Violet Figgleleaf

Name: Violet Figgleleaf
Birthplace: Athkatla ("The City of Coin"), Amn
Age: Late Twenties
Race: Halfling, Lightfoot
Gender: Female
Worshipped Deities: Yonadalla, Azuth, Waukeen
Alignment: True Neutral

Appearance, Personality and Mannerisms:

Short and slight even for her kind, diminutive though she may be, Violet seems to try to make herself appear even smaller wherever possible through her bad posture and hunched shoulders, thinsoled shoes, and her deliberate hiding behind larger humanoids. Overall, she is very mousy with rather boringly cut hair, plain features, and a tendency towards wearing dull, frumpy robes and scuffed spectacles. One would not be blamed for overlooking her entirely.

If one were actually to take note of her - though the Powers alone know why anyone would bother - they'd note her perpetual skittishness, her excessively nervous and jittery state of being, and her recurrent and uncontrollable stammer. She speaks in a squeaky, somewhat whiney voice that is irritating at best, and whenever possible tries to go unnoticed, perfectly happy to stare at her feet and let everyone about her do the talking.

If one got to know her - again, though, whyever would one want to considering how dull and boring she is - they would find someone as horrendously insecure and prone to depression as all her mannerisms suggest. She carries around with her a large amount of misheld guilt and a bad self-image, and when others try to dispell her of these false self-conceptions, she seems more embarassed than relieved.

She has redeeming features too, though she herself would not admit to such. She is strikingly intelligent, though this is dulled somewhat by her stubbornness and timidity - and is a good deal more reflective and contemplative than most wizards. Whilst not a doo-gooder, she also has a fundamentally good heart, though one torn between the orderly tendencies of her education and profession, and the rather impulsive streak she inherits from simply being a hin. Furthermore, she is more than accomplished in the Art, though she herself does not quite comprehend yet the extent of her power, isolated as she was during most of her arcane education.


Birth and Childhood:

Violet Figgleleaf was born out of wedlock to Fuchsia Figgleleaf, a single mother in Athkatla, the capital city of the nation of Amn. A halfling family of neither significant wealth nor poverty, the Figgleleafs belonged smack bacng in the middle of the merchant class, Fuchsia being the proprietor of an independant grocery and herbalists just west of Waukeen's Promenade, the merchant district of the City of Coin.

With the single largest halfling population of any city within Faerun, Violet did not grow up in isolation from other hin. However, she did grow up in isolation from her folk's culture and religion, the majority of the hin she encountered being particularly scoundrelous representatives of the race, those most likely to travel and thrive in other lands. Violet's mother, on the other hand, had almost completely adopted human culture and religious worship, and passed down to her daughter only the vaguest understanding of Yondalla and the hin pantheon.

Living above her mother's shop, Violet was for the most part left to her own devices when she was not helping her mother in the storefront or running errands - given her naturally timid nature, however, and her self-image problems originating from the stutter with which she was born, she was not inclined to roam much outside the Promenade alone, and spent the majority of her time reading her mother's books, and those of any temple or library which she could buy membership to with her allowance. What interested her the most, were books of magical things, tales of wizards... things that excited her.

This was perhaps for her own good - after all, Athkatla is a dangerous city and for her to wander alone, as a child... a hin child no less, would have been very dangerous.


Education:

On her thirteenth birthday, Fuscia presented her daughter with a present, the greatest suprise of her life. Saving up a portion of her earnings from her business, she had secured, through bribes and gifts, an apprenticeship for Violet - an apprenticeship to a Wizard.

Magic, see, is an extremely rare and shunned thing within Athkatla. Watched over by the mysterious Cowled Wizards, the practice of magic within the city limits is feared and persecuted by the populace, and banned outright in law to any other than the Cowled Wizards themselves, and those wealthy or influential enough to secure permission from the Council through bribery, blackmail, or favour.

Thankfully for Violet, Shayyid Ithkar - the wizard to whom she had been apprenticed - was neither a cowled wizard nor prone to blackmail, and had secured his permit through simple honest bribery. Rather doddery and forgetful, the Mulan wizard - a Thayan immagrant who felt he had little in common with his Red Wizard kinsmen - was a fundamentally goodnatured and patient teacher, and the closest thing to a father figure Violet ever had. A devout follower of Azuth, he drilled into Violet his beliefs about the need for tight control of magic, the responsible use of it, and the studious academic interest with which one must approach the Art. Lacking children of his own, he saw in Violet a daughter, and lacking an heir to his wordly belongings, was training her in the Art as he had been, so that one day she might take his place.

((To be continued))