OC of the Day: Rosemary

Half orc, half high elf, all sweetheart.

Rosemary discovering her magic! A screenshot redraw of Sofie from Howl's Moving Castle. Art by me :)

Welcome to Original Character (aka OC) of the Day!

As this is the first OC of the Day post so I think this would be a good time to talk about what these posts will look like. I have always been an OC stan for like... as long as I can remember. I've always loved creating original characters and sometimes fan characters. Whether it was my very first character of note that I can remember, "Pencil Man", or characters that have stuck with me for longer, "Stripes", I have a ton of them in my mind vault. All that said, not all of these characters get to see much in the way of projects, RP, or D&D games. Some of these characters are just ones that I've had for years and don't really do much with, others are characters that are actively involved in some kind of thing whether it's a project or hobby. But I wanted to share them because... well, I dunno... I guess I just like to show them off and give them a bit of spotlight from time to time :)

For these posts, I will largely be talking about the characters themselves, what their backstory is (if any), how I thought of them, and maybe what went behind their creation. I'll also be showing off artwork I've made of them (if any), and on occasion for the older OCs, I think it might be fun to do a redo of an old piece if they've got any art to redo. So with all that in mind, let's dive into our first OC of the Day...

Rosemary Wilakers - Magic Tavern Owner, Kitchen Witch, and All Around Cutie!

• Chosen Name: Rosemary Wilakers

• High Elf Name: Roanmara Gildenhart

• Orcish Name: Roso Wolfsnarl

• Gender: Female (she/her)

• Age: 32

• Race: Orc/High Elf

• Height: 6’8”

• Weight: 210 lbs

Personality:

• Likes: More than anything, Rosemary loves to be in the kitchen cooking food and then serving it to others. Outside of cooking, Rosemary enjoys gardening, reading, helping out around the tavern, being in nature, animals, being among friends, and otherwise just being in her comfort place AKA home.

• Dislikes: Racism, Xenophobia, or any other prejudice, untidy kitchens, being in the spotlight when she’s not serving food or cooking, too many compliments.

Rosemary, or more commonly known as Rosie by her friends and tavern patrons, is one of my most common and favorite characters to roleplay as. I primarily use her on my private RP Discord server where she runs a magic, inter-dimensional tavern (The Pudgy Corgi Tavern) that adventurers from any realm can come to for rest and relaxation. She's an absolute doll of a character and is super fun to RP as.

I created Rosemary when I launched my RP Discord server because I needed an NPC (Non-Playable Character) that could serve patrons and facilitate RP. It's actually kind of funny because my original plan for her was to make her the kind of half-orc character that was big, beefy, and would smash anyone who didn't like their cooking (see image on the right). Since I was largely using D&D 5th Edition as a guide for character abilities, I had this initial idea where she'd be a Barbarian with cook's tools checked out as a skill. She'd be super jolly and easy going, but if someone got on her bad side, they'd know it and fast. However, at the time, I was playing in a 5e game where I was a Barbarian who was around the same build and also had cook's tools checked out. I wanted something a bit different for the purposes of this RP server. So ultimately, I asked myself "what is the other half of her heritage?" and when I answered that with "what about a high elf?", a completely different character type was born.

A Femme Ball of Anxiety

Early facial structure sketches. Ultimately I went with a strong-but-femme look.

I started RPing Rosemary before I'd nailed down an appearance and I largely think that the way I ended up RPing her greatly influenced how I ended up drawing her. From the very first moment she stepped into the scene, I found myself playing her as shy, awkward, anxious, and reserved. But when someone complimented her cooking, it brought out a sparkling, happy, and confident character (unless the compliments roll in too often or too heavy). In true OC stan form, Rosemary is definitely the side of myself that struggles a lot with confidence, social anxiety, and impostor syndrome. But by challenging myself to play a character who really does believe that they are good at what they do and deserve the praise for it, it has helped me recognize my own talents and to take compliments when I get them.

An early render that I didn't end up finishing because I wasn't happy with the direction.

As the RPs continued, I noticed that she became distinctly feminine which tends to be very opposite of the kinds of characters I normally like to play. While I do have some she/her characters that I like to roleplay as, I mostly feel drawn to they/thems or sometimes he/hims. I theorize that I heard she/her enough in my upbringing when describing me that it becomes a bit of a trigger when someone refers to me as she/her in RP. And as a rule, I never use she/her characters in D&D games where I don't know a person well enough that they might confuse the character's pronouns with mine (it has happened an unfortunately high number of times). Still, Rosemary did and still does feel like the exception to this norm. And while in real life, being overly femme can cause me great gender dysphoria, Rosemary allows me a safe outlet of being a bit more femme while also keeping it in the realm that feels most comfortable for me: Fantasy.

Backstory Time!

I didn't actually write much for Rosie's backstory until I committed to playing her in a longer-form story RP on my server. Mostly I just didn't think she'd become a character that I'd enjoy playing enough to write an actual story for. But since I was committed to doing the RP, I wanted to make sure she had plenty of backstory goodness to add to the plot in case things came up in-game.

And... yes... true to form with most D&D characters, I gave Rosie a tragic and difficult backstory. Sorry Rosie!

To sum it up, Rosemary was a war baby. Her mother was an Orc that had been allied with a garrison of High Elves. During one night of partying, Rosemary's other parent and her mother hooked up and... well accidents happen. She spent four years with the orcs until her mother died, after which she was sent to live with her other parent, a High Elf noble named Varis Gildenhart. After six years with her elven family, she was abandoned at an inn and tavern by Varis, never to see them again (or so she thought anyway). But Rosie endured. She learned how to work at a tavern and most importantly, how to cook.

Eventually, at age 21, after she had her heart broken by a cruel charlatan preying on Rosie's noble lineage, Rosie stumbled across The Pudgy Corgi Tavern, a tavern set in a magic, interdimensional realm. Those who find themselves lost or in need almost always find their way to it. She quickly befriended the tavern owner, a corgifolk retired paladin, Pudgy Wilakers, and the realm's guardian/creator, a mysterious firbolg known only as "The Firbolg" (played by my lovely friend Morgan), and secured herself a job as the tavern chef.

Over time, Pudgy and The Firbolg became Rosemary's family. They loved her completely and she loved them. After a decade and one grand adventure, Pudgy eventually passed away from old age. He left the tavern and everything in it to Rosemary. She took on Pudgy's surname, and has been running the tavern ever since.

There's a lot I'm leaving out here, of course, but a lot of it is RP stuff that you kind of had to be there for ;)

Other Thoughts

My spouse Jay's take on Rosemary. This early version of her helped finalize design elements and a color scheme that I've kept using to this day.

Rosemary really speaks to me as a roleplayer who consistently uses RP as a both a means of entertaining myself and figuring out my subconscious mental health needs. She's generally adorable and fun to play as because she's so contrary to how I tend to be in real life while also being a very loud version of how I can be at times as well.

I am an anxious person. I struggle with chronic anxiety and have had alarm bells ringing in my head for most of my life. Rosemary consistently struggles with anxiety and feeling like at any given time, the ground beneath her feet will crumble.

Growing up undiagnosed autistic and ADHD, I always felt so weird and out of place in my family and my friend circles. As much as I tried to fit in and tried to change myself to be a version that would fit a narrative provided to me by family, church, school, etc, I always failed to blend in. I explored this in a more literal sense with Rosemary and her bio-family consistently trying to change her to look and be how they wanted her to look and be. There is a loneliness that Rosie and I both shared in that respect.

As I've aged and spent time trying to find myself and embrace my most authentic self, I've searched really hard to find people who embrace me in that way as well. While I still have and love my bio-family, the found family that I have formed over the years is so near and dear to me in an entirely different way. Rosemary, too, was able to form her own found family that loves her unconditionally, anxiety and everything.

Another screenshot redraw, this time of Wolf Children. Rosie often spends time teaching tavern patrons' children about plants and cooking!

Rosemary is a character that is important to me because she allows me to safely explore sides of myself that I otherwise don't always feel comfortable doing in real life. And honestly, she's super cute and fun to draw so... multiple reasons to love her. If you've made it this far, I hope you've enjoyed reading about Rosemary! I've enjoyed talking about her and my thoughts/processes in creating her.

Feel free to reach out with any other questions you might have about this character!