Leland Ashcombe
it's a sin
LELAND ASHCOMBE
| Age | Mid-30s |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 186 cm | 6'1" |
| Weight | 73 kg | 160 lb |
| Force Sensitive | No |
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Leland Ashcombe is tall and lean, with a slender frame and long limbs. He has squared shoulders, a narrow waist, and a neck long enough to be noticeable above a shirt collar. His hands and fingers are long and lithe, with prominent knuckles and visible tendons. His face is long and angular, with a fairly high forehead, prominent and shapely cheekbones with hollowed cheeks beneath them. His jaw is clearly defined, tapering towards a broad, slightly squared chin, and his nose is long and straight, with a distinct bridge and rounded bridge.
Leland's eyes are blue-grey, sitting beneath a pronounced brow. He sometimes wears spectacles. His mouth is moderately wide, and he is generally clean-shaven.
His hair is light brown, with some natural dark blonde highlights. It's thick and wavy. He tends to keep it cut short on the sides and a little longer on the top, and he usually wears it combed off to one side.
Leland wears well-tailored clothing: suits for work and formalwear, and other appropriate clothing for any given situation. He favors elite New Sterandel designers for clothing and accessories.
INVENTORY
Notepad, pencil, datapad, comlink, keys, glasses, watch.
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Leland Ashcombe is reserved and speaks carefully. He feels little obligation to make an interaction comfortable, particularly in the world of business. He can sit through silence quite happily, even if someone else is trying to weaponize silence or make it uncomfortable. He expects people to arrive prepared, be above-board, and take responsibility for themselves and the decisions they make. He has good manners, but his displeasure is usually quite apparent. He has no qualms with being disliked when the reasons he made someone dislike him are justified.
A perfectionist to the core, Leland is somewhat difficult to work with (and for). He notices everything. Professionally, he is very difficult to please, and his approval means something because it is rarely given without qualification. He has enormous stamina where work is concerned, which makes him impatient with people who have reached their limits. He can understand exhaustion but thinks that professional obligations and commitments take precedent over personal comfort.
Leland is highly protective of his legacy, Ashcombe & Bell Engineering. The company represents his family, his life's work, and a reputation that he intends to preserve. He would pursue someone who threatened that name with considerable persistence: documenting their failures, challenging their account publicly, and setting the record straight. As angry as he might be, it would remain perfectly civil throughout.
Leland is something of a womanizer. He is charming, confident, and dryly funny. When he wants a woman, he makes time, listens closely, and gives her the pleasure of discovering that his rather forbidding exterior can be set aside to reveal someone entertaining and attentive. He enjoys the pursuit, the attracting, and the company of women. Some of these encounters are casual, with no strings attached, but others develop into relationships he genuinely wants to pursue. The problem is always work. Between a woman -- however lovely, however obliging -- and Ashcombe & Bell, he chooses Ashcombe & Bell ten times out of ten. A date canceled last-minute, a late arrival to another, a romantic weekend getaway spent answering calls can take their toll. He becomes irritated when a partner legitimately raises the pattern as a complaint. He views each of these interruptions as justifiable and reasonable standing alone, which allows him to avoid acknowledging how thoroughly the relationship has become subject to his own convenience.
He sincerely regrets disappointing someone he cares about and often makes an extravagant, romantic effort to repair things, but it doesn't stop the pattern of behavior. There are few women who tolerate this in the long term, and so he remains an eligible bachelor.
STRENGTHS
Visionary. Talented designer. Charming. Dedicated. Professional. Collected. Controlled.
WEAKNESSES
Perfectionist. Controlling. Obsessive. Ruthless. Womanizer. Vindictive. Compulsive.
HISTORY
Leland Ashcombe was borne into a prosperous industrial family in the Renascent Heirate, with a history dating back to the early days of the First Order. The family business, Ashcombe & Bell Engineering, had passed through several generations; the Bell family had long since been bought out. His father was a partner in the firm and Leland grew up visiting its yards and workshops, taking an increasingly serious interest in the processes by which ships and other technologies were developed, from the earliest stages to release. He received an expensive education and was introduced early to the clients and families whose patronage sustained his family's business.
At university, Leland studied spacecraft architecture and systems engineering. He joined the firm straight out of university, placed under an experienced designer who had no patience for Leland's confidence and insisted that he be made to understand production, testing, and maintenance before being given any responsibility for a vessel. Leland tried to avoid relying on his family's name, though his status was, of course, apparent. It inspired him to work that much harder, to master the business from the ground up so that no one could be in doubt as to whether he had earned his place. By the time his apprenticeship was over, even the skeptical senior designed he had worked for had to admit he was not coasting on the Ashcombe name.
Over the following decade, he assumed increasing responsibility for the company's designs, eventually replacing the senior designer when he retired. He developed a reputation for being absolutely uncompromising when it came to the execution of his designs. His employees view him as a hardass who is at the top of the luxury vessel design game. Working under him is viewed in the Renascent Heirate's industrial and engineering community as a tour of duty. A letter of recommendation from him all but guarantees a very talented and effective designer. To date, he has written exactly one such letter. Approximately a year ago, his father retired, and Leland became the managing partner of Ashcombe & Bell.
His personal life is less settled. Although he has a small circle of close, longstanding friends, his romantic history is littered with relationships gone wrong, almost always due to a mismatch between the time and effort he dedicates to his professional life versus his romantic one.