Art Credits: Doll Divine Azalea's Dolls LotR maker (flashpoint used)

Name: Roy Ryebaker of the Grotto (formerly of the Graintower)

Gender: Male, he/him, bi

Age: 15

Origin: Eastern Barony town called Graintower, searched and picked up, moved to Grotto

Species: Grape Baron

Racial Oddities: was Searched for dragons, this isn't typical for anyone on Dragondeep yet... there must be something special about him that the dragons sniffed out, and it's not just how good he smells of bread!

Family: a group of bakers and grain sellers still residing in the Barony, with whom he will have the occasional contact, but definitely not while any non-local dragons are around... Too much risk, too much chatter. For the moment he's simply saying he was tapped for a new location that needed a baker and farmer, and they're quite happy with that! He has no permanent partner yet, he's young.

Height: 4'7"

Build: strong and sturdy, not portly, good upper body strength

Hair: Dark brown, wavy, usually braided or in a tail as it goes to his mid-back

Eyes: rich violet, clear, attentive

Appearance: ruddy tan skin common to those working in the fields, with liberal freckles in the sun; will be handsome, his beard has not fully come in, and he occasionally still squeeks out as his voice cracks, but his voice will be resonant and deep when he's fully adult; like most Barony folk he is almost always smiling and happy looking; actually prefers not to dress in the over the top garb common to his people, and likes simpler styles so he can move around more, but with nice embroidery where appropriate

Level: 4

Movement: Average

Sent to: Lantessama 9.23.22

Dragondeep Specs

Skills and Profession: born and raised around all manner of grains, from wheat and barley and rye, to more exotic types of rice, corn, millet and a hundred others. All of them memorized by scent, texture, use, and appearance by the time he was 10 years old. His family specifically does tend to rye more than most, but what his grandfather did with it is where his family name comes from, and he loves baking more than most. He can take virtually any grain and give it life in the form of cakes, breads, muffins, cookies, crackers, pastries, anything you like! Even hard to use flours that lack gluten can be made deliciously fluffy using his family recipes. He does have a strong flair for dark and strong-flavored breads, dinner rolls, and the like. Roy knows how to plant and when to harvest, virtually any sort of grain, tuber, vine, or even trees - he knows plants, but focuses on cooking specific ones more than anything. His profession brings him into contact with a great many different people and races on Dragondeep, so he can understand and communicate in a variety of simple terms, to virtually all people that he meets. Quite literate in the Barony's tales and history, but also he's learned how to listen to shop patrons and visitors alike, to glean stories of distant locations, and sometimes he even goes as far as to barter some goods for even more detail if they seem to have it! As a shop keeper or baker must, he keeps up with money changing and even a bit of legal wrangling, and definitely knows how to find someone in a crowd. Because he does a lot of cooking and harvesting, he must occasionally deal with injuries, and though he's hardly an expert he can stop a small wound from getting much worse, while others will then take care of it later.

As a newly Searched candidate, he's going to need to reinforce his riding skills a bit, but we'll see. Maybe he will be able to soar over fields and check on harvests in the Grotto in the future, from dragon-back!

History: With a family as extensive as his (with four generations worth of extended relatives spanning nearly a hundred mile stretch of the Barony's eastern rim and owning most of Graintower) it was impossible to avoid getting involved with the trades they all work. From gardening and land maintenance to harvest, sales and deliveries, milling and preservation, cooking and presentation, catering and events organization - everything you'd ever want out of the fantastic array of plant life that's available in the township of Graintower. As a young boy, Roy would help feed the chickens and ducks that kept their gardens free from other pests, collecting their eggs for cooking. He watched with his chin barely able to hook over the nearby counter (and toes clearly off the floor) as his uncle and auntie prepared grains into flour and chaff to be molded into clever trinkets by their local plant-psionic shaper. Finally allowed to join in, he discovered how easy it was to keep track of different plants, maybe he sees them just a bit differently than others, but he sure could discern what would go best together, and at last found his place in his (other) uncle's bakery. He's always up early, and enjoys his evenings under the stars with the smell of the day's baking free on the wind.

What he wasn't planning on, but took in stride anyway, was having some strange pair of people show up quite late one evening. After the shop had closed, but before he'd retired for the night. They told him, they could bring him somewhere that he was needed, his obvious skills would benefit an entire island worth of folk! They had a secret, though - they had spotted him with the aid of their dragons, who he was only introduced to when he proclaimed his ability to actually keep the secret they obviously had. Good with noticing such things, he was! They'd searched him from among the many here at Graintower, and while his family needed only know that he would be working his heart out to provide the delicious pastries and foods they were known for in another distant land, they didn't know and would never find out, that he was also to become a dragon rider!

Some number of these strange people, gathered from across Dragondeep and moved to this Never-Ending Grotto of theirs, made him quite welcome, with the offering of a temporary place to set up his baking goods. They plied his family with enough coin to make up for the items they brought with him: many sacks of milled flours, seeds and seedlings, recipe books, and even a good number of those chickens and ducks... Plus his chef gear, he really couldn't live without it after all. And neither could they? Could they roll dough with a mace? Well perhaps, but ew? Where all that coin came from was certainly a mystery but he didn't even care at that point, the family was used to travelers coming through with all manner of distant gold or silver. So what if some of these coins were stamped with very strange markings or profiles that were certainly not from a Dragondeep race?

He wound up being put on a dragon's back, not a 'real' dragon (he kept calling them that, meaning the 'local' dragons native to the world that bore their own name), but instead a stranger to this place. And then he understood - those 'real' dragons, they would be so furious. So, hidden here in this very pretty and unusual location, Roy Ryebaker became the Grotto's resident chef, baker, and miller. He would also be a dragon rider, and what amazing wonders would meet his wide violet eyes.

This "Lantessama" place would also be great for collecting some number of recipes! Their own cafes and shops thrilled his senses, and he traded a few things here and there for new plants and seeds to cultivate back on his new home in the Grotto.

The dragons on these sands, they explained, were from an incredibly gorgeous pair of small dragons. Small, well perhaps not for their bond friends or riders, but even Roy knew that the dragons from his home world were quite massive, even if he'd only ever seen one or two as they flew overhead toward the ocean a day's ride east from Graintower.

**

from hatching

That left the last dragonet to go to the candidate of his choice. Though there were still some to chose from, the pink-winged, bright green hatchling had no difficulty making his choice. The young dragonet followed his nose and went to the person who smelled absolutely divine. He'd been a bit hesitant, had not wanted to get in the way of his siblings, but fate had made certain to leave the best candidate for him. Thankful and elated, the young rhodonite-peridot dragon took a deep whiff of freshly-baked bread and sighed:
"I want some of that bread."
"I'll bake some especially for you, "Weibokth." Roy replied with a wide smile on his face.
But luckily none of the dragons had to wait long to be fed as by that time the cooks and bakers had brought out a buffet for all those gathered. 

**

When we reach our home, I want to watch you make the food again!

"That's all you seem to ever want, Wei! I mean," the Barony man chuckled, "it's true for me too, I guess!"

The Grotto was getting nicely set up, though there weren't all that many residing on it just yet. It meant that they had room to move, to decide where to rest or rise, and more importantly where to have a nice snack!