20 Questions aka getting to know your hero better.
1. What nation is your hero from?
Vodacce.
2. How would you physically describe your hero?
Lukesa has dark hair and straight dark eyebrows, a delicate jaw, a straight nose. There’s a speckling of very faint golden freckles across its bridge, you’d have to look close to see them. There’s also a hint of a dimple in her chin. The shape of her mouth is inviting (so said a very brave poet who hasn’t been seen since). Although her mouth is often solemn, there’s a warmth there — a familarity with humor, laugh-lines quick to appear. Usually veiled in public, Lukesa’s eyes are clear and quite expressive. Her clothing is of the highest quality, but always demure and invariably black with little ornament. Ornaments she does wear tend to be simple: gleaming stones, luminous pearls.
3. Does your hero have recurring mannerisms?
Sure does. I'll figure them out IC.
4. What is your hero’s main motivation?
A sincere, unshakable belief that the world could be better than it is and the will to try and make that happen.
5. What is your hero’s greatest strength? Greatest weakness?
Her greatest strength is her ability to connect with and figure out people. Her greatest vulnerability is her brother Teodaldo. Her greatest weakness? A tendency to bite off more than she can chew. She really pushes the envelope.
6. What are your hero’s most and least favorite things?
Lukesa loves music of any stamp, from the lush operas to the simple romantic ballads to drinking songs from ships, and she really loves a music competition where the best of the best strive to outdo each other. Lukesa likes good wine (and is very picky) and to learn new things. She really likes the smell of a library. Stories are always welcome. She loves the adventure of dressing up as her brother (or, rather, as a young man, thanks to Teodaldo's wardrobe) and hitting the streets, although this is a verrrry closely guarded secret.
There are so many things which are technically ‘least favorite’ things. She does not like being blackmailed or the way her papa pats her head sometimes. He’s being affectionate, but Lukesa doesn’t like to feel she’s a pet. She hates to be hugged without permission. She really dislikes people who talk through a play and people who use a play as a cover for an assassination are scum.
Lukesa likes philosophical discussions, she hates when people say “You wouldn’t understand.” They can be arrogant and imply it, fine, but to say it makes her skin crawl. Games that involve throwing things are tedious, she thinks.
7. What about your hero’s psychology?
TBD?
8. What is your hero’s greatest fear?
To be locked away and unable to act, nobody to see, no world to be in.
To see how to prevent harm from falling on her brother and to fail to do so.
To have no control.
9. What are your hero’s highest ambitions? Her greatest love?
Lukesa would probably say her greatest love is ‘hope’ or ‘how hope and destiny are really twins’ if somebody asked her that question. She loves to feel like she is able to change things.
Her highest ambitions are … ahem, very high, indeed. Lukesa is an idealist - she wants to, and intends to, change her nation for the better. These three pursuits are dear to her heart: Freedom, happiness, and Greatness. Not for (just) for herself, but for everybody.
Lukesa wants a glorious, prosperous Vodacce — unified. The squabbling of cousins put to rest, the bonds of the strega snapped and salted and at the bottom of the seas, and cruelty punished as it should be. People are always on about what Prince should unite Vodacce, but as usual an entire gender seems to be discounted. Maybe the time for princes is done, eh?
10. What is your hero’s opinion of her country?
Lukesa loves Vodacce. Vodacce are the most passionate, cleverest, defeated most often by themselves. She thinks Vodacce is a nation of endless possibility, of inspiration. It is flawed, yes, and shadowed by cruelty in a way that feels like a curse. She understands Vodacce’s byzantine layers of intrigue and suggestion aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s like loving the sea, isn’t it? All those complicated tides, all that weather? You take the bad with the good, or change the bad TO good... somehow.
11. Does your hero have any prejudices?
Yes, and no. Fate treats everybody equally, after all. But she doesn't really like the Vesten out of home-nation pride, and she is pretty jealous of Castille, with its emphasis on education and dislike of sorcerers, so tends to feel self-conscious and prone to being a bit sharper than usual around those from Castille.
12. Where do your hero's loyalties lie?
In more-or-less order: Her vision for a better Vodacce/Vodacce, her brother (Teodaldo), Sophia's Daughters/women in need, her immediate family, her extended family... And theoretically her betrothed (Ostasio), although practically-speaking, not so much yet. Currently 'friends' might occupy the slot right after or before extended family, depending on what they need.
13. Is your hero in love? Is she married or betrothed?
Lukesa is not in love. She is betrothed, soon-to-be-married. Marrying into a new family gives her some low-key anxiety, but one does what one must. For a while it looked as though she was going to marry a Bernoulli boy, but that match evaporated for one reason or another (a mysterious "illness" which improved once the betrothal was broken), and she's been betrothed to Ostasio of the Villanova family for a good three years now. She's never met him, though he sends her birthday presents. They're very thoughtful, so there's that.
14. What about your hero’s family?
Family is very important to Lukesa. As mentioned above, she is anxious about marrying into a new one.
Her papa is Michele Angelo Falisci, half-brother of Prince Donello Falisci. Michele Angelo has a good head on his shoulders for business and intrigue, is loyal to his brother, and was once a renowned rake. He tends to indulge his children, wanting to be loved by his family but also unable to see them as anything but tools. He's a conflicted man on those grounds.
Her “mama” is Anadora Falisci, her papa’s wife, a thoroughly respectable woman and a remarkable seamstress. Anadora’s moods are wild and her mothering skills inconsistent, she has tried to do well by all her husband’s children (even if their existence hurt her more than she expected).
Lukesa’s mother was Valeria the Poet, a courtesan famous for her clever wit and writings. She is dead. They say she threw herself off a bridge when it became clear that her only daughter was a strega. Nobody talks about her in front of Lukesa, though Teodaldo’s heard some stories from courtesans he’s acquainted with, and he has shared these with his sister.
Teodaldo, Lukesa’s twin, Lukesa’s best friend, better half, the person she loves more than anything. Teodaldo is energetic, a lover and a fighter. He makes masks for fun, gets into a lot of fights, definitely knows his way around a ship and a ship's command. Your Classic Young Vodacce Noble here! But he's beginning to have a reputation for good advice. He’ll make somebody a good consigliere, if only he’d settle down. He does truly love his sister, and keeps her secrets - at least the ones he knows - as she keeps his.
15. How would your hero’s parents describe her?
Michele Angelo might describe Lukesa as a quiet, observant girl, loyal to family. He'd praise her for her self-composure. If he were drunk, he might say she’s clever and bright, with a funny sense of humor, and she’d’ve made a good son. He might also say she reminds him of… and then trail away.
Anadora, the stepmother, would describe Lukesa as a work-in-progress but commendable. "She is very pious," she'd say. "She is very virtuous," she'd say. "She's very good with people, although only in the most appropriate fashion." Then in private to Michele Angelo, "Your daughter is too... I can't put my finger on it, but there's something there. She was a wilder child..."
Valeria’s ghost would describe Lukesa as a pretty pet with teeth.
16. Is your hero a gentle?
Chivalry is a nice story. Lukesa appreciates those who engage in it for many reasons. How nice, to order your life on such romantic dreams.
17. How religious is your hero? What sect of the church does she follow?
Lukesa is Vaticine, although obviously a very Vodacce sort of Vaticine. She finds the church interesting, the cardinals interesting, the whole edifice interesting, and is comfortable enough with hypocrisies.
18. Is your hero a member of a guild, gentle's club, or secret society?
Yes! Lukesa is secretly part of the Sophia's Daughters, recruited when she was at the Diletante.
19.What does your hero think of sorcery?
Lukesa keeps her opinions on other forms of sorcery to herself, but she disdains the Inquisition. There's wonder in sorcery, she thinks, as with any science. Skill. As far as Sorte goes, she has a love-hate relationship with it.
20. If you could, what advice would you give your hero?
Be careful. Find good friends. Stick by them. Don't let yourself become reckless. Don't let your loves tear you apart. And try to stay optimistic.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:45, Sat 20 Nov 2021.