Lord Armand Duvant

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
General Appearance: Armand is tall, with the body of a farmhand or woodcutter more than a lord.  There was a warmth to his skin as though every inch had been gently kissed by the sun.  In fact, if inspected, a person would be hard-pressed to find a place on his body that hadn’t been kissed in some fashion.  He’s as equally comfortable in clothes as he is in his own skin and whether in fancy attire, casual dress, or naked he appears with a confidence that can easily be mistaken as arrogance which is after all, said to be a Duvant trait.

He prefers to wear his shoulder-length black hair loose but ties it back when formality requires and tends not to be shaved as often as might be necessary to maintain a smooth cheek, again, unless required.


Personality: Armand is a creature born of nature and nurture combined.  From his mother, he gained the capacity to see the beauty and magic in the world.  From his father, he learned to appreciate it.  From his uncle, he learned cruelty and the use of power.  From his cousins and kin, he learned how to find enjoyment in the applications or lack of both.

His ability to don masks can sometimes make him seem insincere though he’s generally anything but.  His confidence can sometimes make him seem arrogant and his casual ease can sometimes make him seem a libertine, both of which he arguably might be.

Sexual Preferences: Heterosexual though the people of Otho are said to have any number of perverse practices and the House Duvant deviant ones.

House (Minor House):  House Duvant

House Duvant is a new house.  Once upon a time, they were not a noble house at all so much as an institution, not unlike the Church but with fewer fancy titles and more worldly interests.  For most of their history they were known as a People of the Wind, perpetual guests of other houses, other kingdoms, other states, always welcomed even in times of war for they carried the voice of the Breiton King.

They might be called ambassadors, envoys, or occasionally worse for despite having been rootless for ages they amassed a great fortune through their travels, connections, and influence in foreign lands.  It was this fortune which most recently gained them nobility.  There was little question it was bought from the crown, the same as their first lands which were bought from a lesser house, poor and fading.  Duke Romald had taken more land since small and insignificant crumbs that had fallen through the cracks on the borders of those houses deemed grand.  Insignificant specks most would say, barely fitting a baron or count but when taken as a whole they dotted Breiton like a constellation in the night sky though what shape it formed remained to be seen.

Armand is the only nephew of the Duke and recently bestowed the lands of Cladach àr, a small coastal county known for its tall cliffs and little else.  It's easily guessed that the gift is so that Armand can arrive at Rosemont with a title and lands in place to make him a more suitable match for a lady of worth.


About Your character:  His nursemaid once told him the sky came to hide in his eyes the day he was born as a plume of black smoke had risen in the East blocking out the morning sun and painting the world in gray.  His eyes had been a place to hide ever since, a place to escape the rigors of the world when the days grew dark or the nights grew cold.

His mother’s eyes were as green as spring grass, his fathers a warm brown like the heart of a walnut tree.  They loved each other though they had barely met before they had been wed.

Armand's father Owain Duvant had never shared his brother’s desire for titles or land though he had gained both.  He would often wonder how many of his blessings he owed to his brother’s ambition.  Would he have been granted the estate on Kápros?  Would he have been given the hand of Principissa Aelia?  Granted she was not the eldest daughter of the Dux, nor the most beautiful or sought after, though he came to learn that where she lacked was where she most shined.  His father was no great prize himself.  He was twice her age and bitter after being relegated to obscurity in favor of his brother’s eldest son, a whelp and worm placed in the Emperor’s court in Owain’s stead.  Still, his parents learned to love one another and it was said all that love was wrapped up and given to him to hold when he was born.

Armand grew up a kind and happy boy.  Kápros was a paradise, a verdant place bound by azure waters and soft white sand.  It was a place where even the old gods and the new got along and the Emperor visited when he needed a respite from rule.

The romantic in him might think it was this serenity that irked his uncle though he knew the Duke of Duvant to be a far more cunning man than to give in simply to spite.  His cousin on the other hand was petty enough to see any sort of happiness and crush it under his heel.  Armand might never know the true reasons he was called ‘home’, whether it was the cunning of his uncle, the cruelness of his cousin, the will of the gods, or god, but he was barely even ten when he touched his first unfamiliar shore.

“Never forget you’re of Breiton blood.”

This was ostensibly the reason though he’d known this even if he’d never set foot on the lands before.  Still, his uncle said it often and soon Armand leaned what he really meant was, you’re as soft as Kápros sand.  That might have been true, but his hide was as coarse and thick as a Káprosian Boar and his tusks as sharp when he charged.  The thing was, the boars of Kápros didn’t change easily for they feared little, certainly not a single man which was usually why it took a good half-dozen to take one down.  His uncle was like a Káprosian Boar too.

‘They are born of the old gods,’ his mother wrote of the boars.

‘...from when the Stag King ruled and nymphs and fauns danced in the woods.  They are haughty and proud and fear being forgotten for what they once were and what they might have been.’

He thought about this often, wondering what his own family might have once been back in some forgotten time and wondered what they might one day be.  Grand like some other great house?  God-kings like the Pharaohs of the blistering sands?  Nymphs and fauns back to living simple lives dancing in the woods?

‘When you meet one in the woods remember that you are a Prince of Kápros and every dram their equal.  Look them in the eye and when you drop your gaze do so in respect not fear, knowing they will long for you to return them to your sight.’

He was still a boy when she wrote that and he didn’t fully understand the power being seen held over a person.  In some instances, it was obvious enough, how it could make a heart flutter, a breast swell but seeing anyone for who and what they were, who and what they weren’t, who and what they might be, it was a powerful thing.  His mother had that power and ability to make you feel like the center of the world with just a glance.  He missed that feeling like when you turned your face toward the sun.  It was a rare sight though you could catch a fleeting glimpse in a moment of passion, longing, embarrassment, fear, anger.  There was a fire in everyone, from smoldering coals in need of fuel to raging infernos in need of restraint.  When he looked at a person, he tried to use his mother’s eyes and see which to prolong the moment.

His mother had been smart, not because she was well-educated, though she was, but because she saw the world as it was.  Armand inherited that from her, it wasn’t something that could be taught.  His uncle hadn’t learned that and still thought he could teach his children to see the world with his eyes.  They were cruel and stupid and almost certainly destined to tear down his works.  Still, Armand knew that wasn’t why he was the favored nephew.  The Duke was like the Retiarii, the fighters in the Otho arenas who sparred with a net and barbed spear.  He knew that when the Duke caught him in a net of compliments and praise it was only so he could stab one of his own children at the same time, make them bleed enough to fight like he had his whole life, never realizing how weak they’d become from loss of blood.

He spent formative years with the Duke, learning this game before being shuttled around to other estates in Breiton and other lands.  Ostensibly it was so he might learn of all their holdings and meet those of import but he knew like everything else, nothing his uncle did was of a single purpose.  He’d seen how his cousins and kin played with their other toys.  Granted they were lesser toys, servants, and distant kin but still, he saw how the barons and counts tried to show their worth to the Duke through viciousness and torment though not a one understood the game being played, not like he did.  Prince of Kápros, a Lord over the Boars, Armand was rather proud of himself as he stood naked before the mirror, his gaze traveling head to toe and finding not a single mark or blemish upon his flawless skin.

---

He was covered in sweat and pumice when the letters arrived, one from his uncle, two from the king.  It was telling which he opened.  He was grateful to the king for his swift action after the eruption in Otho but his uncle was his closest kin other than the statue of his parents that stood stark and lonely in the ruins of their former estate.  Kápros was like a waning moon now, the eastern side a barren waste and stumps of trees while the western slopes were as rich and verdant as ever now that a season of rains had washed the ash into the sea.

The sands were even softer now, he noted as he strode to wash himself in the waves though the waters were not quite as blue.  Only his eyes were as he emerged, newly christened, the Viscount Duvant, and he set his sights off to the distance, to a place called Rosemont.