Marlboro Family/Benedicta
Island: Beluaterra
Realm: Thalmarkin
Benedicta was a second cousin to Winston, patriarch of the Marlboro Family. She was kidnapped for ransom as a young lady, but when her captors learned of the militant nature of her family they instead sold her into slavery to cover their losses on the venture. Eventually, she proved too wiley to remain in bondage, but found herself a penniless urchin in the war-stricken continent of Beluaterra, too far from home to reach her noble cousins. Rather than give up, she decided to do as any blue-blood was obligated and picked up a sword in defense of the common people. Though not destined to lead, she takes solace in the fact that each horrifying beast she slays is one less to plague the good people.
Tall as any Marlboro, she wears her dirty, blonde hair in a short and functional style for high visibility. Simple boiled leather armor allows for ease of movement, and its light weight makes it easier to carry claymore she prefers. She is beautiful in a certain masculine sort of way, with the same hawkish family nose and high cheekbones as her favorite cousin Red. Her blue eyes can be full of warmth at one moment, then cold as an arctic sea the next.
The young woman was searching for her mysterious benefactor, a man she knew only by his first name, "Genji". After seeing the signs of the coming invasion during her travels, she wandered, hopeless, into a temple of Daishi. There she found the inspiration she needed to go on. While scouting Tey Gren, she was brutally beaten by the daimon Nightfall of the East. Left for dead, she instead recovered, and proceeded to secure the final recommendation required to secure her noble birthright. Laying claim to a small district in Lastfell, she hoped to raise enough coin to amass an army large enough to make the difference she couldn't on her own. Her estate is a run-down manor that, prior to her claiming it, had not been occupied in decades. Many of the servants were criminals and sellswords, the only type that could be expected to give fealty to someone whose claim to nobility is somewhat dubious.
After meeting the Daimons on the field of battle, and enjoying some initial success, her bannermen, the Last Best Hope, were annihilated, and Benny herself was run to ground by the Overlord and his ravening horde. Thrown into a Daimonic dungeon, she suffered indignities that no human should have to endure, much less a noblewoman. She survived the ordeal, somehow, and returned to Unger a bent, if not broken, little thing. But the fire hadn't left her eyes. In fact, it seems like the fire's all that she has left.
Pragmatic even after all that, she recruited a gang of war widows beneath her banner, women who'd suffered similar treatment at the hands of the abominations that plagued their lands. They were a constantly-evolving unit, absorbing new, unconventional methods of war against the larger and more imposing Daimon hordes.
Benedicta became a dame knight of the city of Vore. All of the contacts she'd made in her adventuring days, fences, merchants, thieves, sellswords and hedge knights, began drifting in as well, one by one setting up shop in her district. Rising to the rank of Vice Marshal, she helped lead the Eagles of Hope against the black tide of the Overlord but was struck down defending the city of Unger, refusing to retreat even after all those around her had perished or fled.
She was laid to rest by the remnants of her company, Dead Reckoning, in the bay of Nuzanki. Her captain and closest friend Vilmar sang a eulogy to the tune of Rose of Trallee.
Discoveries
Cold-Forged Club of Battle
Tome of Haste
Long-lost Flute of Qual
Other Things of Note
Benedicta, the Rose of Tralee - A ballad dedicated to the heroine, written by an anonymous bard.
