#c:ruarc

[sorrcha]

Anotha one... ✨, 🍀, and 🧠 for Bramble, Lorne, and Ruarc hehe

oo..

✨: how did you come up with the oc's name?

bramble- the name of a thorny plant felt right for a creature with a thorny personality :D also it just has a really good mouthfeel if that makes sense

lorne- i liked the sound of it so i picked it from a list wbsdjkf

ruarc- i used the name for random ocs from 2018-2022.. it finally stuck on the ruarc we know and love in october. it means hero/champion if i remember right which is fun bc ruarc is decidedly against becoming any kind of famous hero (she likes anonymity)

🍀: what originally inspired the oc?

bramble- falconry. i think the bond between raptors and falconers is really fascinating. btw bramble started out as a flight rising dragon :o she's actually still in my lair. her design has changed a ton though lol

lorne- the song "hungover in the city of dust" by autoheart along with rekke from pillars of eternity 2 (redhead.. tall and buff.. scar on face.. they look similar wnsjdkf)

ruarc- my baldur's gate 3 bard! i didn't plan on getting attached but she ended up as one of my most beloved ocs. hee

🧠: what do you like most about the oc?

bramble- i like how she stays wild despite being lorne's companion. he can't trust that she'll always return to his side or that she won't turn her claws on him. her design is pretty fun too (had made her a wyvern but struggled with the design until i decided to use the mayfly dragon adopt i got from @/tetrameryxx for her new appearance)

lorne- his design and his ties to other characters.. he's a swordsman w a dad bod and he has so many friends. what's not to love !!

ruarc- her personality. i've been playing her in a dnd campaign with my family and it's so fun roleplaying as her bc she has a very playful/outgoing personality that i rarely show irl. also her design... fond of her outfit and how easy it's been to make a cosplay of it hee

[sorrcha]

HI ASK ATTACK: 💼, 🎯, 🍎, 💀, and 🍩 For Ruarc and Skaldi!!

oo lets go !!

💼: what do they do for a living?

ruarc works for her noble house (read: corrupt organization of criminals) by selling stolen items as a fence and occasionally helping out with small jobs by distracting/luring away the target for other criminals as needed.

skaldi is a bounty hunter in training- at the start of the story at least- and therefore has all his needs met by the organization he belongs to. once out of training, he makes a living by recapturing escaped prisoners, tracking down missing people, etc... but he doesn't stay a bounty hunter forever.

🎯: what do they do best?

ruarc excels at persuasion and deception once she gets her silver tongue. before then, her best skill is sneaking around unnoticed.

skaldi is great at physical efforts like endurance and heavy lifting. beefy.........

🍎: what is their relationship with their parents like?

ruarc's relationship with her bio parents is basically nonexistent? her father died shortly after she hatched. her mother is still around but only as a spirit with faint memories of her old life, so.. not much going on there.

her closest thing to parents these days are elrick and corrosion. elrick is an elf and the head of the noble house she belongs to. he's a bad guardian for her honestly... he gets better over time but by then she's basically all grown up lol.

meanwhile corrosion is another drakonian (the only other drakonian ruarc has ever seen until she meets skaldi). she's a weapons instructor that works for the "noble house". she's very rough around the edges. corrosion refuses to admit that she thinks of ruarc like her own kid. ruarc doesn't really realize that she thinks of corrosion as a parental figure until after they're separated from one another for a real long time.

skaldi has a good relationship with his parents. he lives far away from them, but keeps in touch via weekly letters home. they were nervous about him moving to the city and becoming a bounty hunter, but so far so good.

💀: any phobias?

ruarc is afraid of deep water.

skaldi would lie and say he doesn't have any phobias, but he's secretly afraid of dogs (bad childhood experience)

🍩: arch-nemesis or rival?

at first, ruarc's only rivals are the other thieves in the noble house. but then sunvaar comes along and [redacted] and now he's basically her arch-nemesis !

skaldi considers ruarc his nemesis at first- his job as a bounty hunter is to capture her and get her thrown in jail for all her little crimes. but then they become friends and chill out... after that his only real enemy is sunvaar ^^

[sorrcha]

Hello time to ask abt Ruarc..... tell me abt her (stature, motion, stillness, arms, and favorite!)

ruarc !!! woo.. i wrote a lot oops

stature: what's your oc's body type? how tall are they? do they wear clothing to accentuate their look or do they try to mask it?

ruarc is little above average for a drakonian- about 5'10". she's got a fairly lean build. though she doesn't have any boobs (drakonians are reptiles and all that), she tries to dress so she has a bit of an hourglass shape wjdslfk

motion: how does your oc move? how does their clothing help or hinder their range of motion? are they flexible, coordinated, or clumsy?

she moves smoothly. her clothing lets her move pretty easily- sort of loose pants, loose sleeves, etc... the only thing that probably keeps her from being completely free to move is the little corset she wears, which is made of stiffer material than everything else.

ruarc is very flexible! she stretches every day and takes pride in it since it lets her do cool things like squeezing into small spaces. she's very well-coordinated, too, and always tries to be aware of her surroundings.

stillness: how does your oc act while still? are they fidgety? do they have any common gestures or tics? does their clothing affect how they hold themself while at rest?

depends how she feels. if she's nervous or bored, she'll really start to fidget. her tail especially likes to move around. she'll thwap it against the ground, her lower leg, etc... her clothing doesn't have much of an effect other than the "corset" again, which keeps her from slouching over.

she cracks her knuckles a lot. sometimes she waits a while before cracking them again so they're extra loud the next time she does it lol

arms: does your oc have any weapons? what weapons do they carry, and how do they wear them when not fighting?

ruarc carries a rapier and a hand crossbow. when not fighting, she keeps the rapier on her belt and the crossbow on her back (when adventuring/knowingly going into combat, she wears a harness that it clips to for easy access).

once she learns how to conjure weapons, she can do that too. her favorite thing to do is to summon a bunch of blades and have them all go flying at either one enemy or a cluster of them (like the spell "cloud of daggers" in baldur's gate 3). improvised weapons are another favorite- who doesn't love smashing a bottle over someone's head or throwing a chair at them?

favorite: does your oc have a favorite article of clothing or accessory? what is it? what's the meaning behind it? do they wear it all the time or do they wear it sparingly to keep it safe?

she's not very sentimental about objects since she's had a lot stolen from her and/or confiscated from the guild she belongs to over the years, but there's one thing no one has bothered to take: the piercings on her brows.

they're basically worthless, but they mean a lot to her since they were the first thing she ever went out and bought with her own coin. she wears them 24/7. this screenshot from bg3 shows them pretty well. the only difference is that she has two on the right and one on the left

[sorrcha]

obsessed with these screenshots of ruarc... my girl

stats & full outfit under the readmore

i put the hat and boots on as a joke but. i think she actually looks really neat with them pfft

[sorrcha]

ooo 1-2, 10-11, 20-21, 30-31, 40-41, and 50-51 for Ruarc and Fiensal... >:)

waoo thank you for the ask!! slapping this under a readmore since it got really long. like im not kidding this is probably the longest post i've ever made 😭

quick overview of my story setting for my new mutuals/those unfamiliar with it- my story takes place in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. the world was basically just like ours, but then there was an apocalypse where magic came into existence and society had to recover after being set back a couple hundred years. the story i'm writing takes place about 250 years after the apocalypse. ruarc is the protagonist. there are elves and dragons and stuff . yay

1. what’s the lie your character says most often?

ruarc lies about what he is. he calls himself a human, or even a "dragon-hearted human" but he's literally just a dragon whsdklf

fiensal’s most frequent lie is probably “i’m fine.” he tends to push himself too far too often, and then his chronic pain will flare up. his friends and family frequently ask how he’s feeling to try and look after him, but he has a very good poker face when he lies.

2. how loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

ruarc doesn’t use it very strictly. if you’ve done him a favor, he'll call you his friend. easy as that... though in reality, he doesn't actually consider anyone a friend until they've known each other for a few months and he feels like he can truly trust them. lorne, ivy, cordelia, and fiensal are probably the only people he actually considers his friends.

in stark contrast, fiensal is very hesitant to call anyone a friend, even if he thinks of them as one. it takes a while for him to use the actual word aloud or in writing. 

10. what fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

at first, ruarc doesn't really share anything with others unless he's been asked to or the situation requires it. once he gets comfortable around someone, though, he's happy to tell them random facts about his interests every now and then.

fiensal enjoys telling people facts about the pre-apocalypse world. while he wasn't alive in that era, ydrenth was, and she taught him all about it. his favorite fact to share is that there used to be the internet, where you could instantly talk with someone across the globe and have all the world's information available with the press of a button hgfdhgh

11. if someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

they’d ask ruarc to shapeshift into his full dragon form, since he’s the only guy around that can do that. if shapeshifting isn't an option, then lorne would ask him something in his language. only ruarc's friends know he can speak that language, and it's not a common one, so it would become obvious if someone was trying to impersonate him.

if someone was impersonating fiensal… they’d ask him to tell them about his parents. he never actually knew them, but only those closest to him know this, so it’d be an easy way to tell who the real one is.

20. who do they like as a person but hate their work? vice versa, whose work do they like but don’t like the person?

ruarc likes his father, soren, as a person while hating the work he does. soren is the head of the noble house- house vargoba. they're in constant competition with other nobles for all kinds of reasons. soren is vicious politically and will basically stop at nothing to ruin his opponents. ruarc hates this. however, soren is a pretty good father and does have a much softer side when he's not trying to make house vargoba more powerful.

fiensal hates ydrenth (magic user), but loves her work- she’s the greatest mage that’s ever lived, how could he not be impressed by what she does? he hates how she uses it, though (necromancy) and also just. hates her as a person LOL

21. what common etiquette do they disagree with? do they still follow it?

ruarc disagrees with a lot of "noble" etiquette - fancy rules that serve no purpose other than showing you were born into the "right" family and grew up as a noble. he upholds etiquette when meeting with noble houses other than the one he was born into, but when with his own family, he'll do little things that go against etiquette on purpose. he's a little rebel.

fiensal doesn't really like typical elvish etiquette since he grew up apart from them. he doesn't have a problem with the etiquette itself- more so that whenever he encounters it, he's expected to know it and it makes him feel alienated. poor guy.

30. when they make a mistake and feel bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

ruarc was raised to keep his emotions separate from his work as a noble, so he doesn’t feel as guilty when he makes a professional mistake compared to when he messes up personally. this changes when he leaves house vargoba, though :)

fiensal feels guilt the same way in professional and personal situations. he's got that catholic kind of guilt that people like to meme on where he carries it with him constantly and blames himself for basically everything that goes wrong.

31. when do they feel the most guilt? how do they respond to it?

ruarc feels the most guilt when he accidentally hurts his friends. he cares for them deeply and is terrified they might retaliate or end the friendship over the smallest things. he feels very guilty that he ever could hurt the people that trust him.

fiensal feels a lot of guilt whenever he thinks too long about his apprenticeship with ydrenth. she taught him so much about dark magic and how to use it over the course of a decade. but his body almost shut down from overexposure/overuse, and she refused to teach him any more because he was too weak.

without another magic user to kinda keep her in check/ensure she used dark magic ethically, ydrenth began practicing necromancy and harming others for her own personal gain (for those unfamiliar with my story- she's the antagonist). fiensal feels incredible guilt over this. he believes it was his fault for being too weak. if he'd been stronger, he could have been there to stop her from becoming such a vile person. oh well!

40. how do they respond to a loose handshake? what goes through their head?

ruarc immediately gets the impression that the person with the loose handshake is weaker than him and that he has some kind of advantage over them for that. then he immediately feels a little bit bad about it and tries to ignore the thought.

fiensal would be a little surprised, but he probably gives a pretty delicate handshake himself because of his joint problems/chronic pain. he’d be a little relieved that they’re being gentle with him and wouldn’t think too much of it.

41. what phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone/somewhere else?

ruarc grew up in a noble house, so he starts out speaking a little more formally than most people do, but as he meets people from other walks of life, he starts speaking more casually. he also adds a lot to his vocabulary from lorne (who speaks a different common tongue, since he’s from a different country) and ivy + fiensal (who speak elvish). ruarc also displays some draconic mannerisms like tilting his head to the side, flexing his claws, etc. whenever he’s shapeshifted to have those features. 

thanks to his decade-long apprenticeship with ydrenth, who was alive pre-apocalypse, fiensal grew up with a lot of “old-world” phrases and mannerisms. he would 100% know some slang from the internet today. he also spells and pronounces some words differently since language would probably change post-apocalypse (no internet, limited communication and public education for a while)

50. what belief/moral/personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

ruarc believes the ends justify the means as long as they’re for the greater good (read: his own perception of what's good). collateral damage is worth it in the end. however, he grows out of this mindset when he leaves his house vargoba and begins caring about others more :x

fiensal thinks lying is bad and opposes it strongly- but he lies pretty often, which makes him a hypocrite wksdfkh

51. what’s a phrase they say a lot?

ruarc says

fiensal says a lot of old-world phrases. if someone surprised him, he'd say "oh my god" in singular form because he heard ydrenth say that so much during his apprenticeship with her (before the apocalypse, the world was like ours where that phrase is common; post-apocalypse, the existence of multiple gods is established so people started saying "oh my gods" etc.). there are others but this post is long enough LOL

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actually. here's some bonus stuff- a drawing of two of ruarc's main forms.. once he gets the hang of things he can transform freely between a human, dragon, and an in-between form (drakonian). he usually goes around just as a regular human, but i didn't feel like drawing that today.

i forget if i mentioned this or not, but i ended up combining adonis and ruarc as characters. ruarc was a human that got injured bad enough to need a heart transplant when he was very young.

the doctor that fixed him up had an ulterior motive and gave him a dragon's heart, which made him what he is now. he likes being what he is, but he's also a bit messed up from it, to say the least.

ruarc is technically a true dragon thanks to his dragon's heart, but he prefers to call himself a dragon-hearted human. he clings to his humanity as much as possible since he was raised to think of his draconic side as monstrous.

true dragons are very seclusive and rare to encounter in my story world. they're so rare that some people believe they've gone extinct. as far as he knows, ruarc is one of a kind.