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Characters: Julian Benedict Aemilia

Created On Saturday, 20 January 2018 21:22 By Chris Taylor



 

Name: Julian Benedict Aemilia
Sex: Male
Race: Moche
Profession: Bard
Country: Realm of the Seven Ports
Location: Selixus
NPC: No
Appearance

Julian isn’t a particularly physically imposing individual. He’s not a hulking barbarian and doesn’t have the build of a blacksmith. He’s only a little over five feet eight and weighs an even one-hundred-sixty pound. But he has a lithe, sinewy build with not a trace of fat on his body.

His dark auburn hair tends to lighten somewhat during the summer or if whenever he spends a lot of time in the sun. He wears it moderately long, with a deliberate (and controlled) mussed look. It will sometimes hang down on his forehead, but he keeps it short enough, so it doesn’t fall into his eyes, or mess up his vision.

His eyes are a warm, rich, gray color with little flecks of silver in them that make them brighter and more welcoming.

He has an easy, natural, and engaging smile. He has a narrow, aristocratic face with an ever so slight hawk nose. He’s considered handsome, or at least easy on the eyes, but not so much that it has gone to his head. He has a goatee that he keeps neatly trimmed.

 

His clothing is finely made, though not the most expensive out there. Occasionally he’ll wear something flamboyant, but usually, he prefers stylish but more subdued. He likes to look nice but would rather be comfortable than anything else.

 

Background

Father Felix Aemilia 55

Mother: Livia 46

Brothers: Soren 28, Crispin 25, Marcus 17

Sisters Sabina 30 Octavia  14

Other Family: Various Uncles, Aunts, and cousins.

 

General Overview: Julian has a strong moral compass and strives to do the right thing, in any given situation, but that doesn’t mean he always colors inside the lines or follows all the rules. That is becoming especially true when it comes to his family. Once trusting and naive he’s becoming increasingly that something isn’t right. He’s not aware of any real details yet but he knows something is amiss.

 

Like any child growing up, Julian wanted to please his parents, especially his father, but nothing he did was ever good enough in his father’s site. It didn’t matter how much he tried it was difficult if not impossible to win his father’s approval. This was due in large part to the fact that he didn’t want to follow in his father's footsteps and become part of the family business.  He developed a love of music, dance, and the theater. It was what he wanted to do with his life. Felix saw this a frivolous and an impractical hobby at best and a pursuit for frivolous vanity boys at worst.

 

If it had not been for the intervention of his grandmother who saw a talent in her grandson that his father did not see, he would have been forced to abandon his aspirations altogether. But, a deal was struck  He still chafes  under his father’s rather oppressive thumb, but he sees light at the end of the tunnel. He wasn’t forced to  follow in his siblings footsteps who were more than willing to become part of the enterprise (and they were more than willing to have one less person to split the profits with, at least no long-term. He is now he is biding his time waiting till his indentured servanthood to end.With a natural charm, even flirtiness, he’s become quite adept  at negotiating deals and that’s the task his father, at the behest of his grandmother, has assigned him. That means he gets to travel a great deal. That travel has opened his eyes to a whole new world and in a few short years he’s become something  of a jack of all trades.

 

He would rather talk his way out of a situation than fight, but he would never be considered a milquetoast.

 

After bearing him three children;  Sabrina, Soren, and Crispin, Julia, Felix’s first wife and first love died in a drowning accident. Shortly thereafter he remarried Livia and she bore him three children as well. In honor of his first wife, he named her first born Julian.  She had two more children after Julian;  Marcus and, Octavia.There was a lot of friction and competition between each side of the family and even between each of  the individual members. If not for the influence of the matriarch of the family, Servalia Aemilia the family might not have stayed together or been as successful as they are. But Julian too played apart, he often found himself in the role of peacemaker and referee, because even at a young age he was charming and convincing and looked for a way to bring people together and find a compromise. His grandmother Servailia saw and wanted to cultivate those attributes.

 

Like the rest of his siblings, he was sent to the Academy for his formal education, he thought he’d be able to use his wit and charm, like he had when he was home. In some ways he was The classes he was really interested in, he applied himself and did well. Those classes he didn’t like he still passed, skating  by, by BSing, even brown-nosing  his teachers. But this didn’t always work the same with other students. Sometimes he couldn’t talk his way out of a situation and had to fight his way out. So, he got in a brawl or too while he was there and he was never afraid to mix it up and defend himself, or others when challenged..

He learned how to punch, gouge and kick from fellow students, usually, especially at first, by being on the wrong end of the beating. But, there was also more formal martial training there taught by the best of the best. The Academy wasn’t a military or mercenary training institution, so the training didn’t extend much beyond the basics, but because of his natural agility and and talent he fared rather well. His excellent peripheral vision, keen spatial awareness and tendency to make unorthodox and unexpected attacks  helped as well.Though he will never become a soldier, or a great warrior.

 

From an academic standpoint, he learned the basics like everyone else; reading,  writing, and simple arithmetic. More advanced math wasn’t something that held much interest for him, nor did formal philosophy so he didn’t do particularly well in those classes. There were other courses, like: astronomy, history, and geography, he did excel in.While there he began to hone .  his musical and acting skills as well as developing his innate magical abilities, both by trial and error and self study, and later, through the aid  of the tutor his grandmother provided.

 

He has a  sense of justice and cares about the little man. He can’t abide bullies and has been known to put himself in harm’s way to stand up to them.

 

Strengths & Weakness: Julian has an acute sense of curiosity, which many times is a benefit,  but it has also gotten him in trouble because he has stuck his nose where it really doesn’t belong.  

 

He can be intensely competitive and doesn't like to lose at anything.

 

He knows how to handle himself in a brawl.

 

He has been playing the mandolin since he was six and has gotten quite good at it by now. His voice is a rich lyric tenor tone. He’s also a decent actor and storyteller.

 

He can be a bit of a show-off, he’s even been described as flamboyant  

 

He is very protective of the innocent and has thrown himself in harm’s way more than once to protect the weak from an aggressor.

 

He can tell a lie with a straight face and is usually convincing when doing so.

 

He has reputation for being a rake and a ladies man. From the time that he first became interested in the fairer sex until a few short years ago this was well deserved. He was quite amorous. It wasn’t as if he set out to hurt anyone, it was mostly just the exuberance of youth  for the most part and everything was always consensual.

 

But shortly after turning nineteen something changed. He met Gabriela Thonniu. They met in a local tavern. They were both young and attractive and he thought it was just going to be another short-term tryst. But he truly fell in love with her. It didn’t take long for him to learn that her family was one of  the founding seven families just like his were, and the two families were (and still are) intense rivals. That did not bother him because he no longer cared about those kinds of things. But when his father found out, he pressured Julian into breaking up with her. To his regret he did so three years ago. He still hasn’t gotten over her and he know that her heart must have been broken too.  

 

Ambitions: Find out the whole truth about his family.  Use his charms and skills to help others. To make it on his own. To find romance, true love, and adventure.

 

Hobbies and Interest Mandolin,  singing, magic, telling stories, cooking, travelling and finding a new adventure, poker and other games of chance.

 

Personal History

 

Felix Aemilia was the eldest of the Aemilia family and as such was expected to take over once his mother Seravalia  passed away or decided to retire and he was being groomed for that purpose.  The Aemilia family was one of the original founding Captains.They weren’t the largest or more powerful families in Selixus, but they were successful and well positioned to grow their shipping empire.  He married Julia, his first love.The marriage wasn’t perfect, but they were making it work and she bore him three children;Sabrina, Soren and Crispin. Then tragedy struck and she died in a drowning accident.

 

This left him devastated, but not for long, he met a young and attractive serving wench and promptly fell in lust with the buxom woman. One thing led to another and the lust turned to love and the two of them were married and he had three more children, including Julian whom he named after his first wife

 

The older children were somewhat resentful of their stepmother, no matter how hard she tried to fit in. They felt the same way about her children and this caused more than a little friction and tension  between the two sets of siblings  This rarely in public, especially  when the kids were younger, but it was still there. These feelings only increased as time went by.

 

Being a somewhat sensitive child Julian took it upon himself to try to be a peacemaker, to work things out, to compromise.  This didn’t always work of course, but  it did not go unnoticed. His father, saw it as a weakness, but Servalia Aemilia the matriarch of the family saw it for what it was, talent. If Felix thought that his compromising was weakness, he thought his penchant for the fine arts to be something far worse than weakness and showed no compassion.

 

Servalialoved her grandson, thought, like most grandparents, that there was something special about him and she wanted to ensure that he would find his full potential  She saw how he treated Julian, He was no candidate for father of the year with any of his children, but he was especially hard on Julian. While he was good at finding the middle ground between others, he found it almost impossible do deal with his own father. There was just too much distance between the two.

 

Julian wanted to have nothing to do with the family business and was becoming distant from the family as well.  He wanted to do what he wanted to do, music, acting, even a little dance, not the path that his father had planned for him. She loved  both her son and grandson and she could see the two of them on a collision course. She knew she had to step in, not just for the two of them but for the family and their reputation

 

She saw and encouraged Julian’s raw talent and giftings as both a musician and as someone who could be a diplomat and she sensed there was something more, something deeper, an innate connection to  the unseen realm, to magic. So, she saw to it that he had tutors at the Academy to bring out all of his abilities. Taylan Cornelius was one of those tutors, but he was more than just a tutor. He was a Bard, he became Julian’s mentor who taught him how to perform and cast magic. Felix wasn’t happy with his mother, but he chose not to act on it. For all of his blustering with with others he too much of a coward to confront his own mother, he was too scared to stand up to her. Julian on the other hand was all too eager to talk to her, to tell her how he truly felt, to express all the frustrations in dealing with his dad and the frustrations in not being able to do what he wanted to do.  

 

So, she went a step further and worked out a deal between Felix and Julian He would work for the family until he was twenty-five. He wouldn’t be behind a desk, he wouldn’t be in charge of a ship, he’d be doing what he did best, negotiate and make deals. Then, he would be allowed to pursue whatever course, whatever destiny he felt called to do.

 

Once he had graduated the Academy he was put to work in the family shipping business. He wasn’t thrilled about this, but a deal is a deal and he believe in honor and keeping his word. Besides, he is saving everything he can and setting it aside so when he is on his own he won’t have to worry about money. He is traveling from port to port negotiating deals and striking bargains with both vendors and customers. He gets a percentage of savings or the profit depending on who he was dealing with.

 

His grandmother had one additional stipulation to the agreement. She  insisted after every trip that he comes and tells her, in detail, everything that happens. She likes them told as either a story or a song.

 

Although these are always done in private, she will sometimes have a scribe to transcribe the story or song.

 

It was at about this time that he met Gabriela Thonnius. Unlike the other girls he had slept with, there had been more than his fair share, he actually fell in love with her and she with him. Both families objected but it was Felix who took action and forbid Julian from seeing her. He gave into the pressure, breaking it off without really saying anything to her. Then to make sure that he didn’t change his mind, he sent him away. He still hasn’t gotten over her and he know that her heart must have been broken too.  

 

He’s grown accustomed to the sea and sailing, even if he just tolerates it.He can tie a knot now and knows which sail is which, and he no longer gets sick (except in a fierce storm)but he’ll never make a true sailor. Being unchaperoned and usually in the company of sailors of dubious reputation he’s become street smart  Not wanting to dampen his reputation as a ladies man among his peers he claims to have a woman in every port, but the truth is, he hasn’t been with anyone since Gabriella.

 

As he is learning more and more about the intricacies of the business, he is becoming increasingly unsettled and restless. He is just looking for an excuse to get away.

 

 


Last Updated On Thursday, 05 April 2018 20:14 By David Tannen
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