Windwright's Library

[Windwright]

Name: Riva
Pronounced: REE-vuh /rivə/
Pronouns: He/Him

Appearance:
Covered in a coat of feathers that are ostensibly a uniform dark blue, Riva lacks the usual rear plumes common to Rito profiles. His black beak is narrow and pointed, and supports a silver pair of pince-nez style glasses when they aren't dangling from the delicate chain looped around his neck. His slender legs and razor-sharp talons are likewise black-hued, though the talons' and his feathers' well-kept and tidy appearance suggests that he doesn't have much experience with violent uses for them. The difficulty with his feathers' shade is that as the light hits them at different angles they shimmer with an iridescent sheen as if they were carved from precious stone rather than grown from humble Rito.

Like most Rito, he prefers to wear clothes that are light and airy. His normal outfit is little more than a sky blue waistcoat with pockets for his various implements and tools, a brown leather belt with a few pouches for cooking ingredients and tools, a breechcloth for modesty, and a quiver on a strap for his only weapon, a Hebran bow one of his siblings made using feathers from each of the family members as decoration. When he's traveling, he also wears a form-concealing brown cloak stuffed with extra feathers and a backpack that uses a series of straps to let it expand anywhere from the size of a traditional Hylian pack to something that's almost comically oversized depending on how much he's carrying.

Biography:
Riva and his siblings were hatched, like most Rito, in the village in Hebra their species claims as their home, in the shadow of the Sacred Beast's once-and-future perch. Each developed their own interests as they grew, from fletching to fighting, singing to sewing, but Riva's interest was the one thing the village didn't really need any more of.

From a young age, he hung around the Swallow's Roost, wanting to learn the inns and outs of the business, and picking up skills useful to innkeeps everywhere like how to mend and launder linens, how to cook appetizing meals, and the benefits of a Rito-down bed and blanket for non-Rito patrons. He even learned bookkeeping, though this was from his mother's shop rather than the Roost since there was no hope at all for him to inherit either business but she saw a need for him to pick the basics up.

Indeed, she was quite supportive of all her chicks' aspirations, but even she acknowledged that there were limits to what a mother's support could offer, and one of those was that the village didn't get enough visitors to justify two competing inns. So while her other children were apprenticed out, Riva was taken under her wing to fill in gaps in his education the others wouldn't have. Thus, she taught him business skills and encouraged the chick to study maps of the old Hyrule's roads, towns, and villages with Kass and Penn so that he could find a good spot to help set a new establishment up. He studied history and stories so that he'd be able to spin a good yarn for customers, and geography to be able to point out interesting sights for travelers no matter where he ended up, but his one true passion was always going to be seeing those travelers happy and laughing with full bellies and a warm bed waiting by the effort of his wings and talons.

So when the day finally came, he took the money he'd saved up from his odd jobs, a supply of Rito down collected from his family over the years, and several sets of linens (a gift from his parents), and set off for the wilds to find the perfect place to put down new roots and roosts.

Talents:
  o Bedtime Stories - Riva has an impressive repertoire of legends and historical anecdotes filed away in his memory. He needs very few reminders to be able to recall and recite nearly any yarn a patron might ask about.
 o Lullabye - Like many (MANY) Rito, Riva has a talent for music. His tends to be expressed with a concertina, though his collection of songs is much more limited than his mentor's, and is mostly lullabies and mellow pieces that are as much ambient as entertainment.
 o Home Cooking - Riva knows many simple recipes using Hebran and Hylian staples, and considers catering for his clients part and parcel to running a rest stop.
 o Tidy Tidings - Riva is quite efficient at keeping his furniture, linens, and cooking and serving ware clean and neat, to the point that he could easily run an inn all by his lonesome...if he was a stronger bird.
 o Rupee Wizard - Riva keeps meticulous books, and can track every expense and fare back to the day he first set out from home.

Treasures:
 o Handy Haversack - Entirely non-magical, though the Sheikah refuse to believe it, Riva's backpack is a marvel of modern mobility. When properly assembled, every piece of his rest stop but the floors and furniture can be rolled, folded, or stowed into its depths, and the weight will be distributed perfectly for long hikes. Just don't ask him to fly with it.
 o Rito Down Reserve - Riva's pack contains an absurd collection of Rito down feathers in the form of pillows, comforters, mattresses, and even a large sack of spare and replacement feathers. He's not likely to run out any time soon!
 o Solid Cart - Every piece of furniture and flooring necessary to build a temporary inn can be folded up and fitted together into a cart if you're a clever bird, and Riva is a very clever bird. If he was a stronger bird he'd be able to assemble and break it all down himself, but once it's in its cart form, Riva's more than able to balance it on its large wheels and pull it via a pair of long poles that double as the main stays when the inn is assembled.
 o Encyclopedia Hyrulia - A set of books Riva acquired over several years of his youth, each volume covers important historical events from its associated region and time period. The full set comprises two editions each for Central Hyrule and the Lanayru Province, and one for each of the other regions. There are rumors of a new edition being published to cover Hyrule's Calamity and the extended consequences of that, but Riva does not have a copy of any such tome. Yet.
 o Familial Greatbow - A Hebran bow with several shades of iridescent feathers affixed to the arms. This is far too pristine to see any real use.
 o The Maps - Though not a cartographer himself, Riva has an excellent set of reference maps of Hyrule and each of its regions.
 o The Ledgers - Dark rumors circulate about these arcane tomes, which none but Riva can read. Mostly because he writes in shorthand. These books contain a record of every patron Riva has ever housed, every laborer ever paid, every meal ever cooked, and every rupee collected across Riva's career.