Stage || Prentice (though on the older end of it)
Race || Fire Earthling
Gender || Male
Path || Minstrel
Hair Style and Color || █ - Short, tight curls concealed almost entirely by a simplistic (if oddly patterned) turban, thick brows, and a bit of scruffly 5 o'clock shadow. He's actually kind of an unkempt dude.
Eyes || █ - Not the palest pink among fire earthlings, but very close, Cel's eyes are wider set and broad.
Crystals || █ - Has a line of three crystals descending from his forehead down toward the bridge of his nose, in decreasing size, as well as a rounded midsized crystal right where the top of his ear meets his cheekbone. The rest are scattered in various sizes along his neck.
Skin Color || █
Clothing || Celdarin is a poor street urchin trying to make his way up in society the honorable way (he's not a thief), so his garments are hand-me-down and dingy. He likes bright colors, but it's likely that only his turban would actually sport any, just due to the fabric not needing to be shaped as specifically as a shirt or pants (so he can take a bunch of scraps, stitch them together, and bam, turban). Otherwise, he can be shirtless, with simplistic adornments. Pants or shorts with a sarong-type deal would be fine. Shoes aren't required, but if present would probably just be sandals or thin leather scraps.
Description || Despite a lonely and very fend-for-himself upbringing which one would expect to yield stunted individuals, Celdarin is not a small man. He is tall, broad, and confident in his appearance and capabilities, thanks to an extensive palette and an iron stomach. Though he starts as low man on the totem pole, with nothing to speak of in terms of fashion, style, or coin to afford such things, as he advances, he'll start to enjoy brighter, prettier luxuries.
Three Base Traits|| Confident, Driven, Gullible
Additional Traits|| Flirty, Wishy-washy, Goofy, Attentive but forgetful, Empathetic, Single-minded, Resolute, Spiritual
Personality||
- As a youngster, Celdarin was most often exposed to scorn, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and resentment from almost everyone he so much as passed, let alone interacted with. First from his father, who was openly annoyed at anyone in higher social class than himself and felt as though 'luck of the draw' shouldn't dictate how he and his family were forced to live. Then from merchants and market consumers, who looked at Celdarin as if he was a rodent, trash, or a bit of dung stuck to the bottom of their shoes. As a very young boy, Celdarin thought to mimic this. It was unfair that because of forces beyond his control, he could not live as comfortably as many within their city, and he hadn't done anything to be looked at as so insignificant to others.
But his heart wasn't in it. For as many times as he'd been informed by his father that they didn't deserve to live as they did, Celdarin couldn't fathom a reason why they deserved any better. They'd done no good for anyone, themselves included. Besides, slumming it was what he was familiar with. It was difficult, and sometimes a bit disgusting, but it was what Cel was accustomed to. He didn't know how to do or be anything else, and the ever-tossed-around word of 'better' seemed like a distant dream to a child, young as he was.
Then, his father abandoned him, and Celdarin was left to fend for himself alone.
He was quiteyoung when it happened, but it became very obvious very quickly that the scorn and disdain he'd been practicing won him no favors. It was easier on his spirit and passerby alike to adopt a more relaxed stance on the world. Celdarin is often smiling, and there is not much that upsets him, unless someone deliberately goes out of their way to make it so. Any sourness or obvious unhappiness tends to be mirrored back at him, and if he is chipper, others are also easier on him. Cheer puts people in a good mood. And people in good moods are more likely to give him what he wants and open more roads for him.
If Celdarin was an intelligent man, this might make him conniving and devious. Instead, it just lends itself to a sort of openness and confidence. And fearlessness in regards to activities and people he approaches. After all, he hasn't much to lose. As a boy and into his early teen years, it's a charm that is more endearing than anything else. But in his later teen and adult years, once he has accepts that he can, in fact, want and achieve more if he sets himself to it, he turns his charm most effectively on the people who can give him such things, and goes for it whole-heartedly.
He is uneductaed, and doesn't really understand or have patience for the task of 'bartering,' so is more interested in all-or-nothing, make-or-break gambles that could either do him a lot of good, or end horribly. He'll always try to talk himself out of a bad situation, but is mostly only good at just that: talk.
Life Goal || To purchase a bottle of the most expensive- not the best; the most expensive- bottle of imported wine (I'm convinced it's from Tale) and drink it with his lover.
History||
- Celdarin grew up on the streets of Sulburi. His parents were poor and homeless at their meeting, only together because of the convenience of having two pairs of foraging hands and the comfort of company. Not because they had anything to spare as individuals, and that remained true even once they were a couple. Neither was prepared to bring a child into the world, let alone raise one to adulthood. It can certainly be said that neither wanted to. Cel's mother left him with his father as soon as he was born, out of fear that their already difficult life would become impossible with an additional mouth to feed that could not even help itself. She has been and will continue to be a non-factor in his life for the entirety of it, as Cel doesn't know nor care to know (nor have the means to know, at this point) so much as her name.
His father, Gerran, was Celdarin's sole caretaker and companion for the earliest years of his life, and the man never seemed interested in surrendering his son to an orphanage or risking being separated from him by turning to criminal acts. Instead, they survived mostly off of the pity-coin the man could glean from passerby for having an infant at his hip. Gerran had always acted interested and pleased to have the company, and he cared for Cel to the best of his abilities, given the circumstances.
Around the time the boy was learning to toddle, the Obans set off on a mission of conquest over the rest of Tendaji, meaning that the middle-class Gerran obtained his scant coin from took to further penny-pinching as more supplies were sent out (less at home at affordable prices) to cover the needs of soldiers across the border. This left the pair with less opportunity to purchase any amount of food, and meant more rustling about in back alleys and trash bins. This is essentially what comprises most of Celdarin's first memories: rummaging through garbage with his father, chasing stray perzi, and mingling in the slums with others trying to scrape by.
As times became increasingly difficult and Celdarin aged such that he lost his 'cute' factor with the people they begged from, so too waned the interest Gerran had initially held for his son. Though raising a child alone had been difficult and an additional strain on Gerran's already-stressed lifestyle, an infant Celdarin had also been a sponge for sympathetic passerby, that only seemed to decrease as he turned four, then five, then six.
By then, a growing boy that could scarf down any food they found and had too much rambunctious energy was more of a hindrance than not.
When an opportunity presented itself for Gerran to take on very low-paying servant work from a low-mid-class household that had just been forced to free its only slave, he accepted. With a catch: the family was only barely interested in taking Gerran in off the street and providing him with food and lodging. They were not interested in doing so for his six-year-old son. With a choice between living off of any wage and at least having a consistently reliable shelter, or scurrying through back alleys like a rat with his boy and hoping for survival, Gerran took the easy route and abandoned his son with minimal warning, off to live in a slightly less scuzzy area of Sulburi.
There was a while where Celdarin thought it must have been a mistake that they were separated. His father had never been especially cold or cruel to him, and he could, in fact, remember distinctly positive, happy times during their relationship. But the strain of living minute-to-minute with a skill-less tag along at his heels was enough to encourage Gerran to want and strive for more.
In time, Celdarin accepted that. He was hardly old enough to survive on his own, but was at least familiar with the area he'd been raised in and no stranger on how to go about handling himself. With no idea of what possibilities even could be open to a dirty poor boy, Celdarin has not sought out much aid, as of yet, and has continued to flit about from street to street and sleep among stray animals well into his teen years.
