Avis Ingram
 Avis Inkwood
| |
 "The world's on fall." | |
| Gender | Female |
| Race | Hyur |
| Clan | Midlander |
| Citizenship | Ul'dahn |
| Age | 25 |
| Patron Deity | Azeyma |
| Server | Balmung |
Basic Info
Dedicated diarist and arcanist Avis Inkwood is a curious, contemplative adventurer with a fondness for libraries, outrageous tavern storytelling and the sublime sea-winds of Limsa Lominsa.
An adventurer affiliated with Maelstrom, Avis seizes every opportunity to wander and has even returned to her native city of Ul'dah a few times since her self-imposed exile a year ago. She is usually more than glad, however, to be left to her own interests from time to time, and is recently preoccupied with her burgeoning reputation as a travelling ghostwriter.
History
The sickening sand storms that year had brought Avis to them, along with the plague – or so the Lady of the Inkwood family delighted in proclaiming disdainfully, draped out melodramatically along her favorite couch. This, however, never troubled the girl Avis, youngest of her siblings; on the contrary, she reveled in the extravagance of the myth-like retelling of her birth and in her burgeoning status as potential black sheep of one of the richest and most well-connected Hyur families in Ul’dah. She was reticent and rebellious from infancy, preferring the company of “flowery words” and her own imagination to numbers and lists, and, increasingly, the rowdy streets of the city to the carpeted corridors of her home.
In her adolescence and early adulthood, Avis took to mingling and developing close relationships with people from less privileged classes, more for a misguided taste of danger and a different world than any strong sense of empathy or social justice. In considering herself above her family’s elitism and narrow-mindedness, Avis, too, became arrogant. She was a constant source of exasperation to the rest of her family, the Ingrams, willfully displaying disinterest in trade and business, negligent as an accounts scribe, even failing abysmally during a brief stint as their shop manager when she wrote love poems to her new Highlander lover behind the counter while a thief, pockets full, whistled her way out.
Jasper was his name; he was resourceful, daring and in equal measure ardent and ironic in his affection for Avis, who was the same, matching him in thought for thought, word for word in the dissonance of their accents and speech. The Calamity hit Ul'dah hard, but Jasper saw it as his opportunity to finally ascend the social ladder and make a place for himself on the battleground of the vicious Ul’dahn marketplace, and was, occasionally, not above disreputable means to achieve his aims. He would have succeeded had he not begun playing for the wrong side, becoming entangled in the years-old rivalry between the Ingrams and another trading giant; when things came to a head, the Ingrams and their partners sent men to crush the competition. Literally. Jasper was found among the remains of his stall, quite broken in back and spirit, while his wealthy bosses reconvened with their enemies and brokered another deal in the coolness of their halls. Jasper's companions understood the nature of the resistance they faced and bowed out quietly, packing themselves and Jasper back home – if a refugee camp could be considered home. Some months later, Avis received word of Jasper's death in Little Ala Mhigo, and folded her returned, unopened letters away.
Only belatedly aware of the connection between their youngest daughter and the latest casualty in affairs of trade, and more annoyed than surprised by this, the Ingrams prayed that the youngest daughter’s self-confinement mean that she knew her place at last. Of course, this ‘peace’ was short-lived. Within weeks Avis was back to roaming the streets of Ul’dah blithely, almost like her old self, but not quite - while a scathing allegorical polemic against the upper class began circulation among literate members of society. It was dismissed by some, critiqued for its clumsy flamboyance by others, and would not have made waves had its clearly caricaturized characters not borne a hilariously punishing resemblance to the members of the Ingram family. Admittedly, Avis enjoyed the attention for a short while – in particular the sweet howls of mortification from her family members – but it eventually grew intolerable. At 24, Avis finally felt compelled to quit Ul’dah, and set off for Limsa Lominsa to forge a different life under a different name - Inkwood.
Personality
Avis has matured since the events in Ul'dah and her perspective of society is considerably grimmer, but she is still a great observer and lover of life - of sights, sounds, people. Her keen interest in stories - indeed, the larger, the better - is telling in her conversations. She tends to be candid in her remarks and incessant in her questionings once they begin; while insightful, these sometimes border on intrusiveness and tactlessness. She therefore swings between listening blissfully and dominating the table with the lurid detail which she dedicates to her own tales and recounts, but curiously enough never actually reveals much that is important about herself. Despite being calm and wry in demeanor, often ironic and incisive in her observations of people, Avis is lacking in self-awareness - her pride being her one great blind spot.
Clearly, Avis can be somewhat capricious. A romantic and an introvert at heart, Avis needs solitude and contemplation at intervals; her free-spirited nature means that even close friends have found her strangely pensive and detached at times. Conversely, she can be fully fixated on an ideal or cause or wildly devoted in love when it happens, and in fact quite enjoys the abandon of it.
Generally, Avis has good intentions. She is highly accepting of, if not embracing, difference and ambiguity. She can be fiercely intolerant of bigotry, however, and can be provoked to deep anger when injustice happens.
Affiliations and Relationships
Avis is affiliated with the Grand Company Maelstrom.
She has recently become a part-time research assistant to the grim Lalafell Jigumundo Darkbore, whose incomprehensible dislike of Miqo'tes and general grumpiness have sufficiently amused and intrigued her. (Her enjoyment of his company has intrigued her as well, though that may or may not be attributed to her having a soft spot for Lalafells in general - the merchant Kokoniku Papaniku being one of her closest friends.)
Rumours
Common Rumours
- (Ul'dah only) "Yeah, she's always mixin' around w' us lowborn. Nice girl. Strange ideas."
- (Ul'dah only) "Oh, she always liked her men. I think her taste extends to Lalafells."
- "I heard she had to leave Ul'dah to hide from her family."
- "Weird chick, always with pen and paper, and a damned big laugh if y' ask me."
- "I heard she's been going around asking people if they need letters written for them in exchange for stripteases on the street."
Rarer Rumours
- (Ul'dah only) "She wrote some pretentious allegorical garbage condemning her parents. What was the title again? The Pusillanimity of Puks. Or something to that effect."
- "She's really just a spoilt brat deep down inside, you know?"
- "Yes, she's one of the Ingrams of Ul'dah. They'd kill for money. Rotten, the whole lot of 'em."
Player Character Rumours
- (Jigumundo Darkbore) "Great Assistant. Well organised and hungry for knowledge. She would make a great pupil and powerful mage. Little to curious about details though..."
None yet.
