Frañsez Mourningwood

### Relatives

Lancelot Mourningwood, Arzhur Mourningwood, Jórunn Mourningwood, Percival Mourninwood

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

Frañsez Mourningwood, known more commonly as Frañsez, is a citizen of the Acolytes of Hostina, and formerly Anterra. He is known for his violent proclivities and his interesting sense of fashion, which includes a set of cat ears taken from a live cat, and the teeth of his victims on a cord. He tends to latch onto other characters, like Jarka Baník, his leader, whose name he adopted for a short time. Frañsez is not related to Jarka.

#### Personality

Frañsez is rather violent, choosing to stab people rather than speak with them to sort out problems. While he has had romantic partners in this past, he considers himself now to be rather aromantic, though he identifies as a lesbian. He is also clingy, being infamous for attaching himself to religions, cultures and characters, even if he might not necessarily feel wholly inclined to support said religion or character.

He is loyal to none, only to an unnamed sorcerer in Smuye and Jórunn, his adopted daughter. If someone pays him enough coin, he is willing to kill anyone and anything. In recent months, however, he has found himself desiring to protect Jarka, his leader, from outside threats.

### Childhood

Frañsez was born the year after Lancelot Mourningwood, the famed founder of Thaustein and the Northkor Union Bloc, and eventual disgrace. His sibling, Lancelot, the heir to both the Mourningwood fortune and title, was favored by their parents. In the shadow of Lancelot, Frañsez's mental illness was allowed to fester, and by the age of six he was sent away to the foothills to work for a noble family in servitude, intermittently working in a textile factory mill, which the family owned, when they needed him to. This was not helped by his lack of inheritance of Zuloz traits, since his family line was an illustrious feline Zuloz noble family. Frañsez, despite being of Zuloz descent, was marked as human on birth records, and was considered as such socially. This led to his infamous capture of a local neighborhood cat, the removal of its ears and the subsequent feline feast he enjoyed. Frañzes still wears these ears. He has a peculiar soft spot for soft, fluffy dogs, though he does not own any because he fears what he might do to them by accident.

Since he was born in the Uthya Mountains, Frañsez is of Alpi descent. For this reason, he is rather smart, but since he was not afforded the same education as his relatives Percival, Lancelot and Arzhur, most of that technical intellectual ability was poured into martial disciplines.

### In Ta'tan and Astrea

After spending years as a servant for the noble family in the foothills of the Uthya range, at 18 he was sent to Ta'tan to tend to Percival's needs, and keep his shop running whilst Percival was away on adventures. At this time, studying under Percival, his mental health cracked irreparably, and he massacred several of Percival's animals, killing Darya in particular, the dog Percival shared with his then-missing wife, Moon.

Frañsez was then sent back to Uthya, and enlisted to serve in the Alpi army, rising in rank until he reached Lieutenant, where at age 21 he was given the education he lacked; he was sent to the renowned military academy near Smuye, the Upi home, a region he had not visited since he was 4, when he visited the ancient du Bois house. There he was taught the art of warfare, and learnt the intricacies of Upi warfare, and fell in love with Upi culture. Having spent much of his life laboring physically, and for a time in a factory, Frañsez was strong and limber, making him a great warrior. However, on the eve of his 25th birthday, he was found to be carrying on an affair with the academy's sorcerer. Frañsez until now was forced to live as a woman, and the academy, traditional in its views on marriage, expelled him and forbade him from marrying the sorcerer.

Filled with resentment, Frañsez, by now an accomplished Upi Navy Admiral possessing a degree in mechanical engineering and a diploma in Upi language, moved to his family home for the first time. Percival, in the four years intervening his departure to Smuye, had established Château du Bois du Matin, the new ancestral home. He arrived in time for the birth of his niece, Gwenneg, whose name was later changed to Arzhur, the child of Lancelot and his betrothed. This further embittered him, as he had been denied a wife and a family of his own. At this time, he officially changed his name from his birth name of Nolwenn to the masculine Frañsez in observance of Mourningwood tradition, though Frañsez is not a historical Mourningwood name, unlike the names Percival, Lancelot and Arzhur.

Just a month after the birth of Gwenneg, the château was attacked, and Percival, a member of the Maidens of Astrea, was called to battle. Frañsez, though known to be a masterful fighter, was tasked with taking Gwenneg to a Mourningwood schooner just off the shore of Westray, the capital and trading port in the Astrean kingdom. Frañsez, however, was shot in the leg, then his shoulder, then his knee, and dropped the baby. Gwenneg was taken from his arms by one of his many cousins, and run to the schooner. Frañsez was left to die, bleeding out from the arrows. He managed to stand, and took Rippy McBottom's market donkey back to the Château, since with the state of his body he could not swim. He had to remove the arrows one after another, barricaded in Percival's tower bedroom, as the château was repeatedly pillaged by Ramian soldiers, then Ramian civilians. He was a human, and the Ramians had no use or empathy for an injured human, rightfully so.

After a week of hunger, boredom and pain in Percival's old room, he managed to sew together his wounds, and returned outside. He saw that Westray and Daylin had been destroyed, and upon finding the Pirogova cottage vacated, cursed, and managed to find a seaworthy fishing vessel outside of Guardian's manor. It was near the docks leading to Guardian's house that he found Percival's body on the beach, and took the Kaledvoulc'h sword off of his body, a sword hundreds of years old, and part of the official du Bois lore. He also took one of Percival's molars, and put it on a cord around his neck.

### In Soulrite

Still in Upi uniform, Frañsez set out for the continent of Soulrite, which he had been told would harbor the new Pirogovan exile empire. Using his naval navigational skills, Frañsez managed to find the continent, and after his boat broke up in a storm, he washed up on the shore of Hostina a month after the tragedy of the fall of Westray occurred. Here, he met Jarka Baník, his patron.

After two years living in the desert, and letting his wounds heal, which had become badly infected and gangrenous at sea, Frañsez received notice that his sibling had died, and that Arzhur, the daughter of Lancelot that he had tried to save, was claiming the fortune. Somehow, Arzhur was removed from another reality where he was 30, as the Mourningwood ancestors chose him to be the next house head. Frañsez, appalled by this turn of fortune, kidnapped Arzhur from his home in Ostana, and locked him away in the basement of his fortress near the capital. It was only after he had detained Arzhur for several days, that he found that Arzhur had a baby, Jórunn, in Ostana. Frañsez returned to Ostana and took Jórunn, adopting her as his own daughter, winning the family he wished he'd had in Smuye.

When Jarka Baník declared war on Anterra, Frañsez participated, joyously wetting his hands with Anterran blood, and proved himself in battle once again. Following the war, he retreated to the fortress where he kept Arzhur, and formed the Soulrite Military Academy.