JeVondair Family/Selenia
The Corsair
Selenia was a blond-haired, fair-skinned serf of a brutal Aurvandilan minor noble. The man was arrogant, as all Aurvandilan nobles were, but even among them, he was the worst sort and he viewed his serfs as property, not people. It was Selenia's great misfortune that she was his bastard. Her mother died bringing her into the world for a 'noble' man that raped her; who did not care and hardly noticed her trouble. Selenia was barely past her girlhood when a swaggering, swarthy-skinned adventurer, Lion'El, came through town and took notice of her. Pretending to be a Lurian Noble, he bartered for her release upon the promise that the Lurian Queen, Alice Arundel at the time, would hear of it as an example of Aurvandilian fair bargaining and goodwill.
Selenia, suddenly free of a lifetime of burden and fear of her father's eye, felt that surely she most have entered into a dream. Unfortunately, that dream would soon become a nightmare. The couple spent their first few weeks together happily. They were swiftly married and Lion'el spent a great deal of time teaching her skills he had learned alone in the wild. How to hunt, how to fight, how to survive. Little did she know that he was preparing her to endure without him for a time. Lion'El informed her that he was leaving to become a knight. This seemed a grand thing to Selenia, who busied herself with thoughts of homemaking and children. But Lion'El never came back.
A week past, then two, until finally the new bride could stand it no longer. Picking up her pack, she set out after him, tracking him through the D'Haran warcamp during their war against Madina. An adventurer named Markus directed her to Madina City, where the site that greeted her would haunt her nightmares for years to come: Her husbands broken and rotting corpse hanging aloft in a cage from the city walls. Her screamed aroused the brutal city guard, and she was swiftly taken into custody. Fully expecting to be maimed and murdered as her husband was, she spare no restraint in berating her husband's killers. Curiously, she was released without so much as a word.
Knowing her time in the South was over, she traveled north to make a name for herself in her Husband's homeland of D'Hara. She joined Great House JeRavosi as their first Corsair (an adventurer rank) and pledgeed herself to serve it's Crown Prince, Rynn JeVondair of the Desert of Silhouettes, Duke of Port Raviel and also, she would learn, younger brother to her late husband. But she did not press upon the DUke, preferring instead to go her own way far from the lives and cruelty of noblemen. In due time, she found herself a small hovel and hard work as dock crew in Port Raviel. But upon the Eve of Dragon King Machiavel Chernier's Coronation and Wedding to Dragon Princess Selena, Selenia's life would change forever.
See the Dragon Coronation[1]
Selenia saving the life the Prophet of Sanguines Astrum Mathurin Hossenfeffer himself, and her subsequent invitation to meet with and dine with the most elite nobles of Dwilight in one of the highest-profile gatherings in history, changed her life forever. She gained powerful patrons like Ghandan D'Espana (who's kindness she never forgot), Katrina Dragul and others. And for the first time in her young life, she found religion in Sanguis Astroism, joining the Church as a fervent believer after she'd encountered it's founder. She was a woman of some means now, and left the dock work of Port Raviel to dive back into adventuring. This time with the purpose of protecting the weak in the name of the Bloodstars as a Sheriff of the Church. But this was not to last. D'Hara was at war, the Prophet disappeared, and in his absence, the Church Selenia had come to love began to shatter. She watched, horrified, as secular interests tore the Church asunder. Greedy nobleman seeking only power and not caring one whit for the spiritual well being of the common man and woman slowly eroded Seleneia's faith. SHe shouted against them, argued, pleaded for sermons. But her cries were only an annoyance to the masters of the Church...who eventually excommunicated her for daring, as a commoner, to question their noble intentions. It was in that moment that Selenia knew the Church had ruptured beyond saving. And she also knew that she would be damned before she let someone else tell her that her opinions did not matter. She had her three letters of recommendation. She KNEW that Lion'el had been the brother of no less a personage than Duke Rynn JeVondair himself. In a matter of days, she was on board a ship leaving D'Hara and Dwilight behind for Beluaterra, where the JeVondair family had recently suffered the loss of Duke Rynn's sister, Duchess Kalixta of Agyr.
Selenia arrived in Beluaterra off the coast of the Ivory Vale of Fheuvenam and quickly presented herself to King Trent of Fhuevenam and his brother Duke Trent of Iato. She was greeted in a perfunctory fashion...that is to say barely at all... by the Trent brothers. Selenia was alarmed to learn that they had consolidated all of realms major ducal and council positions to themselves. So when the position of banker came up for election, she ran for it. It was by pure stroke of luck that she found an ally to her 'new' family name in Uthred Mormont, he helped get her the votes she needed to wrest control of at least one council position from the Trents. But when the ruling brothers became irritable, they used thier power to simply banish a noble without any account to trial or explanation. One day he was there, the next he was gone. Outraged at their crass and cavalier attitude, Selenia organized a protest alongside Uthred and Rythan Songslayer. Together, they forced the King from office and forced Duke Trent from his position as judge. Knowing they could not win an election, Duke Trent instead broke the Duchy of Iato away and formed the illicit realm of Trenton. Selenia, newly crowned Queen of the IVF, immediately set about reorganizing the IVF into the Empire of the Ivory Vale[2], penning down it's first laws herself to ensure that nothing like the seditious Trent Tyranny could ever happen again. Then, she declared a war of reunification to get rid of the Trents once and for all, who had even attracted the notice of the Titans themselves by this time. The Titans judged the Trents and banned them to points unknown. The Trents were defeated, but the lands that would ultimately form the Empire had yet to be reconqured. She never wanted to be a queen, she never wanted responsibility really. Frankly, the idea of a girl who'd been born a peasant in nation no one remembered becoming a Queen was laughable. But after the CHurch, and the Trent's she trusted know one else to do the job right. So Selenia, the self-styled 'Ivory Empress,' set to it with a will.
The Ivory Empress
Over a dozen noble families heeded Selenia's international call to action, including her cousin-in-law, the displaced and defeated former Duchess of Fronepu Mavia Eastersand JeVondair who joined Selenia's court (unwillingly but choiceless) as a courtier and administrator. Not to mention Katalynfae Dragul and Ravyn Coquard who, together with the Mormonts and D'Espana's, had established themselves as family allies to the JeVondairs. There were challenges to the reunification, of course. One of these challanges took the form of Raziella I Himoura of the Nifelleisca family who became the next ruler of Trenton. Curiously, Selenia never saw Raziella as an enemy, merely an obstacle. So, rather than waster her limited resources on a costly battle, she challenged Raziella to a fair duel wherein the winner would bow to the demands of the looser. Raziella arrived with her hammer and magic helm, Selenia in her white on white outfit and bone-breaking dual kukris. The two warrior women fought and it seemed that Raziella, swinging her hammer wildly, might have had the upperhand when Selenia took a nasty bump to the head from a fall. It was not so, however. As an adventurer, Selenia had seen a lot of bad things. She yet carried many of those dark memories deep within her, which trigger from time to time in bouts of hysteria. One moment, she saw Raziella with her hammer raised...the next it was an undead lych that had very nearly claimed her life in northern Madina...the same Islet where Lion'el had lost his. The frenzy that followed stunned onlookers, and a sobbing, screeching Selenia had to be pulled bodily off of Raziella's limp form before she bashed the other woman's head in with her own magic helm. The duel was won, and Trenton was absorbed into the Empire as the Ebony Vale of Iato under Duke Uthred Mormont alongside the original Ivory Vale of Fheuvenam under Duchess Mavia Eastersand. Although it took some time, Selenia did finish building her Empire, adding the Pearl Vale of Shifgrethor headed by Duke Shinhall A'volanti and the Jaded Vale of Ete City by Duke Owain Bolton. By this time the Empire boasted over 20 nobles with a full ruling council and 16 regions divided equally among 4 Dukes. It was a fine, fine legacy. Selenia had just crossed into her 40's when she began to feal the wanderlust start to smolder in her again. In a few short years, she'd turned the IVF into a sprawling Empire with the might to challenge any other power on Beluaterra short of THalmarkin itself. With no more enemies to fight, lands to conquer, or goals to achieve, she was ready to step down and hand over the reigns. She felt she'd accomplished everything that a noblewoman could in life, far less a commoner! And Selenia found herself looking forward to an easy sort of retirement, a chance to rest on her laurels and perhaps start a family of her own with someone worthy. She left quietly, making her arrangements and boarding a ship to the East Continent...and Xavax.
