Balmung Clover and Rhemmy: An Eorzean Tale

A nÂ Â E o r z e a nÂ Â T a l e
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â€œWhat about Peddlerâ€™s Bend,â€ the woman ventures, affronted. Her eyes are already beginning to glaze from the thick alcohol coursing through her blood. Her tongue stumbles through language and her voice grows increasingly belligerent. Her companionâ€™s ears lay flat against his skull: he can already see how this one will end. He tries to fight it, hopelessly.

â€œWhat about Peddlerâ€™s Bend? That was a colossal goat-fuck. Now keep your voice down, youâ€™re gonna get us made.â€ He is hissing the words out, his face set to a sneer as he alternates between trying to level the sheer force of his will on the woman and also gauge the tavern around them. Tukeâ€™s Burrow is bustling, the seedy stop hole abbey in the earth beneath one of Ulâ€™dahâ€™s more disreputable brothels thick and pregnant with the miasma of opium and hylo-stick smoke. The roar and clamour of raised voices wouldnâ€™t be enough for Clover if she set her mind to the thing she spoke of.

â€œI just donâ€™t think itâ€™s right, is all. Theyâ€™ve got a goddamn hero in their midst and nary a one of them seems to notice. Ma always said thereâ€™s none respect left in the world, and would you look at that.â€ Clover staggers from her seat and glowers across the barroom sprawl. The chair screeches and some hazard a glance her way, watching the small woman with idle amusement. Jaâ€™rhem pre-emptively sinks into his chair as Clover braces her hands against the table and climbs onto it. Her legs wobble, her vision swims, and at last she recovers her balance. A good portion of the tavern is looking at her now; they are leering like patrons expecting a show. When the show unveils itself, though, they blanch.

"Now listen up," she drawls on, her ale-warm voice slurred as her wooden clogs totter backwards, forwards, then steady. "Now I see before me more than one strapping young lad with an axe to 'is belt." She paces around the table, scowling at the gathered sodden throng as they stare beetled back at her. "Yes, you there, young sir. And you, by the the innkeep, don't turn yer sorry face down! You've all come here tonight to enjoy yourselves, I'm sure, but out in that desert under that great, black expanse lie thatchgallows and cutthroats in droves, and not one of you would lift up in arms against them, would you? Keep a corner in your pockets for the highwayman's tax. Pay your way an' keep yer â€˜eads down. But not so for this man here." She steps aside, and in a swish of serge petticoat reveals a beflustered miqo'te clinging desperately to the shadows in his corner. Clover tugs a neckerchief from her breast, once-bloodied and now dried, stretching it out in that dim and gasping gaslight for all to see.

"Ja'rhem Khalaa refused to pay the devil's tax, and slew as many men as there were bullets in his old six-shooter." She pauses. Jaâ€™rhem winces; it was a flagrant exaggeration. There had been only five and two died of their own accord and unhealthy fascination with explosives. Clover shot another, and Jaâ€™rhem slew two: one from far away and the other from behind, undignified and ultimately unstylish. Not to mention he had wanted to pay them the whole time; it was the lass that had refused. Now she glares over the rows of rowdy heads, some tilted in puzzlement, some drunken and sneering and beginning to stand. She continues on in that ominous hiss.

"And six bodies I counted among the slain curs, and pulled this here trophy from one of them myself. But his accomplishments do not stop there, gentlemen! He saved a mill far across these shores from molestation by bandits, and protected a farmstead from a particularly heinous villain. And letâ€™s not forget all of the fine, fine damsels--" She begins, but her words never finish as on that note Jaâ€™rhem is up on his feet to silence the woman, half hauling her down from her pulpit like a priest gone mad.

They leave just as men begin to brandish their cleavers.

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Clover and Jaâ€™rhem area pair for people who like the picaresque. Jaâ€™rhem, a once-career-criminal, confidence man, and thief, has gone adrift from his previous trades and entered out onto the road with his companion, a young and wayward chocobo named Gallows. He wants not for adventure or grandness, though, passing through towns and drifting between Grand Companies for any odd and menial job he can tackle with his rifle or his hands â€“ the easier and less hectic the better.

His travels take him eventually to Stoke, a small farming community in La Noscea, where he finds a young and bright-eyed girl named Clover. After unintentionally saving her village from a local blackguard, she attaches herself to him â€“ mostly at his disapproval â€“ with very different designs on his life. She nips at his heels, proclaiming him a hero to all that will listen, dragging him into excitement and bedlam wherever they go. For the seasoned thatchgallows, though, old habits die hard, and his sticky fingers find its way through locks, pockets, and peopleâ€™s hearts, grinning and teasing their wealth from where it can be found.

Throughout the course of their travels, weâ€™re hoping to haul the pair from the simple into the transmundane, into the wild and war. From common vagrants into heroes. Weâ€™d like to yank people along for their adventures, both tragedies and comedies, suffering and light-heartedness and earnesty entire. If you're interested in these kinds of stories, you can send a PM here but it's easiest to contact us on Discord or Tumblr. My ID is Murderhouse#3480 and Clover's is Mossycoats#2106. Additionally, here are Ja'rhem's and Clover's Tumblrs. If you're not sure how to get involved, feel free to take some inspiration from the hooks below.

U N L I K E L YÂ Â Â H E R O E S : Clover and her infinite aspirations of being a bard have selected Jaâ€™rhem to be the seat of her songs. She cries his glory, often exaggerated, at any road-side saloon or bunkhouse. More than anything, weâ€™d love to see this crew dragged into great, fantastic conflicts and epic tales, often at Jaâ€™rhemâ€™s displeasure. Militias, militaries, and men and women of valour or need, look no further.Â

T H EÂ Â D I A M E T R I C A L L YÂ Â O P P O S E D : As much as itâ€™s really nice to find characters that have oh-so-sweet chemistry, weâ€™re actually extremely interested in those that donâ€™t. Or volatile chemistry, if anything. Give us law enforcement and knights and sorcerers whose leanings skew from this merry band. Let us bring something new to each other!

A D V E N T U R I N GÂ Â C O M P A N I O N S : Be ye sellswords, nomads, wanderers, or sacred men on a quest, the road is less lonesome and less dangerous with folk to fill her.

T H EÂ Â C O M M O NÂ Â F O L K : The salt of Eorzea, the lifeblood of her hamlets and cities and farmlands who the pair and their accompaniment might stumble upon. Come all tribals, villagers, tradesmen, peddlers, and the like.

E M P L O Y M E N TÂ Â W A N T E D : When Clover isnâ€™t forcing her companions into adventure, they have to make their wages somehow. Employers who need security details, labourers, a couple guns-for-hire, or couriers, enquire within!

AÂ Â C R I M I N A LÂ Â E L E M E N T : Jaâ€™rhem is a once-career criminal and Clover has rose-tinted glasses for the roguish life and those who wear it. They will brush shoulders with the picaresque and the nasty.

B R I G A N D S,Â Â B U T C H E R S,Â Â A N DÂ Â M E NÂ Â O FÂ Â W A R : Garlean conquerors, sympathisers, and other agents of vision, these are two souls set on ambiguity and left adrift. Clover is impressionable and flung into the wide-open world. Jaâ€™rhem has lost too much on this earth and is trying to find something, anything to cleave onto. For those seeking to instil a new perspective in them, though, weâ€™d like to see a grasp of nuance and true morally grey territory; the paper-thin villain will not sway them.