ValinoreanDawn
Namarië
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
Welcome to Life & Death, a period drama set in a fictional Empire mirroring our own historical Napoleonic Period. Specifically, the latter half of the Napoleonic Period and the Regency Era (1805-1820). A roleplay wholly focused on not just delivering slice-of-life drama but the whole cake. Entirely, about the development, growth, and potential withering of the characters and their lives, events they partake or observe, but most of all the relationships they forge with each other. The impact that is given in their lives, their households, and the dynamic of a story centered around the profoundly human.
The Roleplay is first and foremost character oriented. As such players will play a character or character(s), if one can manage, with a close emphasis on interactions between individuals, families, and their actions which shape the story. Physical action, verbal exchanges, social events, all of which carry weight and propel the story as these characters travel through their lives in a tale of family, friends, love, and war.
The story is centered around the characters who all know each other, or of each other, in a fictional polity known as The Empire. A large and industrious nation which mixes the real life French, Russian, and lesser extent British Empires. It is a major imperial power and engaged in conflict with numerous neighbors in a series of conflicts that mirror the Napoleonic Wars and the Colonial Conflicts of the early 19th Century. Players will likely be youthful aristocrats, industrial capitalists, wealthy courtiers, or members of another's household should that be more to your liking. All interacting either together or in groups on parallel narrative tracks as their lives cross, diverge, and re-cross like figure skaters. How will your character grow? Change? Will they face tense tribulations of the heart? Of the mind? The paths they have initially chosen. Will they marry their long-time love for find the unexpected? What will become of them?
“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
The Empire & Vernuil Hollow
The Old World and The Empire have been locked in the throes of upheaval and change for 13 years. Struck by periodic wars and exportation of emerging social reforms society is truly at an interesting phase of progress meets tradition. The Empire itself stands as the last great imperial power in the Old World, and the leading member of the Grand Alliance, a coalition of states that still embody the high culture and civilization of the ancien regimes. Even as it must make some social concessions embodied in the phrase of Egalite, Fraternite, and Liberte, it is by no means a kneeling of the autocratic rule of empire. The Emperor, Alexander I de Rhoimanov, spars in a struggle against The Coalition, led by Consul turned upstart Emperor, Leon d'Bonneparte of the Ibero-Occitan Commonwealth. A collection of newly turned republics and constitutional monarchies in the Old and New World that challenge the course of history across the globe. Their unruly mobs and anarchic connotations that the divine right to rule is invalid bring much concern for the cultured of the Old World.
The Empire, with its capital at Varis, looks uneasily to the West as storm clouds gather. To the North the United Kingdom of Albion & Hibernia with its wooden wall of a fleet stand stalwart. To the West the Princelings of the Teutonic Confederation stand with their own elective monarch, the Emperor Franz Ferdinand II of Karinthia. Beyond, the Coalition led by the Ibero-Occitan Commonwealth.
Within Varis itself, however, one could scarcely imagine the geopolitical drama unfolding. Especially, among the young and wealthy of the upper-class socialites just now coming into their own. Vernuil Hollow, in the Vendemaire outer district of the city with its palatial homes, mansion townhouses on illustriously manicured boulevards, gardens of a million flowers and poppies, with rolling hills and gentle woodlands. Hardly, one could imagine amid the serenity of easily walking tailor fitted gentlemen and magnificent dress of high-born ladies that such threats could exist.
Here, in the wealthiest region of the area, life seemed to stand still. Romanticized notions of love and duty. Family bonds and brotherly friendships. All abound with the whispers of change. As great factories spread across the land by the new money rapidly rising. Contrasting with the lavish manors of the old money families and their high-brow concepts of social standing and courtly appointments. The centerpiece of a nation's drama unfolding daily.
Vernuil Hollow, situated along the South-western edges of the proper urban neighborhoods of Varis is technically a part of the city despite being mostly populated by rural estates. Closer to the city itself will you see larger mansion townhomes and proper parks. It is here where much of the drama of the setting is to take place and the primary locale of the players.
Some Helpful Information about Titles
As one might imagine in the time period with all these titles like 'Prince,' 'Count', "Duke' there is a bit of confusion. In real life by the early 19th century many titles had lost their previous, rigid, medieval implications. Many nobles have transitioned from landlords overseeing serfs to modern socialites investing in budding businesses, owning townhomes, or living on estates which collect either rent or a portion of the proceeds sold from the labors of what is produced on said land. With many estates doubling as a sort of business. A family that raises horses on their land may operate as a sort of equestrian ranch raising horses sold to the Emperor's cavalry or for horse racing or for civilian use. Collecting tidy sums in these sales. Others are more varied or agricultural.
The titles of Prince are not to be confused as children or relatives of the Monarch. Think of them rather as 'Prince' in that they're nobles but lack the wealth brought from land that a Count or Duke would possess. As such Prince is a rather common title and its full form of Prince of the Empire contrasts with the actual heirs of the monarch styled Imperial Prince(cess). As such 'Dukes,' 'Counts', and 'Barons' tend to be wealthier than Prince's or Knights of the Empire (Knight is basically just an honorific at this point) and the actual 'land owning aristocrats.'
Name: Amelia Natalya (Natasha) Vasilyninina Rastov
Titles: Princess of the Empire, Duchess of Valkovgrad et Countess Bellaire-Soissons
Age: 18
Occupation: Heiress
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Amelia's Theme
Character Biography:
Having just turned 18 the young Amelia is at cross-roads in life. The generosity and understanding of her father, the wealthy Archduke of the Empire Vasilynin Rodion Kirillovich Rastov, is growing thinner by the week. For a woman like Amelia her options are little to none beyond the confines of marriage. Only by the love of her father has she so far avoided the social expectations of betrothal and engagement. For she is the only daughter of the Archduke and heir to several estates at her father's passing.
Born at the family estate in the Brumaire hills of the Vendemaire district as the last child of Archduke Vasilynin Rodion Kirillovich Rastov and his late wife Hermione Maria de Melieron, Baroness of Carcassonna, on December 24th, 1786. Her older brother, the noble and brave Count Julien Vasilyninovich having eschewed his inheritance for service with the Emperor's armies. Being want of more for the sword and musket than the laxities of socialite living. Her other siblings, another brother named Frederick after their mother's uncle perished as a child due to illness while her sister, born after her in 1789, died in infancy from complications brought on by scarlet fever that swept through the capital in that Summer.
For Amelia she has lived a life of comparative luxury with a love of the arts, writing, and horseback. The latter much to amusement of her father and to the joys of her brother who would take long sojourns with his sister through the countryside.
Amelia has grown up with a keen mind and generous nature. Something valuable given the 'plain' appearance and lack of claim to classical beauty that other high-class women wield. But for suitors and upper-class society it is the various estates she stands to inherit which are deemed her greatest asset. Her father being a relative of the Emperor on the matrilineal side and once close advisor. His service and that of his ancestors having accrued a sizable collection of estates that bring in a large income to the family fortune. Some, from the Empire's cast eastern lands inhabited by the Slavians possessing landed serfs while those in the West in the Frankish territories possess free peasants that simply pay a portion of their proceeds in exchange for land, housing, and legal protection.
Titles: Princess of the Empire, Duchess of Valkovgrad et Countess Bellaire-Soissons
Age: 18
Occupation: Heiress
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Amelia's Theme
Character Biography:
Having just turned 18 the young Amelia is at cross-roads in life. The generosity and understanding of her father, the wealthy Archduke of the Empire Vasilynin Rodion Kirillovich Rastov, is growing thinner by the week. For a woman like Amelia her options are little to none beyond the confines of marriage. Only by the love of her father has she so far avoided the social expectations of betrothal and engagement. For she is the only daughter of the Archduke and heir to several estates at her father's passing.
Born at the family estate in the Brumaire hills of the Vendemaire district as the last child of Archduke Vasilynin Rodion Kirillovich Rastov and his late wife Hermione Maria de Melieron, Baroness of Carcassonna, on December 24th, 1786. Her older brother, the noble and brave Count Julien Vasilyninovich having eschewed his inheritance for service with the Emperor's armies. Being want of more for the sword and musket than the laxities of socialite living. Her other siblings, another brother named Frederick after their mother's uncle perished as a child due to illness while her sister, born after her in 1789, died in infancy from complications brought on by scarlet fever that swept through the capital in that Summer.
For Amelia she has lived a life of comparative luxury with a love of the arts, writing, and horseback. The latter much to amusement of her father and to the joys of her brother who would take long sojourns with his sister through the countryside.
Amelia has grown up with a keen mind and generous nature. Something valuable given the 'plain' appearance and lack of claim to classical beauty that other high-class women wield. But for suitors and upper-class society it is the various estates she stands to inherit which are deemed her greatest asset. Her father being a relative of the Emperor on the matrilineal side and once close advisor. His service and that of his ancestors having accrued a sizable collection of estates that bring in a large income to the family fortune. Some, from the Empire's cast eastern lands inhabited by the Slavians possessing landed serfs while those in the West in the Frankish territories possess free peasants that simply pay a portion of their proceeds in exchange for land, housing, and legal protection.
Name:
Titles: Prince of the Empire
Age: 20
Occupation: Sous-Lieutenant in the Empress' Cuirassier Regiment
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Schubert's 959 Sonate
Character Biography:
Twenty years of age and enlisted as a Cuirassier of the Empress' own Regiment. The young Prince Pierre is from the landed House of Bonneversaire. A Frankish minor house that has a long history of military service. Their fortunes having declined in the past century through mismanagement, but due to their long standing as soldiers of the crown, they have managed to eke out an existence within upper class circles. Pierre's father, Baron Jean Bourgond de Bonneversaire has since retired to the small family manor of Bonneversaire which lies in the rural country beyond Varis' environs.
Pierre is haughty, but loyal, and believes himself brave despite not yet seeing combat. However, hearing the stories brought back from the veteran brother of his longtime friend Amelia, his mind is filled with visions of the glory of cavalry on campaign in the service of The Empire; Of exploits in faraway lands and the mysterious peoples which populate them.
Titles: Prince of the Empire
Age: 20
Occupation: Sous-Lieutenant in the Empress' Cuirassier Regiment
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Schubert's 959 Sonate
Character Biography:
Twenty years of age and enlisted as a Cuirassier of the Empress' own Regiment. The young Prince Pierre is from the landed House of Bonneversaire. A Frankish minor house that has a long history of military service. Their fortunes having declined in the past century through mismanagement, but due to their long standing as soldiers of the crown, they have managed to eke out an existence within upper class circles. Pierre's father, Baron Jean Bourgond de Bonneversaire has since retired to the small family manor of Bonneversaire which lies in the rural country beyond Varis' environs.
Pierre is haughty, but loyal, and believes himself brave despite not yet seeing combat. However, hearing the stories brought back from the veteran brother of his longtime friend Amelia, his mind is filled with visions of the glory of cavalry on campaign in the service of The Empire; Of exploits in faraway lands and the mysterious peoples which populate them.
Name: Vasilynin Rodion Kirillovich Rastov
Titles: Archduke of the Empire, Duke of Belograd, Count of Bellaire et Carcassona, Prince of Aquitainesca
Age: 60
Occupation: Aristocratic Landlord
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Vasilynin, remnant of the old way
Character Biography:
Vasilynin Rastov has led a storied life. Born in the middle of the 18th century and going through a career from officer to governor. Witnessing battlefields to advisor to government functionary. Marrying the love of his life Hermione of Carcassona at the age of twenty-one their marriage was very much picturesque even as his wife struggled to conceive. Ultimately, giving a son and daughter that survived to adulthood. Vasilynin has since then retired to the life of an aristocrat in the Imperial capital of Varis. Retiring to his estate in the Brumaire Hills he is one of the wealthiest landlords in the Empire and a living reminder of the old traditions of aristocratic duty, valor, and what it means to be a father to not only his children. But to his servants and landed peasants. Even now, as criticisms of the old ways grow and are met by reactionary responses. Vasilynin walks the fine line of a civilized man in a violent, intrigue, filled time. Generous and understanding to a point of long patience he is a man of an old, slowly fading, austere life of work and mastery.
The Archduke Rastov is a keen horticulturalist and botanist. Spending many hours tending to his flowers and plants. Even going so far to share in the watering and gardening with his estate's servants. In truth, Rastov, has stayed at all of his estates and shared in many labors. Even for those serfs and servants freed by his hand many stays on his land willingly. For at least in him they know there is a security to their economic situation. But how long can the old Rastov last? And what will happen to the Empire as the fortunes of time continue to march on?
Titles: Archduke of the Empire, Duke of Belograd, Count of Bellaire et Carcassona, Prince of Aquitainesca
Age: 60
Occupation: Aristocratic Landlord
Character Image:
Character Song/Theme: Vasilynin, remnant of the old way
Character Biography:
Vasilynin Rastov has led a storied life. Born in the middle of the 18th century and going through a career from officer to governor. Witnessing battlefields to advisor to government functionary. Marrying the love of his life Hermione of Carcassona at the age of twenty-one their marriage was very much picturesque even as his wife struggled to conceive. Ultimately, giving a son and daughter that survived to adulthood. Vasilynin has since then retired to the life of an aristocrat in the Imperial capital of Varis. Retiring to his estate in the Brumaire Hills he is one of the wealthiest landlords in the Empire and a living reminder of the old traditions of aristocratic duty, valor, and what it means to be a father to not only his children. But to his servants and landed peasants. Even now, as criticisms of the old ways grow and are met by reactionary responses. Vasilynin walks the fine line of a civilized man in a violent, intrigue, filled time. Generous and understanding to a point of long patience he is a man of an old, slowly fading, austere life of work and mastery.
The Archduke Rastov is a keen horticulturalist and botanist. Spending many hours tending to his flowers and plants. Even going so far to share in the watering and gardening with his estate's servants. In truth, Rastov, has stayed at all of his estates and shared in many labors. Even for those serfs and servants freed by his hand many stays on his land willingly. For at least in him they know there is a security to their economic situation. But how long can the old Rastov last? And what will happen to the Empire as the fortunes of time continue to march on?
