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Name: Dulcie Seward
Where he/she lives: In the rooms behind her husband's shop in Lower Corus
Place of Birth: Lower City, Corus
Age, Date of Birth: 36, November 3rd
Occupation: To most of the people who frequent her husband's candle shop, Dulcie is nothing but a house wife. To those
who have been referred to her, however, she is a fence and a guide into the Corus underworld, with many "useful" acquaintances.
Status (noble, rich commoner, peasant, priest, etc): Commoner
Locale (Inn of the Rogue or Little Court): Inn of the Rogue
Magic: Dulcie has no magic, though she makes it her business to know who does and who doesn't. She has occasionally
been known to envy those with the Sight, since she thinks it's more useful than sparkly lights and stopping sniffles.
Family: Dulcie never got to know her father (see history), and her mother has been dead for many years. Her older sister
Grace ran off with a troupe of Players and they rarely meet.
Her husband, Milo Seward, was besotted with her, and she married him because of that, and his honest trade of candle-making.
She believes that he is too kind, partly because of the fact that he's taken his nephew Hugh as an apprentice for very little
money, and that he is stupid, simply because he sees life more simply and innocently than she does. Hugh himself is the very
definition of slow and steady, but he was also very clumsy and has incurred Dulcie's wrath more than once for tripping, spilling,
knocking over or otherwise upsetting things in her house. However, Dulcie doesn't really dislike him, because his presence
in the shop brings more young women to the door and thus, more business to her.
Dulcie and Milo have two grown children, Sonya and Rodger, who have been sent away as a scullery maid and a mason's apprentice,
respectively. Sonya is very close to her mother and is just as much of a gossip as she is. She comes home to visit twice a
month. Rodger, on the other hand, still works in the Lower City and visits whenever he pleases.
Appearance: The two words that best describe Dulcie are short and stout; she is five feet flat and shaped along the
lines of a barrel. Her face is round and doughy, with sharp brown eyes and a small mouth, set on a double chin and a very
short neck. Her hair is dull brown and straight as a poker. She tends to keep it braided back out of her face or tucked under
a kerchief. She has a burn scar on the back of her left hand from when Hugh tripped and spilled hot tallow everywhere.
Clothing: Because of her husband's work, Dulcie can afford good quality clothes, and needs them for her business from
time to time. However, for her excursions into places like the Inn of the Rogue, she keeps several nondescript dresses and
a worn once-black shawl. Nearly all of her clothes have spots of wax or tallow on them somewhere.
Personality: Dulcie needs to have some measure of control, the more the better. She also likes to know more about her
associates than they know about her. Because of this she avoids strong alcohol, sleeps with beeswax in her ears to ensure
that she gets enough sleep to keep her wits about her and lets out lots of contradicting "facts" about herself and her past.
On top of that, she is a passable actress and can pretend to be motherly and comforting should it benefit her somehow.
She is a very social person and enjoys spreading gossip about the richer merchants and poorer nobles who frequent Milo's shop
and whose wives peruse her store of stolen goods. In fact, one of the "services" that she offers is simply ruining reputations.
Some servants of Milo's clients help that way, as they either want revenge for bad treatment or need more money than they're
being paid. Gossip that she is, Dulcie can also be a danger to anyone she associates with and has, on occasion, accidentally
given away her colleagues to the Lord Provost.
Dulcie is very disdainful anyone too much richer than she is. Nobles and rich merchants are particularly distasteful to her,
because the way she sees it, they've never worked a day in their lives, unless they've been actively fighting in a war or
actually been leading a merchant's wagon. Writing in ledgers and collecting taxes don't count. This is why she has few scruples
about selling stolen possessions of rich ladies to other rich ladies; she feels that it's completely fair, so long as no one
dies, and that in a way it's like the nobles' way of apologizing for the taxes they imposed on her mother when she was a child,
and then on her husband when they got married.
She can't write, which is a great source of shame to her, but she can count, and believes that it is one of her biggest accomplishments.
She hung around the market when she was young and learned how to use scales and how to bargain. She regards bargaining as
a game, preferable to poker and other card games at least, and one of her pastimes is seeing how low she can haggle the price
of some impractical object in the market before she gets turned away. She likes to think that the fact that she usually manages
to "buy low and sell high" means she is more intelligent than the people from whom she buys and to whom she sells.
Because she never learned to read, but wishes she could, Dulcie has a strategy for figuring out what things say; either she
blames her "bad eyes" and asks someone to read it to her, or she casually steers conversations around to what she thinks the
thing says and pays very close attention to how people react.
Dulcie dislikes girls who are trying to make their way on their own, especially the unmarried ones. She is of the almost hypocritical
school of thought that girls are not as smart or capable as men, and so tends to underestimate them.
She also hates dogs, and will never go near them in the street. She even takes detours to avoid the houses that she knows
have watch dogs. She doesn't particularly like cats either, because she's allergic to their fur and they kill birds. Birds
are her favourite animals, especially song birds. When, if ever, she has a truly horrible day, she likes to walk up to the
Royal Menagerie and listen to the birds there.
Strengths: Dulcie is good at acting and bargaining, two things that are immensely helpful for her business. She also
very social, which helps her gain contacts. She knows how to use her fists to defend herself (if only crudely).
Weaknesses: Dulcie is a tremendous gossip, which gets her into trouble more often than it gets her out and she tends
to underestimate girls in any line of work and usually doesn't work with them. She also bottles up her feelings, for fear
of hurting her business, which results in one little thing setting her off once in a while, at which point she explodes at
the cause of that thing. Her left wrist is weak because a man she tried to rob in her childhood broke it and it healed crookedly.
History: Dulcie has lived in the Lower City ever since she was born. She never learned what happened to her father
(although she suspects that his disappearance had to do with the Rogue in some way or other) because her mother never talked
about him and her sister barely remembered him. She grew up in a set of rooms in a boarding house beside the tavern where
her mother worked as a barmaid. Dulcie ran errands sometimes, but spent most of her time hanging around the markets and picking
a pocket or two with the other children when money was scarce.
When Dulcie was eleven, her sister (three years older than her) fell in love with a young Player and when his troupe left
Corus, she left with him. Dulcie saw this as something out of one of her beloved ballads and stories, so she didn't mind much.
That same year, Dulcie began working for a washer-woman to earn some money of her own, which was where she met Milo three
years later; he was halfway through his apprenticeship and always came in with clothing stiff with tallow. He loved to talk
to her, and when he proposed to her, Dulcie accepted, because she realized that she wouldn't have to work for her keep. One
year later, she gave birth to their daughter Sonya and then their son Rodger two years later.
Soon after Rodger's birth, Dulcie's mother died peacefully of age. Dulcie held a small memorial dinner and mourned for several
months, but privately believes that her mother was happier in the realms of the Black God, because she wouldn't need to wait
on drunken fools ever again or depend on her son-in-law for all her money.
Dulcie raised her children to be useful; from the very first, she taught them their manners, but also to gain the trust of
worthwhile people. When they were each twelve, she found them good positions with some of Milo's patrons. She is quite proud
of their accomplishments, which include reading and writing.
Milo's nephew Hugh came to work with him two years before Sonya left home. He was the very definition of slow and steady,
but he was also very clumsy and incurred Dulcie's wrath more than once for tripping, spilling, knocking over or otherwise
upsetting things in her house. However, Dulcie didn't really dislike him.
Soon after Rodger left home, Dulcie became restless; she had spent the last fourteen years raising her children and now she
had nothing to do. Luckily, an old friend of hers showed up after only a few months; he was one of the boys who'd taught her
to pick pockets and was now a thief. He had some (stolen) women's jewelery and perfume and had no way to sell it without raising
suspicion. Dulcie offered to sell it for him, for a cut of the profit. He accepted, and Dulcie found her new pastime; being
a fence.
What is your character most ashamed of? Dulcie is ashamed that she never knew her father, because she thinks that this
makes her a bastard (in the legal sense) despite the fact that her parents were married when she was born. She is also ashamed
that she never learned to read or write (except her name).
What makes your character unique? Despite her callous appearance and gruff manner, Dulcie has a very sweet singing
voice. She adores the tragic romantic ballads about lovers being separated, wars being fought, and people dying pointless
deaths.
Why is your character coming to the Inn? Dulcie takes every opportunity to establish new business associates. After
years of working with the few thieves whom she found or who sought her out, Dulcie has decided visit one of the more seedy
inns in hopes of expanding her dealings.
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