Honor: Ascetic Name: Corin "Stub" Parvis Age: 154 Gender: Male Race: Business Scrub Place of Origin: Lost Woods P/W/C: 1/3/2 Treasures: Deku Leaf, Business, Korok Copter, Plant Composition (50 rupees) Height: 2' 3" Weight: 41 pounds Equipment: Deku Leaf Appearance: If you compare Corin Parvis to an army general, you wouldn't be too far off of the mark. He is more experienced than anyone he talks to, or at least he likes to think, and as such he looks down on everyone he talks to, and a stern expression to boot. Despite being deep and slightly raspy, he always yells as loud as he can to anyone he talks to, using his straight posture—with the exception that he uses he uses his arms as well as his facial expressions to emphasize his words—to support his vocals. His dismembered legs are replaced with a gnarled stub from his accident, with a curl in the middle, and balancing on it would be a great acrobatic feat to accomplish. To make up for it, Stub flies everywhere he goes. When he isn't traveling, he prefers to hover off of the ground at the height he would be when standing—around 2' 10"—, although conversations are always at eye-level. Corin thinks nothing of his handicap, except as a convenience for his shopping business. Making use of everything he has, one of his bags filled with items for his shop has a small hook on the lid that he hangs on his stub, while another is slung over his shoulder when traveling. His dark body has begun to wither and wrinkle with age, yet he shows no sign if being tired or weary until the sun sets and it's time to sleep. Except for Stub's circular mouth commonly found on Deku, his expression is always something of rage, regardless of whether he feels so or not. Burning, orange eyes are round at the bottom, but duck under his grass eyebrows pointing inward—in reality the top of his eyes are perpendicular to his eyebrows. The top of his rounded head sports no hair, while he always wears his frustum hat to help support his Deku Leaf. His arms imitate a pendulum when he flies, although smooth swinging is replaced with jerks and jabs when conversing. Personality: You are always less than Corin in his unwavering eyes. Whether they are around his age or significantly younger than him, if they have circled Hyrule twice or have never left their home town, everyone who converses with Stub won't leave without some sort of advice—scolding might be a better word. Although to himself, he does so as if he were one's father; such disdain stems from the love of his own father, and wishing to accomplish amazing feats to prove himself worthy of a parent's love. Almost all emotions were beaten out of him by his father, who wished for Corin to live up to his reputation and be a powerful business scrub. This makes showing and feeling emotions difficult, and only in extreme situations that he can remember had he ever shown them. Stern and strict, Stub by default is used to ruling with an iron fist to anyone and everyone. This doesn't mean, however, that he is incapable of charming the next passerby into buying something from his restocked inventory. When a customer approaches his stand, Corin is a different person resembling his father. His tone softens, to make the customer feel more welcome. He lures in his prey with slight fibs about his products, to get away with slightly raised prices. No one complains, as the lies are so small that no one notices. He waves his arms around less than he usually does, and gestures to products while he talks about them. Residence: N/A Backstory: The world of businesses scrubs is a complicated web to understand. Every business scrub tries to be the best in their own way, but work together to keep the BSA—Business Scrub Association—a collective and functioning organization. But as for everything with rules, there are people who know how to cheat the system for the reward of great increase in profit. Norman Parvis was the name belonging to one of those individuals. Norman started his journey as a business scrub as most others do: trading and selling items with anyone willing to share. One of the small problems with this strategy, however, was the lack of areas to sell items. The land of Hyrule was not as developed 250 years ago, with less towns and a smaller Hyrule Castle Town. Needless to say, with a small number of vendors and traders every day or week, Norman was constantly living on the edge of his rupees—some days needed to be spent surviving on the sun, water, and soil to survive instead of some decent food. After working with a family friend, Tarron Regnis, he gave up selling Deku Shields with his partner, and instead stole most of the supply. After safely hiding his swag, his friend's business was ruined, and Norman quit to coverup the thievery. He flew as far away as he could with the shields, eventually setting up shop in the Kokiri Forest, where they were very popular with the local Deku. The money that he was able to make from selling them was amazing to him, and that's when he had found a glitch in the system. At BSA meetings, he scouted out vulnerable targets and blackmailed them into giving Norman a portion of their supplies regularly in exchange for keeping quiet on personal matters in their life. Since most business scrubs sell one type of item, Norman had the advantage with an array of various items that he could sell. This meant that by regularly traveling between the only three existent sales hotspots at the time—Hyrule Castle Town, Nabooru, and the Kokiri Forest—he could sell and trade items from town to town. Eventually, when his economic power grew to be one of the most influential Business Scrubs, many members of the BSA grew suspicious. But they nor his enemies dared to do anything out of fear. He continued to live a steady economic life for the next 115 years, when old age made him feel as though he was missing something. He married his love interest, Sara Baley—whom he met at the BSA—after a six year relationship. They bought a house with Norman's fortune, and lived in it together—when Norman wasn't on his business runs. Five years after that, they gave birth to Corin Parvis. Unfortunately, the birth made Sara increasingly sick as the years went by. Despite all of the money Norman spent trying to cure her, she eventually died when little Corin was three years old. This event made Norman bitter, and he swore that his son would live to be the embodiment of her beliefs. Sara never knew his secret to success, but she made him feel evil about what he did to get into his position. He swore that Corin would become a powerful Business Scrub, but he would be taught the proper, moral way to do so. Nine years later, he tried to teach his son the ways of a proper Business Scrub. Corin was taught how to put prices on his wares—not so low that he wouldn't make a profit, but not so high that it would drive away a customer—and how to stretch the truth enough to reel a buyer in. He was taught various do's and don'ts of bartering and trading with other merchants, and even how to efficiently pack and carry his inventory. The teaching style, however, was harsh on Corin. Norman wouldn't settle for anything less than perfect in his eyes, and was never satisfied with anything Corin accomplished. When he taught Corin a lesson, it began with hours of being home-schooled on the subject, followed by Corin practicing with or on his father. No matter how convincing Corin was, Norman always found something wrong with his performance, be it his eye movement, gestures, phrasing, or even his tone. Then they would move on to another subject, only to have the process repeat and eventually circle back through them. But through all of his, Corin never hated his dad, and instead only wanted to make his father proud. He knew that the whole time, Norman wanted Corin to be better than him. When Corin was seventeen, his teachings were cut short. By this time, Norman felt that being 168 was too old for him to travel, so Corin worked with him at his shop in Hyrule Castle. But a group of suspicious Business Scrubs, who hated Norman ever since he rose to power, finally decided that he should be stopped from becoming the most powerful Business Scrub in history. In order to evade arrest for their future crime, however, they hired a group of bandits in the Lost Woods a hefty sum of rupees to carry it out. In the dead of night, all eleven bandits shot a fire arrow each at a different part of Norman's house. The building was mostly engulfed when Corin was awakened by the smoke. Realizing the severity of the danger, he ran to his father's room to escort him out of the burning residence. Norman Parvy had collapsed on the ground, coughing uncontrollably, and couldn't answer his child's screams of terror. Corin yelled at his father to follow him out of the house, and after no verbal response, he tried to pull him. He was responded to with a shove, and was commanded to leave as fast as possible. Despite the walls and ceiling collapsing around him, Corin refused to leave his father and mentor to die alone, and chose to sit by Norman and let the flames consume them both. Norman was the only person Corin had in his life, and he didn't want to be left alone in the world without his guidance. Their union was cut short by a large blazing piece of the ceiling finally collapsing on top of Norman and Corin's legs. Norman, already weak from the large amount of carbon in the area, was unable to muster the strength to pry his lower half free. Only when his legs completely burned off was Corin finally able to pull himself away from the wreckage. Half conscious, the only thing he could think of doing at that point was using his Deku Leaf through the new gap in the roof, and flying as far away as possible. Corin ended at a small pond some time later, when he had grown too tired to fly safely. He rehydrated himself, then laid himself in the water to heal his burns until he fell asleep. Normally, a person in a situation such as this would cry their eyes out, and it would negatively haunt their lives until they died. For Corin, it was more like that feeling where you have so many emotions that your body shuts down and doesn't have a single reaction. Yes, the memory of his father's last moments stay with him for years, but that memory drove him to carry out his father's—which was originally his mother's—wish. After his father's death, he never felt like he had any emotion to him until someone strolled over to his shop. Although his voice carried far, there wasn't any happiness, fear, or anger. And when he was trying to win over a customer, he felt more like his father than himself. For the next two years, his handicap seemed like a major inconvenience to him. Carrying around supplies was more difficult when there weren't two feet on the ground to support him, and staying vertical in the air all of the time was, by itself, hard enough. He had inherited his father's shop after the "accident", but since Norman was dead, Corin no longer had a steady supply of his inventory coming to his shop in Hyrule Castle Town. Desperately, he tried to find one old ally to his father's and beg him to continue sending his supplies. Instead, he stumbled upon a cave filled with treasure and other loot. This lead him to, in the future, having his main source of stock come from whatever he salvages in his journeys. When he had fully matured, at twenty years old, his wound had healed into a large stub under his body. Despite a low knowledge of ingenuity, since his father taught him how efficiency was very important, he found a new way to turn his handicap into a convenience. He made a self piercing in the stub, and modified one of his bags which he used to carry supplies with a hook that hung in the hole. This made traveling from town to town and exploring the vast expanse of Hyrule easier for him, since that left one less bag in his hands, and the weight below him made him swing less in the air when carrying it. Although he has a more professional looking shop in Hyrule Castle, Corin has a travel setup in one of his bags. Whenever he stops at a town to sell his wares, he puts up his shop and stays for a few days before moving on. He keeps himself on a schedule, where he has a certain area that he can travel in to explore when traveling from town to town. But once exploring time is over, he makes his way to the next town on his schedule, so he visits most major towns regularly—most of his schedule is spent traveling to and from Kokiri Forest, since he avoids the rest of Southern Hyrule. Now, Corin is 154, and not much has changed for him since 130 years before. He is happy with his current lifestyle; he can live a life that his father wanted and he can explore everything he can about Hyrule. He doesn't feel close to being "too old" for anything he does, and the rate at which Hyrule changes before his eyes amazes him; and he adapts his sales accordingly.
Before I begin, don't forget the rest of the racial treasures: Business, Korok Copter, and Plant Composition. I like it. Your backstory was very well written, and you had me gripped through most of the narration. I would recommend going through this a second time and checking it for errors: things like "The money that he was able to make from selling them was amazing to him, that that's when he found a glitch in the system. At BSA meetings, he scouted out vulnerable targets, and blackmailed them" happen enough to be pointed out. In case you were wondering, the errors there were: amazing to him[,] [that that's] [targets,] What I would like to see expanded on is the change between his "normal personality" and his "business personality." I understand how an on/off switch works (having one drilled into me myself), but I would like to see his business side explained a little more. The entirety of the Personality section was dedicated to his "normal self," and only a sentence was devoted to saying "but he can still flip the switch when he needs to." Normally, the "my character's like this but he can act differently when he needs to" is a cop-out; however, I think in this case it makes sense. It's just that your backstory makes it sound like he's in Business Mode almost all the time, because he was taught how to interact with other merchants, suppliers, and customers, and it sounds like he's almost always on-the-job. Because of that, I think it's worth spending a little more time on how he acts around people he considers switch-flippy-worthy. After all, it's like you said: he's not going to shout and scream at point blank range to a customer he's trying to woo. I also think it's fascinating that Corin didn't have the usual reaction to a father's death, especially one where the son was physically present and fled from. I'm not saying I don't believe it, or that it can't work, because it can. I would just recommend having it all figured out before you start RP'ing- how does Corin deal with thoughts of his father now? Why, after the initial shock of the episode had faded, didn't he feel grief? Things like that- you don't need to answer, them, but it's worth thinking about. It's better to consider questions like these now and put them into a character sheet than wait for an RP post when you have to talk about these things and not really know what to do. My one concern is about his father: the whole "was nearly the most powerful Business Scrub in history who had most of the BSA under his thumb before he was assassinated by his enemies" thing isn't exactly representative of the majority of the DS population. It's not a bad plot- I really enjoyed reading it. Whether it fits in Ascetic, though, hmmm. I'd like another staffer's opinion on this (which would be needed anyway, since the 2/2 grading is especially stressed for Honored characters).
I will go through and check for errors (I didn't see those, and now I see some others xD). But for his personality, I can gladly elaborate on what his business side is like. About his father's death, I had already thought through all of that, but I can put much more detail emphasizing that aftermath in the sheet. Regarding the backstory of his father, I can change it accordingly while keeping the main point (I left it as it is now because, to me, it better illustrated a fall from power).
I would hold off on changing his backstory until someone lays it down that it's absolutely necessary. It's just such a good story that I wouldn't want to mess with it unless you need to. And yeah, it's always better to put something down on the sheet if you know it. That way, it's always there to look at and read if/when you need a reminder. Just make a post when you're ready, ya?
I already edited everything (that I could find) that you told me to change, so I think I'm ready unless another mod doesn't like the backstory.
Nice! It sounds like he died on the inside. Very cool, and it should be fun to play with. You put the racial treasures under Equipment when they should be under Treasures- Equipment is for mundane things like "rucksack, daggers," whatever. It's what the person is usually carrying on his person. You don't need to do much with it, aside from moving the racials; just know that Equipment =/= Treasures. You have my vote. Great job! [1/2]
