Sophia of Anziotte

Sophia of Anziotte is a rebel, witch, former Secret Chancellery agent and a leader of the The Last Straw faction of the revolutionaries.

### Biography

#### Early life

Sophia was born in Anziotte, the daughter of prosperous commoners. She was born into the common estate. In 1124 Sophia was playing on the street when she was struck and killed by a nobleman's carriage, suffering her first Minor Death. Fearful for their daughters safety, Sophia's parents arranged for her to be taken into the household of Dorius Ottan, commander of the Anziotte Militia, to be trained as a maidservant. This was a highly prestigious position for a commoners daughter.

Ottan was a cruel master to Sophia. He believed all humans to be little more than animals and the ones under his control to be nothing but his personal playthings. He particularly enjoyed cruelty towards Sophia. Whilst living in Otton's estates Sophia was regularly starved, beaten, humiliated and raped. Whilst under Otton's control Sophia suffered her second minor death after Otton drunkenly beat her to death. In 1129 Sophia, unable to take any more abuse, ran away and returned to her parents home. Sophia's parents, unwilling to offend a man as powerful of Dorius Otton, sent word of her arrival to his estates. Sophia, betrayed, was forced to flee onto the streets of Anziotte to avoid the roving bands of militiamen sent by Otton to find and return her. She took shelter in an abandoned building in the outskirts of the city.

It was here, by chance, that she ran into Aeden Brante, a childhood friend of hers. When Otton's men located her Brante risked his own life to help her escape, leading her through a hidden passageway away from Otton. However they were unable to escape from one of his men, who cornered the youths. Drawing on a magical ability she was not even aware she possessed, Sophia killed the man. She left Aeden behind and escaped from the city, out into the wild countryside.

Sophia's stint of freedom did not last long. Once news of a rogue mage made its way to the ears of the Inquisition she was hounded at every turn by Inquisitors. Eventually, inevitably, one managed to capture her. She was placed into a Silencing Collar and taken to the Inquisition's House of Humility where she was imprisoned, robbed of her free will and of her future.

#### Secret Chancellery Agent

Whilst every moment wearing the Silencing Collar felt like an eternity, Sophia spent only a few weeks in the House of Humility. Her story attracted the attention of Felipe el Ferre, an agent of the Secret Chancellery. He had her removed from the Inquisition's custody and remanded into his custody, where he put her to work as a spy. At first he used her as an infiltrator; a pretty young girl with a genuine hate for nobles made an ideal candidate for the subversives that would undermine the Empire, and with the threat of being returned to the House of Humility or to Otton hanging over her Sophia had little choice but to comply with his demands. Sophia learned quickly how to lie, how to plot, how to betray and how to kill. At Felipe's order she was the death of a half-hundred dissidents.

As she grew up Sophia's hate for the Empire would only sharpen and Felipe was only too willing to use this hate for his own ends, and so his strategy adapted. Rather than use her to infiltrate small rebel groups in order to gather the information needed to shut them down, instead he ordered her to start her own group and seek out recruits. Through this method all the would-be traitors would be gathered together in one, neatly disposable group. Sophia was sent to cities across the Empire to form these groups, sharpening her natural talent of persuasiveness, and time and time again she was forced to betray her friends and allies in order to stay out of the clutches of the House of Humility.

In 1130 Sophia was in Eterna, running yet another sock-puppet underground group called the Lotless. Whilst giving a rousing speech denouncing the corruption of the Empire, she spotted a familiar face in the crowd: Aeden Brante. After escaping from an Imperial Guard raid, she quickly found Aeden and spoke with him. He was in Eterna to apply for a position in the Imperial College and become a Noble of the Mantle, but he was sympathetic to her cause and helped her arrange for a professor at the College who had forged his patents of nobility to escape the Empire's 'justice'. When Archduke Aegerius Monrogue attempted to prevent the would-be students from entering the college grounds, Aeden defected from his compatriots to assist the Lotless in freeing a group of students the Archduke's soldiers had cornered. And thus Sophia's childhood friend joined the doomed cause.

Aided by Brante, the Lotless continued their work in the capital. Aeden proved to be a valuable asset to the cause, writing and printing dozens of scathing leaflets that aided Sophia's cause. With his aid Sophia planned and carried out the March of the Collars, which at Felipe's order she deliberately pushed into a massacre in order to pin blame onto the leaders of the New Faith. When the March failed to achieve its goals, Felipe decided it was time to dispose of the Lotless.

As she had done a dozen times before, she called together every friend and ally she had made so they could be arrested and disappear into the dungeons of the Chancellery. With a heavy heart she hoped Aeden would not heed her summons, even as she knew he was too loyal to the fight for that. As had happened a dozen times before Sophia used her magic to hold her comrades down as the Chancellery agents chained and collared them, trying to avoid meeting Aeden's eyes.

To her surprise Felipe insisted on interviewing Aeden in person. He offered Aeden the same choice he had offered her years prior; serve or die. Aeden chose to serve and the two unwilling agents of the Chancellery were returned to Anziotte with orders to raise yet another false resistance.

#### The Last Straw

Sophia and Aeden returned to their home province with orders to raise a new resistance. Felipe was no longer content with merely drawing in and capturing the enemies of the Empire, now he wanted to go on the offensive. The puppet resistance, the Last Straw, was charged with deliberately sparking tensions severe enough that the Overseer would have no choice but to grant the Secret Chancellery exceptional powers to restore order in the province, with which Felipe would go on the offensive and wipe out all the traitors in Magra.

Sophia set to work building the Last Straw, recruiting a number of loyal lieutenants and agents. Amongst her operatives were Father Faud, Alida Sirin and Oliver Moss. As the Last Straw grew and developed, becoming a major force in the already cramped Anziotte underground, Sophia felt Felipe's leash on her slipping more and more. She had troops and spies of her own and, after Aeden arranged a deal with Mayer Egmont, she had gunpowder. As Anziotte simmered under the feuds of the Arknian lords and the injustice of the Empire, the Last Straw grew and grew. Soon enough Sophia's network was powerful enough for them to begin a campaign of terror bombings. No assassin might be able to best an Arknian's swordsmanship, but it meant nothing when a barrel of gunpowder was set off beneath their estate in the dead of night.

Day by day, act by act, Sophia slipped her leash. Felipe wanted a false resistance, but Sophia would deliver him a real one. And with it she would strike back against the nobles, against the Empire, against the Arknians, against the Gods themselves.

As they worked together Sophia and Aeden grew close. Where others were only patsies and pawns to be used, Sophia found herself counting Aeden in a different category. Despite herself she came to trust him and, eventually, love him. The two commenced an illicit relationship beneath Felipe's nose. And when Sophia broke her plans of genuine rebellion to Aeden he was more than willing to help.

When Felipe came to Anziotte to trigger his puppet resistance into action, he found himself instead captured by Sophia. The lieutenants of the Last Straw judged Felipe in a Peoples Court and executed him, marking the first time that the common people seized the right to carry out a sentence of True Death. With Felipe dead, the Last Straw was the resistance in truth.

#### The Anziotte Revolt

When Mayer Egmont was arrested and executed on trumped up charges, Sophia decided it was time for the Last Straw to play their hand. The group formed the fighting core of the revolutionaries, turning riots into a real uprising against the Empire. Sophia used her skills as an orator to rally crowds of supporters and her magic to put doubt into the hearts of their enemies. She would lead the Last Straw to bloody victory over the Empire and inflict on it some small fraction of the pain it had inflicted on her.

She was so blinded with righteous anger that she nearly fell right back into the hands of Otton. The Commander of the Militia, feeling that the revolt was a perfect opportunity to destroy the reformists in the Prefecture used captured Last Straw fighters as a bait to lure her out. In blind rage she led her soldiers to charge Otton's men, nearly running directly into the ambush he had set. Only the last-minute intervention of Aeden stopped her from leading her soldiers to their deaths.

She was willing to die to see the Empire fall. But she wouldn't lose Aeden for it. She pulled herself back from the brink and, realising just how badly she had failed her people, relinquished command of the Last Straw to Aeden. It proved a wise choice. Aeden's leadership led the rebels to crush the armies of the Overseer sent to suppress them and capture the brother of the Emperor himself.

The day was won and the rebels triumphant. She still wishes to see the Empire fall, but for the first time in her life she also now thinks of what comes after. Of what they could build to replace the Empire, not merely the grave the Empire will be put in.

### Personality

Sophia is defined more than anything by pain. Since just about the day she was born Sophia's life has been dominated by pain and betrayal; having one of her lives taken from her because of nothing less than a noble's petty cruelty, living as a tortured plaything for another for years, her parents trying to hand her back to the man who had tortured her, being collared by the Inquisition, being forced into the Chancellery, being forced to betray her allies over and over again. She believes the world is out to hurt her and so far she has seen nothing to dispute that fact.

Sophia wants revenge. She wants the people who tortured her strung up and butchered, the Empire that enabled them burned to the ground and the very roots of the society that despises her so torn up. She does not care what comes after, so long as the Empire is dead.

At least she did. Aeden Brante is the only one who has never betrayed her, who has trusted her when he had no cause to, who forgave her betraying him. She feels something for him. She isn't sure if it is love. She isn't even sure if she's capable of feeling love, but she feels something nonetheless. When she made the decision to trust him, she felt a glimmer of hope. For a moment she was certain that not only could she bring down those who hurt her, but make sure that no-one was ever hurt like that again.

But for the moment, her priorities are more mundane. The revolution needs to be defended and she has spent her entire adult life hunting down traitors to the Empire; someone needs to seek out the revolution's enemies and there is no-one more qualified than her.

### The Revolutionary Committee

Sophia's position on the Revolutionary Committee is that of a firm hardliner. She wants the nobility destroyed as a political force, she wants those who opposed the revolution punished and she finds the line between 'enemy' and 'bystander' heavily blurred. Despite her loyalty to Aeden she is more than willing to go against him when she sees him being too soft on genuine enemies.