Linus Milhaven
Age: 13
Birthdate: The 1st Day of the Month of Storms, 1813
Birthplace: Auveris, Lorimaris

Son of Lord Teign and Emily, Linus is a bright and charming 12-year old boy with a wide spectrum of interests and opinions about the world. Wise beyond his years, Linus was born during a time of peace in the empire and unlike other members of his family, who have historically been brought up to become great knights and generals, the boy has decided to walk an entirely different path.

Although very young, Linus considers himself an intellectual who possesses an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Though he is studious and prone to get lost in his own head at times, Linus is no wilting wallflower. He is a sociable and charming boy who delights in meeting new people while using his razor-sharp wit to talk his way out of most bad situations he finds himself in. Indeed, it is said that there is no one who Linus hasn't met that he can't succeed in befriending.

Due to the events that led to Lord Teign's current comatose condition, Linus and his brother Ari have been left without a father. Seeing Lord Teign, a once heralded soldier now confined to a bed who can no loner speak, hear, or see, Linus abhors the concept of war and how it ruins the lives of those it touches. Owing to this, Linus has somewhat naively vowed to never raise up arms against another human being. A childhood spent reading and internalizing anti-war propaganda has only added to Linus' strict pacifist stance.

Linus possesses a deep interest in foreign cultures and plans on going on a grand odyssey throughout the world some day with his brother Ari when the two are older. He has already begun to learn several foreign languages in anticipation of this great journey.



Ari Milhaven
Age: 13
Birthdate: The 1st Day of the Month of Storms, 1813
Birthplace: Auveris, Lorimaris

Ari, Linus' twin brother, is a 12-year old boy with an unconquerable spirit. Brave and heedless to danger, Ari is a quiet and somber boy who refuses to allow the hand life has dealt him affect his dreams and goals.

Born at death's doorstep due to a mysterious illness that almost claimed him in the womb, Ari has always been a frail and sickly boy. The disease that sleeps in his blood severely weakens his immune system, thus Ari must suffer every scrape and scratch sustained while playing in the dirt as though they were mortal wounds, for his blood does not clot as it should and he is more prone to sickness and injury than other children.

Ari has had a procession of doctors treat him throughout the years, yet none have found a cure for his illness. Despite this, there burns a fierce determination in Ari that has allowed him to endure his sickness with a brave face. When it comes to his personality, Ari is the polar opposite of his twin brother Linus. He is often quiet and reserved, and must be convinced by Linus to participate in their activities. While Linus is generally cheerful and quick to laugh, Ari is often moody and angry, a trait which Linus pokes fun of by way of giving Ari the nickname 'Lord Grumpy'. Still, despite the differences in their temperaments and the fact that they can rarely agree on anything, Ari loves his brother and would defend Linus from anyone who would ever dare hurt him.

Unlike his brother, Ari finds an enduring inspiration from the tales that the manor guards tell of his father's unrivaled fighting skills and of Lord Teign's exploits during the war. A childhood spent being enraptured by these tales has led to Ari adopting a seemingly impossible dream-- to become a knight as renowned and skilled as his lord father.


Nasrin
Age: 14
Birthdate: 23rd Day of the False Month, 1812
Birthplace: The Sixth Hill, Novus Exan

Nasrin is a young woman hailing from the desert kingdom of Novus Exan. Despite having spent her entire childhood trained by her ex-gladiator father in the ways of killing men quickly, Nasrin is a warm and protective soul who loathes cruelty and desires most to punish those who hurt others unjustly. Nasrin is Linus' most trusted companion, his secret-keeper and confidant, and in their shared enduring of the brutal years within the Etonmarch Militrary College, the two have grown to become more family than friends.

Before Etonmarch, Nasrin's family served the Sareths, a minor merchant house of Novus Exan, first as slaves and most recently as devoted retainers after Nasrin's father, the gladiator Suhaym of the Wind, won his family their freedom in a duel to the death against a rival house's champion. Despite no longer being shackled to servitude, Suhaym declared absolute loyalty to the Sareths and decreed that all his line should serve the house faithfully.

In return for this declaration of fealty, and for shaming his lord's most hated rival on the colosseum sands, Nasrin's father was allowed to name whatever reward he wished for. Suhaym of the Wind asked for one thing-- for his youngest daughter, Nasrin, to carry out the dream that had once been his own-- to be granted entrance into the legendary Etonmarch School, so that she may rise to become a war leader that all the world would recognize. Despite the exorbant cost to gain admission into the school, Lord Sareth agreed to Suhaym's wish, and sponsored Nasrin unconditionally.

Nasrin, who had thus far lived her life in servitude as a handmaiden and bodyguard to Lord Sareth's eldest daughter, had no choice but to accept. Her father's impossible dreams draping her shoulders, and with them the hopes of her patron house, Nasrin journeyed to the Greylands, a land of storm and flood completely unknown to her, to enlist within the brutal academy and face her future.




Dara Laurent
Age: 13
Birthdate: 13th Day of the Red Month, 1813
Birthplace: Lower Odeus, Aternelle

An orphan born in the ghettos of post-war Odeus, Dara is a young man with a dark and complex destiny ahead of him.

Growing up in the impoverished and brutal streets of Aternelle's capital after its fall to the armies of the Greylands, Dara has suffered through a childhood that no child should ever experience. Hunger, death, and cruelty are all Dara knows, and as such the young man has cultivated a dark hatred for all Greylanders as a result.

In the twelve years since the war's ending, Aternelle has transformed from one of the most prosperous kingdoms in the empire to a crumbling ward state where native Aternellans are treated little better than animals by the incumbent Greylander nobility-- a new social caste comprised of the families of high-ranking soldiers who fought in the war. These foreign governors, who have been rewarded with the estates, lands and titles of the former Aternellan nobility, have lorded over the former grand city of Odeus, picking at its corpse like vultures as the native populace suffers and starves under their rule.

Due to the inhuman way the native Aternellans are treated and the fact that the rest of the empire has turned a blind eye to their plight, a nascent resistance has formed among the populace. In recent years, the Aternellan resistance has grown more and more bold, with organized strikes occurring against the occupiers.

The native resistance dreams of an Aternelle free from the rule of the Greylands, and in their infancy they are desperate to gain whatever ground they can. Because of this, the leaders of the resistance have chosen to use whatever unsavory methods lie at their disposal in order to further their cause-- their recruitment of children as street soldiers proving a divisive but necessary practice.

Dara is one of these recruited child soldiers, and despite his caretakers, the former knight Peter Laurent and his wife Elizabeth, warning him not to get involved in the resistance, Dara heartily ignores them. Though he is still a boy no older than thirteen, Dara has demonstrated a keen and brilliant mind when it comes to battle strategy and the boy's ambition knows no bounds. He has lost many friends to the malice of the foreign nobles who rule over his city, and the boy only dreams of one thing--- to answer the cruelty the Greylanders have inflicted upon Aternelle with cruelty of his own.