"Odds? Man, screw the odds! I'll win anyway!"
Name: Ilmarinen Dixon (It's sort of a test. He introduces himself and sees if others can pronounce it. If they can't, he goes by Elmer. He doesn't mind)
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Job: Bard
Place of Residence: Currently an inn in Palisade.
Appearance:
Alright, let's get this out of the way: Ilmarinen is short. He stands at 5'6'', and that's if he tries to stretch and make himself look impressive. He's also pretty. Not as in, 'he could be mistaken for a girl' type of pretty. He's simply got a rather finely-built look about his face. It ends there, though.
Well-aware of his lack of height, Ilmar has put a lot of care into his body. He keeps himself in shape. While he'll never be able to build up a large amount of muscle, he's got a lithe, muscular, swimmer's build. He actively tries to keep it too.
His hair is cut short and is a rather lovely coppery color. His eyes are green.
Personality:
You know that guy who never gives up? The guy who you could probably sandblast for five minutes until almost nothing is left and he will keep fighting anyway? Yeah. That's Ilmarinen. There's a fine line between 'stubborn' and 'foolhardy'.
He comes nowhere near that line. He's just foolhardy. He cannot pass up a challenge and the word 'impossible' is just another word for 'challenge'. 'Defeat' isn't in his vocabulary, except as 'something that happens to other people'. He lives for adventure and fun, pretty much. It doesn't matter if the challenge is something silly like 'hey, I bet I can make stones skip more than you can'. It is still a challenge and he will happily meet it. Like most people, he dislikes losing but at least he's learned to be a gracious loser. He'll clap shoulders and probably go buy the other person a victory pint or something. You can't win them all, you know.
Admittedly, he'll then continually re-challenge the other person again and again and again until he wins or the other person distracts him with some other challenge.
He's terribly protective of his friends. Perhaps a bit too protective, to the point where his instincts override his rationality (or what little rationality he's got).
Staying in one place for a long period of time bores him to tears. He needs something happening all the time. If nothing interesting is going on, he'll just wander off to find something that is interesting. Basically, he just wants to be active. He's happiest when he's moving around and doing something athletic: running, fighting, wrestling. He's a very physical guy. He's what you would call 'boisterous'. I'm not even trying to make a pun here.
As you can guess, 'social skills' isn't really in his repertoire. He's not the type of guy who would be at home at a fancy party or something. Or anything that requires special clothing.
History:
Elain - Mother - Is asskicker a j... no? oh fine. :c She carves pretty things from wood.
Tapio - Father - blacksmith
Ilmar is actually the end result of an eloping couple. Elain's parents didn't approve of the match. Elain, always a bit of a free spirit, gave her parents due consideration and promptly decided 'sods to the lot of them' and ran away with Tapio to Palisades.
It seemed like a reasonable decision at the time. And, really, it was. Sort of. It meant starting in the slums of the metropolis, but surely love could conquer all?
Well, it couldn't conquer the mounds of trash lying around, but love surely resulted in Ilmarinen.
His parents couldn't have been happier. (Alright, admittedly, privately, they would admit that they could use a bit more money, maybe some clean clothes, and certainly some food, but none of their troubles had anything to do with their brand new baby boy). Ilmar grew up quickly on the streets.
He also grew up with a best friend forever in Annelie Cox, who lived next door. The parents surely enjoyed raising their kids together, secure in the knowledge that, for the next two hours, the kids would be too busy bothering each other to care about harassing their parents. That, after all, is the primary function of other small children.
One day, at nine, Ilmar happened to come across a bard. He was immediately enchanted by the music. How did such things happen? It was speaking without words. Words were always such fumbling things, never quite managing to contain the entire emotion. But music... that was the real communication. Sounds that existed long before words came to define them, ancient and roaring.
He fell in love immediately and his parents did what they could to support his new obsession. They were pretty sure it would end like all of his other obsessions (just the week before, he'd told his parents he wanted to grow up to be a horse sooo...)
But this one didn't fade. If anything, music solidified Ilmar's often wandering path. He hasn't strayed from it since.
Currently, he makes his living as a performer. He pays for his stay at the inn with music and performances. It's not a particularly fancy inn, but he says he doesn't need much.
Other stuff: He and Annelie are friends! biggrin Somehow. Against the odds. He's very good on the harp. He prefers a small lap harp with 22 strings, but will happily play larger instruments. He's also a dab hand on the fiddle. He's got a good tenor voice as well.
