Appearance

Physical Description

Hollyhock is young and fit as a fiddle. She's dedicated to maintaining peak physical condition—going on morning runs, lifting anything that needs lifting around the house, and practicing her swordsmanship every morning by dawn's light. She is muscular and strong, despite her small stature, but can be outmaneuvered by a faster opponent.

Body Features

Hollyhock has an olive skin tone, thick brown fur from her waist to her hooves, and red hair that is often tied back in a messy bun. She has curling ram’s horns and cloven hooved feet. Freckles spatter across her face and arms. Her eyes are brown, her pupils horizontal and ovular like a goat's.

Identifying Characteristics

Holly wears fool's gold rings in her ears. When she wears many, they jangle together as she trots.

Physical quirks

Hollyhock is right-handed. She's tried to practice swordsmanship with her left hand in case her right is ever injured; however, she often slacks off on training that arm.

Apparel & Accessories

She wears a fool's gold earring in her right ear. When she wants to feel feminine, she'll weave her namesack—Hollyhock flowers—into her hair.

Specialized Equipment

Her weapon of choice is the longsword. She often fights defensively and is more skilled at disarming and blocking than slashing or stabbing.

Mentality

Personal history

Hollyhock was born in Valor in the Old Lakefront and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Most of her family was from Deeproots Elidian, but her parents moved to Valor before she was born. Because her parents were immigrants, she had some difficulty joining the Knights. In order to prove her mettle, Hollyhock fought in the Raithsfall youth tournament. There was a downpour of rain that evening, and though many of her peers decided it wasn’t worth it to stay, she fought in spite of the weather.

Education

She was tutored in scholarship—reading, writing, arithmetic, and portraiture—by her parents. As a child, she joined the Herbalists Guild and learned about medicinal and poisonous herbs. Later, she was taught fencing by a faun swordsman named Thyme (whose own daughter was mentored in cooking by Oleander in exchange).

person.sexuality

Hollyhock is not much of a flirt, but she is attracted to persons of any gender. She has a preference for people who are competent but humble; arrogance is an instant turnoff for her.

person.gender_identity

Female (she/her)

Personality

Motivation

Hollyhock wants to contribute to Albion, her beloved city, to make it a safer place. Additionally, she wants to make Valor an uncomfortable place for bullies, bigots, and those who believe themselves above the law.

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Skilled with herbal identification, bad at art

Likes & Dislikes

She is afraid of griffins, seeing them as terrible and aggressive beasts that result from the knights’ hubris. If pressed, she will not admit that her fear of heights has anything to do with it.
 
She hates bullies.

Virtues & Personality perks

Hollyhock is foremost idealistic. She has a desire to change the world for the better. She has seen corruption in the world and refuses to stand by and watch; she backs up her beliefs with action.
 
Hollyhock believes that justice is decided by the law of the land and is her privilege to carry out. She considers herself a servant of the people—she fights for the meek and the oppressed and has little patience for those who twist the law to their own means.

Vices & Personality flaws

Hollyhock follows her gut, which can sometimes land her in hot water. Because she's reactive, Hollyhock doesn't always think about the big picture or how her actions could affect those around her.
 
From the fear of appearing weak to others, Hollyhock is stubborn, reluctant to compromise and refusing to admit defeat. She often struggles with adaptability and misses the forest for the trees because she can only view a problem from a single angle. She's touchy about past mistakes.

Personality Quirks

Her fawnish ears twitch when she's skeptical or annoyed and trying to hide it.

Hygiene

Although she keeps her body in peak condition and her fur and hair tidy, she has a bad habit of letting her hooves gather dirt and stubborn, uncomfortable pebbles. She hates the tedium of cleaning them.

Social

Birthplace

Albion, Valor

Current Residence

Albion, Valor

Family Ties

Her parents are Wisteria and “Ollie” Oleander. Her mother is a painter who mixes her own unique paints, and her father is a cook who nurtures an herb garden and experiments with local cuisines with a Faunish twist. Her younger brother, Chervil, is an initiate of the Portraiture Guild.

Religious Views

Hollyhock is “fair weather faithful,” honoring and giving thanks to Valor Ascendant in times of prosperity, but cutting herself off from religious belief in times of strife.

Social Aptitude

Straight-laced, often to a fault when she becomes uncompromising. Confident when speaking to her peers, aggressive in a manner to who she perceives as bullies, and brownnosing to "just" authority figures. In battle, she is cool-headed but imperious.

Speech

Poor approximation of a Scottish accent; idiomatic, prone to simile