User Blog:
NPCs You Didn't Know You Needed: The Animal Trainer

 Want a versatile NPC, I mean one that's as handy in an ancient world, today or even in a post-apocalyptic future? What you’re looking for is a character with a profession that has lasted, and will last just as long as a few key items still exist. So long as people have emotional highs and lows, you'll likely have bartenders. As long as we have laws, there will be both criminals and fixers who hook criminals up with one another. There will likely always be sex-workers in one form or another as long as we continue to reproduce in the way we do. So long as both man and animal walk the face of a planet there will be animal trainers.

That said, today's NPC You Didn't Know is Elsa Cohen, breeder and trainer.

Description: Elsa is short, stocky and aging prematurely, but well. She's not what you would call pretty, but in a certain light when she's smiling, she's got a sort of handsome quality to her. Her height comes in handy, as she spends a lot of time squatting to be on eye level with her dogs, under the flank of the horses she cares for and to be able to see how the stomachs of her cattle are doing. She's aging prematurely because she spends more most of her day out in the sunshine and it's made her a bit leathery and sun baked. She's quick to smile. Many of her other mannerisms are patterned after the animals she works with and as such she appears to grin at the wrong time, talk to close to strangers, and sniff too much like she's smelling the air and people around her.

Background: Elsa would have been a daddy's girl even if her mother had survived childbirth. Old Smit had an affection for his little girl like few fathers ever know. Despite the fact that most men would rather have a son to take over for them, Smit knew from Elsa's first breath, she'd be the one to take over when he was ready to pass on his business. His instinct was right on, raising the girl among animals was easier than raising her as some prissy little girl would have been. She was a natural. She's married, a gentle push-over type who lets her do as she pleased and had a litter of boys, though she treats them almost exactly as she treats the animals she raises. That is, with love but total demand of respect and submission.