Olive Ruskettle

Olive Ruskettle was a famous halfling "bard", actually a thief who always aspired to a life of entertaining people and the easy living that profession could bring.

"“Everyone needs to make his own life for himself, though,” she said aloud. “Cyrrollalee knows, I loved my mother, but she never understood why I chose music over merchandising, so I hit the road. The people who love us the most have more trouble accepting that we're different from them than strangers do.”"

- Olive Ruskettle

Description
Mistress Ruskettle was very short, even for a halfling, she was less than 3 ft. tall. She could easily be confused with a human toddler with minimal effort. Nevertheless, she was a very attractive halfling woman with innocent cherubic features. She had hazel eyes and long auburn waving hair. If her appearance was not enough to sway someone, her singing voice usually did the job.

Personality
Olive always called herself a "bard", never a thief, or a fighter. She possessed a quick wit, sharp tongue, and keen mind, especially when a booty was involved. The thoroughly enjoyed the facade of being a bard. She often relied on her mind, sweet personality, and innocent cute looks to get her out of trouble that always seemed to find Olive. If those things fail, she hid under the table until the trouble blew over, hiding also was preferable because an unseen halfling was a living halfling. If she was forced to battle or when her friends were in danger she jumped into the combat with her blades out, with the ferocity of an angry wolverine.

Olive was a talented storyteller and a liar, she oftentimes weaved long convoluted stories to exhaust any possible line of questioning. She quickly turned fierce when someone treated her as a child, dared to question her bardic credentials, or had a gull to underpay the halfling.

Olive was uncontrollable, impulsive, reckless, and often did not have the best foresight, the perfect combination of traits to constantly get into trouble.

Like so many halflings, Olive loved food and drink and could easily outeat two adult males in one seating. Her friends learned to use the food as the only good distraction to pacify the fiery bard. Olive's appetite was not the only insatiable desire she had. She loved learning stories, tales, songs, and limericks and appreciated learning new ones when she could.

Olive often could not relate to depressed, or simply sad people. She thought that if you had your health, full purse, were not love-struck, and ahead of the law, there was no reason to feel down. Olive remembered feeling that way about her aunt who would cry after a single glass of wine, and Olive's mother explained that the crying did not come from the drink, but from the heart.

As a halfling who often faced prejudice, she could never tolerate bigotry. Even when in some cases they rightfully accused her or thievery. Olive herself thought paladins and clerics to be untrustworthy and stuck up, and humans to be brutes and warmongers.

She tried to avoid Hillsfar and its Red Plumes, also known as the Red Death, for what they did to the halfling population of the city.

Abilities
Olive was a talented thief who was always alert making it very hard to surprise her. Her first and most deadly weapons were her wit and quick thinking, apart from that she used regular and throwing daggers, short swords, and light crossbows.

Aa "bard" of some renown, she was a talented singer, and musician, known to have composed some very catchy ditties. She was also a very lucky and skilled gambler, Olive owed her new name and reputation to that particular skill. She had never received bardic collegial education so she lacked the arcane abilities of a regular bard. She was too chaotic to suffer through formal education in any event.

Possessions
Apart from the several hidden daggers, and thieves' tools, she always carried a musical instrument. Usually, it was a small harp, lute, yarting, pipes, or rebec. She carried standard adventuring gear, a flask of strong Luiren Rivengut, and a deck of talis cards.

Olive often proudly used her Harper pin she received as a lovely gift from Finder Wyvernspur. If you were to ask her whether she had any magic items, she would never admit to it, but it was very likely she kept some trinkets from her past adventures, such as a small bag of holding that belonged to her friend and partner Jade, the earring of comprehend languages, another one of Finder's gifts, and many more.

In 1357 DR, Olive briefly owned a pony she named High Roll. The pony was later abandoned around Yulash.

History
Not much was known about her past or her true name. Occasionally, the halfling bard claimed to hail from Cormyr. Olive has mentioned her drinking aunt and her mother. At some point, Olive decided to pursue her own ambitions instead of working with her family in merchandising, something that they never came to terms with. One of Olive's most frightening life events was back when she resided in Raven's Bluff, she was accused of stealing a pouch of gold by a drunk paladin. She harbored deep mistrust and resentment towards all paladins after the incident... Even though the gold in question was in her possession at the time.

Subsequently, she won the name and reputation of Olav Ruskettle, a true and once famous bard, in a dice game in Procampur. Olav had a crippling habit, he lost his hand, his voice was starting to go, even though he was an innkeeper when Olive met him, the only thing he could gamble away was his name. The tavern belonged to his wife.

Since then Olive did her best to maintain her image as a bard of great talent but she never tried to apply to a bardic college to receive official training. Over the years she has been cornered by well-traveled folks who claim to have seen the "real" Olav Ruskettle perform, each time she managed to lie her way out of the confrontation.

Unknown even to her at the time, Olive became a Harper when Finder gave her his harper pin in the presence of Elminster Aumar.

Trivia

 * Olive's proudest achievement as a bard was her heroic epic Chronicles of Alias of the Magic Arm, an exaggerated rendering of the adventures of Alias, Olive, Dragonbait, and Akabar.
 * Through her adventures with Alias and Finder, Olive learned quite a few of the Nameless Bard's works that were lost to most of the inhabitants of the Realms. Such songs as the ballad of the Standing Stone, that added lyrics to the popular elven tune; a sad and haunting song about the Tears of Selûne, and many others.
 * Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue was selling a custom-ordered sting great bard puppets for 2 gp each. The great bard was Finder Wyvernspur, and the order was placed by Olive herself.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds


 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards


 * Novels
 * Azure Bonds &bull; The Wyvern's Spur &bull; Song of the Saurials &bull; Masquerades


 * Video Games
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds