Post by Aurora Briere on Apr 1, 2012 20:41:08 GMT -5
GENERAL
Full Name: Aurora Vespasia Caesius
Race: Human
Age: Twenty-four
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Somewhere under the umbrella of bisexuality…somewhere
Birthplace: Marnus Pell, Tevinter Imperium
Residence: Marnus Pell, Tevinter until recently; for now, she is where she needs to be.
Affiliation: Depends, but there’s always the somewhat begrudging affiliation with the Tevinter Imperium
Occupation: Mercenary, and the works.
Religion: Imperial Chantry, but only really because of her upbringing—she isn’t particularly dedicated to it or open about it when outside Tevinter
COMBAT
Class: Rogue
Character Stats:
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 2
Willpower: 1
Magic: 0
Cunning: 1
Gear: A longbow and arrows, a pair of light blades for dual-wielding, a set of leather armor, and traveling essentials (poultices, money, etc.)
CHARACTERISTICS
Appearance: Looking only at her face, one finds a delicate young woman groomed well by a dutiful mother. Round, innocent dark green-hazel eyes look up from beneath long eyelashes; they are the same eyes that got rowdy older brothers in trouble, got her extra presents for her naming day, got her a kiss from a cute boy in Minrathous, and got several surprises and opportunities throughout her childhood. A light tan from the Tevinter sun contrasts with the long tresses of wavy hair of varying tones of blonde that either hang around her shoulders for show or are pulled back and braided into a bun so as to remove the distraction. Those sun-kissed cheeks, no longer caked with powder and blush, are lightly freckled from the long hours spent outside.
From the shoulders and below is where the fragile image begins to fade. Limbs that were once slender and vulnerable to snapping are now stronger and flexible, arms and legs lightly defined with muscles built up from her training. Lady’s small hands that ought to be soft and unscarred are calloused from years of blisters and burns from archery and climbing. Her fingers are long, perfect for handling a bow and perfect for showing off a nonexistent band of matrimony. The fingernails are not a pretty picture, having been bitten out of anxiety and idleness. The little girl brought up to be seen and not heard becomes a woman only just starting to be weathered by adversity and struggle. It is a welcome change, but there was always something a little rough and unruly beneath the immaculate and obsessively maintained appearance.
Personality:
► resourceful: Adaptable and versatile are two things one must be in certain lines of work, especially when travelling. Circumstances can change so easily, and fate is fickle: one can never truly know what can happen next, and one isn’t always prepared for it. Aurora is a little flighty, but in training as a rogue she has learned that spontaneity is her best friend. She cannot always rely on routine, and so she has grown rather comfortable with improvisation. She’s learning to use the resources she has in order to survive and succeed, and resourcefulness makes her goals this much easier to accomplish in the case of obstacles.
► romantic: Aurora is a dreamer at heart. She dreamt of love, chivalry, and adventure; she loved stories with amazing plots and miraculously happy endings. She is an idealist, trying to believe in her rhapsodized ideals while still trying to temper a rather quixotic nature with a realistic outlook. She is sentimental and in-tune with her emotions, and has very high expectations for a life that has the potential to be rather drab and dull.
► self-preserving: Now, now, Aurora isn’t an uncaring, disloyal woman simply because she knows when it is stupid to risk herself! She didn’t grow up with many friends outside of her brother Aurelius and the children of the help, but when she finds someone truly worthy of her attention and care she will stick by him or her, so long as the feeling is mutual. She isn’t about to put her life on the line for just anyone, especially not when she is unsure if it is worth it or if she will or will not be stabbed in the back. There’s a fine line between being noble and being stupid, and Aurora tries to tread that line. Recklessness isn’t in her nature except in battle, and even then she is calculating every move she possible can. Maybe she will run away, but it means she gets to live longer. Can you blame her for wanting to live?
►opportunistic: Aurora loves opportunity, and when one comes along that she’d really, really love to take advantage of, morality or ethics does not really concern her. She does not have a black hole instead of a heart, certainly not, but there are simply some things she just can’t give up, except in very dire and difficult situations. There are situations that could give her pause, such as debts or cases of loyalty, but she really doesn’t expect to have problems with any of those. Foolish? Maybe, but she has reason to believe she’s right.
►manipulative: Aurora will try to learn and do whatever she can to get what she wants, whether it is information, presents, or attention. Manipulation is a skill she has fostered and honed from a very young age, and it is awfully handy in the line of work she has decided to dabble in. She will play upon guilt and emotions, she will flirt, and she will coerce if she needs to. She is by no means a master at such a young age, but she has the experience. After all, how can one expect her to stand out among her brothers and sister without competing for and winning some attention? She was cunning enough to get by to an extent, although Aurora is very cautious after some failed attempts and consequences. There is still much to learn, although it is almost natural.
►discreet: Aurora tries to be prudent and diplomatic, keeping her true feelings in check and under wraps out of pure pragmatism—in order to obtain information and get close to others, she must cooperate and be sympathetic without giving others the idea that she is a threat. She’s well-aware that she must tread carefully, and discretion is the best way to maneuver without setting off any warning bells. That, and being raised by a mother preoccupied with social climbing meant that discretion was practically hammered into her; she had to be careful, lest the smallest scandalous and rebellious thing utterly ruin her family’s already damaged reputation.
► jealous & possessive: She may be the baby of the family, but that never meant she was entitled to anything. She learned that, in order to survive among her aggressive siblings, she’d have to fight for her own territory. There was no “sharing is caring” mentality, and the family setting was only a microcosm for the larger dog-eat-dog world. Her possessiveness has become instinctive, and Aurora does not take well to sharing. Of course, with four siblings there were some things they all had to share: love and attention were among the greatest. It led to some disharmony, but most of all it lead to jealousy. Aurora is insecure enough as it is, and sharing things and people with others inspires tempestuous emotions and feelings of insignificance. She’ll aggressively fight for what she feels is hers and hers only, and at the very least be cold towards those she perceives as rivals or threats.
HISTORY
One could truthfully say that in a place like the infamously magocratic Tevinter Imperium, magic is everything. It is difficult enough for one to earn respect without having the gift, but even more so if one comes from a bloodline of dwindling magical ability. The descent from grace started when clan began to raised fewer and fewer mages, and the sudden bizarre decline of numbers was enough to scare off families with highly respected pedigrees and histories of prodigious magical talent. In the numerous following years, the magic was as good as gone in the eyes of many, what with only one mage per generation—and the disappointing case in which not a single brother, sister, son, daughter, cousin, niece, or nephew at that time developed the talent. It was a terrible shock to all.
Magic was indeed everything, and it had brought them everything from status to favor, and with the magic gone, little remained but the clan’s injured pride. A child who was discovered to be a mage was the apple of every relative’s eye, but not enough were born at once for there to be able redemption for the House of Caesius. Only through the recent efforts of members was the family able to keep itself from falling further down the social ladder, and eventually the family began to recover and rise slowly for the first time, nearly a century later. Today, the family manages to keep itself propped up in society due to its becoming a military powerhouse, teaching men who would never become enchanters to fight and raising them to join the Tevinter forces.
Aurora Vespasia was the last child of Maximus Vespasian Caesius, the youngest son of the patriarch and one of the men now responsible for maintaining the family’s precarious position. Maximus, a calculating and ambitious officer, had risen through the ranks and become a respected general in his own right, alongside his brothers. A union with the formidable Valeria Aemilia had produced three sons and two daughters, four of whom sadly were not blessed with the gift everyone longed for. Maximilian Gaius was the firstborn son, followed two years later by Althaea Maxima and followed three years later by Constantine Tiberius. After four years, the pride and joy of the immediate family was born, Aurelius Aeneas, and a year later came Aurora. The children received a sufficient education, but Valeria's obsession with social-climbing left Aurora and her sister behind to learn to become proper ladies in hopes of finally attracting the attention of those with the power and bloodline to save them all, although the chances were quite slim those days after an entire age of failure. Aurora humored her parents but envied her brothers: Maximilian and Constantine were bred to be warriors, and Aurelius, her best friend, was discovered at the tender age of eight to be mage and later on sent away to begin his studies in the Circle of Magi. Aurora, plagued by jealousy, was set to become someone’s useless trophy wife—that is, if she was even wanted—or a useless daughter.
Despite having had her fate carved out for her, Aurora refused to waste the time she had for herself; it took a year to prove herself capable, but Aurora convinced her reluctant parents to allow her to train. “For self-defense and for sport,” she had tried to persuade them, the parents so preoccupied with social redemption, eventually reaching a compromise that would lead to her to her forte. Of course, being their delicate daughter, Aurora wasn’t allowed to follow in Maximus and Constantine’s footsteps and become a soldier, bashing things with a shield that weighed as much as she did and swinging a sword around ridiculously. Why, she would come crashing down under the mere weight of a greatsword! Light weapons were the only acceptable compromise, and so Aurora spent her adolescent years training primarily in archery under her father’s instruction and in the rouge arts in her own private time to avoid disapproval and punishment. As far as her parents knew, she divided her time equally between training with her beautiful yew bow and her etiquette studies enough to silence Valeria’s protests. As the years passed with no marriage prospects to be taken seriously and with a mother distracted by Altheaea’s success in starting a family, training became her true love. It filled the void in her life she didn’t know she had until she realized how happy she was went she felt the weight of blades her palms or when she felt the flexible wood of her bow.
It seemed less likely that such a restless young woman would find happiness locked away as someone’s property. Aurora loved the lavish lifestyle her parents tried to imitate and immerse themselves in, but she would never fully be a part of it unless she worked for it—and it didn’t even compare to what she felt when she thought of the artful fighting, of freedom to roam Thedas, and the satisfaction of earning it all for herself and by herself with her own skills. She began to make another life, a far different life under the surface. She began to work her way into certain networks, finding herself jobs of a suspicious and confidential nature. And then came the ideas and the dreams. Inspired by stories of the characters she met only once, Aurora began to romanticize. Tevinter was home, but it was suffocating, and she never knew how long it would be until they collapsed and lost everything. It was a cage, but also a ticking bomb. It was unbearable to sit around, waiting for the inevitable and wasting away without a future for herself.
She left. Certainly not forever, but it was exactly what she needed: to breathe, to live. Now the story is beginning to unfold.
BEHIND THE MASK
Player’s Pen Name: Alicia
Contact: PM or email.
Roleplay Experience: 7
Language(s): English, some French
How did you find us?: Deviant Art
Roleplay Sample:
Second character. See Iphigénie.
Password: Gray Warden
