Monseuir Jondrette

**Monsieur Jondrette** is the owner of the "Le Sergent à Waterloo" tavern and one of the former caretakers of Berry.

## Description

### Appearance

Monsieur Jondrette is a small, skinny human man. His body is bony and angular, and he stands at only 5'3. He has a general look of illness about him despite the fact that he is usually in excellent health. His skin is somewhat worn, and his mousy brown hair is thinning on top, which makes him look older than he truly is. His teeth, as well as the whites of his eyes, have been stained yellow by years of drink and bad hygiene.

### Personality

Monsieur Jondrette is a deceptive sort of fellow. On the surface, he can seem quite bubbly and charming, always happy to welcome people into his inn and greet them with a smile. He is a self-proclaimed "comforter, philosopher, and lifelong mate" to anyone he meets. However, this charisma does not come from a place of genuine warmth or kindness. Indeed, Monsieur Jondrette is scheming and manipulative, keeping track of each and every "favor" he does for others with the intention of later demanding they pay him back. While his wife, Madame Jondrette, is more physically intimidating, it is he who pulls the strings.

## Biography

Monsieur Jondrette was born and raised on the island of Champagne. He and his wife own and operate the tavern, "Le Sergent à Waterloo", where they live with their two daughters, Edaline and Azalea. One day, when the Jondrette girls were both quite young, the tavern was visited by a young woman named Falina, as well as her tiefling daughter, Berry. Whilst the little ones were all off playing together, Falina approached the Jondrettes with a proposal. She was going to go to the mainland of Nymea, where she hoped she would find a job to secure a better future. But she could not do it while also looking after Berry. Already many jobs had spurned her for being a single mother, and even more had turned her away for the fact that she was the mother of a "devilish" child. And so, she needed someone to care for Berry until she got things settled. She would, of course, send money to pay for her child's needs, and she promised that the arrangement would be temporary.

Monsieur Jondrette believed that this would surely be a lucrative opportunity to earn a bit of extra money, so he and his wife hastily agreed to Falina's terms, promising that they would care for Berry as if she were one of their own daughters. It was not long, however, before this was revealed to be a lie. M. Jondrette, along with his wife and daughters, treated Berry not as a member of the family, but as a servant, and a harshly mistreated one at that. They would often forget, or even refuse, to feed her, or demand that she do hard labor in the tavern to 'earn her keep'.

Berry had been living with the Jondrettes for about seven years before the incident which destroyed any possible hope that she could ever be seen as another child. One night, Monsieur and Madame Jondrette were awoken by the sound of Edaline screaming. They rushed to see what had happened, and found their daughter bleeding from a cut on her cheek, while Berry was huddled in a corner, clutching her tail, the sharp tip of which was dripping with Edaline's blood. Although both Berry and Edaline swore that what happened had been an accident, Monsieur Jondrette was enraged that Berry had caused harm to his daughter. At the insistence of his wife, Monseuir Jondrette held Berry down and used a kitchen knife to hack off the spear of her tail, thus removing her 'weaponry'. In her pain, Berry's magic surged, and the man was briefly surrounded by hellish flames. Although the damage was not severe, and the flame was very quickly put out, the Jondrettes were incredibly frightened by this newfound power Berry had.

From that day forward, the Jondrettes treated Berry worse than ever before. They would not let her forget for even a moment how 'twisted' and 'cursed' she was. The only reason she wasn't thrown out on the street was because the Jondrettes' "cared" for her, and did not want to see her hunted down and killed. After all, she was a demon. Being locked in the cellar, once a cruel prank, became the norm for Berry.

Over the next few years, money became tighter for the Jondrette family. And the occasional money once sent by Falina ceased. But Monseuir Jondrette believed that they still had use for the 'devil girl'. Countless sailors would stop in at the inn. And men who had been at sea for a while were not picky. Berry could still make them money. But unfortunately for the Jondrettes, Berry escaped with the aide of her rat companions.

1. ↑ She unknowingly used the Hellish Rebuke spell