Back of her head

Upbeat, cheerful, and overall friendly, Belle is a ball of sunshine and optimism. She looks to see the positive side of every situation she finds herself in and humbly serves the Goddess in every way she can. She strives to garner peace over violence and often tries to lighten the mood when she deems it necessary. She doesn't let her kindness affect her confidence and is surprisingly decisive when needed, and she is self-assured when it comes to her own abilities. Belle is highly charitable and possesses a humility not often seen in royalty. She helps wherever she is allowed and sees no distinction between noble and commoner. She's prim and proper with impeccable mannerisms, of course, yet she is easily approachable.

There is a streak of people pleasing that most feel a princess shouldn't possess. She also cares a lot about what her peers think of her and how she presents herself publicly. While she masks her insecurities behind a perfectly pleasant smile, her actions and words make her true feelings obvious to those who know her well. There is also the matter she seems to take on an entirely different personality when she speaks to a specific Scion, revealing an uncharacteristic and surprising cattiness.

Lanvaldear and Rosaria had a long, storied history of violence and bloodshed. So when a Lanvaldear prince was wed to Queen Mercedes, it marked a true end and the beginning of an era of unity between the two countries. Once their daughter, Crown Princess Maribel, was born. Maribel would become a living symbol of peace between the two countries, celebrated for her very existence. Belle would be born a few years later as a spare.

Belle found her upbringing with a strange freedom most would define as neglect. As an infant, she was adored in theory, but in practice, she was passed from nurse to tutor to lady-in-waiting. Her parents had their expectations that revolved around her future—a marriage, a role in alliances with other countries—and cared little for the girl with the title. Raised on absence, Belle had no choice but to adapt. She became agreeable, learning to anticipate her parents' moods. She memorized what made her mother smile, what caused her father to sigh, what topics ended conversations fastest. Her parents became proud of the perfect daughter they barely knew, accepting praise for her accomplishments but never going out of their way to lavish her with the same praise they gave Maribel.

It was not until she attained Scionhood that for a brief moment, she got the attention she had longed for. Even her parents couldn't ignore such a thing, and for the first time in her life, Belle felt seen. Unfortunately, it didn't last; her sister wed and bore her parents' first grandchild, pulling back eyes on her once again. Belle found herself trying harder, to little avail, so she turned to getting validation from others. This lasted longer, but eventually, another Scion was able to capture the hearts of the common people.

The people moved on like they always did. However, this did not discourage the princess. Instead, a valuable lesson had been learned; she could be seen, and was just as capable of garnering eyes and hearts alike. Even as the attention faded, the confidence that sparked quietly took root.

Belle has been trained in classic spellcraft, but hasn't any idea how to use a weapon. There's a common misconception that she wields a sword, though it's one she crafts through magic. Her scion magic is powerful, but she seems to avoid using it.

The goddess' symbol will be placed upon the back of his left hand.

Edmund values piety over all other virtues, opting for simplicity and service over grand professions of faith and charity. In reality, he is a tool of the Goddess, and one that has primarily been used as a weapon against the corrupted mutants warped by mana. He is naturally cautious and observant, always reading a room to keep an eye for exits and potential threats. He is quick, calculating, and brutal in his execution of the Goddess' will. While he does not speak much, his words are just as sharp and pointed as the tip of a sword when he does. His only indulgences are literature and music, arts he grew to love from his mother. He is also known to keep others at a distance, putting up walls to guard himself from heartbreak and grief. He has yet to take a human life, finding the lives of all people sacred (even heathens, for they can still be learned the love of the Goddess).

Edmund was given a tough lot in life. He was the product of a scandalous affair, one that involved his father abandoning his knighthood and his mother retiring from her position within the Church for a quiet life of art in the Rosalian countryside. Of course, he wasn't even the important direct byproduct, that honor belonged to his brother Edgar. Edmund was born years later, shortly before his mother got very sick.

Edmund's father, Oswald, was a proud man who would not let his honor be shamed further and died for it in a duel. Edmund's mother, Maria, developed Mana Poisoning that nearly killed her. She was unfit to be a parent. While Edgar was old enough to attain a tutorship to pursue his passion for arts, Edmund was only six. Maria reached out to an old friend of her husband, a recently retired Templar by the name of Kolya. Sir Kolya agreed to adopt the boy and train him as a page to give him some direction and guidance in the Church. It just involved moving the boy into the remote village of Gukoysk in Rodion.

From there on, Edmund was raised and indoctrinated into the Church. He learned to assist with services, to repair armor and weapons, and to fight. The threats that faced Gukoysk were not martial, but instead came from the monsters that populated the remote regions of Rodion. By the time he was ten, Edmund was directly aiding Kolya in fighting monsters. By the time he was sixteen, he was exterminating monsters alone. By the time Kolya became too gravely injured to fight monsters altogether, he wrote a letter of recommendation to his old comrade, Commander Fyodor.

Edmund left everything behind to pursue what he felt the goddess was calling from him. He sacrificed his personal relationships, including a rather intimate connection with a young woman named Katarina, to join the Ordo Templi. He served the Church faithfully and without question before being assigned to his Scion, most certainly in an attempt to help instill more traditional values in his ward.

Edmund's weapon of choice is a specialized clockwork revolver that can auto-eject its cylinder for easy reloading. He is also always seen with a short arming sword at his hip, and a barbed dagger tucked in a sheath in his boot. He has been known to integrate both his sword and pistol into his fighting style concurrently. He has been seen augmenting his bullets to freeze enemies.

On his back, between his shoulder blades.

On the surface, Tyler is far from the chivalric ideal. He carries himself with a blasé, devil-may-care attitude that speaks to either arrogance or laziness. He's competent when he deigns to act - as any Templar should be, though ideally this should be all the time - but his conduct leaves a bit to be desired and his outward displays of piety are lacking. He revels fully in the celebrity status he has, even if it's only leeched off the Scion he used to serve, and has been rumored to engage in vices completely unbecoming of a man of the Church. Still, he holds a tension in his frame that wasn't there before his infamous failure, and every set of eyes on his new charge has him coiled tight like a cobra ready to strike.

Truthfully, he holds a deep-seated anger - at Kaudus, at the world, at himself. He blames himself for his previous Scion's death, believes that, had he not been so lax, he could've prevented his disappearance despite the circumstances of it being completely out of his hands. The only reason he hasn't relinquished his knighthood in shame is the thought that the killers might still be out there, laughing at his failure. To that end, he's grown reckless, and now moves with something of a deathwish, believing that he will atone for his dishonor with either his own life or that of his Scion's killers.

The only thing he will abide less than allowing an enemy to live is allowing another Scion to come to harm, and he takes his charge deathly serious after graciously being allowed a second chance, even if he may not show it. Likewise, the casual irreverence Tyler shows to others does not extend to Scions, whether his own charge or others, seeing them as precious gifts from the Mother that need be cherished and protected, not babysat as has become the norm for Templars of this age.

Tyler's story did not begin glamorously. He had no storied pedigree, no family fortune to inherit; his father was an adulterous drunk and his mother suffered his neglect for the sake of her family. He was a troubled youth, one that misbehaved and got into fights, petulantly lashing out against a world he believed had wronged him by the circumstances of his birth. His salvation was found in the form of a kindly minister in his community who suggested he seek a new life in the Church if his current one was so intolerable. Tyler took him up on it.

But he was still young, and could not grasp what it meant to serve the Mother. He wanted to be cool, to be strong, to be a knight. So, Tyler was assigned as a page to a middling clergyman in Veradis. The work was tedious and boring, but the environment was certainly an improvement and, more importantly, he got to train with the squires sometimes. It was a relief when he reached squirehood himself and could cast aside such busywork to devote himself fully to more physical pursuits, though with his assignment to a true knight - an Estoran man by the name of Sir Robert Farrington - came more chores, to his chagrin. Sir Robert was a grueling taskmaster, one that shaped Tyler into a capable combatant but ensured there was no love lost between them, at least from Tyler's perspective.

In a way, Tyler felt cheated. Knighthood wasn't the chivalric ideal he'd imagined as a boy; he got to gallivant around the Estoran countryside at last, but it was dirty and terrifying, and he had to stand at a safe distance with a rifle in his hands and hope Sir Robert handled whatever beasts they'd been tasked to slay before something else leapt out of the woods to eat him. Sword drills consisted of him being smacked around until his bruises had bruises, never being allowed to feel success. Even the pitiful stipend he was allowed as a squire was denied to him, as he sent it home to his mother out of whatever lingering sense of filial obligation he possessed. It was the powerlessness of back home with all the danger of the frontier. Sir Robert, doubtlessly better at training soldiers than raising children, simply had the boy channel this frustration into his training.

By the time Tyler was knighted, he had been honed into a weapon as bitter as it was effective. Yet whenever he was pitted against other knights in friendly bouts, he could only begrudgingly give credit where it was due; Sir Robert had given him what he asked for. He was the powerful knight of his dreams at last. It made him cocky. When he was nominated for the position of Templar, it only made his head bigger. Duty and piety had no hold on him, Tyler wished only to relish in his success. He felt he deserved to relax and enjoy the luxuries of his new life at last after such an arduous path, and the task of babysitting a powerful figure would surely let him do just that. After all, what danger could befall a Scion?

When he was introduced to his new charge, however, he was captivated. The new Scion of Storms, a relative of Estoran royalty by the name of Theodore Estora, was a charming young man with a natural magnetism that lent itself well to his position. They were introduced, went through all the pomp and ceremony, and then he reached down and touched the kneeling Tyler's back, as if willing an angel's wings to sprout then and there. In a way, they did; he took flight on elemental winds, elevating him to that ephemeral space beyond man but below the divine that Theodore occupied. He truly felt the call of the Mother there for the first time, he thinks.

The Scion was not the disciplinarian Tyler had grown accustomed to serving; he asked for little, and interested himself not in acts of war but in peaceful overtures that might prevent them. Had they not been peers, Theodore might've been the role model Tyler had sorely lacked in his life. He was good company, clearly meant for great things yet willing to let Tyler play at the fame and wealth he'd ever dreamed of as Theo pulled him into the whirl of his existence on a path to change the world for the better. Theo was a blinding star, and Tyler was content merely to be caught in his orbit; he would've followed him to the ends of the earth with only mild complaining.

Without him even realizing, it had made him dangerously complacent. Their shared story ended on an innocent trip; Theodore had wished to visit the previous Scion of Storms' Templar, since retired, and dragged Tyler along on a trip through dreary Doumerc. Careless as he was, he entertained Theo's foolish idea to go on ahead, and despite assurances that Theo would most certainly be back in a half hour, the proposed time rolled around without a Scion in sight. Naturally, Tyler set out in search of him and, upon finding Theo's transport abandoned, called for a full contingent of knights to investigate. They never did find Theodore.

They assured Tyler that it wasn't his fault. That hurt far worse than any reprimand he'd ever received. He tried to bury his guilt by throwing himself into the search for their missing Scion, in cries for blood, in earnest pleas to unleash him upon the enemies of the Goddess like the sword of the Storm that he was. Given their proximity to the border, Tyler thought it obvious who the culprits were; Theo had wanted nothing but peace with Kaudus, yet those godless savages dared to spit in his face for it.

His grief came to a head months later, in the instant he felt his blessing fade. His friend and charge was no longer missing. He was dead. The only thing that stopped Tyler from marching across the border and cutting a swathe through every Kaudian he could find was the group of Church knights who stopped him and reminded him - violently - that he no longer held the borrowed power of the Goddess, and he'd be cutting no swaths through anything before dying a pointless death.

To make matters worse, he was never punished for it. People talked, of course, but the Commander saw his devotion to his Scion after Theo's disappearance as proof of his honor and not the guilty flailings of a failure. It was early in his career, and he was informed that he was to remain a Templar for a new Scion, in the event such a tragedy was attempted again. It was a kinder act of penance than he deserved, but it was his nonetheless.

Though Tyler is a competent marksman, the mobility previously afforded to him by his Scion's blessing led to him favoring a Rodion mana saber in most engagements, along with a concealed handgun as a backup. In circumstances that require firepower of a less subtle variety, he favors a semi-automatic carbine and proper longsword, forged of conductive materials, of course.

Maya’s Holy Sigil appears on her forehead.

Maya is a fan favourite among the current Scions, and for good reason: in interviews, public appearances, and most notably on social media, her contemporary style, openness with media and bubbly attitude have made an otherwise distant and intimidating ecclesial figure approachable and relatable to the younger generation. There is no journalist or camera she turns away, and by striking a careful balance between zoomer fun, modern sophistication, and girl-next-door charm, the Scion of Water has become a widely appealing and entirely inoffensive public figure that just about anyone can look to and find something to identify with.

It’s really a shame that it’s all an act.

In private, those close to Maya know her to be high maintenance, stubborn, self-centered, manipulative, and prone to temper when things don’t go her way. She has a vindictive mean streak that the more pious of her friends would call her deadliest temptation, to which she often surrenders; when someone rubs her the wrong way, she just can’t help herself. Often unreadable and rarely saying what she means, she keeps those around her walking on eggshells - until they realize that her bark is usually worse than her bite. Fortunately for her, most retreat before they ever get that far.

Maya was born in one of Doumerc’s smaller cities, an ancient settlement called Rivière-de-Larme located on one bank of a wide river forming part of Doumerc’s historically contested border with Kaudus. One of the last remaining border settlements in Doumerc (after the rest were gradually abandoned in a diplomatic effort to ease tensions with Kaudus), tensions in Rivière-de-Larme often run high, and the settlement is closely monitored by the Doumercène military, a rare sight in the rest of the country. However, being situated on a vital trade route both out to sea and inland to Rodion, Doumerc has yet to concede the town to Kaudus’ posturing from across the river.

For Maya’s part, she was born into some privilege; while they had no claims to noble lineage, her family was fortunate as Rivière residents went. They owned a family business of some repute running cargo barges up and down the river, and while their contracts weren’t huge, they were consistent, and with hard work they made enough to live comfortably, a luxury not all in their town could afford.

Maya herself was a difficult child, prone to stubbornness and temper, but she performed well in school; so well, in fact, that by the time she finished high school, she had earned herself a scholarship studying physics at a university in the nearest city. It wasn’t ivy league - it was an open secret that one needed lofty connections to get into one of those - but a degree from any Doumerc university would all but guarantee Maya a life much easier than the one her parents had worked for, and they were elated.

Unfortunately, Maya’s scholarship worked more against her parents’ interests than in their favour. In her time away, Maya grew haughty, acquiring a taste for the sophistication and style of “big city” life and learning to look down upon the small-time border town and kitschy cargo business that raised her. Her summers home felt like prison, and even her advanced physics homework appealed to her more than helping out with the family business.

But books still needed balancing, and cargo still needed checking, so Maya was unable to escape helping her parents out on the barges. One interesting bonus of the business was that, as a cargo carrier, the Desrosiers company was one of very few civilian companies with authorization to cross the river into Kaudus. With foreign relations strained as they were, they never had Kaudian clients, but the passport was necessary to get through checkpoints and to secure some limited protection in case docking on Kaudian shores was necessary.

As it happened, one of the summer days that Maya’s father could drag her out to help with inventory was one such occasion, their barge suffering engine difficulties and a rudder failure that forced them to make landfall in Kaudus. An unscheduled landing in waters as well-traveled as the Larme would raise tensions anywhere, but a Doumercène ship in Kaudus doubly so; as such, tensions ran high as Maya, for once, stayed dutifully inside the bridge while her father attempted to explain the situation to the Kaudian authorities. However, while her father struggled to communicate in broken Kaudian, armed men from the shore boarded and began sweeping the ship.

Before Maya had the chance to think, the river itself reared up to her defence, swallowing the Kaudians whole - along with the barge, the dock, and much of the settlement.

Things moved pretty quickly after that. Somehow, Maya and her father survived the tsunami; some time later, after narrowly avoiding several Kaudian attempts to kill them, they were both secured by the Doumercène military and swiftly taken under the care of the Church. It was determined after a short investigation that Maya had undergone a miracle and become the new Scion of Water, following the widely published death of her predecessor two months prior. Maya was 22 years old at the time.

It was jointly decided by the Church and Maya’s family (albeit strenuously objected to by Parliament) that, for her safety, Maya would leave Doumerc and reside in Veradis, at least for the time being. Maya, who had been waiting for any opportunity to escape her home town, embraced the change: The Holy City of Juniperus is as far a cry from backwater Rivière-de-Larme as one can get. On top of that, there is nowhere in the world where a Scion enjoys as much doting attention, and in the few years since inheriting her gift, Maya has become a darling of the media and an international social media sensation, making a considerable fortune off speaking engagements, sponsorship deals, and ad revenue.

Maya carries a concealed handgun at all practical times (although she has been known to have Edmund hold on to it for her when her outfit simply won’t accommodate it). She has received training in defensive firearm use and periodically practices with it.

Base of the neck, like jewelry. Also faintly visible on her shadow.

Penne is possessed of what many people would describe as a discomfiting presence. She’s blunt, with a habit of staring, but what might appear as empty-headed gawking is, in fact, a critically observant nature. Penne is generally quite friendly, and also endlessly curious about most things. She retains information like a sponge—which is to say, impressively effective, but dense.

That curiosity does, unfortunately, bleed into gullibility. It’s not that she believes everything she’s told, but she just likes to be sure. She’s aware enough to understand when she’s being taken advantage of, usually, if not after the fact, but that hasn’t stopped her from being convinced into trying horrible foods, or sticking her tongue to frozen light poles.

Then of course there’s the crime.

For better or for worse, Penne has never blanched at violence. She’s not a soldier, nor does she have any kind of training; her only tool is spontaneity, she just happens to wield it well. Her brutality comes seldomly, but when it does it’s swift, cold, and thorough. If you’re ever wondering whether the glint in her eyes is a question forming, or a sign she’s about to swing for your kneecaps, you could always ask—she’d probably just tell you.

The Rosa family is old, established, and depending on who you ask, they’re either saints possessed of peerless virtue, or racketeering thugs with a boot planted on the necks of the common folk, and a hand twisting the balls of the nobility. Two generations ago, they sided against the tyrant scion Yusef Zente, giving aid to the hero that bested him, and took the opportunity to integrate themselves into the country’s economic backbone in the following years.

Now, you can’t throw a stone in Lorenzia without hitting a business owned, operated, or protected by the Rosas. Especially in the cities, everyone seems to know someone who owes someone who works for them. Restaurants get their food from Rosa-sponsored farms, delivered on Rosa-owned trucks, fueled by gas, electricity, or mana siphoned from power companies propped up by loans from banks funded by Rosa investments, paying rent to Rosa landlords. Where most families have trees, the Rosas have orchards.

They are, of course, not the only big fish in the pond. Lorenzia has no shortage of noble families vying for power and influence, and the two quickest, easiest ways to get it are through politics, and war. The Rosas, ever unconventional, never meddled much in either.

Until twenty years ago, when Penne was born to Bavette Rosa, youngest son of the family’s head, Orzo. While Bavette’s older siblings dug their fingers into the well-worked pies of the country’s economy, he turned his attention, as well as his factories and his workforce towards the ceaseless conflicts on the Rodion border.

By the time Penne was ten, the Rosas were supplying a startling amount of weapons and ordinance to the Rodion military, who seemed more than happy to outsource the boring, logistical side of warfare to their industrious neighbors. It was dangerous, both physically and financially, and it worked. The Rosas had cornered a market untapped by their competition.

At fifteen, Penne spent just as much time in Rodion as she did in Lorenzia, shadowing her father as he ingratiated their family with the Rodion brass. She was a dutiful daughter, if odd, and if something needed doing, she never hesitated. Loyalty was everything, after all. As she grew older, her involvement with the family necessitated involvement with its less than overtly legal affairs. Sit ins with friends and business partners were sprinkled with sit ins with overdue debtors and rivals. Penne learned about extortion in all its forms; blackmail, bribery, torture. She learned how to find out what hurt people enough to make them do what you want, and when that didn’t work, she learned how to keep a body weighed down underwater, how long it took pigs to eat through bone, and how to throw dogs off the scent of rot.

Karma struck in her twentieth year, though in which direction is unclear. First she was cursed with seemingly no explanation, and then, shortly thereafter, she ascended to scionhood. Unfortunately this did nothing for the dark magic slowly eating away at her life, and so she continues to wither, slowly but surely, until one day she assumes, she’ll probably just crumple over and turn to dust.

And so now Penne presents an issue: on the one hand, a scion with direct ties to organized crime should be concerning ethically, spiritually, and practically; on the other, how much trouble can she really cause before the curse inevitably kills her?

Naturally, there’s only one way to find out.

Penne is not a fighter, but she’s familiar with getting behind people who are.

On his right shoulder, over the deltoid.

Noah is a young man that thinks himself a genius, and takes any opportunity to remind all in his company of that fact. How unfortunate for everyone subjected to his presence, then, that he’s sort of correct. He's certainly intelligent, with a strong command of magic both elemental and unaligned as well as a developed grasp of Federation politics, theology, and other classical topics one would expect to be included in a young prince's education. The issue is that it gives him a big head. He carries himself with a haughtiness and sense of inflated self-importance bolstered by his privileged upbringing and status as Prince of Veradis, and he's utterly convinced he's the smartest one in the room at all times. Naturally, he's also as stubborn as they come and can hardly be convinced of anything once he's made up his oh-so-enlightened and objectively correct mind.

Likewise, he's not exactly the picture of charisma or likeability. He's accustomed to sycophancy or the chiding of lesser minds - or his dad - and finds interacting with people as true equals to be a challenge, partly because his ego balks at such a thing, and also out of simply not knowing what to say. Beneath the veneer of lordly condescension, Noah's kind of an awkward nerd. He's hardly the most resolute Scion either, despite what he might believe. Insurmountable obstacles are usually met with some manner of frustrated tantrum and actual danger is liable to lead to panic or a disproportionate expression of the Mother's sacred blessing.

Despite all of this, Noah is rather pious, though he draws a distinction between the word of Incepta and the worldly institutions that have spoken in Her name in the millennia since She departed. As a Bachmeier, he knows all too well that the Church is a fallible organization composed of mere men, and as a Scion, he sees little reason to be beholden to it; let them tend to the commonfolk and inhabitants of the earthly sphere, not the six facets of the Word made flesh. It was akin to a lesser noble trying to shackle a king.

From the first, there was never any question of whether Noah would be great; only the measure of how great he would be. Noah was born the second child to the current generation of the ruling family of the Principality of Veradis. In his youth, he was a quiet boy, well-mannered and bookish, if a bit spoiled as one could expect from the child of a dynastic family. He seemed content with his own company, for the most part, not that he had much of a choice; it's hard to find anything in common with a teenage sister seven years one's senior when one still ages in the single digits, and it wasn't like princes got checked into daycare every day to socialize with the children of the riff-raff. That changed during Noah's tenth year, when his great-grandfather and reigning Prince of Veradis, Prince Aaron, finally passed away after a storied and venerable life.

Immediately, there was mourning, but more importantly, there was anticipation in the princely household. Any one of them could be blessed by the Goddess in the wake of Aaron's passing, though Noah's older sister was the favored assumption, with their father close behind. To Noah's surprise, after only thirteen days without a Scion of Light, the Holy Sigil of Incepta ignited in radiant gold upon his shoulder. While he didn't quite grasp the weight of it all quite yet, little Noah did know two things; he was the Prince of Veradis, and he was the Scion of Light. Grandpa Aaron was Prince of Veradis, and he was the most important guy in the country; so too must Noah have been, even if his father currently reigned as Prince Regent. Even more impressive, Grandpa Aaron was the greatest Scion since William himself, and he only became Scion at fourteen. Noah was ten! That had to mean he was even better than Aaron, right?

It only spiraled from there. Noah threw himself wholeheartedly into his studies in order to be worthy of his new title - his parents stressed that he needed to learn everything he could in order to be a wise and just ruler - but his attitude had already grown to accommodate his crown in record time. The topics came easy to him, as most intellectual pursuits did, and such success did little to humble him. Likewise, the demands of preparing a boy to rule at such a young age left few opportunities to socialize him normally. The overwhelming majority of those who spoke to him were family, or they were a future subject.

Then came the issue of the Church, entangled with the lives of the Bachmeiers as it was. While Noah obeyed them at first, the rebellious teenage years left him questioning why he'd ever thought their authority trumped his own. The primary point of contention rested in their concern over Noah's interest his Goddess-given might. It was a source of insecurity for him that the Scion of Light had little reason to call upon their power in modern times; there were no natural disasters he would be called upon to stop, and the palatial walls of Harte or Juniperius had no monsters that Noah could make a show of besting. But it was hard to dissuade a young mage who saw little tangible boundary between his own magic and that of the Mother from using his gifts, let alone one whose predecessor was a war hero that he personally knew. From there, the curious - and perhaps a bit spiteful - Noah practically went looking for points of contention with the Church, that would perhaps delegitimize their authority in his mind. The prevailing interpretation of that passage was completely different until a Church decree in year 276. That belief was entirely extra-canonical. The bishop who pushed that doctrine conveniently used it to oust his rival who believed the opposite. He was a Scion and a Bachmeier besides, what had the Archbishop to tell him?

And so, Noah continued undeterred, much to his family's exasperation. Such disagreements were never made public, thankfully, and no one felt the sheltered prince was in any danger, so Noah's behavior was gently reprimanded but allowed to continue under the expectation that he would eventually rectify his position with maturity. Not that one could tell the obstinate boy anything anyway.

While a naturalborn mage, Noah makes liberal use of the blessing of Light, believing that it was gifted to him for a reason and the admonition against Scions exercising their might too freely is at best misplaced concern and at worst reactionary fear toward a war long over. Beams of focused light scour away all that is unworthy of standing in the Mother's radiance, and if that doesn't solve the issue, well, he has a Templar.

Her holy sigil is placed on her chest, directly above her heart.

Some are a bit surprised when they first meet Axan; 'disowned Rodion noble formerly in the military and then working as a mercenary' carries a certain implication for the kind of person someone is. In spite of that, Axan is one of the sweetest, most genuine women you will ever meet. Quite emotional and with the propensity to wear it on her sleeve, you can usually tell how Axan is feeling simply by looking at her face. She's intensely caring and is fairly good at reading other peoples' emotions, figuring out the root cause and doing her best to help them address it. That feeds into her protective nature as well; especially for people significantly younger than she is, Axan can be counted on pretty reliably to throw herself in front of a problem for someone, whether it's physical or emotional.

That said, Axan is not a perfect person. While fairly well balanced, that same reason she left the military is still there. Her distate for strict rules and order can certainly put her into conflict with others from time to time because of her somewhat chaotic nature. She can also be prone to arrogance and self-righteousness now and then, holding the firm belief that what she believes is right. It's not a particularly egregious case, but it's certainly noticeable if you spend an extensive amount of time with her.

Finally is the core of her personality: freedom. Axan values freedom more highly than anything else. And not just her own; she feels equally strongly about that of others, and will go out of her way to try and remove barriers that might be in their way, blocking them from that all-important freedom.

The Sturke noble family has a long history of contributing to the Rodion military. Their children are trained from an exceedingly young age in the way of Rodion, and Axan was no different. But that training didn't seem to take hold, at least not for quite a while; as a child she was figured quite incompetent, seeingly unable to fully wrap her head around combat as a whole, least of all in service to a military power. Indeed, enough time passed for her family to start pushing her into other skills. Dancing; entertaining; keeping a household; in the Sturke family, skills left to a noblewoman unable to fight. A few uncomfortable years passed thus, frantically training to be competent in swordsmanship, sharpshooting, and tactics while it was taken for granted that she would never serve. Her constand dogged persistence did, however, pay off in the end, and at nineteen years of age she began her military service.

...Her brief service, because as it turned out, Axan kind of hated the military. The preoccupation witih discipline, the strict heirarchy, the need to comport oneself with dignity and honor. Axan, as she found out, was not a big rule follower.

There were bright spots, of course. It wasn't all bad. But after the brief honeymoon phase of making her parents proud, it chafed like nothing else and she started counting the days until she could resign. The greatest palliative she had was a noble child of Rodion like her but fifteen years younger, hair an even brighter red than her own, who came by sometimes. She wasn't sure why, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She loved kids, and it made life a lot more tolerable. The second she passed that threshold in her 26th year, though, she immediately dropped from the military without hesitation, disinherited herself before her family could disown her--which, it should be noted, they did--and disappeared to start a career as a mercenary.

And as a mercenary was where Axan truly shone. Untethered from the strictures that had bound her since her birth and free to fight for her own reasons, she found herself genuinely enjoying combat. While she preferred jobs that involved killing monsters, she would naturally fight people as well. She needed to eat, after all. It was during this time, comprising the space between 26 and 34 years of age, that she would also come into her own ideologically. Her job was dangerous, difficult, and often disturbing, and so she resolved to grab hold of happiness and freedom wherever she could find it, and never let it go.

She wonders sometimes if perhaps the Goddess has a sense of humor.

She'd taken a job that she thought would've been a bit easier, she was quite skilled in combat, after all. Just a standard example of corrupted wildlife. But there's no accounting for simple bad luck. She tripped on a rock, and left herself wonderfully exposed. She was probably about to die.

And then her whole body immolated, igniting in a blaze of white-hot fire that burned the monster to unrecognizable ash, and the mark of the Goddess burned itself into her.

Now, two years into Scionship, she finds herself chafing again, the urge to freedom not yet pounded out of her and itching at her feet. But it's not like she can resign from being a Scion. So all she can do, she reasons, is roll with the punches and make the best of it.

Axan's chosen weapon for a long time has been a standard-issue hand-and-a-half sword from the Rodion military. It's been cared for with obvious love, and she hopes it'll last her another ten years on top. The handle was carefully rebound with fine red leather when she was in the military. Alongside it she owns a high-caliber handgun. She's not nearly as fond of it as her sword, but she carries it for a good reason and she's a damn good shot. She keeps her sword with her at nearly all times, but her gun is often left behind.

Much to his chagrin, Jannick's minor sigil was placed over his heart.

Jannick’s straight face is second to none, but after more than a few minutes in his company, it starts to become apparent that he does not want to be here. He behaves as a Templar should (not to mention a member of the Veradis Royal Guard, of which he has become de jure leader), but every day that passes is a day that it gets a little bit harder to pretend that his Blessing is the greatest gift on earth. He is a man of many words once you get him talking, but these days, very few of them are likely to be good.

Still, a decade on the beat makes habits that are hard to break. Catch him on a good day, and he can get along with just about anybody, and has plenty of practice breaking up arguments. He finds it easy to strike up and carry a conversation (even - perhaps especially - when his conversation partner isn’t making any sense), and insults and provocations roll like water off his back. He really cares about the wellbeing of those around him, and takes genuine interest in people from all walks of life. With five siblings and a throng of nieces and nephews, he also has a soft spot for children.

But the trait ground deepest into him from his time as a cop is vigilance. True to his training and a decade of practice, Jannick’s head is always on a swivel, looking out for any signs of brewing conflict or dangerous situations about to arise. Of course, old habits die hard, so he has a tendency to intervene in brewing conflicts wherever he finds them - even if his Scion isn’t involved.

Faith is a staple of everyday life in Veradis, and nowhere more than in the Holy City of Juniperus itself. As such, Jannick, the middle child of six, got all the fixings of the pious upbringing: he went to a religious school, he served as an altar boy, and his parents made sure the whole family was in the pews every Sunday. To him, it was as routine as it was rigorous, with one teaching drilled deepest of them all: the Goddess loves you.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t love the Church, but what captured his young mind was not the priest at the altar, but the guards at the door: the Church Knights in their gleaming armour, shining like angels in the sun. Juniperus was crawling with them; with no civilian authority in the Holy City, all matters of public order were handled by the Church. Church Knights patrolled the streets, directed traffic, put out fires, and of course, fought crime. To Jannick, it seemed like they were the very force that made the world go round. And he wanted to be one of them.

The year of his seventh birthday, he begged and pleaded with his parents for months to let him become a page. While they were apprehensive at first, his pitiable whining must have worn them down eventually, because when the day finally came, he was introduced to Sir Ulrich Gerhardt, a man not too long out of knighthood himself. The new year would see Jannick join Sir Ulrich at the Civitas Equitum, where he got the chance not only to learn the basics of knighthood, but to rub elbows with the scores of other Knights, pages and squires who called the city barracks home. It was a dream come true.

The instruction of an aspiring Church Knight is rigorous and demanding, but Jannick sucked up every drop of it, from the mounted swordplay lessons to the late-night toilet cleaning. But his very favourite part was the field work, when he got to accompany Sir Ulrich on his duties. Sir Ulrich wasn’t the Knight Jannick had always pictured when he played Knights and Monsters with his siblings: instead of a traveling monster slayer or the Templar to a Scion, he was an officer of the Juniperus Police Department. His duties were many and varied, and during his time as a squire Jannick accompanied Sir Ulrich on mounted patrols, investigations of crime scenes, arrests of petty criminals, and more small-time court appearances than Jannick cared to remember.

It was a strange job for a Knight, Jannick initially thought. It had its share of action, no doubt, and the JPD took immense pride in keeping the streets of the Holy City safe from all manner of crime. But on top of stopping criminals, the job possessed a level of intimacy with the people of Juniperus that had never before come to Jannick’s mind, but soon became to him the very essence of a Knight. In the stories of his youth, the Knights were always slaying monsters on behalf of faceless villagers or questing at the behest of nameless clergymen for the good of the all-encompassing Church. But in Sir Ulrich’s line of work, the villagers had faces, names, and children who got lost and needed finding; the clergy consoled people whose apartments were broken into and whose assailants needed to be held accountable for their crimes. After a while, police work became, to Jannick, the truest expression of knighthood.

When he was 21, the time for his own knighting finally came. It surprised no one, least of all Sir Ulrich, when Jannick traded his golden breastplate for a kevlar vest and joined the JPD.

No one would argue the fact that it was the right choice for Jannick, but life came at him fast, and he learned soon after his knighting that the calls Sir Ulrich saw fit to bring his squire along on were not the only calls the JPD had to deal with. Juniperus had no more crime than any other city of comparable size - with its heavy Knight presence, it probably had less - but the police department was kept busy all the same. Crushing boredom on patrol could turn into a deadly encounter in an instant; every time the radio screeched, Jannick never knew what he would face next. At first, it was exhilarating. In time, it came to test his faith.

He grew up learning - knowing - one thing above all others: the Goddess loved her children. That was why she created them; that was why, when they called out to her in anguish, she gifted them her essence, creating the Scions. But he was no theologian; despite his training as a Knight, he didn’t know or understand the deep mysteries of the faith Incepta had instilled into her Church. He didn’t understand why, if She loved Her children so much, they so frequently forgot Her teachings and turned on each other. He didn’t know why the Mother was so content to let it happen.

As a police officer, Jannick saw firsthand the depths of human suffering and depravity. He unearthed the OD victims from their squalid apartments, nameless and known only to landlords complaining of the smell. He wrestled battered women as they begged him hysterically to let their boyfriends go free, only to respond to their house again the next weekend. He pulled the mangled bodies of children from twisted cars while the drunks who hit them walked away spotless. When he looked up, Jannick saw the gleaming spires of the Cathedra Incepta, the points of the Sigil star embracing the city like the open, loving arms of the Goddess herself. But when he looked around, he wondered if he and his heavenly Mother were seeing the same thing.

The years passed, and he didn’t pray much anymore.

Jannick’s transition from cop to Templar wasn't so much a choice as a mandatory transfer. Apparently out of the blue, Sir Ulrich, who by then had become Captain of the JPD, referred Jannick to Fyodor, who (for reasons mysterious to Jannick) accepted him. Jannick tried to protest, but Sir Ulrich wouldn't hear it: He insisted that Jannick was headed for disaster if he stayed on the beat, but that he could still serve the Goddess as a Templar instead. All Jannick could hear was that for some unstated reason, his mentor didn't think he was good enough to be a cop anymore. Try as he might to resist it, Sir Ulrich made it clear that if Jannick refused this assignment, he would no longer have a position in the JPD, and perhaps not even in the Knighthood.

It was a dirty trick, but there was nothing Jannick could do about it. A year of Templar training helped him cool off a bit, but to this day he and Sir Ulrich are still not on speaking terms. His assignment as Templar of Light to the future Prince of Veradis was a shock to all involved, and came with plenty of congratulatory letters from his old police buddies and a very proud phone call from his parents, but Jannick struggled a little to share their enthusiasm.

If someone had told his seven-year-old self he'd someday be Templar to the Prince of Veradis, he would have thought it was a dream come true. But as it turned out, the Prince of Veradis cared more about his title than the subjects it represented, and life as a Templar meant squinting at Royal Guard schedules and smiling for cameras as he counted down the minutes to his next smoke break.

They took back his standard-issue handgun when he left the police department, so Jannick spent his stipend on a (nicer) pair of his own, which he carries in his shoulder holster at all times. In addition to that, he'll suit up with a military-style carbine when he has time to prepare, and he's always been an advocate of the good old-fashioned baton.

Over the pupil and iris of the left eye which had witnessed the results of his exaltation.

His resting expression deviates between mild annoyance and cold indifference, an air about him that radiates seriousness and keeps others at arm’s length. Sorrel speaks with others with a. As a noble who only defers to a handful of people in the world, his gaze always meets with those he interacts with, crisp and clear in both action and tone, allowing no room for misinterpretation in his purposes no matter how blunt they may seem to others.

Though one may assume duty and fighting are the only thoughts in his mind, focused on one or the other for the majority of his time, the young family head is surprisingly empathetic. While open with his feelings and willing to crack down on those who make mistakes, in that same stern tone he grants them reasonable alternatives and ways for them to turn their error into a boon. Despite having high expectations for himself, and subsequently others, Sorrel is able to adjust for human error, acting accordingly with a compassionate yet firm hand.

Struggling against his father to prove his growth to the man who taught him everything, the cornerstone of the family and the people they serve. Feeling himself being pushed to the limits, growing in the midst of the duel, excited to show his family that he's become his own man. Only for a sigil to form within in his eye holding the emblem of the Goddess just before the most decisive moment, blades of wind forming from magic he hadn't invoked willingly and cutting his father to ribbons.

Though he had completed his Test of Adulthood, and inherited the honored House of Gran after his father’s passing, Sorrel could feel no satisfaction. A battle won with a power he did not deserve, granted to him rather than fought for by his own dedication and will, was not a battle won at all. That day, he believed he was the stronger man, that he would have won with but a bit more effort. With that opportunity gone, however, there was no telling what the result of that duel may have been, and with the responsibilities as the family head on top of the duties required by his new position as the Scion of Storms, the young man had no time to even think about his loss before taking the first carriage toward the Kingdom of Veradis.

While Sorrel is proficient in many implements of warfare, from swords to spears and guns to hammers, his weapon of choice is the family longsword, Narodu. A blade passed down from generation to generation, forged, broken and reforged dozens of times over, it holds not only the weight of his duty but the duty sworn by every heir before him.

Though rarely seen, it is supposedly across his right forearm.

What is there to say about Somberflaque's favorite son? Sir Gaius is as quiet and as professional as they come, the very model of the Ordo Templi's bureaucrat soldiery division. At least that's what most people think about him if they think about him at all. Even to other Templars, he is known to be their most meek soldier. This, of course, is a public cover story designed to hide his true duty as a Templar.

Those that have the misfortune to call him a friend know that the Swamp Rat can best be described as contemptuous and sadistic. Thankfully, his higher ups know how to best channel his antisocial tendencies. Whenever Sir Gaius is supposedly spending time away from the Scion of Earth to catalogue ancient texts, Guy is actually on anti-heresy and counter-espionage assignments. In fact, only when he is hunting down enemies of the Church does he feel true joy in his duty.

At the foot of mount Le Souffle de Terre-Molle in the Doumerc cordillera lies one of the polity's most oft ignored seats of power. The domain of House Somberflaque has rarely been coveted and encroached upon. They have been stewards of their eponymous domain since Anima the Just, Scion of Earth had married into their bloodline many moons ago. This is not because the Somberflaque lands lack resources - quite the contrary as their riches are plentiful. They lay claim to hectares of old growth oak, mounds of peat, an ecosystem of exotic leather sources, and recently discovered fields of coal found after a commissioned survey.

The problem is the fact that the territory is mostly underneath swamp water. To understand the modern history of this region, one must learn about the Pact of Anima. It is not only the swamp folk that call this fiefdom home as they share that honor with the mountain tribes of Terre-Molle. While the former Scion of Earth accomplished many deeds during her life, the harmony she brought to the peoples of this land is her greatest achievement. Today, her descendants serve as both defenders of the realm and magistrates of the state, preserving the peace of the peoples of sky and earth.

But what of a bastard of this most noble house? Gaius had spent most of his life acknowledged as a son of Somberflaque via his unmarried mother but it would only be until he was 7 years old would he be officially legitimized. While this would normally be cause for celebration, the events leading up to this were ones born of tragedy. None truly know the truth but Guy knew one thing - his mother had disappeared in the dead of night and he had only found out during the light of the following morning. His uncle, Isidro Animo, had officially adopted him before the day's end. The boy was never seen to mourn his lost mother.

Gaius would go on to graduate from the Academie du Durand with flying colors but civilian life was never in the cards for him. Perhaps the want of prestige had pushed him into applying for the Templar exams but this motivation was more than enough to fuel his desire. It was grueling and he cursed every moment of it under his breath but perhaps the most memorable were the duels Guy had to overcome. The Templar he had chosen was bigger than him, prettier than him, and had the resulting confidence one would have because of these traits. Of course, Guy just took this as further inspiration to knock him down.

It was a hard fought battle but his agility had served Guy well in the duel, resulting in a surprise victory for the upstart. The following bout with Commandant Fyodor was nothing alike the previous. Every move done by the aspiring Templar was textbook and predictable, which was made all the worse because of the fact that he was up against the man who most likely wrote the organization's combat manuals.

The last minute of the duel would be it's most memorable however. Finding himself disarmed of his sword from a quick sequence of strikes, Guy's survival instincts took over instead of admitting defeat. Getting down on one knee to feign surrender, Guy would then toss a handful of dirt to blind the commandant. Before anyone could react to the audacity of this tactic, the Swamp Rat would pull a dagger hidden underneath his clothing and lunge on to Fyodor. It was no longer a duel but an honest to goodness Somberflaque scrap. Both would roll around on the ground for an awkward minute or two, with Guy ultimately being disarmed yet again but witnesses say he had a tight grip on the commandant's neck and both thumbs trying to gouge the eyes.

Guy was surprised that he somehow got accepted after that display of unchivalric conduct. Although his first few months being stuck behind desk duty made it apparent to him as to why he was hired. When it was clear that he would stick it out in the Ordo Templi without protesting too much, he would be sent on his first field missions. They were your run of the mill tasks such as monster population culling and garrison inspections but one particular operation propelled him to the spotlight. Along with a few other Templars, Sir Gaius would bring down the Crimson Wings syndicate after raiding their hidden headquarters and liberating abducted citizens from being trafficked across the continent.

This would merely be the first of his many accolades but being assigned to the Scion of Earth would be his greatest honor. The duo is currently the longest tenured pair within the current the Scion and guardian Templar roster. This does not mean they do not have their challenges though.

During public duty, Sir Gaius prefers a pump action shotgun and a long axe as his armaments. This particular pair of weapons is the regional preference of Somberflaque residents and Guy is ready to play up this point of pride as part of his persona. When he has to engage in wetwork however, Guy prefers to use a silenced sub-gun and his trusty butterfly knife - the same one he pulled on Fyodor all those years ago.

Right cheek

Stubborn, irresponsible, insubordinate, childish. The litany of descriptors assigned to Alasdair over the years paints a distinctly unkind picture of the man. Many of them, by his own admission, are warranted. He has always been a man ruled by his impulses and desires first and foremost, and even years wandering the continent have not broken him of his devil-may-care nature. Indeed, he considers his many sins to be some of his greatest strengths. Where one may see recklessness, he sees audaciousness; where some decry foolhardiness, he declares bravery. He is nothing less than the combination of his many flaws and their accompanying boons.

TLDR; noble brat leaves home, goes to explore world, becomes mercenary, gets his face blown off, comes to god, meets a girl, becomes a templar, hunts witches, discovers girl is a witch, kills girl-witch, is sad, finds new girl (no smooch).

Born the eldest son of the Earl of Blairmore, it was Alasdair’s fate to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers and take over stewardship of the meadows and marshlands that made up their ancestral lands. For generations, his people served as stalwart defenders of their remote stretch of border march, fending off incursions from Doumerc and Veradis in the years before Unification by the strength of their will and arms. Were such a fate to await him, perhaps Alasdair may well have stayed with his kin. But he was not cut from the cloth of an administrator of pasture and paddock: his fate was that of a bolder sort. It was of little surprise, then, that on the eve of his majority, Alasdair forsook his inheritance, insisting the family’s estate be instead given to his younger brother. He packed all that he could, bid farewell to his mother—for his father had no more words for such an ungrateful, feckless son—and set off to explore the world beyond the idyllic highlands that he knew as home.

Inevitably, that exploration led him towards the eastern borders of the Estoran Federation.

Custom-made, high-caliber handguns loaded with explosive ammunition for the purposes of shock and awe. He has also been known to make reckless use of a variety of explosive or otherwise volatile devices.

Over his heart, same as his Scion

Marqué does not feel.

It is a constant thing said about the Templar and it is true in some ways, but not others. Phyiscally, it is as true as can be. Whatever the purpose of the experiements preformed on him in his youth, they have taken from the young man any capacity to feel physical sensations. Pain, Pleasure, warmth, cold, even exhaustion. HIs body does not communicate any of the information to him, and it has lead to him to often treat his body as an expendable resource more often than not. He pushes himself far beyond when a reasonable person would stop, and while he has gained enough of a sense of self to know his limits, this was a years long process that has lead to him being on a first name basis with every medical professional within the Church, and a few outside of it.

Emotionally. . . it is only partially so. It would be more accurate that, in this case, Marqué does not allow himself to feel. To do so would invite weakness, invite complications, would get in the way of the duty he has sworn himself to. The only thing he really things give his life worth. The Goddess deemed him to survive where so many others did not. The Goddess deeemed him as worthy of saving when both before and during that horrible experience, he had hurt many people. He was no devout follower, he had cursed her name many a night as starvation and pain took him, back when he still felt such things. But she had deemed him worthy of survival.

Or so he Marqué tells himself, because the alternative thought, which dogs at his mind every day, invites a creeping dread that he refuses to let win. It had to be for something.

It had to be.

Marqué is not the name that the Templar was born with. In truth, it's part of a designation, a word heard time and again in the midst of the drug-addled haze that are his memories. He can barely recall life before his kidnapping, though he had the sensation it was not much different than his imprisonment. He had no one but other urchins that struggled to survive in the streets of some Dourmerc township. No parents, no caretakers, just his own wits and hands. Sometimes he was hurt, other times he hurts. Sometimes he went to bed hungry, and other times, he managed to find some scraps to hold it off. And in the tangled threads of these memories, the threat of starvation was replaced by a different pain.

Agony that laced through his veins, the sensation of strange chemicals and mana being injected into his young body. Bright lights and sharp pains as he was pushed out before other kids, bigger ones and smaller ones, and forced to hurt them. THey were told to do the same to him. They never knew why, and knew better than to ask. That continued for a long while, a constant treadmill of isolation and pain that left him unsure if he was even still alive. He stopped speaking, as no one would ever respond. He stopped thinking, as thoughts only served to tourment him. And thus, when he stopped feeling. . . it barely made a difference, though the adults who prodded and examined him seemed excited.

And then. . . the Goddess came.

It was in a burst of action that she appeared before him, with hair like fire and a large blade in hand. She was followed by a familiar scent of iron that hung thick, with more voices behind her that cried out in horror and disgust. It wouldn't be till much later that the boy would learn that it was not the Goddess, but a mercenary by the name of Axan who saved him, not the goddess. But he still held onto that feeling, that the Goddess had come to lift him out of his misery. It kept him from slipping entirely into the darkness of unspoken thoughts, where the eyes of so many unclear faces stared back. They shared no features with him, but they all bore the same name. They all were Marqué. They all could have been him, if they had been luckier, and he had run out of it.

And so, like the scars, like the runes, the name became a reminder. Marqué was not a name. Marqué was not a person. Marqué it was a designation, and the boy just happened to be chosen for it. And so, in his mind, he had to be chosen for a reason.

So he became a squire for the church knights, htne a knight himself, and then a Templar for the very same woman who saved him, though she did not recognize his face. If Marqué was a person, that may have stung, but it was better this way. Marqué was not meant to stand out, as it would make the work harder. He had dedciated himself to helping others, saving others as he had been saved. Be it monsters born from Mana or monsters born from Men, he decicated himself to their end.

Marqué prioritizes no singular weapon, but instead works to have a knowledge of as amny as he can feasibly learn to an acceptable degree. THere are few weapons which he is not at least proficient with and he has made sure to inscribe several transport runes to summon them to his side at a moment's notice. If Marqué was to have a preference, it would be with knives and small caliber fire arms, which can be used in nearly any enviornment with ease, but he also keeps a runes for a spear, a sword, and a rifle on him, and knows how to use a number of other weapons.