Centoros Spotlight: Jericho Swift
Born by the name of Aethyria, she was the daughter of an elf-maid from Lythesia and a knight of the Queen’s Order. Their affair was brief and the maid never intended to bear the child of the human adventurer; nevertheless, she carried Aethyria with pride and named her in honor of her father. Though she had intended to raise Aethyria in Lythesia, she died of sickness while Aethyria was still young. Rather than leave her in the care of the elves, Aethyria’s mother willed that she be sent to Tinkertop, to be raised by her close friends among the gnomes. It was here that Aethyria’s character began to take shape.
Encouraged to take on complex intellectual pursuits from a young age, Aethyria soon showed a remarkable talent for the mysterious magical craft and clockwork inventions of the gnomes. Despite being a half-elf, she was wholeheartedly accepted by the gnomish community, and in the town of Tinkertop she had a home where she felt she belonged.
As she grew older and matured, she became increasingly fascinated by the outside world, and doggedly pursued information about distant lands. In particular, she was curious about her human father, but her gnomish guardians knew little— his name, Aegis Letharian, and that he was a great hero in the lands to the west. Eventually, she grew restless with the idea of finding him. Armed with her knowledge, skill, and inventions, Aethyria took on a human name that she thought sounded particularly heroic— Jericho Swift— and departed into the wide world. Though she entertained hope of someday finding her father, more than that, she wanted to go out and make a name for herself, like the characters that she read about in her books.
Much of Jericho’s personality has been shaped by her time living with the gnomes. She’s wide-eyed and curious about the world, eager to experience it firsthand. She’s talkative, often tactlessly so— and her lack of experience with strangers means that she will occasionally tell all the wrong things to all the wrong people. Despite this, however, it occasionally works to her advantage. Some people find her child-like nature refreshing, and that same charm can disarm even the toughest old souls.
Jericho has the keen intellect of a scientist. She’s a gifted inventor and can devise ingenious inventions and plots, but she often gets caught up in her projects, overlooking the obvious. She has a peculiar love for broken things— she loves repairing them. Likewise, she has a soft spot in her heart for people that she feels are broken.