Roderick Smithson

Description

A weathered sentinel whose quiet loyalty has proven unshakeable even when dark magic twisted him against those he'd sworn to protect, Roderick is the type of man upon whom young lords rely precisely because he never wavers. His military bearing masks the weight of duty taken so seriously that it's become not just vocation but identity, his steady presence a grounding force through chaos and revelation. Roderick Smithson carries scars—literal ones from torture, psychological ones from the charm magic that turned him against Caelum, and the accumulated wounds of witnessing his son's trauma and his lord's descent into increasingly dark purposes. Yet he remains, a member of the Corvine Guard whose motto "work hard, play hard" seems increasingly ironic given his austere, almost monastic devotion to duty. At Daria's birthday celebration, assigned to guard the imprisoned Calista, he manifests as a man fundamentally uncomfortable with joy and leisure, initially refusing cake and declaring his post with unmovable seriousness. When Daria finally breaks through his stern demeanor with kindness, his admission that he hasn't had cake in a long time hints at a life so consumed by service that simple pleasures have become foreign to him. What makes Roderick remarkable is that beneath the rigid adherence to duty and protocol, there lies genuine human consideration—he removes his shoes without complaint to protect Daria's expensive blankets, suggesting that his sternness stems not from coldness but from a man whose entire self has been shaped by the weight of others' safety. He reads oceanic doctrine while standing watch, carries the bearing of a seasoned warrior, and would have brought a birthday gift had he known, small details that reveal not a man incapable of joy, but one who has chosen duty so completely that he's nearly forgotten what joy looks like.