
He uses magic conservatively, however - Haesil, as an illusion adept, is better than most as seeing through illusions and resisting compulsions, but that means that other illusion mages can detect his own. Practical effects are always better.
โท STEALTH : ADEPT โท Something he considers heavily before attempting. He puts a lot of time into researching a location before he makes his move, minds the inhabitant's favorite rooms and schedules. If he can obtain floor plans, he'll memorize them to the best of his ability beforehand - he tries to befriend the local criminal underground to this end. When divesting archives of their excess records, he's certain to grab a handful of documents he has no use for - bills of purchase, tax records, layouts of wealthy estates - that the Guild might find interesting. This encourages helpful behavior from the thieves, in turn.
When circumstance requires it or he's feeling adventurous, Haesil's able to measure his movements to play the part of burglar, or commit some brazen, criminal act in daylight and then disappear into a crowd, but it's generally not his preference.
โท ALTERATION : NOVICE โท He's not as adept with alteration as he is with illusion, but he's attracted to the forbidden fruit of changing his given form. He's also aware that the spells in this school are invaluable utilities. He's grinding his way through self-teaching methods, but it will be a long process before alteration will give him what he wants from it.
โท ACROBATICS : NOVICE โท He and his kin are arboreal, and he was able to climb competently before he could walk. While he has an aptitude for acrobatics, Haesil appreciates the conveniences of horizontal living.
โท SECURITY : NOVICE โท The locks he's most familiar with are Khajiiti in design; the traps, Bosmeri. The Cyrodiilic design? Cryptic. Inscrutable.
โท SPEECHCRAFT : EXPERT โท He's been caught in a lie many times. This doesn't negate the "fact" that he's the best money can buy (if you were to ask him, Haesil would say that's down to simple determinism) but these instances gave him a more well-rounded understanding of how people think. Before, he wondered how anyone could trust that he was who he said he was so easily - it's almost comedic, some of the nonsense people will believe only because a friendly stranger told them it was news. For Haesil, it had always been intuitive to look into another's face, minding their body language and their cadence, and know when he was being lied to. Was he the only one who noticed these things? Was everyone else in the world walking around with their eyes closed?
He understands, now, that people will believe what is convenient, not what makes sense. Not even what should be obvious. Present them with information that confirms their biases and they will accept it, no matter how far-fetched - what's more, they'll like you for it. They'll trust you.
Haesil divides his career into two eras. From the streets of Arenthia into his early twenties as an entrepreneur he assumed roles like a child playing pretend - and he believes most people who are hiding behind a persona do the same thing. He only set himself apart from these amateurs once he understood that the first person he had to convince with his story was himself. Haesil is a method actor born in a time period where acting is largely confined to the makeshift stages of wandering troubadours, and this means that his targets are often woefully unequipped to recognize his manipulations for what they are - after all, he feels that he's speaking true to his own experiences until he switches character and ceases to share those experiences.
A large part of his character is shaped by these sharp interpersonal skills (and near non-existent intrapersonal ones).
โท ILLUSION : ADEPT โท Have you ever made out a face in the grain of wood paneling? Have you ever spied a figure moving in your peripherals, but when you turn to look, there's no one there? When given little information, our minds will fill in the blanks. We, as thinking beings, do no experience reality objectively; what we believe to be reality is a recreation colored by our senses and perceptions. Haesil's spellcasting capitalizes on this principle - drawing attention toward what he wants the observer to see and away from what he doesn't, shaping their reality like a potter at the wheel.
He uses magic conservatively, however - Haesil, as an illusion adept, is better than most as seeing through illusions and resisting compulsions, but that means that other illusion mages can detect his own. Practical effects are always better.
โท STEALTH : ADEPT โท Something he considers heavily before attempting. He puts a lot of time into researching a location before he makes his move, minds the inhabitant's favorite rooms and schedules. If he can obtain floor plans, he'll memorize them to the best of his ability beforehand - he tries to befriend the local criminal underground to this end. When divesting archives of their excess records, he's certain to grab a handful of documents he has no use for - bills of purchase, tax records, layouts of wealthy estates - that the Guild might find interesting. This encourages helpful behavior from the thieves, in turn.
When circumstance requires it or he's feeling adventurous, Haesil's able to measure his movements to play the part of burglar, or commit some brazen, criminal act in daylight and then disappear into a crowd, but it's generally not his preference.
โท ALTERATION : NOVICE โท He's not as adept with alteration as he is with illusion, but he's attracted to the forbidden fruit of changing his given form. He's also aware that the spells in this school are invaluable utilities. He's grinding his way through self-teaching methods, but it will be a long process before alteration will give him what he wants from it.
โท ACROBATICS : NOVICE โท He and his kin are arboreal, and he was able to climb competently before he could walk. While he has an aptitude for acrobatics, Haesil appreciates the conveniences of horizontal living.
โท SECURITY : NOVICE โท The locks he's most familiar with are Khajiiti in design; the traps, Bosmeri. The Cyrodiilic design? Cryptic. Inscrutable.
โ
โท GLAMOUR : ILLUSION โท A master of illusion can convince the Blades, the Elder Council, and the provinces of Tamriel that he is, in fact, the reigning Septim emperor for ten years. Haesil is no Tharn. He can change his aspect in subtle and convincing ways, however, sharpening his flaws into something enticing or blunting his good looks until he is common-faced and inconspicuous. If pressed, he can disguise his shape and coloration for a short time so that he can pass as a Dunmer, an Ohmes, or, on occasion, a goblin. He prefers to physically alter his appearance for long-term trickery, but this is useful when walking with a different gait is not enough to loose the heat on his tail.
He can utilize the same magic to disguise small items and sculpt the silhouettes of Daedra from plumes of smoke or a conveniently-shaped coat rack in a dark hallway - not for very long, but enough to smuggle them past the observer or frighten them off all together.
โท CHAMELEON : ILLUSION โท Haesil understands meddling with a person's senses, but he's always struggled with spells that remove him from another's perception entirely, and has yet to successfully cast invisibility - one of those rare, aforementioned annoyances. Chameleon is his alternative, as it involves redirecting a person's attention around himself, onto the objects or people surrounding him, rather than removing himself from the equation entirely.
โท SILENCE : ILLUSION โท Many mages use this spell to declaw an opponent's casting, but Haesil rarely finds himself in duels. He uses this to soundproof rooms when he's speaking candidly with clients (or betraying his clients). It's also useful when trespassing - better than having to time his breathing to avoid detection, though the absence of noise can be just as alarming, if not more so, as sound where there shouldn't be.
โท SANCTUARY : ILLUSION โท Sanctuary is a spell that disguises the mage's position in a mundane way - when their opponent attempts to hit them, they'll find that the mage was just a few inches to left of where they believed he was. Haesil is already fleet of foot, but this is an invaluable tool for a man who can't fight.
โท FEATHER & BURDEN : ALTERATION โท He's not capable of casting a feather spell strong enough to negate the weight of ebony or target an incensed warrior with enough burden to halt their charge, but he has unique applications for these spells.
Haesil is not a very strong person, and this occasionally incongruous with his cover identity - Epiduin is deceptively strong, capable of hauling in ocean fish, while Haesil requires a sneaky feather spell recast several times a day to accomplish that physical labor. A fortification spell might be better in this instance were he capable of casting it, but he's still working on that. He can alter his gait and mannerisms very quickly, but when disguised as an old beggar, his limp is more convincing when he targets his leg with a burden spell. It's these small things that make his feints feel authentic.
โท GLAMOUR : ILLUSION โท A master of illusion can convince the Blades, the Elder Council, and the provinces of Tamriel that he is, in fact, the reigning Septim emperor for ten years. Haesil is no Tharn. He can change his aspect in subtle and convincing ways, however, sharpening his flaws into something enticing or blunting his good looks until he is common-faced and inconspicuous. If pressed, he can disguise his shape and coloration for a short time so that he can pass as a Dunmer, an Ohmes, or, on occasion, a goblin. He prefers to physically alter his appearance for long-term trickery, but this is useful when walking with a different gait is not enough to loose the heat on his tail.
He can utilize the same magic to disguise small items and sculpt the silhouettes of Daedra from plumes of smoke or a conveniently-shaped coat rack in a dark hallway - not for very long, but enough to smuggle them past the observer or frighten them off all together.
โท CHAMELEON : ILLUSION โท Haesil understands meddling with a person's senses, but he's always struggled with spells that remove him from another's perception entirely, and has yet to successfully cast invisibility - one of those rare, aforementioned annoyances. Chameleon is his alternative, as it involves redirecting a person's attention around himself, onto the objects or people surrounding him, rather than removing himself from the equation entirely.
โท SILENCE : ILLUSION โท Many mages use this spell to declaw an opponent's casting, but Haesil rarely finds himself in duels. He uses this to soundproof rooms when he's speaking candidly with clients (or betraying his clients). It's also useful when trespassing - better than having to time his breathing to avoid detection, though the absence of noise can be just as alarming, if not more so, as sound where there shouldn't be.
โท SANCTUARY : ILLUSION โท Sanctuary is a spell that disguises the mage's position in a mundane way - when their opponent attempts to hit them, they'll find that the mage was just a few inches to left of where they believed he was. Haesil is already fleet of foot, but this is an invaluable tool for a man who can't fight.
โท FEATHER & BURDEN : ALTERATION โท He's not capable of casting a feather spell strong enough to negate the weight of ebony or target an incensed warrior with enough burden to halt their charge, but he has unique applications for these spells.
Haesil is not a very strong person, and this occasionally incongruous with his cover identity - Epiduin is deceptively strong, capable of hauling in ocean fish, while Haesil requires a sneaky feather spell recast several times a day to accomplish that physical labor. A fortification spell might be better in this instance were he capable of casting it, but he's still working on that. He can alter his gait and mannerisms very quickly, but when disguised as an old beggar, his limp is more convincing when he targets his leg with a burden spell. It's these small things that make his feints feel authentic.
โ
โท EQUIPMENT โท
Waterproofed canvas fishing waders
Prosthetic antlers, gold tine ring with a minor frost resistance enchantment
Coin purse containing various precious stones glamoured as clipped coins, approximately 3,000 septims in value
Scaling knife, fillet knife
Lockpicking tools
โท POSSESSIONS โท
Weathered two-seater rowboat, fishing rod, water-sealed tackle box with hidden compartment containing;
Tackles, lures, spare line
Various paints, dyes, concealers, and epoxies
Records of violent crimes and missing persons from the year 197, a tea-stained folio of written complaints from one Ms. Blanche Enoui, stolen from the Chapel of Dibella and other local offices.
Coded notes in Ta'agra script
Draught of water breathing, one hour duration
2 potions of magicka
โท EQUIPMENT โท
Waterproofed canvas fishing waders
Prosthetic antlers, gold tine ring with a minor frost resistance enchantment
Coin purse containing various precious stones glamoured as clipped coins, approximately 3,000 septims in value
Scaling knife, fillet knife
Lockpicking tools
โท POSSESSIONS โท
Weathered two-seater rowboat, fishing rod, water-sealed tackle box with hidden compartment containing;
Tackles, lures, spare line
Various paints, dyes, concealers, and epoxies
Records of violent crimes and missing persons from the year 197, a tea-stained folio of written complaints from one Ms. Blanche Enoui, stolen from the Chapel of Dibella and other local offices.
Coded notes in Ta'agra script
Draught of water breathing, one hour duration
2 potions of magicka
