Temperance Hayes

Setting

Temperance is a character I created for a custom DnD setting, Ariandor. The world is a crumbling tower, where each dying piece is its own isolated world. Travel up and down the tower is typically reserved for the rich, powerful, and educated. In fact, one realm, Verdenia, took advantage of their resources and virtual immortality to go full imperialist and tried to take over other parts of the tower. They were stopped, but only after their monarch was assassinated and sacrifices were made by the other realms to gain the power to resist.

I was heavily inspired by 18th century American history, especially northeastern quaker and puritan culture.

Appearance

Temperance is a tiefling. Their skin is blush pink and smooth. They have long straight hair that falls just below their shoulders. It’s dark brown, almost black, and they often have it braided or otherwise tied back. Sometimes they will let it down when it is wavy from being set in braids. They have a bit of a widow’s peak.

Their horns are broken off at the base. The break has long healed over, making it obvious that while the wound was gruesome, it happened long ago and was well treated. What remains of their horns is a slightly darker color than their skin, other than the light scarring around them.

Temperance has a lean body type. They are relatively average height, active but not muscular, and have long pointed ears. They wear thick glasses and have green eyes. Also, they have a tail.

Temperance likes wearing androgynous outfits, though depending on their mood and where they are they will wear more masculine or feminine outfits. In general, they like comfortable, cozy clothes. Their closet is full of flowy shirts, loose skirts, fancy jackets, trousers, etc.

They also have a variety of costumes mainly used for their more roguish activities. These tend to have more extreme presentations. They find it fun!

Personality

Temperance is a little odd. They tend to be more reserved but will open up when they’re in a safe or familiar setting. They love morbid humor, often making jokes others find borderline inappropriate. This morbidity stems from their rather sterile relationship with death and bodies. Growing up during a war, having parents in the medical field, a sister with chronic health issues, and becoming a medical examiner all added to their very matter-of-fact view on the realities of fleshly existence. Death happens, bodies change, and to ignore that seems rather silly to them.

If they don’t like the options presented them, they will go to great lengths to find a different way. They are more like a snake slithering through a maze than a bull in a china shop.

Temperance does not like the pact they have with the devil Filanore, justifiably feeling forced into it by the deal their family made a deal with her during the war. Temperance technically complies with her demands, but not happily and typically to the minimum. They tend to try to get something for themselves out of such demands. Filanore definitely knows this and uses this knowledge to her advantage. Real toxic godparent hours out here. At the same time, they also hold a major grudge against the Verdenians who invaded their home (Starlight City in Orithyll). It was only with the help of the devils that their people were able to withstand the invasion.

They had a lot of dysphoria growing up, but at this point, Temperance has managed to become mostly comfortable in their body and identity. While nonbinary, they are fairly lax on what people think of them. They enjoy the confusion of strangers. The only thing that would bother them is being consistently misgendered as a man.

Temperance also has mysophobia. This has become more manageable over the years but is still present and obvious to those around them. At this point, this typically means avoiding things they see as dirty (grimy bars, pets & animals, the outdoors, etc.) and using gloves (which allow them to cast prestidigitation), masks, etc. Their mysophobia is more anxiety based.

Temperance Hayes is a medical examiner, author, and member of the Cipher Club. They specialize in unnatural causes of death and wrote a book detailing their work called The Art of Death. This book allowed them access to the Cipher Club, an illuminati-esque group that seeks to influence the directions of major tower events.

They are vegetarian and abstain from dairy products.

Relationships

Care-well Hayes - Father
Care-well is a tiefling of half-elf heritage with blue skin, short curly salt and pepper hair, and gray eyes. He has slightly darker horns that curl around his head and around his ears. He wears a rectangular glasses with thick lenses. As a surgeon, he's often in scrubs, and outside of work he sticks to plain, utilitarian clothing. He's passionate and caring, but also quick to anger and hard to please, with a seemingly permanent frown on his face. While he sticks to a strict code of non-violence, he sees nothing wrong with letting his voice be very clearly heard.

Care-well's family is from Orithyll, and he is a more radical member of a pacifist group in Orithyll that wants to rebuild the Starlight City. The group has three ideals: Harm Less, Choose First, and Lift Up. The first informs his staunch pacifism and veganism, which often clashes with the more loose adherence of other members. He sees his profession as a reflection of the first and third ideals, as his drive to work in the medical field was born out of a desire to help people. Many of the issues in Orithyll that birthed the movement were caused by a lack of action on the government part, so when faced with invasion and reality of war, Care-well was one of the first to accept the devil deals offered to the people of Orithyll by Filanore (Lust, Envy and Sloth... fire affinity) and Fyrndolin (Wrath, Pride and Greed... cold affinity). Ironically, he chose Filanore's secondary offer, seeing her as less likely to force them down a more militant route. His wife followed suit, and the increased abilities and intimidation allowed Orithyll to keep the Verdenians at bay with significantly less fighting than would otherwise have occurred. Care-well's confidence in his decision wavered for a bit after seeing the consequences it caused to his daughter's health and seeing the fighting that still occurred, but after Charity's death he started to double down on his decision, at least openly. In reality, he's not sure... and the implications that doubt holds are terrifying.

Temperance has a strange relationship with their father. They respect him... mostly... but also fervently disagree with him on many things. They don't respond well to their father's wrath, and since Charity's death, find him rather distant. Care-well loves his child, but also can't ignore his convictions. However, he also refuses to understand Temperance's point of view, increasing the tension between the two. He doesn't understand Temperance's gender identity or struggle with dysphoria, but to him that doesn't matter and respects Temperance's wishes on that front the best he can. He definitely gives the Verdians and the war too much credit for Temperance's struggles with anxiety and mysophobia, but tried to help his child adjust in little pragmatic ways. At first he was upset when Temperance decided to become a medical examiner, as he didn't see it as impactful compared to other medical professions. He's since come around to the idea and is genuinely proud of Temperance's (public) professional accomplishments with their book. He would absolutely freak out if he knew all the crazy things Temperance gets up to with the Cipher Club.

Silence Hayes - Mother
Silence Hayes is a tiefling (elven heritage) with long, straight black hair, green eyes, and pink skin. She has long horns that curve back slightly, but are overall straight. She usually wears rather plain and utilitarian clothing or comfortable dresses. While quieter than her husband, don't let her name fool you: she speaks up when she has an opinion to be voiced... she just does so in a more tactful way than Care-well. She's caring and can read people well, able to notice subtleties other members of her family do not. She works as an EMT.

Silence immigrated from Verdian, seeking asylum from the militant nation. Her family still resides there, though she is not very close with them. She is also part of the same movement as her husband, but is somewhat less extreme (still vegan though). She's a pacifist, but would rather break her ideals than see her family come to harm. Filanore offered her a deal first, and she was happy when her husband came to the same conclusion, not wanting to choose separately on this issue. She does sometimes blame herself for Charity's condition, thinking that if she had just waited a few more months, the transformation wouldn't have taken such a toll. She accepts that she chose in the way she thought was best at the time, however. She has healed better from the grief after Charity's death than her husband has, and is worried about how cold her husband sometimes is now.

Temperance has a better relationship with their mother than their father. Though they disagree, she usually works to understand Temperance's point of view. She was also more actively accepting of Temperance's gender identity has always been proud of her child's work aspirations. Some of Temperance's more extreme choices (like breaking off their horns) scare Silence, as she worries they are hiding their true emotional state. That worry would increase tenfold if she knew what they were truly doing with the Cipher Club.

Charity Hayes - Sister
Charity was a tiefling (half-elf heritage) with pink skin, wavy black hair, gray eyes, and horns that curved around her head like her father's. Despite having a chronic illness that often left her ill or fatigued, she was very outgoing, passionate, and just a bit bossy. Charity loved fashion and makeup.

The transformation that happened before Charity was born left her with a rare genetic illness. This made her chronically fatigued and immunocompromised. Thanks to her parent's medical backgrounds, it was caught fairly early and they were able to provide her with care that let her live a somewhat normal life. Unfortunately, she passed away from complications from a respiratory infection as a young teenager.

Charity and Temperance were practically inseparable. They bonded over shared interests (though she was always better in the makeup department... and fashion... actually, if you asked her, she would claim she was better in almost every department). Temperance confided in her about their gender identity first. They remember her very fondly.

Backstory

Temperance's grew up during wartime with parents in the medical field and a chronically ill sister. They can barely remember what they or their family looked like before the deal struck with Filanore forever changed their appearance. In fact, their family was one of the first to accept the offer, seeing it as the only solution to protect their home while also not forsaking their pacifist values.

They were very close with their sister growing up, though their family had to take extra precautions to prevent her from getting sick. Eventually, while they were both in their teens, Charity passed due to complications with a respiratory infection. This deeply impacted their family... Slowly, the precautions they took to keep their sister from getting sick morphed into mysophobia. In spite of this (or in some weird ways because of this), they eventually settled on becoming a medical examiner.

Dissatisfied with their parent's philosophy, Temperance slowly became interested in the Cipher Club, a group of scholars that try to influence the Tower behind the scenes. To become a member, one must have published a book, and Temperance's submission was their book The Art of Death, detailing many unnatural means of death and how to identify them upon autopsy. They were granted full membership.

Temperance has been in the Cipher Club for nine years. The most insane thing the club has done was assassinate the immortal god king of the Verdenians through some sketchy magic. This also weirdly made the rest of the Verdians mortal again, though there is some debate on that front. Regardless, an immortal people have no need for medical examiners, so Temperance, who had made their name in identifying strange causes of death, was all too conveniently picked to perform the autopsy. The cover story they provided was that the king had been mortal for a long time, but the vigor of immortality was slow to fade. By the time the attempt on his life was made, he was finally only as strong as a normal elf. The Veredians ended their decades long conflict mere days later.

With that, the club got off mostly scotch free. Some people suspect foul play, but they either don't have the evidence or resources to do anything about it. The Cipher Club relocated to Elphael to escape lingering suspicions and take on a new job. Temperance didn't really want to move, but is also thankful to be away from the prying questions of their parents for a while.