Blackwell, Emiliana
General Information
- Name: Emiliana Renée Blackwell
- Class: Bard (20)
- Race: Human
- Gender: Female
- Age: Eighteen
- Height: 5'2" (~158 cm)
- Weight: 92 lbs. (~41 kg)
- Build: Slender / Petite
- Hair: Blond
- Eyes: Blue
- Skin: Lightly Tanned
- Accent: Waterdhavian
- Affiliations: Sundarian Legion
- Deity: Milil, Lord of All Songs
Overall Appearance
Emiliana is a petite, lithe young woman who typically keeps her long, golden-blond hair tied in a stylish ponytail. Intelligent, kind blue eyes constantly peer at her surroundings. While not graced with divine beauty, she is attractive in her own common way.
She moves with an effortless, cat-like type of grace, and rarely do her footsteps make a sound. She is not strong and muscular, but neither is she weak and frail.
Overall Personality
Emiliana is a good-hearted, kind person who tries her best to help others and work towards 'the greater good'. However, she has a stubborn, impatient streak, and she is prone to unleashing her temper once she has been pushed past her personal limits. She tends to adapt her personality to situations, and she has a knack for excelling in most social situations. Naturally flirtatious, she often receives flattery and attention from men, but she keeps her interactions chaste.
She is a hopeless romantic and an eternal optimist despite any outward unhappiness she might show. She believes in the power of true love being able to conquer everything, and she believes that good will ultimately triumph over evil. The suffering of others pains her, and she would rather experience untold miseries herself rather than allow others to wallow in agony.
Background
Emiliana is a native of Waterdeep, the City of Splendors. She is the youngest child of Matthias and Alana Keenan Blackwell; both parents are well-respected military leaders within Waterdeep, although Matthias Blackwell recently retired from service. Emiliana has an older brother, Darius Blackwell, who also lives in Sundren Valley.
The entire Blackwell family is steeped in a rich military tradition. Emiliana's parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, and great-grandparents have all served as soldiers and military leaders in some capacity or another for many generations.
Although not nobility, Emiliana enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle in Waterdeep. She demonstrated a talent for creativity at an early age, and the intelligent child was tutored in a wide variety of academic and artistic subjects. Her affinity for music and the arts has resulted in her becoming an accomplished performer with a powerful soprano voice, and her love of reading and learning new things provides her with the ability to know a little bit of information about everything.
Free-spirited, stubborn, and rebellious, Emiliana gave her father fits (as well as gray hairs) during her youth. She shunned the military lifestyle, and she refused to accept offers to join Waterdeep's forces alongside her parents. She also rejected several offers of courtship and marriage from soldiers and noblemen alike, stating that she would never be involved with a soldier or marry a nobleman for anything other than love.
When she reached her eighteenth birthday, she decided to leave Waterdeep and travel north to visit with her cousin, Lysandra Blackwell, who had written Emiliana about her new life in the relatively unknown place.
Time In Sundren
November / December 2010
Emiliana arrived in Sundren full of energy, curiosity, and naïvéte. She quickly made numerous friends and allies with her good-spirited, friendly nature.
One of the first people she met was a young, gruff soldier named William Shepard, for whom she developed an immediate dislike. He, as well as Lysandra, were a part of the respected Sundarian Legion. Despite Lysandra's encouragement, Emiliana steadfastly clung to her decision never to become a soldier. However, spending time with her cousin - as well as William, for whom she was reluctantly developing affectionate feelings - slowly pushed Emiliana towards wanting to belong to something greater than herself.
Darius, her brother, arrived in Sundren Valley a short time later, and his path as a paladin of Torm took him towards the Triumverate. By this time, Emiliana and William had become romantically involved. Lysandra was chosen to be the new Warden of Wrath, tasked with defending Sundren from her enemies, and those enemies soon attempted to torment her by kidnapping and torturing both Darius and Emiliana in turn.
Right after she pledged herself to the Legion, Emiliana was abducted from the washroom of the Second Wind Inn while cleaning her new uniform. Her captor subjected her to many different physical and psychological tortures, including wrapping her in razorwire and suspending her from a balcony overlooking a lava-filled ravine. Her allies rallied to save her by utilizing a Wish spell, and William whisked her to the safety of his personal quarters so that she could recover from the traumatic experience.
Thankfully, she did not lose her optimistic spirit after the ordeal, and soon she was learning about her new role in the Legion. She traveled with many companions, including a new friend named Johanna Patson, and Emiliana experienced many new and wonderful sights throughout Sundren Valley. She also garnered the attention of a powerful vampire, Iosolde, who became enamored of Emiliana's musical talents after hearing the bard perform.
At first, Emiliana was curious about the vampire, as Iosolde seemed different from the other undead creatures whom were feared and despised by the rest of Sundren society. Emiliana willingly performed again for the vampire, and Iosolde 'rewarded' the bard with an erotic, dream-like experience that masked the otherwise terrible nature of a bite. Unaware that the vampire had fed from her, Emiliana continued her tentative association with Iosolde and her then-human lover, Lilene Jora.
Emiliana helped bring about the love affair of her cousin, Lysandra, and another Legionnaire, Cillian Grant. The two had danced circles around each other for a long time, and Emiliana was elated when they finally admitted their feelings for each other after she intervened. The new couple unexpectedly, and uncharacteristically, left the Valley together - and Lysandra effectively abandoned her position as Warden of Wrath.
During a chance encounter with Lilene, in which she asked Emiliana to perform for herself and Iosolde again, William became angry and incensed when he learned that the pair had taken an interest in Emiliana. He used his status in the Legion to arrange an arrest warrant for Lilene, and she and Iosolde were forced into hiding. Emiliana secretly met with Lilene during this time, and she heard the story of the pair's unconventional romance. Emiliana later met with Iosolde, and when the vampire revealed that she had fed upon the bard, William overheard. Again, the soldier was angry and incensed, but his anger was not directed at the vampire. Instead, it was directed towards Emiliana. The two argued and nearly ended their relationship, but William eventually gave her an ultimatum: him, or her curiosity about Iosolde and Lilene. Emiliana chose William, and she refused any further contact or associations with the couple.
Emiliana's devotion to William - and the Legion - displeased her close friend, Johanna Patson, who had gotten romantically involved with Emiliana's brother, Darius. Free-spirited Johanna did not want to see free-spirited Emiliana's personality broken, but Emiliana refused to go against the wishes of her lover. The two friends were estranged for a time, but they eventually made amends. Johanna soon started to associate with Iosolde and Lilene in a similar manner as Emiliana had done.
William and Emiliana started living together in his small room at the Four Lanterns Inn, and then William found them a larger, more lavish suite at the posh Sundren Comfort Inn. Shortly after they moved there together, William began spending more and more time away from home completing assignments for the Legion. Days and days started to pass between his visits, and then one day Emiliana realized that he was missing. Attempts to locate him failed, and Sendings went unanswered. In the time that followed, Emiliana eventually and reluctantly accepted the fact that the man she loved was gone.
January 2011
Emiliana was promoted to Sesquiplicarius - a junior officer within the Legion - for her various commendable deeds and the reports she submitted. She was also tasked with more behind-the-scenes duties for the Legion. Her work kept her busy, and it allowed her to grieve the loss of William. Soon, in the midst of an awkward quasi-romantic attempt with Marcus Helevorn, Emiliana met a handsome man from Cormyr named Ulrich Lecuyer, who was favored by Kelemvor. Emiliana and Ulrich grew increasingly close, and Emiliana had a hard time allowing herself to fall for someone new when she still felt obligated and loyal to William. With the support of her friends and family, and comforted by Ulrich's patience and understanding, Emiliana finally moved forward in life with Ulrich by her side as both a lover and a fellow Legionnaire.
The couple faced a dire crisis at the very start of their relationship. Aided in part by famed paladin and Judicator of Wrath Dain Tornbrook, a powerful group of vampires completed an ancient ritual that revived the old God of Death, Myrkul. Myrkul and Kelemvor, Ulrich's patron, engaged in a short-lived battle that ultimately saw Myrkul's return to power. Ulrich refused to accept Myrkul as a patron, and Emiliana stood at her lover's side as they and others tried to convince the people of Sestra not to burn down the Temple of Kelemvor. Ulrich and his faithmates later burned the temple themselves after gathering important items.
On the heels of Ulrich's crisis of faith, Emiliana caught the eye of Isaac LaCroix, who at the time was the Centurio of the Fourth Legion in which both Emiliana and Ulrich served. The Centurio was also a part of the noble LaCroix family - one of the first families to settle and rise to prominence in Sundren. He first insisted that Emiliana be his escort to the masquerade party hosted by Aurora of the noble Van Hellstrom family. Emiliana politely declined, as she and Ulrich already planned to attend together, but then LaCroix gave Emiliana troubling news: the nobles of Sundren were angry at Emiliana's cousin, Lysandra, for abandoning her duties as Warden of Wrath, and as a Blackwell, Emiliana's own career as a Legionnaire was in danger. Shocked by the revelation, and wanting to keep her career, Emiliana agreed to attend the masquerade with LaCroix.
The nobleman summoned Emiliana to his lavish manor prior to the masquerade, and there they spoke in greater detail. LaCroix felt that Emiliana was too valuable as a Legionnaire to be ousted by the whims of fickle nobility, but he emphasized that they wanted vengeance for Lysandra's perceived betrayal. LaCroix then surprised Emiliana by proposing marriage to her - an arrangement of mutual benefit for the both of them. She would receive all the protections that nobility were granted, and in return, he would receive her expert information-gathering skills as well as legitimate heirs one day. LaCroix even promised that she could keep any lovers she wanted, which meant that she would not be separated from Ulrich. LaCroix promised that she had a choice, but Emiliana felt his words meant otherwise.
Ulrich rebelled against the idea when Emiliana first told him of what she and LaCroix had spoken, but he relented when Emiliana told him that she would surely be ousted from the Legion if she refused the proposal. Ulrich had the idea that he could be installed in the LaCroix household as Emiliana's personal guardsman, and since he had recently chosen Helm as his new patron, the pair felt that the task was appropriate. All they had to do was convince LaCroix, and he had promised to speak with Emiliana again prior to the masquerade.
Allies, Enemies, & Other Associations
Aurora (Van Hellstrom) Sanneset:
Darius Blackwell:
Hastian Sanneset:
Isaac LaCroix:
Johanna Patson:
Marcus Helevorn:
Mortannis:
Tigen:
Ulrich Lecuyer:
Valten:
(( Work in progress! ))