Julian Ferrin Rime, a Diviner wizard also known as "The Fool", is one of my characters. You can read all about him here!
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RIME: ” I've been told I have a bad poker face, and it's easier to do business when emotions aren't involved ”
❤

backstory


Julian is a member of the small but long-lived noble family Rime, known for their divination abilities. They deal in information, glimpses of the future, past or present, and guard their unique bloodline carefully. In secret, the Rime family works closely with the Masked and Open Lords of Waterdeep. It’s not uncommon for a member of the family to work their way to eventually becoming a Magister.

Julian's grandfather, Ambrose, chose Julian to be their successor/pupil. He was an eccentric moon elf wizard who worked independently as a sort of detective, fortune teller and masked vigilante known as The Fool. Waterdeep Batman! Julian later decides to take up the mantle for their own reasons.


STR
10
DEX
13
CON
16
INT
16
WIS
10
CHA
13
@ level 4 for u D&D nerds

appearance

6'0" tall, thin and angular build with grey blond, long hair that's either tied back in a tight low ponytail secured with a ribbon, or a braid when it's dirty. His hair is naturally wavy, but he makes it straight with magic :)

His eyes are light green like most moon elves and his skin color is violet-tinged and very pale. It tends to take on the color of the light/reflections around him.

His preferred clothing style is dark colors like greys and purples, pinstripe/pleated accents and few accessories. He often wears a long business casual wizard skirt/apron over his regular clothes because I think it's cute.

His signature mask resembles the one his mentor wore, but it's not meant to really hide his face, as much as make a statement that "The Fool" isn't going anywhere. it's a domino style mask made of silver, resembling an older mustached man with eyes and cheeks turned upwards in a smile, with a molded nose covering the wearer's.

Personality

Julian is the fantasy of a noble who believes in noblesse oblige, someone who tries very hard to do good. He's very patient, having grown up as the older sibling in a big family, mild-mannered, and polite to a fault.

He's also hard to read. He worries a lot, about everyone and everything. As a person born into privilege, he's a little too willing to bow to authority. He has a bad habit of projecting his family issues onto others, and he has a lot of them. He's really bad at sleeping and constantly exhausted. Very good at elf mahjong though (lawful evil trait).

I learned I had OCD and got very attached to Julian while processing that. So he and Sylvie have OCD too. :) I started thinking about how it would inform his choices, how he functions in the world, and his anxieties about seeing into the future, and I started writing about him outside of the campaign.

Family



Julian's twin sister, Sylvie, works as an Advisor to the current Open Lord. She’s the family’s golden child, making Julian the black sheep now that their eccentric grandfather has passed.
She bears a silent grudge against Julian for his special training growing up and lack of personal ambition, but they’re still very close. She can be intimidating and has a bit of a temper.
Julian’s parents often press them both on when they will become Magisters and marry, but neither is very interested.

Younger siblings include Louisa or Lou, a researcher, Sterling, the second youngest and a rebellious preteen, and Morgan who works outside of the family as a fine clothier. Winter, Rime’s youngest sibling, is still in school but may be a magical prodigy.

His father Damien savvily manages the family’s business affairs. He’s a human who’s an accomplished arcane researcher. His marriage to Bianca was arranged, but they genuinely love each other and work well together.

Bianca is the most skilled of their family in Divination aside from Julian and Sylvie. She’s the leader of the family and the more critical parent while Damien is more subtly supportive.

They all have white/silver colored hair except Damien, who has it naturally now due to age. The Rime family is descended from a lineage of Moon Elves and have blue tinged skin.

They are all a little socially awkward, so Rime thinks he’s normal. :)

halli



In his younger days (read: not 30 elf years/50 human years old), the love of his life Halli invited him to go on an adventure and Rime turned them down. While it was true that Rime had obligations at home, with his family self-destructing after their grandfather's untimely and mysterious death, the truth was much simpler. He was afraid to risk it all for love.

Halli returned to Waterdeep years later, hailed as an accomplished wizard and hero. They move in closer social circles now, after they were given the honorary title of a knight for their deeds. Somehow, through the ups and downs of life and even a short-lived engagement, Rime still has their favor, but it's not enough to push him to cross the boundary between the two.

Halli being a human, and Rime having the extended lifespan of a Half-Elf, complicates the glacial pace of their relationship.

There is a lot of tension between them and they often find themselves in Situations.

Design

first concept
First concept.
pretty
He got less pretty after this since I have difficulty making characters look 'perfect' all the time.


expressions 1
expressions
expressions 2
more expressions
ambrose
Ambrose & young Julian
future? adventuring outfit
future? adventuring outfit
Design inspirations included Lady Oscar from Rose of Versailles, Griffith from Berserk, and the Medicine Seller from Mononoke. I wanted them to be mysterious and eccentric, hiding behind their poise and practiced smile... he still is these things, but he's also very anxious underneath it all LOL.

Another inspiration for his clothing was Gen Kobayashi’s design for the Storyteller from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. So, Julian’s grandpa/mentor, Ambrose the original Fool, is basically a silly AU version of him.

I'm not very interested in playing cis characters, so Julian is also not cis. (Looks at camera and refuses to explain) I'd like to design more outfits in the future that play with presentatation. Julian doesn't care about clothing much, but he also doesn't care about gender norms so the world is my oyster.

I really like drawing his hands and hair :J

Divination

first concept


"Divination is a business, at least for me. Some people want the future to be a series of impartial facts, but history's neither impartial or fair. So, I may cushion the truth at times, to spare my client's feelings."

When thinking about how to convey Divination magic in roleplay, I wondered how much of it was internal and how much was for show. It's hard to sell people something when they don't have an impression of it or understand how it works. One example is the way airbending is apparently invisible in the world of Avatar the Last Airbender, so people doubt it's existence. I figured in a world where magic was common, a family with a reputation like Rime's would help a lot to dispel that doubt, but that each Diviner chooses how to convey their abilities to their clients/audience, if at all.

Rime prefers 1 on 1 sessions, finding people to be more truthful and direct during private moments, but he'll cast his spells and do his readings for an audience with a thin sort of patience.

Sometimes he experiences visions, which are more dramatic - he goes wide-eyed, shakes and starts sweating profusely. It's a stress reaction, since his grandfather's death was presumably caused by a particularly intense vision, and Julian's become more afraid to experience them as time goes on.
No one in his family experiences them as frequently as he does, and it's something Sylvie is sour about. She tends to see a wider picture of the future when she uses Divination magic than he does, which he envies in turn. I'd like to explore the differences between their magic and their relationships to it in my writing/comics someday.

Also, because he was taught by his grandfather, when he does cast spells his body doesn't move much, and his somatic components are very precise with no shortcuts. Perfect form! Experienced wizards can probably tell he was taught very strictly.