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Archlector Ilvin Steadworth of Limerance

Love is the shortest distance between two points. And yes, that does mean that love is a hypotenuse!

Social Rank: 5
Concept: Smol Nerd Priest
Fealty: Crownsworn
Family: Steadworth
Gender: male
Marital Status: single
Age: 36
Birthday: 2/14
Religion: Pantheon; Limerance
Vocation: Priest
Height: average height
Hair Color: dark gold
Eye Color: cognac
Skintone: fair

Titles: Archlector of Limerance

Description: Short, trim and neat, Ilvin has the most contagious smile in the history of smiles. It begins with a twinkle in the warmth of eyes, and then creases their corners, and then wakes to a slight curve at the bow of his lips, and then grows to a grin that threatens to split his face. It's possible to get caught in this smile at any stage of the process, and its clear from the pattern of creases that begin on his face that he uses it often. His eyes are a warm, mellow shade, like fine cognac, and his hair is a deeper, richer gold, so dark it splits the difference between brown and blond. He moves quickly, lightly on his feet, as though twinkle were a verb that could apply to his walk as well as his eyes.

Personality: Ilvin putters, twinkles, and flits through life, darting from one task that needs doing to the next with an unfailing warmth and patience. He loves stories and songs. He has a certain reserve about his personal life, a certain reserve about his privacy, but the twinkle of humor will wink out from the depths of that reserve to gleam at people from within. He has a head for figures and tends towards simple, rational, logical solutions, to problems -- but with a measure drawn from his apparently endless and deep wellspring of compassion from inside him. What was insecurity in his youth has become in maturity a wry self-awareness. In quiet moments, he can be a little sad, a little pensive: actually the best word for it is wistful. The hand of his inner kindness is not always so warmly turned to himself as it is to others. It's hard to imagine this nice little man with the iron dignity of the Faith behind him, yet the power of his grave disappointment -- when it is leveled upon another soul -- is so rare and heavy as to be heartbreaking.

Background: Born the son of a Grayson man-at-arms and a knight, Ilvin was a fish out of water early on. He was the second child, and his sister showed every sign of the warrior temperament. Born early and a little undersized, his parents didn't really have the money but hired a wetnurse and a nanny for him that they couldn't really afford to watch him. He was a happy, adventurous baby that grew into a happy, imaginative child, but he found more allure in books and stories and daydreams and songs than he ever did in running around and playing with the other children outside, and because of a tendency towards wheezy lungs, he spent most of his time following the seraph of Bastion around, when he wasn't stealing time in the libraries or listening to the songs and stories of the Devotions of Limerance.

His parents were never sure what to do with him. He showed no aptitude or interest in weapons or hunting or outdoor pursuits. He had a head for figures and he liked pages. If you brought him a book, he could entertain himself with it for weeks! It was Ilvin himself who came up with the idea, a solemn thirteen year old with a hint of what would one day become a telltale twinkle in his eye, when he asked his parents about what it took to become a Devotion.

Ilvin's education continued. He was ravenous for information but more he was ravenous for human stories. As a teenager, he tried to hear everything without creating a stir or causing problems for others. He became godsworn young, and threw himself into his work. The Faith needs people who are good at figures and can parse sentences as well as it needs people who can listen with an open heart. It was a good choice of profession for him.

He did not choose Limerance as first in his heart lightly; it was more that he loved all the gods, but the devotion that needed him most, and his good humor and his complacent legal understanding and his open, open heart, always seemed to be Limerance. When he became Archlector of Limerance, it was not so much the culmination as any great ambition as the fact that the job had become open, somebody needed to do it, and it almost seemed like a foregone conclusion that it should be Ilvin. He stepped up with grace.

Name Summary