THE BASICS

Name: Vaughn Liddel, Baron of Greenwood, Lord of Castle Dunvale, Grand Duke Consort of Anyalis Liddel nee DeHaviland.


PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Gender: Male

Age: 21

Hair: Auburn, wavy

Eyes: Deep green

Distinguishing Marks:

Vaughn bears a scar on his upper right chest, and a corresponding scar on his upper right back where he was shot all the way through with an arrow by the notorious outlaw princess, Marilyn Greenwood.

General Appearance:

With his hair and eyes, there is no doubt he is a scion of House Liddel.  He is lanky and fit, carrying himself like a wolf that missed its last meal.  When on the road, he prefers to travel lightly armored, and when at court, he dresses in whatever clothes the servants prepare for him.  He prefers forest green and shades of azure for colors, however, and his personal staff are all familiar with his tastes.


HISTORY

Personality:

Haughty and confident, he relishes conflict of all sorts -- whether its a duel, or a hunt, or a social encounter.  He measures his company with a cruel eye -- too often there are those who seek to take advantage of his birthright or his wealth, and so he tends to push away those close to him, to protect himself from being hurt by the betrayal that he sees as inevitable.

Only those who can withstand his sharp tongue earn his loyalty, but once weathered, it is unshakable.

Sexual Preferences:

Vaughn certainly prefers the comfort of a woman's yielding touch. However, the rumors that he is a cruel lover (and that he murdered his first betrothed) have limited him to encounters with unsuitably bred partners -- the shame of the subsequent copulation has led him to fulfill the expectations of cruelty, only to feed more rumors.

There have also been a handful of occasions when he has expressed his dominance and frustration over another man, but such encounters have always had a cruel purpose, and have been meant to humiliate the other, rather than share in pleasure.

House:

Vaughn is the son of Grand Duke Aengus Liddel and Grand Duchess Marguerite Liddel.

About Your character:

Born into the privilege of a Major House, and raised to serve first his House and then the King, Vaughn has always been surrounded by jealous cousins and distant relations.  The lack of true friendship as a child has left its mark on Vaughn's psyche, and turned what may have been a gentle soul into a cruel young nobleman.

When he turned 7, he was sent to be fostered in a cousin's household, trained in courtly manners and more importantly in the behavior of a keeper of the King's Peace.  He was brought along by the cousin to collect taxes, and he had opportunity to survive his first encounter with outlaws at age 9.

When he was 12, he was betrothed to his cousin's daughter, Laena -- his parents wished to keep the inheritance of the Liddel domain within the family.  When he was 14, he returned home, and was given responsibilities running the estate and maintaining the King's Peace.

Vaughn slowly assembled an entourage of loyal lackeys, a band of dangerous men, all broken in some way, and all extremely dangerous.  They gained quite the reputation for brutally punishing outlaws and any who support them.  The amount of casual violence that Vaughn engaged in eventually was discovered by his parents, and they attempting to rein him in.  While he resented their interference, he had no choice but to obey, but he chaffed against his father's discipline.

By the time Vaughn turned 18, his relationship with his parents had been strained to its limits, so it was a relief that they granted him a barony, a castle, and a title of his own.  Before he could marry his betrothed, however, she came down with a fever and died.  Some whisper that Vaughn had a hand in her untimely death, a rumor he violently denies.  Still, her death and the rumors accompanying it cast a shadow on future matches, despite his eligibility.

Vaughn threw himself into patrolling his domain.  The Greenwood contained a large royal preserve, and it was Vaughn's duty to keep it free of poachers.  Several notorious outlaw families dwelt beneath the dark canopy, and Vaughn brought his old crew back together again to hunt them down.

Vaughn was known for hanging any outlaws he could catch, and he often made a grand show of the consequences of disobeying the King's Decrees.  When he had the fortune of rounding up several notorious outlaw leaders, he invited many important members of his House to witness their execution -- it was a way for him to brag about his achievements.

When the outlaw princess Marilyn and her band of wicked thieves infiltrated the castle, a grand melee broke out.  Vaughn slit Marilyn's father's throat in front of her, but before he could do the same to her, she shot him straight through with one of her crimson-fletched arrows, and made good her escape, vowing to someday finish the job her arrow started, and to kill the haughty noble for murdering her father.

When Vaughn's parents received the King's orders to send their children to Rosemont they ordered Vaughn to leave his castle in the hands of his steward and obey the summons immediately.  They were happy to comply, as Vaughn's reputation and ill-manner made it unlikely that any proper pairing could be arranged otherwise -- and his violent lifestyle would likely result in a short lifespan.

One would think the violence would have been put on hold for the King's experiment at Rosemont.   But no.  Through a combination of plots, conspiracies, schemes, and treason, Vaughn ended up in what was essentially the middle of a great big [redacted]-fest of carnage and mayhem.

What started out as a farcical exercise in lordly matchmaking (and the near discrediting and humiliation of Lyra Hadley, an incident that still weighs heavy on Vaughn's heart) ended up in a band of youthful nobles fighting against heathen amazon warriors for the fate of Breiton.  Vaughn placed most of the blame on the Spider at the center of the web, Amalthea DeHaviland, but he realizes that her sickness didn't spread in a vacuum.  The medium of her growth was the culture that the King of Breiton had spread, his progressive, urban-centric policies that were a slap in the face of more conservative and traditional Breitonian practices.

But its worse than that.  Even while the King was allowing the likes of the DeHavilands and the Wyndhams to seemingly take control over the direction of the Crown, he was maintaining some sort of corrupt secret assassin squad led by none other than Amalthea's bastard son.

And then there was Admiral Anna Bella Beaubier.  Thanks to corruption and betrayal in the House of Beaubier, Anna Bella had turned from her duty to her King and Country toward some kind of personal campaign of revenge, seeking justice at the expense of the safety of not only her King, but of the scions of every Great House and many lessers.  Courted by Amalthea DeHaviland herself, Naya decided to use the plot against Rosemont as a screen to execute her personal grudge against those she felt had wronged her.

But even considering the wrong-headedness and recklessness that she had engaged in, Vaughn still respected her enough to give her second chance, a chance to redeem herself.  A chance she squandered to betray Vaughn's seldom-given trust to spill royal blood and prove herself to be a traitor to the crown.

At the conclusion of the Rosemont experiment, Vaughn was matched with and married to Anyalis DeHaviland who was, thanks to Amalthea's only purge of the DeHaviland bloodline, the heir to her House.  He not only was married to one of the smartest, most beautiful, and most powerful women -- but he was also married to a corrupted House in decline, and was committed to helping his wife restore it.

But before they could even get further than begin with the restoration of House DeHaviland's greatness, the King called upon Vaughn and Anyalis again, to travel to a remote colony (Cape Fortuna) and restore order.  Vaughn doesn't expect to survive this, of course, but he hopes to live long enough to give House Liddel and House DeHaviland a single heir to unite both Houses, and to restore glory to Breiton.

His patience with the royal House and its many mistakes and corruptions has grown thin, but he's throwing all his chips into the pot, giving the King and Lord William one more chance to make things right and show that Breiton is in good hands.