Gulliver Ingold

Biographical information

Birthplace Unknown Born Died Age Unknown Home Alliria* Sexuality Pronouns

Physical description

Race Human Half-Fae Sub-Race Gender Male Height 5' 11" Mass 135 lbs Hair color Silvery White Eye color Frosty Grey Blue Skin color Pale and Cool

Political information

Affiliation(s) Occupation Florist Clan(s) Caste Domain Masters Apprentices Alias(es)

Out-of-character information

Writer ArcaneBumblebee Created on 6/28/2022 Avatar artbreeder.com

WIP

Though human he may be, there is something ethereal and eidolic about Gulliver's appearance. The flicker of milky white opal and the starkness of a frozen mountain spring feel almost synonymous with the waifish young man. Though he is not exceptionally tall by any means, the slender delicacy of his limbs gives him an air of willowy grace. Gulliver's manner of dress is well-kept, orderly, and clean. Never gaudy or flashy, he does not excessively decorate his person, but it still does not take a keen eye to tell that he has an affinity for high quality.

With a natural affinity for magic likely born from the fae side of his parentage, Gulliver has had an unnatural number of years to cultivate his unique brand of the arcane arts. To the outsider, the delicate man is a healer, blessed with long life, who uses his gifts and knowledge to nourish his garden. The reality may be a bit darker, if you are one who prioritizes means over outcomes. Necromancy, Animancy, a little something wild and natural, and a splash of something a little darker are all pulled on when he crafts his whims, rituals, and spells.

He is, actually, an excellent florist. Even without the application of magic, his botanical knowledge and talent is impressive, allowing him to coax stunning blooms of immense variety. The true lure of his flowers happens, however, after they are cut and within the realms of the dead. Gulliver knows how to fortify the dead, how to lure out the eerie perfection that could not be found in life, and how to suspend them at a point of strength and beauty for extended periods of time. His flowers are, in short, hauntingly beautiful and desirably long "lived".

The similar capabilities have made him an adept healer, though his manner of healing doesn't work quite in the way most would expect. He doesn't regenerate flesh or speed up the body's natural healing processes. Rather, Gulliver's mastery over manipulating and fortifying the organic allows him to knit and suspend flesh in a state that is once again usable, often then giving the body the chance to heal itself. It is a cold process, there is no rush of warmth or relief, he can't even deaden the pain without the use of medicines, and if the spellwork were to fall apart the patient would only be as healed as their body had managed on its own time. Fortunately, this has almost never come up as an issue and very few have ever thought that what he does isn't actually proper healing.

The source of his longevity, then, becomes quite clear once one is aware of the underlying workings of his magicraft. Through the application of rituals on his own person, often fueled by "borrowed" energy, Gulliver has managed to suspend the state of his body and live for possibly centuries.

Despite his rather questionable practices and hobbies (which he largely keeps neatly under wraps), Gulliver is actually quite friendly and helpful. He is generally well-liked by his neighbors and acquaintances, and his customers usually leave happy and at ease. To most he is a somewhat reserved man, polite and gentle, but still sociable and welcoming. Gulliver the Florist is patient and compassionate, empathetic and intuitive, and at times charmingly socially awkward. He is the sort of man who acknowledges the foolishness of trying to find the good in everyone, and then goes and tries to do it anyways.

Gulliver the centuries old half-fae, however, is a creature who can be as capricious as any fully blooded fae. Very few have known him well and long enough to see how self-serving and mercenary he can be. He is a clever man with many layers, and as you peel them back curious traits such as irreverent, shrewd, sardonic, and analytical crop up. He is by no means an evil and cruel being, of course. He loathes pointless suffering, he is generous, he gives puppies scritches behind the ears. Even at the very core of his nature he is still a rather agreeable person, albeit infuriatingly nebulous.

Gulliver wasn't born in any particular place that was worth recording. Much like himself, his mother did a lot of traveling, and his birth happened long enough ago that it is likely not worth noting, either. He exists and has for centuries.

His father is mostly an unknown, outside of the things his mother told him, and from those things he knows that he was fae. She often spoke as if she knew him well and remembered him fondly, yet usually had very few details to give on how they met or how long they were involved. Gulliver's curiosity on the matter died with his youth.

From his father's blood he did inherit, at least, a strong gift for magic with an affinity for the cold and for manipulating and cultivating organic matter. If the flavor of his magic were to be given an image, it would be the soggy and withered remains of splintered wood and bark being ripped up through ice and snow and forced to once again act as a tree.

He trained under many people as he traveled with his mother, tasted a variety of magics and learned his favorites, but the most curious of his abilities he cultivated mostly on his own. Flowers were a passion even from early youth, plucking blooms from one region and scrambling to find a way to preserve them as they traveled hundreds of miles from their point of origin. He fought against mortality through buds and leaves, through the horrific preservation of his childhood dog, through the early wasting and passing of his mother, and at last through the eerie suspension of his own aging.

In the last couple centuries Gulliver has established a quiet home on the countryside a ways outside of Alliria where he maintains most of his gardens and projects. His shop proper is within Alliria, itself, as well as a small living space above the shop. Inflicted with wanderlust, however, and with a desire to share his blooms with more of the world, he maintains a few small homes throughout the continents (though some are neglected for even decades at a time are and worse for wear when he returns). This includes Tel Anir, though his welcome there is often mixed as those who remember him start to become suspicious that he may not be as human as he seems.

Modern day Gulliver mostly tends to his own gardens and business, traveling to sell and offer services, and does his very best to just stay out of the business and politics of others. Live and let live, as they say. His primary shop, called Pushing Daisies, is located in the Outer City of Alliria.