'''Name:''' Kashtan Vetts (KAWSH-tn VEHTs)
'''Age:''' 29 years.
'''Race:''' Wick.
'''Place of Origin:''' Specific location unknown.
'''Occupation:''' Lone shoemaker of ‘The Wandering Boot’ in Vienda, Anaxas.

!!!Backstory
Kashtan was born into the Laughing Sky tribe on Intas 4th, 2683. He had the usual close-knit family. He loved listening to and memorizing the songs and stories- to this day he often quotes them. He always attended family meals, which helped remind him to actually eat due to how focused he often became in his work. His love life never went very far. He was often singled out because of his height. Usually someone would ask him on a date, he’d oblige, maybe they’d exchange a goodnight kiss, and that was that. He knows what he doesn’t like, but he’s not sure what he’s looking for. The only thing he’s sure of on account of finding his love is that this person cannot be a woman- for some reason, whenever he kissed a girl it felt like he was kissing a sibling.

While traveling he usually used his hand-made shoes as bartering chips. Money was always too abstract of a concept for him, so a family member would often take over a sale involving currency. Why he took to shoes he really didn’t know, although maybe one day he’d eventually be able to retrace his mental steps and find out. For now, they were simply amusing and helped him get what he wanted. The high quality of his boots allowed him to trade for more expensive items, such as his small dagger collection and his silky shirts. In fact, his pants were tailored especially for him by way of a series of boot trades. His long legs and thin hips made average pants too short. He also trained himself as a contortionist/equilibrist and performed for passerby to earn spare change to buy his smaller knick-knacks that his family thought were a waste of money. He still stretches and practices his handstands every morning, just in case performing seems appealing again. He may forget to eat, but he never forgets to stretch.

As much as he loved being with his family, Kashtan always found the idea of a little shoe shop in a city cute. He eventually left home to pursue this fantasy in Vienda, and began living in the Soot District in late Achtus. Finding his apartment was very intimidating. He had had his older brother come and help him choose one and managed to sign a lease with a manageable price. Leaving his family wasn’t painful or sad at all, for he didn’t really feel that he was actually separating himself from them.

The city folk of Vienda aren’t as accepting of him as his wick family was, and he has yet to make any friends. He lives by himself in a small studio apartment, and he often feels lonely. He tends to either make up craft projects to pass the time or go out for walks just to be able to see other people.

!!!Personality
If Kashtan’s personality had to be summed up in one word, it would be ‘puppy,’ although for some reason he thinks of himself as a cat. He is overly friendly towards everyone and usually uses first names with titles, such as Mr. Eran instead of Mr. Scully if referring to Eran Scully. His tactile nature causes him to forget about personal space, and he is excited by just about everything. Thankfully, he is house trained.

He has this need to touch things and is constantly fumbling with something, be it the hem of his vest, whatever’s on display at a nearby shop, a table, or even someone’s hand. He also will put things to his mouth when he thinks. Usually pencils or papers, but just about anything’s possible. He is excessively gentle with everything he touches and handles, even if he’s pulling on it.

Kashtan has an extremely light, brisk step. He could run across rooftops in boots and barely make a sound. He has an elegance to him, which is mostly due to the aforementioned softness and lightness of his movements, but also his posture. His neat, pretty handwriting usually shows up in embroidery projects rather than in actual modes of communication due to his lack of formal schooling and thus strange methods of spelling. (He learned from posters he and his brother collected while traveling.) It easily fits with all the other designs he embroiders on everything he can stick a needle through. Even his fighting style is light and elegant. If forced into actual combat, he uses his daggers. His movements are quick and effective, but usually reserved for fear of killing someone. If he can avoid a dagger fight, though, he will usually use his feet- they have a farther reach than his arms, and the hardened toes of his boots can pack quite a hit, making up for what he lacks in actual force. He is left handed, although his right hand isn’t completely lacking in skill. He tends to reach out for things with his left hand- even handshakes.

Kashtan has very animated facial expressions. They usually range from happy interest to overly excited to amazed to a childish pout, although he could just as easily make very calm, reserved expressions, which are normally saved for when he is in private. He has a very jumpy way of behaving when it comes to topics, giving the impression he lacks any form of attention span. He will quickly change subjects and talk about each one excitedly- he likes to be amused, even if he has to be the one entertaining himself. He will leave little pauses between a few topics to see if whoever he is talking to will reply, but if they take too long it’s time for new subject matter. This constant switching allows Kashtan to hide deeper emotions that he doesn’t want most people to know about. If someone insults him or asks a too-personal question, he may give a short, vague answer or even avoid an actual reply altogether and just point out something else in the vicinity.

Kashtan doesn’t cook because he doesn’t find it mentally stimulating. It’s not that he lacks ability, it just doesn’t amuse him. He will make the fastest, simplest things he can. If he’s really not in the mood, he may live on cereal for weeks. And that is without milk. His favorite foods are desserts and sweets, especially cookies, although he hates cleaning pots and thus avoids baking. He doesn’t like it when fruits are mixed with things like chocolate or pastries, although he tends to make exceptions for bananas and strawberries. He just about hates citrus fruits that are not in juice form. He also dislikes alcoholic drinks- he doesn’t like their taste.

Kashtan also has a bad habit of not eating enough when he’s working on something, such as a shoe commission. He will often work on custom shoes for 15-22 hours per day, only stopping for restroom breaks and water. He ends up maybe eating some cereal type of thing if he remembers to eat at all. When he’s not busy he normally eats first thing in the morning otherwise his head ‘feels fuzzy.’

He normally sleeps between 5 and 10 hours per night- usually more towards 7 or 8 hours. If kept up too late, he might sleep more, even if it means not opening his shop for the day. He loves his little shop, but sometimes sleep is just so much better. He usually sleeps with his hands up near his face and his breathing can be so soft he may appear dead to the untrained viewer. He is just as comfortable in the fetal position as he is with his legs extended. The size and familiarity of the sleeping location tends to determine how much he stretches out. He will wake up if someone leans on the mattress too close to him, and he has a bad habit of nuzzling up to anyone who shares a bed with him- almost like he’s trying to bury himself under them. He’ll wake up when the person gets up, more because his face is now cold, rather than because he noticed his companion leave. He can fall asleep in mere seconds, so this change in temperature, once realized, is easily forgotten and overcome by burrowing back under the sheets.

Kashtan has this immense lack of knowledge of worth. He always underestimates the prices he could sell his merchandise for. Usually, after considering cost of materials, he asks the other person what they’d pay for it, then tries to ease the price up a bit by talking about how much time it took to make the item. Almost all of his shoes could easily go for a third to half a concord, but they are usually purchased for a third of the price because he has no sense of worth. He rarely displays more than a couple pairs of his best shoes in his shop- he wants people to know what he can do, but he doesn’t want to encourage break-ins.

Kashtan likes to collect random objects, such as nuts, paper, drawing utensils, fancy bent spoons that have been discarded by previous owners; anything he finds lying around. His home isn’t dirty, per se, but it is a little disorganized. His hand-made sketchbooks- consisting of pads or loose sheets of paper he sewed and stuck together with maybe a thicker material or cloth on the outside because the pads themselves are too flimsy in his opinion- aren’t arranged by size, objects aren’t always next to similar objects, there are all sorts of little items filling empty spaces on his shelves, current projects tend to be strewn across his desk and floor, and he never makes his bed. He doesn’t know why he’d make it if no one visits him to see it. He cleans maybe once per week, so his room isn’t dusty or anything, it just looks a bit jumbled. He is very meticulous about food messes in his apartment for fear that oil or stinky substances from the food may somehow damage his watercolors or string, or maybe attract insects. Those nasty roaches- always leaving their droppings everywhere!

!!!Physical Description
Kashtan is thin and about 5’9”, which is rather tall for a wick. He can normally be found wearing some sort of button-down shirt with cuffs and collar he embroidered, one of the vests he made himself, plain pants, and self-made boots. He has long, elegant legs in proportion to his body. They tend to make him look taller when he’s alone, but like an adolescent human when he’s next to another adult. His eyes are blue with yellow around the pupil and dark brown eyelashes. They are rather human in shape and he usually has them open pretty wide. Some expressions even make him appear to have a human double-lid. He tends to look like an excited kid a lot of the time both due to his general appearance and his personality. His skin has a slight tan to it and he is quite lacking in freckles. His lips are rather big for a guy- he could make a woman jealous. They aren’t very different in color from the rest of his face, thus he lacks a lipsticked look. His hair is bleach-blond and his eyebrows are just barely darker. Kashtan’s body isn’t particularly muscled. In fact, he looks rather weak with his lack of body fat and muscle mass. His fingers are long and delicate, and he keeps his nails able to work with string and undo the little knots. His shoulder width is wide enough to help distinguish him from women, but everything else is just plain thin, adding to his elongated look. His shoulders help make his upper half look a little bigger, but there is nothing to enlarge his legs, which are probably the best indicators as to how thin he really is under however baggy a shirt he has acquired. Kashtan has five piercings per ear, which usually consist of gold-colored hoop earrings and a set of round torch-red ones that he wears in his lobes. Kashtan’s voice isn’t abnormally high or ridiculously low. It’s a middle pitch that is also very smooth and rich. If a voice could have a texture, his would be room-temperature milk chocolate.

!!!Inventory
*One or two concealed daggers.
*String and a sewing needle.
*Small hand-made sketchbook and writing utensil.
*Money if he has a reason to use it.

!!!Skills
*Shoemaker and embroiderer- tends to hand-dye his string.
*Watercolorist of scenery, buildings, and plants.
*Tailor on rare occasions.

!!!Goals
*Improve on his Big Fix spell to cure whatever physical damage he witnesses.
*Find some sort of family in the city, possibly including a life partner.
*Find someone with a house he can room with so he can have more space to move about and store his menagerie of found objects.

Welcome to Thorns! Thanks for submitting your sheet. The mods will be discussing and get back to you shortly!

I was told through an instant messenger that my background story was lacking and almost guaranteed to need editing, so here is my current updated version. I won't be editing the rest of the profile until I recieve your feedback. I also heard that it was suggested that I move the way he moves to his physical description. I haven't done that yet, and I'm not sure why it would go there. I always link a person's way of moving to their personality unless there's something like a disability affecting mobility.

"Kashtan was born into the Laughing Sky tribe on Intas 4th. He had the usual close-knit family. He loved listening to and memorizing the songs and stories- to this day he often quotes them. He always attended family meals, which helped remind him to actually eat due to how focused he often became in his work. His love life never went very far. Usually someone would ask him on a date, he’d oblige, maybe they’d exchange a goodnight kiss, and that was that. He knows what he doesn’t like, but he’s not sure what he’s looking for. The only thing he’s sure of on account of finding his love is that this person cannot be a woman- for some reason, whenever he kissed a girl it felt like he was kissing a sibling.

While traveling he usually used his hand-made shoes as bartering chips. Money was always too abstract of a concept for him, so a family member would often take over a sale involving currency. Why he took to shoes he really didn’t know, although maybe one day he’d eventually be able to retrace his mental steps and find out. For now, they were simply amusing and helped him get what he wanted. The high quality of his boots allowed him to trade for more expensive items, such as his small dagger collection and his silky shirts. In fact, his pants were tailored especially for him by way of a series of boot trades. His long legs and thin hips made average pants too short. He also trained himself as a contortionist/equilibrist and performed for passerby to earn spare change to buy his smaller knick-knacks that his family thought were a waste of money. He still stretches and practices his handstands every morning, just in case performing seems appealing again. He may forget to eat, but he never forgets to stretch.

As much as he loved being with his family, Kashtan always found the idea of a little shoe shop in a city cute. He eventually left home to pursue this fantasy in Vienda, and began living in the Soot District in late Achtus. Finding his apartment was very intimidating. He had had an older sibling come and help him choose one and managed to sign a lease with a manageable price. Leaving his family wasn’t painful or sad at all, for he didn’t really feel that he was actually separating himself from them.

The city folk of Vienda aren’t as accepting of him as his wick family was, and he has yet to make any friends. He lives by himself in a small studio apartment, and he often feels lonely. He will often either make up craft projects to pass the time or go out for walks just to be able to see other people."

Thanks for that. I did tell Gi that we usually want a three paragraph minimum in chat. Thanks so much for adding that in.

We'll be getting back to you on the rest shortly!

Thanks for adding to your backstory! We have a few edits before you can start playing, which you can make right to your original post by clicking the Edit button. Just post to bump the thread to let us know when you're done editing. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to PM a mod or find us in chat!

1. Books are expensive and rare. They're especially dangerous for anyone who's not a galdor to own. Chances are, Kash would own none. If he owned a pad of paper for shoe sketches, that would be one thing, but several books is a salary of a lifetime for one of the lower races and also very dangerous to his personal safety if caught with them.

As a cobbler, Kash is not guaranteed to know how to read. He can apply for a reading permit, but chances are, growing up a spoke, he wouldn't necessarily know how to read and write so much as draw and sketch. Who taught Kash to write?

2. Not an outright edit but something to keep in mind is the fact that 5'8" is tall for a wick. It's fine to be so, and you don't have to change it, but it's not an average height. Wicks and galdori tend to be short, while humans are tall.

3. Attention disorders are a modern discovery. Kash would just be thought of as easily distracted or flighty.

4. Lastly, while your inventory and skills are well-written, the current standard is to have them listed as bullet points instead of in paragraph form. If you could simplify that to fit the uniform of other sheets, that would be great.

Thanks!

I read through the whole thing as I made the edits, so most of the paragraphs may have a reworded or added sentence or so. It would be awesome if I've managed to catch everything, but there may be a stray unclarified book here and there. I made the sketchbooks specificaly hand-made- hopefully that's acceptable. I know I'd do it if pads were my only option. The glue always becomes brittle and then everything falls out.

I just edited the original post- I had put the updated profile here because it seemed like less of a hassle and there'd be the old one for comparison purposes, but Gi said that you'd all assume I wasn't listening/reading. Which I was- I read the comments 3-7 times- but apparently my methods may be kind of out there. And there is still the chance I missed something. Maybe this is why I can never find anything in supermarkets. Why is the cat food kept accross from the pesticides? I don't think Publix likes cats.

Ooooh Publix, how I miss thee. At least tell me Kotobuki is still there ...

We'll give your sheet a re-read and let you know. Thanks for making those changes!

Thanks for waiting. My only recommendation is that you re-read your sheet to make sure you stay in past tense (there's a couple of places where it at least appears you slip into the present, but nothing major). Just as a note, Kashtan would be considered very tall for a wick.

Other than that, thanks for making the other edits and adding extra back story.

You're approved.

I read through and I only found one possible tense slip-up, which I fixed. Maybe I put some on purpose that don't flow right for other readers. (My brain works without transition words a lot of the time.) I also checked punctuation and switched a few repetitive words with similar ones. If you see any more errors, could you please list them and their locations so I don't miss them? Reading this thing over and over makes problems harder to find. And thanks for the approvaaal.