Master Harper Attarin

Name: Attarin
Age: 63
Gender: Male
Rank/Craft: Master Harper
Residence: Western Harper Hall

Description: Just under 6’ with a slight stoop to his shoulders, Master Attarin looks like someone’s worldweary grandfather.  His gray hair is thinning rapidly – he’s already mostly bald – and his waist has expanded over the Turns, but his brown eyes remain bright and active, albeit a little sad.

Personality: Attarin has pretty much seen it all. There is very little that surprises him anymore.  Decades of adjudicating in charter disputes has given him a unique perspective on human nature.  He tends toward joviality and strives to be objective, but he’s a wise man and he knows a lot about political reality (not to mention political expediency).  In other words, Attarin has not always been able to make the right decision in his long career, but he’s jaded enough to be mostly at peace about it.

Background: Attarin was born and bred in Fort Hold.  By age ten he was apprenticed to the Harper Hall, and by the time he was a journeyman he had shown himself proficient in archival studies and Charter interpretation. He spent most of his twenties riding route throughout the Southern Boll and Tillek peninsulas hearing a variety of disputes between holders. He continued with this sort of work into his late thirties, traveling through the west central highlands, in particular the lands beholden to Nabol and Crom.

At thirty eight he was offered masterhood, but turned it down for the chance to ride route in the newly opened lands of the Southern Continent.  He spent the better part of the next twenty Turns there, further building upon his reputation as a fair and intelligent arbiter of the Charter – no mean feat considering that in South the usual laws of holdership did not always apply (or were sometimes outright jettisoned by more radical holders).  Setting precedent is never easy, and Attarin has certainly made many mistakes over the Turns, but there is no denying his accomplishment.  Sticking to the original spirit of the Charter while interpreting its language flexibly enough to suit a wide variety of needs is what has made him one of the foremost Charter specialists on Pern.

Even after accepting masterhood in his mid-forties, Attarin continued his peripatetic existence for another 13 years.  At 58 he decided to return to the Fort Harper Hall, but although he was certainly been accorded his due by his peers, he had been away for so long that he never really felt that he belonged there.  When the chance came to work with his old friend Ivelyn at the Western Harper Hall at Ithaca Hold, he jumped at the chance.  It is his hope to teach a whole new generation of charter specialists, who will, in their turn, travel the Western Continent as he traveled in the South, helping to bring law and order to the, as yet, untamed lands.

Last Updated: 05/01/2006