Jerkin Bonefinger

Appearance & Presence

Jerkin is built like a duelist rather than a priest: tall, well-muscled, with the relaxed stance of someone who has lived in rough ports and survived them by wit and charm. His hair is dark and thick, often worn loose or tied back with silk, and his eyes hold that dangerous warmth that makes people want to confess secrets they should not.

His clothes blur the line between showman and celebrant:

• Open-throated shirts in deep jewel tones.
• Fine vests and sashes bearing the white love-bird icon of Myhriss in embroidery or jewelry.
• Rings and chains that sparkle under the soft rose-lamps of the House of Pleasure.

He moves as though every hallway is a ballroom—easy, graceful, always aware of who is watching and how to play to their expectations.

Background & Origins

Jerkin was born along the Wild Coast, amidst taverns, brothels, and pirate docks where “pleasure” was too often a weapon and love a word used by bullies and slavers. He learned early that beauty can be twisted, that the lonely are easily bought, and that the world is full of people whose hearts have never once been treated as sacred.

His turning point came when a traveling priestess of Myhriss passed through one such port and conducted a public rite—blessing couples, reconciling estranged lovers, and refusing coin from those who looked truly desperate. Her teaching that “love can cure all the ills of the world” struck him like lightning.

He left the coast with her caravan, learning:

• The tenets of Myhriss: protect and celebrate love and beauty wherever found; fight cruelty and isolation.
• How to counsel the broken-hearted and how to turn lust toward mutual compassion instead of harm.
• How to use perfume, light, song, and touch to create safe, sacred spaces in places the world called profane.

In Verbobonc—a city of river wealth, temples, and crowded loneliness—he found the perfect soil for his calling. With modest funding and the blessing of Myhriss’s clergy, he founded Jerkin Bonefinger’s House of Pleasure, a “chapel-like structure” that looks like a boutique but functions as a full shrine of the Thrice-Kissed Maid.

Personality & Beliefs

Jerkin is forward, playful, and disarmingly sincere. The city gossips about his “forward ways,” but those who truly know him understand:

• He flirts freely as a way of affirming beauty, not conquering it.
• He is sharp at reading consent; a flinch or forced smile turns his manner from roguish to gently pastoral in an instant.
• He believes loneliness is a kind of spiritual rot—and Myhriss demands it be cured wherever possible.

Core traits:

• Idealistic Romantic: Convinced that genuine affection can mend scars left by war, poverty, and cruelty.
• Ethically Hedonistic: Encourages pleasure, but only where it is mutual, honest, and free of coercion.
• Protective: Has zero tolerance for abusers or manipulators using his house as cover; such folk find themselves quietly barred, or publicly shamed if they persist.

He holds rigidly to Myhriss’s teaching that love and beauty must be protected and celebrated, not commodified and abused.

Role in Verbobonc

The Shrine-Keeper

Jerkin’s House of Pleasure is one of the most visible “temples” of Myhriss in Verbobonc—an example of how her worship spills into salons and shopfronts, not just formal sanctuaries.

Under his direction, the house offers:

• Bazaar of Beauty: Cosmetics, perfumes, and adornments to help patrons present their best selves.
• Match-making rites in darkness, four times a month—voluntary, donation-supported ceremonies that pair willing souls seeking companionship.
• Divinations of love: Reading hearts and futures in mirrors, cards, or conversation, steering clients toward healthier choices instead of obsession.

Political & Social Relationships

Myhriss’s clergy in Verbobonc are known as mediators of harmony and guardians of social norms around romance. Jerkin, as the most public face of her worship in the Business Quarter, naturally becomes:

• A quiet broker for noble and merchant marriages, via his senior cleric Lady Irielle Vann and the match-making floor.
• A behind-the-scenes counsellor for city officials and merchant lords whose affairs or loveless unions threaten scandal.
• A counterweight to harsher churches: St. Cuthbert’s stern billets and Heironean zealots may bark about moral laxity, but even they cannot deny that his shrine reduces violence born of jealousy and despair.

Among the common folk, Jerkin is beloved as the man who takes their hearts seriously regardless of coin. His insistence on accessible pricing and donation-based ceremonies makes love “affordable,” which has won him a broad base of support in taverns and tenements alike.

Jerkin at the Table – Roleplaying Notes

When you play Jerkin:

• Voice: Warm, laughing, flirtatious, but capable of sudden gravity when speaking of pain or abuse.
• Body language: Steps close, touches lightly (unless rebuffed), uses the space like a stage.
• Angle: Always looking for what the person wants—not just in romance, but in how they wish to see themselves.

Short phrases you can reuse:

• “Ahh, sweet Myhriss, what has the road done to thy hearts?”
• “We mend more than faces here, friend—we mend the spaces between souls.”
• “No one leaves this house believing themselves unlovely. That is a vow I keep with my goddess.”

Use him as a social quest-giver, therapist, or political contact who approaches problems through relationships and emotional stakes rather than coin or bloodshed.

Secrets & Adventure Hooks

• The Broken Vow: Years ago on the Wild Coast, Jerkin failed to save a young lover from a violent “patron.” The abuser—now a minor agent of a TOEE cult or Nulb smuggler—resurfaces in Verbobonc. Jerkin quietly begs the PCs to protect new victims and help him face the past without betraying Myhriss’s ethos of mercy.
• Tampered Philter: A rare, properly brewed philter of love (sanctioned under Myhriss’s rites) has been stolen and adulterated to create a coercive potion, threatening to ruin the shrine’s reputation. Jerkin needs the PCs to find the thief, recover or neutralize the philter, and uncover who wants Myhriss’s worship painted as predatory.
• Shut the House of Pleasure: A moralist bloc within the Council, backed by rival temples, calls for restrictions or closure of B15. Jerkin and his clerics ask the party to gather testimony from couples and families whose lives were healed there—turning a political hearing into a story-driven side quest.
• Match-Making in the Dark: A noble scion or key NPC intends to enter the darkened match-making ceremony, but someone plans violence or kidnapping under cover of anonymity. Jerkin implores the PCs to guard the rite without breaking its sacred rule of blind equality—love judged by voice and touch, not face or title.

Rumors About Jerkin Bonefinger

1. “Wild Coast Bones”

“They say Jerkin’s from the Wild Coast, aye—where love’s just another word for debt. Some claim he walked away from a brothel fire with naught but soot on his skin and Myhriss’s name on his lips. Whether he lit the blaze or saved folk from it… depends who’s telling it.”

1. “Matchmaker of the Mighty”

“You think that marriage ’twixt those two noble houses was pure politics? Ha. Word is, Jerkin arranged the whole dance—blind rites in the dark upstairs, then a quiet blessing in Myhriss’s name. The council got peace; the couple got passion. Not bad work for a perfumer.”

1. “No Abusers Allowed”

“House of Pleasure, aye—but try raising a hand to a lover under that roof and see how swiftly the music stops. I heard a captain once struck his girl there—Billets never even got called. Jerkin’s own folk tossed him into the street, boots and belt after him.”

1. “The Philter He Refused”

“There was a lordling wanted a certain potion brewed—to make a lady ‘more agreeable.’ Jerkin turned him out on his ear and blacklisted his whole house from the rites. Fellow had to go to Dyvers for his poison after that. Shows you what sort of ‘pleasure’ Jerkin does not sell.”

1. “Confessor of the Lonely”

“If you watch late at night, you’ll see it—Wardens, priests, even hardcase mercenaries slipping in the side door alone. Folks who’d never kneel in their own temples, but they’ll sit with Jerkin over a cup and talk like children. He keeps their secrets like gold, they say.”

1. “Myhriss’s Temper”

“He looks soft, doesn’t he? All smiles and silk. But I heard once, when a drunk started jeering at one of the clerics, Jerkin’s voice went cold as ice. Didn’t raise a hand—just told him, ‘Out. Myhriss watches how men speak of beauty.’ The fellow sobered like he’d been doused and fled.”

1. “The Darkened Rite”

“Those match-making nights in the dark? Some say Jerkin walks the hall between the curtains, hand on the dove-amulet, whispering blessings so no one inside loses courage. Others say he’s listening for lies—if thou’rt there to trick or trap, the goddess tips him off.”

1. “Friend of the Fallen”

“When the siege veterans came back broken from the wilds, the temples gave them bread and bandages. Jerkin gave ’em mirrors and kind hands, reminded ’em they were more than scars. A few found love there, or at least the will to stop reaching for the bottle. City owes him more than it admits.”

1. “A Dove in the Council”

“Don’t be fooled—he’s no mere shopkeeper. There’s councillors who won’t vote on a marriage law or festival charter ’til they’ve ‘consulted the House of Pleasure.’ They mean Jerkin, and he’s kinder than most of them deserve.”

1. “The One He Failed”

“There’s a name he never speaks, a lover he could not save back on the Coast. Some nights, when the candles burn low, you’ll see him alone by the shrine, eyes far away. That’s why he drives himself so hard, they say—every heart he mends is an apology to the one he lost.”