Anwen Vaught

Aliss Graveshire

## Childhood

Despite being spoiled by her mother, Anwen was told by age eighteen what her fate would be; House Kresten had been growing distant, and their Knights were the most ruthless. She was to marry their heir, an obviously insane man twelve years older than her. Even with her mother's begging otherwise, her father, Bevan, had already made up his mind.

On a diplomatic mission to the Bite, the Kresten forces had decided to go through the Dark Woods. Anwen left during the night, hiding in a, as far as she knew, abandoned Cathedral. She was discovered the next morning, not by her guards, but by a couple of hooded priests. They offered sanctuary and, in desperation to escape her potential death, accepted and gave up her life in peerage.

## The Silent Crow

Anwen spent eight years within the Order,  always wearing a hood to conceal her identity. Even though their visitors were few, she was ever paranoid of being sent back to Vaughriff, the image of the Kresten heir still horrific enough to accept the decision she'd made. When her brother's demise came, indirectly, to her knowledge by a wanderer, she imagined her bastard brother would become heir instead -- further solidifying her unwillingness to return home.

She followed the Order's doctrines loyally, easily manipulated by her lack of taught morals, and took up Ravenry at nineteen without much hesitation.  It took the next four years for her to get a grasp on, and even then she struggled with the more advanced spells. Still, the ravens, both conjured and her own live one, gave comfort in her lack of true family. After two more years of dedicated study and practice, she became above-average at the art, before being discovered and brought back to Ardeiria on her eighth year to rule as Regent.

## Earlessa-Regent and Loss of Morals

Anwen's regency for her younger brother began after sieging Vaughriff from her bastard brother -- Braith Vaught -- with the Blade's forces, as well as the entirety of the Ardeirian nobility, thereby reclaiming it for her family. Her reign lacked the passion for her homeland that would come with her brother, thereby moving away from militant policies and focusing instead on increasing Ardeiria's economy. This involved better defining the duties of miners in Ardeiria Minor and Bovinia, plotting to destroy the inept House of Redfist, funding a chart that showed the best time of year to create crops, and creating accords with the House of Dahlquish to potentially re-annex them by peaceful means. However; these ambitions were moreso to keep herself rich than maintaining the Earldom's prosperity, and this same mentality gave her reason to seeth over the War of Subjugation in a more selfish manner than most other Rulers -- especially after she'd suffered a crippling wound in the Defense of Oakwood and received little thanks in return, momentarily regretting her family's allegiance to the Duchy altogether.

As time went on, the morals she'd been taught in the Monastery gradually fell off, first with the aforementioned economic policies, then the overall world around her. Ardeirian politics were merciless, especially when dealing with the divide between Alcesus and Bovinia, but she was also expected to deal with the three other Marches and the Triumvirate its self. The contradictory between her rule and the morals she was supposed to represent lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed, and eventually just giving up on them, seeing the only way she could ensure compassion was through ruling over every Human province anyway.

Eventually, the ghost of Queen Anneryn Vaught, the diety of revenge in the Ardeirian religion, contacted her in the Heron's Solar. Like most Vaught rulers, Arwel died without having any peace with the prospect, meaning he could still contact her in some way. Quickly, Anwen gathered the Blades to try and exorcise the Crypts, removing the ghosts of Kirtein I and King Taeron the Mad, before finally getting to Arwel himself. After a brief discussion, the decision to bring back Arwel was solidified -- a process which would cost her brother's greatest friend, Raetin Caer (Who'd already died trying to avenge him), his soul and place in the after-life.

Soon thereafter, her Regency ended and Arwel Ferith Vaught IV took his rightful place as Earl of Ardeiria. This meant she was free to marry Nicholas Graveshire, who she'd helped push upwards in the Nobility, regardless of any previous commitments the then-Baron had made to other women. About a month of discussion happened before their marriage was official, quickly getting to the consumation of Aderyn and Anrek Graveshire about an hour after it was official. Unfortunately, only the former survived childbirth, the wound inflicted by Oliver's forces ending Anrek's life in only minutes.

## Greymoon and the Arcane

Two things had always interested Anwen throughout her life, besides money and power; Ghosts and magic. She received enough of both on the Greymoon, especially after a mistake lead to the tower she'd taken residence in got flooded with spirits. These would soon become the norm for her, though, and she'd promptly turn to light study of the arcane -- mainly by stealing her husband's starting tomes. Small tastes of this new power, which only required intellect and not moral willpower to become powerful, gave her a newfound passion and something to study while her wound healed -- tutored, in a way, by the spirits she'd befriended in the tower.

Spending all of her day studying and practicing these arts, her knowledge of baseline magic in the form of Shadow allowed her to progress past the base arcane skills quickly enough, soon focusing instead on frost magic. While the process was briefly halted by her accent refusing to properly enunciate dipthongs correctly, the tomes most relevant to her were translated to Ardeirian with the assistance of her husband, one of the few bonding experiences they had on the Island, thereby destroying the last barrier that stood in her way. After this point, her overall arrogant demeanor lead to a fearless ambition in the magical arts, pushing her into magehood at a much faster pace than others.

## Appearance

Anwen could be considered the stereotypical Vaught woman; Black hair, deep blue eyes, pale skin, and a honeyed voice. She rarely shows negative emotion, a skill turned habit over her eight years in the Monastery. Her skin is pale enough to glow on snowy days, and her figure often hidden under thick cloaks of fur and bear skin. Still, even with the cloak, it's obvious to see how short she is; a meager 5'3, despite her Kresten blood.

When not covered, it becomes how blessed she was, at least for a woman of her predicted station; a sizable busom, hips to accompany it, and her form free of scars or deformities. The exception to her outward beauty lies in her ears, one of average size, and one smaller than the other. Easily hidden by her black hair, though it marks the cost of most-every family in Ardeiria being her cousins in some way or another -- something that can only be prevented by magic so much. Her twin bears the opposite deformity, though he chooses to ignore it.

## Philosophy

While the Monastery expelled most prejudice against outsiders, her only interactions with Worgen had been horrific. Seperated from her half-brother since birth, she'd only ever seen the cursed as monsters. The Dark Woods had been avoided by most of the more intelligent Worgen, but the more bloodthirsty had terrorized the carriage in which the Kresten forces carried her, killing a new guard each day until their forces were halved. While Anwen didn't particularly care about the Guardsmen's lives, even less so in that they didn't belong to House Vaught explicitly, the form of their demise haunted her constantly.

Her overall morals are odd and were more-or-less based on ignorance; her family had taught her correct etiquette, and the Monastery some form of compassion. But the Silent Crow's doctrines weren't taken any farther than the writing its self, meaning she only obeyed the requirements listed in them, and hardly anything more. Because of this, as well as growing up in Vaughriff, acts such as slavery or extremely excessive force remained perfectly fine to her.  As most of her family before her, avarice is a keen trait. After being brought back to her homelands, Anwen returned to the Annerynism mindset, causing her to be as vindictive as her predecessor. Beyond this, her mentality changed drastically after being away from the Monastery for a few months, corrupted by the political environment and re-exposed to a thirst for power, as well as her brother's death giving her a bitter demeanor.

In more recent times, this desire for power drove her away from priesthood altogether. Her marriage to Nicholas Graveshire, which was achieved through amoral means anyway, exposed her to magics she'd always been hugely interested in, but lacked the means to properly study them. With no way to contact the Light besides prayer, the temptation to join her husband in magehood became more alluring, eventually figuring she'd just trying to figure the basics. However; this taste of newfound power alone completely enthralled her, soon spending almost all of her day studying and practicing the newfound art, specializing entirely (Beyond the mandatory Arcane spells) on the magic most akin to her Homeland; ice.

Anwen does not know true restrictions, constantly power-hungry politically as well as mentally -- her distate for Warlocks and how uncontrollable fel energies are enough dissuade her from that path, but it stands as one of the few exceptions in her mind. The arrogance she held even when in the Monastery's clergy only grew over the years, making her far less afraid of hugely powerful magics than most mages ought to be. Despite this, she's shown genuine affection to her adopted daughter, Aliss (Renamed from Alice), having more confidence in raising a female heir than the main male one.