Parsnip Pasternak
Parsnip Pasternak
"... we've none of us the luxury of a life without regrets."
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Parsnip is fairly trim, making a point not to eat to excess and to maintain a mild exercise regiment. She is no great athlete, but she can keep up if she needs to.
Body Features
Parsnip's entire body is covered in short, dense, soft fur, dark blue with patterns in sea green. Her fur bears mackerel-pattern striping across her body. She has four fingers on each hand, and four agile toes on each long foot. Her tail is long, softly furred, also striped, and entirely prehensile.
Facial Features
Parsnip's large red eyes can dilate to nearly the full width of their sockets. Her nose is strongly bridged, with a triangular green stripe down its length. She has large green patches extending to the sides from the orbits of her eyes, across her cheekbones, terminating above her jaw. Her ears are long, at the top of her head, with green stripes on their backs and short green tufts at their tips.
She has six incisors between her cuspid teeth, which are long and sharp. Her lower cuspids have an enclosed groove on the rear, to allow for the injection of a mild paralytic poison from a vestigial gland in the throat. She has carnassial molars.
Parsnip's hair is long, and typically worn in a mid-height loose ponytail, braided between the ears before the tie. She generally ties it with a short mauve ribbon.
Identifying Characteristics
If you have cause to know who and what Parsnip is, she will not hesitate to inform you. It is only polite.
Physical quirks
Parsnip is an obligate carnivore, like the rest of her people. Although omnivorous, she requires a regular intake of animal protein to survive. In times of scarcity, she is able to get by on conjured meat, if she absolutely must.
Special abilities
Parsnip has full mastery and knowledge of hachets of spells, and instinctive understanding of the crestwork to use them. She is a brilliant scholar of the arcane, with a sharp mind for the formation of new magic and the application of existing magic to new situations.
Apparel & Accessories
Parsnip likes a nice knit sweater, sweater-vest, or cardigan over a button-down shirt. She takes slacks or calf-length skirts with equal preference. Typically, she wears long and heavy socks, open at the toe but not the heel, preferring the thickness of good fabric over padded inserts or rubberized dips to protect her soles.
Specialized Equipment
Parsnip carries a tanned leather satchel most everywhere she goes, inlaid with gold thread and rather ornate. She wears it around her waist, with the strap as a belt, and the satchel itself hung at her left hip. The satchel's clasp is forged, at significant expense, with a resealable stasis enchantment, as well as inlaid with spatial enchantments along the interior to leave it rather deeper than it ought otherwise be.
Inside that satchel, hung along the interior side, she keeps a set of hard tri-e snap-cases labeled with the glyphs for banal elements, each containing a multitude of prepared summoning pins associated with that element. She also keeps her coin purse inside her satchel, typically carrying perhaps throct Crowns in various denominations.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Parsnip Pasternak was born on 11th Hell, 3552 I.E., in the city of Sutet in the Karellan Empire. She was the first child of her parents: her father, Madnep Pasternak, a tinker of no great renown, and her mother, Tatsoi Rassic, of the Sutet Rassics. Owing to the connections and success of the Rassic shipping and trade concern, Parsnip wanted for very little growing up. Given a sharp mind evident even from her childhood, it was thought that she might take over the family's business interests when her mother chose to retire. By the age of nect, however, her extraordinary talent for the arcane had come to the fore, and as she passed the age of fect, a private tutor was employed to prepare her for application to the Imperial Academy at Kitet. Management of the Rassic fortunes then fell to the remainder of Tatsoi and Madnep's children, who fortunately seem to have been up to the task.
Parsnip had two younger siblings, both of whom bear the Rassic name - a sister, Texsel, born in 3554, and a brother, Savoy, born in 3556. It has long been the tradition of the Rassic family that it is only ever married into, not out of. Savoy, like his father, works at the Rassic counting houses as a primary accountant, and it is thought that he may rise to the level of financial chief in time. He married a shipwright from the Rassic docks, Genip Biju, who bore him his one son, Sarson, in 3604. Texsel has fallen into the position of heiress, a role which appears to suit her ambitions, and has been learning every aspect of the Rassic businesses nearly since she could read and write. She married the eldest daughter of the Arcini family in 3577, seemingly purely to fold their textile interests into the Rassic empire, and later in 3577 bore twins to her wife Brindall to seal that acquisition - a daughter, Mizuna, and a son, Rapa.
Parsnip's progress in her arcane studies astonished her tutor and her parents both, and in the spring of 3571, when she was still only sitect, Parsnip requested a visit from an Academy recruiter. Though the recruiter is said to have expressed grave doubts at the admission of a child only sitect years of age, Parsnip pointed to the recommendation of her tutor - a retired Metric of the Academy, Korlan Neph, well-esteemed by that institution despite his advanced age - and her own ferocity for the material. She argued as well, by the time the school year began, she would have turned fitect, and be only two years younger than her first-year peers. Reluctantly, and with doubts, Parsnip was granted admission, to begin her tutelage at the Imperial Academy in 3572's Term of Night.
Once admitted, Parsnip's course of studies are said to have horrified her instructors. Sources tell us that on more than one occasion, her behavior had her brought before High Metric Mombin Spond and accused of making a mockery of the curriculum with her haste and recklessness. What transpired in those meetings is quite sealed, but what is known is that she completed her undergraduate curriculum and received her Arcanist's degree in the Term of Day of 3575, a year sooner than her classmates. The trick to her rapid progress was the apparent abandonment of a work-life balance, piling on as many as fect classes per term to her schedule compared to the ect of the traditional student. Her haste did not stop there, as Parsnip proceeded immediately into the Academy's Metric program with the Term of Night of 3576, repeating her undergraduate courseload of fect classes per term, and passing her boards after the Term of Night of 3601. Though not the first student in the history of the Academy to have gone from Arcanist exams to Metric boards in merely seven Terms, she is certainly the last in living memory. Parsnip began prompt work on her Metrical, presenting that in early 3602 to the Board of Assessors. Though the results of that project were curiously never published, they apparently met enough approval to award her the title of Metric and a position with the Academy; in an even more curious move, Parsnip appears to have been tenured from the point of hiring, with no trial period.
Parsnip began teaching at the Academy with the Term of Day of 3602, and taught there through to the Term of Day of 3615, when she was tapped by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to begin work on the Realmbridge Project as its chief engineer. When the Project was announced, Metric Parsnip was announced to be accompanying the Realmbridge on its maiden voyage as a flight engineer and project representative. The actual launch only took place after many delays, which more than one source blamed on Parsnip herself at the time, and some maddening desire to track down perceived flaws in the design or the enchantment. Finally, as 20th Hell 3616 prepared to roll over into 1st Till 3617, the Realmbridge launched amid much fanfare, eagerly awaited by the mages of Masjet to mark the new era.
Unfortunately, the Realmbridge, and Parsnip, were never seen or heard from again. To this day, it is not precisely known what happened to that fated vessel, but after a month of searching without a trace to be found, Imperial authorities reluctantly declared the ship lost with all souls aboard.
A memorial for the crew of the Realmbridge was held on 13th Net, 3617, at Gete's Promenade in Kitet. A separate, private funeral for Parsnip was held in Sutet at the Rassic estate on 18th Net. At the public memorial, we spoke to High Metric Mombin Spond about his memories of Metric Parsnip, and he offered the following remarks on the record:
"Metric Parsnip was ... prickly, I suppose would be the polite way to put it. She was not one to look kindly upon those she felt to stand in the way of her work or her life, and she was quick to judge if she saw such obstruction. I fielded more than a few complaints about her behavior, as a student and as a teacher. Primarily from other faculty, oddly enough. She always thought she was smarter than everyone around her, and always had some smart answer for any objection I might raise. Bickering with her could be exhausting.At the same time, though, she was ... well, she was the best of us. Parsnip may have been a challenge to work near, but she was a privilege to work alongside. She was one of the most prolific publishers still alive at the Academy, and none of her spells were frivolous; everything she put out, and she put out a great many things, was of particular worth to society. Though she never cracked her dream of a deeper magic than glyphs, she did more with her research to advance the field of magical study than any three Metrics I could name, myself easily included. Had that ship landed, I have no doubt we'd have been dusting off the title of True Metric once more, and in full honesty, I can think of none more deserving. She will be ... truly missed. I have been High Metric here for half a tectad, and no doubt I've the other half yet in me, but it shall be a dull foct years without Parsnip to keep me on my toes. I doubt very much I shall live to see her like again."
Metric Parsnip Pasternak is survived by her father Madnep, her mother Tatsoi, her sister Texsel, her brother Savoy, her nephews Sarson and Rapa, and her niece Mizuna. She left no children, and never wed.
Imperial Academy Faculty Registrar, 3617 Edition
Gender Identity
Parsnip is binary female. Pronouns are she, her, and hers.
Sexuality
Parsnip is a gay woman. She enjoys the company of women, and feminine nonbinary people on a case-by-case basis.
Education
Parsnip holds an Arcanist's from the Imperial Academy at Kitet, with a major in Alchemy in a minor in Transmutation, received in 3575 I.E.
This achievement is somewhat subsumed by her Metric's from that same institute, received in 3602 I.E.
Employment
Parsnip, at the time of her disappearance, was a tenured Metric at the Imperial Academy at Kitet.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Aside from the publication of twect different spells, nearly a rate of one a year as a Metric, Parsnip holds a great deal of pride in the work she has done as a first-year educator. Her instructional style, emphasizing in-class exercise, active learning, seminar processing, and the cultivation of an inquisitorial mindset towards the material, has paid out dramatically in the threct years since she began teaching first-years. Her very first crop of first-year students took their Metric boards in 3614, and numbers were more than doubled from the year prior. Graduate enrollment has increased massively, particularly in the Metric program, and Parsnip credits the approach to education and deep curiosity towards magic that she has been instilling in students at their most foundational courses.
Failures & Embarrassments
Parsnip has always run some variant of her Aetheric lab, approaching the practice of magic itself in a deconstructive manner to attempt to learn something about the manipulation of the underlying mechanisms. At the time she took her fatal sabbatical, it was in its fourth iteration. Though her research has provided a great deal of insight into glyphic form, and in that sense the labs cannot be said to be failures, none of them have gotten her closer to her goals.
Mental Trauma
REDACTED
Intellectual Characteristics
Parsnip has a deeply analytical mind, prone to step-by-step analysis and a problem-solving approach. She is phenomenally intelligent. She is also something of a perfectionist, and is unsettled at being a part of sloppy or presumptive work.
Morality & Philosophy
Parsnip believes in her freedom to do what she wills, governed by her own sense of right and wrong. She does not take kindly to those who she believes would restrict that out of ignorance. She doesn't like cops, and believes the law of man to be more of an opt-in guideline.
Taboos
There are few greater crime to Parsnip than the widespread erasure of knowledge. If something was once widely known, and now it is not, and someone caused this state of affairs to be, that person has effected a theft upon the collective soul of society. She has no patience or forgiveness for those that would keep people in ignorance, particularly as a means of control.
She reacts with great hostility when someone attempts to restrain her from doing what she believes to be just. She recognizes the difference between that, and being kept from convenience, but to her, keeping someone from doing the right thing is being equal party to the wrong thing.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Parsnip's foremost desire in her research, she has said, has been to determine the mechanism underlying the glyphic alphabets that shape our magic. She believes there is a central logic that is merely being accessed by the formations of strokes and radicals, implements and reagents, and that should that logic be reverse-engineered, magic would be lifted of all restriction, both in use and in usage. Her research has, as yet, not paid off in that regard.
Likes & Dislikes
Parsnip is unfond of casual nudity. She values nudity quite highly, as well as the activities one undertakes while nude, but she believes they hold their own special place of heightened intimacy, and more impersonal matters should be undertaken clothed, lest those moments lose their specialness. She particularly does not typically wish to be naked in the company of those with whom she does not share that level of intimacy, and prefers that others keep to the same regard.
Virtues & Personality perks
Parsnip is unfailingly polite. She rarely curses, always thanks those who offer her assistance, and attempts to keep a pleasant manner at all times. Even when her ire is roused, she expresses it through curtness and extreme propriety, not a blustering rage. It would take some extraordinary grievance to cause Parsnip's impeccable manner to slip.
Hygiene
Parsnip attempts to bathe or shower regularly, keep her hair clean and tidy, and to launder her clothes when they need it. She takes pride in her appearance, as a matter of self-worth and meditative practice. It may take a while to soap up her entire fuzzy body, but she will take that time.
Social
Family Ties
Parsnip's mother, Tatsoi Rassic, is the matriarch of the Rassic merchant empire. Her father, Madnep Pasternak, is a primary accountant for the Rassics.
Her sister, Texsel, is studying to succeed her mother, when Tatsoi finally retires. Her brother, Savoy, also works as a primary accountant.
Texsel Rassic's daughter Mizuna is preparing to attend the Sutet Institute for Trade and Finance in 3620. Texsel's son Rapa has been admitted to attend the Imperial Academy at Kitet in 3617, beginning his studies a year early much like his aunt. Savoy's son Sarson attends primary school in Sutet.
Speech
Parsnip can be ... verbose. She is prone to a bit of pedagogy, at times.
Wealth & Financial state
Parsnip lived relatively modestly for one of her social status, buying little furniture to supplement her furnished manse. She often ate out, but did not conduct herself extravagantly. In most years, she spent less than a hachet crowns on herself.
As a tenured Metric drawing salary from the Imperial Academy, and furthermore with so many successful spells published to reap yearly pensions under Silphion's Grant, Parsnip earned an extraordinarily high income. From 3614-3616, her grant income even eclipsed her salary. Nearly half of her savings went to various charitable causes, but she nonetheless enjoyed a very healthy account at the Vetchbank should the need arise.
Alignment
Neutral Nerdy
Currently Boarded Vehicle
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Parsnip holds the title of Metric. Imperial Metric, if she choose to be specific. She needs little more than that.
Date of Birth
11th Hell, 3552 I.E.
Birthplace
Rassic estate, Sutet, Karellan Empire
Children
Current Residence
Until her vanishing: 3rd Floor West, Silphion, The Manses, Kitet, Karellan Empire.
Gender
Female
Eyes
Scarlet
Hair
Wisteria, undertoned in a bright pink, with native streaks of cream
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Dark blue fur, striped in sea green
Height
6'2". Which is to say, sict two inches.
Weight
Approximately fict four pounds.
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