[Ravensfort] Personae

[Michelle Lopez]

Honestly I am still fleshing out my persona.  She is late 12th early 13th 
century Irish.  When I did my original name search I found Irial as female. 
 Welllll, I now know that is wrong, it's male.  So I am currently working that 
in actually.  The original concept is Irish Mercenary who uses horse breeding as 
a respectable operation.  So what I have now is the daughter of a minor noble 
who sneaks around as a male mercenary name Irial.  Still brain storming it all 
out.

Irial


________________________________
From: HerrDetlef <herrdetlef at gmail.com>
To: ravensfort at lists.ansteorra.org
Sent: Thu, January 27, 2011 11:50:19 AM
Subject: [Ravensfort] Personae


I was just reading my copy of the new Known World Handbook, and the thought 
occurred to me that I don't really know a whole lot about Raven's Forters' 
personae. I mean, I know general geographic stuff and all that (the Baron is 
Norman--UGH--the Baroness is Irish, the coming baron and baroness are Italian), 
but I don't really know details. I don't remember the last time I sat down and 
talked persona with anybody.
 
So, in that interest, I'd like to open up a thread so that I can ask you all 
some of the nitty gritty about your own personae. And I will start.
 
Detlef von Marburg is a Frank living in 12th-century Thuringia (Land Thüringen). 
He was born in the town of Marburg (soon to be the site of the Elisabethskirche, 
one of the first non-transitional Gothic churches to be built in Germany) but 
currently resides in the town of Eisenach. In the late 12th century, Marburg was 
a part of Thuringia; in future years, the western portions of Thuringia will 
break off and form the nucleus of the Land Hessen. By the end of the 13th 
century, Thuringia will fall through accidents of inheritance into the hands of 
the Wettin dynasty that also controls the March of Meissen; the two states 
together will merge into the Duchy of Saxony (Herzogtum Sachsen), which is also 
under Wettin control.
 
Detlef aspires one day to be the chamberlain to His Highness the Landgrave of 
Thuringia, and for the moment he occupies his time as a clerk for the current 
chamberlain. He was educated at a Benedictine monastery in Erfurt, although he 
is not as accomplished a reader as he'd like to be (he doesn't have enough 
confidence in his Latin to tackle Virgil's Aeneid just yet), and even though 
he's pretty skilled at rhetoric, Detlef has never mastered the art of writing. 
Detlef once aspired to enter a Benedictine monastery, but he's quite taken with 
court life at the Wartburg right now, and he feels himself too secular for the 
life of a religious. The Wartburg is quite an exciting place, now that Hermann 
II is Landgrave. His Highness constantly invites knight-poets to his court, and 
the pieces they perform in the great hall are absolutely magnificent. Many of 
those poets are inspired by the work of the French poet Chretien de Troyes, and 
stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Rount Table abound in the hall of 
the Wartburg. Even though he has been trained in archery and owns two swords 
that the Landgrave had given him, Detlef has never armored up and participated 
in a tournament or gone to war. Detlef often dreams of following the knights on 
Crusade to the Holy Land, if only as a standard-bearer. He also dreams of having 
his own dairy farm near Eisenach, with a half-timbered house where he can 
entertain guests on a much smaller scale than the Landgrave does. One day. One 
day...
 
Detlef's English mother, Lady Alix de Curci, actually knows Eleanor of Aquitaine 
(by the Wrath of God, Queen of England), and she took him with her to 
Westminster Abbey to witness the coronation of King Richard in 1189. That was a 
rather daunting experience, since most of the people in attendance were speaking 
French (Detlef only knows German and English and a few phrases in Danish, and 
can read some Latin). The connections that Detlef's mother has with the 
Plantagenets create some awkwardness at the Wartburg; Henry II and Eleanor's 
daughter Mathilda married the Saxon duke Henry the Lion, who in 1180 was 
deprived of his duchy (and also of the Duchy of Bavaria) by Friedrich 
Barbarossa. The Landgrave of Thuringia has supported the Emperor in his 
conflicts with Henry the Lion, and at times he has been suspicious of Detlef's 
sympathies, considering the family connection (suspicions, one can be sure, that 
were fuelled largely by the Emperor's staunchest supporters in the Landgrave's 
court). Detlef has never met Henry or Mathilda, and he has never really had any 
interest in the conflict between Henry and the Emperor.
 
Okay! Who's next?
 
Yours in these Current Middle Ages,
Detlef von Marburg

-- 
Hwæt! We Gardena         in geardagum,
þeodcyninga,         þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas         ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing         sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum,         meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.         Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden,         he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum,         weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc         þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade         hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan.         þæt wæs god cyning!



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ravensfort-ansteorra.org/attachments/20110129/d35f2431/attachment-0006.htm>