Name: Colart Zeleran

Gender: Male, he/him, bi/pan

Age: 43 (expected to be still-vital past 100, as humans of this world tend to run hardy)

Origin: Shimmerpoint

Species: Human/Farer

Racial Oddities: He seems oddly blessed by quite a few breeds - he gets along famously with nearly every kind of person out there, which is why the True Star has so many varied hands

Family: the Zeleran shipping house, from his mother's side; the entire ship and the Grotto folk as well, he counts those as 'family'; probably has a few kids scattered at ports around the world

Height: 6'

Build: sturdy, great legs and rear from constant ship work

Hair: golden brown, braided as shown; has facial hair in the same shade

Eyes: hazel, keen, under thick expressive brows

Appearance: tanned skin, dresses stylishly with gear from many ports, and carries himself with an easy confidence; his voice is loud, clear, used to calling out orders and communicating across docks, but enjoys singing and gentle conversations as well

Level: 8, he is an experienced ship captain and merchant

Movement: Average, with strong swimming skills and inexpert but present ability to ride (usually horses/whatever is appropriate)

Art Credits: figure Doll Divine/Azaleas's Dolls LotR maker; portrait meiker Kassie's portraits; ship by Zaidenknop modded by me

Dragondeep Specs

(sorry for the size and format I'm not writing this up on a chart again)

Skills and Profession:

Colart is a remarkably good merchant and uses his skills with people in every port he can reach. Even if a person isn't part of his crew, if he barks out and order on the docks, people pay attention to him! He's attractive and suave, able to keep connections he makes as well as branch out. He trusts his crew to do their jobs well, while he's certainly adept at virtually every job on his ship from sail repairs to navigation and even gunnery, his job is still to bring that ship to a variety of ports around Dragondeep's coast, and deliver goods where they're intended. Very little escapes his gaze, so if you're slacking off he'll definitely know it. With that eye for detail, he is also a clever storyteller, and enjoys actively pursuing new tales from various ports, adding them to his private repertoir to tell later in the lull of the night. (That 'act/lie' skill gets a workout on the acting side!) Physically he's a shipborn man, with sea legs that sometimes give him a lurch on land for a few minutes, but he uses that to his benefit in ports thick with people - he can move around them easily, and even in a drunken brawl has often ducked or swayed just at the right moment to avoid a thrown bottle or fist. He knows how to catch and prepare fish, and can if needed build shelters for surviving on a strange island or rugged shore while exploring, but certainly prefers the comforts of his cabin. He has had run-ins with more than one pirate ship in his years on the sea, and will assess the situation before committing his crew to a fight on the open water. However, in a dock or port, he will definitely use his spring-sword, a folding and spring-aided blade, to inflict quick and dangerous cuts to anyone he catches attempting to steal from him or others on that dock.

Possessions:

The portrait of Ciryia Zeleran below was made by Clockwork to honor the deals made by the Zeleran shipping house, in support of The Bazaar. He keeps this portrait close - it's not that she's gone, no! She is simply the glue that holds the Zeleran family together, and he enjoys a yearly visit with the family when they put down their accounting and paperwork and just party like any other large extended group. The True Star ship was built by his mother's shipyard, and he inherited it when he was 18 and had proven himself capable of performing all the needed duties aboard. From a very young age he was taught how to survive on a ship, first and foremost, and thus he does know this ship absolutely inside and out, every plank and every porthole. The ship itself is quite large and thanks to the magic on Dragondeep including water-psionics hardly any craft traveling the tremendously long coast around the single continent needs to store fresh water. This frees up a massive amount of cargo and living space within. This ship has a large number of hands on board at any time. They don't necessarily turn down passengers, but rarely does the True Star act as a cruise ship. Including Colart, the ship's crew is 32 strong, with an assortment of 17 sailors working the rigging, sails, and assorted duties, and the rest with more official specific duties such as medic and navigator. It will port at any location capable of hosting it, and has several boats for moving cargo to smaller ports that don't have piers or docks large enough.

History: As a child growing up in the Zeleran family, Colart was definitely a favorite. Not just of his mother Ciryia, but of pretty much anyone with sense in their head. He wasn't just quick witted and charming, he put his hands and legs and back into it - a genuinely talented boy who could tie exactly the right knot or hoist a difficult sail (even if he wasn't heavy enough to do it alone), swab the deck or count barrels in the hold. Though he is not the eldest child in his mother's surprisingly long list of kids, it is Colart that inherited her particular ship, and even if she's not quite retired enough to settle down in Shimmerport he knows that's where she will wind up when she can no longer walk with confidence on her smaller craft. Colart's education was extensive and is math-heavy, but the ease with which he learned accounting and business surprised even grandfather and the uncles. But they know that he's much more than that - by the time he was barely able to sprout a beard, he was able to organize the crew of any ship into motion. Of course also by that time it was hinted that the girl from the port's money exchange would be caring for a child that had suspiciously golden hair to her raven black...

For many years, Colart proved himself worthy of the title Captain, even making sure that in a few battles with pirates the crew and ship were safe. Those battles could be recounted by everyone aboard, he's never lost a shipmate. Around 15 years ago, in his prime and with the solid backing of the Zeleran family, Colart began taking on crew that hadn't been simply 'there when he inherited the ship' - not a full swap, there are still shipmates that have been on the True Star since he was a kid, and will likely continue to be there when he's gone (those long-lived Dragonkin, probably the Necromancer...). But many of the newer ship crew were brought on board on a specific year-long journey around the world. He wanted to surround himself with 'the right people', and he got them by the dozen. As time has gone on, many of the original hands have retired or moved on to other duties at ports across the world, but whenever the True Star is docked, you can bet there's a bunch of them willing to help out.

And then a couple years ago, something else happened. He had to check map after map - and only the newest ones, penned within the last decade or so, had this unusually large and obviously-volcanic island on them. The True Star encountered what came to be known as the Gelgelan Eminence - a 'new' island where there had been none before, very far north of the Island of the Blessed Idols and east a ways, past the Churnwaters. How could a place a thousand miles across have been missed by cartographers and dragons alike?

It turned out they hadn't. The island had appeared just a few decades ago. A magical disaster of epic proportion which, given how many Portals and Gates Dragondeep has, seems like it should be more common than 'twice ever in recorded history'. A huge number of cities, towns, villages, and ports came from another dimension entirely, and ... quite a few of those places instantly were washed away since the caldera it appeared in was open to the ocean. But still, a land like this? With humans, demons, and rabbit-like Gelgelan to populate it? A business opportunity like this arises once if ever in a lifetime, and Colart took it.

The Gelgelan Eminence's great rift can't be called a 'river', being more than fifty miles wide at its mouth it's more like an inland sea. Where it's easy to port, along almost the entire thing? So... Now Colart has connections among the 'Usagi', the rabbit-people of Gelgela, and included among those are the queen Sean, and her human king Sapadt. And their kids. A lot of them.

Almost all of whom have dragons that have paired up with them. Not local dragons. Not like the Dragonkin tend as eggs in the shallows, not like the hatchling dragonets without eyes and with hardly more thought than what might be eaten. No, these dragons were intelligent and small enough to ride, colorful, dramatic.

And they 'searched' his whole crew in one fell swoop. Whether they realized it or not. Colart knew this would be weird, but not this weird.

Thankfully then, his crew happened upon another island that wasn't on any chart. And it won't be, except their own. Like as not, this island would have become a haven for pirates had they encountered it first. But no pirate had better dare set foot on this Grotto of theirs. With careful bending of the truth, Colart makes sure that no outsider knows where the Never Ending Grotto is. And he has help: some of those dragon riding Gelgelans and their friends make sure of it, if they catch mental or magical wind of anyone nearing it, even dragons local to Dragondeep, they hush it down, bury the memory, sway creatures and crews alike away from the place.

Because it's where Colart's crew and many others found since then across Dragondeep, will be raising their own dragon friends, a haven for offworld creatures safe from the locals, somehow. Colart has impressed upon his crew how important it is to keep this place safe and silent, and because of his charm and wit, and their dedication to the task, the whole ship's crew have a pact of silence about it. It's true they miss their dragon friends when they can't be near, at any given port they'd need to remain very hidden after all. But out at sea, they're often joined by these amazing dragons. In the sea or in the air, or just perched on the True Star's masts.

Now, after a few of them have found their friends on very distant worlds (how is the ocean meeting these worlds? Because they navigate the ship to them, and from them back into Dragondeep's waters...) it seems that one port wants Colart himself to step onto their 'sands'. The Vella Crean, a massive city, with beautiful islands off the coast, and 'labs' that provide spectacular dragons.

It is to their sands that Colart Zeleran has been invited, and which he will proudly stand for an 'Imperial Court'. He isn't sure quite what to make of this, because the empires he knows are not like this at all. He happily brings goods to this event, some made by his own crew, others bought and sold at half a dozen ports around Dragondeep. Trinkets and baubles, nothing stolen, nothing broken, nothing worthless to the right eyes. He only wishes that he could show his fine mother what it's like out here... But it would probably be too dangerous to bring an eighty-year-old and her cruise crew anywhere near dragons, just listen to how they'd talk about it all.

Will a dragon come to him? And will it demand more than a perch atop the Grotto's highest peak? He hopes to avoid conflict with the local dragons, but they all know it's a matter of time before those dragons catch wind of it all. But for now, the Grotto is safe, the Gelgelan Eminence protecting it from afar, and the True Star moving between worlds is still a secret to their world at large.