Name: JosseliAge: 28
Sex: Female
Sexual Orientation: She was married to a man once before, but does not otherwise seem to date and resists the majority of advances, assuming they are after her wealth.
Craft: Tannercraft (specialization in furs), weavercraft
As tannercraft is considered more of a holdcraft than something requiring intense crafthall-specific training, it was always important for Josseli (and her father, before he passed) to distinguish their wares from the rest of the choices. The family became quickly known for taking a sort of farm-to-table approach to their work. Josseli is involved from the selection of which beasts to cull, to the treatment of the leather, to the construction of the soft fur-lined cloth or leather, to the addition of accent pieces like gemstones, metal fasteners, or glass beading. Of course, she is not the one creating the textile, or carving the gemstone, or raising the beast, but her discerning eye selects these elements and it is her own hands that combine them all into extravagant garments. No doubt the extravagance is looked down on by many, and yet, Josseli's store remains flush with business. What she creates is expensive and time-consuming, and she will not barter. It costs what it costs.
Rank: Journeywoman (Tanner), Apprentice (Tailor)
Location: High Reaches Hold, with her storefront located in a standalone row of connected stone buildings that backs into the stableyard and faces the courtyard, within the protective outer walls but jutting off the mountain face of the Hold proper. She sells from the front of the house, does the messier parts of her work in a second backroom facing the stables, and then lives on the second floor above it. It has been in her family for many generations.
Physical Description: Josseli is a sturdy woman standing at 5’10” with dark brown hair and blue-green eyes that appear teal. She maintains a feminine shape, cut in the waves of an hourglass -- though she is a little more square in the hips, a little thicker with muscle around her waist. Her arms are not waifish things, nor her thighs. It is clear that Josseli has done labor in her life, physical labor, and it would be a fool that mistook her for weak.
Her eyes are shrewd, piercing, and heavy-lidded but rimmed with dark circles. Her nose is gently curved, bottom lip pouts out past her top, cheekbones as high as a royal's with a rounded chin. Her complexion is olive-toned and even. Her hair is almost always worn in a messy braid or messy bun, anything that keeps it out of her face. She is not strikingly beautiful and yet not plain. She is, more or less, of very slightly above average attractiveness. Despite her status, there is something regal about the way that Josseli carries herself that can make her memorable regardless. She carries herself like a Lady, even on her way to scrape flesh from the latest shipment of skins.
Her most unique feature is a white spider-webbing burn scar that covers her left hand and forearm, sprinkling up to her shoulder and crawling across the top of her left breast. As a child, she was following her father too closely as he worked on removing some fur from a skin and knocked over a boiling hot bucket of water. She nearly died from shock, but was able to recover through the use of salves that cost her father a good chunk of his valuables and goods. Even so, she considers the scar a glowing tribute to her strength and survivalism, even if she is insecure to have others see it.
Josseli does not wear makeup, but she does wear clothes that someone who might care about makeup would wear. Her skirts are long and gathered, often accented by hanging furs and crystals to draw the eye. Tufts of silken furs pop out from sleeves and collars. She is always in a corset with a matching high-neck jacket. Everyday, she treats her body like a billboard for her shop -- if Josseli is not wearing fur, then the world has ended. As gorgeous as some of her clothes might be, Josseli still wears sensible black work boots, scuffed and dirty from Turns of hard work.
She owns a few treasured belongings. Namely a golden hair comb that belonged to her mother, her father's furrier tools, a pair of fur gloves she made 100% by herself at age 8, and a jeweled clasp that she was awarded for her first high-quality garment.
Personality: Josseli is a woman who comes from hearty stock. There is little that she admits to fearing, though sometimes when gazing out at the horizon before Threadfall she might be seen looking concerned. Life, to Josseli, is about hard, honest work with little room for frivolity of personality or other such nonsense. (It is perhaps then, ironic, that she is known for creating beautiful, frivolously decorated clothing. But she would argue this is simply a good business plan.) She inherited this attitude from her father, now passed, who raised her by himself after her mother died in childbirth and her two older brothers passed from sickness during childhood. Despite her hard exterior, Josseli is not a woman without joy or mercy. She will be there to offer a hand when some luckless sonofabitch needs it, but the first to kick him in the a** when he welches on that kindness. Honesty, hardwork, grit -- these are the things that matter to Josseli.
Josseli is happy to be alone, which can make people feel distant from her, and her constant focus on work has led some to describe her as joyless or without spirit. However, Josseli enjoys attending community events, smalltalk, and listening to stories by the fire or seeing others dance. She is simply a creature who feels most at home in the quiet company of a few close friends, or in the quiet companionship of her watch-wher in her small home on the second floor of her shop.
When it comes to her major downfalls, Josseli is a creature of habit and can be incredibly rigid. She is wary of things that are unfamiliar, and it makes her a bit close-minded to new experiences. She would rather things stay the same, even if the same is just plain old mediocre, rather than take a risk that could result in something better. It makes her very grounded, but also very unimaginative and boring.
In her wildest dreams, Josseli only wants a comfortable life where her work is appreciated, her stomach is always full of delicious things, and her life is free of confusion. She fears the unknown; it is dangerous. However, Josseli is not a pretentious person, not at all. If you come into her store with goods to meet her prices, she will deal with anyone from a petty thief to the Lord Holder. This helps offset some of the coldness that she radiates in social situations, though it would be strange for anyone to describe her as warm or friendly.
Physically, Josseli is quite strong. She is not a hunter and has never hunted, but she works every single day with the iron implements needed to butcher, skin, tan, treat, and craft furs. In a fight, these are the skills Josseli would rely on, but she is not one to fight. There is no battle-training in her past, no real agility, no strategical savvy. Her strengths are in her hands and how she can use them to create beautiful, structurally sound fur and garments.
Josseli is better than most people at avoiding deception -- she cannot read minds but she is incredibly good at sniffing out the intentions of people. This is not flawless, of course, and she is bad at admitting when she is wrong and accepting change.
Positive Trait List Shrewd, Strong, Grounded/Rational, Non-judgmental
Negative Trait List Loner, Perfectionist, Rigid, Aloof
History: Josseli was born to Jacobi, a tanner, and Annali, a weaver, in the dead of winter at High Reaches Hold. A thick snow had fallen the night before, and going outside was treacherous. Jacobi battled through the freezing cold to the midwife's house, but the trip took three times as long as it should have.
By the time Jacobi and the midwife arrived at the home, Annali had delivered the baby alone. Tiny Josseli gurgled and wailed from the blood-stained bedsheets. The cord was cut, and the midwife quickly wiped and warmed the baby. Jacobi ran to his wife's side. She had lost blood, too much of it, and within moments, before she was able to hold her daughter, she passed away. Her father never remarried.
Josseli was raised by her father with her older brother. There had been another boy, Alanir, in the family, but he died from sickness when he was just two Turns old -- Turns before Josseli herself was born. Unfortunately, death was not done with the Jacobis. When her living brother, Tyrek, was 5-Turns-old, he succumbed to frostbite and died.
From the age of three onward, Josseli was an only child raised by her single father.
Most people in the town assumed that Jacobi would remarry -- and certainly, many women made it a point to parade before him as potential options. And why not? He was a successful business owner with rumored, distant ties to nobility and food on the table each night. What he lacked in dashing looks he made up for in the essential ability to be a provider.
However, grief had set heavily into the simple man, and the few women who he did entertain a relationship were roundly despised by Josseli. Though Jacobi did court a few reputable young ladies for a time, he quickly tired of the dance of it and the disdain of the little girl who he loved so much. By the time Josseli was 7, her father was dedicating most of his time with women whose time was billed by the candlemark.
Josseli, for her part, grew up faster, faster even than most children her age. She was making dinner each night the moment she was old enough to reach the edge of the cauldron. She was bartering for vegetables in the market as soon as her chubby little legs could carry her there. Her independence was so great that it was the prime thing that she and her father came to blows over. There were many nights that he would lock her in the upstairs bedroom, for fear that she would run to the edge of town to try and catch the hunters on their way back in the hopes of purchasing furs.
Though Josseli had unofficially been apprenticing with her father for Turns -- mending small holes, cleaning furs, tidying the shop -- her official work began when she was 8. Teaching her to read was the first order of business, and her father just happened to know a freelance, so to speak, courtesan, Janina, with the ability to read and write. Janina worked with Josseli in the evenings while her father finished up work, and then Jacobi would tuck her into bed to spend his own time with Janina. It was anything but a typical upbringing.
Janina was the only female friend of her father's that Josseli did not outright despise. This probably had a great deal to do with the woman's usefulness. She tutored Josseli as much as she could, and by the time the girl was 12, she could read and write as well as most adult furriers and traders. "See, my girl," her father had said. "Now you can keep your own books -- this is the best advice I could ever give you." In present day, Josseli still has a soft spot for courtesans and is more likely to offer them assistance than others of a similar class.
Working with her father brought the two only closer. By the time she was 16, Josseli was able to open and close the store on her own and fill all the orders -- not that her father ever let her do it. They worked side by side for Turns until the pressure for Josseli to marry became too great.
When Josseli was 20, she married a man her father believed would be a good match: Henwryn. It was a quiet, simple wedding. Henwryn was a hunter and a friend of the family, and Josseli had just completed her official apprenticeship under her father as a furrier. The marriage would benefit both parties financially, and Josseli’s father hoped it would quickly bring him the grandchildren he wanted and that the community needed.
Unfortunately, Josseli was never a very intimate person nor someone who dreamed of romance, and the marriage was strained from the start. When her father got sick just after Josseli and Henwryn’s first wedding anniversary, she used the excuse to move back home for a time. Three weeks after moving back home, Henwryn went out on a hunt and was never seen again. Only his bloodied satchel was found. At 21 Turns of age, Josseli became a widow.
For the next three Turns, Josseli took over Jacobi Furs & Skins during the day and her father during the night. At times, she got so desperate for her father to recover that she considered trying to seek more extreme healing of rare plants from the Southern continents hawked by traveling traders. Despite it all, Josseli could not bring herself to tempt fate in such a blatant way. One night when Josseli returned home from work, she found that her father had passed.
Grief filled her until she was overflowing. Townspeople whispered woes for her – first a mother, then her brothers, next a husband, now a father. What was a woman to do? Was she cursed? Josseli had an answer: work. In the Turn after her father's death, Josseli turned out more product and accrued more wealth than she had in her previous 24 Turns of life. She sold the home that she had shared with her father and instead turned the second floor of Jacobi Furs & Skins into her own living space, expanding into the next building beside it. She entertained foreign guests and began opening supply lines of rarer gems and materials to make her product even more unique. Her life that had once be filled with family was now filled with work. New friendships cropped up -- other crafters, many hunters and traders. Josseli began to establish herself as a name in High Reaches Hold, a name with as much repute as her father's. He never made master, and she was just a journeywoman, but there was something undeniably special and unique about the product she churned out in the unforgiving mountains of High Reaches.
Being a widow saved Josseli from some of the fixation that an unmarried, childless women may have experienced, but now that she is 28 and has still not found another mate to bear children, people have begun to whisper again. Gossip has never mattered to the sensible girl, but the idea of disappointing her father, even though he has passed away, is a constant source of stress, one that she is only able to alleviate by drowning herself in her work.
Currently, she lives with her watch-wher and spends her days working and her nights at the Great Hall listening to the grand stories of others.
Other: Josseli has a watch-wher who lives in a stable outside her shop near the livestock pens and has access to her more expansive skinning room. Sometimes the wher tries to come all the way into the shop, to disastrous results. But this watch-wher is the reason Josseli's shop has never been successfully robbed.
***Uta cleared that watch-whers can be transferred from previous shops, just not with art since the templates don't exist yet. My wher was originally white, but its color may change pending a discussion/decision between Uta/Cherie. Just tacking it on her as an FYI that she has one, but I won't play the wher until a decision is made.
