Eric Esmond - XERES LIVE!

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Basic Information

Full Name

Eric Esmond

Nickname

The King's Teacher

Race (Grade)

Human (F)

Class

Teacher

Height

5'11"

Birthday

Yearend 30, 1283

Age

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Birthsign

The Janus Owlbear

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Bloodline Ability

🔮Unknown

This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.

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Physical Description

Eric Esmond, The King's Teacher

Appearance

Eric is unremarkable in exactly the way a Goodberry court would produce a scholar: neatly built, dark hair kept short and perpetually a little damp, round wire spectacles, and an open, easy smile that reads as genuine because it is. He favors loose linen shirts left unbuttoned at the collar and rolled at the sleeves, a losing but ongoing negotiation with the climate, and he carries a worn leather satchel everywhere he goes, stuffed with scrolls, a well-used primer, and whatever half-graded lesson he was in the middle of when something more interesting interrupted him. He tans easily but never comfortably, and by midafternoon on most days he has the flushed, faintly wilted look of a man reconsidering several of his life choices.

Unique Characteristics

Eric sweats through his shirt by midmorning on an ordinary day and considers this simply the cost of doing business in Wildgrove Thicket. He has developed the habit, mid-lesson, of pressing the back of his wrist to his forehead without seeming to notice he is doing it, a tell the tribe's children have learned to imitate behind his back with great affection and no subtlety whatsoever.

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Personality

Positive Traits

Genuinely curious about Vishkanya customs, not just fixing them
Endlessly patient with slow or frustrated students
Keeps careful notes on words he's learning from them too
Warm, self-deprecating sense of humor about himself
Shows up prepared, even when badly overheated
Forms real friendships, not just professional courtesy

Challenging Traits

Privately uneasy about serving the crown's agenda here
Overprepares lessons out of anxious perfectionism
Physically miserable in heat, and it shows in his mood
Hides homesickness behind constant jokes about it
Tries too hard to prove his worth to people who like him fine
Avoids conflict with the tribe's elders past a point

I did not come here to make anyone stop being Vishkanya. I came here so that the next time someone from Goodberry tries to cheat one of Ssi'Katha's people in a contract, they will be reading it themselves.

Someone in the palace decided a jungle duchy needed a tutor and looked at a list of scholars who had never once complained about weather. I do not know how my name ended up on that list. I have my suspicions.

They teased me for a month after I fainted mid-lesson in Sunspeak. Fair enough. I would have teased me too. I still finished the lesson first, which is the part I choose to remember.

Likes

The exact moment a student's reading finally clicks
Learning Vishkanya words as fast as he teaches his own
Rare overcast mornings that don't feel like an oven
Being invited to meals without needing to ask twice
Letters from home, even the boring ones

Dislikes

Midday heat in any month that isn't Frostmoon
Being treated as the crown's eyes rather than a teacher
Court instructions that ignore how Ssi'Korr actually works
Students being mocked for their accent in common speech
Writing his mandatory reports back to the palace

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Background & History

A Name on a Palace List

Eric was a junior tutor of language and civics in Goodberry, competent and well-liked but unremarkable, when King Xaneborr's administration went looking for someone to send to the newly settled Ssi'Korr to teach the common tongue and the basic mechanics of the Verdant March's laws and trade. He suspects, though no one has confirmed it, that his name was chosen partly because his supervisor wanted him gone for a season and partly because he was one of the few candidates who had never once complained about a posting. He accepted the assignment with more enthusiasm than he now, in his more honest moments, admits was entirely warranted.

Arriving as the King's Watcher

His first months in Ssi'Korr were difficult, and not primarily because of the climate, though the climate did him no favors. The tribe had every reason to be wary of a Goodberrian sent by royal order so soon after their arrival in Wildgrove Thicket, and more than one elder assumed, not unreasonably, that his actual job was reporting on them rather than teaching them. Eric did not try to argue this away with words. He simply kept showing up, kept lessons genuinely useful rather than performative, and made a visible habit of asking Vishkanya words for things rather than only supplying his own.

The Contract That Changed the Room

The turning point, by most accounts, came about a year in, when Eric caught a discrepancy in a proposed trade agreement between Ssi'Korr and a Goodberrian merchant, a clause written in dense legal phrasing that would have quietly shorted the tribe on a seasonal goods exchange. He flagged it before Ssi'Katha's people signed anything, on his own initiative and against, technically, his own countrymen's interests. Word of it spread through the settlement quickly. The suspicion did not vanish overnight, but it started, visibly, to thin.

Fainting in Sunspeak

Eric collapsed mid-lesson during a brutal stretch of heat in his second year, folding straight off his stool in front of a room of nine-year-olds, and the story has followed him ever since with considerable relish on the tribe's part. Zessan Marr was the one who revived him and has kept him supplied with a standing cooling remedy ever since, and the two have been genuinely close friends from roughly that afternoon onward. The children still occasionally check, with theatrical concern, whether their teacher is about to fall over again.

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Goals

Writing an Actual Primer

Eric is compiling a proper written primer that teaches common script alongside Vishkanya vocabulary rather than replacing it, something he wishes had existed when he arrived instead of the scattered court materials he was issued. He intends to send a copy back to Goodberry when it is finished, less because anyone asked for it and more because he thinks future tutors deserve to do this job better than he was equipped to.

Being Liked as Eric, Not the King's Man

Eric has largely earned the tribe's trust at this point, but he still catches himself, more often than he would like, working a little too hard to prove his usefulness to people who have already stopped questioning it. He would like, eventually, to simply relax into being someone's friend without first re-litigating why he is here.

The Reports He Softens

Eric is required to send periodic reports on Ssi'Korr's integration back to the crown, and he has, quietly and without telling anyone in either direction, begun leaving out details he thinks could be misread by a distant palace administrator as instability or resistance. He tells himself this is simply good judgment about what is and isn't relevant. He has not yet had to find out what happens if the palace ever notices the gaps.

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Current Status & Relationships

Residence

Ssi'Korr

Role

Royal Tutor, Sent by King Xaneborr

Ssi'Korr

ATTENTION!

Eric Esmond is not a fighter, a spellcaster, or a survivalist, and has no combat capability worth speaking of; he is a scholar who was reassigned into a jungle. He does hold a standing obligation to file periodic reports to King Xaneborr's court on conditions in Ssi'Korr, which means anything discussed candidly in front of him may eventually be read by someone in the Verdant March's capital, whether or not he intends it to travel that far. He also tolerates heat and humidity extremely poorly, tiring and overheating well before most companions would, and should not be relied upon for any excursion into the deep jungle without accounting for that.