Si Deus Nobiscum: A Polish-Lithuanian Scion Quest
- Thread starter Rolman
- Start date
- Mature Historic
Prologue I. August 18-24, 1572. Paris, Kingdom of France.
- Location
- United States
Things are falling apart as quickly as they came together. The peace won't – can't – never did – hold.
The Surprise at Meaux five years ago was a mere noisemaker; the first, spectacular explosion of renewed national madness. The Huguenots massacred clergymen at Nîmes the very next day. At the side of Seigneur Strozzi you beheld the faubourg fields less than two months later stained with the blood of Frenchmen at Saint-Denis. From the safety of the camp, you watched the mob-like Parisian militia charge the little Protestant mass, shining in their plates, again and again until the knights at last broke. The Duc de Montmorency was shot twice in the back. The families took to the fields to ward off looters straightaway; their men were killed just miles from the city center. Your cloak was dusted with snow when you left Paris that winter, at the end of 1567. You were sixteen then. You gave up your classes – till then uninterrupted – to head out with Strozzi to the granaries and winter quarters in order to inspect and appraise logistics. "You'll want to fall asleep, but I assure you all the difference is made here," said the hearty Florentine, "from Calais to Cathay it's all baggage trains and bootsoles. This is what it's really like to be a knight, eh?"
And you did learn. And you stopped flinching so much at bloodshed. You saw Strozzi's Picards charge into the fray again at La Roche-l'Abeille and Moncontour in '69, and you found yourself "orphaned" at camp after the Florentine was captured at the former battle. As for the latter, which came a few months after your mentor's humiliation – you tried to block it out. Several thousand prisoners were given no quarter. The stains wouldn't wash out, you had to replace your boots. In time, the Royal Army was bolstered with brother Catholics from Spain and Italy and the Protestants were brought to heel. Nevertheless, they kept you out of the fray, out of the raiding, out of the massacre at Moncontour. A foreign prince was a liability, after all. But you had seen and heard a good bit. Blood, screaming, gurgling, gunsmoke.
It was perhaps only natural that mortal struggle was found in your young soul, as you reverted back to Catholicism shortly after the Surprise of Meaux. Although you never took kindly to Calvinism, it didn't come easily. Yet, always, like a moth to a light you were drawn back to the glory of Mass; there you felt God, and indeed knew you were consuming His Body and Blood. You thought you felt that in childhood, too, before your father's conversion. You weren't a zealot like one of the Guises – Lord no – but you prayed most of the designated Hours and always before bed, never missing Mass or Confession. Father, in his letters, seemed properly upset yet outright stated that he "would not go against" you. How many years had it been since you saw him? No matter.
You took a patron saint at your confirmation, Saint…
[] Adalbert of Prague.
Wojciech z Pragi. Patron saint of the Regnum Poloniae and an early missionary to the modern-day Commonwealth lands. He is perhaps responsible for the first Polish hymn, and he was Bishop of Gniezno shortly before it was granted an archdiocese. Martyred attempting to spread the faith to the Balts. Learned yet intrepid.
[] Martin the Merciful.
A common saint for Dark Age knights, especially popular in France. Martin of Tours, a Roman cavalryman, was said to have cut his cloak in half in order to clothe a beggar. Christ appeared before him that night in his dreams, wearing the divided cloak; when he woke up that morning, the garment was miraculously repaired and made whole.
[] George the Dragonslayer.
A perennial symbol of personal courage, and another of the classic chivalric saints. A knight before the knights, George of Lydda stumbled upon a lone bride in the countryside, sitting by a lake. This was the princess of Silene, chosen by lot to be sacrificed to a fearsome dragon living in the waters. When the creature emerged, George tamed it with the Sign of the Cross, rescued the princess, and brought the monster back to Silene. On the condition of the kingdom's baptism, he then famously lanced and beheaded the beast. When showered with gifts from the royal treasury, he gave them away as alms. Also honors your grandfather, Jerzy.
[] Michael the Archangel.
The Lord's own Grand Crown Hetman, fated to lead His army into victorious battle during the End Times. Protector of the Church and magistrate of Judgment Day, reverence of the angelic captain is enduring and strong. Also honors your father, Mikołaj.
[] Write-in.
Really could be anybody. Soldier Saints are most likely given your character's interests, but there is certainly much wiggle room. Don't forget to consult the character sheet if you forgot what Prince Stanisław is like!
It's nearly a blasphemous thought, but you felt that the intercession of every single Saint in Heaven could do nothing to stop the rising tide of horror in France. 1570 brought a glimmer of hope with another peace treaty and the readmission of Huguenots into public society, but one would know nothing of hope from the weatherbeaten faces and caustic tongues of Paris. It didn't help that the most radical Protestants were beginning to question whether His Most Christian Majesty had, in fact, forfeited his divine right to rule. Whether his subjects had a duty to refute an ungodly sovereign. Words like monarchomachy, tyrannicide…
'71 was a bad year. Taxes were raised even as bread grew more and more expensive. Murders and vagrancy increased. The streets seemed even more chaotic, the gutters even dirtier. Dead animals, even dead derelicts, began to linger on the cobbles, tramped on and ran over with wagons. Strange omens and grim rumors made the rounds, women and children began to report visions and apparitions. The readmission of Admiral Coligny to the royal court in September coincided with a solar eclipse; even with your knowledge of natural philosophy such an act of God shook you, while the superstitious were driven to near-hysterics. Several dozen were killed in December by the militia – itself stretched thin and riven with political-religious divisions – during riots over the relocation of the so-called Gastines Cross, a pro-Catholic memorial built on the site of a house belonging to executed Huguenots, burned down in an act of vigilante purification. Magistrates were powerless to stop the escape of Catholic radicals from prison, if they even managed to arrest them in the first place. All through Spring '72, Huguenot homes were pelted with brickbats and rotting vegetables, smeared with mud and shit. The most bigoted and boldest commoners of your usual haunts, without fear or shame, even began to level accusations of heresy at you in the street, your reversion rendered meaningless. Their shouts weren't far-separated from the rhetoric of the shrieking street preachers and rogue Jesuits: bloodthirsty.
The coming of May brought rumors of Huguenots sallying forth into the Low Countries, to aid the Netherlandish heretics in their treason against the Habsburgs. Though ultimately proven false, these fears were felt particularly strongly at court: Admiral Coligny, friend of the young King Charles and chief of the Protestants, was decidedly growing much too close to power. If His Most Christian Majesty were to be compromised, then there'd be no telling what liberties the Huguenots could be afforded. The rhetoric of the Guise camp, always inflammatory and spiteful, now took on an undertone of genuine concern. And that was genuinely concerning to you. You were well-accustomed to bluster and zealotry, not nervousness. And Sir Marszowski always told you the most dangerous foes were the cornered, fearful ones.
In August you saw blood flow once more. Usually at an arm's length from the Louvre, dozens of Huguenot nobles began to pour into Paris; their combined entourages numbered in the low thousands. The occasion was a hopeful one, for the young Huguenot King of Navarre was to be wed to His Most Christian Majesty's sister in a peacekeeping marriage. Married before the doors of Notre-Dame on the 18th at a ceremony boycotted by most of court, the gossips said militiamen and Huguenot bodyguards literally had to beat the heckling crowds of townsmen back. The interfaith wedding was deemed a serious capitulation by the Catholic camp, and the rhetoric in the streets began to veer (even more!) toward the murderous. Never did any man, high or low, Catholic or Huguenot, go unarmed anymore, even to simply fetch water from a neighborhood well. Between your humanist coursework at the College and the tolerance of your homeland, it was enough to make your head spin. It simply didn't make sense. Perhaps you were a fiercer Catholic back when you reverted, but the savagery of war and the Gastines riots did much to temper your faith with caution.
On the 20th, the Governor threw his hands up in exacerbation and left for the countryside. All knew and felt the militia's grip over the citizenry slipping. Streetfights between Catholic townsmen and members of the Protestant delegation were a daily affair. Between that, drink, and starvation, they said the gravediggers were working doubled hours.
And on the 22nd, you watched it happen. You were on the Rue Saint-Honoré headed back to the Louvre after lectures. A commotion brought you over to a sidestreet, the Rue des Poulies, and you beheld around a hundred feet away at its far end none other than Admiral Coligny, several letters in his hand, reading as he walked. His familiars shoved aside swearing locals, throwing the customary elbows at drunkards and kicks at little urchins. The street was shoulder-to-shoulder packed, but several onlookers and bodyguards seemed to have noticed your noble attire. One of the Admiral's aides whispered something in his ear, glancing in your direction. He looked up, recognition flashing across his wrinkled face, a smile forming appearing out of his tawny-gray beard. He raised his right hand in greeting, and called out in a hearty baritone barely audible over the din. "Young Prince Polonius, my old foe, and what is it you're doing among this rabble?"
chik-BANG. You've heard that before. No time to reply; it happened in slow motion. When a man is hit by shot the blood flows an instant later, with the wounds yawning horribly for but a second. One of the Admiral's fingers snapped downwards, pointing at you for the briefest moment before hanging over his palm by a flap of skin like a reed, snapped so as to look jointed, flashing bone white and fleshy pink in the midday sun. In the same moment, it appeared as if Coligny was pulled down by some unseen force tugging at his left wrist. A hole bloomed in his doublet's fabric right above the elbow, a little bloody mist spritzing out the other side. A single cobblestone by some peasant's boot exploded. whizz-THWACK.
The entire street did something close to jumping in place, and the Admiral let out a bellow. He danced around where he stood, grimacing and hissing as if he had merely burnt a finger on a hot griddle. He steadied himself quickly as his men huddled around him. "Damn them!" he cried, before turning his attention to the rooftops, pointing with a good finger on his blood-spurting hand. "See how good people are treated in France! The shot came from that window, there's still smoke!" And there was the smoke, the first traces of sulfur beginning to hit your nose. One of the Admiral's familiars cleared through the offending house's front door with his shoulder, two more behind him with swords and pistols drawn.
A burgher near you said to no one in particular: "God damn it all, I need to go close the shop."
The day ground to a halt for the Parisians, as a panicked clamor rose over the city. To be certain, said all the commoners, God has given the heretic commander just a few more days to live; this is the first shot of many. War would come again. Others, meanwhile, cursed the would-be assassin for botching the job. By evening, the city militia was mobilized yet again, the gates in and out of the city sealed. Criers requested the citizenry disarm themselves. None obeyed.
Hotheads among the Protestants called openly for swift justice, leveling accusations against the Guises and swearing to take matters into their own hands should the King's law fail. As for His Most Christian Majesty, the Queen Mother, and your good acquaintance Prince Henri – they sequestered themselves in their chambers, consulting with advisers and ministers.
The sun rose over deserted streets on August 23, Anno Domini 1572. The Huguenot Prince de Condé had parked some 4,000 soldiers in the faubourgs beyond the walls, searching for the King's justice at the point of a pike. Coligny was on bedrest in his home, not far from the Louvre. All through the day, the tension was palpable. By evening and nightfall, even the usual cacophony audible through paneless or thin windows – the sound of an entire street talking, praying, arguing, fucking, or straining on the chamber pot – was muted. Lectures were canceled, too.
Now, it is after midnight and before matins, early on the 24th, Saint Bartholomew's Day. Where do you find yourself?
[] In your Louvre bedchamber.
[] In one of the still-open taverns.
[] In the compound of a university friend.
The Surprise at Meaux five years ago was a mere noisemaker; the first, spectacular explosion of renewed national madness. The Huguenots massacred clergymen at Nîmes the very next day. At the side of Seigneur Strozzi you beheld the faubourg fields less than two months later stained with the blood of Frenchmen at Saint-Denis. From the safety of the camp, you watched the mob-like Parisian militia charge the little Protestant mass, shining in their plates, again and again until the knights at last broke. The Duc de Montmorency was shot twice in the back. The families took to the fields to ward off looters straightaway; their men were killed just miles from the city center. Your cloak was dusted with snow when you left Paris that winter, at the end of 1567. You were sixteen then. You gave up your classes – till then uninterrupted – to head out with Strozzi to the granaries and winter quarters in order to inspect and appraise logistics. "You'll want to fall asleep, but I assure you all the difference is made here," said the hearty Florentine, "from Calais to Cathay it's all baggage trains and bootsoles. This is what it's really like to be a knight, eh?"
And you did learn. And you stopped flinching so much at bloodshed. You saw Strozzi's Picards charge into the fray again at La Roche-l'Abeille and Moncontour in '69, and you found yourself "orphaned" at camp after the Florentine was captured at the former battle. As for the latter, which came a few months after your mentor's humiliation – you tried to block it out. Several thousand prisoners were given no quarter. The stains wouldn't wash out, you had to replace your boots. In time, the Royal Army was bolstered with brother Catholics from Spain and Italy and the Protestants were brought to heel. Nevertheless, they kept you out of the fray, out of the raiding, out of the massacre at Moncontour. A foreign prince was a liability, after all. But you had seen and heard a good bit. Blood, screaming, gurgling, gunsmoke.
It was perhaps only natural that mortal struggle was found in your young soul, as you reverted back to Catholicism shortly after the Surprise of Meaux. Although you never took kindly to Calvinism, it didn't come easily. Yet, always, like a moth to a light you were drawn back to the glory of Mass; there you felt God, and indeed knew you were consuming His Body and Blood. You thought you felt that in childhood, too, before your father's conversion. You weren't a zealot like one of the Guises – Lord no – but you prayed most of the designated Hours and always before bed, never missing Mass or Confession. Father, in his letters, seemed properly upset yet outright stated that he "would not go against" you. How many years had it been since you saw him? No matter.
You took a patron saint at your confirmation, Saint…
[] Adalbert of Prague.
Wojciech z Pragi. Patron saint of the Regnum Poloniae and an early missionary to the modern-day Commonwealth lands. He is perhaps responsible for the first Polish hymn, and he was Bishop of Gniezno shortly before it was granted an archdiocese. Martyred attempting to spread the faith to the Balts. Learned yet intrepid.
[] Martin the Merciful.
A common saint for Dark Age knights, especially popular in France. Martin of Tours, a Roman cavalryman, was said to have cut his cloak in half in order to clothe a beggar. Christ appeared before him that night in his dreams, wearing the divided cloak; when he woke up that morning, the garment was miraculously repaired and made whole.
[] George the Dragonslayer.
A perennial symbol of personal courage, and another of the classic chivalric saints. A knight before the knights, George of Lydda stumbled upon a lone bride in the countryside, sitting by a lake. This was the princess of Silene, chosen by lot to be sacrificed to a fearsome dragon living in the waters. When the creature emerged, George tamed it with the Sign of the Cross, rescued the princess, and brought the monster back to Silene. On the condition of the kingdom's baptism, he then famously lanced and beheaded the beast. When showered with gifts from the royal treasury, he gave them away as alms. Also honors your grandfather, Jerzy.
[] Michael the Archangel.
The Lord's own Grand Crown Hetman, fated to lead His army into victorious battle during the End Times. Protector of the Church and magistrate of Judgment Day, reverence of the angelic captain is enduring and strong. Also honors your father, Mikołaj.
[] Write-in.
Really could be anybody. Soldier Saints are most likely given your character's interests, but there is certainly much wiggle room. Don't forget to consult the character sheet if you forgot what Prince Stanisław is like!
It's nearly a blasphemous thought, but you felt that the intercession of every single Saint in Heaven could do nothing to stop the rising tide of horror in France. 1570 brought a glimmer of hope with another peace treaty and the readmission of Huguenots into public society, but one would know nothing of hope from the weatherbeaten faces and caustic tongues of Paris. It didn't help that the most radical Protestants were beginning to question whether His Most Christian Majesty had, in fact, forfeited his divine right to rule. Whether his subjects had a duty to refute an ungodly sovereign. Words like monarchomachy, tyrannicide…
'71 was a bad year. Taxes were raised even as bread grew more and more expensive. Murders and vagrancy increased. The streets seemed even more chaotic, the gutters even dirtier. Dead animals, even dead derelicts, began to linger on the cobbles, tramped on and ran over with wagons. Strange omens and grim rumors made the rounds, women and children began to report visions and apparitions. The readmission of Admiral Coligny to the royal court in September coincided with a solar eclipse; even with your knowledge of natural philosophy such an act of God shook you, while the superstitious were driven to near-hysterics. Several dozen were killed in December by the militia – itself stretched thin and riven with political-religious divisions – during riots over the relocation of the so-called Gastines Cross, a pro-Catholic memorial built on the site of a house belonging to executed Huguenots, burned down in an act of vigilante purification. Magistrates were powerless to stop the escape of Catholic radicals from prison, if they even managed to arrest them in the first place. All through Spring '72, Huguenot homes were pelted with brickbats and rotting vegetables, smeared with mud and shit. The most bigoted and boldest commoners of your usual haunts, without fear or shame, even began to level accusations of heresy at you in the street, your reversion rendered meaningless. Their shouts weren't far-separated from the rhetoric of the shrieking street preachers and rogue Jesuits: bloodthirsty.
The coming of May brought rumors of Huguenots sallying forth into the Low Countries, to aid the Netherlandish heretics in their treason against the Habsburgs. Though ultimately proven false, these fears were felt particularly strongly at court: Admiral Coligny, friend of the young King Charles and chief of the Protestants, was decidedly growing much too close to power. If His Most Christian Majesty were to be compromised, then there'd be no telling what liberties the Huguenots could be afforded. The rhetoric of the Guise camp, always inflammatory and spiteful, now took on an undertone of genuine concern. And that was genuinely concerning to you. You were well-accustomed to bluster and zealotry, not nervousness. And Sir Marszowski always told you the most dangerous foes were the cornered, fearful ones.
In August you saw blood flow once more. Usually at an arm's length from the Louvre, dozens of Huguenot nobles began to pour into Paris; their combined entourages numbered in the low thousands. The occasion was a hopeful one, for the young Huguenot King of Navarre was to be wed to His Most Christian Majesty's sister in a peacekeeping marriage. Married before the doors of Notre-Dame on the 18th at a ceremony boycotted by most of court, the gossips said militiamen and Huguenot bodyguards literally had to beat the heckling crowds of townsmen back. The interfaith wedding was deemed a serious capitulation by the Catholic camp, and the rhetoric in the streets began to veer (even more!) toward the murderous. Never did any man, high or low, Catholic or Huguenot, go unarmed anymore, even to simply fetch water from a neighborhood well. Between your humanist coursework at the College and the tolerance of your homeland, it was enough to make your head spin. It simply didn't make sense. Perhaps you were a fiercer Catholic back when you reverted, but the savagery of war and the Gastines riots did much to temper your faith with caution.
On the 20th, the Governor threw his hands up in exacerbation and left for the countryside. All knew and felt the militia's grip over the citizenry slipping. Streetfights between Catholic townsmen and members of the Protestant delegation were a daily affair. Between that, drink, and starvation, they said the gravediggers were working doubled hours.
And on the 22nd, you watched it happen. You were on the Rue Saint-Honoré headed back to the Louvre after lectures. A commotion brought you over to a sidestreet, the Rue des Poulies, and you beheld around a hundred feet away at its far end none other than Admiral Coligny, several letters in his hand, reading as he walked. His familiars shoved aside swearing locals, throwing the customary elbows at drunkards and kicks at little urchins. The street was shoulder-to-shoulder packed, but several onlookers and bodyguards seemed to have noticed your noble attire. One of the Admiral's aides whispered something in his ear, glancing in your direction. He looked up, recognition flashing across his wrinkled face, a smile forming appearing out of his tawny-gray beard. He raised his right hand in greeting, and called out in a hearty baritone barely audible over the din. "Young Prince Polonius, my old foe, and what is it you're doing among this rabble?"
chik-BANG. You've heard that before. No time to reply; it happened in slow motion. When a man is hit by shot the blood flows an instant later, with the wounds yawning horribly for but a second. One of the Admiral's fingers snapped downwards, pointing at you for the briefest moment before hanging over his palm by a flap of skin like a reed, snapped so as to look jointed, flashing bone white and fleshy pink in the midday sun. In the same moment, it appeared as if Coligny was pulled down by some unseen force tugging at his left wrist. A hole bloomed in his doublet's fabric right above the elbow, a little bloody mist spritzing out the other side. A single cobblestone by some peasant's boot exploded. whizz-THWACK.
The entire street did something close to jumping in place, and the Admiral let out a bellow. He danced around where he stood, grimacing and hissing as if he had merely burnt a finger on a hot griddle. He steadied himself quickly as his men huddled around him. "Damn them!" he cried, before turning his attention to the rooftops, pointing with a good finger on his blood-spurting hand. "See how good people are treated in France! The shot came from that window, there's still smoke!" And there was the smoke, the first traces of sulfur beginning to hit your nose. One of the Admiral's familiars cleared through the offending house's front door with his shoulder, two more behind him with swords and pistols drawn.
A burgher near you said to no one in particular: "God damn it all, I need to go close the shop."
The day ground to a halt for the Parisians, as a panicked clamor rose over the city. To be certain, said all the commoners, God has given the heretic commander just a few more days to live; this is the first shot of many. War would come again. Others, meanwhile, cursed the would-be assassin for botching the job. By evening, the city militia was mobilized yet again, the gates in and out of the city sealed. Criers requested the citizenry disarm themselves. None obeyed.
Hotheads among the Protestants called openly for swift justice, leveling accusations against the Guises and swearing to take matters into their own hands should the King's law fail. As for His Most Christian Majesty, the Queen Mother, and your good acquaintance Prince Henri – they sequestered themselves in their chambers, consulting with advisers and ministers.
The sun rose over deserted streets on August 23, Anno Domini 1572. The Huguenot Prince de Condé had parked some 4,000 soldiers in the faubourgs beyond the walls, searching for the King's justice at the point of a pike. Coligny was on bedrest in his home, not far from the Louvre. All through the day, the tension was palpable. By evening and nightfall, even the usual cacophony audible through paneless or thin windows – the sound of an entire street talking, praying, arguing, fucking, or straining on the chamber pot – was muted. Lectures were canceled, too.
Now, it is after midnight and before matins, early on the 24th, Saint Bartholomew's Day. Where do you find yourself?
[] In your Louvre bedchamber.
[] In one of the still-open taverns.
[] In the compound of a university friend.
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Character Sheet: Age 21, August 1572.
- Location
- United States
Książę Stanisław Radziwiłł herbu Trąby na Birżach i Dubinkach
Prince Stanisław Radziwiłł of Dubinki and Birże
It is just after midnight on August 24, 1572. You are in Paris, Kingdom of France.
You are twenty-one years old; you were born under the sign of Cancer on June 27, 1551, in Dubinki Castle, Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
You are a nobleman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and therefore call yourself Lithuanian, but modern observers would describe you as culturally Polish. You are of primarily Polish descent; the eponymous Radziwiłł (Lith: Radvila), your paternal great-great grandfather, was probably a full-blooded Lithuanian bearing ultimate descent from the pagan aristocracy.
You are a relapsed Roman Catholic, having rejected your father's Calvinism while in Paris. Observant and sufficiently God-fearing but liberal when compared with Spaniards or Frenchmen, in line with the Commonwealth's relaxed culture toward religion. You are one of the few Catholic Radziwiłłowie – indeed, one of the few major Catholic Lithuanian nobles. Most are Calvinists or Socinians tied to the Polish Brethren.
You are in good mental and physical health; you were never a sickly child.
You have seen men kill and die, but have yet to be exposed to any serious peril.
Physical Appearance
You are a well-proportioned, somewhat burly young man standing about 170 centimeters or 67 inches in height – just a bit above average for the period. You have inherited some of your father's namesake ruddiness: your pale complexion is rosy and freckle-dusted, though your short hair is darker and more wavy like your mother's. Thick eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a pointy, convex nose come together to set your blue eyes handsomely in your face. Your chin and jaw are dusted with stubble, and you're nursing a young man's mustache. You are currently dressing in the French style, with a high collar, ruff, jerkin, doublet, trunk hose, stockings, and feathered hat. You wear a rapier and dagger on your belt.
Education
Received a full Renaissance nobleman's education – in your case in the humanist tradition – at the Collège Royal in Paris. You have good knowledge of the Bible, Greek Classics, and the works of the latest humanists and natural philosophers. You have criticized Dark Age philosophers and theologians, and are familiar with their work in an oppositional lens. You can read the stars and know some practical astronomy; you learnt much theoretical mathematics, but it's fading fast.
Solid student with good work ethic. Particular aptitude in military studies and history.
Hands-on experience as a military aide to Lord Filippo di Piero Strozzi, approx. Two years experience.
Language and Literacy
Polish: Mother tongue, literate. Aristocratic accent.
Chancery Ruthenian: Denoting the Church Slavonic and Latin-infused register of the aristocracy. Second language, full fluency. Subtle Polish accent.
Common Ruthenian: As learned from Tatjana the maid. Northern dialect, what we would perhaps call Proto-Belarussian. Near-fluent. Subtle Polish accent.
Latin: Full fluency, literate. Polish accent.
French: functional fluency, literate, though you lean on Latin vocabulary when discussing high-concept matters. Aristocratic Parisian dialect, Polish accent.
Ancient Greek and Hebrew: You can translate the Classics or Bible but would be hard-pressed to form meaningful sentences of your own.
German: Just barely conversational. High German/Austro-Bavarian dialect.
Italian and Lithuanian: A few key words and phrases.
Practical Skills
General Athleticism: fit, rather strong and fast.
Archery: no formal training. Has used a bow before.
Blades – Longsword: Professionally trained. Some talent.
Blades – Rapier & Dagger: Ditto.
Blades – Sabers: Less training, similar talent.
Blades – Daggers & Knives: Professionally trained.
Pugilism & Grappling: Ditto.
Firearms – Pistols: basic training, can reload and fire matchlock, wheellock.
Firearms – Carbines & Long guns: ditto.
Hunting & Falconry: some experience. Trained.
Tracking: Some experience. Average perception.
Riding: very skilled.
Rhetoric & Persuasive Writing: Formal training. Average aptitude.
Music: A bit of theory, a bit of instrumental training on lute and recorder.
Personality and Other Traits
The astrologers would say that you are dominated by your Mars in Leo – you are a highly choleric young man. Brimming with energy, you are diligent, fearless, extroverted, and ambitious, though you sometimes find yourself disorganized or overburdened. On the flipside, you find yourself dealing with bouts of perfectionism, irritability, egotism, and impulsivity. Sir Marszowski did much to foster this within you.
Ruled by the Moon – and therefore Diana – you enjoy the outdoors, the hunt, and most forms of sport.
Several planets existing under the stars of the Sanguine humor alongside Neptune in Taurus give you a decidedly poetic, romantic, and laid-back demeanor in daily life. It cuts your restlessness, but imbues a sense of anti-authoritarianism and idealism. Your father and eventually your brothers weren't around, your mother died soon after you were born; left alone in Dubinki, you became a bit of a day-dreamer.
You are additionally cooled, however, by the Crab under which you were born, and its extended estates of Jupiter and Mercury. Combined with a ruling Moon in Capricorn, they leave you firmly loyal to family, along with a sense of how best to serve it. You can calm yourself down under pressure and calm down others, too. However, your sensitivity may curdle into touchiness, and your loyalty into naivete and impressionability. Tatjana lives here.
Your time in wartorn France has only redoubled your cultural predisposition to religious tolerance and coexistence.
You clamor to do something. Anything. Careful you don't pick up bad habits in your boredom.
Distant relationship with father and elder brothers. Inheritance will likely be split three ways. Your brothers seemed impressive; you haven't seen them since you were around ten or so.
Other Relationships
Sir Andrzej Marszowski, 43 (b. 1529) – Your father-figure, trainer in personal defense, dance, riding, and the physical arts. Flamboyant and energetic publicly but much more brooding in private. Back home at Dubinki Castle.
Tatjana the Maid, 54 (b. 1518) – Your mother-figure: a humble, considerate, caring, and highly religious Ruthenian nanny. Extremely intelligent and insightful despite a lack of education.
Prince Alexandre/Henri, Duke of Anjou, 20 (b. 1551) – Something of a friend. During your French education it was hard to maintain a steady circle between courtly duties, helping Lord Strozzi, and attending university classes, so it was hard to get particularly close.
Lord Filippo di Piero Strozzi, 31 (b. 1541) – One of the Queen Mother's Florentine advisors, who took you under his wing after you spoke up during the Surprise at Meaux. You learned a bit of the nitty-gritty of generalship from him.
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Duke William of
I really need to finish my quests. :V
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Bloody hell, it's alive!!
- Location
- United States
OH YEAH BABY WE'RE BACK BABY
please feel free to familiarize yourself with our protag by reading his character sheet; I tried to make it a little expositional in order to get everyone reoriented.
For those in the loop and hungry for St. Bart bloodshed: next time. I needed to break the ice with a littler one, a little less brutal too, heh.
Voting open! I'll give warning for you when it closes.
please feel free to familiarize yourself with our protag by reading his character sheet; I tried to make it a little expositional in order to get everyone reoriented.
For those in the loop and hungry for St. Bart bloodshed: next time. I needed to break the ice with a littler one, a little less brutal too, heh.
Voting open! I'll give warning for you when it closes.
Duke William of
I really need to finish my quests. :V
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Shoot, I just realized that the Massacre will be upon us soon. This is gonna be bloody, that's for sure.
Sertorius
Rebellious Legate
- Location
- Roma Invicta
Michael is Michał, not Mikołaj (Nicholas).
Overall great to see the Quest alive and kicking.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[JK] The Virgin Mary
The only True Saint
(While she is the foremost Saint, probably not the one our guy would go for)
The only True Saint
(While she is the foremost Saint, probably not the one our guy would go for)
- Location
- United States
damn shoulda put that one together… Nikolai, Mikołaj… I think my anglo brain was like "oh! an M! M is for Michael!" Good to see you're still around to check me Sert!Michael is Michał, not Mikołaj (Nicholas).
Overall great to see the Quest alive and kicking.
Sertorius
Rebellious Legate
- Location
- Roma Invicta
No problem, glad to help.
Fun fact: Nicholas was actually a very popular saint throughout the ages both in the Orthodox and the Catholic world. People prayed for his aid in nearly any circumstances and there is hardly any other contender for the amount of churches and places named after him. He is also the original Santa Claus before he started to advertise soft drinks.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Michael the Archangel.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Martin the Merciful.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
A thoroughly compelling read. Your stuff just keeps getting better.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
A thoroughly compelling read. Your stuff just keeps getting better.
Theaxofwar
Definitely not a Bunny Cat in disguise.
- Location
- Standing right behind you
[X] George the Dragonslayer.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
Real good stuff. You do a great job of portraying the breakdown of civility.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
Real good stuff. You do a great job of portraying the breakdown of civility.
- Location
- NY
[X] Write-in: Saint John the Dwarf
An Egyptian monk famous for his obedience. He was ordered to water a piece of wood (or walking stick) despite the fact the nearest source of water was 12 miles away. He did this for 3 years until one day the wood became a fruitful tree.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
An Egyptian monk famous for his obedience. He was ordered to water a piece of wood (or walking stick) despite the fact the nearest source of water was 12 miles away. He did this for 3 years until one day the wood became a fruitful tree.
[X] In the compound of a university friend.
