Orly Greenfield / Dogodan / Wood Carver

Name: Orly Greenfield

Gender: Male

Age: 36

Race: Hobbit

Tribe: Dogodan

Occupation: Wood Carver

Title: Wayfaring Whittler

Overview: When Orly turned thirty-three, most in the Dogodan Shire believed this previously respected and admired young gentle-hobbit had gone quite mad. The reason for this belief is because one day he packed up the tools of his trade, made sure he had food for a journey and headed north out of the shire and to the cities of the humans. Orly wanted to see the world, and now he travels, whilttling pipes, toys and other objects out of wood and selling them to people in exchange for food and drink and shelter.

Appearance
Height: 1 ped

Weight: 5 hebs

Hair Colour: Light Brown (curly)

Eye Colour: Hazel

Physical Appearance:
A head of curly hair, a plump stomach, rosy cheeks and a friendly smile are the first things noticed by people when they come across Orly. His height and weight are average for a hobbit of the Dogodan Shire.

His cheeks are plump and red and are a nice contrast to his hazel coloured eyes. His curly light brown hair reach down to just above his shoulder blades. His face is weathered from his travelling throughout the countryside.

His stomach is plump in the style of hobbits, which suggests he still gets most of his meals during the day. His hands are large, steady and weathered, as a result of his life of travelling and from his work as a wood carver.

Like other hobbits, Orly has curly hair on his feet as well as on his head. His hair on his feet, once again like other hobbits, is coarser than the hair on his head. As well as being weathered, his skin is tanned as a result of his travelling during the day.

Clothing:
Despite being a relatively young hobbit far from home, Orly wears traditional hobbits clothes. A broad brimmed straw hat is used to keep the bright rays of the sun from his face. Orly wears no jewellery of any kind around his neck or elsewhere on his body.

He wears a multicoloured short sleeved shirt with stripes, such as white, light yellows and greens. His trousers are have been sown from old ship sails which are too worn and old to be used as sails anymore. These have been dyed brown and reach just below the knees. As a hobbit, he has thick, coarse, curly hair on his feet, which negate the need for him to wear shoes.

Finally, Orly has a jacket made of animal hides with the wool of sheep on the inside. When the weather gets chilly, or if he needs to impress someone, he'll wear one of these over whichever one of his shirts is cleanest at the time.

Personality:
Orly has most of the traditional hobbit traits of friendliness, a fondness for tales and dancing, a preference for pipeweed, and a love of eating and drinking. These traits are tempered by his curiousity which falls into the twin fields of what happens if I do this and what is over the next hill. Both areas of curiousity have gotten him in trouble in the past and more than likely will do so again.

Orly's friendliness comes to the fore when he meets people for the first time. At this time, he will greet them and soon they will be chatting like old friends, and if he's lucky, he'll even have a place to stay that night. This friendliness is tempered by his forgetfulness. Unless he has used someone's name frequently in meeting them, more than likely he will forget their name. He also frequently misplaces objects such as his pipe, his pipeweed and his walking stick.

Orly misses his family that he has left behind. His siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews were a large part of his life for the first thirty-three years of it. Since then, he has pondered going back occasionally, but when he wakes up the next day, his wonderlust and curiousity take hold and his longstriding affliction takes over. As a result, he continues on to discover the whole new world that exists outside of his current frame of reference.

In recent times, Orly's hunger has gotten the best of him, and he's started taking items of food he sees, whether it is baked goods cooling, produce for sale, or some other tasty treat that he wants to try. On these occasions, Orly will sometimes let his desire to fill his belly to overcome his good manners.

Strengths
Whittler: Since the time of his adolescence, Orly has been honing his skills as a whittler of wood. Despite efforts by his father to get him to follow the family career of a carpenter, he steadfastly and stubbornly stuck to whittling objects. He can take wood of a variety of trees and whittle it into a range of objects, some useful, some decorative and some designed to be used as toys by children. As a result, he is never without a pipe as he can simply make himself a new one if his pipe gets lost. He can also sell his whittled products for coins or exchange it for food, drink or accommodation for the night.

Charmer: Orly's smile, friendly wave and greeting put people at ease when they meet him. He makes friends easily and is able to use this to help secure decent accommodation, food and drink when he is out and about. He is also able to use these skills to get information out of people.

Walking Stick: Orly has a good sturdy walking stick, just the right height for him. His walking stick is useful when he is crossing rugged terrain. If he gets into a sticky situation, Orly can use the walking stick to give the person or thing threatening him a quick rap and attempt to make a quick getaway. Orly changes his walking stick regularly, either because he has lost his previous one, whittled his previous one into a variety of objects or just simply because he has found another stick which captures his interest.

Reading, Writing and Public Speaking: His love of the traditional and untraditional hobbit stories as a hobbitling, together with the tales he heard from the humans who visited the Shire have resulted in Orly learning how to read and write. He is developing his skills in public speaking so that he is able to tell tales of his homeland to those outside of his shire. Additionally, he is learning tales form elsewhere to tell to an audience, with an ultimate aim of returning home one day with stories of his great adventures. He also imagines that this would be of help in working out where he is. Tharian is the only language he can read and write, and he is still very much a beginner in both areas.

Weaknesses:
Forgetful: Ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper, Orly has misplaced things and forgets names of people and places. Orly needs to speak to someone a number of times, using their name frequently or else he will forget their name. In addition, if he's supposed to meet with someone at the Northern Gate of Cavthan, he is likely to forget if left to his own devices.

Longstrider: When he came of age, three years earlier, Orly was struck by a most unhobbitlike desire to see what was beyond the lands of the shire. This stemmed from the humans who visited the shire and spoke of the wonders outside in Santharia. Finally, he left one day, never to return. Once he saw what was beyond the shire, he wanted to see what was up ahead of him, what the next town was, who lives in the nearby forest, and so on. Orly has no fixed abode which means he has occasionally had some cold and wet and hungry days and nights while out on the road. It also means he has to establish his credibility and reputation in each new place he visits, as the people in the new place have noo idea who he is or why he's there. Orly continues to travel around the provinces of Santharia, as did his hero, Mian Longfellow, that folk hero from among the hobbits.

Curiousity: Orly is an extremely curious Hobbit. Ever since he was a young hobbitling he was always sticking his nose and hands into things which didn't concern him. This got him into trouble when he was younger on a regular basis, both because of the situation he got himself into, and because of the consequences he suffered as a result. This is not the 'I wonder what is in the house over there' type of curiousity, but rather the kind which goes 'I wonder what will happen if I drink this mysterious liquid'. As a traveller, he continues to find situations and things with the potential of getting him in trouble.

Petty Theft: On occasions when Orly has gone for a while without food, and for a hobbit, a few hours is a considered to be 'a while', he has resorted to petty theft to keep himself fed. A pie cooling on a window ledge, an apple from a cart or tree or baked goods have all fallen victim to Orly's larceny. Occasionally he's been spotted, and a cry of "stop thief!" or "your thieving halfling b***ard!" have gone out from his 'victim'. Sometimes though, his eye catches sight of a 'kerchief or hat that he likes and he desires that as well. This compulsion has landed him in the local watch house on more than one occasion. But his desire to eat and to have pretty and precious things is too great for him to control at times.

History:
Orly was born to a respectable and well-regarded Dogodan couple in the Alianinan Hills. His childhood was traditional and his family's hobbit home was shared with cousins and aunts and uncles and grand parents, in addition to his parents and older and younger siblings. Celebrations for birthdays, weddings and other events were regular occurrances in their hobbit hole and Orly grew up with traditional hobbit values and heard all the normal hobbit stories, including 'How the Hob-Hound came to be'. He also delighted in the stories of Mian Longstrider that were told to him as well as his siblings and cousins. The young hobbitling dreamed of seeing what Mian saw and following in his footsteps.

Throughout his childhood, Orly was the hobbitling who got into constant trouble. Not because he was mischievious, but rather because he was curious. He was forever pushing, poking, tasting, smelling, biting, taking and touching things to find out what it was and what it did. This got him in trouble from his elders for not minding his own business. It also got him in trouble on the occasions when he got injured or trapped due to his curiousity.

During his adolescent years, Orly practiced the arts of whittling wood into small objects. His father watched in despair as he wanted his son to follow in his trade of carpentry. Carpentry never held any interest for the young hobbit, however, and he stuck to whittling small objects, whether they were useful, ornamental or toys. It was during this time when some of the big folk came into the shire, and Orly's mind was aflame with curiousity to know what was beyond the borders of the shire. It was at this point he decided to get out and see what was beyond the Shire.

Orly's thirty-third birthday party was a time of great celebration for all in his wider family, when much food was eaten and drinks were drunk. All his family were there, all his friends were there, and he should have been happy. He was to an extent, but he knew he had something beyond the borders of the Shire in his future. He left silently, without a word to anyone, to see a whole new world, heading north.

On his travels, he saw an interesting looking stick and picked it up ... testing it, he realised it would do nicely as a walking stick. Some time later, he came across two little boys, crying because their toys, little wooden horses were broken. Feeling sympathy for the kids, Orly did what any hobbit with such skills would do, he got some wood, he pulled out his whittling knife, and he quickly whittled two small toy wooden horses for them. Happy, they played with them. The boys' father saw the exchange and offered Orly a warm meal, a bed and a roof over his head for the night. Without a moment's thought or hesitation, Orly accepted the offer and made small trinkets for all the family during his time there with them.

This was the course his life followed for a while, until he found his way on a ship that was heading to the southern reaches of Santharia, specifically to the city of Strata. He fell in with people on a quest for some time, before leaving them for further adventures on his own. As the days turned into months and the seasons turned from summer to autumn to winter to spring and then back to summer again, Orly's desire to discover what was over the next hill grew and he kept on striding along the plains and mountains and through the desert of the southern reaches of Santharia. He housed with the nomadic tribes of humans down there, and spent a night at the Thirsty Herald, before continuing on, heading towards Bardavos.

During his adventures, Orly became hungry and his good manners left him as his sense of smell picked up some fresh cooking left to cool on a window sill. Sneaking over, he reached up and took one of the pastries that was there. Orly departed quickly, ducking behind a tree to consume his ill gotten gain. Orly then continued on his journeys. A day later, he saw fruit on a table, and feeling a bit peckish, he reached over and snatched one. Unfortunately for the Dogodan, he was spotted, and was forced to flee, so that he wasn't captured. Time went on and sometimes he wasn't that lucky, and he spent a day or more in a cell in some city watch or another. As time went on, he got better at it, but he never took anything other than food.

In time he reached Bardavos and wanted to look up two places. The first of these was the bardic school in the city. He wanted to tell stories and compose his own. He'd heard of the Free City of Bards and that this was the premier school of bards in Santharia. The second place that Orly wanted to visit was an inn. He'd been hearing a lot about one called 'The last song of High Queen Mseríá'. He was interested in seeing what it was like, and in seeing if they'd consider a swap ... his services as a story teller and whittler for free food and lodging. While there, Orly wants to continue his learning of reading and writing, which may put his wayfaring activities on hold for some time.

Weapons:
Walking Stick: He uses this as a tool to aid him in walking. He regularly changes it when the old one breaks or he sees an interesting stick. If faced with danger, he can use the stick to strike out at the danger and then attempt to make his escape.

Equipment
Orly travels light, only taking the bare minimum needed to survive with him. He has a small whittling knife, it is far too important to him as a means of making objects that he can sell and exchange to ever consider using it to attack anyone with it. He also has a pipe, and a small supply of hobbit-leaf that he smokes regularly.