Violet's fascination with magical items, machines, and constructs began with her first memory: her father showing her his clockwork mouse when she was 2 years old. She made her own soon after, remaking it into a different animal every month or so. She spent every available moment of her youth with her nose in a book or asking one her maker mentors endless questions about the process of creating useful and clever machines.
She read her way through her father's library, then left home to consume the Molten Throne's library in Erdgeist. She moved on to the Runlorg Society in Occam before coming to Fellport to join the Lorekeepers at the College. Her brain filled with ideas, but she lacked the money to start anything. She took a job as a gong farmer with the Amaryllis Estate, collecting night soil from around Fellport for use as fertilizer, and starting forming a plan to make life easier for everyone.
Fellport already had running water delivered underground to buildings all over town, but no way to deal with waste. The Amaryllis Estate needed waste as fertilizer, and they were a short way out of town. Why not dig a sewer system that would deliver dirty water directly where it needed to go?
Vi studied about presenting ideas and public speaking, then managed to approach Lord Amaryllis about her ideas. She talked him into investing in her idea. Then with the Amaryllis family behind her, she approached everyone on Topside about investing. Many of them agreed to give her some capital to start the sewer project as well.
The timing worked well, as the miners working on the Lift were just about finished, so she hired them to dig the sewers. She engineered the system to end up on the southwestern edge of the Amaryllis Estate, just outside the Lakeside wall from Fellport. She invented machines and pumps to treat the water faster than evaporation. She created an irrigation system that used grey water, and processed solid waste into fertilizer. She invented the toilet and created Umber Plumbing to install toilets and sinks throughout the city.
She took a huge swing, and it paid off. The money rolled in, more and more ever year. She consolidated her power base in the Fellport Cleanliness Authority, where she still sits on the board and enjoys large dividends every year. She was the first chief Officer, but after the first decade she stepped back from the day-to-day operations. She had made her fortune, buying one of the largest mansions on Topside and renaming it Umber Manor.
She married Bruno, one of the gnomish miner foremen. They had 2 children: Sabine and Otto. The passion rapidly bled out of the marriage, and a few years later Bruno died in a mining accident. Vi didn't seem too broken up about it, so rumors flew about Vi somehow staging a murder to look like an accident. Vi retreated to her basement workshop and kept tinkering. She created Lars, her tall humanoid Steel Defender, who accompanies her everywhere even today. She jokingly says she built him to reach things stored on tall shelves.
The 80 years since Bruno's death have been largely uneventful for Vi after the whirlwind of effort that she invested in creating the FCA. She still serves as a founding member of the Garden Manor Society, giving money to help keep Fellport green and blooming. She supports inventors, sometimes providing workshop space in one of her many properties around the city, in exchange for the promise of a percentage of the sales of new inventions. She still invents in her basement workshop during her copious amounts of free time, but she does it largely for herself and her friends instead of for the hustle to improve life for everyone. She's starting to feel restless, bored, and a little unmotivated, which worries her. She still randomly shows up to Lorekeeper events, and she makes appearances at most Garden Manor Society events.
Vi turned 138 this year. She's on the early side of middle age, and her black shoulder-length hair shows streaks of grey. She usually wears it in a simple pony tail to keep it out of the way. Her grey eyes still sparkle with joy for life, and she's quick with a compliment or a snide remark, as the situation dictates. She has many acquaintances and several good friends, but she doesn't want the entanglement of romance in her life at the moment. She wields an absurd amount of power in Fellport, one of a small handful of the true elite. She can demand a meeting with nearly anyone in town, and she can indefinitely fund an army on her own if circumstances call for it.
She doesn't know what the next few hundred years of her life will bring, but she's looking forward to continuing to build a legacy in Fellport. She has felt an urge to do something new and make another big change, but she doesn't know exactly what to focus on. Maybe she'll take a few years off and travel more of the world for inspiration. She craves novelty, but none of her pet inventors have scratched that itch for her lately. She knows she will find something out there, but she feels impatient about her current situation.
Violet Sienna-Bay-Umber
Rock Gnome Battle Smith Artificer (Level 15) (She/Her)
(Sage Background; Skill Expert Feat)
Str 8 Dex 10 Con 12 Int 19 Wis 12 Cha 18
Arcana +9, History +9, Investigation +9, Nature +9, Persuasion* +14
Part of T.W.Wombat's Lore 24 project, detailing the world around Fellport.
For all city posts, see the Fellport Index. For posts about the wider world, see the Beneterra Index.
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