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Valiere de Tempestade
Val
OOC Game Stats
Game Name Valiere
Faction Asmodian
Gender Female
Class Sorcerer
Legion Terminus Est (IC)
Professions Alchemy, Cooking
IC Info
Nicknames None
Age 23
Height 5'11", 6'2-6'3" with that heel claw
Build Tall and slender
Hair White
Eyes Violet
Skin White

Quiet and introspective, Valiere is perhaps one of the most reserved Daevas in her family. Her actions are studied and deliberate, and her temper is ruffled by very little when it concerns people she does not know. When she forgets herself she may be more forthcoming with her opinions, which are for the most part harsher than might be thought to be her wont. She has a love of history, literature and the arts and will surreptitiously visit galleries and musical performances, so long as she doesn't have to interact much with others. Likes dabbling in various endeavours and the creation of things that add colour and beauty to a mostly austere life in Asmodae.

Few rumours exist about her, if any at all. Those who've noticed her may have for only a handful of characteristics - most often her height and tendency to keep her own counsel and company. She's quite unknown except as the eccentric, solitary daughter of an ancient House near-forgotten even by her peers in Vanahal.

Notes
House Tempestade: A scholarly House that traces their origins to pre-Cataclysm times, and became heavily involved in the Asmodian-Elyos war. They share bloodlines with some of the Daevas of Morheim and the Northlands, having their height, taller than most in Pandaemonium, and paleness. In the past two decades their wealth and influence has slowly fallen into decline, as their support of freethinkers in Pandaemonium earned them the emnity of certain powerful groups in the city.

Valiere de Tempestade: One of two siblings from the family's main bloodline. A young and troubled sorcerer trying to find her niche in the city and navigate its dangers.

House Tempestade[]

In the centuries prior to the Cataclysm, a small and insular family rose to prominence, as much for the aid they extended to victims in the war against the Balaur as their contributions to the study of aether. As more humans within the barrier learned to harness their aetheric talents, those sons of this bloodline who ascended to become Daeva became known for their skill and unusual gifts. Oft tacticians and strategists, scholars of aetheric magic as well as other fields, they wrote books and treatises on varied subjects, meant to guide future generations of Daeva in their endeavours against the Balaur. No few numbered among them gave of their blood that the terror of the Balaur might not go unchallenged, and while they were lesser in number than many other warlike houses, and perhaps not quite so great in strength or renown, they were no less undaunted, nor skilled.

After the world was sundered in the Cataclysm, the family, who had followed the banners of the Lords of the North, were almost broken, their libraries and books lost to history, their homes swallowed within the depths of the Abyss. Yet enough of their lore and pride was left to them to remain a tight-knit clan, and their descendants endeavoured at regaining what was lost to them in the cruel land that the Asmodeans were to call their own. It was no easy task, and it was through deeds In battle and faithful service that they won for themselves a place in Vanahal, taking the nom de guerre of their most renowned lord, Tempestade, as a surname and badge of pride. Austere, but less warlike than many of their peers, they held the arts and knowledge in high esteem as before, and were of those who grieved that the strife and bitter life into which they had been thrust had altered their society forever, rendering the existence of many bleak and joyless. They sought thereafter to preserve the beauty of old customs and culture, acting as scribes and chronicleers. Works of music, poetry and literature, some from prior to the Cataclysm, found their way into their libraries, or were written and compiled by them, and their halls were lined with paintings and tapestries that their lords collected over the centuries. These were the family's greatest treasures, and in older days were open to all of Pandaemonium's citizens to see if they so wished, a source of joy in dark times. For this, they were criticised by many as soft and self-indulgent, though the upbringing of their sons and daughters was no less strict than any other family's in Vanahal.

As the war raged on the fortunes of the family fell into decline, and its mansion was closed to all but trusted visitors, its halls grown quiet and dim. It was whispered that the House's love of lore and its discreet, but unflagging, support of certain intellectuals that advocated certain controversial viewpoints had led to friction within the circles in which they moved, and gained them powerful enemies. Fewer children were born each generation, and many of its strongest and brightest were felled in battle or lost in the Abyss - it was said, placed at the van by orders of their commanding officers - until only a scant handful remained. Those who walked the house's halls were the old and infirm, children too young to ascend or bear arms, and a few youths and warriors upon whom the House's hopes rested.


Personal History
[]

Born within the terraced courtyards and waterways in the wealthy quarter of the city, to a family of ancient lineage and a life of privelege, Valiere de Tempestade was a fragile child, the younger of two siblings born to the House Lord Devraile de Tempestade and the Lady Eleusine. For all the cold beauty of the vaulted halls in which she was born, Valiere's childhood was a lonely one, spent in the company of whispering maidservants and stern governesses, between two estranged parents whose only words to each other were always of a cold courtesy that bordered upon contempt. Devraile was a distant man who differed from his forebears in that he ruled over his House with the same iron fist with which he led his Legion; Eleusine, of which little was known, but for her reputation many long years past that she had been feared on the field, had utterly changed after her capture by Elyos and subsequent escape. Once a beautiful woman, yet now aged in mien despite the immortal youthfulness of her appearance, she would remain seated at one of the many tall windows in her immaculate drawing-room, staring out over the gardens in silence. Devraile had never forgiven the Elyos - or his wife - for the irrevocably changed, unhappy life which they now led, and spent his days on the battlefield, drowning his sorrows in the tides of war.

Valiere's brother cared little for his parents besides what martial knowledge they could impart, and once he had established his own fortunes as a distinguished leader of his own legion, he departed the manor for his own holdings. Lacking his charisma and strength of purpose, his sister remained in Vanahal alone, sheltered from the outside world, taught extensively in the arts and sciences as the children of Vanahal were wont to be. Under the rigours of her training, Valiere grew from a precocious child to a girl of competence and intellect; yet, deprived of kindness, her heart grew bitter, and it took many years before she was able to mask it beneath the polite veneer of social restraint particular to those of noble blood.

It was on her fourteenth year that she was placed under the tutelage of the young officer who had helped instruct her brother in the arts of battle. Demian was well-known to her father as an exceptional soldier, and though he was barely older than her own brother, had a gift for teaching. They spent many hours together in the study or at the Temple of Knowledge, talking at length on what he knew of Asmodae and the war, and as time passed she grew enamoured of him, though she kept her silence. At twenty-two, she finally Ascended, and was placed under his responsibility in his legion, Terminus Est.

It was their misfortune a year later that the Legion General, a Daeva of some renown and a glory-hound, sought the capture of an as-yet unknown Artifact on the fringes of the known Abyss. The Legion was slaughtered but for Demian's band of men, and he and Valiere, along with the surviving legionnaires, were granted a leave from Pandaemonium's forces. It was whispered that their legion commander's family, one of high influence in the city, with close familial ties to the Shadow Court and the powerful Houses of Vanahal, had drawn a veil of secrecy about the tragedy, for through some sinister power of the Artifact the dead had been lost to the Aether forever.

Deeply affected, troubled and purposeless, Valiere sought comfort in Demian's company, and as she remained in Pandaemonium, was drawn into the darker intrigues of the city. It is there she has remained, faced with the troubles of a House long past its glory and the secrets with which she has been bound.