Given the vibes of the OOC, would something like a wandering apothecarist make sense? Either way, I'm a big fan of this sort of concept and love me some more serious Elder Scrolls. Which is to say I'll do some writing. [hr] Posted a WIP below, although it won't be too long to wrap up, as it's been a minute since I did anything ES, so happy to receive any thoughts or feedback. Edit: Small Updates [hider=Imare Larethian] [B]Name:[/B] Imare Larethian [B]Race:[/B] Altmer [B]Age:[/B] 25 [B]Birthsign:[/b] Atronach [B]Family Origins:[/B] Imperial City, Cyrodiil [B]Appearance:[/B] [hider=Placeholder, probably...] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f7/37/42/f737426d4b51f9536014eb88a5dd07cf.jpg[/img] [/hider] A young Altmer of Imperial vintage, Imare posses the slender, graceful build expected of a High Elf. She has prominently pointed ears adorned with tasteful amounts of jewelry and almond-shaped eyes that shine brightly with an amber light. Light skinned for an Altmer, Imare's skin is cast in a pale shade of gold-tinted pink. According to the healer who birthed her, Imare's distinct appearance is the result of her deep connection to the sign of her birth and the unmistakable mark that the Atronach has left on her very spirit. Time spent on the road, several years spent traversing the provinces of Tamriel, have sharpened some of the softness that once defined Imare's form and provided her with the agile shape earned chiefly by the well-traveled. A wandering apothecary, Imare wears clothing intended for long journeys. Donning thick leather boots, a pair of wool breeches, a sturdy belt, a shirt woven from kreshweed fiber, and an ample cloak with a hood. Favoring hues of green and blue, she has seen that plenty of discreet pouches and pockets have been added to her clothing. [hr] [B]Personality:[/B] No fighter or battle mage forged in the heart of battle, Imare is a studious alchemist seeking only to peacefully ply her trade across Tamriel. Imare is not a hero, certainly not by her own measure. She has no aspirations for greatness. No ambitions to change the world. And no desire to attract undue notice. A small garden to tend too. A quaint country cottage covered in green resting next to a calm stream of clear water. And life in a peaceful, secluded valley are all that she dreams of...or so she tells herself in the long, dark hours of the night. Mousy, Imare is cautious when conversing about all matters save alchemy, trade, botany, or zoology. Somehow she is able to adopt a different persona when engaged in mercantile matters, channeling an unexpected confidence and poise from deep within. Adept at haggling and striking fruitful agreements, Imare is softly, subtly persuasive. She is the the sort of merchant able to gently convince a customer to pay just a bit more for something that they already need or want, without leaving them remorseful and racked with bitterness afterwards. Gentle by nature, Imare abhors violence, showing little interest in weapons, armor or anything approaching physical conflict. Polite games of Five Card Wisp or leisurely sessions of Cross Stones, a popular High Elf board game, represent the greatest extremes of Imare's competitiveness. However, for all her decency and grace, Imare wants to live, she wants to see another sunrise, and she wants to eat another sweet roll. [hr] [B]History:[/B] [hider=VERY WIP...] Beneath the fading winter light of Masser and Secunda, on a day when the Imperial City lay shrouded in a thick layer of frost, Imare Larethian was born, in the one hundred and and eighty eight year of the fourth era, sheltered under the sign of the Atronach. She was the youngest and seventh child of an exceedingly fruitful Altmer union. Her mother, Viriniel, was a civil servant, an Imperial Bailiff. Her father, Teldigaran, was yet another civil servant, an Imperial tax collector. Simple, humble High Elves of the middle class. Not nobles, but proud civil servants. Owners of a modest house in the Elven Gardens District. Loyal citizens of the Empire, the Larethian family was the respectable sort of Imperial family viewed kindly by most. Placed in an awkward position by the recent conflict with the Aldmeri Dominion and the tense peace that has followed. Open with their love and support for the Empire and their dismay at what their distant cousins in the Summerset Isle had become. Raised in a family of wizards that hailed from an immeasurably long line of wizards with only the occasional necromancer to be found unlike her siblings, Imare showed little natural talent for magic capable spellcaster, with a deep reservoir of magic, afflicted as many, born under the sign of the Atronach, Imare found she did not recover unaided from spellcasting, finding herself drained of energy after casting a spell and long in her recovery attaining a substantial command of the school of Alteration only through long, laborious hours of study stubbornly persisted in her magical studies, despite frequent bouts of feinting considered to be frail and poor in health, Imare found solace in reading, particularly the books of her long dead maternal grandfather, a noted botanist despite her lengthy studies, she often went into the countryside to look for plants, despite the fearful response of her parents and loud admonishments from her older siblings a friend of her father, the wealthy Redguard merchant, Dorian Rackham, noticed Imare's interest in botany and gave her the run of his sizable garden aloof, if not fully disowned from her much more respectable family, Imare eventually found work tending the botanical gardens in the Arboretum District, in the southeast district of the Imperial City. Helped to cultivate the gardens sheltering the statues of the Divines. secured an apprenticeship with a noted Bosmer botanist, Glaurilas Oakthorn a master alchemist responsible for much of the elaborate greenery surrounding the Imperial Palace, Glaurilas taught Imare what it truly meant to be an alchemist diligently toiling in the Green Emperor Way, no matter the hour or weather, desiring to forge her own way, stake her own claim, Imare opened an apothecary in the Market District, specializing in the acquisition of rare alchemical ingredients and boutique potions modest success, the unfortunate loss of a large shipment of potions to bandits, left Imare teetering on the edge of financial ruin approached by friends of distant friends, unfamiliar acquaintances that offered to make introductions to people willing and able to help someone in her unfortunate position in short order found herself a member of the thieves guild [img]https://images.uesp.net/7/74/OB-icon-Thieves_Guild-Cat_Burglar.png[/img] fencing stolen goods trading in illegal substances engaged in the Skooma trade, if peripherally (from her perspective), refining moonsugar into Skooma at the behest of her superiors within the Thieves Guild providing poisons to members of the Thieves Guild and select, previously vetted customers, never fatal, at her own insistence any moral doubts she had about her dealings, quickly silenced by the coin she made and the books /alchemical ingredients she could purchase rose in the ranks, reaching the respectable rank of Cat Burglar within the Thieves' Guild, less for her talents as a thief and more for her skills brewing potions and poisons as needed it all fell apart after a job a job, like so many others before it, unremarkable from Imare's point of view her contact with the thieves guild requested a potion to paralyze and drain the fatigue of a particular target brief kidnapping, a mere message to a Lord Amminus Carvain, a noble with too many delinquent debts and too little interest in calling in the required favors to pay off these debts Imare does not know what went wrong she calculated correctly she mixed perfectly her poison shouldn't have killed the young Imperial noblewoman, the daughter of Lord Carvain, but it did no way to trace it to her, no signatures in the work, many alchemists could have created the poison, though few in the Imperial City would it didn't matter, Imare knew, she had known from the moment the grim news had reached her, she was a murderer, she was a murder and that was all that mattered sold her shop to a friend, packed up the small number of possessions that she kept, and began to travel wrote only a brief letter to her family said few goodbyes, ensuring only that her superiors in the Thieves' Guild would not feel unduly slighted spent several years traveling across Tamriel, chiefly Cyrodiil, serving as a traveling alchemist and apothecarist never staying in one place for very long felt something calling her, pulling her towards Anvil, a city she had visited before [/hider] [B]Biggest Regret:[/B] Although she will never willingly speak the words out lout or even at a whisper, Imare's greatest regret is her critical role in the poisoning of the much celebrated Lady Severa Carvain. The young Imperial woman's death weighs heavily on Imare's conscience and no matter what stories she tries tells herself Imare has yet to soften the guilt that she feels. [B]Imare‘s Goal:[/B] Imare has but one long chain of desire. To travel far away. To start a new life. To bury herself in her work. To make coin, good coin, bartering her wares. And to forget. To forget that she dealt in illicit goods, creating substances addictive in nature, spilling Skooma, refined from the purest moonsugar, onto the streets. To forget that she consorted with the thieves guild hiding in the Imperial City, selling her soul for mere Septims. To forget that she killed a young woman. To forget that she is a murderer. And to forget that she is a coward. A coward unwilling to say no. A coward unwilling to admit her guilt. A coward unwilling to challenge her associates. A coward unwilling to share with her friends. A coward unwilling to face her family. And a coward unwilling to say goodbye to her beloved. [hr] [B]Skills:[/B] [b]Expert:[/b] Alchemy - Imare is a dedicated and gifted student of the mundane appearing arcane art of alchemy. Potions, poisons, and all manner of strange brews are within her scope of knowledge and ability to create with even the most limited ingredients and tools. The Altmer mage is a collector of recipes and complex formulas, recording all that she discovers in the hopes of furthering the study of alchemy. A pragmatic alchemist bristling with unexpected creativity, Imare views alchemy as an art and science with boundless potential, performing what she calls field experiments when the opportunity presents itself. [b]Adept:[/b] Speech - Commanding the charm required to succeed in business, Imare softly weaves persuasion into her words and being. Time spent bartering alchemical ingredients and fencing stolen goods in equal measure, has provided Imare with a deep understanding of [i]all[/i] manners of commerce regardless of any potential legal issues. Alteration - Uninterested in violence, the school of Alteration appealed to Imare from the day she began to study the arcane arts. To learn the nature of the physical world. To learn all the possibilities. To change patterns and to make things not what they should be...but what they could be entranced the young alchemist. In her travels across Tamriel, Imare has not failed to notice more practical applications of Alteration. [b]Novice:[/b] Pickpocket - The product of time spent as a member of the Thieves Guild, despite her arcane vocation Imare has learned the basics of lightening the pockets of strangers. Sneak - Keen to avoid conflict and familiar with the value of discretion, Imare has as a firm grasp of the essential aspects of moving clandestinely. [b]Spells:[/b] - Alteration: Ironflesh, Open, Magelight, Telekinesis, Transmute, and Waterbreathing. [B]Equipment:[/B] - A fine leather backpack, enchanted with a feather spell, to allow Imare to carry a respectable amount of alchemical ingredients and potions. Imare keeps a bedroll tied to her backpack and a rolled up length of tarp suitable for use as a small tent or makeshift storefront. - A collection of alchemical apparatus (Mortar and Pestle Alembic, Calcinator, Retort) carefully stored in a satchel intended to be worn on the hip. - An Iron Knife, a tool rather than a weapon. - A sharpened set of metal Shears, ideal for clipping leaves or flowers. [B]Misc. Possessions:[/B] - Imare records her alchemical recipes and formulas in a thick journal bound with netch leather. Frustrating any uninvited readers, Imare writes in her journal in an unknown script and strange language of her own creation. [/hider] If possible I would like to inquire on the nature of the Synod / College of Whispers as pertains to this RP? Do one or both still exist and are they the chief providers of magical training? If not, what other institutions would train a mage instead?