eleilinn — Roleplayer Guild

Name: Leith

Race: Undine (Crocolite) 

Text Color: 0054a6 (blue)

Special Skill: Linguistics, particularly ancient languages (inclusive of paleography and orthography) and ciphers 
(I know this is leaning a little tricky application-wise, so areas where ve has related skills could include ink-work in general, sharp eye for details (paleography), and ciphers are already on the more useful side of applications anyways.)

Ambition: On a fundamental level, Leith wants to understand the world around ven. Ve initially chose to do that using words, but soaks up whatever knowledge ve can from wherever ve can find it. 

Personality: Leith is fairly quiet and tends to be attentive to detail. Ve struggles with spoken language and takes more time to formulate spoken responses than is typical for someone who is as proficient in written and encoded language as ve is. Ve loves observing and generally spending time with people, particularly anyone that ve latches onto as "interesting" or having something they can teach ven. On the whole, Leith is generally easygoing and friendly, and assumes the best from people. Ve is openly expressive and demonstrative of emotions.

Childhood: Leith was born in the swamp and raised in a small, quiet extended family, somewhat secluded from even other Undine. Ver parents and other adults had several difficult interactions with humans in the area, and a disagreement with leaders in the nearby crocolite communities drove them to set up a place to raise their children away from as many potential "dangers" (real or imagined) as possible. Leith never knew which of the adults that raised ven were ver parents and which were aunts, uncles, or other relations, and which of the other children were siblings, and which were cousins. This wasn't ever important to ven. As one of the middling-youngest, Leith was never particularly outstanding to the adults, and though ve was happy and not neglected, ve also developed a very strong yearning for something More and to know more than ver family could teach ven.

Training: When Leith was entering adolescence, an unfamiliar trader came to ver family home with a strange book. This trader and the book both fascinated Leith, and ve almost unthinkingly followed the trader back to a library at the edge of the swamp. The librarians and scholars were initially cautious, but after a few clumsy attempts at communication between them and the strange undine child lingering persistently outside, they took Leith in and started to educate ven on what they could. 
As Leith started to learn, ver proficiency with written language soon outpaced ver spoken ability, which didn't bother ven or the scholars very much. Over time, ve started to take up transcribing and translating texts from the oldest parts of the library, and was fascinated to learn about how things used to be. Ve took particular interest in stories, myths, and legends, as well as in ancient puzzles and ciphers.
Despite ver interest in people and in learning about others, Leith almost never interacted with library patrons after one frightened human lashed out at ven early in ver stay at the library. Leith was more scared than injured, and the human patron was also safe, but the scholars made an effort to keep ven from 

Adulthood: Leith continued translating texts, and eventually one of ver translations became popular in scholarly circles, eventually circulating out of those circles and into the awareness of the general educated populace. Ve venself didn't become well-known, though ver name did start circulating in the circles of noble scholars. It wasn't until ve proposed an almost perfect solution to a previously cryptic ciphered text that ve became more well-known as someone of note and talent. 
Leith took up a more practical approach to developing a broader skill set after ve was an adult, following guidebooks from the library and working to sharpen ver physical abilities as well as ver mind. So far, it's slower going than ve would like, but that hasn't stopped ven from trying.

Family:
Leith's primary caretakers were Andali and Kariun, who looked after most of the family's younger children. Both of them were later put into military service. 
Mobin, Farbur, and Lyn were the three children that Leith was closest to. They collectively were slight troublemakers. Mobin and Lyn are still in the military, and Farbur left as soon as he could and works in a rural seaweed farm, courting someone he met in his time in the military.

Figures: 
Raelyn (human) was the scholar who started working with ancient languages with Leith. She helped ven to finish and edit ver translations, and then to distribute them. 
Thesson was the human 'trader' who Leith followed to the library. They worked regularly as a scholar of biology, particularly botany, and had been on a quest for a specific rare plant when they stumbled on Leith's family. They taught Leith basic plant identification.
Baker is a halfling scholar who ran the library as a whole and made the executive decision to allow Leith to live there. She was almost parental to Leith in some ways, but more distant as Leith grew older.

Themes: shadows, memory, truth

Tragedy: Due to (albeit unintentional) evasion of military service from many of the adults, Leith's peaceful family life fell apart after ve left for the libraries. Ve doesn't know where many of them ended up, and ve deeply regrets not being able to keep in contact at the very least (and not being there to 'try help' at the very most). 

Flaws: Flighty, quick to withdraw from danger and easily startled. Due to ver inexperience with people past a small, select group, ve is easily manipulated or fooled, and doesn't think to question a lot of what other people tell ven.

Hobbies: Reading, poem-craft, geography (particularly the study of natural history in relation to geography), and more recently, agility/mobility type things (Leith aims to be able to do the strangest most gremlin-y things possible).

Appearance: While most undine are blue-grey, Leith takes more after the crocolite coloration, with brown and green hints to ver blue-ish skin. The patterns and variations of ver skin break up ver shape when ve is in swampy waters or in shadows, but in the light, the same variations look more like someone stirred ver colours together. 
Leith is short for an undine, reaching 5'4" on a good day, but ve can reach the top shelf in the library (and that's all that matters). To someone looking at ven and expecting a scholar, ve looks fairly unimpressive and overall soft, though ve is deceptively strong and agile from ver more recent forays into becoming like the heroes of history that ve admires. 
(I will make either a picrew version or a HeroForge of ven later, for now it is late.) 

(I personally have some passing proficiency in Old and Middle English, but much more limited ability with ciphers, so if Leith works then I'd plan on leaning on my experience with translating, but no promises that I myself could do anything related to encryption or decryption of ciphers.)
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